It was not a suggestion.

“Of course.” Carter stepped past her, careful that their bodies did not touch. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Pareto.”

Rica did not answer but watched until Carter had disappeared before following her down the hall. When she reached the foyer she turned in the opposite direction, away from the revelry. She ignored the faint racing of her pulse as she collected her coat and purse, nodded to the guard at the door, and left the celebration behind. Carter Wayne was undeniably attractive, but like almost everyone else in the house, she was not to be trusted.

Two hours later, Carter completed a circuitous route through the quiet Brookline streets and pulled her black Explorer into the parking lot of one of the few convenience stores in the neighborhood. She stopped next to a dark panel van and watched the rearview mirror for a full minute to see if any vehicles followed her into the lot. After checking out the few cars parked in the well-lit area toward the front of the building, she was satisfied that she had not been followed from Pareto’s. She got out and rapped on the side of the van.

The door immediately slid open and she climbed inside. Two men and one woman waited in the cramped quarters, surrounded by electronic surveillance equipment. The older of the men wore pressed chinos, a polo shirt with the Massachusetts State Police logo on the breast pocket, and a thin headset coiled around his neck.

“Since I’m not getting anything over the wire,” her partner, Kevin Shaughnessy, said, “I’m guessing you didn’t get it planted.”

“Ricarda Pareto walked in on me about two seconds too soon,” Carter said, squatting down so her head wouldn’t bump the ceiling. “That wasn’t the way we were supposed to meet.”

Marilyn Allen, a sharp-faced blonde wearing the regulation FBI navy suit and a perpetual frown, grunted in displeasure. “Jesus, it’s taken us six months to get you in there. All we need now is for you to blow your cover. Or worse, Vincent Rizzo’s.”

Carter bit back a sarcastic remark, refraining from pointing out that none of the regional FBI agents, including Allen and her partner Bill Toome, had the skill to work undercover, and they never would have gotten this far inside without her. Carter, like every other state and local law-enforcement agent, believed that federal agents were nothing but glorified accountants, good for gathering information but a liability in the field. But it was the age of detente when everyone at least paid lip service to working together, and she kept her opinions to herself.

Kevin, in his usual implacable manner, ignored the grumblings of Allen and Toome. “What about Rizzo? Is he holding up all right?”

“He’s wasn’t happy about bringing me right inside the family, but, considering his other choice is jail, he’s managing.” Carter rubbed the back of her neck, belatedly realizing that she was far more tense than she’d realized. Tonight had been the first time that Rizzo, a trusted, high-ranking Pareto captain and a very reluctant FBI informant, had actually tied himself to her in public. He had introduced her as a business associate, thereby guaranteeing her legitimacy in the eyes of the organized crime members and sealing his own demise if her cover was ever blown.

“That’s good, because he’s been acting a little nervous,” Allen said with obvious relief. “We want to get him wired before he panics. That will save us months of trying to infiltrate the organization one operative at a time.”

“If you put a wire on him, you’re signing his death warrant,” Carter said. “Sooner or later someone will pick up on it and you’ll find him in pieces in the bay.”

“As long as it’s later, that might save the taxpayers some money,” Toome, Allen’s fellow FBI agent, muttered.

“Let’s call it a night,” Kevin said quickly. “We’ll meet tomorrow morning with the whole team and go over what we’ve got.” He glanced at Carter. “I think the daughter will be the key to at least one big question…how Pareto’s hiding the money trail. She’s perfectly situated to move big bucks through those art galleries of hers. She’s got to know where it’s coming from.”

“And from what we’ve heard,” Allen said, not bothering to hide the disdain in her voice, “you should be just her type, Wayne.”

Carter stared at her. They hadn’t worked together all that long, but Allen had taken an obvious and immediate dislike to her and didn’t bother to hide it. Guess the FBI hasn’t heard the directive on detente.

“Maybe it’s not such a bad thing she saw you tonight,” Toome offered into the breach. “She might trust you more…you know, since only the upper-level players got invited.”

“I guess we’ll find out,” Carter said as she pushed the door open and stepped out into the dark. There was no point in telling them that the one thing she had not seen in Ricarda Pareto’s eyes had been trust. For an instant she’d thought she’d detected appreciation, perhaps even a little bit of interest, but that had quickly been eclipsed by suspicion. And oddly, something that had resembled disappointment. It wasn’t at all what she had expected from the woman who stood to inherit one of the largest organized crime machines on the East Coast.

As Carter drove toward her apartment in Cambridge, she contemplated the goal of the joint state police, DEA, and FBI task force that she had been part of for almost a year…to shut down one of the major drug portals on the Northeastern Seaboard. With the amount of cocaine and heroin being run through the Port of Boston, the Justice Department estimated that millions of dollars were being laundered and carefully siphoned into the operations of the Pareto family annually. Dozens of agents from almost as many branches of law enforcement were working on the project…tracking cargo ship and truck manifests, money trails, and street-level drug distribution patterns. Her assignment was much more up close and personal. She was going to have to seduce Ricarda Pareto, or at least convince the crime boss’s daughter that that was her intention. Having met Rica, Carter didn’t think that feigning attraction to her would be too hard a task. What might be difficult was remembering that it was all strictly an act.

Chapter Two

April 2003

Provincetown, Massachusetts

A chime sounded in the rear office of Beaux Arts where Rica sat alone with an espresso and croissant, announcing that someone had come into the gallery. Setting aside the pile of invoices she’d been checking against the stock that had yet to be displayed, she rose to greet the visitors. She’d been in her new house in the west end of town only ten days, and the gallery had been open for business for just a week, but she already felt more comfortable than she ever had in the exclusive establishment she’d run in SoHo for the last three years. She ran it, but it never felt like hers. Not really. She chose the art, developed the client list, courted the agents for the wealthiest buyers from coast to coast, but her name wasn’t on the deed. The business had been a gift from her father when she’d finished graduate school, and as she’d learned over the years, every gift came with a price. There had been the occasional piece that she would not have carried had her father not requested it of her. A favor to an old friend. She never recognized the artists, but she knew better than to ask her father for information. At first, she’d been taken aback at how quickly the vase or statue or painting would sell…almost as if the buyer had been waiting for it to appear on her shelf. As the pattern recurred, she’d stopped being surprised.

“Hello?” a female voice called from the front of the shop.

Rica shook her head impatiently as she pushed the unsettling thoughts away, reminding herself that this place was hers. She’d left the gallery in SoHo under the capable direction of the assistant manager, a daughter of a friend of her father’s. Rica hadn’t thought she’d like Angela Camara when Angie had first come to work for her, expecting another pampered offspring of another rich and powerful man, but she’d been pleasantly surprised. Angie knew the market and was easy to work with, and she had become more than an associate. She was Rica’s best friend, and Rica already missed her.

“Sorry,” Rica said to the two women who stood in the main gallery surveying the paintings that had arrived just the day before. They looked like locals in casual jeans, boat shoes, and Tshirts. The older woman, a blonde with a year-round tan and piercing blue eyes, had liberal doses of paint splattered on her clothes. “I’m still getting organized.”

The blonde turned from the canvas she’d been studying and smiled. “I don’t envy you. I have a gallery about half this size, and I know how time-consuming it is. You paint, too?”

Rica shook her head. “I wish I did, but my talent seems to be in selling them, not creating them. I’m Rica Grechi.”

“I’m Kate,” the blonde said. “My place is just down the street. K&J Gallery.”

“I know, I’ve been in it. I admire your work.”

Kate looked pleased and drew her companion forward. “This is Caroline Clark, a good friend and a wonderful artist. I have several of her paintings in my gallery.”

“Hello,” Rica said, taking the young woman’s hand. Blond like Kate, she appeared to be in her early twenties, judging by the bit of smooth abdomen revealed in the space between her short T-shirt and skintight hip huggers and the row of piercings along the curve of one ear.

“Hi,” Caroline said. “Great place.”

“Thanks. I take it you live here in town?”

Caroline nodded. “I’ll be here all summer, and then I have one more year of school in Manhattan.”

“Caroline just returned from studying in Paris,” Kate said proudly.