Princess Page 2

  As he waited, Hawk glanced through the closet.

  A worn denim jacket. A pair of black jeans. A gray University of California sweatshirt. A pink silk suit with puffy sleeves and a short, tight skirt.

  Somehow the jeans didn’t track with the suit.

  Hawk frowned. He was about to go for her purse when Izzy came back on the line.

  “Hotel records show a new person registered in your room. Her name is Elena Grimaldi. No other information is available via the hotel computer.”

  “If she’s here, where am I supposed to be?”

  “You were moved to a different wing about two hours ago. It could be a computer error.”

  “Yeah, and I could be Time magazine’s Man of the Year.” Hawk cradled the phone, watching the hall to the shower. “What do you have on this Grimaldi woman? Is she a foreign national?”

  Keys clicked rapidly on a keyboard. “No sign of any passport registered in that name entering the U.S. in the last six months.” The keys clicked again. “The IRS has nothing available on that name either.”

  “So she’s an illegal?”

  “Looks like it. She’s got no driver’s license, no car or health insurance.” More keys clicked. “Whoa—I just brought up a credit card. Only one. Strange that there’s nothing else in that name.”

  A fake identity, Hawk thought grimly. Someone was baiting a nice mousetrap for him with a wet, willing and very attractive female body.

  The singing halted. A towel slid over the shower door and vanished. “Gotta go, Izzy. Keep on digging.”

  “Will do. Watch your back, pal.”

  Hawk broke the connection. The field knife was still hidden at his jacket sleeve when he sat down in the shadows, exhaustion forgotten. He’d give his intruder five seconds to start explaining who the hell she was and why she was in his room. If he didn’t like what he heard, he’d start eliciting answers in the most direct way. Naked or not, gorgeous or not, the woman was a simple military objective as far as he was concerned.

  Down the corridor, the shower door opened. Watching the mirror nearby, Hawk saw steam billow out into the airy bathroom. She worked at her tangled hair with a comb, mouthing an old Beach Boys tune, and with every movement her towel hitched up, offering him an excellent view of long legs and wet, gleaming skin.

  A moment later she disappeared. Water ran in the sink, and bottles slid across the vanity. Hawk stood up, his back to the wall, as fabric rustled next door.

  When she finally reappeared, a dry towel covered her damp body and her hair lay thick and dark on her shoulders. Big white cotton balls were stuck between her toes and she walked carefully, rubbing some kind of cream on her bare arms.

  Certain that no weapons were visible, Hawk picked his moment and shot forward, spinning her hard. Her lips worked but she didn’t make a sound. No protests or screams emerged. He felt her body tense, shock merging with panic.

  And then her eyes went blank, almost as if she were about to faint. The oldest dodge in the book, he thought grimly.

  “Who are you?” she rasped.

  He didn’t answer.

  She took a shuddering breath. “Are you from Kelleher’s office?”

  Hawk shook his head once.

  “Did Isaacson send you?” Her voice was squeaky and tight.

  He filed the names away in his memory on the slim chance she had revealed two of her contacts. He decided the greed angle would work best, and he was about to offer her triple what the others were paying, when he noticed a container leaning against the corner of the bed. Made of reinforced mesh with heavy black nylon straps, it resembled the carriers used for medium-size dogs.

  Or for a priceless, genetically engineered government lab animal.

  Hawk checked the floor. There was no sign of movement, but a smart operative would have hidden the animal immediately.

  Outside in the night, lightning cracked and wind hurled itself against the small balcony. Hawk decided it was time for answers. “Where did you hide it?”

  Her eyes widened. Then she dug her nails into his shoulders and began to scream.

  Hawk cut her off with one hand clamped across her mouth. He was cold, wet and disgusted. His ribs hurt, his mood was getting nastier by the second and he wasn’t inclined to be patient.

  He turned her slowly so that he could check the whole floor behind the bed, conscious of his orders to guard the missing animal at all cost. As a SEAL, he was fully prepared to give his life to guarantee that safety. Anyone who got in his way would be immobilized, male or female.

  Something stabbed him hard in his side, just below his ribs. He grunted at the sudden wave of pain burning from his old wound. His hand loosened slightly, and in a second she shot past him. She was struggling with the front door when Hawk spun her around and shoved her against the wall beside the open door.

  “Where is it?” he growled.

  She didn’t answer, fighting furiously.

  “Where did you put it?”

  “Where did I put what? When I tell Isaacson about this, you’ll be fired. I don’t care about the deadline or any other instructions they gave you.”

  So she knew about the deadline to recover the animal?

  But there was something too pat about the explanation.

  Hawk scowled as she managed to wedge one bare foot in the open door. Down the hall two men emerged from the elevator, and any minute the damned female was going to create a scene, which was the last thing the government needed.

  “Move your foot out of the doorway.” His arm circled her throat to keep her from screaming. “Otherwise, I start breaking small bones.”

  She paid no attention. Her towel slipped as she fought back wildly, slamming him in the ribs with her fist.

  So she’d been briefed on his weak points.

  “Two can play dirty, honey.” His arm tightened, cutting off her air while he held her in place with his body. But her foot was still wedged in the open door, and the two men were getting closer.

  “I’m just—doing—what they pay me to do.” The words were a hoarse whisper.

  “So were the Nazi death squads, honey.”

  She was bordering on hysteria now, thrashing wildly. Hawk knew his options were dwindling fast.

  That left him one choice.

  His fingers feathered along her collarbone, fast and expert. They tightened sharply until she stopped fighting.

  Five seconds later she was sliding down the wall into his arms, out cold.

  chapter 2

  Hawk opened the bedroom door silently. It was still early and Elena Grimaldi was out cold where he had left her on the bed. As a precaution he had clipped her wrist in a plastic hand restraint, which he attached to the head of the bed. No running away for this Mata Hari.

  With his intruder immobilized, Hawk pulled a laptop from his backpack and set it up to download his digital photos from the cliffs. While the photographs loaded, he stripped off his muddy clothes and took a two-minute shower, alert for any noises from the bedroom. Not that it mattered, because the lady was going nowhere.

  After his shower, he checked on her again, but Elena Grimaldi slept on, one foot dangling from the bed. Quickly he rebandaged his ribs and then inspected the closet. Three sweaters were neatly folded on an upper shelf next to a big leather purse. At the back of the highest shelf, he found a worn pair of red sneakers, contrasting sharply with the pink silk suit nearby. Why did he get the sense of MTV meets haute couture?

  Curious, Hawk opened her purse and pulled out a well-worn notebook carrying pages full of times, dates and names, along with what looked like detailed descriptions of various hotels. Security assessments of civilian targets? In an inside pocket he found breath mints, dental floss and a half-used packet of birth control pills.

  The lady got around, he thought wryly. Searching one of the dressers, he pulled out an old and well-used laptop. Hawk booted it up, waiting for a password query and security protocols.

  He was surprised when none came. Files f
illed the screen, organized under neat directories by date, location and what appeared to be hotel names. Hawk took a closer look, puzzled to see precise evaluations of housekeeping, restaurant facilities, public areas and recreation staff. There were records of hygiene compliance and services performed by employees, including names and dates. Occasionally an employee’s name was flagged in red, along with a note about unacceptable work or guest complaints.

  Hawk sat back, staring at the computer. Her security was nonexistent, but the files could have been recorded in some kind of code. If so, it was different from any others he’d seen.

  But guest complaints? Hygiene compliance?

  He noticed the frayed bottom of her leather purse and the hole in her right shoe, lying on its side in the bottom of the closet. A sweater was folded neatly on the desk, and he saw careful stitches across one elbow, where it looked recently mended.

  Who the hell was Elena Grimaldi?

  The surf was coming in, murmuring lightly along the hot sand. There were no car payments to worry about, no pennies to pinch. Only the beach stretched before her, with no responsibilities, no schedules—

  Abruptly Jess Mulcahey woke up. Her eyes snapped open as memories returned in a rush.

  Had the hotel found out about her visit in advance? Was that why the man had broken into her room while she showered?

  If only she’d managed to wrench the door open before he’d—

  Before what?

  Shivering, Jess looked down at the towel draped loosely around her body. The last thing she remembered, he’d done something with his hand, and then everything blurred.

  And now she was locked to the bed by some kind of hard plastic cuff that made her whole arm burn.

  In growing fright, she stared out the partially opened door. Was the crazy commando-type in the leather jacket still nearby?

  A drawer closed outside in the little sitting area. She sprawled back on the bed, feigning sleep and trying to ignore the terrified hammering of her heart. Footsteps crossed the hall and approached the bed.

  She could almost see him frowning down at her.

  Somehow she managed not to flinch when his fingers touched her wrist, measuring her pulse beneath the plastic cuff. The blanket beside her shifted, and then the quiet footsteps moved back down the hall.

  A chair creaked, and she heard him speaking on a phone.

  She scowled at her wrist, which was burning savagely. Anger warred with panic as she scanned the room. Then her eyes narrowed on the bedside chest.

  Twisting hard, she opened the drawer with her left hand crossed tight over her chest.

  Telephone directory.

  Blank postcards.

  Laundry schedule.

  Twisting, she looked on the other side of the bed. A bottle of bright pink nail polish lay on the edge of the bed, where she had left it just before her shower. But it was the thought of the tweezer and nail clippers in her carry-on bag that made her heart pound.

  But the bag was on a chair at the far side of the bed. Grimacing, Jess stretched out her free arm, coming nowhere within reach. When her first effort failed, she wriggled down and dangled her foot as far as she could, ignoring the pain from the plastic band digging into her wrist.

  Her toe nudged the bag, then curled, hooking one handle. Holding her breath, she pulled the bag back across the carpet until it rested at the edge of the bed.

  In the room next door the man was pacing, snapping out quick questions. Jess heard him ask something about topo maps and satellite photos. What was he, a spy as well as a kidnapper?

  She forced down her fear and concentrated on finding her nail trimmers. Her hands were slippery with sweat by the time she pulled them out and fit them over the plastic restraint.

  Three times the clippers slipped free. Jess’s fingers began to shake. Outside she heard the footsteps cross back and forth.

  Desperate, she shoved the narrow blades over the ridged plastic, gripped hard and felt the plastic snap in two.

  Outside the talking suddenly stopped. She heard the chair creak.

  She dropped the nail trimmers, hiked up her towel and crept to the open door. He was facing away from her at the desk, glaring down at a digital camera hooked up to an expensive laptop.

  “No, the woman’s still asleep, but she should be coming around before long.” When he stood up to pace again, Jess inched behind the door so he wouldn’t see her. “I checked her laptop and found files on hotel properties and staff performance. Beats the hell out of me what those could be used for.” His voice hardened. “Possible hostage scenarios? A terrorist assessing civilian targets?”

  He thought she was a terrorist? Furious, Jess reached for the door, determined to set the record straight.

  Immediately common sense prevailed. The man outside was either crazy or a criminal—maybe both. And the woman who had registered as Elena Grimaldi wasn’t a pampered princess, the offspring of an obscure branch of European royalty, the way she’d explained when she had registered. She wasn’t wealthy or arrogant, and the expensive designer shoes and pink silk suit in her closet were simply part of a professional disguise. As Elena Grimaldi, Jess lived large, dispensing big tips and bigger bribes to see how many workers she could find to break hotel rules in return for personal gain. Well trained and efficient, Jess noted hotel strengths and weaknesses in detailed reports filed within hours of her visit. In the last month alone she had visited twenty-one different properties, finding serious problems in eighteen of them.

  Just that morning, as Elena Grimaldi, Jess had slipped fifty dollars into a clerk’s pocket and asked that a registered hotel guest be shifted so that she could have a better room location. The bribe had been successful.

  Of course, she hadn’t expected that a crazy man would ambush her on the way out of her shower or suspect that she was a terrorist. So, was her crazed mystery man some kind of security agent working for the hotel?

  Not your problem, Mulcahey. Get out fast, file your report, then forget all about it.

  A quick peek out the window revealed a narrow balcony about eight feet above the ground. Difficult but not impossible, she decided.

  Silently, she pulled a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt out of the square mesh laundry bag beside her bed and changed quickly. Shoes would have been nice, but her assailant would definitely spot any move toward the closet. As she finished dressing, Jess heard him on the phone, asking questions about tire prints and weather predictions. She didn’t understand any of it, but she certainly wasn’t hanging around for clarification.

  She slid open the bedroom window and climbed onto the balcony, shivering in the icy wind.

  Her captor was just finishing on the phone. “I sent through all the digital shots from the cliff. See what you can do with those tire prints, Izzy. If they’re expensive, we could locate dealers and subpoena sales records. Yeah, I’m in for the night, unless our carpetbagger causes more trouble. I’ll find out what I can, then you can take her off my hands. After I catch a few hours of sleep, I’ll head north and see if I can pick up their trail.”

  Jess barely heard, focusing on closing the window behind her. Gritting her teeth, she eased the frame down slowly, wishing she could go back for her purse.

  “My suitcase? Yeah, it was in the new room. I called downstairs and was told everything had been switched while I was out.” A few choice words followed. “Izzy, I have to go.”

  Cold rain hit Jess’s face. Her bare feet slipped as she climbed over the icy railing and jumped to the ground.

  She staggered, then stood up slowly.

  No broken bones; always a positive sign.

  Wincing, she ran across the wet grass, making mental notes shaping a report that would make heads roll, starting with her kidnapper’s.

  The hotel job had come at a time when she needed a change. Her sister had never understood her restlessness, but then, Summer was established in her career as an FBI field agent in Philadelphia. Meanwhile, Jess had been eager to stand on her ow
n two feet, and when she revealed a flair for the dramatic, along with an intuitive skill at assessing people, her employment agency had recommended her for the job of hotel investigator.

  Now she was on the road an average of twenty-five days per month, always careful to maintain her false identity and smile seductively while she probed for any secrets a hotel manager might prefer to hide.

  And the current hotel manager was going to get a tongue-lashing he would never forget.

  Hawk scanned the bedroom and swore. The woman was gone, her towel tossed on the floor. The nylon carrier lay open on top of the robe, next to the cut plastic restraint.

  He felt a cold wind. Curtains fluttered through the crack in the window, which she hadn’t closed completely behind her when she’d escaped. He crossed the room and looked out, cursing as he saw her run over the grass, bare feet flashing.

  His face hardened. He closed the window and packed up all his gear. In minutes he was gone, leaving no trace.

  chapter 3

  But he was there a minute ago. “I heard him talking on the phone.”

  Jess stared at the uniformed hotel security guard in the doorway of her room. “He knocked me out and cuffed me to the bed.”

  The guard looked unconvinced. “Sorry, ma’am. All I know is that no one’s here now. Check the other room for yourself if you don’t believe me.”

  Jess stalked past him, throwing open the closet and the door to the bedroom. Both were empty, except for her shoes and jacket. To her surprise her purse was still where she’d left it, too.

  Aware that the hotel guard was watching her curiously, Jess took a deep breath and assessed her situation. She had already decided to cut her investigation short and leave as soon as she collected her things. Before she’d taken this assignment, she’d heard warnings about this particular hotel, which had a reputation for harassing inspectors. But she had never expected a physical assault in her room.

  First things first.

  She decided to make a quick stop downstairs to stock up on coffee, fruit, and free pastries from the self-serve kitchen off the lobby. That way she would be stocked adequately for her drive home to San Diego.