“I’m Deputy Director Cameron Roberts from the OHS,” she said, extending her credentials. She did not offer her hand. She tilted her head toward the windowless van. “Do you have Martin Early in there?”

“I’m not at liberty to disclose that, ma’am.”

“Can I see your ID, please.” Cam took his badge holder. It said Federal Bureau of Corrections, but she suspected he was DOD. “Agent Tomlinson, I need to interview Mr. Early on a matter of urgency. I’d like you to delay the transfer until I’m done.”

“I can’t do that, ma’am, without a direct order from my superiors. I’m sure you understand.”

He was stonewalling, as any good agent would. It might take hours to unravel the jurisdictional issues, and even that might not gain her access to the detainee. She was going to have to pull rank, and a parking lot was not the place to do it. “Where’s your destination?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, I’m not at liberty to disclose that information.”

“I understand,” Cam said evenly. She could feel Renee tense beside her. Her number one was short on patience; they all were these days. But a brawl between agencies, especially with a midlevel agent like this, wasn’t going to get them anywhere. “We’ll be coming with you.” She turned to Renee. “Radio our driver and tell them to come around and pick us up.”

Agent Tomlinson’s eyebrows climbed above his expensive sunglasses. “I don’t have clearance for that, ma’am.”

Cam smiled. “That’s quite all right. I do.”

Chapter Ten

“Wait a minute,” Diane said to Blair and Dana as she dug in her purse. “I’ve got a call.”

The group slowed, and Dana noticed their three shadows take up position in front and behind them again. Over the last few hours, she’d almost gotten used to Hara, Wozinski, and Stark hovering just outside her direct field of vision. When she had first started walking down Fifth Avenue with Blair and Diane, she’d been acutely aware of being followed. Spending time in combat zones had made her highly vigilant and hypersensitive to anyone encroaching on her personal space, and when that someone was the size of Greg Wozinski, she was doubly uncomfortable. In fact, after twenty minutes of having him behind her—close behind her—she was irritable and jumpy. She had no idea how Blair Powell tolerated this kind of violation of her privacy twenty-four hours a day.

“Hi,” Diane said brightly when she answered the phone, “where are you? Really? You’re finally free…? No, stay there—we’re right around the corner. We’ll meet you and buy you a drink.” Diane dropped the phone back into her purse. “That was Emory. I told her we’d join her at her hotel.”

“Great,” Blair replied. “I think anything else we have to do, we can do by phone before we leave this weekend.”

Dana whispered a prayer of thanks. She’d actually had a pretty good time watching Blair and Diane shop. Just the same, the art of shopping was an acquired taste, and one she had yet to develop. When she had to attend a formal function, she went with basic black and white, figuring that would always work. Plus, black traveled well and tended not to show wrinkles even after hours, sometimes days, in a suitcase. She’d used the time between fittings and discussions to informally interview Blair Powell. A good reporter didn’t need to ask questions to learn about her subject. Mostly, she just had to listen. And watch. She’d discovered quite a bit in the last few hours, almost none of which would ever make it into her article.

Diane Bleeker, she soon ascertained, was a lot more than Blair’s close friend. Diane was a little bit in love with Blair Powell, and a whole lot protective, and the feelings seemed mutual in a completely appropriate manner. Both women were effortlessly affectionate with one another in a way that Dana had never experienced with any woman. She was envious and intrigued by their relationship and more than a little turned on. Maybe her arousal stemmed from the sheer force of being surrounded by such powerful pheromones. Or maybe she had just gone too long without the singular pleasure of losing herself in a woman. Whatever the cause, her nerves were pleasantly on edge.

They set off walking again and within a few minutes had reached the Plaza. Dana noticed a few heads turn as they made their way through the lobby toward the hotel lounge and bar. Perhaps, as Blair had said, if Blair were by herself on the street, she might go unnoticed, but three women flanked by an entourage in suits scanning the surroundings were pretty hard to miss. Blair kept her eyes straight ahead, and Dana could almost feel the shield she had erected around herself. She wondered about the cost of maintaining that kind of barrier, and thought perhaps it explained why Blair seemed so intimate with those few she let close.

“She’s over there,” Diane remarked, pointing to a seating area in the corner with several sofas and a low table.

Dana glanced idly to where Diane indicated and nearly stumbled as her gaze honed in on the woman seated there. Blair and Diane, both blond, both beautiful, exuded a sense of brilliance and heat, and being around them was much like basking in the noon sun. The woman who awaited them made Dana think of midnight on the deck of a sailboat when the sky was black velvet sprinkled with diamonds and the breeze promised forbidden pleasures. The petite woman’s shoulder-length ebony hair framed a face rendered unforgettable not by perfection but by the bold mouth and deep-set dark eyes. Her complexion held hints of the Mediterranean, adding to her undeniable allure.

“Emory,” Blair and Diane exclaimed simultaneously. The three hugged, and then Blair indicated Dana, who stood slightly outside the group, unable to take her eyes off the brunette. “Dana Barnett, Emory Constantine.”

“Nice to meet you,” Dana said, extending her hand. Dr. Emory Constantine’s chin barely came to Dana’s shoulder, and Dana had the irrational thought that they’d fit very well together in bed. Just as quickly, she banished the image and prayed Emory didn’t read minds. After all, she was supposed to be here getting Emory’s story too. Now she wouldn’t have to wait until they all gathered in Colorado to get started.

“Hello.” Emory’s voice was warm and mellow. Her gaze lingered on Dana’s for a few seconds before she turned to Blair and Diane again.

Wozinski, Hara, and Stark triangulated positions behind the grouping of sofas, and Dana realized that she stood midway between the perimeter formed by the agents and the inner circle of the three friends. She had often found herself caught between conflicting worlds—democracy and dictatorship, order and chaos, life and death. Despite being used to navigating the limbo of shifting landscapes, she had never felt as much an outsider as she did at this moment, nor been as aware of the desire to be connected. Watching Blair and Diane draw Emory into the fold of their affection, she experienced a pang of loneliness that settled in her chest and made it hard for her to breathe.

Everyone sat down, and Dana found herself next to Emory on a love seat across from Blair and Diane. A waitress appeared out of nowhere and took their orders for drinks. Dana didn’t drink much, but she ordered a beer while everyone else ordered wine. She rarely thought about her working-class upbringing, but right at this moment, surrounded by elegance and beauty, she felt the difference. Emory’s streamlined black skirt, she noticed, glided up her slender thighs when she crossed her legs. The slight whisper of pantyhose sliding over the surface of Emory’s skin made Dana’s stomach knot. She caught the barest trace of perfume, an aromatic scent that made her think of shadowed glades and sunlight dappling through a thick leafy canopy. She had the nearly irresistible urge to press her face to Emory’s neck.

“Thank God,” Dana muttered when the waitress brought their drinks. She took a long swallow of her beer and tried to distract herself from the altogether enthralling presence of Emory Constantine only inches away.

“So you’re really going to take time off,” Blair said to Emory. “I hope you’re planning to come with us when we leave on Monday.”

Emory laughed. “I didn’t pack enough for next week. I’ll have to go back to Boston first.”

“What could you possibly need at a ski resort that we can’t lend you?” Diane said.

“There’s a slight matter of you being five or six inches taller,” Emory pointed out.

Diane waved her hand in dismissal. “We’ll manage. Now that we’ve finally pried you out of your lab, we’re not letting you go back.”

“When’s the last time you had a vacation?” Blair asked.

“I travel a lot,” Emory said defensively.

Blair shook her head. “I’ve spent my life with politicians. It’s impossible to snow me with a diversionary answer like that. Vacation. Not business trip.”

“Uh…sometime last year.”

“There, see,” Diane said triumphantly. “You’re not going back to Boston. The second you do, you’ll start in on whatever it is you do and forget about coming with us.”

“I’m not going to forget that Blair is getting married,” Emory protested. She glanced at Dana with a friendly smile. “Are they this relentless with you too?”

“My situation is a little different,” Dana said, realizing that Emory didn’t know why she was there.

“Dana is a reporter, Emory,” Blair said, the slightest note of apology in her voice. “She’s covering the wedding for a Washington paper.”

“Oh.” Emory’s smile disappeared and her voice became distinctly cooler. She shifted slightly away and regarded Dana with thinly veiled suspicion. “I see.”

“Allergic to the press?” Dana asked sharply, bothered by the wall Emory had thrown up so quickly.

“Let’s just say my experiences haven’t been exactly positive,” Emory said, obviously trying to be polite. She set her wineglass down with exaggerated care, then looked regretfully at Blair. “I think I’ll have to pass on your offer to join your group this weekend.”

Blair didn’t look at Dana. “I’m sorry, Emory. I wasn’t thinking.”

“That’s quite all right. There’s no reason you should be.” Emory pushed her hair back from her face with a gesture of weariness. “Would you mind if I caught up with you later? I think I need a little time alone to unwind.”

“Of course not,” Blair said. “Promise you’ll call us later. Diane will be at my place for a while, and we were hoping you could come to dinner.”

“I’ll call.” Emory stood and gave Blair and Diane a quick hug. She nodded to Dana. “Good afternoon, Dana.”

“Well, hell,” Diane muttered as Emory hurried away. “That puts a crimp in our plans.”

Dana put her beer bottle down and stood. “I think I can take care of this for you.”

Without waiting for a reply, Dana sprinted after Emory Constantine.

“We’re turning off the interstate,” Savard reported, checking the highway signs as the SUV slowed at the bottom of the exit ramp and turned west. “Looks like a pretty small road.”

Cam stretched her legs and shook some of the tension out of her shoulders. “I imagine this caravan was attracting a bit of attention on the highway. Easier to track by air out there too.”

“Air like helicopter or air like satellite?” Savard asked.

“Satellite for sure, possibly both.” Cam checked her watch. It got dark early in the mountains, but it was still later than she had hoped. “We’re not going to make it home tonight. We’ll be lucky if we make it home tomorrow.”

“You think we’re going to Illinois?”

Cam nodded. “My guess is they’re transferring Early and whoever else is in that van to the supermax facility at Marion. The Navy base at Guantanamo isn’t ready to hold detainees yet.”

“Hell,” Savard muttered, “if we don’t talk to this guy before he goes down there, we’ll never talk to him.”

“That’s why we’re on this road trip.”

“You want me to put in a call to base about our change in plans?”

Cam did, because she wanted to get a message to Blair that she wouldn’t be home when she had planned to be. On the other hand, even though she thought Early’s transfer just when she wanted to interrogate him might be a coincidence, she wasn’t convinced of it. She also believed their communications with base were as secure as they could make them, but that didn’t mean they weren’t being monitored. For the moment, she preferred not to broadcast her plans. “Let’s wait on that for a bit.”

A few minutes later Savard looked out the window again. “Foggy out there.”

“We’re climbing through the mountains. I don’t think I’ve ever crossed them when it wasn’t.”

A beep sounded from the console built into the side panel announcing that an occupant in the front compartment wished to speak to them. Cam pushed a button. “Yes?”