Nick grabbed her, and suddenly she was the one flat on her back. He covered her body with his. “Stop laughing,” he growled.

“I’m … trying,” she wheezed between giggles. The memory of his shocked look triggered another round of laughter.

Suddenly his mouth was on hers. The crazy man must have thought he could stop her laughter by kissing her.

He was right.

The feel of his lips molding hers stopped her mid-giggle, and suddenly all she wanted to do was kiss him back. She poured every ounce of frustration, hunger, even anger into that kiss. She wanted him, desperately, had wanted him for so long. And even though she knew it was probably a mistake, that she’d hate herself for it later, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer, letting him know in every way she could that she wanted this.

Undercover Twin

Lena Diaz

www.millsandboon.co.uk

LENA DIAZ was born in Kentucky and has also lived in California, Louisiana and Florida, where she now resides with her husband and two children. Before becoming a romance suspense author, she was a computer programmer. A former Romance Writers of America Golden Heart® finalist, she has won a prestigious Daphne du Maurier award for excellence in mystery and suspense. She loves to watch action movies, garden and hike in the beautiful Tennessee Smoky Mountains. To get the latest news about Lena, please visit her website, www.lenadiaz.com.

Thank you, Allison Lyons and Nalini Akolekar. This book is dedicated to my parents, James and Letha McAlister. Daddy, you were a true hero. I thank God for every moment that I had with you. Mom, you have endured more heartache than anyone should ever have to endure. Your strength and grace amaze me. I love you both and am blessed to be your daughter.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter One

Heather recoiled with disgust and turned away from the couple in the dark corner, their gyrating bodies moving as wildly as the couples filling the dance floor. Every beat of the music hammered at her skull. The smoky haze had her eyes watering. And the rancid odor of the sweaty mass of people seething around her had nausea coiling in her stomach.

Normally a seedy bar wouldn’t faze her. She’d been in nearly every major nightclub in northeast Florida, let alone Saint Augustine, because of her job. The free-flowing alcohol lowered inhibitions and made gathering information far quicker and easier than an old-fashioned stakeout ever could. But tonight wasn’t about work. Tonight wasn’t about snapping pictures of a cheating husband in a compromising position for a couple hundred bucks. Tonight was about finding her sister, going home and soaking away her pounding headache in a tub full of strawberry bubble bath.

She clutched her purse to dissuade any greedy fingers from trying to pilfer her wallet and fought her way to the bar, like a salmon swimming upstream. By the time she found an empty stool to perch on, she’d been groped and propositioned so many times she was seriously considering exchanging her tub of strawberry bubble bath for a tub of hand sanitizer.

The bartender stopped in front of her. But even though his lips were moving, Heather couldn’t make out what he was saying over the heavy-metal music pumping out of the speakers. He motioned to her and she leaned forward.

“What are you having?” he shouted.

She shook her head. “Not drinking. Looking for my sister, Lily. She looks like me. Have you seen her?”

“Do you have a picture?”

“I am the picture. She looks exactly like me. We’re identical twins.”

He wiped his greasy hair out of his face and squinted at her in the dim light. His mouth curved in a lecherous grin, as if he was considering the possibility of a threesome. “Sweet.”

Heather’s stomach rolled. She hopped off the bar stool, but the bartender waved for her to wait.

“Check the bathroom,” he said. “I might have seen her heading in that direction a few minutes ago.” He pointed to the dark hallway just past the couple who’d been enjoying each other so enthusiastically earlier. They both had silly, sleepy grins on their faces now. The guy looked at Heather and winked. She shivered with revulsion.

After thanking the bartender, she braced herself for another battle and fought her way through the throng of people to the pink neon sign that read Females and hung over the women’s restroom.

When she pushed the door open, the strong smell of urine and stale beer hit her with gale force. She coughed and waved her hand in front of her face. If her sister wasn’t in this bathroom, she was leaving. She’d go home until Nick was finished with whatever emergency his boss had called him about. And this time, when he offered to help her get her sister into an alcohol treatment program, she’d listen.

Just thinking about her new boyfriend of only eight weeks, his sexy half smile, the way his deep voice made her toes curl when he called her darlin’, had her feeling better. It was wonderful having someone like Nick in her life. She was so tired of having to be strong all the time, with no one else to share her burdens.

“Lily?” she called out. “Are you in here?” She let the door close and stepped farther into the room. The lighting was even worse in here than out in the main part of the club, for which she was extremely grateful. She didn’t want to know what disgusting substance was on the floor, crunching and sliding beneath her feet. “Lily?”

She made her way down the row of stalls, knocking and using the toe of her sneaker to nudge each door open. When she reached the last stall, she heard a noise, like someone taking a deep breath. “Lily, it’s Heather. Is that you?”

“Don’t come in here.” The voice behind the last stall door sounded slurred, but there was no mistaking it.

Heather rolled her eyes. “Lily, are you drunk again? Is that why you called me to come get you?”

“I told you to come at midnight. You’re early.” Another sniff.

She shook her head in exasperation. It was just like her sister to expect Heather to rescue her, but only on Lily’s timetable, on Lily’s terms.

“I have to get up early in the morning to meet with a new client. If you aren’t ready to leave right now, and you’re too drunk to drive, call a cab.” She turned and headed for the door.

“Wait,” Lily called out, her voice sounding mildly panicked. “Just give me a minute. My car won’t start, and I don’t have money for a cab.”

Because she’d already blown all the money Heather had given her? Money Heather couldn’t afford to give her in the first place?

Heather curled her fingers around her frayed purse strap and stepped back to the stall door. “What are you doing in there? Drinking? Haven’t you had enough already?”

“Just wait at the bar. I’ll be right out.”

The airy quality of Lily’s words wasn’t lost on Heather. Her sister sounded far worse than if she was just drunk. All kinds of scenarios flooded Heather’s mind. None of them good. “Open the door.”

Cursing sounded from inside the stall. “This is a bathroom. Give me some freaking privacy.”

Heather hesitated. Arguing with her stubborn sister wouldn’t do any good. It would just make her dig in deeper and fight harder.

“All right, I’ll meet you at the bar.” She walked to the door, her shoes crunching across the concrete. She stepped into the hall, turned around and tiptoed back inside, easing the door closed behind her. She quietly moved back to the row of stalls, pausing a few feet down from the stall her sister was in, so Lily wouldn’t see her through the cracks around the door.

Loud noises sounded from outside the bathroom. Yelling. Feet shuffling. It sounded like people were running. What kind of craziness was going on out there on the dance floor?

Heather ignored the noise and waited. A moment later, the lock on the stall door slid back and Lily stepped out in her ragged jean cutoffs and tank top that showed far more than they concealed, including another new tattoo, a small pink dragon peeking out from the top of Lily’s shorts. Her sister couldn’t afford to buy her own groceries or gas money, but she could pay for a tattoo? Heather gritted her teeth. She was putting in eighty-hour workweeks—minimum—just to keep up with her car payments and rent. She certainly couldn’t afford a tattoo, even if she’d wanted one.

She was about to give her sister another lecture on being frugal when she noticed what her sister was holding. In one hand she clutched a dark blue nylon backpack. In the other, she held a baggie of white powder and a rolled-up dollar bill. Heather’s stomach sank. Now she knew why her sister was making those sniffing sounds earlier.

Cocaine.

Lily’s eyes widened and her face went pale. Heather grabbed the baggie and ran into the stall. She tossed it in the toilet and pressed the handle.

“What are you doing?” her sister screamed. She dropped her backpack and shoved past Heather.

Heather stared in stunned amazement at her sister on her knees on the filthy floor, with her hands in an equally filthy toilet trying to fish out the baggie. Her heart breaking, Heather turned away, but a flash of white in Lily’s backpack made her hesitate. She knelt down and pulled out a duct-taped brick of more white powder wrapped tightly in plastic.

Her hands started to shake. At least two more bricks of cocaine peeked out from the bottom of the pack. She couldn’t even begin to imagine the street value of those drugs, or how many years in prison that would buy.

Lily looked back at her and cursed. “Give me that.” She tried to get up, but her feet slid on the slippery floor.

Heather ran with the brick into the next stall and crouched in front of the toilet. She desperately ripped at the tape and plastic.

Lily stumbled in behind her, clawing at Heather’s hair. “Stop, don’t do it!”

Fire shot through Heather’s scalp. She gritted her teeth against the pain and tore at the plastic, scooping the white powder into the toilet, flushing several times, using her body to block her sister until everything was gone but the tape and plastic.

Lily must have grabbed the backpack when she’d chased after Heather, because now she was cradling it against her, as if to keep Heather from taking the rest of her precious stash of drugs. She slowly slid to the floor, black mascara running in streaks down her face. “What have you done?” she moaned.

Sympathy and anger warred inside Heather as she stepped over her sister to get out of the stall. She was determined to leave her there, but she couldn’t seem to make her feet move to the bathroom door. How many times had Lily dropped into her life over the years, staying just long enough to blow through Heather’s totally inadequate savings account? How many times had Heather woken up to discover her sister gone again, moving on to the next sucker in her life, or her next big scam, or her next drinking binge—usually after stealing one of Heather’s credit cards? How many times would Heather let her sister turn her life into a disaster and disappear until the next time Lily needed a place to crash?

Her shoulders slumped. She knew the answer to all of those questions. No matter how many times her twin hurt her, Heather would still love her, and she’d always be there for her. She couldn’t walk away and leave her sister, the only family she had, not like this.

She sighed heavily and turned around. “Come on. Let’s go home. We’ll figure out what to do, together.”

“I don’t want your help,” Lily spat out. “I hate you. I always have.”

Her sister’s words shot like an arrow straight to Heather’s heart. She drew a shaky breath, steeling herself against the pain. “Hate me all you want, but I’m still not going to leave you sitting on this filthy floor.” She reached her hand out to help her sister to her feet.

Lily jerked back, like a wounded animal perched on the edge of a cliff, afraid to trust the one person who could save it.

A loud banging noise sounded behind Heather. She whirled around to see the bathroom door being held open as a group of six men dressed all in black rushed inside. Heather instinctively positioned herself in front of her sister.

“Federal officers, freeze!” one of the men yelled.

Federal officers? The man closest to her trained his gun on her while two others hurried down the row of stalls, slamming the doors open, looking in each one.

Heather stared in horror at the three white letters printed across their black flak jackets. DEA—Drug Enforcement Administration.

Her boyfriend, Nick, was a DEA agent.

One of the men grabbed Heather and pulled her away from the stall. Another one grabbed Lily and pulled her out into the middle of the room. Lily keened a high-pitched sound and fought to get away.

“Hey, be careful,” Heather yelled. “You’re scaring her.” She tried to yank her arm away from the man holding her so she could help her sister.

“Let her go.”

Heather froze at the sound of the familiar deep voice behind her. The man holding her dropped his hands and stepped back. Heather turned around. The tall man filling the bathroom doorway, his short blond hair glinting in the dim light, was wearing the same dark clothes as the others and the same black flak jacket with the letters DEA across the middle.

Nick. Thank God. He’d know what to do, how to help Lily.

The look of shock on his face was quickly replaced with anger. His brows were drawn down and his jaw was so tight his lips went white. He looked mad enough to strangle her, but at least he wasn’t pointing his gun at her, like the others. He held his gun down by his side, aimed at the floor.

He was probably furious that she was in the middle of this, and she couldn’t blame him for that. She should have taken his advice. She should have tried to convince Lily to go into an alcohol treatment program. Then maybe Lily wouldn’t have gotten mixed up with whatever she’d gotten herself into now. Heather had naively insisted she could help her sister on her own, without taking such a seemingly drastic step. But obviously Nick had been right.

Nick holstered his gun and strode toward her.

Heather was so relieved she almost slumped to the dirty floor. “Nick, I’m so glad you’re here. Lily is scared. She’s not—”

Nick roughly grabbed her arms and spun her around, shocking Heather into silence. He pulled her hands behind her back. She gasped at the feel of cold steel clamping around her wrists. A ratcheting sound echoed in the room, and he pushed her toward the door.

“What are you doing?” she cried out.

“Heather Bannon, you’re under arrest.” His voice was clipped, cold.

“What? Wait, what are you talking about?”

He paused beside the last sink and leaned down, pressing his lips next to her ear. “You’ve got cocaine in your hair, darlin’,” he growled.

Heather’s gaze shot to the mirror. A wild-eyed woman stared back at her, a cloud of white dusting her normally dark brown hair, making it look prematurely gray.

Her horrified gaze met Nick’s in the mirror. “I can explain.”

“Tell it to the judge.” He grabbed her arms and marched her out the door.

* * *

IN HER HIGH SCHOOL years, Heather had thought rock bottom was getting an A-minus on her trigonometry final exam, knocking her out of becoming the valedictorian.

In college, she’d thought rock bottom was flunking the GMAT and failing to get accepted into the master’s degree program at Jacksonville University.

Later, when she’d been denied the small-business loan she’d wanted to start a private investigation firm, she’d thought that must surely be rock bottom.

But none of those were rock bottom.

Rock bottom was being arrested by her former boyfriend—there could be no doubt about that—and being thrown in a concrete-block holding cell that reeked of vomit and urine. A holding cell that currently housed five other women who looked like they could kill someone every morning before breakfast and never bat a false eyelash.

Heather didn’t know where her sister was. The police had refused to answer any of Heather’s questions about Lily. And no one had come back to update Heather or even give her the infamous phone call prisoners on TV shows always got. Not that she had anyone to call. Lily was her only family. Her friends had given up on her long ago when she’d started working seven days a week to try to build a P.I. business. And Nick... She shied away from that thought.

She was so tired. She wanted to rest her head against the wall behind her, but she was too afraid of lice, or something worse, that might be clinging to the surface. Instead, she stood a few feet away, trying not to touch anything, trying to pretend the speculative looks from the other women didn’t send shivers up her spine. She was also trying her best not to give in to the urge to cry.

She was appalled that tears kept threatening to course down her cheeks. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried, or the last time she’d even wanted to cry. She had Nick to thank for her jangled nerves. He’d judged her without giving her a chance to explain. He’d assumed the worst. Fine. Let him think what he wanted, but if there was any chance he was going to be the one to interrogate her—if anyone ever did bother to interrogate her—she wasn’t going to let him see her with red eyes and tearstained cheeks.

She didn’t want him to know how much his betrayal had hurt her.

A buzzing noise sounded and the door opened. A policewoman stood in the doorway and motioned for Heather to step out. “Miss Bannon, your lawyer is here.”

“My lawyer? But I haven’t even had a phone call.”

The policewoman shrugged, her lack of interest stamped in her jaded, world-weary eyes. “Do you want to see your lawyer or not?”

Heather figured the police had made a mistake, that the lawyer was there for some other prisoner. But if playing along meant she’d get out of the foul-smelling cell for a few minutes, she wasn’t going to argue. She stepped into the hallway.

The door buzzed closed behind her, and the policewoman led her down the hall to a door stamped with the words Interview Room. As she went inside, she braced herself, expecting to see Nick or a police officer waiting to grill her with questions. Instead, a stranger in a suit that looked like it must have cost at least a thousand dollars was sitting at a small table. He gave her a friendly smile and stood to shake her hand.

“Miss Bannon, I’m Anthony Greary, your attorney. A mutual friend hired me to help you out of this unfortunate situation.”

The door closed behind Heather. She shook the attorney’s hand and sat. “Mr. Greary, who is this ‘mutual friend’?”

“Someone who prefers to remain anonymous.”

The fine hairs on the back of Heather’s neck stood at attention. “I don’t suppose this friend is the man who gave my sister those bricks of cocaine?”

Greary glanced at the door and cleared his throat. “As I said, I’m here to help.”

She had her answer. And it really sucked, because she’d so looked forward to a good half hour or more out of her cell. She pushed back her chair and stood. “I think you have me confused with my sister. My name is Heather Bannon. My sister is Lily. We’re identical twins, but I assure you, we’re nothing alike in any way that matters. And I guarantee we don’t have any mutual friends.”

“There’s no confusion. I’m here to get both you and your sister released.”

“Why?”

“Let’s just say that one of you has something my employer wants returned.”

Cold fear iced over Heather’s insides. He had to be talking about the cocaine. What would happen if he found out she’d destroyed one of the bricks, and the police had the rest? Her hands started shaking. She clutched them together and gave the lawyer a false smile. “Like I said, there’s been a mistake.” She strode to the door and banged on the glass window.

A policeman Heather hadn’t seen before opened the door, a surprised look on his face. “You have fifteen more minutes, ma’am.”

“There’s been a mistake. This man isn’t my lawyer,” Heather said.

The cop looked past her into the room. He shrugged and led her back down the hall to the holding cell. At the door, he paused and pulled a key card from the pocket of his shirt.

“Wait,” Heather said, desperation lending her voice a high-pitched tone. She really didn’t want to go back into that cell. What if the other women had banded together while she was gone? What if they’d formed an alliance, like on those reality TV shows, and had decided to beat up the new girl just for fun, as a way to pass the time?

Panic was making her think crazy thoughts. But crazy or not, she couldn’t help the tight feeling in her chest and the way her lungs were laboring to draw an even breath. She had to get out of here. Maybe she could talk to Nick for a few minutes and straighten this out. She hated to beg, especially when she’d rather punch him than look at him, but if she was here much longer they’d have to take her out in a straitjacket.

“Please, I need to talk to Nick Morgan and explain,” she said. “He’s one of the DEA agents who—”

“I know who he is, ma’am. But Special Agent Morgan isn’t here. And he specifically said that if you asked for him, he didn’t want to talk to you.”

Heather closed her eyes, squeezing them tight against the ridiculous urge to cry again. How could you, Nick? How could you judge me like this and throw away what we had, like I never even mattered to you?

She opened her eyes and cleared her throat. “I believe I’m entitled to a phone call. I need to call a lawyer to arrange bail.” Not that she could afford it. About the only thing she could offer as collateral was a four-year-old dinged-up Ford Focus that had an outstanding loan balance higher than what the car was worth.

“I’ll set that up,” he said. “But you need to wait in the cell for now.”

She managed not to whimper, barely. The policeman opened the door and impatiently motioned her forward. She steeled herself, took a deep breath and stepped inside. The odor of vomit hit her, making her eyes water, crushing the last remaining shred of affection she’d ever felt for Nick Morgan.

Chapter Two

Heather stood at the counter, rubbing her wrists, before taking the pen the policeman offered her. She could still feel the metal rubbing against her skin, even though the handcuffs had been removed. How long before she could forget that terrible night at the dance club, and being locked up for an entire weekend?

She scrawled her name across the form and handed it to the policeman in exchange for the belongings that had been taken from her when she was arrested. She deliberately checked her credit cards and cash in front of him. If the police didn’t trust her and thought she was so dangerous that they had to lock her up, she wasn’t going to trust them, either.

Satisfied nothing had been taken, she grabbed her keys. Wait. What good would that do? She plopped the keys back on the counter.

“Sir, officer, my car—”

“Is in the parking lot outside the station.”

Relief had her smiling back at him in spite of her intentions. “Thank you.” Darn it. She nearly bit her tongue. Why was she thanking him for moving her car from the club where she’d been falsely arrested? Bringing back her car was the least the police could do. Then again, it wasn’t this police officer’s fault. It was the DEA’s fault.

One particular DEA agent’s fault.

“Don’t thank me,” the officer replied. “Thank Special Agent Nick Morgan. He dropped your car off this morning, right after you arranged bail.” He turned away to help someone else standing beside her.

Why would Nick bring her car back for her? She certainly didn’t think it was because he cared about her. If he cared about her, he wouldn’t have arrested her. Or at the very least he would have come to see her, maybe even helped her arrange bail. As expected, the bail bondsman had rejected her car as collateral. She’d had to max out almost all of her credit cards to get out of jail. Having already emptied her savings to help Lily when she’d shown up a few weeks ago, Heather now was down to a paltry three hundred dollars in her checking account, and about five hundred dollars of available credit on her last credit card. No, Nick hadn’t dropped her car off because he cared. He’d dropped it off because it was his job.

She grabbed her keys and hurried toward the exit. When she stepped outside, she was tempted to drop to her knees and kiss the ground. But she’d already suffered enough humiliation this past weekend. She didn’t want to add to it by having someone see her on her hands and knees. Instead, she settled for pausing long enough to take several deep breaths of fresh air, reveling in the pine scent from the nearby trees that was worlds different from the air in the holding cell.

Going home to a hot shower was at the top of her list of priorities. After that, she’d call the client she was originally supposed to meet Saturday morning and try to convince him, without telling him any details, that she’d had an emergency and still wanted his business. She couldn’t afford to lose a client right now, not when her business was just beginning to make a profit and she had no more credit cards to fall back on to pay her bills.

Other than groveling to her client, she had no plans to work today, even though it was Monday. She hadn’t taken a day off in nearly a year. And there was no way she could work right now. She needed some time to recover from her ordeal, and she needed to talk some sense into her sister. They also both needed to speak to the pro bono lawyer the court had appointed to defend Heather, and figure out what they were going to do about the drug charges.

The police had told Heather that Lily had been bailed out by the slimy lawyer who’d spoken to Heather about their “mutual friend.” Heather would talk Lily into firing Greary. Lily would have to somehow pay the man back for the money he’d spent on her and use the pro bono lawyer Heather had been assigned. If Lily was going to survive this fiasco, owing money to a drug dealer’s attorney was not the way to start.

When a couple stepped out of the police station, Heather moved away from the door and stood off to the side with her cell phone. She called her apartment three times, but Lily didn’t pick up. Sighing, Heather shoved her phone back in her purse and shaded her eyes to look for her car. She spotted her gray Ford sitting in one of the spots right up front.

She headed to her car, but when she unlocked the door and pitched her purse into the passenger seat, she had the oddest feeling someone was watching her. She paused and looked around.

There, at the end of the parking lot, was Nick’s massive black four-wheel-drive pickup. It was too far away for her to see details, but she could tell someone was inside. Was Nick watching her? Was he witnessing her humiliation as she left the police station in dirty, wrinkled clothes, her hair a mess, her makeup washed away long ago courtesy of a coarse rag and a filthy bar of soap she’d had to share with five other women? Was he waiting to see how broken she’d be after spending the weekend in jail?

She straightened her spine and got into her car with as much dignity as possible. It took every ounce of control she had not to slam the car door.

* * *

NICK TIGHTENED HIS hands on the steering wheel. The passenger door of his truck opened and his police detective brother climbed inside.

Rafe plopped down beside him. “Is that Heather, in the gray compact?”

“That’s her.”

“You could have come inside and talked to her. That would have been far less creepy than sitting here in the parking lot, like a stalker.”

“She wouldn’t want to see me.”

“How do you know that?”

Nick scrubbed his face and blew out a deep breath. “Because I’m the one who arrested her.”

“Yeah, there is that. But you also made me cash in my only chip with Judge Thompson to convince him to reduce her bail so she could get out of jail. Does she know you arranged that for her?”

“No.” He glanced at his brother. “And she never will.”

Rafe raised his hands. “I’m certainly not telling her, especially since you owe me, big time. You do realize I interrupted Thompson’s weekly golf game?”

Nick winced. “What’s that going to cost me?”

“Babysitting. For a month.”

The dark cloud that had fallen over Nick since the night he’d arrested Heather lifted, if only a little, and he knew he was probably grinning like an idiot. Being an uncle to his oldest sister’s two boys was one of the true pleasures in his life, especially since they loved football as much as he did. If Rafe’s new wife was going to have a baby, Nick would gladly welcome another nephew into the family, or even a niece. Hopefully if the baby was a girl, she’d love sports, because the thought of having to sit through a tea party or playing with dolls had him breaking out in a cold sweat.

“Darby’s pregnant?” he asked.

“Not yet, but we’re working on it.” Rafe grinned. “We’re practicing. A lot. So I’m sure it won’t be long.”

“TMI, brother. Way too much information.”

Rafe laughed but quickly sobered. “You didn’t call me out of a meeting to talk about my new bride. What’s up?”

“Operation Key West.”

“The task force that asked you to raid the club and promptly dumped you when Heather came under suspicion?”

“One and the same.”

“I thought you were suspended. You can’t be involved with a task force if you’re suspended.”

“Still suspended, pending an Internal Affairs investigation. But Waverly told me to come here to talk to the head of the task force.”

“Here? Why would he want you to meet him at the police station? Why not meet you at the DEA office?”

“I asked the same thing, but Waverly just told me to get my butt over here for a ten o’clock meeting.” He shrugged. “I was hoping you might have heard something. Captain Buresh didn’t say anything about the DEA dropping by?”

“No, he didn’t.”

Nick stared through the windshield at the vacant spot where Heather’s car had been a few minutes ago. Even now, several days later, he couldn’t quite wrap his mind around the fact that Heather had been at that club the night of the raid.

“Maybe the head of the task force is here to discuss another local operation,” Nick said. “Maybe Waverly wanted to make sure I met him before he left.”

“Why would he want that?”

“Waverly’s ticked at me. He might want to make me grovel and apologize for shaming our unit by having a drug-dealing girlfriend.”

Rafe cocked his head and studied him. “From what you’ve told me about her, she doesn’t sound the type to be dealing, just the opposite. She’s been trying to build a private investigation business for years. She works all the time, putting everything she can into growing her client list. Do you really think she’s going to risk throwing that away to deal drugs on the side? Her sister is—”

“Her identical twin.”

“Okay. Not what I was going to say, but I’ll go with that. Being a twin doesn’t make two people the same and you know it.”

“Yeah. Maybe. It did surprise me that she didn’t let her sister’s drug-dealer lawyer bail her out. If Heather had let him help her she could have been out of jail Saturday morning, like her sister. But she didn’t, and she ended up staying in jail the entire weekend because of it.” He shrugged. “I’m not sure what to make of that.”

“You could always talk to her, give her a chance to tell her side.”

Nick absently studied the rows of cars in front of the police station. Rafe was right. Heather did deserve a chance to explain. And he hadn’t given her that chance. He’d been too angry, thinking she’d betrayed his trust in her. Now that he was thinking more clearly, he knew he’d made a mistake in judging her so quickly. But it didn’t matter now. There was no way to fix this.

“I’m not allowed to talk to her now anyway, not with IA all over me. If I’m seen anywhere near her, I can kiss my career goodbye.”

“You sure know how to pick ’em.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m just saying your judgment in women could use some work. You wasted nearly a year of your life with your on-again, off-again engagement to psycho-girlfriend.”

“She wasn’t a psycho. She was...conflicted.”

Rafe let out a shout of laughter. “Conflicted? Now I know you’ve been talking to my therapist wife way too much.”

Nick grinned. “Maybe. But psycho-girlfriend did have a lot going for her.”

“Like what?”

“She was hot.”

“Everyone you date is hot.”

“She was a professional cheerleader. And very...limber.”

Rafe smiled. “You’ve got me there. All I’m saying is that after everything you went through with her, I figured the next time you got serious about a woman you’d pick someone who—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Who said we were serious? We only dated a couple of months. That’s way short of serious territory.”

“Darby and I only dated a couple of weeks before we got engaged.”

“That’s because her old-fashioned father knew you two had gotten ‘friendly’ and he shamed you into it. Besides, you two knew each other for years before you started dating.”

Rafe rolled his eyes. “Her father had nothing to do with us getting married. And being on opposite sides in the courtroom doesn’t count as a relationship. Look, all I’m saying is that you need to take a long hard look at your feelings for her before you do something you might regret.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, if she didn’t really matter to you, on a personal level, do you honestly think you would have twisted my arm to get the judge to reduce her bail? And how many DEA agents would have paid to get a car out of the impound lot and would have driven it to the police station for a woman they don’t care about?”

Nick ground his teeth together. “I never told you about that.”

“You didn’t have to.” Rafe gave him a smug look. “I have eyes and ears all over this town. That’s part of what makes me a great detective.”

“Humble, too.”

Rafe shrugged, obviously not caring about Nick’s insult. “As I was saying, you obviously care more about Heather than you’re willing to admit, even to yourself.”

“Since when did you become so touchy-feely?”

“I guess since I married a hot therapist.”

“Whatever. I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Not that I ever did.”

“But—”

“Drop it.”

Rafe held his hands up in a placating gesture. “All right, all right. I’ll drop it. You said Waverly wants you to meet with the task force. You have to have some idea of why he’d want you to do that. And don’t give me the line about apologizing for your girlfriend. That’s weak.”

Nick let out a deep sigh. Rafe always could read him, like a Jedi knight using the Force to probe his mind. Or was that Spock on Star Trek? Either way, it was damned aggravating.

“My DEA buddies tell me the task force still has Heather and her sister in its crosshairs,” Nick said. “They think Heather’s sister is running drugs for a dealer operating out of Key West. They think Heather’s been helping her sister move the drugs, and that Heather flushed that kilo to try to avoid the sting. They believe she would have flushed all of the drugs if she’d had enough time.”

His brother’s eyes narrowed. “She couldn’t have purposely tried to avoid the sting unless she knew about it ahead of time.”

“Bingo.”

Rafe swore. “That’s the real reason they suspended you. Not because you’re a terrible judge of character and got mixed up with a girlfriend who may or may not be dealing drugs. They think you tipped her off about the raid.”

“If I were them, I’d probably think the same thing,” Nick said. “I’ve been practically living in Key West this past year, building my cover to gather intelligence on the drug activity down there. Maybe they figured I’ve gone in a little too deep, that the past few months I spent up here were more than an extended vacation. Maybe they thought I was helping move drugs up the pipeline, and that Heather and Lily were in on it with me.”

His brother cursed again, impressing Nick. With language like that, Rafe could go undercover as a DEA agent and blend right in with the dealers as if he were one of them. Too bad he’d wasted his talents as a detective and part-time bomb-squad technician in the Saint Augustine Police Department.

“How can I help?” Rafe asked.

“Answer me a question. If you were heading up a task force whose sole goal was to catch a drug dealer with ties to Heather and Lily, what would you do right now?”

“If I was dumb enough to waste my talents as a DEA agent, you mean?”

Nick grinned. “Yeah. That’s what I mean.”

“If I believed the girls were a lead to a major drug dealer, I’d keep my distance. I’d wait for the dealer or some of his lackeys to show up.” His gaze shot to Nick. “I’d use the girls as bait.”

“Exactly.”

Rafe groaned. “Ah, hell. You want me to keep an eye on your girlfriend for you.”

“Ex-girlfriend. And I want more than that. I need you to keep her alive.”

* * *

HEATHER FINISHED CLEANING the kitchen and stood with her hands braced on the edge of the sink. She stared through the cutout into the family room and shook her head. To say her apartment was a disaster was an understatement. Lily had always been incredibly messy, but this was the worst Heather had ever seen. Lily usually tried to confine her piles of dirty clothes and discarded items to her bedroom. This morning, Heather’s entire apartment looked as if a tornado had gone through it.

Probably Lily’s way of paying her back for flushing the cocaine.

Heather’s shoulders slumped. She slogged her way through the mess to the short hallway that led to the two bedrooms. She paused outside the guest bedroom door and tried the knob. Still locked, like when Heather had first gotten home. She hadn’t even seen Lily yet, because her sister was acting like a spoiled brat, hiding behind a locked door with classic rock blasting from the room. Heather banged her fist against the door. Still no answer.

“Come on, Lily. You can’t ignore me forever. Open up. We need to talk.”

Heather rested her forehead against the door. Maybe she should give up on her sister for now and get that shower she’d been longing for since she’d gotten home. The only reason she hadn’t taken a shower already was because when she’d walked into her apartment the smell of rotting garbage coming from the kitchen had nearly knocked her over. How Lily could have ignored that smell was beyond her. It had permeated the entire apartment.

After taking out the garbage, Heather had started setting the rest of the kitchen to rights and one thing had led to another until she’d ended up scrubbing the entire room. Now the thought of a hot shower sounded like heaven. She might even soak her aching, tired muscles in that bubble bath she’d been wanting since Friday. She hurried into her bedroom, shut the door and took off her clothes.

* * *

NICK PAUSED IN the opening to the conference room, surprised to see an assistant district attorney sitting at the table, along with another man Nick had never met. His boss, Zack Waverly, was at the head of the table and motioned for Nick to come in.

Nick shut the door and took a seat beside his boss.

“Nick,” Waverly said, “you already know ADA Tom Hicks. He only has an hour window before his next court appointment next door. That’s why we met over here instead of at the DEA office.”

Nick leaned over the table and shook Hicks’s hand.

“And this,” Waverly said, motioning to the man sitting at the other end of the table, “this is Special Agent Michael Rickloff. He works out of the Miami office and is heading up the Key West Task Force. He’s the one who called and asked us to perform the sting on the club Friday night.”

Nick shook Rickloff’s hand. “Miami? You’re not from Key West?”

“Miami native, born and raised. Key West is my current target, thus the name of the task force I put together. A major drug pipeline is coming up from the Keys into my city, and as you found out, even as far north as Saint Augustine. I want it stopped. And I need your help to do it.”

Nick turned to Waverly. “My help? Is my suspension lifted?”

“Assuming you agree to Rickloff’s plan, yes.”

“But the internal investigation will continue,” Hicks said. “And if we find anything that concerns us, you’ll be pulled from the operation.”

So that was why the ADA was here? To warn Nick to be a good boy? If it weren’t for the carrot of having his suspension lifted, he would have gotten up right then and walked out.

Ignoring Hicks, he focused on Rickloff. “What plan? What operation?”

“When you raided the club for us, we were obviously hoping you’d find more than a knapsack with four kilos of cocaine. We were hoping you’d catch Lily Bannon meeting her contact here in north Florida. I wanted a bigger fish than Miss Bannon, to ultimately lead me to the head of the pipeline. Since that didn’t happen, I need another way to bring my target down. That’s where you come in.”

Nick crossed his arms and sat back. “I’m listening.”

* * *

AFTER PAMPERING HERSELF with a shower and a long soak in the tub, Heather was finally starting to feel normal again. She’d clipped her nails short the way she liked them and filed them smooth. She’d styled her hair into long curly waves that hung down her back, and she was wearing one of her favorite pairs of slacks—the soft, copper-colored chinos, with an exquisite pair of Italian leather sandals cushioning her feet—clothes she rarely got to wear because she was usually working.

Her typical work clothes consisted of T-shirts and jeans, things she didn’t mind getting dirty or torn if she had to duck behind a Dumpster to avoid her mark catching her with her camera.

Thinking about work reminded her of the disastrous phone call with her client she’d made a few minutes ago—correction, former client. He’d been furious that she hadn’t called him Saturday, and no amount of apologizing or telling him there was an emergency had soothed him. Now she’d have to work extra hard to be even more frugal until she could get another big case lined up.

Determined not to think about her business and financial woes for now, she straightened the bathroom and went to work on her bedroom. Lily must have searched through all of Heather’s drawers hoping to find some hidden money, because every single one of them was hanging open. Heather sighed and straightened the mess, then headed into the living room to tackle the mess in there.

She stood in indecision, not sure where to start. Not only were there piles of laundry, papers and DVDs lying around wherever Lily had chosen to drop them, but some of the drawers and doors in the entertainment center on the far wall were hanging open.

She blinked and studied the room more carefully. Was it a coincidence that her apartment was so horribly trashed, after everything that had happened? This wasn’t a typical “Lily mess.” It was far worse. The apartment looked like it had been...searched. She’d worried about Greary and his “employer” finding out about the fate of the drugs. Had they broken into her apartment and searched it? She gasped as an even worse thought occurred to her. What if Lily had been home when they broke in?

Her entire body started shaking. She whirled around and rushed back into the hall. She twisted the knob on Lily’s door. Still locked. She pounded on the door, praying the awful, sinking feeling inside of her was because she was overtired and overreacting.

“Open up, Lily! Please. I need to know you’re okay.” She pounded on the door again. No answer. “Are...are you in there?”

Nothing except for the beat of the music, the same music that had been playing earlier, as if it was on a constant loop playing over and over.

Oh, no.

She ran to the kitchen, her gaze darting to every corner, as if someone might be hiding, ready to pounce on her. She yanked the junk drawer open beside the stove and grabbed the skeleton key before running back to her sister’s room. She shoved the key in the lock and pushed the door open.

Shock had her frozen, pressing her hand against her throat. Everything in the room was shredded, as if someone had taken a razor-sharp knife and gone on a rampage. Nothing was spared. Not the drapes on the windows, the clothes in the closet that was standing wide open or even the comforter on top of the bed. Everything had been destroyed with a violence that sent a wave of fear crashing through her. And there, on the bed, was a small white piece of paper. A note.

When Heather read what it said, she whirled around and fled from the apartment.

Chapter Three

“You’ve been building an undercover presence in the Keys for quite some time,” Rickloff said.

Nick shrugged. “About eight months, off and on, in preparation for a major op next year. We’ve been coordinating with the Key West office on that.”

Rickloff waved his hand as though that was inconsequential. “That operation is a long ways off. My need is more immediate. I need you to use your cover now, on my task force.”

“The Key West office is okay with this?”

Rickloff exchanged a glance with Waverly. “I haven’t notified them yet, but I will. That’s not for you to worry about. And I’m not asking much here. I just want you to help me draw out the big fish.”

A gnawing suspicion started in Nick’s mind, the suspicion that Rickloff wasn’t being honest with him. Why would a task force out of Miami operate in the Keys without coordinating with the head of the Key West office?

“All right,” Nick said. “I’ll bite. Who’s the big fish?”

“Jose Gonzalez.”

“The Jose Gonzalez? The top of the food chain in the Keys?”

Rickloff nodded.

Nick snorted and shook his head. “Exactly how do you plan to get Gonzalez? The man has never even had a speeding ticket. Everyone knows he’s dirty, that he’s the biggest dealer around, but no one can ever get any evidence against him.”

Rickloff leaned forward, his dark eyes blazing with excitement. “That’s because they’ve never had the right bait. We’ve got his girlfriend up on charges that could put her in prison for years. If we make a deal with her in exchange for her cooperation, I think we’ll be able to finally get enough evidence on Gonzalez to bring him down.”

Nick had feared this would be Rickloff’s angle. He’d expected it. But that was before he knew Gonzalez was involved. Using the girls as bait with someone like that was unthinkable, far too dangerous.

He looked at his boss, expecting him to speak up, but Waverly remained silent.

Nick cleared his throat and forced himself to speak in a reasonable tone of voice. “Let me get this straight. Are you saying Lily Bannon is Gonzalez’s girlfriend? And that you want to somehow use her to bring Gonzalez down?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. The two of them met about six months ago on a trip up here in north Florida. They’ve been a hot item ever since. Our CIs tell us Gonzalez actually thinks he’s in love with Miss Bannon. We want to use that against him.”

“Are these confidential informants people you’ve been working with for a long time? You trust them?”

“Absolutely.”

“Then tell me how, exactly, you think you can use Gonzalez’s affection for Lily Bannon against him?”

“Simple. We want you to be her contact in Key West. We’ll make a deal with her. We’ll drop the drug charges if she gathers incriminating evidence against Gonzalez and gives it to you. As soon as we have enough evidence to make a case against him, you’ll pull Miss Bannon out. In return for your cooperation, we drop your suspension.”

Nick turned to Waverly. “You do realize this is insane?”

Waverly turned a dull red. “It’s risky, yes, but I think it could work.”

Nick shook his head. “The problem here is that neither of you fully understand who you’re dealing with. Gonzalez is a twisted psychopath. All the other dealers fear him. If anyone crosses him, in any way, he kills them. I don’t care how much you think he may care about Lily Bannon. If he suspects for one second that she turned on him, that she’s providing evidence to the DEA, she’s dead. And exactly what makes you think you can trust an alcoholic and a junkie to hold herself together for this kind of operation? She’ll crack under the pressure. And when she does, Gonzalez will pounce. There’s only one outcome from this. Disaster. And I want no part of it.”

He scooted his chair back from the table and stood. “I’d rather stay suspended than risk a woman’s life. I’ll take the paid vacation while Internal Affairs investigates me. And I assure you I’ll be contacting Lily Bannon to advise her not to help you. It’s far too dangerous.”

Rickloff shot up from his chair. “You’ll do no such thing. We need Miss Bannon’s cooperation.”

“Don’t count on it.” Nick strode to the door and yanked it open. He froze when he saw who was walking through the squad room toward him.

Rafe. And Heather.

Heather looked so pale the freckles on her face stood out in stark relief.

Nick met them halfway. “What happened? Are you okay, Heather?”

She shook her head but didn’t say anything.

Rafe reached into his pocket and pulled out a clear evidence bag with a piece of paper inside. “Lily Bannon has been abducted.”

* * *

THE CONFERENCE ROOM quickly filled with a mix of DEA agents and police officers. Captain Buresh—Rafe’s boss—barked out orders, along with Waverly and Rickloff.

Nick stared at the note through the plastic bag.

I’ve got what you want. You’ve got what I want. Let’s trade.

The most obvious interpretation was that Gonzalez had abducted Lily and wanted to trade her for his kilos of cocaine.

So much for Rickloff’s theory that Gonzalez was in love with Lily.

The second line of the note gave the location for the trade—Skeleton’s Misery, a bar in Key West, along with tomorrow’s date and the time of 9:00 p.m.

He glanced at his watch. It was eleven o’clock in the morning. That didn’t give them much time to come up with a plan to save Lily. As soon as he’d seen the note, he’d run out to his truck to grab his map of the Keys. But when he’d returned, the conference room was in chaos. He’d tried several times to get everyone to be quiet, but no one was paying him any attention.

Rafe was leaning against the far wall, shaking his head, obviously as disgusted as Nick was.

Screw it. Lily didn’t have time for this. And neither did Heather. She was sitting as still as a statue in her chair at the far end of the table, so ghostly pale she looked as if she might collapse at any moment.

Enough was enough. Nick raked his hand across the conference room table, sending folders, pads of paper and pens flying. The room went silent and everyone stared at him in shock.

“Now that I have your attention,” Nick said, “I want everyone out except essential personnel.” He plopped his rolled-up map onto the table. When nobody moved, he glanced at his brother. “Rafe, want to help me explain to everyone who the nonessential people are?”

Rafe grinned. Between him and Nick, they went around the room directing people out the door.

Nick finally closed the door and turned around to a much more orderly, and quiet, conference room. The only remaining people were the same ones Nick had been talking to earlier, plus Heather, Rafe and Captain Buresh.

“You’ve got a bit of an ego to order all those people out, don’t you, son?” Rickloff said.

“Lily Bannon’s life is on the line. And we don’t have a lot of time to figure out how we’re going to save her.”

He unrolled the map. Rafe grabbed some of the pads of paper off the floor and helped Nick weigh down the corners so the map would lie flat. Everyone except Heather gathered around the end of the table, leaning over the map while Nick drew a circle.

“That’s Skeleton’s Misery,” he said, pointing to the circle on the western edge of Key West. “It’s a new bar that opened up this year. That’s where Gonzalez wants to make the trade.”

“Tell me about the location,” Rickloff said.

Nick pointed to the street running out front. “It’s one of the more isolated bars, at the end of the tourist strip. The street is narrow, more for walkers than cars. The nearest cross streets are a mile south, here―” he pointed to another spot on the map and marked an X “―and two miles north.” He marked another X. “The only other access is from the ocean. There’s a dock right behind it, again, fairly new. The bar caters more to locals than to tourists, so it won’t be as crowded as some of the others, and there shouldn’t be a lot of boats at the dock.”

“What do you mean it caters to locals?” Waverly asked.

Nick glanced at Heather. Some of the color had returned to her face, and she was watching him intently.

“Heather, would you like some water or a bite to eat?” Nick asked. “Rafe could take you outside, get you something.”

Rafe was already heading to Heather’s side when she raised her hand to stop him.

“I’m not going anywhere. I want to hear this. I want to know how you’re going to help Lily.” Her voice broke on the last word and she clasped her hands tightly on the table in front of her.

Nick belatedly wished he hadn’t allowed Heather to stay in the conference room when he’d ushered everyone else out, but he didn’t have time to argue with her.

“When I say the bar caters to locals,” he continued, answering Waverly’s question, “I mean it’s raw. It’s little more than a shanty with loud music. No fancy menus, no live bands, and the people who run the place are ex-cons.”

Heather seemed to withdraw into herself and sank farther back in her chair. She was probably imagining her sister in that bar.

“I imagine the courts will insist on keeping the kilos we got from the bar as evidence until the case against Lily and Heather is settled. So we’ll need to check some kilos out of the evidence locker to use for the trade,” Nick said to his boss. “Do we have that much on hand?”

Waverly shook his head. “I doubt it. Other than that bar raid, we haven’t made a cocaine bust in quite some time. Any cocaine we’ve confiscated would have already been destroyed.”

“We’ve got that much,” Rickloff said. “Not a problem. I can have an agent bring the drugs down to the Keys and meet up with you.”

“Good. We can place a couple of guys up the street here, and down here.” Nick pointed to the map. “Gonzalez chose a good spot. There aren’t a lot of hiding places. Maybe we could bring a few guys in from the water, have them hide out in a boat at the dock behind the bar.”

“All right,” Rickloff said.

“We’ll have to pick an undercover agent who can pass for Heather in dim light.” Nick glanced at Heather. “Five-two, small build, long, curly brown hair, blue eyes. Do you have any agents like that in your Miami office?”

Rickloff shook his head. “I don’t have any women in my office.”

Why did that not surprise him? Nick shook his head. He was less and less impressed with Rickloff the more he learned about him.

“I know the Keys office has some women, several of whom might be good candidates,” Nick said.

Rickloff shook his head again. “I’m not ready to involve that office just yet.”

Nick’s suspicion that Rickloff might be trying to hide his operation from the Key West office had just been confirmed. But since neither his nor Rafe’s boss were saying anything, he decided to let it go. For now.

“All right. There are five women in our unit here in Saint Augustine,” Nick said. “But they’re all taller than Heather.” He glanced at Rafe. “Do you have any policewomen who could pass for Heather?”

Rafe shook his head. “I don’t know anyone that small in stature here.”

“There has to be someone we could use,” Nick said. “We’ve got a state trooper headquarters down State Road 16. And the Saint Johns County Sheriff’s Office isn’t far from here. Or we could even ask for help from Jacksonville. Rafe, could you contact the other offices, see if they have someone available who fits the physical profile? The eye color may not matter. They could wear colored contacts.”

Rafe nodded and pulled out his phone, but Rickloff shook his head.

“This is too important to risk using a look-alike when we’ve got an exact match for Heather Bannon sitting right in this room.”

Nick swore under his breath. “You want to use Heather as bait.”

“What I want, Special Agent Morgan,” Rickloff snapped, “is to ensure that nothing goes wrong with this operation. We have a unique opportunity here. No matter what I’ve tried over the years, when it comes to Gonzalez, nothing sticks. I would have rather gone with my original plan to use Lily so I could get Gonzalez on drug charges. But they caught Capone for tax evasion. If I have to settle with getting Gonzalez for kidnapping, so be it. As long as I can put him away, that’s what matters.”

Nick stared at him in disbelief. “What matters is that we catch the bad guys without risking the lives of civilians. And please tell me you didn’t just categorize a woman’s abduction as a ‘unique opportunity.’”

Rickloff’s face flushed. “Poor choice of words.”

“You think?” Nick crossed his arms. “You have the note. You have the time and location to make the trade. All you have to do is send in a team with an undercover policewoman and four kilos. If Gonzalez or his men show up, great. You save Lily.” He thumped his fist on the table. “And you don’t risk the life of another innocent civilian by using her as bait.”

Rickloff shook his head. “Gonzalez and his men know Lily too well. They’ll expect her identical twin to look just like her. They won’t fall for a stand-in.”

“She’ll keep to the shadows. Wear the same clothes, a wig. It will work,” Nick insisted.

“If Gonzalez realizes we tried to trick him, he’ll kill his hostage.”

“You don’t know that,” Nick said.

“I’ll do it.” Heather’s soft voice broke through the argument and everyone looked at her. She swallowed hard and fisted her hands on the table. “I’ll be the bait. I don’t want to risk my sister’s life by using some other woman to pretend to be me. I’ll do it.”

Nick braced his hands on the table. “You are not getting anywhere near Gonzalez.”

“Tom,” Rickloff said, addressing the ADA. “Are you willing to give Heather Bannon the same deal we were proposing for her sister earlier?”

Tom nodded. “We are. Her full cooperation in exchange for dropping the charges.”

Heather glanced at Tom. “Drop the charges against my sister, too.”

“Done.”

“Then it’s settled.” Rickloff rubbed his hands back and forth. “Agent Morgan, you’ll escort Miss Bannon into the bar. I’m not sending a civilian in there alone.”

“Right, because you’re so worried about her safety,” Nick said, not bothering to hide his sarcasm.

“Nick,” Waverly admonished. “You don’t have anything to bargain with here. If you won’t agree to this plan, we’ll send a different agent to back up Miss Bannon.”

“Really? Who? Who else could you send that has a built-in cover already? If you send someone without a solid cover, you risk Gonzalez thinking the DEA is involved. He’ll kill Lily without even attempting an exchange.”

Heather sucked in a breath.

Nick immediately regretted his candor. “I could be wrong.” He didn’t believe that, but he didn’t want Heather to give up hope, either.

“Your concern for Heather Bannon’s welfare is commendable,” Rickloff said. “But you’re overthinking this. We’ll have backup nearby. She won’t be in any true danger.”

Rafe made a sound of disgust.

His boss shot him an admonishing look.

“If Gonzalez pulls a gun on Heather,” Nick asked, “can your backup get there faster than a bullet?”

Rickloff’s jaw went rigid. “If you’re convinced we can’t protect her, then agree to the plan. You can be the one to protect her. You’ll buy us the time we need to move in if something goes wrong.”

Nick shook his head. “Find another way to save Lily and bring down Gonzalez. I’ll take my chances with Internal Affairs. And Heather can take her chances with the judge.”

He strode toward the door and yanked it open.

“Nick, wait,” Heather called out.

He half turned, his hand still on the doorknob.

Heather appeared to be struggling for words. She folded her hands on the table and aimed her sad eyes at him like the sights on a rifle. “I can handle this. I’m an experienced private investigator. That might not seem like a big deal to a DEA agent, but it means I’ve been in a lot of tough, dangerous situations. I’m adaptable and a quick thinker if things don’t go as planned. I’m also an excellent marksman, so I can defend myself, or watch your back. I can handle this.”

“You’re still a civilian, untrained in law-enforcement procedures,” Nick said, softening his voice, trying to make her understand his concerns. “You shouldn’t have to defend yourself against a drug dealer, or worry about watching anyone’s back. You’re also emotionally involved. That makes you vulnerable. And that makes you dangerous to yourself and everyone else.”

Heather’s eyes practically flashed sparks at him. “Look, I know Lily is screwed up, but she’s still my sister. She’s my twin. There’s a bond between us other people—people without twins—can’t possibly understand. It’s like...we’re two halves of a whole. If something happens to her, I don’t...I don’t know if I could survive.” She drew herself up, lifting her chin defiantly. “I am going to do this, with or without you. But I’d feel safer if you were the one to help me.” Her fingers curled into fists on the top of the table. “Nick, I’m begging you. Please. Help me save my sister.”

The plea in her voice was difficult to ignore. But all he had to do was think about her being shot, or worse, tortured, by Gonzalez or his men, and his resolve hardened. He searched for the words that would make her accept the reality of the situation. “I’ve spent months, years, going undercover with guys like this. They live by their own code. They don’t care about the law. If they even suspect you’re lying, about anything, they’ll try to kill you. Trust me on that.”

“I do trust you. I trust you to protect me. I don’t have to know much about the DEA to realize that these men wouldn’t be arguing to get you to work on this case if you weren’t the best agent for the job. I want the best for my sister. If you don’t do this, Lily could die.”

Her eyes were bright with unshed tears. It was probably killing her to ask for his help, after what she’d been through this weekend and his role in it. And watching her, listening to her, was tearing him up inside. But how much worse would it be if he gave in? No matter what angle he used to look at this plan of Rickloff’s, he couldn’t see any good coming out of it.

A tear slid down Heather’s face and she wiped it away, her face turning the dull red of embarrassment.

Nick swore beneath his breath and glared at Waverly and Rickloff. “You’re both bastards.”

Rickloff nodded. “Maybe I am. Maybe we both are. But when this is over, I have faith that Gonzalez will be behind bars.”

“And do you also have faith that Lily and Heather will be alive? And unhurt?” Nick asked, his voice low and deadly.

Rickloff let out a deep sigh. “If you don’t agree to help, I’m still sending Miss Bannon undercover with another agent. Is that what you want? For me to put her life in the hands of someone else? Someone who isn’t as good as you? Someone who doesn’t have as good a cover as you have?”

Nick swore again. He dropped his hand from the doorknob and turned fully around. He stared at Rickloff for a long moment before turning his gaze to Heather. Without looking away from her, he spoke to Rickloff. “All right. I’ll go to Key West. I’ll help you get Gonzalez and get Lily out of there. But I’ve got some conditions of my own.”

Chapter Four

Waverly crossed the conference room to stand next to Rickloff. “Now listen here, Nick. You don’t get to set conditions or make demands. You do what we tell you to do. You do your job.” He jabbed his finger against Nick’s chest.

Nick grabbed Waverly’s wrist and held it in an iron grip. Waverly’s eyes widened when he tried to pull his arm back but Nick didn’t budge an inch. The look of alarm on his boss’s face was almost comical. Waverly had only ever seen Nick in his “charm” mode. A smile, a joke, fast-talking, were Nick’s usual methods for getting what he wanted. But when the situation demanded something more, he had no problem taking it up another level. Especially when a woman’s life was at stake. And, as much as he hated to admit it, especially when that woman was Heather.

Only the fact that Waverly was his boss kept Nick from shoving his arm when he let go.

“I wasn’t talking to you when I said I had conditions,” Nick said. “I was talking to her.”

Heather’s eyes widened.

“Everyone out, except Miss Bannon,” Nick ordered. He ignored Rickloff’s and Waverly’s grumblings as his brother and Buresh herded everyone out of the room.

Rafe pulled the door shut behind them, giving Nick a quick nod to let him know he’d guard the door.

Nick stood directly in front of Heather’s chair and leaned down, intentionally using his size to try to intimidate her. “You aren’t going to Key West,” he growled. “With anyone.”

She raised her chin defiantly and crossed her arms over her chest. “Yes. I am.”

“No. You aren’t. You’re going to stay here. You’re going to move in with my brother for a few weeks. He’s a police officer, a damn good one. He’ll keep you safe in case Gonzalez’s buddies come looking for you. I’ll go to Key West and try to get your sister out of this mess. But no way in hell are you coming with me.”

She was shaking her head before he finished his last sentence. “No. You heard Rickloff. He said Gonzalez will kill Lily if I’m not in that bar to meet him. I am going. With or without you.”

“I’ve been on dozens of undercover operations. What Rickloff is asking you to do sounds too simple, too easy. Nothing in the world of drug dealers is that simple or easy. He’s hiding something.”

“Like what? Why would he hide anything?”

“I don’t know. But it doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t pass the smell test. I don’t trust Rickloff. He’s from the Miami office, leading a task force to capture a dealer in Key West. But he hasn’t notified the special agent in charge at the Key West DEA office. Something isn’t right here. Rickloff’s motives are suspect, and this plan of his is far too dangerous and risky.”

“Okay, what’s the alternative? How do we find my sister and get her back safely?”

He shoved a hand through his hair and blew out an exasperated breath. “I haven’t figured that out yet.”

“Well, we don’t have time for you to figure it out.”

Nick stared down at Heather, surprised at how stubborn she was being. She’d always been so easy to get along with. She could be the hard-nosed P.I. when she had to be, but he’d seen the soft, passionate, feminine side of her and had never expected her to defy him like this.

The only time they’d ever argued was after a phone call between Heather and her sister. When Heather told Nick her frustrations about Lily’s behavior, he’d flat out told her Lily was a drunk and needed to be in treatment. Maybe he could have worded his conclusions in softer language, but when Heather had insisted her sister wasn’t an alcoholic, the two of them had ended up in a heated discussion.

She hadn’t backed down one bit and he’d ended up apologizing, even though he firmly believed she was wrong. Now, as he stood in her personal space, purposely trying to intimidate her into giving in, he wasn’t having any more luck than he’d had the first time they’d argued. Instead, she stared up at him, her eyes flashing with anger. And something else.

Fear.

She should be afraid, for herself. But he knew she wasn’t. She was afraid on behalf of her sister, and recklessly willing to do anything to help her, even if it meant putting herself in danger. He finally accepted that no amount of arguing was going to change her mind. Intimidation wasn’t going to work. He sighed.

“I’ll help you get Lily back,” he said, “but like I said earlier, I have conditions.”

She darted her eyes toward the closed door, as if by sheer will she could get Waverly and Rickloff to step inside. “What conditions?”

“First, we’re through, finished. There is no ‘us’ anymore. And there never will be.”

“Agreed.”

She answered so quickly Nick was taken aback. He’d been prepared to explain about his job, how he couldn’t date anyone tainted by illegal drug activity, even indirectly through a family member. He’d planned to tell her he still cared about her, that he regretted how things had turned out. But there was no point in apologizing now, not when she so obviously didn’t want a relationship with him anymore.

That knowledge stung far more than he would have expected.

He rested his hip against the table. “Second, you do exactly what I tell you to do at all times. I mean it. Exactly what I say. Unquestioningly. If I tell you to get down, you drop on the floor as if someone had swiped your legs out from beneath you. If I tell you to be quiet, you don’t even breathe until I tell you it’s safe. Can you do that?”

Her eyes widened with alarm, as if she was just beginning to realize how dangerous this mission was.

“O-okay,” she said, her voice soft, hesitant.

“Three, you report to me and me alone. I don’t care what Rickloff or Waverly tell you. One phone call to them at the wrong place, wrong time, could get us killed—you, Lily and me.”

“Why would you think they would ask me to call them?”

“It’s what I’d do if I were them.”

She nodded. “Okay. Is that all?”

He shook his head. “No, there’s one more condition. And it’s a deal breaker. You already agreed to my other conditions. Remember that. One of those conditions was to do exactly what I tell you to do.”

“I understand.”

“Okay. Final condition. We’ll go to Key West together, but you’ll stay in hiding, in my hotel room with another agent watching over you, while I go to that bar to draw Gonzalez out somehow. I will figure out a way to save your sister, but I refuse to use you as bait. It’s too dangerous.”

She raised her hands in a gesture of surprise and frustration. “How will we save Lily if I’m in hiding?”

“Leave that to me. You have my word I’ll do everything I can to save her, but putting you in danger is not part of the plan. I meant what I said. This is the deal breaker. You agree to this or I’m out. And you already know I’m the best agent for the job or Rickloff wouldn’t have tried so hard to convince me to do this. So what’s it going to be?”

She stared at him for a full minute, frustration and anger warring with each other across her expressive face. Even though she didn’t want to agree to his final condition, she obviously knew he was her sister’s best shot at making it out of Key West alive.

He glanced at his watch, well aware of how urgent it was to get moving soon or there wouldn’t be a chance to help Lily at all.

Heather let out a long breath and glared at him, obviously not happy, but resolved.

“I guess I don’t really have a choice,” she said. She shoved out of her chair and headed to the door.

“You made the right decision,” Nick said.

“I hope so.” She paused in the door opening. “Because I’ve decided Lily’s best chance is with someone other than you.”

* * *

NICK AND RAFE leaned back against the desk in the SAPD squad room. They both had their legs spread, arms crossed, as if they had nothing better to do than to watch the fiasco playing out in front of them.

Waverly and Rickloff stood on the other side of the room with the small group of agents who’d come up from Miami with Rickloff, talking to Heather. Apparently they were giving her last-minute instructions while one of the agents grabbed her suitcase that she’d gone home and packed after telling Nick she didn’t want his help. Her refusal to trust him still stung, but he supposed he’d earned that by letting her sit in jail all weekend and not giving her a chance to explain what had happened.

“I heard they’re flying out to Key West in the morning,” Rafe said. “They’re going to a hotel by Jacksonville International Airport for tonight.”

Nick grunted in reply.

“They’ll arrive at the Key West airport around noon,” Rafe said. “An agent from Miami will meet them there with the kilos and drive Heather to a hotel. I might have even heard a rumor about which hotel they’ll be using.”

“One of those infamous contacts you brag about, I suppose?”

“Yep.”

“I don’t suppose you also know the name of the Miami agent they’ve chosen to go to the bar with Heather?”

“I might.”

“That could prove useful.”

They watched in silence as Heather shook Rickloff’s hand. She and the entire entourage headed across the far side of the squad room toward the exit. Heather didn’t even look Nick’s way.

“Are you sure you’ve made the right decision?” Rafe asked, stifling a yawn as he, too, watched the group head to the exit.

“Yep.”

“If Waverly fires you, I could put in a good word for you at SAPD,” Rafe said. “We have an opening for a meter reader. A washed-up DEA agent might be qualified for that.”

Nick shoved him.

Rafe shoved him back.

Waverly held the door open for Heather, and the small group headed out front. They stood at the curb, apparently waiting for the van from the airport that was heading toward the front of the building from the end of the parking lot.

“He’s not going to fire me,” Nick said.

“You sure about that? He seemed pretty ticked that you didn’t go along with Rickloff’s plan. I haven’t seen his face that red since you cleaned him out at poker a few months ago.”

Nick sighed. “I miss poker nights. I can’t believe you let Darby cancel our poker nights.”

“Let her? Are you implying the decision wasn’t mine? That she has me wrapped around her finger?”

“I’m not implying anything. You’re her lapdog. Ruff, ruff.”

“I’ll pay you back for that.”

“Looking forward to it.”

“This is serious. You could lose everything.”

“Yeah. I know,” Nick said quietly. “But I’m still going through with it.”

While Heather’s luggage was being loaded, she and her entourage got inside the van. Apparently they were all accompanying her to the airport hotel. Nick supposed that was their way of pretending they were actually protecting her instead of sending her into an impossible situation where the odds of her being hurt, or killed, were enormously high.

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