He took a step into the room and let the door swing shut behind him.
“You live nearby?” She opened the soda and took a sip. There was no way she could eat right now, even though she’d been starving just a few minutes ago.
He ran his hands through his hair. It was slightly curly she’d noted. And although he’d shaved just before they’d arrived back in the States on the plane that morning, there was already a dark shadow of stubble on his jaw.
“I share a condo with another negotiator from CNU a few miles south of here. We’re both gone so much it’s rare we’re actually there at the same time. It’s more or less like living alone.” He shrugged. “It works for now.”
“What made you become an FBI agent?” She was desperate for him to stay, which was stupid. But hadn’t he just told her by default that he wasn’t married or involved with anyone?
Okay, the second was a reach for a good-looking guy like him, but she’d been turning something over in her mind…as a scientist she’d realized that it was impossible to replace a bad memory with a good one if she didn’t have any good ones to insert.
She sat on the bed with her back against the wall. “Have a seat.” She patted the bed next to her.
He gave her a measured look to make sure she was okay with his proximity, but he’d spent so much time with her since her rescue that she was starting to resent those looks. Yes, strange men made her nervous, but she wasn’t scared of everything or everyone.
She wanted to be more than just a victim.
“I have something to tell you about your attackers.”
Darby froze. Even the thought of them made her gag. She’d stabbed one, killed him with her own hand as Quentin had fought with him the night of her rescue. She would do it again a thousand times over.
“They’re all dead.”
“What? How?” A bolt of relief hit her. Had US forces killed them? Before or after Alice Alexander had been rescued? They’d refused to tell her anything on the ship—even Quentin and Haley had seemed to be holding something back.
“We’re not sure who killed them. They were found dead on the island when we went to arrest them.”
Obviously, they’d all known for a while then, but no one had told her. Because she was fragile. She hated that word. “Everyone is dead?”
“Everyone found on the island is dead. Except Alice.”
She frowned. “But it’s possible some of them escaped. There was a group of men on the boat that came to Pulau Gunung Rebi. There could be others.”
“It’s possible but not likely.”
Darby rubbed her brow. “I want to see photos.”
“They were gunned down and brutally murdered.”
Darby didn’t care. “I want to see photographs of their faces to confirm they’re all dead.”
Eban shook his head. “I can’t do that. You might not even recognize them if you saw them.”
“I’d recognize them.”
“With a bullet in the face?”
He’d wanted his words to shock, but if he’d gone through what she’d experienced, he’d realize that wasn’t possible.
“I’d recognize them,” she reaffirmed. She saw their grinning faces and disgusting leers every time she closed her eyes. Smelled their sweat and their breath and heard the sound of their labored breathing mingled with her cries of anguish. Maybe she looked fragile on the outside, but inside, she felt like she was constructed out of tungsten steel.
Eban looked like he wanted to ask her more questions but changed his mind.
He finally sat down beside her. “You managed to find your way around the academy okay today?” Changing the subject. Moving on.
She let it go. She’d talk to Quentin.
After they’d arrived that morning, Eban had left her with the victims advocate and gone into his office somewhere close by. He hadn’t told her exactly where. He stretched his legs out across her bed and slouched back against the wall next to her.
On the island when Quentin had been on watch, Haley had shared that she’d reclaimed her autonomy by taking charge of her sex life. Darby wasn’t sure how to do that, but she liked Eban, and the kiss thing had worked.
Perhaps if they had sex…
But how to get him to agree?
She felt awkward and obvious, as if her intentions were scrawled across her features in black marker. She needed to find something to talk about that didn’t remind him of what she’d been through. Men liked to talk about themselves generally. “This room is like a college dorm. Is this where you stayed when you did your training?”
He smiled, which made his dark eyes crinkle. “My dorm was down another hall, but yeah, it was similar to this one except mine was two to a room. I shared with a guy called Mike Tanner who is a communications expert here at the National Laboratory. Great guy. Helped me study all the federal laws we needed to memorize.”
“You enjoy being a negotiator?”
He smiled at her. “I do. I was on the SWAT team in LA, but I got a real kick out of watching negotiators talk the instigators out of a situation. I thought it was pretty cool to be able to do that, so I applied to negotiator school, and they said no. So, I volunteered on a suicide hotline and then asked to shadow the negotiators in LA. They refused at first, as apparently everyone wants to be a negotiator, but eventually, after I made myself as annoying as possible, my supervisor let me work with them, and I was accepted into the training school second time around.”
“You learned the value of persistence?”
“Where I come from, we call it being a pain in the ass.”
“Montana, right?”
“That’s right.”
She had one of those memories that stored information. It was useful for her studies. Not so much for other things.
“What’s it like there?”
He smiled. “I come from a remote town in the high Rockies. It’s probably the most beautiful scenery in the world, but the people are suspicious by nature and don’t like strangers.”
“Suspicion is probably useful to an FBI agent, huh?”
He laughed, and his gaze definitely dropped to her lips before shifting away. Had he been thinking about that kiss? She couldn’t stop thinking about it, except when she was thinking about other terrible things. She forced those thoughts away. Licked her bottom lip and saw his gaze flicker again.
Aha. He might be a little attracted to her.
She wasn’t sure how to get him to act upon it. And she really wanted him to. Desperately.
He started telling her about what was going to happen tomorrow, but she wasn’t listening anymore. She shifted so she was touching his shoulder with hers, and then she slid her hand along her thigh just brushing his leg.
There was a slight hitch in his monologue before he continued.
“Eban,” she interrupted and leaned closer. When he turned his head, they were only an inch apart. “I can’t stop thinking about that kiss.” He blinked. “I was thinking that maybe if we had sex it would have the same effect and help block out what they did to me.”
His pupils dilated and mouth dropped open when she slowly slid her hand over this thigh. She leaned forward, and he opened his lips, probably to argue, but she kissed him. She kept kissing him even though she didn’t really know what she was doing.
He sat there, balling his fists and breathing hard. He finally kissed her back.
“Stop. Stop. Stop.” He pulled away and grabbed her hand, even though his chest was bellowing. “We can’t do this. Not after what you went through.”
She froze. “You mean if I hadn’t been raped, you’d have sex with me?”
“Yes. No! Dammit. It would cost me my job, Darby. But more importantly, you were raped.” He held onto her wrist now, facing her, so close she could see lines of gold striate the brown of his irises. “You were violated and traumatized, and I’m not going to be the man you use, thinking you’re regaining control of your body, but actually you are systematically destroying you
r self-esteem.”
She blinked at him. “I wasn’t using you.” She tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let go. For a few seconds it was fine, but the grip on her wrist tightened. Her heart exploded, and she fought him to get free. When she succeeded, he sat there, one dark brow raised in an I-told-you-so stare.
She leapt to her feet and paced. Rubbing the feel of his grip away from her flesh, bombarded by images and sounds and the scents. Sweat. Semen. Blood.
She started to hyperventilate, and Eban was right beside her. He sat her on the edge of the bed, helped her cup her hands over her nose and mouth.
“Breathe, Darby. Slowly. Deeply.”
She dragged oxygen into her lungs like a fifty-a-day smoker. Her throat felt hoarse, and that triggered another wave of panic.
“In and out.” He rubbed her back and spoke gently, soothingly and eventually, after what seemed like an hour, her body sagged and gave in. Exhausted and drained. Once again, he was rocking her against his chest. Once again, she was crying.
Finally, she drifted off to sleep. When she woke up, he was gone.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Haley showed her ID to the guard post, and the stone-faced Marine spoke to someone via his earpiece before waving her through to the next barrier. She was meeting with Darby who’d been given private quarters at the FBI’s National Academy until she felt well enough to go home. That was Quentin’s doing, Haley was sure. Protecting her. Keeping her safe.
It was noon, and she’d slept for ten hours straight last night. Alex had hugged her while she’d bemoaned her own cowardice. By the time she’d run outside to tell Quentin she was sorry for bolting, he’d driven away. Alex had taken her by the hand and told her to sleep rather than chase after the man right then. For once she’d actually listened.
Now she felt so stupid and couldn’t imagine facing him again. Why would he want to be involved with someone as flighty or unstable as she was? Her palms were sweaty, and she wiped them on her favorite pair of Levi’s.
She’d run because she’d been convinced Quentin had been about to tell her that he didn’t love her and would never love her the way he’d loved his late wife, and her heart hadn’t been able to cope. It had hurt too damn much.
How could she stand a chance against the memory of a perfect stay-at-home wife, one who’d been about to give him a child—something Haley could never do?
The real problem was she’d lost her nerve. Her self-confidence had been shattered by her experience at the hands of her captors, and she was trying to protect the most vulnerable part of herself—her heart. But that was not how Quentin deserved to be treated. After everything they’d been through together, she owed him an explanation for her behavior, and she needed to hear him out. To respect him. She’d messed up. Sabotaged their relationship the way Alex had warned her she might.
Adulting was hard.
She took a deep breath, trying to rein in her angst.
After she met with Darby, she’d find Quentin. Apologize, even though she doubted it would make a difference. She was so obviously not the kind of woman he usually got involved with.
She received a visitor’s badge, which she pinned to the yellow blouse she wore. On her feet were the combat boots she’d gotten used to. They were comfortable. They also reminded her of what she’d been through. That she’d killed a man in order to survive.
She wasn’t yet ready to submerge herself back into her old life as if the abduction had never happened. She needed to process it properly. Her devotion to Jimmy Choo wasn’t dead, but at the moment she was enjoying the freedom and power of jackboots.
She drove up to the parking lot and left Alex’s borrowed Audi in a visitor slot—he’d picked her up from the airport yesterday and insisted on driving her everywhere so she could rest. That meant her car was in D.C.
She checked her appearance in the mirror. Her lipstick was her favorite shade of red and her makeup light. She got out and headed over to the main entrance, spotting Darby standing inside the shadowy foyer. The woman’s red hair was loose around her shoulders, her skin pale despite the light tan she’d gotten in the tropics. She was one of the few people not to be wearing beige pants and a polo shirt. Instead she wore a beige t-shirt with khaki shorts and the ugliest looking river sandals Haley had ever seen.
She looked like a field geologist.
Haley loved every inch of the young woman and intended to take her out for a fun day of shopping and spoil her rotten with anything she wanted. She got the impression Darby worked hard for everything she had, and didn’t have a lot.
They embraced, and Haley was aware of a lot of eyes watching the two of them. It was clear they weren’t FBI agents.
“Did you have a good trip back?” Haley asked.
Darby smiled and rubbed her hands up and down her bare arms. “It was a good reminder why not to join the Army.” Darby and Eban had flown home on some sort of military transport. “There were a lot of coffins on the same flight—from the hotel.”
Haley winced.
“I’m so glad you and Quentin escaped that attack and not just because you rescued me.”
Haley rubbed Darby’s hand in both of hers. “Me too.”
“How’s Quentin?”
Haley closed her eyes for a brief moment and swallowed loudly. “I did something stupid.”
Darby’s eyes widened even more. “So did I.”
“Let’s go get a coffee and talk.”
Darby led the way down the corridor, waving to a woman with long blonde hair who was talking to a receptionist. Haley recognized her from Alex and Mallory’s wedding.
“That’s Erin Donovan, the victims advocate,” Darby told her. “She’s helping me figure out how to cope. I’m meeting her later today to talk about how I might handle my father and my supervisor. She also has some other rape survivors she wants to introduce me to. She thinks our shared experience might help me understand I’m not alone and give me someone to talk to about what happened, but I’m not sure.” Darby sounded overwhelmed. “Right now, she’s helping Alice organize Erik’s funeral. I went to visit Alice earlier. They were held captive for six months.” Darby’s expression mirrored her distress. “I barely survived a week, and that poor woman was there for six months.”
Haley stopped her with a hand on her arm. They hadn’t done to Alice what they’d done to Darby. “You’re one of the bravest people I have ever met. I had Quentin with me the whole time, and he protected me. You were alone and outnumbered, and you survived and they didn’t,” Haley whispered fiercely.
“But…” Darby trailed off.
“It’s hard not to doubt yourself,” Haley said knowingly.
And maybe that was the real reason she’d run from Quentin last night. How could she possibly compete with his perfect previously unknown, dead wife?
And that thought wasn’t fair to him, and it wasn’t fair to her, and it wasn’t fair to poor deceased Abbie Savage.
“Sexual assault means you doubt yourself a lot, even though none of it is your fault.”
They bought coffee and found a table.
Haley sipped the scalding brew and decided to go first. “Quentin showed me his late wife’s grave last night. I hadn’t even known he was married, but I should have guessed. He’s so damn perfect. I freaked out when he told me what he felt for me wasn’t anything like what he felt for her, and I literally ran away.”
Darby’s green eyes were huge and dark. “He cares about you, Haley. How could you doubt that?”
Haley ran her fingers over the ridges in her paper cup. “It’s easy when you’ve never let yourself fall for anyone before.” She looked up and caught Darby’s sympathetic gaze. The girl understood. “The reality of him having already lost the love of his life hit me hard.” She pushed her hair away from her face and swallowed the knot that twisted in her throat. “I guess I can’t imagine being the sort of woman he actually wants in his life.” She clenched her fist in her lap. She didn’t want to lose him, but coul
d they really make this thing between them work? It seemed so impossible today when yesterday it had seemed unstoppable.
“I tried to seduce Eban Winters,” Darby whispered.
Haley’s eyes popped wide.
“That’s pretty much how he looked when I kissed him.” Darby’s lips twitched with unexpected humor.
Haley rarely found herself speechless.
“It was what you said about not letting anyone rob you of your enjoyment of sex. I decided if I could have a good experience to think about rather than the…the rapes,” she stumbled on the words, “I stood a better chance of getting past this.”
Haley’s brain screeched to a halt. At the time she’d been trying to give Darby something to hold on to. She hadn’t known how long they’d be stuck on that island or if they’d ever be rescued. She’d wanted to give her hope. She wasn’t a damn therapist and look how her love life was turning out. “What did Eban say?”
“He kissed me back for about a nanosecond, and then he remembered who I was. He also ran away.”
“I’m so sorry.” Haley wanted so badly to help Darby heal. “But if anyone found out, he’d probably lose his job.”
Darby sighed. “He mentioned that, but I wasn’t going to tell anyone except you and you cannot tell Quentin.”
Because Quentin was his boss.
Haley reached over the table and grabbed Darby’s hand. “I know you’re trying to figure this out logically, but I think Eban made the right choice. It’s too soon.”
Darby looked mutinous.
Haley leaned closer. “I’m going to get you in to see my therapist. She’s amazing and deals with survivors on a regular basis.”
Darby’s lips dragged down at the corners. “I live in Alaska.”
“Take some time off. Come stay with me in D.C. And if you don’t want to do that, you can set up video appointments with her.”
Darby eyed her sideways. “You really think a therapist can help after what I went through?”
Haley nodded. “And if she doesn’t, we’ll find another one closer to you who can.”
Darby played with a sachet of sugar that had been left on the table. “It’s almost worth the price, you know.”
Colder Than Sin (Cold Justice - Crossfire: FBI Romantic Suspense Book 2) Page 29