“That’s what I was about to ask you, lady,” he snarled as he cruelly ushered her across the kitchen. He called to the stunned Melanie Lyman over his shoulder, “Mrs. Lyman, please call across the street and ask Mike to come over here and monitor the telephone. Tell him to run a check on the car outside. I’ll be in the study, but I’d rather not be disturbed unless it’s urgent. And please don’t go out unless you take one of the boys with you.”
“No, I won’t,” Erin heard her say meekly. Apparently she was accustomed to taking orders from this brute, but Erin O’Shea was not. As soon as she could she was going to bring down such wrath on him that he wouldn’t know what had hit him.
He pushed her into a small paneled room and slammed the door behind them, latching it soundly. She whirled around to face him, ready to do battle. To her horror, he roughly pulled her jacket from her shoulders and down her arms. He tossed it across the room where it plopped onto a leather sofa. She was too astounded to protest when he yanked the bottom of her blouse out of the skirt’s waistband. He shoved her against the nearest wall, turned her around to face it, and raised her hands wide over her head.
She gasped in humiliation and repulsion when he clamped his hands under her arms and slid them down her sides. Inexorably, they moved around her rib cage, over her breasts, between them, and down to her waist. They insinuated themselves into the waistband of her skirt where they explored her abdomen and hips. When they had toured down the outside of her thighs, he swung her around to face him.
She never remembered being as furious as she was at that moment. Her blood boiled in her veins, making the pulse in her head pound. Erin blinked to clear her vision, which was impaired by rage.
“Aren’t you going to strip search me?” she sneered.
“Only if I think it’s necessary. Which at the present, I don’t. But don’t press your luck.”
His smug answer infuriated her further and she struggled to push him away from her and put more space between them. Surprisingly he obliged her and took a step backward.
“Who the hell do you think you are to treat me this way? I demand an explanation from you this instant!” She knew her words would carry little weight with this bully. They sounded trite and melodramatic and childish to her own ears, but her brain was whirling, and she didn’t seem capable of being more eloquent.
“Easy, lady. I’m about to identify myself to you and then we’ll cut all this temper tantrum crap and get down to finding out who you are—which is more to the point.”
He took a wallet out of his hip pocket and flipped it open. He held it inches in front of her eyes so that she could read: Lawrence James Barrett, United States Department of the Treasury.
Her wide eyes flew from the official badge to his eyes, which bored into her. She could actually feel herself melting under that hard gaze. Energy and anger seeped out of her.
God! What had she stumbled into?
“Pleased to meet you, Miss O’Shea,” he said sarcastically. Taking her arm no less firmly than he had before, he pushed her toward the leather couch. “Sit down and don’t move,” he commanded.
Erin was too stunned and bewildered to object, and instinctively she obeyed him and sank down onto the sofa. Mr. Barrett picked up her jacket and searched the pockets. Finding nothing, he dropped it back on the sofa. Absently Erin folded it and placed it beside her. She didn’t feel like putting it back on or tucking in her blouse. A fever seemed to have washed over her, and her skin was prickly with abnormal heat.
He went to the door and opened it. “Mike?” he shouted.
“Yeah, Lance.”
&nbs
p; “Bring me that purse on the sofa in the living room, please.”
“Sure thing,” the anonymous voice answered back.
“And see if you can locate my glasses.”
“They’re on the table next to the chair you sat in,” Erin answered automatically. He swiveled his head toward her in surprise. She could have bitten her tongue. Now he knew she had noticed him and his subconscious mannerisms.
“Check the end table,” he said through the door.
While he waited for his subordinate to carry out his request, Lance Barrett watched Erin. Uncomfortably, she shifted under his stare and again felt like a specimen that required careful observation. She tried to meet his stare boldly and knew that she failed miserably. In her life, she had never felt more nervous or astonished at a turn of events. To borrow an expression from her mother, she was flabbergasted.
Mike was a younger man than his superior, short, with black hair. His features were nondescript. He had been chosen well for this type of work, Erin thought to herself. No one would ever remember him. He would remain faceless in a crowd.
Mr. Barrett took his glasses and her purse from the younger man and asked, “The car?”
Mike glanced at Erin, but his face registered no expression. Another characteristic of his trade, she thought. “Clean, Lance. It was leased just after noon today at San Francisco International.”
“Okay, thanks.” Mike turned to go, but Mr. Barrett halted him. “Bring me everything in the car—bags, luggage, anything else you see that might be important. It’s still unlocked?”
Mike nodded and left, closing the door behind him.
Mr. Barrett faced her and treated her again to one of his long, uncompromising stares. Putting the glasses on, he said, “All right, Miss O’Shea, start talking.” He sauntered over to a game table and unceremoniously dumped the contents of her purse onto its green felt surface.