Puppeteer Read online

  “Liar.”

  “I wouldn't want to disappoint you. I am a federal agent.”

  “So federal agents lie?”

  “Doesn't matter if we do or don't, the locals always think we do anyway. Right?”

  “Just as often as you feds think the locals are backward yokels unable to grasp simple concepts—like the fact that there is more to this case than you're letting on. Agent,” he added.

  Dani could argue with him, but it wasn't worth the effort. If he'd already figured out there was more to it than Getz and Eagle's Wing, she was better off not saying much of anything at all. That there was a chance the investigation might surface some facts about the weapons everyone in the broader US intelligence world would want to keep a lid on was paramount. As for her, this case was the case she'd been waiting for her whole career, it was her reason for joining the CIA in the first place. She wasn't going to let anyone or anything interfere with it—including Ty. And neither of those aspects of the investigation were anything she or the team wanted to share with anyone.

  Under normal circumstances, it wouldn't have been an issue. Jurisdictional courtesy between the DEA and the local law enforcement was encouraged but not required. And sharing wasn't all that big with the CIA either. But, in this situation, they didn't have a choice. Playing nice with the locals was the price her team paid to the DEA team who would have handled the case if CIA hadn't taken over. If they weren't going to get the credit, Drew had to at least agree to preserve their relationship with Portland PD.

  With a renewed focus and plan, Dani sighed. Glancing at her watch, she wondered how long she'd have to shuffle him around before he settled somewhere and she could get away from him. And it didn't escape her that this sentiment was a far cry from less than twenty-four hours ago, when she couldn't seem to get enough of him. If she let herself, she might even start to feel a bit schizophrenic about it.

  “Earth to Dani,” Ty's voice came from behind her.

  “Hmm?” she turned and looked at him over her shoulder.

  “I asked where we're going? Since you don't seem interested in telling me what's going on inside that head of yours, I might as well meet everyone and see if someone might find me useful.”

  She wanted to say, “Don't count on it,” but held her tongue. Her team was top notch and didn't tend to take to outsiders. Trusting someone from the outside, even if they were trustworthy, added a layer of complexity to the investigation no one wanted. As far as Ty was concerned, the less said, the fewer opportunities he would have to question them or their actions.

  “We're going to meet Cotter, who runs visual surveillance, then I'll take you up to the sunroom to have a look at Getz's compound. After that, if there's anything you want to follow up on before you leave, feel free.”

  “Aw shucks, you're just saying that.”

  She turned and caught his eye. And laughed. He knew there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell he would be ‘free’ to follow up on anything. At least he had a sense of humor about it.

  As they climbed the stairs to the second floor, Ty changed modes. “Since you're not going to tell me anything interesting, explain the handles to me.” It was an easy topic. A safe one. And one that would keep him from thinking about the case, and what she wasn't saying.

  “Where should I start?” she glanced back at him over her shoulder.

  “Marmie.”

  “Marmie looks like the quintessential school Marm, don't you think? She's an amazing woman. I've worked with her a long time and not a single thing has changed about her. Not her hair, not her clothes, not her glasses. She could be anywhere from forty to sixty. I have no idea.”

  “You mentioned a Cotter?”

  “Cotter's handle followed him from the Army and he refuses to tell anyone the origin. Adam's too new to the team, he doesn't have one yet. And Spanky, well,” she paused, searching for the right words. “Let's just say that when he was in training, he spent a lot longer in the shower than most of the other guys.”

  Ty chuckled. “Hell of a stigma to carry around. Though, of course, he didn't seem to mind,” he added. “And what about yours, Mack?”

  Dani winced to herself. She knew the origin of her name and had always thought it sounded more sarcastic than true. But in the confines of the stairwell, walking so close to Ty and refusing to acknowledge anything about the night before, she heard a ring of truth in it, and it didn't feel good. So she hedged.

  “Long story,” she shrugged. “But it's short for Mack Truck.”

  That earned another small, knowing laugh. “Let me guess, you run your investigations like one?”

  She did, that was true, but that wasn't where the name came from. They hit the landing and she moved to look out one of the tall windows. The peninsula where Ramon Getz's house sat was visible over the bluff, but she pointed it out.

  “We can start to see his property from here,” she explained. “After we meet Cotter, I'll take you up to the sunroom where we have a great view of his place.”

  “You have people set up in the sunroom?” Ty asked.

  “Not full time. Most of them are set up closer, but Cotter sends people up every now and then. It's a convenient site, but doesn't add to what we're seeing from some of the other locations.”

  Ty nodded and she moved away from the window.

  “So the name. Mack,” he repeated. “Was I right? Are you a Mack Truck?”

  “When it comes to men, according to Spanky and Adam, I am,” she answered, figuring honesty was the best route.

  “Men?” His head drew back and an eyebrow arched.

  “Yes,” she said. “The team teases me about my dating practices. Or lack thereof, since I don't date often,” she added. “Anyway, they claim, that I'm like a Mack Truck when it comes to men—I barrel in and barrel on, leaving men emotionally flattened behind me.”

  “Emotionally flattened.” Ty repeated the words, testing them. They were silent for a few minutes, and then Ty made a little “huh” sound.

  She stopped and turned to face him.

  “Was that a warning?” he asked. He didn't look warned off.

  “Just a fact. You asked about handles, now you know,” she lied. She wanted him warned off. For her sake probably more than his.

  “For the record,” he said. “I wouldn't agree with the assessment. To emotionally flatten someone, you'd have to get emotionally involved, and I'd wager that's something you don't do, is it, Agent Williamson?”

  The comment unsettled her, even as her eyes held his. There was no challenge, no judgment in his voice, nothing she could respond to. And when she realized he wasn't going to push, he wasn't going to demand an answer, her heart rate kicked up and she could feel the sudden rush of blood course through her body. He wasn't going to give her an easy out. Whatever she did or however she responded would rest on her shoulders.

  She pulled her gaze from his and moved toward a closed door. “I think it's time to meet Cotter.” She directed him to a room toward the back of the house and made the introductions. While the two men talked, Dani stepped away and took a deep breath. It was no surprise to her that what she wanted most at that moment was to be with her team. The familiar, the safe. But it wasn't an option, at least not right now.

  She glanced at Ty, talking with Cotter. To be fair, he hadn't crossed a line, just made an observation. And she couldn't muster any self-righteous anger because he was right or because he was wrong. Introspection was not her strong point. And that, she realized, was the real problem. She didn't know the answer to the question—hadn't ever considered it. Was pretty sure she didn't want to either.

  Sex, she thought. It would be much easier to spar and parry with him if he kept the personal comments on the topic of their physical encounter, or encounters to be precise. Lord knows there was enough to comment on, even though they'd only spent about eight hours together in his loft.

  Pushing the emotional ‘stuff’ from her mind, she deliberately remembered the way he touched her,
the way he felt against her hands—the physical, the easy—and a satisfied smile touched her lips.

  After leaving Cotter, Dani led the way to the sunroom. The final stop of the tour. Though she'd dismissed the subject of ‘feelings’ from her mind, she didn't like the way his presence set her on edge. He wasn't doing anything but his job, but she wanted to be away from him. She wanted to be holed up with Marmie and the rest of the team digging into Getz, the Eagle's Wing, and their two primary suspects for drug sources, Sonny Carlyle and Joseph Savendra.

  Shaking her head at herself, Dani stepped into the sun room. “Here,” she said, handing Ty a pair of high-powered binoculars.

  “That's his house, out there on the point.” She took up her own set of binoculars. For a few minutes, they were both silent, lost in the surveillance of Getz's house.

  “I never thought I'd see the front of his house,” Ty commented, eyes still glued to the binoculars.

  “But you've seen the back?”

  “From the ocean. I've gone by a couple of times in a friend's boat. It's a hell of a compound, even from a mile out in the ocean.”

  Dani gave a little laugh of agreement. “Yeah, no kidding. His private peninsula, a huge house, clinging to the hill, almost camouflaged. There's a boathouse on the other side with mooring for his eighty-foot yacht and a couple of empty bays.”

  “Is that how you think the shipment is going to come in? By boat?”

  Dani lowered her binoculars and looked at the area, taking in the larger details. “Yeah, I do. We don't know for certain but I think it's going to come down the coast.”

  “Down the coast? Why not up the coast?” Ty asked, lowering his binoculars and turning to Dani.

  It was a legitimate question, and one she didn't have a solid answer for, just a couple of hunches. “All I can say is it's a hunch. Bradley Taylor, the head of the Eagle's Wing group has a cousin from his mother's side living in New Brunswick. We don't have any definite communications between the two, but the cousin, Martin Cassidy, has been known to share some of the same ideals as Bradley.”

  “A Canadian? You don't meet too many anti-government Canadians.”

  “He lives in Canada, but he's not Canadian. Cassidy grew up on the Texas plains. Has a girlfriend who inherited some property in Nova Scotia so they took off to live somewhere they didn't have to pay for.”

  “Any problems with him?”

  “Standard stuff you'd expect. Some poaching violations, some gaming violations. A couple of drunk and disorderly citations, but nothing to suggest he's helping to plan a terrorist attack on the US.”

  “Then again, nobody suspected Timothy McVeigh, either,” he said. She could feel Ty studying her before turning back to the window. “Does Getz have any cousins in Boston or New York or New Haven?”

  Dani knew what he was asking, wasn't it just as possible the drugs could come from another direction? With a connection as tenuous as a distant cousin, his doubt was reasonable.

  “Like I said, a hunch.”

  “But you're watching? You've got surveillance on the water.”

  Dani sighed. It was the one sticking point of their surveillance, the one area where she wasn't satisfied with their resources or capabilities. “Not as much as we'd like. We've got the coast guard on the alert, but since we can't tell them what to look for and don't want to raise a lot of noise, they'll be as helpful as they can. As for our own, we have a couple of boats we send out a few times a day to get a lay of the land, so to speak. They aren't set up for serious marine surveillance.”

  “Too bad,” Ty commented. It wasn't a judgmental statement, just commiseration on the lack of resources from one branch of law enforcement to another.

  Dani shrugged in agreement and then swung around in surprise as the door opened behind them.

  “Drew!” Dani exclaimed. They took a few steps toward each other and within seconds, she was enveloped in a huge hug. She pulled back and kissed him on the cheek. “What are you doing here so soon?”

  “It's nice to see you, too Danielle,” he smiled down at her, one arm still wrapped around her shoulder.

  “Did you see the family?” she demanded. “How's our new nephew?”

  “Yes and he's great. Just like my brother. We can hope he gets your sister's looks,” he answered and Dani laughed as a gentle cough came from behind her.

  “Oh,” Dani stepped away from Drew. “Ty, this is our team director, Andrew Carmichael. He's the lead on this case. His brother also happens to be married to my sister, Sammy,” she explained. It probably wasn't necessary, but by now she knew it would have piqued his interest when she asked Drew about ‘our nephew,’ and their association wasn't a secret. “Drew, this is our local liaison, Detective Ty Fuller.”

  “Nice to meet you, sir,” Ty stepped forward and shook Drew's hand.

  “Dani showing you around?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then you've met the team.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Call me Drew,” he said.

  Ty nodded.

  Dani watched the two men take stock of each other. They were about the same height and had the same air of confidence, but beyond that, they were about as opposite in looks as two men could get. Drew was lean and lanky, like a swimmer, and, even at the age of thirty-eight, his blond hair and smile made him look like a frat boy or member of a Hamptons yacht club. Ty, on the other hand, was dark—black hair, dark eyes, and mixed heritage. Drew looked like the product of years of breeding amongst the social elite of the East Coast. Ty looked like a mix of different races, bred to survive and thrive. Maybe some Asian or Native American, mixed with something of Celtic origin, Irish or perhaps Scottish.

  “What are your thoughts?” Drew asked with a nod in the general direction of Getz's domain.

  Ty picked up his binoculars again and turned to have another look. “Tactically, it's well positioned. Hard to plan a stealth attack on a place surrounded on three sides by water. Then again, that's old thinking. Not as true as it used to be with the developments in underwater surveillance. I assume he has underwater security?” he asked, turning back to face Drew.

  “We're working on the details,” Drew answered. Ty turned thoughtful for a moment, not really looking at her or Drew, but focused more on the empty space between them.

  “And your visual surveillance?” he asked, picking up the glasses again.

  “Cotter can go through that with you if you want the details. It would be good for your team to know where we are.”

  Ty nodded. “Dani thinks the shipment is going to come from the north. Do you agree?” Ty asked.

  “It's a hunch, we're not certain one way or the other right now. For all we know it could be coming by seaplane.”

  “But you don't think it is, and you agree with Dani,” Ty commented.

  Dani cast Drew a quick look and caught him studying the detective. A second later he flicked his gaze to Dani and she confirmed his snap observation with small nod. Ty wasn't the average cop.

  “Yes, I do. I've known Dani long enough to know her hunches are more likely than not to be true.”

  “So I see,” Ty replied.

  Dani frowned at Ty's tone and then turned away when her cell phone buzzed in her pocket.

  She took the call, keeping her eyes on Drew who was keeping his eyes on Ty. A few seconds later she ended the conversation and slid her cell back into her pocket.

  “That was Marmie,” she said to Drew, whose eyes had flickered back to her when her phone snapped shut. “She says the house is too big to bother trying to find me,” she smiled and shrugged. She glanced at Ty then at Drew.

  “I'll take Detective Fuller back down to Cotter when we're finished up here.” Drew's eyes held hers.

  Drew had picked up on the tension between her and Ty and his silent disapproval was clear—casting a shadow over their initial pleasure of seeing one another. He was the team director, she reminded herself. He had reason to disapprove. They—she—couldn't aff
ord to have any slip-ups on this one. Dismissing the urge to make excuses, she nodded before leaving the two men in silence.

  Chapter 6

  DREW STUDIED THE MAN whose back was to him. Christ, he was going to be yet another victim of the Mack Truck that was Danielle Gabriella Williamson. He could see it already, the tension, the interest, Dani's refusal to acknowledge it. It was the last thing Drew needed on this case—hell, it was the last thing Dani needed on this case.

  Of course, it wasn't Dani Drew had to worry about—it was never Dani. She was too tough for her own good. Whatever interest the detective had in her she would ignore. And while she was one of Drew's top agents, and had a scary ability to remember details, she was very good at ignoring anything she didn't want to deal with on a personal level.

  Drew could handle her, but he wasn't so sure about the detective. His interest in Dani was about as obvious as the sun hanging high in the sky. Would he pursue it? Drew knew it wouldn't matter if he did. But how would he handle the rejection?

  “What made you leave, soldier?” Drew found himself asking, curious about the man's character.

  Ty turned from his examination of the compound, his eyebrows raised.

  “The SEALs,” Drew clarified, as if Ty didn't know what he was talking about. “What made you leave the team?”

  Ty studied him for a moment. “It was time.”

  “You don't strike me as the kind of man to leave before it's time,” Drew pressed. “So what made it the right time?”

  Ty regarded him for a long moment before placing the glasses on a nearby table. “I imagine you've seen my file, sir. It should tell you everything you need to know.”

  Drew had read the file and it did give a reason, a bullet had caught him in the leg and almost killed Ty when it went through an artery.

  “Most SEALs I know wouldn't have let that end their careers,” Drew said.

  Ty was debating telling him the real reason, Drew could see it in his eyes. And, because he was more interested in letting Ty come to his own decision than forcing him to answer, Drew used the time to focus on the man in front of him, again.