The Outlaw Prince's Captive - Holly Rayner Page 0,19
she had been right about this, she wouldn’t have refused to listen to anything Laird had to say for the rest of the investigation!
She sighed. She would stay a little longer, and she would just make sure to text Laird in ten minutes or so and let him know that she was on her way home and that he shouldn’t come after her. That was the best she could do.
It occurred to her that she hadn’t had anything to eat since the plane had landed. Suddenly, she became aware that she was hungry. Starving, in fact.
Francesca frowned. There was a bowl of fresh fruit on the table in front of her. A bunch of bananas. A pile of apples and oranges. Quite possibly the biggest fruit bowl she had ever seen. Lindström wouldn’t notice if one apple went missing. As long as she pocketed the core and threw it away outside the house…
She hesitated for a moment. Then, her mind made up, she reached out and took the apple.
She bit into it. It was juicy, and seemed sweeter than apples back home. Was that typical of local apples? Were they actually sweeter here? Or did it just seem that way to Francesca because she was so hungry?
She surveyed the room. Lindström had hung several paintings on the walls of his kitchen. It was a concept that was utterly foreign to Francesca. The closest things she had to artwork in her own kitchen were a few handwritten recipes taped to the fridge and the walls. She got to her feet and went to examine the artwork.
It was unmistakably masculine, but beautiful all the same. One wall featured a painting of a dog—a husky, she thought—in mid-stride, running through a snow-filled plain. Another painting, in blues and grays, showed the silhouette of a man in a cowboy hat.
She stepped out of the kitchen and into the living room, careful to remain close to the wood paneling at the front of the house so that she wouldn’t be seen through the window. There was a picture here of a family. A man, a woman, and two teenage boys.
She squinted. The younger one’s face was familiar.
That’s Lindström.
She reached for her phone, fumbling with the apple, wanting to take a picture and bring the evidence back to Laird. If nothing else, this proved that they had the right house. Lindström definitely lived here.
Suddenly, a light snapped on behind her.
“Who are you?” a harsh voice demanded.
Francesca spun around on the spot, dropping her apple. But her training didn’t let her down. Her hand was already moving to her gun, and a split second later she had it drawn, leveled at the spot between his eyes.
The safety was still on. She had no desire to kill this man. But he didn’t need to know that.
“Viggo Lindström?” she asked.
“Who wants to know?”
“I’m Francesca Bellucci,” she said. “FBI. I have a warrant for your arrest.”
“You do, do you?”
He wasn’t surprised. He seemed almost as if he had been expecting this to happen.
Well of course he isn’t surprised. What did you think? He knows what he did. He must have known that we would be looking for him.
Still, there was something strange about the expression on his face. Francesca couldn’t help feeling as if he thought he was superior to her in some way, as if he knew something that she didn’t.
And I’m the one with the gun. He really shouldn’t be getting overconfident.
“I suppose it hasn’t occurred to you that you’re the one who broke into my house?” he said.
“Like I said, I have a warrant.”
“A Konäs warrant?” Lindström asked. “Or an American one?”
She wanted to punch the smug expression right off his face. “This is an international investigation,” she told him. “I have all the paperwork I need, thank you very much.”
“Suppose I ask to see it,” Lindström said.
“You can see it on the plane.”
“Right,” he said. “I’m not boarding any planes without taking a look at your credentials, I’m afraid. How do I know you’re even really FBI?”
Francesca shifted her gun to one hand, pulled out her badge, and held it up. “Satisfied?”
“Not really.”
“Doesn’t matter,” she said. “Put your hands over your head.”
“Is it just you here?” he asked, as if she hadn’t even given him a command.
“What difference does that make?”
“I would have thought they would send a team,” he said. “I saw your car out on the street, by the way. No one ever parks in that spot. You really should have known better. I