Aimpoint by Candace Irving (best mystery novels of all time .TXT) 📗

as she spotted the same dark gray stare she'd spent a good deal of the previous night avoiding in that Bavarian bar. Garrison.

Shit.

While the ire she'd noted during that stage exchange had faded, rampant suspicion had burrowed into its place. And it was definitely directed at her.

"How the devil did you get in here?"

"Pardon?"

"The auditorium. That briefing you just attended was closed. How did you get in?"

Sorry, Terry. She'd taken the time to call him over lunch and warn him it might come to this. Terry had been decidedly unhappy with this particular backup plan, especially since it seemed he and Garrison were friends. But mostly because Terry knew he'd have to take the crap that was bound to come with what she was about to do.

Too bad. There was no way she was giving up Mira.

Regan slid a light, easy smile to her lips. "My boss."

"Terry?"

She nodded. "Captain Vaughn called me into his office this morning. He said there was a general who'd be speaking here this afternoon, then afterward with just the SF crowd—and that I should show up and do everything I could to score an interview with the man of the hour."

"General Ertonç?"

She shook her head as she kicked her smile up a notch, deliberately brightening it. "You."

4

Regan winced as that oversized grip shifted, clamping around her upper arm as its owner turned to draw her resolutely across the lobby toward a smaller, narrow doorway that went…somewhere.

Her irritation at once again being led against her will was supplanted by frustration as she caught sight of LaCroix's profile moments before Garrison nudged her into a seriously cramped, audio-visual storage closet.

Just like that, LaCroix was gone.

With him, any chance she'd had of subtly questioning him regarding that terse stare down he'd shared with the man now staring her down.

Garrison reached behind him to snap the door shut, shrinking an already tiny space exponentially.

"Explain." Hard. Clipped. Definitely an order. And not from the off-duty man in that bar last night, doing his damnedest to draw her out and engage her personal interest, but from the stiff, Special Forces captain looming two feet away.

Waiting.

Worse, that revealing pulse she'd noted beneath the fluorescent parking lot light was throbbing. This was not good.

She considered slipping on yet another breezy smile, then instinctively changed her tactics. To impatience. "I told you. My boss called me into his—"

The sharp shake of his head cut her off. "Not that part. Me. Why the hell would you want to interview me? And why now?"

So that was what was bothering him. Even more than her presence at an event which, as he'd stated, had been closed.

Of course, that revelation had her plotting to push it—and him—with half-truth, half-conjecture, and an entirely fervent prayer that this latest meeting of theirs wasn't about to blow up in her face before it got started. She crossed her arms, if only to keep any stray nerves from betraying her as that icy stare grew icier with every second that ticked by. "Why not you? You're the general's US liaison for the next few days. Who wouldn't be interested in reading about that? I also understand you two know each other personally, that you met years ago in Kabul. You're bound to have a unique insight into the man."

It was her turn to wait—for confirmation of what she'd just said. Any part of what she'd just said. She waited in vain.

"Who's your source?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Your source. Who told you General Ertonç and I are friends?"

"You aren't?"

He ignored the question. "Who?"

Great. Once again, she was going to have to sacrifice Terry to that growing subzero vortex. If he survived the ensuing frostbite, he just might forgive her. Unfortunately, she had no choice. There was no source protection in her faux line of work. For a civilian reporter, yes. Not a military one. Not with the ever-present national security card at the top of Garrison's deck. Not if the public affairs officer in question wanted to keep his or her job—which she definitely needed to appear to want to do.

Or perhaps not. The camouflaged pattern on the captain's ACUs had given her another idea. Possibly, an out.

"I don't know."

"You—" He broke off. Frowned. "What?"

She shrugged. At least her answer had surprised him out of his anger. Best to capitalize on it quickly. "All Captain Vaughn knew was that you'd worked with the general in Kabul." And if Terry didn't, he was about to discover it and soon. From her. "I overheard the part about your friendship from a conversation between two soldiers seated near me during the general's speech. In fact, that's who I was following when you grabbed me and hauled me in here, or rather, who I was trying to follow. I was hoping to verify the information for my story, and perhaps find out more about your friendship with the general and how you two met, before I approached you about it."

There. Hopefully, the gabbing soldiers bit would assuage any lingering suspicion should he have spotted LaCroix's retreating form as well.

She waited several beats. When the captain didn't respond, she drew on her feigned irritation from earlier. "Well? Are you two friends?"

The nod he finally offered was curt. "Of a sort."

Well, that suggested…what?

This time, she did draw on that breezy smile. "Fantastic. Then perhaps you can assist me in getting the interview I'd really love to land?"

"Let me guess—Ertonç?"

She ignored the budding sarcasm in his tone as she deliberately infused hers with an eagerness that would've put the entire White House press corps to shame. "Yes. Captain Vaughn put in a request for one this morning, but he was shot down…by you? At least, I'm assuming so. From the interaction I saw up on the stage, it certainly looks as though you've been tapped as point man for the general's visit."

His thin smile offered a "nice try." But the slight uptick in that lovely, tattling pulse confirmed it. He was Ertonç's US man Friday.

But how did that intriguing collateral