Alex watched the doorknob, barely picked up the sound of someone jimmying the lock.
“So,” he said, turning back to Geri, his heart in his throat. They weren’t supposed to know anyone was coming. They should probably be talking about something. “Ever been to Chicago?”
“Once,” she said, watching the door. “In the middle of winter. It was minus ten degrees, and there was an insane arctic air coming off the lake, whipping through the buildings downtown.”
“It’s not always like that,” he said, noting that she’d put herself between him and the door now. Damn. He took her by the arms and turned her around.
“Alex!” she protested.
“Oh, hell.” He leaned down and kissed her once again. It was a desperate kiss, an I-might-never-get-a-chance-todo-this-again kind of kiss, and he put this whole heart and soul into it. She slid into his arms, wrapped her arms around him and held him tight, kissing him just as desperately in return.
“Oh, this is touching,” a cynical voice said from behind them.
They broke apart. Alex shot around and found himself face-to-face with a man he’d like to strangle with his bare hands, a man he truly despised. Unfortunately, the man standing in the open doorway had a gun in his hand.
Remembering the role he was playing, Alex turned back to Geri and with as much venom as he could muster said, “What did you do?”
She gave him a brilliantly cynical smile. “You didn’t really think I’d just take off with you, did you? You’re practically a dead man.”
“This man,” Alex began, pointing an accusing finger at Tanner. “I told you, this man—”
“He’s my boss,” she interrupted. “I’ve worked with him for years, and you... Well, everybody knows what you are. What you’ve done.”
The motel-room door slammed shut behind Tanner, and she and Alex both turned back to face him. “If you two are done,” he said, “we’ll wrap this up.”
“I can just imagine how you’re going to wrap this up,” Alex countered. “The way you wrapped up that little mess at the warehouse?”
“You killed one of my best operatives,” Tanner accused.
“Sure I did,” Alex replied.
“Your prints,” Tanner said. “Your weapon.”
Alex nodded. “I really appreciate that little lesson in firearms you gave me that day.”
Tanner sighed. “We’ll have to be going. Pat him down for me, Geri.”
Geri did so, quickly running her hands up and down his body, producing nothing but a pair of handcuffs. Tanner raised a brow at that.
“His idea of fun is a woman in handcuffs,” Geri explained.
Alex fought the urge to smile.
“Cuff him for me,” Tanner said.
Alex turned around obligingly and put his hands behind his back. “I know you’ve been dying to get me in these cuffs again.”
“Dying to see you behind bars, too,” Geri quipped.
Alex shrugged as best he could. “I try never to disappoint a woman.”
Geri ignored him and turned to Tanner. “Where’s everybody else?”
“We have people outside, a helicopter standing by.”
“We’re taking him to D.C.?”
Tanner nodded. “But I wanted to do this part of it myself.” He came closer to Alex. “You’ve caused me a great deal of embarrassment, Dr. Hathaway. Not to mention the death of a friend. I’m not happy.”
“You’re not going to be any happier any time soon,” Alex promised.
Tanner frowned. “We need to be going. You’ll need your computer, Doctor.”
“Why? There’s nothing in it that would interest you.”
“It’s got to be there,” Geri said. “It’s the only thing he has worried about on this whole trip. The only thing he kept from the cabin before he blew it up.”
Geri pulled the laptop out of the bag sitting on the bed and handed it to Tanner.
“You’ll need me—alive—if you’re ever going to find anything in my computer,” Alex said.
“He’s right,” Geri added. “Anytime I’ve gotten a look at that thing, the only thing I can call up are games. He’s like a child with his little games.”
Alex didn’t move.
Tanner brandished the weapon menacingly, dead center in front of Alex’s heart. “There are a lot of ways to hurt a man without killing him, Doctor. Why don’t we take a little ride, and you can think about it.”
Alex thought that was it—that they’d be on their way, see exactly where Tanner was going to take them. He didn’t like leaving this room, but he didn’t see that he had a choice.
What he didn’t expect, ever in his wildest suppositions, was to see this man he absolutely hated, turn around and raise his hand, his weapon, toward Geri. Geri. One of his own people.
He was going to kill her, Alex realized. Right there. Without a word. Without one twinge of regret in his eyes. Just kill her.
Of course he would, Alex realized. How stupid could they have been not to have figured that out before. Tanner had already killed one of his own people. He couldn’t leave any witnesses, and Geri was supposedly the only person who knew where Alex was, and who knew Tanner had him.
The whole scene moved in slow motion. Alex fought it, but he couldn’t move any faster. Tanner’s hand with the gun was coming up, aimed at her. One look at Geri’s face told Alex that she’d known. Dammit, she’d known. She wasn’t surprised at all, and she was going for her gun, but he didn’t think she was going to make it in time.
Alex screamed out her name, and then he did the only thing he could—he jumped between her and the bullet.
The gun hardly made a sound as it fired. He heard a strange little pop, a series of them, actually.
His head and his shoulder connected solidly with the floor. Tanner crumpled to the floor beside him, bleeding and swearing, the gun slipping from his useless hand—or what was left of his hand, Alex noted with great satisfaction.
Instantly Geri was there. She went for Tanner’s gun first, taking it and tucking it into her pocket, then leaned over Alex.
“God, what did you do?” she demanded, rolling him over.
He thought his whole arm and shoulder had gone numb, maybe when he hit the floor, and it hurt like the devil. He couldn’t move, either. Then he remembered the cuffs. She’d cuffed him at her boss’s order. No wonder he couldn’t move.
Then he remembered what he’d seen in her eyes the moment before he threw himself between her and her boss.
“You knew,” he said. “Dammit, Geri. You knew he wasn’t going to let you leave this room.”
“I knew it was a possibility,” she said, pulling at his clothes.
All of a sudden, he realized they weren’t alone. There were people flooding into the room. Someone handed Geri a wicked-looking knife, and she slit his shirt open because he was bleeding.
Alex was furious. His brain was stuck on the fact that she’d known. “You came into this room anyway? Knowing what he was going to do?”
“I knew that if all the other things we believed about him were true, it was likely he couldn’t let me leave this room alive.”
“And you came here anyway?” he asked.
“It’s my job, Alex,” she said, her face tight with worry.
“Damn you,” he snapped.
“God, do you ever shut up?” she cried. “Can’t you even bleed quietly?”
He saw a piece of cloth in her hand, which she pressed down hard on his shoulder. He growled at her and sucked in a breath. “Careful. That hurts.”
“It usually does when you get shot,” she said. “Why the hell did you do that?”
“I guess I’ve gotten a little attached to you, babe. I wasn’t going to stand here and watch him shoot you.”
She gave an exasperated sigh and kept working on his shoulder. “You couldn’t just leave it to the professionals in the next room? They had rifles on him the whole time. They practically took off his hand.”
“Not
before he got a shot off at you,” he retorted.
“Dammit, Alex. They could have handled it,” she said, her voice breaking for an instant.
“I couldn’t take that chance.”
She looked straight at him, and he could have sworn that everything—absolutely everything—was right there in her eyes in that instant, and then it was gone, and she was growling at him again.
“Just shut up and let me do what I can to stop the bleeding, okay?”
She was scared, he realized, and for once, he did what she asked. He was feeling decidedly light-headed, anyway. All of a sudden, the room was filled with people armed to the teeth, radio transmissions zipping back and forth in that little earpiece they’d given him, and Geri muttering under her breath, most of it obscenities directed at him.
She moved quickly, competently, as she did everything else. There was worry in her eyes, strain showing in those little lines at the corners of her mouth, and she was mad as hell at him right then, but he couldn’t help but be impressed by the way she handled herself.
He could smell the blood now, feel the wetness against his shoulder and his arm, which had gone totally numb, and he didn’t think he could lift his head from the floor if his life depended on it.
“I can’t believe you did this,” she complained again.
Obviously, she wasn’t a woman who appreciated the signs of undying devotion—like a man throwing himself in front of a bullet for her.
“Do me a favor, Alex.” She was trying to free his arm, which was lying under him at an awkward angle and still caught in the handcuffs. “The next time I lift a pair of cuffs from someone, remind me to steal the damned keys.”
“I will,” he said. “I promise.”
“Does anybody have anything we can use to cut these cuffs off him?” she yelled, so determined, so sure of herself now. She turned back to him. “You know, we’re even now.”
“Hmm?”
“This is almost the exact same spot where I got shot.”
And she’d survived. Good. As far as he was concerned, that meant he would, too. Not that he was ready to think about that. He was still struggling to accept why she’d been shot.
“For me,” he said. “I hate that you went through that for me.”
“Forget it,” she insisted. “We’re even. And no more of this, Alex, okay? Paybacks are just hell.”
Alex just lay there and watched her work over him with a lazy smile on his face.
“What?” she said a moment later. “What could you possibly find to smile about at a time like this?”
“You,” he whispered. “You’re amazing.”
“You’re going to flirt with me now? Alex, you really are insane.”
“And you’re beautiful,” he insisted, then got worried. “Did I ever tell you that, Geri? How beautiful you are?”
“No, dammit, you didn’t,” she said, tears in her eyes as she looked down at him. “Don’t go to sleep, Alex. Okay? I’m going to slap your face if you even try it.”
“Really?” he said.
“Yes.”
“I love it when you play rough, babe.”
He was working hard to distract her, because she looked so worried, and sparring with her had always come easily. So had baiting her.
But it wasn’t working anymore. She looked really and truly scared. He had to work hard for a smile then. He felt like there were so many things he should tell her, but they were all things he just hadn’t sorted through in his own mind yet, and maybe he’d never get the chance. He didn’t want her last memory of him to be like this.
“It was fun, wasn’t it, babe?” he whispered, because it truly had been, and he wanted her to be able to remember there had been good times in all of this.
“Fun?” she said, fighting for control. “You mean, while it lasted?”
“Well...” he considered.
That wasn’t what he was trying to say, but she was right. One way or another, it was done, wasn’t it? Granted, this wasn’t the way he’d hoped it would go. But all good things came to an end, and he didn’t want her to feel bad about the way this turned out.
“It was fun,” he said. “I wouldn’t have changed a thing, babe.”
She nodded, her tears falling uncontrollably. Alex didn’t know what to say, and he could hardly think anymore. He was still trying to figure it all out when the whole world just went black.
Geri slapped him twice, right across the face, but it didn’t do any good. He barely stirred. She checked for a pulse with a trembling hand and found it. Checked that he was still breathing, as well, then tried to look objectively at the wound.
It was almost identical to the one she’d received, and hers had bled a great deal, and she’d been weak and shocky, but she’d pulled through just fine. There was no reason to think he wouldn’t. Of course, there was no way, either, to tell exactly what the bullet had done after it had torn into that spot on his shoulder. All she could see was the point of entry.
She checked the caliber of the weapon. A .38. At nearly point-blank range. She swore, seeing him jump in front of her one more time. She still couldn’t believe he’d done it.
She’d known what Tanner was going to do. She’d had her hand on her gun, could have jumped out of the way, she thought. Probably could have gotten a shot off. But no. He had to try to save her.
Dan came in and stood beside her. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” she lied. “Hell, I’m lucky I didn’t shoot him myself when he jumped between me and Tanner.”
Odd that she’d joked about that so often with Alex. About shooting him. Killing him. Hating him. Why had she told him so many times that she hated him? And never found a moment to tell him that she loved him?
“Chopper’s on its way,” Dan said. “It’s two minutes out.”
“Thanks,” she said.
She’d ripped her earpiece out a minute ago, unable to listen to all the noise coming across the channel.
Dan put his hand on her shoulder. “He’s going to be fine.”
Geri nodded, holding pressure on the wound that stubbornly refused to stop bleeding.
“Sounds like you two had a good time,” Dan said.
Geri almost started to cry then. “We did,” she said, hardly able to breathe. “It’s the craziest thing. We had a blast.”
Right up until the moment he’d jumped in front of that bullet. For her.
And until he added that little zinger at the end, right before he passed out, about this whole thing between them being nothing but fun while it lasted.
Damn. She couldn’t let herself think about that now. It hurt too much.
Everything hurt right now, and there didn’t seem to be anything she could do about it except sit there on the floor beside Alex, alternately swearing at him and making vile threats about the things she was going to do to him if he didn’t pull through.
Chapter 15
Things had to be bad before Geri turned to dear old Dad for help. Four weeks from the day she’d stood watching as Alex was loaded into a helicopter, she was entirely out of patience. She’d been lying awake nights imagining a dozen different scenarios to explain why she still hadn’t heard from him—all of them bad—and she was willing to go to the extreme lengths of having dinner with her father at his current home base—his town house in Georgetown—to find out where Alex was.
Geri didn’t hate her father. She’d simply never been that important to him, had never been that important to anyone. Except Alex.
She’d truly believed at one point that she was of elemental importance to Alex Hathaway, but all indications were that she’d been wrong about that, too.
“Damn,” Geri mattered
She’d told herself to be careful, the way she always was. She’d told Alex she was so much better off alone, so much safer that way, and what had he done? He’d talked her out of it; talked to her about reaching out to someone, about trusting them, about taking the risk.
Surely he’d meant with
him. She didn’t want anyone but him.
Now she was thinking it simply hadn’t been real, any of it. A few crazy, intense days on the road with Alex. One extremely wild ride. What did she know about men, anyway? About the way their minds worked? Or about relationships?
He’d said his never lasted because he didn’t trust women. Well, she didn’t trust men. Which made it crazy to think they’d ever find a way to trust each other, especially while the whole world went spinning out of control around them. But that was exactly what she’d done. She’d trusted him, fallen in love with him.
But what did she really know about love, either? Except that it hurt. It left her scared and vulnerable and needy, which she hated. He’d called her “needy” once, and she’d absolutely hated it.
Groaning, Geri thought he should have left her alone in her drab, colorless little world. Should have let her build her shell and keep everyone and everything out, and maybe she would never have felt a genuine emotion in her life. But nothing would have hurt her, either.
Right now, she just hurt. And she was mad at her father for letting her down her whole life, and mad at Alex for being just like him. For making her think he cared about her and then showing her how unimportant she was. She’d taken years of hurt and silence between her and her father, but she’d be damned if she’d take it from Alex.
Which was why she’d called her father. He was on the Joint Chiefs of Staff and golfed with the president at least once a month. If anyone could find out where Alex Hathaway was, it was the General. Geri had asked him about Alex two days ago and now found herself invited to dinner. She had taken a taxi to the town house and was left cooling her heels in the sitting room, her father nowhere to be found.
The last four weeks had been difficult, and she’d been busy, which was probably the only thing that had kept her sane this long. She’d had a great deal of explaining to do. There was her boss, the traitor. Her own flight across the country—quite willingly—with a man wanted for murder and treason. The two men she’d killed in the cabin in Texas that Alex had then blown to bits. The incredible jurisdictional haggles involved in three Division One agents teaming up with Jamie’s brother Scan—she’d never gotten a straight answer on whom he worked for—plus whatever covert military team he’d commandeered to help them that day. They’d also commandeered an impressive array of military equipment and Division One gadgets that they’d used in a totally unauthorized exercise, which resulted in her boss and a couple of motel rooms in Minnesota being shot up. The locals had had a field day, with them whisking two shooting victims out of their jurisdiction with nothing but the barest of explanations.
Spies, Lies and Lovers Page 21