Kentucky Confidential by Paula Graves

Cranston there as well, although it had been many more years before she thought of him as anything other than a cocky young marine in town on shore leave who could promise nothing but trouble.
    She pushed away the memory of Mitch before it distracted her and took in the look of wary concern in Connor McGinnis’s blue eyes. She let her own Alabama accent make an appearance, sensing it might put Parisa at ease. “I hope everything you heard was, if not good, at least interesting.”
    “I was surprised to hear from you last night. I figured we’d be getting another visit from Quinn,” Connor said with his characteristic bluntness.
    Unhurriedly, she turned her gaze to him. “Quinn asked me to stand in for him, since he was unable to get away.”
    “Are you here to appease us or to answer our questions?” Parisa asked.
    “May I call you Parisa?”
    “Risa,” the other woman answered shortly.
    “Risa,” Cameron said with a smile. “It’s a lovely name. I should tell you we were all very pleased to learn you had not died in the plane crash.”
    “Two hundred and twelve other people did,” Risa replied bleakly, waving her hand toward the sitting area of the small living room. There were two armchairs near the fire and a small sofa angled opposite. Risa and Connor took the chairs, leaving her to sit on the sofa alone.
    Clearly she was the one in the hot seat.
    She sat, crossing her legs casually and folding her hands on her lap, waiting for one of them to speak.
    For a moment, they simply looked her over, as if trying to discern her hidden motives. For once, her motives were exactly what she’d told them. She was here to help them, no matter what their dealings with Alexander Quinn might have otherwise suggested. And she was here to find out what they’d learned, pick their brains about what they might be up against, and figure out how Campbell Cove Security could help them.
    Connor was the one who finally broke the increasingly uncomfortable silence. “Why did Quinn send you and not Maddox Heller?”
    “Heller is on another assignment. Besides, he’s our tactics and training guy. Foreign relations and diplomacy are my areas of expertise,” she answered with a smoothness born of years in embassies and consulates around the world, dealing with people even more suspicious than the pair sitting in matching armchairs in front of her. “Quinn suspects, and I concur, that whatever trouble you’ve become embroiled in probably has its basis in a foreign threat.”
    “Probably,” Risa murmured.
    “That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t consider other possibilities, however.” Cameron knew that in a government of a country the size of the US, corruption was inevitable. And the higher the stakes, the greater the risks—and rewards—of playing dirty.
    She was doing a little investigation into the Cincinnati situation herself, from a different direction. But that wasn’t something Risa and Connor McGinnis needed to know, for the moment at least.
    “Would you like a cup of coffee? Or I can probably brew a cup of tea.” Risa stood, color rising in her cheeks as if she had suddenly realized she was being a bad hostess. Cameron nearly smiled, recognizing the inbred guilt of a fellow Southerner caught in a moment of bad manners.
    “Coffee would be lovely,” she said with a smile, belatedly observing the proprieties. “One sugar and a splash of milk if you have it.”
    While Risa disappeared into the kitchen, Connor leaned closer to her, lowering his voice. “What kind of game is Quinn playing here?”
    “I don’t think he is,” she answered, keeping her voice down as well. “He seems to sincerely want to help your wife uncover and eliminate the threats that drove her to fake her own death.”
    “Does he have any idea what Martin Dalrymple was trying to uncover in Cincinnati?”
    “Beyond the stated desire to stop a terrorist attack? No.”
    “Not as far as you know,” Connor corrected.
    Cameron inclined her head