As she reached for her big mug, the one with the purple glaze, something caught her eye out the kitchen window. A truck, old and dark, pulling up to the curb in front of her house.
In an instant, she was trembling. Her heart pounded so hard in her chest she could hardly breathe. She tried to convince herself that it wasn’t anything to do with her. Why should it be? This was a public street in the middle of Culver City, but oh, crap, why right there?
She backed up as the truck door opened. A woman stepped out. She was dressed in jeans and a blue sweater, and had a big canvas bag over her shoulder. Behind her, a man walked around the front of the truck. He was tall, big, like Boone. He carried a duffel bag with him that weighed a lot. He, too, was in jeans, but damn if she couldn’t imagine him in a uniform.
“Boone?” she called, shouting toward the hallway. “Are you expecting visitors?”
He didn’t answer, but her heart calmed down as she remembered him mentioning a friend he needed to call. She was glad she’d made a big pot of coffee. And curious about the woman.
Boone walked into the kitchen and headed for the coffee.
Christie nodded at the window. “Friends of yours?”
“Yeah,” he said, making a 180, so he could meet them at the front door.
She followed. The couple walked in without talking. Both the woman and the man shook his hand, as if they were business associates.
Boone closed the door, locked it, then turned to Christie. “Seth, Kate, this is Christie.”
They nodded at her solemnly, then turned to Boone. “Where do you want me to start?” Seth asked.
He was actually taller than Boone by a couple of inches, and he had eyes to die for. What was it about Delta Force that brought them such gorgeous men?
“Bedroom,” Boone said, nodding down the hallway.
Seth shifted his duffel to his other hand and headed away.
“Do you want some coffee?” Christie asked, as he passed.
“No, thanks.”
“What about me?”
It was the woman. Kate. Christie faced her, and saw that she was attractive, in a hard kind of way. Stark lines, great cheekbones, but cold, too. Even her voice was hard. Although she had amazing hair. Dark, long, straight and so shiny it looked as if she could have been in a shampoo commercial.
“I’m going to work with Seth,” Boone said. “You two have some coffee. Talk.”
With that cryptic assignment, Boone went right to the bedroom, leaving Christie with this rather dour, strange woman.
When Christie faced her, Kate didn’t seem at all disconcerted. “You have real cream?”
Christie nodded. “This way.”
BOONE WAS CROUCHED DOWN beside Seth’s duffel, checking out the neat toys. “How do you get this stuff?” he asked.
“I have my ways.”
Boone knew he’d never get more information than that. He glanced at the bed beside them. The fake blood had turned a deep, viscous brown, and smelled sickly sweet. But he wasn’t thinking about the bed. “This asshole’s about six feet tall, slim, he wore goggles. He didn’t turn on the lights. The blood was in a big container—plastic, I think—and he was in and out in seven minutes. It was highly polished for a passion stalker.”
“Who says it’s passion?”
“What else?”
“Lots of things. Revenge. Money. Sex.”
Boone sighed as he stood. “I thought about all of that, but blood on the bed? That’s spells passion to me. I don’t know. Maybe Kate can figure it out.”
“Don’t count on it. Hey, what’s this?” Seth moved to the bedside table, and slid the whole unit out from the wall. He looked under the lip, ran his hand down the wood, then stopped. It took him a second, but he pulled out a strip of dark tape.
“What’s that?”
Seth held up his other hand, then took a magnet from his bag and ran it over the tape four or five times. “It’s a new kind of bug. It records audio data, but it’s very sensitive. I just scrambled it but good.”
“Shit, where’s he getting this stuff?”
“He obviously has deep pockets.”
“Yeah. That’s what I was thinking.”
“CIA, maybe?”
“More likely than FBI.”
Seth sat back on his haunches and looked at Boone. “We shouldn’t be messing with this. Maybe this isn’t just about Christie. You know that, right?”
“Nate’s dead, Seth. Everything he knew went with him.”
“We know that.”
Boone dragged a hand through his hair. “So do they. I can’t think of one reason they’d go after Christie. She’s completely on the outside.”
“I hope you’re right. It’s our lives, bro.”