LITMIR.BIZ

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      COME ON, SAM. Where are you? Reese glanced toward the main house while keeping a smile on his face and his full attention, seemingly, on the blonde in front of him. The beach party was a lot smaller than they had expected. They’d figured over a hundred people. There were only about thirty, scattered in small groups on the sand.

      “So what more could I do to avoid taxes?” Eva Hern didn’t bat her eyes, but made long, sweeping moves with her eyelashes, many of which were the glue-on kind.

      Who wore fake eyelashes to the beach? And for heaven’s sake, why? He tried not to look at the little clumps of adhesive on her eyelids. Maybe he was out of step with fashion. He had no time to socialize.

      “You could give all your money to charity,” he said smoothly.

      They both laughed. Then he did his best to give an answer like his brother, David, the attorney whom he was impersonating, would. “I can’t really tell you anything without looking at your particular situation. I’d be happy to get together with you sometime next week in your office to chat about this.”

      Judging from the woman’s widening smile, he’d given the right answer.

      “I’ll call you. Definitely,” she said and wiggled her shoulders. She swam topless like most of the female guests, but had put on a see-through beach shirt when she’d decided to come over and chat him up.

      He made a point not to look below her eyes. It seemed to disappoint and frustrate her enough to keep her constantly moving, from pose to pose.

      He glanced at his watch. Sam had been gone for twenty minutes.

      Too long.

      She was supposed to get in and out as fast as she could. The plan was for her to take pictures of the Cavanaugh mansion’s back entry and kitchen with the micro camera she wore disguised as a large ring. She was pretending to be searching for a bottle of mineral water as they were out of “gentle” at the grass-hut bar outside.

      Another thing he had missed somehow, that mineral water now came in three varieties: still (pink cap), carbonated (blue cap) and gently carbonated (green cap)—some weird stuff Cavanaugh had apparently brought in from Europe. He thought of all those times when he and his men had drunk from puddles in the jungle or sucked moisture out of roots in the desert. Different worlds for sure.

      “How long are you staying on the island?” Eva was asking.

      “Maybe another week,” he said. He certainly had enough work to get back to.

      Except for Sam, who’d turned out to be okay, he couldn’t wait to be rid of this job. Going into an operation without a gun left him unsettled. They were armed only with a cell phone and a “secret weapon” that had come from one of the men on his team, Tony Ferrarella, who, in between missions, spent a lot of time in his lab, exercising his inventor genius. The can was a prototype, only with Reese by chance when he’d gotten the call from his brother and hopped the first plane to the island. He wished they had used it today. He couldn’t stand not knowing what was going on in there.

      The small can of what looked like breath-freshener spray contained microtransmitters too small to be seen by the naked eye. Each were too weak to work alone, but sprayed on a smooth surface they worked together to transmit voice over a hundred feet or so. They were undetectable, but highly vulnerable, good for about twenty-four hours, after which the fine sheen of dust that would naturally accumulate silenced them forever.

      He caught movement from the corner of his eye at the mansion. Cavanaugh was walking out with Sam.

      Reese was poised to come to her aid if she needed him, but then Sam laughed and linked her arm with Cavanaugh’s.

      Didn’t they just look like the best of friends? What in hell had she been doing in there all this time? He reached to his chest and pretended consternation at the fact that his cell phone wasn’t hanging there. He glanced toward the beach and the towel he’d been occupying, then flashed an apologetic smile to Eva.

      “I’m sorry. I seem to have left my cell in the room. I’d better go up there and get it. I’m expecting a call from a client.”

      “You couldn’t stop working just for a day or two?” Her eyes promised all kinds of incentives, although she was here at the party with her boyfriend, Derrick something or other.

      “Occupational hazard,” he said. “See you around?”

      “You bet.” She looked only slightly put out as she headed toward the beach.

      She had checked out legit. He’d called in the names of the guests to Brant as soon as he’d had them.

      Reese set his course toward one of the two guest bungalows that stood on either side of the Cavanaugh estate. Sam and he had been housed in the upstairs suite of the smaller. He’d seen plenty of fancy before: most of his clients had been big-time businessmen, and he’d spent time in their homes. Sam seemed uncomfortable, however, by the effortless splendor.

      Not that she needed anything more to make her feel self-conscious. The woman was a bundle of nerves as it was. He wished he could think up something that would set her at ease and give her some sense of security even if just for half an hour. Then again, the middle of a dangerous recon mission was probably not the right time to relax. He really hoped she was going to be able to work out her issues and move beyond her past. When he looked at her, beyond the beauty, he saw plenty of courage and potential.

      He wished he hadn’t let his distaste for the FBI’s strong-arm tactics show at the beginning, behaving like the morose bastard he could be when something rubbed him wrong. But he had a new client halfway across the world he was supposed to save. And would the FBI just give him the information he needed to do his job? Hell, no. They dangled it in front of him, forcing him to take on this mission first, stuff that had nothing to do with him. He’d been annoyed and let it show, and had probably scared her, which had been the flat-out stupidest thing to do considering her past and the fact that they were supposed to be a team.

      He slipped inside the house and went up the stairs, waited for her in the living room. Be nice.

      But then he laid eyes on her slim figure as she came in and it hit him what Cavanaugh could have done to her, alone in the big house. How the hell was he supposed to protect her when his hands were tied by the instructions he’d been given—protect without interfering. What kind of insane guideline was that?

      “What took you so long?” He could have kicked himself at how harsh his voice sounded.

      She cast him a wary glance. “I ran into Philippe.”

      He had checked their room for listening devices the first day they’d gotten there and rechecked again every single day. So far it seemed their host wasn’t snooping on his guests, so they could speak freely.

      “I saw.” He hadn’t missed the prolonged looks earlier either and the always too-bright smiles, Cavanaugh’s frequent excuses at conversation. He couldn’t blame the man, but he wasn’t going to let whatever the guy thought would happen go anywhere. Sam didn’t need that kind of harassment.

      He hadn’t been too fond of the mission at the beginning, but he was really starting to hate it now that he’d met Cavanaugh and his goons. Any way he looked at it, the women were being used in a dangerous game.

      Sam skirted by him toward the kitchen, and his gaze fell to her lower back, to the tattoo of a rose closed tight in a bud, the short stem having some pretty nasty-looking thorns. She stopped and drew a breath, turned to look him in the eye. He recognized the moment for what it was, her decision not to let him intimidate her. She had plenty of sheer guts, this one. He put the frown away.

      “So I saw Eva keeping you company,” she remarked with a smirk before continuing to the kitchen to search the fridge. She ate on the hour, every hour. Not that any of it stuck to her.

      “She wanted free tax advice,” he said, meaning to move away, but his attention stayed fixed on Sam.

      She wore a tasteful bikini

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