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She’d probably look okay in a bikini, too.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t miss the terror that lay just beneath the surface of her demeanor, which could mean one of two things, or possibly both: abusive husband-boyfriend, or missing child.
He was not in any shape to take on either of those types of cases right now. One, they didn’t pay enough. Two, in about five minutes he was officially on vacation.
But, damn it, he was the only one at the First Strike office. Everybody else was out working cases, even Lori.
“I’m looking for Rex Bettencourt,” she said, her voice soft, sure, but not without a tiny tremor.
It figured she’d be looking for him. He considered denying all knowledge of any Rex Bettencourt, but he couldn’t turn his back on a woman in trouble. Never had been able to. “That would be me.”
“I read about you in that magazine. They say you’re the best.”
“I am the best,” he confirmed, not out of any need for an ego trip, but because it was true. In the four years since he’d come to work for First Strike, the agency co-founded by his father and his father’s army buddy, Ace McCullough, he’d amassed more reward money than any other bounty hunter in the country. Mostly he managed to do it working in conjunction with law enforcement, so police and federal agents not only welcomed him, but sought him out on tough cases. His success sometimes afforded him unwanted publicity.
“My daughter has been taken.”
Score one for Rex’s instincts. “By her father?”
The woman nodded.
“Why don’t you let me refer you to one of my—”
“No. I want you. You’re the best.”
“The best doesn’t come cheap,” Rex said. Though the First Strike office was his home base, Rex was an independent contractor. Ace, sole owner of First Strike since the death of Rex’s father almost two years ago, let all the bounty hunters charge what they wanted and pursue the cases that interested them, paying a small percentage to the agency in return for an office and administrative support. So long as each brought in a certain minimum—and Rex always far exceeded the minimum—they could handle the job any way they chose.
“I’m prepared to pay whatever it takes,” the woman said.
“I charge five hundred dollars a day plus expenses.” He figured that would scare her off.
She didn’t even blink. “It’s not a problem. Just get my daughter back.”
Rex sighed. He couldn’t say no. The case sounded routine enough. Maybe he could wrap it up in a day or two. He got up, dragged over a chair from a neighboring desk and situated it next to his, rather than on the other side of the desk. He didn’t want any barriers, physical or emotional, between him and his potential client. If he took on her case, they would have to trust each other completely. He refused to work any other way.
She sat down, clutching her brown leather purse in her lap so tightly her knuckles turned white.
Rex picked up a pen and a legal pad. “Your name?”
“Nadia Penn.”
“Tell me what’s going on, Nadia. After I hear your story, I’ll decide whether I can help you. Do you have legal custody of the child?”
“Yes.”
“And the child’s father?”
“My ex-husband. He gave up all parental rights when we divorced six months ago.”
That admission gave Rex pause. What kind of man gave up all rights to his children?
“He was abusive,” she said without hesitating a beat. “He sent me to the hospital with a broken jaw. No court was going to give him custody, and he didn’t want to pay me child support.”
The thought of any man using his fists on such a delicate, defenseless creature made Rex’s gut churn. It was that sliver of compassion he felt for the fairer sex that had ruined him, ended his military career.
“Legal rights aside, has he had contact with his daughter prior to this?” Rex asked. “Have you allowed him to visit?”
“Peter Danilov has no personal interest in Lily. He cares nothing about her. He took her to blackmail me. I have access to something he wants very badly, and he intends to barter for it with my child’s life.”
Good Lord. So much for the simple, straightforward case he’d envisioned. “So, whatever it is, give it to him. Nothing is worth a child’s life.”
“It isn’t that easy.”
He sighed. “This sounds like a matter for the police.”
“Do you know how many children are kidnapped by noncustodial parents? And do you know how little the police care? Anyway, I couldn’t risk it.” Nadia opened her purse and pulled out a plain white sheet of paper, folded. She handed it to him.
He took the paper gingerly by one corner. Ah, hell, why bother? She’d probably already destroyed any potential forensic evidence.
“You can touch it,” she said. “It’s already been analyzed. No prints but mine. Common photocopy paper, Canon Inkjet ink. Nontraceable.”
“I thought you didn’t go to the police.”
“I didn’t. I work in a research lab. I did the analysis myself.”
“Ah.” He tried not to show his surprise. He wouldn’t have pegged this delicate, fairylike creature as a hard-nosed scientist, though he ought to know by now not to let anyone’s outward appearance surprise him. His last stint in Korea should have burned that message into his brain once and for all.
He read the note, which set forth the terms she would have to meet if she wanted to see her daughter alive again. She would be required to deliver a package to a certain place at a certain time, then leave. The package would be picked up, the contents verified. Only then would the child be released at an undisclosed location. She would be notified after the fact.
If she agreed to these terms, she was to go today at 3:00 p.m. to the Forest Ridge Mall food court wearing a red shirt and wait at least fifteen minutes, after which she would be contacted as to where and when to make the drop.
Peter Danilov obviously liked cloak-and-dagger games. Such an affinity for drama could be used against him.
Rex asked Nadia the obvious. “What does Peter want from you?” The note simply referred to a “package,” which Rex assumed meant Nadia knew what it was.
“I can’t tell you that.”
“And I can’t win this game playing with only half a deck.”
“I can’t tell you without breaching the security of the United States,” she said quietly. “But suffice it to say, it’s something very dangerous. I could never put it into Peter’s hands. Which is why I need you to get my baby back.”
National security? Dangerous?
“Whoa, wait a minute. You don’t by any chance work for—”
“JanCo Labs.”
Ah, hell. JanCo Labs was a huge facility tucked away in the piney woods of East Texas a few miles from Payton. The lab worked almost exclusively on top secret government contracts—everything from gene splicing to weapons technology.
Rex was intrigued despite himself.
“Do you have any way to contact Peter?”
“No.”
“Do you have any idea where he might have taken your daughter?”
“No, I’m sorry. I’ve had no contact with him for months.”
“Do you believe he will actually harm Lily?”
She hesitated. “He never physically hurt her before. But I do know one thing. If he suspects even for a moment that I’ve come to you or anyone for help, he will spirit Lily off to Russia with him, and I will never see her again.”
NADIA ENDURED the next hour of tedious questions solely because she knew Rex Bettencourt was her only hope.
She hadn’t been too sure when she’d first walked up to the First Strike Agency. She’d read of his impressive success rate in a national magazine and had considered it an extremely lucky break that the bounty hunter was based in her own backyard. But when she’d seen his place of business, with its faded, tattered awning and grimy windows, she’d been less than impressed. First Strike was in a bad area of town to begin with, sandwiched between a bail bondsman and a pawnshop. But even if the neighborhood hadn’t discouraged her, the office itself would have.
Narrow and deep, the office housed a half-dozen mismatched desks scattered haphazardly around the room. There didn’t seem to be a reception desk, or anything to welcome a walk-in customer. In the back corner was a home gym setup and some free weights.
As she tiptoed across the ripped indoor-outdoor carpeting toward the only occupied desk, she’d taken in the gallery of Wanted posters with darts protruding from the faces and the stacks of magazines—Soldier of Fortune, Guns & Ammo, Fast Car—decorating the desks.
The only computer in the room was a big, beige clunker grimy with fingerprints.
But then she’d seen Rex. Although his face had not appeared in the magazine article she’d read, she’d somehow known instantly that the man seated behind a desk at the back of the room was Rex Bettencourt. With military-short, sun-bleached hair and a deep tan even in the dead of winter, his posture had communicated the sort of supreme confidence she was looking for. And from the moment he’d opened his mouth to speak, she’d known he was the man who could get her little girl back safe and sound. His impressive muscles made him look dangerous, but the intelligence behind his green eyes assured her he was also capable.
“You haven’t given me much to work with,” Rex said when he’d run out of questions. “A description of a woman who smokes with a rodent face and an accent isn’t much help. Are you sure you’ve never seen this woman before?”
“I know I’ve never met her. But now that I’ve had a chance to think about it, to go over it in my mind, she seems familiar somehow. I may have seen her before—at a party, in a crowd.”
“She might have been following you.”
Nadia shivered at the idea of being watched. Her Russian grandmother had risked her life to come to this country, where she could be free, where her movements were not constantly monitored or her motives challenged. Nadia had been raised to appreciate her freedom, her relative safety.
Peter had taken that away from her.
“I know I haven’t given you much,” Nadia said. “But someone will be at the mall to spot me. Maybe it will be the woman again. You could follow her.”
“If you spot her. Or if he doesn’t send someone else, someone you wouldn’t recognize.”
“When he contacts me again, then,” Nadia said.
“Peter probably won’t send another messenger with a piece of paper. He’ll try something different this time, maybe a phone call from a throwaway cell phone.”
“He’s bound to drop some kind of clue,” Nadia said. “And if he doesn’t, you can follow whoever picks up the package after I make the drop.”
“If you aren’t planning to give Peter what he wants, what will you put in the package?”
“Something that will look real enough that it will fool him for at least a while. He’ll have the contents verified, but it will take some time. We have to find her before he discovers the truth.”
“We’ll do the best we can.”
She searched his eyes, hoping to find reassurance there. But his expression was grim. “You’re thinking he might have already hurt her.”
“We have to consider all possibilities.”
Nadia’s eyes swam with tears. She did not want to hear this, yet she knew Rex spoke the truth. Peter was not honorable. He was a spy, a traitor to a country that had given him a chance, offered him sanctuary, embraced him as one of its own. He had no reason to keep Lily alive or deliver her unharmed, even if she gave him the Petro-Nano.
“I’m not trying to scare you,” Rex said. “I’m just making sure you understand the terrible position we’re in. He has all the cards. We have to find a way to upset the balance of power. And the first thing, I think, is to force him to open two-way communications.”
“But I have no way of forcing him to do anything,” Nadia said, calming down. Rex’s commanding presence was almost comforting, despite the fact he was big and powerful and a little bit scary. Her experience with Peter had taught her just how much pain a man could inflict on a small woman like her. And Rex was taller, larger, undoubtedly stronger than Peter.
“We will find a way.”
“Does that mean you’re taking me on as a client?”
He looked slightly bemused. “I’m sure talking like that’s the case.”
Chapter Two
It wasn’t the fanciest of plans, Nadia thought as she sat in the food court at Forest Ridge Mall, but Peter had left them few options. Nadia was frankly terrified of what would happen when Peter discovered she wasn’t playing by his rules. But she’d put her fate in Rex Bettencourt’s hands, and she’d agreed to let him make the decisions.
That didn’t mean she was comfortable with the plan.
She had arrived at the time Peter had specified, wearing a red windbreaker over a red T-shirt. But she carried a small, hand-lettered sign that read, Must See Lily or No Deal. She had some leverage—she had something Peter wanted. The sooner she exerted her power, Rex had said, the better. And she should use that power to ensure her daughter was alive and well, which was their number-one priority.
Nadia tried not to look at Rex, who’d arrived at the food court a full hour ahead of her. He sat a few tables away, sipping a soft drink and talking to Gavin Schuyler, another bounty hunter. Rex had pulled a team together with amazing speed, and each of the other team members accepted their roles without question. Rex and Gavin would keep their eyes open for anything unusual. Peter, or one of his agents, had to be nearby to visually verify Nadia’s presence.
Out in the parking lot, Beau Maddox was watching Nadia’s Volvo. It had occurred to Rex that Peter, wanting to avoid phone calls or personal contact, might leave a communiqué on or near her car while she was safely inside the mall.
Back at the office, Lori, Rex’s sister, was running through every possible avenue of computer research to locate Peter. She was also monitoring Nadia’s cell phone. Nadia had privately wondered about Lori’s qualifications, but Rex had assured her that in addition to being a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, Lori was a skilled hacker. If anyone could trace a call or turn up an e-trail for their suspect, Lori could.
Now they had to wait, and hope that Peter made a slip.
When Nadia’s cell phone rang, she nearly upset her untouched soft drink. She fumbled with the phone, glancing to see whether Rex had noticed. He had. Though his gaze was never directly on her for more than half a second, she knew he was watching her.
“Hello?”
“You are in no position to make demands, sweetheart.”
Inwardly shaking, Nadia gave a casual hand signal, indicating to Rex that she had Peter on the line. The call was being recorded via a device hidden inside her jacket.
“Oh, yes, I am,” Nadia said. Everything inside her yearned to beg and grovel for Peter to return her child. But Rex had told her specifically not to do that. She had to pretend she was in perfect control. “I will give you what you want. But not without complete assurance that I will get Lily back safe and sound. Let me talk with her.”
“You can talk with her after you—”
“No,” she said sharply. “Once you deliver proof that Lily is safe, I will listen to your next demand. Not before.” Then, though it was the hardest thing she’d ever done, she hung up. She knew she had to prove to Peter she was serious.
A few feet away, Rex was shocked that their power play had produced results so quickly. Peter Danilov must be desperate for whatever Nadia had. He might even be here at the mall himself.
