Page 3 of Baby Take Me Home

Renalda stared down at my card. “Oh, I don’t know if I should.”

That was a strange choice of words for the circumstances, and I was only more intrigued.

“Why don’t you?” Her husband took the card from her and tucked it into his pocket. “I’m sure Miss Armand would love to hear about the charity events you and Luka have organized.” He met his wife’s gaze and widened his eyes, sharing a silent communiqué.

I fought the urge to roll forward on my toes with excitement. These two random strangers I’d chosen from the crowd might be a goldmine for the real story I planned to uncover. A part of my lizard brain whispered that there were very few real coincidences in the world, but I silenced it. It didn’t need to remind me to be cautious.

Any reckless impulses I might have had in my younger days had been, quite literally, beaten out of me six months earlier, when my colleague and I had walked into a trap and only I had walked out alive. Actually, I’d been half-carried out by a rescue team. One wrong move from either one of the couple in front of me and I wouldn’t hesitate to pull my mace, employ my newly acquired self-defense skills, kick and scream, and do whatever it took to make a scene and get myself free.

I kept my mask of calm in place, complete with a polite smile, and breathed evenly, waiting for Renalda’s response.

“I’m free Friday morning from 10 to 11,” she said, glancing sidelong at her husband. “My personal assistant will contact you with an address.”

“Perfect. I look forward to it.” I smiled at both of them. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to powder my nose. Do you happen to know…?” I let the question trail off, an old reporter’s trick. It conveyed discretion and good manners.You can trust me, it implied.

Renalda angled her head toward one of the exits.Also discreet, it messaged back to me. “Through those doors and to the left.”

“Thank you.” I bid them goodnight and ventured one more glance at my earlier admirer.

He was talking with two couples. The image poked at another memory buried deep in my mind, but I couldn’t summon it forward. Some of the residual effects of my trauma, according to my therapist. A terrible deficiency for a reporter, according to my loud inner critic. I was about to turn away when one of the women, an attractive blonde, laid her hand on TJ’s forearm and threw her head back with laughter.

And then I knew. I had seen her six months ago, aboard the harbor cruising ship that—one day later—became my temporary prison. The other woman in the group had been on that ship as well, along with both their dates. Those dates were the Wilder brothers, who ran a successful athleisure-wear company.

I had researched everyone who had attended that ill-fated cruise, including the Wilders who, from all I could dig up on them, were good guys running a legitimate business. But this was the second time they were in the vicinity of the sinister, shadowy group responsible for kidnapping and terrorizing me, along with my colleague and friend, Aiden Brooks. I blinked back tears at the thought of Aiden. I had to get to the bottom of this story for both of us. Obviously, I’d stopped my investigation of the Wilders too soon, and first thing tomorrow I would remedy that.

My instincts gave me no read on whether TJ was a friend of the group or simply chatting them up as he made the rounds of the party. I would make it my mission to know for sure by this time tomorrow. But for now, the coast was clear and I had an important task at hand.

Still unsettled, I slipped through the exit and saw the restroom signs to my left. I made a slow circle to make sure no one had followed me and there were no security cameras mounted in the area. Then I pressed myself against the wall, reached up under the hem of my skirt, and pulled out the small, flat packet there. I unfolded it, changing its shape into a black plastic rain slicker. I zipped it over my dress and pulled the hood carefully over my chignon so I wouldn’t return to the party later looking like a hot mess. I crossed my fingers and hoped my security consultant was right that my dark purple dress would blend in with the black coat, and the coat would disguise me well enough to give me plausible deniability if I did get caught on camera.

I glanced over my shoulder one last time to make sure I wasn’t being watched or followed, half expecting to see TJ or one of the suspicious foursome behind me. Seeing that I was alone, I breathed a silent sigh of relief and mentally reviewed the embassy floor plan I’d memorized. I slipped down the hall in search of Izak’s office and any evidence I could uncover that he was part of the organization that had done its damnedest to ruin my life.

CHAPTER 2

TJ

Just what I needed.A civilian with a bad plan.

Ms. Armand slipped out one of the exit doors when she thought no one was watching. As expected, she was naïve. She was a beautiful woman, an excellent investigator, and a brilliant writer, but she was not a spy, despite all appearances that she was playing our game.

More than half a dozen pairs of eyes were on her every movement, including those of my team members standing with me, and my boss and her bodyguard on the opposite side of the room. At least luck was on the intrepid reporter’s side. Embassy security was surprisingly lax and, it appeared, would need at least a couple of minutes to figure out that a guest was taking too long to return from the ladies’ room. That was our window of opportunity.

“She’s on the move,” I said quietly to my team, mostly for the benefit of the remote crew listening in through the undetectable communication units each of us had in our ears. “Penn,” I said to our logistics team lead who was part of that crew, “Is the decoy on standby?”

“Ready if we need her,” he answered.

Cynthia Kessler, the attractive blonde next to me, and Mai Li, the statuesque brunette across from me, both nodded to confirm they were ready to help the decoy blend in with the other guests. Looks are not something most bosses should ever notice, but I needed to be aware of every weapon in my tactical team’s arsenal. Kessler and Li were not only attractive enough to be distracting, but they were also experts in both weapons and hand-to-hand combat. They comprised the best tactical team inside HEAT, or Headquarters for the Elimination of Advanced Threats. Our covert enterprise was buried so deep that only a handful of the highest-level intel professionals in the US government knew of our existence. And most of those who knew about us didn’t have the security clearance level to have any idea what our missions were.

Kessler and Li’s boyfriends, their dates for the night, were not only brothers and wealthy businessmen. One of them, Derek, was a former HEAT agent himself. His brother, Chase, was a civilian, but he had been pulled into the very operation that had ended in Armand’s kidnapping and covert rescue six months ago. To this day, Ms. Armand didn’t know who had saved her or, to our previous knowledge, who had held her captive.

Tonight changed everything. Seeing her name on the guest list had put us on high alert, but we’d still hoped she wasn’t inadvertently inserting herself into our mission. Her thinly veiled Nancy Drew act proved that was exactly what she was doing. It also confirmed that her public claims that she was writing for the lifestyle section because she needed a break from investigative reporting had been an elaborate ruse.

Ms. Armand was investigating her kidnapping. And if we didn’t protect her from herself, she was about to stumble into the bloody hands of her kidnappers, the deadly Carbonados Group, again.

“What’s the play, TJ?” X, still across the room, asked into the comms. She was the founder and head of HEAT, my direct supervisor, and as the team called her, their uber-boss.

In the field, though, as the leader of the Alpha Team, I called the shots. “Our window of time is limited, so if she’s headed to Izak’s office, we’ll have to plant the bug with her there.”

Kessler, who was the one tasked with the bug planting, nodded. “I’ll slip into the office wing right behind her, plant the bug without her seeing, and keep her in position until the team can extract us both.”