Allison Brennan - Cutting Edge

“Tomorrow,” she whispered.

He turned and stared at her, a deadly serious half smile on his face. “Sweet dreams, Nora.” But his tone was anything but sweet. It was spicy and held the promise of his words, “Next time I’m going to stay.”

Then he left.

She locked the door behind him, set her alarm, and stood there, calming her racing heart, still feeling his lips on hers, his mouth hot and seeking, his hand on her chin.

There was no going back. She’d tasted the forbidden fruit, and she wanted more.

It wasn’t Duke Rogan who was forbidden; it was anyone who tried to get too close. He was dangerous to her carefully arranged life, her quiet home, her peace. She’d built everything around her with care: her friendships, her relationship with Quin, her career. Someone like Duke could throw it all off balance. Though with someone like Duke, she almost didn’t care if he turned her life upside down.

Still, she was terrified of losing herself, losing everything she’d worked hard to achieve. But mostly she was scared that the wall that kept her from getting too close to anyone or anything would melt under the laser blue gaze of Duke Rogan.

While her sister Quin had made a point to date many men as often as possible-all smart, professional, attractive, eligible bachelors-Nora’s sister’s relationships were fleeting. Quin never put her heart on the line, therefore she couldn’t be hurt. But neither was she happy-though she’d never admit that.

Nora was the opposite. She’d been involved with very few men since Andy Keene. She had always put everything on the line-and each time, the relationship had ended badly. Nora liked her present life. She longed to come home at the end of a busy day. She loved sitting on her deck and reading until the last sunlight disappeared.

If she wanted to have cereal for dinner or cold pizza for breakfast, she could, without commentary or criticism.

She was content.

But contentment was lonely.

Nora walked into FBI headquarters before eight in the morning while talking to Agent Nathan Dunn of the Lake Tahoe satellite office on her cell.

“It was dark when we finally made it last night,” he told her. “We had a warrant to deliver, and it ended up being a testy situation. Payne’s place was locked up tight and we had no indication that anyone was in immediate danger.”

“The man is dead,” Nora said bluntly. “We confirmed that he left his Auburn residence at oh seven hundred on Saturday, and his intended destination was his house in Lake Tahoe. The medical examiner confirmed that he wasn’t killed at the research lab, so yeah, I think we have probable cause to enter his house. Do it and call me right back.” She hung up, not giving him a chance to argue. Technically, she wasn’t his supervisor. He and his partner worked independently, running the Lake Tahoe office. But she’d worked with them many times over the years, and she was the acting SSA of the domestic terrorism squad while Nolan Cassidy was at Quantico. She had no problem using the little authority she had if it got the information faster.

The tight rules and regulations that Nora worked under day in and day out were beginning to annoy her. For once she wished she had the freedom to act when she knew damn well something was up. If Payne hadn’t been killed at his vacation house, they needed to know that ASAP. If he had been, they needed their evidence response team on-site immediately. And while Dunn was a competent agent, too many times he and others had their heads knocked around by the U.S. attorney’s office for overstepping procedural boundaries. And with the recent electoral changes, nearly every U.S. attorney had been replaced. No one quite knew what to expect from the new people, and thus were doubly sensitive.

But a man was dead and an anarchist group apparently had a psycho in charge, which made almost everything Nora had learned since becoming an agent fifteen years ago irrelevant. She had to go way back for lessons in this kind of aberrant psychology, to the two years she had lived under the same roof with Cameron Lovitz. His powerful personality had convinced her mother that breaking into a nuclear power plant was a good idea.

Who had that kind of charisma? Leif Cole for one. However, after reading his published works and talking to him half a dozen times over the twenty months since the first arson at Langlier, Nora had thought the academic a highly unlikely suspect. Just because he was the most vocal opponent of genetic research didn’t make him an arsonist, or a killer.

But maybe she was wrong. She needed to talk to him again. Pressure him to help.

If a traditional anarchist cell had killed someone, it would have been an accident, and most likely they would then disband. There was still one cold case from five years ago where that had happened. After a homeless man died in an arson fire at a new apartment development, a string of seventeen related arsons stopped cold.

But Jonah Payne’s death was premeditated murder. A psychopath, even one with a political agenda, operated under a different set of guidelines. Would the public outrage slow him down or encourage him?

She sent a message to her team to meet in the main conference room at 0830 for a debriefing and assignments, then stopped by SSA Megan Elliott’s small office. Megan handled violent crimes.

Kincaid , Nora reminded herself. She rarely worked with Megan, and it would take time getting used to the fact that she’d gotten married over the summer. Nora had never thought about how she might manage her workaholic life within a marriage. It was all so much easier when no one else depended on you and you could make your own schedule.

Megan was at her desk, and motioned for Nora to come in while she wrapped up her call. “What’s going on?” Megan asked.

“I’m dealing with a psychopath in the Butcher-Payne arson, and that’s your area of expertise.”

“Lucky me,” Megan said.

“I’ve called my team together for a debriefing in twenty minutes. Would you mind sitting in and sharing your thoughts and wisdom?”

“Count me in. Any word on Nolan?”

Nora shook her head. “Nothing new. He loves it at Quantico.”

“You ready to take over for him?”

“I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it,” Nora said. She’d thought about it, and while being in charge of her squad didn’t intimidate her, she wasn’t entirely confident that she was the best person for the job. As Pete always told her, she got too emotionally involved with her cases.

“Nolan wouldn’t have put you in charge of your squad if he didn’t have one hundred percent confidence in you,” Megan said.

“Thanks. I appreciate that.” She glanced at her watch. “Fifteen minutes?”

“I’ll be there.”

Back in her cubicle, Nora checked her messages and wrote a quick update for her ASAC, Dean Hooper. He’d just been transferred from Washington the week Nolan went to Quantico, and Nora was still a little nervous around him. Hooper had been an assistant director at headquarters, specializing in white-collar crimes, and took the lower position when he’d married a local immigration agent.

Quin walked into her cubicle, startling Nora. “Hey, sis.”

Nora frowned. “You said you couldn’t make it.”

“I only have a few minutes, but I went to the lab first thing this morning to grab the test results on the accelerant.” She slid over a thin folder. “There’s your copy. Exact same brand of vodka. And that’s something the press never knew.”

Nora read the printout. She said, “And you were right, no trace of accelerant in the office.”

“Nothing we didn’t know.”

“You didn’t have to come down.”