Her Secret Agent

Her Secret Agent

Lynette Eason

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Contents

Cover

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Endpage

Copyright

Chapter One

Nurse Jennifer Green stepped out of the Emergency Department, gripping her keys and wondering how many people had to die before others realized texting and driving was a really bad idea.

A tall blonde followed her. “Good night, Jen.”

“Night, Heather.” Jen waved as Heather went left and she went right.

The humidity in South Carolina in the middle of July made the air thick enough to suffocate a person. Jennifer tried to drag in a breath as she rushed to her car, anxious to crank up the vehicle’s powerful air conditioner.

But approximately twenty yards later as her car came into view, she came to an abrupt halt. She couldn’t help the stunned gasp that escaped. Then the anger hit. “What are you doing here?”

Trevor Hanks, her high school sweetheart and the only man she’d ever loved, leaned against her white Toyota Corolla, arms crossed over that broad chest she’d snuggled against numerous times.

He frowned. “Well that’s a nice greeting.”

“Sorry, you surprised me.”

His stance softened. “I know.”

“So…what are you doing here?”

“I need a favor.”

Of all the nerve. The last time she’d seen him, he’d driven away with promises to meet her the next night. He’d never shown up, and she hadn’t heard a word from him since. Now, two years later, here he was asking for a favor? She simply gaped. “Really?”

Trevor sighed. “Look, I know we didn’t exactly part on good terms, but I’m working a case and I would appreciate it if you’d hear me out.”

Sweat dripped from her brow. She swiped it with the back of her hand and hitched her purse higher. “Fine. But let’s do it in comfort.” She couldn’t think in this heat and she definitely needed to be able to think around Trevor Hanks.

Once in the vehicle, she turned the air on full blast. They suffered in silence until the car finally began to cool down. She shot Trevor a sideways glance. “Where have you been for the past two years, Trevor?”

“Working.”

As a special agent for the FBI, she had no doubt he stayed busy, but surely he’d had access to a phone. “Is that what you’re doing right now? Working?”

“Sort of. The favor I need involves my job—and your family.”

That got her attention. “What do you mean, my family?”

He stared out the window for a moment then brought his eyes to hers again. “Your cousin, Justin, has been fingered in a black-market baby ring. He’s supposed to move a baby this weekend.”

Jennifer could only blink at Trevor. His words didn’t make sense. “What?”

He sighed and leaned closer. Her eyes dropped to his lips, and memories of his sweet kisses flooded her. She glanced away then met his gaze again, and the knowing look he gave her sent shivers all over her.

She put the mental brakes on. They were finished. And now he was accusing her cousin—a cousin who had been there for her when Trevor hadn’t—of hideous things. “No way. You’re wrong.”

“Then help me prove it.”

“How?”

“I need to get close to him. So…I want you to act like we’ve fallen in love again and let me be your boyfriend for the weekend.”

Jen thought she’d swallow her tongue. There wouldn’t be any acting involved. She still loved him.

“But this weekend is my family reunion.”

He gave her a slow smile. “Exactly. And this weekend, that’s what I want to be—family.”

Chapter Two

Two days later, Jennifer stared down at a body in her parents’ master bathroom, biting back a scream. She started to edge away, then realized the victim might be alive in spite of the large knife protruding from his chest. She had to check.

Jen reached out to touch his wrist, feeling for a pulse. None. But his skin was still warm. Slowly, she backed through the door and fumbled for her cell phone. She snagged it from the rear pocket of her denim shorts. Her fingers shook so hard she had trouble dialing 911.

She stopped.

Trevor. He would know what to do. For the first time this weekend, she was glad she’d brought him. Could this man be part of the illegal baby ring that Trevor was trying to bring down?

Swallowing her panic, Jennifer hurled herself down the hall and slammed into a hard chest. Trevor ginned at her. “Hey, sweetheart, I wondered where you’d gone.”

“There’s a dead body in the bathroom,” she blurted. Hysteria welled.

Trevor blinked, all sign of teasing erased from his face. “What?” He pushed past her and strode into the master bath. He stepped back and ran a hand down his face. “Okay, this wasn’t in the plan.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Call the cops.”

“You are the cops.”

“Shh!” He glanced around. “I’m undercover,” he hissed. “I’d like to keep it that way.”

“My family knows what you do for a living, Trevor.”

“But they don’t know that I’m here in that capacity. We dated in high school and then again a couple of years ago. They’re used to our on-again off-again relationship.”

Her family might be, but her heart wasn’t. It broke every time he said goodbye. Or just disappeared from her life, like he had the last time.

Trevor reached for his phone, and his calm, cool attitude helped steady her own pounding pulse. He made the report and gripped her arm. “The cops are on the way as well as the Medical Examiner and a crime-scene unit. Go tell your parents what’s going on and I’ll wait for the others to get here.”

Jen nodded then slipped around Trevor. She checked in on little one-week-old Christopher who still slept soundly in the middle of her parents’ king-size bed. The bathroom and the bedroom weren’t connected, so with the door shut, he probably hadn’t heard a thing. Outside, she headed down the grassy slope to the edge of the lake where her family had gathered to swim and water ski.

The annual family reunion. Every year, there seemed to be some new kind of drama with one of her family members. She had to say, a murder topped the list for intensity. Hysteria threatened to overtake her again, and she had to stop to catch her breath. She was a nurse. She could deal with this. She’d seen dead bodies before. It had just never hit so close to home.

Oh God, help me not to fall apart.

Chapter Three

Trevor secured the area while he waited for the sirens. He studied the dead man’s unfamiliar face as he snapped several photos with his phone. A knife in the chest meant a frontal attack. Had there been an argument? Had anyone heard anything?

He hated that Jen had walked in on this. His abrupt reappearance had already disrupted her life and resurrected feelings she’d probably considered dead and buried. He saw the spark in her eyes again every time she looked at him, and it gave him hope they might have a future together after all.

If she could forgive him.

Trevor lifted his head and listened. Sirens. He hoped Jen had a chance to fill her parents in on the situation before the cops arrived.

***

Jen approached her mother, Sybil Green, a fifty-six year old who looked ten years younger. Jen tapped her shoulder and pulled her away from her three-year-old grandson. Jen’s brother, Thomas, had been the first to make his mother a grandmother and Jen a doting aunt. Followed by Jen’s sister, Madeline, who’d just given birth last week.

Now everyone waited with bated breath for Jen to find someone and settle down. Her heart cramped at the thought. The only man she’d ever considered possible husband material had been Trevor.

From the moment he’d sat beside her in sophomore English, he’d intrigued her. He’d disappeared after college, but a mutual friend had set them up again two years ago. And when he’d taken her to church to work in his niece’s first-grade Sunday School class, her heart had been his all over again. Then he’d stomped it to pieces when he left without a word.

Her mother frowned. “What is it?”

Jen swallowed hard. How did one say this? “A man was killed in your bathroom. The police are on the way. We need to tell dad.”

Her mother gaped. “Christopher! He’s sleeping on my bed.”

“He’s fine. He was still sleeping when I checked on him before coming to find you. Trevor’s with the…body.” She shuddered. Dead bodies didn’t normally give her the heebies. As an ER nurse, she’d seen death before in many different forms. She’d just never seen it on the floor of her mother’s bathroom.

“I’ll find your father.”

“What’s going on?” Sherry, her brother’s wife, stepped up beside Jen.

“Someone killed a man in mom’s bathroom,” Jen whispered.

Sherry paled and gaped.

It didn’t take long for word to spread. Jen looked for the cousin Trevor said was involved in selling babies—had he brought a killer here, too?

Justin Clark was tall, with dark hair and a smile the girls loved. He was talking to Pierce Hastings, a family friend and her father’s lawyer.

Trevor stepped onto the porch. Several police officers followed him. One of the officers held up a hand and her family quieted. “We’re going to need to take a statement from all of you. If you know anything about the man who is dead, if you saw or heard anything strange, would you raise your hand? We’ll want to talk to you first.”

Not one hand lifted.

She looked again at Justin. He was her childhood playmate, the cousin whose shoulder she’d used to spill her tears onto when Trevor had walked away from her without a backward glance two years ago. Justin had vowed to tear the guy apart for her.

His constant loyalty and willingness to be her champion stiffened Jen’s spine. Trevor was wrong and she vowed to prove it.

No matter what.

Chapter Four

Finally, the last officer left, as had most of the family. Little Christopher lay snuggled in his mother’s arms. Madeline had had the baby monitor with her at the time of the murder, but hadn’t heard anything else that would help them figure out what had happened in the bathroom.

Trevor watched as the body was loaded into the ambulance.

“Who was he?” Jen asked.

“He didn’t have any ID on him. They’ll fingerprint him and see if anything comes up in IAFIS.”

She shuddered and shook her head. “How awful.”

He gripped her fingers and squeezed. “I’m sorry, Jen.”

She looked at him with such tenderness… He swallowed hard, praying he wasn’t stirring up something that would hurt them both. Acting as her boyfriend was one thing, losing his heart to her all over again when she might never forgive him was another. He steeled himself and refocused his thoughts.

The police had released the scene and Trevor had managed to get a hold of a friend with a crime-scene clean-up business. He’d promised to come right out and take care of the mess in the bathroom.

Trevor’s attention shifted to his ringing phone. “Hold on while I get this.”

She nodded and turned to hug her mother who was still in tears over the incident. Jen hugged her. “It’ll be all right, Mom.”

Trevor refused to let the pang in his heart distract him from the call. Detective Brandon Hayes was Trevor’s local contact and partner on the baby ring case.

Brandon said, “Our informant claims it’s all supposed to go down tomorrow, but he’s not sure when.”

“Press him. I need a time.”

“Just keep Justin Clark in your sights. He’ll lead you to the drop.”

“Keep your phone on. As soon as I know, we’ll need back up.”

“Of course I will.”

“Sorry. I just want this cleared up as quick as possible.”

“Seeing Jennifer fanning old flames?”

Justin grimaced. He should have kept his mouth shut about how he knew her. And yet he couldn’t deny the truth. “Something like that.”

***

Jen leaned against the wall and stared at her family. The hushed mood and everyone’s somber glances toward the hall had stretched her nerves tight. Was the killer still here? Was it one of her family members? Someone she trusted? The idea made her nauseous.

She kept an eye on her cousin. If he was up to something, she was going to find out what it was. Trevor’s accusations scraped down her nerves like fingernails on a chalkboard. She just couldn’t believe he was part of a black-market ring to steal babies. Wouldn’t believe it until she had proof. And hopefully, that proof would be of Justin’s innocence.

But how could she get that proof?

Just then, Justin reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. After a quick glance at the screen, he headed for the door. She looked up to find Trevor in deep conversation with her mother.

Then she followed her cousin out the door.

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