Ryan returned Crenshaw's steely-eyed stare.
"A hunch, huh? Well, your hunches have usually been bet-worthy in the past. I'll tell Agent Alvarez to be extra sure their unit is alert and ready to go, then. The last thing we need is for Donahue to slip through our fingers after all this planning. Our warrant for wiretapping expires at midnight, and I really don't want to have to go in front of a judge for another extension. Speaking of plans going awry, you make sure you keep out of Donahue's sights, you hear?"
Ryan nodded before he went to find Agent Pearson. He couldn't tell Crenshaw about the inforriiation he'd gleaned from traveling to a time period where another version of Jim Donahue lived. Besides, it was his intuition more than anything else that told him there was a good chance Donahue wouldn't say anything of significance in regard to his running of the white slavery operation until he was at the Sweet Lash. Old habits died hard—even if they were habits formulated over a century ago.
Agent Pearson showed him the location of the room they were using for tactical communications. Ryan was outfitted by one of the technicians with a Sonic neckloop that went under his shirt. The covert system contained both a microphone for talking and a transmitter. A tiny, nearly invisible wireless earpiece kept him connected on a common frequency with the entire squad while they were all in this general location. A remote control monitor that he slid into his pocket allowed him to push a button and be heard by the rest of the squad even if he spoke in a low voice.
An hour after they'd arrived Ryan stood on the second-floor balcony that completely surrounded the enormous central hall of the Field Museum and watched the luxurious charity event unfolding below him. Crenshaw had just informed him that Jim Donahue was five minutes away on Lake Shore Drive and Gutierrez wasn't far behind. Crenshaw was taking the opportunity of peace before the storm to dance with his wife.
A hundred or so small candlelit cocktail tables had been set amongst exhibits and the towering menace of a pouncing Sue, the most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton known to exist. A sixteen-piece orchestra played a Frank Sinatra classic, while dozens of couples danced to the music, the women's colorful long dresses making a kaleidoscope of swaying color beneath him. People were lined up at the three bars that had been set up even though white-jacketed waiters were constantly working the room, offering champagne and hors d'oeuvres.
He felt a little guilty when Ramiro escorted Gail out onto the dance floor and Hope remained at the table alone. One of the waiters approached her. She asked a question and took one of the hors d'oeuvres and a glass of champagne. She gifted the waiter with one of her luminous smiles and nodded her head in approval when she took a bite of the morsel.
After the waiter left—a little too hesitantly for Ryan's liking— Hope sipped her champagne and stared fixedly at Ramiro and Gail as they danced. He co
uld almost sense her energetic mind working as she tried to memorize the dance movements. He scowled when a blond, tanned guy in his late thirties approached her but gave a sigh of relief when Hope smiled and shook her head.
He felt bad about her not being able to dance, but not so bad that he wanted some dude that looked like he spent all his free time on a tanning bed touching her silky skin.
He began to circle the long stretch of the balcony, checking out the faces in the crowd carefully. A few minutes later Crenshaw finished his dance and walked away from the crowd. He asked all the members of the squad to check in.
"All right. Look sharp," Crenshaw said a few seconds later. "Our guest of honor is pulling up to the entrance as we speak."
A minute later he spied Jim Donahue's unmistakable tall, bulky form entering the open forum of the museum with a platinum blonde on his arm.
His spine tingled when his gaze flickered to Hope and then targeted Jim Donahue again.
Ramiro and Gail hadn't reached her yet and she still sat alone at the table.
Alone and vulnerable, Ryan realized with rising discomfort. Donahue and his date were being shown to a special reserved table by a gray-haired man. Apparently being a woman-hating, white slaving, rotten-to-the-core, vicious, kidnapping scoundrel got you some special treatment at an affair like this, Ryan thought with grim amusement, picturing Hope as she animatedly enumerated Donahue's faults.
What had he been thinking allowing Hope to be in the near vicinity of Donahue?
Ramiro and Gail reached Hope and he breathed a sigh of relief. Unfortunately, the tingle of warning in his backbone remained.
TWENTY-FIVE
Hope beamed at Ramiro and Gail when they returned from their dance and joined her at the table. "You two dance beautifully together."
Ramiro double pumped his eyebrows at Gail, who both rolled her eyes and blushed at once.
"Sorry I can't treat you to my smooth moves at the moment, Hope. Duty calls."
"That's all right," she assured Ramiro. "I'm sure I wouldn't be very good at it."
"You don't like to dance?" Gail asked conversationally as she sat down. Ramiro, Ryan and her had agreed it would be best to tell as few people as possible about Hope's anachronistic existence in I the twenty-first century, so Gail wasn't in on the secret.
"The type of dancing I was taught is a bit more—formal."
Ramiro flashed his white teeth in a happy grin and tapped the table twice. "Time to James Bond it, beautiful ladies."
"He's very funny," Hope said even though she had no idea what Ramiro meant. They both watched him walk away with a bounce in his step.
"That's one way to describe hinu"
Hope met Gail's eyes and they both laughed. She listened in rapt fascination for the next half hour as Gail expounded on the thrills and doubts of courting Ramiro Menendez. It shocked her to hear how openly her new acquaintance talked about sex.
"But he's so damned cheesy sometimes, you know? If it weren't for the fact that he's phenomenal in bed, I wouldn't put up with his Don Juan act. Don't you dare tell him I told you that, though. He's got a gargantuan head as it is. But then again, he is cute, isn't he?"