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She pulled it out and stared at the caller ID before she leaped to her feet. “Hi, Dad.”
Chapter Five (#ulink_01798894-5e68-5260-8a64-7717e6c7e5f7)
Lexie’s dad spoke in tough, uncompromising tones. Sure, he was retired, but he still hadn’t stopped being the ultimate hard-ass Sergeant Major Daniel DeMille. “You listen to me, Franny, and you listen good.”
“I’m not going by Franny anymore.” She walked a few paces on the patterned hallway carpeting. “Call me Lexie.”
“Your mother and I named you, and I’ll call you whatever I damn well please, Miss Francine Alexandra DeMille.”
The use of her full name was not a positive sign. Nor was the mention of her mother, who had divorced Daniel when Lexie was twelve. After Mom left, Dad didn’t often link them together. In doing so, he seemed to be summoning up the ghost of a past that no longer existed. Perhaps it never had. Perhaps they had always been a dysfunctional family. With Mom gone, Grandma took over. And Dad was usually stationed on the other side of the world.
He growled. “You haven’t returned my phone calls.”
“I talked to you once and gave you my answer.” She paced farther down the hall, noting that Mason kept a discreet distance but stayed with her.
“That answer, your answer, is unsatisfactory.”
“I’m not going to change my mind,” she said. “I won’t quit my job and run home because you’re worried about me.”
“Either you get your rear end back to Texas or I’m coming to get you.”
“I’m putting you on hold.”
“Why?”
Because I’m furious and don’t want to say something I’ll regret later. “Excuse me, Dad.”
She clicked him to silence and shook her fist at the cell phone. Her lips pinched together in a tight knot. Then she exhaled in a whoosh, blowing through her pursed lips like air coming out of a balloon.
She whirled around and looked at Mason. “My dad is treating me like I’m five years old. He’s ticked off about what happened on the seventh floor.”
“Did Prescott call him?”
“It was his assistant, Josh Laurent. You’ve probably met him. Long, pointy nose. Beady eyes. Stooped shoulders. He looks like a woodpecker.”
“Yeah.” Mason wiped the smile off his face. “We’ve met.”
“Good old Josh didn’t do a very good job of telling my dad what happened.” She stopped beside a tiny desk with carved legs and a brass spittoon to one side. “He made that stupid ambush sound terrible and dangerous.”
“It was dangerous. Those were real bullets. The blood on your arm? That was real, too.”
“Really real,” she muttered under her breath.
“What?”
“There’s real life, which is what life is supposed to be. And really real life, which is how it actually is. Okay, for example, I’m a nanny in real life. In really real, I’m also an assistant, a nurse, a secretary and a teacher.”
“In these real and extra real worlds of yours, where do you put the bullets?”
“Whose side are you on?”
“Yours,” he said without hesitation. “But if you were my daughter, I’d be worried about you.”
Men! They were all alike, thinking that women were helpless creatures who couldn’t survive without one of them standing at her side and flexing his biceps. She was an adult. Not daddy’s baby girl. Lexie could take care of herself.
She hadn’t always been so independent and strong. When she came home from the hospital after her accident, she’d had serious nerve damage. Some docs had predicted that she’d never walk again. Her internal injuries had resulted in life-altering surgeries. She was scared, so deeply scared that she’d prayed to go to sleep and never wake up. It had seemed that life was too much to handle.
That was when her father stepped up and faced the challenge. Whether she needed him or not, he was there. Day and night, he watched over her and nursed her back to health. His gentle manner kept her spirits up. His firm encouragement reinforced her progress in physical therapy, where she literally started with baby steps.
After four weeks of recovery, when she’d been able to walk with crutches, she found out that he’d retired so he could take the time to be with her. Though he’d put in enough years with the military to qualify for a very nice pension and had plans for his retirement, she felt guilty about taking him away from a career he loved. The very last thing she wanted was to be a burden to her family.
She looked into Mason’s steady blue eyes. “Why do you think my dad should worry about me?”
“Because he loves you.”
Her tears sloshed and threatened to spill over her lower eyelids. Though the male of the species could be overbearing and pushy and demanding, they could also be achy-breaky sweet. All that blustering and flexing was the way they showed that they cared.
Once again, she was stabbed in the gut by guilt. She didn’t want to upset her dad. “In your professional opinion, do you think it’s dangerous for me to stay with the Prescott family?”
“I can only assess one situation at a time. Right now I’m pretty sure that everybody’s safe. Do you want me to talk to your father?”
“Not a good idea. Right at the moment, he doesn’t think much of your abilities, even though I mentioned that you saved my life. And I explained how I ignored your advice to ride up on the elevator by myself.”
He pointed to the phone. “You can’t keep him on hold forever.”
“I’m going back to my original plan.” She tapped on the cell phone screen. “Dad, I’m going to have you talk to Admiral Prescott. He can explain why it won’t be dangerous.”
“I’ll be waiting for that call.”
She rolled her eyes at the phone. “I know you will.”
* * *
PRESCOTT EMERGED FROM the banquet hall in full sail, leaving cheers and applause in his wake. There wasn’t time for Lexie to ask him to talk to her father or to do anything else. With long determined strides, the admiral charged down the hall toward the conference room with the animal heads on the walls.
Before entering, he paused and straightened his necktie. “Be ready to move, Mason. I intend to get out of here ASAP.”
“I understand,” Mason said.
“Do you?” Prescott lifted an eyebrow.
“I’m not a police officer, but I’m sure there hasn’t been enough time for thorough questioning and investigation. Since you made the decision to stay at the hotel tonight, it seems wise to wait until morning, when you have enough information to know what needs to be done.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
Lexie felt like cheering. Mason’s rational assessment made the crazy situation seem manageable. Not like her father, who was probably out by the barn shooting tin cans off the fence.
Mason said, “Lexie has something she needs to talk to you about.”
“Of course.” He pivoted to face her, held her at arm’s length and peered into her eyes. “How are you holding up?”
“Good.” She gave him what she hoped was a confident smile. “The problem is my dad.”
“Danny-boy DeMille? He’s a problem solver, not the other way around.” He dropped his arms and raised his eyebrows. “Is he worried about you?”
“He’s overreacting, right? I’m better equipped than most people to take care of myself. I’m good with a gun and an expert in karate and other martial arts.”
“Sorry, kiddo, logic doesn’t apply when it comes to family.” He rubbed his chin. “On the off chance we might have some clear intel that your dad would want to hear, I want you to come into this meeting with me and Mason. After that, I’ll make the call.”
“Thank you.”
“This is as much for my benefit as yours. I don’t want to lose you as the kids’ nanny.”
The compliment was nice to hear. She followed Prescott inside and took a seat near the end of the table beside Josh. What a jerk he was! She felt like punching him but held back. Instead, she smiled and nodded to several of the people at the table whom she’d met before when they visited the Prescotts’ home in Aspen.
Sitting to the admiral’s left was Hank Grossman—a slouchy, sloppy, middle-aged man with hair that looked like steel wool. Instead of waving, he pointed at her as though his fingers were a gun—a gesture that was particularly inappropriate given the circumstances. Did he mean to threaten her? Was he working with the bad guys? Lexie copied his gesture and pretended to shoot back at him. Take that, Grossman.
He was with the NSA. She knew his job was top secret but had no idea what he did or what his title was or anything else about him, other than he couldn’t get through a meal without dribbling a smear on his necktie.
Beside Grossman was Sam Bertinelli, also NSA, who was dark with classic features and much more pleasant. He gave her a nod and a wink. His buttoned-down appearance was well suited for a junior executive, but Bertinelli was a little too old to be a junior anything. Certainly too old for her, which was basically what she’d told him when he’d asked her out on a date a few months ago. They had both been polite, but she’d seen the flare of hostility in his hazel eyes. The two NSA dudes were a little scary.
Josh’s pointy woodpecker nose jabbed in her direction. “I spoke to your father.”
“I’m aware,” she said in a low voice oozing with sarcasm. “You made it sound like we were under assault from terrorist madmen. He’s freaked.”
“Odd. He’s a marine. I didn’t think he’d get upset.”
She hated the insinuation. Her dad was tougher than nails; he could handle anything. “Are you saying that my dad is a wimp?”
“Hush, now.”
“Take it back.”
“Fine.”
His head swiveled so he faced the head of the table. Again, he reminded her of a bird with virtually no neck and a round, soft body. Why did Prescott keep him around as an assistant? Josh was neither smart nor funny nor pleasant. He did, however, fulfill whatever he was ordered to do without question or hesitation. She supposed there was something to be said for blind obedience.
Including Josh, there were seven men seated around the table and two women, one in uniform and one in a body-hugging cocktail dress with one shoulder bare.
At the head of the table, next to the bared shoulder, was a slick, good-looking guy. He rose to his feet and buttoned the front of his tux. He wasn’t as tall as Mason, who was standing behind the admiral, and he wasn’t as muscular. But a lot of women would have found his sweep of glistening blond hair and brilliant blue eyes appealing. The tux helped.
She leaned toward Josh. “Who’s that?”
“Robert Collier, CIA.”
His voice was a bit higher than she expected and had an interesting accent. Maybe French? Lexie had gotten accustomed to these suave, international men who came to visit at the Prescott home in Aspen. She suspected Collier would be a hand kisser.
“The woman next to him,” she whispered to Josh, “is also CIA?”
Josh nodded.
Apparently, Collier had been waiting for the admiral to return. He addressed the group. “In my interrogation of the four men in custody, I have learned that they are part of a group called the Anti-Conspiracy Committee for Democracy, or the AC-CD.”
The name of the group didn’t sound dangerous. Nobody in this room was against democracy. And who wasn’t anti-conspiracy? Resting her elbow on the table, she leaned forward and focused on Collier.
He pointed to the flat screen mounted on the wall behind where she was sitting. She turned to look over her shoulder. The screen was blank. Mounted on the wall near the door was an elk head with an impressive ten-point rack. On the other side of the screen was a seriously ugly boar with curly tusks.
“I would usually have photos and a logo,” he said in his lilting accent, “but the members of the very loosely organized AC-CD pride themselves on being anonymous. They meet in groups of no more than five. The head of AC-CD is referred to as the leader, and sometimes different people take that responsibility.”
Bertinelli nudged the shoulder of his NSA boss as he pointed out the obvious. “For a group opposed to conspiracy, they have a lot of secrets.”
“That is why,” Collier said with a cold glance toward the NSA contingent, “it is complicated to compile facts and information about the AC-CD.”
“How did you get them to talk?” Bertinelli asked.
“They would hardly shut up. I have never had an interrogation like this. They were eager to tell me that their job was vitally important on a global level. They all used the same words—‘vital importance’ and ‘international repercussions’ and more of those catchphrases.”
He swore in French and stuck out his jaw. His icy blond hair shimmered under the overhead lights.
“Excuse me,” said the uniformed woman, “but what was the job they were assigned to do?”
“To kidnap the admiral.”
All eyes focused on Prescott. Unperturbed, he shrugged and said, “Then they weren’t after my children. Is that correct?”
“Correct, sir.”
“Or my wife.”
“Just you,” Collier said. “Their plan was to drug your wife’s bedtime drink so she would sleep soundly. When everything was quiet, they would slip into your bedroom and abduct you. Under no circumstances were they supposed to hurt you.”
“Why?” Prescott asked.
“They are searching for the Damascus Cache, and they believe you have knowledge of its whereabouts.”
Prescott scoffed. “The Damascus Cache was destroyed years ago.”
Beside her, Josh wriggled in his chair like a schoolboy who had the right answer to the teacher’s question. She gave him a nudge. “Go ahead and speak up.”
“I better not.” That was why he was a woodpecker and not an eagle. To her, he whispered, “I’ve heard chatter. People talking about the cache.”
Her cell phone buzzed. A text was coming through from Megan, the oldest Prescott kid. It said, Hurry back. The brats won’t go to bed.
It was kind of amazing that Lexie had been away for as long as she had without a minor crisis or two from the children. It looked as though she’d have to wait until later to get Prescott to talk to her dad.
She stood and pointed to her phone. “Please excuse me. Duty calls. I need to go upstairs and tell some bedtime stories.”
“I’ll be up soon,” Prescott said. “Mason, accompany her.”
