Lovin' Danger: Mata Hari Series Book 4 Read online

Once Sadie opened Emma-Mae’s journal she couldn’t stop reading. She started at the beginning:

  ∞

  February – 1913

  Dearest Diary,

  God that sounds awful. Sappy and overly sentimental as if I were the type of person who would keep a journal about their life! Diaries are for mothers who want to relish in the memories of childrearing, or retired Generals who want to relive their victories. I am not a mother or a general.

  They write with the belief that someday their descendants will want to read about their lives. Rather narcissistic, but there you have it. I imagine their writing makes them feel more important, more whole, more engaged with the universe and the meaning of life.

  I have no stories about my baby’s first steps, or how to make my husband’s favorite meal. Nor do I have stories about arranging an army for battle.

  No this will not be a normal diary.

  Let me introduce myself. I am Emma-Mae Jones, daughter of Edgar Jones, a clerk in a barrister’s office in London who died too young to achieve his main ambition of becoming a lawyer himself. My mother, Elouisa Mae Jones, is a bit of a puzzle to me. She refuses to talk about her past and now survives in a small flat in London. I send her money regularly. I have one sister, Elizabeth, who is much more normal than me and determined to be married soon.

  I’m thirty years old, an old maid. I spend my days doing many different things. How can I say this? Some days I am courtesan. I’m told, I’m good at that. Other days I am an executive secretary. I stink at that. My number sense isn’t the best and I make weak tea. Some days I am an old woman’s companion. I’m a chameleon by nature and trade. I do not wish to incriminate myself, but nor do I wish to fall into the trap of believing in any of the masks I wear.

  I am a spy.

  ∞

  Sadie put her finger in the book, leaned back and laughed. Unbelievable. Her great-aunt Emma-Mae had been a spy. How could Sadie not have known the truth about her?

  Clearly, the profession of espionage ran deep in her blood. A tingling sensation ran up her spine. Sadie put down the book, grabbed a pen and a piece of paper and started drawing a genealogical map. Edgar and Elouisa-Mae Jones of London had two daughters, Emma-Mae and Elizabeth. Elizabeth Jones married Winston Parker and emigrated to the States where they had five children. One of those children was Sadie’s mother, Pearl. Yes, that made Emma-Mae her great-aunt. Her mother had only mentioned the woman once or twice and the comments had been in hushed tone. Sadie tried to recall what exactly her mother had said.

  Her last memory came to mind. It was a cold November night and Sadie was twelve. Her mother lay semi-conscious on the sofa, having drunk too much whiskey. Worried she might catch cold, Sadie placed a blanket on top of her. As she did so, her mother said, “Just like my Aunty Emma-Mae.”

  Sadie tucked the blanket in around her mother’s body to keep her warm. “My aunty used to tuck me in like this when she came to visit.” Sadie had asked her to tell her more. “Oh she was a wild woman and she had many adventures. But I wasn’t allowed to listen to her stories. My mother said she lacked morals.” Sadie grinned at the memory. Gotta read more. She opened the journal again.

  Emma-Mae wrote:

  ∞

  War is imminent. I feel angry and frustrated not being able to do anything about it. As I complained to my friend Annie, she simply said, “I have the perfect job for you.” I remember feeling my eyes pop open. I had never had a perfect job, or for that matter any that I liked at all. Then she added, “But it would be dangerous.”

  ∞

  Emma-Mae had me hooked.

  ∞

  “They,”—and I won’t give you details as to who “they” are— started me slowly. I would be sent places to pick up packages and bring them back. It was easy. Then they sent me to find out things from this person or that. Again, easy. I have a natural talent for listening and people like to tell me things. I noticed they were sending me to talk to men more than women.

  ∞

  Sadie’s company phone buzzed. She put the book down and picked it up. Cole’s familiar numeric code ran across the top. She clicked it on.

  “Morning, sugar,” he said with his southern drawl warm enough to soften butter.

  She waited. Damn him for calling. She wanted to read the diary.

  “Got your text,” he prompted.

  Oh yeah. She squeezed her shoulders up and down and stretched her back. Being so involved in Emma-Mae’s story, she had forgotten that she sent him a text to tell him that she had received the chest. “I was just reading it,” she said.

  “Reading what?”

  “Oh, that’s right. I haven’t told you what I found.” She proceeded to tell him the details.

  He snickered. Sadie had only heard him laugh about three times since she met him. “I know, I know—a spy in the family. Who would have guessed,” she said.

  “I’ll do some research.” Something in the tone of his voice bothered her.

  Sadie listened closely to intonations in voices, a skill that had saved her life many times. It wasn’t in the cadence of Cole’s speech, or in the words he chose. It was the tone—silent but deadly cold.

  What did Cole know? Damn him. She’d bet her Mother’s, silk scarf he knew more than he was saying. She took a deep breath as her body kicked into a sudden state of alertness. Damn the “need-to-know” world of spies. He knew something.

  “Why wouldn’t my great-aunt show up when they did a background check on me?” she asked.

  “The lady could have been a master spy, sugar. They rarely hit the radar. And if they do, their tales are not recorded on paper.”

  With that he clicked off. Was that the answer? Her great-aunt had been so adept at spy craft she left no traces. Or had she been so complicit in international affairs that any trace of her had been extinguished long ago? Or? She looked at the cell phone, then her great-aunt’s book. A chill ran through her to the marrow of her bones. Maybe Cole did know. Maybe the whole company knew. Had she been played from the moment she signed up? For that matter, had they sought her out?

  She ran a hand through her hair. Living in a world of suspicion sucks.

  8

  Chapter Eight

  Sadie looked at her cell phone for a minute as if it held the answers and then she laughed at herself. No technology was that good. She thought back to the assassination attempt the day before. When did she first see the drone? What faces were in the crowd? What could she have done differently? She groaned. The last thing she needed was the New York City Police knocking on her door

  As if on cue, someone knocked on the door. She opened the door for Beatrice. Casanova jumped up on her and she stumbled back for a second. They had worked hard to train him, but while he would indulge them by sitting, staying and lying down on command, he couldn’t seem to master the art of saying polite hellos. “They” included four of them: Beatrice, Sadie’s best friend Mitch, Sebastian and herself. When Casanova spied one of his pack he hadn’t seen for awhile, he would run full speed as if his life depended on it, jump up on them, place his large paws on their shoulders and thoroughly lick their face. It could be most inconvenient at times, but today it felt just right. She laughed. “Down Cassy. Down.”

  He complied, but with his tail waving frantically he looked like a squirmy ragdoll. Sadie scratched the top of his head and gave him a dog bone. Devouring it in one easy gulp, he looked up at her for more, as if she never fed him. Why did she worry about what flavor to buy him when he never took the time to taste them? She shook her head.

  “How you doing?” asked Beatrice. Her cheeks were a little pinker than usual, but not one hair on her head had fallen out of place. She smelled, as usual, of peppermints.

  Sadie waggled her head from side to side. “I don’t like being chased by robotic monsters.”

  “I thought you might like Cassy for company.”

  Sadie laughed. “He could lick an attacker to death.” It had become their tag line for Cassy, wh
ose friendly demeanor made him a lousy, guard dog, but a wonderful buddy.

  “You never know. If someone tried to hurt you, he might find a growl in him.”

  “Growls don’t stop drones.” But Sadie felt the tug of a smile on her lips. Her neighbor and her dog. She couldn’t find better companions.

  “You want company, or you got stuff to do?” Beatrice’s blue-gray eyes, the color of a stormy-night sky, peered over her spectacles.

  “Look, Beatrice, you won’t tell anyone?”

  “Not a chance, honey. Your secret is safe with me.”

  Sadie touched the woman’s hand. “You know you’re a stubborn old bat. You should have left the park when I told you to.”

  “Right,” Bee said. A smile lit up her wrinkled face. “So you said.”

  Sadie hugged her. There didn’t seem to be enough words to express how grateful she felt to have Beatrice in her life. “I’ll take Cassy for a walk. That should calm me down.”

  “Bullshit. You’re as calm, cool and collected as they come. You can’t fool me, Cheekbones. So stop trying. You’re going back to see what you can find out. Be careful.”

  Sadie winked at her. “Cassy, come,” she said.

  The dog looked up from the piece of rawhide he’d found under the kitchen table. He picked his treat up in his mouth and stood, upsetting the table and knocking everything on it over. The salt shaker rolled right off onto the floor. The china, tea pot fell on its side and tea poured out, all over her new table cloth.

  Sadie winced. Why did she decide she needed a dog? But when he nudged her side and looked at her with those molten brown eyes, she remembered.

  ***

  A couple hours later Sadie and Casanova returned to the apartment. Sadie had run out of dog cookies, and without them walking with Cassy became a tug-of-war.

  The area where the drone exploded remained cordoned off, so she hadn’t learned much, but they had enjoyed the spring day. Cassy had smelled at least one hundred construction posts and for the most part had stayed at heel.

  After putting on her espresso machine, she checked in with Cole. The conversation was brief. No news there.

  It took time to gather facts. Waiting for them could be hell. She ran her hand through her hair. Tomorrow, she had a photo shoot. She needed to rest to look fresh. Her phone rang. Sebastian’s name scrolled across the display. Good timing. But then, Sebastian always had good timing.

  ***

  Sadie dropped Cassy off with Beatrice at six the next morning and grabbed a taxi to her shoot. An inch of makeup and hair spray transformed her into the image Le Mouton Noir wanted to sell their new line of cashmere: sophisticated, sultry and sexy. As the cameras flashed, she worked her magic, pouting into the camera with her lips as she kept her eyes still and remote, as if to say, you can look at me, but you can’t touch me. That look made her a successful model and provided a nice cover for her spy-life.

  Despite everyone’s hard work, the shoot went on, and on, and on into the evening. Sadie got back to her apartment at eight. Her plan was to shower, pick up Cassy and spend a quiet evening resting her feet. Maybe she’d have time to finish reading the Toni Anderson book she had started. Once inside, she found an envelope on the floor. Someone must have slid it beneath the door. A note was tucked inside. Who used paper these days? As she kicked the door closed, she slipped open the sheet of paper. The note read:

  Sadie,

  I’ve taken Cassy to the vet emergency. I’ll call you when I know something.

  B

  Beatrice that’s who uses paper. She remembered now. The woman refused to use smart phones, or stupid phones for that matter, claiming they let Big Brother follow her every move; a paranoia probably not far from the truth considering her long run with a Vegas mob. Cassy. Poor Cassy.

  Below the message Bee had scribbled the address of a familiar emergency clinic. Sadie had taken Cassy there a couple of months ago when he had stepped on a piece of glass and his paw wouldn’t stop bleeding. He probably did that again, or maybe he gobbled up some garbage that didn’t agree with him. Sebastian called him a Dogerator, as in a dog-garberator, because of his love for eating any garbage left around, including her favorite thong, Sebastian’s sock and the skeleton of a twenty pound Chinook salmon. And that was only the stuff she knew about.

  No matter how tightly they supervised him, his nose got him into trouble. At least she liked the clinic Bee had chosen. Clean and efficient. Everything would be okay, or so she told herself as her heart beat rose loud enough to pulse in her throat. Her baby was sick, or wounded.

  On her personal cell, Sadie checked her contacts, found the number for the clinic and clicked it. A call came in and Beatrice’s name scrolled across the top. She stopped her outgoing call and picked up the incoming one from Beatrice.

  “I have bad news.” Beatrice’s tobacco-worn voice had an extra edge to it.

  “What happened?”

  “They don’t know. I don’t know. Cassy started vomiting and wouldn’t stop. I brought him in and they’re running tests on him.”

  “Did you go out today?”

  “Just for our usual morning stroll. Maybe twenty minutes.”

  “Was he ever out of your sight?”

  The line went quiet for a couple of seconds. “No, but when I came home I had a feeling.”

  Sadie waited, and a second later when she couldn’t wait any longer she asked, “Had someone been in your apartment?”

  “I think so. It wasn’t that anything was messed up. But it was just a feeling I had, that my space had been invaded and there was a faint smell of cinnamon. You know I don’t cook.”

  “Any of your fellas?” Beatrice had a number of guy friends.

  “No. This wasn’t a pleasant smell.”

  “Did Cassy eat after he came home?”

  “No he had already eaten, so I didn’t give him more. He lay down on his mat and chewed a rawhide.”

  “New rawhide?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you have it with you?”

  “No. It’s in my apartment. You don’t think. . .”

  “I haven’t given him a new rawhide for a week. Have you?”

  “No.”

  ***

  Breathing deeply to the count of five, Sadie dashed off messages to Cole and Sebastian. “Cassy poisoned. Going to vets office.” And she gave the address. Sadie wanted more than her next breath to run directly to Casanova’s side, but she had to proceed with care. Someone could be using him to get to her. She fought back tears. Poor Cassy. He didn’t deserve this.

  As she entered the elevator, her phone rang. “Caller unknown” ran across the top of the screen of her personal mobile. She clicked it open:

  “If you want the antidote to the poison your dog ingested, you need to meet me.”

  “What will the poison do to him?”

  “Slowly,” and he said the word slowly, “and painfully, it will shut down his vital organs, one by one, until he dies.”

  “How long?”

  “Ten hours.”

  “Ten?” A cold trickle of sweat slid down her spine.

  “The experts could be wrong. He could have less.” He paused for a second and then continued, “I want to meet you. We have important matters to discuss.”

  Like my death? “When and where?” she replied.

  “Now, at the park. Don’t be stupid. Don’t tell anyone. I want you alone. If you take more than twenty minutes to arrive, I will know you have alerted the police or someone else.”

  She would have to jog to get there in twenty. The creep was right. There was no time to send a written message or phone anyone. But what the asshole didn’t know was that there was enough time for her to hit the distress button on her company phone. Cole would track her and send reinforcements. Turning her back to the camera in the top corner of the elevator car, she retrieved the black cell from her purse and hit the button. The doors opened and she started running.

  The only advantage she had,
or might have, was that her hunter didn’t know who he was dealing with. At least she could hope he would underestimate her.

  9

  Chapter Nine

  Sadie ran five blocks through crowded sidewalks to Bryant Park. Sweat streamed down her face. Her heart banged against her chest, but not from the aerobic activity. Good Lord she loved that dog. The thought of losing him, of him not being at home to meet her when she came to New York, shattered her; made her feel small, weak and victimized. Shit, some tough spy she turned out to be.

  Sadie had never had a pet before. The bond that formed between her and Cassy was stronger than she thought possible, even though she shared him with others. She snickered. Cole worried she cared too much for Sebastian. Here she was running into the muzzle of an assassin’s gun to save a mutt with raw meat from the garbage breath.

  A lovable mutt, mind you. A wet nosed, fluffy haired, tail wagging mutt who adored his masters.

  Sadie arrived and scanned the area. The park looked much as it had the day she and Beatrice had come to play bridge. People wandered about doing their thing on the warm evening.

  One man stood out. He wore a trench coat worthy of a cold war movie!

  Really? Would her assailant be that obvious? No one else in the park looked odd, or at least no more odd than normal.

  No one appeared to be looking towards him. But good back-up would be hard to see at first glance.

  Slowing her pace, she checked her watch. She’d made it with thirty seconds to spare. How could she stall the meet?

  That’s when she saw Mabel, Beatrice’s friend, the one with the pinched face, who had come to play bridge on Wednesday. Sadie jogged over to her.

  “Hi, Mabel.”

  The woman had thin, white hair pulled back into a low pony tail and wore a no-nonsense pant suit. Sadie remembered Bee telling her once that this woman wrote technical manuals. She looked it. When the woman recognized her, she said, “You.”

  “Look, I need a favor.”

  “I know. I know, already. Beatrice told us not to tell the cops about you. I won’t, sweetie. I know what it’s like to hide from an asshole husband.”