Take Me If You Dare. Candace Havens

      “I am wondering if you could satisfy my curiosity about something.” Thankfully she interrupted his thoughts again. “You don’t seem like the kind of guy who would be a private investigator in Bangkok.”

      Huh. She was perceptive. Shrugging, he told her the truth. “I’m not.” At her sharp intake of breath he added, “I’m more of a consultant, and I don’t live here full-time. Bangkok is a temporary home until I clear some cases of my own.

      “You know the rules about client confidentiality, but I can assure you they are along the same lines as what you are working on. That’s why I thought it might be a good idea if we pooled our resources. I’ve spent a great deal of time here and know the city and its people well. I promise to be nothing but an asset to you.”

      Everything he said was true. When he’d been burned he’d been working on a human trafficking ring out of Rayong. Vlad’s organization did much more than gun-running. Jackson had managed to get inside the operation and he’d made progress. But somewhere along the line Jackson had screwed things up royally, and now he’d spend whatever life he had left finding out where he’d gone wrong. Once the Company, or worse, Vlad’s assassins, found him, he was a dead man.

      Mariska studied him for several minutes. She was intelligent, and not easily fooled. He’d managed to use his rusty flirting skills to distract her but that would only last so long.

      He glanced at his watch again to change the subject. “We have a few hours for you to rest. I can pick you up at, say, ten? We can grab a quick bite and then head off to our first stop.” It would also give him time to research the case and Mariska. He wondered if the SIA’s resources were why Dawson had set it up so that he’d find her.

      Picking up the folder, he read. “Liu Mae’s Sauna and Massage is probably the best place to start. I’ve heard—” he pursed his lips, not wanting to go into details “—a few things about that establishment from some of my contacts.”

      “What kind of things?” She fingered the handle on her bag.

      The narrowing of her eyes made him think she might be suspicious of something he said, but he couldn’t imagine what. So he told her the truth. “That the women there get paid a great deal of money to do special favors for their clientele. Let’s say there are no boundaries.”

      She scrunched up her nose. “Please tell me no animals are involved. I’m all for sex any way you like it, but if there’s a donkey, I’m so outta there.” She laughed. “I can’t believe I said that out loud.”

      The “sex any way you like it” comment caused his pants to bulge and he painfully crossed his legs to hide the evidence. His mind had flashed to a dangerous place where he had her up against a wall with her legs wrapped around him. “I don’t think you have to worry about that sort of extreme, though you may see some tools of the trade,” he teased her.

      Standing, she pulled her bag onto her shoulder. “I don’t think I even want to know what you mean. Give me a couple of hours to crash, and I’ll meet you in the lobby.” Holding out her hand, she waited for him to do the same. “It’s been a pleasure,” she said as he took her hand in his.

      Her fingers were long and tapered and the skin soft against his calluses. Jackson held on a little too long. When she looked down at their hands linked together, he let go. Then she turned on her heels and walked out.

      Believe me, the pleasure was all mine. Jackson watched as the lower half of him still fought for control.

      He noticed three other men entering the bar glance at her as she left. A strange sensation came over him. A protective feeling that was quite unfamiliar.

      Mine. He desired her in a bad way.

      The instinct to punch them for staring at her was strong, but he stayed put. As he watched her hips sway under the flowery dress, how could he blame them for looking? There was a freshness, no, an innocence about her that he hadn’t come across in a really long time, an unusual trait in her line of work.

      Jackson chugged his mineral water. It was really too bad he didn’t have time for that cold shower. He pulled out his wallet but the bartender waved him away.

      “The lady already paid,” the man said as he picked up Jackson’s glass and wiped the bar.

      Lucky for him he’d kept the folder. He’d have some time to do a bit of footwork on his own.

      He also had to see a man about a passport. If he were ever going to get out of this godforsaken city, he’d need a couple of new identities.

      Before that happened, he had a mess to clean up. When he found out who had sent him on this one-way road to hell, he’d kill them.

      3

      MAR WAS DETERMINED to not act like an idiot when she saw Mr. Thomas later that evening. She lay in her bed surprised that she’d been able to sleep for a couple of hours. The alarm on her cell had chimed her awake, and now she had a half hour to shower and change.

      Yawning, she stretched and moved her legs to the side of the bed, wishing she could sleep a few more hours. Finally, she pushed herself up and went into the well-appointed bathroom. The Four Seasons never skimped when it came to linens or bathrooms. She turned on the hot water and thought about her meeting with Mr. Thomas.

      “What kind of detective am I that I don’t even know his first name? I talked to him for almost an hour.” She stared at herself in the mirror wondering how much longer she could hold up this charade.

      The problem was, she was no detective. Not really. Everything she knew she’d learned from studying for her Ph.D. in clinical psychology with an emphasis on the criminal mind, and researching case files at the office. She was nothing more than a figurehead, though so far she’d been able to fool most of the agency’s clients.

      Two years ago she was well on her way to becoming an FBI profiler, at least that was her dream. That had changed with her mother’s death.

      Sad, since her mother was one of the best in the business. Of course, her mom, the founder of SIA, had also been a CIA agent, a fact Mar had only discovered a few months ago while digging through some private papers.

      When she confronted her father about it, he’d said, “That part of her life was over long before you were born, hon. We don’t discuss it.”

      Mar had tried to press him for more, but it was useless.

      Obviously, Mar hadn’t picked up any of her mother’s special interrogation skills, because she’d let the matter fall.

      She was good at subterfuge. She’d not only fooled the clients, but also several people at SIA headquarters. At first, when she fumbled and stumbled they believed she was still mourning her mother. She was lucky that a few of her friends, Chi, Katie and a couple of others knew the truth. They helped to hide the fact that she was in way over her head.

      When it looked like everyone might figure out what was going on, she’d solved the case of a missing child by sheer luck. Mariska had been coming back from a trip to Houston when she’d stopped at a roadside barbeque joint for some ribs. There was a little girl alone in the restroom washing her hands. When Mariska saw her, she knew that it was Maddie Lennon, who had been missing for three weeks. There’d been Amber alerts and everything.

      She’d checked the stalls to make sure the little girl was alone and then locked the bathroom door so no one could get in. Trying to be as calm as possible she told Maddie that she was a detective like on TV, and that she was safe. Maddie didn’t say a word but she didn’t try to run away. Mariska pulled out her phone and called the police.

      The woman and man who’d taken the little girl had nearly beaten down the door until Mariska had shouted the police were on the way. The couple hadn’t made it to the restaurant’s entrance before the owner of the place pulled a shotgun and had them down on their knees. God, you had to love Texans. Later he told Mariska he knew