Survival Instinct (14 page)

Yes,
she thought.
That you will. Let’s just hope I don’t take you too close to what I really am.

Late afternoon found them at the safe house, tucked into a little neighborhood of cul-de-sacs on the southern edge of Alexandria. Total urban-suburbia, with minivans, cultivated landscaping and a high school behind them. The house itself was a modest Victorian with a corner turret and an unusually open first-story floor plan. The upstairs held three bedrooms and a huge bathroom, but Karin dumped her stuff in the smaller middle room, deliberately avoiding the master bedroom, a room that pushed into the turret space and boasted three large windows.

Dave tossed his stuff into the third bedroom in the back corner, then came to her door.

Karin looked up from where she tested the twin bed. She sat on the edge of it. “I won’t share my closet, but I never did need much space in a bed.”

He didn’t say anything, but she saw his eyes change. A smile hinted in the corners, and she thought he might come to her then and there. Eventually he said, “Good.” And then he glanced over his shoulder toward his bedroom. “Done booting up. I can start in on that research for you right away. There are take-out lists in the kitchen if you want to pick your favorite.”

“Humph.” Karin leaned back on her arms, sinking into the bed. “And what do your neighbors think of this little house? Occupied by a stream of different people, sometimes vacant, and lots of takeout. Doesn’t exactly fit into the neighborhood.”

He shrugged. “Ostensibly, this place serves as temporary dwelling for travelers coming in for training and special projects out of D.C. It works. By the way, you’re a civilian worker with the Army Corps of Engineers, contracting on a land-assessment project. I thought it might fit your sense of irony.”

“Yes indeed.” Smart-ass. She gestured him away. “Go play with your notes. I’m going to take a shower, and then I’ll order something pizza-ish. I’d like to get an early start tomorrow.” If she could locate the right printers…if Dave could locate the information to put the finishing touches on her approach…

By all rights she should have had weeks to gain Longsford’s interest and his confidence. But this was the time to strike. Longsford was at his most reactive, his most vulnerable. And she had an ace she could play any time she wanted.

Ellen.

With this new makeover she didn’t truly resemble Ellen anymore; he’d probably see nothing in her but a puzzling familiarity. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t let Ellen’s mannerisms peek out. Puzzling him. Enticing him. Reeling him in.

Now
that
was a line she didn’t intend to tell Dave she’d walk.

She waved him out, then dumped her purchases from the morning—underwear, a slew of casual shirts, a lightweight hooded jacket. She plucked up a few items and headed for the shower. She could hear Dave tapping away, but when she looked inside his room she found he’d forgone the small desk to sit on the floor, his back to the wall and his feet braced high against the side of the bed. Total guy mode. He’d pulled the pillow from the bed for a lap desk and now was frowning in concentration over the laptop display. Upset about something, she would have said.

Longsford, no doubt. But this research was the one thing he could do, quickly and extensively, better than she could. And it left her free to concentrate on her own role. She walked Brooke’s walk down the hall to the bathroom. A saucier walk than her own, yet not slutty. No, not at all. More a runway walk than a street walk.

She showered as Brooke would do…as Karin herself might have chosen, before a year of living on a farm where the well water sometimes ran low. Luxuriating in the halfway decent hand lotion, using the provided blades and shaving cream on her legs. She let her hair air-dry in a tousled bed-head look and left the Brooke makeup unused on the sink counter, ready for the morning.

She emerged from the steamy room to the enticing odor of pizza and followed her nose down the stairs. The formal dining area had been converted to a small but completely functional office, and the desktop computer now hummed to itself along with the printer. Dave and his notes had been busy.

She found them all—Dave, the notes, the pizza—at the back of the house in the kitchen breakfast nook. A pizza slice hung crookedly in his grip, looking forgotten. The papers spread out over the small table, pushing the box into a precarious position at the edge. When he saw her, he dropped his piece back into the box and pulled it to a safer spot, making way for her to sit opposite him. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t wait. But you said pizza-ish, so I hope this is okay. It’s their meaty version.”

All perfectly normal. Dave, deep in thought, surrounded by his notes in hard copy, ordering the pizza he thought—rightly so—that she’d like.

Then why had something inside her stumbled when he looked up at her? Why did she have that little warning trill in her head, the one that always told her when a scam was going off course? The difference being, this time she didn’t try to hide it. She didn’t try to smooth things over or retreat to reassess. She didn’t try to pretend nothing was wrong at all. She asked, “What’s up?”

He didn’t quite look at her. “Just wishing I could have caught this bastard years ago. Looking at him in the society pages, living his privileged life…” He shook his head. “There’s nothing right about any of it.”

Uh-huh. Very true. But not the reason for his change in demeanor. She told him, “Well, we’re here to change that,” and slipped into a chair to help herself to a couple of pieces of pizza. He nudged the notes her way and she glanced at them with approval. Just what she needed—a neat list of contacts with details. Dave had highlighted two couples who were currently out of town, but who usually appeared in Longsford’s personal orbit. She ran her finger over the green highlighter. “You’re such a nerd,” she said. “This is great.”

“Good,” he said, but his voice was studiously neutral.

She looked up at him, eyes narrowed. This was more than anger at Longsford. Definitely more. “If you’re thinking I can’t carry this off—”

He shook his head before she even finished. “I have no doubt you can do this,” he told her. “I’m not so sure
I
can do it.” He scraped his chair back and took the pizza box, stuffing the leftovers into the fridge.

He’s not just talking about the scam.

She couldn’t even remember a moment when there hadn’t been some sort of spark between them, from the first moment she’d watched him deal with Ellen’s dog. Sometimes it flared to rocket-fuel intensity, sometimes it merely glimmered. But it had always been there.

Not now.

“You’ll do fine,” she said. Lame, so lame.

“I’m headed up for bed.” He gestured toward the front of the house. “We’re all locked up and the alarm system is engaged, so don’t go for any midnight walks if you have trouble sleeping.”

“You’re—” she started, and again he didn’t let her finish.

“Early day tomorrow, you said. Let’s be ready for it.”

“Okay. Sure. That makes good sense.” Lame and lamer. She should have been demanding to know the problem, digging away at it.

But she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer.

Chapter 15

S
on of a bitch.

Dave looked at himself in the mirror over the small dresser in his bedroom. His hair was gold-bright even in the low-wattage light, and the shadow of his eyes looked more haunted in contrast.
I’m talking about you, Hunter.

Back at that farmhouse, he’d talked himself out of believing that his response to “Ellen” held no conflict of interest. That he could make love to her right on the floor of her office.
Make love, hell. More like wild sex. Great wild sex.

Turned out there was a conflict of interest after all.

He hadn’t expected these knotted results. Knots that blurred the lines between right and wrong and for the first time in his life left him unable to see where one turned into the other. Left him with a big bewildered empty spot where she’d so quickly made herself a part of him.

But then, that was what she was good at, wasn’t it?

It hadn’t taken his L.A. friend long to get him background on Karin Sommers. Her stepfather, Gregg Rumsey, had had early arrests and then seemed to have cleaned up his act. Dave knew he’d only hidden himself behind a little girl. No doubt he’d also finally gotten some good fixes in the local law agencies. Either way, he and his stepdaughter had kept a low profile until just over a year ago.

Until the elderly Vasilkovs. Irene and Earl. Shortly before their deaths, their retirement savings had dwindled significantly. Friends, interviewed after their deaths, were certain they’d been investing in some secret scheme. They’d left a joint suicide note, but nothing that convinced the M.E. to ignore the evidence of homicide. They’d closed in on Rumsey.

But Rumsey, with much beating of breast and teary regret, had provided an alibi and pointed the finger at his missing stepdaughter.

Karin Sommers.

Evidence was forthcoming. A warrant issued.

A warrant Dave would honor, as soon as he was done here.

So what did that make him?

A son of a bitch.

And what did it make her? The woman he’d come to know and admire in these past intense days, so composed that she could make up her absurd Mad Sheep disease while clinging to the side of a mountain? She’d meant to run, sure, but she’d also changed her mind when she’d realized she could help.

Or maybe she simply planned to complete the scam to finance another run for it. Because she was far deeper underground than she’d let on. Not just running from her nasty stepfather, oh no.

Running from a murder conviction.

He snorted at the man in the mirror. The Hunter family’s fair-haired boy, the youngest brother with so much potential who’d never lived up to expectations. No, he was too tied to his own goals, too attached to an honor that was more about helping the helpless and hopeless than hitting the international scene for the high-concept spy gigs. Satisfied to get his criminology degree and his investigator’s license and to poke around in the bones of tragic cases, trying—and often succeeding—to make everything turn out right for that one child, that one family.

He had no excuse for leaving Karin free to run this scam. No excuse for hiding his knowledge from her, except that he wanted to use her before he turned her in. He’d finally become willing to trade his pristine honor intact for results.
I want Longsford.
And to get the man, Dave was scamming a scammer.

At least he was fully aware of his own price.

And, thinking of Karin’s quietly stricken expression, her tacit acknowledgment of the change between them…of that bittersweet empty spot among the knots in his stomach…

He also knew the cost.

Karin woke to an unfamiliar ceiling, a tingling undercurrent touching her thoughts. Familiar enough, but not something she’d felt for a while. Mixed in was a sadness, and though she’d felt plenty of that since Ellen’s death, this was different. More sorrow and regret than outright grief.

She stared at the ceiling fan until the details trickled in. She was building a scam, that was what. She was in Alexandria, in Dave Hunter’s borrowed safe house, and she was building a scam. The jazz.
Oh yeahhh.
She’d learned to embrace it—to focus on it, so she wouldn’t focus on the other aspects of her work. Just as she’d learned to embrace the complicated scams, to bury herself in the challenge.

Rumsey was the one who worked the easy marks. The elderly, who were often gullible and just a little confused, and who could be beguiled by the thought of leaving a fortune to their children. There was no jazz in that. There hadn’t been for a long, long time.

But those who were rich and in the prime of their lives, they made their own choices. Like Longsford, their greed was their weak spot. And constructing a deeply layered scam that could hit that weak spot dead on…

That was Karin’s weak spot.

But now there was sadness weighing against the building thrill of this scam.

Dave.

He’d figured her out, it seemed. Seen too much.

So she stared at the ceiling fan, and she realized the most important thing: he hadn’t changed his mind. He might not like what he saw anymore, but he would still work with her. They’d still go after Longsford. Ellen’s revenge.

Yes.

And the second important thing: she could deal with his change of heart. She’d expected it. She knew better than most not to take anything for granted. And what they’d experienced together…

She’d miss it, be sad for it…but never regret it.

Do what you have to do. Take what you can get.

It had worked before. She’d make it work now.

She breezed down into the kitchen to nab leftover pizza for breakfast. A glass of orange juice washed the pepperoni down with a nice zing. Dave appeared not long afterward, fresh from the shower in the worn black jeans and a charcoal tee and looking wary. Wary of her, wary of himself…even in her regret, she felt a little sorry for him. Of the two of them, she’d known what she was doing when she reached for him in the tiny dormer office of Ellen’s house. He hadn’t a clue.

Still wouldn’t have a clue, if she hadn’t done a true confessions on him.

She pulled the sadness inside and covered it up with the jazz. “Ready to get started?” she asked him, leaning back against the counter to watch him take out three eggs and a bowl, cracking the eggs with practiced efficiency.

His glance turned into something longer, a hesitation as he searched her face—long enough so she wondered just what he was looking for. He nodded abruptly and took a fork to the eggs, whipping them with vigor. “What’s on the schedule?”

“Depends how much we get done, how fast.” She squelched the urge to wipe away the tiny dab of shaving cream by his ear and held out a closed hand, unfolding her index finger as she spoke. “One, we get me into a hotel. Something truly nice but still practical.”

“I know a place on King Street near the river,” Dave interrupted, then softened—or tried to—the words by adding, “I’ve gotten to know this place pretty well in the past couple of years.”

“Good.” Dammit. Maybe this wouldn’t be quite as easy as she thought, the pretending it didn’t matter. “Then you know where to look for good printers.
Expensive
printers who think much of themselves and their clientele. And also the pawnshops. Skanky ones.”

He poured a dollop of milk in with the eggs and briefly whipped them together, then went hunting for a frying pan. “Interesting combination.”

“We’ll be changing roles on the fly. You’re my driver and my boy toy. You’ll handle my suitcase and open my door, and when I’m dealing with business transactions, you’ll stand decorously in the background. If you cast an admiring look at my ass now and then, that would be good, too.”

He fumbled the frying pan on the way to the stove, caught it, and turned to give her a skeptical look.

“We’re playing my game,” she said. “Trust me to do it right. I retired free and clear, after all.”

“Did you?” he murmured, as if that was supposed to mean something.

Impatience flashed through her. “Are we doing this, or not?” she asked. “Because I’m good to stay here until Longsford forgets about Ellen. But I won’t run this con if you’re going in half-assed. It’s all or nothing.”

He stood in front of the stove for a long moment, his back turned to her. His long, deep breath showed clearly in the rise and fall of his shoulders. Abruptly, he flicked the gas burner on. “Yeah,” he said. “We’re doing this.”

She didn’t respond right away. She let him dump a pat of butter into the pan and push it around the bottom, and meanwhile she weighed the risks. The long con…all in the details. And like it or not, he was an important detail. His demeanor could make or break this game. “You’d better mean it,” she said. “If we’re blown, I’m the one who’s going to pay.” She’d be revealed to the authorities. She’d end up back in California, vulnerable to her stepfather’s legal contacts, charged with whatever bogus crimes he’d had pinned on her.

“That’d be a change, wouldn’t it?” He looked at her then, a meaningful side glance as he reached for the eggs.

Flash point.
“You let me know when you’re done being a bastard,” she told him, cold anger spilling into temper. “And while you’re at it, you might think about who
you
would be if you’d had my stepfather controlling your life. If
you’d
gone to your first-grade teacher for help and been scolded for lying. If your teacher had gone to your stepfather about it. What do you think happened then, Mr. Perfect-Family Hunter? Do you think you might possibly have discovered the best way to survive was to play the game? Do you think you might have decided the best way to avoid collecting more scars was to be
good
at it?”

The eggs sizzled quietly in an otherwise quiet kitchen. Eventually, he said, “I don’t know.”

“You just think about it,” she told him, anger still hard in her chest. “I’ll be upstairs. I picked up a good paperback yesterday and it’s fine with me if I spend the day in bed reading.”

She left him there and went upstairs, the jazz gone and the sadness twisted into hurt.
I don’t know.

She thought it was probably as good as she’d get.

She didn’t head for the bed. Or at least, not for long. She picked up the book, she sat down…and she stood right back up again. Then she sat one more time, forcing herself to think through the impulse that gripped her.

I can do this alone. I
should
do this alone.

She’d be better off doing it alone than doing it with someone who wouldn’t trust her. Someone who questioned her. Not about whether she could do it, but about whether he wanted to be part of it. Not a courage issue…an honor issue. He had courage to spare, she’d no doubt of that. Problem was, he had honor to spare, too.

That kind of hesitation could break a long con. Especially a rushed job like this, when the mark had to have no doubt at all. And she could all too easily imagine Dave balking at a crucial moment.

She could do it alone. And it still had to be done. For Ellen, for Terry Williams, for Rashawn…

It had to be done.

And that left the details, all of which needed quick revisions. It’d be more money, of which she had not nearly enough. And she’d be on her own…no backup. She could hire someone, but that would be hit or miss in this area in which she had no connections. Nor did she have a fix in with any of the local cops.

Yeah, she’d have to be careful.

But she could do it.

This time when she stood up, she went into action. She dug into her courier bag and pulled out the leather wallet that held Brooke Ellington’s ID. Brooke would have been best for this, but Dave already knew about her. So she’d use Maia Brenner. Maia had been created to live in Nebraska but traveled often for her bank job. It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch.

And then there was the money. She could pull easy con games along the way—Rock in a Box, the Ketchup Squirt, phoney C.O.D. scams—but she didn’t want to increase her chances of getting caught. Not when Dave would already be on her tail the whole time. Picking pockets or trading briefcases was as far as she wanted to go.

Do what you have to do.

Except this past year,
do what you have to do
had turned into getting up early for chores, harvesting food she’d grown herself, trading the excess for the venison that filled the freezer she’d left behind, and shearing her own damned sheep. It had meant a different kind of jazz…a quiet jazz. Sitting up in the dormer office writing to Ellen, letting her know how things were going.

Stop it.
She’d sabotage herself if she wasn’t careful. If she was going to do this, she’d have to focus on her needs and her solutions. Need: money. Solution?

She stood in the doorway to her bedroom and cocked an ear at the stairs. The splash of water came to her ear; the clatter of the fry pan in the sink.
As good as it gets.

She moved swiftly to Dave’s room, bypassing the closed laptop to reach for his overnight bag. She knew much of the contents were in the bathroom, but she was willing to bet—

Ah, yes. Her hand closed around cold metal. His Ruger DAO. Very nice. It wasn’t what she’d come for, but she didn’t hesitate to take it or his extra magazines. She rifled his laptop case and headed for the small dresser.

Oh yeah.

His wallet looked back up at her from the top drawer, ripe for the taking. And she might have done it, had she not wanted to keep him off balance. She wanted him wondering what she was up to and wondering what he should do about it, not raging after her in a fury. So she grabbed a few twenties to help cover immediate cash expenses and then hesitated over his credit cards.
Yes. It’s what you came for.
No time to get flinchy about it. She pulled them out of their little card slots, assessing them, knowing which company was more likely to call immediately about what they felt were unusual purchases and which wasn’t. Karin tapped a finger on the one he’d used to buy their clothes the previous day and almost plucked it from the batch.