Your name is Callie Walters. You're twenty-nine years old, an only child, as rich as a Kennedy and as gullible as a two-year-old." Callie stared at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, barely recognizing the woman staring back at her. It had been years since she'd cared whether or not her hair was styled or her makeup was flawless.
Years since she'd cared much about anything or anyone at all.
Pasting on a cheerful smile, she opened the door.
Frank waited outside, his gaze sweeping over her. A smile quirked his lips. "There she is. That blonde bombshell who knocked my socks off at the junior-senior dance."
"Trust me, she never owned anything as nice as this." She waved at the slim-fitting sheath dress she'd chosen during her shopping spree the afternoon before. "Rachel was a huge help."
Seth's wife had been her shopping companion, taking Callie to the most expensive shops Maryville, Tennessee, had to offer. "We can order a few things, too, to round out your wardrobe," Rachel had said with the breezy tone of a woman for whom money had never been an issue.
For Callie, money had been an elusive means to whatever end dangled perpetually out of her reach. And when she'd caught a glimpse of the bill before Rachel handed it over to her husband, her heart had nearly stopped.
"You remember your backstory?" His hand brushed against the small of her back as she passed, sending awareness skittering up her spine.
"I'm rich, I'm Texan and I'm dumb as a stump." She put on her best Texas twang, one she'd picked up from her Dallas cousins years ago when they'd come to Tennessee for a stay. Mimicry was one of her more useful talents, one that had gotten her out of her share of messes over the years.
Frank smiled. "Naive, not stupid."
"Potato, po-tah-to." She flashed him a quick smile, hoping it was enough to cover her rattled nerves."Who are you, my bodyguard? My hunky chauffeur?"
"All of the above. My job is to melt into the background while you take center stage." He reached out and touched her cheek, his eyes darkening as her gaze snapped up to meet his. "Mascara smudge. All fixed."
She took a shaky breath. "Are you sure this is going to work?"
His faint smile faded. He dropped his hand to his side. "It better. We have six more days to suck this guy into our web."
"What if we don't?"
"Then some other woman is going to get bilked of her money."
She followed him to the large, marble-floored foyer of the borrowed home, a sprawling two-story colonial that belonged to Rachel Hammond's stepmother Debra. It had been on the market for over a year without a purchaser, luckily for them. Now it was Callie Walters's new home for however long it took to hook a conman.
Frank opened the ornate front door, but as she started to exit, he put out his arm, blocking her path. He bent close, his voice dropping to a gravelly half-whisper. "If you want to back out, now's the time."
She met his gaze, her chin coming up out of old habit. One thing Callie Shaw had never been was a quitter. "No backing out."
He dropped his arm and gave her an approving look that swept over her like a warm wave. "Ms. Walters, your carriage awaits." Offering his arm, he walked her to the silver Mercedes parked at the curb.
Settled in the back seat, Callie took a slow, deep breath and met her own reflection in the rear view mirror.
Showtime, she thought.
((()))
The wall of windows in Sanctuary Hill Country Club's oak-paneled ballroom overlooked the mirror surface of Douglas Lake, but none of the bejeweled attendees took notice of the stunning vista once Callie Shaw entered the room.
She was as magnificent as Frank had known she'd be, all long legs, gleaming sun-kissed skin and golden hair that framed her flawless bone structure in soft waves. Her dress, though modestly cut, skimmed her body like a caress, and the bold black and white pattern drew the eye to her delectable curves.
He relinquished her arm. "Ready?"
She met his gaze with cool poise, but unease flickered in her eyes. They were deep blue tonight, picking up tones of twilight from the nearby windows. "What if she hates me?"
Eliza emerged from the milling crowd, a beautiful, aging lioness. She stretched out her hands to Callie, her face a lacy network of fine lines when she smiled. "Callie, my dear, welcome to Tennessee!" She caught Callie's hands, offering her cheek for a kiss.
As Callie bent to greet her, Frank moved toward the outer edges of the ballroom to join the other nameless men and women in dark suits cut generously to cover holstered weapons, security contractors hired to keep the party-goers safe and solvent. There were hundreds of thousands of dollars in jewelry alone moving about the ballroom. Millions worth of ransom as well.
And in the case of the gorgeous blonde now moving about with her hand hooked through her hostess's elbow, about twenty million non-existent dollars dangling as bait for a conman with expensive tastes.
Frank scanned the room with as much nonchalance as he could muster, Penny Sheridan's description in mind. Male, fortyish, trim and athletic. Sandy brown hair and blue eyes—but Frank knew those attributes were easily changed. He and Seth Hammond had compiled a list of about ten potential scams they believed to be linked to their unknown suspect, based on the man's modus operandi.
In Penny Sheridan's case, he'd gone by the name Ellis Gentry. He'd presented himself as a real estate speculator with a soft spot for charity. Gentry's M.O. was to go after unattached wealthy women, usually at fundraising events such as the Appalachian Children's Fund mixer they were currently attending. He'd bilked nearly four hundred thousand dollars from Penny Sheridan; if they were right about some of his previous scams, he'd taken close to two million dollars total from seven different women in Tennessee, southern Virginia and western North Carolina.
Penny Sheridan had been taken to the cleaners in Chattanooga, and the next stop on his so-far circular tour of the area was Knoxville.
If he was here tonight, he'd find oil heiress Callie Walters irresistible.
"Lord, what a fancy crowd!" The female voice, low and drawling, sent a shockwave rolling up Callie's spine. The crab puff she'd just lifted from the canapé tray slipped from her trembling fingers and hit the parquet floor with a soft splat.
She looked for the speaker, her heart pounding. There. Dressed in the white shirt and black trouser uniform of the wait staff, her wavy auburn hair pulled back in a neat ponytail, stood Kim Coker, former denizen of cell seventeen at the Tennessee Women's Prison.
Callie's old roommate.
Kim's gaze swept in Callie's direction, and Callie turned away quickly, hoping Kim hadn't spotted her. If she did, and she saw past the expensive trappings to the scrappy mountain girl underneath, Callie's undercover op would be over almost before it began.
((()))
Frank saw sheer panic in Callie's blue eyes as she crossed quickly to where he stood near the wall. "One of the wait staff knows me."
He listened with growing alarm as Callie tersely explained how she'd almost run into someone she'd met in prison. When they'd vetted the guest list for the fundraiser to make sure there was no one who might know Callie from her youth in Bitterwood, they hadn't even thought about the wait staff. It should have been the first thing they'd considered.
"Just steer clear of her." He nodded toward Eliza Harrington, who was headed their way. "Go with Mrs. Harrington. I'll see what I can do."
His mind already clicking several steps ahead, he intercepted the waitress named Kim Coker on her way out of the ballroom. "Miss?"
Kim Coker gave him a curious look. "Can I help you?"
"Mr. Merriwether is worried about the wine inventory and wants someone to make sure there's enough on hand for the rest of the party. Are you able to handle that?"
Kim looked relieved at the thought of escaping the party. "You bet."
Frank watched her slip out of the room, releasing a gusty sigh of relief. That had been close.
Too close.
"These are blurry." Penny Sheridan sounded doubtful over the phone.
"I couldn't exactly aim my breast at people and tell them to say cheese," Callie muttered.
Frank shot her a warning look as he reviewed the screenshots from the brooch camera Callie had worn on her dress at the fundraiser. "I'm not asking you to identify anyone, Ms. Sheridan. But can you eliminate anyone?"
"The man with the green tie is definitely out," Penny said. "Ellis was much taller."
As Frank jotted on the notepad in front of him, Callie stretched her legs and slumped against the sofa cushions. Her feet were killing her, every muscle in her body sore from all the tension of the evening at the country club, and instead of soaking in a hot bath, she was stuck doing a post-mortem of her unsuccessful night out to a rich woman who'd made the mistake of trusting the wrong man.
Lord, she could tell Penny Sheridan a few "wrong man" stories that would make her hair curl.
And about the right one she'd driven away.
Frank ended the conversation with Penny Sheridan and looked at Callie. "Good job tonight. Even the bodyguards were buzzing about that gorgeous Texas heiress." His voice warmed, and the look in his eyes softened. "You were a hit."
Pleasure flitted through her, but she quelled it with ruthless determination. "But our conman didn't make a move."
"He may not have been there. It wasn't an easy party to get into."
"I know." She'd been shocked to learn that Penny Sheridan had donated fifty thousand dollars in the name of Callie Walters in order to give Callie cover for her attendance at the fundraiser."Ms. Sheridan is spending a lot of money to recover four hundred thousand dollars."
"It's not about the money." Frank shrugged off his jacket and laid it over the back of the sofa. In a white dress shirt, black trousers and a brown leather holster housing a large pistol, he gave off an intoxicating blend of sophistication and dangerous power. "She wants him stopped."
"She wants to stop feeling like a fool."
"Yes." Frank sat on the coffee table in front of her, his hands lifting to cradle her jaw. For a heart-stopping second, she thought he was going to kiss her. Then she felt the tug of his fingers on her ears. "These have to go back into the safe for the night. I promised Quinn."
He eased the diamond studded hoops from her earlobes. When he finally moved away, she felt as if he'd snapped a cord holding her upright. "What's next?"
He curled his fist around the earrings and gazed down at her, his eyes as dark as a forest at nightfall. "We sweeten the bait."
"Meaning?"
His lips curved in a smile that flooded her belly with heat. "You're going to get a little use out of that new bikini you bought."
((()))
Bitterwood, Tennessee, was a tiny place, and even growing up on different sides of the mountain hamlet, there'd been no way Frank and Callie could have made it all the way to their senior year of high school without some level of acquaintance.
But his father had been a church pastor, and hers had been a wife-beating meth cook. Callie's circle of friends had encompassed the hard-eyed, tough-minded kids who'd grown up with her on Smoky Ridge, while Frank had been a football star with a bright future stretching out ahead of him as far as the eye could see.
Then he'd broken his leg and had to sit out his last season of football. Hobbling on crutches, he'd made the mistake of dropping all his books in the middle of a crowd of Smoky Ridge kids just looking for some payback for all the garbage the popular kids had shoveled their way over the years.
They'd been merciless—until Callie had swooped in, all long legs and big blue eyes ablaze with anger. She'd backed the others off and helped him gather up the books he'd dropped, though her parting shot, "Hobble on back to your own crowd, superstar—I ain't always gonna be here to save your fine ass," shouldn't have endeared her to him.
But somehow, it had.
Alexander Quinn's voice buzzed in Frank's ear through the cell phone. "Any movement?"
Frank looked across the clubhouse pool to the lounge chair where Callie was soaking up the August sun while a half-dozen male club members sneaked peeks at her long legs and little red bikini.
South of his own belt buckle he felt more than a little movement himself. He dragged his gaze from the lounge chair. "Negative."
"Five more days," Quinn murmured, then hung up.
Frank started to pocket his phone when he spotted a man in dark blue swimming trunks take the empty lounge chair next to Callie. He looked to be trim, fit and in his mid-forties. Dark hair, not sandy, but hair was easy enough to color.
Pretending to continue talking on the phone, Frank opened the camera app, zoomed in on the tableau and snapped several shots of the man now sitting on the edge of the lounge chair, chatting with Callie.
Pocketing the camera again, he moved slowly to the other side of the pool toward the shaded cabana situated a few feet away from where Callie and her new acquaintance were conversing. He ordered ice water with lime and settled at one of the small tables under the awning that shaded the cabana from the midday sun.
He couldn't make out any of the quiet talk passing between Callie and the newcomer, but the recorder in her bag would catch the conversation and she could fill him in on any nuances the audio didn't capture.
Like the way the son of a bitch was touching her hand as he spoke. Or the way she was laughing as if he was the most amusing bastard in the world.
Focus, Frank. This is a mission. She's the honey trap. He's the target. She's doing what you asked of her.
If only she were doing it with a little less enthusiasm.
The dark-haired man rose with a final, lingering brush of fingers across her hand. "Tonight?" he asked loudly enough for Frank to hear.
Callie flashed the man a bright smile. "Can't wait."
Frank waited until the man entered the clubhouse before he wandered over to the lounge chair. "Tonight?"
The excitement in Callie's eyes as she smiled up at him made his chest hurt. "I have a date."