Dark Cover (The DARK Files #2) Page 4

  “I don’t want out. If you have no problem, neither do I.”

  “Then that’s settled,” Nick said. His smile, a lethal curve of sculpted lips and blinding white teeth, zinged straight into her bloodstream.

  Her earpiece crackled to life. “Yo, Wade, we have a problem. Intruder on the grounds.”

  ***

  Nick was about to express congratulations to Diana and her new fiancé, when Vanessa held up her hand.

  She clicked something in the breast pocket of her blouse. “I’m in the library. Intruder location?”

  Ah, she’d heard a surveillance report in her earpiece and activated a mic. Just as well it hadn’t been turned on during their trip down memory lane.

  Though DARK eavesdropping wouldn’t have mattered. No equipment was sensitive enough to pick up his fascination with her. Without the leather jacket, her silk blouse revealed the curves he’d brushed in their back-seat scramble. She listened intently, an apricot-pink painting her cheeks.

  Cute and incongruous as hell.

  She turned to him, green eyes glittering as if she’d discovered the mother lode. “African-American male, late teens, short dreadlocks, backpack. Entered by the garden gate on the far side of the house. Headed toward the back.”

  “Not one of New Dawn’s finest, then.” He headed out the door toward the sunroom.

  Vanessa caught up to him at the door to the terrace. She grabbed his arm. Her strong grip surprised him, but didn’t halt him. The grip of her slender hand on his dark forearm did. How small she was, only about five-four, but professional and self-assured. The contrast between her girl-next-door appearance and her terrorist-hunting profession intrigued him. He didn’t know what to think. Or what she’d do next.

  She was tough, frank and quick-thinking, all qualities he admired but observed rarely. Danielle had those qualities, but in her they were like a stabbing blade, not a reassuring hand.

  Vanessa’s glorious rose-gold hair was down, Danielle-style, yet was nothing like hers. Her milk-white skin was nearly translucent, as if passion waited just beneath the surface. Her big green eyes, the stray curls licking her temples and a slightly pointed chin made her oval face pixieish. Pixieish. He’d never used that word before. What the hell was the matter with him? Focus, man. Remember, you’re engaged and she’s government.

  “What? You intend to go out there instead of me and confront him? Danielle wouldn’t do that.”

  She shook her head, let her hand drop away. “If we need backup, the surveillance unit will take care of it. I just wanted to advise you not to be a hero.”

  His gut twisted at her absurd statement. She shouldn’t trust him with her safety. No one should. At his sides, his hands had curled into fists. He forced them open. “Honey, the last thing you can expect me to do is play hero.”

  She tipped her head at his reply, but didn’t comment. He didn’t need her concern, though DARK must know what had happened in Somalia. Didn’t she get it?

  Something in her lured him, a siren song that beckoned him to trust her, to spill the details of that shameful episode in his past. And more. But unlike Ulysses, he needed no ropes to restrain him. He’d kept his counsel for ten years. Whining about his failure now would serve no purpose.

  “Besides,” he continued, “this sounds like Janine’s daughter’s boyfriend.”

  “The housekeeper? What’s her daughter’s boyfriend doing here on a Saturday?”

  From what Alexei had told him, he could think of several reasons, none of them legitimate. “Shall we go find out?”

  “So we’re on the same page, what would Danielle do?”

  “Danielle might be aloof and cynical, but she’s a journalist, curious as ten cats. She’d be right next to me.”

  Her smile caught him off guard. The beam of pleasure was a spill of sunshine from his father’s native Aegean isles. Its warmth curled around his chest. He shrugged off the impression and opened the door.

  As they emerged onto the terrace, the young man rounded the back corner of the house and neared them. Baggy gangsta pants and layers of shirts, the hot brand of basketball shoes, earrings. No tattoos in view, but the kid probably had those too. Nick knew the rebel uniform. He saw it often enough on New York streets. D.C. was no different.

  When the kid spotted them on the terrace, surprise opened his mouth before caution — or guilt — closed him up tight. Challenge defined his walnut-toned features. He slouched into a cocky and defiant demeanor.

  “You must be Ray.” Nick sat on the finished part of the low stone wall. Unthreatening, casual.

  “You must be Mr. Markos’s brother.” Ray adjusted the bulky pack hitched over one shoulder and came to stand in front of Nick. The slope of lawn and the terrace exaggerated his lowered position. He flicked a curious glance toward Vanessa, who stood in the background.

  Kid was about six feet and fit. Probably a dirty street fighter, but no match for Special Forces training. He hoped they’d never need to find out. He hadn’t the heart for it anymore. “I’m Nick Markos. This is my fiancée Danielle Le Bec. The house is mine now.”

  Vanessa said nothing, but offered the boy a cool nod. She ambled forward and to the left, flanking the kid.

  Nick gave himself a mental slap. He’d automatically positioned himself to protect a woman who didn’t need it.

  Intelligent brown eyes assessed the two adults on the terrace. Ray might dress and walk the antisocial street-thug part, but he met a gaze directly. Nick awarded him a point.

  “I ain’t done nothin’.”

  “That’s good, Ray. Real good. So why are you here?”

  “I come to see Lise. Ain’t she here helping her mom do the cleaning?”

  “It’s Saturday. Janine works here Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I’m surprised you don’t know that.”

  “Reckon I forgot.” He bobbed his head in a servile manner Nick recognized as crap. “I be outta here then.”

  Vanessa meandered to a stone fountain. She trailed her fingers in the water and smiled. “Ray, isn’t there something you want to ask my fiancé? The other reason you came?”

  Nick slanted her a questioning look.

  “The gloves?” she added.

  Worn brown cotton work gloves peeked from an outside pouch on the pack’s side. Nick suspected a less benign reason for those gloves, such as fingerprint prevention. Was he more of a skeptic than the DARK officer?

  Vanessa’s smile had a disarming effect. A ruddy hue infused Ray’s dark cheeks, and he nearly smiled back before he caught himself and twisted his mouth to tough-guy sullen.

  “Miz Janine, she said you might have odd jobs for me sometimes. Like some yard work. Or that sad-ass wall.”

  Either Ray thought fast on his feet or Vanessa had hit it right. The job excuse allowed the kid to save face. Why not? “Zeno does the yard work, but if there’s something extra, I’ll tell you.”

  Ray jerked his chin toward the terrace corner where the wall ended in a tumble of odd stones. “Ain’t nobody worked on that wall in months. Too bad to leave it half done.”

  Alexei’s grandiose designs would’ve buried him in debt. Unless that mysterious ten million existed after all.

  “I agree,” Nick answered. “My brother stopped paying the landscaping company, so his plan crashed. Are you a mason?”

  Ray shrugged. “I helped a guy build a couple walls.” He toed a stone. “This one don’t look too hard.”

  “I haven’t decided how much of Alexei’s renovations to complete. We’ll see.”

  “I be goin’ then.” He hitched up the pack and started toward the corner.

  “One more thing,” Nick said evenly.

  The boy turned, eyes opaque, mouth tight.

  “I’ll take the gate key. Next time you come to see Lise, ring the bell by the garage walk-in door.”

  Without demur, Ray extracted a brass key from a deep pocket in his shorts and handed it over.

 
A moment after he disappeared around the house, Vanessa said, “Snow reports he’s out. Jogging down the street toward Connecticut Avenue. They put a man on him.”

  She listened again. “Roger that. Out.” She clicked off her mic. For the first time her gaze held no warmth, only the green ice of emeralds. “What’s Ray’s last name? He wasn’t on our list of possible visitors. We’ll find him, but a last name would speed identification.”

  “All I know is Ray. When I saw Alexei in jail, he said he’d ordered the boyfriend not to come around again. I didn’t expect to see him.” From Vanessa’s tone, he gathered DARK was suspicious of his motives for neglecting to mention the kid.

  They wanted the household to appear normal, so Janine and her daughter continued their routine, but under DARK eyes. The government distrusted the two women because of Alexei. Nick scoffed at that, but he insisted the surveillance also be protection for them. In case New Dawn got new hostage ideas. But he’d forgotten about Ray. Let DARK suspect the hell out of him. Ray was the least of his worries.

  He walked to the stack of building stones and picked up a flat granite circle the size of a dinner plate. On one side was an intricate design in relief. Another similar stone was mortared in the finished part of the wall. The stack contained enough of the circular medallions to form a pattern around the terrace.

  Nick laid down the medallion. “The pool and tennis courts Alexei dreamed up are out of the question, but I like the wall. And these stone medallions.”

  “A finished terrace will help sell the house.”

  “I’ll see about having it finished. Ray was right about that. What makes you think he came ready to do honest labor?”

  “He had the gloves, and his hands are callused. You don’t think so?”

  “Maybe. Alexei suspected him of casing the house for what he could sell. He found Ray skulking around outside exactly like today. That’s when he ordered him off the property.”

  “So why’d you say he could come back to see Lise?”

  If Ray was honest after all, he shouldn’t be punished because Alexei acted the lord of the manor, something he’d learned at his mama’s breast. Those were family affairs Nick shouldn’t get into with this perceptive woman. But the more he explained to her, the more he wanted to spill.

  Before he crossed his self-imposed line, he had to get away from her. And stay away. “Beats the hell out of me. Dinner’s at seven.” He turned and walked into the house.

  Chapter 4

  DINNER AT SEVEN? Not exactly.

  On Monday, as she browsed a computer at Markos Imports on O Street in Georgetown, Vanessa was still mulling over what had happened.

  Nick had disappeared to his room and then to the gym downstairs. She’d showered and napped for a couple of hours. She never napped, but whisking to London and back in three days skewed her body clock. How did the jet set do it?

  When she found her way to the hangar-sized, gleaming granite-and-stainless-steel kitchen, no Nicolas Markos. Only a scrawled note with a salad and the menu for what to nuke. A chicken breast and some sort of bean-and-rice dish Janine had prepared. Nick didn’t appear the rest of the evening.

  And she saw little of him on Sunday, come to think of it. She spent some of the day going over strategy with the surveillance guys.

  When they were alone, Nick seemed to find somewhere else to be. DARK needed her to dig out more about him.

  Background checks had uncovered nothing concrete, but DARK still wondered if he’d been involved in his half brother’s dirty dealings. His Special Forces experience and his overseas business and social connections made him a potential risk to the mission. And there was that missing money. She needed proximity to coax out information.

  But Nick was making himself as scarce as that ten mil. The director had chosen her because people usually talked to her.

  But not Nicolas Markos.

  Was he just working or had she alienated him? They cleared up her past transgression at Diana’s apartment, didn’t they? Was it the encounter with young Ray? Nick went into soldier mode, but then he shut down and shut her out. His harsh comment about not being a hero kept repeating in her brain like an annoying tune. She’d noticed nothing unusual in his file.

  What was going on? Whatever it was, his suspicious actions didn’t bode well for this operation. She had to find a way to spend time with him, so he’d open up. That plan would exacerbate her other problem — hiding her inconvenient awareness of him. She would be her usual friendly self, and keep things on a professional plane.

  As long as they were alone. In public, that was another story. Would he have his hand on her? His arm around her? How could she ignore the lure of his woodsy scent mingled with salty male? Or forget the solid feel of his arms? Or was it the lure of the forbidden and the mystery she sensed in his soul?

  Think of him as your brother, like Jason or Troy. She tried to imagine Nicolas Markos scouring her face with mud after she’d doused him with the garden hose. Dream on. Professional interest, not personal involvement. Detachment. She repeated the mantra. And sighed. Her mind wasn’t on the task at hand. She’d been at this computer too long. She hit Page Down.

  She and her so-called fiancé were spending the day at Alexei’s import business. Nestled among antique shops and galleries, the old brick building housed a retail shop and offices on the ground floor and more offices and warehouse space in a second story.

  Across the street, in an upstairs storage room, was another DARK surveillance unit. During the night, they’d secreted electronic bugs throughout the business. Cameras and microphones covered the entrances, front and back.

  Since she was supposed to be a magazine editor and savvy with computers, Vanessa aka Danielle had the task of examining the electronic books. Probably Nick’s ploy to stash her out of the way.

  Accounts were straightforward, up to date, but so far contained no hint of transactions for the New Dawn Warriors, let alone several million spare bucks. Even with the smattering of econ theory she remembered from college, she didn’t think it took an economist or even an accountant to see that Markos Imports was sinking, not as fast as the Titanic, but as inevitably. Without an infusion of new stock and without Alexei’s contacts, clients and vendors were abandoning ship.

  When the numbers on the computer screen began to blur, she left the cramped office and went in search of Nick. She found him in the executive office that occupied the entire back of the shop.

  The lavish suite dazzled with a kaleidoscope of patterns and colors — burgundy-and-navy Persian rugs, black-lacquered cabinets and tables, gold-framed paintings and Japanese brush drawings. A cobalt-blue porcelain vase stood on a low hammered-brass table. A black-and-gold enameled dragon guarded one end of a mahogany desk, the twin of the one at the house. She waited quietly at the doorway while he conversed with the manager and assistant manager.

  Nick’s burnished-olive skin contrasted with the snowy white of his band-collared shirt. She had yet to see him in a tie, but he looked every inch the CEO in a navy pinstripe suit.

  All day he’d spent in negotiations. Sessions with the employees who didn’t want him to sell and with importers who might buy the shop meant walking a tightrope. He was in command, quiet but firm and decisive, putting her in mind of a conquering knight. Or the Greek tycoon of her first impression.

  The shop manager was an elegant, wand-slim Chinese-American woman named Celia Chin. “The rugs are no problem,” she was saying, “and the small decorative pieces. We sell a few every day. We could continue if we could obtain more.”

  Emil Alfieris, the assistant manager, stabbed the air with an emphatic index finger. “Alexei traveled abroad on buying trips. If—”

  “But Alexei is gone, and that won’t be happening.” Nick spoke softly, but in a tone that brooked no argument. He sat in a matching chair, not in the executive throne behind the desk, but his authority suffered not an iota for it.

  Celia cast an anxious l
ook at her assistant. “For the screens and the friezes, the more ornate cabinets, the market is specialized.”

  “Alexei knew how to bring in certain buyers.” Emil drummed his manicured nails on the brass table. A slight, dapper man in a bow tie, his Greek extraction totaled his only kinship with Nick.

  “Danielle and I are slated to attend a reception at the Washington Cultural Museum on Friday,” Nick said. “Networking could line up more prospects for the business.”

  “If I could make the buying trips to the Orient that he used to do, new imports might breathe new life into the business.” Celia sat still as ivory on a blue brocade chair, with her folded hands in her lap. Her knuckles gleamed white.

  Nick’s hands on his knees looked relaxed, but a muscle twitched in his jaw. “Ms. Chin, it’s too late for that. Selling is the only option. In the meantime, I’ll write up that reference for you. For you both.”

  Vanessa ducked from view. Time to retreat.

  All five employees — the clerks and warehouse attendants as well as the managers — were wound as tightly as the antique clock on the wall. No evidence tied them to Alexei’s nefarious dealings, but they bore watching.

  The background report said that after Alexei had disappeared, Nick paid the utilities and the housekeeper. He also kept the import business afloat, but he refused to do anything to keep it flourishing. He wanted out. Why?

  His international restaurant supply company was diverse. This was just another kind of import business. With a little effort, it could be profitable again. Why was he so determined to sell? Was he as rigid and inflexible as Danielle had said?

  Or was it something more?

  ***

  After the shop closed and the employees left, Nick found Vanessa reading through Alexei’s business e-mail.

  Her freckled nose wrinkled as she studied something obscure. Her hair seemed to contain the sun’s rays even under the office’s ugly fluorescent lighting. If he ran his fingers through the fiery waves, would they feel cool and silky or would their heat warm his hand?