Trust No One (9 page)

Both eyebrows lifted this time. “You have some obsession with my looks or what?”

Yeah, or what? Why was he focusing so damned much on her looks? He scrambled for some way to answer, decided on the truth. “I’m a man. Studying beautiful women is what men do.”

“Oh, please. My b.s. meter is going off.”

“I don’t know what you mean. I’m sincere. Your hair was shorter . . . um, in the picture I had.” Good recovery, he told himself, then added, “I like it this--”

“Picture? Where did you–” With narrowed eyes, it only took her a moment to figure it out. “They gave you a dossier on me?”

“You think they’d send me out here without any information?”

“I don’t see why they sent you at all. I’m not going to help,” she snapped.

Angelina squirmed and fussed at her tone.

“Is this an unpleasant subject we should discuss later?” he reminded her.

She glared at him. “It’s okay, Angel, Mommy’s not upset.” She turned back to him and said in a fake happy tone with a fake happy smile that didn’t fool him but worked with Angelina, “Find something pleasant or shut the– I mean, don’t talk.”

Definitely prickly. Or thorny to play on her last name. Did that last mission with Keith cause it, or did it go back further—with the death of her parents perhaps? Did growing up being groomed for the business rob her of a normal childhood?

Was she sharp and brittle with everyone—or just with him?

Obviously she was warm and loving with her baby. And the waitress Paula loved her. More than likely her boss Tex and his wife loved her. So maybe it was him. Or men in general.

Or maybe she really thought she had finished with the business. Surely she wasn’t so naïve to think she could ever truly leave. No one–

Wait. Why the hell did he care?
He was here to do a job. Nothing else. No matter how she intrigued him.

They even managed to rope him back in, though he’d been lost in an alcoholic haze thick enough to cut with a knife. Somehow Jeff had gotten through to him, and Ben finally decided if he had to keep living—the slow poisoning with alcohol hadn’t managed to kill him—then he might as well work.

Angelina tossed a piece of chicken onto the table, obviously finished with her meal.

“Angel, no! Don’t throw your food,” MJ scolded and moved the child-sized plate to the table. MJ took a last bite of her own food before taking the baby out of her high chair. “I’ll give her a bath now. Be right back. Maybe.”

“Are we going to talk anytime soon?”

“Define soon? She does like her bath, and then there’s story time.”

Ben shook his head. “I might as well make myself at home then.”

“Don’t you dare. You are, however, free to leave.”

“I’ll still be here, don’t worry. I’m a patient sort.”

“Terrific.” MJ left the room with Angel in her arms, watching him over her mother’s shoulder.

Soon he heard happy splashing sounds and lots of giggling down the hall. Ben busied himself cleaning the table and loading the dirty dishes into the dishwasher.

Her cabinets were neat and organized and it didn’t take long to find containers to store the extra food. Inside, the fridge was neat as well—overall, MJ seemed to have her life neat, organized and running smoothly.

And here he came to mess it up. As he shut the refrigerator door, a quick blast of cool air hit him. The chill seemed to go to his bones, and for the briefest moment he had the bizarre sensation that he would never be the same again after this job. Nothing but stupidity. He’d certainly had other jobs more life-changing. The last couple in fact. Nothing could top those two.

Brushing the feeling aside, he told himself this was a job well below his training and experience, with the bonus of seeing how MJ had recovered. And once he finished, he’d get Jeff off his back, leaving Ben to go back to . . . what? More drinking?

Ben turned and strode deliberately from the small kitchen, but paused at the sight of MJ returning to the living room carrying Angelina, now well-scrubbed and shiny with no traces of food from her dinner. A book in one hand, MJ settled into the rocking chair, the little girl tucked into her lap.

The picture of mother and child brought vivid memories sharply into focus. The woman he’d married, rocking her son.

Ben gripped the edge of doorway separating the kitchen and dining/living area, the tips of his fingers going white from the pressure. From long practice, he shut down those images. And wanted a drink more than ever.

Breathe. “Do you have cable?” he asked when he found his voice.

She nodded as she opened the first page of the book.

“Mind if I watch the news?”

“Just keep the sound down,” she said. She listed the news channels for him, and turned her attention back to the story.

Seated on the sofa, Ben listened to the latest national news while keeping half an ear to the fairy tale MJ read.

“Once upon a time a king and queen wished for a child. Their wishes were answered when they had a beautiful baby girl.
Just like you,
” MJ said, then there was sound of a kiss and a giggle.

Ben dragged his attention away from the story and flipped the channel. O’Reilly was interviewing someone about the ability to rehabilitate sex offenders. Ben kept his attention focused on the interview, until the end of the fairytale, when MJ offered a critique of the story.

“. . .and they were married and lived happily-ever-after. But you see, my darling daughter, there are some basic problems with this story. If Aurora’s dear daddy the king had just taught her about spinning wheels, and that they were dangerous to her, he wouldn’t have had to worry. Because you know, no matter if he thought he’d destroyed all the spinning wheels the bad fairy is going to make sure one is there for Aurora to find.

“And then the poor girl falls asleep and has to depend on a man to rescue her. Whereas if she’d known better she could have missed the long nap and taken care of herself.”

Ben sat up straighter, ears tuned to MJ, any attempts to listen to national news abandoned. Obviously, MJ had forgotten his presence, but just a few simple words summarized a life philosophy and sent him a clear, strong message. MJ did things her own way and didn’t depend on others. Only reiterating what he’d seen with his own eyes.

“Bedtime, sweetie.” MJ headed toward the bedroom with the sleepy little girl, singing, “I love you, you love me…”

The melody sounded familiar to Ben but he didn’t recognize the words. And now, he’d never have a need to know. A few minutes later he heard another kiss and a ‘Nite, darling, I love you,’ then MJ came back into the living room.

“So bath, story, song, tuck into bed. You’re quite into the cozy family routine.”

“I like it,” she said, walking past him and disappearing into the kitchen. “Where’d you put the pie?”

“Fridge. Middle shelf, left side.” He heard her open the refrigerator door. “Because you didn’t have it? The family routine?”

“I had it. Until I was nine. Want your pie?”

“Definitely.” The sound of an opening drawer and the clank of dishes told him she was transferring the pie pieces out of the box to plates.

“Tea? Or milk?”

“Tea’s fine.” And bourbon would be better. “So you’re trying to recreate your childhood?”

“Doesn’t everyone?” She came back into the living room, hands loaded with dessert plates balanced on top of the tea glasses.

He took a glass and a plate, eyeing the chocolate pie with meringue piled high enough to rival his mom’s. “Depends upon the childhood, I suppose.”

“Mine was worth recreating.”

“And yet you’d teach Sleeping Beauty to empower herself?”

“Only sensible thing to do these days.”

He pushed her, curious how deep her wounds were. Were they as deep as his, or had she found some trick to healing he missed?

“If Sleeping Beauty can take care of herself, then who would the Prince Phillip have to rescue?”

MJ stopped mid-bite and gave him a look that said she was surprised—or impressed—he’d been paying attention enough to remember the hero’s name. She chewed and swallowed then answered. “Prince Phillip is fictional. In real life, there are no princes.”

Wounds still pretty deep. “Maybe there are some men who would like to be a woman’s prince.”

“Yeah, right, they’d like to be only as long as it takes to get into Sleeping Beauty’s pink panties.”

The words barely left her mouth when she grimaced. She shoved another huge piece of pie into her mouth.

“The story of your life?” He took a smaller, more manageable bite. Almost as good as mom’s too, he conceded.

She pointed her fork at him, speaking around a mouthful of chocolate pie. “Can the shrink stuff. I don’t need analyzing.”

“Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow? With thorns so–”

“What the hell?”

“Hush, I’m creating here.”

“Creating what?”

“A nursery rhyme, keeping with the spirit of the evening.”

She frowned. “No one calls me Mar–”

“Shh. I think I have the ending. With thorns so sharp—that’s a play on your last name as well, Thornberg, get it?” Not letting her make a comment on his brilliance, which from the look in her eye wouldn’t be anything positive, he continued, “With thorns so sharp, they’ll pierce your heart and blood flows from the hole.” He smiled, knowing she’d like to pierce him with more than thorns.

“Cute,” she said in a tone that conveyed the opposite.

“I thought so. And quite accurate. You are quite thorny.”

“Only with people who barge in and bug me. And as for your attempt at being creative—call me Mary again and I’ll cut out your tongue.”

He ignored her tone and grinned. “But the name works so well with the rhyme.”

“I am
so
not amused.”

He pulled in his smile. “I didn’t think you would be. So let’s move to the reason I came. Tasha.”

“That’s even less amusing.”

“Faster we talk about her, faster I leave.”

“Now that’s tempting. Why don’t I believe it? Maybe since we’ve already talked about her? Can’t see anything else I have to say. I don’t know where she is. We don’t keep in touch. Period.”

“But you know where she’d likely go?”

“Nope. I’d say try Ed’s wife, but I don’t think they were especially close either. Tasha kept to herself. I was much closer to her brother. Why don’t you go bug him?”

“Can’t. He’s disappeared.”

“What do you mean disappeared?”

“Disappeared as in we can’t find him either.”

“Was he on an assignment?”

“Nope. Both he and Tasha took some personal time.”

“So why aren’t you looking at him as the suspect?”

“We didn’t think he’d have sex with the senators before he whacked them.”

“Sex?”

“Some of the conditions of the senators, naked and in bed, suggested they’d had sex and maybe died of a heart attack.”

“You have reason to believe it wasn’t a heart attack?”

“From what I understand, yes.”

“But you said the crime scenes were clean?”

“We know how to do that in this business, MJ.”

“So you’re moving forward on someone’s hunch?”

“Hunches have proved right in my past, how about yours?”

She nodded, scraped the last of the pie off her plate. “You think Niko is helping?”

“The last we traced him, he left the country for Russia. And then he disappeared. It’s possible he snuck back into the states with another passport, or came in through the border, but evidence is pointing more toward him being in Siberia.”

“Siberia? As in prison?”

He only nodded.

The news hit MJ hard, though Ben could tell she tried to hide it. She stared at the muted television as commercials and the news program flashed by with a look that suggested her attention was far away.

“You don’t have other family do you?” he asked.

“Niko and Tasha aren’t related to me, we were just . . . raised by the same person.”

“But you lived together long enough to feel like a family?”

“Our upbringing in Ed’s household wasn’t exactly traditional.”

Considering who Ed had been, Ben could understand.

“But I have Angel now, and she’ll have a normal childhood. One like I should have had.” MJ seemed to have slipped into a reflective mood.

“Helping us find Tasha isn’t going to prevent Angelina from having a normal childhood.”

“There’s no helping to it. I don’t know where she is.”

“Are you being deliberately obtuse?”

“What?” She turned to him and frowned, and it was if a light turned on when her eyes widened. “Jeff wants me to find her? I’m not in the business now. No way.” She shook her head, clamped her mouth in a tight line and stared back at the television.

The flashing pictures reflected in her dark eyes. “This won’t pull you out of retirement.” He doubted the sincerity of his words, but hey, whatever it took. It was his job to get her to go after Tasha.