Diamonds Can Be Deadly Read Free Page A

chief of security. TJ Scott.”
    Jordan’s heart stopped, then restarted a second or two later with a painful kick.
    Thomas Jackson Scott. The man she’d once tumbled so quickly, so stupidly in love with. The bastard who’d hurt her far worse than her heavy-handed stepfather ever had.
    His face grave, Lightning gave her the option. “Do you still want to go in?”
    â€œOh, yeah.” Jordan’s lips curved in a feral smile. “No way I’d pass up a chance to nail a crooked faith healer and a dirty cop.”

CHAPTER 2
    â€œT here’s a Jordan Colby at the gates of the compound, boss. I have her on screen six.”
    TJ Scott’s muscles went tight under the green-knit polo shirt that constituted his duty uniform these days. He’d spotted Jordan’s name on the access list, knew she had an appointment with Bartholomew Greene this afternoon. He’d had plenty of time to prepare himself for this moment. Yet it took a conscious effort of will not to drop the report he was reviewing and whip around.
    He forced himself to scrawl his initials on the report before he lifted his gaze to the bank of monitors that took up almost an entire wall of the Tranquility Institute’s security operations center. The new, state-of-the-art digital cameras he’d had installed after his arrival a few weeks ago captured the driver who sat behind the wheel of the rented Mustang in excruciating detail.
    She hadn’t changed. Not outwardly. The hair only half confined by a designer silk scarf was the same shoulder-length waterfall of red. Those high cheekbones and full, sensual lips might have leaped right off one of the dozens of glossy magazine covers she’d graced over the years. She wore a minimum of jewelry, only gold hoops at her ears and designer sunglasses with the tiny diamond butterfly logo that had become her signature.
    And there, just above the left eyebrow, was the small, leaf-shaped scar. The only flaw in an otherwise perfect face. She’d shrugged aside TJ’s question about how she’d gotten it, giving only a vague reference to a childhood accident. He’d always thought it made her human.
    It was one of his favorite spots to drop a kiss. Right up there with the slope of her breasts and the smooth curve at the base of her spine. The memory of her taste and scent drilled into him. For a moment, he could almost smell the unique blend of Chanel and warm, musky female that was burned into his senses.
    Christ, he thought in disgust. All this time, and the woman could still put him in a sweat.
    â€œShe’s on the access list,” he growled to the on-duty security officer. “Run her through the drill.”
    Nodding, the officer keyed his mike. “May I see some identification, Ms. Colby?”
    She fished a driver’s license out of her wallet.
    â€œHold it up a little higher, please.”
    The camera captured the number and fed it to the institute’s computers. They in turn would run it through a half-dozen databases, most of them legit.
    â€œThank you. Now remove your sunglasses.”
    â€œExcuse me?”
    â€œFor the security of our guests, we perform an iris scan of all personnel entering the institute’s grounds. Please remove your sunglasses.”
    Frowning, she slid the glasses to the top of her head. The camera mounted at eye level whirred a few inches closer to capture an image of her left iris. A second later, it shot the right.
    TJ had insisted on this very sophisticated, very expensive scanning system as one of his first upgrades to the institute’s security. The iris was the most individually distinctive feature of the human body. No two persons had the same iris pattern, even identical twins. Cameras could scan that pattern in real time, unlike the minutes or hours or sometimes days required for DNA or fingerprint sampling and matching.
    â€œThank you, Ms. Colby. You may proceed to the main reception