Infallible

Chapter 2

Two

“Yes, captain, it should be a problem at all, sir.”

By the time she took her angry eyes off the receiver and turned around, the agent was already sitting at her desk. Across the room, their eyes met, and she felt a knot forming in her chest. Pushing down the effect his bright smile was having on her, she walked over casually with a slow tap-tap-tap of her killer black heels. As the sound echoed throughout the precinct, all eyes were on her as she narrowed in on her target.

How dare he?

The first thing she noticed about him was how perfect his jawline was. Holy crap, he could very well be a Hugo Boss model, when not chasing down criminal scum, that is. His flawless lips parted. “Good evening, detective. Although, I do prefer…Sam.”

His smile was that of an arrogant man who’d found out from the other detectives that her nickname was Sam, and that Sam was indeed not of the male persuasion. And by the way his blinding smile shifted higher on the one side, just about drove a knife through her, causing her more frustration than bewilderment toward the sexy agent. It had to be said that the way he looked at her, as if she was just another girl cop, quickly dissipated any brief attraction she might have felt for him.

Her career choice was a difficult one—men never took women seriously, much less a pretty one, in any field, really. And it was exactly what drove her to be the best at what she did. Chasing up proclaimed dead leads gave her immense power. She was the hunter. In fact, Scarlet had a brilliant reputation as The Closer. Her strike rate so high, she was able to freelance for all sorts of law enforcement agencies across the globe – never tied down to one place for too long.

Was she lonely? Had she ever been in love?

Her work kept her too busy to be any kind of lonesome, and as for being in love—she’d been there, albeit a very, very long time ago. Work was the medicine that numbed the pain. The farther away from home the busier she kept herself, and the more she laid her life on the line the more she felt alive—remorse pulling back into the dark corners of her soul.

From across the table, her eyes pinned the agent’s with vehement frustration. “No one calls me Sam, especially snooty FBI agents who think the world revolves around the suit.” She stared down at his impeccable taste in clothes.

He remained seated.

Taking a sip of her coffee she pulled a face, slamming the mug down on her desk with searing distaste, indecisive over what irked her more—the cold coffee that tasted gross, or the nerve of this FBI agent sitting in her chair that had her craving to punch someone in the face. Right now, it might as well be the striking face of the inconceivably bad mannered agent.

In the background, she heard her team burst into laughter. Scarlet relaxed her shoulders—the poor bastard didn’t stand a chance against them. Obviously, they knew she would take the news of her case being shared with the FBI badly, and using her sour mood they set the agent in the way of her fury.

“Excuse me…” he started to say, at the exact moment she flew around the desk, her hands pinning the armrests either side of the seat he was sitting on. With her eyes locked on his, she was determined to show him and herself, that he in no way would affect her judgement.

He sat back, no emotion crossing his face, and stared at her as she slowly rolled him and her chair away from her desk. His gaze stayed true to hers, meeting her vivid green eyes with confidence as she stared him down. Alaric might have even felt a little turned on at the balls of this woman.

When he was pushed right up against the back wall, she straightened and grabbed the other chair from the adjacent table to sit on before her monitor. His eyes kept a close, careful watch on her as she casually slid her badge from her belt and scanned herself into her PC.

He tried another angle. “My apologies if I in any way offended you. Your team obviously played a prank on me.” Alaric thought he gave her a fitting apology, but as she ignored him his heart beat faster in his chest. She might have been stunning, but that didn’t mean she had to be so damn rude. Perhaps she was gay, because usually his magnetism worked on women.

Standing, he took in a deep breath and walked around the desk to stand directly in front of it, forcing her to look at him. As he stood behind her monitor, he patted down his carefully chosen royal blue cravat. He opened his mouth to speak, but her eyes shot him an annoyed look.

In the manner in which he ran his hand down his fancy tie once again and cleared his throat to speak, she of course assumed he was on the verge of insulting her further. Good-looking men like him didn’t get their egos bent, not often anyway.

Tainting her tongue thick with sarcasm she said, “Nice tie.” Smiling knowingly, her eyes peeked just over the rim of her monitor to meet his gaze head-on. This guy won’t last a day in the field. Mentally, she rolled her eyes at the overdressed agent. He probably hadn’t been out on a real chase in months, if not years.

“Nice accent,” he retorted, then felt his face heat up at his stupid comment.

Americans thought that South African accent was awesome. Well, she thought this agent was full of BS.

“So, Agent Blade—” she paused, looking across the floor to where her squad sat. She gave them kudos, a nicely played with a slight nod of the head. The squad very noticeably scurried into a ‘busy’ state, pretending that they were not intensely studying her reactions to the handsome guest. She’d been in New York City for six months, and for five of those just about anyone including the janitor had tried to set her up on a blind date.

“—you are a day early. I’ve just received the brief on the Bane case, which leads me to assume you are here because you think you can help out, determine how and why he would escape two days prior to his release.”

He nodded, respectfully. “I insisted, detective.”

“You don’t know what you are asking of our team, Agent Blade.”

Blade leaned with both hands on her table, voice lowered. “With all due respect, Detective Martins, I know this son of a b***h better than anyone—”

“Yes, I see,” she cut him off, wishing he wouldn’t stare at her like that. She looked down at the papers the captain had sent through. “Impressive track record.” Not wanting to become distracted, thereby letting him walk all over her while pouting those perfect lips and sultry brows, Scarlet turned in her chair, wheeling herself over the window behind her to slide the blinds closed, hoping he’d take the hint and leave.

When he cleared his throat and started talking again, her brain simply shut down at the sound of his raspy voice, causing her stomach to flip.

This agent was bad news.

Immediately trying to shake the effect he had on her, she fell back into her seat and stared at the monitor’s generic screen saver of swimming fish as if it simply was not there. Her mind was in the gutter.

“Detective…” he called to her, on noticing her lack of interaction to his statement.

She wanted to put her hands over her ears and leave, his voice just as distracting as the rest of him. “I’m sorry, Agent Blade, but I don’t believe you’ll fit in here. However, I will allow you to consult.” Her eyes met his hesitantly, feeling bad for the guy. It wasn’t entirely his fault that his handsome face was getting to her. Just by staring at him, all prim and proper-like, she knew it was the best thing for the agent who had been out of the NYPD for over five years, stuck behind a desk at FBI headquarters in Texas as an analyst. He wouldn’t last a day in his suit.

Yet, Alaric Blade wouldn’t back down. Without a word, his stare conveyed a number of things he wanted to say to her. But he knew better than to argue with a hard-headed—more likely than not—feminist like her. He just needed to find a way to prove himself to the detective and her team. He might as well have some fun with this one.

Scarlet shifted uncomfortably under his mysterious gaze, the awkwardness growing.

He merely grinned at her, hands resting in his pockets, as if he was taking a Sunday stroll in the park. “Consultant,” he murmured, testing the idea, the word tasteless on his pallet. “That’s not going to happen.” Unknowingly, his grin had a devastating effect on her.

“Uh, yes it will.” She was dumbfounded. He was definitely up to something.

“You take me on, or I take this case elsewhere.”

And there it was.

Scarlet stood. “Well, if it were an FBI case, it wouldn’t be on my desk right now.” Her patience with this handsome asshole was wearing thin.

“I was being polite.”

A sound resembling a growl emanated from the back of her throat. Grabbing the grubby case file, she made her way around the desk and practically flew to the captain’s office.

Her four man squad quickly turned their heads, burying them in whatever non-existent paperwork they were busy with in fear of getting smacked over the head as she passed by. The sound of her heels resembled the call of a warrior’s drums as he headed into battle.

She let herself into the captain’s office after a short and abrupt knock. “Excuse me, captain, but I refuse to work with Agent Blade on this case. It’s in the best interests of this department that he be treated as a consultant. He hasn’t been in the field for over 5 years. He could get himself killed!”

What she had really meant to say was that it was in his best interest—the smug i***t was going to unnecessarily complicate things for her entire team. Because that was all the FBI were good for.

“I qualify as much as you do, I’ll have you know, detective.” Agent Blade had somehow entered without her even realizing it.

The captain’s eyes flickered between the two, and then lowered back down to the pile of paperwork stacked before him. He excused her rudeness; she’d always been a hot-head from the moment they’d met in South Africa over nine years ago. As for the agent, he ignored him, because FBI were arrogant that way. And…well, he knew Blade had become emotional over the Bane case from the moment they’d worked on it together over seven years ago.

Scarlet turned to the special agent when the captain pretended like they didn’t exist. “Agent Blade, if you don’t mind, this is between me and—”

“I will not stand by and let this vicious criminal get away,” he said, talking right over her.

“Your job was well done, now let me do mine!” Scarlet’s fist bunched tight at her side. Reaching out, she dumped the case file on the captain’s desk. “Take me off the case, then.” She spun back around to face the captain, her voice still raised, emotions fuming. “I won’t stand by to witness some fancy-assed, cravat-wearing, polished-to-the-point-of-acting-as-mirrors-shoes, pretty-boy-agent ruin the last three months of work I’ve done with the NYPD. Our informants will see him coming from a mile away. He’s only going to slow me down. This case is too sensitive, captain. Bane is a serial killer. The minute he hits the streets he will kill again, and I’m not sure why, but for some reason I have a feeling he is being heavily guarded by someone important.”

“Exactly the point, detective,” Blade interjected.

The captain merely sat up straight, tucked his simple blue and gray plaid tie into his pants, sat back once he was satisfied, and only then did he gesture for both to take a seat. Forcing as much patience into his voice as he could muster, he finally spoke. “Look…,” he took a deep, calming breath, “…this is without a doubt a high profile case for both our departments, but mostly it is all about politics.”

Scarlet snorted.

Captain Rourke leaned with both fists on his desk, talking in hushed tones.

“The reason I allowed Agent Blade to join us and state his case, so to speak, is because this is a favor for our mayor. He wants the NYPD to stand out, to be different, and to be the most effective department it can be on this case. He is the arresting officer, after all.” The captain gestured to Agent Alaric Blade, who had infuriatingly taken a stand by taking a seat.

Both agent and detective stared at him in disbelief, a million thoughts probably reeling through their heads.

Swallowing her anger, she bit down on her tongue to keep from losing a battle with the short temper she had won a long time ago. She knew by now it was best to let it simmer and think clearly when it came to politics in any country. But in the USA, there were rules and then there were unwritten rules. Shooting one’s mouth off could get a girl killed in such a high stake case.

The thought of being the department’s ‘gift’ from the mayor had barely touched sides when Agent Blade shot forward. He positively felt insulted that politics came before crime. His gaze hit the detective’s for a second before he heatedly slammed down a solid fist on the captain’s desk.

And within that hot second, Scarlet felt something she had not allowed herself to feel in what felt like an eternity. The look in his eyes had her pondering. He obviously felt passionate about his work—she was intrigued, even a bit excited at what this cowboy would do next.