An Unforgettable Lady (An Unforgettable Lady #1)(16)

"Freddie Krueger with OCD?"

"Yeah. That's it."

"You get prints?"

"Naw. Guy wore gloves. We've got some blood but it's mostly hers. We have a partial footprint but it's a goddam Nike. Who doesn't own a pair of those?"

"What size?"

"Ten men's. So he's probably of average height. We're checking for hair and skin under her nails." Marks coughed. "Hey, what's all this to you, anyway?"

Smith shot a noncommittal noise back.

"Well," Marks said, "you can expect to hear from me again. This guy's just warming up."

"Who's next in the article?"

"Isadora Cunis. Daddy is an industrialist, married one of the top Wall Street stock guys. I talked to her earlier in the day, along with all the others. I’ve urged her to get out of town and I think she's going to take the advice."

"Call me with news."

"You betcha."

Smith put the cell phone down and logged off the site.

Restlessly, he scanned his room. The hotel he was staying in was a small one in the theater district of New York. The place was clean and quiet, all it took for him to give accommodations a five-star rating.

He got to his feet and walked over to the window he'd wedged open. Through it, he heard the city below, the sounds of honking horns and rushing taxis steady on the streets even though it was late. He'd come into town from LA to assess threats being received by the CEO of one of the top multinational companies in the world. Smith and the sixty-year-old scion of industry had met over dinner in the man's luxurious suite at the Plaza. After an hour of conversation, Smith had turned the job down despite being offered seven figures for two months worth of work.

It had been easy to walk away.

Mr. Corporate America maintained that he was being threatened by eco-terrorists. He'd recently leveled two thousand acres of rain forest to build a manufacturing and assembly plant complex in Brazil. The tree huggers, as the man had explained, were up in arms.

But Smith knew it was a lie because he'd done his homework. The CEO had two lives. One was aboveboard as an icon of the American dream, a self-made billionaire who had a beautiful, pregnant, second wife less than half his age. The other involved arms, and not the kind you picked up a newborn with. Turned out, the guy had carried a lot more than widgets on his boats as they went back and forth through the Panama Canal.

In Smith's view, the man was probably trying to get out of the illicit trade and was just now learning that handling people who deal in guns is a lot different from negotiating over a boardroom table with guys in suits and ties. Both lines of work might get you rich but with one you got a golden parachute and a nice watch when you left. The other got you shot in the head and maybe cut up into little pieces. Your family was lucky if they had a body to bury.

From Smith's perspective, he couldn't justify taking the job. It wasn't that he wanted Mr. Corporate America to get killed. Watching a guy who was a king in his world cry over fennel soup wasn't pleasant, but Smith had rules. If he was going to risk his own life for someone else's, they had to be honest with him.

It also helped if they weren't in a pigpen of their own making.

But he didn't leave the guy, flapping in the wind. Before Smith left, he'd passed along the number of another security firm.

Anyway, if he had taken the job, it would've involved some shuffling of clients. Tomorrow he was due in Paraguay and Tiny would have hated subbing on that job, even though he'd have done it at the drop of a hat. Tiny was big enough to make a linebacker look dainty and as tough as Smith was, but he hated the tropics. Something about spiders.

Going into the bathroom, Smith peeled off the undershirt he was wearing. In the light flooding down from the ceiling, his muscles stood out in stark relief, a powerful show of flesh and bone that he didn't stop to admire. He'd been in top physical condition all his life but his body was only one reason he was considered a heavy hitter in a profession full of tough guys.



What he did linger on were patterns across his skin, crisscrosses and streaks that distorted as the muscles underneath moved. They were scars, ragged testaments to the life he'd chosen. Some were twenty years old, from his violent youth, others were more recent. Some were the result of attempts on his life, others badges of his courage. He was so used to them, he didn't regard them as unusual or ugly. They were like his arms and legs, a part of him so intrinsic it was as if he'd come out of the womb with them.

Which of course, he hadn't. He just couldn't recall being unmarked.

Absently, he ran his hand over a pale pink scar that cut across his abdominal muscles. He thought about the countess and imagined her touching him with her delicate hands. The mere thought hardened him.

He cursed out loud.

It was a great fantasy but that's all it would ever be.

Besides, a woman like her would be used to the unmarred skin of investment bankers and aristocrats. Men whose professions didn't require they be stitched back together with a needle and thread. One look at Smith's map of horrors and she'd probably run shrieking in the opposite direction.

Then again, maybe she wouldn't. He thought of that chin of hers, kicked up high.

Oh, Christ, who was he fooling? He was never going to find out.

Smith shut off the light and left the bathroom. Shrugging out of his pants, he tossed them over the back of a chair, logged off his computer, and laid down on the bed. He didn't bother getting under the covers. The night was unseasonably warm for fall and he'd turned up the temperature gauge in the room so that the air conditioning wouldn't come on.