The Samms Agenda Read online

  "Look," she said, settling her sunglasses that he hap­pened to know were Kate Spade firmly in place. "I appreci­ate the save, even if I was dumb as a stick to get in this car not knowing who you are. But we're going to the police, or I'll be making a scene like you wouldn't believe."

  Oh, he believed Miss High Maintenance capable of some­thing that feng le ... crazy. So far the only surprise had been her lack of complaints over their full out hundred-yard dash and the injury she'd sustained in the process.

  "This isn't a police matter." Still, heading in the direction of the station might keep Rivers at bay and give Julian time to consider his options.

  "And why would that be?" she asked, her incredulous tone of voice unable to mask the sound of the gears whirring in her mind. "You're with the shooter, aren't you? This kid­napping was the goal all along. You sonofabitch."

  Julian couldn't help it. He smiled. It was something he rarely did for good reason, and the twitch of unused facial muscles felt strange.

  But there was just something about a woman with a sailor's mouth that grabbed hold of his gut and twisted him up with the possibilities.

  He hadn't had a really good mouth in a very long time.

  A thought that sobered him right up. "No. I'm not with the shooter. His name is Benny Rivers. He's with Spectra IT and he's in Miami to take you out."

  Take her out. As in . . . kill her? Dead?

  "Who are you?" she asked, her pulse fluttering like it hadn't since she'd first learned the truth of Peter Deacon's affiliations.

  Fluttering harder, in fact, if fluttering was even the right word considering if felt like a jackhammer pounding away in her chest. "What do you want?"

  "What I want is to keep you alive." He shifted down, revved his RPMs. The car shot up the ramp onto 1-95. "Who I am isn't as important."

  "Uh, if my life is in danger then what's important is my call to make." Her foot begin to throb, the glass shard sud­denly taking on the dimensions of a Fifth Avenue window in Bergdorf's.

  "My name is Julian Samms," he finally answered in that voice that sounded like honey poured over a shattered mirror. Smooth and ragged all at the same time.

  "Julian Samms. And you're simply an ordinary average concerned citizen?" He was obviously nothing of the sort.

  Was, in fact, much much more, what with his very so­phisticated James Bond attire, not to mention his car, which was worth a small fortune, and his skill behind the wheel.

  Ordinary average concerned citizens did not drive like highly trained bats out of hell.

  "Something like that," he responded, whipping through traffic with one eye trained on his mirrors, one hand on the wheel, and the other on the gear shift as he searched the road behind.

  She wanted to glance back, to see what he was looking for, but what really mattered was what lay ahead. "Where are we going?"

  "I'm not sure."

  "What do you mean, you're not sure?" How could he have been in the right place at the right time and not be sure of what he was doing now?

  "Exactly what I said." Another in-and-out maneuver that had her grabbing hold of the door. "All I know is that I've got to get you out of Miami."

  "For how long?"

  "As long as it takes."

  "As long as what takes?"

  The glance he cast her way accused her of asking too many stupid questions for a woman on the run for her life.

  Logically, she knew that. Emotionally . . .

  "I can't leave. I work here. I live here," she said, hysteria adding an ugly shrillness to her voice. And tonight was the fund-raiser!

  He ignored her panic and simply said, "You used to live here."

  No. She was not going to listen to this or go down with­out a fight.

  She was already struggling to regain the personal and ca­reer footing she'd lost by having her name linked with an international crime figure. And at that thought. . .

  Dear God, but she was in serious trouble here, wasn't she? More trouble than she'd been willing to accept until it was slapped brutally across her face like a bullwhip.

  Or like a bullet.

  She slumped back, deflated, defeated, yet determined to find a better solution than one calling for her to give up everything she still held dear.

  "I don't understand why we can't go to the police." She didn't understand anything at all! "Surely they could pro­vide me protection."

  Julian snorted. "The same way they provided you pro­tection from Rivers?"

  "How could they when they didn't know . . . ?"

  But he had known. Julian Samms had known. Which brought her back to the moment's biggest conundrum.

  Who the hell was this dangerous man and what about him made her feel safe when the circumstances should have her feeling anything but?

  She shifted in her seat as best she could to face him, studying his profile as he concentrated on the traffic and the road.

  The shoulder seam of his black Hugo Boss suit was torn, the fabric separating now as his muscles bunched while he shifted gears, revealing the white shirt he wore, also torn and showing a hint of deeply tanned skin underneath.

  She couldn't tell much about his body beyond the fact that he ran a hell of a lot faster than she would've imagined for a man of his size. He was very large. Intimidatingly so.

  Or would have been had she been put off by physical strength.

  She never had been, she mused, the faint hum of the wheels on the pavement belying the speed at which they traveled. Since childhood, she'd used her wits to get out of any scrapes she'd been in, believing brains won out over brawn every time.

  She believed it still to this day. And she needed to employ the same wits now she had then, but wasn't having as easy a time of it.

  As far as she knew, no one had ever tried to kill her be­fore.

  "Do you have any sort of plan then?" she finally asked, because staring at the thick dark hair pulled into a tail at his nape was getting her nowhere.

  His answer was a sharp vocal burst in a language she did not understand and an equally sharp spin of the steering wheel. The movement took them across all the lanes of traf­fic, down the exit ramp, and into the parking lot surround­ing the Shops at Sunset Place.

  He slipped the car into a spot between two oversized SUVs, set the emergency brake, and left the car idling in neutral. "We've got to switch cars."

  She could help with that, she realized. She could finally help with something. "I can get us a car."

  His head swiveled her way. His blue eyes burned beneath brows even blacker than his hair. But it was the tight line of his lips, the stress brackets on either side of his mouth that drew her gaze.

  "What sort of car and where?"

  She shook her head. She obviously wasn't going to draw this out, but there were things she needed to know.

  And she needed to know them now. "I'll tell you. As soon as you answer a few questions for me."

  Three

  South Miami, Friday, 4:00 p.m.

  Julian never talked about who he was, where he'd come from, what he did. "What sort of questions?"

  "I would think that would be obvious," she said, the de­fensive arch of her brow a tactical maneuver made to un­balance him.

  It failed, of course, ramping up his curiosity about her instead.

  He wondered if she thought the look was enough to mask the swell of fear she was riding. He knew fear, recog­nized it, would've smelled it on her if not for all the other scents swirling in the car's interior.

  Sunscreen and sweet soap and the soft citrus tang of her hair.

  When it became clear that he wasn't going to answer what he hadn't been asked, both her expression and her tone of voice shifted from imperious to insistent.

  "Who are you that you know more about Spectra IT's activities than the police do?"

  "The group I work for ..." He hesitated, not wanting to say enough to give away SG-5 but knowing she deserved this much of the truth—needed it, in fact, if they were both
to stay alive. "One of my associates is responsible for taking your ex out of commission."

  She blinked once, twice, her lashes long, sable dusted with gold. "Are you government? Military?"

  He shook his head. "Not any longer."

  "I don't get it," she said, her eyes reflecting the anger and confusion warring behind. "I mean, I understand what you're doing here, but I don't get who sent you or why or who you work for—"

  "You don't need to get it. All you need to do is stay alive until Rivers is disposed of." That and follow his orders without the back talk and sass he'd geared up for. Neither of which he'd yet seen.

  She met his gaze squarely, her chin quivering so slightly he doubted she noticed. "And that's where you come in, right? The keeping me alive part."

  He nodded. It was Mick Savin who would be disposing of Benny Rivers, though Julian still wasn't clear why Hank had given the new recruit the meatier task while assigning him to baby-sit.

  He draped his left wrist over the steering wheel and tried not to notice the way the diamond studs in her ears glittered, or the way her topknot sat askew, strands of hair curling wildly the length of her neck.

  Caramel strands. Caramel and chocolate. Chocolate chip cookies. He stifled a groan. "Anything else?"

  She canted her head, looked down and picked at the handkerchief bandage. "We only dated casually. Peter and I. We were never a romantic item."

  "Right." Julian turned his head, moved his gaze to the rearview mirror, searching for any possible sign of Rivers instead of divining the truth from her eyes.

  That particular truth, her relationship with Deacon, didn't matter.

  "I never slept with him."

  Her soft confession had Julian grinding his jaw. "Sure. Whatever."

  She sighed with a heavy sense of even heavier frustration. "I hate people thinking that more went on between us than actually did."

  It didn't matter, he told himself again. It didn't matter. Her association with and her obvious attraction to the Spectra sleazebag was enough to turn Julian right off, chocolate chip cookies aside.

  He drummed his fingertips on the dash. "What about the car?"

  "My mother lives in Coral Gables. She's in London visit­ing friends. I have keys to her place and to her car."

  "You have them with you?"

  She muttered a faint string of foul words under her breath. "No. They're at my condo."

  "Rivers will be watching the place anyway."

  "How would he know—" She cut herself off before say­ing more, took a deep breath. "Never mind. I'm just glad she's not there."

  If she had been, Julian would've taken measures to keep her out of harm's way. "Don't worry about it. The car part, I mean."

  Again she pulled at the knot on the bandage. "I thought you covert types always had contingency plans."

  His plan had been to set her up in a safe house until Rivers was no longer an issue. A safe house hidden on the tip of the peninsula that put SG-5 within spitting distance of Spectra's offshore activities.

  The plan remained the same. It was Rivers who was going to make the execution tougher than Julian had hoped. He pulled his cell phone from his waistband and hit his speed dial. "Savin."

  "It's Julian. Rivers is here. I just lost him on 95 out of Coconut Grove."

  "Great." Mick bit off a sharp laugh. "Because I lost him up at Okeechobee."

  "You'll be here soon?"

  "Less than an hour."

  "Good. Zbu yi."

  "Yeah. You watch your back, too."

  Julian slapped the phone closed. "Sit tight. I'm going to get the first aid kit."

  She nodded, her eyes as dry as the Chalbi Desert he knew too well. He pushed from the car, opened the trunk, think­ing of the dry barren waste and the sun cooking a man's skin to a fiery red crisp.

  Not toasting it to a golden brown tan that went on for­ever, inside her thighs and out, all the way to the scrap of parakeet yellow fabric between her legs that he knew would be sheer when wet.

  It was the thinking of making her wet that had driven him from the car even more than the glass in her foot.

  She wasn't his type—he'd met few women who were— but he was a man, and she was wearing next to nothing and smelling like sunshine and—zing!

  Hun dan!

  Sonofabitch! The bullet pierced the wheel well, whacked into the passenger door of the neighboring SUV.

  Julian slammed the trunk, curses rolling from his tongue as he dashed forward. He threw the first aid kit into Katrina's lap, shifted into reverse, and whipped back out of the park­ing space.

  He shot blindly down the row of parked cars, skidding into a ninety-degree turn at the end of the row. They'd be noth­ing but a moving target on 95, but getting to the safe house was paramount.

  Pulse pounding, he tore out of the lot on what felt like two wheels, hit the lane to the interstate's entrance ramp prepared to top out the roadster at its 360 kilometers per hour.

  Katrina dug fingertips into his thigh and stopped him with a manic, "U-turn! U-turn! Go back!"

  He did what she said. She couldn't believe he'd done what she said—even as she swore she'd saved both their lives. God, but she could barely think to breathe.

  She'd seen the hell-bent-for-leather expression dark-ening his face and feared he'd flip this rocket of a car, killing them both. With that scenario now on hold, she directed him off the S. Dixie at 8th Avenue exit and had him turn east. "Little Havana?"

  "My mother and I employ the same housekeeper. We can use her car." She hesitated. "And leave her yours."

  The glance he cast her remained indecipherable even after he'd returned his gaze to the road.

  But the intensity stuck with her, and she couldn't help but wonder what he was thinking, considering he knew only the more salacious parts of her past.

  "Besides, I've got to get clothes." On this she would not budge.

  Nothing about the way he'd looked at her had been the least bit improper. But she could hear him breathe and sensed a tight discomfort, as if the distance between them was too little.

  Or maybe too much.

  She directed him through the neighborhood; his car, as she'd known it would do, turned heads, drawing more at­tention than she could tell he liked. The quick twists and turns they took through the narrow streets, however, would make their vanishing act hard to follow.

  "Turn in here." She indicated Maribel's driveway. The housekeeper's sedan was parked at the curb. The one-car garage was empty. "Pull into the garage."

  She answered the question asked by his dark expression. "Maribel's husband Tomas parks his truck in here. But I pro­mise he won't mind if we store your car for now."

  He eased the Mercedes roadster into the tiny pocket of space between tarps, ladders, plastic sheeting, and cans of paint.

  He cut off the engine with the touch of a button, leaving her listening to the sound of her own heartbeat and what she swore was the equally rapid thrumming of his.

  She wanted to turn to him, to demand more details than the scant ones he'd provided, to lean into the curve of his shoulder and rest her head. To pull the leather band from his nape and watch his thick black hair fall to frame his high cheekbones and strong jaw and . . .

  Ob-kay. Enough with the fantasy. Time to get out of the car and start getting her life back, though she supposed tonight's fund-raiser was now out of the question. Damn but she'd looked good in that Cleopatra dress.

  And damn that her nonappearance tonight would set ad­ditional tongues to wagging, creating more controversy she'd have to deal with eventually.

  Feeling sorry for herself, however, was hardly productive when bigger things than her dress and reputation were being threatened. She wasn't exactly thrilled to add experi­ence with gunfire and high-speed chases to her resume.

  Not to mention dealing with this ridiculous attraction to a man she wasn't yet sure was captor or savior.

  The pit of her stomach tingling, she hobbled from the car to the ba
ckyard's chain-link gate. Holding the first aid kit in one hand, her tote in the other, she worked up the gate's horseshoe closure.

  Behind her, Julian pulled down the garage's one-piece door. By the time she'd reached Maribel's back porch and knocked, he'd joined her. When nobody answered, she knocked again.

  "She's usually home on Fridays. Should we wait?"

  "No." He reached into his suit coat's inside pocket, with­drew a thin leather pouch stocked with what looked like dentistry tools but she knew were lock picks. "We're going in."

  Four

  Little Havana, Friday, 4:30 p.m.

  Katrina followed him though the door with no small amount of trepidation. Maribel would not mind in the least having them inside her house.

  But the idea of breaking and entering like a common criminal did not sit well.

  The white clapboard home's back entrance led directly into a small kitchen that was spotless. Knowing Maribel, Katrina expected no less.

  She'd only been here once before, having brought food to the Gonzalez family when the housekeeper was called away by a relative's sudden death.

  The gold-flecked linoleum was worn but waxed; the ice­box and range both white enamel and from another era, functioning long past their prime.

  The sink was white enamel, as well, chipped in spots but without a single stain. Katrina could see it all from where she still stood just inside the doorway.

  Apparently much less ill at ease making his uninvited self at home, Julian vanished into the depths of the small house.

  Katrina limped her way to the kitchen's Formica dinette set, pulled out a chair, and sat.

  Placing her tote and the first aid kid on the tabletop, she lifted her foot to her lap and slipped off the knotted and bloody handkerchief.

  Her foot was throbbing to beat the band. A quick inspec­tion showed the sliver of glass to be a lot bigger and more deeply embedded than she'd thought.

  Not that any thought beyond staying alive had been in­volved when she'd first felt the glass pierce her skin.

  Sighing, she unzipped the canvas kit and had just found the tweezers when Julian tossed his torn shirt and coat across the table.