an arm over the shoulders of Cait Fleming, the willowy former model turned forensic anthropologist. As they trailed after the rest of her colleagues, Cait raised her hand over her shoulder, waggled her fingers for Risa’s perusal. The large emerald engagement ring was hard to miss. “Congratulations, Cait. Zach,” she called. The man sent them a self-satisfied grin before they turned into the doorway of the waiting room.
Risa looked at Nate. “You realize they’re all going in there to talk about us.”
He didn’t look upset at the prospect. “Then I say”—his face lowered to hers—“let’s give them plenty of material.”
He lowered the binoculars as the gleaming private jet, loaded with medical personnel and equipment, taxied down the runway. Raiker was heading back to the East Coast. Alive, unfortunately.
The frustrated rage that surged would serve no useful purpose. Jennings had been the best. And to give the man credit, he hadn’t given up. Each attempt on Raiker’s life had been more daring than the last.
For the money he’d been paid, such effort had been expected.
Failure was not.
He slipped back into the crowd. Moved with it toward the airport corridor. His father, abusive old bastard that he was, had been fond of a particular saying: If you want something done right, do it yourself.
It was abundantly clear that the only way to assure Raiker’s death would be to take the man out himself.
A plan already forming, he settled his sunglasses on his face and strolled toward the airport’s exit.
Turn the page for a preview of
the sixth book in Kylie Brant’s
exciting Mindhunters series
DEADLY SINS
Available August 2011
from Berkley Sensation!
Chapter 1
Death was rarely the result of divine intervention. Often nature could be blamed. More frequently another person was the cause. On that drizzly gray evening in early November, nature had an alibi.
If Supreme Court Justice Byron Reinbeck had known what fate had in store for him that day, he’d have spent less time writing the scathing dissenting opinion on Clayborne vs. Leland. Which, in turn, would have had him leaving his chambers at a decent hour. That would have negated the need to stop at his favorite sidewalk vendor for flowers to take to Mary Jo, his wife of twenty-five years. She was having a dinner party that evening and he was running unforgivably late.
But not being blessed with psychic powers, he pulled over at the sidewalk in question. Danny was there, rain or shine. Seven days a week, as far as Byron knew. And he never folded up shop until he’d sold his entire inventory.
“Mr. Reinbeck, good to see you.” A smile put another crease in Danny’s grizzled, well-worn face. A three-sided awning protected him and his wares. “I gots just the thing. Just the thing.” He sprang up from his battered lawn chair with a surprising spryness.
Byron turned up the collar of his overcoat, belatedly remembered the umbrella in the backseat. Hunching his shoulders a bit, he pretended to contemplate the bouquet of yellow roses thrust out for his approval. He suspected Jimmy stocked them daily, on the off chance that he’d stop.
Yellow roses were Mary Jo’s favorite.
He reached for his wallet. “You’re a lifesaver, Danny.”
The older man’s cackle sounded over the crinkle of the wrapping paper he was fixing around the bundle. “You has to be in big trouble for these flowers not to do the trick.”
A quick glance at his watch told Byron that he was only a handful of minutes away from “big trouble.” He withdrew a couple bills, intending to leave without waiting for change.
He didn’t have a chance to turn around when the sharp “crack” of the rifle sounded behind him. But he saw the splash of crimson on the front of Danny’s stained brown hoodie. Had a split second to feel pain and shock before pitching forward, his lifeless body crushing the fragrant long-stemmed beauties against the plywood table.
Adam Raiker rapped softly at the door of the library. Although there were three occupants in the room, only one voice bade him to enter.
Because it was the only one that counted, he eased the door open, his gaze going immediately to Mary Jo Waverly-Reinbeck. “Everyone’s gone.”
Even grief stricken as she was, there was no mistaking the command of the woman. The red sheathe she wore accentuated her pale blond hair and ice blue eyes. She was brilliant and witty and had been known to dismantle a seasoned defense attorney with a few well-chosen lines.
But it was her devotion to one of Adam’s closest friends that had endeared her