Ace Is Wild by Penny McCall Read Free Book Online

other two women. Daniel took her by the arm and pulled her back in, holding on while the limo driver shut the door.
    “Sorry you gave that cop his gun back?” Daniel asked, seeing the look in her eyes.
    “I’ve done what I wanted to do. I’ll go and—”
    “Get arrested.”
    The pilot broke in over the headphones, asking where they wanted to go. “The FBI building in D.C.,” Daniel said. “Call Mike Kovaleski, tell him Daniel Pierce is on the way in. He’ll okay it.”
    A flare of panic crossed Vivi’s face before she hid it.
    Daniel almost felt sorry for her. Almost. “It’s either the Boston P.D. or the feds.”
    “Or you could let me go, seeing as I saved your life.”
    “You pulled a gun on a U.S. attorney, not to mention the Boston cop and the wife of a very influential man. The locals aren’t going to care that there were two hit men after me. The feds are your get-out-of-jail-free card.”
    “Why would you want to help me?”
    Daniel sat back and looked out the window. “I’m asking myself that same question.”
    “VIVIENNE FOSTER, AKA VIVIENNE TOTCHKA, AKA Madame Totchka. Oh, sorry, that’s the grandmother’s alias. Not that it makes a difference.” Mike Kovaleski pushed back from the computer, not his favorite tool no matter how much data it spit out, or how fast. He missed the days when information didn’t travel at the speed of light, the bad guys didn’t commit crimes without ever leaving their newly— and loosely—democratic countries, and the geeks weren’t running the world. “No known groups or affiliations.”
    “How about cults?”
    “None of those either,” Mike said. “But I don’t trust her.”
    “Of course not,” Daniel said, “she’s Russian.”
    “They’re just lulling us into a false sense of security,” Mike maintained. “Soon as we let down our guard, bam .”
    “Back to communism?”
    “I’m just saying.”
    “Right, not letting my guard down.”
    “Wise-ass. That’s what happens when you go to law school instead of sticking it out here.”
    “Not exactly my choice,” Daniel reminded him.
    “Yeah, dumb fucks upstairs with their medical reports and insurance advisors. Probably don’t have a dick between them, and if they did they couldn’t find it with a flashlight and a book on anatomy.”
    Daniel grinned, flipping the chair in front of Mike’s desk to one side so he could get off his bad leg and keep Vivi in sight while Mike kept muttering things like “putting people out to pasture,” and “pencil-neck college boys with manuals for brains.”
    They were in Mike’s glass-fronted office, in the FBI building, surrounded by agents and researchers and the people who cleaned the floors, which was mostly who was there at that time of night. But still, it was a pretty safe place to be when somebody was trying to kill you. If you hadn’t brought one of the lunatics along.
    His eyes were drawn back to the lunatic in question, but he wasn’t feeling threatened. There was still that little spike of lust when he looked at her, but mostly what he felt was relief. She’d gotten him out of an uncomfortable situation, after all, being auctioned off like a side of beef. And okay, the way she’d gone about it left something to be desired, but damn, he thought, looking around, it was good to be back, even under these circumstances. Hell, who was he kidding, especially under these circumstances. Nothing like a halfway decent death threat to make his day.
    “I don’t think she’s dangerous,” he said, his eyes still on Vivi. She turned around and looked at him, like she’d done every time he’d thought of her.
    “Apparently she leaves a hell of an impression, though.”
    Daniel wiped the smile off his face and gave Mike his full attention.
    “She’s been in some trouble,” Mike continued, squinting at his computer screen long enough to refresh his memory. “One arrest, charges dropped.”
    “Fraud?”
    “Yeah. Not one of your more violent