Читать книгу Double Take - Leigh Riker, Leigh Riker - Страница 11

New York City

Her father had been dead for nearly a year. Venuto Destina had been out of prison for a week. And Cameron McKenzie was still looking over her shoulder.

Now she felt the back of her neck prickle, and the too-familiar thought shot through her brain. I’m being followed. Unable to fight the lifelong urge, she glanced behind her again along the dark Manhattan street but the footsteps she imagined hearing had died.

She saw no one.

Relief swept through her, canceling the swift rush of adrenaline, and for a moment she felt her heartbeat begin to slow. She often worked late—how else could The Unlimited Chef, Cameron’s cooking business for celebrities, show more than a small profit?—but she never liked walking home by herself.

It was necessary, of course, for her own peace of mind. Yet on this cold December night—the week after Thanks-giving—with light snow falling, she liked it even less. As if to acknowledge a threat, fewer people seemed to be out. Only a handful dotted the normally crowded sidewalks and several restaurants had closed early tonight. On this side street in the Seventies off Third Avenue, where Christmas lights already twinkled in almost every window, she felt utterly alone.

She strode briskly toward her apartment, arms wrapped around her too-thin coat trying to keep warm, but the chill seemed to penetrate her very bones. Just a few more blocks, she told herself. Then she’d feel safe.

Suddenly, her pulse hitched again. Her heart took up a noisy pounding.

Was that another footstep behind her? The sound of a man’s shoes muffled by the lightly falling snow? She would not look.

Then the blare of a passing taxi’s horn sent a shock blast through her body, and she struggled against panic. Now she heard nothing. The danger she had lived with for most of her life was gone, like those imagined footsteps. Safe, she tried to think.

Only the past lurked behind her now, not some assailant or unseen threat that seemed to hover in the cold air like a hand about to snuff out her breath.

Cameron silently scolded herself. This unfounded paranoia was why she forced herself to walk home each night rather than hail a cab or hop a city bus and bathe herself in its harsh interior light. She wouldn’t take the easy way out.

“I am going to lead a normal life,” she said aloud.

Even without Dad.

At the thought of James McKenzie, she pressed her lips tight.

She missed him. Oh God, how she missed him.

But he, of all people, wouldn’t want her cowering behind closed doors. Wouldn’t want her shivering in terror because Destina was free.

With one ear still tuned to any sound behind her, she picked up her pace.

She would go home, fix a cup of hot chocolate, open her mail…

Normal things. Everyday things.

She had yearned for them too long. Now, most of the time, she had them.

Yet the vague feeling of impending doom stalked her every step and Cameron finally surrendered again to the heart-thumping need to look over her shoulder. One more time. Just to be sure…

Seeing nothing, she felt in a pocket for her key then clutched it tight, ready to strike out at some attacker’s eyes. Frowning, she swept into the lighted lobby of her high-rise apartment building. There, too, the lobby was already decked out with wreaths and a huge tree. Normally, the sight would cheer her.

“’Evening, Fred,” she greeted the elderly doorman. And checked the sidewalk outside, reflected in the mirrored glass of the elevator bank, while she waited for the car.

“A cold one,” he said, clearly relishing the overheated lobby.

She shivered. “I’m glad to be home.”

“This is New York, not Arizona. You need a warmer coat.”

“Or thicker blood.” Leaving his laugh behind, she stepped into the elevator.

Blood. There must have been so much blood when her father…

Cameron blinked and stared up at the floor indicator. Two, three, four…at number eight the doors glided open. Cameron knew she was being silly, but she held them back anyway—and peered out into the long hall. Looking left then right, she confirmed that it, like the street downstairs, remained empty.

With her key gripped tight in a fist, she hurried to her own door. Her sensible shoes sank into the dense plush of the hallway carpet. She couldn’t afford this address, but she needed it. Image was everything.

After all, she had been forced to reinvent herself. More than once.

Turning her back on the hall, she slipped the key into her lock.

Startled by a slight sound from behind, she froze. Alarm flashed through her body like a scream. Dread pooled in her veins and her pulse beat thundered again. I was right, I was right, dammit. Before she could spin around, she felt someone at her back. She sensed the hard male body inches from her spine, watched the large, callused hand cover hers on the key. Her nose picked up his scent, but the lone word didn’t calm her.

“Relax.”

That harsh male voice, deep and low, sent her crashing back into the nightmare. That scent he carried, so uniquely his…she’d hoped never to smell it again. A hint of outdoors, of musk, of heat. Even a frigid December in New York couldn’t protect her.

Maybe, Cameron thought, there was no escape.

HE SHOULD LET HER GO. Now.

Yet he couldn’t seem to move and J.C. silently cursed himself again.

He knew better than to come up behind a solitary woman in a dimly lit hall—especially an edgy woman like this—just as he’d known not to follow her home, or to accost her downstairs in the building lobby.

Frankly, there didn’t seem to be an optimum place to confront her.

Just as there would be no easy way to tell her what he’d come to say.

In the past week everything had changed.

J.C. kept his mouth shut. His professional training hadn’t covered these bases, no way, but he’d done enough damage, especially with James McKenzie. From the race of the pulse at Cameron’s slender wrist, he guessed she wouldn’t relax until next week. If then.

Fresh guilt swamped him. Nothing new, but for the past year he’d devoted his every waking moment to official routine, official protocol, to one careful bureaucratic step at a time. It hadn’t helped. He didn’t sleep much and when he did, he dreamed of death and destruction and his own deadly error in that Denver alley.

Cameron… Ven…

Then there were the shakes, the sweats.

No wonder he’d finally been relieved of his duties.

Unfortunately, a medical leave of absence wouldn’t close this case.

Now, not unlike J.C., he could see that Cameron McKenzie was no more than a breath away from hyperventilating—his fault all over again—and he couldn’t seem to let go of her hand, or to block out the feel of her so near, or even to remember who he was and how to do his job. Unofficially this time.

Never mind business. Cameron made his head swim. Her strong yet delicate-feeling bones beneath his harder grip sent a swift rush of desire through his own body, and he had to remind himself why he had tracked her down. When he inhaled the fresh smells of shampoo and clean female skin, mixed with the faintest hint of some tempting spice—perhaps from her dinner—he felt his heart beat faster. J.C. fought the urge to lean even closer, to touch her.

She always had that effect on him.

That, and more.

For an instant, J.C. felt grateful. He could almost stop obsessing about the night in the alley, about James. And his latest suspicion. He could almost believe panic wouldn’t overtake him again. He could almost hope that he affected her the same way she always got to him.

Talk about wishful thinking.

No wonder she hated him, J.C. thought. Certainly she wouldn’t have opened her door to him tonight. So here they were, standing in the hall of her expensive apartment building—which didn’t strike him right—and Cameron, all five feet four inches of her, with her medium-length flow of dark hair and stiffened shoulders and taut, willowy frame, appeared about to faint.

When he gave her the latest bad news, she probably would.

Because J.C. had been thinking. He’d gone over—obsessed over—every detail in the Destina files. And he’d altered his view. Destina hadn’t gotten his revenge—not all of it anyway—and maybe James hadn’t said his daughter’s name at the end of his life merely as a goodbye. In the past days since Destina’s release from prison, someone had been making inquiries, not about James but about the big chunk of money that remained missing twenty-five years after Destina’s trial.

J.C. was convinced Destina had a new target.

“Let’s go inside,” he muttered, his cheek a fraction of an inch away from the softness of her silky hair. Her skin would feel equally slick, he imagined. For an instant J.C. allowed himself to envision Cameron in his bed, her hair spread out across his pillow, his fingers tangled in its rich, warm depths. Her wide hazel eyes would look up into his and her smile would light his weary spirit just before his mouth covered hers. As the kiss deepened, his hand would drift between them to seek her perfect breast, then the nip of her narrow waist, the modest swell of her hips, and he would hear Cameron moan.

The imaginary sound made J.C. straighten. If he didn’t step back, in the next few seconds she would realize exactly what effect she had on him.

On the other hand, her obvious impression of him came as no surprise. She pushed back, dislodging his hand from hers on the key then whirling around. He gazed down into her hazel eyes and saw the dislike he expected. Her voice dripped with it, along with the remnants of stark fear.

“J. C. Ransom. What the hell are you doing here?”

EVERY TIME CAMERON saw a U.S. Marshal, it meant trouble.

Despite that, she couldn’t help noticing that J. C. Ransom was one intriguing hunk of obviously red-blooded male.

Her senses clanged like a five-alarm fire bell as she took him in.

Tall, lean, broad-shouldered and sleekly muscled, he sure fit the Marshals’ service profile. His sun-streaked hair, on the other hand, didn’t. He could never blend into the background. Thick and silky, his hair always drew her gaze first, gleaming like a California surfer boy’s. But the lethal-looking gun he carried under his jacket ruined the effect. As did the hard metal badge clipped to his belt that glinted in the hall light. Just when she thought she had control of the situation, she made the mistake of gazing into his eyes.

Oh, God.

She shouldn’t have looked. Dark, enigmatic, almost navy blue, they wore that intense look of purpose that Cameron identified with him. The look that had always meant he’d be whisking her off to another relocation, another move away from new friends and treasured new belongings. Another escape under darkness to somewhere else, to somewhere safe. Where did he get such eyes? Were they military—or no, U.S. Department of Justice—issue?

That blue gaze could burn a hole through titanium, but the most Ransom had ever gotten from her in return was a heartfelt glare of rebuke for destroying her security, her life, again. Carefully chosen from her repertoire of careful looks. Nobody saw anything in Cameron McKenzie that she didn’t want them to see.

She’d learned that when she was three years old.

Yet at twenty-eight, a woman not a child, she saw the world through newly changed lenses. Those blue eyes looked different now, not only his usual sexy as sin but…haunted. Yes, that was it. And that was new.

“What happened to you?” was the next thing she managed to say.

Ransom’s gaze had settled on her lips, watching her speak, watching her react to his stare with a quick dart of her tongue over her lower lip that turned his dark eyes to midnight blue.

She hadn’t seen that look before.

Not willing to explain her observation, or to ponder his, she busied herself opening the lock with shaking fingers, hoping to slip inside and shut the door in his face.

Ransom was everything she hated, everything that reminded her of being afraid.

Her ploy didn’t work. He straight-armed the steel door panel and followed her inside, so close behind her that she could feel his body heat. Had his footsteps been the ones on the street behind her?

In the foyer Cameron whirled to face him.

“I suppose you have some reason for scaring me half to death.”

“Maybe you’d better sit down.”

“I’m fine standing up.” She wasn’t on a level with him—Ransom stood just over six feet—but she managed to meet his gaze squarely, hoping he wouldn’t hear the pounding of her heart. “Make it quick. I’m tired. I’d like to go to bed.”

“So would I,” he murmured.

Cameron blinked under his steady regard. He couldn’t mean that the way it sounded in that husky tone, but his eyes held hers and it wasn’t his official, government-agent gaze she saw. Those blue eyes had warmed with what Cameron recognized as desire. Her pulse pounded harder. Now there was another twist.

A dozen images of him flashed through her memory.

Maybe, until her last years in the program, she had simply repressed that hot, dark look. And before that…

“I’ve known you since I was thirteen,” she said. “I never heard you crack a dirty joke, even with your buddies. So I assume…”

“This isn’t a joke. I need to tell you something.”

His gaze had cooled and he was back to business again. The way she knew him best. And liked him least. Cameron tossed her coat over a chair in the living room—her only real furniture. She wouldn’t invite him any farther into her sanctuary. Her first home of her own. This U.S. Marshal had no right to violate her privacy here. He had no right to stun her with his masculine good looks, either. But his statement had drawn her attention.

Straightening, she turned back to him. “Well?”

“It’s about your father.”

“God. I should have known.” Cameron cast a quick glance toward the fireplace mantel—and the copper urn that held her father’s ashes. Then she sank onto the arm of the chair, her legs suddenly weak. “You’ve never minced words before. Why start now?”

“Look, I’m sorry, Cameron. I don’t know how to tell you this except to just say it.” He stepped closer to her and she tilted her head to look up at him. “You know Destina was released from federal prison last week?”

“Yes. I did read the papers.” To be honest, she’d stayed glued to CNN for days, hoping for any scrap of information, any statement from Destina that would allay the last of her fears. She’d seen a glimpse of his son at the prison gates, but only the briefest flash of the camera’s eye on Destina himself, and then later, outside his rural Connecticut compound. “There wasn’t much reported. What they didn’t tell me was why.”

“Supposedly he earned an early parole for health reasons. Compassionate release.” Scoffing at the very label, Ransom took a seat across from her on the folding chair she kept for rare guests in her sparsely furnished living room. “Nobody believes that,” he said, “but it’s the official word.”

“That means he’s ill?”

“Usually means it’s terminal.”

“My father is already dead. Destina killed him.” He’d always said he would.

Ransom lifted his eyebrows. “There’s no physical evidence, but I agree with you. Destina may have been in prison at the time, but he has a long reach. His organization employed any number of assassins when James testified against him.”

She couldn’t keep the reminder to herself. Her voice shook. “And Destina vowed revenge because my father spoke the truth.”

“That truth—if it was the whole truth—put Destina behind bars.”

She sighed. “Now he’s out. And presumably sick.”

“Either that or his lawyers are more clever than they were years ago. The assassins, too. All I know is, your father died in Denver and you’re in New York.” He hesitated, as if he had decided to keep something more to himself. “That’s why I’m here.”

Her mouth thinned with disapproval. “The U.S. Marshals to the rescue?”

“I know you don’t like that—or me—but it’s necessary. Just as you know James was in WITSEC when he died.” It was the official name for the more familiar Witness Protection program. “That made him our responsibility.”

“Looks like you did a lousy job.”

He flinched and Cameron cautioned herself to hold her temper. Ransom knew how she felt, but he was no longer her keeper. Twenty-two years in WP had been that many years too long. Now he had no jurisdiction over her.

Cameron tried to forget looking over her shoulder on the way home.

His mouth tightened. “James was secure in Denver for—”

“Three years. Since you brought me the happy news in Phoenix that my family would have to relocate again.”

“Because you had decided to leave. When your brother left WP, we couldn’t risk him inadvertently leading someone else—Destina—to James, your mother, or you.”

“How many times did we relocate, Ransom? Five? Fifteen?” A flash of guilt about Phoenix went through her, but she knew, of course. They were all losses, engraved on her heart like her father’s murder. “I left in Phoenix because what was the point, after all? Maybe my brother was right to leave, too. He just realized it first.” She didn’t know where Kyle—at least, that had been his WP name the last time she saw him—was living now, and the knowledge pained Cameron, but she felt too angry to stop. “If you people were doing what the taxpayers of this country hired you to do, my father wouldn’t be dead!”

The edges of his mouth had turned white. “I admit that we—”

“What kind of ‘protection’ did you really provide?”

This time he said nothing. His whole face had turned pale.

“News flash, Ransom. We lived in fear for my father’s life every day, of his being found and killed. And for what? Because he testified in a federal trial to get you a conviction.”

“Not my conviction,” he said. “The government’s.”

“You are the government.” She rose from the chair, still shaking. “It wasn’t you who spent all those years hiding behind closed blinds, afraid of every slam of a car door or backfire in the street! Afraid of telling something—anything—to a neighbor or a friend that would indicate another life.”

Ransom stood up, too. “I know that wasn’t easy. But putting that bastard behind bars, making a serious dent in Venuto Destina’s multicrime organization, had to seem worth it.”

“Spoken like a man who’s never lived behind closed doors.”

Ransom ran a not-quite-steady hand through his sun-streaked hair.

“Look,” he said again. “I could have sent another agent here. Instead, I came to see you because I thought familiarity—”

“Breeds contempt?”

He held up both hands. “I guess so.”

Cameron walked toward the door. “Thank you for coming, Deputy Marshal Ransom. If there’s nothing else—”

“I’m not finished. Sit down,” he said again.

“Why?” Cameron waved a hand in dismissal. “I have lived all over this country, in a dozen or more ratty little houses. Under a dozen or more different names, which, I might add, is why I now prefer the name I was born with. It’s my father’s name too—”

“The name he took back when he died,” Ransom said.

“And that’s why I gave the marshals my real name as their contact—your contact—when I left the program.” She dragged in a breath. “I learned very young, when I lost that name, to be careful what I did and said and who I said it to, and at this point when I no longer have to watch my tongue or hide who I really am I am extremely tempted to tell you to go to hell.” She took a breath. “However, my mother managed to instill in me a few manners. So instead of throwing you out right now, I’ll listen. For two minutes.” She paused. “Then I’ll toss you out into the hall.”

Cameron knew she was close to losing the last of her control. She didn’t want Ransom to know how shaken she’d felt tonight. Didn’t want to hear what else he’d come to say…

“Destina.” The name again shot fear along her nerve ends, as it had on the darkened street earlier. “I think you’re in danger,” Ransom said, holding her gaze. “I think you’re next.”

Cameron thought she’d heard him wrong. She hoped she had. “I’m in danger? But the only reason I lived in Witness Protection was because of my father. He’s dead now.” Saying the words still hurt. “Destina’s already had his threatened revenge.”

“Has he?” Ransom cleared his throat. “It would help if you could tell me about the money that’s still missing. Since Destina’s release, someone has been sniffing around. I’m sure James knew where it is.”

“The money?” To Cameron, it was just a shadowy mention, in hushed tones, between her parents long ago when she was a child. What did the still-missing funds in the case have to do with her? Or even her father now? The government didn’t pay its witnesses well. James, her mother, Kyle and Cameron had lived in near poverty. Surely Ransom didn’t think… “Why would my father know anything about that?” Unless he thought James was a crook, too. Which he seemed to. “Why would I?”

“Because the one thing that kept you all sane in WP was family. Maybe that didn’t mean as much to Kyle, or whatever he calls himself now, or maybe he got restless and left the program to stay sane himself. But you stayed. A lot longer.”

“I had to. I was still a kid—and then my mother was ill.”

“But after she died…?” he pressed.

“My father was all alone. He needed me while he adjusted to her loss.”

“See what I mean?” Ransom looked at her with raised eyebrows. “Family,” he repeated. “If James knew about that money, then you know about it, too.”

Cameron glared. “By what circuitous route of logic did you figure that out?”

“You love your father. He loved you. He’d tell you everything. No secrets.”

“He didn’t tell me about any money,” she said, her jaw tense, “because he…didn’t…know…about…it…himself.” She spaced the words so he’d understand.

Ransom looked around, as if he’d just now noticed her apartment. “I’d say you’ve already spent some of it.” He gestured at the room. “Look at this place. Fancy address, fancy building. Marble lobby. A doorman. You’re on a relatively high floor—with a good view, I bet—and in New York. Even I know this rent must be well into four figures. You’re what?” he said. “A cook?”

She stiffened. “A celebrity chef.”

“You feed other people. How much does that pay?”

“Not enough right now.” With the admission, she seemed to have walked into his trap again. “That doesn’t mean I steal. Don’t pat yourself on the back too hard, Marshal. You might fall on your face.”

“Deputy Marshal.” Giving her a look, Ransom strolled through the living room.

Her sparse living room.

Cameron watched him take in the old chair she’d bought at a flea market in SoHo, the bare windows. She wasn’t sure she’d ever buy draperies, because she couldn’t bear to shut out the light, the world outside. But she had plans, eventually, to furnish the place. To sink roots at last, for herself.

“It’s an investment,” she said, seeing his appraisal of the barren surroundings. “I need the good address. It gives me an air of respectability, of prosperity. I doubt the kind of clients I solicit—celebrities—would sign on with someone who worked out of a slum, which is more like what I can actually afford.” She hesitated, knowing she was again playing to his preconceived opinion of her. “I assure you, I do earn enough to pay the rent. That’s about all, but for now it has to do.”

Ransom remained silent.

“You don’t believe me.”

“I’m closer,” he admitted, “but not there yet.”

His steady gaze made Cameron’s eyes lower. Her pulse drummed with tension, and something more. She didn’t want to acknowledge the effect that blue gaze was having on her, yet his hot, hungry stare made her tremble inside. Desire flowed, thick and heavy, in her veins before Cameron pushed the response aside like an unwanted thought. This was Ransom. If he chose to believe she and her father were thieves like Destina, she couldn’t prevent it. She didn’t need to like him for it, though. She didn’t need to feel tainted herself.

Wasn’t it enough for him, for the U.S. Marshals, that in the end her father had given his life for justice? To accuse him now, when he could no longer defend himself, of stealing…to accuse her…

“Tell me one thing, Deputy Marshal. How did Destina’s men find my father in Denver?”

“I couldn’t say.” He frowned, his blue eyes turning even darker. “Unless you tipped someone off.”

Fresh anger boiled inside her. “There is no way I would lead anyone—most of all, Destina or his men—to my father. We had an elaborate system for communication, which we used as seldom as possible and always with extreme caution. It was foolproof.”

“Apparently not.”

“How dare you—” Unable to go on, she paced the room. “As for the missing money, I know nothing about it.”

“Destina must think you do.”

“And so do you,” she said to him.

Not answering, he studied the living room again. “Your decor doesn’t look too comfortable. Is there a spare bed I can borrow for the night?”

Cameron’s heart lurched. She had only one bed—actually, a new mattress but on the floor. Next payday she’d buy the frame, then, eventually, a headboard. In the meantime she’d lived too much of her life under the U.S. Marshals. Now, she was done with that.

“Forget it. You’re not staying here.”

“How about a sleeping bag?” He tested the carpet’s softness with a foot.

“I don’t have one.” Cameron flung open the door and pointed a finger. “Out.”

Ransom didn’t budge. “Look, until we can build a case against Destina and he’s back behind bars, I’m going to protect you. Like it or not.” He stared at her. “Until that money is entered as evidence.”

That evidence—which Ransom thought she was part of—seemed more important to him than it did to Cameron, who despised Destina with her very soul. He had ruined her childhood, destroyed her family, shattered her father and caused her mother’s death from overwork and a broken heart. That didn’t mean she believed Ransom.

“Do you have a court order?”

“Do I need one?”

“Definitely. Yes.” Cameron urged him into the hall. “Otherwise, I’m finished with government protection.” And you. “If you remember, the last time we talked was by phone after Dad died. I wanted it to be the last time. Thanks—again—for your condolences.”

Again, he hesitated then apparently changed his mind. His tone gentled. “I told you then I was with James when he died. And I’ve been thinking about what he said. I’ve decided that with his last words he was warning me—warning you.”

Cameron’s mouth trembled. Oh God, Dad. None of what Ransom had said thus far could be true. James wasn’t a thief. She wasn’t in danger.

“He said your name,” Ransom reminded her, his haunted blue eyes on hers. “And something else.” He paused, as if he didn’t want to finish. “He said ‘Ven.’”

“Meaning Destina?” Her blood chilled.

“Think about it.”

But to her surprise, Ransom didn’t argue about staying. He took out a small pad, scribbled on it, then tore off the sheet and handed it to her.

“My cell phone number,” he said, “and the place where I’m staying—with a friend from the NYPD.” Then he stepped into the elevator and, with the closing doors, disappeared—as if he, not Cameron, had vanished into Witness Protection.

Slowly, she crumpled the piece of paper.

She had the uneasy feeling she hadn’t seen the last of him.