Brilliance. Part 22

She wasn't what he expected.

Shannon had said that her friend Samantha went way back with John Smith. Cooper had imagined another woman like her, strong, ideologically dedicated, and very dangerous. A soldier.

What he hadn't expected was this tiny, delicate thing with pale-blond hair. She had a woman's face and curves, but couldn't have been more than four foot ten, maybe ninety pounds. It had a strangely erotic effect; she was so small you couldn't help but imagine what she looked like naked.

"Hey, Sam." Shannon stepped forward, leaning down to hug the woman. "This is Cooper."

"Hi," he said, holding out a hand. As she shook it, he got a whiff of perfume, sweet but clean. Maybe it was that, or the softness of her hand, but he felt himself getting turned on.

"Come in." She stepped aside.

The room looked like a catalog from an upscale furniture store. Twin white sofas sat atop a thick s.h.a.g rug. A coffee table holding coffee-table books. The only hint of personality was a bookcase packed to bursting. Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, only night and the looming invisible bulk of Lake Michigan.

Shannon said, "Brought you a present." She held out the pill bottle.

"Wow. How did you get your hands on Nada?" Samantha p.r.o.nounced it like a lover's name. "That's so sweet of you."

Given the upscale apartment and Samantha's style and carriage, Cooper had almost forgotten that she was an addict. But watching her as she held the pill bottle, he could see the raw, curling need inside her, the hunger. She started to open the bottle, stopped herself, tapped the label. "Sweet of you both."

"You're welcome," he said, for want of something to say.

Samantha's eyes were soft brown flecked with gold, and as she looked at him, the addiction was pushed down, replaced by something he couldn't quite identify. She shifted her pose, one foot slightly forward, her hips c.o.c.ked and back straight. The move was subtle, but it made her look stronger, gave her a ferocity. "I'm surprised a cop would be okay with this."

"I'm not a cop."

"Not anymore, maybe. But you were. Right?" She smiled. "I can always tell. It's the confidence, the way you hold yourself. Like you could handcuff me if you wanted to." There was a small gap between her front teeth, and Cooper remembered reading somewhere that was linked to highly s.e.xual tendencies, and that thought led to a visual of what she would look like riding him, how huge his hands would be on her hips, the way her back might arch so that hair would swing down behind to brush his thighs...

Jesus, man. Lock it down.

"You okay, Cooper?" Shannon wore an amused smile. "You look a little nervous."

He read Shannon's mocking tone, paired them with the movements Samantha had made, the way she had presented herself to him. She was beautiful, no question, but he'd met a lot of beautiful women in his life. There was something more, something in the way she held herself, the frank flirtation-you could handcuff me if you wanted-coupled with a bit of distance.

Huh.

"That's a powerful gift you have," he said.

"What's that?"

"Making men sweaty."

It threw her, and in that instant he saw through the pose to the calculations. It was like flipping on the lights in a strip club, the illusion of sensuality revealed as misdirection and razzle-dazzle. He watched as she cycled half a dozen responses, each barely signaled, hinted at rather than adopted. Widening eyes to test a vulnerability angle. Stiffened back and shoulders to go the other way, be fierce and angry. The tiniest hint of a slouch to throw out sa.s.sy, feisty, ready to play. Each subtle as a poker tell. It was like she was trying a ring of keys, looking for the one that would unlock the secret of who he wanted her to be.

Through it, Cooper kept himself still, gave nothing away. "You're a reader, aren't you? Only instead of understanding what people are thinking, you see what they want. And then you become it." My G.o.d. What a talent for a spy. She's all things to all people.

"So show me." Samantha took a step forward. "Stop hiding."

"Why?"

"So I know who to be."

"Just be yourself."

"That's what you want, then? A 'real woman.' I can play that." She laughed and turned to Shannon. "Who is he?"

"DAR. Was, anyway." Shannon dropped to the couch, spread lean arms on the back of the cushions. "Says he's done with it."

"What did he do for them?" The two of them talking like he wasn't there.

"He killed people."

"Who did he kill?"

"That's a good question." Shannon c.o.c.ked her head. "Who did you kill, Cooper?"

"Children, mostly," he said. "I like a baby for breakfast, start the day right. The portions are small, but you can use the bones for soup."

"He's funny," Samantha said, not laughing.

"Isn't he? A hit man with a sense of humor."

"I heard a hilarious story," Cooper said, "about a building that blew up. Killed a thousand people. Regular civilians just going about their day."

Something tightened in Shannon, her body clenching like a fist. The reaction fast and deep and uncalculated. "I told you," she said. "I. Did not. Do that."

Either she was one of the all-time great liars, or she really hadn't blown up the Exchange.

Cooper thought back to that day six months ago. Her single-minded focus as she went into the building-into it, not out of it-and her surprise at seeing him, the way she had proclaimed her innocence. What had she said? Something like, "Wait, you don't-" and then he'd hit her, not liking it but not daring take the risk.

Was it possible she really had been there to stop it?

No. Get your head straight. Just because she's telling the truth as she believes it doesn't mean that she knows what really happened. Smith is a chess master. She's a piece.

"All right," Cooper said. "But I'm not a hit man. So how about a truce?"

She opened her mouth, closed it. Nodded slightly.

Samantha looked back and forth between them. "What are you caught up in, Shannon?"

"I don't know yet."

"Why are you with a former DAR agent?"

"That's complicated."

"Do you trust him?"

"No," she said. "But he could have left me to be arrested, and he didn't."

"Ladies?" Cooper smiled blandly. "I'm standing right here."

"I need your help, Sam." Shannon leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. "I'm in trouble."

The smaller woman looked back and forth between them. Her fingers were tight on the medicine bottle. Finally, she set it down on the counter and moved to the opposite couch. "Tell me."

Shannon did. Cooper sat beside her, listening but also taking in the details of Samantha's room. The novels were all paperbacks, a double-stacked riot of cracked spines and worn pages. Science fiction, fantasy, thrillers. There were no personal photos, and the knickknacks looked like they'd been bought at the same time as the furniture rather than collected across a lifetime. A perfect cover apartment, the kind of place you could walk away from. The kind a spy would favor.

Or an a.s.sa.s.sin.

The leap was intuitive, but he knew it was correct. She was an a.s.sa.s.sin.

My G.o.d, how good she must be. A woman who could sense whatever a guy wanted, any guy? There was no one she couldn't get close to. No one she couldn't get alone and vulnerable. How many men has this sweet little thing seduced and murdered?

Shannon finally reached their shaky bargain: Cooper would see her safely to Wyoming, and in trade she would get him a chance to speak to Erik Epstein.

"That's dangerous," Samantha said. "Both sides are going to be after you."

"Cooper knows DAR protocol. And he's got as much reason to avoid them as I do."

"Are you sure?"

"Still sitting right here," Cooper said.

"This afternoon was no act," Shannon said. "Those agents were trying to kill him."

The other woman nodded. "And you want me to convince our side of it."

"Just tell them," Shannon said, "that I came to you, and what I said. That I'm coming in. Tell him."

Samantha's reaction to that last was subtle but sure. A tiny lean. A relaxing of the muscles in her crossed thighs. A stall in her exhale.

She cares about John Smith. Loves him, maybe.

And she knows how to reach him.

It took all his will and all his skill to keep that recognition from his face.

"You don't have to believe me," Shannon said. "Just tell him. Will you do that?"

"For you?" Samantha smiled. "Of course."

"Thank you. I owe you."

"It's nothing."

"Well then, can I ask another favor?" Shannon's lips quirked up in what he was starting to recognize as a trademark expression. "Can I use your bathroom?" She jerked a thumb at him. "You should see the one in his hotel room."

Cooper leaned back. Put his hands at his side. It felt weird. How did he normally hold his hands?

From the other couch, Samantha watched him, something feline in her pose, a languorous, predatory note. Her legs were crossed at the knee, and she was kicking one idly, muscles rippling beneath the smooth skin of her calf. She was barefoot, her toes painted that clear color. Nude, he thought it was called.

"Do I make you nervous?"

"No," he said. "I just don't like being read." He folded his hands. That felt weird, too. Was this how other people felt around him? How Natalie had felt every day of their relationship?

"Have you ever been with a reader, Nick?"

"Cooper," he said. "I've known lots of readers." He stood and walked to the window. Her apartment was on the thirty-second floor, and the view was a partner to the one he'd had at the Continental Hotel, only hers faced east. He could just make out the tracings of waves on the lake, gray on midnight blue. Layered atop it, the ghostly reflection of the room.

"I didn't say known." In the gla.s.s, she rose, smoothing her skirt as she walked over. "I said been with."

Cooper didn't respond. She moved in behind him, small enough that his bulk blocked her reflection. But he could smell her and sense her. "Listen." He turned. "I appreciate what you're doing for us. But drop the s.e.x-G.o.ddess act."

"It's not an act. You want the real me?" She traced the outline of her body with her hands, not quite touching. "This is it. I'm the fantasy. What do you want, Cooper? Whatever it is, I'll be it. Hard or soft, helpless or jaded, ashamed or wanton or anything in between. I can be the pliable young innocent or the Amazon only you can conquer." She stepped closer. "You don't even have to tell me, to ruin the fantasy by saying it out loud. Just let me see you."

"You're serious. You want to go off to the bedroom right now?"

"Shannon won't mind. She and I have fooled around before."

That image was almost enough to make his control slip. He took a deep breath, pushed aside the hastily a.s.sembled fantasy. "See, I think this is just a game to you. You want to win."

"No games. I want to know you." She put a hand against his chest. "You turn me on. It's your strength. You're so contained. Show me who you are. No one needs to know. I can be your second-grade teacher, or your daughter's girlfriend, the one you won't even admit to yourself that you want."

"My daughter," Cooper said, "is four."

"Just open up to me. I'll sense what your body needs. I know it before you do. I know it even when you don't. What's reality compared to that?"

He looked down at her, at her deep brown eyes and soft skin, at the swell of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and the way the skirt caught at the line of her thigh, at her tumble of golden hair and her pedicured feet. She was stunning, the distilled image of desire, Aphrodite writ in miniature with the corner of her lip caught between bright teeth.

But beneath it all, he could see the need curling inside her, slippery and fanged as an eel.

"Thanks," he said, "but I'll pa.s.s."

She had been stretching up, offering pouting lips, and for a moment didn't process his words. When they hit it was like electric current, her face clenching and eyes sparking. "What?" When he didn't respond, she said it again, angrier this time. "What?"

He saw it coming, but he let her have the slap, her hand whistling through the air to smack his cheek.

"No one says no. Who do you think you are? Do you know how many men would kill for the chance to be with me?" She planted hands against his chest and shoved ineffectually. "You don't say no. Not to me."

She wound up again, and this time he caught it. In the process, he noticed Shannon, somehow standing in the center of the room he'd been sure was empty.

He dropped Samantha's arm. "I'm sorry," Cooper said. "I didn't mean to insult you."

Her beautiful face had turned red with fury. "Get out. Both of you."

They did. As the door closed, he took a last glance over his shoulder. Samantha had the pill bottle open and was shaking tablets into one perfect palm.

Halfway down the extravagantly decorated hallway, Shannon said, "Thanks, Cooper, way to help out."