Trust No One (2 page)

“What about his visitors?”

“Got in their car and left. No sign of them since.”

She pulled off the strappy heels, rubbed her toes. “Thank God I can take off these horrid shoes.”

“I dunno. Your legs looked long and sexy in them. Turned me on.”

“One track mind. I’ll let you wear them later, and you can turn me on. Right now I have at least three blisters on each foot. Let’s go.”

Keith cranked the engine but the car didn’t start. Damn.

“Your show, sweetheart.” He leaned back and gave her that cocky smile she couldn’t resist.

MJ climbed barefooted out of the car, cursing the cold and that she had both the legs to wear heels and the talent to fix the car. Thing was, she only carried the most basic tools in her backpack. She hoped it was nothing serious.

“Try it again.” The car wasn’t getting any spark. She slapped the metal. “Pop the hood.”

She saw the problem right away. A loose spark plug wire. This wasn’t an accident. She tensed, turning a split second later to instinctively block the tall hook-nosed man’s arm as he tried to knock her out with the butt of his gun. Adrenaline shot through her. She exploded with a solid sidekick to his solar plexus. His air left in a whoosh. He bent double. Thank goodness she’d taken off those damned heels. Bare feet made for better balance.

In her peripheral vision, she glimpsed the other man coming toward her, but Keith was already there.

Keeping her focus on hook-nose, she threw a front-snap kick to his face before he caught his breath from her first attack. He fell backwards, knocked himself out when he landed head-first on the concrete.

MJ turned to help Keith, but he was already dragging his unconscious man away. “Where’d they come from?”

Keith jerked his head. “That silver Audi. Get the cord out of my backpack.”

“Looks like they planned on taking his information without permission,” she joked as Keith dragged the other man to the Audi.

“Yeah, imagine that. Not very nice of them, is it?” Keith rubbed his jaw where a bruise shadowed his baby smooth face.

“That should keep them out of our way.” She shut the door on the Audi before walking back across the parking lot to Alberto’s car. She pushed the spark plug wire in place and slammed the hood. “It should start now.”

Keith pulled her into his arms and gave her a quick kiss. “We work well together.”

With the adrenaline receding, she ignored Keith’s tempting kissable lips and pulled her focus to business. “Wonder how sleeping beauty is doing?”

He glanced at the car. “Still waiting for the prince. Let’s go.” With his hand on the small of her back, he guided her around the car and opened the door.

An uneventful drive through narrow streets brought them to Santini’s modest house where Keith pulled the car into the garage. He unlocked the house door and between the two of them they carried the scientist into his bedroom. They stripped him and tucked him under the layers of wool blankets on his bed.

“I’ll find his flash drive, you work on the safe,” she told Keith whose talent was safe-cracking.

“Don’t wake him up,” Keith joked, pulling on a pair of thin gloves. “No kisses.”

“Ha, ha. Do I look like a prince to you?”

“You’re right. No prince has such hot legs.” He ran his hand across her butt down to her thigh, giving a promising squeeze. “Better hurry, get what you need then change. We don’t have long.”

“I’ll be finished before you.”

As she predicted, it didn’t take long to find the flash drive inside Santini’s jacket pocket on a key ring with his passkey. He wasn’t supposed to have it, but they’d learned he ignored the company policy. A quick switch and she had the real one, he had a blank one. Maybe he’d follow the rules next time.

In a dark corner of the kitchen, she changed into black clothes, slipped on her shoulder holster, slid her Sig Sauer P220 securely into place, and pulled on a black leather jacket. She doctored her feet with antiseptic cream and band aids before tugging on thick socks and hiking boots.

“Got it,” Keith said when she entered the office. He snapped open the safe.

A month ago, disguised as gas company personnel, they’d hidden security cameras that revealed in addition to the other security breaches he kept hardcopy notes locked in the safe. They wanted to make it as difficult as possible to reproduce his work. Another team was in place to destroy the lab information. Perhaps by the time the doctor and his partners reassembled their information, the U.S. government scientists would be able to duplicate the nanotechnology and find a counter.

“I had no doubts.” She gathered Dr. Santini’s information along with the notebook computer Keith had retrieved before he worked on the safe. Years of work took less than fifteen minutes to rip off and tuck neatly into a backpack. “Ready?”

Keith shut the safe and stood up. “Not quite yet.”

“What?”

“This.” He tugged her into his arms and gave her a long deep kiss that rocked her with his passion.

“Your timing could be better,” MJ said, irritated with the way he could command her desire so easily.

“Watching you in that little skimpy dress and those sexy heels all evening made me only think about getting you naked and taking my hard–”

She gave him a smack. “Stop with your sweet talking, it’s not going to do you any good now.”

“But we have the whole night,” he promised.

A quick blink brought her to her senses enough so she could order sternly, “Not if we don’t get our asses out of here. Move, soldier.”

He clicked his heels, threw a mock salute. “Sir, yessir.” He slung the backpack over his shoulder.

Like he thought a kiss and a few sweet words were going to make her strip and spread her legs. Nope, he was going to have to work harder than that she told herself, even as she had trouble keeping her gaze off his firm ass as they left.

They secured the locks and the garage door and keeping to the shadows, they sprinted two blocks to the stashed Vespa scooter.

It started on the first try. She climbed behind Keith and he turned the bike toward Porta Romana, the south gate out of the city. Fifteen minutes later, he turned off Via Romana, the main road to Rome, onto a little side lane. Rows of bare, pruned back grape vines lined the road.

The temperature hovered in the upper thirties. With clouds hanging heavy in the sky, the high humidity made the cold seep through to her bones. Teeth chattering, MJ climbed off the Vespa stiff as a popsicle. Briefly stretching, she headed for the relative warmth of an old stone barn while Keith hid the scooter.

“I won’t be long,” Keith promised.

A smile hovered on her lips as she stashed the backpack with all of Dr. Santini’s information into a corner, and from long habit, pulled out her backup Glock19 and hid it in another corner. She was petting a horse housed in a stall, absorbing the heat from its breath when Keith came up from behind.

“Alone at last,” he whispered. His muscular arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her close, while his lips brushed the tip of her ear, sending a shiver up her spine. With his hands forcing her bottom flush into his crotch, it was obvious he was ready even through the layers of clothes.

“We’re not alone,” she pointed out. “There’s a horse here.”

“He doesn’t count.”

“He’s warm.”

“He might be warm, but I’m hot, sweetheart. Let’s get naked.”

She turned to face Keith, cold and tired and aching feet all catching up with her. “You’re not serious? We’re in a fucking barn, for crissakes. A cold, musty, smelly-”

His rumbling chuckle cut short her list. “It’s not a fucking barn yet. But I’m trying.”

Damn, he was persistent. She slugged him in the chest hard enough to grab his attention. “Stop twisting my words.”

He caught her fist, flattened her palm against his heart. She felt the steady thud, thud and surprisingly felt her own heartbeat accelerate.

“Okay, so it’s a barn. And it’s a little cold. But we’re safe. He tugged off her cap and tossed it aside, fingered her hair behind her shoulders and leaned forward to nuzzle her neck, his lips soft and smooth.

MJ’s resistance was quickly melting under the heat of his assault.

“We got what we came for, and tomorrow morning the team will extract us. Tonight belongs to us.” His voice dropped to a low growl. “The smell of hay, the smell of farm animals, the smell of manure, and with me to keep you warm. . . how can you possibly resist?” The horse nickered softly, adding emphasis to Keith’s words.

“How could I possibly?” she mimicked in a last attempt to hang onto her resolve. Still, she let his hands slide down to ride on her hips. Let him cradle her between his legs, this time his erection fitting where she wanted it most.

A soft sigh escaped her lips as lust won. She let him kiss her, and when she kissed him back, he raised his head and smiled, as if he’d known all along he would win.

Of course, he knew her well; they’d shared everything for the last six months. Had plans together for the next six months. . . and beyond. Next summer they were planning for a wedding on a small Greek isle. She gave thanks daily that life couldn’t be more perfect.

While he found an old blanket in the tack room and spread it on a pile of fresh hay, she shed her clothes laying her Sig P220 on top within easy access. He turned toward her and feigned surprise when she reached for him, shoving his jacket off, tugging his wool sweater over his head, ripping at the zipper on his pants. Until at last, naked, blessed skin to skin. And though he had started this, with a surge of lust-born energy, she became the aggressor. She dragged him down to the makeshift bed he made, the scratchy hay poking through the blanket no more than a small irritant. Soon, the animal and barn smells vanished, replaced with the musky scent of their bodies as they joined.

Afterward she smiled, sated, and snuggled against his warm, hard body.

Much later, she awoke chilled, her body instinctively seeking his heat. But he wasn’t there. She listened, hearing nothing more than rustling wind, the occasional cricket chirping and the horse shifting in his stalls. She stretched and consoled herself that he’d gone to take a leak. But minutes ticked by...and she grew colder.

Chilled to the core.

He wasn’t coming back. The thought came from nowhere. She tried to shake it off. Of course he was coming back. Why would he leave?

The backpack! Shivering now, she bolted upright and squinted in the dark. Had he taken it?

She groped in the dark, couldn’t find it or her clothes. She remembered seeing a single light bulb hanging from a wire when she entered the old barn. She’d have to risk turning it on. She ran her hands along the wall by the door until she found the switch.

The lone bulb shone in a small circle, not much better than the dark, but it was enough to see that the backpack was indeed missing. As well as both guns and her clothes. And her boots. Trembling, shivering, she hugged herself and paced while she assessed the situation.

She’d been duped. She stopped pacing.

She was alone in an old barn in Italy without weapons. Naked. And Keith had run off with the nanotechnology that in the wrong hands had the capability of killing millions.

Son. Of. A. Bitch.

In a moment of lost self-control, she stomped her bare foot. A rat scampered out from the blanket that she’d been sleeping under and scurried for the safety of an outside wall.

A rat. Ugh. She’d been sleeping with a rat.

Just like that the irony hit her and she began to laugh...a maniacal sort of sound, even to her own ears. A rat. She gasped, and the pain doubled her over. She grabbed her stomach, sank to her knees. Chills started in earnest, her body in a full shake, her teeth clacking louder than a car with a bad valve.

She’d been totally screwed. In more ways than one. Keith had known well enough that after good, satisfying sex, she’d sleep deeply and not startle awake from any movement near her. He’d made love to her hours ago to sedate her—not to cherish her. Damn!

A single tear plopping onto her bare thigh startled her out of her pity fest.

No. She would not do this.
Pull yourself together, woman.

She took the blanket from beneath her and wrapped it around her, neatly wrapping up her emotions at the same time. Emotions only got in the way when thinking was necessary. She needed brainpower, not tears, to go over her options.

No question about whether she’d go after Keith, but she’d rather not have to do it naked and without a weapon against who knew how many others. And there had to be others. It wouldn’t make sense for Keith to take off without a definite plan and help for what he would do with the information he stole.

First, clothes. Why couldn’t an enterprising farmer have left a pair of coveralls stashed on a shelf?

What was in this barn she could use? She found more horse blankets. Determination fueling her she used a pair of fencing shears to cut holes in the blankets and a rope to lace together a rough skirt. The shirt she fashioned was poncho-style with cut outs in the sides for her arms. Arms and legs would be cold, but she’d endure. Besides, the growing anger burning in her belly would help keep her heated.