Honor (26 page)

“Is it too much?”

She looked him up and down. He seemed to enjoy her scrutiny tremendously.

“No. You got it just right.”

“I had help.”

Of course, she thought with annoyance. Feminine, sophisticated help. A sales associate to adjust the jacket across the broad shoulders with manicured hands. Another to kneel with needle and thread, to make sure the break of the pants hems over the black shoes was just right. A hairstylist clipping and snipping and tenderly brushing the back of his neck. She disliked them all. No one was going to get next to Linc Bannon before she did.

“Ready to go?”

Kenzie nodded. “Is there a coach and four on the other side of the fence?”

He grinned again and took her arm. The car was dark cobalt, as conservative as the suit, with a daringly low chassis that had been designed for high speed.

“My boss told me to get one with a driver,” he said. “I settled for this.”

“Very nice.”

He escorted her to the passenger side and helped her in. At the restaurant, he did the same thing. She counted the stares they each got, somewhat mollified that she was slightly ahead by the time they were seated.

Settled at a table in a back corner per his request, they consulted the menus.

“I assume I can order anything,” she said.

“Absolutely.”

The food was quite good, simple fare with a touch of elegant inventiveness. She kept looking at him and he didn’t seem to mind.

“These are my work clothes, you know,” he said, halfway through his steak.

“Oh.”

He slipped a hand behind the front of his jacket and examined one of his buttons.

“Is it loose?” she inquired. “Can’t fix it, sorry. I forgot my sewing kit.”

Linc smiled. “It’s working fine. I just took a five-second video of you.”

“Oh.” So that was the microcamera he’d mentioned. Kenzie was too curious not to look at it more closely. The button looked like any other button. “I didn’t hear a click.”

He held up his hand. A heavy gold ring set with a flat stone caught the light. “You press the stone. Done.”

That hadn’t been on his hand until a second ago. He must have had it in his pocket and slipped it on. “Seriously?” Her tone was faintly mocking. “I don’t believe you.”

“Wait for the download.”

“Oh, okay. Whatever you say.”

Linc shrugged. “This gear is for real, Kenzie. And it’s not that expensive or unusual. Anybody can buy it at a snoop store in a strip mall or online. Good guys, bad guys—we all use the same stuff.”

She had to laugh. “Whose side are you on again?”

“Yours.”

“I guess I should be grateful. But no more candids of me, please.”

“Not a problem.”

The food was great, but she didn’t request dessert and neither did Linc.

When the check arrived in a leather fold, he didn’t even look at it, just took out a wallet and slipped in a credit card to cover the tab.

Not quite fast enough. She saw the name on it. “Dana Scott?”

“My new identity. But only for a day. Don’t get used to it.”

Kenzie shook her head regretfully and folded her arms on the table as he glanced around for their server. She’d never been a fan of men in suits until now, but he looked fantastic. The easy knot on the million-dollar tie made it clear he didn’t take himself too seriously in it. As far as the suit—the drape, the natural shoulders—it was perfectly tailored for a man who liked to move.

He put his wallet back into the inside pocket and adjusted the lapel. It didn’t need adjusting.

“Do you get to keep that?” Kenzie asked.

He winked. “Yes I do. Everything but the car.” He brushed a nearly invisible crumb off the jacket. “Hey, I don’t know when I’ll ever wear this again, but it’s definitely getting a closet of its own.”

“I see.” Kenzie surveyed him with a wry smile.

No question that he had dressed to kill just to get inside SKC, not to impress her. But the fine clothes had done something for his attitude. The final touch—that cocky grin—beat a pocket square any day of the week.

The bill taken care of, they left. Kenzie did her best to ignore the admiring glances Linc “The Suit” Bannon got from the women in the restaurant.

He didn’t take her back to the shooting range right away. There was a lookout point between here and there. Linc swerved the dark cobalt car into it, pulling alongside the rock wall and switching the engine off. They had the lookout to themselves.

“Why are we stopping?” she asked. Rhetorically.

“Great view.”

She glanced at the distant DC skyline, seeing the dome of the Capitol to the east and the tip of the Washington Monument. The Mall, its grassy expanse invisible from where they were, stretched to the Lincoln Memorial at the other end. Its blocky rectangular top appeared through the bare-branched trees.

“Sure is.” Kenzie tossed her handbag into the footwell and turned to him. That grin on his handsome face was not about sightseeing. She allowed herself the pleasure of looking him over one last time. He pretended not to notice.

Even looking straight ahead through the windshield, his dark eyes had a knowing glint. It was arrogant of him to assume that he knew what she wanted, even though he was right. And annoying of him to wait for her to make the first move. One strong hand rested on the wheel and the other on his thigh.

Kenzie unbuckled her seat belt and leaned over. Two could play that game. She put her lips against his ear and he stiffened visibly. “What’s on your mind, Linc?” she breathed, teasing him.

She was amused to see his eyes close with pleasure. Maybe he hadn’t been expecting her to say something like that. Too bad. She’d said it.

Kenzie slid her hand over his smooth-shaven jaw and turned his face to hers. Wow. His gaze burned with passion. She’d never seen Linc like this. He was all man and then some.

Hard to say who began the kiss, but it went on for a while. She didn’t remember taking the knot out of his tie, which hung open. A couple of buttons had parted company with the buttonholes on his shirt.

Linc sat back when she did.

“Wow. I mean, maybe you should take me home,” she said. “Not that I don’t want more, but—”

Linc nodded, turning the key in the ignition until the engine revved. “Tell me when, Kenzie. That’s all I ask.”

Some minutes later, good-byes exchanged, he forced himself to think. Next up, SKC.

Linc’s first call to the company on the previous day had gone straight to the phone on the CEO’s desk, thanks to a personal recommendation from a higher-up at the agency.

After a kiss like that, it was a miracle he remembered so much detail. Kenzie was capable of shredding his concentration with a few soft words. He told himself not to fall into the tender trap a second time and concentrated.

He and Lee Slattery, the CEO, had chatted for an hour. Linc had his talking points memorized: He was a CEO himself with a strategic materials business. Overseas factories to keep manufacturing costs low and profits high. He was looking to buy SKC vests for a hundred-and-fifty-man security team.

Lee had been very friendly on the phone—the man was a serious talker who followed the news of the day, especially stories with a military slant. He had a tendency to name-drop, Linc noticed.

He’d dropped a few of his own—mostly agency names who would instantly vouch for him. But he had thought to mention Kelly. He couldn’t pretend he hung around with movie stars, but she was close enough. On the East Coast, she was famous.

Kenzie beat her for beauty, though.

The lookout had proved to be an excellent strategic move. He watched her trim frame walk away from him behind the chain-link fence of the shooting range. The dress looked like it was made out of handkerchiefs, pure white with lace points. The fluttery hem revealed just a little more than she probably intended, now that a breeze had kicked up.

Nice. Unbelievably nice.

In person, Lee Slattery matched his online image. He was the silver-fox type, dressed with impeccable taste.

Slattery extended his hand, shaking Linc’s with a firm grip. “Welcome. Pleasure to meet a friend of Kelly Johns. I’m a big fan of hers.”

And a few other blondes, Linc thought, surveying the framed photos on the wall. He didn’t see one of Kelly, with or without Slattery, but there were several of the CEO standing next to well-known actresses and TV personalities with highlighted hair and legs that didn’t quit. He reminded himself that Slattery was divorced and no one cared.

The photos of Slattery with various politicians were more telling. Linc was pretty sure that the jowly guy with his arm around Slattery’s shoulders was the head of a military appropriations committee. And he recognized a senator or two in the mix.

“So,” Slattery said affably, “I understand you’d like to tour our operation. Some of it is off-limits, you understand,” he added with a wink. “You would need a classified clearance and—well, you’re the new kid in town.”

“I’m working on that,” Linc said casually. Slattery was never going to know that Linc’s clearance was several levels above his own—but that was beside the point.

“Let me know how it goes. I may be able to help expedite it.” Slattery gave a meaningful nod at one of the photos, with a different politician.

Linc smiled. “Great. No rush, though.”

Slattery came around the desk and clapped him on the back. “You just say when and I’ll make a few calls.”

“Thanks. Much appreciated.”

The older man went to his office door and gestured for Linc to follow him. “Let me show you around. At the end you get to walk down my favorite street. I don’t do that for everyone.”

Linc managed a smile, not sure what Slattery was talking about. “I’m honored.”

They toured the main building first. It was new and smelled new.

Slabs of acoustic ceiling tile alternated with fluorescent fixtures. No windows, just walls that seemed to run for miles. The worker bees kept their heads down, their faces tinged with blue from the glowing screens in front of them. Men and women both.

Lee Slattery kept right on talking in a somewhat lower voice, proud of his hive.

From time to time, a high-level manager appeared from an office and greeted Slattery with some surprise. Linc guessed that he didn’t walk around too often. There was a lot of glad-handing and introductions to this sub-chief and that division head and a couple of veeps to finish up.

A man around his own age came and went around the edges of the group, but Lee didn’t bother to introduce him right away. Linc wondered who he was. His recent crash course in good suits told him that the man’s had cost more than his own.

Okay. An exec. But young to be on Slattery’s level.

He had a dark buzz cut that showed a fair amount of scalp and an athletic look. Not the weekend warrior type—kind of military. His eyes were dark too—oddly flat, almost black.

The man fixed his gaze on Lee Slattery. Linc noted his expression of contempt, wondering what that was all about.

The silver-haired CEO turned to the man as if he’d been tapped on the shoulder by him. “There you are, Vic. When did you get here?”

“About ten minutes ago.”

Slattery didn’t really listen to the answer, quickly handling the introductions in his usual breezy way. “Dana, this is my right-hand man and second-in-command, the one and only Victor Kehoe. We call him Vic.”

The contemptuous expression didn’t change—Slattery didn’t seem to notice or care—but Kehoe extended a hand to shake, gripping Linc’s with noticeable force.

“Dana Scott is in the market for our new bulletproofs,” Slattery added. “Someone at the agency sent him to us.”

Kehoe gave a curt nod, taking in the information. Linc guessed he’d just been added to a file marked Nobody Important.

It would be interesting to find out why Vic Kehoe disliked his boss. Linc made a mental note to cultivate Kehoe as a contact at SKC.

Slattery could be as crooked as he was smooth. The second-in-command was likely to have the goods on him.

But Kehoe wasn’t exactly warming up to him, though he condescended to make small talk for a minute or two. Linc let it go, focusing on being Dana Scott, foreign-based businessman with money to burn.

There was another greeting from another head of something before Linc could take in any more details. Vic Kehoe excused himself.

Leaving, Linc noticed, with a smaller entourage of his own, which broke off from Slattery’s gang and regrouped around him.

SKC was big on hierarchies. That fit. Plenty of ex-army people went through revolving doors to companies like this when they left the service or retired. That was where the money was.

Some fact-finding mission, he thought with disgust. He was never left alone for a second. He couldn’t ask random questions.

Did you work with Christine Corelli? What department?

She hadn’t been a cubicle cutie, but an assistant to someone fairly high up.

Doing ... exactly what, he still didn’t know.

It almost didn’t matter. SKC had to be raking in millions. The business of military supply generated enormous profits, no matter what soldiers might have to say about the quality of the goods.

According to his research, the company had been on a hiring spree since this new group of buildings had gone up. Slattery was saying something about his plans to expand. The area was relatively near DC but still uncrowded, ripe for development. Other companies were following SKC’s lead, gobbling up farmland and chewing up trees.

Linc half listened. He managed to start the miniature camera on his jacket button. He could just feel the infinitesimal buzz.

He took video only of the men. Linc would never remember them all, but he had to try and jog Kenzie’s memory.

The stalker could be any one of them. An ordinary guy. On the outside.

He wished he’d gotten footage of the men who’d left with Vic Kehoe, but it was too late now. Linc guessed that a lot of it was going to be blurred or partial anyway. The thing was tiny and he wasn’t a pro, unlike Gary Baum’s cameraman. He knew for sure he’d gotten several shots of shirt fronts bulging with middle-manager fat.