by Evans, Misty
Julia walked to the closet to kick off her high heels. “And?”
“Last week, Smitty thought she was gearing up to meet with her source. He was afraid she might disappear again so he asked me to come and help him. We decided we’d follow her 24/7 and check out anyone she so much as looked twice at, but she jumped on a plane and flew to America late Monday night before we realized she was leaving the country. Smitty and I followed on the next international flight out Tuesday morning, but we haven’t been able to locate her yet. We know she has to be somewhere close.”
Julia was back on the other side of the bed. She didn’t move and he looked up to find her staring at him with her hands on her hips. “You know you went about this all wrong. If you had kept me in the game, I could have buddied up to Cari Von Motz at the very beginning and solved this for you months ago.” She pulled the camisole off and threw it on the bed. “Now you’ve got a major mess on your hands.”
“Cari would’ve figured out who you were and put a bullet between your eyes,” he challenged.
Julia glared at him. “Why don’t you go get the listening devices from Smitty for Michael’s house so I can get going?”
Damn, his stomach hurt. Julia was spending the weekend with Stone. And that’s exactly what he needed her to do. Get in the house, set up the bugs and extract any damning evidence she could get her hands on. But it wasn’t what he wanted her to do. No, he wanted her to spend the weekend, the rest of her life, with him.
“I’ll get them in a minute. Did Smitty go over with you where to plant the bugs?”
She pulled the clip out of her hair and ran a hand through the dark tresses. “He told me to use my best judgment.”
Conrad shifted his focus away from her again, but his peripheral vision was taking in everything and his stomach wasn’t feeling any better. She was challenging him in her bra and low-rise jeans. Her unbuttoned, unzipped low-rise jeans.
He cleared his throat. “I want one by each phone in the house and one in—”
“Why didn’t you plant them yourself when you were there yesterday morning?” she interrupted as she drew the T-shirt over her head.
“It was too risky. There wasn’t enough time.” He chanced a glance at her face. “My mission yesterday was to see you, not plant bugs.”
Julia hesitated before tucking her shirt in and then deciding against it, pulled it back out. She slid one foot into a Puma. He knew she was wrestling with something. She velcroed the strap and put the other sneaker on. Then she turned her poker face on him. “All the phones? You know there’s one in the bedroom.”
And just about every other room we do it in. The unsaid words hung between them. He watched as she zipped and buttoned the pants before looking up at him again.
Conrad turned his focus to her open closet, made his mind log the clothes hanging there so he could keep control of the jealousy burning his stomach. He didn’t want her to see it on his face. Didn’t want her to know just how bad he hurt.
As if the previous seventeen months hadn’t been hard enough…watching and listening to her day in and day out without being able to touch her, talk to her, occupy space in the same room with her.
Now, he was in the same room with her, but she wasn’t welcoming him with open arms. The passionate kisses and this undressing scene were all part of some whacko plan to make him suffer. It was working too.
Especially when she was bluntly warning him she’d be getting naked with Stone this weekend. Of course he could turn off the receiver, would definitely turn off the receiver when that happened. Imagining her with the bastard was hard enough. Hearing her sigh and moan and call his name in the heat of passion would send Conrad over the edge.
Taking a minute to control his emotions, he ran a familiar mental drill of cleaning his gun. He wasn’t the only one who could bluff. “Well, Jules dear, you can put your mind at ease. I’m quite familiar with your screwing preferences.” His voice lowered in pitch. “I don’t need an audio replay.”
She froze, her eyes widening a fraction before she turned away. “You are a tactless son of a bitch.” Returning to her closet, she hung up the cashmere sweater, then crossed back to the bed and slid a short purple v-neck shirt over her head, refusing to look at him.
Christ, now what had he done? He hadn’t come here to hurt her, alienate her even more. He’d just wanted to talk to her, wanted to try and mend the rift he’d caused between them…but he was never good at this kind of war. In the war of words, jealousy made him say stupid things. Especially when he knew she was playing him for a horny idiot.
“Poor Julia.” He laughed without humor. “Stuck between a traitor and a tactless son of a bitch.”
Her gaze came up to meet his, anger burning bright. Taking a step toward the bed, he stared back at her. “I feel real sorry for you, sweetheart, but guess what? We’re all getting fucked on this merry-go-round. One way or the other every one of us is taking it in the shorts. Why should you be the exception?”
He saw her hands clench and then she forcibly relaxed them. Her voice came out low and controlled. “Why are you being an asshole to me? I agreed to help you, even after what you did to me. I’m sacrificing my loyalty to Michael to help you. Why are you treating me this way?”
“Just like I told you last night. You always have a choice. You don’t have to help me. You’re free to walk away.”
“Free?” Her voice rose with anger. She pointed a finger at him. “You forced me into this, and until it’s over, I won’t be free of it or you. Oh no, I’ll see it through, thank you. I’m going to be right there when you nail this guy. That’s what you want, isn’t it? You want me there when you nail Michael? Prove to me you’re a better man than he is?”
Conrad held his breath and counted to ten. She’d called his bluff. He couldn’t stand fighting with her. “What I want is you, Jules.” His voice was sincere, reasonable. “I want you here with me, not at Stone’s mansion on the hill.”
“Stop it.”
“You don’t belong with—”
“Shut up, Flynn.”
“—him. You belong with me.” He jabbed a thumb into his chest, hating himself for always pushing her, but unable to stop. “I want your tongue in my mouth and your legs wrapped around my waist. I want you—”
“Shut up!”
“—totally, completely here with me.”
She jumped up on the bed, crossed it in one step and came at him, pushing him up against the wall with unbelievable force for someone he outweighed by seventy pounds.
“You have no right.” She slammed her hands into his chest again. “You have no goddamn right to me anymore!”
Conrad stood still, looking into her eyes and hating himself. Hating the whole damn mess he’d gotten both of them into. “You’re right,” he said softly. He grabbed her arms and gently pushed her back a step. “I’ll go get those listening devices for you.”
She deflated like a balloon and dropped her hands to her sides. The green eyes he would die for looked at him unflinchingly. “It’s not him, Con,” she said, almost pleading. “Michael is no traitor.”
Conrad refused to acknowledge her statement as he slipped out of the room and headed for the door.
Goddamn, he thought, Michael Stone is one lucky man.
Chapter Fifteen
When Michael entered his bedroom after midnight, Israel was on his mind. Safe rooms had been a standard feature in newly constructed homes there for years. A safe room, with its metal doors, could be sealed off to keep out poisonous gasses, a constant threat from Iraq. This is my safe room, he thought, pulling off his suit jacket and throwing it on the bed. The room wouldn’t keep him safe from chemical or biological weapons, but it did offer him something less tangible and every bit as important when he left the CIA behind. It was the one place where he could find peace and happiness, no matter what was happening outside its walls.
Abigail must have given up her vigil of waiting for him. The room was dark except for moonlight s
hining through the western window. His eyes adjusted to the darkness and he snapped his fingers at Pongo to lie down on his dog bed. The dog obeyed with a heavy sigh and Michael glanced casually at Abby’s side of the bed. No Abigail, just an open book of Rumi poetry she had been reading. He shifted his gaze to the nearby chair. Her leather jacket was strewn haphazardly across the back.
Setting his briefcase on the floor, he looked around. The security alarm’s usual green light was red, meaning it was off. He stood still and listened, noting that Pongo was not at all distressed, but still feeling a strange sense of unease. Something was off, and Michael was not one to ignore his internal warning system. A noise outside brought his attention to the French doors. On the balcony stood a figure dressed in black from head to toe…
Michael picked up his remote security device and put his back to the wall. Before he could push the alert button, the figure shifted and something about the way it moved seemed familiar. Another second passed as he continued to watch the figure’s face become illuminated by the moon.
What the…?
Michael threw open the doors and the figure startled. Abby turned, her face opening up in a smile for him. “Michael,” she breathed on a hard exhale. “I didn’t know you were home.”
“What in God’s name are you doing, Abby?”
When Michael entered his bedroom after midnight, Julia was pulling herself up over the balcony’s side railing. Ace, her new partner in crime, had come through for her. Conrad had gotten in to Michael’s house by bypassing security with a few simple tricks involving Pongo’s outside dog kennel.
Using night-vision goggles, the spy had slipped between the infrared tripwires near the dog kennel which sat almost directly under the balcony. The kennel itself was directly connected to the house with a doggy door Pongo used daily. The motion detector in that sector was set at thirty-six inches off the ground because the dog was constantly tripping it. No motion detector, no alarm. And when Con entered the kennel, Pongo was off for his daily run with Michael. No dog, no problem.
Julia had had to try it for herself. So she’d shut off the motion detector for that quadrant just like Michael did whenever they were going to sit on the balcony. Then she snuck out by way of the balcony, dropped down to the kennel area below and—voilá!—entered the house through the doggy door, Pongo her eager sidekick in the game. Reversing the route, she’d gone out through the kennel, to double check. Unfortunately she’d heard the sound of the garage door opening and Michael’s car zooming in when she was still outside. Pongo took off to greet him and Julia stood for half a second holding her breath. The doggie door entered the kitchen, right off the mudroom that tied the garage to the house.
Trying not to panic, she’d considered her choices. One, she could go back into the house via the doggy door and make up some story about playing with the dog that would sound totally lame, or, two, she could climb back up the balcony and try to sneak into the bedroom, throw off her black turtleneck and jeans and jump into bed.
Option two seemed viable. Michael usually stopped off in his home office to unload his briefcase and check his messages before he came upstairs to the bedroom. Scrambling to the top of the kennel, Julia jumped and climbed hand-over-hand up one of the balcony’s posts and hauled herself over the railing.
But, surprise, Michael had bypassed the routine stop in his office and was entering his room a few seconds later.
Catching her breath, Julia held on to the railing and racked her brain for a good story. When Michael opened the patio doors, she still didn’t have one. So she smiled and silently begged her right brain to get creative. “Michael,” she breathed on a hard exhale. “I didn’t know you were home.”
“What in God’s name are you doing, Abby?”
Reaching out for him, she pulled him to the railing, stalling for the briefest of seconds, desperate to dodge what was coming. What was the best way to handle this? A full-blown lie? A half-truth? “Waiting for you,” she said cheerfully. Score one for truth.
His gaze slid over her clothes. “Why are you dressed like that? You look like Mission Impossible trying to break into my house.”
Julia glanced down at her clothes and gave a dismissive wave. “I wanted to see the moon, stargaze a little, and after everything that’s been going on, I wasn’t sure who might be watching me or your house, so I threw on some black clothes. You know, to camouflage myself. You told me to be careful, remember? Isn’t it beautiful tonight?” She pointed up at the moon, cringing inside at her rambling half-truth and inane attempt at changing the subject.
Michael ignored the night sky and took her in, processing her words, her clothes, her too cheerful explanations, Julia knew, which made her acutely aware of two things. One, Michael didn’t believe her, not totally anyway, and two, she had definitely lost her ability to lie successfully under pressure. She was sure she could blame Conrad for that.
Michael leaned his hip against the railing and crossed his arms. Waiting. Patiently.
For the truth.
As she took a deep breath, Julia flipped on the bravado switch. Truth or Consequences was always a tough game, but sometimes a little truth mixed with a lot of confidence would carry it off. “I was playing spy.” She looked him squarely in the eyes, hoping the act to follow was more believable. “And checking out your security system. The bugs in my apartment and car, the fact someone might be watching us, following us. The fact that we still don’t know who disposed of Conrad and the others…” She let her voice trail off before she continued. “I’m a little freaked. I needed to double check things here myself. To feel safe again.”
Michael’s posture didn’t change, but Julia felt a subtle drop in tension. His voice was smooth, calm and assuring instead of accusatory, when he commented. “That’s understandable. Do you feel safer now that you’ve checked things out?”
A flush of relief spread through Julia’s body and for a second she almost told him the truth—that any decent criminal could slip through his expensive security system. But something—that little spy voice Con had planted in her head—made her stop before she spilled the beans.
Staring at Michael’s dark gaze and knowing what a crappy day he’d had and yet he was still able to understand her paranoia, she felt a little flip in her stomach. It was a beautiful night and any other time she would have enjoyed seductively wiggling her way into Michael’s arms and pushing a few of his testosterone buttons. He was smart and intuitive, but he was still of the male species and sex was always the fastest and most fun way to pull him out of a bad mood.
But the instant she thought about laying Michael, naked and needy, out on the patio table under the full moon, Conrad and his damned lips popped into her head. And then a memory of the two of them lying on the floor of a small walled balcony outside of Paris, rain falling on a canopy of potted palms and ferns that circled the stone walls and dripping off onto their naked bodies. Con kissing her wherever a drop fell. She felt a shiver and the flip in her stomach again, but this time it made her lightheaded. She grabbed the balcony railing and looked out into the night.
“We need to talk, Abby.”
Uh-oh. Still not off the hook, and sex was out of the question. From somewhere deep inside her brain, a thought sprang forth. She faced him. “Say my name.”
Michael raised his eyebrows. “Abigail,” he responded.
Julia shook her head. “I want to hear you say my real name.”
The air between them seemed to fuzz out as Michael hesitated. He rubbed his eyes and dropped one hand to the railing.
“Please.” A true ache of longing had lodged in her chest. This wasn’t just about getting Michael off track or buying herself a few more minutes to think. She really wanted to hear him say her real name. To see her, not as Abigail Quinn, but as Julia Torrison. Not the Julia he’d picked up and put back together, but the Julia who stood before him, confident and able to take care of herself.
Michael closed his eyes for a moment and seemed to resi
gn himself to her lead. “Julia,” he said, his voice hoarse.
She smiled. “Again.”
“Julia.” This time it came out stronger.
Letting out a sigh, she slid into his body, her back to his stomach as she looked out over the dark landscape lit softly by the moon. “It’s late,” she said, drawing his arms around her. “You’ve had a long day. Let’s save the talk until morning.”
After a second, she felt his chin rest on the top of her head, felt the release of his breath, and she knew she’d won this round of Truth or Consequences. At the very least, delayed it.
A few hours later, just before sunrise, Julia awoke with Michael’s arm thrown over her. Before she could think, she scanned the room, looking for Conrad. Assured he wasn’t there, she snuggled down under the covers and tried to go back to sleep, but her brain wouldn’t let her. While she’d been sleeping, her subconscious had seized on a thought. Now awake, her brain spit it out and it seemed reasonable. Fleshing out the details, Julia let the idea float around for awhile while she listened to Michael’s solid deep breathing. She knew how to take his doubts away and still get out from under his watchful eye while she tracked down the real traitor.
Pleased she still had some deviousness left in her and satisfied her plan wouldn’t hurt Michael in any way, she relaxed and fell asleep again as the room began to lighten with the first bars of sunlight.
Chapter Sixteen
Fayez Raissi lay on the damp grass and hugged the butt end of the Russian-made SVD sniper rifle to his shoulder. Dressed in black from head to toe, his face smeared with camouflage makeup, the terrorist blended into the canopy of trees and bushes around him as he lay on his stomach. The sun was clearing the horizon, spotlighting his target nicely. Allahu Akbar. God is great.