Cavanaugh Undercover. Marie Ferrarella
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Not that she believed it for a minute. But it didn’t matter what his name was. He could call himself Peter Rabbit for all she cared. As long as he provided her with a way to get to her sister, she’d call him any name he wanted.
“Not that I’m not enjoying this meaningless exchange,” she went on to say, trying to light a fire under him and finally get out of this motel room, “but I’m kind of in a hurry.”
“Don’t be.”
Was he putting her on some kind of notice? Or was there some other hidden meaning behind his words? She had no patience with riddles and puzzles, not when the stakes were so high.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked.
“It means that the man you’re going to be dealing with holds people in a hurry suspect. You need to be laid-back.”
That didn’t make any sense to her. “Why?”
Roland, the man he’d dealt with, the one who had sent him out on what turned out to be a fool’s errand, was nothing if not paranoid. “He might just think you’re trying to set him up and are looking to put some distance between you before the trap goes off.”
This Wayneman was getting too close to the truth. A lucky guess on his part? Or was she somehow transparent in her concern? Back in San Francisco she was a lab rat. She was damn good at her job but still a lab rat. Fieldwork wasn’t exactly her specialty. She was winging this as she went along.
“I’m not trying to set anyone up,” Tiana protested. “I just want to see if he has the kind of girls my clients prefer.”
He raised his shoulders in a dismissive, disinterested shrug. “Just your word against his suspicions. You’re better off acting like you have all the time in the world,” he advised. “It sets off fewer alarms that way.”
“But I don’t have all the time in the world,” she protested, getting further into her role. If Janie was being held captive by this sex trafficking ring, then she had no idea how much time she actually had before her sister was shipped off for parts unknown. The second Janie left the area, the chances of finding her fell abysmally. “I’ve got clients who’ll take their business somewhere else if I don’t bring them the kind of selection they’re looking for.”
“Somebody breathing’s not enough, huh?” he asked her with a grin that she found hugely unsettling. It wasn’t that it was creepy. What worried her was that it wasn’t. Moreover, it got to her—which was totally unacceptable.
“Not even close,” she told him. “They have very definite requirements.” When he didn’t say anything in response for a couple of minutes, just looked her over, she found it difficult not to shift uncomfortably. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“Making a judgment call.”
He was judging her? Tiana squared her shoulders combatively. “And?” she challenged.
His expression was easygoing—quite the opposite of what she felt. “You pass.”
“Good to know,” she said in a bored voice. “Now will you take me to talk to someone in authority?” It was more of a demand than a request.
The amused, cocky grin widened. “What makes you think I’m not someone in authority?”
“Let’s call it a hunch,” she told him.
He inclined his head. She’d played that hand well. Whatever she was up to—and he was fairly certain she was up to something, something she was keeping to herself right now—she had guts. “Not bad. All right, I’ll take you with me and introduce you to Roland.”
“The man in charge?” she asked.
Brennan laughed shortly. There was very little humor in the sound. “He thinks he is.”
Her eyes never left Wayne’s face. She was looking for a chink in his armor, a tell she could use in her favor. There was nothing. “Is he right?” she asked.
Isaac Roland was far from in charge, although no one who worked directly for him would ever have had the nerve to tell him that to his face. The man in charge had yet to be identified, a fact that kept Brennan playing this charade. They needed a name in order to shut everything down and make their arrests.
“He’s two rungs up the ladder,” Brennan told her.
“What about you?” she asked. How did the man who called himself Wayne actually figure into all this? Was he the cleanup man, the guard at the door of an exclusive club who decided who gained access and who was turned away?
Or—?
“I’m the guy leaning against the ladder,” he told her. The grin on his face made it impossible for her to gauge if he was telling her the truth or pulling her leg. And just what did he mean by that line, anyway? Was he saying that he wasn’t part of the operation but just an interested spectator?
Or was he deliberately belittling his role in all this to gain her confidence and get her to talk to him? If so, to what end?
It was too much of a puzzle for her to solve now. As long as he didn’t pose any sort of an immediate threat—and she remained on her guard—she didn’t care what he was in the scheme of things. Or who he thought he was.
On the surface, she seemed to be winning his trust—as far as it went—and right now that was good enough for her.
“If you’re going back to him, I’ll follow you in my car,” she told him, about to leave the room. The dead man was making her feel claustrophobic.
Brennan caught her by the arm and she looked at him quizzically. She also spared a look at his fingers that were wrapped around her upper arm, her indication clear. The words Let go practically vibrated between them.
But he ignored the silent message and continued holding her forearm for a moment longer. “I think Roland would prefer it if we both used my car. He’s very big on green energy and cutting down on pollution,” he told her, his expression unreadable.
This “Roland” was also big on cutting back on avenues of escape, Tiana couldn’t help thinking. But there was absolutely no way she could allude to that without raising all sorts of suspicions on the part of this man.
First she had to find Janie, then she could plan their escape, she told herself. The idea that, since Wayne was dead, Janie also might be dead, fleetingly visited her thoughts, but Tiana refused to allow it to take root. Janie was alive and she was here. Tiana refused to allow her mind to entertain any other possibility. To believe that her sister might be dead would render her completely inert. She’d be no good to Janie or herself that way.
Still, she knew she couldn’t just docilely allow herself to be led away like some overgrown, directionally challenged lemming.
“What about my car?” she asked. “I can’t just leave it here.”
“Sure you can,” he said. “I’ll bring you back for it after you meet Roland and state the nature of your business to him.”
Tiana knew she had no choice. If she protested, he’d just leave her here. Possibly in the same condition as Wayne was in. For that matter, she still wasn’t a hundred percent convinced that this so-called Bruce Wayne wasn’t the one who’d killed Wayne in the first place. The latter had always struck her as being almost too stupid to live, but discovering she was right was of no great consolation to her. He could have at least remained alive long enough to tell her where Janie was.
She struggled to contain her impatience and concern. “All right, have it your way, ‘Bruce,’” she said.
Brennan flashed a quick smile in her direction. “I usually do.” He said it without bragging or bravado. It was just a stated fact. “My car’s right outside,” he told her, finally leading the way out of the room. He paused to look around, as if to make certain that the area was still deserted. It was.