The Spy Is Cast (32 page)

The guard laid a hand
on my shoulder, and I flinched away from him with a whimper. He
jerked his chin at the other guard. “Take him up. We’ll follow
later.”

I heard movement, and
then a soft exclamation. I glanced up as the other guard picked up
my wristwatch. “Ma’am, is this your watch?”

When my gaze slid over
to Kane his eyes were bleak and I realized he must have yanked the
watch off my wrist, trying to ditch it. Goddammit. We just couldn’t
catch a break.

“Th-thanks,” I
quavered. I was afraid to deny that it was mine. With our luck,
they’d carry it up to the house and hand it over to Harchman
directly, and then all would be lost. I reached out a trembling
hand, and the young guard helpfully strapped the watch back on my
wrist.

“Move.” The other
guard prodded Kane ahead of him, and I curled into a shivering ball
as they left. Maybe I could stall, and then convince my guard to
let me go.

I wept quietly into my
hands for a while longer, trying to decide on a course of
action.

“Ma’am.” The young
guard laid a gentle hand on my shoulder. “You’re safe now. I won’t
let anything happen to you.”

The irony made me
choke. He seemed like a nice kid. Little did he know his good
intentions were about to deliver me to torture and death.

“What happened?” he
pressed softly.

“I can’t… I can’t talk
about it,” I sniffled.

Stall, stall.

“Come up to the house.
It’ll be okay. You’re safe now.” He took my arm and helped me to my
feet.

I exaggerated my
trembling. A bit. Any more and I’d fall down. “I… I can’t. Please,
I just want to go home. Please let me go home.”

“We’ll get you home.
Come with me, and we’ll take you home.”

Shit. I wasn’t going
to be able to convince him to let me blunder off alone down the
creek. Maybe I should just run for it.

Yeah, right.

I wasn’t exaggerating
the trembling that much. There was no way I was going to outrun a
fit, healthy male half my age through the mud and bushes in the
creek bottom. A despairing whimper escaped me as he led me toward
the house.

When we arrived, I
hung back in the large foyer. “Is… Is there someplace I can wash? I
feel so… dirty.”

My guard guided me
sympathetically to the powder room I’d used at the party, and I
slipped inside. No window. No means of escape here. I collapsed
onto the toilet with a hopeless sigh and sank my head into my
shaking hands.

Harchman was sure to
recognize me. Assuming he saw me at all. Maybe both Kane and I
would be diverted directly to torture. I shuddered and tried to
focus. Pointless to worry about that.

I took a deep breath
and tried to figure out Kane’s plan. He was clearly trying to make
it look as though we were antagonistic toward each other. As I
thought it through, I realized he was trying to protect me.

They’d already caught
him once. We’d attended the party together. I would automatically
be suspect. And he knew Harchman found me attractive. Maybe he was
trying to set up an escape route for me. Drive a wedge between us,
let me suck up to Harchman. That seemed plausible. I’d try, anyway.
If I got the chance.

That meant I’d better
be looking good when or if Harchman saw me. I approached the mirror
with trepidation. The ‘tears and snot’ look usually isn’t a good
one for me.

Apparently fake tears
weren’t as bad as the real thing. I carefully rinsed my face with
cool water and patted it dry. Thankful yet again for my trusty
waist pouch, I pulled out my folding hairbrush and brushed the
leaves and spruce needles out of my hair. I tugged the tank top
lower and leaned over to shove my boobs into a more favourable
position. Then I slicked on some lip gloss and tried a pout.

Here goes nothing.

I stepped out of the
powder room, going for hot but vulnerable.

The guard led me
directly into an ostentatious office, and I hesitated at the sight
of Harchman seated behind a huge, ornately carved wooden desk. Kane
stood across the room, still guarded. The dog stared menacingly at
him, utterly focused.

“Lawrence?” I said
softly, letting my voice quaver a bit.

“Aydan, my dear!” He
stood hastily and came around the desk to take both my hands in
his. “What a pleasant surprise!” His eyes roamed avidly over my
snug leather and exposed cleavage.

My young guard stepped
forward. “This is the woman he attacked.” He shot Kane a
contemptuous glare.

Harchman’s forehead
wrinkled. “But… they’re married. She’s his wife.”

There was a pregnant
silence while I gathered my courage. Then I stepped closer to
Harchman and pulled our clasped hands up against my chest. “Oh,
Lawrence. I’m so ashamed.”

I cast my eyes down,
feeling his hands burrow in. “I… I lied to you. I’m not really
married to him…”

“Shut up, bitch!” Kane
grated.

“You shut up,” the
guard snapped, and the dog growled again.

I gazed down into
Harchman’s eyes imploringly. “He tricked me. He’s a spy…”

“Aydan…” Kane’s voice
was tight.

I wheeled around on
him. “Stop calling me that! That’s not my name! And you should have
been nice to me when you had the chance. Instead of lying and
hurting me… You pervert! You always hurt me!” I let my voice
tremble again as I turned back to Harchman.

“Lawrence, I’m so
sorry. My real name is Arlene, not Aydan. I met
him
…” I
indicated Kane with a flounce of my shoulders, “In a bar. And he
promised we’d be rich if I did what he said.”

Harchman was frowning.
“You said he was a spy.”

“He said we just had
to come to this party and I should be nice to you. But then…”

I looked down again
and leaned closer, letting my voice get huskier. “Then I met you,
and I really
liked
you. And I found out he was trying to
steal the software for your new drilling program. And when I told
him I didn’t want to, he forced me…”

I leaned close and
whispered in his ear. “He forced me to do the most
perverted
things, you can’t imagine. And he
hurt
me…” I snuggled
closer and Harchman’s arms slid around me. So far, so good. Lucky
I’d seen enough of Harchman’s fantasy life to know just where to
focus.

“He lied to me,” I
whispered. “He was so mean to me. He made me suck his cock, over
and over, and all the time I was just thinking of you…”

Harchman’s arms
tightened around me. “You’re dismissed,” he addressed the guards.
“Take him away,” he added, and I looked up in time to see Kane’s
back as the two guards marched him through the door. An involuntary
sob escaped me when I realized it was probably the last time I’d
see him alive.

With an effort, I
composed myself and concentrated. My responsibility was to get the
network key out of Harchman’s grasp. If it was within my power, I’d
make Kane’s sacrifice count. At least Harchman seemed to think I
was upset about tricking him, not about Kane’s fate.

I turned back to
Harchman. “Oh, Lawrence. Please forgive me.” I sank to my knees in
front of him, deliberately positioning my face in front of his
crotch as I gazed up at him. I suppressed a shudder of pure
revulsion. “What can I do to make you forgive me?”

His eyes glazed as he
ran his hands through my hair. I let him pull my face closer to his
pants before I suddenly withdrew.

“Wait.” I scrambled to
my feet and backed away a step. “How do I know you won’t just use
me, too? Just because I like you doesn’t mean you won’t hurt me.” I
hid my face in my hands. “Oh, I just want a nice man to make love
to me.”

He stepped close and
put his arms around me again. “Arlene, my dear, I won’t hurt you. I
promise.”

“He promised, too,” I
quavered. “I was nice to him, I did everything he said, and I mean
everything
…”

His sweaty palms
slithered greasily across the leather of my jacket. “Arlene,
darling, how can I prove I won’t hurt you?”

I peeked at him
between my fingers. “
He
always promised to treat me nicely,
but he never did.
He
promised to take me out to a nice
restaurant and treat me like a lady, but he lied and lied…”

“I’ll take you out to
a nice restaurant,” Harchman promised eagerly. “I’ll take you to
the nicest restaurant in Calgary.”

“Really?” I gazed at
him worshipfully. Then I let suspicion cross my face. “When?”

“Now!” He took my hand
and towed me toward the desk. I did my best not to shudder in his
clammy grasp while he punched a button and picked up the phone.

“Bring the car
around,” he ordered, and hung up. He slipped an arm around my waist
and ushered me to the front door. As we stepped out, a stretch limo
pulled up, and the uniformed driver strode smartly around to open
the door. Harchman helped me into the back seat of the limo,
letting his hand slide over my ass, and took his place close beside
me.

“Oh, Lawrence,” I
breathed as the car pulled away. “I’ve never ridden in a limo
before. How exciting to have your own car and driver!”

He laid his hand on my
thigh. “He’s not just a driver. He’s a bodyguard, too,” he said
proudly.

Yeah. I’d caught a
glimpse of the driver’s shoulder holster as he’d closed the car
door for us. He was a big guy, too. Great. Now I had to escape from
both Harchman and his minion. I hoped my plan would work.

I snuggled closer.
“Lawrence, if we’re going to a fancy restaurant, I want to look
nice for you. Can we stop at my house so I can change my
clothes?”

His hand slid farther
up my thigh, and his fingertips brushed across my crotch. “I like
the way you look now.”

I grabbed the
offending hand and clasped it in both of my own as I leaned closer
to whisper in his ear. “But I have something really
special
.
It’s red leather, and it’s scented like cherries. And the warmer it
gets…” I brushed my lips across his ear, “…the better it
smells.”

He gulped. “All
right,” he said hoarsely. He leaned forward and spoke to the driver
through an intercom. “We’re going to make a stop before we go to
the restaurant.” He gave me a questioning glance, and I supplied
the address of the house that I’d recently sold.

The transaction had
closed in June, and I’d discovered a spare set of keys a couple of
weeks ago. I’d put them on my key ring, planning to drop them off
to the new owners the next time I was in Calgary.

Please let this
work.

I spent the rest of
the drive trying to squirm away from Harchman’s moist hands as
unobtrusively as possible. When we pulled up in front of the house,
I hid a sigh of relief.

The driver opened the
car door, and Harchman got out with me. I turned to him. “I’ll just
be a minute. Why don’t you wait in the car?”

“No,” he purred. “I
want to see your special outfit. In private.”

Shit.

He followed me up the
driveway to the front door. At least I was reasonably certain the
new owners wouldn’t be home. I knew they both worked, and it was
the middle of the day.

At the front door, I
fumbled with my keys, dropping them. As I knelt to pick them up, I
reached for my waist pouch. “Oh, that’s my phone! Lawrence, would
you open the door?” I handed him the key and pulled out my phone.
“I’m just going to turn it off.”

I fumbled at the tiny
button with trembling hands and surreptitiously turned it on
instead. Kane and I had missed our check-in time. By now, Germain
would be on high alert. They’d tracked me through my smartphone
before. I hoped they could do it this time, too. I prayed Harchman
wouldn’t recognize my ploy, but he seemed oblivious.

The door swung open,
and I swallowed a sigh of relief. People are so trusting. I
couldn’t believe they hadn’t changed the locks yet.

The alarm system
triggered its warning tone, and Harchman turned to me. I stepped
inside and used my knuckle to punch in the master code. The system
didn’t disarm.

Shit!

I quickly punched in
one of the secondary codes. The happy sound of the acceptance chime
made my knees weak. They’d updated the master code, but they hadn’t
purged the secondary codes from the system. Fools. Thank God for
fools.

I took my keys back
from Harchman and walked him around the corner into the living
room. I pressed him down onto their sofa, leaning over him to show
as much of my boobs as possible. “Wait here,” I breathed. “I’ll be
right down.”

He reached for me, but
I pulled away. “Hurry,” he said huskily.

I didn’t need any
encouragement. I resisted the urge to go up the stairs two at a
time, and closed myself into the master bedroom. When I had
replaced that door a few months ago, I’d installed a privacy lock.
I breathed fervent thanks as I locked it carefully, using the tail
of my tank top to cover my fingers. My fingerprints would still be
all over the house, but I didn’t want my prints on top of the
current owners’ prints when they discovered the break-in.

I crossed immediately
to the window, opened it, and removed the screen, still covering my
fingers.

If I hadn’t been so
scared I would have laughed. Same old, same old. This was an exact
replay of what I’d done in March.

I stepped out onto the
roof segment of the bay window below and slid over the edge on my
stomach. I managed to catch the eavestrough with both hands as I
went over, and it creaked ominously but actually held my weight
this time. I’d done a good job on that repair.

I swung wildly for a
couple of seconds before dropping the last foot or so as lightly as
possible to land on the deck below.

Heart hammering, I
tiptoed rapidly across the deck and hopped over the railing onto
the shed roof. From there, it was an easy step onto the top of the
fence, and down into the neighbours’ heavily treed back yard.