Hot Target

by Suzanne Brockmann

Excerpt

            Cosmo's mother was driving him crazy.

            Well, okay, to be fair, it wasn't his mom, but rather her choice of music that had pushed him out of her condo, into his truck, and back down the 5, here to San Diego.

            He parked in the lot next to the squat, ugly building that held the offices of Troubleshooters Incorporated.  The sun was warm on the back of his neck as he crossed to the door.  As usual, it was locked -- apparently Tommy Paoletti had had no luck yet finding a receptionist for his personal security company.  But he had installed a system that would allow him to let people in without having to run all the way out to the door twenty times a day.

            A surveillance camera hung overhead, and Cosmo looked up at it, making sure Tommy would be able to see his face as he hit the bell. 

            The lock clicked open as a buzzer sounded, and he went inside. 

            "Grab some coffee, I'll be right out," Tom shouted from one of the back offices.  "How's your mom?"

            "Much better, thanks," Cosmo called back. 

            And she was.  Right after the accident, when Cosmo had first gone to see her, she'd been in a lot of pain.  Her face had been almost gray, and she'd looked old and frail lying in that hospital bed. 

            But she'd been home a few days now and was feeling far more her old self.

            Which was great.

            But, dear sweet Jesus, if he had to listen to the soundtrack from Jekyll & Hyde one more time, he was going to scream. 

            Cos took his coffee and sank down into one of the new leather sofas in the Troubleshooters waiting room.  Buttery soft and a light shade of honey brown, they replaced the former mismatched collection of overstuffed chairs -- thrift shop rejects -- that had cluttered the area in front of the receptionist's desk. 

            Whoa, the walls had been repainted, too. 

            Tom's wife, Kelly, had been threatening to redecorate for months, insisting that the image Tom was trying for with his new company probably wasn't "piss poor and tasteless to boot."

            "Are you here for the meeting?"

            Cosmo looked up.  The woman coming down the hall toward him was a stranger.  She was wearing a pinstriped suit that had been tailored to accentuate her feminine shape.  Petite, with blond hair cut short and delicate features in a launch-a-thousand-ships face, her blue eyes were coolly polite.  Professional.  Ivy-league intelligent. 

            Her hands were ring-free.  Both of them.  Her fingernails were short, bitten down almost to the quick -- a direct and intriguing contrast to the career-woman persona. 

            She took a few steps closer and tried again.  "May I help you?"

            "No, ma'am," he finally answered her, then mentally kicked himself.  Talk, asshole.  She mostly certainly could help him.  He would love for her to help him.  And at least be polite. "Thanks."  More.  Explain.  "I'm waiting for Commander Paoletti." 

            She finally smiled, and it transformed her from merely breathtakingly beautiful to full-power-defibrilator heartstoppingly gorgeous.  He wanted to drop to his knees, and beg her to bear his children. 

            "You must be one of his SEALs," she said.

            "Yes, ma'am."  Stand up, fool.  But, Christ, don't spill the coffee... Too late.  It splashed over the edge the cup and onto his fingers.  Gahhhhd, it was hot.

            She pretended not to notice as he pretended that he hadn't just been scalded.  She even held out her hand to shake.  "I'm Sophia Ghaffari." 

            Sophia.  It was a beautiful name, and by all rights violins should have started playing when she said it.  She looked like a Sophia, she dressed like a Sophia, she even smelled like a Sophia. 

            He tried to wipe his fingers dry on his pants, but it was hopeless.  "Cosmo Richter.  Sorry, I'm..."

            A freakin' idiot.

            He crossed to the coffee setup, where he found some napkins, thank the Lord.

            But Sophia didn't run out of the room screaming "Save me from cretins!" as he wiped off his hand.  "You must be here to help out with the Mercedes Chadwick job," she said instead.

            "I'm not sure," he admitted, turning back to her.  Yes, she was still incredibly beautiful from this angle.  Amazing how it worked that way.  "Tommy said something about an easy op in L.A."

            "That's the one."  Now that his hands were clean, she was holding the files she was carrying against her chest with both arms.  "She's a movie producer -- and I guess a screenwriter, too.  She's been getting death threats." 

            His chance to touch Sophia, to shake her hand, had apparently passed.  What a crying shame.

            "Hey, Cos."  Tom Paoletti came out from the back, smiling his welcome.  "Sorry to keep you waiting."  He looked at Sophia.  "Soph, you better get moving, if you're intending to catch that flight."

            "Yeah.  It was nice meeting you," Sophia told Cosmo.

            As she hurried down the hall, Tommy led Cosmo back toward his office.  "You've got...how many weeks of leave left?"

            "Three weeks, two days, seventeen hours." 

            His former SEAL CO smiled.  "Well, at least you're not counting the minutes."

            Cosmo glanced at his watch.  And fourteen minutes.

            "And you're sure you don't want to use this time as a vacation?" Tom asked.

            "I'm quite sure, sir."  Like many SEALs in Team Sixteen, Cosmo wasn't good at taking vacations.  After just a few days, he got bored.  Restless.  "I just want to be able to check in on my mother once or twice a day."  He got down to business.  "So tell me about this Hollywood producer.  What'd she do, to piss people off enough to make them want to kill her?"

* * * *

            "I don't need personal protection -- a team of body guards?  That's absolutely ridiculous!" Jane Chadwick told Patty, her new college intern.

            Patty didn't seem convinced, so she turned to Robin, hoping for just a teensy bit of brotherly support.

            But he wasn't paying attention.  He was giving Patty one of his "hey there" smiles.  The girl, naturally, was dazzled.  Of course, she was impossibly young and didn't yet have the mileage which would enable her to see past Robin's gorgeous face to the inner lowlife womanizing scum within.

            "Yo," Jane said, clapping her hands sharply at her brother.  Half-brother.  At times like this it helped to remind herself that they only shared a fraction of their genetic makeup.  "Robin.  Focus.  Patty, go call the studio back and tell them no.  Thank you, but no.  I'm perfectly safe.  Be firm."

            Unlike many young movie-loving girls who made the pilgrimage to Hollywood, Patty's freckle-faced cuteness wasn't an act.  She actually wore kneesocks and meant it.  Jane didn't know her that well yet, but, unfortunately, being firm didn't seem to be high on her skill list. 

            But at least she was out of Jane's office, closing the door behind her, releasing Robin from her captivating spell. 

            "If you touch her," Jane told him, "I will kill you and I will make it hurt."

            "What?" Robin said.  Mr. Innocent.  He made that sound that was half laugh, half indignation.  "Come on.  I was just smiling at her."

            One thing was certain, her too-handsome half-brother was a brilliant actor.  If they could get this movie made, and -- most important -- if they could get it distributed and seen, he was going to be a star.

            "Besides," he added, "you of all people shouldn't be making idle death threats."

            That was supposed to be funny.  Jane didn't crack a smile.

            "That wasn't a threat," she said.  "It was a promise.  Let me put this in terms you'll understand, Sleazoid.  If you sleep with her, she'll think she's your girlfriend.  And when she finds out that she was merely your Friday night distraction, she'll be badly hurt.  Now.  Maybe you don't give a rat's ass about Patty's feelings, but I do.  And I also know what you do care about so listen close.  If you break her heart, she will quit.  And if she quits, you will take her place and become my personal assistant, and you won't have a single minute to yourself from that moment until we are done making American Hero.  Which means in Sleazoid-speak that it will be two months before you have sex again.  Two.  Months."

            Her little brother laughed.  "Relax, Janey.  I'm not going to sleep with her."

            Jane just looked at him.  She liked Patty.  A lot.  The girl was smart, she was sweet, she was way overqualified for this glorified go-fer position.  The lack of backbone could be worked on -- besides, Jane had plenty of that to go around.

            Best of all, though, despite being paid only a stipend, Patty liked Jane.  It was a win/win situation.

            As long as Robin kept his own little win zipped up tight inside his pants and out of the equation.

            Problem was, Patty had a serious crush on Robin.  Which meant it was going to have to fall to him to keep his distance. 

            God help them all.

            "You need to lighten up," her brother told her now.  "What is it Variety calls you?"  He reached for a copy of the trade magazine that was out and open on her desk, and started to read the latest section that Patty had highlighted.  "'Never too serious, party girl producer and screenwriter J. Mercedes Chadwick heats things up at the Paradise...'"  He looked at her over the top of the oversized page.  "Who are you, you too serious she-bitch, and what have you done with my real sister, the party girl producer?"

            Jane gave him the evil eye that she'd perfected back when she was six and he was four.

            It didn't scare him as much anymore.  "Look," he said, "I know you're freaked out by these emails--"

            "But I'm not," Jane interrupted.  "I'm freaked out by the fact that the studio's freaked out.  I don't need a bodyguard.  Robbie, come on, it's just a few internet crazies who--"

            "Patty told me you got three hundred just today."

            "No," she scoffed.  "Well, yeah, but it's, like, three crazies each sending a hundred emails."

            "You're certain of that?"

            "Yes," she told him.

            Robin was silent, obviously not believing her. 

            "Really," she insisted.  "How could this possibly be real?"

            More silence.  Then, "Who's paying?" Robin finally asked.

            "For my lifetime of sin?" Jane responded.  "I am, apparently."

            He gave her a get serious look -- which was vaguely oxymoronic.  Robin -- telling someone else to get serious.  "For this added security that HeartBeat Studios wants to set up," he clarified.

            "They are," Jane said.  Her budget for this film was already stretched thin.  She was using her personal credit cards to pay for craft services.  No way could she afford round-the-clock guards.

            "Then, I don't see what the big deal is," Robin said. 

            "You don't understand," Jane said.  And he didn't.  Her brother, while not exactly simple, presented his true self to the world at all times.  Well, except for lying to her about Patty... 

            Robin was a player and he didn't try to hide it.  Too many women, too little time -- he'd said as much in his first interview with Entertainment Weekly.  Consummate actor that he was, he came across as charming.  The reporter -- a woman, natch -- portrayed him as boyishly honest about his inability to resist temptation, rather than selfish and spoiled.

            To be sure, his being spoiled was partly Jane's fault.  As his older sister -- well, after she'd ended that phase where her every waking moment was devoted to tormenting her wimpy little freak of a half-brother -- she'd bent over backwards to try to make life as easy as possible for him. 

            It had been difficult growing up with their parents.  Most weekends it was just Jane and Robin and their father's housekeeper, who was replaced with an even higher frequency than the step-mom of the moment, and rarely spoke English.

            It was during one of those weekends that Jane first discovered that Robin's entire life reeked of neglect.  His mother was referred to by her own mother as "that drunken bitch," so she probably shouldn't have been too surprised.

            Somewhere down the line, just a few years before Robin's mother died and he moved in full-time with their father, she stopped being his chief tormenter and became his champion.  His protector.  His ally. 

            "What's not to understand?" he asked her now.  "HeartBeat wants to hire a couple bodyguards for you.  Use it.  Spin it into something that'll get us two, maybe three stories in the trades.  If you do it right, maybe AP'll pick it up."

            "I don't want a body guard following me around day and night."  Jane 's public persona, "Party Girl Producer Mercedes Chadwick," was as much a fictional character as any she'd ever created for one of her screenplays. 

            For the first time in her career -- a crazy, seven year ride that had started with a freak hit when she was still in film school -- Jane was making a movie based on fact. 

            And was getting death threats because of it. 

            "I don't want to have to be the 'Party Girl Producer' here in my own home," she told her brother.  Her feet hurt just from the idea of wearing J. Mercedes Chadwick's dangerously high heels 24/7.  Which she would have to do.  Because her body guards would be watching her -- that was the whole point of them being there, right? 

            And no way would she risk one of them giving an interview after the threat was over and done, saying, "Jane Chadwick?  Yeah, the Mercedes thing is just BS.  No one really calls her that.  She's actually very normal.  Plain Jane you know?  Nothing special to look at without the trashy clothes and makeup.  She works eighteen-hour days -- which is deadly dull and boring if you want to know the truth.  And all those guys she allegedly dates?  It's all for show.  The Party Girl Producer hasn't had a private party in her bedroom for close to two years."

            Patty knocked on the door, opening it a crack to peek in.  "I'm sorry," she reported.  "They've set up a meeting for four o'clock, here, with the security firm they've hired -- Troubleshooters Incorporated."

            Jane closed her eyes at Patty's verb tense.  Hired.  "No," she said.  "Tell them no.  Leave off the thank you this time and--"

            "I'm sorry," Patty looked as if she were going to cry, "but the studio apparently called the FBI--"

            "What?"

            "And the authorities are taking the threat seriously.  They're involved now--"

            "The FBI?"  Jane was on her feet.

            Patty nodded.  "Some important agent from DC is going to be here at four, too.  He's already on his way."

* * * *

            Producer J. Mercedes Chadwick's house in the Hollywood hills was an elegant old monster built back in the silent film era.  But when Lawrence Decker followed Cosmo Richter and Tom Paoletti into the front hall, he'd realized that old was the defining word.  The building probably hadn't been renovated since the late 1940s. 

            From the gate, it had looked impressive.  From inside, with a collection of buckets strategically positioned under obvious signs of water damage on the ceiling, it was clear that the place was a major fixer-upper. 

            "Someone else is paying the bill, right?" Cosmo had murmured to Tom as they stood in the foyer, waiting for the girl clutching the clipboard to fetch Ms. Chadwick from the back.

            "HeartBeat Studios," Tom murmured back. 

            Decker was well aware that securing HeartBeat as a regular client would be quite an accomplishment for Troubleshooters Incorporated.  The work would be easy -- silver bullet assignments -- compared to most of the operations Deck had been on overseas.  While providing security for a Hollywood studio wouldn't quite be paid R&R, it would be close. 

            Easy assignments, good money.  That's why Tom himself was here today with Deck, and why he'd dragged Cosmo Richter along, too. 

            The SEAL chief was tall and muscular, with a lean face and pale blue eyes he usually kept hidden behind sunglasses.  Yeah, he was impressively dangerous-looking -- something no one had ever been able to say about Decker, even during his own years with the Navy. 

            Cosmo was here as a human exclamation mark, strategically in place for the client to gaze upon after Tom and Decker assured her that they would, indeed, be able to keep her safe.

            Of course, the first thing they needed to do was install a security system.  Currently, there was nothing here -- aside from a fading sign on the creaky automated gate at the end of the driveway:  "Beware of Dogs." 

            This place dated from the time when state of the art security meant a stone wall with bits of glass in the concrete on top, a front gate, and a matched set of big, loud and ugly, with lots of sharp teeth.

            "We have a list of improvements a mile long that we're planning to make," Ms. Chadwick had told them breezily as she'd led the way to the suite of rooms she and her brother were using for their production company's main offices.  Her impossibly high heels had clicked on the marble tile floor.  "But we're wait-listed with the contractor.  You know how hard it is to get work done these days..."

            According to the file Tom had given Deck, she'd produced her first movie -- a low budget horror flick called Hell or High Water -- back when she was in film school.  She sold her little student film to a distributor for a ton of money and put herself on the map as a mover and shaker. 

            Apparently, in Hollywood, youth was in.  And J. Mercedes Chadwick was still young, barely twenty-six.  She dressed younger, like Britney Spears' brunette twin, with long, dark hair cascading down her back and a significant gap between the below-the-hips waistband of her micro-skirt and the bottom edge of her shirt.

            Which was...quite a shirt.  It had one hell of a neckline. 

            J. Mercedes Chadwick was a very healthy young woman, no doubt about that. 

            Her long legs were bare and as golden tanned as her stomach, her toenails painted an exotic shade of dark pink. 

            She had what Decker thought of as Greek goddess eyes -- bluish green and an unusual contrast with her dark hair and rich Mediterranean complexion.  She was gorgeous -- although not by Hollywood's standards, because she hadn't managed to starve herself boyishly thin. 

            And that was a choice that was quite intentional -- calculated, in fact.  He'd realized it when they were introduced, as she'd held his hand just a little too long and gazed into his eyes just a little too meaningfully. 

            She knew what most of Hollywood had forgotten.  That as fashionable as it was to be whip thin, most men still liked women with substantial curves.

            But if his libido had kicked on from that soulfully probing look, it kicked off just as quickly when she gazed at Cosmo the exact same way. 

            Cos, bless him, didn't crack a smile.  He just looked back at the woman with a total lack of expression, as if all that cleavage meant absolutely nothing to him. 

            Of course, maybe it didn't.  Decker didn't know the younger man very well. 

            One thing he did know was that J. Mercedes Chadwick liked standing out.  Hence the three inch heels that pushed her well over six feet tall and made her tower over mere mortals such as Deck.

            There was, he also realized, probably nothing that this woman ever did that was unintentional.

            She couldn't have been more different in height and coloring, but she made him think of Sophia Ghaffari -- whom he hadn't seen since that drink they'd shared in a bar in Kaiserslautern, Germany, over six months ago.

            Sophia was working for Tom Paoletti now -- as a matter of fact, for the past four months both she and Deck had worked out of the same office in San Diego.  But Decker had spent most of that time OUTCONUS, on various assignments.  The few occasions he'd been back in the States, she'd been out of town. 

            Which was probably a very good thing, considering.

            They all sat now -- Cosmo, Tom, Decker, Mercedes, and her brother Robin who was as fair as she was dark -- on a series of sofas and easy chairs in a huge room with windows looking out over the wilderness that was the back garden.

            "Isn't a high-tech security system going to be enough?" Mercedes was arguing with Tom.  "I mean, great, if HeartBeat wants to pay to install a system, I'm not going to say no.  But really, with the kind of technology that's available these days, isn't the idea of two guards -- one inside and one outside the house, around the clock -- just a little extravagant?"

            Decker answered for Tom.  "Considering the size of this house, Ms. Chadwick, no."

            She was obviously not happy with the idea, but as she turned to look at him, he knew what it was about her that reminded him of Sophia.  It was that smile and the eye contact as she asked, "But does it have to be day and night?  I have...friends who can keep me safe at night."

            Across the room, her brother covered a laugh with a cough.

            Mercedes Chadwick didn't bring the question "Do you want to make it with me?" to the table.  No, her attitude was "When do you want to make it with me?" 

            It was an approach to being a woman in the business world that was a direct 180 from the dress-and-act-like-a-man school. Instead of trying to de-sex, Mercedes Chadwick used her sexuality to try to gain control.

            Just like blond and beautiful Sophia Ghaffari had done back in Kazbekistan, when she and Deck had first met.

            As Mercedes smiled at him, Decker wondered if she would go as far as Sophia had to gain the upper hand.

            Jesus, was he ever going to stop thinking about that?

            "Your privacy won't be compromised," Tom told Mercedes, trying to reassure her. 

            She laughed.  "Yes, it will.  Look, can't we just pretend that you've got guards posted here around the clock?  I don't mind having one of your men tag along when I go out.  That actually might be kind of fun.  And it's okay with me if someone hangs here, guarding the place while I'm gone, but..."

            Deck exchanged a look with Tom.  Fun? 

            "I know this may seem inconvenient--" Tom started.

            "And I know you really want this gig," she cut him off.  "So let's compromise."

            "There is no compromise."  Tom was absolute.  "We're talking about your personal safety."

            She rolled her eyes.  "Yeah, I'm so sure some of those scary e-mailers are going to come out here and try to hit me with their computer keyboards.  Or maybe they'll chain mail me to death.  'If you don't forward this to ten people in the next two minutes, great misfortune will befall you...'"

            Cosmo Richter, who'd seemed all this time to have his full attention focused on the garden, finally looked over at Mercedes and spoke.  "Is there a reason, miss, why you feel the threats that have been made against your life are a joke?"

            "Joke," she said, looking from Cosmo to Decker to Tom.  "Yes, joke.  That's a good word for this, thank you.  It's a giant joke, gentlemen.  It's probably a stunt that the studio's come up with to get publicity for this movie.  You don't really think someone wants to kill me, do you?"

            Her intercom buzzed, breaking in before Tom could respond. 

            "I'm sorry to interrupt," the voice of Mercedes' personal assistant came through a speaker.  "But an FBI agent named Jules Cassidy is down by the gate, and"--she cleared her throat--"the opener's stuck again."

            The brother -- Robin -- stood.  "I'll go."

* * * *

            The FBI agent drove a rented Mercury Sable.  

            Robin wasn't sure exactly what he'd expected, but it sure as hell wasn't a four door family sedan.

            The FBI agent was also shorter and younger than he'd imagined, getting out of the car as Robin approached the gate.  Compact, with a trim build, he had dark hair that he wore cut short and a face that could have appeared next to Robin's on the cover of Tiger Beat magazine.

            He could just imagine this guy's meeting with his high school guidance counselor.  "You could be a model, or a TV star -- you don't really need any acting skills for that -- or...  Oh, here's something just perfect!  *NSYNC is looking for new blood..." "Well, you see, Mrs. Smersh, I hate to disappoint you, but I really have my heart set on becoming an FBI agent..."

            "Sorry," Robin called as he came the last few feet down the drive.  "It sticks sometimes." 

            The gate actually stuck most of the time, and they'd gotten into the habit of leaving it open.  But Jane had wanted it closed today -- probably to fool the private security team into thinking she was taking precautions with her safety. 

            It took him four tries to get the damn thing to work.  His smile definitely felt strained around the edges by the time it finally opened.

            Now that they were both on the same side of the fence, the agent flashed his badge as he held out his hand.  "Jules Cassidy, FBI."

            "Robin Chadwick, SAG."  They shook hands.  "I'm the brother."

            "Nice to meet you.  SAG?" 

            "Screen Actors Guild," Robin explained.  "Sorry, I have this inability to not be an asshole, especially when I'm not provoked."

            The double negatives didn't stop Jules for even a second, and he laughed, taking off his sunglasses and...

            Hello.  Big eye contact.  The FBI guy not only was shorter and younger, but he was also gayer than Robin had expected. 

            Ever since he'd gone blond to play Hal Lord in American Hero, he'd been hit on by gay men more times than he could count.  It had been a little nerve-wracking at first, but he'd learned to remove any potential mystery as quickly as possible. 

            "Not gay," Robin said now.  He thought of sweet little Patty up in Jane's office, who'd given him that shy smile when he'd emerged from the meeting.  He knew without a doubt that he'd be welcome should he come a-calling at her apartment later this evening.  Yes, he knew he'd promised his sister that he'd be good, but Patty was so cute... "Don't waste your energy."

            Jules laughed again.  He appeared to be genuinely amused.  "You're making some pretty large assumptions, aren't you?"

            "Assume everything," Robin told him cheerfully.  "That's my motto.  It keeps me out of trouble."

            "I would think it might get you into it," Jules countered.

            "And still you flirt with me, you devil.  What part of 'Not gay,' did you not understand?  Drive through, will you, so I can try to close this behind you."

            Jules Cassidy, FBI, was still laughing -- and he was pretty damn adorable when he laughed.  Harve and Guillermo and Gary the Grip and even Ricco, who was in a long term relationship, were going to swoon when they met him.  He got back into the Sable and drove through the gate.  He stopped just on the other side, though. 

            Robin gave up on the idea of closing the gate after his fifth try. 

            "I hate that motherfucking thing," he said, adding as he realized Jules had rolled his window down, "There, does that convince you?  A very heterosexual use of the manly verb to motherfuck, positioned in my sentence as a salty adverb."

            "Salty adjective," Jules corrected him.  "If it were an adverb it would be motherfuckingly."

            "Whatever.  My sister's the writer in the family," Robin told him.  "Which is why she's the one getting the death threats -- which she's not taking at all seriously.  Tell me the truth, Jules Cassidy, FBI.  Do we really have something to worry about here?"

            The FBI agent got real serious, real fast, morphing from happy, flirty gay boy into completely grown-up hard-ass with a nearly palpable sense of purpose and a determination that matched his set of giant steel balls.  Holy macaroni, Mrs. Smersh.  Wherever did you get the idea that Jules Cassidy couldn't act?

            "Yes," Jules told him.  "You do.  Have you ever heard of the Freedom Network?"

* * * *

            It was very clear to Cosmo that J. Mercedes Chadwick couldn't believe what she was hearing.

            "You're telling me," she repeated, making sure that she got it right, "that there are thousands of people -- tens of thousands...? -- who consider Chester Lord -- a little known Alabama District Court Judge who's been dead since 1959 -- their personal hero?"

            FBI Agent Jules Cassidy nodded.  "Yes, ma'am.  They call themselves the Freedom Network.  Chester Lord wrote a number of books and--"

            "This is a man who was uber-conservative even for his time," she pointed out.  "There are rumors that Judge Lord looked the other way and allowed lynchings--"

            "I believe they refer to him as honest and old-fashioned," Jules told her.  "And his son Hal was a highly-decorated war hero -- you surely know more about that part of it than I do.  But I can tell you one thing -- apparently these people are very protective of the memories of both father and son, and they're not at all happy at the idea of you outing Hal in your movie."

            Mercedes' assistant Patty had put a copy of the American Hero script onto the table in front of them, along with the warning that they could not take it out of this building.

            Like... what?  They were going to sell it on e-bay?  Or give a copy of the most provocative scenes to a tabloid like the National Voice?

            Cosmo flipped through it.  It was the story of Jack Shelton and Harold "Hal" Lord -- two young American soldiers who met in Paris in early 1945, toward the end of World War Two. 

            Hal was a highly decorated war hero, and because he spoke fluent German, he volunteered to be part of an Allied team determined to find out whether Hitler's scientists had succeeded in creating an atomic bomb.  The movie alleged that Hal Lord was gay, but in total denial.  He was not just in the closet, but he was sitting so far in the back with his eyes shut, he couldn't even see the door.

            Until Jack Shelton made the scene.

            "Hal's own granddaughter has given our movie her blessing," Mercedes pointed out.  "If you're looking for the sex, the first gay love scene isn't until page seventy-two." 

            Cos looked up, directly into her eyes, which were a remarkably pretty color.  She was talking to him.  She thought he was looking for...

            "The hetero couple doesn't get it on until close to the end of the movie either-- page seventy-nine," she continued.  "I think you'll find it's all tastefully done.  We fade to black in both of the romantic subplots.  We've been very up front about that, so I'm not sure why all those internet crazies have their panties in a twist."

            "I wasn't..." he started to say, but her attention was already back on Cassidy.  Fine.  Let her think whatever she wanted to think. 

            "Can we back up a bit?" Mercedes asked.  "You said earlier that these Freedom people -- all mega-thousands of them -- have these weekend get-togethers up in... in... Monkey-Fuck, Idaho where they sit around a campfire, doing what?  Reciting eighty-seven verse epic poems lauding the glory that was Chester 'Baby-Lyncher' Lord?" 

            "Well, we're not exactly sure what they do during their retreats," Jules told her.  He was trying to keep this serious, but Cosmo could tell that Monkey-Fuck had him biting the insides of his cheeks.  "They're pretty adamant about not letting outsiders into their inner circle.  Still, whatever they do up there, we think it's probably more likely that it has to do with firearms rather than poetry."

            "But whatever they're doing, they're doing it in Idaho, right?" she asked.  "So I should be okay as long as I stay in California."  She looked over at her assistant.  "Patty, call Steve Spielberg with my regrets.  I won't be able to attend his potato-picking party in Boise next week, gosh darn it."

            Jules was hanging in.  "Ms. Chadwick.  With all due respect, yesterday this was a joke.  But today the Freedom Network's involved.  There have been several emails that have raised a red flag.  I don't have the details yet, but my boss, Max Bhagat, is concerned.  And believe me, when he becomes concerned, you should take it seriously." 

            Mercedes looked again at the computer documents Jules had given her -- pages upon pages, printed directly from the Freedom Network's website.  They included a sheet upon which was printed a picture of her face in the center of a bulls-eye target. 

            She laughed, but to Cosmo's ears it sounded a little forced.  "This is priceless, you know.  I couldn't buy this kind of publicity."

            Her brother spoke, his voice sharp.  "I think we've all agreed this has gone too far, Jane."

            Mercedes -- or Jane, as her brother called her -- looked up at Cosmo, as if she'd somehow decided that she trusted him above everyone else in the room.  "Am I really in danger?" she asked him. 

            He put down the script.  Not from him.  Nothing moved him less than a woman like J. Mercedes Chadwick.  Yes, she was beautiful, with a perfect oval of a face that hinted at a Middle Eastern ancestry.  And that body... 

            He cleared his throat.  "Lotta crazy people out there," he told her.  She seemed to want more, so he kept going.  "Seems like a no-brainer to me -- letting us come in and provide security, with HeartBeat paying for it."

            She looked down at that picture again, frowning slightly.  And Cosmo suspected that it scared her more than she was willing to admit. 

            But she kept up her act.  "They spelled my name wrong," she said.

            "Yeah, but they got our address right," the brother pointed out. 

            There was silence then, as that bit of info sank in.

            J. Mercedes finally sighed, swearing under her breath.  Then she looked up, again directly at Cosmo.  "How do we do this bodyguard thing?" she asked him.  "How, exactly, is this going to work?"

From the book HOT TARGET
By Suzanne Brockmann
A Ballantine Book
Copyright 2005 by Suzanne Brockmann
Excerpt copyright 2004 by Suzanne Brockmann

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