Chasing Shadows (2 page)

"Why me?" he asked, although he already knew the answer.  Damn it, why'd Bruno have to pick Lejeune of all places?  Bad enough the man's business had sent Bruno's own brother to an early grave, now he had to go and mess up Chase's life too?  Not that Chase was doing so hot on his own.

Prospero shot him a glance that said she knew he was stalling.  "Gee, I don't know, Sergeant. Maybe because you grew up in the same town Gianotti calls home?  Maybe because you were best friends with his youngest brother, Nicky, even a pallbearer at his funeral?  Maybe because your friendly neighborhood arms dealer has your entire hometown bought and sold and never uses strangers to do his sensitive work, so we haven't been able to get a man inside his operation?  Or," she paused, her dark eyes boring into his, "maybe it's because we traced a shipment of Gianotti's stolen C-4 to Deh Rawood, Afghanistan where it was bought by a chieftain named Rahman."

Chase stepped toward her, his throat tightening, hands fisting at the sound of Rahman's name.  The bastard.  Traitor who'd sold Chase and his men out, not to mention the relief workers they were escorting.  "You on the level?  Or is this just a scam to get my attention?"

She shook her head solemnly but didn't deign to answer.  Hollywood spoke up.  "No scam, Chase.  I've seen the files myself.  Apparently Rahman found Eastern Bloc Semtex too unreliable and wanted better quality merchandise.  Gianotti was happy to supply it to him."

Chase's jaws ground together.  If Bruno Gianotti had helped in the massacre of Chase's men and the civilians they were protecting, then Chase definitely wanted in.  But on his own terms.  

"All right," he told Prospero.  "But two things you need to know up front.  I work alone.  I don't want to be part of any team.   I don't want any partners I have to keep track of or be distracted by.  I'll get you what you need, but you have to let me do it my way."

"Alone," she finished for him.  

She pursed her lips, scrutinizing him in a way that reminded him of his mother right before she would wet a finger to slick down his cowlick in an attempt to make him look presentable.  Rose Prospero wasn't as old as Sally Westin, but she definitely had the same aura, that of a woman who knew what she wanted and wasn't often disappointed.  She nodded her approval.  "And the second condition?"    

"No part of this operation goes anywhere near my hometown.  My brother lives there and the last thing I need is Bruno targeting him."

"That may not be possible.  Gianotti lives in Coalton, runs his organization from there."

"I don't care.  Any active operations on your behalf—surveillance, busts, whatever—they happen as far away from Coalton as possible or I'm out."

She gave him a grudging nod.  "I'll do my best."

"So, what's the plan?"  He waited a beat, challenging her with his stare.  Despite the fact that he stood half a foot taller, she met his gaze as easily as if they were on equal footing.

Rose smiled, not a smile of happiness nor one that made it anywhere close to her eyes.  This was the smile of someone tossing down a gauntlet.  A predator's grin.  "The plan?  I'm going to throw you in the brig."

CHAPTER 1

6 months later, Christmas Eve, Coalton, Pennsylvania

Christmas Eve and here she was, stealing a box of condoms.  Not just any condoms.  Neil had told her that only the "XTC lubricated and ribbed for her pleasure" would do.  The ones in the neon pink box with the not-quite-pornographic photo of a surgically enhanced moaning beauty plastered on the front.

KC sidled down the drugstore aisle, avoiding Old Man Sinderson's eagle-eyed gaze.  An outrage, that's what it was.  She could pull a wallet from a man's inside jacket pocket by the time she was twelve, being forced to resort to lifting a measly box of condoms was nothing less than an insult to her skills.

Even worse, the best thing for her cover would be to get caught and have to run for it.  Salt to injury.  No wait, the really worse thing was that the damn condoms would never even be used.

Price she paid.  She'd lost the bet—not fair or square, though.  She'd tossed in her full house despite the fact that she knew she had the winning hand, let Neil rake in the pot and set the terms of her redemption.  One box of condoms filched from Old Man Sinderson.

She reached out her hand, ready to make the grab, then pulled it back as she heard Neil's laughter coming from the next aisle over.  Glancing up, she saw him and the Harris twins elbowing each other as they watched her in the overhead security mirror.  KC shot them a glare and Neil laughed harder, his face blossoming scarlet, while one of the twins gave her the finger in a good-natured salute.

Boys, not men.  They were nineteen going on nine.  Old enough to vote, old enough to die for their country, yet they spent their days playing poker and coming up with assinine bets.  They should have been "working"—which translated to sitting on their butts doing nothing all day—but Neil's dad, Mr. Gianotti, had given them the day off.  Christmas bonus, he'd called it.  

Yeah, right.  She'd give a kidney to know what Gianotti
really
had planned for his Christmas.

Losing this bet to Neil might be a step on the way.  

"Hey, what're you boys doing down there?" Old man Sinderson's cigarette-rasped growl chased after Neil and the twins.  KC used the distraction to deftly slide the condoms into her jacket pocket before meandering down the aisle to the shampoo display.

Now came the hard part.  Getting almost caught without appearing too obvious.

That had been the hardest part of this entire gig.  It was easy to put on the clothes, dig the music—especially since she actually did like her rock with a head-banging edge to it—drive the car, talk the talk, and walk the walk of a eighteen year old bad girl, condemned to waste her time as a senior in high school.  

No, the hard part was in not being too obvious, not showing that she knew too much, not getting too involved in the lives of the kids around her—including Jay Weston, the kid she was here to save.

High school had been hard enough the first time around.  The second time was hell.

The guys left the store, Old Man Sinderson giving them his patented heebie-jeebie glare from his position behind the counter.  Bells jangled as the door shut again, blocking out the winter chill.

"And you, missy," Old Man Sinderson bellowed in her direction.  "What are you buying?"

KC played it cool, shrugging her shoulders so the chains on her leather jacket clanked as she picked up a bottle of shampoo, scrutinized it as if it were the Rosetta Stone, then replaced on the wrong shelf.  She shot Sinderson an over the shoulder glance as she did so, smirking at him.

"Here, now.  If all you're going to do is rearrange my inventory and make more work for me—" he thundered, his body shaking but never leaving his seat.  

"More work for you?" she asked, misplacing several more bottles at lightning speed.  "You haven't gotten off that stool of yours in a decade, old man."

His face puffed up and turned red as a baboon's butt.  She thought about telling him, making the comparison, but there was no need, he'd already hit his boiling point.

"Out!  Now!"  He was bouncing so hard on the stool, his finger jabbing into the air in the direction of the door, jaw quivering, she worried she'd pushed him too far and that he'd stroke out.  Then what would she do?  Save his worthless, tax-paying ass or protect her cover?  

KC did a pirouette, purposefully knocking over the end cap pyramid of hair products, sending pastel colored bottles hurtling in every direction.  

"I'm calling the cops!"

"Who cares?"   She whirled once more, allowing the condom box to spin free.

Her aim was true and it skittered along the floor, landing between her and the door.  Sinderson had the phone in his hand, but hadn't dialed.  His voice deteriorated to a sputter of fury.  "You no-good little tramp!  I'll have your ass thrown in jail.  Give me those," he pointed to the nearly-purloined, pretty-in-pink box of condoms.  "Give them to me right now."

KC scooped up the condoms, well aware of her audience beyond the glass doors.  "Why?  Old man like you wouldn't know what to do with them."  She leered at him, hands on her hips, her jacket open to flash her body art and pierced navel.  "Want me to come show you?"

That did it.  He dropped the phone and instead jabbed his finger on the alarm button below the counter.  Bells and claxtons and whoops of sirens stampeded over her, echoing through the small store.  

Out on the sidewalk, Neil and the twins scattered, racing in opposite directions.  KC blew Sinderson a kiss and pranced out of the store.  The things she did for her job.  She shoved the condoms into her pocket and ran after Neil Gianotti.

She caught up with him at the cemetery across the street, up on the hill where Jay's folks were buried.  Jay and Neil hung out here a lot, sitting on the stone bench beside the memorial Jay had put up for his parents who had died last Christmas.  She saw fresh flowers, apricot roses on Sally and Hank Westin's graves and a small bunch of violets on Diana's tombstone, the big sister Jay never knew.

Jay wasn't here, but he'd obviously been here earlier.  She wondered if he'd ever be able to come back again.  Once she finished her job here.

Neil scattered her morbid thoughts with laughter.  He was a good kid, kind of rolly-polly and squat compared to Jay's lean height.  Frick and Frack, the townspeople called them.  Best friends forever.  Of course, Neil was friends with everyone in town—given that his old man pretty much owned the town, that was no surprise.  What was a surprise was that he genuinely seemed to value every friend he made, savored them as much as the gummi bears he constantly snuck while on his perpetual diet.

Bruno Gianotti's one failure in life: his rotund, not so smart, but very personable and soft-hearted only child.  When Jay was held back from graduating in June, Neil had begun classes at Penn State's Altoona's campus.  But he was lost without Jay and his other hometown friends.  Flunked out his first semester and returned home to "work" for his father, supposedly organizing the inventory of spare parts Gianotti's moving vans needed.

Lately, though, Neil had let drop rumors that his dad was going to give him more responsibility in the family business, toughen him up for some "real" work.  KC strongly suspected the poor kid still had absolutely no idea what his father's real work was: supplying weapons to blood-thirsty predators.

She ruffled her fingers through Neil's dark hair, and he laughed harder, blushing from the attention.  If she did her job right, Neil would never have the opportunity to witness Bruno Gianotti's work up close and personal like Jay had.

"So who's the lucky girl?" she asked as she handed him the hard-won box of condoms.  

He stopped laughing, his blush deepened, and he wouldn't meet her eyes.  Instead he took the condoms as if they might bite him, shoving them deep into the pocket of his North Face parka.  Then his laughter started up again as he looked past her down the hill to Old Man Sinderson's drug store.  "Sure you and Jay don't need them?"

As if.  But she played her role and widened her grin as she pulled a handful of condoms from her inside pocket.  "Nah.  I think this will be enough."  His eyes widened and she couldn't resist—that's what acting like a teenager would do to you, it pulled you right back into a mindset where potty-humor was considered sophisticated.  "For tonight, at least."

"Er.  Right.  Lucky Jay."

Could a stand-up guy like Neil be falling for his best friend's gal?  He leaned against the grave marker guarding Jay's parents' final resting place and she wondered at that.  Jay would be gone tomorrow, maybe she should continue her charade a while longer than initially planned?  Neil could give her the inside scoop on his father’s organization.

She stretched out lengthwise on the granite bench, her Doc Maartens planted firmly on the end of the slab, knees bent, arms wide, letting her jacket flap open.  There was no sunlight, there never was in Coalton, the entire town constantly submerged beneath a haze of grey as if the coal mines were still in full action.  The frozen stone beneath her bit into her flesh, but KC ignored it, her attention focused on Neil.

She lay there as if basking in the light of an invisible sun.  He watched with obvious interest.  His gaze roamed from her face to the chameleon tattoo coloring the exposed flesh of her belly.  She stretched and the form-fitting leather vest she wore rode higher.  Neil's gaze followed, his head bobbing in time with her breathing.  Men.  Sometimes it was just so damn easy.

"What'cha doing for Christmas?" she asked, letting one arm dangle to the side, grazing the snow piled around the bench.  She was freezing her ass off, but she had a feeling it might be worth it.

He hunched his shoulders as if nervous but his face brightened into a smile.  "My dad and I.  We're going to go to a business meeting he has set up.  Together."

Gianotti had a business meeting scheduled for Christmas day?  Now that was news.  She sat up abruptly, tugging her vest back into place, trying not to shiver in the cold.  She wasn't sure if she'd ever feel warm again, not after six weeks suffering through Coalton, Pennyslvania's terminal grey winter.  

"That's nice," she said.  "What kind of meeting?"

Neil opened his mouth then clamped it shut, shoulders hunching once more.  "Doesn't matter.  It will be cool just working with my dad."

Silence.  The bells on St. Augustine's steeple rang the hour.  She was supposed to pick up Jay, drive him to Neil's where the boys were going to have Christmas Eve dinner while she went home to eat with her "father" like a dutiful daughter would.

"What's up with Jay?" she asked, inserting a stammer into her voice.

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know.  He's been acting funny lately.  Like maybe," she trailed off, eyes cast down, but staring at Neil up through her lashes.  "Like maybe he's not too happy with me."

Neil sank down beside her, his expression one of genuine concern.  KC felt a quiver of guilt over her manipulation, but quickly squelched it.  Cost of doing business.  And in this case, her business might just save Neil's life.