The Full Story. Dawn Stewardson

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СКАЧАТЬ took a sip, pleased to discover that her stomach was going to handle the bubbles just fine. Then she began wishing that Dan seemed happier about having her along.

      Well, more accurately, she wished he didn’t seem downright miserable. And that he liked her. Even a bit.

      Things would be far more comfortable if the air between them wasn’t heavy with negative vibes, not a single one of which was coming from her.

      After all, how could she possibly feel unkindly toward a man who was letting her in on the scoop of a lifetime? Even if he had done a lot of foot-dragging before agreeing. And aside from helping her get a major career break, he was really sort of cute.

      She considered that for a few seconds, aware of how drastically her opinion of his attractiveness had changed since they’d met. Obviously, he was the type of man who grew on people.

      Oh, she still wasn’t crazy about his short hair, but that type of thing was easy to fix. And she was sure the coldness in his blue eyes would dissipate if he just began warming up to her.

      And that little scar above his upper lip…she’d been wondering exactly how he’d come by it.

      Actually, she’d been wondering a lot of things about him. And since most men loved talking about themselves, what better way of warming him up than getting him to do exactly that?

      “So,” she said.

      He glanced at her.

      She shot him a friendly smile and tried not to feel badly when he didn’t return it.

      After a few beats, she said, “I haven’t forgotten what you were saying earlier—that you don’t want your name in print. Or any mention of the company you work for. But is it okay if I ask you about it? Completely off the record?”

      “Ask me what about it?”

      “Well, for starters, it must have a name.”

      “You wouldn’t recognize it.”

      “I might.”

      Dan broke eye contact with Mickey and sat gazing out the window for a moment, considering where he should go from here.

      Given what Lydia had learned, he figured he could believe Mickey when she said “off the record.” So it wouldn’t hurt to tell her a bit about RCI.

      Besides, even though the company kept a low profile its existence was hardly a state secret. And Mickey was a journalist.

      She’d know exactly where to look for whatever information she was interested in finding, which meant that it would probably take her all of five minutes to learn most of what she might want to about either RCI or him.

      Confidential information had almost become a thing of the past.

      He drank some of his beer, then said, “The company’s called Risk Control International.”

      “Oh. Okay, you were right. I’ve never heard of it.”

      “Most people haven’t. It’s in the survival business.”

      “You mean wilderness survival?”

      “No. I mean keeping people alive.”

      “Oh,” she said again.

      For a moment he thought she was done, but then she said, “So it provides bodyguards?”

      “Uh-huh. That’s one thing. It also runs a lot of training courses. Most of them are basically aimed at law enforcement types, but they attract civilian students, too—usually executives who work in countries with terrorism problems, or other people at high risk.”

      “And the courses teach…?”

      Man, the way she could fire questions made him suspect she was a better reporter than he’d been giving her credit for.

      “They cover things like self-defense, tactical driving, handgun training,” he told her. “And there’s one called Special Technics that touches on everything from hot-wiring cars to picking locks.”

      “People need to know those sorts of things to stay alive?”

      “Sometimes. You can never tell what kind of jam you’ll find yourself in. At any rate, the company can pretty well provide any service, handle anything a client needs. Most people working for it are independent contractors, which gives it a large pool of experts to draw on.”

      “Is that what you are, then? An independent contractor? And an expert?”

      “Uh-huh. I’m a personal security advisor, which basically means that I analyze a situation, settle on a way of safeguarding the individual—or individuals—at risk, and then take things from there.”

      “And that was what you did in Billy’s case.”

      “Right. Only the plan should have gone a whole lot more smoothly. All it involved was Billy laying low with Ken Heath, who also does work for RCI, while I lured the killer to the retreat. Then, according to the script, once he got there I’d make him tell me who’d hired him. After that, I’d turn both him and the information over to the police.”

      “Make him tell you?”

      He merely shrugged. He wasn’t getting into that with her.

      For a moment she looked as if she was going to try pressing him about it, but she finally just said, “Do you have any idea who might have hired this guy? I mean, I’m assuming you discussed that with Billy.”

      “Of course.”

      “And he thought it could be…?”

      “The list is endless. I’m exaggerating,” he added quickly, even though he wasn’t exaggerating by a lot.

      “In any event,” he continued, deciding it would be wise to change the conversation’s direction, “what happened today just goes to show how even the most straightforward plan can fall apart.

      “Billy wasn’t supposed to give Ken the slip and head for New York, I wasn’t supposed to end up on the wrong end of a gun and the killer wasn’t supposed to get away.”

      He had another swig of beer, assuming he must have satisfied her curiosity by now.

      However, she barely waited for him to swallow before saying, “But now that he did get away, and now that you think he might show up at NBS in the morning, how will you deal with it?”

      “Well, if we haven’t found Billy before then, we’ll go with Plan B—watching to see if the hit man does show up at NBS. And insuring Billy’s safety if that happens.”

      Mickey looked thoughtful, then said, “I asked you about this before, but you didn’t tell me. How did Billy know someone was trying to kill him?”

      When he hesitated, she added, “I wouldn’t use it in a story unless I’d checked with him, first.”

      “Yeah, okay,” he said slowly, СКАЧАТЬ