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Moonrise

Anne Stuart

HE COULD SEE THE BED BEHIND HER.

A big, high bed. Rumpled, unmade, the sheets tangled around what looked like a duvet.

He closed his eyes with a despairing sigh. It was the rumpled sheets that finished his resolve. The gleaming white tangle of sheets needed to be wrapped around her naked body. And his. And he took the gun from his waistband, set it silently on the dresser by the door, and started toward her.

She must have felt him coming. She turned when he reached her, looking up at him, and there was no fear on her face. He touched her, cupping her cheek with his big hand, and she felt warm, fragile against him.

She turned her face and pressed her mouth against his palm. "You taste of cinnamon," she whispered. And he wanted her to taste him.

She tilted her face up then, brushing her mouth against his, a tentative gesture, as if she weren't sure of her welcome. He slid his arm around her waist, pulling her soft, willowy body against him with careful deliberation, settling her against him, letting her feel how hard he was, and he set his open mouth against hers.

"Don't stop," she whispered, a mere breath of a sound, a plea.

This is for Vicki Varvello,

who shares the same twisted taste in movies and men,

and who exemplifies grace under fire.

For Barbara Samuel, a writer

with extraordinary vision, talent and intelligence.

And for Audrey LaFehr, whose wisdom,

good taste and discerning ear are invaluable.

Chapter One

^ »

The woman didn't know she had just come closer to death than most people did in their entire lives. She stood outside the door of the ramshackle cottage, her white cotton clothes creased and rumpled from the long trip. In another lifetime that upraised hand that had just knocked on his door would be wearing a spotless white glove, and she'd be wearing a hat on that soft sweep of hair.

He stood in the shadows, watching her. He'd chosen this cottage, this tiny island off the gulf coast of Mexico, for a reason. No one could get anywhere near him without him hearing them from miles away. There was no approach from the rocky beach, and the narrow drive that led through the thick underbrush led nowhere else.

He'd been lying in his hammock, working his way into a bottle of Jose Cuervo, when he'd heard the taxi turn toward his place. Teo's ancient Buick was unmistakable to a man of his training, no matter how drunk he was. They wouldn't be coming after him in a taxi, he thought as he moved silently, swiftly through the house. He took only one gun with him. One would be enough.

He hadn't recognized her at first. The slender, white-clothed figure climbed out of Teo's taxi, and she carried a case with her. He wondered exactly what kind of weapons she had in that case, and how she'd managed to get them through the surprisingly rigorous customs on the tiny island.

She had to be carrying as well, but as far as he could see there was no room for anything but the smallest gun on that slender body. She could have a knife strapped to her thigh, but she didn't hold herself like someone good with knives, and his instincts, honed over time, were infallible.

The taxi left, and they were alone in the clearing. Night had already fallen—it came early in October, and the moon was beginning to rise, covering the area with a silver light.

In the moonlight, fresh blood would look black.

He stood in the trees, loose, relaxed, alert. He could take her out in a matter of seconds. It was what he was trained to do, what he did best. He could send a bullet into her brain, just behind her ear, judging the distance within a fraction of an inch, and her skull would explode.

Or he could move up behind her, and she wouldn't hear him. Even if her training matched his, she wouldn't be as good as he was. No one was.

And she was too young. Even if she had his talent, she didn't have his years of experience.

He wondered why he hesitated. There was no reason anyone would have come after him, would have gone to the trouble of finding him, unless they were planning to kill him. And he had a cardinal rule—get the bastards before they got you.

They'd tried once, but he thought they'd given up on trying to take him. Obviously not.

He raised the gun. He didn't want to put his hands on her—it had been too long since he'd had a woman, and he wasn't a man who mixed sex with killing. One was a basic need, to be ignored if it grew inconvenient. The other was a job.

She climbed up the sagging front steps, and he noticed she was wearing an incredibly stupid pair of white shoes. High heels. No killer would come after him in high heels.

He slowly lowered the gun and let out his breath. He hadn't realized he'd been holding it. She knocked on the door, and he could read her body language in the silver light. She was nervous. No, beyond that. She was terrified.

So she must know who and what he was. What did she want with him?

Curiosity was a luxury he seldom indulged. There were two choices—to kill her or to send her away.

There was nothing suspicious in the rundown cottage—he'd made sure of that. His cache of weapons was hidden so well the best people in the business wouldn't be able to find them. He could simply fade into the night and wait for her to leave.

He started to back away, tucking the compact Beretta into his belt, feeling the coolness of metal against his hot skin, when she turned her head. And a flash of memory hit him', like a fist in his gut. He knew who she was.

Win Sutherland's daughter. Cherished only child of his mentor, his foster father, the man he'd trusted and loved most in this world. The man who'd given him a new life and a fresh start.

And he hadn't known the price until it was too late.

What the hell was Annie doing there? He hadn't seen her since the funeral, and he'd kept his protective coloring wrapped around him. She'd been so lost in grief she had barely noticed him standing beside her at the grave, but then, he'd always made sure she seldom noticed her father's protégé. He was good at that, at blending in. It was one of the reasons he'd managed to stay alive for so long.

But now she was here. And he didn't know what the hell he was going to do about her.

She'd been a fool to come, Annie thought, rubbing her sweaty palms against the rumpled linen of her skirt. It had taken her more than twelve hours to get here, she was exhausted and hungry and her head ached.

But most of all, she was scared shitless.

She couldn't imagine why she was frightened of someone like James McKinley. She'd known him for most of her life—he'd been a family friend, her father's confidant, a pleasant, polite man who'd pose no threat to anyone.

There'd been a time when he'd seemed more than that. But it was so long ago that it seemed no more than an adolescent dream, one she could barely remember.

McKinley had taken her father's death hard, almost as hard as she had, and no wonder. His death had made no sense. Winston Sutherland wasn't the kind of man to misjudge his capacity for alcohol. He wasn't the kind of man who'd break his neck, tumbling down the back steps of his Georgetown house. And he wasn't the kind of man who'd have his daughter be the one to find his body the next morning, already stiff with rigor. Even in death he would have had too much power over circumstances.

She hadn't been able to wipe that image out of her brain for the past six months. It crept into her nightmares, and nothing she could do would stop it. He wouldn't have had too much to drink. He wouldn't have fallen.

But he had. According to the autopsy, the police, the kind, capable people who'd worked with her father through his various government jobs, it was nothing but a tragic accident. It was a lucky thing he'd left her well cared for. Extremely well cared for. And would she by any chance be interested in selling the house where her father had died and start a new life?

That was when the alarm bells had begun ringing. That was when she started to ask questions, when the first rush of grief and denial had passed. And that's when she first began to recognize the lies.

She had never realized how protected she was. In all her twenty-seven years, she'd never realized just how little she knew about her father's profession. Bureaucrat, he'd called himself, laughing. The job changed with administrations, but in essence he was nothing more than a glorified pencil pusher, he'd assured her. The titles changed, the work remained the same.

But apparently the work hadn't remained. No one filled her father's position in the State Department, and his small sub-bureau no longer seemed to exist. His coworkers, when she finally remembered their names, had been posted to the far corners of the world, including the man who'd been closer to Win than anyone, including his own daughter. James McKinley.

If it hadn't been for Martin, she might never have discovered where he went. James McKinley had been the first, and the closest, of Win's protégés—Annie could never remember a time when McKinley wasn't around. But in the succeeding years her father had had other people, both men and women, who'd come and gone in his life.

Some she'd liked, even loved. Her ex-husband, Martin, was smart, charming, and deferential, everything she could ever want in a man or a lover. She still couldn't figure out why it hadn't worked, when both of them had wanted it to. There'd been other friends, like Alicia Bennett, who'd died several years ago. A surprising number of Winston's protégés had died.

Some she'd despised, like Roger Carew, a smug little toad of a man who always seemed to be sneering at her. Carew had left her father's tutelage, and if Win had been disappointed in him, he'd never said.

And then there was James McKinley. If Martin was more like a brother than a husband, McKinley was an enigma. Distant. Unapproachable. Polite and unreal.

The man who knew the secrets. That's what her father had said years ago. If ever anything happened, anything questionable, she could go to McKinley for the answers, Win had told her in a rare burst of openness.

It had taken her months to remember. But now she was here, having tracked him down with Martin's reluctant help. She was here for answers.

She knocked again. She didn't want to call out his name—she'd never been certain what to call him. Win had called him Jamey, but the nickname had been a joke between the two of them. McKinley had never been a Jamey in his life—he was too austere, too remote.

Martin and Carew usually called him Mack. Annie called him nothing at all.

She banged again. It was dark, and she'd sent the taxi away, afraid that if she'd asked him to wait she might chicken out. "Hello?" she called out, still avoiding using his name. "Anyone home?"

"Right behind you."

She whirled around, hitting her elbow on the door. She hadn't heard him approach, and in the moonlight she knew an instant's panic as she looked up into the face of a complete stranger.

"What are you doing here, Annie?"

Not a complete stranger after all. She knew that voice, cool and distant, infuriatingly calm. But she didn't know the man who stood far too close to her.

He was McKinley's height, tall, much taller than her respectable five feet eight inches. But there all similarity ended.

She couldn't remember having looked that closely at McKinley when he'd been with her father, not in years. She knew he was tall, ageless, anonymous, dressed in neat dark suits and a calm manner that left her feeling vaguely soothed and irritated at the same time.

This man had nothing to do with that cipher. His hair was long, shaggy, tied back from his unshaven face. His eyes were dark, glittering, and he was wearing cutoffs and a grubby tropical shirt that hung open around his chest. This was no polite cipher. This was an animal, feral, trapped, and very dangerous. He smelled of alcohol.

"Jamey?" she said in disbelief, instinctively using her father's name for him.

He flinched, as if she'd hit him. And then he seemed to straighten, and that sense of danger disappeared. "Your father's the only man who got away with calling me that," he said.

She smiled uncertainly. "Win got away with a lot of stuff," she said.

"Not always. What are you doing here, Annie? And how did you find me?"

"Martin told me where you were."

She could see some of the tension in his shoulders relax. Muscled shoulders. She'd thought he was close to her father's age. She began revising her estimate downward by twenty years.

"Why?" he said again, his voice brusque.

"I want to find out what really happened to my father."

He just stared at her for a moment. "He died, Annie. Remember? He had too much to drink, he fell down the back stairs and broke his damned neck."

"I don't believe it."

"They did an autopsy. I'm sure you can read it if you've got the stomach for it—"

"I saw it. I still don't believe it. Someone's lying. Someone's covering up."

Silence for a moment. "What do you think happened?"

"I think someone killed him," she said, before she could chicken out. "I think he was murdered."

It was growing darker, and faint slivers of moonlight filtered down around them. His face was composed of planes and shadows, and she couldn't see him clearly. Just the glitter in his dark eyes. "What do you expect me to do about it?"

He hadn't denied the possibility, which shocked her. "You were his friend," she said. "Don't you want to know the truth? Don't you want revenge?"

"Not particularly."

She looked up at him, frustration making her grim. "Well, I do. And if you don't want to help me, I'll have to take care of it on my own. I'm going to find out what happened to my father. And I'll be damned if I let them get away with some cover-up."

He didn't move. She had the sudden, eerie feeling that she was in danger. Very great danger. She didn't dare look behind her—if she did, it would be to admit she was scared. So instead she kept her back straight, even though McKinley was close enough that she could smell the alcohol on his breath. She could feel the tension in the air, emanating from his surprisingly strong body.

And then it seemed to dissolve. "All right," he said in a cool voice, putting one hand under her elbow in what should have been a polite gesture. "You might as well come in. We'll talk about it."

She jerked for a moment, then held still. "Does that mean you'll help me?"

"That means," he said in his deep rasp of a voice that held the faintest memory of east Texas, "that you'll tell me everything you know, everything you suspect, and then we'll see what we have to do about it." He pushed open the door, into the shadowy cottage, and she had no choice but to precede him inside. Once more resisting the impulse to look over her shoulder.

She looked around her as he flicked on the electric light. It was a small room, untidy. The furniture was frayed and broken, dishes were piled on the table. She turned to glance at him in the soft light.

"Why are you living here?" she asked. "This doesn't seem like your kind of place at all."

Just the faintest trace of a smile curved his mouth. It was hardly reassuring. "And you know me so well, don't you, Annie?"

"I've known you for most of my life," she said, defensive.

"How old am I?"

She blinked. "You're drunk."

"I didn't ask that. And as a matter of fact," he said, grabbing a chair and straddling it as he poured himself a glass of tequila, "I'm not nearly drunk enough. I've barely made a start on the night's ration." He poured a second glass, pushed it across the table toward her.

"I don't drink."

"You do tonight," he said. "How old am I?"

She took the glass of tequila and allowed herself a faint sip. She hated tequila, and always had. "I used to think you were a little bit younger than my father," she admitted.

"Your father was sixty-three when he died."

"I know that," she said irritably, taking another sip.

"Sit down, Annie, and tell me how old I am."

"Not as old as I thought. Maybe in your late forties."

"Maybe," he said. "So why don't you think your father's death was an accident?"

"Instinct."

"Christ," he said weakly. "A woman's intuition. If that's all you've got to go on, sweetheart, then you're wasting my time."

"My instincts are excellent. Win always said so."

"Yeah," he said, draining his glass. "Well nigh infallible."

"There's something else."

She didn't imagine the sudden tension in the small cottage. "What else?"

"There's something missing from the house. I didn't even realize it was gone until recently, and I know it was there just before he died. I came down from Boston the week before, and it was—"

"What was, Annie? What the hell are you talking about?"

"A picture. He hadn't had it for very long, but he always kept it with him. He said it had sentimental value."

"Your father wasn't a sentimental man. What was it a picture of?"

"Some obscure Irish saint. It never made sense to me, why he should have had it framed in silver, but he said it held the mysteries of the universe."

"Did he?" James drawled. "And you think there's some murderous conspiracy behind an old picture of a saint?"

"It wouldn't have disappeared, not in the week after he died."

"You've been reading too many mysteries, Annie. A tragic accident and a missing piece of religious art do not a conspiracy make." He turned away from her, and his movements had the deliberate grace of a man trying to appear sober.

"When did you become a drunk?" she said sharply. "You never used to be like this."

"April second."

The reply hung between them. It was the day her father had died.

She moved then, skirting the table, coming around to his side and kneeling down in front of him, not even hesitating. "You loved him," she said. "As much as I did. We can't just ignore what happened. Someone killed him, and we have to find out who and why. If you won't help me, I'll do it myself. But you will, won't you?"

He smiled down at her, and perhaps it was meant to be reassuring. Annie wasn't reassured. She didn't know this man—she kept looking for McKinley beneath the stubble and the danger, beyond the tequila and the unexpected look of him. He had to be in there, somewhere.

"Oh, I'll help you, Annie," he said softly. "You'll get the answers to all those questions running about in your head. But I'm not sure you'll like them."

"Liking has nothing to do with it. I'm not going to stop until I find out."

He looked down at her, and there was an odd expression in his eyes. "I know you won't, Annie," he said gently. "And I'm sorry about that."

He was going to have to do something about her. She knelt at his feet, all sweet-smelling innocence and trust, staring up at him. Her father's age? Christ, he was thirty-nine years old. He'd done his job too damned well.

She was right—he had known her for most of her life. Since she was seven years old and he'd arrived in her life as James McKinley, newly widowed and not long out of college. Ready to follow Winston Sutherland anywhere, do anything he wanted. Ready to expiate the sins that stained his soul. It was a life he'd lived for more than twenty years now. It had become second nature to him.

He knew just how tenacious, how stubborn, how bright Annie Sutherland was. She wouldn't let it go. Not until she learned the unpalatable truth, about all of them. A truth even James didn't know completely.

While Win had been alive he'd been able to shield her. Win had been good at that—he could string together a bunch of lies that could convince the most rabid conspiracy buff that everything was aboveboard. He'd had the advantage with Annie, of course. She'd loved him, trusted him. It wouldn't occur to her to suspect her father of being anything other than the charming, slightly stuffy bureaucrat he'd appeared to be.

But Win wasn't around to cloud her mind anymore. And she'd inherited his brains, even if she'd never used them in the same arena. It would only be a matter of time before she began making some very dangerous enemies.

It wasn't his concern, he reminded himself. He was a dead man already—so what if Annie Sutherland was added to their list of victims?

And he didn't really give a damn if she blew the cover off the whole stinking mess. He'd lost any interest in right or wrong, the good guys or bad guys. He'd spent too much of his life meting out someone else's justice. He no longer cared.

He looked down at Anne. She probably had no idea of the thoughts racing through his brain, that no amount of tequila could deaden. He looked down at her slender, delicate throat, and thought about how much pressure he'd need to exert to break her neck. It would be simple, easy, no more than a flick of the wrist, and she and her questions would be no threat to anyone.

She wasn't a particularly beautiful woman—Winston had seen to that. She wore her brownish blond hair long and simple, her clothes were uninspired, her makeup minimal. She could have been stunning, but Winston was good at manipulating people. He'd wanted a daughter who was moderately attractive, intelligent, and outside the business. A glamorous beauty would have garnered too much attention, so Annie Sutherland's perfect bone structure was hidden beneath a shaggy haircut and a self-deprecating style that was almost as effective as McKinley's protective coloration, even if it wasn't conscious.

He looked down at her, and he wondered what she'd do if he put his hand behind her head and pulled her mouth toward his crotch.

She probably didn't know what to do with that mouth, he thought sourly. Win had scared off any but the most harmless of her lovers. Only his chosen one, Martin, was allowed to get close to her for any length of time. He never knew whether Win had destroyed their marriage in the end, or whether it had simply died a natural death. He told himself he'd never cared.

In the end, James didn't touch her, because he wasn't certain what he'd do. There was no hurry. No one could approach this place without him knowing, and so far they'd done a piss-poor job of coming after him. Annie being there would up the ante, of course, but they'd already let her get this far. Unless Martin had been able to cover it up, but he'd be a fool to count on that.

"Why didn't you ask Martin for help?" he said suddenly. "Or did he turn you down?"

"I wanted you," she said.

The words hung between them. He watched, with drunken amazement, as a faint sheen of color mottled her cheeks. She was actually blushing.

"Annie," he said, suddenly weary, "go to bed."

She glanced around. "Where?"

"There's a bed upstairs. Take it. I've had too much to drink tonight to deal with you. We'll talk about this in the morning."

"Does that mean you're going to help me?"

He rose, caught her arm, and hauled her up. She was slender, the white suit was wrinkled, but she still smelled like some faint, sexy perfume. Not the kind of perfume he would have chosen for her.

"Maybe," he said. "For the time being, get your butt upstairs and out of my sight."

She smiled at him then. Christ, he'd forgotten Annie Sutherland's smile. It had been a long time since he'd seen it, an even longer time since it had been directed at him. It was still just as powerful.

"I knew you wouldn't let me down," she said. She leaned over and hugged him, an exuberant, sexless hug, backing away before he could make a drunken swipe at her.

"I didn't say—"

"I'll see you in the morning," she said, escaping up the narrow stairs. Not knowing how close that escape was.

It was too damned small a house. The upstairs bedroom was nothing more than an open balcony. There was no door on his bedroom either.

He knew, deep in his heart, what he was going to have to do, and all the tequila in the world couldn't change things.

He was either going to have to do his damnedest to convince sharp-eyed, quick-witted Annie Sutherland that her father was a harmless bureaucrat who'd died in a freak accident.

Or he might have to kill her himself.