Chapter 5

Paige sailed out of the cottage and sagged against the porch railing as her bravado abruptly evaporated. She had no intention of publicizing Ando’s death—her role in it was suspect for one, and secondly, it really could cause a panic at the summit. The United States was committed to seeing this economic conference come off without a hitch, and to that end, she wasn’t about to rock the boat.

The shooting at Rowe, however, was an entirely different matter. He was a private citizen not attached to any delegation. He was also high-profile tabloid fodder. A shooting at him was the stuff of sensationalism, not necessarily serious news or a threat to the summit. She had no compunction about splashing him all over the news.

Who had the second shooter been? Was he or she a threat to the summit, too? Did she break the news story first or proceed with a military investigation of the shootings? Be a reporter or be a soldier?

Swearing under her breath, she headed for her car. Thank goodness she’d taken a cab to the ball earlier and her MINI Cooper had still been at her cottage. Pointing the tiny car back toward the hotel, she came to a decision. Report the story now while the police were still crawling all over the ballroom and the gardens. Later, when the excitement had cooled down, would be soon enough to go forth and do her Special Forces thing.

She turned her attention to composing her news story’s lead off. “Shots taken at American billionaire on eve of summit.” Or maybe she could get away with, “Billionaire bad boy shot at.” That would get Rowe’s goat. She grinned just imagining the expression on his face if she used that line. Unfortunately, she didn’t have a lot of details on the dead shooter. She’d have to go with a simple breaking news angle. Admittedly it would open up the investigation of who’d shot at Tom to all the news media, and she hated to give up her current advantage over her fellow journalists. But better that another network solve the mystery of why someone had tried to kill Tom than have him end up dead.

She blinked. Stared at the road unfolding before her headlights in minor shock. Was she actually concerned about Thomas Rowe’s well-being? When had that happened? She pulled into the hotel parking lot and hurried to the World News Network’s temporary bureau in a conference room on the resort’s ground floor. Her boss, Greer Carson, was in the room, a cell phone plastered to each ear as usual. How he held two conversations at once like that was an abiding mystery to Paige.

She sat down at the lighted table, yanking a brush through her hair, fixing her ruined makeup and cleaning up her dress as best she could. Her disheveled ball gown was a little low cut for a broadcast, but it would do for a short breaking-news segment.

In the mirror, she watched Greer hang up both phone lines. She talked fast as she applied powder to her face to knock down the glare of the camera lights on her skin. “Greer, you’ll never guess what happened tonight. I was dancing with Tom Rowe when a sniper took a shot at him. Barely missed him. I can be ready to go with a breaking-news bit as soon as you have a live feed up to the network back home.”

“Yeah. About that…” his voice trailed off.

She pivoted on her stool, alarmed. She so didn’t like that tone of voice. “What? What’s going on, Greer?”

“I gotta kill that story.”

“Why?” she burst out. “It’s huge. It’ll be a scandal back in the States. He’s one of the most eligible bachelors in America—heck, maybe in the whole world.”

“Sorry, kid. Can’t do it.”

Paige stared at him in shock. Then she choked out, “Who got to you?”

Carson shook his head at her. “They played the national security card on me. Nothing I can do about it.”

They. She hated They. Who was They, anyway? They never had a name but was responsible for just about everything that went wrong in the world, it seemed. Her gaze narrowed. In this case, though, she had a darned good idea just who They was. Or more accurately, “He.”

She slammed the powder brush down on the makeup table. “Gee, Greer. Thanks so much for your underwhelming support. Since when did you lose your spine?”

And with that, she stormed out of the newsroom. She probably wasn’t being entirely fair to Greer. After 9/11, the U.S. government had been granted broad powers to curtail the media in the name of security. It was possible that Rowe hadn’t killed the story at all. But not probable. It made her furious to think that anyone was interfering with fair and unbiased reporting of the news.

A twist of guilt in her gut took her by surprise. It wasn’t like she had any room to talk on that subject. She’d interfered just as badly with the reporting process when she’d stuffed Takashi Ando in her refrigerator and not broken the story. She’d told Vanessa Blake she would be a reporter and a Medusa simultaneously. But her boss had been right after all. On her very first assignment to wear both hats at the same time, the worst had happened. She’d been forced to choose.

She’d been a journalist for a long time. Was she ready to set aside her professional standards as if they didn’t count for anything? Frowning, she slowed her reckless charge through the hotel lobby. She spotted a deep armchair in a quiet corner and headed for it. Could she do this Medusa thing after all?

She thought about it for a long time, weighing the pros and cons. She loved being back out in the field as a journalist. She loved chasing a story, trying to figure what was happening and why, the adrenaline and pressure of it all. But she loved being a Medusa, too. She’d gotten a rush out of chasing down the first shooter, knowing how to respond in a crisis, not panicking and freezing up in a life-or-death situation. No solutions were forthcoming, however, and fatigue weighed down her eyelids.

Paige must have dozed off because she blinked awake some time later. The lobby was quiet, mostly deserted. She glanced at her watch. Nearly five o’clock. She went into the newsroom and pulled out the bag of exercise gear she kept there and changed into running attire. Then she headed down to the beach and put in a hard six miles in the sand as the sun began to rise.

It burned off a little of her frustration at Greer but didn’t scratch the surface of her fury at Thomas Rowe. How dare he interfere with her career like that? How dare he kill a great story in the name of not liking media attention? He could take his privacy and shove it!

Speaking of privacy, she bypassed the concierge and headed for the bank of elevators that would take her to the luxury suites at the top of the hotel. She got out one floor shy of Rowe’s and made her way to a stairwell at the end of the hall. Taking note of the big red signs warning that opening the door would sound an alarm, she pulled out the fanny pack of emergency toys she’d grabbed while she was at home last night. A quick run around the edge of the door with the tip of a knife, a few strips of aluminum between electrical contacts, two wires and four electrical clips later, and the door opened without a peep.

She shook her head. Some security.

She ran up the stairs lightly, repeating the process of disarming the alarms on the next stairwell door. Twice while she was working on it, the shadow of footsteps interrupted the band of light passing under the door. She timed the third pass, shaking her head again. Somebody was patrolling the hall at even intervals of two-and-a-half minutes. Picturing the L-shaped hallway on the other side of the door, she timed forty-five seconds after the next guard pass and cracked open the door. She peeked out. The guard was about ten feet from turning the corner. The second he disappeared from sight, she slipped into the hall and sprinted to the end door on the right.

With a glance at her watch, she knocked on the panel. She had about twenty seconds to wait for an answer. Antsy, she knocked again, watching the seconds tick off on her watch. Dammit, the guard would be rounding that corner again any second! She couldn’t wait any longer. She raced back to the stairwell and slipped into it just as a dark form rounded the corner. Rowe wasn’t home. Perfect. She could let herself in and look around, see what she could learn about him.

She caught her breath while the guard finished his circuit of the hall and passed again, headed away from her. Plastic card wired to lock-picking gizmo in hand, she timed her stairwell escape again. Three. Two. One. Go!

Another light-footed run down the thickly carpeted hall to Rowe’s door. This time she didn’t bother knocking but immediately slipped her electronic pick into the lock. In no more than five seconds, a little green light flashed on above the door handle. Gripping tightly, she turned it. And opened the door.

She slipped inside and paused just at the door. The living room was dim, floor-to-ceiling panels of blackout blinds obscuring most of the early-morning light. She glanced around quickly. No movement. Four closed doors led off the sunken living area. She eased toward the one from which Rowe had emerged yesterday morning for their interview. Time to give the jerk a little wake-up call.

His bedroom door eased open silently under her hand. Crouching, she slipped inside low and slow, easing the door shut behind her once more. It was darker in here, and she paused for two full minutes to let her eyes adjust. A long lump in the bed would be Tom asleep, the covers pulled up high around his ears.

He was a big guy. Strong. She’d need to subdue him fast before he could fight back. She eased forward staying low, sticking to the deepest shadows along the walls, until she was no more than four feet from the bed. It was a big bed, and he was sleeping toward the middle.

In a single leap, she pounced, landing astraddle…

…a puffy set of feather pillows with no substance at all. As she crashed through the pile to the mattress, a single curse had time to pass through her mind before her training kicked in. She rolled hard and fast, flinging herself to the side, which turned out to be a good thing as a black-garbed figure landed where she’d been just a millisecond before.

Paige had rolled off the bed, landing in a crouch with her feet under her. She sprang up, reaching fast for the switchblade in her fanny pack. She flipped it open and settled it comfortably in her hand. The assailant wore a black stocking mask and rolled off the foot of the bed to face her.

“What have you done with Tom Rowe?” she snarled.

The man didn’t answer, but advanced, hands low and in front of him in a trained fighter’s stance.

“Tell me, dammit. If you’ve hurt him…so help me…”

She leaped, on the attack.

All Medusas were intensively trained not to be passive females, not to sit back and wait for the bad guy to attack. It was the fatal flaw of most women in violent situations. They let themselves be the victims and failed to take charge.

She slashed high with her knife, and when the man threw up his arms to block it, she swept low and fast with her foot, clocking the assailant in the ankle with the heel of her shoe. His leg collapsed from under him and he staggered against the bed, rolling across it and regaining his feet. Damn, this guy was hard to knock down!

She pressed her attack, flailing at him with fist and blade, darting in and out, always pushing forward, keeping him on the defensive. She spotted a splash of white on the floor behind him—the bed’s satin sheets had been ripped off sometime during their fight. She redoubled her attacks, driving the guy back a step. Another. One more and then…

The guy jumped back from a particularly vicious stab of her knife at his gut. He landed on the slippery satin, and his feet shot out from under him. Before he’d even hit the floor, she pounced, landing on his chest, her knife blade at his throat.

She growled. “Talk. What have you done with Tom Rowe?”

The man beneath her shook.

“Answer me!”

Still nothing. Cautiously she sat up, still sitting on his chest, the knife still biting dangerously into his flesh. With her free hand she reached up and tore off the mask. A thin line of red sprang up under her blade and a trickle of blood ran down Tom Rowe’s throat.

She hissed, “I should kill you where you lie.”

He grinned up at her unrepentantly. “Why, Miss Ellis. I never knew you cared so much about me.”

“Gah.” She shoved off of him in disgust, planting her hand in his solar plexus as she pushed up.

He coughed hard and sat up slowly while she paced the room in agitation. Adrenaline flowed through her veins like wine, heady and intoxicating. She needed to do something. Hit something. Run a few miles.

Tom spoke from right behind her. “God, I feel great. We need to do that more often.”

Paige didn’t stop and think. She just reacted. She turned and buried her fist in his stomach as hard as she could.

But what she didn’t count on was him being prepared for it. His stomach muscles were contracted into a steel washboard that her fist all but bounced off of. He grabbed her wrist and gave it a quick twist, and in the blink of an eye she was plastered against his chest, her arm twisted up to her shoulder blade, pinned high behind her back.

His eyes blazed down into hers, every bit as charged as she felt.

She swore at him, a stream of the worst invectives she could muster. And he laughed. She yanked against his grip and only earned a shooting pain through her shoulder joint. Wincing away from it, her body slammed into his full on. Belly to belly. Chest to chest. And, oh, God, groin to groin.

Her adrenaline surged anew, fueled this time by a powerful, if completely inexplicable, rush of lust. What the hell was wrong with her?

“Aah, aah, aah. Not so fast, hellcat. Why’d you break into my suite?”

“You killed my story, you jerk.” Fury rolled through her all over again at that fact. It was her career, her reputation, he was wrecking if she didn’t break the big story first.

He laughed down at her. “Yeah, and what are you planning to do about it?”

Her gaze narrowed. “You may have stopped me today, but I’ll finish what I started and slit your throat one of these days. When you least expect it, I’ll be there and there won’t be a damned thing you can do about it.”

She rode the wave of her anger, vaguely aware that she was reacting out of all proportion with the moment, but too high on adrenaline to care.

He laughed again. Darkly. “Try it, and I’ll break your neck.”

“Yeah, like you did such a great job of that a few minutes ago. I had you. My blade. Your neck.”

“I took it easy on you in the fight. I wanted to see how mad you were. And what moves you had. Truly, you’re not bad for a girl. I think Gretchen could take you one-on-one, but still. Not bad.”

That did it. She snarled low in her throat and tore free, shoulder pain be damned. And oddly enough, he let her go. She stood a few feet from him, panting in her struggle to keep herself from clawing his eyes out.

“Why on earth were you masked and hiding in your own bedroom?” she demanded.

“Call it healthy paranoia. Someone just tried to kill me. If you were me, would you be sleeping in your own bed and just waiting for someone to come kill you?”

God, she hated it when superior logic made hurting someone moot. It was an effort, but she rolled up her emotions in a little ball and set them aside.

He laughed quietly. “Really, you’re very good. Better self-control than I expected from you.” She wasn’t that good. Her simmering fury broke free again. “I swear I’m going to hurt you—”

He cut her off. “You hungry? I gotta say, I’ve worked up quite an appetite.”

He turned away from her and strolled toward the bathroom, tossing over his shoulder, “Order up some breakfast for us while I’m in the shower. I’ll be out in ten.”

And on that note, the door closed behind him.

The lock clicked.

She grinned at the door, her rage broken in an instant. Ha. She’d made him lock his door. Not bad for her first ever real fight. She spun and headed for the living room and the hotel phone. After all, she wasn’t done giving him a piece of her mind about interfering with her job. And she was hungry. The man might as well buy her breakfast.

Hmm. Maybe they had hemlock on the menu. Or a little arsenic.

Oh, no. The two of them were far from finished.