For the First Time Read online

  “Not really my thing.”

  “What about your local police force?”

  “Also not my thing.”

  Right. Trouble. Just like he suspected.

  “Yet according to your list of special skills, you’ve spent months at several law enforcement training camps specializing in firearms and hand-to-hand combat. I guess I’m curious why you wanted to train like an agent, but didn’t want to be an agent.”

  He watched her crack her neck as she seemed to search for an answer that was accurate, honest and didn’t cost her the job—even though it was already too late.

  Almost too late.

  “While law enforcement—either as a police officer or a federal agent—is an honorable career path for many, I was concerned that the confines of the hierarchal structure would be too limiting. Especially for someone in the minority sex.”

  She didn’t like authority or sexist pigs.

  The sexist pigs he could get behind because she was right. While many of the government investigative agencies from the FBI to NCIS were opening their doors to more women, it was still a man’s world.

  But it was the authority part of her explanation he had a problem with. Since, if he employed her, he would be the authority she had a problem with.

  “Can I see the tattoo?” That was for his curiosity again.

  “Excuse me?”

  “The tattoo. Can I see it?”

  She smirked. “I have a few. In some rather interesting places so you’ll have to be more specific.”

  “Specifically…the one on your neck.”

  She lifted her eyes to the ceiling, a move that reminded him vividly of his teenage daughter, then she pulled down the collar.

  Black ink barbed wire. With spikes. Covering both the right and left sides of her neck. Not completely circling her skin the wires trailed off as they neared her larynx. Still, a signal to the world to back off.

  “Yes, I can see where you might struggle within a—how did you phrase it?—a hierarchal structure.”

  “I’m a good investigator. No, check that. I’m a great investigator. I prefer to work on my own, but I never fail to get results. I don’t see why a tattoo should be a problem in getting a job.”

  “Except that you know it is or you wouldn’t have covered it up with the turtleneck.”

  “Some people are more conservative than others.”

  As a rule, Mark was not. In fact, a couple of months ago he wouldn’t have given a rat’s ass about a tattoo. But that was before the mother of his estranged daughter died in a car accident. Before he left the CIA to return to the States. Before he started the process of building a relationship with said estranged daughter…

  And failed at it miserably.

  Now he was trying to do everything right. He wanted the right type of company. The right type of people around his daughter. The right everything.

  Nose-stud, barbed-wire-tattoo chick was not it.

  He glanced at her résumé again. She’d included a list of high-profile cases she’d worked on. Some very high-profile cases. What had she said? She was a great investigator. That was probably true, damn it.

  “Why the move to Philadelphia?”

  “To get away from New York.” She quickly added, “Not that there was anything bad there. Tom’s brother Tim is assuming the role of president of the firm. Tim and I don’t see eye to eye on a lot of things and we both knew when he took over I wouldn’t stay. Tim will never make me a partner. So I figured this might be a good chance to leave the craziness of the city behind. Stop pouring all my money into rent on a studio apartment not much bigger than a closet. I considered Boston, Philadelphia and D.C. but then when Tom brought up Ben Tyler’s name… Well, everyone knows his reputation. Even in New York. I came here for him, but he sent me to you. Now you’re sending me away because you don’t like tattoos. Is that on all people? Or on women in particular?”

  Mark gritted his teeth. He would not be backed into a corner on this. “You and I both know you have problems with authority. It’s why you chose private investigation and probably why you couldn’t work with Tim Reid. He’s former FBI as I understand.”

  “He might be former FBI but he’s a current ass.” She winced, probably knowing that calling her former boss an ass was not helping her case. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. For the record, I didn’t have a problem with him, or his authority. He, however, had a problem with me and the fact that I have breasts. He’s not a big believer in women in the workforce in general. He’s an old-school, barefoot-and-pregnant kind of a guy.”

  “They still exist?”

  “He does. Which is how I knew I would never be partner.”

  “Is that what you want?” Mark hadn’t thought that far ahead. When he came back after Helen’s death his objectives had been pretty clear. Find a way to reconnect with Sophie and find a way to make a living out of doing what he did best: gathering information. He hadn’t seen much beyond that.

  Everything changed so quickly when he realized that it made the most sense to have Sophie live with him. Now she was his first thought every day. Then came the business. Strange that, despite his priorities, progress on his first objective was, to date, rather abysmal, while his second objective was prospering beyond his imagination. Hence the need for help.

  “Yes, I want to be a partner. I want a piece of what I create. Eventually. I’m willing to earn it over time.”

  “Why not start your own business? Then nobody can tell you what to do.”

  “That’s not practical at this point. I don’t have the savings I would need for a proposition like that and, well, health care. It’s a bitch. Got to have it in case one of my tattoos gets infected.”

  See, he thought. She was snarky. Nearly unprofessional. She’d referred to her former boss as an ass, for Pete’s sake. She had penetrating deep blue eyes and she was too damn smart. All of that spelled trouble, just like he’d thought.

  He was trying to establish something different in his life. Something solid and conservative. Something…that was the opposite of whatever he had been in his former life.

  Because being daring to the point of recklessness wasn’t something a stable father should be.

  “I’m sorry.”

  She nodded and stood. Then she pulled out a card case from the black purse she carried—a purse he highly suspected saw the light of day only when she was interviewing—and handed a card to him.

  “I’m staying downtown at the Marriott for the next few days. I figure I’ll take in the city, do the tourist thing before I head to D.C. I have an interview at a firm next week. If you change your mind, you know where to reach me.”

  Mark had to chuckle. “I turned you down for the job, yet you’re letting me know where you’re going to be in case I change my mind. That’s awfully ballsy.”

  Josephine—somehow that name didn’t fit—shrugged. “Look at my casework again. Tell me you’ll find someone more qualified.”

  She offered her hand and he took it. Her grip was firm and confident just like it had been at the beginning of the interview. Certainly not the handshake of someone who had been rejected.

  She wasn’t the right fit for him, but he wasn’t going to deny that inwardly he was sorry about that. The woman had guts. Guts, in his opinion, was a necessary ingredient in a successful life.

  *

  “LUCY, I’M HOME!” Mark opened the door to his condo in a city-center high-rise and wondered if tonight would be different.

  Probably not.

  He’d been coming home to his daughter for the past two months and not one night had she greeted him with a smile.

  He set down his briefcase, one he’d recently purchased to replace the leather satchel he used to carry. The satchel made him feel like Indiana Jones. The briefcase made him feel like his father. Mark figured that was a good thing. Might make him more fatherly.

  Like most Mondays, his daughter wasn’t alone. The tutor he’d hired for her a few weeks ago
to replace the one who had quit to go on maternity leave was here. Nancy was a nice woman in her early thirties who had proved to be an outstandingly good hiring decision. She showed up when she was supposed to, never lingered when it was time to go. Sophie’s grades were being maintained at the highest level and Nancy was fairly cheap, all things considered.

  Watching Nancy, wearing plain jeans and a conservative sweater, collect her books to leave made him feel better. He’d definitely made the right choice by hiring her, he thought. Which meant he’d probably made the right choice letting Josephine walk.

  “Hi, Mark.”

  “Nancy, how are you?”

  “Oh, I’m fine.”

  Sophie sat on a stool at the counter that separated the kitchen from the living room. She was reading a textbook and didn’t look at him as he approached.

  “Hey.” He tried a different greeting.

  “Hey.”

  “Did you hear me when I came in?”

  “Uh, yeah. Was that supposed to be an I Love Lucy reference?”

  “Too old?”

  “Too lame, Mark.”

  He hated it when she called him Mark. “You know I would really prefer it if you would call me Dad.”

  She smiled then, but not the kind of smile he was hoping for. “Hey, I would prefer it if you had actually been a dad.”

  “Okay, well, I’ll be going,” Nancy said.

  Right. Who wanted to stick around to witness such familial bliss? “Thanks, Nancy.”

  “See you, Sophie. Don’t forget—not a word less than five hundred.”

  “No problem.”

  Mark watched Nancy leave and wondered, not for the first time, how he and Sophie must seem to her. Dysfunctional didn’t begin to cover it. She probably raced home to…well, no one. He happened to know that she was single and not seeing anyone. It had been part of what he had dug up during the background check on her—that and her Match.com profile.

  But no doubt she thought they were a mess. And that was the truth—he and Sophie were a mess. Their past—or more accurately, lack of a past—was the river that separated them. It seemed no bridge he could build would ever allow him to cross it. No matter how much he changed his life for her.

  Because, in the end, for so many years he’d been nothing more than a name scrawled on the bottom of a card. Certainly not a father.

  Despite that, he liked to think he hadn’t been a total ass to her mother. When Helen told him she was pregnant he instantly knew he had to do the right thing and offer marriage. Only Helen knew she’d done the wrong thing by deliberately getting pregnant to hold on to a man whose life ambition was the CIA.

  He thought he’d done everything right by her. He’d volunteered to refuse the CIA offer and find a more stable career—possibly with another federal agency, or scrap those plans altogether and go to law school. He damn certain had put a ring on her finger.

  In the end, Helen had been the one to back away. She must have figured out that no matter how tightly she tried to hold him, he would always be looking over his shoulder wondering what kind of life he could have been living.

  When he’d been stationed overseas Mark had liked to tell himself that he remained a part of his daughter’s life. He’d sent her cards and presents on her birthday and holidays. He’d occasionally chat with her over the internet if he was in a place that had the capability. But no amount of justification could cover up the truth. Having spent the past fourteen years of his life outside the United States, he was the very definition of an absentee father.

  Hell, he hadn’t even made it home in time for her mother’s funeral.

  No wonder Sophie hated him.

  But she was stuck with him. Dom and Marie, her grandparents, who had been in the process of selling their home to move into an assisted-living facility when Helen died, had tried to make a go of having Sophie live with them. After a few months it was easy to see that two aging grandparents in questionable health weren’t up to handling a fourteen-year-old teenager.

  And not just any teen. Sophie was special.

  “What do you want to do for dinner?”

  “Surprise me, Mark.”

  There it was again. That hint of sarcasm. His daughter would turn fifteen in a few months but there were times when she sounded like she was double her age. He figured it was expected. The girl was a prodigy. A piano master by age nine who had been touring the country and the world for the past five years with the most highly respected orchestras and conductors. Giving her unique gift to the world, yes. But growing up way too fast for his taste.

  He’d seen her act sophisticated and gracious with some very important political and business leaders who came backstage to pay her compliments on her performance.

  Mark had also seen her roll her eyes at him like he was the dumbest man imaginable. He was proud of his daughter and the way she handled herself, but he also appreciated the other side, too. It reminded him she was still just a kid.

  “Okay, I’ll cook.”

  “I said surprise me, not kill me. The last time you tried to cook it was a disaster.”

  “It was hot dogs,” he said in his defense. “How bad could they have been?”

  “They were still cold in the middle and made me gag.”

  “Whatever.” Oh, my. Had he really stooped to responding to his daughter in her own teenage speak?

  “Besides I shouldn’t eat. I had a big lunch and I have to watch my figure.”

  The girl was tall and lithe with long straight blond hair. If there was an extra ounce of fat on her body, he didn’t see it. However, he had to appreciate that she was a performer who was conscientious about how she looked onstage.

  Mark decided to avoid the conversation—always a good thing when it came to women and weight—and instead went to check the mail.

  In the months that they had been living together they’d fallen into a routine. He couldn’t say it was a comfortable one, since Sophie was too prickly for that. However, Mark thought at least they were settling into some kind of normalcy, which he was convinced was a good thing. After all, she couldn’t hate him forever. It simply wasn’t practical.

  She practiced every morning at a studio where he rented space. From there she usually went to rehearsal with the Philadelphia Orchestra—her current assignment—at the Kimmel Center for a few hours. Nancy came three times a week in the afternoon.

  Mark wasn’t sure how he felt about Sophie trying to cram what most kids did during a five-day school week into what was essentially nine hours a week. But given his daughter’s grades, it wasn’t like he could protest. She’d already taken a preliminary SAT test and had scored only two hundred points shy of perfection. No, he wasn’t worried about her grades so much as he was the other things kids experienced in high school. Like making friends, going out to parties, getting asked to the prom. The last time he asked her if she missed that kind of stuff she scoffed at him as if all high school activities were beneath her.

  Maybe they were for a girl with her mind and talents. Who knew? Mark only knew that he was starting to enjoy their camaraderie even if it was seasoned with sarcasm.

  She had chores around the house, although they were simple. She was supposed to keep her room neat, help him with the grocery shopping—that being agreed upon after a totally awkward moment when he’d purchased the wrong brand of feminine products for her—do her laundry and collect the mail.

  Mark hired someone to handle the majority of the cleaning, which left him with providing dinner. That mostly entailed taking Sophie out to a restaurant of her choosing or ordering in. If this was to be their life together, then he probably needed to learn how to cook something besides grilled meat and hot dogs.

  Walking to the small table in the foyer where Sophie left the mail every day, Mark sorted through what was mostly garbage and stopped at a white envelope that had no addresses—his or a return—or stamps. Just his name. Sharpe.

  “Hey, was this in the mail?”

  Sophie l
ooked at him. “Yeah, whatever was in the box downstairs I put in the dish. You know, like I’ve done every day for months.”

  He was going to have to explain to her that not every statement she made to him needed to be followed by a rolling of the eyes. The girl was going to give herself an eye condition.

  Mark opened the envelope with suspicion. Maybe it was from a neighbor. He hadn’t really taken the time to meet any of them, being too busy keeping up with Sophie and the business, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have them. Maybe they didn’t like Sophie playing her electric keyboard too late at night.

  There was only a single sheet of plain white paper inside. He pulled it out and saw the neatly typed sentence centered on the page.

  You’re going to lose her.

  The instant reaction in his gut was stunning and more powerful than anything he’d ever felt before. He lifted his eyes to his daughter, who had already dismissed him, and he thought, The hell I am.

  This, he realized, was what it felt like to be a father.

  And he kind of thought it sucked.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “YOU’RE SURE SOPHIE didn’t do it?” Ben lifted the note in the air, looking to see if there was any imprint in the paper. Some identifying mark.

  Of course Mark had already checked for that. But he hoped Ben’s trained eye might pick up something he had missed. Despite the fact that Ben had been a longtime rival, Mark also knew he was the best. The truth was, after Ben resigned from the CIA, Mark had lost much of his love for the job. He’d already been making plans to leave the agency when the death of Sophie’s mother sped everything up.

  Ben had been his benchmark: the agent Mark intended to be someday. The man he would best someday. To set himself apart from the others, Mark had done a lot of risky stuff. One stunt nearly cost Ben and him their lives. As a result, until recently they had never exactly been friends.

  Now that they were both in the States and trying to live normal civilian lives, they had forged a bond that in the past few months had strengthened into friendship. Strange, considering how they’d started. Stranger still after Mark hired Ben’s assistant out from under him.