Finding Kate Huntley Read Free

does the agency want with me?”
    “Isn’t it obvious?”
    She cocked her head. “I guess I’m not as smart as I look. Talk.”
    “You’re the only one who might know what happened to one of the most important scientists of our century. Ten years ago,” he went on, “the world was on the brink of finding a cure for AIDS.” He drew in a breath. “Then you and your father traveled to the Caribbean and never returned. Your boat was found days later...destroyed in one of the worst storms in the Caribbean’s history.”
    He attempted to sit up, but she held firm. “It wasn’t long,” he said, “before your father’s body washed ashore. That’s when the agency knew it wasn’t the storm that killed your father. Divers were sent to look for your body, but obviously,” he said as his eyes roamed over her, “nothing turned up.”
    “They never found another body?” Kate asked.
    “Why?” His eyes narrowed. “Should they have?”
    She opted to ignore his question. Her instincts told her he had no intention of doing her harm, so she eased her knee from his side. “Listen, rookie. I don’t know you. I don’t like you, and I don’t want anything to do with you. Once I get these cuffs off, I’m going to let you go and you’re going to pretend you never laid eyes on me.”
    “Can’t do. I need you to come back to the States with me.”
    “In your dreams, FBI man.” She chuckled as she leaned over him, frisking him from his knees to his ankles. “How did you know it was me?” she asked. “I don’t look anything like the little stringy-haired teenager I once was.”
    “Can I sit up?”
    She thought about it for a moment before she pulled her knee fully from his side. He sat, she squatted, his right wrist connected to her left wrist.
    “I used to work in the Missing Persons Department,” he told her. “I have what they call eidetic memory—clinical term for photographic memory. I’d recognize any face on that list.”
    “But that doesn’t explain why you’ve come. Why now?”
    “We’ve been looking for a man...a drug lord. We picked up his picture via satellite during a funeral. You happened to be standing in the background when the pictures were snapped. I recognized your face immediately. If you ask me, I’d say you’re hanging out with the wrong crowd.”
    “I didn’t ask you. Was my picture made public?”
    “No.”
    Her gaze focused on a bulge near his left bicep.
    He shot her a worried look. “What?”
    She pulled off his tie and dragged his jacket halfway off of his left shoulder. Taking a firm hold of the top of his white button-down shirt, she tore it wide open. Buttons popped. Before he could protest, she slid her hand down the sleeve. The keys were duct taped to his arm. “Clever.”
    He gave her a wry smile.
    She ripped the tape off of his arm.
    “Ouch! Have some mercy, will you?”
    “Get to your feet,” she said. “Then I’ll unlock the cuffs. After I free myself,” she warned, “I won’t be able to stick around. I have no idea who murdered my father. I can’t help you. Go back to your people and tell them to stop wasting their time...and mine.”
    “What about Dr. Forstin?” he asked.
    She concentrated on getting to her feet, determined not to look him in the eye. “Never heard of him.”
    “Liar.”
    They managed to get to their feet at the same time. As far as she was concerned, Jack Coffey didn’t need to know that she had any contact at all with Dr. Forstin.
    The handcuffs forced them to stand close, face to face. Uncomfortably close. Goose bumps swam up her spine. As she fidgeted with the lock, her fingers trembled slightly, frustrating her. The fact that she could smell the starch of his shirt and the light earthy scent of his soap wasn’t helping matters. The men she usually hung out with worked outside for a living. Their hands were callused, their hair long and tied back. She’d never been this close to a guy in a suit, a guy who took showers on a