Undercover Encounter. Rebecca York

      Prologue

      “It’s not your fault,” Alexander McMullin said from the doorway of the hospital room.

      Conrad Burke, who was standing by the window with his head bowed, looked up, his countenance a mixture of determination and anger. He was tall, with dark hair and dark eyes—in the prime of his life. A stark contrast to the other occupant of the room who lay in the narrow bed, his eyes closed, his breathing shallow.

      The unconscious man had once been slightly rotund. Now his body seemed to have shrunken and his thinning dark hair was plastered to his head.

      As Alex stepped across the threshold, Conrad turned to face him squarely, the way he always faced what life threw at him. Yet he couldn’t hide the haunted look in his eyes.

      Until a few months ago Conrad had been with the Colorado Confidential operation, run out of the Royal Flush Ranch by Colleen Wellesley. Then he’d been tapped to set up New Orleans Confidential, so he’d moved his wife and twin babies to the city.

      One of the first agents recruited for the new branch, Alex was determined to keep Conrad from doing something he’d regret.

      His new boss gave him a direct look. “What do you mean, this isn’t my fault?” Conrad gestured toward the unconscious man. “I’m the one who invited Wiley down to New Orleans. I’m the one who took him out for a night on the town. If I’d just left well enough alone, he’d be fine now.”

      Keeping his voice even, Alex said, “You didn’t slip him the drug that put him in that hospital bed. Nobody could have anticipated that would happen.”

      Conrad’s expression only became more self-accusatory. “I’m supposed to know what’s going on in this city.”

      “You just moved back here. New Orleans Confidential isn’t even operational yet.”

      The other man ignored him and plowed on. “Why the hell did I have to take him to Bourbon Street Libations, of all places?”

      “Because you didn’t know the bartender was drugging the customers.”

      It had all started so innocently, Alex thought. Wiley Longbottom, the man who lay in this hospital bed close to death, was the former director of the Colorado Department of Public Safety, aka Colorado Confidential. A heart condition had forced him into early retirement.

      And Conrad Burke, who’d worked with Wiley at the secret government agency, had invited his old boss down to the Crescent City for a big, blowout going-away party.

      The first few hours had been a blast—with the new agents like Alex listening to the old hands play “can you top this” as they exchanged stories about shoot-outs and undercover operations. Wiley and Philip Jones, one of the Confidential recruits who’d worked as a P.I. in the city for years, had everyone else convulsing with laughter at their escapades.

      Unfortunately, the evening hadn’t turned out the way anyone expected—because good old Jack Smith, who tended bar at Bourbon Street Libations, had slipped something into the retired director’s drink.

      Something very nasty and very potent. And not just one dose of the stuff. It was a drug they were now calling Category Five because it swept through the unsuspecting victim like a major hurricane. It had made straight-arrow Wiley horny as hell. When one of the prostitutes who frequented the bar came on to him, he leaped at the chance to leave with her. Everyone at the table thought he’d wake up in the morning with a hell of a hangover and an embarrassed grin on his face—until they checked his hotel room and found that he’d never come home that night.

      After a frantic search, they’d found him in the intensive care unit of St. Charles General Hospital, suffering from a massive heart attack.

      Conrad’s voice interrupted Alex’s dark thoughts. “We’re going to get the bastards that did this to Wiley. We’re going operational next week.”

      Alex had expected something like that, although he knew they weren’t nearly ready. They’d just gotten their undercover operation—a trucking company called Crescent City Transports—in halfway working order.

      “How do we justify jumping in two months early? I mean, what’s the official explanation?”

      “I’ll come up with something.”

      Privately, Alex didn’t like the setup. But he understood where Conrad was coming from. So all he said was, “Tell me what you need from me.”

      Chapter One

      “Hey, buddy, hurry up with that damn beer,” a sharp voice cut through the babble of voices and music blaring through Bourbon Street Libations.

      “Coming right up,” Alex McMullin answered as he pulled back on the tap and filled a glass, then delivered the brew to an impatient tourist. Next, he wiped up a spill on the polished bar and pocketed a generous tip from a customer. Working undercover as a bartender had its advantages, although he sure hadn’t thought he’d end up dispensing booze when he’d joined New Orleans Confidential.

      But this was the bar, Bourbon Street Libations, where Wiley Longbottom had been drugged. Which was why Alex was presently making a Singapore Sling for another boozy tourist—while keeping the small, wiry figure of the other bartender, Jack Smith, in his peripheral vision.

      A noise coming from the direction of the door made Alex’s head jerk up. A big, muscular guy named Tony was supposed to be at the entrance, politely turning away anyone who was too plastered to whistle “Dixie.” But he’d gone on his break a few minutes ago, leaving the belligerent drunk who’d just staggered into the bar free to take a swing at another patron.

      Alex looked at Jack, who shrugged and bent his balding head toward the drink he was mixing. Alex also glanced at Mason Bartley, the most unlikely member of the Confidential team, a forty-year-old loser with short brown hair and shifty blue eyes. At the moment he was acting true to form, looking down into his rum and Coke.

      With no one else prepared to keep order, Alex rounded the bar and headed for the drunk, who immediately tried to pop him one.

      “No, you don’t,” he growled. Spinning the guy around, he propelled him toward the door.

      Instead of going quietly, the guy made a furtive motion toward his boot, and a knife that could gut a pig materialized in his hand. Only, he wasn’t after pork this evening. With a curse, he made a vicious slash at Alex’s midsection.

      Acting instinctively, Alex aimed a kick at the guy’s arm, sending him sprawling on the barroom floor and the knife flying.

      The jerk was stupid enough to lunge for the weapon again. Alex kicked it out of the way, wondering if he was going to have to do some serious damage.

      Someone in the back must have alerted Tony because he came rushing into the fray and scooped up the pork sticker. Of course, by this time, the little altercation was attracting a crowd, from both inside and outside the bar. Tony must have figured Alex could take care of the intruder, because he turned his own attention to settling down the rest of the patrons.

      As a former police detective, Alex’s instinct was to call the boys in blue and let them haul this guy’s ass away. But Bourbon Street Libations had a pretty strict no-cops policy. Unless somebody got killed, you kept the law out of it.

      So he frog-marched the drunk onto the street where they were instantly enveloped by the heat and humidity of the night.

      “Need some help?” a voice from the crowd asked. Alex looked up to see Rich Stewart—dressed in a nicely authentic biker outfit—ambling toward him. A former navy SEAL who still kept his dark blond hair in a short military cut, he was another of the Confidential agents. With a grin, he helped Alex propel the inebriated jerk several paces down the block.

      When Alex turned, he saw Tony stepping onto the street. “Thanks,” he muttered. “Sorry, I was in the can when the excitement broke loose.”

      “No problem,”