Page 2 of The Devoted Game
What the hell else did henotremember about last night?
“I’m Special Agent Vivian Grace. I need to speak with you on an urgent matter. May I come inside?”
A fed. Perfect. Before he could come up with some profound statement that would clarify his position on what the Bureau could do with their need to talk or anything else, a sultry, feminine voice called out from behind him, “Who’s at the door, baby?”
The redhead he’d left in his bed, dressed in slut-tight jeans and a hoochie mama tank top, appeared next to him. She smiled for the agent, whose disapproval was written all over her lovely, prim face.
“I can come back in half an hour,” Agent Grace offered crisply.
“Don’t trouble yourself, honey.” The redhead leaned in and kissed his stubbled jaw. “I gotta go anyway.” She dragged her French-manicured fingers down his bare chest as she backed out the door, forcing the agent to step aside. “Call me, baby.”
He watched her strut off toward the yellow Mustang parked next to his aging Land Rover, purse and strappy sandals dangling from her hands. The wicked sway of her hips jogged his memory as to why he’d picked her out of the crowd last night.
Bonnie? Betty?He didn’t have a clue.
Ryan straightened away from the jamb. “I need a smoke.” He left Grace standing at the door and went back to the bedroom in search of his cigarettes. For about three seconds he contemplated calling Quantico and asking what the hell they meant sending some baby agent-in-training down here to harass him.
Vivian Grace couldn’t be more than twenty-six, twenty-seven tops. Probably hadn’t even finished her in-service probationary period. He flicked his lighter, sucked hard, and held the smoke deep in his lungs, mulling over what she’d said. What the hell urgent matter could the Bureau need to discuss with him? Had one of his old cases gone active again? That was doubtful. Every damned case he’d worked was closed, with the perp or perps serving time or dead and the victim recovered safely.
Except one.
Pushing the memory aside, he decided there was only one way to find out why she was here. He wandered back to where he’d left her. She hadn’t moved. The good little agent doing her sworn duty, braced and ready for battle.
If this was going to be complicated, he needed a little bracing of his own. “I won’t be any good to either of us until I’ve had coffee,” he warned.
She didn’t object, so he headed for the kitchen. If she wanted to continue with whatever she had to say, she would follow. The front door creaked closed, and her heels clacked on the hardwood.
Persistent. He liked that in a woman.
He scooped the grounds into the basket, added the water, and flipped the switch. The smell of fresh-brewed coffee instantly began to fill the air, signaling relief was on the way.
After a final drag, he smashed the cigarette into an ashtray and returned his attention to his uninvited guest, who lingered the entire expanse of tiled floor away. “What do they want?”
“A six-year-old girl is missing and—”
“Welcome to the real world, Agent,” he cut her off, an abrupt blast of fury churning his gut. What the hell kind of con was the Bureau running on him? “Kids go missing every hour of every day. Your esteemed employer has an entire unit dedicated to finding them. Unless you have reason to suspect I had something to do with the abduction, I can’t fathom what you want from me.”
The bastards fired him, and then they had the balls to come running when they hit a case that confounded their elite unit?Three freaking years later?And he was supposed to help them out? No. Damn. Way.
He didn’t owe the FBI squat.
Though his reaction clearly startled her, his visitor wasn’t ready to give up. Her chin tilted in challenge, she ventured two steps farther into the room, in his direction. The movement momentarily lured his gaze to the shapely calves revealed by her knee-length skirt. Great legs. Probably ran five at the crack of dawn every morning. Well, she could just turn her sweet little ass right around and run back to where she’d come from. He wasn’t in the mood to play whatever the hell kind of game the Bureau had in mind.
“I know your story, McBride. There isn’t an agent alive who hasn’t heard about the legendary Ryan McBride. That’s why I’ve come to you.”
Oh yeah, thelegend.Another memory he’d drowned with booze.
“I hate to be the one to tell you, but that legend died three years ago, Agent Grace.” He reached for a cup, looked to her for any indication she was interested. She shook her head, so he filled his own and kicked back a couple of slugs of the hot brew. With enough caffeine tainting his veins, he might just reach the point of caring whether or not he survived the day.
“We need your help.” Outright desperation flashed in her dark eyes. “You were the best the Bureau has ever had. It’s going to take you to save this little girl.”
Now there was a seriouslyunoriginalline of bull. He refused to think about the child. This wasn’t his case, wasn’t his problem. And yet he felt the tension rising, the coiling of emotions he couldn’t hope to contain threatening to strangle him. He plunked his cup down on the counter. He didn’t need this shit.
“Maybe you didn’t pay attention to the last chapter of my story, Agent Grace,” he countered, his voice taut with a bitterness he’d tried long and hard, and evidently unsuccessfully, to bury. “They fired me. It got ugly. There’s no going back.”
“I read the file on your last case,” she confirmed. “I’m certain you made the only decision you could, based on the facts available to you. Sometimes failure is unavoidable and someone dies. That’s the flip side to what we do.”
He had to laugh at that. “Deep, Agent,” he said, patronizing her. “Do you think that matters? Dead is dead.”