Dangerous To Love

by Toni Anderson, Barbara Freethy, Dee Davis, Leslie A. Kelly, Cynthia Eden, J. Kenner, Meli Raine, Gwen Hernandez, Pamela Clare, Rachel Grant

  “No.”

  The electronic lines on the monitors behind Mason begin to spike. I reach for Quince’s hand and hold tight.

  “Let’s talk about that. Let your mind go back. Who were you with?”

  The lines spike more. Mason goes pale.

  “Did they say anything before putting you in the truck?”

  His body starts to shake, and I hold my breath.

  Another question, then another and another, but no answers, and with every question his reaction becomes erratic, his body more strained, until finally Dr. Tam asks him to recall the face of the cell leader with whom he’d become close.

  A wild, gut-wrenching scream rips from Mason’s throat and he stands up, clutching his head, his face screwed up in pain, as wires and IV tubes flail about, until he drops to the floor, curls up in a ball on the tile, and rocks and whimpers and rocks.

  His scream, however, continues to echo—or at least I think it does. After a moment, I realize it’s me.

  “It’s no use,” Dr. Tam says into the intercom after she’s given him more sedative and helped him back into the chair. “Not right now. I see no signs of permanent damage or regression, but he needs time to recover before we try again.”

  “She can’t try again,” I tell Seagrave, who’s joined us in the viewing area. “You’re not going to get anything and it’s going to destroy him.”

  “That period of time is key,” Seagrave says, musing. “Right before they dumped him in Victorville. He learned something. Something dangerous and important. We need to know what that is.” He meets my eyes. “And not just because we need to save you. There’s more riding on this than the life of one woman, even a woman I trust and admire. And since the toxin in your blood stream is an agent we haven’t seen before, we have to assume it’s at the heart of a biological weapons attack. We need to know what they’re planning, when, and how.”

  I know all that. Of course I know it.

  “We have to try again,” Seagrave says flatly. “And we have to keep trying until we get answers. Or we can’t try anymore.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Mason paced the small suite that the SOC had given to him and Denny for the night, a set of rooms that visiting operatives were permitted to use while on local assignments. Seagrave had smiled when he offered it, calling it a courtesy. After all, the clock was ticking, and both he and Denny needed rest. They didn’t need to be driving back to Silver Lake.

  That part was true enough. But what Mason also knew was that if they’d said no to the offer, Seagrave would have insisted. The information in Mason’s head was too important to let him wander away. Not only that, but while they believed the toxin in Denny’s blood was dormant, they still wanted to do regular draws and tests.

  Which meant that the suite was more necessity than courtesy.

  Even so, it was private, without the monitoring systems set up in the infirmary or the holding cells. And for that courtesy, Mason was grateful. He wanted Denny in his arms. And he wanted their privacy. He wanted them to get lost in each other just in case tonight was the last night they ever could. Or, at least, the last night he’d ever remember.

  “I have to tell Dr. Tam to push harder,” he said, pausing in front of the table where Denny was reviewing the lab and chemistry reports.

  She slammed the laptop shut, obviously frustrated. “I can hack my way into almost any system. I can ferret information out of anything with an electronic brain. But damned if I can figure out the chemistry of whatever they’ve shoved into my blood.”

  With a sigh, she dragged her fingers through her hair, then smiled up at him. “Sorry, distracted. What did you say?”

  “Dr. Tam. I need to tell her to push harder.”

  “What? No. We’re in this room so we can grab a few hours of rest. So that you can get your strength back. But that doesn’t mean she needs to press harder. You started to snap, Mason. Harder, and you will.”

  “I have to try.” He pulled out the chair beside her and sat down. “Seventy-two hour incubation period, and your life is on the line. Do you think I’m going to back off?”

  “I think you need to be smart. You push too hard, and you could get lost inside your own head.”

  “If I don’t push, you’ll die. Not only that, but they have plans for this toxin. You won’t be the only one dead, and we both know it.”

  She shook her head, but she didn’t argue. He knew he was right, and so did she.

  “I’m strong,” he said gently, standing up and then tugging her into his arms.

  She shook her head. “Not strong enough.”

  He laughed, then wiped away one of her tears. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  Her lips twitched, but didn’t quite turn into a smile. “I can’t stand the thought of losing you. Especially not now when—”

  She cut herself off with a shake of her head.

  “When you’ve just gotten me back?”

  She hesitated, then nodded, and he almost asked her what she wasn’t saying. He didn’t, though. Instead, he just kissed her. “That’s how I feel, too. And I’m willing to do anything to keep you. And, hopefully, come all the way back to you.”

  “Mason—” She stopped, then slid off his lap and started to pace. “You need to know—”

  A hard rap at the door interrupted her, and they both turned that direction.

  “Nurse,” a deep male voice said, and Denny frowned.

  “Come in,” she called, then grimaced as she added to Mason, “Time to get stuck again.”

  A nurse in jeans and a hospital green scrub jacket entered, tossing Denny’s chart carelessly onto the table as he prepared the vial. Denny had already taken a seat on the edge of the small sofa in the suite’s living area, so he moved to her as Mason hung back at the table.

  He’d seen dozens of people have blood drawn, and had himself bled into enough tubes to stock a blood bank. Even so, watching the process ranked low on his list of favorite things, and he looked down instead, his eyes skimming over Denny’s chart. He flipped the pages casually, then froze when he reached the doctor’s notes.

  Prenatal/Amnio toxin analysis @16weeks: negative

  Maternal toxin: positive

  Retest amniotic fluid following 72h inc. period

  He read the note again, then one more time, first with ebullient joy, then with a rising sense of dread and betrayal.

  She was pregnant.

  He was going to be a father.

  But even as those thoughts lifted him up, the reality that surrounded them brought him crashing down. And not the reality of the toxin or his memory. The other reality. The darker reality.

  The reality in which his wife who purported to love him had sex with another man sixteen weeks ago.

  Who?

  The question gnawed at him, the thought of his wife with another man bubbling in his blood like some caustic, toxic poison.

  He left the report on the desk and started to pace the room, jealousy and doubt coursing through him. He’d fallen in love with Denny—not just before. Hell, he couldn’t even remember before. But now. Right here, right now. With her cleverness, her humor, her dedication. And, he’d thought, her loyalty.

  Was he not seeing the real woman?

  Had there been problems in their marriage before?

  Had she believed he was dead, and found solace in another man’s arms?

  For a moment, he let himself believe that, the theory giving him some peace. Then he remembered what she’d confirmed before the first time they’d made love while he was still Jack. She’d told him that she knew Mason was alive.

  She’d known that he—that Mason—was out there in the world.

  And she’d still fucked another man.

  Goddammit all to hell.

  “Are you okay?”

  He’d been pacing so fast he was practically jogging. Now he looked around the room in a daze. The nurse was gone, and Denny was standing, her face painted in concern, as if she truly ca
red at all. As if he wasn’t the biggest fool in the world.

  “Does it matter to you?”

  She blinked. “What? Of course.” She took a step toward him. “Mason, what’s wrong?”

  “I have no memory of our time together before I came back,” he said slowly. “No memory of what we had or didn’t have. How we loved or didn’t love.”

  “Didn’t?” she repeated, her brow furrowed.

  “You tell me we were in love, but I don’t know. What evidence do I have? What evidence other than the fact that I fell in love with you now. Here.”

  She licked her lips, looking at him as if he were an old jigsaw puzzle with lots of missing pieces. “I love you, too. Then, and now.”

  “Don’t.” The word ripped out of him, and he pointed an accusatory finger at her. “Do not stand there and tell me you love me. Don’t lie to me and say that you waited for me, that you missed me and mourned me. Not when it’s all a lie. Not when you’re carrying another man’s child.”

  She’d been walking toward him, but now she stopped, frozen to the spot, and he knew that he’d hit home. That she hadn’t expected the secret to be revealed. And although that was a victory for truth, it damn sure felt like defeat.

  “I fell in love with you in the here and now. But I guess that was just Jack. You’d already tossed Mason aside.”

  She shook her head. “No, you don’t—”

  “What? Understand? Are you going to explain it to me? I think I understand betrayal well enough.”

  He wasn’t pacing, but he was moving around the room. He didn’t want this rage, this fury, but at least it was his. He’d felt this way only one other time since he’d awakened in Victorville—when they’d made love. Not fury, then, but a fullness. Real, concrete emotions. Everything else was twinged with a sense of hollowness because he was half a person, his past left behind somewhere. But in her arms, he’d been whole. And now he was whole again as he railed against her betrayal.

  How ironic that his love for her both saved and destroyed him.

  “Who was it? Quince? Before he met Eliza? Liam? Is that why you love that shower so much?”

  Her unreadable expression focused into fury. “Those men are your friends and my colleagues. Don’t you dare accuse them that way.”

  She was right, but he swallowed the apology, not willing to give up any ground, his anger eating away at him, but freeing him as well. Had he lost his shit since Victorville? Was this the first time the wounds had opened and he’d let the bile spill out?

  Maybe it was—hell, maybe Denny was getting more than she deserved.

  Then he remembered that she was four months pregnant and he’d been gone for over two years, and his rage whipped right back up again.

  “Was it Peter? Did you sleep with him?”

  “Absolutely not,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest and tilting her head to the side. “Are you finished? Do I get to talk? Say anything in my defense?”

  She spoke so calmly and evenly, that he could feel his fury deflating. He tried to hold onto it, clinging to it like a life raft. “Are you pregnant?”

  “Yup.”

  “Then I don’t know what you could possibly say.”

  “How about this—you’re an idiot.”

  “I’m a—excuse me?”

  “An idiot,” she repeated. “One who clearly needed to have the mother of all tantrums because, hello, weight of the world on top of amnesia, so I’m willing to cut you some slack.” She screwed up her mouth. “Maybe not for the Liam and Quince comments, though. That pushed the envelope.”

  “I’m sorry?” The apology came out as a question, not because he wasn’t sorry, but because her words and her demeanor were confusing the shit out of him.

  “I am pregnant, you stupid man. I’m pregnant with your baby.”

  He just stared at her, because those words didn’t—couldn’t—make sense.

  “I told you,” she said. “When you asked if I knew Mason was alive. I told you that he—you—had made contact twice. The second time was now. As Jack, I mean. But the first time—well, that was about four months ago. In February. On—”

  “Our anniversary.” His voice was barely a whisper. He remembered his anniversary. “Valentine’s Day.”

  “You remember? Our wedding? That night?”

  He tried to pull it out, but no. All he remembered was February 14. “I remember the date. Like I remember Christmas.”

  With a sigh, he moved to her, then pulled her into his arms. “I guess that date’s important to me. I’m sorry,” he added, lifting her hand to his lips and kissing her fingers. “I shouldn’t have—”

  “No, you shouldn’t have.” She smiled, then kissed the corner of his mouth. “But under the circumstances I forgive you.”

  Guilt still clung to him. “I mean it. I’m sorry.”

  “I know you are. Now shut up, okay? You get a one-time pass. Do something this bone-headed again, and we’ll see a different outcome. Okay?”

  “Okay.” He drew in a breath, the world shiny and new despite all the horror surrounding them. “So we’re really having a baby?” Pleasure poured through him. A father—was he really going to be a father?

  “We are,” she said. “Assuming I survive the next—”

  He cut her off with a kiss. “You will,” he said firmly. “Don’t you dare doubt it.”

  She met his eyes, the trust he saw there almost enough to melt him. “I don’t. But sometimes faith isn’t enough. We need a plan. We need information.”

  “Which is exactly why I need to push harder. Let Dr. Tam go deeper. All these scars on my back. On my neck—I don’t know how I got them, but they must be related. They’re new. I was tortured. And I stole something. It has to be related.”

  “Agree.”

  “Did I have them four months ago?”

  She bit her lower lip. “I don’t know.”

  “But I thought—”

  “You blindfolded me.”

  “Did I?”

  She smacked him lightly. “Don’t look so amused. It was—Oh!”

  “What?”

  “I can’t tell you about it. Not now,” she added, then grinned at him like a kid with a secret. “But I think telling you with Dr. Tam in the room would be an exceptionally good idea.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  He could hear their words.

  Denny’s. Dr. Tam’s.

  They sounded as if they were above, and he was deep in a well, but he could hear them. That was all that mattered.

  He was sedated—he knew that.

  He knew that he was hypnotized, too.

  Most of all, he knew this was dangerous. Something about the path. Something about how it could all fall out from under him and he’d end up someplace else altogether with no map to get back to himself.

  He looked out, and he saw the path. Yes. Dangerous. Mines buried everywhere. Barbed wire on the fences. Snipers hiding behind the rocks.

  He had to go slow and be careful.

  But he had to go. Because he was going to be a father, and oh, dear God, how incredible was that? He was going to be a daddy, and he had to keep his child safe. Had to protect him from—

  From what?

  “Was there a meeting?” The voice seemed to come from inside his head. “Do you remember a meeting where you were told what was going on? You were with them a long time. You must have had their confidence.”

  He glanced over at the rocks where the snipers hid. Had he ever truly had their confidence? Or had they always had their weapons aimed right at him?

  “A toxin,” he heard himself saying. His body went tense. Denny. She’d been given the toxin.

  “And the meeting? Was there a meeting? Or perhaps you stumbled across some information?”

  His head started to ache and he felt his body rocking. Had to be careful. Couldn’t step on a mine.

  “Just a meeting.” He knew the voice now—Dr. Tam. “No danger to you at the meeting. You’re fine now,
just fine. It was a meeting, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes. They trust me. No barbed wire here. But there’s a sniper.”

  “Deep breaths,” the doctor said. “Calm down. The sniper won’t hurt you.”

  “No.” He drew a breath. Then another. “I don’t know about him. Not yet.”

  “Who—” Denny’s voice.

  “Shhh. Later. What did you learn, Agent Walker. What did they tell you about the toxin?”

  “All about the economics. That’s what Jeremy said. They’d think it was a terrorist act when really it was about getting paid.”

  “Jeremy?”

  “The sniper.” His body felt cold. “The pumpkin eater. My ally, only he’s not. I don’t know that—didn’t know that?—but he’s not an ally.”

  He was getting close to the ice. To the danger. “So much wrong there. He’s not Jeremy, not my partner.” The ice was fire, bleeding into his skull. The pain was creeping up on him. Sharp teeth, long claws. “I need—”

  “You’re doing fine, Agent Walker. I’m monitoring you. Deep breaths. Good. Take another. I’m keeping you safe. And we’re over a month before you returned, remember? Nothing’s happened to you yet. Don’t worry about Jeremy. Right now he trusts you.”

  “He has a secret.”

  “But you don’t know it yet, do you? Right now, you’re on the garden path. Where does their garden path lead?”

  “Death,” he said flatly. “Unless there’s an antidote, it’s death.”

  He heard a sharp intake of breath at the same time the doctor said, “Unless?”

  “They contaminate the population. Infiltrate the fast food market. How much wouldn’t the government pay for an antidote? The government, corporations, even individuals? Taint the food at the burger barn or taco shack down the street and the big nasty conglomerate will pay to make the population healthy again?”

  He remembered. They’d told him. Wanted him to head up the American cell. The first cell with the first batch of toxin. A demonstration for the rest of the world. If the rest of the world ponied up, no need to infect anyone else. The biggest protection racket in the world.

  “Was that when you made contact?”