Chapter 1 #2
He waited a beat, then walked through the restaurant to the front door, staying in the shadows under the wrought iron balcony above.
She was about ten yards away, walking at a leisurely pace, stopping to look in the window of an art gallery.
She turned her head one way and then the other, as though she were examining the paintings in the window, but he had the feeling she was really looking in the window’s reflection, making sure she wasn’t being followed.
He wasn’t certain how he surmised that, but he was pretty sure it was true.
What was she up to? Some kind of scam? After watching her continue down the street and turn the corner, he went back to his office and sat down at the computer.
When he put in the name Evelyn Morgan, there were several hits, but none of them seemed to match up with the woman who had come to him with her mysterious request.
Probably she’d taken the name recently.
He paused, wondering why he’d come to that conclusion on very little evidence. But he thought it was true.
He could skip the meeting, but the whole situation intrigued him, and somehow he knew he was going to keep the appointment.
In Portland, Oregon, a tall, white-haired man who now called himself Bill Wellington clicked on an e-mail that had just arrived in his in-box.
Once his office had been within sight of the Capitol building in Washington, DC. He’d headed up a clandestine agency called the Howell Institute that had taken on some interesting jobs for the federal government and other entities that wanted discreet, reliable services performed.
Now he was nominally retired, living across the country, enjoying long lunches at the club and golf lessons–activities he hadn’t had time for when he’d been playing the power game.
He’d worked hard for thirty years, and he was taking advantage of the perks he’d earned.
Like the name he was currently using. He’d only been Bill Wellington for a few years.
When he’d been at the Howell Institute, he’d been someone else, a name which he preferred to keep buried.
His occupation had put him in danger. In fact, he still had a few loose ends to tie up. And this e-mail had to do with one of them.
The text said:
“The woman you’re looking for is going under the name Evelyn Morgan. She is currently in New Orleans, registered at the Bourbon Street Arms.”
Because he’d learned not to get excited until he had all the facts, he went on to read the rest of the message, taking in details of her movements since she’d arrived in the Crescent City and studying the attached video clip that had been taken from across the street as she stepped into a restaurant called Le Beau.
The picture certainly looked like his former executive assistant, with a few years on her, although she’d dyed her hair brown and had some facial surgery to change her nose and her lips.
But even with physical therapy, she hadn’t been able to completely eliminate her limp.
She’d been a daredevil in her time, and she’d shattered her right leg leaping off a bridge just before it had gone down in an explosion.
She’d been careful to stay out of circulation for the past five years, but Wellington had his sources, and he’d been confident that he’d eventually catch up with her.
One of the men he kept on retainer had finally located her.
She’d had a top secret security clearance, and he’d trusted her with all sorts of confidential information–unfortunately.
The bitch had left with files that a more cautious man would have destroyed years ago.
But Wellington was too much of a pack rat, and he wasn’t willing to just forget about projects that might come back to haunt him in the present D.C.
atmosphere where politicians set up a circular firing squad at the drop of a scandalous whisper.
He sat back in his chair, trying to put himself in Morgan’s place. She was up to something, but did it involve putting the screws to her old boss?
For what?
Money.
He had no intention of paying. And no intention of leaving her roaming around on the loose where she could make trouble for him or drag the good name of the Howell Institute through the mud.
He could have used the operative who’d sent the report on Morgan for the next part of the assignment, but he’d always found it better to compartmentalize.
He went back to his computer and opened another file–this one a list of men he’d used for supersensitive assignments in the past. All of them were efficient and reliable.
Carter Frederick was in the New Orleans area, which meant he could get on the job quickly.
He’d never met the man in person. In fact, he dealt with him only through an alias–the Badger.
After dialing the number beside the name, he waited until an AI generated voice answered.
“If you know your party’s extension, you may dial the number at any time.”
He punched in 991 and waited for a set of clicks.
Frederick came on the line. “How may I help you?”
“This is the Badger calling. I have a problem in New Orleans. A rush job.”
“That will cost you.”
He didn’t like the guy’s assumption that he was in charge of the conversation, but he was willing to overlook that, if he got results. “Not important. I’m having issues with a former employee. I want you to find out what she’s doing there and what she knows.”
“About what?”
“It’s your job to get that from her.”
“Better tell me a little bit more, so I’ll know if she’s spinning some kind of wild story.”
“If I knew why she was in town, I wouldn’t need you to question her.”
“Okay. You got her location?”
He gave the hotel’s name and address.
Rachel saw a few more clients, one a woman who came to her every few months for advice. She was glad to focus on the familiar customer so that she didn’t have to think about Evelyn Morgan.
But finally she was alone again and unable to shake the sense of dread that had dogged her ever since she’d read the woman’s cards.
She’d been sure Ms. Morgan was going to die. Could she tell her that, and maybe help her prevent it, if she did another reading when they met again tomorrow night?
After closing the shop, she went up to her apartment and busied herself fixing tuna salad, which she spread on some fresh greens and ate on the second floor terrace that adjoined her apartment while she looked through a catalog of new age books she was considering for the shop.
Finished with the light dinner, she washed the dishes, then sat up in bed and read a romance novel for a while.
She liked them for the intensity, for the emotions of the characters in relationships she was never going to have.
Tonight, though, she was unable to keep her mind from wandering to Evelyn Morgan.
She finally gave up and lay in the darkness, trying to calm her nerves with relaxation exercises, but she knew she was definitely going to say something to Ms. Morgan tomorrow.
The decision was like a giant weight lifted off her chest. It was the right thing to do, and she was able to relax.
With a little sigh, she closed her eyes, and for a few hours she slept peacefully. Then sleep morphed into . . . something else.
She was lying in her bed with her eyes open, only she had the strange feeling that she wasn’t really conscious.
Before she could puzzle that out, a shadowy figure stepped into her bedroom. A man. She couldn’t see him in the darkness, but she knew he was large and solid.
She lay rigid as he walked toward the bed. In a shaft of light from the street, she got a look at him. He was tall and a little rough around the edges with dark hair and dark eyes.
He stood staring down at her, then glanced over his shoulder at something she couldn’t see.
“We have to get out of here.”
She shrank back. “Why?”
“They’re after us.”
“Who?”
He made a sharp gesture with his hand. “I don’t know, but we have to leave before it’s too late.”
There was no reason to believe him. Then from downstairs, she heard the sound of a door quietly opening, and the realization of danger almost choked off her breath.
“Come on!”
He reached out and grabbed her arm, and a blaze of sensation shot through her, like she’d suddenly grabbed a live electric wire, and the current was sizzling along her nerve endings.
But it was more than a physical reaction. So much more. Part sexual. Part longing. Part intimacy. None of which she could explain.
She’d never met this man before. Was he even real?
Yes!
It was like when she was reading the cards and she got a sudden insight into the person sitting across from her. Only this was so much deeper.
Did he feel it too?
Yes.
He hadn’t spoken. But she had heard the word in her head.
Before she could stop to consider that, he was urging her to leave.
Come on. He said again, another mind to mind communication.
She’d never experienced anything like it, nor did she know what to make of it.
But she got out of bed, wearing a sheer white nightgown that did nothing to hide her body from him.
He gave her a long, hot glance, and she knew that under other circumstances, they would be heading back to the bed, not away from it.
Instead, he led her quickly to the French doors.
They stepped out and ran across the terrace, just as a man burst through the doors behind them, and she knew that if they didn’t get away, they were dead.
The man who had first come to her room jumped nimbly down to the street level and held out his arms.
Without hesitation, she gave him her total trust, jumping into his embrace, crashing against him.
He staggered back but kept his balance. When his arms came up to enfold her, she burrowed into him, feeling safe and at the same time more terrified than she ever had in her life.
Not just because someone was after them.
It was him. Them. Whatever was between them was going to change her whole life, and she couldn’t stop it.