CIA agents who had been in-country following his movements had discovered that a group of Gonzalez’s men was headed toward New Orleans.
Alex watched them without being obvious. He’d heard that everyone who worked for Gonzalez had a scorpion tattooed on his upper body. If he tore the shirt off one of them, would he find the mark?
He was pretty sure there wasn’t much chance of undressing any of them in here. He saw that Rich Stewart had drifted into the bar and was glad the other agent was keeping tabs on the action, since the newcomers’ behavior was definitely something to worry about. Looking up, he saw one of them deliberately bump his chair into that of another patron, apparently for the sheer pleasure of seeing if he could start a fight.
The other guy moved out of the way, and the group went back to their drinks—until one of them made eye contact with a blond coed. When she smiled at him, he made a spontaneous decision that he was going to separate her from her boyfriend.
Clearing a path through the bar, he moved in on the kids, leaning over the girl with his big hand on her shoulder and his fingers coming down over her breast.
Rich and Alex exchanged glances. Rich edged a little closer to the group, but stayed out of their way.
With the noise level in the room, it was impossible for Alex to hear anything that was being said. Still, it was obvious that the college boy was mad as hell—but also afraid to tangle with the hulking Hispanic.
Alex clenched his fist around the spout of the soda and soft drink dispenser, wishing that he could help the kid out. But he’d already called enough attention to himself for one night.
The other members of the macho group sat back, enjoying the fun, laughing among themselves. But just as their amigo was about to chew the kid up and spit him out, the others mercifully stepped in to drag their cohort out of the bar. And Alex breathed out a little sigh. Disaster averted, and he hadn’t even stuck his nose into it.
He glanced up, seeing Rich give a small nod before following them into the street. Mason stayed where he was. Over the past few days Alex was getting the impression that his specialty was avoiding trouble.
Alex spent the next half hour tending bar and feeling almost like he was on break.
But his antenna went up when another prostitute walked through the door. She’d picked a slow time, which immediately made him think she was one of the police recruits getting some training when there wouldn’t be too much chance of fending off propositions.
She was wearing a lot of makeup, but as she stood inside the door scanning the room, Alex got a good look at her face.
His heart clunked inside his chest, then started up a rapid beat that made it hard to breathe.
The prostitute was Gillian Seymour. He’d know that fiery redhead anywhere, even dressed in a low-cut blouse, a miniskirt that barely covered her crotch, fishnet stockings and little black boots.
While he’d still been with the N.O.P.D., he and Gillian had dated. Well, that was a pretty mild word for the torrid affair that had rocketed to life between them.
Truthfully, she’d been the best thing in his life at the time. But even as the two of them had driven each other to ecstasy in bed, he’d known that he was no good for her. So he’d broken it off.
For a painful second he allowed himself to envy his boss. Conrad Burke was married to a wonderful woman named Marilyn whom he’d met on one of his previous assignments. They were raising a set of twins—a boy and a girl. That was the way life was supposed to be. A man and a woman fell in love, settled down and raised a family.
Unfortunately it hadn’t been that way with his own parents. Mom and Dad had each been married five times. Alex was their oldest kid. The one who’d been born while they weren’t hitched to anyone. And he couldn’t even keep up with all the stepsisters and brothers from the various unions—the shortest of which had lasted four months.
As a kid, he’d been shuffled from one parent to the next and back again—often feeling like he’d gotten lost in the cracks of his parents’ new relationships.
And he’d vowed never to do that to a child of his own. He knew he wasn’t a suitable candidate for marriage. It just wasn’t in his genes. So he’d always kept his dealings with the fair sex superficial.
Which was what had scared him about Gillian. He’d wanted her on a level that he wasn’t prepared to accept—which had finally sent him running in the other direction.
But in the two years since breaking off the affair he’d thought of her often. And when he’d heard she’d entered the police academy, he’d wondered if her idealism would last once she started patrolling the city’s mean streets.
How long had she been in uniform? She’d have started out as a beat cop. But if she was already doing undercover work, then someone had noticed her potential and put her on the department fast track.
Which was too damn bad. She’d burn out as fast as he had if they kept pushing her into the “choice” assignments. And one thing he knew from the way she clasped her hands together in front of her; she was nervous. Which proved she was too green to be playing the tricky undercover part of a prostitute.
He studied her for half a minute. Lord, that red hair looked like it could set the place on fire. Or burn a man’s fingers. And the skimpy outfit displayed the nicely curved figure he remembered very well.
Under the makeup that she’d applied with a trowel, he could see that her features were still striking.
He kept his gaze on her, willing her to look in his direction. He knew the exact moment when she spotted him standing rigidly behind the bar. Her jaw didn’t exactly drop open. But she froze, standing near the doorway for a couple of electric seconds, then tilted her chin up and looked deliberately away.
It was all he could do to keep from charging around the bar and demanding to know if she’d lost her mind.
But he stayed where he was, his eyes narrowing as he watched her survey the room, then head for a table where two guys were sitting. Both were wearing short-sleeved, button-down shirts. Both looked like they’d had about three drinks too many. The French Quarter had that effect on civilians, Alex mused. There were too many bars, too many strip joints, too many places to score a cheap drink or your drug of choice. Hell, you could even buy liquor in a plastic cup from bars right on the street and walk around with the booze in your fist.
With a saucy smile Gillian started up a conversation with the woozy duo. It didn’t take long before she’d struck up a deal with one of them. As Alex watched in horror, she strolled out of the bar with the guy.
He cursed under his breath. He’d already taken one unauthorized break that evening. He should stay at his post until closing time. But he was damned if he was just going to stand here worrying about Gillian.
Daring Jack to stop him now, he walked to the back again, then hurried around to the street, thinking that he’d like to throttle Gillian Seymour.
Chapter Two
Outside, noise and heat and the smell of the nighttime crowd enveloped Gillian. But it wasn’t the crowd that worried her. The look in Alexander McMullin’s eye had curdled her stomach. And he wasn’t her most pressing problem.
That would be the inebriate with his hand on her arm, a hand that was inching toward her breast.
“Come on, sweetheart, let’s go back to my hotel room and have some fun.” The invitation was issued in a drunken slur.
“I’m sorry I gave you the wrong impression,” Gillian answered, politeness taking over from her former party-girl persona. “But I have to go home to my sick mother.”
The man’s hammy hand tightened on her arm and he leaned forward,