He kept his black head bent over her hand. "No," he finally said. "You didn"t imagine it."
Karen swallowed, feeling her insides shred. "I didn"t think so," she whispered, then said in a stronger voice, "So, anyway, the most likely reason I could think of was that you"d done it fora oh, not revenge, but as a sort of put-down."
"Use you, then kick you out?" He still wasn"t looking at her, but she saw the muscle in the side of his jaw clench.
"Something like that. Because you didn"t like me." She said it again, trying to impress it on herself, trying to face it head-on so she wouldn"t crumple under the hurt of it.
"Not at first, no." He paused, and his big hands tenderly cradled her sore one. "Or rather, I was angry, but it didn"t take me long to figure out you weren"t what I"d first thought. Within an hour, actually. I began to get the idea when you almost pa.s.sed out on me, but then when you watched that video and tried to act so calm, so untoucheda you were falling apart, and I knew it."
"How?" she demanded, feeling a little truculent. She had tried hard to remain in control, a technique she had perfected over the years. She didn"t like thinking she had been so transparent.
"You were clenching your fists so tight they were almost bloodless. You"re a marshmallow, sweetie. Instead of not feeling enough, you feel too much. You try to take care of everything and everyone, and then beat yourself up when you can"t do it." He slanted a glittering look at her from under his lashes. "By the way, did you get any of my messages?"
"Of course I did. "G.o.d d.a.m.n it, Karen,"" she quoted, and watched his olive skin darken as blood ran into his cheeks. She was almost glad he was embarra.s.sed, because it balanced her own sense of vulnerability. He saw too much; she felt stripped naked, even more so than when he had actually removed her clothes. She was accustomed to shielding herself emotionally, and it knocked her off balance to realize how transparent she was to him.
"I"m sorry," he said gruffly. "I was so mad Ia"anyway, I left three messages yesterday."
"Oh. With everything that was happening, I didn"t think to call the machine and check messages. What did you say?"
"To call me. Please. Then I got your message, and I was scared s.h.i.tless until you got off that plane." He took a deep breath and shuddered as he let it out. "We need to talk."
"We"re talking," she pointed out.
"Not like this." Abruptly, he leaned down and lifted her in his arms.
Startled, she grabbed his neck for balance. "What are you doing?" she half shrieked as he carried her into the bedroom and set her on the bed.
"Checking you out," he replied, going down on one knee beside her and taking her hand again to finish the unveiling. He inspected that hand, too, then folded her skirt back to look at her knees. Both were skinned and bruised, but he could see for himself none of her injuries was serious. Lifting each foot, he slipped off her sandals. "So, on the basis of a first impression, you ignored three days of intensive courting?" He flashed her another of those glittering looks. "Well, as intensive as I could make it, under the circ.u.mstances."
"When I thought about it, everything seemed soa orchestrated. Planned." She gave him an angry look of her own. "You were already wearing a condom while we were dancing!"
"And kept it on the whole time we were dancing, too, by G.o.d, which should tell you something about how turned on I was." He stood and removed his jacket, tossing it aside. Then he started unb.u.t.toning his shirt, his movements jerky, his nostrils flaring with anger. "I was trying to be considerate. I didn"t think you"d appreciate having to worry about a pregnancy or disease at the beginning of our relationship."
Karen watched him, her eyes big, her mouth dry. She didn"t say, "What are you doing?" which would be stupid because it was obvious what he was doing. She didn"t say, "What relationship?" because she didn"t want to inquire too closely in case she had heard wrong. She wanted to say she did appreciate his consideration in wearing a condom, but she didn"t say that, either.
She just watched him, her heart pounding, her nipples tightening. Greedily, she took in his sleek, strongly muscled shoulders and nice, broad, hairy chest. Clothed, he looked broad-shouldered and trim; naked, he was more muscular, with a flat, ridged stomach and a line of downy hair running down the center of it straight to his groin. She thought of following that line with her tongue and taking him in her mouth; his entire body would go rigid, and he would give that wonderful, deep, gut-wrenching groan. She wanted him. Oh, G.o.d, she wanted him now and forever.
He dropped his shirt to the floor and kicked out of his shoes, then peeled off his socks. "I can"t believe you were mad about the rubber," he muttered, glancing up at her, and for a moment his gaze was so blazing hot she felt scorched.
She reached out and touched his stomach, feeling his hot, smooth skin and the hard pad of muscle underneath. "It wasn"t the condom, it was that everything felt so deliberate, as if you were following a plan."
"I was," he said bluntly. "I"d been working for three days to get you in bed, and I was afraid stopping to put on a condom would give you a chance to think twice about what we were doing and back out. So I put the condom on first."
"And kept it on, too, by G.o.d," she teased him, smiling. Her fingers trailed down his belly to the waistband of his pants, following the line of silky hair.
His eyes were brilliant as he looked down at her. "Take off your clothes." The words were low and rough, almost a whisper.
Her heart pounded harder. She stood and began removing her clothes, her breath rushing in and out in excitement. She felt the clenching of desire deep inside, the twin yielding and demand of utter need. She dropped her blouse to the floor, then unfastened her skirt and stepped out of it. His gaze was locked on her b.r.e.a.s.t.s as she undipped the front clasp of her bra and let it fall, and she noticed his breath was coming faster, too.
Critically, he eyed her ribcage as he dropped his pants, trousers and underwear going down in one smooth movement. Her ribs were marked with bluish splotches, and his hands clenched into fists before he deliberately relaxed them, reaching out to touch the bruises. "Are you too sore for this?"
"No," she said softly, eyeing his thick erection and appreciating his concern even more because it was obvious he was urgently aroused. But then, so was she. She removed her panties and sat down on the bed.
Instantly he was there, a strong arm wrapped around her, supporting her as he eased her down and in the same fluid motion mounted her. Lying between her legs, he carefully propped his weight on one elbow and fondled her b.r.e.a.s.t.s with his free hand, lightly rubbing her nipples until they were throbbing. Her own hands were on his chest, stroking, delivering pleasure. His erection nudged between her folds, but he didn"t enter her.
"I"m not wearing a condom now," he said, kissing her.
"I know." Karen wrapped her arms around his neck as ancient instincts surged to the fore. Their gazes locked, his fierce and bright, hers soft and darkly mysterious, yielding. She didn"t make this decision lightly; she knew full well what she was doing. "I don"t want you to," she murmured, arching her hips a little. She wanted all of him, now. She wanted his seed, the possibility of his child. She felt unbearably aroused, though he had scarcely touched her.
"We"re taking a risk." His voice was thick. His mouth moved down her neck.
"Yes. Please." She arched again, desperate, hungry, aching.
He pushed into her, hard and urgent, as if he couldn"t hold back a moment longer. The head of his p.e.n.i.s was already slick and eased his penetration. She cried out as satisfaction replaced desperation, pleasure replaced pain.
He groaned, and sweat beaded on his forehead, dampened his close-cropped black hair. "Have mercy," he whispered. "I haven"t done this since I was a teenager."
She clung to his shoulders, her hips rising eagerly to meet his restrained thrusts, enveloping every inch and trying to hold him. "Making love? I know better." Speaking was an effort when everything in her was concentrating on the tightening spiral of desire. She was almost there, trembling on the edge, hanging on a point of pleasure so sharp it was exquisite, wonderful pain.
"Not wearing a rubber." He shuddered at the tight internal clasp of her. Suddenly, he gripped her shoulders and began thrusting hard, fast, deeper with every stroke. "I can"t wait," he said tightly.
He didn"t need to. Her nails dug into his shoulders, and she arched, crying out in the intense grip of o.r.g.a.s.m. He made a rough, helpless sound and began coming, spurting into her, milked dry by the rhythmic pulse of her climax.
He hung over her for a few moments, his head down, his arms trembling as he supported himself rather than letting his weight down onto her. Karen managed to stroke his shoulder with one hand, but even that small effort exhausted her, and her arm fell to the bed. Finally, he eased out of her and collapsed on the bed beside her, breathing hard, his eyes closed.
Drowsily, she turned on her side and nestled against him, sighing at the pleasure that was quite apart from the sharp need of s.e.x. Tears p.r.i.c.kled her closed eyelids as she tried to contain a happiness so acute she ached with it.
He groaned. The sound was that of an unconscious man struggling toward awareness, and it startled her into laughing.
A smile tugged at his lips, and he rolled onto his side to face her, sliding his arm under her neck and draping his other arm over her hips to anchor her close. "You need to laugh more often." He kissed the tip of her nose. "Every time I see your solemn brown eyes, it"s like being kicked in the gut."
"I laugh," she protested sleepily.
"Not enough. And before your fertile imagination comes up with any more off-base scenarios about what just happened here, we are deeply involved in a serious relationship. Is that clear?"
"Clear," she whispered, barely able to get the word out over the pressure in her chest. She felt shaky inside, as if she might crumble. She loved him so much it actually hurt, but it felt good at the same time.
"If you get pregnant, we get married. I refuse to let a child of mine grow up illegitimate. I don"t care how many actresses do it or whether or not a woman really needs a man around now to help her raise their children."
"You"re d.a.m.n right we"ll get married," she said with sharp force. "The odds are I didn"t get pregnant this time, but if you don"t plan to stay around, we"d better decide on a method of birth control and stick to it. I don"t want a broken marriage." Knowing what being abandoned by her father had been like for both her mother and herself, she was determined her own children would never know that pain if she could possibly help it.
He caught her hand and carried it to his lips, being careful not to hurt her raw palms. She snuggled against him, unable to decide which she wanted to do most: turn cartwheels or sleep. She didn"t do either, because she"d never been a head-in-the-sand type of person, and reality at present was a bit dicey.
"It all comes back to here," she murmured, unable to hold the thoughts at bay any longer. "To Dad. His murder is at the center of it, because otherwise why would I be targeted? But I don"t know anything about what he was doing. I hadn"t seen or talked to him in years."
"What about your mother? Did she have any contact with him?" Marc brushed her hair back from her face, kissed her forehead, and held her closer as if he couldn"t get her quite close enough.
"More often than I did. After I grew up, I refused to see him when he blew in for a couple of days, usually when he was out of money, but I know he called her sometimes, though not very often. She didn"t tell me much about his calls because she knew how angry I was at him."
"Had there been any calls from him since she died?"
"If he called, he didn"t leave a message, but then he wouldn"t." A memory surfaced, pulled out by his questions. Marc thought like a cop, looking at angles she hadn"t considered. "Wait. She died at the end of January. A few weeks after that, I got a package he"d mailed to her. I was still in shock and hurting a lot, and getting that package made me so angry because she loved him all of her life and he didn"t stay in close enough touch that he would know she was dead. I almost threw the package away."
A subtle tension had invaded the muscled arm under her neck. "Did you open it?"
"I opened it, but I didn"t go through it. I remember the box had some papers in it. I closed it up and put it in with the rest of her things I had boxed up for storage."
"Where is it stored? Your apartment?"
"No, I don"t have room there. I rented a storage unit. That"s it, isn"t it? The reason why he was murdered is in that box."
"Maybe. It"s a lead, and G.o.d knows we"ve been short of those. I want to hear from McPherson firsta""
"Who"s McPherson?" she asked, as she had before. His earlier answer hadn"t been very informative.
"CIA.".
"Are you going to tell him about the package?"
He didn"t hesitate. "h.e.l.l no."
"So you don"t trust him, either?"
"I don"t know him. He may be who and what he says he is. I"ll give him a little information, see what he gives me in return, but I sure as h.e.l.l won"t tell him you"re here with me or anything about the package until I"ve checked it out."
"So what do we do in the meantime?"
"What do you think?"
Chapter 17.
"Your people are incompetent fools," Senator Lake said coldly, hiding the fear that twisted his stomach. "The woman has disappeared, and you still haven"t found the book. She could use that information at any time, thanks to your bungling!"
Hayes lowered his eyelids. He didn"t protest or make excuses. The hard truth was that he hadn"t performed his task; though the people he used were normally reliable, things had gone wrong. Clancy had gone into an occupied apartment, and the Whitlaw woman had somehow managed both to call the cops and to escape, and now Clancy was dead. Yamatani had missed completely in his attempt to run her down. Not only had he failed, but the Whitlaw woman would have to be a fool not to have figured out something was going on, whether or not she knew where the book was. She had gone into hiding, and he hadn"t been able to find a trace of her yet. He could, but not without setting off alarms at the sources he would have to use, and Hayes wasn"t willing to stick his neck out that far for the senator. The last thing he needed in this operation was to draw the attention of certain people.
"What do you plan to do now? I would like to remind you that the more people brought into this, the more likelihood there is of a leak."
"They"re professionals. They don"t talk."
"But they haven"t proven themselves completely reliable, have they? I"d like their names, please. I seem to be in an undesirable position, with these people knowing about me while I know nothing about them."
"They don"t know about you," Hayes rea.s.sured him, his tone weary. "Senator, I"ve kept you completely out of this. So far as anyone knows, the trail ends with me."
"So you say, but then you haven"t been completely reliable, either, Mr. Hayes. Even your information about Rick Medina was in error."
Hayes kept his eyes hooded, but his interest sharpened. "In what way?"
"About his son. Medina didn"t have any children."
"Who said so?"
"Franklin Vinay, the DDO. I"m sure he would know."
Hayes felt a chill run from his head all the way to his toes. Even his blood felt cold. "You asked Vinay about Medina?"
"It was a way of finding out what they knew. In my position, it"s perfectly normal for me to hear about such things and ask about them."
Except that it wasn"t perfectly normal for him to ask about Medina"s son, whose existence and activities were so closely guarded that his name wouldn"t turn up on any data file of employees. For the senator to ask about him would elicit any number of reactions from Vinay. First and foremost, he would deny that Medina had any children. Then, a.s.suredly, he would try to uncover the senator"s source. He would look first in his own office, but when that failed, he would begin looking at the other end of the equation and asking himself how the senator could have gotten any information about Rick Medina in the first place. A cop would say that knowledge indicated involvement; the senator had laid a trail right to his own door.
Discovery was just a matter of time. Not only had the senator involved Franklin Vinay, he had brought the son"s attention down on them, and Hayes had heard enough about that shadowy figure to know the game was up. The best thing he could do now was cover his a.s.s, his tracks, and disappear.
"I"ll take care of the notebook personally," he said, feeling no compunction about lying. A man who would do something as stupid as arousing the suspicions of the deputy director of operations at the CIA wasn"t a man for whom it was safe to work.
"Do that," Senator Lake said.
After Hayes left the office, the senator sat where he was for some time, thinking. He drummed his fingers on the desk. He didn"t like these personal meetings with Hayes, but at the same time, he didn"t trust the telephones. He could have his office swept for bugs, but who was to say Hayes didn"t have one of those tiny tape recorders in his pocket, recording everything they said?
Something about Hayes had beena different, there at the end. He knew Hayes underestimated him; a lot of people had made that mistake. In fact, he sometimes deliberately encouraged such errors in judgment, giving himself an advantage.
He didn"t consider himself an evil man, though it was true that in his lifetime he had been forced to make some difficult decisions. He didn"t like the idea of harming the Whitlaw woman, but the book contained information he could not allow to be made public. The good of the few must not outweigh the good of the many. If she stood in the way, she would simply have to be removed.
And as for Hayesa the senator narrowed his eyes as he thought. Dexter Whitlaw had taught him an important lesson about tying up loose ends, a lesson Raymond had reiterated. Hayes would have to be dealt with. Perhaps, if he could make it look as if Hayes were in the employ of a nation hostile to the United States, and arrange things so it seemed as if Rick Medina had been involveda or maybe it would play better if Medina had been trying to stop Hayes. After all, Frank Vinay said Medina had been a patriot. Yes, that sounded better, more in character.
Of course, it wouldn"t do for Hayes to be picked up and questioned. No, unfortunately, Mr. Hayes would have to die. All the loose ends had to be tidied. Of course, he would allow Mr. Hayes to take care of Miss Whitlaw first, and find the notebook; then he could take action.
He had depended on Hayes to arrange such matters, but now he would have to use other means. Thank G.o.d he had Raymond. This time, he would make certain there weren"t any loose ends.
There was nothing about Frank Vinay"s house that would call attention to itself. It was neither more ostentatious nor plainer than most of the other houses in the upper-middle-cla.s.s neighborhood. He didn"t drive a fancy car, preferring a slightly used domestic model. His neighbors a.s.sumed he was one of the thousands of faceless bureaucrats who battled D.C. traffic every morning for forty-five thousand dollars a year and a nice pension.
The house, however, did have certain modifications that made it different from the others. There was a very good security system, for one thing, backed up by a black and tan German Shepherd named Kaiser and a .9mm named H&K. Every morning and every night, the phones were checked for taps and the house swept for bugs. A parabolic mike aimed at the house would pick up only an annoying buzz instead of any sensitive conversations, because of the sophisticated electronic system designed to thwart such eavesdropping.
Jess McPherson felt safe in Frank Vinay"s house, more because of Kaiser and the .9mm than the electronic stuff. Satellites and computers were great s.h.i.t, but he was at heart an old-fashioned guy. When he retired, he planned to get him a dog. When he walked into Frank"s den, he glanced at Kaiser, lying contentedly on the rug at Frank"s feet. Kaiser returned the regard and gave a wag of his tail, as if saying, "Relax, everything"s okay."
"I haven"t been able to find a leak in the office yet," Vinay was telling John. "d.a.m.n, this has me worried. Have a seat, Jess, and add your brain to ours."
McPherson chose a comfortable armchair, folding into it and stretching out his long legs. "I can add something better than that. I got a call from that New Orleans detective. I returned it and didn"t get to talk to him, but I did talk to the younger guy, Shannon, who put in the first request for info on Rick. Seems the detective got a call from Dex Whitlaw"s daughter, in Ohio. She knows him because she flew down to ID Dex"s body. Anyway, two attempts have been made on her life since she got back to Ohio, and, not being an idiot, she figures this has to tie in with her father"s murder and wants to know if the detective has found out anything."
"Hmm. That means Whitlaw was the main target, then, not Rick." Vinay frowned. "What information do we have on Whitlaw since he got out of the Marines?"
"Not much," Jess said. "He b.u.mmed around the country, did some short time in Maryland for some penny-ante stuff about ten years ago, nothing since."
"Any indication he contacted Rick during that time, or vice versa? Were they ever in the same part of the country at the same time after Vietnam?"