Another long pause.
“Call me if you change your mind.” He hung up, and I wearily tucked my phone back into my waist pouch, hoping that was my last interaction with Fuzzy Bunny.
Next problem. Deal with the men in my house. I willed my aching arm up to the door handle and froze.
Goddammit!
My sleeve had ridden up as I reached, and the light of the garage revealed shallow cuts and smears of blood on my wrist. I pushed back my other sleeve. Double damn. More cuts.
I spat on a tissue and dabbed away the dried blood, careful not to reopen the cuts. My wrists looked better when I was done, but the red lines practically glowed on my white skin.
I thumped my forehead against the steering wheel. Now what? It’d be damn hard to come up with a plausible explanation for ligature marks on my wrists. If I was only trying to fool Tom, I’d brazen it out with the implication I’d been having kinky sex. He’d be too embarrassed to pursue the conversation.
But Hellhound knew me too well.
I sighed and crept stiffly out of the car. I’d make sure the sleeves stayed down. Hellhound wouldn’t question me. He knew I’d keep my sweatshirt on if I had my waist holster concealed under it.
I only had to act as if nothing was wrong.
Easy.
I had years of practice.
When I stepped in my front door, the kitchen was deserted but the sound of the radio floated up from the basement. I drew a deep breath. Relax the diaphragm so the voice sounds natural.
Calling out a cheery hello, I started down.
Hellhound appeared at the foot of the stairs a moment later, a smile lightening his face. “Hey, darlin’. Where the hell were ya? I left ya a message to call me.”
Paste on a smile. Be sure to crinkle the eyes so it looks like a real one. My old habits rushed back easily.
“Sorry, I got hung up at work and didn’t get a chance to check my phone.”
Shit, did I really say ‘hung up’?
I banished the thought and descended the rest of the way to give him a quick hug, forcing my arms up and tucking my head under his chin to hide my grimace of pain.
I pulled away. “Hi, Tom! Wow, you guys have worked wonders down here!”
Oops, a little too chirpy. Tone it down a bit.
“You must be sick of this by now. It must be after eight.” I started to glance at my watch before aborting the movement. Dammit, don’t expose the wrists. I converted the motion to a vague wave of my hand. “Why don’t you call it a night?”
I carefully avoided meeting Hellhound’s quizzical gaze and smiled at Tom. “I hope you aren’t neglecting your horses for this.”
He smiled back, the weathered laugh lines framing his eyes. “No, I usually do my chores a little later.”
Shit. How could I manoeuvre him out tactfully?
“Why don’t you come upstairs for a beer before you go?” I offered, hoping I wasn’t emphasizing the word ‘go’ too much. “I see you guys brought my beer fridge in from the garage. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. At least you’ll have something until you can replace your kitchen fridge.”
“Yeah, an’ it got the beer handy,” Hellhound added, grinning. But his gaze lingered on me a little too long.
Shit.
“Come on, let’s go up and have a beer.” I turned and hurried up the stairs.
Reassured by the sound of their feet on the steps behind me, I made a beeline for the fridge, hoping they hadn’t done any male bonding that would encourage them to sit around and drink beer together all evening.
Apparently not.
When I turned, holding out the bottles, Tom shot an awkward glance at Hellhound. “Thanks, Aydan, but I’d better be going. You must be tired after such a long day at work, and I’ve got a few things I need to do at home. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
He pulled on his boots and reached for his jacket.
“Oh, I didn’t mean to chase you away,” I lied as graciously as I could. “Are you sure you won’t…”
“No, thanks. Good night.” He gave me a smile before settling his Stetson on his head and striding out into the night.
Hellhound and I stood in silence until the sound of the truck’s engine faded.
Then Arnie turned to face me, his keen eyes seeing too much as usual. “Okay, what really happened?”
Chapter 32
My heart sank as I stared back at Hellhound. “Um, nothing. Like I said, I got hung up…”
“Bullshit. What’s wrong? Ya look kinda…” He frowned down at me. “…spacey. An’ you’re sweatin’ an’ shiverin’ at the same time.”
“Oh.” Habit pulled a laugh out of me, my best fake smile crinkling my eyes. “Yeah, I’m out of it. It was a hell of a long day and I feel like shit. Maybe I’m coming down with something. I think I’ll just go to bed.”
Come on, take the hint.
He studied me for a long moment. “Okay. I’m gonna have a beer. Hand me one a’ those, would ya?”
“Sure, take two. Good night.” I thrust the bottles in his direction and was already turning away when his hands closed over mine, trapping the bottles between us.
“Aydan.”
Something in his voice froze me to the floor. I turned slowly to see the incriminating injuries exposed on my extended arm.
His voice was very quiet as he took the bottles and returned them to the fridge. “Ya wanna try tellin’ me the truth now?”
My fake self performed like a trouper. “Oh, that’s no big deal.” My voice came out light and easy. “I just…”
“…got hung up,” he finished grimly. He captured my other hand, gently pulling back the cuff of my sweatshirt. “Hung up by your wrists, looks like. That why ya can’t lift your arms?”
“No, I can. See, I’m fine.” I attempted a casual wave of my arm and almost succeeded without wincing.
His face hardened. “Where else are ya hurt? How come you’re limpin’?”
“Oh, that’s nothing, I…”
“Do I hafta strip ya naked to find out?”
The echo of ‘strip you naked’ lashed me like Doytchevsky’s whip, all the suppressed terror bursting through my defences. An instant later I dammed the breach and shoved it all safely away again, but I was too late.
Arnie’s eyes widened and he rocked back. His hand tightened convulsively on mine. His voice emerged in a hoarse whisper. “Aw, shit, Aydan.”
I hastened to reassure him. “No, don’t worry, it’s not what you think. I’m fine, it was no big deal. Just a guy who wanted to make sure I didn’t shoot him while he made his point. He just made a few threats and then let me go.”
“What guy?” His hand tensed, his shoulders bulging with knotted muscle.
“Arnie, let it go, okay? I’m not in any danger. He still needs me, he just wanted to make sure I’d cooperate.”
A buzzing sound made me relax. Saved by the vibration.
Arnie shot me a look and extracted his cell phone from his pocket. He glanced at the display before punching the talk button. “Yeah.”
He listened for a moment. “Yeah, she’s here.” Another pause. “I dunno. Somebody hung her up by her wrists for starters.” He reached to brush my hair back, examining my neck. His face darkened. “An’ choked her, by the look of it. I’m tryin’ to get the whole story outta her now.”
My fingers flew to the burning skin on my neck. Damn, I’d forgotten there would be marks there.
The phone emitted an extended crackle of indistinct words. Hellhound stood rigid, his gaze boring into me while he listened. The plastic let out a small creak under his whitening knuckles.
His brows snapped together, his shoulders bunching and swelling. A moment later, his sudden shout made me flinch.
“Fuck! Motherfuckin’ son of a whore’s-” He cut himself off, and when he spoke again his voice rasped hard as iron. “No! Stay there. Stay there or I’ll kick your fuckin’ ass!”
Another tirade crackled from the other
end, and Hellhound interrupted. “I got this. No, I got it. Lemme deal with it here… No! Promise me you’ll stay there at least ‘til I call ya back. Yeah, soon’s I can. Gimme your word you’ll stay there ‘til then… Gimme your fuckin’ word, for fucksakes!”
Another pause, and he drew a deep breath. “Okay. Soon’s I know. Yeah. Yeah! I give ya my word.”
He slowly returned his phone to his pocket, his movements stiff with anger. His scowl was so black that I had to swallow the dryness in my throat before I could speak.
“Um… is everything… um, are you okay?”
He drew a deep breath, visibly calming himself. When he spoke again, his voice was as gentle as the hand he closed around mine. “Come on, darlin’. Let’s go sit down for a few minutes.”
His quietness struck fear through me.
It was something bad. Something really, really bad. I couldn’t deal with any other bad things. Not now.
I fled to the safety of numbness and the dead voice spoke from my lips. “Okay.”
I let him tow me into the living room and lower me to the sofa without speaking. My body sat stiffly on the cushions while my battered soul curled into a tight ball behind the wall of my heart.
Nothing left to break. No need to feel.
Arnie sat beside me, still holding my hand. “That was Kane.” He sounded as though he was chewing gravel.
“I figured.” The dead voice spoke again. “Just tell me.”
“Aydan…” He half-reached as if to stroke my hair, but his hand stopped in mid-air and drifted uncertainly down again. “Somebody hacked Kane’s computer. Every time he turned it on today, he got massive dumps of porn. Not just any porn, though. It’s all you. Arlene Cherry.” He eyed me unhappily. “It’s pretty damn realistic shit. If I hadn’t slept with ya myself, I’d think it was the real thing.”
“Yeah, I know.”
My flat tone seemed to bother him even more. He shifted on the couch, his face creasing into worried lines. I spoke before he could.
“Somebody’s trying to frame John for the sexual harassment tribunal. Make it look like he’s obsessed with me. I told Spider that John and I were on a mission, so just call Spider. If anybody can clean it up, he can. He’ll keep his mouth shut.”
That didn’t seem to help as much as I thought it should have. Arnie nodded absently.
“Okay. But, Aydan…” He faced me, squaring his shoulders. “Another one just showed up on his computer a few minutes ago. Wasn’t the usual Arlene Cherry stuff.” He held me with his level gaze, lines of strain etched around his eyes. “Ya wanna tell me why you’re scared to get naked with me tonight?”
“Uh, I’m not, I… um…” I scrambled for an explanation, my brain refusing to cooperate. “I was just…”
Screw it. I went with the truth. “He hit me a few times… um… with a whip. I didn’t want to have to explain the marks.”
His shoulders slumped and he bowed his head, his voice rasping bleak defeat. “Christ. Fuckin’ sick bastard. Tell me who it is. I’ll hunt the fucker down an’ kill him with my fuckin’ bare hands.”
I had expected him to be upset, but not as devastated as this. Slow comprehension oozed into my brain. “Wait. The video that came to John tonight. Was it… was I naked? Tied up and whipped and… um, other stuff?”
“Yeah.” His hand trembled on mine. “Come on, darlin’, let’s get ya to the hospital. It’s gonna be okay.”
“No, wait. That wasn’t real. It didn’t happen.”
His head rose, hope dawning in a face that had aged years in the past few moments. “What d’ya mean?”
“I mean the video was fake. I wasn’t naked. He didn’t rape me or anything. He just tied me up and threatened me. Whipped my leg a couple of times to make his point. That’s it. No big deal. He probably did a close-up at the beginning to make it look like it was all me, and then spliced in some other footage.”
His grip on my hand tightened almost to pain. “Aydan.” He searched my face with desperate eyes. “Ya ain’t lyin’ to me, are ya? ‘Cause what Kane saw… he said it was… really fuckin’ sick.”
I leaned forward to kiss him, gently extricating my hand from his grasp to cup his face between my palms. I looked deeply into his anguished eyes. “I promised I’d never lie to you. I’ll take my clothes off right now if you want, so you can see for yourself.”
He dropped his gaze, his hands clenching in his lap. “Aydan… darlin’, ya know I trust ya, but… if ya can…” He faced me again, his expression raw and pleading. “I gotta see for myself. I gotta know.”
I reached for the hem of my sweatshirt and winced at the pain in my shoulders. “Help me with my shirt.”
A few moments later I stood naked in front of him, and the tension melted from his body.
“Aw, darlin’, thank God,” he said hoarsely. He pulled me into a hug, his face buried in my hair, his hands stroking my skin over and over. After a long moment he pulled away, turning to reach for the throw blanket I kept on the back of my couch. He draped it around my shoulders and kissed me gently. “I gotta call Kane. Hope he believes me. I dunno if I’d believe me, if I was in his place.”
I wrapped the blanket around me and sank onto the couch. “I don’t see why he wouldn’t. Just tell him you saw me completely naked and there wasn’t a mark on me. Well, except for the bruises from the explosion. The only new stuff is those welts on my leg.”
“Uh. Yeah...” He lowered himself to the sofa beside me and scrubbed his knuckles in his beard, staring at the floor. “Look, he flat-out told me not to hold back from bein’ with ya if that’s what I wanted. An’ a little competition ain’t bad, we been one-uppin’ each other since we were kids. But this… now’s prob’ly not a good time to mention me gettin’ ya naked, ya know?”
“Um. I see your point. But, Arnie…” I wrapped the blanket tighter around myself, still shivering. “We have to convince him not to come over here.”
Sudden realization struck me dumb for a moment.
Arnie tensed. “What, Aydan? What’s wrong?”
“Shit! I played right into his hands. Set John up. Oh, shit, Arnie...” I buried my head in my hands. “He’s been ahead of me right from the start, and he just… I just…”
His hands closed on my shoulders. “What? What’s happenin’?”
I straightened, fear for Kane snapping my mind into focus. “You were right, it’s not about me. Remember how I said I thought somebody was trying to hurt John? The sexual harassment charge was just a start, but he wants to destroy John. Not kill him. Make him suffer for the rest of his life. And I just gave him the means to do it.”
I silently blessed Arnie’s brilliant mind as his eyes sharpened with comprehension. “Shit. This fucker’s smart. He keeps ya in line with the threats, but then he makes up this fuckin’ sick shit an’ sends it to Kane, knowin’ it’ll make him come runnin’ straight to ya. I bet he’s just waitin’ to follow Kane with his fuckin’ camera. Documented evidence of disobeyin’ a direct order, an’ Kane gets court-martialled an’ loses everythin’. Dishonourable discharge, jail time, no pension, no benefits…”
“Everything he’s ever worked for destroyed,” I finished. “Arnie, we’ve got to convince him it was fake. Just tell him you saw me naked and be done with it. So he gets upset, so what? It’s better than the alternative.”
“Hang on, darlin’.” His eyes narrowed and he let go of me to stare into space, burnishing his knuckles against his beard again. After a moment, he snapped his gaze back to me. “Did this guy ever see ya naked?”
“No.” I shuddered. “Thank God.”
“So he wouldn’t know about the bruises.”
Hope made me sit up straighter. “No. I bet that video shows nice pink skin.”
Hellhound squeezed my hand. “Let’s hope so, darlin’.” He reached for his phone.
Moments after he dialled, he interrupted the crackle on the other end. “It’s okay, it was faked.”
He listened and shot me
a brief smile. “Nah, she wouldn’t lie to me... Yeah, he hung her up, hit her a coupla times, an’ just for that the fucker deserves to die, but the rest was faked.”
Another crackle.
“Yeah, I’m sure. Positive… Listen… No, listen. Did she have any bruises on her-”
A furious eruption at the other end of the line made his fist clench. “No, I ain’t a fuckin’ sicko, I’m askin’ ‘cause I’m gonna prove to ya it was fake! Nah, right at the start, before he was hittin’ her!”
He listened for a moment, his shoulders relaxing, and then he spoke quietly. “Then ya know it was faked, ‘cause ya gotta know she was beat to ratshit in that barn blast. Ya woulda seen it in the video if it was really her.”
Silence, followed by a subdued crackle.
“Nah, it’s okay. We figure he’s just tryin’ to push ya into breakin’ orders so he can watch ya get nailed in a court-martial. So stay put. I’ll keep ya posted. Yeah. Later.”
Hellhound pressed the disconnect button and collapsed back onto the cushions. “He bought it.”
“Good.” I clutched the inadequate blanket closer.
“Darlin’, you’re still shiverin’. I’ll get ya a cuppa tea-”
“No, it’s okay. I think I’ll have a hot bath instead.” I started to rise.
“Not so fast.” He pulled me close and I gratefully huddled into his body heat. He wrapped warm arms around me and planted a gentle kiss on my forehead. “We gotta do somethin’ about this asshole. Any guy that’d hit a woman is a fuckin’ sick piece a’ shit. Do we call the cops or Stemp?”
I sighed. “Neither. He probably figured he owed me. I… We had a little run-in earlier and he came out second-best. And anyway, I’m under orders to cooperate with him.”
“What?” Tension strung his muscles tight. “You’re just s’posed to let him… Aydan, that’s fuckin’ sick!”
I pulled away to face his scowl. “It’s complicated and I can’t tell you any of it, but…” I ransacked my tired brain and failed to find any explanation that wouldn’t divulge classified information or put Lola in danger. “I just have to,” I finished ineffectually.
“That’s bullshit!”
“Arnie…” I searched his face, trying to find words to make it better.
A Spy For a Spy Page 24