Part 1 (2/2)
She rose from the bed, stripped off her clothes and padded into the large bathroom. A moment later, standing beneath a hot spray of water, she tried to blank the night's activities out of her mind.
It took only minutes to wash off the stress and climb into a pink silk nightgown. Because her senses were so finely tuned, she particularly loved the way silk felt against her body.
She shut off her bedroom light, then went to her window. It would take a while for her to wind down enough to sleep. She needed to sleep as soon as possible. She had grad-school cla.s.ses in the morning.
The moonlight floated down in luminous rays, and from this vantage point it illuminated the ocean waves that crashed against the cliff upon which the house sat. It was a million-dollar view from a multi-million-dollar house.
She eyed her computer on a desk in the corner. She could download her e-mail or wander into a chat room, but she wasn't in the mood.
As the exhilaration of the night's heist seeped away, she was once again filled with a restless energy, a yearning for something-but she didn't know what.
Jonas would be home tomorrow. Maybe that would help dispel the odd sense of melancholy she'd been feeling lately. When Jonas was at home it was Christmas, Thanksgiving and New Year's all rolled into one. There were presents and laughter and the only sense of family she ever enjoyed.
Surely that would take away the edginess and the caged-in feelings she'd been suffering lately. With that rea.s.suring thought in mind, she turned away from the window and crawled into bed.
”Dammit.” Nick Barnes scowled at the e-mail he'd just received from his supervisor, indicating there had been another heist overnight. This time the take had been a priceless diamond from the private residence of one Sebastian Tyler.
Nick knew there would be no mention of the robbery in the papers. The FBI was keeping a lid on the spat of robberies similar to this latest.
The Bureau was certain that Jonas White was involved. The man had been under investigation for years for a variety of crimes, including the black-market sale of stolen antiquities and treasures. The FBI had recovered several of the stolen pieces, and each roundabout trail had led back to Jonas or his right-hand man, Richard Dunst. Unfortunately, the trails hadn't included solid evidence that would ensure a conviction. The evidence was all loosely circ.u.mstantial. Nick knew there would be no proof, no evidence pointing directly to the man's culpability this time either.
Jonas White was as slippery as an eel, as cunning as a fox and as wealthy as Midas. He had also been Nick's sole a.s.signment for the past two years.
The man had been under FBI investigation for art and arms smuggling, drug trafficking and a mult.i.tude of other crimes for years, but there had never been enough evidence for an arrest.
Seven years ago as a hotshot, new, twenty-two-year-old FBI agent, Nick had gone undercover and had worked a variety of a.s.signments. Then, two years ago, at the age of twenty-seven, he'd been hired as head of Jonas's security team. The plan was for Nick to work his way into Jonas's confidence and gain access to the details of the illegal activities.
Lately Jonas had taken more of an interest in Nick.
For the past six months Nick felt as if he just might be being groomed for something big...something that would get him into a place where he could get the goods on the man, gain the knowledge to bring Jonas down.
He jumped as his cell phone rang. He closed down his e-mail program, then reached for his cell phone in his pocket. The caller ID showed the calling number as private. He flipped it open and said h.e.l.lo.
”Have you read your e-mail this morning?” The deep voice belonged to Nick's supervisor and only contact while he was so deep undercover, Ray Graham.
”Yeah, I saw it. Unfortunately, Mark was out of the country last night.” Mark was their code name for Jonas. ”The e-mail you sent me was sketchy...anything left behind?”
”Nothing. Just like the others.” Ray heaved a deep, audible sigh. ”It's like a ghost got in and out when the security guards outside blinked their eyes. It's time, Nick...time to play Post Office.”
”Got it.”
Nick clicked off and leaned back in his chair. Post Office. He'd known it was coming. He left the table and walked over to the small desk next to the kitchen sink. From the top drawer he pulled out a manila folder.
He grabbed a fresh cup of coffee, then stepped out sliding doors to a tiny patio that overlooked the ocean. He sat at the small table in the shade of the overhead umbrella and for a moment simply sipped his coffee and watched the waves crash to sh.o.r.e.
He'd been renting this place for the past four years under the name of Walter Tyndale. There was only one person in the world who knew Nick had this small beach house, and that was Ray.
Although his family had cut Nick out of their lives years ago, he and his older brother, Anthony, had maintained strained, occasional contact with each other, but even Anthony didn't know about Nick's real work or this safe house.
This place was his escape, his sanity in the dangerous world he'd built with lie after lie as an undercover agent. And now he was about to complicate the situation with more lies.
He opened the file folder he'd brought outside and looked at the picture of the young woman contained within. Lynnette White...Jonas's G.o.ddaughter.
When Nick had first started working for Jonas two years before, Lynn had been a gangly twenty-year-old. There was nothing gangly about her at twenty-two. During the course of the past two years, Lynn had physically blossomed, developing curves where there had been none before.
Up until now Nick had had very little interaction with her. A pleasant nod, a brief h.e.l.lo was all they'd shared in the past. But the game was about to change. She might be the key to bringing down Jonas.
He stared at the photo. It had been taken with a long lens from quite a distance away, but the lab had worked its magic to give him a photo that appeared to have been taken mere feet from her.
She'd been captured just before getting into her car after one of her cla.s.ses at the nearby college. Her shoulder-length chestnut-colored hair framed her pretty features and her green eyes sparkled with life. She was slender, but not without feminine curves.
The picture had been taken by another agent during the ordinary course of building an up-to-date dossier on Jonas. In truth Nick knew little about her other than she had been sheltered most of her life and was now a grad student in computer science at Florida International University.
He touched her face with the tip of his index finger, a flash of adrenaline spiking through him.
Even though Nick felt that he was on the verge of being invited into Jonas's confidence, he'd known his superiors were getting tired of waiting for something to happen where Nick's undercover job was concerned. He wasn't surprised that they wanted Nick to turn up the heat by targeting Lynn.
Yes, she just might be the ticket to the arrest and conviction of Jonas. All Nick had to do was seduce her-become her lover and her confidant. Not exactly the worst a.s.signment he could draw.
He knew that part of the reason he'd been tapped for this particular job was because he was young and was considered to be handsome and charming, when he wanted to be. He had a reputation for being a ladies' man. A reputation built on the fact that Nick had enjoyed the company of a variety of women.
He slid the photo back in the folder, finished his coffee, then reluctantly went inside and prepared to leave his little sanctuary. There wasn't much to do in preparation for leaving. He only managed to spend time here briefly and only when Jonas was out of town.
Officially Nick lived in a luxury apartment with closets filled with silk suits and Italian-leather shoes, all bought and paid for by Jonas, who was a generous employer.
Seducing the lovely Lynnette wouldn't be easy. Jonas guarded her as if she were a precious artifact that might shatter if out of his control. But Nick didn't get his reputation as a superagent by backing away from difficult situations.
The other thing Nick had to consider was that if he struck up a relations.h.i.+p with Lynn and it went bad, then it was quite possible Jonas would fire him to get him out of her life.
Nick a.s.sumed his superiors had considered this risk and were willing that he take it in an effort to move the investigation forward more quickly.
It was early evening when he changed out of his jeans and T-s.h.i.+rt and into a gray suit and black dress s.h.i.+rt and headed for Jonas's place. He had a tidbit of information he knew would only serve to ingratiate him further into Jonas's confidence.
By this time Jonas should be settled in and they should already have eaten the evening meal. Hopefully it was a perfect time to drop in.
As he drove toward the luxury mansion, he thought again of his new directive. Time to play Post Office. He'd kissed the prettiest girl in the sixth grade in a game of Post Office at a birthday party when he'd been eleven years old.
This game of Post Office wouldn't be as innocent. Nick wasn't particularly thrilled at the prospect of using any woman as a tool, but Lynnette might be the only way to get to her G.o.dfather. The stakes were too high, and Jonas White had to be brought down.
Jonas and his G.o.ddaughter lived like royalty. The mansion they called home was a self-sustaining compound complete with backup generators, intensive security and luxuries most people only dreamed about.
Although Nick had been in the house on occasion, there were many of the thirty rooms that he'd not been in, rooms that he knew contained the heart of Jonas's illegal operations. Hopefully Lynnette White would be his key into those rooms.
He pulled up before the heavy iron gate and punched in the security code that would allow him entry. When his car went through, the gates closed behind him and he pulled around the circular driveway and stopped before the front door of the house.
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