True Lies (11 page)

That was the point where her plans whirred to a stop. Hug him, or shake him?

The minute hand of her watch inched toward the hour. Emma sucked in deep, controlled breaths to pump oxygen to her screaming nerves, then reached for the door handle and stepped out of the truck.

Headlights blinked on from the darkness, exposing her where she stood. She forced herself not to flinch or to squint against the brightness. Crossing her arms over her chest, she took up a pose of patient waiting.

A car door opened. Crisp footsteps echoed across the pavement toward her until a slim man stepped into the headlights beam. He was completely bald. In the stark lighting, his face had the tight angles of a skull. “You're punctual, Miss Duprey. Good. Come with me.”

It was the voice from the phone, the man who had struck her brother and made him cry out with pain. She wanted to lunge at him and claw out his eyes. “Where is Simon?”

“He isn’t here.” He walked toward the warehouse, evidently assuming she would follow.

“I won’t go anywhere until I know that he’s all right.”

He turned, and his skull-like features tightened with impatience. “Let’s get something straight here, Miss Duprey. You're in no position to give anyone orders. If I feel like it, I might let you speak with your brother when our business is completed for the evening, but until then, you do as I say.”

She straightened her shoulders and followed him to the small door that was set into the wall beside the sign.

The interior was cavernous, the lone row of lights overhead barely denting the gloom. Emma’s high heels gritted across a cement floor as the bald man led her through alternating pools of light and shadow toward a glassed-in office at the far end of the building. In the stark illumination from the fluorescent ceiling fixtures on the other side of the glass she could see a gray-haired man in a navy blue pin-striped suit. He sat behind a steel desk that held numerous papers, a coffee cup, a telephone and a gun. She focused on the gun, her throat closing with fear. She didn’t have to know the make or model of it to understand its deadliness.

Oh, God. She couldn’t handle this. She wanted to scream, turn around and run away, pretend this was all a bad dream and that Simon would be coming back with her plane in a minute and she would never scold him for his sloppy flying again and....

A firm hand on the small of her back propelled her through the doorway into the office.

The man behind the desk looked up and Emma felt something inside her recoil. Everything about him, from the thin, almost nonexistent lips to the cold gray eyes, projected the merciless intensity of an executioner. Oh, Simon, what have you done?

It took only twenty-three minutes for them to explain exactly what Simon had done. The gray-haired man, whose name was McQuaig, detailed the flight path, the rendezvous point and the loading procedure. As the details mounted, so did Emma’s horror. The chances Simon had taken were insane. She couldn’t do this. She wouldn’t.

Despite the tight control she kept on her feelings, something must have shown on her face. McQuaig paused, glanced at the other man, and snapped his fingers, pointing toward the telephone. “Let her talk to him, Harvey,” he said tonelessly.

The bald man with the face like a skull was named Harvey? She thought the name was ludicrously ordinary, like Jimmy Stewart’s giant rabbit. And on the heels of that thought came the realization that she was close to losing control. She dug her nails into her palms, her pulse counting off the seconds, while Harvey the skull man dialed and spoke a few terse words into the phone. He held the receiver out to her. “This isn’t because you asked,” he said. “It’s because we chose to. Remember that.”

She wiped her palm on her skirt and took the receiver. “Hello? Simon?” Nothing but silence greeted her. She felt her heart clench and looked at McQuaig. He stared back at her with flat indifference.

Suddenly, her brother’s voice, weak but recognizable, drifted through the receiver. “Emma?”

Her breath whooshed out. “Simon! Are you all right?”

There was a long pause. Then he spoke quickly, his words running together as if he were worried about getting them all out. “Do what they say, Emma, please, please, I'm scared, they'll kill me if you don’t.”

“Simon, where—”

“That’s enough,” McQuaig said, pressing his finger down on the disconnect. The line went dead. “Don’t try anything cute. Just do the job your brother was supposed to do, and we'll all come out of this satisfied.”

From outside the warehouse came the sound of screeching tires and the throaty noise of a powerful engine. Both men glanced at each other as if already dismissing her presence. McQuaig gestured toward the emptiness on the other side of the glass wall of the office. “He’s early. Bring him inside while I finish up with the pilot.”

The pilot, she thought numbly. The word that had once connoted freedom now sounded dirty. Emma moved away from the phone on the desk, trying to hang on to the threads of her unraveling composure. Through the glass wall she watched Harvey walk across the cavernous gloom to the outer door.

The new arrival stepped into the first pool of light, suddenly materializing from the shadows. Emma felt her heart thump hard. Even with the width of the warehouse between them, this man looked more dangerous than either of the others. He was tall, maybe an inch or two over six feet. He moved with the sleek, fluid ease of a big cat as he peeled off his black leather jacket and held his arms extended outward at his sides. Harvey said something that elicited a negligent shrug, then passed his hands over the man’s body in a swift but thorough check for weapons. Evidently nothing was found, and the man was waved forward.

He walked with a riveting combination of arrogance and grace. It was more subtle than a strut, the way his legs stretched confidently and his hips rolled just enough to suggest a casual sensuality. For a moment he faded into the shadows, then reappeared in the next pool of light, and Emma felt her palms sweat.

He hadn’t put the jacket back on. He hooked it with two fingers, letting it hang over his shoulder—his bare shoulder. The olive drab undershirt he wore exposed almost as much skin as it concealed, and that skin was stretched taut over solid muscle. She tried to look away, hoping to ignore the involuntary clutch of...something that responded to his blatant masculinity. But she couldn’t. He came closer, and she was able to see more details. He didn’t have the sterile shape of a bodybuilder but rather the firm, rangy physique of a man who used his body hard.

“You can use the same crates as your brother.”

She jerked, her gaze snapping back to the man behind the desk. “What?”

“Cover the merchandise with rocks, just like he did. But as long as you keep your mouth shut, you won’t be stopped.” He picked up his gun and sucked in his stomach in order to tuck the weapon into his waistband. “You'll have until 10:00 the morning after the pickup to deliver the merchandise to the location we tell you. Your brother will be waiting there. We remove one of his fingers for each minute you're late.”

Dots danced in front of her eyes. Breathing in deeply, she grabbed on to the corner of a battered filing cabinet to steady herself. “I'll be there.”

“Good.”

The solid footsteps that were echoing from the concrete grew nearer. Clenching her jaw, she delved for a reserve of strength in order to straighten her spine. This was a business deal, she told herself. She couldn’t let them see her weakness. “Fine. Then we have a deal, Mr. McQuaig. Just let me know the date and time.”

“We'll be in touch.” He glanced at the doorway. “Mr. Primeau?”

A deep, resonant voice replied. “Yeah. You McQuaig?”

“Yes. Please, come in.”

Emma felt the man’s presence the moment he stepped into the office. She kept her gaze on the floor until he moved into her field of vision. He wore black leather cowboy boots, not the dusty, beat-up kind but the highly polished, expensively tooled kind. Black, skintight denim hugged the muscular contours of his calves and thighs and clung indecently to his slim hips. The olive drab undershirt molded against washboard firmness. Emma tightened her fingers on the edge of the filing cabinet to keep from trembling.

“I've heard good things about you from our mutual acquaintance in Chicago,” McQuaig was saying. “What brings you out here to the coast?”

“Business.” He shifted to drop his jacket over the back of a chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “I heard you're reliable. My last source retired prematurely, and I'm looking for someone who can supply my customers on a regular basis. You interested?”

Something stirred at the back of Emma’s mind as she listened to the voice. It was rich and deep-chested. She knew she would have remembered if she had heard it before, but still it seemed familiar. She looked at the man’s powerful arms, then raised her gaze as far as his chin. It was a long, stubborn chin set in a square jaw. His skin gleamed with the tightness of a fresh shave, but he wore his hair on the long side. It was dark blond, slicked straight back from his face and caught into a short ponytail at the back of his head. A thin gold chain with a cross on the end of it dangled from his right earlobe.

On some men the ponytail and the earring might look effeminate. They had the opposite effect with this Primeau. Everything about him, from the sensual walk to the arrogant stance to the aura of leashed power in his lean muscles, exuded raw masculinity.

“As a matter of fact, a regular supply is what I guarantee,” McQuaig said. “My network is second to none.”

“That’s what I heard.”

“My latest shipment has already been distributed, but I should have several kilos by the end of the week. Harvey,” he said, gesturing toward Emma. “Get her out of here.”

That was one order that Emma was eager to comply with. She was unraveling. On top of the panic over the threats to Simon, and the horror of what she had to do, this gut-level reaction to the man called Primeau was making her sick with revulsion. She knew what he was. He was a drug dealer. He was the next link in the obscene chain, the one that would distribute the white death to its ultimate victims.

Until now, she had focused on his walk, his clothes and his body. As she was straightening up to leave, she raised her gaze to his face.

He was staring at her, and his eyes were...beautiful. The color was a brilliant blue, unlike anything she had seen in her life. Surrounded by long, thick lashes, his gaze was fascinating, like an unexpected glimpse of clear sky. His eyebrows were bold and straight, angled downward in a frown. His nose was long and narrow, with a subtle bump in the center...

She blinked. No, it was impossible.
Impossible.

His cheekbones were high, with hollows carved beneath them that would be partly hidden by a beard...

Her breathing stopped, simply suspended on a gasp. This was crazy. She must have snapped from the tension, but this drug dealer bore an uncanny resemblance to...

No. It couldn’t be.

Rapidly her gaze traveled over him again. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on that tautly muscular body. There was nothing shy about his arrogant stance, nothing plain or awkward about the boots or the tight clothes or the earring that dangled defiantly down the side of his neck.

His firm, well-formed lips spread into a smile with no warmth. “Hi, there, sweet thing.”

She stared at his lips. She knew their shape, and their texture. But this didn’t make sense. She had never seen this drug-dealing scum in her life. Had she?

“Harvey, I told you to get her out of here.”

“What’s your hurry?” The man who called himself Primeau moved between Emma and the office door. “A woman like this does wonders for the decor in here, McQuaig. She yours?”

Disgust, along with anger, tightened Emma’s stomach, adding to the insane suspicions whirling in her head. She tried to step around him, but he shifted smoothly, blocking her path.

McQuaig laughed, a low grating sound like an unused hinge. “Primeau, meet Emma Duprey. She’s our pilot.”

“Her? A woman?”

“She'll be bringing in the next shipment.”

“So she’s working for you?”

“We have a mutual agreement, don’t we, Miss Duprey?” McQuaig drawled.

She nodded numbly, not taking her gaze from the man who stood in front of her. Were those hints of sun-streaked gold in his tightly slicked hair?

“Hey, she can fly my friendly skies anytime.”

The crude comment sickened her. She must be mistaken. The kind, gentle accountant would never—

Before she could move, Primeau’s hand shot out and fastened on her upper arm. His grip was like an iron band. If she struggled, she would have bruises. He brought his face close to hers, his unbelievably beautiful eyes holding her spellbound.

She felt it then, that spark between them. The man-to-woman, hunter-to-hunted connection. The bond of recognition that dwelled in the depths of instinct. The truth seared across her mind in a dazzling flash.

It was impossible.

But it was Bruce.
Bruce.
In a different body, a different person, but she knew it was the
same man!

Before a single sound could escape her frozen lips, he swooped closer and brought his mouth next to her ear. “Play along,” he breathed, “or we're both dead.”

She couldn’t move. Her pulse raced, her lungs heaved. She felt a swirling disorientation threaten to sap the last of the dwindling strength that kept her knees from dissolving.

He pulled back and stared straight into her eyes, the message in his gaze as clear as a shout. His mouth moved into a cold smile and he released her arm to rub the crest of his knuckles across her cheek.

The contact was a hollow parody of the tender caresses Bruce had given her in the past. Bruce. How?
Why?
Confusion fogged her brain. She could barely deal with her anxiety over her brother and her fear over what she had to do for these criminals. She couldn’t deal with these questions that had no answers.

Bruce—yes, Bruce—grasped her wrist and tugged her forward, bringing her hard against the front of his body.