by Paula Graves
She hated to admit he was right. But he was.
What had Martin Dalrymple been hoping to accomplish by putting her in the middle of the Kaziri community in southern Ohio? Had he had a secret agenda he hadn’t lived long enough to reveal?
“What are you thinking?” Connor asked from where he stood at the sink, washing their breakfast dishes.
“I was thinking about Dal,” she admitted. “Everything you’re saying is true. I wasn’t at all the best choice to go undercover in that community if he was looking for information on jihadis. Unless...”
“Unless what?”
She turned in her chair to face him. “What if he thought there was a terrorist threat coming from the female side of the Kaziri community?”
He leaned against the counter. “You mean female jihadis?”
“We know more and more females are getting involved in terrorism.”
“Usually as a sidekick to males.”
“If we’re right about those two obnoxiously chauvinistic Kaziri men being decoys to hide a sleeper cell, what better place to hide their plot than among the women they openly disdain?” She stood up, stretching her back. She had been in the habit of taking a long morning walk since she’d learned she was pregnant, but there was at least four inches of snow on the ground outside, and none of the clothes she currently owned were very practical for tromping around in the snow. “Don’t suppose your company has a home gym hidden in this safe house somewhere?”
“Carrying around Junior in there isn’t exercise enough?” There was a hint of affection in his voice and an endearing softness in his gaze as it settled on her pregnant belly.
“I’ll need my strength when it comes time to give birth.”
He came closer, almost close enough to touch, though he kept his hands at his sides. “Have you been preparing for it?”
“Childbirth?”
He nodded.
“Some, yeah.”
“Have you taken Lamaze classes?” His tone was uncomfortable, as if he’d brought up a particularly delicate subject.
She stifled a smile. “No, it’s not really something that’s popular in the Kaziri community. But there’s a Kaziri midwife in the neighborhood—I consulted her along with my doctor. And I’ve done some reading and practicing on my own.”
“On your own,” he echoed faintly, turning away to look out the window at the snowy side yard.
She joined him at the window. “I didn’t know I was pregnant when this all went into motion. By the time I realized it, it was too late to back out.”
He inhaled deeply, releasing his breath in a slow whoosh. “How did we get here?”
She didn’t have to ask what he meant.
He turned to look at her. “I thought we were happy.”
“We were.”
“Then how could you have just walked away?”
“Dal convinced me you would be in grave danger if the people trying to kill me had any inkling I was still alive.”
“Dal.” He growled the word with disdain. “Now Dal’s dead and you can’t even be sure he was telling you the truth, can you?”
“No,” she admitted. “But you know there were things I did in Kaziristan that would have made me a pretty valuable target to al Adar.”
“Which means you’re still a target. If Dal was telling the truth.”
“Yeah.” The heat of his body beside hers was both a comfort and a source of intense frustration. Every instinct was screaming at her to put her arms around him and bury her face in his chest, to let him wrap his strong arms around her and remind her that she wasn’t alone anymore.
But the “don’t touch” vibes he was giving off kept her at arm’s length. And reminded her that, in all the ways that mattered, she was still alone.
* * *
THEY HAD MET on one of the coldest days of the year in Kaziristan, shivering in the icy wind pouring through the mountain gap to whip through their layers of clothing like a hot knife slicing butter. For the first hour, Connor had thought she was a Kaziri informant, there to guide his unit through the treacherous pass on their way to a top-secret, gravely important meeting between the Marines and one of the most powerful tribal leaders in the country.
American efforts to quell the uprising that once again put the troubled republic at risk of another long, deadly civil war had come down to gaining the support of the tribes. Gulan Mohar’s good will could potentially save hundreds, even thousands, of lives.
Connor wasn’t a politician. He was a warrior, and it had been his job to stay outside the tribal leader’s home with the woman while the brain trust talked to Mohar. As they’d waited, she’d started slanting looks at him around the edges of her roosari, curious, sultry glances that had set his heart racing.
Then she’d said something in Kaziri he couldn’t understand.
“I don’t speak the language,” he’d told her in Kaziri, some of the only words he’d known at the time.
“No, you really don’t,” she’d answered in perfect, Georgia-accented English, her broad grin making her hazel eyes sparkle like jewels.
He’d been halfway in love with her before they left Mohar’s compound and headed back down the mountain to the operating base.
It had taken a while longer, he remembered with a faint smile, to convince her she was in love with him as well.
She sat at the breakfast bar with her laptop, surfing the internet for information, while he searched the refrigerator for something to turn into lunch. They’d found where the cable modem and wireless router were stored, along with written instructions for setting it up and using the equipment. After appeasing Connor’s worries by making a list of obstetricians within a thirty-mile radius, Risa had started looking for information on Martin Dalrymple’s death.
“There’s no public record of exactly how he died,” she’d told him after an hour of searches. “I mean, yes, the reports all say he was shot, but the police seem to be treating it as a robbery gone wrong, not an execution.”
“You know the cops aren’t going to tell the press everything they know. Especially if they suspect a professional hit.”
She’d fallen silent but kept searching the web while he went outside to scout their surroundings.
The snow was soft and wet and would probably melt before nightfall, as long as the temperature rose into the forties as the forecast predicted. A melt-off would certainly make it easier to make a fast escape if they needed to. But it would also make it that much easier for someone on their tail to find their way up the mountain to this safe house.
At least they were well armed. Both he and Risa had personal weapons, and the set of keys Quinn had given him included a key to a closet down the hall that contained a couple of rifles, a Mossberg shotgun, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition including .45 ammo he could use in his Ruger and .40 rounds that would fit Risa’s Glock 23.
“Why did you join Campbell Cove Security?”
Connor looked up from his refrigerator search to find Risa looking at him from her perch at the breakfast bar. Her head was cocked slightly to one side, her eyes bright with curiosity.
“Since I was already planning to leave the Marine Corps before...the plane crash, I went through with it. But then I needed a job. We’d talked about both of us doing something in security consultation, so when Maddox Heller contacted me to see how I was holding up, I guess he realized I needed something to occupy my mind. He, Quinn and a woman named Rebecca Cameron had started the security company a few months earlier. They had also started an academy for ordinary citizens and civilian law enforcement—teaching them skills and tactics for combatting terrorism in their own communities.”
“That’s a great idea,” she said.
“I know. So when he offered the job. I took it.”
“I’m
glad you had someone looking out for you.”
He wondered if he was ever going to reach the point where talking about the plane crash and the nightmare afterward, knowing the truth about what had really happened, wouldn’t make him angry.
He hadn’t reached that point yet.
“Just say it, Connor.”
“Say what?”
“Say something. Anything. Tell me you hate me for what I did. Tell me you don’t even want to look at me. Just say something, because I know you’re furious and it’s making me crazy to watch you try to hide it.”
Something snapped inside him, and as hard as he tried to hold on to his calm, it slipped like water through his fingers, leaving him shaking. “You left me, Risa!”
“Not willingly.”
“How can you say that?” He strode away from her, needing distance, needing to breathe. “You let me think you were dead, Risa. One phone call could have fixed that. One stupid phone call!”
Her face showed signs of starting to crumple, but she fought it off, her chin coming up even as her lips trembled. “I know.”
Somehow, her strength of will only infuriated him. “What do you know, Risa? Do you know that I used to dream every single night for weeks that you’d shown up, safe and sound? That you showed up on the doorstep of our apartment with a smile, telling me that it was all a mistake, that you never got on the plane in the first place?”
He saw her throat bob as she swallowed hard, but she didn’t speak.
“I had that dream for weeks. Months. After a while, I lost track. It was the same thing, over and over. I’d wake up, elated, thrilled that you were alive, that you were with me again, and then I’d turn over and look at that empty, cold space on my bed where you used to lie. And it was like losing you all over again.”
Her face had gone pale, and she looked as if she were going to be sick. “I’m sorry, Connor. I made a terrible mistake in judgment.”
He couldn’t stay in this house a moment longer. Grabbing his jacket from the back of the sofa, he headed for the front door.
“Where are you going?” she called after him.
He didn’t answer.
* * *
SHE WASN’T GOING to cry. She’d done enough crying a few months ago, when she’d made the decision to become another person and leave her old life behind. There wasn’t much point in second-guessing the decision at this point. It was done. She couldn’t change it.
But maybe she could change the future. Starting with whatever danger might still be hanging over her head.
And Connor’s.
So far, all the online articles she’d found regarding Martin Dalrymple’s death had been cursory at best. His body had been found in Rock Creek Park early in the afternoon on the previous day. She tried to remember when she’d last spoken to him in person. Three weeks ago? They’d met at a diner in Covington, Kentucky, so he could give her a photograph of a couple of people of interest he wanted her to watch for.
After that, everything she’d received from Dal had come by encrypted email.
He hadn’t responded to the last message she’d sent, which made sense, given that he’d been lying dead in Rock Creek Park.
God, Dal was dead. She didn’t even know how to feel about that news. Sad? Of course. But she hadn’t really been friends with her old boss, had she? Friendships between colleagues could be a liability in the kind of work she’d done for the past decade. She’d learned that from Martin Dalrymple himself.
Had he ever seen her as anything but a useful implement in his espionage toolbox? Had she ever thought of him as something more than a puppeteer, pulling her strings and positioning her exactly where he needed her?
She rubbed her gritty eyes and refreshed the search engine page, hoping a new article had been added to the queue. Because she couldn’t shake the growing certainty that whoever had killed Dalrymple was the real danger hanging over her head.
And if she didn’t figure out who’d put a price on her head, and soon, she might not get out of this mess alive.
* * *
A WATERY SUN had finally begun to break through the clouds overhead, adding an additional layer of warmth to the rising temperatures that had turned the snow underfoot into slush. In the woods surrounding the safe house, snow slid off pine boughs at regular intervals, hitting the ground with soft whooshing plops. Birds sang in the treetops, and somewhere in the distance, he heard the faint rumble of traffic moving along a nearby highway. But otherwise, the world around Connor remained quiet and still, a stark contrast to the maelstrom of disquiet inside his head.
He had to get his feelings under control. Giving in to his anger only gave the situation power over him.
Gave her power over him. And he couldn’t afford to let that happen. He’d fought damned hard to escape the abyss of grief and despair he’d fallen into after the plane crash. He couldn’t go back to that dark place again, even if it was now awash with anger instead of grief.
Maybe especially because of that.
She had made a mistake. They both had. Thinking they could have any sort of real relationship, being the people they were. He was a warrior. She was a spy. They could, at times, be colleagues of a sort, people who shared the same overarching goal, at least, if not the same tactics.
But they never should have tried to be more than that. Never let a few nights of physical release turn into a reckless, hopeless desire for happily-ever-after. It was doomed to disaster from the start. He understood that now.
Maybe she’d done him a favor, proving it sooner rather than later, before their lives became all tangled up with mortgages and—
And what, McGinnis? And kids?
He rubbed his tired eyes. He was going to be a father. With a woman he didn’t trust.
And did he even love her now, knowing how she’d hurt him? Would he ever love her again?
That certainly qualified as a whopper of a tangle, didn’t it?
He heard the sound of the door opening behind him and turned to find Risa standing in the open doorway, her arms wrapped around her pregnant belly as if she could protect herself—and the baby—from the cold. “Connor?” she called.
He crossed the crusty yard and headed up the porch steps, nodding for her to get back inside. He shook the snow off his boots and followed her into the house, closing the door behind her. “Is something wrong?”
She turned to look at him, her brow furrowed and a jittery look in her warm hazel eyes. “I found an article online a few minutes ago. With a little more detail about Dal’s murder. You know he was found late yesterday afternoon at Rock Creek Park, right?”
Connor nodded.
“Well, the latest article had a quote from the police detective in charge. He said they believed Dal had been dead for at least twenty-four hours before he was found. Maybe even as much as forty-eight.”
“So?”
“So, who was it who sent me an email yesterday morning, asking for an update on my mission?”
Chapter Seven
“What do you think it means?”
Risa stopped her pacing to look at Connor, who was watching her from his perch at the breakfast bar. Compared to her own agitation, his calm was preternatural—and downright annoying. “I think it means someone pretending to be Dal has been corresponding with me for at least the past day. Or maybe two.”
“How many messages are we talking about?”
“At least two if it was the past twenty-four hours. Five if it’s as much as forty-eight.”
He nodded at her laptop, still sitting open on the breakfast bar. “Can you show me?”
She crossed to the computer and pulled up her emails. “The most recent one was from yesterday morning. It came in just before I had to leave for my ob-gyn appointment.”
He looked
over her shoulder. The email program was set up to decrypt the incoming emails from Dal, but even without encryption, Dal used a letter-substitution cipher on all the messages he sent to her. She translated for Connor. “He’s asking if I’ve located the Hawk.”
“Who’s the Hawk?”
“That is the big question.” She sat on the stool beside him. “One of the reasons Dal hid me in Cincinnati was to find the Hawk. According to some of our intelligence sources, the Hawk is in the US, setting up some sort of terrorist attack that will rival that of the attacks of 9/11.”
“Never heard that boast before.” His tone was dry.
“I know. Every Mohamed Atta wannabe talks up his big plot as if it’s the next coming of the attack on the Twin Towers. But Dal seemed to think this latest intel was legit and needed to be investigated.”
“So he sent you? A pregnant dead woman?”
She worried her lower lip between her teeth, wondering if she should tell him what she suspected about Dal’s operation. There wasn’t any reason to keep it secret at this point, was there? Dal was dead and she was nearly five hours away from Cincinnati and unlikely to go back there any time soon.
“What aren’t you telling me?” Connor’s tone was neutral, even relaxed, but she saw a wariness in his blue eyes that made her heart ache.
She’d put that wariness there. Earned it fair and square.
“I don’t think Dal was running this operation with official sanction,” she said.
“Meaning?”
She wished she didn’t have to admit this to Connor, on top of all the other reasons he had to hate what she’d done to him. But if she ever wanted to find her way back into Connor’s heart, she had to stop lying to him.
She took a deep breath and said, “I think the CIA believes I’m dead, too. I don’t think they know what Dal was doing.”
* * *
BRIGHT DAYLIGHT POURED through the window of Alexander Quinn’s office, the afternoon sun glinting off the melting snow. Campbell Cove Security might be a high-tech government-contracted security facility on the inside, but the outside looked like the sprawling brick and concrete high school it had once been, nestled in the little town of Campbell Cove just a few miles east of Cumberland, Kentucky—and about a fifteen-minute drive from the safe house where he’d sent Connor and Risa McGinnis.