have to check out a few things,” Agent Packer said noncommittally. “We’ll be back in touch.” A look passed between the two agents.
Brenna was pretty sure she knew what it meant. We’ll be back in touch—when hell freezes over. “So I’ll never hear from you again. No one was murdered, no one was kidnapped. Why would the FBI waste its time?”
“Ms. Thompson, I assure you,” Packer said. “You haven’t seen the last of me.”
As he walked out of the room without a backward glance, Brenna pondered his parting shot. Had it been a promise…or a threat?
HEATH PACKER CLIMBED behind the wheel of his dark blue Chrysler LeBaron while Pete LaJolla, a bit out of breath from the short walk, slid into the passenger seat.
“You gonna tell me what that was about? I thought we were going to arrest her.”
Heath started the engine. He made one circuit around Cottonwood’s town square, marveling at the quaintness of it all as he processed what he’d just learned about Brenna Thompson. “She doesn’t know she’s a suspect.”
“Yeah, so?”
LaJolla was an okay guy, but not the brightest bulb in the marquee. “She thinks she got away with her crime. She thinks her parents would be too embarrassed to turn her in.”
“So…if she thinks she’s gotten away with her crime…she’ll get careless?”
Packer nodded. “And she’ll lead us to the Picasso.”
“You think this Marvin person has the painting? Who the hell is Marvin Carter, anyway? And what’s all this about a suitcase full of money?”
“Guess we better find out.”
Brenna Thompson had been a surprise in more ways than one. It wasn’t just her attire, or lack of it, that had thrown Heath off balance. He smiled now as he thought about how she’d looked when she’d opened the door, fuzzy from sleep, her platinum-frosted hair sticking out at odd angles from her head, mascara rings under her eyes. And that body. Small as she was, she had enough curves to inspire a roller-coaster designer. And in that tiny slip of silk she’d been wearing, he’d gotten an eyeful.
But even fully clothed—well, if you could call wearing a transparent robe fully clothed—there’d been a certain quality about her that surprised the hell out of him.
She was cute. Okay, cute and sexy as hell. And what a mouth. Not just the pink, pouty lips, but what had come through them. She seemed as open and honest and unpretentious as a daisy. Certainly not like any fugitive felon he’d ever seen.
“She was kind of hot, huh?” LaJolla commented. Then he watched Heath carefully for a reaction.
Damn. This was an important case. The Thompsons were influential people. If he solved it, if he recovered the stolen painting, maybe he could put the past behind him. Focusing on Brenna Thompson’s sexy mouth wasn’t the place to start.
Heath turned into the alley behind the empty office they’d been using as a surveillance base. “I don’t think she’s anything special.”
Chapter One
It was November, and Heath Packer was sweating. It was only about seventy degrees, a temperature that would have been heaven in any other part of the country. But here in New Orleans, the air was still and the humidity hovering at a hundred percent. Plus, Heath was trapped in a car. Not even the tinted windows totally protected him from the sun’s warming rays.
He’d been surprised when Brenna and Sonya had taken off in the middle of the night. He and LaJolla had gamely followed them all the way to southern Louisiana, where the two women had checked into the humble Magnolia Guest House. He could only assume this trip had something to do with Marvin Carter.
Heath’s research into the Marvin Carter case had yielded lots of fascinating information about Brenna. Since no one else at the Bureau was much interested in Carter—as Brenna had indicated—Heath had taken over the case and combined it with the Thompson case. All indications were that Marvin Carter and Brenna Thompson were partners, while Sonya Patterson and Cindy Lefler Rheems were mere patsies. However, Heath had yet to put all the pieces of the puzzle together.
“You haven’t done much surveillance in a warm climate,” observed Grif Hodges, an agent out of New Orleans who’d been brought in on the case, since it was now in their backyard. Mercifully, the humorless LaJolla had gone back to Dallas.
Grif, a New Orleans native, had on gym shorts and a T-shirt. Heath was stuck in his regulation dress shirt and suit pants, his jacket and tie ready in case he had to do anything official.
They’d been parked on this street for an hour, watching Brenna’s room.
Finally, just as Heath was forced to crack the windows or suffocate, the women emerged. Sonya, as always, was dressed to the nines in a silk blouse, a coordinating jacket, slim black pants and spike heels. But it was Brenna who drew his eye. She wore overalls with a pink tank top underneath. Yet even in such shapeless clothing, there was no disguising her full breasts or rounded bottom. As she locked the door, she laughed at something Sonya said.
Heath’s mouth went dry. Who could believe such a perky pixie of a woman could have pulled off a world-class heist? But the evidence couldn’t be more clear.
As the two women headed off on foot toward the French Quarter, Brenna’s gaze swept the street. Heath’s heart almost stopped beating when her eyes fixed on his car, and for a moment he was sure she’d spotted him. But then she looked away and they continued down the sidewalk.
The agents prepared to follow Sonya and Brenna on foot, but the women turned into a tiny café at the end of the block.
“I’ll keep an eye on them,” Grif offered. “You see if you can get into their room.”
Adrenaline pumping, Heath quickly located the Magnolia’s manager. The blue-haired lady who ran the guest house took one look at his credentials and had no problem letting him into Brenna’s room.
“I’ll let myself out and lock the door when I’m done,” Heath said in a no-nonsense tone when Madame Blue Hair lingered in the doorway, looking worried.
“What do I tell them if they complain that someone was in their room?” she asked.
“They will never know I was here,” Heath assured her, shooing her out the door. “And I know you won’t tell them, will you?”
The room was small and spartan, with twin beds, a small table and chairs, a battered oak dresser and a noisy window air-conditioning unit. It looked as if each of the women had claimed a bed. The one by the far wall had only one open suitcase on it, a fancy brocade one, partially unpacked. Two matching suitcases were stacked in a corner.
The second bed was covered with wadded-up clothes. A plain black suitcase, also open, overflowed with what looked to be garments selected and rejected. Heath noticed the cream-colored silky tab of fabric peeking out. He couldn’t resist pulling it out, recognizing it as the garment Brenna had been wearing when he’d first confronted her. It was so delicate that he could ball it up and make it disappear inside his fist.
He
