Night Whispers (Second Opportunities 3)

Rather than going after her and getting more sand in his shoes, he backed up a few steps and crouched down in the cleft of two dunes. Concealed by sand and vegetation, he reached for a roll of mints in his pocket and waited for her to reappear in his line of sight.

Removing the silver wrapper from the candy, he leaned forward, watching for a glimpse of her as she recrossed the street toward her house. The moon was behind a cloud, but the streetlamp was near enough to the snack bar to enable him to see her as she suddenly emerged from behind the south end of the buildings and disappeared almost immediately in the overgrown dunes.

Her unexpected maneuver tantalized him, it added a little flavor and excitement to what had been, until now, a thoroughly boring but necessary four days. She was up to something. Something private.

He stood up cautiously, craning his neck, his senses alert to any sound, any shadow, but she seemed to have vanished. Swearing under his breath, he turned and started to climb up the hill behind him. From higher ground he'd be able to spot her.

"Hold it right there—"

Her voice startled him so completely that he lost his grip on the tall stalks of sea grass and slid to the ground. Off-balance and unable to regain his footing in the soft sand, he twisted around, stumbled, and lunged forward at her. He tripped over something, felt a blow on the back of his neck, and landed facedown in the sand.

Blinking grit out of his eyes, he turned his face toward her. She was standing just beyond his reach with her feet planted slightly apart, her arms outstretched, a nine millimeter Glock clamped between her hands.

"Put your hands behind your back where I can see them," she ordered.

For the moment, he was willing to go along with her. She'd obviously realized he was armed when his jacket fell open, but now she was going to try to disarm him, and he had no intention of letting her do it. He smiled slowly, deliberately, as he put his hands behind him. "That's a big gun for a little girl like you."

"Clasp your hands together and roll over onto your back."

His smile widened knowingly. "Why? No handcuffs?"

Sloan did not have handcuffs; she did not even have a shoelace to bind his wrists. What she did have was an armed man on a populated beach who was cool enough—or weird enough—to goad and smile at her, a potential psychopath who was not exhibiting any normal reaction to his predicament. "Do as I said," Sloan warned, lifting her weapon a little higher for emphasis. "Roll over onto your back, on top of your hands."

Another bizarre smile drifted across his face as he considered her instructions. "Not a good plan. When you reach for my weapon, all I have to do is lift up a little, grab your wrist, and shoot you with your own weapon. Have you ever seen how much damage a nine millimeter does to a body?"

He sounded crazy enough to kill anyone on the beach who got in his way, and the last thing Sloan intended to do was give him that chance by trying to disarm him herself. Tense but steady, she leveled her weapon on a spot between his eyes. "Don't make me use this," she warned.

His eyes narrowed as he registered the subtle change in her aim; then he slowly rolled onto his back on top of his hands. "I'm carrying twenty-five thousand dollars in cash," he said, changing tactics. "You take it and I walk away. No one gets hurt; no one finds out."

Sloan ignored him. Stepping back, she aimed the Glock high and out over the water and fired off three rounds in rapid succession; then she pointed the gun at him again. The shots echoed in the darkness like small cannons fired in a canyon, and somewhere down the beach someone shouted in alarm.

"Why in hell did you do that?" he demanded.

"I've just sent for reinforcements," she replied. "They're right down the beach. They'll be here in a minute."

His entire demeanor altered before her eyes. "In that case, introductions are in order," he snapped, turning brisk and businesslike. "I'm Special Agent Paul Richardson, FBI, and you're about to blow my cover wide open, Detective Reynolds."

Other than the fact that he knew her name and his personality had just undergone a radical change, Sloan had no reason to believe he was anything other than what he'd seemed to be moments before. And yet… "Let's see some identification."

"It's in my jacket pocket."

"Sit up slowly," she ordered, following his movements with her gun. "Take it out with your left hand and toss it over here."

A flat leather case landed in the sand beside her foot. Keeping her weapon trained on him, she bent down and picked it up, flipping it open. It bore his picture on one side and his credentials on the other.

"Satisfied?" he asked, already rolling to his feet.

Sloan wasn't satisfied; she was furious. She let her arm drop to her side, and her body began to tremble in delayed reaction to the extremely tense situation he'd inflicted on her. "Was that your idea of fun, or do you have some other excuse for scaring the living hell out of me?" she demanded.

He shrugged as he brushed sand off the legs of his pants. "I had an opportunity to find out how you react under stress, and I decided to take advantage of it."

As Sloan watched him, she suddenly realized why he'd seemed familiar, and she also realized he wasn't telling her the entire truth. "You were at the park yesterday, and in the parking lot at city hall earlier today. You've been watching me for days."

Instead of replying, he zipped his cotton jacket up enough to conceal the brown leather holster at his arm; then he finally gave her his full attention. "You're right. I have been watching you for days."

"But why? Why is the FBI interested in what I do?"

"We're not interested in you. We're interested in Carter Reynolds."

"You're what?" she said blankly.

"We're interested in your father."

Sloan stared at him, speechless and disoriented. Her father had long ago ceased to exist for her. Carter Reynolds was simply a name that belonged to a famous stranger, a name that no one ever mentioned to her. And yet, in the last twelve hours, that man, that name, seemed to be rising up out of the ashes of her past and sticking to her like soot. "I don't know what you think he's done, but whatever it is, I'm not involved. I haven't had anything to do with him in my entire life."

"We know all that." He glanced toward the shoreline where three men were running in their direction, one of them with a flashlight, its beam bouncing and fanning the sand like a lighthouse beacon gone haywire. "It looks like your reinforcements are on the way," Richardson observed, taking her by the elbow and propelling her forward. "Let's go meet them."