Her Last Chance (2 page)

He smiled but it was grim at the
edges; hell, he felt grim at the edges. “What do
you
think?” he
countered, willing the girl to get an opinion of her own and stop trying to
please other people. Why else would she be out with a man old enough to be her
father? Although, damned if he knew what it said about a man in his position
that he’d ended up manipulated by his own mother. Just thinking about it made
his jaw clench in frustration.

If his elder brother had made it
out of the Middle East alive no one would give a damn whether or not Marsh got
married and produced an heir to the family fortune. But Robert had died in the
Iraqi desert and a giant piece of Marsh’s heart had died alongside him on the
battlefield. His parents had been shattered.

Marsh’s suggestion to leave
everything to the dog-pound hadn’t gone over well. He loved his mother. There
was nothing he wouldn’t do for her, except get married to some debutante. How
in God’s name did he explain that being drugged, handcuffed to a bed and having
sex with a woman who hated his guts had been the best experience of his life?
One that had altered him forever and made every other encounter pale into
insignificance?

A tortured laugh escaped unbidden.

He straightened the cuffs of his
tailored jacket and exhaled until his diaphragm collided with his stomach. He
was tired of fighting about it.

 “I like it.” Lynn flashed him a
hesitant smile.

He jumped. Crap. He’d forgotten
about her again and she was so damn polite she made his head ache.

“But I’m not really into art.” Lynn
clung to his arm like a limpet-mine.

Looking into her innocent young
eyes, Marsh struggled not to feel like an annoyed parent.
Christ
. “Then
why did you want to attend tonight?”

A flash of guilt and annoyance
moved across her features. Dammit, he could almost see their mothers clacking
like hens as they plotted his matrimonial downfall.
How do I get into this
shit?

His jacket gaped and her startled
gaze flew to his holster, carefully concealed beneath the dark wool.

Exasperated, he put his hands on
her shoulders, held her gaze. “Lynn, you
know
I’m with the FBI, right?”

Eyes as wide as cue balls, she
nodded, and he wanted to ask what the hell she was doing with a man she didn’t
know, who she couldn’t possibly have anything in common with and who obviously
scared the crap out of her?

She was a teenager, so what was his
excuse?

Sighing with resignation, he looked
for Dancer through the thickening crowd and told himself he wasn’t searching
for another face, another blonde…just because he was in New York City. Dancer
was propping up a wall, soaking up sparkling champagne within a ring of women
all vying for his attention.

Women
. Not children.

Lynn followed his gaze and her eyes
lit on Special Agent Dancer with a flicker of interest. Maybe Marsh should
introduce them and she could fall head-over-heels in love with his agent, they
could get married and have babies.

The idea brought an unexpected pang
of envy curling through his gut. Not for Lynn. For someone else. He squashed
the thoughts.

He caught Dancer’s gaze and jerked
his head toward the back room.
Watch Philip Faraday.
With stolen
property on the premises no artwork was leaving this building until provenance
was proven for each and every piece. They’d decide later whether the Faradays
faced criminal charges for handling and trying to sell stolen goods.

Marsh looked around the gathered
celebrities and reporters and braced himself for a general explosion of
hysteria. The situation had goatfuck written all over it. Unfortunately his
undercover people hadn’t been able to wrangle an early viewing and he hadn’t
wanted to tip the Faradays’ hand by telling them the FBI wanted to go over
their inventory prior to tonight’s big opening.

“Well, well. If it isn’t Marshall
Hayes.” A low hearty rumble called out behind him. “You still chasing bad
guys?”

Marsh recognized the voice before
he turned to face the newcomer.
Just when you thought it couldn’t get any
worse…

“Brook.” He schooled his features
into flat lines of polite indifference. “I heard you were back in the country.”

Brook Duvall was the former United
States Ambassador to Australia and a newly elected senator with an eye on the
next presidential campaign. The prematurely gray-haired politician practiced
his perfect smile, but Marsh recognized the shrewd gleam in his eyes.

They’d trained together at the US
Naval Academy nearly two decades before. Duvall had been in his final year when
Marsh was a sophomore. He’d been a political animal even back then, unashamedly
using his contacts and influence to cushion his term in the Navy and launch his
career using any leverage he could find.

Marsh had been guarded about his
family connections until Duvall had outed him during a training exercise along
the intracoastal. Marsh had worked his balls off to gain the respect of the men
under his command and had to redouble the effort once they’d found out he had a
five-star Army general for a father.

They shook hands, the senator’s
still cold from being outside and Marsh suddenly let go of his tension. His
grudge was a little too insubstantial to hold on to after all these years.

“This is my wife, Pru.” Duvall drew
forward a beautifully put together twin-set and pearls lady. A pale looking
aide hovered behind them, wringing his hands and holding his cell phone like a
cherished baby.

“Nice to meet you, ma’am.” Marsh
took Pru Duvall’s hand and introduced Lynn to them both, not missing the
obvious leer of appreciation lighting the politician’s gaze or the way his
fingers lingered on Lynn’s that fraction too long.

Pru smiled and took Lynn’s hand,
sliced a look at Marsh that clearly said he should know better than to date a
girl too young to drink liquor. “I believe I went to school with your mother,
Lynn.”
Ouch
.

For the hell of it, Marsh slipped
his arm lightly around Lynn’s shoulders and watched the frost build on the face
of a potential future First Lady. His smile was all teeth. Hers was all
lipstick.

But when Lynn melted into him like
chocolate on a warm day a pang of regret shot through his conscience.

“You still with the FBI, Marshall?”
Brook eyed Lynn’s cleavage, which Marsh hadn’t noticed until that moment. Right
now the swell of her breast was pressed up against his shoulder holster,
chafing his skin and interfering with access to his weapon.

If Josephine Maxwell knew she’d
turned him into a eunuch she’d laugh her freaking ass off.

“Are you
boys
doing anything
to track down this serial killer attacking women in Manhattan?” Pru’s voice was
sharp, striking him from a different angle.

“I’m sure the
boys
are doing
everything they can to apprehend the killer, Mrs. Duvall.” Marsh produced his
diplomatic smile. “I’m Special Agent in Charge of the Forgeries and Fine Arts
Division. We track stolen artwork.”

“Sounds dangerous.” Pru Duvall
snorted derisively.

“Art fraud can be a cover for
mobsters and terrorist money laundering schemes.” Marsh resisted reciting his
arrest record and military career.

Brook leaned closer and asked in a
rough whisper, “So what are you doing
here
, Marshall?”

Marsh smelled enough bourbon on the
senator’s breath to ignite flames and rocked back on his heels. The aide tapped
Brook on the shoulder and pointed to a nearby photographer who patiently
cradled his camera. Brook and Pru posed for a photograph insisting Lynn and
Marsh join them for the shot. Then, instead of moving away and working the
room, Brook turned back to him and lowered his voice conspiratorially. “Is this
place a front for the mob?” The laugh was hearty and cordial and drew peoples’
attention to their intimate little group.

“Not that I’m aware of.”
Yet
.
Marsh wished to hell he’d come alone. Or forced his way in early, before the
gallery opened. But he’d had nothing to go on except an unsubstantiated rumor
from an unreliable source. Rumors were a given in the art world. Who’d have
thought it might lead to the biggest break they’d had in a decade?

He let go of Lynn, ashamed of
himself for giving her the wrong idea. His attention focused on Gloria Faraday
who, with a satisfied smile, was tottering her way through the crowd toward his
painting. The painting that might be a possible Vermeer worth millions; the
painting stolen from Admiral Chambers, an old friend of his father’s, back in
nineteen-ninety.

She reached up to pin a tiny gold
heart on the plaque, but Marsh caught her wrist before she got there. The
superfine bones shifted within his grasp.

“Sorry, ma’am. You can’t sell this
picture.”

“I
beg
your pardon?” Judging
from the volume, Gloria’s outrage was genuine.

Marsh displayed his shield.

“Special Agent in Charge Hayes with
the FBI. This painting is believed to be stolen.” Suddenly, Steve Dancer was
beside him, herding people away. “If I need to,” Marsh continued in a quiet
voice, “I’ll get a warrant to remove the painting, but if you cooperate—”

“Whaaat!” Gloria shrieked. The
blood drained from her face as she looked around the staring faces of the elite
crowd and wobbled slightly in her designer heels.

“Have a seat.” Dancer maneuvered
the woman into a nearby chair before she passed out.

Lynn edged away from Marsh, her
cheeks flushing bright scarlet, clearly embarrassed to be associated with a
public scene. That should put paid to any attempt at a second date.

Pru put her arm around the girl’s
shoulders and patted her gently. “We’ll take you home, dear.” She raised a
razor-thin brow at Marsh, her smile glinting with victory. “Looks like your
brave FBI agent will be busy for the next little while.”

One side of Marsh’s lips quirked
with irritated amusement. Sparring with Pru Duvall was better than dealing with
a naïve teenager and a hell of a lot preferable to dealing with Gloria Faraday
who was now crying loudly, make-up tracking down her pasty cheeks.

Prudence leaned close to his ear,
perfume thick and cloying, her gaze resting on Gloria’s ashen face.

“Better watch out, Special Agent in
Charge Hayes. She looks dangerous.” Then she was gone, shepherding Lynn out of
a side door.

Chapter Two

_______________

“T
his way, sir.”

An agent he’d never met before led
him and Dancer through the businesslike reception area on the twenty-third
floor of the federal building, toward an unused conference room in the FBI’s
Manhattan headquarters.

Marsh handled the painting
cautiously, mindful of the priceless nature of the work and all the excited
bodies buzzing around him like bees in an overheated hive. They’d packed it in
acid-free paper and bubble-wrap. With laser induced fluorescence the forensics
experts might get lucky and find a usable recent fingerprint or trace evidence,
but latent prints didn’t last long and chances were the thieves weren’t that
stupid. Until they could arrange safe transport to the crime lab, the painting
needed to be stored somewhere secure. He didn’t think it got more secure than
the heart of FBI headquarters.

Lights blazed. The grinding noise
of a fax machine shrieked through the air and resonated through his ears. A
tiny portion of his brain wondered what was going down, but the rest was
focused on where this investigation might lead. This was the biggest potential
break they’d had on the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum robbery in years.

Gloria Faraday had dissolved into a
hysterical mess, but Philip had turned the fiasco into a media stunt and sworn
to help the authorities in any way he could to capture the thieves who
threatened legitimate business.

Marsh and Dancer had photographed
every piece exhibited at the gallery and requested inventories from Total
Mastery Galleries worldwide. More agents would descend tomorrow to go through
the books and determine provenance for every item the gallery showed. Marsh
didn’t know if the Faradays were innocent or guilty, but with a little
manipulation they might lead him to information he’d been hunting for years.

Focused on the job, he flicked an
uninterested glance across the bullpen. Enlarged photographs were pinned to one
wall. Pictures of mutilated women.

He stopped dead.

Dancer bumped into his back as
Marsh turned toward the images. His heart drilled a hole in the wall of his
chest.

It wasn’t the brutality of the
pictures that rocked his world. It was the pattern of the wounds.

A group of agents huddled over a
desk, gesturing toward the photographs and punctuating sentences with sharp
jabs and sour expressions. One agent looked up, a flare of recognition zipping
through his eyes before he walked over to where Marsh and Dancer stood gawping
like a couple of schoolgirls.

The agent stuck out his hand,
raised his voice over the goddamned fax machine that still screeched through
the air. “Agent Cole, sir. I took some of your undercover courses in Quantico.”

The young agent followed Marsh’s
gaze to the photographs, planted his hands on his hips. “This sick sonofabitch
got another one down in the Village earlier tonight. We’ve got some guys from
BAU consulting and we’re trying to link the last two victims.”

Marsh nodded, but his throat was
full of coarse sand and his heartbeat dampened to a mute thud that barely kept
him upright. “Where?”

“Sir?”

“Where. In the Village?” He forced
the question out over the background noise because, God help him, Marsh was
praying with everything in him that he was wrong.

Agent Cole stuffed his hands in his
pant pockets. “Grove Street. Scene’s a mess.”

The world crashed and Marsh
stumbled slightly.

“You all right, boss?” Dancer
murmured, holding him upright with an iron grip on the back of his
thousand-dollar jacket.

No
. He jerked his head.
Not
all right
. He hadn’t been all right since the day he’d walked away from
Josephine Maxwell in a cow pasture in Montana. Right now he doubted he’d ever
be okay again.

Forcing his legs to work, Marsh
shoved the 17th Century Dutch masterpiece into Dancer’s arms and turned back
the way he’d come.

Josephine lived on Grove Street.

Josephine had scar tissue that
matched those mutilated women.

Faster and faster he moved. Legs
pumping even though he felt like he was wading through zero gravity. Panic
stabbed as the noise and bustle of the office exploded through his senses and
he broke into a run to the elevator. Ignoring the alarmed glances, he thrust
the doors apart and slid inside the metal tomb and rested his head against cold
steel. Heard his heart racing through his ears as if it were being broadcast
over a loudspeaker. Sweat beaded his brow and scored a line down the side of
his face. He loosened his tie, jerked open the top button of his shirt.

Why did I leave her alone? Why
didn’t I protect her?

Because she didn’t want you. She
never wanted you.

It shouldn’t have made any difference.

Somehow he was in his car with no
memory of having got there, peeling out onto the street. Traffic wasn’t heavy
on the Avenue of the Americas. Yellow cabs mostly. He wove in and out of the
steady stream and jumped a red light.

Sweat filmed his body and made his
starched white shirt stick to the skin across his shoulders. He blasted fresh
air into the suffocating interior of the BMW, the draft scouring his face,
helping him regain a little control.

Pictures flashed inside his brain.
Sliced flesh. Pooled blood. He tried to put the images of death and silky,
matted hair out of his mind, but it was impossible. Perspiration dampened the
palms of his hands and made the grip on the steering wheel slippery. He wiped
them on his thighs. Nausea coiled in his stomach, but Marsh seized it and
clamped down hard on the panic—let his training take over. Blowing lights and
breaking speed limits, he pulled onto Grove Street in record time.

A beat cop tried to bar his way,
but Marsh flashed his badge and was waved through. Parking behind a squad car,
he got out, slamming the door behind him, the noise echoing off tightly packed
buildings like a gunshot.

When the echoes faded it seemed
unnaturally quiet. The hiss of traffic far away. The rustle of slender branches
nothing but a gentle crackle on a cold wind. Marsh focused on the black door
one hundred yards up the street. It stood wide open. Lights from the foyer
flooded down the three stone steps and metal railings threw skeletal shadows
across the sidewalk. Crime scene tape sealed off the area. Police officers kept
a subdued crowd of reporters and spectators at a distance.

Josephine’s house.

Atheist or not, he started praying.

He held his badge high, pushed
through the onlookers, and dipped under the tape past a green-looking rookie.
They exchanged a silent look and Marsh nodded, climbing the three steps, his
heart vibrating in his chest. He braced himself. He was a professional.
Everything was under control. A gurney with a body on it was pushed out the
door, the wheels squeaking.

Josephine
…

He reeled and averted his eyes. The
woman he loved was dead because he’d been too stupid to realize she was in
danger. Too cowardly to risk rejection. He took a deep breath as the gurney
rattled inelegantly down the steps and was lifted into a waiting wagon. He
grabbed the railings, not knowing how to walk or even if his legs worked
anymore. Grief wanted to shove him to his knees and make him howl. The woman he
loved had been murdered and he’d never get the chance to make things right. Why
hadn’t he tracked her down? He hadn’t stopped thinking about her for months,
why the hell hadn’t he at least called?

“Who’re you?”

Marsh looked up into the sharp eyes
of an NYPD detective and reminded himself this was a murder investigation. He
wanted to know what the hell evidence they had and how close they were to
nailing this sick fuck.

Marsh took a handkerchief out of
his top pocket and wiped his brow. “FBI.” He fumbled for his shield and hoped
to hell it didn’t show that inside he was dying.

“Another one? Jesus-H.” The balding
detective stood back to let him through, rubbing at his moustache. “At least we
got a lead this time.”

A lead
? “You working this
case?”

The detective flicked a glance over
his sweat-drenched appearance as if deciding whether or not to trust him.
Whatever he saw must have worked.

“I worked the first two vics. Ran
it through ViCAP, got hits in D.C. and New Mexico.” He glanced over to the
gathering crowd as if mentally tallying faces. “The feds took over and then Interpol
got involved. We figure this perp has been active for more than a decade.
The
Blade Hunter
, the press calls him.” The cop gave a derisive snort and his
moustache quivered as an Evidence Response Team dusted for fingerprints in the
hallway behind him. “Sick bastard. Cutting up blondes all over the world.”

Marsh pressed down hard on the
bridge of his nose, swallowed the bile that formed as he envisioned photographs
of Josephine’s dead body pinned beside those of the other women.

“You’re not on this case, are you?”
A suspicious note entered the detective’s tone.

Marsh’s phone vibrated on his hip.
Grateful for the momentary respite in answering the cop’s question, he held up
his hand in apology. He pulled it out, found a text message from Dancer asking
him what the hell was going on.

“SAC Marshall Hayes? To what do we
owe the pleasure, sir?”

Marsh glanced up from his cell
phone. A tall wiry Supervisory Special Agent from the Behavioral Analysis Unit
in Quantico reached over the local detective’s shoulder to shake Marsh’s hand.
Lifting his gaze further, Marsh connected with the cobalt eyes of the woman who
haunted his dreams.

Josephine
.

His world spun. He gripped the
doorjamb tighter, fingernails cracking the smooth black lacquer paintwork. His
breath rasped in his throat as the world leveled and relief burst loose inside
his chest.

Alive. She was alive.

Beautiful.

Dressed in black jeans and a black
sweater with a drab army jacket thrown over her shoulders, her skin appeared
almost translucent under the fluorescent light. Fear and vulnerability
tightened her expression, but she hid it by narrowing her gaze. Her lips curled
in their usual scathing manner.

He didn’t care. She was alive—and
apart from looking a little shaken up, she seemed as pissed as the last time
he’d seen her. She’d pulled her silver-blonde hair back into a ponytail. Her
deceptively delicate features were set in a heart-shaped face that disguised a
vicious tongue and a mean temper. For the last six months he hadn’t been able
to get her out of his mind.

Why her? It didn’t matter why. He’d
thought she was dead and it had reduced his life to meaningless ashes.

Marsh wiped the sweat out of his
eyes and remembered the SSA’s name. Agent Nicholl. He was a damn good agent.

His heart settled back into a
normal sinus rhythm and he took a deep breath absorbing the fact that she was
not dead, not bleeding, not hurt. A huge rush of relief swamped him and
suddenly it didn’t matter that they didn’t even like one another. Because,
despite all the differences between them, despite their complicated
unconventional dealings, she was alive and he wasn’t ever letting her go again.

***

Josie curled her
fingers into fists and stared down at the face of the one man she’d hoped to
avoid for the rest of her life. Make that
two
men she’d hoped to
avoid—both of whom had showed up tonight. She glared at Marsh, wishing she was
anywhere but here. Wishing she was a better person, a normal person.

Last time she’d seen him, she’d
acted like a brat and told him she couldn’t stand him. He’d helped rescue her
from a hostage situation, and had feigned ignorance to protect her best friend
Elizabeth Ward from being arrested. Instead of thanking him, she’d been a
bitch. And she’d spent every day since regretting her actions.

Butterflies the size of vultures
took flight in her stomach. Marshall Hayes looked as slick as ever, but
thinner, the lines around his mouth cut sharper, deeper. His hazel eyes pinned
her and for a moment the relief she saw there staggered her. But then the cold
hard mask of law enforcement slammed down over his features and he blanked his
expression until she wasn’t sure of anything anymore, except someone had tried
to kill her.

She swayed slightly, her tongue
welded to the roof of her mouth. She couldn’t swallow. Panic began to build and
she started to tremble. She’d tried to lock her reactions up inside, needed to
survive the police interview so she could get the hell out of NYC. It wouldn’t
be the first time she’d gone on the lam.

“I came to see Ms. Maxwell.” Marsh
was speaking to the tall fed, Special Agent Dickwad, though his eyes never left
hers. The second fed, the cute one whose name she’d already forgotten, hovered
on the stairs beside her trying to persuade her to come down to FBI HQ to make
a statement.

She’d rather stick needles in her
eyes.

“You two know each other?” asked
Special Agent Dickwad.

Marsh smiled. She looked at his
calm features and envied his cool authority. Marshall Hayes drew power around
him like Superman wore a cloak. Arrogance and integrity shone from the lean
lines of his face—Mr. By-the-Book. But he was more than that. Much more.

He returned her gaze unflinchingly,
those intense eyes looking deep inside her soul as if searching for something…

What had the cop asked?
Did
they know each other? Reacting instinctively, knowing she’d shatter if Marsh
showed her the slightest kindness, Josie laughed, wincing inwardly at the
brittleness of the sound.

“Oh, we know each other, all
right.” She flashed a suggestive smile, knowing the effect it had on most men.
Except Marsh. He was immune to her charms, suspicious of anything except her
barbed tongue.