Agent Lost: A FREE Novelette

In appreciation for the support of readers and the writing community, I'm pleased to offer this FREE romantic-suspense novelette.

Even before I began writing the Dream Catcher Series, I created several stories dealing with the combination of romance and law enforcement. In this short work, Alana gets in over her head while on an undercover assignment. The man she's in love with happens to be her boss, and neither of them are ready to give up on having a future together. But first, he has to find her.

 

Agent Lost

by

Brynette L. Turner

  

Copyright © June 2015

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author or artist, except where permitted by law.

Chapter One

 Alana laughed and flopped onto the bed on her back with her legs kicking in the air. The faux brass headboard rattled against the wall with her movements. Mark stretched out beside her and placed a hand on her stomach, his smile reaching from ear to ear. To match their mood, sunlight filtered into the room through the lacy sheer curtains that covered the raised window shades.

“I guess you’re positive that you’re happy about this being positive,” he smiled as he waved the pregnancy test wand back in forth in front of her. Then he kissed her neck and pulled her closer to him. “Does this mean you’ll finally let me marry you?” He’d already asked her four times in the nine months they’d been dating.

“Yes, Mark, I’ll marry you.” The excitement and love shining in her eyes was unmistakable; this was a good thing. She propped on an elbow and sighed. “Of course, we should wait a while. You know that the moment we get married and make our relationship public, we’re both going to get reprimanded. Oh my god—do you know how many regulations we’re guilty of breaking?” She looked thoughtful as she silently counted off the number of citations they’d receive on their records. “At least six,” she finally announced.

“I don’t care.” His lips brushed across hers before traveling a path to her shoulder and back again. His arms held her more tightly against him and his muscular thigh rested possessively over hers. “We’re going to have a baby!”

They both laughed.

As FBI agents, they weren’t allowed to fraternize within the same job series working out of the same office. Since he was the Senior Special Agent in charge of her team, they definitely weren’t supposed to be having sex—it violated all of the protocols concerning potential favoritism and workplace sexual harassment (as if she would file a complaint). If they were lucky, he would only get suspended and she would be suspended for a lesser amount of time before being reassigned. She didn’t want to think about the possibility that all of his decisions regarding her as a subordinate might be challengeable. 

And then there was the fact that a month of undercover work would grind to a stop simply because there was no way she’d be allowed to finish this assignment the minute their supervisor found out about the pregnancy. Actually, as her immediate superior, Mark would have to pull her out and report his justification. If they’d known she was pregnant when the assignment started, he would have asked for someone from another team. Pregnant undercover agents did not do the type of field duty she’d been given—unnecessarily hazardous work environment, blah, blah, blah. From the expression on his face, he was having similar thoughts.

“Tonight will have to be your last night,” he said with a slight frown. “I can’t authorize you to dance in a strip club anymore. The good thing is that you’ve already given us a lot of intel and we would have moved on to other ways of surveillance in another week or two anyway.”

“Preston is going to kill us.” Their supervisor. “And, I can already hear the disappointed lecture we’re going to get. This is what we’ve been trying to avoid, Mark.” Alana closed her eyes and shook her head. She loved being an agent. She was good at it. Short of firing her, no one was going to force her to leave the Bureau. A desk job wasn’t what she’d work so hard to get, but there was no way she would risk this pregnancy. “Maybe we should leave out confessing about our relationship and only tell him about the pregnancy. I don’t have any obligation to expose who the father is.”

“Maybe.” His hand moved across her stomach up to a breast that was barely covered by a lacy push-up bra. “Or, maybe we should hit him with all of it at the same time so we can get all of our punishments out of the way.”

“Yeah, maybe.” She shifted so they were lying face to face and lightly touched his chin. “I love you.”

“And I love you.” He glanced at the clock on the bedside table that was draped in sheer fabric with lacy scalloped edges. She needed to leave in about 20 minutes.

Reluctantly, he shifted the conversation to their case. It was her job to watch Andrico Martinez, a known drug trafficker: how long was he at the club, what was he doing, who did he meet with, who did he take to his private office? Was Martinez jumpier than normal? What about his body guards: fewer, more, relaxed, more intense? They’d already noted changes in his behavior around the same times other teams had reported possible movement of drugs. They also had been able, thanks to Alana, to place some confirmed traffickers in Martinez’s establishment before some of those shipments.

Mark watched his agent change into a fuchsia corset and thong, black garter belt and super sheer black stockings: she hated getting dressed at the club. Of course, she wouldn’t put on her 6-inch “do-me” stilettos until after she arrived.

“Ready,” she announced as she pulled a long, black sundress over her outfit and adjusted the straps. Mark had just finished making the bed and was watching her. “Are you going to wait here?”

“No. I need to catch up on paperwork. I’ll be back around noon.”

That was their normal routine. It was only occasionally that he’d hang around and be there when she got off work at 3:00 a.m. A couple of times, he’d had to escort her home when she was getting too much repeated attention from men who weren’t the subjects of the investigation and who needed to know there was already a man in her life. But other than that, it was best to be as consistent as possible.

“Show time,” she whispered as they stepped into the hallway and she turned the key locking the deadbolt to the government-supplied apartment.

 

 

Chapter Two

 For a Saturday, the club was unusually quiet. A few regulars sat around the dance floor waving fives and tens for the ladies working the poles, but only about one third of the tables were full. Andrico Martinez wasn’t at his usual table. Alana wasn’t sure what was going on as she seductively strutted her firm ass across the floor while she exited the stage.

“Did you hear?” one of the other girls, also dressed in a corset and thong, asked. “Mr. Martinez booked a private party for midnight. The bouncers are turning people away to make room for the VIPs. Sounds like it’s going to be a high-tip night for us.” She smiled broadly.

Alana’s first thought was that she hoped a surveillance van was outside and could catch photos of all of the special guests. Her next thought was that the party probably wouldn’t end until sunrise and she’d be one tired dancer. Another thought was that she was glad she always kept an extra outfit in her purse because men liked variety and she felt uncomfortable wearing the costumes that most of the girls shared. No matter how much they were washed, all Alana could think of was that someone else’s coochie had already been in them. She pulled her long hair into a ponytail on top of her head and rolled her neck and shoulders to relax her muscles from having held on to the pole during her dance routine.

Ten minutes break, and then Maxine—the manager—would expect her back on stage. She grabbed a long chiffon scarf from the props box and decided to use it in her next dance. A smile crossed her lips at the thought that men liked the image of women being tied up and she had an enticing idea for using the scarf and the pole in ways that would captivate and get her bigger tips that she would secretly slip into the other girls’ purses. Maybe she’d perform her scarf tricks for Mark and see whether it turned him on. Of course it would. Getting him in the mood for sex had never been a problem.

“Max wants you,” a different girl said to Alana as she stepped into their dressing/break room. Alana took a long swallow of her bottled water and tossed it back into her bag before heading down the dimly lit hall that ran behind the stage. It wasn’t a particularly long hallway on this end of the building; the other side was a different matter. The other side had about eight private rooms and occupied a full two-thirds of the length of the structure. Alana had never been to that side because she wasn’t interested in private parties or doing lap dances.

“Come in,” a man’s voice invited in response to Alana’s light tap on the closed door.

Maxine was sitting at her desk in the middle of the floor where the wall behind her was lined with low cabinets that she kept locked and the area in front of her was filled with two oversized leather chairs and an empty coat tree. Mr. Martinez was leaning against the back of one chair. Another man stood just inside the doorway, beside the coat tree, and closed the door after Alana had entered.

“Alana, right?”

She nodded and offered a soft “yes.”

“I like you, Alana. I like the way your name is almost as sexy as you are.” Andrico Martinez took two steps towards her. “And, from the way you’re always watching me, I think you might like me too.” He laughed. It was a genuine sound: soft, amused, teasing.

“You tip well,” she offered with a shrug and a half smile.

“I’ve decided that I want to take you out of this club and take you with me.” He took another step closer and breathed in the scent of jasmine she always wore. “I’m sure you would like to stop being a stripper, right?”

Alana had to think quickly. This offer could be a very bad thing.

“I’m not going to be a stripper much longer,” she offered. She tossed a quick glance at Maxine since she hadn’t planned to discuss her departure with the woman.

“No? You have other plans?” Martinez kissed her bare shoulder. Although repulsed, she forced herself to not lean away or shiver.

“Actually, I’m pregnant and no one is gonna want to see a big belly swinging around a pole in another month or so.”

“Hmm.” Martinez walked around behind her and was silent as he kissed her other shoulder. “That doesn’t matter to me,” he whispered in her ear. When he was once again standing in front of her he asked, “What do you think I want with you?”

“I have no idea.” She tried to steady her breathing so that he wouldn’t see her nervousness.

“I want you to be mine.”

Not good. Not good. Not good. In fact it couldn’t be much worse. Going deep cover could really benefit the case, but Mark was pulling her out after tonight. She wanted to be pulled out! Think quick, she told herself. Get out of this without pissing Martinez off.

“I’m just a dancer. I’m sure one of the other girls will be interested in a different type of arrangement.”

“But, I don’t want another girl.” She could smell the mixture of liquor and coffee on his breath, noticed his dilated pupils, and wondered whether he was under the influence of anything besides the alcohol. “I want you.”

“I already have a man in my life.”

“Hmm. Do you love this man?”

“I think so.” Was that the right answer? Was it the right tone?

“And does he love you?”

“Yes.” She tried to smile and hoped it was convincing.

Andrico Martinez was quiet for a very long time. Alana looked toward Maxine to see whether she could count on the other woman for support. Nope. Maxine slid papers back and forth on her desktop and refused to look up.

“I’m not looking for a whore,” Martinez explained. “I want a woman by my side who is beautiful and exotic and special. You’re all of those things, Alana. What are you—African-American and Hispanic, or maybe Native American, or Polynesian? It doesn’t matter. You’re not like these other women and I want to know everything about you.” He stepped away and sat on the edge of Max’s desk. “Give us a moment alone,” he said without looking away from Alana.

Maxine stopped shuffling papers and acted like she couldn’t get out of the room fast enough. Her eyes never met Alana’s pleading expression.

Martinez waited for the door to close before saying very softly, “Your man can’t possibly love you if he lets you work in a place like this. But I can love you, and I’m sure that you can love me. I see it in the way you’re always watching me.”

His eyes traveled from her face to her barely covered breasts. He pushed away the fabric and fondled them before bending to lick one nipple and then the other. His hands grabbed her waist as he sucked a breast into his mouth. Alana stood still and willed herself to stop trembling. His assault only lasted a minute before he pushed the fabric back in place and straightened.

“I’ll romance you,” he said finally. “I won’t make love to you until after your child is born, and I’ll be good to you and the baby always. How far along is your pregnancy, two months? Three?

“Three.” She forced the word from a mouth that was totally dry with panic. She wasn’t that far along but was hoping the lie would help him to change his mind.

“Six months, then. For six months I’ll show you all of the wonderful advantages of being a part of my world. I’ll show you what it feels like to be special and valued. And by that time, Alana, you’ll be in love with me and you’ll be mine.”

In a louder voice, he called for his associate to come back into the room.

“Curtis will take you to your apartment so you can pack a few things and then take you to my home.”

“Don’t I even get a chance to think about this?”

“Trust me. I’m making the best decision for you. In a few months, you’ll agree.”

A few months? Alana forced down the rising fear.

Andrico Martinez placed a lingering kiss on her cheek before leaving the room.

A few months? She was an FBI agent. Don’t panic! Think dammit!  There was no way to contact Mark. Even if a surveillance team was outside, they could never guess what was going on with her. Before anyone would realize it, she’d be long gone. She walked slowly down the hallway trying to figure out a way to get away from this man and how to stop her heart from beating so hard that it was the only thing she could hear.

She couldn’t remember whether any of the teams working this case had ever figured out where Martinez lived: that hadn’t been her assignment. But someone had to know something—at the very least they could follow him from one of his clubs and come to rescue her. Her phone’s GPS would help them. That was, of course, if she wasn’t able to get to her FBI-issued weapon she kept hidden in the drawer of the nightstand in her bedroom. She had to get herself out of this mess. Curtis was a big man, but he was only one person. She could take care of him if she was armed and then call for emergency back-up; there was a panic button near her bed. A team could be at her apartment in ten minutes.

“What’s your address?” she heard him ask and barely heard herself mumble a response. In her mind, she was picturing exactly where everything was in the apartment and planning a strategy for how to gain the upper hand. She hoped her lack of response to his attempts at conversation was being interpreted at her being dazzled by Mr. Martinez’s offer.

Alana continued to act dazed as she pulled a suitcase from beneath her bed. The truth was that alarms were going off in her head and she could barely contain her fear. Curtis had sat himself on the bed between her and the nightstand. There was no way she could get to her gun or the panic button. Could she physically challenge him? She was trained to do exactly that even though he was much bigger and stronger than she. But fighting him wasn’t a real option—she might risk the pregnancy. Discouraged and angry, she started pulling clothes from the hangers and tossing them into the suitcase that already contained the contents of her underwear drawers.

The best she could do was use the emergency signal; but Mark wouldn’t return to the apartment for nearly twelve hours. Twelve hours! She took a deep breath. She couldn’t do anything about that. She deliberately snagged a silk blouse on a hanger and swore as though tearing it was an accident before tossing the ruined garment on the floor of her closet.

Curtis remained in his position at the head of her bed. She walked into the hall and into the bathroom wishing she had an extra gun in the linen closet. Instead, without him noticing, she grabbed a pair of lace panties from the laundry hamper in the bathroom and hung them on the hook behind the door before grabbing her toiletries and shoving them into a small duffel bag that she tossed into the suitcase.

“Ready?” he asked. When she nodded, he zipped the suitcase and followed her to the door. She took one worried look over her shoulder before closing it behind them. She deliberately didn’t engage the deadbolt.

Find me, Mark, she prayed as they left the building and she fought back the tears trying to well in her eyes. Come find me.

 

Chapter Three

 Mark was whistling as he climbed the stairs to the 2^nd floor apartment that was Alana’s home while she was on assignment. Today, he didn’t even mind the fact that this wasn’t the most secure neighborhood or that the building was a little rundown. Alana wouldn’t be coming back here. A baby. They were going to have a baby. He carried corned beef sandwiches and fruit salad from her favorite deli. Noon. She was probably still in bed. Would she need more rest now that she was pregnant? It didn’t matter. She wasn’t going to be working nights any longer.

A red flag went up the minute he turned his key in the deadbolt. It wasn’t locked. Double locks were designed to keep agents safe and give them an extra few seconds to get to their weapons if they were in trouble. In the years she’d been on his team, it was a protocol that Alana had never broken. Never.

He set the food on the floor and pulled his weapon from the waistband holster before inserting a second key into the handle lock. As usual, it turned without much resistance.  Standing to the side where the opening door could still shield him, he called her name. No response.

“Baby, are you home?” he called more loudly. Quiet. Placing both hands on his gun, he used his foot to edge the door fully open before crouching slightly and entering the room. A quick grid search of the sparsely decorated livingroom took only seconds. He entered carefully, sliding his back against the wall and moving toward the kitchen. Empty. Hands extended, elbows slightly bent, he nudged the front door closed with his foot and proceeded down the hallway toward the single bedroom. Empty.

What he saw made his heart stop. Drawers partially open. Closet cleaned out. No Alana. But he saw the signal. A red silk blouse lay crumpled on the closet floor. He picked it up; it was ripped. He had to swallow the panic.

Rip something red. If you can’t rip it, leave it in plain view. Alana had done both. It was what they’d agreed on if she got into trouble. It was the sign his team always discussed but had never needed to use.

With his heart pounding, Mark pulled out his cell phone and hit a number. Quickly, he gave the address and the words no one wanted to say: Agent lost. Then, he followed protocol and sat on the neatly-made bed where he was less likely to disturb any evidence that might help them find Alana. A team would arrive soon, but soon was a long time to think about the fact that he didn’t know where she was: his partner, the other half of his life, the mother of his unborn child.

His mind sped through all of the reports he had read from her and the other team members. None of that information gave any clues to where she could be.  He’d have to go through the papers again. No one had been hassling her at the club, at least nothing so serious that an occasional appearance by him hadn’t discouraged. There weren’t any conflicts between her and the other dancers—and no friendships either. She didn’t interact with the subjects of their investigation. Her role was to observe and report.  She danced and flirted and watched.

Who would want to take her? Someone had. Why? She was just a dancer. So, while she was watching Andrico Martinez and his associates, someone powerful enough to kidnap her had been watching her. As far as anyone knew, Martinez’s connections didn’t extend to human trafficking, but who knew whether all of the dancers were there by their own free choice. Now Mark sat at the foot of his lover’s bed and prayed their intel on that issue had been correct. Scenarios, no matter how unlikely, ran through his mind. He took a deep breath. You’re an FBI agent, dammit. Think! But all he could think of was the sound of her laughing as they looked at the pregnancy test results and the way her brown eyes had been soft and sincere when she’d said she loved him.

Anger and self-recrimination spread from the center of his chest.

He hadn’t done his job. In addition to being the man she loved, he was her team leader. Her safety was his responsibility and he hadn’t kept her safe. A lump formed in his throat and a brick settled in his stomach. He would find her.

The FBI wouldn’t stop searching until they did. He’d never stop searching.

*****

Mark watched as a crime scene team went through the apartment searching for clues and evidence. They found a second distress signal—a red thong hanging behind the bathroom door when there were other undergarments in the hamper in the same room. They found her FBI-issued weapon in the bedside table.

Help me, Mark! I’m in trouble. The words couldn’t have been any louder in his head than if she was standing beside him.

Supervisory Special Agent Jason Preston arrived on the scene and motioned for Mark to join him outside. The two men took a nearly-silent walk out of the building and half a block down the street.

“The surveillance team at the club didn’t see her leave,” Preston eventually said. “And her car was still in the parking lot. We had it towed to our garage and we’ll be checking everything thoroughly. But, I wanted to tell you myself that her phone is in the car—we can’t use the GPS to track her.”

The air rushed out of Mark’s lungs and he ran fingers through his light brown wavy hair.

“I’ve talked to all of the other team leaders; everyone knows we have a lost agent. We’ll find her.” Mark could only nod. His deep blue eyes locked with his supervisor’s hazel ones. They both understood how difficult that was going to be. “Tell me everything you know.”

Mark told him about the reports he’d gone through over and over in his head while he’d been waiting for his supervisor to arrive, the list of known subjects that were parts of this multi-faceted investigation, what she’d been wearing the previous day, the normal routine of Alana’s life, their plans to meet at noon, his arrival at the apartment, his immediate reporting of the abduction. He left out the information about Alana being pregnant and the fact that they were having an affair because Jason Preston would have instantly removed Mark from the search. He couldn’t afford to become an outsider. He needed to know the details of what each of the teams was reporting.

Without Alana being the eyes and ears inside of the strip club, Agent Preston decided they probably weren’t going to get any more useful information from that location and reassigned Mark’s team to lead the search. Every scrap of information would come directly to him and he would continue to report to Preston.

Mark got through every day by pouring over the reports that other teams had previously filed, but the case was nearly a year old. That meant a lot of data to review.  Maybe something that hadn’t seemed important at the time was going to be relevant. He lived on coffee and anxiety. He slept two or three hours before looking over more reports and photos, keeping a change of clothes at the office so he wouldn’t have to go home unless absolutely necessary, forgetting to eat unless someone brought food to him. He was exhausted but too driven to think of anything else. Without Alana, he was empty and lost and was frantic to find her. After five days, he was frustrated and disgusted with himself. He called his team together to go over exactly what had happened that night.

“We know that there was a private party,” Lawrence offered, “and that most of those men attending it have been identified through other surveillance teams.”

“I’m trying to get intel on these three who we don’t know,” Caitlin assured him as she spread some photos on the table in the conference room. “There aren’t a lot of houses in the area, so we’ve canvassed the businesses several times to see if anyone remembers seeing these men. So far, no luck.”

“Local PD sent someone into the club pretending to be a Fire Marshall and checked all of the rooms on Monday. The only person there was the bartender because he was receiving the weekly booze delivery. None of the rooms were suspicious.”

“What does that mean?” Mark ran his hands through his hair.

“No beds, no hidden areas in storage rooms where a person could be concealed, no signs that anyone is there other than right before and after the club is open, everything neatly put away and cleaned up—nothing for us to think anything out of the ordinary happened.”

Dead end.

“Jacobs is pulling in every confidential informant we can identify from any cases that relate to ours and also ones that work in the area of the strip club. Maybe one of them can help us ID these three guys.” Mark looked at his team. “What else do we know? What are we missing? Let’s go through the video frame by frame—I have a feeling that we’re not seeing something. Alana didn’t disappear on her own.”

They went through the images of the dancers entering the building through the rear door and noted when they left. Everyone except Alana was accounted for. They switched to the front entrance.

“Martinez arrived around 11:00. This is him entering the building.”

“Who’s that with him?” Peter asked.

“We don’t know for sure, but we think he’s a body guard. He’s in other photos with Martinez but we don’t have any information on him.”

They spent the next fifteen minutes going over when each guest arrived and when he left.

“This is Martinez leaving at 3:49 a.m.” Mark shook his head and stared at their prime suspect. “What did you do with her?” he mumbled, discouraged.

“Wait. Wait a second. Stop the video.” Peter’s excitement caught everyone’s attention. “We know that the manager was the last person to leave through the rear entrance at 4:12. Alana wasn’t with her, she didn’t leave with the other girls, and she wasn’t with Martinez. If our guy is alone, where is his body guard?”

Every agent looked at their notes. Each person who had gone in could be seen coming out later, all except for the one large dark-skinned man who had arrived with Martinez. They slowed down all of the footage to double check from the time guests started trickling out. No six-foot-three bouncer weighing between 270 and 290 pounds. He and Alana were the only two not accounted for.

“There were cameras on the front and back entrances. Was there a side door?”

“I’ll check it out,” Peter offered. Mark nodded and hoped this information would give them a new place to focus. He put a fresh pot of coffee on to brew and called Jason Preston with this latest news. Then, he told everyone else to grab lunch. Caitlin offered to bring him a sandwich from the cafeteria.

Everyone knew Mark would spend the next hour searching through other surveillance teams’ photos to see whether anyone else had captured this man on camera. Then he’d personally call those team leaders to find out what they knew. Lawrence stayed to help.

Peter, the video technician, drove to the building and found a narrow walkway between the club and the adjacent building. Yes, there was a door that couldn’t have been picked up by either of the cameras and there was no way they could have mounted a camera without it being detected. The walkway led to the parking lot in one direction and a small alley in the other.

Perhaps a traffic or security camera had caught something that might be vital.

While Mark was looking through photos, the technician was walking the area and locating any cameras for which they might be able to request tapes from that night. He found two traffic cams and one security camera from a pawn shop half a block away. He called in a request for the traffic camera footage, but it wasn’t necessary. After flashing a badge at the pawn shop and telling the owner what he needed, Peter Hines walked out of the building with a disc containing a clear photo of Alana Jackson and her kidnapper. Moments later he was on his way back to the office to run facial recognition software against current local drivers’ license photos.

Armed with a description of a possible suspect, a second video technician returned to Alana’s neighborhood and started a visual search for other cameras that might have caught the couple, or at least the man, leaving the area. Two agents knocked on doors in Alana’s apartment building and the ones that flanked hers showing the residents a photo of the kidnapper. No luck.

Still, by the end of the next day, all of the team leaders were sitting in a briefing led by Mark in which they had positive identification of the driver Curtis Morris, details about the car registered in his name, his home address, and a request for all phone and cell phone records associated with him. City and county law enforcement agencies were instructed to be on the lookout for, but not to apprehend, the suspect. A 24-hour stakeout was set up in a vacant house across the street from his home.

It was the first encouraging discovery in nearly a week.

Chapter Four

True to his word, Andrico Martinez did not demand sex from Alana. But he did make her sit on his lap so that she could feel his erection while he kissed her breasts or fondled her ass. “This is what you do to me,” he always said. She tried not to cringe or pull away whenever his mouth closed over hers. He was not gentle. In fact, he was almost brutal. Making him angry might be a mistake, and she never let herself forget that he was a very dangerous man. After all, he had kidnapped her.

For the time being, she was his prisoner. She was confined to the house unless he was home and she spent most of that time in her bedroom. It was a gorgeous room with a four-post bed and matching antique dressers, a huge walk-in closet where the clothes she brought with her barely filled a tenth of the space. The private bathroom had an eight-foot long vanity and Jacuzzi bath tub. Luxurious towels. Silk sheets. He was a man who collected beautiful things—like her.

“I don’t like your clothes,” he told her on the second day of her captivity. “We’re going shopping in the morning.”

Accompanied by Curtis (who she noticed was always armed) Alana shopped at the upscale stores in Beverly Hills. Martinez watched her try on everything and chose what she could and could not have. Money was no problem—he wanted her dressed elegantly, even if the clothes wouldn’t fit in another month. He’d simply buy more, he assured her. Diamond earrings. Gold watches. She deserved them, he said as he picked out fragrances and bath oils and scented candles. He took her to a stylist and had her long hair highlighted and trimmed and to a spa for a four-hour make-over.

When they returned to his home, he couldn’t keep his hands off her.

“You promised,” she whispered in a frightened voice when he lost control and almost stripped her naked, his erection so hard it could barely be contained in his pants.

“Then just touch me.” He unzipped his pants and shoved her hand inside. He moaned the second her flesh met his and started to move against her fingers. He sucked on her breasts, kissed her neck, and whispered in her ear that one day he would be her very attentive lover.  Martinez told her everything he would do to her and that he wanted her to do to him. “One day,” he reminded her.

Alana thought she might be sick. But then, he composed himself and pushed her away.

“Go to your room before I forget my promise,” came out in a hoarse whisper.

She nearly ran up the stairs. The bedroom door was closed and locked before she let angry tears trickle down her face.

But the next morning, his personal chef prepared a feast as if they were celebrating. Martinez acted like the perfect host. He apologized for the previous night. Then, they talked.

He told her about his family of four brothers who ran various business enterprises and sent money back to Puerto Rico so that his parents and two sisters could have the lifestyle of the wealthy tourists that found their island so charming. And of course, they traveled. His family would like Alana because she was beautiful and classy—in spite of where they’d met, he could tell that about her.

She told him her cover story that she was an only child and that her parents lived in Arizona because of her mother’s chronic asthma. She didn’t come from a prosperous family and was only in Los Angeles because she’d always wanted to see it. But then, she’d run out of money and took a job as a stripper because it allowed her to take care of herself, go to beautiful places every once in a while, and stay in the city that was always alive and mysterious.

He’d laughed at her for thinking Los Angeles was mysterious.

“Everyone here lets everything show. It’s a shallow and self-serving city.”

“And yet, you stay.” She looked at him over the rim of her water goblet that was filled with an orange juice and vitamin concoction.

“Only for part of the year. Once your baby is born, we’ll visit my family and then visit someplace fun. I’ll take you to whatever beautiful places you want to go.”

“I don’t want to be here,” she said quietly. “My life might not have seemed like much to you, but I had my freedom and my own goals.”

“You’ll adjust,” was his dismissive response. He shrugged and added, “I can give you much, much more than the goals you set for yourself.” A hand swept around them indicating the beautiful gold and white sunroom with tall tropical plants and high ceilings with fans that kept the room comfortable. Alana might have enjoyed the room and the view of a manicured yard and swimming pool if it was not for the fact that she was being held against her will.

As she’d been trained to do, Alana watched everything: where they went when her captor didn’t want to eat at home, who he seemed friendly with, the routes to and from his large house in an upscale community. And she listened to how he spoke to certain people with impatience and meanness and to others with a polished charm. He was a volatile man.

And he never left her unguarded. If he or Curtis were not around, Andrico had other men who made sure she didn’t leave the grounds. It was during these absences while her captor conducted his business that Alana allowed herself to cry.

She was afraid. Already a week had passed and Mark hadn’t found her. If only she hadn’t lost her cell phone, maybe she would be home now—in her real home instead of the shabby apartment where she’d lived for the previous month while undercover. She knew the missing persons statistics and that the Bureau wouldn’t be able to devote unlimited resources to finding her for very long, if in fact that was what they were doing. Of course they are, she reminded herself. A lost agent was always a high priority. Still, she couldn’t rid herself of the doubt and sadness brought on by her circumstance.

But what made her saddest was that she missed everything about Mark: his sincerity, the way he held her, his laughter, the way he’d looked when she finally said she would marry him.

Her thoughts turned to the day they accepted that the attraction between them couldn’t be ignored any longer. The team was at her house watching a football game, but neither Mark nor Alana was fully paying attention. It was too easy for him to get distracted by her laughter or for her breathing to change when she caught him staring at her. This desire that they’d been able to hide from everyone else had been building for most of the three years they’d been working together. After the game, Mark had stayed to help clean up. When Alana had set the last glass in the dishwasher, he reached over to touch her cheek and his sigh matched hers.

“I know we shouldn’t do this,” he’d said quietly while standing at her kitchen sink holding her and caressing her body as if he wanted to know every inch of it. “We could get into a lot of trouble.” Her fingers played in the soft curls of his neat haircut.

“I promise not to file a sexual harassment suit,” she’d joked.

And then, they’d kissed and nothing else had mattered. All that time of pretending they were only interested in each other as colleagues melted away.

They took their time making love that night. Alana had been captivated by the way he caressed her as if she was a delicate flower, his fingers moving so lightly across her body that they seemed to barely touch her. There was fire everywhere their bodies connected. This was no casual encounter—and he made sure she would never mistake it for one. Gentle. Cherishing. Slow to the point of being painful. Intense to the point of being indisputable.

He loved her.

A month later, when he asked her to marry him (for the first time) she’d kissed him lightly and said it was too soon. “Someday,” she’d promised. “I love you, and I want you to ask me again—just not right now, okay?” He’d nodded without seeming upset. They knew how important her career was to her and how marrying him would change that significantly. Every couple of months after that, he gave her a single rose with a card attached that only had a question mark. And every time she’d smiled and kissed him and never given him an answer. Until the baby.

Find me, Mark. Please, come and get me. She silently cried into her pillow.

Chapter Five

  

Curtis Morris never returned to the address on his driver’s license. After a few days, the stake-out was called off. The search would have to take a different direction.

Unfortunately, for that first week that Alana was missing, Andrico Martinez was also nowhere to be found—wherever he was, it wasn’t at any of the clubs that the FBI knew about. Wherever Alana was, Andrico was with her. Mark only prayed that they were still in the area. Martinez’s photograph and information was added to the data provided to local law enforcement agencies.

Mark sat at his desk staring out the window but not seeing the sunny sky or the occasional bird that flew past.

“Where are you?” he whispered as though the thought could travel to his lost lover.

Across town, Alana was realizing that she needed to help Mark rescue her and formulated a plan. Day ten. She appeared at breakfast wearing a swimsuit under cut-off jeans and a fitted red tee-shirt.

“Can we go to the beach?” she asked as she picked over the eggs that were scrambled to perfection.

“We have a swimming pool.”

“We don’t have sand,” she challenged.

Andrico stared at her. He set down the electronic tablet on which he was reading the daily newspaper and leaned forward.

“You’ve taken my entire life,” she said boldly. “The least you could do is let me out of this house to do something I want instead of only the things you decide. Today, I want to go to a real beach with people who sell cotton candy and gelato and there are artists offering to draw you in caricature. Where there are kids building sand castles and college students playing beach volleyball. You have to give me something, Andrico, or I’ll go crazy sitting in this house.”

“Okay,” he relented with a grin. “That’s the first time you’ve ever said my first name. We’re making progress. I’ll change clothes.” And with that he rose, gave her a kiss on the cheek, and strode out of the room.

“Will Santa Monica Beach satisfy you?” he asked when he returned to the breakfast room ten minutes later dressed in long shorts and a loose fitting shirt.

“Yes.” She gave him a big smile.

 It hadn’t taken Alana long to understand that Curtis was her captor’s personal flunky. Wherever Andrico Martinez went, so did he. Today would be no exception. But, hopefully today that might work in her favor. There were lots of cameras on the Santa Monica Pier; and, with Curtis constantly looking around to make sure there was no threat to his boss, they would be a conspicuously awkward threesome. Her plan was counting on the assumption that protocol was being followed and that, by now, every cop in the county should know what she and Andrico Martinez looked like.

It was a good outing. They walked along the pier and ate and people-watched. As far as Andrico knew, Alana was simply having a good time. She constantly reminded herself to smile while she took every opportunity to search for anything that might help her. At one point, she made sure they sat on a bench where she’d already seen a security camera. When Curtis wasn’t paying attention, she looked directly at it. But she realized the wind was blowing her hair into her face and that she might not be easily recognizable.

Half an hour later, she asked, “Can you hold my ice cream, please?” She handed the cup to Andrico, pulled the red scarf she was using as a belt, and tied her hair into a pony tail. All the while, she was making sure that her body was turned towards a different camera that was probably 10 feet behind Martinez’s head. Now the scarf was blowing in the wind, hopefully drawing attention.

Of course, one of the benefits of going to the beach was walking along the shoreline and having the waves wash across your feet. Andrico stayed at least ten feet away and commented constantly that the beaches in Puerto Rico were much, much better. Alana took off her shorts and waded into the water up to her thighs. Okay, so it wasn’t the cleanest water in the world, but the longer the threesome stayed out, the better chance she had of one or all of them being recognized by a strolling police officer or someone monitoring the cameras inside some control room. She was a missing FBI agent, after all.

*****

It was almost 9:00 p.m. and Mark was still at the office. He was desperate to find Andrico Martinez and was scrutinizing every document or report that indicated where his businesses were located. There was a ton of information to be sifted through. This man, who had taken the woman of his life, couldn’t stay out of touch forever. He would have to surface eventually simply as a matter of handling his business affairs. Maybe there was a pattern to how he engaged with each company: this one on a certain day of the week, another at a routine time of day, one in person, another via Curtis Morris or some other person who’d already been connected to Martinez. Mark was busy charting the information on his computer when the phone rang.

“Stevens,” he said distractedly.

“Hey, Mark. I’m sending you an email. Open it and meet me downstairs in five minutes.” Preston clicked off the call.

Frustrated, Mark minimized what he was working on and opened his email.

His heart stopped. There in gorgeous clarity was a photo of Alana tying her hair back with a scarf with Curtis Morris almost out of the frame of the picture, but Martinez definitely in profile in front of her. His fingers reached out to touch the screen. Smart woman. Beautiful, amazing, smart woman. He closed out everything he was working on, grabbed his jacket, and almost ran to the elevator.

“Santa Monica Pier,” Preston said as soon as Mark stepped out of the steel box. “That photo was taken about three hours ago.”

Mark’s heart pounded. Three hours was a long time, but at least he knew she was nearby.

“A patrolman spotted them on the beach and called for the control station to monitor the cameras until they could get an unmarked car to the area. Get your vest. We know where they are and S.WA.T. is waiting for us before they go in.”

As they walked to the garage, Jason Preston filled in the missing details. Alana and Martinez spent the afternoon at the beach before eating at an outdoor café and then heading back to Bel Air. Santa Monica detectives followed them until a Bureau agent could take over. Two unmarked cars discretely kept tabs on them. “Right now, West L.A. cops have the area blocked off and our S.W.A.T. guys are inside the perimeter. All we need now is for you to go in and rescue your girlfriend.”

Mark stared at his boss, eyes wide with shock. “You knew?”

“I’ve known for a while. I just didn’t feel like making a big deal out of it unless someone else brought it to my attention—which no one has, yet.” There was a long moment of awkward silence. “But I don’t think you’re going to be able to hide it much longer, so I’m going to quietly reassign her when we get back. She’ll be off your team.”

“And me?”

“Written reprimand and a 10-days suspension without pay.” He sighed as though he didn’t want to impose the punishment.

Mark nodded. It was less harsh than he’d expected.

“Can I ask, why now?”

Jason Preston smiled and said, “Our crime scene team was pretty thorough in searching every inch of the apartment. So, do I really need to answer that?”

“I guess not.” Was it the body fluids that confirmed Alana had recently had sex? In that case he’d be found out because all agents’ DNA was in the system. Or was it the pregnancy test that was undoubtedly still in the bathroom trash can? An agent undercover rarely spent time with anyone outside of his or her team, and mostly only with her contact person. Alana had only been alone with him—suspicions and speculations were right around the corner. 

*****

Less than 15 minutes later, Mark was right behind the group of heavy tactical agents when they yelled “FBI” and slammed the battering ram through the front double doors of a very expensive home secluded by a long driveway and ten-feet tall shrubbery. Shouts of “FBI … get on the floor … let me see your hands … is there anyone else in the house? … first floor clear … second floor clear … perimeter clear … all clear, sir.”

Senior Special Agent Mark Stevens stepped into the foyer, holstered his weapon, and immediately began looking around. “Where is she?” he demanded from Martinez who was handcuffed and face down on the plush carpet of the livingroom floor.

“Upstairs. Left side. Second door.”

Mark couldn’t get up the stairs fast enough. He could hear an exasperated Alana trying to explain to one of the officers that she was Special Agent Alana Parker, they were there to rescue her, no she didn’t have her credentials but her driver’s license should suffice, and that they needed to give her a minute to get some clothes on.

“Not until we get the all clear from our boss, ma’am.”

“It’s fine. She’s my partner,” Mark said as he flashed his badge and stepped past the two officers. Their eyes met and he smiled.

“It took you long enough!” she teased before taking two steps and throwing her arms around his waist just as he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and hugged her tightly. He dropped a discreet kiss on the top of her forehead.

“Are you okay?” Unable to speak, she simply nodded. “Give us a minute,” he said to the officers and waited until they had stepped out of the room. “I’ve been going crazy trying to find you. I’m no good without you.” When she still didn’t say anything, he knew it was because she was too choked up to talk. He cleared his throat to remove the lump that had suddenly lodged there.

“I didn’t know whether I would ever see you again,” she finally whispered and her arms closed even more tightly around him.

“Preston is downstairs. I’m not sure whether he’s going to come up or is waiting for us to come down.”

“Okay,” she said with a shaky sigh. “I need to get dressed.”

It wasn’t until then that Mark realized she was wearing a satin robe with nothing on underneath. “I’ll give you some privacy.”

“No, don’t go. I’ll just take a minute.” She turned and disappeared into a huge walk-through closet only to return pulling an ankle-length sun dress over a lacy thong. It was the same dress she’d worn the last time he’d seen her get dressed for work. Her brown eyes met his blue ones and she could read his unspoken question. “I’m all right, Mark. Nothing happened.” She came to within a foot of where he stood and reached up to touch his chin. “I’m all right.”

“Hey,” a voice said from the doorway. Supervisory Special Agent Jason Preston. “I’m glad to see you, Agent Parker.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“I know it’s late, but you need to make a statement. We can do a full debrief in the morning, but I’d prefer to have at least the basics in writing tonight to officially charge Martinez with kidnapping a federal officer. We’re not going to let some sleazy lawyer try to discredit the arrest.”

“Okay.” She took a deep breath and nodded. “Do you want to do it here or downtown?”

“I have to take Stevens back to his car, so we might as well do it downtown. Do you need to be checked by paramedics?” She shook her head. “I’ll give you a few minutes to grab a few personal items—just remember that this is a crime scene.” It was a reminder that she should disturb and remove a little as possible and that she wouldn’t be able to keep the items Martinez had bought for her. No argument there.

“Yes, sir.” She watched him walk away before turning to go back to the closet. She grabbed the large purse that she had been using for her stripper clothes and threw a few outfits in there along with some basic toiletries. Tonight, she would be able to go to her own home, sleep in her own bed, get up in the morning, and get dressed in clothes that neither made her feel like an exotic dancer nor a kept woman. She could wake up in the morning and have her life back. And her man. She looked at him and smiled.

“What?”

“It’s over.”

He smiled back. “Yeah, it’s over.”

Chapter Six

 It was after midnight before Preston and a few other FBI agents were done taking Alana’s preliminary statement. Mark drove to his house to get a change of clothes before taking her home. Until the Bureau released Alana’s car, they’d be carpooling. On top of that, he didn’t plan on spending one minute away from her than was absolutely necessary.

Five seconds after she turned on the dim lamp in her foyer and he closed the front door behind them, they were holding each other the way they’d wanted to from the moment he’d walked into that lavish bedroom of her prison. He dropped kisses all over her face and wrapped his arms tightly around her waist. Her hands were everywhere, holding him tight against her, rubbing the tension and worry out of his back and shoulders. And then there were those soul-stirring kisses that had the power to wipe away all of their anxiety.

“I am so in love with you that I don’t even know what to say,” he breathed against her mouth.

“Same here.” She took a step back and held on to his hands. “Come to bed, Mark. Tell me again how everything is going to be alright. And hold me—just hold me until I fall asleep. Because I’ve missed you and ten days felt like forever.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t find you sooner.”

“It’s okay. You didn’t know where to look.” She kissed him. “Come to bed.”

The light from the foyer lamp was enough to see their way up the stairs and down the hallway to her bedroom. They slowly undressed each other and then slid between the cool sheets of a bed that had been empty for more than a month. Everything felt right, now. In each other’s arms, they felt complete.

“Preston knows about us,” Mark said as he pulled her closer against him. “He’s not going to make a big production of it, but you’re getting reassigned and I’m getting a written reprimand and ten days without pay, starting Monday.”

Alana kissed his chest. At the moment, she didn’t care about her job. She only cared about how wonderful it felt to be able to touch him again. She closed her eyes and felt safe and cherished by the way his hands moved over her body so gently yet possessively.

They fell asleep wrapped in each other.

In the morning, they made love slowly, tenderly, and savoring every touch and every kiss.

It was nearly 9:00 when they walked into their office at the local FBI headquarters. The room erupted with cheers and congratulations. Alana was told repeatedly how hard Mark had worked everyone in his effort to find her, how so many of them had tirelessly gone over the reports again and again, and how happy they were that she was back safely.

The official debriefing started at 9:30 with Special Agent in Charge Charlene Wilson, Supervisory Special Agent Preston, Senior Special Agent and Team Lead Stevens, Special Agent Parker, two lawyers, and a stenographer. They took a break at noon and reconvened at 12:45. By the time they left the conference room at seven o’clock, everyone was fully satisfied with Alana’s account of how she had been kidnapped and what had ensued in those days that she’d been held against her will.

Questions about why she wasn’t able to escape often sounded like accusations, but she was firm in assuring them that she was guarded at all times. Protocol was to stay in place, stay alive, and wait for assistance. Although there had been no sexual assault, there had been some sexual contact. She deliberately avoided looking at Mark when she had to describe the groping and kissing. Then, she had to explain about the pregnancy and that Andrico Martinez was obsessed with making her fall in love with him—he wanted that more than sex, and so he had stopped himself just short of raping her. Questions about the types of gifts he lavished on her were obviously designed to make sure that she couldn’t be accused of taking any material possessions in exchange for potentially being lenient in her testimony against Martinez. Alana would need to go through the house to retrieve her personal items and to make an inventory of all of the things he’d bought for her. She understood, but it still irritated her that they would think she wanted anything from him. And leniency wasn’t a consideration; she wanted him in jail without bail, while they continued to build more charges against him on the original case. There was no question about that.

While the inquisition ended for that day, the lawyers and superiors would undoubtedly go over the statement and come up with more questions. In the meantime, she was free to go home.

She and Mark were mostly quiet on the drive. It was a comfortable silence they’d always shared. She never let go of his hand. The couple stopped to buy groceries and Mark promised he would cook her favorite meal: chicken roasted with potatoes and stewed tomatoes, asparagus with his special hollandaise sauce, and his grandmother’s quickie peach cobbler with toasted pecans and vanilla bean ice cream.  

“I have a confession,” Alana said as she sat at her breakfast counter sipping lemon-lime soda and munching on a chunk of cheese while he prepared the meal. “I know my official statement sounded like I was this resourceful, brave, and strong agent who kept her wits and was clear-headed and focused throughout the ordeal. But that’s not true. My plan to use the cameras at the pier wasn’t anything more than a half-thought-out long shot that maybe someone would see me there or on a traffic camera because I knew that you would never stop looking.”

Mark’s guilt-ridden eyes studied her for a long time before he softly said, “But I didn’t find you, Alana. You were smart enough to assess the situation and stay alive. You got yourself free.”

“Only because you and Preston made sure that every cop in the area had seen my face and was looking for me. No one would have noticed me on that pier if not for you.” She reached a hand toward him and his fingers closed around hers. “I was afraid. I was helpless. And I was angry. With all of the boxing and martial arts training and excellent shooting skills, I still had no control over the situation. I’m a good agent but the only way I could survive was to seem weak and let him know that he always had the upper hand. He always had the control. The only way to keep him in line was to never show how much he disgusted me or how much I honestly wanted to put a bullet in his brain. But, trust me, those thoughts were always there. Mark, I wasn’t thinking as an FBI agent, only as a desperate woman who missed you so much I could barely stand it and who hated Martinez for daring to keep us apart. I thought you should know that.”

“I’m sorry.” He settled onto a stool and rested his forehead against hers. “It was my job to keep you safe, and I didn’t do that.”

“You couldn’t have known. Even I didn’t suspect—he never said one word to me until the night he took me.” She let out a shaky sigh. “I’m going to need help to deal with this, Mark. I’m going to take the counseling sessions the Bureau offers until I feel strong again. Until the rage that’s bubbling under the surface goes away.”

“Okay.” He kissed her cheek. “I’m right beside you, Alana. I always will be, so whatever you need, just ask.”

She leaned back so that she could look into his eyes. “When I was away, I felt lost; not only because of being kidnapped but because I also felt off balance without you. So, what I really need is to be your wife. I need to focus on the happiness our future will bring.” She placed one of his hands on her belly.

Mark’s smile stretched from ear to ear. It reminded Alana of his expression in those moments right after she’d found out she was pregnant. “Just tell me when.”

“Well, it’s customary for a traumatized agent to receive five days of paid leave to decompress before going through mandatory psych sessions.” She shrugged. “I’m taking the time off next week. Your suspension starts on Monday. That sounds like a good day.”

“Monday?”

Alana nodded.

“You don’t want to plan a wedding?”

“Nope. I just want to get married. We’ll call our family and invite them to City Hall, but I don’t want to wait anymore.” She gave him a bright smile.

Mark pulled her off the stool and into a bear hug. He peppered her face with kisses until she was laughing so hard that he had to hold her up. What she’d said about feeling off balance was true for him, too. He loved everything about her and could barely function without her. He held her against his beating heart and said a silent prayer of thanks that she had come back to him safe.

Monday.

In less than a week, Alana would officially and publicly be his.

Finally.

The End