Come Toy with Me

Dino said nothing. For the first time since he’d walked into the office, he heard worry in the colonel’s voice.

McGuire picked up his cigar and jabbed it at the air again. “That’s where the trouble is. Someone has taken advantage of my little girl.”

“How?” Dino asked.

“Some bastard is smuggling drugs into the country in those toys. Cocaine.”

Dino thought for a minute. How much cocaine could be smuggled in toys? “It must be a rather small-scale operation.”

McGuire’s expression turned very grim. “Small, but very profitable. My contacts at the CIA tell me that the cocaine is premium quality and the person running the operation targets a select group of clients who are willing to pay very generously for high quality and the guaranteed discretion of the distributor.”

Dino nodded thoughtfully. “The rich folks don’t have to lower themselves to rubbing elbows with someone on the street.”

“Exactly. But drugs aren’t the worst of it. The profits from this little enterprise are being used by a terrorist group out of Latin America to help establish a cell in this country. That’s brought in both Homeland Security and the feds—which means the whole situation’s got cluster fuck written all over it.”

Dino silently agreed. “Does your daughter know about the smuggling?”

The colonel shook his head. “I thought about telling her, but I know her too well. She’d be furious that someone was using her shop that way. There’s no way I could convince her to keep her nose out of it. She’d start poking around, and that could put her in even more danger.”

“What else did your CIA informants tell you about the operation?”

“Someone on the other end in one of those small towns is loading the drugs into the toys just before they’re shipped here.”

Simple, safe, Dino thought. And a toy store was a good cover. “There has to be someone in the store who knows which pieces have the drugs in them.”

“Yes.” McGuire tapped his cigar on the desk. “And the feds’ prime suspect is my daughter. They think she’s part of a damn terrorist smuggling ring.”

Dino kept his eyes steady. “Is she?”

McGuire’s color heightened, but there was no other sign of his brief struggle for control. His voice was flat and firm when he spoke. “No. She’s not. From the time she was a little girl, she’s dreamed of running a toy shop—a place where she could make children’s dreams come true. That was her mother’s dream, too. Nancy even designed some dolls. It was something they shared before Nancy passed. Cat’s not involved in this criminal enterprise, but someone else in that shop has to be.”

“Any idea who?”

“She has two full-time employees. Her assistant manager is Adelaide Creed, a retired accountant, and Cat looks on her as a second mother. And she often speaks of her buyer, Matt Winslow, as the brother she never had. She also has a part-time employee, Josie Sullivan, a sixty-five-year-old retired schoolteacher. Any one of them is close enough to the business to be involved. Hell, they could all be working together.”

“I assume you’ve run background checks on each of them, and none of them has an urgent need for money, or a sudden influx of the same.”

McGuire nodded. “I used a man your boss recommended—Jase Campbell. He researched their finances and found nothing out of the ordinary. On top of that they each appear to be stellar citizens. Josie was given an award from the mayor for excellence in teaching, and Matt is going to school at night to get his MBA. When she first retired from her career as an accountant, Adelaide Creed worked for Congresswoman Jessica Atwell. When the governor appointed Atwell Attorney General, Adelaide applied for work at the Cheshire Cat.”

“So you have no leads.”

“None. And my informants tell me that the feds expect to move on the operation any day. This whole thing is about to come crashing down on Cat’s head.”

“And my job is to bodyguard her?”

“Not just that. You’ll be on the inside. I want you to take a look around and find out who’s on the receiving end of the stolen goods. Maybe you can even get a lead on the mastermind behind the whole thing. According to my sources, the feds don’t have much of a clue there. Bobby claims you’re one of the best operatives he’s ever had under his command. He says you have a special kind of sixth sense when it comes to investigations.”

Thinking it was better not to comment on that, Dino said, “Isn’t the sudden appearance of a bodyguard going to raise the suspicions of whoever is involved?”

Dino watched some of the tension in the older man ease.

“Not if your cover story is good enough. And yours is excellent.”

Noting the gleam in the colonel’s eyes, Dino had a hunch that he wasn’t going to like it.

“You’re my daughter’s new fiancé.”

2

THE FIRST FIVE BEATS of silence that followed his announcement allowed James McGuire a moment to study the young man sitting across from him. Dino Angelis looked perfectly at ease, his elbows resting on the arms of the chair, his legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. McGuire had seen the same kind of seeming relaxation in jungle cats while they watched their prey. And like those cats, he wagered that Dino Angelis could move quickly enough when he was ready.

He agreed with Bobby—Angelis was smart. So far, his questions had been perceptive and to the point, his comments insightful. The man didn’t believe in wasting words. For a split second, right after he’d said the word fiancé, he’d read surprise in the younger man’s eyes. Other than that Angelis hadn’t revealed much of anything he was thinking since he’d ambled into the room. He’d make a formidable opponent in a poker game.

As the five beats stretched into ten, McGuire said, “Any questions?”

Dino raised one finger. “Who’s going to believe in a fiancé who turns up out of the blue?”

Once again he’d zeroed in on a key point. McGuire opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a manila envelope. “Got it covered. This is your complete history with my daughter—from first meet to secret weekends here in Manhattan at the Waldorf to the night that you popped the question on the skating rink at Rockefeller Center. Melted my little girl’s heart. She loves to skate—could have competed nationally if we hadn’t had to move around so much. Your relationship has been hush-hush so far, but Cat’s invited you here for Christmas to publicly announce the engagement and to meet her family. You have a two-week leave from the Pentagon.”

“Where am I going to be staying? I can’t do a very good job of protecting your daughter if I go back to my hotel room every night.”

McGuire opened the envelope and pulled out a key. “Cat’s apartment building is a co-op. A few months ago, the apartment next to hers became available, and I bought it for her as a surprise Christmas gift, figuring she could expand the space she has now. You can stay there. Both apartments overlook a courtyard that connects the building to the block the Cheshire Cat is on. As far as Cat’s employees are concerned, it will appear that you’re staying with her. You’ll have a day to memorize your background story before you drop in at the shop and surprise my little girl.”

“How is your daughter going to react to all this? Won’t she want to know why you’ve hired me to act as her bodyguard?”

“I’m not going to tell her that part.”

“Then whywould she agree to this fake fiancé masquerade?”

“I’m going to persuade her to cooperate over drinks this evening.”

Dino’s eyes narrowed. “You think she’ll agree?”

McGuire kept his smile easy, confident. There was still that little obstacle to overcome. Cat was her father’s daughter. She could be stubborn when she wanted to.

“Cat has a weakness for wanting to please her father—especially at Christmastime. And the fake engagement is the onlyway to protectmywife and daughter from Lucia Merceri.”

Dino inclined his head toward the portrait on the wall. “I’m not following. What part does your mother-in-law play in all of this?”

“Nothing in the drug smuggling part. But the old battle-ax is the prime mover in the fake engagement scenario.” McGuire leaned back in his chair. “Just about the time I learned about the danger my daughter is in, my wife came to me in tears. It seems that over the past year, her mother has been asking for progress reports on what Gianna is doing to get Cat ‘settled.’ Turns out my wife has been placating her mother with stories, telling her that Cat has been seeing someone secretly. Gianna told Lucia she discovered the trysts by accident and she hasn’t wanted to get involved because she was afraid of jinxing it.”

“An interesting story,” Dino commented.

“Yeah. In my wife’s defense, I have to say that she’s been focused on her daughter Lucy’s pregnancy and didn’t have much time left over to run a campaign to get Cat a husband. So she made up a whopper. And Lucia’s been fascinated by it. Last week she announced that she was coming over here to celebrate Christmas with us, and she wants to meet the man Cat is seeing. My wife is in a panic about what her mother will do when she discovers the lie. It won’t take Cat long to figure out that if she goes along with this masquerade, she can bring some peace to the family during the holidays, and her stepmother will owe her. Christmas is a special time for Cat. She wants to make everyone happy. And Lucia is flying back to Rome on New Year’s Day. Crisis over.”

Dino studied the colonel. “So the fake engagement is supposed to fool your mother-in-law until New Year’s Day?”

“It could actually last a bit beyond that, depending on how the drug smuggling problem is resolved. I’m leaving the story about your eventual breakup in Gianna’s capable hands. Apparently my wife can lie like a trouper.”