polite way of saying not even the Special Envoy’s loving wife gets access to his office without clearance.”
Her wicked grin said that restriction extended only to his office.
Once Elizabeth had cleared them, the three women entered the inner sanctum. It was furnished to suit the Special Envoy’s exalted status. An acre or so of polished mahogany served as a conference table. His double pedestal desk was wide and long enough to serve as a landing pad for the space shuttle. Tall, wingback leather chairs stood in a window alcove, grouped around an antique map chest containing priceless charts Nick had collected over the years.
Rounding his desk, Lightning shared a quick smile with his wife. “Do you have Diamond all rigged out?”
“Right up to her ears.”
“I’m good to go,” Jordan confirmed, flicking back her hair to display the gold hoops. “Or I will be, once I work up designs for a whole new line of glasses, fire off a proposal and arrange an appointment to discuss the line with Greene in person.”
“Yes, well, we’ve run into a slight complication.” Nick smoothed a hand down his Italian-silk tie. “I had our folks run another screen of all guests and employees at Bartholomew Greene’s Tranquility Institute. Seems he recently hired a new chief of security. TJ Scott.”
Jordan’s heart stopped, then restarted a second or two later with a painful kick.
Thomas Jackson Scott. The man she’d once tumbled so quickly, so stupidly in love with. The bastard who’d hurt her far worse than her heavy-handed stepfather ever had.
His face grave, Lightning gave her the option. “Do you still want to go in?”
“Oh, yeah.” Jordan’s lips curved in a feral smile. “No way I’d pass up a chance to nail a crooked faith healer and a dirty cop.”
Chapter 2
“There’s a Jordan Colby at the gates of the compound, boss. I have her on screen six.”
TJ Scott’s muscles went tight under the green-knit polo shirt that constituted his duty uniform these days. He’d spotted Jordan’s name on the access list, knew she had an appointment with Bartholomew Greene this afternoon. He’d had plenty of time to prepare himself for this moment. Yet it took a conscious effort of will not to drop the report he was reviewing and whip around.
He forced himself to scrawl his initials on the report before he lifted his gaze to the bank of monitors that took up almost an entire wall of the Tranquility Institute’s security operations center. The new, state-of-the-art digital cameras he’d had installed after his arrival a few weeks ago captured the driver who sat behind the wheel of the rented Mustang in excruciating detail.
She hadn’t changed. Not outwardly. The hair only half confined by a designer silk scarf was the same shoulder-length waterfall of red. Those high cheekbones and full, sensual lips might have leaped right off one of the dozens of glossy magazine covers she’d graced over the years. She wore a minimum of jewelry, only gold hoops at her ears and designer sunglasses with the tiny diamond butterfly logo that had become her signature.
And there, just above the left eyebrow, was the small, leaf-shaped scar. The only flaw in an otherwise perfect face. She’d shrugged aside TJ’s question about how she’d gotten it, giving only a vague reference to a childhood accident. He’d always thought it made her human.
It was one of his favorite spots to drop a kiss. Right up there with the slope of her breasts and the smooth curve at the base of her spine. The memory of her taste and scent drilled into him. For a moment, he could almost smell the unique blend of Chanel and warm, musky female that was burned into his senses.
Christ, he thought in disgust. All this time, and the woman could still put him in a sweat.
“She’s on the access list,” he growled to the on-duty security officer. “Run her through the drill.”
Nodding, the officer keyed his mike. “May I see some identification, Ms. Colby?”
She fished a driver’s license out of her wallet.
“Hold it up a little higher, please.”
The camera captured the number and fed it to the institute’s computers. They in turn would run it through a half-dozen databases, most of them legit.
“Thank you. Now remove your sunglasses.”
“Excuse me?”
“For the security of our guests, we perform an iris scan of all personnel entering the institute’s grounds. Please remove your sunglasses.”
Frowning, she slid the glasses to the top of her head. The camera mounted at eye level whirred a few inches closer to capture an image of her left iris. A second later, it shot the right.
TJ had insisted on this very sophisticated, very expensive scanning system as one of his first upgrades to the institute’s security. The iris was the most individually distinctive feature of the human body. No two persons had the same iris pattern, even identical twins. Cameras could scan that pattern in real time, unlike the minutes or hours or sometimes days required for DNA or fingerprint sampling and matching.
“Thank you, Ms. Colby. You may proceed to the main reception center. Just follow the signs to Kauna Cove. One of our staff will issue a welcome packet and show you to your bungalow.”
Jordan dutifully followed the signs through acre after acre of gorgeously landscaped grounds. Graceful, swaying palms climbed to impossible heights. Hibiscus, sweet-smelling ginger and stately birds of paradise blossomed everywhere, adding a heavy fragrance to the salty tang of the sea.
Set on a bend of Kauai’s rugged coast, the Tranquility Institute encompassed sweeping vistas of nature at its most elemental. Jagged volcanic peaks covered with dense vegetation stood like silent green sentinels against an achingly blue sky. Their steep slopes cut straight down to the waters they’d thrust out of so many millennia ago. Waves rolled in, foamed against the black volcanic rock at their base, and sent lacy spumes leaping high in the air.
The views were so incredible Jordan slowed at one turn to drink them in. Even as her soul responded to the raw, untamed beauty, her mind was imprinting the layout of the grounds, noting various facilities, and plotting escape routes.
There didn’t appear to be many. The steep cliffs surrounding the institute dropped straight to the sea. Where not covered by vegetation, their slopes showed razor-edged creases of black volcanic rock, made even more slick and dangerous by the spume. The only descent was a set of wooden stairs that led to a small, protected beach fringed with palms.
On the landward side, the gate Jordan had driven through appeared to be the single egress point in the twelve-foot-high iron fence almost hidden by the lush tropical foliage. The fence was topped by pointed spikes that would be a bitch to scramble over.
Jordan eyed the iron barrier thoughtfully. She could go under it, of course. Or through it. She had a special pneumatic tool tucked at the bottom of her carryall that would pry the bars apart. She suspected, however, either of those alternatives would set off a half-dozen different alarms, silent and otherwise. TJ Scott was nothing if not thorough.
Her stomach twisting at the thought, she shoved the rented Mustang convertible
