Bait Read online

  “Looks like it, doesn’t it?” He gave her the smallest of mocking smiles.

  Maddie scowled. She fumed. She thought. Then, after an ostentatious glance down at her watch, she met his gaze again.

  “Look, I have a really important business meeting in exactly seventeen minutes,” she said, low-voiced. “What, exactly, does it take to make you disappear?”

  FIVE

  Talk to me,” McCabe said, his voice equally low. “Five minutes of your time. That’s all I need.”

  “Then you swear you’ll go away?”

  “Cross my heart.”

  “Fine.” Maddie glared at him. Whatever happened, she couldn’t let him follow her up to the fiftieth floor, where Brehmer’s Pet Food reigned supreme. Not unless she was prepared to kiss the account good-bye. She would give him five minutes. She would be super-careful. And then, if she was lucky, he would be satisfied and go away, and leave her to get on with her life.

  Except that someone had tried to kill her last night.

  The elevator slid to a stop and the door opened.

  “Is this the third floor? Could you let me out, please?” A woman on the other side of the car was edging toward the front. Maddie found herself wedged even more tightly against the back wall as the population of the elevator shifted. It was so crowded that several people were forced to step out into the corridor to let the woman exit.

  “Come on, then,” Maddie muttered with a resentful glance up at McCabe, and used her briefcase to clear a path. When both she and McCabe had been disgorged, the elevator doors closed behind them. The woman who’d gotten off just before them was already walking away. A gold-framed mirror hung above a walnut console table on the wall directly in front of the elevators. Funny, Maddie thought, catching a glimpse of her reflection, except for the big bad wolf beside her—who, incidentally, was once again wrapping his hand around her arm—she looked unchanged. No one seeing her would guess that icy shivers chased one another up and down her spine or that her legs felt like rubber bands. A quick look around told her that to the left was a solid wall, covered like the others in blue-patterned wallpaper. To the right, the hall opened up into what looked like a mezzanine level. Groupings of beige leather couches and chairs stood in front of a polished metal rail that gave promise of a large open area below. At the far side of the open space, a towering wall of windows provided a panoramic view of cerulean sky peeking out between the surrounding skyscrapers.

  “This way.” McCabe took charge again, pulling her along beside him as he headed toward the mezzanine.

  Maddie jerked her arm free and kept walking. His eyes cut sideways at her, but he didn’t say anything.

  By this time she had absorbed a great deal of visual information about him, starting with the fact that he was at least six feet tall, or maybe even a little taller. Even in heels, she had to look up to meet his gaze. He was swarthy-skinned, muscular, with a wrestler’s powerful build. His hair was short, black, untidy. He had thick, straight, black eyebrows above heavy-lidded eyes that were, at the moment, blood-shot, with puffy bags beneath. His cheekbones were flat, almost Slavic, his nose was blunt with a bump on the bridge, his mouth was well shaped but thin, with, at the moment, a sardonic twist. He had a long, square jaw that angled sharply into a strong chin. He badly needed a shave, a change of clothes, and, from the looks of it, a shower, too. She pegged his age at somewhere in the mid-thirties, though it was hard to tell past the smirk and the bristles, which had left the five-o’clock-shadow stage behind about three days back. Despite all the muscles, though, he wasn’t a hottie by any stretch of the imagination; he was way too scruffy and way too thuggish-looking for that.

  Besides, as far as she was concerned, the terms FBI agent and hottie were mutually exclusive.

  He walked all the way to the rail before turning to look at her. His eyes flickered as they moved over her, registering something, but she couldn’t tell what it was. Didn’t care what it was. Unless it was recognition, but now that she was growing calmer, she didn’t see how it could possibly be that.

  If he knew the truth about her, she was all but certain that she would already be well aware of it.

  “The clock’s ticking.” Her voice was frosty as she stopped perhaps two feet away from him. As she had guessed, the area beyond him, beyond the rail, was open space with a view of the restaurant below. The restaurant wasn’t busy; only a few tables were occupied. A pair of escalators ran up and down, with about half a dozen people traveling in each direction. Farther along the mezzanine, long tables had been set up. A small crowd was gathered in front of the tables, intent on whatever business had brought them there. Waiters carrying loaded trays flitted in and out of the conference room beyond. A buzz of muted conversation provided background noise. The smell of coffee hung in the air.

  Maddie inhaled the fumes longingly. She’d already drunk so much coffee that morning in an effort to keep herself awake and functional that she was pretty sure that if she cut herself she would bleed java, but the energizing effects of even that much caffeine were beginning to wear off.

  “You want coffee?” he asked.

  Her lips thinned. “No,” she lied.

  “Are you always this friendly, or am I just getting lucky here?” McCabe leaned back against the rail, gripping it with a hand on either side of surprisingly lean hips. He looked a whole heck of a lot more at ease than she felt. Which wasn’t surprising. He hadn’t been nearly murdered during the night. He wasn’t being interviewed by the FBI. And he, presumably, didn’t have anything to hide.

  “I told you, I have a meeting.” Her tone was abrupt. With light from the windows pouring over him, he looked more like a street tough than ever. Then she realized that his back was to the windows. Hers was not. With a little frisson of unease, she became aware that the light was spilling onto her face, revealing every nuance of her every expression to him.

  Careful, she warned herself again, and broke eye contact to glance down at her fingers, which she had just realized were cramping from clutching the handle of her briefcase so hard. Shifting it to the other hand, she made a little production of stretching her fingers out to ease the stiffness.

  “What do you have in that thing, anyway?” He was looking at the battered brown briefcase now instead of her face. It was the old-fashioned kind, soft-sided, satchel shaped, with a strap securing the top. It was also clearly full to the point of bursting.

  “My laptop. Some files. Sketches. Things I need for the presentation I have to make in”—she consulted her watch—“fifteen minutes.” She frowned at him. “Look, if all you want to do is make small talk, I don’t have time.”

  “Presentation for what? What do you do?” Folding his arms across his chest, he looked prepared to stay where he was all day. Feeling as if she were about to jump out of her skin with the urgency of her desire to get this over with and get away from him, Maddie registered his posture and stewed.

  “I own an advertising agency. We’re small, we’re struggling. The account I’m about to make a pitch to is huge. Landing it would change everything for us.”

  “I see.” His gaze met hers, and suddenly his manner became all business. “What’s the name of your agency? For the record.”

  “Creative Partners.”

  “And you’re the owner?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sole owner?”

  “Yes.”

  His gaze swept her. “Kind of young to own an advertising agency, aren’t you?”

  Maddie bristled. “As far as I know, there’s no minimum age for owning a business.”

  “All right.” His gaze swept her again, as though trying to guess the age she had deliberately not told him. He did not, however, ask her outright. Not that he needed to: Her date of birth was in the police report, which she had little doubt he would obtain in due course. “Your advertising agency is headquartered where?”

  “St. Louis.” That was in the police report, too. Damn Jon anyway for making her go to the hos
pital! She should have guessed that the hospital would call the police. Not that she could blame the whole sorry debacle on Jon. Shocked or not, she was the one who knew the score, and she should have had more sense than to go.

  “And that’s where you live?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re here in New Orleans because ...?”

  She shifted impatiently. “I told you, to pitch this account. We—my associate and I—flew in from St. Louis yesterday.”

  “What’s your associate’s name?”

  “Jon Carter.”

  “Were you meeting anyone at the hotel? A relative, maybe, who was staying there, too? Someone with a name similar to yours?”

  Maddie frowned. “No.”

  “Okay. What time did your flight get in?”

  “About four-fifteen.”

  “What did you do after the plane landed? Did you go directly to the hotel?”

  “Yes. Jon and I checked in, walked over to the French Quarter, grabbed some dinner, came back, worked on our presentation, and went to bed.”

  “Separate rooms?”

  “Yes. Look, is this actually leading somewhere?” Maddie glanced ostentatiously at her watch again. A faint ding behind her heralded the arrival of another elevator. She wanted to turn tail and board it in the worst way. Footsteps and the faint rustle of clothing announced the sudden influx of more people, most of whom seemed to be making for the tables in front of the conference rooms.

  Play the hand out.

  “You never know.” McCabe made a gesture at someone behind her. Maddie glanced around to see a waiter headed their way. He was carrying a tray laden with a coffeepot, cups and saucers, and dessert plates holding tiny pastries in fluted white paper doilies. “I need coffee. Sure you don’t want any?”

  Before she could answer, the waiter reached them. He was young and African-American with close-cropped hair and a thin build, dressed in the traditional tux.

  “Yes, sir?” The waiter was looking past her at McCabe.

  “Could I get some coffee, please?” McCabe asked. The fact that the coffee was obviously intended for the attendees at the conference didn’t seem to bother him.

  “Cream or sugar?” The waiter, having set the tray down on the round glass table beside the nearest couch, poured out a cup and handed it to McCabe, who had shaken his head in answer to the query. McCabe took the cup, and the waiter looked at Maddie.

  “Would you like some coffee, Miss?”

  “Be a devil,” McCabe said, his cup already at his mouth.

  The waiter grinned. Maddie shot McCabe a look, but now that an actual caffeine fix was so close at hand the prospect was too tempting to turn down.

  “Thank you,” she said to the waiter, setting her briefcase down and accepting a cup, complete with the packet of sugar she’d requested stirred in. She would have asked for more than one—a sugar rush was second only to a jolt of caffeine on her list of preferred stimulants—but considering her present company, she decided against it.

  “Danish?” the waiter asked, proffering the tray.

  McCabe took one. Maddie shook her head and downed a swallow of coffee. It wasn’t particularly hot and it wasn’t particularly good, but she badly needed the lift she hoped it would give her.

  In about twelve minutes, she had to make the sales pitch of a lifetime. On almost no sleep. After being terrorized and nearly murdered just a few hours before. With the FBI sniffing at her heels. And maybe, if her life had really gone down the toilet, with the killer still somewhere around. Looking for her.

  Life just didn’t get much better than that.

  “I’ll leave some in case you change your mind,” the waiter said with a quick smile, and deposited a dessert plate crammed with goodies on the table before leaving. Taking another swallow of coffee, Maddie averted her gaze—her stomach was in such a state that just looking at the gooey confections made her feel unwell—then frowned as McCabe, having disposed of his first small pastry in two quick bites, reached for another one.

  “Just so you know, your five minutes are up,” Maddie said as the second pastry went the way of the first. She set her still-half-full coffee cup down on the table. “I’m out of here. Enjoy your breakfast.”

  “Hang on one more minute.” He drained his cup and set it down.

  “What?” She was already picking up her briefcase.

  He wiped his fingers on a napkin. “I want you to tell me everything that happened in your hotel room last night. A blow-by-blow account.”

  As if his words had conjured it up, the memory of the attack flashed at warp speed through her mind. It was all she could do to repress a shudder.

  “Sorry, no can do,” she said, straightening with her briefcase once again in hand. “I have to go.”

  He smiled at her, a slow and distinctly un-charming smile that succeeded in raising her hackles before he ever said a word.

  “I could take you into custody.” His tone was almost idle. “If that’s what it takes to get you to answer my questions.”

  Her brows snapped together. “Don’t mess with me. You have to charge somebody with something to take them into custody. What are you planning to charge me with, being a victim?”

  “How about obstructing an investigation?”

  Maddie’s stomach clenched. She pressed her lips together as her heart skipped a beat, then managed to get hold of herself enough to meet his gaze. His expression was bland. Was he bluffing? Maybe, but she didn’t want to find out.

  “Okay,” she said, hating him. “I’ll go over what happened in my hotel room again. Then that’s it, understand? I have to go.” She clasped her suddenly cold hands in front of her and glared at him. At least the surge of antipathy she was experiencing toward him was a strong enough emotion to override the shivery terror she felt when she recalled the attack. “I was in bed. Something woke me up. I realized someone was in my room. I slipped out of bed. Two shots—I think it was two, and I think they were shots—were fired into the bed, which thankfully I was no longer in. I ran for the door. He—it was a man—caught me. He ... he slammed me up against the wall, held me there with his hand around my throat, hit me, and threatened to kill me if I made a sound. Then he—” Despite her determination to make her recitation coldly clinical, Maddie couldn’t help the wobble her voice had suddenly developed. She had to pause to take a deep breath before she could continue. “He put duct tape over my mouth and forced me to my knees. I th-thought he was going to shoot me. Kill me.”

  Despite her best efforts to reveal no hint of weakness, she had to clench her teeth then to keep her voice from shaking. She stopped there, hoping he wouldn’t realize that it was because she simply could not continue. Instead of looking at McCabe, she looked past him out the wall of windows. The soft summer sky was such a brilliant blue, complete with fluffy clouds like sleeping lambs—hard to believe that the horror she’d feared for so long could have come home to roost on such a gorgeous day.

  But then, maybe it had not—maybe there was some mistake. Maybe she shouldn’t be so quick to write off everything she’d worked so hard for. There was always a chance ...

  She could feel McCabe’s gaze on her face as she fought to regain her composure.

  “But you got away,” he said softly after a moment. “How?”

  Knowing that he was watching her was, finally, enough to enable her to pull herself together one more time.

  She met his gaze head-on. “I had a pencil in my hand. I stabbed him with it. In the leg, I think.” Her voice was steady now.

  His eyes widened. “You stabbed him in the leg with a pencil?”

  Maddie nodded. Remembering how it had felt made her go all woozy.

  Breathe, she told herself. Just breathe.

  He pursed his lips in a silent whistle. His eyes were now sharp with interest and fixed on her face. “Then what?”

  It took her a second. “What do you mean, then what? What do you think? I got out of there.”

  His lips quir
ked fractionally. “Could you possibly be a little more specific?”

  Maddie took a deep breath and fought for calm. “He let go of me, and I managed to get the door open and get out. The duct tape—I must have pulled it off because I was screaming. A man down the hall heard me and opened his door. I ran into his room. I stayed in there with him and his wife until security got there.”

  She stopped again. McCabe said nothing for a moment, which was a good thing because with the best will in the world, Maddie didn’t think she could have replied. Her heart was thudding, her stomach had twisted itself into a knot, and she was cold all over—so cold that it was all she could do not to shiver visibly.

  Finally he asked, “What were their names? The couple in the room?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know.” It was something of a relief to discover that her voice still worked.

  “How long were you in their room?”

  “I don’t know that, either. Maybe five, ten minutes.”

  “Where did the guy who attacked you go? Did he follow you? Try to get in?”

  “He was chasing me, at first, but ... I didn’t see him again after I ran into that other room. I don’t know where he went. He didn’t try to get in.”

  “Did you happen to see him in the lighted hallway?” He was looking at her with an intent expression that reminded her of a cat at a mouse hole. “Maybe you glanced over your shoulder while he was chasing you? Caught a look at his face? Something?”

  “I didn’t see anything. I just ran.” Maddie couldn’t help it; she shuddered so hard that he had to see it. Then, catching herself before she could weaken any further, she took a deep breath, then another.

  It’s over, she told herself. It happened, but she survived. Soon this would be over, too. All she had to do was keep it together. For just a little longer.

  He was watching her closely.

  “You okay?”

  “Fine.”

  No way was she falling apart in front of him. Quite aside from the fact that he was an FBI agent, and an arrogant jerk to boot, there was too much at stake. In fact, nothing less than her entire life.