by Paula Graves
Chapter Nine
“I think I should go back to Cincinnati.”
Connor’s head shot up, his gaze disbelieving. “Are you insane?”
“I lived there for months, Connor, and nobody bothered me.”
“That doesn’t mean you could go back now without consequences.”
“My rent is paid through the end of the month and I didn’t send in a request to end my lease, so it’s not like my landlord is going to have rented my room to someone else. My job at The Jewel of Tablis wasn’t that great. I could get a different job. Or I could go without a job for a few weeks. It would leave me open to do more snooping around that way.”
“Quinn wouldn’t have pulled you out of there if he didn’t think there was a real threat to your life.”
“I think he’s proceeding with an overabundance of caution.”
“You make it sound like that’s a bad thing.”
“If it gets in the way of finding out who brought down that flight out of Kaziristan, it is a bad thing.”
“Risa—” He stopped with a sigh and rose from his crouch by the fire, which he’d been trying to stoke back to life. He crossed to where she lay curled up on the sofa, tucked beneath a warm quilt. Sitting on the coffee table, he took her hand between his. “Your hands are cold.”
“Please don’t try to talk me out of this, Connor.”
“I don’t want you to go back to Cincinnati. The thought terrifies me.”
“I feel as if I’m walking away from the first real break I had in the case.”
“It’s not your case anymore. Cameron, Quinn and Heller are on it.”
“No, listen, Connor.” She squeezed his hand. “I’ve been thinking about this ever since Cameron left this morning. Dal wouldn’t have put me in Cincinnati if he didn’t think I was uniquely suited for the investigation.”
“But you were there for months and didn’t discover a damn thing, did you?” He twined his fingers with hers, leaning closer. He smelled good, crisp and clean with just a hint of wood smoke from the fire, and she felt as if her insides were melting into a gooey mess.
“It was a delicate operation,” she protested, annoyed that she couldn’t seem to drag her gaze above his mouth. Connor was an amazing kisser, she remembered. Instinctive, knowing when she wanted a soft wooing and when she wanted unbridled passion.
Either would do very nicely at the moment.
But he’d been right to slow things down between them earlier. She wanted him as much as she ever had, and the way his blue eyes dilated with desire when he looked at her told her he felt the same raw longing that she did. But what they both wanted was what they’d had before the plane crash. Before her lies. Before his grief.
Until they could want something else, something built on the future rather than trapped in the past, then it was best to move carefully.
“You know what I think?” he murmured, a smile curving his lips.
“What do you think?”
“I think you’re getting stir-crazy.” His smile widened. “I think maybe we could risk getting out of this place for a little while, don’t you think?”
She sat up, intrigued. “What do you have in mind?”
“Just go get dressed.” He tugged at the quilt. “And bundle up!”
* * *
FOR THE FIRST twenty minutes, they seemed to be driving through endless woodland, broken here and there by the striated rock that revealed where the road had been cut through the mountains. Then, as the last of the day’s sunlight painted the western sky in hues of amber, rose and purple, the trees thinned out, revealing a picturesque town nestled in a small valley.
“Welcome to Laurel Hollow, Kentucky,” Connor said with a smile in his voice. “Population, hmm, somewhere around 250, I think.”
“How did you know how to find this place?” she asked, charmed. The town looked like something out of a postcard, a quintessential small Southern town, complete with a tiny white church on the corner with a tall white spire rising into the twilight sky.
“I might have made a call to Quinn while you were napping this afternoon,” he said with a smile.
“Just to find a quaint little mountain town to drive through?”
“Not exactly.” There was a secret behind his smile, reminding her of the old days, when they were happy and in love. He’d loved to surprise her, something that hadn’t always been easy to do, considering her career as an intelligence operative.
He had that same look now.
“What are you up to?” she asked, further intrigued.
His smile grew more mysterious. “You’ll see.”
Within a couple of miles, the town of Laurel Hollow was a faint glow in the rearview mirror, the scenery replaced by rolling farmland and sporadic lights of houses dotting the landscape here and there. Then they rounded a curve and ahead lay a brightly lit copse of evergreen trees.
Not a copse, she realized as Connor slowed the SUV and turned off the road onto a narrow dirt lane.
It was a tree lot.
“Rebecca Cameron was right,” Connor said as he cut the engine and turned to look at her. “No matter what else is going on, we’re getting to spend Christmas together this year. And it wasn’t very long ago that I didn’t think I’d ever get the chance to do that again. So let’s do it right.”
Tears pricking her eyes, she reached across the space between them and touched his face. “This is a wonderful surprise.”
“Yeah?” He looked so pleased, she thought, struggling against a fresh sting of tears.
Why had she let Dal talk her into walking away from her life? How could she have even contemplated it? If the circumstances had been reversed, she’d have been furious. And deeply, perhaps irrevocably, hurt.
“What are you thinking?” Connor asked, covering her hand with his own, holding her palm in place against his cheek.
“How incredibly unfair I was to you,” she admitted.
“You always did undervalue yourself.” He released her hand but held her gaze, his eyes sad.
“What can I help y’all with?” The booming voice so close behind her made Risa jump. She turned to find a short, burly man in overalls and a thick fleece-lined denim jacket standing behind them, his weathered face creased with a big smile. “We’ve got big trees, small trees, fat ones and skinny ones. You just tell ol’ Ray what you need and I’ll get you just the right tree.”
“How about medium-sized?” Connor suggested. “Not too fat, not too thin.” He winked at Risa, making her heart turn a little flip.
“That sounds perfect,” she agreed with a smile.
“You just head over there to the right side of the lot and you’ll find exactly what you want,” Ray said, still grinning at them.
Connor reached out and took Risa’s hand, giving a light tug. “Let’s go find us a Christmas tree.”
* * *
“WE’VE GOT VISUAL contact with McGinnis.” The voice over the phone line was a growly bass, with just a touch of a Boston accent. Adam Lovell was a Harvard washout who had developed an obsequious style early on, perhaps hoping he could make up in sycophancy what he lacked in brainpower.
It hardly made his boss respect the young toady any more, but it did make Adam very, very useful.
“What about the woman?” he asked.
“She’s there with him. But she’s not wearing a hijab.”
Of course she wasn’t. She wasn’t really a Kaziri widow, after all, no matter how well she’d played the part. She was Georgia born and bred, the daughter of a tough old leatherneck who’d parlayed her mother’s Kaziri blood into a career in the CIA.
Damn Martin Dalrymple’s wily old hide.
“If you can get your hands on the woman, do it.”
“She doesn’t se
em to be getting very far from McGinnis.”
“So find a way to separate them.”
Adam was silent so long he began to wonder if he’d lost the connection to the young man. But finally, Adam spoke, his tone tentative. “May I ask why we’re trying to bring this woman into custody?”
“No, you may not,” he answered, and ended the call.
He sat back against the buttery leather of his desk chair, staring out the window at the lights of the National Mall, blurred by the foggy drizzle that had enveloped the capital in a dreary haze. In retrospect, he should have guessed that Dalrymple would have had a few tricks up his sleeve. He should have anticipated that Parisa McGinnis might have survived the explosion. That after years of blending in with the Kaziri natives in their homeland, she could have found a way to blend in with the Kaziris who’d fled to the US.
He had looked for her in North Carolina among the Christians, thinking she’d have fit in better with them, given her personal background. But that hadn’t been smart thinking. He was rather embarrassed at how shortsighted he’d been.
But that was water under the bridge. He’d found her. She was still alive.
That reality had to be remedied as soon as possible.
* * *
“WHAT DO YOU THINK?” Risa asked, cocking her head as she considered the fir tree that sat in the middle of the maze of conical-shaped evergreens that filled the Christmas-tree lot.
Connor seemed to give it some thought, although she could tell from his expression that he knew this was the tree for her. Still, he made her wait a few seconds as he stroked his chin and surveyed all sides of the tree, giving the limbs a few light tugs before he finally turned his head to look at her.
“I love it,” he said.
“Yay!” She wrapped her arms around him and gave him a hug before she realized she had thrown away her right to touch him whenever she wanted to. She looked up at him, feeling uncertain and not liking it.
“Remind you of anything?” he asked, smiling as if to put her at ease.
She looked at the tree again, suddenly realizing why she’d liked it on sight. “Our first Christmas tree.”
“Yep.” Connor touched the fir’s thick needles with one finger. “It was almost bigger than your apartment in Germany. Remember?”
She smiled at the image his words conjured in her mind, of a fat little Christmas tree, decked to the hilt with garland and ornaments, taking up half of her tiny economy flat in Günzberg, halfway between her assignment at the US Consulate in Munich and Connor’s temporary duty at the Marine Corps’ Camp Panzer Kaserne in Böblingen. “I remember.”
“Remember that night we had some of the guys at the base over for a party and we could barely move around because of that bloody tree?” He laughed softly.
“And then you proposed after they left. Because you said they all told you if you didn’t, one of them would.”
His smile broadened, and he looked as if the memory made him genuinely happy. Risa felt her throat tightening, waiting for him to realize the past was truly past and the present was full of lies and regrets.
But before his expression had a chance to change, the tree lot proprietor, Ray, appeared as if out of the ether. “Found one you like?”
“Yes, sir,” Connor said. “We’ll take this one.”
Ray gave them a price that seemed fair. Connor pulled out his wallet and paid in cash. “Don’t suppose you have a wheelbarrow or something I can use to cart it to my truck.”
“Of course I do.” He flashed Connor a smile of pure delight. “Anything else I can help y’all with tonight?”
“Do you know any place where we can find some reasonably priced decorations?” Risa asked. “Doesn’t have to be anything fancy.”
“As a matter of fact, you’re already in the right place.” Ray turned his grin toward her and waved his hand to one side. “Back yonder, you’ll find a shed where we have all sorts of genuine handmade ornaments made by some of Kentucky’s most gifted local artisans.”
Those artisans were probably Ray’s wife and kids, Risa thought, but she wasn’t in any position to be picky. “Just back that way?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Ray turned to help Connor pick up the tree.
“I’ll catch up,” she told Connor, giving his arm a pat and heading in the direction Ray had indicated.
“Back yonder” was farther away than she’d realized, as she weaved her way through the maze of evergreen trees. Night had fallen completely during the time she and Connor had been selecting their tree, the darkness broken only by a string of bare bulbs hung along a series of garden stakes planted in the soft ground of the tree lot. They were apparently powered by a generator, as she could hear the equipment humming somewhere nearby.
A light wind had begun to pick up, making the lightbulbs sway, casting eerie, dancing shadows across the ground. Risa tugged her coat more tightly around her, trying to ignore the sudden prickle of unease that rippled its way down her spine.
It’s just the wind, she reminded herself. She wasn’t back in Cincinnati anymore. She was in nowhere, Kentucky, where nobody knew her from Adam or Eve. Connor was just a few short yards away.
She turned around to reassure herself that he was within sight.
But she saw nothing but trees.
For a second, she felt a frisson of panic. But she calmed herself quickly. The road was nearby. All she had to do was follow the string of lights back to where Connor waited with their lovely new tree.
Meanwhile, they had ornaments to select.
She kept heading toward the back of the lot, following the string of lights, until she thought she spotted the edge of a wooden shed peeking through the gaps in the trees. She started to relax.
Then, with shocking suddenness, the lights went out.
* * *
AS CONNOR FINISHED securing the fir tree in the back of the Tahoe, the night went suddenly dark. Only the dome light inside the truck relieved the bottomless gloom that fell over the tree lot behind him.
“What the hell?” Ray’s voice carried through the darkness.
There was a flashlight in the SUV’s glove box. Connor retrieved it and turned it on, a strong beam of light slashing through the blackness. It played across Ray’s weathered features, making the man squint and hold up his hand against the glare.
Connor moved the light away from Ray’s face as he walked closer. “What happened?”
“Not sure,” Ray answered, frowning. “The generator’s back this way.” He waved for Connor to follow him with the flashlight as he turned and entered the tree maze.
Connor followed, not liking the sudden darkness. As a retired marine, he was used to making the dark work for him, but he wasn’t equipped to handle the loss of easy visibility, especially when he was separated from Risa. The light outage was probably a coincidence.
But he didn’t like coincidences. Especially not now.
“What the hell?” Ray said again, sounding even more confounded than before.
“What?” Connor asked.
Ray held out his hand. “Can I borrow that?”
Reluctantly, Connor handed over the flashlight. Ray played the light across a small open area in the middle of the tree lot. Connor could see what looked like a generator wheel kit, but there was no generator contained within the frame.
“Well, hell,” Ray said, sounding annoyed. “Who the hell took my damn generator?”
Connor’s heart skipping a beat, he grabbed the flashlight back from Ray and started to play the beam of light across the trees ahead of him. “Risa?” he called.
But Risa didn’t answer.
Chapter Ten
Risa’s pulse hammered loudly in her ears as she tried to orient herself in the darkness. There was a furtive sounding rustle nearby, as if so
meone were moving through the densely packed trees in an attempt at stealth.
Or was she just imagining things? There was any number of reasons the lights of the tree lot could have gone out, starting with a generator failure.
“Risa!” Connor’s voice carried across the tree lot.
And the furtive rustling stopped.
Someone was definitely out there. And if she responded to Connor’s call, that someone would know exactly where she was.
She eased backward, wincing when she bumped into one of the trees, setting its limbs rattling softly against one another. She heard the sound of movement again, coming her way.
“Risa?” Connor’s voice was closer now, and she realized she was seeing flashes of light moving toward her through the trees. A flashlight?
She remained quiet, letting Connor do all the moving. He was getting closer, although he was a few rows of trees away from where she was crouched.
Suddenly, the sound of movement in the trees nearby picked up, moving away from the light.
She risked edging closer to where Connor was weaving his way through the trees, calling his name when, finally, she could see him only a few feet away. “Connor!”
He pushed through the trees, sending a couple of them toppling, stands and all, to reach her. “Why didn’t you answer?” he asked breathlessly, wrapping one strong arm around her waist and pulling her to him.
“There’s someone out there,” she whispered. “I think they might have been following me.”
His only answer was to take her hand and lead her back to the roadside, where the SUV was still parked, a big black shadow in the unrelenting gloom. In a rustle of tree limbs, Ray emerged as well, stepping into the small circle of light cast by Connor’s flashlight beam.
“I found the generator,” he told Connor. “Someone had dragged it a few dozen yards away and emptied out all the gas.”