by Paula Graves
“So why were you following them?” he asked.
She moved toward the window, standing just a little short of it, as if she worried she might be seen from the street. “I shouldn’t have come here. People will notice if I don’t go home. In some ways, living in an immigrant community can be like living in a small town. Everybody keeps an eye out for everybody else.”
He noticed that she had formed a habit of rubbing her belly when she spoke, as if she was soothing the child inside. He didn’t want to ask the next question, but he had to.
“Am I the father, Risa?”
* * *
RISA HAD BEEN expecting the question. Dreading it, because of what it would mean. But she hadn’t realized how much his show of distrust would hurt, even as she understood why he harbored it.
“You’re the father,” she said simply, because anything else would only exacerbate his doubts.
“And you weren’t ever going to tell me I had a child?”
“Honestly, Connor, I hadn’t thought that far ahead.” She turned back to the window. “I was supposed to be on the plane. But Dal had heard chatter that al Adar had put a target on my back. We knew they had people placed in the airports and other means of transportation.”
“So he took you off the plane and sent two hundred and twelve other people to their deaths to fake yours?”
“God, no!” She turned to look at him. “I would never have allowed that. You know that.”
“But it’s what happened, isn’t it?”
He looked so angry, she thought, her own chest tightening in response. Was anger the only feeling he had left for her now?
“He seemed genuinely shocked by the bomb on the plane. Connor, he sent another agent on that plane to take my place so al Adar would think I was going to be landing in San Diego as we planned.”
Pain flashed across his expression. “I was waiting there. For hours. They didn’t tell us right away that something had gone wrong. I got a call from Jason Ridgeway. He’d seen it on the news. A Russian airliner had disappeared somewhere over the Pacific.”
“I’m sorry. It wasn’t supposed to happen that way.”
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, raking his hand through his already-tousled hair. “Okay. You didn’t expect the crash. But what about after that? You couldn’t let me know you were alive?”
“Dal said—”
“I don’t care what Dal said!” His voice came out in a pained roar. He turned his back to her, visibly trying to regain control. She waited silently, giving him time and space to do so.
Finally, he faced her. “I’m sorry. What did Dal say?”
“It doesn’t matter. I should have contacted you. I was just—it was one thing to think I was being targeted. But to know that they’d kill over two hundred people just to kill me—”
“Pretty shattering, huh?” For the first time, Connor sounded sympathetic.
“Very shattering.” She pressed her palm against the curve of her belly, taking comfort in the gentle wriggling of the baby inside her. He—or she—could probably sense her tension. Not for the first time, she wondered whether she was carrying a girl or a boy. Her ob-gyn had offered her the chance to find out the baby’s sex, but she’d wanted to wait until birth.
Until this moment, she hadn’t known why she’d wanted to wait. But watching Connor’s gaze follow the movement of her hand, she realized she had always hoped that somehow, against all odds, she’d be able to share the birth of this child with her husband.
He might never forgive her for letting him believe she was dead so long, but she had no doubt whatsoever that he’d love their child.
“Why are you here in Cincinnati, pretending to be a Kaziri widow?”
She sighed. “Sometimes, I wonder that myself.”
Connor looked at her through narrowed eyes. “You look tired.”
“I had to walk eight blocks for my doctor’s appointment this morning, and then I was on my feet for hours at work.”
“And then you followed a couple of men down a dark street.”
“Yeah. Not my finest moment.”
He pulled a chair away from the table. “Take a load off.”
She took a seat, swallowing a sigh of pure relief. She looked down at her feet and saw that her ankles were looking a little puffy. “Ugh, whoever said women glow when they’re pregnant was probably blind or demented. I’ve just inflated.”
Connor smiled, giving her the first glimpse of his dimples in forever. Her heart turned a couple of flips in her chest at the sight, just as it had the first time he’d smiled at her. “You look beautiful. You always do.”
The kindness in his voice, the sincerity of the sentiment, drew hot tears to her eyes. “I shouldn’t be glad you’re here, because you’ve probably put yourself in terrible danger. But I am. I’m so, so glad you’re here.”
He started to reach out his hand toward her, but he stopped midmovement and let his hand drop to his lap. “Are you?”
She swallowed her disappointment. “Yes, of course. But how did you find me?”
He reached down and pulled a battered-looking briefcase up to the table, unfastened the buckle and pulled a tablet computer from inside. He swiped his finger across the screen, then tapped a couple of times before he handed the tablet to her.
She looked down and saw a photo of a Free Kaziristan rally that several people in the community had held a couple of weeks earlier. She hadn’t attended the rally herself, not wanting to put herself in the spotlight of refugee politics in any way, but the rally had taken place on the street in front of the restaurant. She’d had to pass through the throngs to get to work.
She looked lifeless in the photo. Was that how she always looked?
“I kept telling myself it couldn’t be you.” Connor’s voice rumbled low and soft, like thunder in the distance. “You wouldn’t have let me think you were dead. But there you were.”
“Connor—”
A loud trio of raps on the door cut her short, the sound sending a hard jolt of alarm down her spine.
“Go to the bedroom,” Connor said softly, already on his feet. He pulled a large Ruger pistol from his bag and tucked it in his waistband behind his back, letting his jacket drop to cover it.
Risa hurried down the hallway into the bedroom, her heart fluttering with fear. If someone from the community had seen her come into this apartment with Connor, everything she’d spent the past few months trying to set up would be destroyed.
And she and Connor would be in the worst danger of their lives.
* * *
CONNOR LOOKED THROUGH the security lens and saw a familiar face staring back at him. He turned the dead bolt and disengaged the security chain, then opened the door to a bearded man wearing a high-collared shirt and plain khaki pants. His visitor’s hazel gaze swept the room quickly.
“Where is she?” he asked.
“Nice seeing you, too, Quinn.”
Alexander Quinn didn’t wait for an invitation, entering and nodding for Connor to close the door behind him. As Connor reengaged the locks, Quinn crossed to both of the street-facing windows and shut the blinds.
“Heller says it’s her. So I tried her apartment. She wasn’t home. Then I tried her workplace, and she wasn’t there, either.”
“I told you I’d handle things my own way.” Connor heard the tight annoyance in his own voice but couldn’t seem to care. “So why are you here, anyway?”
“Because Martin Dalrymple has been murdered.”
Chapter Four
Though Alexander Quinn spoke quietly, the apartment was small enough that his voice carried down the hall to Risa’s hiding place. She had reached the hallway when she heard his words about Martin Dalrymple.
“Dal’s dead?”
; Connor and Quinn both turned to look at her.
“You look well,” Quinn said.
“Yeah, well, you’re a pathological liar,” she answered, hoping he was lying about Dal as well. “I talked to Dal not long ago.”
Except it hadn’t really been that recent, had it? He hadn’t responded to her last message, which was highly unusual. He might already have been dead by then, she realized, trying to remember the last time she’d actually connected with her boss. It had been early this morning. He’d sent an email, asking her for an update. She hadn’t had a chance to respond before her trip to the doctor. And then, afterward, she’d started to feel as if she were being watched.
Had that been Connor’s scrutiny she’d been sensing? Or was it something else?
“Dalrymple’s body was found this afternoon in Rock Creek Park.”
She shook her head. “He wasn’t in DC. He said he’d left the city a couple of weeks ago for a more secluded place.”
“All I can tell you is what I know. It’s Dalrymple. And he’s dead.”
“You’re sure it’s murder?” Connor asked.
“Two gunshots to the head. Double tap.”
“Execution style,” Risa murmured.
“Considering his line of work, most likely.”
She pressed her fingertips to her throbbing temples. “I sent him an email earlier today. He never got back to me. I guess now I know why.”
“Was it encrypted?” Quinn asked.
“Of course. Agency-level cipher, plus electronic encryption.” Her legs felt wobbly. She crossed to one of the chairs at the table, bending forward and taking a couple of deep breaths.
Connor reached her within a second, crouching by her side to look up at her. He rested his hand on her knee. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.” She covered his hand with hers. “It’s just been a long, stressful day. And now Dal...”
“If the person or persons who killed Dalrymple managed to get their hands on his communications, Risa could be in grave danger,” Quinn warned. He’d stayed where he was, near the door. “You should both come back with me to Campbell Cove.”
Risa looked up at Quinn. “Where’s Campbell Cove?”
“Eastern Kentucky,” Connor said quietly. “I work for Campbell Cove Security Services now.”
“Your husband signed on with me not long after the plane crash,” Quinn added.
“I thought you were running some place called The Gates,” she said to Quinn. “Down in Tennessee or somewhere.”
“I was,” Quinn said. “I still own the place. But I’ve trained people there to run The Gates without my day-to-day input. You can say that my country called me back into service.”
“So, this is a government agency?” Risa looked at Connor. “I thought you wanted out of that kind of work.”
“Technically, it’s a government contractor.”
“Close enough,” she said. “So you changed your mind.”
“Circumstances changed my mind.” His gaze settled on her face. “You can understand that, can’t you?”
She tightened her grip on his hand, wondering how she’d ever thought she could leave him behind, even if it was for his own protection. She’d been miserable without him. Not even the joy of carrying his child had been able to overcome how much she’d missed him.
She’d tried to put him out of her mind, tried to tell herself she had lived most of her life without him, so surely she could live the rest of it without him as well.
But she’d never been able to let him go. Not really. And now that he was here with her again, touching her, gazing at her with those sharp blue eyes that always made her feel deliciously naked and exposed—she couldn’t go back. She couldn’t walk away again, even for his own safety.
Of course, it was possible that he didn’t want her back in his life, after the way she’d betrayed him by letting him believe she was dead.
He stood, pulling his hand away from her grasp. “So, what now?” he asked Quinn.
Quinn looked at Risa. “Is there anything in your apartment you need?”
“My gun and my computer. A couple of changes of clothes would be good, too. Everything else is in my purse.” She nodded toward the shoulder bag sitting on the table next to her.
“I’ll go get her things,” Connor volunteered.
“No. You’d raise too many eyebrows. I’ll go get what I need.” She pushed to her feet, trying not to grimace at the ache in her back and thighs.
“You’ve been on your feet all day,” Connor protested.
“Let her do this,” Quinn said quietly. “She’s the one who’s been here for months. This is her territory. We’re strangers.”
“She’s not going alone.”
“You can wait in the alley behind my apartment building,” Risa suggested, grabbing her purse. She pulled a pen and a small notepad from inside and jotted something on one of the pages, tore it out and handed it to Connor. “This is my address. There’s a fire escape just outside my window. If anything goes wrong, I’ll come down that way. Okay?”
Connor looked from her to Quinn, then back to her again before he nodded. “Okay. Let me at least call you a taxi.”
“No.” She grabbed the coat she’d draped over one of the chairs and picked up her purse. “People in my neighborhood know I don’t make enough money to take taxis. There’s a bus that runs past this street in ten minutes. I’ll catch it. You can catch it with me, but we have to act like strangers. You can’t sit with me or talk to me.”
Connor’s brow furrowed and his mouth tightened, but he nodded.
“I’ll wait here,” Quinn said, settling in the chair by the window. He tilted it back on two legs and tapped his watch. “Nine minutes now. Better get a move on.”
“I’ll go first.” Risa finished buttoning her coat and started toward the door. “Wait a couple of minutes, then you come down after me. I’ll be waiting at the bus stop. And you should get off at the stop before my street. It’s the one on Vine, near Washington Park. I assume you can find my place from there.”
“Of course,” he agreed.
She slipped out the front door, her heart already starting to race. Logically, she knew that she was probably as safe now as she had been before she’d learned the news of Dal’s death. He had been a target long before he’d sent her to Cincinnati, and the people who killed him probably had no idea how many different missions he had running at any given time. He could have been killed for one of those other missions, not hers.
But as she reached the street and walked the half block to the bus stop, she couldn’t help feeling as if she had an enormous neon target on her back. Those Kaziri men had seen her outside the building they’d entered. From a distance, yes, on a dark street, but had they seen enough to make it easy for them to recognize her if they saw her again?
What if they were already asking questions around the neighborhood, trying to figure out who the pregnant woman in the dark roosari might be?
Stop it, she admonished herself. They probably hadn’t gotten a good look at her at all. And she’d been wearing her coat, which might have hidden her pregnant belly well enough in the dark at that distance.
She would go home the way she normally did. If she’d worked her full shift, and maybe stayed behind to help with the after-hours cleanup, she wouldn’t be home much earlier than now anyway.
Everything was going to be fine.
* * *
“YOU MUST FEEL as if you’re in some sort of surreal dream,” Quinn commented in an offhand tone that Connor knew was anything but offhand.
“You’re not seriously going to try to shrink me now, are you?” Connor zipped his jacket and turned to look at his boss. “Because you would surely know that trying to handle me that way would just royally piss me off.”<
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“You just found out your dead wife is alive and carrying your baby. That’s not something you can train for.”
“I’ve got five minutes to get down to the bus stop before I miss my ride. Let’s not talk about this now. Or ever.”
Quinn lifted his hands with a shrug of surrender. “Don’t stay out too late, McGinnis. Time isn’t on your side.”
Quelling the urge to throw something at the man, Connor opened his door. “I’ll be back soon. Don’t touch any of my stuff. I will know if you do.”
The night had managed to grow even more bitterly cold, making him wish he’d added another layer of clothing beneath his leather jacket before he left the apartment. He spotted Risa sitting on the concrete bench situated near the bus-stop sign on the corner, her slender arms wrapped around herself as if to ward off the cold. Her wool coat looked as if it had come out of a charity bin, the material thin in places and appearing ill-equipped to protect her from the cold wind. She’d donned the roosari again, he saw. Playing the part of the Kaziri widow.
He kept his distance, as they’d agreed, not even sharing more than a glance with her. But the forced separation only served to make him more aware of her than ever.
And with the awareness came a gut-twisting sense of anxiety that if he turned his head too far and lost sight of her even in the corner of his eye, she’d disappear from his life again, gone forever.
The sight of the blue-and-white Metro bus came as a relief. With a faint squeal of brakes, the bus lumbered to a stop and idled with a low grumble as Risa put her money in the fare box and took a seat near the exit door in the middle of the bus.
Connor paid his own fare and sat on the opposite side of the bus, a few seats back from her. They were among only a handful of riders on the bus at this time of night, most of them young. The pretty African American girl who sat across the aisle from him appeared to be a student, her well-used backpack sitting on the seat beside her while she pored through a large history book spread out on her lap.
Two olive-skinned men in their early twenties sat together a couple of seats ahead of Risa. The one on the aisle turned to look at her, his expression full of disdain.