Everybody Loves Evie (12 page)

Determination pumped through me, obliterating my concerns regarding Arch's motives. For now, anyway. “What's our story?”

He smiled. “That's my girl.”

Only I wasn't his girl, not in reality. He didn't do relationships—his policy. I didn't mix business with pleasure—Beckett's policy. I'd puzzle on that later. One brain buster at a time.

A teakettle whistled, prompting him to launch into a succinct profile. “You're you.”

“Whoopee.”

“I'm Archibald Robert Duvall of Broxley, Baron of Broxley.”

“Robert Duvall?”

“My ma took a fierce liking to the chap when she met him, yeah?”

“Are we talking about the same Robert Duvall? The American actor?”

“Aye. And, no, we're not blood. Last name's coincidence.”

Forget the last name. I bounced back to the first.
“Archibald?”
It made sense, of course. Arch
would
be short for Archibald, but jeez. Who names their kid Archibald?

He raised a brow. “Time's ticking, Sunshine.”

“All right. But wait. When word gets around—and it will—people are going to want the scoop on you. A titled Scot in Greenville? That's huge. They're going to Google the Baron of Broxley. Internet connection may be splotchy in these parts, but we are indeed connected to the cyber world.”

“Then my Web site should garner several hits, yeah?”

I scrunched my brow. “You have a Web site?”

“The Baron of Broxley has a Web site. Mostly it's devoted to the town and people of Broxley. The history. Local events, you know?”

“You created a phony Web site?” What was I saying? He'd forged a passport. An official government document. Anyone with the software, a server and know-how could launch a Web site.

“Aside from occasional online tabloid mentions and brief interviews, I am now also, thanks to Woody, included in Wikipedia.”

I smirked. “You mean, the baron.”

He grinned. “The man is, like me, guarded about his life, but there's enough information out there to support his existence.”

My mind cramped wondering what laws he'd broken or bent to bring the Baron of Broxley to life. “Hurry up and give me the rundown before my brain explodes. Mom and
Northbrook
will be back any minute.”

“We met three weeks ago on a Caribbean cruise, fell into a heated affair and have been inseparable since.”

I swallowed hard. “That's pretty much true.” Except he'd left out the breaking-up-in-London part.

“In this instance, the closer we stick to the truth, the less room for error.”

“Beckett said something similar.”

“Taught him everything I know, yeah?”

He stroked my long bangs out of my eyes, and I flashed on all the times he'd performed a similar gesture in the midst of heated sex. Then my mind jumped to the vision of Beckett, first fresh out of the shower, half-naked, then later, when he'd lifted me into his arms and carried me to the sofa. “Everything?” I croaked.

“Professionally speaking.”

My gaze slid to his mouth and the warning bells clanged. “I swore to Beckett that you and I…that this thing…”

“This is business, lass.”

“Right.”

I heard Mom's voice, knew she and
Northbrook
were rounding the corner. I felt the erotic pressure of Arch's hands on my backside as his face dropped closer to mine, and suddenly I was a blushing, hormonal teen cuddling in my parents' living room with the quintessential bad boy. “You're going to kiss me, aren't you?”

His devilish eyes twinkled. “Just a proper hello.”

M
ILO CHECKED HIS
temper as Arch said his goodbyes to Twinkie and her mom. He leaned back against the rental car, a blue midsize Ford, and mentally reviewed what would have been a clusterfuck if not for his extensive law-enforcement training and years of experience wading through grifter bullshit.

As for Evie—she'd played the scene perfectly, even though, like Milo, she'd had to play it cold. At this point he assumed she knew more than he did, as she'd been alone with Arch while he'd been trapped in the kitchen with her mother. He'd survived Mrs. Parish's interrogation by copping a client-confidentiality plea.
Privileged information
and
I'm not at liberty to discuss that
covered a lot of ground when fielding questions about a so-called person of title. He'd had to resort to double-talk when she'd asked the specific location of the man's barony and if he lived in a manor or a castle, because how the hell would
he
know? Although Arch—or, rather, the baron—had cleared that up over lunch.

The way he figured it, after overhearing Twinkie's looped talk about getting naked in his apartment, Arch had booked a flight from London to Philly ASAP. Didn't matter that Milo had called with a rational explanation. The man had been motivated by jealousy. That he was here in Indiana indicated he'd touched base with a team member while en route. Must have gone over big when he'd learned Milo was escorting Evie to her hometown under the guise of being her boyfriend. Details were murky, but the result was clear: the Scot had screwed Milo out of the role of Twinkie's knight in shining armor. Not to mention a kiss.

“Are you sure you don't want me to show you the way?” he heard Evie ask. No doubt she wanted extended privacy with Arch to grill him on his alias and intent. Milo related. Or maybe she just didn't want to be left alone with her mom. The tension between those two was tangible.

“I'm sure, lass. I'll be back to pick you up, as discussed, and you can give me a tour of this charming village, yeah?” Arch brushed his lips across her knuckles—nice touch—then nodded to Mrs. Parish. “Thank you again for extending the invitation to dine tomorrow evening and for humoring my peculiar request. I look forward to an authentic American cookout. Until then….”

The screen door closed and the suited Scot approached the car at an easy pace. Milo expected a cocksure grin as he neared, but instead Arch pulled a poker face. “I'll drive, mate,” he said. “I know the way.”

Milo tossed him the keys. “You're the boss.”

“Someone had to take charge.”

“Meaning?”

“Let's postpone this discussion until we're
oot
of view, yeah?”

Checking his annoyance, Milo climbed in the passenger side.

They buckled up and a few seconds later drove north on Main, away from the center of town. Arch spoke first. “Are you mental? Questioning a direct assignment? What the fuck?”

“Not a direct assignment, an unofficial directive.”

“A favor.”

Milo grunted.

“Considering who the request came from and who it's for, same difference, yeah?”

Milo regarded his partner with a raised brow. “You flew all the way here to bust my hump about a case?”

“A case that could boost or break your career with the AIA.”

“Since when do you care about my career?”

“Since you roped me into Chameleon. What affects you affects all of us, yeah?”

“Let me rephrase. Since when do you care about Chameleon? We both know the only reason you partnered with me was to keep your ass out of jail.”

“I have other reasons now.”

“That reason have anything to do with the blonde in the cartoon T-shirt?”

“It has to do with the likes of Simon the Fish.”

Milo gave the man credit. If he had Evie on the brain, he wasn't letting on. “Simon's dead.”

“World's crawling with his kind.”

“Developing a conscience, are you?”

“Nothing so profound.” Arch steered the car onto a back road, and just like that they were in the country, surrounded by sporadic green knolls, plowed fields and patches of dense woods. He didn't consult directions or a map. Wherever they were going, he'd been there before.

“So…what? This is an intervention? You're taking me to a safe house? Let me guess—Gina and Tabasco are waiting and they, along with you, will badger me until I see the error of my ways.”

“Something like that.”

“I knew they questioned my hesitation regarding this case, but I didn't think they'd come crying to you.”

“Pops called me.”

That stung. Samuel Vine was the one man he trusted without question. Wasn't like the old man to go behind his back. “Odd. He seemed sympathetic to Evie and her family crisis.”

“He is. But he's also worried
aboot
you. He figured I could investigate Evie's troubles, allowing you to focus on the senator.”

“I don't want to focus on powerhouses like Senator Clark. I don't want to recover the money his wife gambled away. He can afford to lose it, trust me. If he doesn't want to lose any more, he needs to have a talk with Mrs. Clark. Instead of courting Chameleon, he should be contacting Gamblers Anonymous.”

“But you're going to look into it.”

“I said I would.”

Arch slid on his sunglasses as they swung around the bend and drove into the midmorning rays. “I spoke with the Kid. According to the file he typed up per your briefing, Mrs. Clark swears she was cheated.”

“Lots of gamblers call foul when the cards don't go their way,” Beckett said, shoving on his own mirrored aviators.

“An invitation-only poker game taking place in a private room of a new local hot spot owned by Frank ‘Mad Dog' Turner, a former pro athlete turned restaurateur. Mrs. Clark learned
aboot
the exclusive game through a dealer at a nearby riverboat casino. Possible the dealer and Turner are in collusion, yeah? Possible the game's crooked.”

“Possible.” He slid Arch an annoyed look. “The only people invited to that game are hard-core players with deep pockets. The greedy who crave higher stakes. The arrogant who think they can beat the odds. The foolish who think they're too smart to be taken for a ride. The ideal sucker. Your mark of choice when you were still hustling. Wasn't it you who told me they got what they deserved?”

“Quite the speech.”

“Chameleon's my baby, Arch. I wanted an elite group that would champion the poor schmucks who get taken for their life savings. People too intimidated or embarrassed to report the crime. Or the ones who do file a complaint and fall through the cracks because their local bunko squad is overworked or the con artist is too damn slick. Instead the Agency's been pressing me to investigate high-profile cases. Pyramid schemes, franchise frauds, managed-earning scams. Scams that target the rich or suggest corporate corruption. Now this. Since we're on suspension—”

“Thanks to me.”

“—I chose to give priority to Mrs. Parish's potential mix-up in a fraud rather than win back the senator's wife's losses through deceit.”

“Crowe wants more than that. He wants us to send Turner packing, preferably
oot
of the country. No cops. No press.”

“No juicy fodder to muck up Clark's political career, present and future.”

“I
dinnae
like this any more than you, yeah?”

“Then why are you pushing? Not long ago, you told me if I wanted to make a difference, go freelance.”

“Aye. Still goes.”

“So?”

“So wouldn't it be better to leave the AIA on fantastic terms? To have a politician in our pocket? Who knows when we might have need of the Agency or Clark's help—and they'd be more inclined were we in good favor, yeah?”

Milo didn't answer. Arch was right and they both knew it.

The Scot pulled into a long driveway that led to a sprawling two-story redbrick mansion with a Queen Anne porch. He recognized the architectural style as Second Empire, which dated the house to the mid to late 1800s. The exterior was in immaculate condition, as were the picturesque grounds. As safe houses went, it was high-class. Then again, Arch always arranged for the best. On the cruise ship he'd booked a suite, whereas Milo had ended up with an inside cabin with no view.

“Last time we worked together,” he said, thinking back on Arch's obsession to fell a murdering hustler, “you were the one making knee-jerk decisions and I was the voice of reason.”

“Figured I owe you.”

“And Evie?”

“Definitely owe her.”

That comment bothered Milo, though he couldn't say why. Nothing in Arch's tone or expression to suggest gratitude beyond the obvious. The man had roped her into a sting that had curdled. Milo hadn't witnessed the incident, but he'd certainly handled the fallout. In the chaos, Evie had been knocked around and eventually knocked out, while Simon the Fish's lights had gone out for good.

“Grateful because her bungle presented you with an opportunity to pay back Simon—eye for an eye? Or regretful that she got hurt in the struggle?”

“Told you before—I'm not a killer.”

“But you did pull the trigger.”

“Let sleeping fish lie, Beckett. The world's better off.”

“No argument there.” In addition to art fraud and land-investment fraud, Simon the Fish aka Simon Lamont aka David Krebs had been involved in heavy rackets. Violent. Deadly. Hell, yeah, the world was better off.

Milo pressed his fingers to his temples, pressed away the throbbing, pushed back the doubt. Better to believe the killing had been circumstantial and not premeditated. Bottom line: though not entirely reformed, over the past couple of years Arch had proven himself one of the good guys. His expertise had been invaluable in felling numerous unscrupulous scams.
Let it go,
he told himself, adding the team's motto,
for the greater good.

Arch parked the compact rental in between two luxury sedans—a black Mercedes and a silver Audi. Tabasco would have arranged for the expensive wheels when he'd flown in the team. A beat-up Chevy wouldn't cut it for a hyped-up noble and his entourage.

Milo focused on the present ruse and regarded his partner with skepticism. “Northbrook, huh?”

“Ever see the movie
The Prince and the Showgirl?
”

“No.”

“Then never mind.”

“Northbrook got a first name?”

Arch's mouth quirked. “Not one you'd admit to.”

Great. “You know, this scenario could have worked the other way. I could've posed as Twinkie's boyfriend and you could've been my aide. If I didn't know better—and I don't—I'd think you had the Kid screw up my connecting flight so that Tabasco could get you here first. I'd think you didn't like the idea of me getting close to Evie even though it would be for show. Which implies jealousy, which implies you care about that woman seriously, which would be a first. As far as I know.”

Arch unbuckled his seat belt, popped the trunk, then stepped out. By the time Milo rounded the car the man had hoisted his suitcase from the trunk. Milo nabbed his laptop satchel.

“Jealousy had nothing to do with it,” Arch said as they walked toward the house. “It boils down to which one of us would make the more convincing baron. No offense, but your Scottish accent sucks.”

“And why does Evie have to be mixed up with a Scottish baron?”

“Because it's going to be beneficial in getting us invited to that private poker game.”

“Turner will do a background search, as will anyone who's interested in digging up dirt on the Baron of Broxley. I assume you backed up this guy's existence.”

“He's the real deal.”

“Sounds like you've got everything worked out.”

Now came that cocksure grin. “
Dinnae
I always?”