Codename: Romeo (9 page)

DeMarco turned a questioning glance on his sister. “Did anyone give you anything in Mexico? Perhaps a package they told you was a gift for family?”

She peered up at him from under her dark lashes. “I’m not a fool, Steven. I know better than to carry packages onto airplanes for strangers.” Hurt rang in her voice. “As for the Anthurium, a woman at the hotel gave it to me because she’s allergic to flowers.”

An awkward silence followed her announcement. That would explain a lot, Erik thought. Victoria still didn’t seem to realize what happened.

“You were set up,” DeMarco said.

Erik exhaled in relief. The courier used her as a pawn. In his gut, he’d known it all along. She was too warm, too giving, too damned trusting to be involved in illegal activities. Most likely, the real courier singled her out for just that reason.

“How could I have been set up if I don’t have a disc to hand over?” Victoria asked.

Daniels shrugged. “Becker wouldn’t know that. He never meets his couriers before a pick-up. That way, if they’re caught, they aren’t traced back to him.”

“It doesn’t explain why. If he couldn’t identify the courier, she could have just tossed the flower in the garbage. She didn’t need to use me.”

“Yes, she did,” Daniels said. “Didn’t that man say something about extortion? Obviously the courier hopes to get more money. You’re the one wearing the flower, so Becker would naturally come after you and when he realized he’d hit the wrong woman—”

Erik shoved his partner in the ribs. Daniels, carried away by the sheer brilliance of the plan, forgot he hypothesized about an innocent bystander’s life. Victoria’s life.

DeMarco touched her trembling hand, and she immediately pulled away. “What was the woman’s name, Tori?”

“Elaine.”

“Elaine what?”

She raked her fingers though the silky layers of her hair. “I don’t know. We didn’t exchange histories. She was just a woman who also traveled alone. Sometimes we were seated at dinner together.”

“You never asked her last name?” her brother asked in annoyance.

“No, Steven. She wasn’t my type,” Victoria retorted. “Do you ask for a resume from every man you meet?”

“Well, what did she look like?” he pushed impatiently.

“A slender female, about thirty years old with brown shoulder length hair,” she repeated verbatim.

Like a million other women in America.

Both Erik and his partner chuckled. DeMarco scowled. He cocked his eyebrow. “Something funny?”

“No, sir,” Daniels said.

“Good. Then get me the audiotapes from the van. And have the central office send the surveillance tapes from the airport here. Perhaps Tori can identify the woman.”

Both men started to leave.

“You stay, Sanders.” DeMarco issued a direct order that Erik could not ignore. He took a seat at the table.

Just how much had Victoria told her brother, he wondered? Last night’s actions could get him suspended. Considering her relationship to the bureau chief, possibly even fired. He glanced at Victoria. If looks could kill. He expected nothing less.

“As long as Becker thinks my sister is double-crossing him, she’s not safe. I’ll talk to your boss. You’re reassigned to the job of protection.”

“No!” she said adamantly. Her fingers clenched into tight fists. “I want him and all his little listening devices out of my house, now.”

Erik noted the venom resonating in her voice. “Don’t you think you should assign a female agent?”

DeMarco took one look at his sister’s glowering face and shook his head. “I don’t think there’s much chance of a personal relationship developing here.”

Victoria’s cheeks took on a healthy red color. She waved her hands in the air. “Did you hear me Steven? No agents. No bugs. Not again. Just forget it.”

He made another attempt to comfort her, which she immediately rebuffed. “Like it or not, Tori, those listening devices are the only reason nothing serious happened to you today.”

“Then you can set them up in the house across the street like last time.”

“Be reasonable. There isn’t time to make long-term arrangements for a short-term assignment. Let me handle this for now.”

She leaned back in the chair and expelled a sigh. “It’s not like you’re offering me a choice.” Outwardly she seemed resigned, but her eyes still sparked with fury.

“It won’t be for long,” DeMarco assured her. “A few days at the most.”

Erik lowered his head. One day would be twenty-four hours too long. Despite the fact that she now presented a reserved facade, he didn’t doubt for a moment that she intended to pay him back for his betrayal. DeMarco might have won the battle over protective custody, but only because her real war was with Erik. He’d better get himself a house key or he could expect to find himself locked out on a regular basis.

* * * *

Steven glanced at Victoria as she fidgeted with the remote control. She avoided looking at him or the two agents. While the forensics team did their job in the living room, the four of them reviewed the tapes in the cramped guest room. Sketchy images from the Burlington airport flashed across the television screen. Victoria watched dispassionately.

For a woman who’d suffered a harrowing ordeal, she looked remarkably in control. Pissed off, certainly, but in control. He barely recognized her. Not just her stylish haircut or the blue jeans he didn’t think she owned. Her attitude had changed. She came off stronger. More defiant.

Given her history with protective custody, he expected resistance. He could not leave his little sister without back-up. Even back-up with the codename, Romeo. At least Victoria had more sense than to fall for his bad-boy image that many other women found attractive.

Sanders came highly recommended. Tension simmered between them, but thankfully not of a sexual nature. Steven didn’t envy Sanders this new assignment. He didn’t envy Victoria her situation either. Give the woman complex mathematical equations and she could solve them in her sleep. Violent criminals were beyond her realm of experience.

Victoria hit the pause button. “That’s her,” she said.

Steven focused on the screen. “The nurse?”

“She’s not a nurse,” she grumbled.

“I thought the courier was a brunette.”

“She’s not a blonde either.”

Steven swallowed a groan. Poor Victoria was the stereotypical absent-minded professor, oblivious to anything outside her work. “You never questioned why the woman walked through the airport in disguise?”

She squirmed in the chair, avoiding eye contact and looking uncomfortable. “No. She had a good reason.”

“What reason?”

“Forget it.”

“No. What reason did the woman have?”

She sunk deeper into the chair. “Something to do with role playing.”

“I’m not following.”

“No, I don’t imagine you would.”

Out of the corner of his eye he caught Sanders smirking. Steven tried to control his temper. “Explain it to me.”

She shot a pointed glare at the two agents. “Do we have to get into this now?”

“Yes, we do.” Damn. What could possibly be more important than her safety? Didn’t she realize the danger?

After a long pause, she blurted out, “She likes to dress up like Nurse Betty and play hide the thermometer with her boyfriend.”

“Excuse me?” he spit out in shock.

“Some people experience heightened sexual stimulation while engaging in fantasy. Did you get it that time?” An embarrassed flush stained her cheeks. She sprang out of the chair and bolted from the room in a wake of riotous laughter.

He wasn’t sure which bothered him more— that Victoria knew such things or that he didn’t. She couldn’t give him the suspect’s last name but she knew the sexual idiosyncrasies of the woman. To make matters worse, she’d managed to undermine his authority in front of two field agents. In every other aspect of his career, he remained distant and reserved. Cold and calculating, his co-workers often commented. Ice water in his veins.

Except when it came to Victoria. She was his only soft spot. Despite her chronological age and doctoral degrees, she was naïve in the ways of world. No wonder this high-tech spy ring set her up. Her innate goodness blinded her to the faults in other people. Even if it meant going back to fieldwork, he would find the scheming woman who set her up.

Victoria might resent his interference in her life right now, but he couldn’t back down. He’d taken care of her and protected her from the outside world for nearly twenty years. He couldn’t change now.

Chapter Six

Victoria sucked in a calming breath. It didn’t help. All her energy went to keeping up the pretense of control. Self-consciously, she brushed her hand through her hair. The short strands slipped through her fingers. Until she could grow out the short style, the mirror would constantly remind her of her own foolishness. A man like Erik would have no interest in her romantically. She was nothing more than a job. Obviously, he didn’t want this babysitting position.

She could kill Steven. That her brother wasn’t responsible for her current predicament didn’t matter. Any normal citizen could refuse protection, but not her, because of her brother’s position in the bureaucratic food chain. He would have her watched regardless.

Steven grinned hopefully. “Will you be going to Susan’s on Thanksgiving? Carol is coming down with the kids.”

Although she’d been looking forward to seeing her nieces and nephews, she wouldn’t expose her family to danger. Did he picture an intimate family holiday with a dozen agents stationed around the house?

“I don’t think it would be wise. Unless you can catch this Becker before then.”

“Catching him would be easy, Tori. We have to catch him in the act. But don’t worry. You’re safe.”

Safe? With a man who had awakened her heart only to step on it? Erik excelled at his job. She’d grant him that. Did the bureau give a course, as part of their training, to teach them how to seduce women? Or was she so romantically challenged that not once, but twice, she fell for a handsome man with a line?

For the rest of the day, she managed to avoid dwelling on Erik’s duplicity. Between watching videotapes, listening to audiotapes, and answering police questions, she kept her mind occupied. She placed a book back on the shelf, finally removing the last trace of the morning’s events. Erasing the sense of humiliation she felt would take a lot longer. The sun dipped below the horizon, and a cold autumn night descended. Winter would come early this year.

The numbness of shock passed, leaving her drained. She felt violated. A stranger had picked though her belongings like a scavenger. And another stranger had invaded her quiet, routine life under the guise of a friend. She didn’t want to return to the paranoid habit of questioning everybody’s motives, but her experiences, first with Elaine and then with Erik, dealt a serious setback to her plans of getting on with her life. How had one small flower made such a mess of her life?

She glanced at the red Anthurium in the glass vase by the window. Passion Flower, the Mexicans called it. Perhaps she should have taken Elaine literally when she told Victoria the flower would entice a man into her life.

“Well,” she grumbled under her breath, “you’ve got a man in your life.” The sixty-four-thousand dollar question now, how could she get rid of him? Thankfully, she found out the truth before she got in too deep.

Right, Victoria.
She’d dived in head first without bothering to test the water.

“Tori. Sanders is back, so I’ll be leaving.” Her brother joined her in the living room. “Looks like everything’s back to normal here.”

Normal. Did he think that putting a few papers and books back on a shelf would erase the memories? “Why don’t you let me make you something for dinner first?”

“I have to get back. We’ll make it another time.”

“Sure.” She wrapped her arms around her waist and lowered herself into a chair.

“Are you all right?” he asked. “I mean, if you need me to stay….”

“No. I’m fine.” She glanced out the window just as Erik slid out of the car. The street lamp behind him cast his long shadow on a coat of fresh snow.

“I know you’re upset about this, Tori—”

“Forget it, Steven. I know it’s not your fault.” After she’d left the research lab, a long strained period existed between them. His work in the NSB put them both in an awkward position, and they had only recently gotten back on friendly terms. She turned towards him and smiled. “Tell everyone I’ll see them at Christmas.”

He grabbed his jacket off the back of the chair and folded it over his arm. “I realize there’s a lot of tension between you and Sanders, but despite the fact that he looks like one of Hell’s Angels, he’s one of our top field agents, and I wouldn’t trust your safety to just anyone—”

“You better go before the snow starts to stick to the road.” She couldn’t stomach a testimonial to Erik Sanders right now. Hell, she applauded his abilities. His methods, on the other hand, left something to be desired. As for his looks? If she didn’t wear her glasses perhaps she could forget how attractive she found him. But what could she do to block out his all too masculine scent that aroused her in spite of a conscious effort to remain immune?

* * * *

Erik tucked the bag of Chinese take-out under his arm and strode down the sidewalk towards the house. He’d promised Victoria dinner, although he doubted she wanted any part of his presence tonight. Guilt twisted his insides, but for the life of him, he couldn’t understand why. He was just doing his job.

As he reached the gate, the front door opened. DeMarco stepped outside, buttoning his coat against the cold wind. He waited on the landing.

“Make sure nothing happens to my sister.” His statement held a warning: screw this up and you’ll be guarding polar bears in the Klondike.

“I’ll do my job.”

“That better be all you do. Keep in mind she’s the victim, not one of your lowlife suspects.”

DeMarco had checked up on him. Erik wondered if the chief chose him for the assignment because of, or in spite of, his reputation. “I’m aware of that. I think I can handle her.”