White Lies

by Linda Howard

  Steve! Sudden tears blurred her eyes as she stuffed the cosmetic bag into her small overnighter. She hoped he would be all right.

  At the last moment she remembered to pack fresh underwear. She was rattled, oddly disorganized, but finally she zipped the case and got her purse. “I’m ready,” she said as she stepped out of the bedroom.

  Gratefully she saw that one of the men had carried the coffee things into the kitchen. McCoy took the case from her hand, and she got her coat from the closet; Payne silently helped her into it. She looked around to make certain all the lights were off; then the three of them stepped into the hallway, and she locked the door behind her, wondering why she felt as if she would never be back.

  SHE SLEPT ON the plane. She hadn’t meant to, but almost as soon as they were airborne and she relaxed in the comfortable leather seat, her eyelids became too heavy to keep open. She didn’t feel Payne spread a light blanket over her.

  Payne sat across from her, watching her broodingly. He wasn’t quite comfortable with what he was doing, dragging an innocent woman into this mess. Not even McCoy knew how much of a mess it was, how complicated it had become; as far as the other man knew, the situation was exactly the way he’d outlined it to Jay Granger: a simple matter of identification. Only a handful of people knew that it was more; maybe only two others besides himself. Maybe only one other, but that one carried a lot of power. When he wanted something done, it was done. Payne had known him for years, but had never managed to be comfortable in his presence.

  She looked tired and oddly frail. She was too thin. She was about five-six, but he doubted she weighed much over a hundred pounds, and something about her made him think such thinness wasn’t normal for her. He wondered if she was strong enough to be used as a shield.

  She was probably very pretty when she was rested, and when she had some meat on her bones. Her hair was nice, a kind of honey brown, as thick and sleek as an otter’s coat, and her eyes were dark blue. But now she just looked tired. It hadn’t been an easy day for her.

  Still, she had asked some questions that had made him uncomfortable. If she hadn’t been so tired and upset she might have pinned him down on some things he didn’t want to discuss, asked questions in front of McCoy that he didn’t want raised. It was essential to the plan that everything be taken at face value. There could be no doubt at all.

  THE FLIGHT FROM New York to Bethesda was a short one, but the nap refreshed her, gave her back a sense of balance. The only thing was, the more alert she felt, the more unreal this entire situation seemed. She checked her watch as Payne and McCoy escorted her off the private jet when they landed at Washington National and into a government car waiting on the tarmac for them, and was startled to see that it was only nine o’clock. Only a few hours had passed, yet her life had been turned upside down.

  “Why Bethesda?” she murmured to Payne as the car purred down the street, a few flakes of snow drifting down like flower petals on a light breeze. She stared at the snowflakes, wondering absently if an early-winter snowstorm would keep her from getting home. “Why not a civilian hospital?”

  “Security.” Payne’s quiet voice barely reached her ears. “Don’t worry. The best trauma experts were called in to work on him, civilian and military. We’re doing the best we can for your husband.”

  “Ex-husband,” Jay said faintly.

  “Yes. Sorry.”

  As they turned onto Wisconsin Avenue, which would eventually take them to the Naval Medical Center, the snow became a little heavier. Payne was glad she hadn’t asked any more questions about why the man was in a military hospital instead of, say, Georgetown University Hospital. Of course, he’d told her the truth, as far as it went. Security was the reason he was at Bethesda. It just wasn’t the only reason. He watched the snow swirling down and wondered if all the loose threads could possibly be woven into a believable whole.

  When they reached the medical center, only Payne got out of the car with her; McCoy nodded briefly in farewell and drove away. Snowflakes quickly silvered their hair as Payne took her elbow and hurried her inside, where the welcome warmth just as quickly melted the lacy flakes. No one paid them any attention as they took an elevator upward.

  When the elevator doors opened, they stepped out into a quiet corridor. “This is the ICU floor,” Payne said. “His room is this way.”

  They turned to the left, where double doors were guarded by two stern young men in uniform, both of whom wore pistols. Payne must have been known on sight, for one of the guards quickly opened a door for them. “Thank you,” Payne said courteously as they passed.

  The unit was deserted, except for the nurses who monitored all the life-support systems and continually checked on the patients, but still Jay sensed a quiet hum that pervaded every corner of the unit—the sound of the machines that kept the patients alive or aided in their recovery. For the first time it struck her that Steve must be hooked up to one or more of those machines, unable to move, and her steps faltered. It was just so hard to take in.

  Payne’s hand remained under her elbow, unobtrusively providing her with support. He stopped before a door and turned to her, his clear gray eyes full of concern. “I want to prepare you a little. He’s badly injured. His skull was fractured, and the bones in his face were crushed. He’s breathing through a trach tube. Don’t expect him to look like the man you remember.” He waited a moment, watching her, but she didn’t say anything, and finally he opened the door.

  Jay stepped into the room, and for a split second both her heart and lungs seemed to stop functioning. Then her heart lurched into rhythm again, and she drew a deep, painful breath. Tears sprang to her eyes as she stared at the inert form on the white hospital bed, and his name trembled soundlessly on her lips. It didn’t seem possible that this…this could be Steve.

  The man on the bed was almost literally a mummy. Both legs were broken and encased in pristine plaster casts, supported by a network of pulleys and slings. His hands were wrapped in bandages that extended almost to his elbows. His head and face were swathed in gauze, with extra-thick pads over his eyes; only his lips, chin and jaw were visible, and they were swollen and discolored. His breath whistled faintly but regularly from the tube in his throat, and various other tubes ran into his body. Monitors overhead recorded every detail of his bodily functions. And he was still. He was so still.

  Her throat was so dry that speaking was painful. “How can I possibly identify him?” she asked rawly. “You knew I couldn’t. You knew how he looks!”

  Payne was watching her with sympathy. “I’m sorry, I know it’s a shock. But we need for you to try. You were married to Steve Crossfield. You know him better than any other person on earth. Maybe there’s some little detail you remember, a scar or a mole, a birthmark. Anything. Take your time and look at him. I’ll be just outside.”

  He went out and closed the door behind him, leaving her alone in the room with that motionless figure and the quiet beeping of the monitors, the weak whistle of his breathing. Her hands knotted into fists, and tears blurred her eyes again. Whether this man was Steve or not, a pity so acute it was painful filled her.

  Somehow her feet carried her closer to the bed. She carefully avoided the tubes and wires while never looking away from his face—or as much of his face as she could see. Steve? Was this really Steve?

  She knew what Payne wanted. He hadn’t actually spelled it out, but he hadn’t needed to. He wanted her to lift the sheet away and study this man while he lay there unconscious and helpless, naked except for the bandages over his wounds. He thought she would have a wife’s intimate knowledge of her husband’s body, but five years is a long time. She could remember Steve’s grin, and the devilish sparkle in his chocolaty brown eyes, but other details had long since faded from her mind.

  It wouldn’t matter to this man if she stripped back the sheet and looked at him. He was unconscious; he might well die, even now, with all these miracle machines hooked up to his body. He would never know. And
as Payne would say, she would be doing her country a service if she could somehow identify this man as Steve Crossfield, or as definitely not.

  She couldn’t stop looking at him. He was so badly hurt. How could anyone be injured this critically and still live? If he were granted a lucid moment, right now, would he even want to live? Would he be able to walk again? Use his hands? See? Think? Or would he take stock of his injuries and tell the doctors, “Thanks, guys, but I think I’ll take my chances at the Pearly Gates.”

  But perhaps he had a tremendous will to live. Perhaps that was what had kept him alive this long, an unconscious, deep-seated will to be. Fierce determination could move mountains.

  Hesitantly she stretched out her hand and touched his right arm, just above the bandages that covered his burns. His skin was hot to the touch, and she jerked her fingers back in surprise. Somehow she had thought he would be cold. This intense heat was another sign of how brightly life still burned inside him, despite his stillness. Slowly her hand returned to his arm, lightly resting on the smooth skin just below the inside of his elbow, taking care not to disturb the IV needle that dripped a clear liquid into a vein.

  He was warm. He was alive.

  Her heart was pounding in her chest, some intense emotion welling up in her until she thought she would burst from the effort of trying to control it. It staggered her to think of what he had been through, yet he was still fighting, defying the odds, his spirit too fierce and proud to just let go. If she could have, she would have suffered the pain in his place.

  And his body had been invaded enough. Needles pierced his veins; wire and electrodes picked up and broadcast his every heartbeat. As if he didn’t have enough wounds already, the doctors had made more to insert drainage tubes in his chest and side, and there were other tubes, as well. Every day a host of strangers looked at him and treated him as if he were nothing but a slab of meat, all to save his life.

  But she wouldn’t invade his privacy, not in this manner. Modesty might not mean anything to him, but it was still his choice to make.

  All her attention was focused on him; nothing else in the world existed in this moment except the man lying so still in the hospital bed. Was this Steve? Would she feel some sense of familiarity, despite the disfiguring swelling and the bandages that swathed him? She tried to remember.

  Had Steve been this muscular? Had his arms been this thick, his chest this deep? He could have changed, gained weight, done a lot of physical work that would have developed his shoulders and arms more, so she couldn’t go by that. Men got heavier in the chest as they matured.

  His chest had been shaved. She looked at the dark stubble of body hair. Steve had had chest hair, though not a lot of it.

  His beard? She looked at his jaw, what she could see of it, but his face was so swollen that she couldn’t find anything familiar. Even his lips were swollen.

  Something wet trickled down her cheek, and in surprise she dashed her hand across her face. She hadn’t even realized she was crying.

  Payne reentered the room and silently offered her his handkerchief. When she had wiped her face he led her away from the bedside, his arm warm and comforting around her waist, letting her lean on him. “I’m sorry,” he finally offered. “I know it isn’t easy.”

  She shook her head, feeling like a fool for breaking down like that, especially in light of what she had to tell him. “I don’t know. I’m sorry, but I can’t tell if he’s Steve, or not. I just…can’t.”

  “Do you think he could be?” Payne asked insistently.

  Jay rubbed her temples. “I suppose so. I can’t tell. There are so many bandages—”

  “I understand. I know how difficult it is. But I need something to tell my superiors. Was your husband that tall? Was there anything at all familiar about him?”

  If he understood, why did he keep pushing? Her headache was getting worse by the second. “I just don’t know!” she cried. “I guess Steve is that tall, but it’s hard to tell when he’s lying down. Steve has dark hair and brown eyes, but I can’t even tell that much about this man!”

  Payne looked down at her. “It’s on his medical sheet,” he said quietly. “Brown hair and brown eyes.”

  For a moment the import of that didn’t register; then her eyes widened. She hadn’t felt any sense of recognition for the man at all, but she was still dazed by the storm of emotion he had caused in her: pity, yes, but also awe, that he was still alive and fighting, and an almost staggering respect for the determination and sheer guts he must have.

  Very faintly, her face white, she said, “Then he must be Steve, mustn’t he?”

  A flash of relief crossed Payne’s face, then was gone before she could be certain it was there. He nodded. “I’ll notify our people that you’ve verified his identity. He’s Steve Crossfield.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  WHEN JAY AWOKE the next morning she lay very still in the bed, staring around the unfamiliar hotel room and trying to orient herself. The events of the previous day were mostly a blur, except for the crystal-clear memory she had of the injured man in the hospital. Steve. That man was Steve.

  She should have recognized him. Even though it had been five years, she had once loved him. Something about him should have been familiar, despite the disfiguring bruises and swelling. An odd feeling of guilt assailed her, though she knew it was ridiculous, but it was as if she had let him down somehow, reduced him to the level of being too unimportant in her life for her to remember how he looked.

  Grimacing, Jay got out of bed. There she went again, letting things matter too much to her. Steve had constantly told her to lighten up, and his tone had sometimes been full of impatience. That was another area where they had been incompatible. She was too intense, too involved with everyday life and the world around her, while Steve had skated blithely on the surface.

  She was free to return to New York that morning, but she was reluctant to do so. It was only Saturday; there was no hurry as long as she returned in time to go to work Monday morning. She didn’t want to sit in her apartment all weekend long and brood about being unemployed, and she wanted to see Steve again. That seemed to be what Payne wanted, too. He hadn’t mentioned making arrangements for her return to New York.

  She had been so exhausted that for once she had slept deeply, and as a result the shadows beneath her eyes weren’t as dark as they usually were. She stared into the bathroom mirror, wondering if being fired might have been a blessing in disguise. The way she had been pushing herself had been hard on her health, burning away weight she couldn’t afford to lose, drawing the skin tightly over her facial bones so that she looked both haggard and emaciated, especially without makeup. She made a face at herself in the mirror. She’d never been a beauty and never would be, but she had once been pretty. Her dark blue eyes and swath of sleek, heavy, golden-honey-brown hair were her best features, though the rest of her face could be described as ordinary.

  What would Steve say if he could see her now? Would he be disappointed, and bluntly say so?

  Why couldn’t she get him out of her mind? It was natural to be concerned about him, to feel sharp sympathy because of his terrible injuries, but she couldn’t stop herself from wondering what he would think, what he would say, about her. Not the Steve he had been before, that charming but unreliable will-o’-the-wisp, but the man he was now: harder, stronger, with the fierce will to survive that had kept him alive in the face of overwhelming odds. What would that man think of her? Would he still want her?

  The thought made her face flame, and she jerked away from the mirror to turn on the shower. She must be going mad! He was an invalid. Even now, it wasn’t by any means certain that he would survive, despite his fighting nature. And even if he did, he might not function as well as he had before. The surgery to save his sight might not have worked; they wouldn’t know until the bandages came off. He might have brain damage. He might not be able to walk, talk or feed himself.

  Helplessly she felt hot tears begin to sli
de down her cheeks again. Why should she cry for him now? Why couldn’t she stop crying for him? Every time she thought of him she started crying, which was ridiculous, when she hadn’t even been able to recognize him.

  Payne was calling for her at ten, so she forced herself to stop crying and get ready. She managed that with plenty of time to spare, then found, surprisingly, that she was hungry. She usually didn’t eat breakfast, sustaining herself with an endless supply of coffee until lunch, when her stomach would be burning and she wouldn’t be able to eat much. But already the strain of her job was fading away, and she wanted food.

  She ordered breakfast from room service and received it in a startlingly short length of time. Falling on the tray like a famine victim, she devoured the omelet and toast in record time; when Payne knocked on her door, she had been finished for almost half an hour.

  Without seeming to, Payne studied her face with sharp eyes that noted and analyzed every detail. She’d been crying. This was really getting to her, and though that was exactly what they wanted, he still regretted that she had to be hurt. She also looked immeasurably better this morning, with a bit of color in her face. Her marvelous eyes were bigger and brighter than he had remembered, but part of that was the result of her tears. He only hoped she wouldn’t have to shed too many more.

  “I’ve already called to check on his condition,” he reported, taking her arm. “Good news. His vital signs are improving. He’s still unconscious, but his brain waves are increasing in activity and the doctors are more optimistic than they’ve been. He’s really done better than anyone expected.”

  She didn’t point out that they had expected him to die, so anything was better than that. She didn’t want to think about how close he had come to dying. In some way she didn’t understand, Steve had become too important to her during those minutes when she had stood beside his bed and touched his arm.