She swung around quickly. "What?" "There"s a bruise on your cheek."
"Oh." Panic shadowed her eyes as she lifted her hand to the mark. "Oh, it"s nothing. I... tripped earlier. I tend to move too fast and not watch where I"m going." She set her gla.s.s down, lifted it again. "I thought you were going to call me Clarissa. Mrs. Branson makes me feel so distant."
"I can make you a salve for the bruise, Clarissa."
Her eyes filled, threatened to overflow. "It"s nothing. But thank you. It"s nothing at all. I should go, let you get back to work. B. D. hates it when I interrupt his projects."
"I like the company." He stepped forward. He could imagine himself reaching out, taking her into his arms. Just holding her there. Nothing more than that. But even that, he understood, was too much. "Would you like to stay?"
"I..." A single tear spilled over, slipped beautifully down her cheek. "I"m sorry.
I"m so sorry. I"m not myself today. My brother-in-law -- I suppose, the shock.
Everything. I haven"t been able to... B. D. hates public displays."
"You"re not in public now."
And he was reaching out, taking her into his arms where she fit as if she"d been designed for him. He held her there, nothing more than that. And it wasn"t too much at all.
She wept quietly, almost silently, her face buried against his chest, her fists clenched against his back. He was tall, strong, innately gentle. She"d known he would be.
When the tears began to slow, she sighed once, twice. "You are kind," she murmured. "And patient, letting a woman you barely know cry on your shoulder. I really am sorry. I suppose I didn"t realize I had all that pent up."
She eased back, offered him a watery smile. Her eyes glimmered with tears as she lifted to her toes to press a light kiss to his cheek. "Thank you." She kissed his cheek again, just as lightly, but her eyes had darkened, and her heart tripped against his chest.
The hands balled against his back opened, spread, stroked, her breath trembled out through lips just parted.
Then somehow, without thought or reason, his met them. Naturally as breathing, soft as a whispered promise. He drew her in, she drew him down into a kiss that spun delicately out until there was no time, no place for him but here and now.
She seemed to melt against him, muscle by muscle and bone by bone as if to prove she was as lost in that moment as he. Then she trembled, then shuddered until her body quaked almost violently against his.
She yanked back, her color high, her eyes huge and shocked. "That was -- that was entirely my fault. I"m sorry. I wasn"t thinking. I"m sorry." "It was my doing." He was as pale as she was flushed, and every bit as shaken. "I beg your pardon."
"You were just being kind." She pressed a hand against her heart as if to stop it from bounding out of her chest. "I"d forgotten how that is. Please, Zeke, let"s forget it."
He kept his eyes locked on hers, nodded slowly while his pulse beat like a thousand drums. "If that"s what you want."
"It"s what has to be. I stopped having choices a long time ago. I have to go. I wish -- " She bit back whatever she"d intended to say, shook her head fiercely. "I have to go," she said again and dashed from the room.
Alone, Zeke laid his hands against the workbench, leaned in, and closed his eyes. What in G.o.d"s name was he doing? What in G.o.d"s name had he done?
He"d fallen flat-faced in love with a married woman.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
"Sir." The minute Eve walked into the conference room, Peabody was on her feet. Strain showed in the tightness around her mouth. "You received another communication."
Eve pulled off her jacket. "Ca.s.sandra?"
"I didn"t open the pouch, but I had it scanned. It"s clean."
With a nod, Eve took the pouch, turned it over in her hand. It was identical to the first. "The rest of the team"s on the way in. Where"s McNab?"
"How would I know?" It came out in something close to a squeak that had Eve glancing over to watch Peabody stuff her hands in her pockets, take them out, fold her arms over her chest. "I don"t keep tabs on him. I don"t care where he is."
"Tag him, Peabody," Eve said with what she considered admirable patience.
"Bring him in." "Ah, the superior officer should send for him."
"Your superior officer is telling you to get his skinny b.u.t.t in here. Now."
Annoyed, Eve dropped into a chair and ripped open the pouch. She examined the disc briefly, then plugged it into the computer. "Run disc."
Running.... contents are text only as follows.... We are Ca.s.sandra.
We are the G.o.ds of justice. We are loyal.
Lieutenant Dallas, we enjoyed today"s events. We are in no way disappointed in our choice of you as adversary. In less than our projected time allotted, you located the described target. We are pleased with your skills.
Perhaps you believe you won this battle. Though we congratulate you on your quick and decisive work, we feel, in fairness, we should inform you today"s work was only a test. A preliminary round.
The first wave of police experts entered the target building at eleven hundred hours and sixteen minutes. Evacuation proceedings began within eight minutes. You arrived at target twelve minutes after evacuation had begun.
At any time during this process, the target could have been destroyed. We preferred observing.
We found it interesting that Roarke became personally involved. His arrival was an unexpected bonus and allowed us to study you working together. The cop and the capitalist.
Forgive us for being amused by your fear of heights. We were impressed that despite it, you performed your duties as the tool of the fascist state. We had expected no less from you.
In triggering the last device, we allowed time for containment. Lieutenant Malloy will confirm that without this time, without this containment, several lives and a great deal of property would have been lost.
We will not be as accommodating with the next target.
Our demands must be met within forty-eight hours. To those initial demands, we now demand a payment of sixty million dollars in bearer bonds in increments of fifty thousand dollars. The capitalistic figureheads that line their pockets and break the back of the ma.s.ses must be made to pay in coin they worship.
Once confirmation of the liberation of our compatriots is a.s.sured, instructions on delivery of the monetary penalty will be issued. To prove our commitment to the cause, a small demonstration of our power will be made at precisely fourteen hundred hours. We are Ca.s.sandra.
"A demonstration?" Eve glanced at her wrist unit. "In ten minutes." She pulled out her communicator. "Malloy, are you still in the target?" "Just securing."
"Get everybody out, keep out for another fifteen minutes. Run another scan."
"This place is clean, Dallas." "Run it anyway. After the fifteen, have Feeney send a unit of exterminators in.
The building"s full of bugs. They were watching every move. We"ll need the bugs brought in for a.n.a.lysis, but get out and stay out of the building until after fourteen hundred." Anne opened her mouth, obviously decided to save her questions, then nodded. "Affirmative. ETA to Central thirty minutes."
"Do you think they got a bomb past the scan?" Peabody asked when Eve broke transmission.
"No, but I"m not taking the chance. We can"t track every d.a.m.n building in the city. They want to show us how big and bad they are. So they"re going to take something out." She pushed away from the desk, walked to the window.
"There"s not a f.u.c.king thing I can do to stop them."
She scanned her view of New York, the old brick, the new steel, the crowds of people jammed onto glides or sidewalks, the nervous, edgy traffic in the streets, the rumble of it in the air.
Serve and protect, she thought. That was her job. That was her promise. And now all she could do was watch and wait.
McNab came in, looked anywhere but at Peabody. He preferred to pretend she wasn"t in the room. "You sent for me, Lieutenant?"
"See what you can do with the disc I just ran. Make copies for my files and for the commander. And what is the status on Fixer"s code?"
McNab allowed himself a small, smug smile and a sly sidelong glance at Peabody. "I just cracked it." He held up his own disc and struggled not to scowl as Peabody turned her head away and studiously examined her nails.
"Why the h.e.l.l didn"t you say so?" Eve strode over to s.n.a.t.c.h it out of his hand.
Insulted, McNab opened his mouth, then shut it tight when he caught Peabody"s smirk out of the corner of his eye. "I"d just run the backups when you sent for me," he said stiffly. "I didn"t take the time to read the contents comprehensively," he continued as Eve jammed the disc home. "But a quick skim indicates he lists all materials used, all devices made, and there are enough of them to wipe out a Third World country."
He paused, deliberately moving to the other side of Eve as Peabody shifted closer to see the screen. "Or a major city." "Ten pounds of plaston," Eve read.