The Spy Wore Red (14 page)

Polax turned from the window. “What do you mean, there might be a way?”

Merrick motioned to a file on the foot of the bed. “I’ve been going over the files. And I have an idea. We could turn this thing around.”

“I don’t see how. I’ve withheld information about Nadja to the board at Quest. When I return home and call a meeting…” Again he shook his head. “How in the hell am I going to tell them she’s a double agent? Or that she’s got a… Never mind. I just don’t think there is any way to repair the damage.”

“Don’t call a meeting. Don’t tell them.”

“I’ll be imprisoned if I don’t.”

“Only if they find out.” Merrick rubbed his jaw, considering just how much of his plan to share with Polax.

“Then you have a plan?”

“Oh, yes, I have a plan, but it’s going to take an act of faith on your part. An act of faith in me. Could you do that, Polax? Could you put yourself and Quest in my hands?”

Before Polax could answer, Merrick’s private phone rang. Merrick picked it up and turned his back. “Yes.”

“Sorry to bother you again,” Jacy said. “There’s something else I need to run by you.”

“Okay, shoot.”

“I’ve been doing some more digging for Bjorn. I’ve learned that Kovar Stefn used to be Holic Reznik’s ski instructor. And since Kovar is Nadja’s grandfather, and her sister is married to Holic…well, you can see where I’m going with this. Patterns and matches. You know me. I don’t—”

“Believe in coincidences.”

“No, I don’t. Odd matches and triangles wave red flags. I’m beginning to think Holic is more valuable alive than dead. What do you say?”

“When we had him incarcerated last time we couldn’t get anything out of him.”

“Things change. Maybe we didn’t offer him a sweet enough deal.”

“You may be right. But I can’t make that decision. I’ll call the person who can, though, and see what he says. Did Bjorn act surprised by the news when you gave it to him?”

“Not really.”

Merrick thought back to that day in Polax’s office with Bjorn. He had sensed something was different the moment Nadja Stefn had entered the elevator. He didn’t like surprises and he didn’t like his agents holding out on him, either.

“Tell Bjorn to sit tight until I can make our case to the right pair of ears. I’ll have an answer within the hour. Maybe you’re right, maybe Holic would be more useful to us alive.”

When he hung up the phone, Merrick said to Polax, “It just keeps getting better. I’ve learned that there’s a connection between Holic Reznik and Kovar Stefn. It could be just a coincidence but—”

“I may be confused at the moment, but one thing I do know is that there is no such thing as coincidence.”

Merrick grunted. “I was afraid you were going to say that. Then I’m back to my question. Do you have faith in my ability to handle this?”

“It looks like I don’t have much choice.”

“Then I need to know what else you’re hiding. There’s something, isn’t there?”

“There is.”

“Have a seat, and I’ll order us breakfast. Would you like your applesauce with a bottle of water or without?”

Nadja needed to check out the chalets on Tulay Pass, but the current weather conditions weren’t conducive to a ski trip. Not for a person with a nerve chip in her leg. To make the trip, she was going to have to wait until tomorrow, when a warming trend was supposed to push the temperatures up into the high thirties.

But she wasn’t so sure that she would find him there. Not when the nightclub scene was so close.

Then it was settled—Tulay Pass tomorrow, and tonight she would visit the Two Winters nightclub and see if she got lucky. She had already picked up a few pieces of clothing at an exclusive dress shop in the lobby, but not anything naughty enough for After Shock.

An hour later, two shopping bags in hand, Nadja returned to her suite. As she closed the door, she saw a dark-haired young woman seated on the couch next to Alzbet. “Aunt Nad! Mom said you were here. I can’t believe it. Finally I get to meet you. I’m Pris, your niece.”

The dark-haired beauty left Alzbet on the sofa and hurried forward. She looked so much like Holic that Nadja stood speechless for a moment before setting down her shopping bags to accept her niece’s open embrace.

Prisca’s hair was as shiny and black as Holic’s raven locks, and she had the same dramatic dark amber eyes, too. She also had her father’s slender shape and long legs. If Mady had given her daughter anything, it was her feminine voice, sleek, well-shaped nose and shy smile. But truly she was Holic’s daughter.

“I want to sit for hours and visit with you, but I need to get Alzbet to her ski lesson. Can we talk later? Mom said something about dinner.”

Dinner would disrupt Nadja’s evening plans. She said, “I’m tired from the trip. How about lunch tomorrow, instead?”

“That’s perfect. I’ll tell Mom.”

Nadja glanced at her darling daughter. Alzbet had come off the sofa. She was rubbing her left eye.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“I have something in my eye.”

Nadja squatted and lifted her daughter into her arms. “Let’s have a look. We’ll go into the bathroom where the light is better.” She said to Prisca, “We’ll be right back.”

In the bathroom, she set her daughter on the vanity near the sink. “Okay, look up, and try not to blink.”

Alzbet did as she was told, and Nadja examined her eye. There was an eyelash irritating the corner. As gently as possible she touched the corner with a tissue and collected the eyelash.

“It’s all gone,” she said. “Feel better?”

Alzbet blinked her blue eyes twice. Smiled, then reached out and hugged Nadja.

Nadja froze for a moment, then gathered her daughter into her arms. Her heart pounding, she hugged the child back. “I’m so sorry, baby. About everything.”

Alzbet looked up at Nadja. “It’s okay. My eye doesn’t hurt anymore. See.” She blinked and blinked.

Nadja laughed, then touched her daughter’s adorable nose. “That’s good.”

Alzbet put her tiny hands on Nadja’s cheeks and pushed them together, forcing her lips to pucker. Then she leaned forward and kissed her.

“You did good, Auntie Nad. Don’t tell anyone, but I love you best.”

Chapter 14

B
jorn’s invitation came by messenger—an Alpine giant who stood four inches taller than Bjorn’s six-three. His name was Jakob, and he was a bull of a man sporting a bald head, a uni-brow and scarred knuckles—all of them. A serious head cracker who lived for the sight of blood and the sound of bones breaking.

When the messenger left, Bjorn opened the invitation. It simply said he would be welcome at After Shock this evening, then listed the entertainment for the next three days.

He still wasn’t sure if Holic was at Groffen, but if he was, then After Shock would be on his entertainment list. It was worth checking out.

Bjorn dressed in the rich man’s suit that he’d purchased down in the lobby, then tied his hair back at the nape of his neck. He was just leaving his room when his phone rang. It was Jacy again.

“I spoke to Merrick a few hours ago, and he just called me back. Sorry, bro, but they want Holic back in Washington alive. Your agenda has changed. I know that’s not what you wanted to hear, but—”

“It’s not, but I figured it was going to come down to that.”

Seven years with Onyxx had taught Bjorn to expect the unexpected. He wasn’t surprised by any of what Jacy had told him. In fact, it cleared up a number of unanswered questions. And as much as he didn’t like how the puzzle pieces were coming together, things were starting to make sense. Most of them, anyway.

“This sure is a twisted mess. So now what are you going to do?”

“I still don’t have a definite location on Holic. He’s here somewhere. I feel it in my gut.”

“Go with your gut. It’s never been wrong yet. Is there something else I can do?” Jacy asked.

“Not now. But I’ll stay in touch.” Bjorn thanked his friend for the information, then headed out the door.

In the elevator he turned his thoughts to Nadja. He had wanted to hunt her down all day, but he had resisted because he knew that his motives weren’t entirely based on the mission.

Time, that’s what he needed to clear his head, and so he had busied himself all day checking out every closet and storage room Groffen owned. He’d even found a body—an elderly woman in a closet up on the seventh floor. She’d been shot once between the eyes.

But now, hours later, he was back thinking about Nadja and how good it had been between them at Nordzum. So good that he couldn’t let it go. That meant he was in big trouble.

See, that’s why you never mix business with pleasure. It screws with your head and makes you want things that you knew you shouldn’t want.

No, it makes you want what you can’t have.

The tiny strapped dress was electric red—its design and purpose to give every healthy man at the nightclub a hard-on. But Nadja was only interested in one man looking at her twice—if Holic Reznik was there, she intended to be the feast for his insatiable appetite.

She’d twisted her hair up to show off her slender neck, and she had bought the lowest cut shimmering shift in the dress shop. And no bedroom assassin would be completely dressed without a pair of scarlet-red ankle-strap fuck-me heels.

The garnets that dangled from fine silver chains at her ears were delicate and expensive, her lips glossy and outlined to perfection. She had sprayed her shoulders with the sweet scent of Alpine heather, and sprinkled diamond dust across her chest.

I love you best.

Her daughter’s voice came again, the memory so sweet that her heart constricted. She nearly tripped as she entered the club, and realized the danger of not staying focused. She redirected her thoughts and glanced around, noting that the dress was a hit—a number of eyes were already following her as she strolled through the crowd.

There were elegant black leather half-circle booths tucked into the outer walls. Hoping to spot Holic, she took her time scanning them one by one, and when she didn’t find him there, or at the bar, she searched the dance floor. But she held out little hope that he would be there—not in his condition.

She made her way to a polished twenty-foot bar and perched on one of a dozen gold leather stools. “A dirty martini, please. Extra dry.”

The bartender nodded, and as he mixed her drink, she turned and watched another dozen people walk through the black-and-gold door. None of the people were Holic, but she wasn’t giving up. She continued to browse the room for Holic’s flawless face and unforgettable long raven-black hair.

It was during her second run through the crowd that she spied the “memorable ass.” Like before, at Quest a week ago, she recognized the tight tush immediately. He was, however, memorable in other ways tonight. His suit was expensive, his hair smoothed out, and she marveled at how he could go from rugged to refined so easily.

She felt a sense of pride looking at him. He was, after all, Alzbet’s father.

As much as she liked looking at him, she didn’t want to talk to him tonight. She left her martini on the bar, slid off her stool and started toward the door.

She refused to look back, or think about the laughter coming from the boobalicious brunette entertaining Bjorn and hanging on his arm and his every word. She almost made it through the door, but she stopped when she saw a head of long raven hair. The man had his back to her and he was talking to a blonde wearing a skirt that barely covered her gender.

She lingered near the door, and when he turned she saw, with disappointment, that it wasn’t Holic. She started out the door, but this time she was stopped by a hand that caught her arm from behind. She didn’t have to look back to know who it was. The touch was dangerously familiar.

Bjorn had spotted her before she could escape.

Not only spotted her, but caught her.

“Running away again?”

Nadja faced him. “No,” she said easily. “There’s just no reason to stay. What I’m looking for isn’t here.”

“You’re right, he’s not. I’ve already checked in every corner and under every table.”

“So thorough.”

“You know I am.”

The comment was meant to remind her just how thorough he had been over the past three days. What followed was a knowing look, and the sexual content in it was as potent as his words.

A butterfly took flight in her stomach.

Nadja had never experienced butterflies until Bjorn Odell had come into her life five years ago. She had heard women talk about them, but she’d always thought they were an exaggeration—wishful feeling that was pure fiction. But they weren’t fiction. Butterflies were real.

Bjorn had made them real.

He handed her the martini she’d ordered at the bar. “You forgot this.”

“You saw me?”

“Who didn’t see you when you came through that door? That’s quite a dress.”

She reached out and patted the lapel on his expensive jacket. She followed it up with “I see you’ve attracted at least one admirer tonight yourself.”

“Then you saw me, too?”

She wished she’d held her tongue. But the memory of the woman clinging to Bjorn’s arm had irritated her more than she would have liked.

He stepped closer, his eyes going straight to her mouth. “You left your partner this morning without saying goodbye and without wheels.”

“But you’re here. Which means you’re as resourceful as you are thorough.”

“Then you intended me to follow.”

“I thought it best that we arrive separately.”

“Why not just say so?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe I just needed to leave.”

“We need to talk.”

“About the mission.”

“That and a few other things.”

“We don’t need to talk about anything other than the mission. Nordzum was nice. Let’s leave it at that.”

“Nice? It was…nice?”

“We can go back to the bar and talk strategy if you want, but I really don’t have anything new to discuss at this time. Do you?”

“Not much.” His eyes drifted to her cleavage. “This dress is making it hard to keep my mind on the mission, I mean. Maybe you and I should get out of here so you can take it off.”

“I don’t think so.”

“It was just a thought.”

Because she needed to distance herself from the way he continued to look at her, she took a step back and finished her drink. When she lowered the glass, she saw that he had lowered his gaze further, and was studying her curves crammed into the tight shift. Then her shoes.

“Can you dance in those heels?” he asked, studying her feet.

“Yes.”

He brought his eyes back up and smiled. “Good, because they’re playing our song.”

That was ridiculous. They didn’t have a song, but suddenly he had slipped his arm around her and was guiding her toward the dance floor. He took the empty glass from her, and as they passed by the bar, he set it down.

He drew her to him when they reached the lit circle, and she put one hand in his and the other on his shoulder. She would never have guessed that he could dance, but when he started to move to the music with sure feet—a slow romantic classic—she was stunned by how experienced he was in that…too.

He was her partner.

Her daughter’s father.

Bjorn Odell, partner, father, lover.

Butterfly maker.

“If I wanted to wake up next to you tomorrow, what would it take? Will I have to tie you up?”

They kept moving in time to the music. “That would never happen,” she said. “It’s not a part of my game, but if you’d like me to tie you up, I’ll indulge you.”

“And what would you do to me after you tied me up?”

She leaned in and whispered next to his ear. “I would keep you my love slave for days on end.”

“And where would this happen?”

“In a quiet beach house somewhere far away from here. On an island in the middle of the ocean.”

Her bold answer had him pulling her closer. “When do we leave?”

Instead of continuing the game, she changed the subject. “Aren’t you afraid that if Holic is here he’ll recognize you?”

“I told you, he’s not here.”

He seemed so sure—sure of Holic and himself. “What have you learned?” she asked, knowing he had been busy all day.

“I learned you were quite a good skier years ago. There’s a large picture of you at maybe fifteen in the lobby. You won some race in Zurich.”

“One of many. I’m talking about the mission. Did you search every floor? Get into any rooms?”

“Yes.” He shrugged, turned her in his arms and brought her back to him. His hand again palmed her ass with familiarity. “I found a dead body.”

“What?”

“An old woman in her sixties. She was shot with a .45 between the eyes.”

Nadja stiffened. “Where?”

“I found her stuffed in a closet up on seven.”

It had to be Gerda. But who had shot her? Kovar must have followed through with her threat. Then he really hadn’t known that the woman had been abusing Alzbet, or her years ago.

“What else? I’m your partner,” Nadja said, matching his footsteps around the dance floor. “We’re suppose to share everything.”

“We have been.” He kissed her neck.

“Tell me. Do you know where Holic is right now?”

“I know where he isn’t. He’s not here, or at After Shock.”

“You know about After Shock? How? The club is by private invitation only. And—” She stopped herself, remembering that Mady had Bjorn’s alias on her notepad. He must have approached her. Did he know that they were sisters?

“At what age did you become aware of After Shock’s existence?” he asked, dancing her toward the cove that led to the exotic club.

She had been seventeen when she’d actually been allowed inside, and that had only been because she’d told the doorman that it was an emergency, and she needed to speak to her grandfather. But before that, she’d followed her grandfather one night, and when the guard had left the door for a moment, she’d slipped inside. She must have been thirteen, and she’d gotten caught. But not before she’d realized what kind of place it was.

“Nineteen,” she lied, because she didn’t want to explain the other two times.

“We’ll have to go…together sometime.”

Or not, Nadja thought, pushing the image of Bjorn with the laughing brunette out of her mind. The women at After Shock would be all over him.

“Where did you learn to dance?”

“In Copenhagen. I stayed with a woman for a while who liked to dance.”

“Stayed?”

“I worked for her.”

“And she taught you to dance?”

“
Ja,
to dance and other stuff.”

It was the word
stuff
that caught Nadja’s attention, and she was suddenly curious as to what kind of
stuff
the woman he had worked for had taught him. There was no disputing that Bjorn’s dancing skills ranked as high as his talent in the bedroom and the shower. That he had nice manners when he ate, and an uncanny ability to survive. All these attributes were not typical of a street orphan.

Was the woman who had taught him
stuff
responsible for molding him into this confident overachiever? Had she been a mother figure to him, or something more intimate?

“How old were you when she took you in?”

“Fourteen.”

“And you stayed how long?”

“Too long.”

“Meaning?”

“It’s not important.”

When people used that line it meant it was very important, just not something they felt comfortable discussing. Nadja respected that. She was, however, still curious. But then, how could she not be—this was her daughter’s father, and she suddenly wanted to know everything there was to know about him.

“We need to go somewhere,” he offered close to her ear just as the music was ending.

“We shouldn’t leave together.”

“You’re not planning on running away from me if I let you leave first, are you?”

She pulled back and looked at him so that he could see her face when she answered. See that she wasn’t lying when she said, “There is no reason to run any longer. I’ve come to the end of the road, as they say. He’s here somewhere.”

They ended up at her suite. Bjorn insisted, following four minutes behind her and knocking only once. She knew why he’d wanted to visit her suite once she let him in—he cased the place like he was expecting to find Holic stashed in her closet.