Bait by Karen Robards Read Free Book Online

boss—“and complain that we’re holding out on him. And Smolski’s gonna go ape-shit.”
    â€œLast time I shared details of an investigation with Lewis ...” Sam began, meaning to fill Wynne in on the ins and outs of the media blitz that nearly derailed the drug-smuggling case. But he was interrupted by the sudden strident peal of his cell phone.
    Sam became instantly alert at the sound, and he straightened away from the wall. Wynne watched him like a dog with a squirrel in view as Sam thrust a hand in his jeans pocket, yanked the phone out, and glanced down at it. A number flashed on the ID screen. It made him frown.
    â€œYo,” he answered, already knowing that the voice on the other end was not going to be the one he both wanted and dreaded to hear.
    â€œSomething weird,” Gardner said in his ear. “We’ve turned up another Madeline Fitzgerald. Attacked last night at the same hotel.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYeah. Only this one lived.”
    â€œYou’re shitting me, right?”
    â€œNope. She signed into the emergency room at Norton Hospital at 3:12 a.m. with unspecified injuries, was treated and released.”
    â€œWhat? What?” Wynne demanded, balancing on the balls of his feet now as he stared at Sam and tried to make sense of the conversation. Sam waved him off.
    â€œAnd we’re just now finding this out?” Sam felt like slapping his palm to his forehead duh- style. They were the FBI, after all. Consistently being a day late and a dollar short was not how they were supposed to operate.
    â€œHey, not my fault. Apparently a friend drove her to the hospital. Hotel security notified the police, who called us. Ten minutes ago.”
    Sam took a deep breath. Lack of timely cooperation from the local police was nothing new, of course. But it was still maddening as hell. “Where is she now?”
    â€œI knew you were going to ask me that.” Gardner sounded smugly self-satisfied. “She caught a cab in front of the hotel fifteen minutes ago. The driver took her to the Hepburn Building. One-thirty-six Broadway.”
    â€œGardner, you da man,” Sam said, and hung up with Gardner’s pert “not in this life, lover,” echoing in his ears.

FOUR
    So her throat hurt. So she was bruised and sore and scared. So she was operating on about two hours sleep. Get over it, Maddie told herself fiercely as she washed her hands in the Hepburn Building’s first-floor ladies’ room. She could think about what had happened later, after the presentation was over. If she and Jon did a good job now, if Creative Partners got the account, her struggling business would suddenly, for the first time ever, be on solid ground. Even better than solid ground. They’d be making money—lots of money. Enough money to buy the kind of settled, secure life she’d always dreamed about. Now was clearly not the moment to fall apart. Just because some psycho maniac had broken into her hotel room and tried to kill her was no reason to lose focus.
    You gotta have priorities, she thought wryly. A nervous breakdown would just have to wait. What she needed to do was just stay in the moment. After all, what was the alternative? Turn tail and head back to St. Louis with a whimper while waving a fond farewell to the Brehmer account?
    Not happening.
    So get a grip. Maddie took a deep breath and worked on taking her own advice. While she’d been in the hospital basically having her tonsils examined, Jon had already tried to have the appointment postponed, without success. Mrs. Brehmer’s people had made it clear that either the meeting went down at ten a.m. today as scheduled or it didn’t go down at all. Reliability was Mrs. Brehmer’s watchword, as Susan Allen, her personal assistant, had apologetically informed him. If Brehmer’s Pet Foods couldn’t even rely on Creative Partners to be at such an important meeting on time,