No Holds Barred Read online

  “I think we’ll be fine until the CIA arrives.” Duncan offered his hand to the sheriff and then rose. “Thanks for your help—and for the information.”

  Lightman was still sitting on the park bench taking in the view when they stepped out of the diner.

  “I’d still like to get you away from here,” Duncan murmured as he escorted her to the car and opened the door.

  Lightman turned, beamed a smile and waved.

  Stifling the sick surge in her stomach, Piper muttered as she slid into her seat and clenched her fists in her lap. “There’s a part of me that wants to run. But running never solves anything.”

  She was right, he thought, as he joined her in the car. That’s what his mother and A. D. MacPherson had done after that summer when they’d first met. They’d fallen in love, then they’d run away from it and waited for a decade to act on what they’d felt.

  “Let’s go back to the castle and take a closer look at those files,” Piper said. “I helped let that monster out and I’m going to put him back behind bars.”

  Duncan took one of her clenched fists in his hand, raised it to his lips and kissed it. “We’re going to put him back behind bars.”

  10

  STRETCHED OUT FULL LENGTH ON one of the leather sofas in the library, Piper slept with the same focused intensity that she worked. Duncan leaned back in his chair and watched her, fascinated. A short time earlier, he’d opened the sliding doors to the terrace to alleviate some of the stuffiness of the room, and the only sounds that interrupted the silence were the breeze stirring the pines and the occasional call of a bird. Alba slept in the one remaining patch of sunlight she could find near the open doors.

  He and Piper had worked for nearly two hours on the RPK files before she’d taken one to the sofa and stretched out with it. For about five minutes she’d lain on her stomach, propping herself up with her elbows. Then her head had simply fallen onto the report she’d been reading and she’d dropped into sleep as abruptly and thoroughly as an infant.

  She hadn’t moved an inch since. It was little wonder that she was exhausted. They’d had quite a couple of days. And though they hadn’t discovered anything yet in the files, they’d each made their way through two more boxes.

  Better than that, he’d gotten a feeling that they were going to find something in them. He’d been through the files before, of course. He’d started on them the day that the verdict had been handed down on Lightman’s appeal. But he hadn’t had even a trace of a feeling then.

  What was different now was that he was working with Piper. And to his surprise, he was enjoying it. Bouncing ideas off her and talking about them was nearly as exciting as making love to her.

  He’d always preferred to work alone. Even his brothers had been aware of that. During those times when he’d gone into the field, he’d had partners; that was standard protocol. But in his office at Quantico, he usually kept the door closed because he didn’t like interruptions or idle chatter.

  From the time they’d reentered the library, Piper had offered neither. Instead, she’d seemed as totally absorbed in the work as he. Whatever his motivations, Patrick Lightman had made a mistake by taking a personal interest in Piper. For a moment, Duncan’s mind flashed to those seconds in the diner when Lightman had been playing the video clip, and he freed the anger that he worked hard to keep on a very tight leash.

  He’d been right about the fact that Lightman had been stalking Piper. But she may have been right about the reason. Maybe in a twisted way, he did want to protect her. Maybe.

  More than likely, Lightman was jealous that someone else was stalking her and had decided to get even. Either way, the man was going down. He shifted his eyes to the boxes of files. The answer was in them somewhere, and she was going to lead him to it the same way she’d led him to the sapphire earring.

  But where else was she going to lead them both? She’d made clear what she wanted. Simple, uncomplicated, no-strings sex—anytime, anyplace. The idea certainly held appeal. And it had held a lot of appeal for him in the past. Relationships demanded time. They also demanded risks, ones he’d studiously avoided. His mother had taken that risk. He believed that she’d truly loved his father, and when she’d had to face and accept the fact that he’d never loved her or his sons, he’d seen the price she’d had to pay. Then he’d watched her spend a great deal of her life trying to avoid taking that risk again.

  So that summer, when he and his brothers were ten, she’d agreed to have a summer romance with A.D. Whatever one called it—a summer romance, a fling, an affair or no-strings sex on demand, the concept hadn’t changed. Keep it simple.

  The smart thing to do was to play it Piper’s way and do just that. He could go to her right now and join her on that couch. In minutes, seconds even, he could wake her and arouse her. He could taste her and experience the thrill, the incredible generosity of her response, and he could sink into her and lose himself in her again. Just the thought of it was enough to have everything in him hardening. Yearning. They could be moving together in that lightning-fast rhythm that he could only create with her. The thought of it had him aching.

  He wanted to touch her. He couldn’t seem to get enough of simply running his hands over her skin. Softly and slowly. He imagined tracing that delicate cheekbone with his fingers, then the strong line of her jaw. In his mind, he already smelled the faint scent of summer flowers in her hair. Next he’d explore the slender line of her neck, then her collarbone and that surprisingly muscled arm. Those amber eyes would be open by then. He pictured them golden and clouded with sleep, watched them focus and darken as he turned her, straddled her on the couch, and continued to touch her.

  As the images grew more and more clear in his mind, his blood began to pound and the ache inside of him intensified. She would reach for him, eager to make her own demands. That much he knew. So he’d capture those slender wrists, hold them over her head, and continue to savor the slow heating of her skin and the husky sound of her voice as she said his name.

  He clamped his fingers on the arms of the chair as his mind flashed to another scenario. He imagined freeing her hands and lowering his mouth to hers. He was half out of his chair when his cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He slipped quietly through the sliding glass doors to the terrace. A quick glance at the caller ID told him it was his brother Cam.

  “Problem or favor?” Duncan asked.

  “Question. When were you going to get around to telling me that you found the second sapphire earring?”

  Shit, Duncan thought. Connecting the dots in his head, he remembered that he’d told Daryl, and Piper had relayed the news to Vi. Obviously, one of them had passed the news along.

  “Vi told Adair you and Piper found the earring in one of the caves where I killed you and Reid when we were playing pirates.”

  “The way I remember it, I killed you several times.”

  Cam laughed. “Funny, but I don’t remember it that way. And Adair will back me up.”

  “Piper has a pretty accurate memory of what actually went on in those caves,” he warned. “In fact, she found a third cave that you and I and Reid missed. That’s where we found the second sapphire earring.”

  “A third cave. No shit. But you still haven’t answered my question. Why am I hearing about all of this secondhand? Wasn’t I the one who had the brilliant idea you should go up there?”

  Duncan glanced back through the glass at Piper. “I’ve been a little busy.” So busy that he’d forgotten to phone his brother about the discovery of a priceless earring.

  “With Piper. I understand. Daryl filled me in on her situation and the fact that someone followed you into the caves. Adair’s worried.”

  Duncan believed that. He also knew his brother’s concern was the real reason for the phone call. “Daryl doesn’t know yet about the latest development. Neither does Vi.” He filled Cam in on Patrick Lightman’s appearance in the village of Glen Loch.

  “So you’ve got a mysterious
guy in a hoodie sending threatening notes and vases of roses to Piper in D.C., someone else following you into our cave at the castle, a person who may or may not have been paying nocturnal visits to the library until we upped the security, and now a serial killer has joined the party.”

  Plus, he had this no-strings sex-on-demand relationship going on with Piper. Which was obviously distracting him. But what Duncan said was, “Those are the highlights.”

  “And here I thought that it might be Piper who was keeping you so preoccupied.”

  Duncan frowned. One of the plagues of growing up with brothers was that they could read you very well.

  “Those secret sexual fantasies the sisters buried in that metal box can keep you busy,” Cam said.

  Duncan waited a beat before he took the bait. “Secret sexual fantasies?”

  “Piper didn’t mention them yet?”

  “No.” Duncan sat down on the stone wall that bordered the terrace and kept his gaze on Piper.

  “Adair didn’t tell me about what was in the box, either,” Cam said. “But my curiosity got the best of me.”

  Duncan had to laugh. “There’s a surprise.”

  “Hey, I’m trying to do you a favor here. I figure I owe you one after I asked you to bring that reluctant bridegroom back from Montana. And I like to pay my debts.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “From the time they were little, Adair, Piper and Nell wrote down their private thoughts on paper, locked them in a metal box and buried that box beneath some of the stones in the arch so they could tap into the power of the legend.”

  “Vi mentioned that to me,” Duncan said. “Not a bad plan.”

  “It gets better. On the night that our mother married A.D., they drank a little champagne and decided to write down their most secret fantasies. Sexual ones. And they put them into the box and tucked them back into the stones.”

  “Adair told you all of this?” Duncan asked.

  “Not at first.” Cam cleared his throat. “She was showing me where she and Vi found the first earring and we accidentally dug out the box. I was naturally curious, and when she ran off with the thing, I looked into the matter.”

  “What good CIA agent wouldn’t?”

  “Exactly. First chance I got, I read all of them. I knew which one was Adair’s right away. And brother to brother, I’ll give you a hint that might help you to identify Piper’s. To ensure privacy, they each wrote their fantasies down on different colored paper. Adair’s are the yellow ones. So you have a fifty-fifty chance that Piper’s fantasy is written on either the blue or the pink paper. I’m thinking that a top-notch FBI profiler like you should be able to figure it out.”

  “Just where is this metal box?”

  “Still buried in the stone arch. Adair wanted her sisters to still have the power working for them. Look for loose stones at the base about two feet in on the right. At the very least, they make very interesting reading,” Cam prodded. “If you have the time.”

  Duncan continued to study Piper’s prone form on the couch. She was still out for the count, and a quick glance at his watch told him that Vi and Daryl wouldn’t arrive for another couple of hours. The timing was perfect.

  What he said to Cam was, “Before I let you go, what have you found out on your end about Eleanor Campbell and Angus One and their elopement from Scotland? Russell Arbogast, the senior editor from Architectural Digest, says that he’s seen the original stone arch on the Campbell family’s estate.”

  “I’m looking at it right now. A.D. is painting it. Thanks to Mom’s meticulous research, we’re visiting the ancestral home of the Campbells, and she’s even gotten the current owners to let her do some research in their library. The bad news is that about a hundred years ago, there was a fire. Many of the books were destroyed. But if there’s something on this end about Eleanor’s dowry, Mom’ll track it down. In the meantime, enjoy your reading.”

  That was exactly what he intended to do, Duncan decided as he disconnected the call. Moving quietly through the sliding doors, he closed them, turned on the security system and activated the cameras.

  When Alba lifted her head, Duncan signaled her to stay and retrieved his reading glasses from the desk. Then he let himself out into the hallway and locked that door also.

  * * *

  PIPER SURFACED SLOWLY, drifting in that dreamy zone between waking and sleeping while sensations penetrated one by one: a low sound she couldn’t quite nail down, the soft press of leather beneath her legs, something with an edge to it poking into her cheek. And a prickling at the back of her neck.

  The prickling grew stronger. Someone watching her? The sound came again.

  A growl.

  Opening her eyes, she fought through a moment of disorientation. The library. She’d been working with Duncan and she must have dozed off. As she rubbed the back of her neck, she shifted her gaze to the desk where he’d been working earlier.

  Gone. She didn’t have to even glance around to see if he was somewhere else in the room. She would have sensed his presence, felt that low humming in her blood. Instead, she felt a pang so sharp, she had to rub the heel of her hand against her chest to ease it. Disappointment that he was gone?

  And if Duncan wasn’t here, whose eyes had she felt?

  The growl sounded again, starting low and building into an insistent bark. Alba. The dog stood on her hind legs, pawing at the glass doors that led outside. Piper sprang up from the couch and ran to join her. Stroking the dog’s head, she focused on the stretch of lawn beyond the low terrace wall. A storage shed sat near the line of trees that bordered the castle on this side. The doors were closed. To the left, she could just see the bright blue of the lake and the dark clouds that had formed on the opposite shore. To the right, more trees.

  No one in sight.

  Alba dropped to all fours and growled again.

  “I agree, girl,” Piper said as she stroked the dog’s head. Someone had been at these doors looking in.

  And that’s when she saw them. She’d been so intent on looking at the space beyond the terrace that her gaze had shot right over the flagstones. Slivers of fear shot up her spine.

  Red rose petals, hundreds of them, lay strewn across a white sheet. It looked as if it had been raining blood. She tried the door and found it locked. The security light on the pad was blinking. Duncan must have engaged it before he’d left. The cameras would have caught whoever had done this. She wouldn’t do much about it now, any case. And she’d be damned if she’d let this creep scare her.

  Alba growled again. Piper patted her head. The dog wanted to give chase.

  “Me, too,” she murmured. “But it wouldn’t be smart. That’s probably just what they want.” And if Duncan hadn’t slowed her down enough so she had to think, she might be out there right now.

  A faint rumble of thunder sounded in the distance.

  Where was he anyway? This time the fear was sharper. Had he seen the person and given chase himself? “Duncan?”

  Whirling from the window, she raced the length of the library and opened the door to the hallway. “Duncan?”

  No answer.

  Once Alba joined her, she locked the library door and hurried to the kitchen. But she knew he wouldn’t be there even before she entered. He would have answered. Turning on a dime, she ran back down the hall that led to the large foyer, calling his name again.

  The only answer was Alba’s bell as she followed.

  At the foot of the stairs, Piper made herself stop. Pressing a hand to her chest, she took a deep breath. Silly to panic. What in the world was the matter with her? Duncan was a smart man. Not only that, he was an FBI agent. She thought of his big gun. He could handle himself.

  But there was that person who’d followed them into the cave that morning. And there was Patrick Lightman, who seemed to have a knack for slipping away from surveillance any time he felt like it.

  Squaring her shoulders, she climbed onto the first step. She’d just search the ca
stle, room by room, until she found him. Alba whined and she turned to see the dog standing at one of the glass windows that framed the front door. When she got there, she scanned what she could see of the yard. The drive was empty.

  Alba whined again.

  Piper spotted Duncan then. Because her view was partially blocked by the garden, she could only see the side of his face and his shoulder. He was in the stone arch. Even as she watched, he raised a hand to brush it through his hair.

  And he was wearing his glasses. Of course. Maybe he’d needed a change of scene. He’d probably taken a file out there to read. Maybe he was thinking the power of the legend would give him some insights.

  “He’s fine,” she assured Alba. The degree of relief she was feeling was ridiculous. And telling. It wasn’t just that for a couple of minutes she’d been afraid for him. When she’d woken up in the library and found him gone, she’d actually missed him.

  “No, no, no.” Alba’s bell jingled and Piper glanced down to see the dog was looking at her strangely. “I’m not talking to you.” She paced to the stairs and back. “It’s just the stress. It’s been a long day. Starting with digging that box out of the stones and refreshing my mind about that sexual fantasy I wrote with Duncan in mind.”

  Alba had stretched out on the floor and tilted her head to one side.

  “So, I decided why not? On-demand sex is simple, uncomplicated. The perfect solution to the fact that I couldn’t stop thinking about getting my hands on him. And I was nineteen when I thought it up.”

  When she paused, Alba just looked at her.

  “Okay, so I’m older now and supposedly wiser, and it still seemed like the perfect solution this morning. Maybe it would have been if it hadn’t been for the person who followed us into the cave or the fact that Patrick Lightman, aka the RPK, has decided to be my BFF.”

  Alba was looking at her as if she were taking in every word.

  Piper sank onto the floor in front of her. “It still is a good solution. I want him. He wants me. All I have to do is keep the complicated stuff in a bottle.”