Grace stopped pacing and glared at Charlie. “We can’t be sure who was on the other end of that phone call!”
“Hey, I’m just repeating what you said!” Then she looked around. “You got any chips or anything?”
“Now do you see how foolish you sounded?” Hope asked.
Grace looked down at the cup of tea her sister still clasped. “It was just so odd. The way he sneaked away and called back. The way he whispered into the phone so I could barely hear what he was saying, even though I came halfway down the stairs to try to hear him.”
“Yeah,” Charlie said. “Trusting soul that you are. Why didn’t you just pick up the phone upstairs?”
“Ah, the wiring is messed up. When you pick up an extension the call gets cut off. It’s a pain in the…” Then she stopped speaking. “He wrote something down.”
Charlie’s brows arched, and she turned her head, glancing at the notepad beside the phone. Hope shook her head in disapproval as Grace went to snatch it up. She held the pad this way and that, squinting at it. “He took the top sheet, but I can almost—”
“Give me that,” Charlie said, coming to her feet and taking the pad. She grabbed a pencil and went back to her seat to begin coloring the entire sheet.
“Grace, this is just silly. You love Jack. And you know he’s crazy about you. Why would you be so suspicious of him the very first time anything the least bit odd happens?”
Grace lowered her gaze and her sister gasped. “You mean…it’s not the first time?”
Grace shook her head. “He’s…he’s so secretive, Hope. He comes home late and…sometimes I can smell alchohol on his breath. He gets all…odd when I ask him about his work. And…and, well, there’s more.”
“What more?” Hope gripped Grace’s shoulders, and pushed her gently into a rocking chair. “Tell me.”
Grace shrugged, studying her fingernails, which she’d been chewing mercilessly. “Well…it’s…the sex.” She peeked up to see her sister’s cheeks turning pink. “Nothing to blush about, Hope. Believe me. I mean, it hardly ever happens, and when it does, it’s like…well…it’s like it didn’t.”
“I…don’t follow,” Hope said.
“I do,” Charlie called. “No fireworks, no screaming of names. You getting the picture yet, Hope?”
Hope turned her head away from them both, clearly embarrassed. “That doesn’t mean he’s cheating.”
“One way to find out,” Charlie said. She held the notepad up, its front all colored in pencil gray, with white outlines standing out. An address. “You wanna put an end to this, Gracie? Find out what’s really going on?”
“She can’t!” Hope said. “She wouldn’t!”
Grace stepped forward, taking the pad from Charlie’s hand. “Yes, she would.”
“Oh, Grace, don’t do this. Just wait until Jack comes home and ask him to tell you what he’s been keeping from you. And while you’re at it, you might think about telling him all the things you’ve been keeping from him, too. The black belt, the college basketball, the MVP awards, the tournament trophies, the WNBA scout… The fact that your entire wardrobe at college consisted of jeans, T-shirts, jerseys and that white pajama getup you wear for kickboxing.”
“It’s called a gi, and you know it.”
“Tell your husband the truth. He’ll return the favor and all will be well,” Hope went on. “Don’t spy on him. He’ll resent it.”
“Well, maybe I resent having to!” Grace huffed.
Hope sent an exasperated look at Charlie, who only shrugged and said, “I’m in.”
“I’m going alone,” Grace said.
“In your dreams,” Charlie replied. “Go get dressed. And forget the pretty designer skirts and jackets, honey. This is down-and-dirty time—and high time the real Gracie Phelps stepped out of the closet. Maybe if Jack knew his wife was fully capable of kicking his tail all the way home, he wouldn’t be quite so…adventurous.”
Grace made a face, but obeyed, trotting up the stairs to the bedroom. She opened her closet and eyed the wardrobe that had become her daily costume—and costume was the right word for it.
Dammit, she’d tried. She’d tried to be everything she thought Jack wanted her to be. Why hadn’t it been enough? Tears burned in her eyes as she recalled his conversation on the phone. First the part about not calling him here—God, could he have been more obvious? Then the bits and pieces she’d heard downstairs. Oh, she hadn’t been able to make out much, but she’d seen his face, caught the edge to his voice. The passion in it. The excitement.
Why couldn’t he be that way with her?
Swallowing hard, she slid the closet door closed, brushed the tears away. Charlie was right. It was time to stop pretending for him. It wasn’t enough. If she were going to lose her husband…well, hell, at least she needed to have herself to fall back on. Not the make-believe Grace she’d tried to become. But the real Grace.
And if she were going to fight for her marriage…well, then she’d need her even more.
She dropped to her knees and hauled the box out from under the bed, where she kept the clothes she used to live in, and now only wore for those days when she slipped out of the house to spend time with a bunch of twelve-year-old girls who wanted to play basketball. Some of them had some real potential, too. Pawing through the box, Grace found her favorite warm-up suit, and threw it on, with a snug black tank top underneath. She left the jacket undone, and pulled on a pair of socks and Nikes. She was ready. No makeup, no hair-fussing. This was it.
She got her keys off the dresser and headed downstairs. “Let’s go.”
* * *
Jack was just so damned relieved that it would be over soon! After tonight, their up-and-coming friendly neighborhood drug supplier would be cooling his heels behind bars and Jack would be able to get on with his life.
When JW had called to tell him that their favorite snitch had given him the lowdown on a meeting between the nameless drug lord and his henchmen, Jack had damned near shouted for joy. He’d had to bite his lip to keep from doing just that, waking Grace and ruining everything. Over. It would be over.
He could hardly believe it.
He’d left the house in the best mood he’d been in since the day he’d asked Grace to be his wife and heard her whispered “yes.”
But by the time he got to the address JW had given him, he was losing that mood considerably. He didn’t like it. Didn’t like it at all.
He was unfamiliar with the area. It was outside the city. Way out. An exit off the thruway, that led to not much more than the biggest swamp in the State of New York, or at least, the biggest one Jack knew of. Montezuma was real picturesque if you liked cattails and rushes and the occasional wood duck, Canada goose or blue heron.
It was also a favorite dumping ground…and that wasn’t referring to your typical garbage, either. Bodies were routinely found…more often not found…in the brackish muck of Montezuma.
Anyway, the address was that of a tumbledown house along the edge of the slime-bottomed wetlands. One story, drooping eaves, brown shingles for siding and gaping places with none at all; a mouth with missing teeth.
Not a light from inside the place, either.
Jack drove on by the first time, nice and slow, but steady. Not to give himself away, although the unlikelihood of anyone just happening to be on a dirt road that skirted a swamp at midnight on a Tuesday was probably not going to be lost on anyone with anything to hide.
Hell.
He went a quarter mile farther, then pulled off onto a hard bit of ground along the roadside. And when he did, he spotted JW’s car already there, waiting.
JW got out. Jack did, too. “Did you see the place?” he asked, looking about the way Jack felt. Jittery, not at ease. Something wasn’t right here. It was chilly for early summer, and even so, JW had sweat beading on his upper lip. And his thick black hair looked as if he’d been running his hands through it too much. It was usually neat, unless he was playing an untidy role.
“I saw it,” Jack said. “I didn’t like it.”
“Me neither.” JW looked at the patch of solid ground on which they had parked and were now standing. It wasn’t a natural occurrence. It had been built here. “What do you suppose this is for?”
Jack shrugged, looking at the dark water with its green foam border lapping at the edge. “A boat launch?”
“Illegal to put boats in. It’s a wildlife refuge,” JW pointed out.
“Hey, the DEC boys must have to patrol it now and then. Check on their duckies and what not.” Jack shrugged. “And the real cops, when they’re looking for bodies.”
“I suppose.”
“You think we’re being set up?” Jack asked him point-blank.
JW took a deep breath, bit his lip. “One way to find out.”
He took out his gun, checked it, put it back. “You wearing armor?”
Jack nodded, having taken the Kevlar vest out of hiding and put it on before he’d left the house. “You bet I am. You?”
“Hell, I sleep in it.” JW sent Jack a wink. “Let’s go.”
It was dark, and the walk back to the little house seemed longer than it was. It always did. Jack could barely see the dirt road under his feet. They couldn’t walk beyond the treeline, because that would have put them in the muck up to their knees, so they had to walk the road. Right in plain sight. Except there was no moon and the night was as thick as tar. That might work to their advantage.
Or not.
After all, if the bad guys knew they were coming, they could be sitting still. Listening. Waiting. Ready to open fire the minute Jack or JW snapped a twig or rolled a pebble. Jack could almost feel their damned sights on him.
The house came into view.
It wasn’t dark anymore, and it wasn’t silent. There were voices floating from it now. And the light from the shack’s open door spilled into the driveway to illuminate the car that sat there.
It was Grace’s car.
“What in the—”
Then Jack saw her. And her sister, and that lunatic Charlie, whom Jack secretly thought the world of, all standing in the open doorway chatting casually with whatever underworld kingpin stood on the other side.
“I don’t understand,” he heard Grace say as he edged closer. “This was the address. I’m sure of it.”
Jack bent low, and kept going, JW right behind him. Vaguely he thought Grace looked odd…different, and not her usual self. But he didn’t follow that thought. He was more concerned with getting her the hell out of harm’s way.
The form in the doorway—Jack couldn’t see him well, with the light behind him—stepped aside. “Come on in, ladies. It’s cold out there. Maybe we can figure this out.”
Hope walked in. The rest all happened at once. Jack lunged forward. His foot hit a rock that went skittering. JW grabbed Jack’s arm and jerked him downward. Charlie walked through the door behind Hope, and the jerk in the doorway snapped his head toward the sound Jack had inadvertently made. Looking.
“Wait,” JW growled in Jack’s ear.
“That’s my wife, dammit—”
But the criminal was speaking again, placing himself squarely in front of Grace, not to block her entry as it appeared—but to shield himself, should Jack decide to blow him away. “You said your husband’s name is…?”
“McCain,” she told him. “Jack McCain.”
“Well, let’s find him for you, shall we?” And in the blink of an eye, he’d spun Grace around, pulled her back flat to his chest and had a gun to her head. Jack heard a scream from inside—Hope, he thought, but she went silent fast. No doubt some other goon in there had his gun on her and Charlie, as well.
“Jack McCain!” the criminal called. “Your pretty wife is here. So, uh, if you’re out there, and I’m assuming you are, I suggest you step into the light. Otherwise…” He looked at the gun, adjusted the barrel against her temple.
Jack moved.
JW jerked him back so hard he almost fell on top of him. “What the hell is the matter with you, Jack? You step out there, he’s gonna blow your head off!”
“He’s got Grace,” Jack whispered. “My God, she’s so fragile. She must be terrified. She’s—”
“Mister,” Grace said, interrupting his harsh whisper. She said it loudly. “I’d like to say something to my two companions before you pull that trigger, if that’s okay.”
God, she looked so…well, scared wasn’t exactly the word. As a matter of fact, she looked worried, but more…calculating. And what the hell was she wearing? A warm-up suit? Where did she get that?
“You go ahead, darling. You’re very brave, you know.”
“Charlie, Hope? Can you hear me?”
She must have heard an answer. Jack didn’t, but she went on. “Don’t panic, okay? I’ll get you out of here in a minute or two.”
Jack’s brows pulled together. The man holding her looked down at her quickly. At that moment Jack’s timid, quiet, fragile wife, drove her elbow backward into the man’s rib cage, while at the same time knocking the gun away from her head with the other hand, gripping his arm as she did so and neatly flipping him right over her shoulders.
Jack ran forward, his gun in his hand. The jerk landed hard on his back, but he still had his gun, and he pointed it at Grace. Jack lifted his at the same time. But Grace scissor-kicked him, first one foot then the other, connecting with an impact that Jack couldn’t believe. The first foot sent the gun sailing, and the second smashed into his chin so hard it should have broken his neck. He was out cold before Jack heard the splash of his gun landing in the swamp water.
Grace spun and headed back for the house. A gun barrel poked out a broken window, and Jack barely caught up to her in time to holster his gun and tackle her from behind. They hit the ground as the shot went off. Jack’s wife flipped him off her like a dog flicking off a flea. He hit the ground beside her. She rolled onto her back and started to sit up, and Jack pounced on top of her again, grabbed her wrists and held her flat. “Stay down, dammit!”
Grace’s eyes went wide, and she stared at him. “Jack? My God, Jack, what are you doing here?”
“What am I doing here? Jeez, Grace, don’t you think that’s kind of a screwed-up question?”
Another shot exploded from inside the house, and Jack reached for his gun, pulled it out and fired one off over top of the house. The gun in the window withdrew.
“Stop!” Grace said. “Hope and Charlie are in there!”
“What do you think, I’m an idiot? That was cover fire.”
“What the hell are you doing with a gun?” she demanded.
“Where the hell did you learn to beat the hell out of an armed felon?” Jack shot back.
They lay there, blinking at each other in the darkness. And Jack realized for the first time that she’d been keeping as much from him as he had from her. And it stung, dammit. It hurt. He wanted to be furious with her, but how the hell could he, when he’d done the same damned thing?
He gave his head a shake. None of it mattered at the moment. What mattered was getting her out of the line of fire, keeping her safe. Not the puzzles in his head or the sudden feeling that he’d just been harshly slapped out of a pleasant but nonsensical dream. And certainly not the way her body felt, long and firm, beneath his, or the way her heartbeat thudded steadily against his chest. Or how close her mouth was…
Dammit.
Jack kissed her. Suddenly, and without warning, quick and hard. And then he rolled off her, grabbed her hand and pulled her into a run.
She tugged back. “We can’t leave them!”
He was ready for that, and holding on tight, pulled her onward. “We won’t.”
“Over here!” JW called, and they headed for the sound of his voice, ducking behind a clump of some bush or other that smelled like garbage.
Only when they were there, invisible to the guy in the house, did Jack start to breathe again.
“Hey there, Grace. Nice to see you again.”<
br />
Grace eyed JW, the gun in his hand, and shook her head. “So I take it you’re not in the professional security business, either,” she quipped.
“Sure I am,” JW told her. “I’m a cop. If that’s not professional security, I don’t know what is.”
Grace lowered her head, lifted it again after a long moment. “You, too?” she asked.
Jack could only nod. He saw her eyes growing damp. “Jack, why? Why did you lie to me?”
“I didn’t lie to you… Hell, Grace, I knew damn well you’d react this way.”
“What way?”
“It’s over. I’m quitting just as soon as JW and I wrap up this case, taking a job offer from one of Harry’s friends, and then everything I ever told you will be the truth.”
She bent her brows until they touched. “You can’t make a lie into the truth! What kind of twisted logic are you—”
“Ah, don’t be too hard on him, Grace,” JW said. “Or…should I say, Amazing Grace?”
Grace’s mouth slammed shut and her eyes widened. She swung her head around. “Where did you hear that?”
“Well, it was your nickname in college, wasn’t it?”
Grace seemed to glare at JW, and JW just grinned and went silent.
Jack just sat there, hearing faint traces of Twilight Zone music in the hum of the swamp bugs. “Why did they call you ‘Amazing Grace’ in college, Grace?”
She waved a hand as if it were unimportant. “I…played a little bit of…basketball. It was just a team nickname.”
Jack blinked. “You played college basketball.”
“It was nothing. I mostly warmed the bench.”
But it was so totally opposite to everything Jack knew—or thought he knew—about his wife. That she’d even want to be involved in sports, no matter how little playing time she’d had. “And you knew about all this?” Jack asked his alleged best friend.
“Well, yeah.”
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”
“Well, shoot, you wouldn’t let me tell her you were a cop! I figured fair was fair. Figured she’d tell you herself when she was ready. Besides, it’s not like she’s been sneaking out every day to shoot hoops while telling you she’s at the office, now is it, Jackie, my boy? Hmm?” Then JW looked at Grace, and so did Jack, and neither could have missed the guilty look on her face. “Or have you?” JW asked.
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