Chapter 11
They rode for what was left of the night, heading north into Colorado, along the edge of the mountains. Shortly after sunrise, they stopped for breakfast at a small café near Greeley, then got a room at a motel there. They’d said little to each other all this time. Geri was exhausted. She’d been drowsy for what seemed like hours. Somehow it had seemed the easiest thing in the world for her to curl up against Alex Hathaway on the bike and find herself utterly relaxed, strangely content.
In the room, she ran for the shower, mainly to warm up, then climbed into one of the double beds, expecting to fall asleep quickly, easily. Alex took a shower as well, staying in there a long time. She was still awake when he walked back into the room. He checked the lock on the door, took note of the gun she’d left on the nightstand between the two beds. They’d parked the bike inside the room, to hide it from sight. He went to the window and looked outside.
“See anything?” she asked.
“No.”
“We’ve done all we can for now,” Geri said. “Let’s just get some sleep. This afternoon, we’ll see what Dan has to say, and we’ll take it from there.”
Alex nodded, looking serious, somber. She didn’t recall ever seeing him this way. Everything seemed to have changed between them. There hadn’t been a single teasing word from him—nothing designed to throw her off-balance, to irritate her, to bait her.
It was as if some undeclared truce existed between them, and they’d never negotiated the terms. But she felt she understood them fairly easily. They were going to coexist as peacefully as possible on this journey toward the truth, extending to each other enough trust that there would be no more little hostilities like tranquillizers or handcuffs, no more guns pointed at each other. She wasn’t worried he would disappear the next time she turned her back, and she didn’t think he worried that she was going to take him in—at least not yet.
She didn’t want to think about whether anything he’d told her was true or about what had happened between them at the cabin. It was too fresh, too raw, too hurtful.
Alex came to stand beside her bed. He stuck his hands into the pockets of his jeans and rocked back on his heels, still studying her intently. Finally he spoke. “Will you tell me about that night? When you got shot?”
She rolled over onto her back and covered her head with her hands. “Alex, I don’t think I’ve slept an entire night through since the shooting, and I swear, I’ve never been this tired. I can’t go over it right now. Even if there might be details that didn’t fit, I don’t think I could spot them tonight.”
He stayed where he was, just looking at her. “I wasn’t asking you to go over the details so we could try to spot some inconsistency. I wanted to know about you. It haunts you, Geri. Even now. You have nightmares about it, three and a half months later. God, I hate that.”
“I’m fine,” she said, which was a bald-faced lie, one she felt entitled to. She chose to ignore any emotion she thought she heard in his voice, anything in his words.
“I hate what it’s done to you,” he told her. “What it did to your friend. There’s nothing anyone can do to help him walk again?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t know if he knows himself at this point. He’s a very private person, and I haven’t asked. But his career as an agent’s over, and I can’t imagine how he’s going to handle that I’m grateful that he’s still alive, but he’s even more devoted to his job than I am, and for him to lose that...”
“You found him with another woman last night, didn’t you?”
She nodded.
“You okay with that?”
“We didn’t have that kind of relationship, Alex.”
“Still,” he said, “just because you didn’t have that kind of relationship doesn’t mean you never wanted to have that with him.”
Geri sighed, wondering why they were talking about this, why he cared. But she told him, because she was tired and he had a way of finding out what he wanted, of not giving up until he did.
“I thought for a while that something might happen between me and Dan. We’re alike, in a lot of ways. Maybe too much so. But nothing ever did happen. I admire him. I trust him. I think he’s a wonderful man. But that’s it.”
“Okay.”
“Get some sleep, Alex. We’ll need to be alert later, in case anything happens.”
“You trust me enough to fall asleep and believe I’ll still be here when you wake up?”
“I’m too tired to do anything else,” she said, and then knew she couldn’t leave it at that. Things had changed between them. “We’re in this together now, right? You and me. To the end. No matter what.”
“You mean that?”
“I want the truth, Alex.” She thought about Doc, about Dan, about how screwed up her whole life was as a result of that one, disastrous night. “No, I don’t just want it. I have to have it.”
“So do I,” he said. “What are they going to do to you for not bringing me in yesterday?”
She almost smiled. “Worried about me?”
“Is that so hard to believe?”
“They could do anything they wanted to with me for disobeying an order. But it will probably depend on how this whole thing shakes out. On whether my boss is guilty. On whether you’re innocent.”
“I’m innocent,” he said, then added, “I’m sorry I drugged you.”
Geri laughed. It just bubbled out of her. She was helpless to stop it.
“What’s so funny?”
“I don’t think any man’s ever drugged me and then apologized for it.”
He shrugged. “So, I’ll be the first.”
“No one’s ever chained me to his bed before, either,” she told him. “I’ve been handcuffed. Tied up. Gagged. You name it. But never handcuffed to a bed and assaulted quite like that.”
“You want me to apologize for that, too?” he asked, with none of that teasing tone she knew so well. “I will.”
As blindingly honest as she could be, she said, “I don’t know what I want from you, Alex.”
He nodded, accepting. “Okay.”
Inside her was a reckless little voice that said, Trust him. Take him. Anything he has to give. Give him anything he wants in return. Geri fought it. It seemed she’d been fighting her whole life, and she wasn’t sure if she’d accomplished anything by it.
Her father alternately tolerated her and ignored her, likely still lamented the fact that she’d been born a female instead of a male. Her mother had died so long ago, Geri didn’t even remember her, and there’d never been a man in her life who’d ever gotten really close to her. A physical relationship, she could handle. An emotional commitment was another thing altogether. She told herself she didn’t need that, that she was fine without it. She’d never been the kind of woman who wanted to spill her guts to a man and have him tell her all his secrets in return.
And now she did. She wanted a half-crazy, supposedly homicidal genius who was being hunted down by the FBI, the CIA and every covert spy agency in the U.S. and probably by all of its enemies, but as long as she stayed mad at him, she’d probably be okay. Trouble was, now that she’d told him about that night—just a little about it—it was hard to stay angry at him. It was hard not to tell him everything. Her part in it. Her mistakes. Her regrets. Especially when it was so easy to see that he had so many regrets himself.
He was getting to her, she realized. Despite logic and caution and all evidence to the contrary, he was getting to her.
“Damn,” she muttered.
“What?” Alex asked.
“Why are you doing this?” she demanded, giving in to the need to dig herself just a little bit deeper into the kind of trouble that followed him.
He was still standing by her bed, his hands shoved deeply into his pockets, gazing down at her. “Doing what?”
“Running like this. It’s dangerous, Alex. Do you even realize how dangerous it is?”
“I know a whole lot of people would eagerly ki
ll me for what I possess.”
“So why do it? Why not turn yourself in? Tell your story?”
“Turn myself in to who?” he asked. “Believe me, if there was somebody I thought I could trust, I would. But the last person the government turned me over to is trying to frame me for murder right now. The damned FBI’s convinced I did it. So if you were me, and you even wanted to turn yourself in, where would you go? The first thing they’ll do, if I’m lucky, is haul me off to jail. Who’s going to listen to me from a jail cell?”
“I don’t know, but you can’t keep running forever.”
“I realize that.”
“You must have some kind of a plan.”
“I do.”
“Want to tell me about it?”
“Going to believe me if I do?” he asked softly.
“I don’t know. But if someone other than an agent of the U.S. government finds you and the formula for those explosives, they’ll kill you when they’re through with you.”
“I know,” he said bluntly.
“Then I don’t understand. What do you hope to accomplish by running?”
“Think about it, Geri. I made something that can kill people,” he said. “Can you imagine how that feels? Somebody wants to take something I made and use it to terrorize innocent people. Can you imagine the chaos that would result if people were suddenly afraid to fly? If planes were exploding in midair? Do you remember how crazy people were after that plane exploded over Long Island and everybody was convinced, at first, that it was a missile? That someone had come that close to U.S. soil and committed an act of sheer terrorism?”
“Yes. I remember.”
“I never set out to make the perfect bomb or a terrorist’s dream weapon,” he said. “I was working on a security system when I found this. Can you understand how much I hate that I found this?”
“I—” Geri hesitated. “No. I guess I didn’t think of that.”
“I wish I’d never told anyone what I found, that I’d just destroyed the whole thing the minute I realized what I had,” he said. “But it’s too late for that. People found out. People went crazy. I swear there were people in the military practically drooling over this, and I didn’t want to give it to them. It’s one of the reasons they started to distrust me. I didn’t want them or anyone else to have it, and they knew it.”
“Better them than the other people who are after it,” she said.
“But what are they going to do with it, Geri? What’s anyone going to do with it? It’s the next generation of plastic explosives. People are going to use it to blow things up, and I will not let something I’ve made with my own two hands be used to kill people.”
Geri lay there watching him. She was more than surprised. Stunned, actually. He was adamant about this. Passionate. Weary and troubled and angry at himself, too, it seemed.
“What can you hope to do now?”
“I’ll do whatever it takes to stop that,” he claimed. “How can I not? I created this mess. I have a responsibility to stop it.”
“How?” she asked.
“I’m working on it,” he said, his gaze narrowing on her. “And you sound like you believe me. Do you, Geri? Do you believe me now?”
“I want to,” she admitted.
He nodded. “That’s a start. I want you to know something. I absolutely hate the fact that you’ve been dragged into this mess. I hate that you’ve been hurt. That your friend died and that your other friend’s life is all messed up because all of you were trying to protect me. I hate that.”
Geri lay there, turning her face away from his. She believed him about this, she realized. That he hated that she and Dan had been hurt, and that Doc was dead. Who could say about the rest of it? But this she believed.
“Will you tell me about that night?” he asked. “Please?”
“I don’t talk about it. I had to, for a while. There were reports, investigations and things, and I had to talk about it. Now I just want to forget.”
“Geri, I don’t think you can forget.”
“Maybe not,” she admitted. “It’s changed everything. Made everything different. I’m different now. I’m a mess.”
“And you got through this by hating me,” he said softly.
She started to tell him then, to explain. It wasn’t just him. It was her. “Alex—”
“Shh,” he said, sitting down beside her, his hand on her shoulder. “It’s all right, babe. Hate me, if it helps. Do whatever you have to do. I won’t ask again. And I’m sorry. If I could change it, I would. If there was anything I could do differently...”
“Sounds so easy, doesn’t it? You know how it turned out now. You know what was really happening all the time. If you had a split second of insight like that beforehand, it all would have been different.”
“Yeah,” he said, sighing, his hand running softly across her back. “It would have.”
She closed her eyes, and there it was again. His touch—consoling her, soothing her. She’d never known a man’s hands could be so gentle, could bring comfort and an irrational feeling of being safe, could chase away that awful sense of loneliness. She wanted to turn toward his touch, to invite it. She wanted so many things from him.
“I’m tired, Alex,” she admitted. “So tired of all this.”
“Okay. We won’t talk about it anymore right now.” He kept on rubbing his hand along her back, soothing. “Go to sleep, babe.”
Geri had the nightmare again. She jerked awake, sitting up in the bed, her heart thundering, a choked-off cry on her lips. She had only a second to realize that someone was outside before the door swung open.
Geri grabbed the gun from the nightstand and had it in her hand, had her finger on the hair trigger, when a man came charging through the door.
There was a second when she thought she was still dreaming, still back in that other ghastly night, and she’d gotten a second chance to make things right. She wanted that so much—a second chance. All she had to do was pull the trigger. But something was wrong about this.
It wasn’t night. It was the middle of the day. Near-blinding sunlight assaulted her eyes, flooding the room from the open doorway. The man was backlit so that she couldn’t quite see his face.
She saw another face instead. A teenager’s. How could she fire at him? He was just a kid.
“Oh,” she gasped, thinking, Second chances. Nobody got second chances, did they?
She waited, the roaring in her ears finally receding, and she heard Alex’s voice, amazingly calm.
“Geri? It’s me. Look. Look at my face. It’s me.” He smiled—some funny, scared little smile—and tried to make light of it. “I know you hate me. I know you’re dying for a chance to kill me. But...do you think we could talk about this some more? Before you pull the trigger?”
Trembling so badly that she was afraid she might shoot him by accident before she could lower the gun, Geri just sat there, fighting to breathe, to clear her head. Ever so slowly, she turned the gun away, clicked the safety back on.
“Sorry,” she said, her voice breaking on the word.
“‘Sorry’?” Alex laughed then. He could laugh at anything.
“You startled me.”
He closed the door behind him, shrugged out of his jacket and came to stand beside her bed. “You were screaming,” he said. “I thought somebody had found us, that they were hurting you.”
“Oh,” she said, embarrassed now. It had been that bad? She’d been that out of control?
“Oh,” he repeated.
She changed the subject. “Where have you been?”
“I went to grab some food from the restaurant across the road. And coffee. I thought you might like some coffee when I woke you up.”
“Oh,” she said again, the power of speech seemingly deserting her. He was being kind and concerned, she realized with a sinking feeling. Alex, kind and concerned, was even more treacherous than Alex, baiting her, needling her. She tried changing the subject. “What time is it?”
“About that time. If we’re going to make the phone call on time, we need to get moving.”
“Okay. I’ll get up.”
“Are you? Okay, I mean?”
She nodded.
“You almost shot me,” he said, more calmly than she would have been under the circumstances.
“I know,” she admitted.
“You were looking at me like you couldn’t even see me.”
“I couldn’t. I just heard a noise and woke up, right before you came charging in here, and the sun’s so bright. It threw your face into the shadows.”
Alex nodded slowly. “You looked like you weren’t even here. Where were you, Geri?”
She glanced up at him helplessly, reaction setting in, hot and heavy. Realizing that she had nearly shot him, that she’d looked up at him and had seen someone else’s face entirely. She was trembling. God, she hated it when she started trembling like this. She wouldn’t be able to aim worth a damn like this—wouldn’t be able to think, either. The nightmare always did this to her. Except the last time, she realized. The last time she’d had it, she’d been with Alex, had ended up sleeping in his arms.
He had beautiful arms, sleek and deceptively strong, exquisitely gentle. Looking up at him now, she knew that all it would take was one word from her, and she could be in those arms once again. She could forget the nightmare altogether. Could she forget who she was, too? Who he was? Would it be so bad? Just for a little while?
“Geri?” he said, reaching for her.
She scrambled away, off the other side of the bed, not caring that she was making a fool of herself or that she was standing there with her legs bare and nothing but his long shirt covering the rest of her.
“I’m going to jump in the shower,” she said, because she had to have a few minutes to pull herself together.
He nodded. She expected some teasing comment, some wry smile. But he’d hardly said anything like that since she’d told him about the shooting. He’d been surprisingly serious, and she could swear he knew exactly where she went when the nightmare came.
She missed the old Alex, she realized. The teasing. The sparring. The challenge—and she wished he didn’t know so very much about her. She’d rather have him angry than sorry, sensed that she’d been safer when she hadn’t trusted him at all than she was now. Wanting to trust him, to help him, made her vulnerable. It made her want him even more, and she already wanted him so much. Even when she’d been spouting off dire threats about wanting to kill him, about hating him, she’d still wanted him.
Spies, Lies and Lovers Page 16