Bait (30 page)

Because he wasn't imagining it. Despite the brave front she was putting on, there was fear in her eyes. She wasn't alone, either. Now that he was about to send her out where he didn't have total control of the environment and she might really be vulnerable, he was struggling with a whole boatload of second thoughts himself. If he'd been able to think of anything else that might work as well as using her as bait, he would have scrapped the plan right there and then. The problem was, he couldn't.

Lips tightening, he reached out and buttoned her jacket for her, so that as little of the damned vest showed as possible. She had tied a scarf around her neck, he noticed for the first time, a black, gauzy one, and he realized that she was wearing it to hide the bruise where the sick fuck had choked her.

Sam was suddenly so angry he wanted to kill.

“Do you actually think he's going to take another shot at me?” Her grin had faded. She was looking at him steadily. He hadn't been mistaken about the fear: He could see it in everything from the set of her jaw to the tension around her eyes. But she wasn't going to let it show if she could help it, and she was going to go through with the plan regardless.

“I don't know,” Sam said, his tone rougher than it needed to be because she was getting to him despite his best efforts to keep it from happening. She was being courageous, gallant even. And he? Hell, face the truth: What he was doing here was using her. Putting her in danger, even while she trusted him to keep her safe. Or, to put the best possible face on it, he was simply doing his job. Which, like now, sometimes sucked. “But there's no point in taking any chances. Wear the damned vest, okay?”

NOW I KNOW what it feels like to have an entourage,
Maddie thought wryly as the equivalent of the presidential motorcade escorted her to work. It was rush hour, and the expressway was jammed. The urge to put in a call to her good buddy Bob was growing stronger by the minute
—You want to explain what a man was doing sneaking up my back stairs in the middle of the night?—
but there were too many eyes watching and, possibly, ears listening to make that wise. Under the circumstances, her best choice—her
only
choice—was to sit tight, so that's what she did. She sat tight right in the driver's seat of her Camry as she headed east on I-64 toward downtown St. Louis. In front of her was a gray Maxima carrying two agents whose names she didn't know. Behind her, Cynthia was driving McCabe in a black Blazer. She could see them anytime she wanted with a flick of her eyes to her rearview mirror. Behind them came the white van, with Gomez driving and Hendricks beside him. None of the vehicles was too close—apparently, the idea was to make it look as if she were on her own, just in case the hit man might still be harboring some illusions about that—but Maddie was acutely aware of them nonetheless.

The sky was a high, brilliant blue, dotted here and there with cottony clouds. The shimmer of heat that would rise above the city later was not yet in evidence. She drove toward the arch, which gleamed silver in the bright morning sunlight as it curved like a colossus across the horizon. Clustered around it, the angular skyscrapers and Victorian-era domes and needlelike church steeples that filled in the skyline seemed to stretch out endlessly. Maddie got just a glimpse of the mud-brown waters of the Mississippi River rolling lazily by on her right as she turned off onto Market Street. For a moment she marveled as all three vehicles escorting her made the turn with ease despite the crush of traffic, no zooming over from the far lane, no cutting in front of other cars, no squealing brakes or honking horns. Each simply pulled onto the ramp as if, instead of taking their cue from her, they had known exactly where they were going all the time. Which, Maddie realized with an internal
duh
seconds later, of course they did. They were the FBI, after all. Knowing where she worked and how to get there was something straight out of Snooping 101 to them.

Finding herself once again sandwiched in the middle of the procession, Maddie was suddenly all too conscious of the cold weight of the bulletproof vest dragging at her shoulders. Knowing that she was wearing it made her jumpy. Just being back in the car again made her jumpy. McCabe had said that the new glass was all bulletproof, but knowing she was safe and feeling like she was safe were, she was discovering, two entirely different things. The awful moment when that shot had exploded through her windshield had been indelibly etched on her mind, and finding herself back in the catbird's seat, as it were, was nerve-racking. She caught herself glancing around nervously as she drove. Now that she knew how it happened
—fast, bang, out of nowhere, and you're dead—
she didn't think she'd ever be entirely comfortable in any open area again.

By the time she reached the Anheuser-Busch Building, where Creative Partners had offices on the sixth floor, her palms were damp.

The trickiest part, of course, she realized as she parked in the lot behind the building, was getting from her car into the building. Without the shell of the Camry for protection, Maddie felt hideously vulnerable as she got out and headed for the chrome-trimmed glass double doors of the rear entrance. Juggling briefcase and purse, breathing in the tarry smell of the asphalt underfoot and the fishy odor of the Mighty Mississippi with every step, she scrunched up her shoulders protectively and hotfooted it across the pavement while trying to project a business-as-usual air to any and all onlookers. But she was hideously conscious of every passing car, every pedestrian, every metallic glint in a high-up window. Sounds seemed to be magnified—the swoosh of tires on pavement, the rumble of a city bus as it passed, the slamming of car doors near and far. Her minders were fanned out all around her—McCabe and Cynthia in a parking spot a dozen feet or so to her left, the two unknown agents circling the lot near the back, Gomez and Hendricks pulling to the curb on the street near where she'd parked—but for those three hundred or so yards, she felt as alone as she ever had in her life. Even so early in the morning, it was already hot as a steam bath, typical August in St. Louis, with the promise of yet another miserably sultry day to come. But by the time Maddie had made it halfway to the door, she was freezing.

It was chilling to know that the hit man could be anywhere. Even now he could be lifting a rifle, lining up the crosshairs, targeting
her.

Pushing through the door, Maddie practically fell into the building's air-conditioned gloom. She had to pause for a second in the small rear vestibule, pressing her hands to her face, trying to get her breathing under control. Her fingers felt as cold as ice. Her heart pounded as though she'd just run a marathon. Her mouth was dry.

Get a grip,
she told herself. Dropping her hands, she took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and carried on. The marble-floored lobby that the vestibule opened into was crowded, which was typical at this time on a Monday morning as her fellow tenants headed up to their jobs. Several people greeted her as she joined a group waiting for the elevators. Acutely conscious of the bulletproof vest herself, she was surprised when no one seemed to notice anything unusual about her appearance. Still so on edge that she jumped when someone in the crowd sneezed, Maddie smiled and chatted to a couple of people without even knowing what she was saying or being aware of to whom she was talking. She was, she supposed, operating on autopilot, which might or might not be a good thing. It kept her from attracting the curious attention of her acquaintances, but it might also work against her if she was too out of it to notice something that might give the hit man away before he could strike.

Just as she was stepping into the elevator, her cell phone rang. Maddie jumped before she realized what it was, then glanced nervously around to see if anyone had noticed her reaction. It seemed as though no one had. The blasted thing kept on ringing. It was in her purse, and she had to dig for it. When she finally found it and answered, the elevator was shuddering to a halt on the third floor.

“You're doing great,” McCabe said in his patented dark-chocolate drawl as two women squeezed out the door. “There's a short, pudgy bald guy carrying a newspaper on the elevator with you. Do you see him?”

Alarmed, Maddie glanced quickly around as the elevator doors closed and they started up again. Was McCabe describing the hit man, warning that he was near? The elevator was still almost full, but it took just seconds to spot the man standing behind her on the left. Her heart kicked up a notch. As her widened eyes met his, the pudgy guy gave her a slight smile. Heart in throat, Maddie hastily looked forward again.

“Y-es,” she said into the phone on a slightly squeaky note.

“Well, pretend you don't. That's Special Agent George Molan. I want you to ignore him, act like he's not even there. He'll see you safely into your office. Gardner's on her way up.”

Maddie practically passed out with relief right there in the elevator. “Okay.”

“You've got nothing to be afraid of. We've got you covered so tightly that a mosquito won't be able to bite you without us swatting it first.”

Good to know,
Maddie thought, but before she could say anything, he disconnected.

Sure enough, Molan got off on the sixth floor, trailed behind her as she walked briskly toward the seven-room suite that Creative Partners occupied on the northwest side of the building, then stayed behind to bend over the water fountain as she went inside.

Louise was not at her desk just inside the door. Maddie frowned as she realized that. Her gaze swept the reception area. It was a large room, sleekly modern like the rest of the office, with pearl-gray walls and carpet, and chrome and black furniture. Sunlight streamed through a row of tall windows to cast bright rectangles across the blown-up stills from their most successful advertising campaigns that adorned the walls. Magazines highlighting Creative Partners' campaigns and clients were arranged neatly on various tables. Bold and functional, it was an attractive space, if she did say so herself. Of course, she wasn't exactly an impartial source: She'd designed and decorated it.

Since buying the business, she'd put every spare penny and every spare minute and every spare thought she'd had into making Creative Partners a success. And the look of the place was an important ingredient in impressing clients. Achieving the right look on a piggy-bank budget had been a challenge. She'd scrounged office furniture closeout sales to find new chairs and tables for the reception room, and the modular black leather couch had come from a yard sale. She and the rest of the staff had painted the walls themselves. They'd made the blowups to hang on them. They'd—well, they'd done everything. In the last year and a half or so, they had totally remade Creative Partners in every way to reflect the more dynamic company that they all hoped it would become. Every single change bore Maddie's personal stamp, and she couldn't have been prouder of the result if the company had been her child. In a way, she thought, it
was
her child.

The little advertising agency that could.
The hand-painted slogan hung on the wall behind Louise's desk. That was how they thought of themselves, and they'd labored as tirelessly as ants to make it true.

Then, on Friday, they'd won the Brehmer account. And just like that, the world had changed. All the hopes and dreams that each of them had put into the rebuilding of the company now trembled on the brink of coming true.

Or not.

The thought that she might be going to lose it all hung over Maddie's head like a dark cloud as she looked around. She ...

Someone pushed through the door behind her. Maddie jumped, cutting her eyes nervously toward the newcomer.

“Yo,” Cynthia said, then, responding to something she must have seen in Maddie's face, added, “Everything okay?”

Maddie breathed again. “Fine. It's just—Louise—the receptionist—isn't at her desk.”

“Is she usually?”

“She usually comes in, sits right down at her desk, and has her breakfast.” Maddie shrugged, and started walking. Besides the reception area, there were four offices—one each for Jon, Judy, Herb, and herself—a conference room, and a workroom with office machines, file cabinets, and a desk for Ana. “She's probably in the restroom. Or making coffee.”

All right, so having a babysitter was a little irksome,
Maddie reflected as she glanced in Jon's, Judy's, and Herb's doors in turn on the way to her own, only to find their offices deserted, too. If Cynthia hadn't been right behind her, her hand moving beneath her jacket to rest on what Maddie hoped was a very large gun as they progressed, she would have been freaked to the point of running out of the office by the time she'd made it to the end of the hall.

“Louise? Jon? Anybody?” she called, sticking her head into the workroom.

Nobody answered, and for a very good reason: Nobody was there.

“Let me open it,” Cynthia said, moving in front of her as Maddie reached her office door and started to grasp the knob. “I
know
this place is secure; we had it searched before the building opened and we've had it staked out since, but ...”

Her voice trailed off as she turned the knob. Maddie knew just what she meant. Finding the office silent and empty was unnerving.

Cynthia threw the door open wide.

“Surprise!” screamed five voices in unison, echoed by a chorus of loud pops that made Maddie jump and Cynthia take a hasty step back. A shower of glittery confetti filled the air. Brightly colored balloons bounced against the ceiling. A big banner stretched across the windows, proclaiming
We got the Brehmer account!
A small sheet cake took center stage in the middle of her desk. Glancing around, Maddie sucked in air.