A Lot Like Love(6)

Not his type.

First of all, he preferred brunettes. And curves. And women without direct relations locked up in a maximum-security prison. Or an inheritance that rivaled the gross national income of a small country. That kind of wealth had to make a person . . . weird. Probably snobby and flashy, too. The impractical high-heeled boots seemed to be confirmation of this. 

From the tight set to her jaw, he could tell that she knew he was watching her.

She didn't seem to like him very much. He was not particularly troubled by this. The beauty of this assignment was that Jordan Rhodes didn't have to like him. Huxley was going to be her date at Eckhart's party-he could be the one to work his charm routine. Assuming Huxley had a charm routine.

Nick's responsibility, on the other hand, was simply to secure Jordan Rhodes's cooperation. And to do that, he had to resolve a few unanswered questions first.

"So how's the wine business these days?" he asked, breaking the silence.

Jordan turned her head away from the window and met his gaze in the rearview mirror. "You don't need to make small talk with me, Agent McCall. I realize this isn't a social call."

He shrugged. "What can I say? I'm not much for uncomfortable silences."

"What's your position on uncomfortable conversation?"

Nick had to check his grin at that. Christ, she was a sassy one.

"This is some weather we're having," Huxley said, quickly interjecting to keep things light. "Good thing you've got four-wheel drive, Nick."

"True," he agreed. "Although a Chevy Tahoe can't be nearly as fun to drive as a Maserati Quattroporte."

Jordan stared at Nick with a mixture of surprise and annoyance. "You know what kind of car I drive?"

"I know lots of things. Trust me, I have files worth of annoying small-talk questions I can ask as we creep through this blizzard at ten miles an hour. I figured the subject of wine seemed the most innocuous."

She sighed, as if resigned to her fate. "The wine business is good."

"I'm curious: who's your typical customer?" he asked. "Do you get a lot of hard-core collectors or more locals from the neighborhood?"

"I get all types. Some people are just beginning to dabble in wine and looking for a comfortable place to learn more. Others are more experienced drinkers who like to come in and relax while sampling the wines we have open. Then there's a third group, who I would describe as serious collectors."

As Nick had guessed, she relaxed when discussing the subject of wine. Good. "I don't know much about wine myself. I did hear a story a few weeks ago about some collector from Chicago who spent over two hundred and fifty thousand dollars on a case of wine." He turned to Huxley. "Can you believe it? Two hundred and fifty thousand." He checked back in the rearview mirror. "You're the expert, Ms. Rhodes-in the wine world, what does one get for a quarter of a million dollars?"

"A 1945 Chateau Mouton-Rothschild."

"Wow. You came up with that awfully fast. I take it you heard about the auction, too?"

"Actually, I helped that particular collector locate the wine," she said. "I knew it was going to auction and that he would be interested."

"The guy had a strange name . . . I think he owned a restaurant or something."

Huxley looked over at Nick but remained silent, having realized that their interrogation of Jordan Rhodes had begun.

"Xander Eckhart," Jordan said.

"Must be nice having customers who buy a quarter million dollars worth of wine."

For a brief moment, she loosened up a bit. "Unfortunately, that sale went to Sotheby's," she said with a smile. "But, yes, Xander is a good customer."

And therein lay the question, Nick thought. Just how good of a customer? "I take it you know him well?"



       
         
       
        

"Well enough, I suppose."

"How well?"

There was a pause, and he saw the stiffening in Jordan's posture the moment she clued in.

"You want to know about Xander. That's what this is about?" she asked.

"Yes."

She appeared genuinely shocked. "Why would you be investigating Xander?"

Nick ignored the question, shifting into interrogation mode. "How would you describe the nature of your relationship with Eckhart?"

She seemed to weigh her options before answering. While sitting in the backseat of an SUV, in the middle of a blizzard, with two armed FBI agents in front, she didn't have many. "Xander has been a regular customer of my store for a few years. I often handle special orders for him, expensive or rare wines you can't get through a distributor."

"Have you had any interactions with him outside the store?" Nick probed.

"Perhaps I really should call my lawyer. I'm suddenly finding myself very uncomfortable with this situation, Agent McCall."

He caught her eye in the rearview mirror. "Why would talking about Xander Eckhart make you uncomfortable?"

She adjusted her position in the backseat, crossing one leg over the other. "Why don't you spare me the interrogation and just get to the point?"

"Outside the store, do you see Eckhart socially?"

"Occasionally. We know some of the same people, so from time to time I'll run into him at a party or at one of his restaurants. And every year I attend a charity fund-raiser that he hosts at Bordeaux. The party is this weekend, as a matter of fact."

"Is that the full extent of your personal relationship?"

She locked eyes with him in the mirror. "What else would there be to our relationship, Agent McCall?"

"Do you have any sort of intimate connection to Eckhart?"

Her voice was smoky in the darkness of the backseat. "Just a deep appreciation for good wine."

She turned away from him and stared out the window once again. Nick got the message, loud and clear: Conversation over.

When they arrived at the FBI office, he parked the car in the spot closest to the entrance of the glass and steel midrise building. The parking lot was virtually empty-with the snowstorm, nearly everyone had gone home for the evening. With a nod, he indicated to Huxley that he would get Jordan. He stepped out of the car and opened the back door.

Jordan hesitated before sliding across the seat. She stepped down from the SUV-one high-heeled, leather-booted leg first, then the other. Because Nick held the door open, they stood close to each other.

Thick snowflakes fell around them and tangled in her hair. Her voice was low, her tone as cold as the air. "The next time you want to know something, Agent McCall, don't bother to sweet-talk me first. Just ask." 

"I assure you, Ms. Rhodes, when I sweet-talk a woman, she knows it." He held out his hand, being polite. "You're not going to get far in those boots."

She ignored his hand. "Watch me." She turned in her heels and walked away from the car, heading through the semi-plowed, snow- and ice-covered parking lot toward the entrance of division headquarters.

So help him, she didn't slip once.

Huxley stopped at Nick's side. "You could've given me a sign that you planned to question her in the car. Why not wait to bring up Eckhart at the office?"

"I wanted to catch her off guard. We needed to make sure she wasn't one of the flavors of the month."

"You think it's a good idea to piss her off like this? We're about to ask her to work with us."

"She'll cooperate." Of that, Nick had no doubt. He'd known it about thirty seconds after walking into her store, when he saw the anxious look on her face when they'd first mentioned her brother.

Has Kyle been hurt?

Jordan Rhodes may not have liked him very much, but she was obviously concerned about her brother. At the end of the day, that was all that mattered.





THE TWO AGENTS led Jordan to a conference room on the eleventh floor and told her to make herself comfortable while they "retrieved a file." She suspected this was FBI code for something shady, but wasn't exactly sure what. All she knew was that after Agent McCall's not-so-innocent questioning during the car ride over, she had her eye on him. Two of them, in fact.

She removed her coat, scarf, and gloves, and brushed the snow off her boots. Yes, fine, as McCall had annoyingly pointed out, her Christian Louboutins weren't exactly hardy, all-weather footwear. And back at the store, when she'd grabbed her coat from the back room, she had thought momentarily about changing out of them. But the snow boots she'd bought last November-not having any idea she'd be in this predicament-were hardly business appropriate. The way she saw it, there were some matters of style that simply needed to take precedence over practicality, and right at the top had to be the rule that said one did not wear black dress pants and pink Uggs to a meeting with the FBI. Not anyone who didn't want to look like a jackass, anyway.

Jordan took a seat at the conference table. She watched the blizzard that raged outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, dreading the snow she'd have to shovel when she got home. Perhaps she should look into getting one of those power snowblowers, she mused. Or a man. Either could be quite handy in inclement weather. Then again, snowblowers took up a lot of garage space, and she generally liked to keep at least a three-foot buffer around the Maserati. Not to mention, most of the men she met presumably had even less interest than she did in shoveling snow-they likely would hire someone else to do that kind of thing. The downside to dating Italian-loafer types, she supposed.