LITMIR.BIZ

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ago. She was glad she’d reported her whereabouts back to the New Orleans bureau in spite of Connor telling her to keep quiet, and that she’d warned Sherwood that things might get dicey.

      “Bring him in, Gilbert. Nothing dicey about that.”

      Did he mean Louis Armond or Connor Randall? Sherwood didn’t care for the charming informant. But Joseph Sherwood didn’t seem to care for anyone around him, for that matter.

      “Sir, I can’t do that.” She explained on the way out what Connor had told her. “Armond refuses to let him leave. So he’s set me up to help with the situation. Alone. Armond doesn’t want the feds anywhere around this estate. Let me go in and see what I can find. Randall and I will figure out how to handle this, and I’ll try to keep you posted. But I need your permission to go dark if necessary.”

      Sherwood had reluctantly agreed. Now she had to show him she knew her stuff. Her boss already gave off an air of disdain whenever she spoke to him. Maybe he resented having to take on an agent who’d messed things up in her last assignment.

      Just one more reason for Josie to make this one work.

      Connor Randall met her at the low steps onto the brick-floored porch. Glancing toward the two-ton guard at the door, he pulled Josie aside. “You did come alone, right?”

      She wanted to say, “No, actually, I brought the whole New Orleans bureau with me.” But she was too intrigued and too hopeful that she could corner two rats at once. Tonight’s operation had her rattled. She was out here on her own, with no backup, making this up as she went. She wouldn’t admit that part of the shake-up inside her soul had to do with this man, who sure looked good in a tux.

      “I’m alone,” she replied. Then she lowered her voice. “But I did report in, since my SAC told me to bring you both back to town, so I can’t hold them off for too long. The news of a dead woman near the opera house has already hit the airwaves.”

      She didn’t need to explain that the FBI and the NOPD already had forensic teams on-site at the crime scene. The locals would take the lead, then turn things over to the FBI.

      Connor’s expression turned dark and hard to read. “Has Armond’s name come up?”

      “Not yet to the public. But I’m to get you both to a safe house immediately.”

      Connor’s surprised look changed to a resolved one. “And you managed to hold Sherwood off for a while?”

      “Yes, but he wasn’t happy. He wants to go by the book on this one so Armond won’t bolt.”

      “Any mention of a black sports car on the scene?”

      She shook her head. “Only a dark car. That’s the official word.” Tired of the interrogation, she said, “I need to be briefed, and don’t leave anything out.”

      “I’ll explain everything,” he said.

      “You’d better. I’m risking a lot, coming here on my own.”

      Too late, she realized she was also locked in. The high iron fences and the army of guards told the tale of illegal comings and goings. What if Armond refused to let either of them leave? She’d read dossiers about torture tactics and worse, especially regarding agents who’d been caught. And she knew firsthand what could happen to informants who got caught. Putting those images out of her mind, Josie gathered her thoughts.

      “Armond might pretend to be ready to cooperate, but someone scared him silly tonight. He’s desperate and that can be dangerous.” The threat of death made people do desperate things.

      Connor cleared his throat and whispered close, “But we’ve got him right where we want him. He believes you’re here to help us. And...he’s kind of holding this over my head, if you get my drift.”

      “How did you get involved, anyway?” she asked while she did another visual of the well-lit gardens and the too-dark tree line. Even with guard dogs, someone with criminal intent could get in here. “He and you should have been inside, finishing up with what we hope is the information we’ve all been waiting for.”

      “I was on my way in when this happened. I’d just turned into the parking garage.” He glanced back at the double front doors. “I saw Armond standing there with his mistress. Which was so not like Armond. Then I saw the woman fall to the ground. I backed out of the garage and floored it to Armond. He was leaning over her in shock, a gun in his hand.”

      “You saw him shoot her?”

      “No. I saw him leaning over her with a gun. But when he looked around and glanced up to the rooftop above them, I figured a sniper had done it.”

      “So you stopped to chat?”

      “I stopped and called out to him to get in my car. His guards hurried to surround him, but he turned and came around my car and jumped inside. Told me to drive.”

      “Why did you take that chance?” she asked, wondering if he’d thought this through. “You should have called me right away.”

      “He seemed especially grateful to have a getaway car, and his guards scattered, so I had to do something. Then he held a gun to my head,” Connor replied. He shrugged as if this whole affair was nothing much. “Two thoughts entered my mind. One, he wanted me to get him out of there, and two, he was so erratic, he might decide to shoot me if I didn’t do his bidding.”

      Ignoring his cool explanation, she asked, “And you didn’t think to call this in to 911?”

      “Look, I’ve been tailing him when I could. I know I’m supposed to stay out of sight but I was so close to getting him for good last year. And tonight, well, I thought this would finally be over. This was supposed to be the last time I had to deal with the man.”

      He put a hand against one of the colossal columns and gave her a blue-eyed stare. “I didn’t think. I just went after him before he got shot, too. If he gets himself killed, we’ll never get the information and evidence we need to get to the real power behind his empire.”

      “Great. So now I’m an unofficial accomplice to two of my informants leaving the scene of a murder?”

      “He didn’t kill her,” Connor replied. “He was with her, but he didn’t kill her. The kill shot hit her clean and right between the eyes, and I didn’t hear the shot. That means it came from a distance and it was silenced. He did pull out his gun, so someone could have seen that and misinterpreted it.”

      She doubted him already. She wasn’t confident in the plan to come out here, since Connor had been the one to mastermind it. Josie liked to be in control, so her first few weeks on the job at her new assignment were not going as she’d planned. She couldn’t afford to mess up another big case with a wanted suspect. And yet, she’d gone way beyond the call of duty by convincing her boss that she needed to see this through. Now, why was that?

      Maybe it had been the hard-edged request from Connor over the phone, or it could now be the serious glint in Connor’s storm-blue eyes. Why did they seem so much darker in the moonlight? And why in the world should she trust this man?

      Well, the higher-ups—excluding Sherwood, of course—seemed to dote on him and praised his services, assuring her that Connor Randall had turned over a new leaf. Since she didn’t always believe in second chances or quick change-of-heart turnovers, she found that hard to swallow. She was about to test that theory.

      Could she be sure? Lord, grant me wisdom.

      “What do you expect me to do, besides haul you both in?”

      Connor gave her that steady, level stare that worked on most other women. “I expect you to do your job. We have one of the most notorious mobsters in this country in there waiting for us to help him out of a sticky situation. And we don’t have much of a choice, the way I see it.” He leaned close, his smile as enticing as the moonlight. “And we could both use a break, don’t you think?”

      Josie pushed at her hair, rattled that

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