Matters of Seduction Read online

  But John Cahill wasn’t married anymore.

  Unfortunately, he still didn’t seem inclined to give Pru the time of day.

  Running into him so unexpectedly shouldn’t fluster her like this, she chided herself. After all, in the six months since her transfer to the Houston field office, she’d seen him plenty of times in the hallway and at meetings. She should be used to those encounters by now.

  But she’d never been alone with him, she realized.

  Tiny thrills shot up and down her spine as she leaned against the wall, fixated on his back. She couldn’t seem to tear her gaze away, but it was a very nice back, so who could blame her?

  He wasn’t as tall as she remembered him from five years ago, but he was tall enough. Probably around six feet with a lean, muscular body hidden beneath his dark suit.

  Luckily, she didn’t have to speculate about that muscular body because she’d seen it for herself one day when she’d gone to the gym to let off a little steam. Cahill had been there, attacking his own workout with the ferocity of a man facing a mortal enemy, and Pru had been so distracted by all those glistening muscles that she darn near fell off the treadmill. For the rest of the session, she’d tried to keep her eyes averted from Cahill for fear that someone would pick up on her secret admiration.

  But surely she wasn’t the only female agent who’d noticed how attractive he was, she thought as she finally tore her gaze from his back. Thick, dark hair. Dreamy eyes. A mouth that looked extremely kissable. What was not to admire?

  She forced herself to take a deep breath. Okay, enough. She wasn’t a dewy-eyed student anymore; she was a five-year veteran of the Bureau. A twenty-eight-year-old special agent who was dedicated to her career. She had goals and ambition, and she wasn’t about to screw up everything she’d worked so hard for over some stupid infatuation. Because, like it or not, John Cahill was every bit as off-limits to her now as he had been at the academy.

  Pru had her sights set on SKURRT, and her desire to become a member of the elite unit had nothing to do with her feelings for John Cahill. In fact, if anything, this dopey crush could hamper her chances if she wasn’t careful.

  The highly specialized unit in Quantico had seemed out of her reach, but the SKURRT in Houston presented an intriguing possibility. Not only was the Bayou City her hometown, Pru figured she’d have a better shot of making a name for herself on a smaller playing field.

  Focusing on her career goals helped steady her resolve, and she drew another deep breath. A golden opportunity had presented itself to her, and she’d be a fool not to take advantage of it.

  “Sir?” she blurted before she lost her nerve. “May I have a word with you?”

  Cahill turned in surprise, his gaze dropping to her security badge.

  Of course, he didn’t remember her. No reason why he should.

  “Prudence Dunlop,” she supplied. “I transferred from Quantico a few months ago.”

  His dark gaze narrowed a bit. “You’re Charlie Dunlop’s daughter.”

  “Yes, sir.” Pru tried not to wince. She loved her father and was proud of his thirty-year tenure with the Bureau. But she didn’t want to be known as Charlie Dunlop’s daughter, which was why she’d waited until his retirement before putting in for a transfer to Houston.

  Her father had spent a good portion of his career at the Houston field office, and in this very building was where Pru’s own passion for crime fighting had been ignited. Even as a kid, she’d been drawn to her father’s profession. While most teenage girls would have killed to have her mother’s contacts in the fashion industry, the men—and women—in black had been Pru’s idols.

  “So how’s retirement treating him?” Cahill’s tone was friendly, but Pru could tell he was distracted. He was a busy man. It wasn’t going to be easy to get his undivided attention. “Getting a lot of fishing in?”

  “Not as much as he’d like. He’s remodeling a house in Bellaire, and that takes up most of his time. He’s becoming quite the carpenter.”

  “You don’t say. Doesn’t sound like the Charlie Dunlop I remember.”

  “Well, you know, he likes to keep busy,” Pru said with a shrug. But enough about her dad. She wanted to talk about her future.

  “You said you wanted to speak with me. What’s on your mind?” Cahill prompted.

  Pru beat back her nerves and tried to project a confident demeanor. “I’d like to be considered for SKURRT.” Before he could shoot her down, she rushed on. “I’ve already submitted my request for reassignment. I was hoping you’d had a chance to look it over.”

  His expression remained noncommittal. “We’ve been pretty swamped lately. Plus, it takes time for those things to move through the chain of command. I don’t have the final word.”

  “No, but everyone knows your recommendation carries a lot of weight.” Then, realizing that might sound too presumptuous, Pru said, “I think you’ll see from my application that my qualifications are—”

  “Impressive,” he cut in. “Undergraduate degree in Criminal Justice from Sam Houston State, master’s in Clinical Psychology from University of Houston, finished in the top two percent of your class at the academy, five years in the Criminal Investigations Division, the last three as an analyst in Violent Crime and Major Offenders. And your evaluations are nothing short of glowing. Did I miss anything, Agent Dunlop?”

  Pru was stunned by his recitation of her credentials. So he had read her application. He did know who she was. “Uh, no, sir. I believe that covers it.”

  “I’ve seen nothing in your file to indicate you’re anything other than an excellent special agent. Exactly the kind of person we’re looking for in SKURRT. Under normal circumstances, you’d be a strong candidate.”

  Pru’s heart thudded against her chest. Under normal circumstances? What did that mean?

  “Unfortunately, I don’t see how I can recommend you at this time.”

  Oh, God, Pru thought. Had her feelings for him been that transparent?

  Heat rushed to her face. She tried to swallow past her embarrassment and disappointment.

  “It’s nothing personal,” he added.

  Nothing personal?

  “HPD is investigating a string of murders in the Montrose area that’s beginning to look like a serial. They’ve asked for our assistance, and the agent we add to the team will spend a lot of time working with me on that case. The problem is…you appear to have a conflict of interest, Agent Dunlop. You knew one of the victims. She was a friend of yours.”

  Pru frowned. “If you’re talking about the third victim, Clare McDonald, we went to high school together, but I saw her only a handful of times over the past ten years.”

  Still, she’d known Clare well enough to attend her funeral, even though it had been difficult to face Tiffany’s accusing eyes. But Pru wasn’t the type to beat herself up over something beyond her control. She couldn’t have prevented Clare’s death. Even if she’d had the authority to launch a full-scale investigation, there wouldn’t have been time. According to the medical examiner’s best guess, Clare had been murdered only a few hours after Pru had met Tiffany for drinks.

  “Sir, I can assure you, I don’t have an emotional involvement in this case. At least, not one that would keep me from doing my job objectively.”

  “But you are involved,” Cahill insisted. “From what I understand, you’ve been in touch with HPD on a number of occasions, pressuring them for information.”

  “I can explain that.” Pru knew she was treading on shaky ground, but she needed to get everything out in the open. Be as honest and forthright as she could and let the chips fall where they would.

  The elevator pinged and jolted to a stop. When the doors slid apart, Cahill’s arm shot out to hold them open as he glanced at his watch. “I have a meeting at four. If you want to follow me back to my office, I can give you ten minutes.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  He stood aside while Pru exited the elevator and then he stepped off
behind her. As they strode toward his office, Pru glanced at the rows of cubicles on either side of the hallway. Behind the partitions, diligent special agent/analysts worked on a constant stream of data being fed into and received from computers all over the world. The information age had changed the face of law enforcement, and people like Pru, who rarely left their desks, were now the norm rather than the exception.

  And if she wasn’t careful, she could be stuck behind that desk for the rest of her career. Pru shuddered at the prospect.

  INSIDE HIS OFFICE, Cahill took a seat behind his desk and motioned Pru to a chair across from him. The phone rang, and as he snatched it up, he indicated that she should wait.

  Pru sat with knees together, hands folded neatly on her lap and tried not to think about those precious ten minutes that were rapidly ticking away. A chance like this didn’t come along every day, and she felt an unreasonable irritation toward the person on the other end of the line.

  As he listened, Cahill swiveled toward the window, giving Pru an interesting view of his profile. The temptation to stare was too great, so instead she used the opportunity to familiarize herself with his office.

  The space was like almost every other office in the building, and Cahill had done very little to personalize it. A single window looked out on the 610 Loop, which would be heavily congested this time of day. A picture of the director hung on the wall behind his desk and a United States flag occupied a corner opposite the window.

  Okay, so much for his office.

  In spite of her resolve, Pru refocused her attention on Cahill.

  He’s too old for you, she could almost hear her mother scold her.

  Since when does age matter? Dad’s nearly fifteen years older than you.

  And look how that turned out.

  Pru sighed. Her parents had been divorced for just over a year, and even though she’d been in Washington and Virginia for the past five years, she couldn’t get used to their living apart. They’d even sold the family home while she’d been away, and her mother had moved into a new condo just south of the Villages, off Voss, while her father had bought his small fixer-upper in Bellaire. Now that he was retired from the Bureau, he spent a good portion of his time at Home Depot.

  Pru knew that John Cahill was divorced, too, and he had a grown daughter. Broken marriages were certainly not unusual in their line of work, but her parents had split up after her father retired. Too much togetherness, her mother had explained with a shrug. She’d gotten used to an absentee husband and suddenly having him underfoot drove her crazy.

  Pru’s father hadn’t fought the divorce, but she knew the breakup had hurt him. He still seemed a bit bewildered by it.

  She wondered suddenly why Cahill and his wife had split up.

  Pru knew very little about the man’s personal life. Professionally, however, he was something of a legend in the Houston field office, having been instrumental in solving a number of high-profile cases.

  “Agent Dunlop?”

  Pru jumped when he said her name. She’d been so lost in thought that she hadn’t realized he’d ended his call, and now he’d caught her staring at him.

  Embarrassed, Pru glanced away.

  “Sorry for the interruption,” he said.

  “That’s fine.” Pru hesitated, not certain if she should jump right in with her explanation or wait for his cue.

  He propped his arms on his desk and leaned forward. “You were saying?”

  She nodded and cleared her throat. “I first contacted the police because I had certain information, mostly thirdhand, that I thought might be relevant to the investigation. I had no idea then that they were requesting FBI assistance.”

  “Go on.”

  “As I said, Clare McDonald and I weren’t close. I saw her maybe half a dozen times in the past ten years. But we did have a mutual friend…a woman named Tiffany Beaumont.”

  “She’s the one who found the body,” Cahill said.

  Pru nodded. “She and Clare had been best friends since high school. I mention this because I want to put my interaction with the police in the proper context.”

  He said nothing.

  Pru took a breath. “Just hours before Clare was murdered, Tiffany called and asked me to meet her. She was agitated and wanted to talk about Clare. Evidently, Clare was seeing someone new, and she’d refused to tell Tiffany anything about him—his name, address, place of employment. Clare’s behavior was unusual, so Tiffany became convinced this mystery man was trying to isolate her from her friends. She also said that Clare thought she was being followed.”

  “You relayed this information to the police. It’s in the report.”

  “I know. And I apologize for being redundant, but if you can bear with me, I am leading up to something.”

  He motioned with his hand for her to proceed.

  “Clare didn’t know who might be following her, but she suspected someone from work…a man named Sid Zellman. She never actually saw him, though. According to Tiffany, it was more or less a feeling that Clare had.”

  Cahill glanced at his watch, but when he remained seated, Pru took it to mean she should continue.

  “A few days before Tiffany called me, she said a man approached her in a coffee shop claiming to be an old classmate. He said his name was Todd Hollister, and he asked a lot of leading questions about Clare. Tiffany became convinced he wasn’t on the up and up, and that’s when she called me. She had his thumbprint on a photograph, and she wanted me to run it through the computer. Which I did.”

  Cahill’s gaze sharpened. “You got a match?”

  She nodded. “The print belonged to Danny Costello, an ex-cop who now works for a private detective firm run by a former HPD detective named Max Tripp. Tripp’s firm caters to rich executives and entrepreneurs who, according to the agency’s Web site, are looking for the ‘woman of their dreams.’”

  “The woman of their dreams,” Cahill muttered.

  “From what I can tell, this is how the outfit operates. The client comes into the agency with a specific woman in mind, almost always someone that would normally be out his reach. For a substantial fee, Tripp or one of his detectives will conduct a thorough investigation of the woman, including surveillance. By talking to her friends, family, business associates, they find out everything there is to know about her…favorite restaurants, hobbies, where she likes to shop, you name it. Then they design a ‘coincidental’ meeting with the woman at one of these places.”

  “And the client is able to connect with her by using the information the investigators feed him,” Cahill said.

  “That’s the objective, yes. It’s all handled very discreetly. The woman never knows she’s being manipulated.”

  Cahill sat back in his chair. “And you think someone hired this firm to investigate Clare McDonald? Someone saw her as the woman of his dreams?”

  “It fits,” Pru said. “She was being followed, and then a P.I. claiming to be an old schoolmate shows up to pump her best friend for information about her.”

  “Agent Dunlop, are you suggesting this agency is somehow connected to Clare McDonald’s murder?”

  “I don’t now,” Pru said with a shrug. “But I think it’s worth checking out.”

  “It’s an interesting angle, I’ll give you that.” Cahill glanced at his watch again, but he still made no move to leave. “Be even more interesting to find out if this agency is connected to either Ellie Markham or Tina Kerr,” he said, referring to the other two victims.

  “I agree,” Pru said. “What I can’t understand is why the police haven’t already pressured Max Tripp to release his client’s name. I can’t get HPD to give me a straight answer.”

  Cahill frowned. “Who are you talking to?”

  “A detective named Stryker. Janet Stryker. Do you know her?”

  Cahill’s expression remained neutral, but Pru saw something flash in his eyes. She wondered what it meant. “I’ve met her. Did she give you any reason why they haven’t pursu
ed the lead?”

  “Not really.” Pru hesitated. “But I have my own theory.”

  “You think she’s covering for either Costello or Tripp?”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me. Cops protect their own. Even ex-cops. And let’s just say…she wasn’t too thrilled when she found out I was a federal agent.”

  Cahill shrugged. “Put yourself in her place. She’s an ambitious detective who’s just caught a big case. It wouldn’t do her career any good to have the FBI come in and steal her thunder.”

  Pru thought he was being a little too generous. Janet Stryker might very well be ambitious, but she was also arrogant, manipulative and dismissive. Pru had not found her attitude to be the least bit helpful.

  Cahill got up and came around to perch on the edge of his desk. His jacket was unbuttoned and his shirt a bit rumpled after an already long day. He still looked good, though. Too good. Pru found herself wishing he wasn’t quite so attractive.

  She’d never particularly had a thing for older men, nor did she have a penchant for the forbidden. The simple truth was, John Cahill had fascinated her five years ago, and he fascinated her still.

  He was as aloof and intense as ever, but the ensuing years had stolen the remainder of his youth. He had lines around his mouth and eyes and a grim set to his features that she didn’t remember from before. Apparently, a lot had happened in those five years, and not much of it good.

  “What I’m about to tell you isn’t common knowledge, so I’m counting on your discretion.”

  “Of course,” Pru said in surprise. His eyes were like daggers as he watched her. He had that piercing stare down cold, she thought with a shiver.

  “Within the next six months, we’ll be losing an agent in SKURRT.”

  Her heart started to pound. “May I ask who?”

  “His identity doesn’t matter. Like I said, his departure isn’t common knowledge and I’d like to keep it that way for now. The point is, we need to bring someone in ASAP, but frankly, finding the right candidate has been a challenge. This unit takes incredible dedication, Agent Dunlop.”