Moonrise by Anne Stuart Page A

know.”
    “Tough. We’ll wait for Carew.”
    “Are you going to try to kill him again?”
    He considered the notion and found it, as always, appealing. “Maybe,” he said after a moment. “Or maybe I’ll just settle for a few answers and a short-term truce.”
    “You’re crazy, you know that?”
    “You were the one who came looking for answers. Have you changed your mind, Annie?” He almost hoped she’d say yes. It might be worth the risk, to send her off with Clancy and do the deal with Carew by himself. There was still the remote possibility that they didn’t know she’d found him.
    Yeah, and there was the remote possibilitythat Jimmy Hoffa was alive and well and living in Fresno. He wouldn’t bank on either one.
    “No,” she said, suddenly still and quiet. “I haven’t changed my mind.”
    “You want answers?”
    “Yes,” she said. “And I want revenge.”
    She was, after all, Win’s daughter. He looked down into her clear blue eyes, so like her father’s. “Against Carew?”
    “Against the man who killed him.”
    He simply nodded, releasing her, turning to check the contents of the small refrigerator. He already knew there’d be liquor in the cupboard, just as he knew there’d be weapons, Clancy was a thorough man, and he knew his taste in liquor and guns. “What do you intend to do about it? Once we find out for sure who did it, who gave the orders and who set him up. I could be wrong about Carew. I could be wrong about everything. What if it turns out to be someone you care about? A friend. Are you going to bring them to justice?”
    “No,” she said. “I’m going to kill them.”
    He kept his face in the coolness of the refrigerator, studying the bottles of Dos Equis for a moment. When he pulled back his expression was bland.
    “You think you can do it?” he inquired in a perfectly reasonable tone of voice.
    “After you failed? Yes. You see, he was my father. I loved him.”
    “You’re forgetting something. He was like a father to me.”
    The notion clearly startled her. “Look,” he said before she could protest, “why don’t you go check out the bedrooms, maybe take a little nap? I don’t know when Carew is going to show up, but …”
    “What makes you think he will?”
    He allowed himself a small, dangerous smile. “He’ll be here,” he said. “I can promise you that.”
    For a moment she looked uncertain. As if she still didn’t quite know what to think of him. “All right,” she said. “Maybe I will.”
    She turned from him, leaving the room, and he wondered briefly whether Clancy would have been careless enough to leave the weapons out. He doubted it. Training like Clancy’s and his didn’t go away no matter how long you were out of the business.
    She looked deceptively strong from the back, with her sweep of hair and straight shoulders. He knew the truth, though, and it depressed him.
    “Annie,” he called after her.
    She paused in the doorway, looking back at him. “Yes?”
    “You’re forgetting one thing. The man who killed your father. The man you want to kill.”
    “What about him?”
    “He’s going to try to kill you first. And he’s a professional—he doesn’t often make mistakes.”
    “How do you know that?”
    “Just trust me. I know.”
    She nodded. “All right. I’ll be ready. And you will too, James. Won’t you?”
    He nodded, trying to quiet the feeling of dread that lay like a burning stone in the empty center of him. “I’ll be ready, Annie,” he said very gently.
    He waited until he heard her footsteps on the stairs. And then he turned to the cupboards, to the bottle of Jose Cuervo he knew he’d find there. Clancy always had a gift for details.
    He broke the seal, unscrewed the cap, and poured a healthy dose down his throat, waiting for the familiar warmth to flood him.
    It took a second swallow. He shuddered, setting the bottle out on the counter. And then he went in search of the weapons.

Chapter Six
     
    T here was