He referred her to someone local and she made a second call.
Within fifteen minutes, a fifty-ish briefcase-toting blond woman in a mint-green skirt suit strode through the front door of the coast guard station, looking wide-awake even though it was nearly 3:00 a.m.
John watched her eyes skim the room and could practically see her thought process as she sorted through the coast guarders and himself before reaching Sydney: pilot, pilot, swimmer, cop, ah—client.
She made a beeline for Sydney, took up a protective position at her client’s side and then turned to John, having apparently—and erroneously, at least at the C.G. station—identified him as the guy in charge. “Is there somewhere private my client and I can speak?” the lawyer asked.
John gestured to a nearby door, having already cleared it through the Renfrew brothers and their superiors. “You can borrow that office. My people are pulling together the paperwork as we speak.”
Sydney looked at him, and he caught a flash of nerves and worry in her lovely brown eyes. “What about my sister?”
“The locals are already en route. They’ll make sure she’s safe and get her someplace protected.” He’d thought briefly about using the sister as leverage, but had decided against it, not because he had any compunction against using the tools given to him, but because he knew Tiberius well enough to realize the good guys would lose that leverage if they delayed.
Instead of looking relieved, she looked discomfited, and a little guilty. “You’ll need…” She trailed off, took a breath and said, “Celeste is wheelchair-bound and requires special care. You’ll need to take her care provider with her, or find someone else to do the job, and you’ll need a vehicle she can be wheeled onto. She shouldn’t be removed from the chair.”
Only his natural tendency to play his cards close to his chest kept John from cursing, not only because it meant reorganizing what was supposed to be a quick find-and-grab, but also because it proved what he’d already begun to suspect: Sydney Westlake was planning on giving him exactly as much information as she chose to, exactly when she chose to. This wasn’t a free exchange of information. It was a damn chess game.
Worse, he was finding himself intrigued by her rather than annoyed, which was surprising, and he didn’t care for surprises. In his experience, they tended to end badly.
“Let me guess,” he said as a few more pieces of the puzzle connected in his brain. “Your sister has Singer’s syndrome.”
“My twin sister. Yes.”
“Which explains why you locked the computers instead of destroying them.” If he’d been a cursing man he would’ve let rip right then, because the information added a whole new layer of complications with the realization that her goal and his weren’t the same.
He wanted Tiberius dead or behind bars, and wasn’t really picky which way it went as long as the bastard was out of circulation and his operation disassembled piece by miserable piece. She, on the other hand, wanted to save her sister with a treatment that could potentially be used to topple the federal justice system, and then get her life back without any repercussions.
“Yes,” she agreed, glancing away from him. “The computers were firewalled against connection to any outside network, so I couldn’t e-mail the files off the island, and Tiberius’s people wouldn’t supply me with a flash drive or anything I could carry with me. I kept both my main and backup files on the system, and now they’re locked until either you take down Tiberius and get me back on that island, or Tiberius tortures the password out of me.”
She said the words with such hollow calm that he believed her, and even felt a stir of compassion. He, too, had seen what happened to people who wound up on the wrong side of Tiberius. It wasn’t pretty.
“Look,” he said, “I can sympathize to a degree. If I had a sister I’d probably feel the same way. But all the good intentions in the world don’t change the fact that you went to the island willingly.” His voice turned hard. “I might have to accept this deal, but I’ll be damned if I let you withhold valuable information in the hopes of saving your sister. Getting our hands on—or destroying—the weapon you created is our first priority. Bringing Tiberius down is our second. I’m sorry, but recovering information that might or might not cure your sister has to come behind both of those things on my priority list.”
He expected her to argue fiercely. Instead, she inclined her head ever so slightly. “I know.” She blew out a breath and pressed her palm to her stomach beneath the borrowed sweatshirt. “In my head I know all that. I even told myself it would be okay if I died escaping, and Celeste died because I didn’t make it out and get the cure to her, as long as Tiberius couldn’t use my work the way he wants to.” She paused, then shook her head. “The thing is, I’m not that person. Maybe it makes me selfish or spoiled, but I’m not willing to make that sacrifice.” She fixed John with a look. “It’s up to you, big guy. You take what I’m willing to give you and run with it, or I’m out of here the first chance I get, and then Celeste and I are off the radar.”
He should’ve scoffed at the threat, but damned if he didn’t think she could do it. She’d managed to lock down her work—though he had only her word on that one—and get off Rocky Cliff Island herself. Who was to say she couldn’t grab her sister and disappear off the FBI’s radar, as well?
His level of respect for her, which was already far too high considering they were on opposite sides of this particular issue, inched up another notch.
“Write up your terms.” He gestured to the empty office. “I’ll e-mail the info to my people and get the honchos to sign off on the deal.” He fixed Sydney with a look. “Then you’re going to tell me everything.”
She turned away, but then paused and looked back, and her eyes were dark with regret. “We’re on the same side, you know. I want Tiberius put away just as much as you do.”
“I highly doubt that.”
“I’m sorry,” she said again, so quietly he almost didn’t hear her.
Steeling himself against an unexpected—and unwelcome—surge of warmth, he said, “It doesn’t matter whether we like each other or not, Ms. Westlake. I have something you want, you have something I want. Let’s do the deal and take down Tiberius before he sells your virus to the wrong people and they use it to bring down CODIS. Once we’ve done that, you can get on with your life and I can get on with the next case. It’s as simple as that.”
But as he turned away, effectively ending the conversation, he knew damn well that none of this was going to be the slightest bit simple.
NERVES JANGLING in her stomach, Sydney followed her lawyer, Emily Breslow, into the office Sharpe had indicated.
She hated how her conversation with the agent had gone, hated having to play this game, but what other choice did she have?
“It’s like I always say,” Emily began, waving her to one of the two chairs, which faced each other across a cluttered desk in the untidy office, “if you have to deal with the Feds, it helps to deal with a cute one.”
That startled a snort out of Sydney. Her new lawyer was nothing like she’d expected. Tom Dykstra, the guy in Bethesda she’d used to set up a living trust for Celeste, had fit her sober, cynical, suited-up image of a lawyer. Emily, not so much. Though she wore a suit, it was anything but sober, and even though it was the middle of the night—closing in on morning—she was wide-awake, and her eyes held a glint of humor, as though she might laugh at any moment.
She was also, according to Sydney’s Maryland-based shark of a lawyer, very good at her job. And she had a point about it being a side bonus to work with a cute Fed. The more time Sydney spent in the presence of John Sharpe, the more interesting he was getting.
“Agent Sharpe seems very…focused,” Sydney said finally, though the word seemed entirely inadequate in describing the handsome, charismatic—and dangerous—man