An Aria for Nick (Christian Romantic Suspense) (Song of Suspense)

by Bridgeman, Hallee

  He heard sounds outside, low voices and a calm female voice. Then he heard the uniformed police officers stepping down off his porch. A light tapping on the door preceded a female voice, "Mr. Suarez? I'm Special Agent Kate Royce with the Department of Homeland Security? I'm very sorry about all this but it is vital that we find your sister. It's a matter of national security. Mr. Suarez? Is that your rental car in your garage? Where is your white sedan?"

  Smiling, Adam opened the door again. "Oh, you searched my garage? I wasn't aware you had a search warrant."

  The woman in front of him held up a badge and a set of credentials for his inspection. "I'm very sorry, Mr. Suarez. I know it seems like a terrible invasion of privacy. I'm afraid that where certain matters of national security are concerned, the document known as the Constitution is seen as more of a formality these days. Are you familiar with the Patriot Act Mr. Suarez?"

  Adam grinned and decided he would not challenge this woman to an arm wrestling contest. "I'm pretty familiar with how DHS interprets the Patriot Act, Agent Royce."

  "Special Agent Royce, Mr. Suarez." Hecate corrected with a smile that may as well have appeared on a mannequin for all the feeling it displayed. "Sir, have you seen your sister recently?" She had to raise her voice to be heard above the sounds of a helicopter flying by overhead.

  Adam looked from her face to the six uniformed police officers and eight police vehicles crowded into his driveway. When the helicopter suddenly dropped to within a hundred feet of his swimming pool and hit his backyard with a blinding spotlight, it genuinely surprised him. Despite all the action movies he had ever seen and the two he had made, he could not have imagined a more surreal scene.

  He looked back at Kate Royce who — Adam knew with a certainty he could never explain — was definitely not an agent assigned to the Department of Homeland Security. He looked into her eyes and realized that there was absolutely no emotion contained within them; neither love nor hate, neither passion nor apathy. Her eyes were simply cold, reptilian, and he felt a chill deep in his soul when he kept eye contact with that baleful gaze.

  He said, "You know what? Talk to my lawyer."

  Adam shut the door again and started praying for his sister, praying that Nick Williams was better or smarter or faster or tougher than the woman whose cold, cold eyes he had just stared into.

  "We're not going anywhere, Mr. Suarez." Kate said. "Please don't make me take you into custody."

  ¯¯¯¯

  Chapter 22

  "I cannot believe how hungry I was," Aria said, biting into a piece of melon.

  "It's just a side effect of the constant stress coupled with the constant stress," Nick explained with a smile. "Eventually, you start burning through some serious calories."

  Aria laughed and poured herself a glass of juice. She'd eaten until she could eat no more, and was now relaxed and tired. It was only noon though, and Nick convinced her she didn't want to sleep all day so that she would be able to sleep tonight.

  "Do we need to worry about Hecate finding us any time soon?"

  Nick shrugged and rubbed the scar on his forehead. "She'll find us eventually, but I don't think we have anything to worry about for a day or two."

  Feeling a little band of tension release on the back of her neck, she asked, "Do you want to go down to the beach?"

  "Why?"

  Aria stared at him. "To go splash in the water, lay on a towel under the sun, catch some rays." He still looked confused. "To play, Nick."

  "I guess we can. I thought you wanted to run."

  "I need to let this food settle first. I figure I'll go running toward evening when it's a little cooler." She set her glass down and stood up. "Come on. We have to go shopping first."

  Nick watched her put her hair up in pins then put her wig on. "Shopping for what?" he asked.

  "Everything we need." She grabbed the eyebrow pencil and went into the bathroom, emerging a few minutes later as Annalisse Rivera. "Come on, Carlos, we're lovers enjoying spring break. Let's go live it up before they get here tomorrow and we have to get back to business."

  Nick felt defeated as he stood up from the table and went to the bathroom to put in his contacts. His idea of living it up did not include shopping along a beach front, then intentionally lying in the sun to let it bake him. He frowned at his reflection in the mirror, then leaned his head back, popping the contacts first in one eye then the other. He closed his eyes and waited for the burning to pass, and when he opened them, he felt only mild discomfort, the kind that could easily be ignored. He pulled on a pair of worn khaki shorts, a surfing T-shirt, and a pair of sandals, then went back to the room. Aria was waiting for him by the door, holding her purse.

  "Let's get this over with," he said, and grabbed his two bags and her laptop. He put them in the closet and locked the closet doors with a chain and padlock, then put the key in his pocket.

  "You aren't on your way to an executioner, Nick," Aria laughed at him as she held the door open for him. "We're just going out to have some fun."

  "People have different definitions of fun, Aria. Take me to a shooting range and I'll show you mine." He led the way down the hall and passed a maid pushing a housekeeping cart. "It's a good thing you won at that roulette table, mi amor, or we'd have had to stay next door at the Sandpiper." The maid smiled at him and he winked at her, then held his hand out for Aria to grab, and pulled her into the elevator.

  ¯¯¯¯

  "JUST buy a suit, Aria, and let's get out of here," Nick said through gritted teeth.

  "I'll be done in a minute," Aria bit out. Shopping was one of her favorite things to do, but Nick could bring even her down. In an hour's time, she'd managed to find almost all the necessities she'd missed in packing. She'd had no idea that she would end up thousands of miles from home with only two pair of underwear, not to mention the lack of toiletries. Now all she was doing was trying to find a bathing suit that she liked, and Nick picked this moment to breathe down her neck. She should have done the fun stuff first, she thought.

  She finally settled on a bronze colored bikini, grabbed some tanning oil that was on display at the counter, and paid for her purchases, throwing a pair of cheap sunglasses on the stack. "Are you sure you don't need anything?" Aria asked. He grabbed her arm and steered her out of the store.

  "No, I came prepared," Nick said under his breath.

  "You also had more than thirty seconds to pack," Aria retorted. Her temper nearly matched his.

  Nick realized she was right, and purposefully let go of his annoyance. They stopped at the car rather than going up to their room and put the packages in the trunk. Aria kept the one that held her new suit, and they walked around the back of the hotel to the beach patio, where there were rest rooms, umbrella-covered tables, and a bar. Aria went to the rest room to change into her suit while Nick got them some iced tea at the bar. He sat at a table in the shade and waited for Aria to come out, watching the people around him.

  Because it was spring break week for several major universities around the country, the area was packed with college students and, as Nick watched, he thought back to the first few weeks he was at the 101st, before being shipped off to Afghanistan. These kids were acting no different than he and his friends in that unit had, though at the 101st they'd had a lack of coeds in bikinis, and he realized for the first time that he missed the freedom he'd had back then.

  Shaking off the mood that seemed to have descended upon him, he picked up his drink and took a sip, almost choking when he saw Aria emerge from the rest room. The bikini covered way too little of her, and the bronze color attracted way too much attention. The muscles in her legs were well defined from years of running and, despite her short stature, they appeared to go on for miles. She had on a wrap that came to her knees, but it was unbuttoned and sheer, and didn't offer much cover.

  Aria saw the expression on Nick's face before she got to him. His pout because she had to buy a few things was not going to ruin her afternoon. She pulled
a chair out and sat down, glaring back at him.

  "Do you think that you could have bought a suit that covered a little more of you?" Nick asked in a quiet voice.

  Aria stared at him in shock, then felt a warm glow. "What? Are you my dad? This is a very modest suit. Look around you."

  "I don't care what's around me, I care about what's in front of me, which right now is way too much exposed skin."

  "You are not going to ruin my afternoon. You can sit up here and glare at me all you want, but you'll have to look down at the beach to do it," she said, standing and taking off her wrap. She walked past him and down the steps to the beach. It was a beautiful day, just on the right side of hot, and the sun was shining in the blue sky. The sand was warm but not hot on her bare feet, and she walked to the water's edge, letting a wave wash over her feet to test the temperature. Even the water was perfect. She started strolling down the water's edge, staying where the waves could hit her.

  A college student chased a volleyball to where she stood, then snatched it up and ran back to the game. Aria smiled, remembering the spring break of her senior year at college when she and several of her friends had come down here for a few days. They'd had fun, almost too much fun, as if denying the fact that in two months time they all had to transform into responsible adults. When she got back to school she dove into finals feeling relaxed enough so that the pressures of the exams almost felt like a mere annoyance.

  She thought of Nick, and thought that he hadn't had that opportunity — those four years between adolescence and adulthood. He'd never been given the chance to even be irresponsible. If he was too serious, it was because he had to be, and just because she wanted to spend a few hours playing, pretending that she wasn't on the run trying to find evidence that would save her life, didn't mean that he had that luxury. She was here now, and not lying dead in her home due to an assassin's bullet, because Nick didn't relax and play.

  She suddenly felt guilty for getting upset with him, and turned suddenly to go back and apologize to him, and ran right into his chest. She almost fell backward, but he caught her and helped her steady herself. "One day, I'm going to hear you," she said.

  "No you won't," Nick declared before brushing a strand of hair that had blown into her eyes, tucking it behind her ear. "What do you want to do?" he asked.

  She smiled and hooked her arms around his waist. "I wanted to swim, but I remembered this wig. The waves would probably knock it off."

  "You might be right." He put his hands behind him, covering hers. "You could splash around here in the shallow water."

  "Where's the fun in that?" she asked, having to crane her neck back to look at him. His expression gave nothing away. One minute he was lowering his head to kiss her, and the next, he kicked her feet out from under her just as a wave came. She landed on her rear end in three inches of water, and before her shock turned to outrage, she started laughing. She stood up and ineffectively tried to wipe the sand off the back of her legs, then started walking toward him. "You'll have to pay for that one, W-w-w-Garcia," she said, almost calling him by his real name.

  He crossed his arms over his chest and stood his ground. He outweighed her by nearly eighty pounds, and was over a foot taller, so when she approached him, he didn't even try to ward her off. When he landed in the water in the same fashion she did, he just sat there staring at her. "Where'd you learn that?" he asked.

  "Are you kidding? My dad was in the Army my whole life, and I have a brother who's a cop." She brushed her hands off and stood over him. "Come on tough guy, see if you can get me down when you're not distracting me."

  He stood and began to take his shirt off but then pulled it back down. He crouched and started stalking her. In Spanish, he said, "This is war, Rivera."

  Thirty minutes later, they were both wet and sandy and Aria was laughing so hard she had to sit down before she could get towels out of the bag. "I'm never going to get all of this sand off of me," she said, brushing at her legs.

  Nick smiled at her and stood, offering his hand. "Looks like what you need is a shower," he observed.

  Aria took his hand and let him pull her up into his arms. She looped an arm around his neck. "I think you may be right." She stepped back and shoved the bag stuffed with their wet towels into his arms. "Race you to the room," she said with a laugh, already ten feet in front of him.

  ¯¯¯¯

  THEY sat at a table in a little restaurant, eating fried grouper and coleslaw. A candle in a round glass holder desperately trying to stay lit, gave the table a sense of intimacy even with all of the noise around them. Aria rested her chin in her hands and watched Nick talk, thinking that the evening would be so much more romantic if they weren't discussing shielding nuclear energy technology.

  "What are the specifications of your device?" Nick asked.

  "Well, it's about the size of a briefcase. We tried to keep it compact because the astronaut would wear it on his back and because every ounce of weight that we have to launch into orbit costs about a gajillion dollars to get up there, so lighter is always better."

  "And the size of the device it could contain?"

  "Roj Singh developed a nuclear warhead about the size of a 155 millimeter artillery shell, if that gives you any idea."

  Nick nodded and lowered his voice further. "And how big of an explosion or reaction would that create?"

  Aria pursed her lips. "Five kilotons, easy."

  "Which means — "

  She felt a cold chill run up her spine that seemed to come from nowhere. "That it would take out about the entire mall area of Washington, D. C. from the White House to the Capital Building before accounting for fallout." She sat up and pulled a notebook and her glasses out of her bag and started to make some notes. "The fallout would be catastrophic from a ground level detonation of that size. It would hurl radioactive material as high as fifteen miles and that would contaminate major water supplies and poison the earth for thousands of miles downwind."

  "What would the device look like?" Nick asked.

  "Hmm?" Aria looked up. "Oh, like an armored case, really. But the thing is that it's really heavy."

  "Heavy?"

  "Yes. Well, here on earth it is. It's designed for use in zero gravity. I didn't worry about the weight at all during design until we had to consider the cost of putting it into orbit. Then I started cutting the weight down pretty seriously. But, it's still heavy for planet earth because nuclear material is really, really heavy. Once you add the weight of the bomb, you're looking at hundreds of pounds. Basically, it's a suitcase sized engine block."

  Nick pulled his wallet out of his pocket and laid some bills on the table, then stood up. The later it got, the more crowded the restaurant became, and he didn't want to chance someone overhearing their conversation. "Let's finish this back at the room."

  Aria stood up and groaned, putting her hand on the top of her thigh. "Taking you down came at a price," she said with a laugh. "I'm feeling muscles I'd forgotten I had."

  "Do you want to call a cab?" Nick asked, putting a hand on the small of her back as they walked through the restaurant.

  "No. The walk will probably help loosen them up." They stepped out into the warm night and turned in the direction of their hotel. The street was crowded with kids partying, and the traffic was pretty much at a dead stop. Some revelers were in convertibles with their tops down, sitting on the back of their seats. Some were hanging out the windows of their cars. Those who were serious about the party had their cars pulled off in the middle of the road and sat on the hoods, talking to the people in the cars next to them. Hundreds of car stereos were competing with each other, no longer creating music, just noise.

  Aria looked out at the street in front of her, and turned to Nick, picking her voice up to be heard over the din. "I've changed my mind. I think I do want a cab," she said with a smile.

  Nick laughed, knowing she was joking because no cab would be able to make it through the throng, and they kept walking in the direct
ion of their hotel. Aria saw the awning of the Beachcomber ahead of them, and happened to glance at the two men standing next to the awning pole. The light from the building shone directly on the face of one of them, and she stopped suddenly.

  "Nick!" she exclaimed as quietly as she could manage over all the street noise. She couldn't understand how he heard her above the hubbub coming from the street, but when he turned in her direction, she could see the change in him. Gone was the relaxation of the day and, in its place, Agent Williams stood ready.

  He stopped directly in front of her and leaned his head down so he could hear what she was going to say. "What's wrong?"

  "The men leaning against the pole in front of the hotel are Roj Singh and the other man that met Peter at that antiques show." The shock of seeing them was wearing off, and Aria felt her control come back. How could she have forgotten why they were there?

  "Are you positive?" Aria nodded. "Okay. Turn around. We'll go down one block and come into the hotel from the back."

  They entered the hotel through the staff entrance, following a bellhop. Nick took her up the maintenance elevator to their floor, and stopped her in front of their door. He reached behind him and unsnapped the holster at the small of his back, freeing the compact .45 caliber pistol he kept there. There was no sign that someone had forced themselves into the room, but Nick went in first, anyway, and did a quick scan. Nothing was disturbed, and the hidden indicators he'd left behind showed no one had been looking through their things.

  Aria watched him do the scan then sat on the bed while he put on a pair of glasses and a baseball cap over his black wig. "Be right back," he said.

  "Where are you going?" she asked.

  He took the pistol out of its holster and handed it to her. "I'm going to get a good look at our friend. Stay here and don't let anyone in."