Sylvie Kurtz - Mask Of A Hunter

She didn’t even have the decency to flinch. She just sat there staring at him like a wick feeding on lamp oil.

“That’s where you come in,” Falconer said. “Your job’s to see that that doesn’t happen. Anybody who tries to lay a hand on her has to go through you.”

“I’d be fighting the whole gang every day.”

“Make sure you win them all.”

A baby-sitter. Falconer was asking him to become a friggin’ baby-sitter. Ace didn’t have time for that. Not when he was so close to shutting down this whole operation. “She’s a damned librarian. She doesn’t know the first thing about working in the field.”

Rory picked up the laptop at her side and booted it up. Long fingers dancing on the keys, she worked as if no one else was in the room.

Falconer peeled back the paper cup on a muffin. “She has a keen sense of observation.”

Lip peeled from teeth in scorn. “Real keen. Her sister’s been eyeball-deep in manure for months. She only noticed when Felicia disappeared. And if you want my opinion, Felicia disappeared on purpose. She couldn’t take the heat and jumped out of the frying pan.”

Rory glared at him. “No doubt because you’d turned up the pressure for her to wear that wire and made her jump right into the fire.”

“She doesn’t know who I am.”

“But you were still ready to sacrifice her for your case. Who, other than me, worried when she disappeared?”

“I’m not ATF. I’m not FBI. I’m my own man.” Ace swore. She’d done it after all. She’d made him lose his cool. “She’s been gone only two days.” And he had noticed.

“I don’t care if it’s two hours, two days or two weeks. She wouldn’t have left Hannah behind.” The cold withdrawal in her voice took him aback. What had he said? “I don’t care about your case. I just want to find Felicia.”

“If we find Felicia,” Falconer said, “we can solve the case.”

“And that calls for field work.” Ace’s hands curled into fists. “You know it’s going to go bad.”

“Bad?” Rory said. “What’s he talking about?”

Nobody was going to believe that someone like him had the hots for someone like her. And if Ace didn’t stake a claim to her, she was going to be fair game. “Sooner or later somebody’s going to get suspicious.”

“Not if you keep your cool,” Falconer said. He turned to Rory. Her turn for the skewer. “If you find yourself getting up in the morning afraid, then pull out. That’s no reflection on you. Either way, we’ll find Felicia. I made you a promise, and I’ll keep it.”

Rory nodded slowly at Falconer, then looked up at Ace. “I may not be an undercover ace, Mr. Esteleone, but information is my business. You moved to New Hampshire last September.” She punched the page-up button on her computer. “You placed your sixteen-year-old sister, Bianca, at the Cheshire Academy.” She raised an eyebrow in snooty judgment. “Specializes in dealing with troubled teens, I see. Not cheap. Quite a coup for someone with less than five hundred dollars in his bank account. I’m guessing there was some trouble back in New York. Ah, yes, there it is. Shoplifting. Runaway. And not for the first time.”

How had she found this information? Bianca’s records were sealed. Leaning back in the chair, he slung an arm over the chair’s back and gave her his best impression of aloof. Stay cool, Ace. Don’t let her get to you. What did she know about Bianca? About their lives? Facts only told one part of the story. Certainly not enough to pass judgment. “What does that prove? That you can find your way around the web? I already knew that. It’s all facts.” He waved his free arm toward the wide outdoors outside the reinforced concrete walls of the basement bunker. “Facts won’t keep you safe out there.”

“Facts are what you’re looking for. I can find them.”

“Evidence is what convicts. For that you need the ability to become whatever you’re hunting.”

“Okay.” Falconer brushed muffin crumbs from his fingers. “This isn’t going to get us anywhere.”

“You care for your sister,” Rory put her laptop back in its case at her feet, “so you took her out of a bad situation. That’s a fact. I’m trying to do the same.”

“Then you’re two years too late. You should’ve yanked her out the moment she set eyes on Mike Fletcher.”

“Enough.” Falconer pushed the plate in front of him. His dark glare demanded compliance.

The flame completely fizzled out of Rory’s eyes, and Ace wondered why he’d thought of her as such a potent threat. She was nothing but a small woman who was bent on getting in a situation that would drown every last bit of the fire inside her. He turned to Falconer. “She doesn’t understand how dangerous Fletcher is.”

“Then you’ll have to explain. Aurora is going to Summersfield whether we want her to or not. Legally, there’s nothing we can do to stop her. We might as well make use of her expertise. I want you to keep an eye on her. Make sure no harm comes to her.”

“I have to find Felicia.” And in her voice he heard a familiar note of shame. He clamped back a curse. He didn’t want to feel anything for her, especially not understanding.

“Kingsley will be her contact,” Falconer continued. “She’s not going to interfere with your work.”

“Yeah.” Ace crossed his arms over his chest. That he had to see. He’d bet his last five hundred that she’d have half of Summersfield ticked off at her before the end of the day. Curious women always caused trouble.

Rory slanted him the coldest smile he’d ever seen. “I’ll pretend you don’t exist.”

“Yeah, you do that.” The ice, he realized, was a poor mask for the fire still burning hot somewhere in that lean body. Like the suit that did its best to hide the curves in the right places, she was damping back her true nature. That ignited a spark of curiosity he quickly snuffed. Don’t get involved. She was just one more problem in a whole vipers’ nest of them.

Kingsley, the electronics wizard who ran the Seekers’ command center, knocked and poked his head through the door. With his red suspenders and easygoing nature, Kingsley reminded Ace of a golden retriever. “I have the parts you wanted.” He held out a box with the rocker covers Ace was supposed to be picking up for his classic Indian.

On his way out, Kingsley gave Rory the once over, and Ace had to laugh. “Forget it, pal. She’ll burn you before she gives you the time of day.”

It wasn’t until he grabbed his gloves and sunglasses that he remembered there was a good reason he hadn’t become a firefighter. Fire made him choke, and he was partial to breathing. “Give me a chance to get back before you send her out.”

“Candace will call the Division Child, Youth and Family if I don’t get there before her shift.” Rory scraped her chair back and collected her belongings.

For a second, the image of kindling flashed across his mind, and he sighed silently. “If she knows you’re coming, she’ll wait.”

“How do you know?”

He slid the sunglasses over his eyes. “Because I deal with people, not names on a computer screen.”

He could feel the scorch of her gaze long after he’d fired up the Indian and opened the throttle as far as it would go. That couldn’t be good. Not at all.

The instant Rory saw her niece, a pool of guilt filled her to near drowning. Why hadn’t she come to visit in the past nine months? Why hadn’t she dragged Felicia and Hannah home with her? Why had she let all the painful memories stored in the granite bed of this state turn her into a coward?

Across the cramped living room, Hannah sprawled in a mesh-sided travel crib swaddled in a pair of pink footed pajamas. Her arms were splayed at her sides, and her loose fists showed off smooth palms and tiny fingers. A nine-patch quilt in shades of pink lay beside one hand. One corner looked gummed as if Hannah had used it as a pacifier. Flyaway curls of a soft brown with red highlights surrounded her face. A face that, in sleep, spelled innocence and vulnerability, and at once made Rory feel as needed as a calculus book in a poetry class.