by Rebecca York
Kicking off her equally wet boots and socks and dropping them by the door, she said, “I’m heading straight for the shower.”
“Good idea.”
She thought he meant good idea for her until a few minutes later. As she stood in the shower, just letting the hot water pound her, a nude Simon opened the glass door and slipped inside.
“Simon…”
This wasn’t part of the deal. He’d agreed to sleep on the couch. So why couldn’t she make herself remind him of that promise?
“I just want to check you for injuries,” he said, “since you were too stubborn to go to an E.R. or clinic.”
The way he was inspecting her body made Lexie’s toes curl, and something warm and fluid unfurled inside her. She didn’t want to be alone. She wanted safe arms around her and assurances that everything was going to be all right.
He was thoroughly wet now, and the water made his skin gleam and accentuated the incredible sculpted musculature of the body she’d once known nearly as well as her own.
“What makes you an expert?” she asked, meaning to tease him.
“Field experience.”
He was serious.
She felt heartsick for him.
What Simon must have endured for more than a decade was something she couldn’t fathom. Having to play doctor for his comrades out of necessity seemed unreal to her. By comparison, her life with all its daily dramas had been a picnic. She’d always had her family to love and support her. And she’d had their daughter.
While Simon had been caught in a living hell.
Now under the water with her, he turned her around, checked her body gently but thoroughly for any injury. The more he touched her, the less likely Lexie thought it would be that he would spend the night on the couch.
Why should she push him away from her when being with him was what she wanted? What she needed. What he needed.
The danger they’d shared had bonded them in a way she didn’t quite understand. Even while part of her was frightened of what Simon might have become, there was a stronger-than-ever attraction to him. That scary part of him had protected her, she reminded herself, would keep her and their daughter safe until they found the answers that would bring down the perpetrators of the horrendous human trafficking operation.
He turned her again, ran his hands over her ribs.
Suddenly consumed by physical hunger, she couldn’t meet his eyes, but looked down and realized that examining her had exactly the same effect on him. Thrown back into the past, she remembered the things they’d done for months until giving in to their passions and sleeping together that one magic night.
Before she could stop herself, she was touching him… lowering herself to her knees… kissing him… tasting him. Water drummed against her back as she took his soft tip into her mouth, loving the salty taste of him.
He groaned and threaded his fingers in her hair, and held her head tight up against him.
At seventeen, she’d become very practiced at this with him, but now at thirty, she felt like an amateur, wasn’t sure if she was taking him deep enough or sucking hard enough or using her tongue cleverly enough to please him.
“Oh, Lexie, baby,” he growled, pulling her up and lifting her off her feet.
The next thing she knew, her back was against the wet, slippery tile and her legs were wrapping around his hips and he was homing in on her like they’d done this on a regular basis for the last thirteen years. She was already drenched inside and he slipped in easily. Opening wider, she urged him in deeper until she had all of him.
“This is where I want to be,” he murmured in her ear.
“This is where I feel safe,” she admitted softly, trying to erase the memory of what had happened, of the fear she’d tasted, barely an hour before. She touched the scar on his chest, wondered if Simon ever really felt safe anymore.
They held each other, shower water raining down on them, and didn’t move until the anticipation built and built. Finally. he withdrew a little and pushed back inside. Her back was pressed against the wall, and he let go of her, found her breasts, tweaked her nipples the way she remembered he used to do.
“Touch yourself,” he whispered in her ear, leaning back to give her access.
Her breath caught in her throat as she slid a hand between them. While they’d only slept together that once, they’d tried just about everything else beforehand. He’d loved it when she would touch and stroke herself and let him watch.
He was watching her now, his features tense with his desire. Sensation swirled through her, growing more urgent with each stroke.
“Rub harder,” he whispered, and made his strokes last longer. “I want you to come with me. I’ll try to hold on.”
Then he leaned over and kissed her openmouthed, and it didn’t take her long to reach the frenzy he sought. Pressing his hands against the wall on either side of her head, he rocked into her faster and harder so their rhythms matched, until, at last, they reached the pinnacle, crying out, kissing each other like it might be the last time.
Which indeed it might, Lexie realized, wrapping her arms around his neck and holding on tight as if she would never let him go.
Zanko or another gun for hire could get to them.
Or Simon could simply realize he’d made a mistake in coming back to Jenkins Cove and take off for parts unknown.
This might be the last night she would have with the man she loved, a reason to make it memorable enough to last her for a lifetime.
***
Lexie arrived at Drake House the next morning in the garden center’s delivery truck. Phil Cardon was driving. She wondered if he’d noticed that they were being followed.
She glanced back just once to see Simon’s truck ease by the gate. He’d insisted on following her, had made her promise that before she left Drake House, she would call him on his cell so that he could come back to do the same.
Having spent the night in his arms, she had soft feelings for Simon. A yearning that wouldn’t go away. She wanted to believe that he would stay for her. For their daughter. Give her a real family of her own. But another part of her thought that would be highly unlikely, especially in light of the Simon she’d seen in that abandoned boatyard.
Phil parked the truck and they got out, then began unloading the greenery from the back.
“Hey, did you ever find the owner of that key you showed me the other day?” Phil asked as they hauled out a couple of small balsams for the upstairs parlors.
The mention of the key jerked Lexie to attention. “No. Why?”
“Just wondering. So what did you do with it?”
Pulse thudding, she kept her voice even as she lied. “I threw it away.”
“But it belonged to someone. You didn’t turn it in to Chief Hammer?”
“It was only a key.”
“Still. The owner’s probably pretty peeved he lost it.”
She’d bet he was. But what was Phil’s interest in something so seemingly minor? she wondered as they each carried a tree into the foyer and up the stairs. She couldn’t believe he hadn’t forgotten about the key the moment he’d said it wasn’t his and he’d never seen it.
Unless he’d been lying…
Could something other than curiosity underlie his interest?
Had he told someone about the key? The owner who’d then come after her twice? Or had her assailant been Phil himself?
Phil had never had a regular job since moving to Jenkins Cove several years ago. He’d taken odd jobs, worked for her during the holidays and on big landscaping jobs. And yet he lived in a decent house, never actually appeared to hurt for cash.
Because he had a secret job that paid him well?
Human trafficking?
Were all his side jobs just a cover?
Lexie shook herself as they reached the parlors. What was she doing, trying to pin something so awful on Phil just because he had asked about the key?
Apparently the conversation with Simon
the night before had set her up to be suspicious of everyone. Who would she think was guilty next?
Needing some respite from the trauma of the attack in the boatyard — a trauma eased but not erased by a night spent in Simon’s arms — Lexie determined to put the human trafficking operation out of mind, at least while she was working at Drake House.
***
After making sure that Lexie was safe at Drake House, Simon decided to do some investigating on his own. He drove back out to the mass grave. No patrol car idled there. Lexie had told him that she’d heard Chief Hammer had stopped trying to cover the area, not only because he was shorthanded, but because no one wanted to go near the place. Even so, Simon made sure to hide the truck, just in case a patrol car drove by.
Stopping in front of the swampy area, he paused and looked around, wondering if the ghost of the dead kid made daylight appearances. There was mood lighting, courtesy of a sky that had grown gray with the threat of rain or snow, but there was no fog, no ghost. A wry smile played on Simon’s lips as he moved on, around the area in a direction he hadn’t yet taken.
There was a road down to the pier and warehouse where the surgeries had been performed, but not knowing if anyone might be wandering around down there, a cautious Simon had determined to go on foot, to stay within the treeline, to remain a ghost.
Lexie had told him the warehouse was probably a half mile or more off the main road, but that was an easy five minutes or so for a man as fit as he was. The sun had melted off the snow most places, but the woods were protected, and patches remained here and there. From what he remembered, snow never lasted that long here. Not cold enough.
As Simon jogged down a path through the trees, he thought about the night before, about the promise of a different life, one filled with more nights like that. With happiness. With that family he’d always wanted. What would Katie think if she suddenly learned that she had a father she hadn’t known was alive? Would she recognize him from the market? Be freaked out? Or be happy that he existed?
Katie wouldn’t be happy if she knew about his past, not any more than Lexie was. Not that she had said so. But she’d overheard his threats against Zanko and had seen him in action. That gave her some idea of what he was. While she’d made love to him, had held him as if she would never let him go, he was certain that in the end she would do so, if not for her own sake, for their daughter’s.
Katie was Lexie’s number one concern. Just as it should be.
And as it should be for him. Both mother and daughter were his concern, and as such, they would be better off if he left after he made sure that justice was done.
Not wanting personal thoughts to distract him as he neared his destination, Simon turned off that part of his mind and tuned up his senses. A moment later, he heard voices, though he couldn’t make out what they were saying, since the forest muffled any sound.
Slowing, Simon moved to the tree line where he could better see the road leading to the warehouse, which was practically within spitting distance. The decrepit old building was made of weathered wood, with boards missing on both sides. It hung partly over the water as if growing from the cattails that lined the shore. He could see yellow crime scene tape flapping in the wind.
Closer to him, two men stood out on the pier, one decked out in a wetsuit, hood, gloves, boots and full face mask, an air tank strapped across his back.
What the hell? Did he really mean to go into the water at this time of year? For what purpose?
The man jumped off the pier backwards, while the second guy watched. With close-cropped, sandy-brown hair and a weather-beaten, jowly face set in a scowl, the man on the pier looked familiar to Simon. He was dressed like a workman in jeans, heavy boots and a canvas jacket. It took Simon a while to identify the guy, but suddenly his memory kicked in.
Doug Heller. Cliff Drake’s right-hand man and one of their prime suspects.
What the hell was he up to?
Simon wanted to go out there and make the man talk, but he held himself in check. He had to remain a ghost for a little while longer.
But a little while stretched into minutes, then into nearly half an hour. The water couldn’t be very deep here along the shore, so the tank would last quite a while. Heller edged up and down the pier, apparently watching the diver’s movements. The sky was getting darker and wisps of fog were rolling in over the water. Heller couldn’t hide his impatience and began stomping around the pier, once taking a cell call, his voice too low for Simon to hear his conversation.
A dark shape broke the water’s surface. Heller threw the other man a rope and hauled him up out of the water and onto the boards. His back was to Simon as he removed his gloves, mask and hood. He was empty-handed, which seemed to drive Heller into a fury.
“What do you mean you didn’t find it?”
Simon tuned in, barely caught the shouted words.
“…telling you… wasn’t there.”
“…has to be.”
“Then you go… find…”
“…through with…”
Simon caught enough to get the drift of the argument.
The man stomped toward the warehouse and only when Heller yelled, “Wait a minute!” did he turn back.
Simon immediately recognized the puffy, beard-stubbled face.
Hans Zanko!
There it was, proof of collusion between the man who’d tried to kill Lexie and him the night before and Doug Heller, one of their suspects.
Simon quickly took out his cell phone and snapped a couple of photos of the two as Heller caught up to Zanko and spoke in a tone too low for Simon to hear.
Both men disappeared into the warehouse, leaving Simon playing twenty questions with himself about what the hell they’d been up to.
He knew he had to find out.
He settled down, his back against a tree trunk, to wait and to think things through.
All along, Lexie had maintained that Heller had to be the guilty one. Apparently, she’d been correct.
But how to prove it to the satisfaction of the authorities?
Maybe whatever Heller had expected Zanko to find in that water would provide a clue…
Chapter Twelve
After the men drove off, Simon waited awhile, then cautiously approached the warehouse. Dismantling the lock only took a minute. Still careful, Simon entered and focused his senses. No one else here. Closing the door behind him just in case some cop on patrol came along, he waited for his eyes to adjust to the dark before moving around inside. The only shafts of light came through the high windows.
The foundation was cement, weeds growing through cracks here and there. The place looked empty but for a padded table that might belong in an operating room. The place was drafty, with odd cold spots that sent a chill up Simon’s back.
How did he know it wasn’t haunted by the people detained there who hadn’t made it out?
Hardening himself against the sheer inhumanity that had gone on in this place, Simon looked around until he spotted a sheltered area in one corner and headed for it, only to find the wetsuit hanging on a pipe over a drain. The rest of the gear had been laid out on a table. He checked the tank. About twelve minutes of air left.
It would have to do.
Simon wasn’t looking forward to getting into near-freezing water, but he’d been trained to deal with any conditions, and he’d been trained to scuba dive — he’d even done so on a couple of missions. Searching for some lost object in shallow waters would be easy by comparison.
Quickly, he donned the Thinsulate underwear that went under the wetsuit, then the suit itself. Zanko was a stockier man than he and, as Simon had expected, the neck seal especially was a tad loose. Nothing he could do about that, he thought as he pulled on the boots and then the hood, except pray that the gap wouldn’t let too much cold water inside the suit or he would be vulnerable to hypothermia. He added weights and a buoyancy compensator and the tank, then grabbed the face mask, regulator and underwater light and left
the warehouse for the pier.
Where to go in?
Heller had been a pretty accurate marker as to where Zanko had searched. He hadn’t quite gone to the end of the pier, so that’s where Simon chose to begin. Undoubtedly, they’d been looking for an item someone had dropped. Now if only he had a clue as to what that might be…
Simon secured the face mask, checked over the rest of his equipment, then jumped into the water, which was only about twelve feet deep here. Even so, a trickle of icy water oozed its way in through his loose neck seal.
Starting at the very tip of the pier, Simon turned on the underwater light and inspected every square foot. The only things that immediately caught his eye were plastic beer can holders and pages of a newspaper that hadn’t yet dissolved. As he went on, he found more garbage dropped by careless humans. Certainly nothing of value.
The bay’s water continued to trickle down inside his wetsuit. His discomfort growing, Simon checked his air supply time.
Five minutes left.
As he inched along the pier back toward the shore, he thought fast. If Heller had believed the lost object was still here somewhere, then Simon figured it was something with weight. And if the object had dropped from the pier, it should still be around. Tides moved things, even heavy things. But an object with weight shouldn’t have gone far.
Four minutes…
Though he kept checking at every piling, turned over anything that stuck out of the bay’s bottom, Simon was getting closer and closer to the area near the shore where Zanko had spent the most time searching.
But Zanko hadn’t searched where the warehouse hung over the shoreline.
Three minutes…
Simon tried to ignore the blossoming cold inside his wetsuit as he finished checking the length of the pier. That brought him into shallower water, where he turned his underwater light along the shoreline. Part of the warehouse hung over the water’s edge that was lined with cattails. All kinds of things were caught in the stalks, which grew to more than six feet.
Two minutes…