Too Hard to Handle (Black Knights Inc. #8)(23)

While pretending to peruse the headlines, George had watched the CIA agent hand the phone back to the newcomer. “It’s all yours now,” the agent had snarled. “Let’s see if you guys can do any better than we’ve done. He said you’re to head to the airport ASAP. Your plane is fueled and ready for the flight to Cusco.”

Then the CIA agent had uttered a few choice words under his breath before pushing up from the table and stalking away, his back and shoulders stiff with barely repressed anger.

At that point, George had been faced with a dilemma. Follow the CIA agent and his group, just as he had been doing for nearly three months, or hastily have Benton book him travel to Cusco so he could keep an eye on this new fellow. And though his instincts had told him he’d just witnessed a “changing of the guard,” so to speak, it’d still been a difficult decision to make. In the hours since he’d made it, he’d second-guessed himself no less than a thousand times.

“So what will you do now?” Benton asked.

George sucked in a deep breath that brought with it the smell of top-shelf liquor and rich spices. “What I’ve been doing for months,” he admitted. “Watch and wait. Hope this bunch has better luck than the last. And hope no more mysterious players appear. I would prefer to keep the body count on this one to a minimum. It seems so useless to eliminate all of them.”

“Can’t leave any witnesses,” Benton grunted. “You know Spider.”

Yes indeed. George did know Spider. All too well. And George wouldn’t fail the man again. For his daughter’s sake…

*

Well, this is awkward as hell…

Even though Dan knew the food he’d eaten during the most uncomfortable meal of his life was delicious—mostly because Chelsea had commented on it a half dozen times while making nummy-nummy-nummy sounds—he hadn’t tasted a single bite. It might as well have been cardboard.

He wished he could claim that was because he was too busy paying attention to the lobby and the exits, keeping a weather eye out for Kozlov. But the truth was, he was completely and totally preoccupied by Penni. She’d closed up tighter than a clam after he told her he was an alcoholic.

Not that it’d been a silent meal by any means. Chelsea had made sure of that, peppering Penni with dozens of questions—literally dozens; he’d stopped counting at twenty—about her childhood, where she grew up, and what it’d been like to have a policeman for a father. Chelsea even went so far as to ask Penni her favorite music group. Penni admitted she usually said Led Zepplin to sound cool. “But,” she went on, “The Band is really my all-time favorite because my dad loved them and would play ‘Up on Cripple Creek’ on the boom box while sitting out on the front stoop after his shift.” Which Dan happened to think was still pretty damn cool.

And it hadn’t stopped there. Dan now knew that Penni’s favorite color was red. Her favorite dish was rigatoni with short-rib ragu served at Piccoli Trattoria on Sixth Street in Brooklyn. And she was a born and bred Mets fan. “The Yankees are just a bunch of overpriced jackwads.” Her words. Not his. And Chelsea had managed to uncover all of this while still continuing to argue with Zoelner on a pretty regular basis.

So when Dan said Penni clammed up, it was more of a feeling than anything else. A subtle sense that she’d pulled away from him.

Not that he could blame her, of course. What sane woman wouldn’t think twice—no, ten times—about starting something with a guy who had a vicious bastard of a monkey on his back? A monkey he couldn’t promise wouldn’t someday get the better of him and make life a living hell for all those around him.

He sighed and tried to tell himself it was better this way. Better for her to know now. But he couldn’t quite make himself believe it. Because he had planned to tell her. He’d just planned to do it after they’d had their heart-to-heart. And maybe after he’d seduced her a time or two…or twenty. You know, when she’d be soft and sated and far more inclined to take a chance on him.

Is a chance really what you want?

The question buzzed through his brain like a chain saw, cutting into his consciousness and making him wince. The truth was, he wasn’t sure. The concept was as frightening as it was fascinating. What he was sure of was that he would have liked the opportunity to mull it over.

So much for that…

Sighing, he wiped his lips with his napkin and tossed the cloth square atop his plate. When the waiter came to clear it away, Dan turned to Penni and opened his mouth to say… Hell’s bells! He wasn’t sure what to say to her. Thankfully, he was saved from having to say anything when Chelsea suddenly returned to the real reason for this ill-fated dinner.

“But here’s something I don’t get,” she said. “If Kozlov is here to buy information from Lord Voldemort, what’s with the T/C Contender? That’s a weapon you choose when you want to take someone out. Not something you carry for personal protection.” She scrunched up her nose. “Do you guys think it’s possible we’re on a bad chase? You know, one of the wild-goose variety? Is Kozlov in town for something entirely different and we’re wasting time and energy trailing him?”

“Only two ways to find out,” Zoelner said. “The first is we get ears inside his room and hope we hear something that’ll give us the lowdown on his business here.”