Harper Allen - Sullivan's Last Stand

“Your sister? Okay, I didn’t know, but what’s your point, Bailey?” He leveled an unconcerned blue gaze on her. “I can’t be expected to be on top of every file we’re handling.”

“My adopted sister,” she said shortly.

“Adopted sister.” His usual lazy tone was clipped. “She married Aaron Plowright four or five years ago, going from cocktail waitress to billionaire’s wife in one fell swoop, right? So why did you send her to me? Did she mislay some trifling object like a yacht that she wanted us to locate for her without the hubby finding out?”

“No. She thought hubby had a trifling object that he didn’t want her to find out about.” Impatiently she tucked a stray strand of hair behind one ear. “But Angel never was the smartest girl on the block—just the most beautiful. She came to me first and asked me to tail him.”

His grin surprised her. In the tan of his face it was a flash of white, and it was devastating. Even now she could feel her own lips starting to curve in an answering smile. She bit the inside of her cheek sharply enough to keep her expression under control.

“Yeah, he might just have clued in, seeing his sister-in-law popping out from behind bushes everywhere he went,” he said. “You’re right—not too bright of our little Angelica. Although I don’t agree that she was the most beautiful girl on the block, honey. Not when the two of you lived in the same house, anyway.”

It took a moment for her to realize what he was saying. It took a moment only because her brain was starting to turn to mush, she thought in chagrin, the way it had turned to mush a year ago when she’d been around him. It was the grin. She was letting him affect her.

“I never was in Angelica’s league in the looks department, Sully, and you and I both know it. I didn’t come here for a dose of your patented Irish blarney. I came here on business, so let’s keep things on that footing and we’ll get along just fine.”

It came out more sharply than she’d intended. He held her gaze for a moment, his own as unreadable as she hoped hers was, and then he let out a long breath.

“So you sent the lovely Angelica to my firm to have her husband followed.” He pushed aside a stack of papers on his desk and leaned forward, lifting his shoulders a little as if his muscles were tense. “How do you figure we screwed up? Did Aaron make the tail?”

“Of course not. Your people aren’t amateurs.”

Her voice was nearly back to normal again, she noted with surprise. She felt oddly light-headed, as if she’d just picked her way through a minefield and couldn’t quite believe she was still in one piece. She’d done it, she thought. She’d finally gotten him out of her system.

“As a matter of fact, Aaron had to go away on an unexpected business trip last weekend, and apparently your—” She stopped abruptly, her breath suddenly short and her heartbeat speeding up.

“Go on.”

He’d stood up and shucked off the suit jacket he’d been wearing. Now he was unbuttoning the cuffs of his shirt and rolling his sleeves back, his attention focused on the task. His forearms were a dark gold against the white material, and the same tan tone was echoed in the worn leather shoulder holster that slashed across the whiteness of his shirt higher up. He glanced over at her.

“What is it?”

How many times had she seen him shrug off his jacket and unfasten his cuffs in the past? she thought helplessly. The answer came to her immediately—three. Three times in the past he’d stood in front of her and lazily started to undress, and those three times he’d kept going. She’d once told him that if the investigation business ever went bust, he could probably make a darn good living as a male stripper. He’d given her a wide-eyed look of protest that had had nothing innocent about it at all, and then he’d taken so excruciatingly long to discard the rest of his clothes that by the end of it she was practically out of her mind with desire for him.

And the next time she’d paid him back in exactly the same way, Bailey remembered.

They’d made love three times together. Well, that wasn’t strictly true—they’d spent three nights together and made love all through each of those nights, time and again. They’d made love that last morning, just an hour or so before she’d walked in on the phone call that had negated everything she’d thought they had between them. She swallowed with difficulty.

“Nothing. I just want to make sure I don’t leave anything out,” she finally said, her tone as professional as she could make it. “Aaron went away on what he said was an emergency business trip, and your operative followed him. Apparently Angelica’s suspicions were correct, because when Jackson reported back to her—”

“Jackson?” He looked up quickly. “Hank Jackson?”

“Yes, Hank,” she said impatiently. “When he reported back to her—”

“You’re telling me that Hank Jackson screwed up on a job, honey?” Despite his casual posture, there was a tenseness about him. “It didn’t happen, sweetheart. Not Hank—he’s my best investigator.”

Gone was the man she’d walked in on ten minutes ago, the man whose easy charm had so irritated her. Gone also was the man she remembered from last year. Looking at his hard, set features, Bailey suddenly recalled that Terrence Patrick Sullivan hadn’t always worn Armani and driven Jaguars. He hadn’t always run a security and investigative firm that was doing so well he had to keep a string of girlfriends just to help him spend his money.

He didn’t hide his past, but he didn’t talk about it, either. She hadn’t known he’d been a mercenary until afterward, when she’d needed to find out everything about the man that she could in order to make some sense of his actions toward her. It had been astonishingly difficult to find anyone who claimed to know the real Sullivan, and even harder to persuade those who did to talk, but digging up information was what she did for a living. Eventually she’d pieced together just enough rumors and half-truths to realize she’d never known the man at all.

He’d been one of the toughest soldiers-for-hire available, she’d been told by a big man in a smoky bar one rainy night. An older man, trim and ramrod straight despite his advancing years, had met her on a park bench in the Common. While throwing bread crusts to the ducks, in a clipped British accent he’d informed her that Sully had been a maniac, always volunteering for the most dangerous missions available and never seeming to take anything seriously. When she’d asked him if he’d ever served with him, the faded gray eyes had met hers as if she was the one who was mad. Every damned chance he could, he’d told her. And if Sully came up to him today and asked him to join him on one last suicide jaunt, he’d sign on with him in a flash, he’d added wistfully.

There had been others she’d talked to—not many, just a handful—but slowly a picture had grown in her mind of a man who was nothing like the Terrence Sullivan he now presented to the world.

She was looking at that man right now, Bailey thought. But that didn’t change what she’d come here to tell him. She watched him walk back to the desk and sit down across from her.

“He might be your best investigator,” she said flatly, meeting his cool gaze with an even chillier one of her own. “But he made a judgment call that sucked big time, and that’s what I’ve got a problem with.”

Even in shirtsleeves and with that glossy black hair in need of a trim, he seemed suddenly remote. She found herself wishing that she’d picked out something more businesslike and intimidating to wear herself. Jeans and a Pearl Jam tee weren’t exactly power-dressing, she told herself ruefully. And her own hair kept falling out of the banana clip she’d pinned it up with this morning, in deference to the unseasonable—for Boston, at least—May heat.

Still she had one edge over him. She knew what had happened, and he, by his own admission, didn’t. His next action made it obvious he didn’t intend to let that state of affairs last much longer.

Leaning forward, he jabbed the intercom button on his phone. “Moira, ask Hank to come in here, will you? If he’s not in his office, have him paged.” He sat back, his expression grim. “I won’t conduct a court-martial of one of my own men without giving him the chance to tell his side of the story, Bailey. But go on. What exactly is it you’re accusing him of?”

His attitude was meant to put her on the defensive, but with a tightening of her lips she continued. “Jackson gave Angelica the gist of his findings over the phone on Sunday night. The written report was to follow, along with copies of the photos he’d taken, and apparently they alone were pretty damning. Aaron’s ‘business meeting’ was with a gorgeous brunette young enough to be his daughter. Of course, all of his wives after the first Mrs. Plowright have been young enough to be his daughters, so the age thing isn’t surprising,” she added. “But they weren’t exactly discussing a merger. According to Jackson, they were in the middle of one—a very personal, very intimate merger.”

“So what’s the big problem you keep talking about?” A moment ago, Sullivan’s wry smile would have seemed natural. Now she could discern the effort it cost him to hide his anger, and her own temper flared.

“The problem is that Angelica’s not the most stable person you could drop a bombshell like this on, even if she did semi-suspect something. Besides which, Jackson apparently gave her the bad news only an hour or so before Aaron himself returned.” Bailey’s eyes flashed. “A twobit PI with a mail-order diploma would have known better. He had to have realized what a volatile situation he was creating.”

“Then why didn’t you try to soften the blow, since you were so concerned about how she would take it?”

“I wasn’t there, dammit!” Her features sharpened with frustration. “I was on a stakeout all Sunday night and right up until noon on Monday. When I got home I took a shower and then crashed for a few hours. After I woke up I saw the message light blinking on my answering machine, and that’s when I heard Angel’s message from the night before. She’d wanted to talk to me before Aaron arrived home, but I—” Bailey hesitated “—I wasn’t there for her,” she finished, looking swiftly down at her hands.

He’d been watching her intently. Now he shook his head, his gaze still on her. “You can’t be around all the time. Besides, after she gets over the blow to her pride, your little sister’ll realize that she’s looking at a rock-solid divorce settlement. From what you’ve told me about her in the past, that’s probably more to her liking than a diamond eternity band and a bunch of red roses on their next anniversary, anyway.”

“That’s the way I thought she’d take it.” She looked up at him. “But the message she left on my machine was so hysterical I could hardly make out what she was saying. She said she was going to confront Aaron with the whole thing as soon as he walked in the door.”

“Not wise,” he said shortly. “Plowright’s got the kind of money that can erase memories. She should have kept quiet about it and let her lawyer get statements from anyone Jackson mentions in his report.” He frowned. “Today’s Wednesday. Aaron’s had time to do a lot of damage control already. Where’s Angelica been staying since she turned on the fan and watched everything hit it?”

“That’s just it—she’s disappeared, and no one seems to have any idea where she’s gone.” Her eyes met his and her voice hardened. “Jackson’s your man, Sullivan. I’m holding you responsible for anything that’s happened to Angelica.”