by Paula Graves
“Weren’t you going to be alone together here tonight anyway? At least there, you’ll actually have furniture.” Quinn traded keys with Connor. If he was aware of the sudden rise of tension in the room, he didn’t comment. “We’ll have a regular schedule of check-ins. Don’t worry. Just get there tonight. Settle in. Someone will be in touch.”
* * *
RISA WOKE TO the sound of windshield wiper blades swishing in a steady rhythm. Otherwise, the cab of the large black SUV was quiet. As she pulled her reclined seat upright, Connor glanced her way. “Started snowing again about an hour ago. It’s going to add some time to the drive.”
She rubbed her gritty eyes and looked through the windshield, where the Tahoe’s headlights illuminated a thick flurry of falling snow that had already begun sticking to the road in slick patches. “How far out are we now?”
“Maybe an hour.”
The clock on the dashboard read four thirty. They had already been on the road for more than the four promised hours. “You sure we can drive up a mountain in this weather?”
“Four-wheel drive. Quinn says we’ll make it.”
Quinn says, she thought, and people believe. The man had never been part of her unit when they were both in the CIA, but she knew enough of his reputation to recognize he’d earned at least some of the belief people placed in his wisdom and knowledge.
But she also knew enough about life in the CIA to know that he’d speak with authority on subjects he knew little about if he thought it would get the job done.
“You don’t like Quinn,” Connor commented, as if reading her thoughts. He used to be ridiculously good at reading her, she remembered. It had been terrifying on one level, and deeply comforting on another. To be known so well, to be understood—
How could she have let Dal convince her she had to let go of Connor after the plane crash? Was he in any less danger if people thought she was dead? Connor had been a marine. He faced death daily in his work, and even now that he was out of the Corps, he still seemed to be working a job that came with its own share of danger.
She hadn’t spared him anything at all. And she could imagine the pain she’d inflicted on him by letting him believe she was dead.
If she’d thought he was dead, she’d have been utterly devastated.
“I’m sorry, Connor.”
He slanted a quick look her way before concentrating on the deteriorating weather conditions outside the SUV. “For what?”
“I made a terrible decision. I get it now.”
“Hindsight and all that,” he said, his tone free of emotion.
“You’re never going to forgive me, are you?”
“Risa, we’re tired. We’re driving in snow and we’re going to a strange place so that people we don’t know can’t find us. It’s taking every ounce of my remaining consciousness to keep this behemoth of a vehicle on this slick road. Let’s just get to the safe house and get some sleep. We can hang out all our dirty laundry tomorrow, okay?”
“Fine.” She swallowed the anger that rose in her chest at his weary tone, reminding herself that she was the one who’d made the mistake, not Connor. She owed him a little patience and forgiveness of her own, even when his unemotional handling of this crazy situation made her wonder if he’d ever really loved her at all.
The safe house turned out to be a small farmhouse of clapboard and river stone in the mountains northeast of Cumberland, Kentucky. The narrow, winding road to the safe house was paved with gravel, and while by the time they reached the road, snow had hidden most of the loose stones from view, the snap-pop of the Tahoe’s tires on the loosely packed gravel gave away their presence.
The house itself was hidden from view for most of the journey, appearing suddenly as the road took a bend along the banks of a large creek. A narrow iron bridge spanned the creek, acting as a driveway for the house, which lay not far from the bridge’s end.
“Quinn says there’s a key to the house hidden in one of the foundation stones near the back stoop,” Connor said as they parked the SUV out of sight behind the house.
Risa eyed the hundreds of stones that made up the house’s foundation. “That’s helpful.”
“Stay in here where it’s warm and dry. I’ll see if I can find it.” Connor stepped out of the SUV, leaving the engine running for heat. Risa might normally have insisted on joining him in the key search, two sets of eyes being better than one, but she was tired, her back was aching, and going out in the snow probably wouldn’t be good for the baby.
Connor turned around, finally, holding up something shiny. She thought he even cracked a smile before he climbed the three low steps of the back stoop and unlocked the door, but that might have been wishful thinking, for when he came back to the vehicle, his deadpan expression was firmly back in place.
“Quinn must have called someone to let them know we were coming,” he told her as he helped her out of the passenger seat. “The heat and electricity are on, and there’s a fire laid in the hearth just waiting for a match.”
“I need a bathroom and a half gallon of water, in that order,” she said as he grabbed their bags from the back of the Tahoe. As she started up the short path to the house, he hurried to her side, cupping one hand under her elbow.
“Careful, it’s slick out here.” He helped her up the stairs and into the house, then went back out to get the rest of their bags.
The back door opened into a small, clean kitchen. Connor had turned on the lights, which shed a warm glow over the Formica countertops and steel appliances. This part of the house, at least, was blessedly warm.
“Any chance the fridge is stocked?” she wondered aloud as Connor brought the rest of the bags inside.
His gaze dropped to her round belly. “You and the munchkin are hungry, huh?”
“Yes, but mostly I’m thinking about later this morning when it’s time for breakfast.”
“Well, let’s check.” He opened the refrigerator, revealing that it was partially stocked. There were a couple of cartons of eggs, both with expiration dates several days away. The gallon of milk was also new, and in the freezer, there were several frozen dinners, frozen fruit, a couple of fish fillets wrapped in butcher paper and cellophane, and a pint of chocolate ice cream.
It was the ice cream that made Risa’s stomach growl. As if in response to the rumbling sound, the baby started to kick wildly against her abdomen.
On impulse, she shut the freezer door and grabbed Connor’s hand, placing it on the swell of her belly. “Feel that?”
His hand went tense beneath her touch and he frowned. Then the baby gave another hefty kick and Connor’s gaze snapped up to meet hers. “Was that the baby?”
She smiled at his thunderstruck expression. “Yeah. That’s him. Or her.”
“How far along are you?” He moved his hand lightly over her belly, as if willing the baby to kick again.
“A little over eight months. About thirty-seven weeks. Not long now.”
Connor dropped his hand from her belly and looked around the small kitchen, his brow knotting with dismay. “And you’re stuck out here in the middle of nowhere.”
“We have a vehicle. We’re not that far from civilization, are we?”
He shook his head, though his expression showed no sign of relaxing. “I think we’re maybe ten minutes northeast of Cumberland.”
“So we just get online in the morning and figure out where the closest ob-gyn can be found.”
“Assuming there’s a way we can get online here,” he muttered.
“We have phones.” She put her hand on his arm. “It’s all right, Connor. Women have been having babies for years, and some of them do it without a doctor in sight. Plus, I’m still nearly four weeks away from my due date, and since it’s my first baby, I might even be a week late. We don’t have to worry about thi
s tonight. Okay?”
He looked at her hand on his arm. “And you’ve been going through this all by yourself for seven months?”
“I had Dal to talk to.” She dropped her hand away, not wanting him to feel sorry for her. She had made the decision to handle the danger hanging over her head the way she had, hidden and alone.
Her choice. Her consequences.
* * *
WHEN RISA EMERGED from the bathroom, her hair was wet. She’d taken a bag into the bathroom with her and had changed into soft cotton pajamas obviously cut to accommodate her pregnancy.
Connor watched, mesmerized, as she entered the den where he’d started a blazing fire to ward off the cold. Outside, snow had begun to fall in earnest, already covering the ground outside with a fluffy blanket of white. He’d tried checking the weather on his phone, but he could barely get a signal, and certainly not one strong enough to sustain an internet connection.
He’d made only a cursory exploration of the rest of the house, enough to see that they seemed to have cable TV, which he hoped might mean there was some sort of cable or DSL connection available for the internet. But he’d worry about that later. He and Risa both needed sleep.
“Feel better?” he asked as she crossed to where he sat in front of the fire.
“Cleaner, anyway.” She reached her hands toward the fire, flexing her fingers. “Lovely fire.”
Pregnancy suited her, he thought. It softened the angular edges of her face and gave her skin a warm glow that even her weariness couldn’t quite extinguish.
And he’d missed most of it, damn it. “I wish I’d known.”
He hadn’t meant to say the words aloud, but he didn’t have to explain what he meant. Risa followed his gaze to her pregnant belly and gave him a regretful look. “I should have told you. I shouldn’t have let Dal talk me into trying to handle everything by myself. But it’s just—”
“It’s how you’ve always done it. I know. I remember.”
She drew her hands away from the fire’s heat and twined them together on what was left of her lap. “It wasn’t anything to do with us. With you or the way I feel about you. I need you to understand that.”
“I do.” He knew she loved him. Love had never been an issue between them. “But you can’t let go of even a tiny piece of your autonomy, can you?”
“I’ve had to take care of myself all by myself for a long time. Letting someone else take care of me, take risks for me—”
“Doesn’t come naturally.”
She leaned her head back against the chair cushion. “I know I’ve been a disappointment to you.”
“Don’t do that.”
Her eyes, which had drifted shut, snapped open to look at him. “Do what?”
“Turn this around on me. Don’t try to make me feel guilty about the way I’m feeling. You’re the one who left. You’re the one who lied.” As the anger and pain he’d been bottling up started to bubble to the surface, he rose from the chair and walked away, needing the distance to get his emotions back under control.
“You’re feeling something?” she shot back at him. “That’s new. I thought you never let yourself feel anything on a mission.”
Her comeback hit painfully close to home. “So this is my mission? And you’re what, the client I’m charged to protect? Is that how you want this to go, Risa? Because I’m trained to handle it.”
She closed her eyes again, slumping deeper in her chair. “I don’t want to dive headfirst into the mess I’ve made of our marriage right now. Okay? I just want to get some sleep. In the morning, we can rip what’s left of it to shreds if you want. But not tonight.” She staggered to her feet and headed down the narrow hall, opening the door to one of the two bedrooms and disappearing inside.
Connor stared after her long after the door clicked shut behind her. His gut was burning with restrained emotions, love, anger and pain all wrapped up in a writhing knot in the pit of his stomach.
“You didn’t make the mess alone, sweetheart,” he whispered.
Chapter Six
Risa woke to the mouthwatering aroma of eggs and toast, but the bedroom was cold enough to give her pause before she finally crawled out from beneath a pile of warm blankets. She dressed quickly in maternity jeans, thick socks and a long-sleeved sweater, and wandered down the hall to the kitchen to find Connor.
“Good. You’re up.” Connor was at the counter, spreading butter onto a couple of pieces of toast. He waved toward the stools on the other side of the breakfast bar. “Can you drink coffee?”
“I’ve given it up for now,” she said with regret. “The doctor said I could probably have a cup a day, but you know me and coffee. I can’t stop at a cup a day.”
He gave her a sympathetic wince. “Had to go cold turkey, huh?”
“Yeah.” She found herself eyeing him warily as he spooned scrambled eggs onto two plates and added a slice of toast to each. Considering the tension still roiling between them the previous night when she went to bed, Connor seemed awfully chipper. “Did you get any sleep?”
“A couple of hours. I didn’t want to sleep too long, though. We have a lot to do today.”
She scooped up a forkful of eggs. “We have an agenda for the day, I take it?”
“Well, I do. And I could use your help if you feel up to it. But I can do it alone, at least for a while. If you want to catch up on your sleep.”
She glanced at her watch. It was only nine thirty. She’d managed about four hours of sleep. It would have to do. “No, I’m good. What are we doing today?”
“A little mission analysis, I guess you could call it. You and I have been working what seems to me to be two angles of the same investigation. Plus, there’s Dal’s death and the plane crash earlier this year.”
She chewed a bite of toast and thought about what he was saying before she spoke. “For you, it started with that surveillance photo, right? You saw the pregnant Kaziri woman and realized it looked like your dead wife.”
“Right.” His earlier bright facade slipped a bit.
Imagining what that must have been like for him, she barely kept herself from reaching out to touch him. “That had to have been a real shock.”
He ignored the comment. “We think al Adar or some other foreign group—maybe al Qaeda, maybe ISIS—is planning some sort of mass casualty attack. Maybe for the Christmas holidays. But we don’t know if it’s specifically for Cincinnati, or if they’re using Cincinnati as their base of operations.”
“Cincinnati doesn’t seem as if it would be a big enough target,” she said. “They’d want to make a bigger impact, wouldn’t they?”
“Maybe. Or maybe they’re looking to spread terror out of the bigger cities and into the heartland.”
He had a point, she supposed. In the past few years, lower-casualty strikes had already taken place in locations such as an Army base in Texas, a processing plant in Oklahoma and a Navy reserve center in Tennessee. And there was that Christmas party shooting out in California...
Connor picked up his empty plate and took it to the sink. “Those two men from the restaurant—what made you decide to follow them?”
“A couple of things,” she said after giving it a thought. “Their flamboyance, for one thing. Most of the people in the Kaziri community try to keep a low profile just out of habit. They came here because of the danger and persecution from al Adar and other jihadi groups, so nobody in the neighborhood likes to stand out. Then here come those two guys, dressed up in their Kaziri finest, throwing their weight around—it was just something out of the ordinary.”
“You said there were a couple of things. What was the other?”
“There was something so familiar-looking about one of the men at the diner, and I finally realized why,” she said. “Dal used to keep a wall of photos in his office,
stuck up on a corkboard. Sort of like most-wanted posters, but in his case, he called them wins. Terrorists who’d been killed or captured.”
“And he was one of the people on that wall?”
“I think so. Maybe. It was a glance at a wall months and months ago. And I don’t even know his name or anything about him.”
“If you’re right, this guy clearly wasn’t killed. And if he was captured he escaped. Do you know anything about an escaped terrorist?”
“No.”
“Neither do I.” He leaned back in his chair. “I’ll say this about those guys, though. If they’re part of a sleeper cell, they’re not doing a very good job of blending in.”
Also a good point, she had to concede. “What if they’re the diversion?”
“To make us keep an eye on the shiny baubles while the real sleepers make their move?”
“Maybe. They sure weren’t happy to see me following them, though.”
“They were worried enough to get your boss to help them take a look around your apartment.”
She rubbed her chin. “Maybe we shouldn’t have left Cincinnati. It makes me look as if I have something to hide.”
“You do.”
“But now I’m in no position to find out who the real sleepers are, if our theory is correct.”
“I don’t think you were in any position to find out at all.” Connor nodded at her mostly empty plate. “You done?”
“Yeah.” She handed over the plate. “You think that being a woman automatically puts me in no position to find out anything that might be going on behind the scenes. That’s what you meant, right?”
“You weren’t just a woman. You were a pregnant woman with no husband, no family, no money and no standing in the community. I don’t know what the hell Dal was thinking putting you in that position.”
“I think the idea was that, as a woman, I’d be almost invisible. Able to move around without attracting any real concern.”
“Maybe if you were a married woman. Or part of an influential family. But nobody was going to talk freely in front of you.”