Books by Maggie Shayne

Books by Maggie Shayne

Maggie Shayne is a best-selling author whom Romantic Times magazine calls 'brilliantly inventive." Maggie has won numerous awards including a Romantic Times Career Achievement Award. A three-time finalist for the Romance Writers of America's prestigious RITA Award, Maggie also writes mainstream contemporary fantasy.

In her spare time Maggie enjoys collecting gemstones, reading tarot cards, hanging out on the Genie computer network and spending time outdoors. She lives in a rural town in central New York State with her husband. Rick, five beautiful daughters and a bulldog named Wrinkles.

Silhouette Intimate Moments #694

Everyone is looking for it, Palamaro. I'm telling you, someone is go' rag to find it. Soon. " D.C. Wayne shook his head," pulled off his Ben Franklin specs and massaged the bridge of his nose with two fingers, looking every last one of his sixty-plus years.

"And you're not embellishing just to get me out of retirement? Not even a little?"

D.C. shot him a glare that would've nuked a small city. "You know better."

"I'm not so sure I do." Torch Palamaro dug a cigarette out of the crumpled pack in his shirt pocket and stuck it, unlit, between his lips while he thought it over. D.C. had argued long and loud when Torch had announced his retirement almost a year ago. The man had done everything but handsprings trying to convince Torch to stay on.

The I-CAT's bureau chief hadn't, though. Doug Stem had been glad to see Torch go. Hell, he'd have fired him personally if he'd had a single solid cause. All Stem had ever had, though, were suspicions.

 
And a healthy lust for Torch's dead wife.

"This job used to be your lifeline, Torch."

"Used to be my life, period. To the exclusion of everything else." He took the cigarette from his lips, rolled it between two fingers.

"And even then, I screwed up."

D.C. shook his head.

"Don't start with that crap. You were a good husband, a good father to your kids."

 
"So good I got them blown to bits."

D.C. fell silent.

"So good Doug Stern suspected I'd set the bomb myself."

Torch took a breath, swallowing the old rage. Stern's suspicions had infuriated him. And Torch hadn't exactly been cleared. But Stern had never been able to gather any real evidence against him. Still, Palamaro had found it impossible to continue working under the man.

Glancing down at his clenched hand, Torch opened his fingers one by one.

The cigarette was reduced to bits of white paper and brown tobacco flecks. Kind of like his life. Refuse and litter. No meaning.

Not anymore.

"What happened to Marcy and the twins wasn't y~ fault," D.C. said softly, his gruff voice gentling in a way it rarely did.

"And just so you know, Stern isn't involvexi in this."

"How the hell can he not be involved? He's in charge of everything I-CAT does."

"Not this. Look, I can't say more. Just trust me. Someone a lot higher up than Stern wants you in on this. We need this thing found and brought in, Torch. I think you might be the only man who can do it."

Torch sighed, shook his head.

"I swore I'd never take on another mission. Not after I dropped the ball last time."

"Torch, you saved hundreds of lives. All those people would have died--God knows, no one else had a clue what the target was." Do you remember how desperate we were? Do you remember the chaos around here when that bomb threat was phoned in? "

Torch remembered. He remembered everything. Too well. Especially at night, in his dreams. Oh, he remembered it all then.

D.C. rocked back in his chair.

"It was a mess. We. had agency men and feds and every bomb squad in the city on standby. But no one knew the target. We only knew the damn caller meant business."

Yeah. Because he'd given his name. Or the name he went by, at least.

Scorpion. The most successful terrorist in the world. Harder to catch than smoke. With the morals of his namesake. The bastard had no particular cause. He hired out to the h'~best bidder, doing their dirty work for a price. He was respons~le for more deaths than Torch could count, but there were only three that mattered to him. Three that he even bothered counting. Marcy, Josh and Jason. His wife. His sons.

The twins had only been four years old.

Word had it, the man who called himself Scorpion had never been thwarted. At least, not until this last time.

"We played that tape over and over," D.C. said.

"Everyone and his brother analyzed it, Torch. But no one figured it out.

"What once stood tallest will be brought to min." Wasn't that how he put it?

Tucked that one-liner in-among all his anti-American rhetoric so everyone else thought he was talking about the U. S. A. itself. You were the one who picked up on it. " You made the connection. The EmpLre State Building was evacuated and the bomb squads found enough to bring down a city block."

Torch listened. He could have tuned D.C. out, could have got up and left. But it wasn't as if he didn't go over this in his mind, day and night. Refusing to listen to D.C. wouldn't kill the memory.

Nothing would.

He'd been so damned pleased with himself. The only man ever to throw a wrench into one of Scorpion's attempts. He should have known there would be a price. He should have known.

"You couldn't have guessed the bastard would retaliate, Torch. No one could. It was totally against his MO to carry out an attack based on a personal vendetta. He'd never done anything unless he was, be' rag paid."

Somehow, the bastard had learned the name of the man responsible for stopping his little fireworks display from going off. Somehow, he'd tracked him down, when doing so should have been impossible. Scorpin had learned where Torch lived and planted another bomb.

The malicious son of a bitch had detonated it by remote control.

From somewhere close by, where he could watch. Torch hadn't know that then, of course. He'd only known that he was home, after one hell of a day's work. He'd only known that Marcy stood in the doorway, smiling at him when he pulled in the driveway, and that he couldn't wait to get to her. He'd carry that image of her with him. for the rest of his life.

Loving him, trusting him. Depending on him.

He'd gotten out of his car and taken a single step toward the house when it exploded. The white flash had blinded him, the impact had sent him flying, the heat had seared the skin of his face, singed his hair, scorched the suit he'd been wearing. Melted the wiper blades and the rubber bumper guard on his car and bubbled the paint. Intense heat.

Killing heat. There hadn't been a spot of snow left within fifty yards of the house, though there had been a fresh three inches the night before. And he'd struggled to his feet in the middle of the street where he'd landed hard on his back. He'd tried to go to them.

Even knowing they couldn't be alive. Even knowing there was no chance, he'd tried to go in. Maybe he'd just wanted to die with them.

Maybe that had been it.

His nearest neighbor had stopped him. Actually his nearest neighbor's respectable right hook to the jaw had stopped him. Nothing else could have.

"... you couldn't have known, Torch," D.C. was saying. "And a year is too long to let this thing eat your guts away. Damn, you keep it up there'll be nothing left."

It hadn't been a year. Not yet. There were still a couple of months to go.

Torch stopped staring at the shapeless wad of paper and tobacco in his hand and brushed it all into the unobtrusive gray wastebasket beside D.C.'s cluttered desk.

"When I want to discuss my mental state, I'll go to a shrink, D.C." He'd had enough. He couldn't think about it anymore. Not. now, not in front of his old friend.

"Just stick to the subject, okay? This'case you want me to take on, this mad scientist's missing formula~ you say 'everyone' is after it. Be more specific." ~ Rising from his chair, which resembled a BareaLounger on casters, D.C. paced in a small circle. Torch didn't want to upset the man any more than was necessary. No sense taxing the pacemaker that had given D.C. his nickname. He was pretty riled already. Hell, he had reason to be. He'd been passed Over for that promotion again last week. And now, word had it, he was being "urged" toward early retirement. Hell, the man might be slacking off lately, but he didn't deserve this.

He'd been good, in his prime. And he'd given everything he had to give.

The International Crises Aversion Team--I-CAT--had been his life. D.C. had supported the team from the spark of an idea' to a full-blown operation that the LIN would be hard-pressed to do without. When negotiations, sanctions and overt UN intervention failed, the men of I-CAT entered the picture, individually or in force And the problem was quietly solved.

Torch sat still, observing D.C. : the pallor of his face and the two high spots of color on his cheeks. The light in his eyes. Hell, his gnarled hands were shaking. This must be something major.

"So, who's after this formula, D.C.?"

D.C. stopped pacing and fixed Torch with a steady gaze. "You know I can't be specific until and unless I know you're taking the case."

 
Torch watched D.C. "s eyes but saw no hints.

"Shall I tick off terrorist groups on my fingers then? Just nod if I get warm, okay?"

"Pick one. I told you everyone. I meant everyone. And, dam reit Torch, the only safe place for something this powerful is in the hands of the UN. No, I take that back. Even that isn't safe. I want it destroyed. I want every trace of it eliminated. I want the damn thing never to have been disTorch nodded, absently flicking stray bits of brown tobacco from his palm, not particularly curious.

"Okay, so it's important. Vital, even. I don't think you'd be this stressed out if it wasn't. On to the next question. Why me?"

D.C. walked around the desk to stand right in front of hh chair.

"Because you can do it. There aren't many men around who have the skills, the ability, let alone the guts."

"Not many, but a few. So again, why me? And don't tell me it's because you're worried about me, D.C. I know you too well to think you'd let personal concerns influence a decision th/s sensitive. I'm an explosives expert, not a chemist."

D.C. shook hh head.

"Of the few who m/ght pull th/s off, Torch, you're the only one I t t."

He averted his eyes. "And there's another reason."

Torch lifted his brows and waited.

D.C. chewed the inside of his cheek, as if trying to deride on the right words. Finally he sighed.

"There are powers out there who'd pay anything they had to get this formula. Do you understand that? The man who finds it could name his price."

Torch lifted his brows.

"Think I could get a yacht outta this deal?"

D. C. scowled.

"It's no joking matter, Palamaro."

"Who's joking? The houseboat's nice, but it's getting cramped." Yeah, real cramped, just me and the accusing eyes of my wife and kids, and the nightmares. Taj Mahal would be too cramped for all of us.

Maggie-Shayne The old fists clenched. Palamaro saw them and cut to the chase.

"All right. Okay, I'll get serious. How much does the job pay?"

"One million dollars on delivery of the formula. Once we verify it, s genuine, that is."

"And if I can't deliver it?"

"We'll reimburse your expenses."

"Thoughtful of you."

D.C. closed his eyes.

"You'll be offered ten times that if you find it, Palamaro. You'll have to prepare yourself for that."

Palamaro nodded and thought it over.

"I hope. your powers of deduction aren't as rusty as they seem to be right now, Torch. Did you hear what I just said? A man could name his price " I heard. " Torch closed his eyes. He didn't want to take the job, even ~though the knowledge that he wouldn't have to work with Doug Stem made it more enticing. He didn't want to do much of anything, except kill time until he could get off the damned planeL He didn't have the heart for it anymore. NOt for living. Certainly not for working.

"A man could name his price," he repeated mechanically. "Terrorist groups, and a few Third World despots, too, I imagine, will be willing to pay ... to pay..." Torch's eyes opened. His head came up slowly, and he met D.C. "s troubled gaze. And what he saw there lita fire in Torch's soul. One he hadn't felt in the past year. He put the question into a single word.

"Scorpion?"

"CIA has a tip that he's in the U.S." after something big. I'd lay odds this is it. "

Torch swore long and low. ' "You're the only one ever to outwit that bastard, Toxch. That's why I want you on this case. And I'm not going to beg," D.C. told him.

Torch held D.C. "s stare, but he wasn't seeing it. He was seeing the two faces that haunted him, day and night. Twin angels, with twin sets of dimples and twin sets of blue eyes and twin heads of dark satin curls. His heart. His s0ul, All gone in a blinding white flash.

Torch's guilt was compounded by the fact that he hadn't loved their mother. At least, not in the passionate, can't-live-without-you definition of the word. They'd been best friends. And they'd both been lonely. One night a little too much liquor and a little too much mutual comforting had led to something more. And a couple of months later Torch had found himself married. A father, before he knew it.

He hadn't minded. Marcy had been his best friend, They'd been making it work.

He cleared his throat. He wanted the bastard who'd killed her. And if Scorpion and Torch were both after the same thing, Torch would be bound to run into him, sooner or later. He'd beat him at his own bloody game.

And this time, he'd kill him.

He lifted his gaze to D.C. "s and nodded just once.

"What have you got so far?"

D,C. sighed and for the first time, sank into his chair looking a little more relaxed. Torch watched him for a long moment, waiting.

D.C. lifted the black briefcase he'd been carrying all morning. He set it on the desk, right in the middle of a mishmash of papers and file folders and note-pads. D.C. "s office always looked as if one of Torch's bombs had recently detonated there. He punched a code into the panel on one side and snapped the case open. His eyes seemed tired now, or maybe that was just the relief of having shifted the burden. The old coot ought to take them up on the early retirement they were offering.

But he was too stubborn.

Torch took the four-inch-thick stack of papers and folders that emerged from that briefcase, and he prepared himself for a crash Course. He hoped to God he still had the stuff for this. He'd be calling on skills he hadn't used in almost a year.