Cutter. Don’t try to use my friendship to manipulate me into doing something I do not want to do.”
“Or something you’re afraid to do.” Cutter’s eyes burned into Bo’s. “Maybe you’re not the man for the job after all. Maybe you’re not the man I thought you were.”
The words rankled, but Bo didn’t let himself react. The urge to walk out that door and never look back tugged at him like a powerful tide. But while Sean Cutter might be manipulative, what he’d said was true. Bo did, indeed, owe him. More than he could ever repay in his lifetime.
Shaking his head, Cutter stalked to the door and yanked it open. His hard eyes landed on Bo. “Go ahead. Run. Run back to Wyoming like you did two years ago.”
Aware that he was sweating beneath his leather jacket, Bo usurped the knob from the other man and closed the door. “How long?” he heard himself ask.
“A few days.” Cutter shrugged. “A couple of weeks max. Long enough for us to dig up something on Karas that will keep the federal prosecutors happy.”
“You already have charges on him.”
“Prosecutors want to go for the gold. The big stuff that will keep him behind bars for a long time. Once he’s in custody, you’re off the hook.”
If Bo hadn’t felt so lousy about the entire situation, he might have laughed at Cutter’s choice of words. When it came to Rachael Armitage, Bo would never be off the hook.
RACHAEL SWORE she wouldn’t let them see her sweat. In the past that personal vow had always been enough to keep her cool—at least on the outside—through even the toughest ordeals. But as she made her way down the marble-tiled hall of the MIDNIGHT Agency headquarters toward the conference room, the silk blouse beneath her jacket clung to her back. The briefing she was about to attend wasn’t going to be pleasant. The only question that remained was just how bad it was going to be. Sean Cutter had a reputation for being tough.
Yeah, well, so did she.
She did her utmost not to limp as she entered the conference room. Gritting her teeth against the pain in her knee, she squared her shoulders and walked with as much grace as she could muster to the high-back executive chair. She was acutely aware of the two men present watching her, but she didn’t acknowledge them. The last thing she wanted was for them to see the nerves zinging just below the surface.
Sean Cutter sat at the head of the table, studying a brown expanding file. Her file, she was sure. A file that was a little too thick, the documents inside a little too worn from too many fingers paging through them too many times. Such had been the nature of her career with the MIDNIGHT Agency.
The sight of the second man gave her pause. She’d seen him before. Met him at some point. But for the life of her she couldn’t remember his name. She couldn’t remember where she’d seen his face. Odd, because his was a memorable face. Dark eyes. Hawkish nose. Square jaw that hadn’t been shaved for at least twenty-four hours. His body language and the directness of his stare told her he was law enforcement. The jeans and cowboy boots told her he held disdain for any kind of dress code. Who was he and what the hell was he doing here?
She looked at Cutter and frowned. “You wanted to see me?”
He frowned back, watching her the way a disapproving parent might watch an unruly teenager who was about to be grounded for life. “Have a seat.”
Never taking her eyes from her superior, she sat opposite the cowboy and set her leather pad on the table in front of her.
“How are you feeling?” Cutter asked.
“Good enough to return to work.” She gazed at him levelly. “I’m hoping you won’t disappoint me.”
The two men exchanged a look she didn’t understand. A look that gave her a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. “It looks a lot worse than it is,” she said, referring to the bruises on her face.
“I have the report from the doc right here.” Cutter looked down at the file. “Dislocated shoulder. The laceration on your left temple required seven stitches. You had fluid drained from your knee.” He scowled at her. “I guess it sounds worse than what it really is, too, huh?”
Rachael flushed. “I heal fast.”
“Yeah, and I wasn’t born yesterday.”
It was then that she knew the minor injuries she’d sustained in the car crash were the least of her worries. “I can do desk work until the bruises fade.”
“No need because effective immediately you are on administrative leave.”
An emotion that was alarmingly close to panic gripped her and squeezed. “Cutter, I feel fine.”
“This isn’t about how you feel.”
“With all due respect, sir, I feel I would be much more effective in the field. You know that.”
“What I know is that the most powerful crime lord in the world wants you dead. It’s my responsibility to make sure he doesn’t succeed.”
“But—”
“This is Bo Ruskin,” he interrupted, nodding at the cowboy.
Ruskin.
Her memory stirred. Ruskin was a former MIDNIGHT agent. He and Michael had worked together. They’d been friends. Ruskin had been there the night Michael was killed….
“We’ve met,” she said. At the funeral. No wonder she hadn’t remembered him. Those dark weeks following her late husband’s death had been a blur of grief and rage and insurmountable loss….
“Yes, ma’am,” Ruskin drawled in a deep baritone.
Cutter continued. “You will be accompanying Agent Ruskin to an undisclosed location this afternoon for safekeeping until Karas is apprehended.”
The words jerked her back to the matter at hand. “I’m afraid that’s not possible,” she said.
“I’m afraid that’s an order,” Cutter returned.
“You can’t take me off Karas now.” She held her fingers a fraction of an inch apart. “I’m this close to nailing him.”
“And he came that close to killing you three days ago.” Cutter sighed, then looked at Bo Ruskin. “Can you excuse us a moment?”
“You bet.” The cowboy rose, tipped his hat at her, then started toward the door.
Rachael got the impression of wide shoulders, narrow hips encased in denim and cowboy boots. But her focus was on the man yanking the proverbial rug out from beneath her feet.
“Cutter, please don’t do this,” she said, hating the pleading tone of her voice. “I’m close to—”
“You have twenty minutes to gather your notes and files on Karas and turn everything over to me.”
She almost couldn’t believe her ears. “You’re assigning my case to another team?”
“Not
