Ingrid Weaver – Loving the Lone Wolf (страница 5)

But compared to the crimes Stephan had drawn her into, a little breaking, entering and trespassing were insignificant. Most of her anxiety arose from the fear that if they were caught here, the distribution deal would be blown and so would her and Jamie’s escape plan.

She wiped her damp palms against her pants and turned her head to follow Nathan’s gesture. She didn’t want him to see her nervousness. It might give him an advantage.

“I didn’t think to ask before,” Nathan said. “Are you bothered by heights?”

His question sounded sincere, as did the note of concern in his voice, but Kelly couldn’t be sure. Bringing her here might be a ploy to rattle her, the same way she’d been trying to rattle him before. “Not at all,” she replied. “Besides, this building is hardly the Sears Tower.”

“It’s too close to a flight path to be any higher.”

As if to prove his statement, his words were drowned out by the roar of a jet taking off. Kelly pressed her palms over her ears and instinctively ducked her head.

Nathan dropped to one knee and slipped his arm around her shoulders to steady her as the noise washed over them. Once it subsided, he didn’t pull away immediately. He moved his fingers, toying briefly with the ends of her hair.

She told herself that she shouldn’t feel anything from the caress. After all, it was only her hair that he touched. So why did she have this strange impulse to lean toward him for more?

Her jaw was starting to ache from clenching her teeth. It was a good thing that this was almost over.

He withdrew his hand and grasped the top of the concrete ledge. “The other courier companies go for small packets and speed,” he said. “Pack Leader offers the same service, but specializes in bigger shipments. Loads are held in that warehouse, then get moved out as soon as a truck is available, usually within six hours.”

“That suits us. The longer it sits, the more chance there is of someone getting curious about what’s in it.”

“How is it going to be packed?”

“What do you mean?”

“I heard Volski’s last pipeline brought his junk in by stuffing it into outboard motor parts.”

“That method was compromised. We’ll be using something else.”

“Which is?”

“Stephan will let you know when he feels it’s necessary,” Kelly said.

Nathan paused, then shifted closer. “Unless you level with me, this isn’t going to work. I need to know the weight and dimensions of the shipment so that I can arrange the most efficient transportation.”

“I understand. He’ll give you the specifics ahead of time, but not yet.” She inhaled slowly as the breeze brought her his scent. He was close enough for her to feel his body heat. Sexual awareness rippled down her spine. Was he doing this purposely, trying to turn the tables by using her own strategy on her?

What she had begun at the Starlight was backfiring. Instead of faking an interest in him, she had to convince herself that she wasn’t interested. She tipped her head to follow the blinking lights of another plane. “You still haven’t explained how this is going to go down.”

“If I told you that, what would stop you from double-crossing me and using the information I give you to go with someone else?”

She was glad that she was already facing away from him, so she wouldn’t have to worry about hiding her thoughts. He couldn’t know how close to the truth he had come. “Don’t you trust me, Nathan?”

“About as much as you trust me, Kelly.”

He was surprisingly direct, different from the other criminals she’d met through Stephan. “Could someone else offer us what you can?” she asked.

“No one else has my particular connections.”

“Then you have nothing to worry about. I’ve found that mutual interest is more reliable than mutual trust.”

“So young, and so cynical,” he murmured. “Is that why you save your passion for your music?”

Another direct hit, she thought. She had to finish this now. “As much as I’m enjoying all this witty repartee, Nathan, it’s getting late,” she said, pushing to her feet. “I’d like to proceed with our business.”

He looked at her for a minute, his gaze hooded with shadows, then stood and led her to the other side of the roof.

A sea of trucks, all painted gray and white with the Pack Leader wolf logo, stretched out in a fenced yard below them. The sizes ranged from small delivery vans to eighteen-wheelers. As they watched, a man in the dark gray company uniform strode to a midsize van and drove it through the gate.

Nathan drew her back from the edge of the roof as the van passed by. “The best way to smuggle anything is in plain sight,” he said.

“How?”

“All it takes to clear a load from customs is the right documentation. I know someone in the main office here who can create that with a few keystrokes.”

“And then what?”

“We put it on a truck and drive it wherever you want it to go.”

“It sounds too simple.”

“It’s the flaw of a big system. Pack Leader processes so many shipments daily that adding one more to the schedule won’t make a ripple. One hand doesn’t know what the other hand is doing. And the company is so well established, it’s above suspicion.”

“Aren’t there tracking mechanisms?”

“Sure, there’s an order number, but once it’s in the system, there would be no reason for anyone except the client to access it,” he said, raising his voice over the roar of another jet. He guided her back to the stairs that had brought them to the roof. “I’ve been transporting merchandise into the country by piggybacking it with legitimate goods for years. This company has been a gold mine, and the suits at the top don’t even know it.”

“But what about the driver? Wouldn’t he have to be in on it?”

“In this case, I’ll fix it so I would handle Volski’s shipment personally.”

“How?”

He didn’t reply until they had stepped into the stairwell and the door had swung shut behind them, muffling the noise of the plane. “By putting on a uniform, walking into the yard and driving out with a truck.”

She shook her head. “Stealing a truck would bring too much attention.”

“I didn’t say I would steal it.”

“Then how will you get it?”

The light over the stairs was bright enough to reveal a glimmer of humor in his expression. “Easy. I work here.”

Kelly stared. Was that a smile? It was only a shift of a few facial muscles, a soft crinkling of the skin at the corners of his eyes, a deepening of the lines beside his mouth, yet it hinted at a warmth she hadn’t seen before. It was so at odds with his warrior demeanor that she found herself intrigued. What would it be like to see him smile fully, or maybe to hear him laugh?

Wait. What was that he had said? “You work here?” she asked.

“You’re welcome to check that out, too. My name’s on the Pack Leader payroll as a relief driver. There isn’t a vehicle with wheels that I don’t know how to handle.”

Her mind clicked back on track as she evaluated the potential of his scheme.

One hand doesn’t know what the other hand is doing.

This was exactly what she’d been looking for. She had enough information now to set the deal into motion.

She felt a stirring of regret over what would happen to this man when it was over, but she tried to ignore it. With Jamie’s future at stake, she couldn’t afford the luxury of a conscience.

She did her best to disregard the warmth she sensed in Nathan’s almost-smile, too. It made no difference. After tonight, they would never see each other again.

It looked as if she had found the perfect scapegoat.

Although it was 2:00 a.m., the chandelier that hung in the three-story foyer of Stephan Volski’s fortified mansion blazed with light. It was a monstrous piece, heavy with crystal and studded with gilded eagles that were ornate enough to belong in a czar’s ballroom, which was where Stephan claimed it had originally hung. It was one of his prize possessions.

Kelly shuddered as she passed beneath it, her footsteps echoing on the marble floor. She knew that Stephan regarded her and Jamie as possessions, too. Prizes to be polished and put on display like his gaudy chandelier. They were tributes to his ego.

Sometimes she couldn’t believe she had once been naive enough to think otherwise. Could she really have been that young? Had the innocent woman she remembered ever truly existed?

There was a metallic clunking noise from behind her, followed by a series of electronic beeps as the guard at the front door locked up and reset the alarm.

Kelly kept walking. She knew there was no point looking back. It hurt too much. The only way out of this was to go forward.

The door of Stephan’s office was open when she reached it. Her shoes made no noise here—the hand-knotted carpet that covered the floor was thick enough to muffle a scream—so she took a moment to observe him in silence.

Despite the late hour, Stephan Volski was dressed in a light gray suit, his only allowance to comfort a slight loosening in the knot of his tie. His fine blond hair was neatly combed—he had it trimmed weekly. His elegantly handsome features and slender build gave him an air of sophistication. He appeared as harmless as a scholar as he bent his head over the papers that were scattered across his massive walnut desk.