Speak Now

by Margaret Dumas

  This time I said it. “Oh.”

  He grinned and held out his hand. “Take care, Charley. I hope to see you again soon.”

  I shook, grudgingly.

  “Sir.” He gave Harry a mock salute. “Brenda.” He nodded at her. “Call me if you need me, Jack.” And he left.

  I looked at Jack, propped up where Gordon had left him. “Sleep?” I suggested.

  “Sleep,” he agreed.

  Chapter 13

  We wandered into the first available guest room and were asleep before touching down on the mattress. When I woke up the light was dim. I couldn’t tell if it was dusk or dawn.

  I rolled over to check on Jack. He seemed to be sleeping peacefully, although I wasn’t sure if it was from exhaustion or the shot Gordon had given him. If past history was any guide, though, he’d wake up if I stared at him hard enough. I decided to let him sleep. He’d need his strength. I had a lot of questions for him.

  I realized I was still wearing my blood-stained pants and Harry’s shirt over my blood-soaked bra. I left the bed as quietly as I could and stumbled into the adjoining bathroom. I took what was arguably the best shower of my life.

  Someone had hung two sets of silk pajamas with matching robes on the towel rack, one creamy beige and about my size, and the other a deep bronze that would fit Jack. I dried off and slipped into the soft fabric. By the time I tied the belt I felt ready to face the world, or at least the household, again.

  I slipped out the door and headed for the kitchen, figuring if anyone was awake they’d be eating. A glance at the hall clock told me it was evening after all. I’d slept for about nine hours.

  I heard voices coming from the kitchen. It sounded like a private conversation so I hesitated outside the door.

  “Do you need anything?”

  It was Gordon’s voice. I couldn’t hear the answer.

  “Understand this is not a conversation I’ll be sharing with your father.” So the other person must be Cece.

  “All right then, the truth. Are you clean?”

  Cece hesitated, but I heard her answer. “I’m clean.” Her voice got stronger, and harsher. “Haven’t you heard? I turned my life around for the love of a good man.”

  Gordon cleared his throat. “I think it’s best to focus on the result, rather than the cause. Will you be all right here?”

  Cece’s voice had the mocking defiance that indicated trouble. “You mean will I go back to my badass ways if I’m back in my old environment?”

  “Something like that.”

  There was a long silence. Then, “I don’t know.”

  Well, at least she wasn’t kidding herself. I felt guilty for listening, so slipped quietly down the hall. It occurred to me to wonder why Cece was having such a personal conversation with Harry’s cook, but then I figured it was better not to wonder too much about Gordon. The man had hidden depths.

  I heard Harry’s voice and followed it to his study. He was in position at his desk, feet up, with a half-empty bottle of the Macallan and a plate of sandwiches in front of him. He slammed the phone down as I entered the room. “That useless sonofabitch! Calls himself a security specialist!”

  Ah. No doubt it had been the firm of McIntyre and Zipfel on the other end of the line.

  “Feel like sharing?” I gestured to the bottle as I slumped into an enormous leather chair opposite him.

  He poured an inch or so into a heavy crystal glass and pushed it across the desk. “How are you? How’s Jack?”

  “Still sleeping.” I took a sip of the amber liquid. A mellow warmth slid down my throat. “What have I missed?”

  “You didn’t answer my question.” He poured himself another. “How are you?”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Me? Well, gosh, let me see. My husband has been shot, my best friend is afraid to go back to her own house, I’ve got a lump the size of a golf ball on my head, and the only thing I know about the guy who’s behind it all is that he’s still out there.” I reached for a sandwich. “All in all, I’m pretty good. Mmm.” Rare roast beef and gorgonzola on thick crusty bread.

  “Not to mention…” Harry said, leaning back in his chair and rocking.

  I nodded slowly and regarded my uncle. “Not to mention, I don’t know who the hell I’m married to or who his friends are.”

  “Oh, you know who he is, I guess,” Harry said reasonably. “You’re just not sure what he is. Or was.”

  “Right.” What a lovely distinction.

  “So—” he gazed at the ceiling— “not too bad.”

  We munched and sipped for a while in an oddly companionable silence. I broke it after a while. “Harry, I’m sorry.” It must have been the single-malt talking. “I should have invited you to my wedding.”

  He stopped rocking for a moment, then resumed. “Yes.”

  I struggled not to get irritated. “I didn’t want you to…but you did anyway…and now I just…” Perhaps I’d had enough to drink.

  “Charley, for what it’s worth, I haven’t found out one goddamn thing about that man of yours that doesn’t make me like him more.”

  I let that sink in. “I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me what you did find out? Why you got Jack involved in all of this? Why you trusted him with Cece?”

  “As far as what I found out…” He seemed to choose his words carefully. “Let’s just say that I am of the firm conviction that Jack Fairfax is less of a pussy than his official records indicate.”

  “Right.” I knew Harry well enough not to press it. Besides, I didn’t want to hear Jack’s secrets from Harry. But I damn sure wanted to hear them from Jack.

  “And as far as why I trusted him with Cece…” he continued, clearing his throat. “Well, I trust him with you, don’t I?”

  I looked him in the eye. He was offering me a truce. “Right,” I nodded.

  In other families there might have been a hug at that point. This wasn’t other families. Harry opened his desk drawer and pulled out a box. “I want you to have this.”

  A wedding present? I opened the box. “A gun.”

  He held up his hands to ward off my expected protests. “Now, I know you don’t like guns, but this is one goddamn situation we’ve got here, and—”

  I slammed the lid shut. “I’ll take it.”

  He blinked.

  “On one condition.”

  His eyes narrowed.

  “Promise me you won’t…” How to put it? “While Brenda’s staying here…don’t…” Ugh.

  A slow grin spread over his face. He reached for a cigar and twirled it between his fingers. “I’m flattered.” He held the cigar up to his ear and listened to the crackle of the tobacco. “But you know I’m just a harmless old man.”

  Right.

  ***

  I went back upstairs and looked at Jack, still sleeping, solid and familiar. Or possibly a complete stranger, some action hero I’d met the night before. In any case, I slid back into bed next to him and slept all the way through to morning.

  When I woke again I had the oddest sensation. I opened my eyes and found Jack, inches away from my face, staring at me. “Cut that out!” I jumped away.

  “See? It’s funny until you’re on the receiving end of it.”

  I thought about hitting him with a pillow but decided I’d check on his shoulder first. “How are you?”

  “Damn good, or so I’ve been told.” He wiggled his eyebrows.

  He must be feeling better. I noticed he’d showered and shaved and was wearing the bronze silk ensemble. “How’s the shoulder?”

  He did a Pete Townsend windmill air-guitar move. “Great.”

  “Very nice. Now how about the one with the bullet in it?”

  He moved his left arm gingerly. “It hasn’t got a bullet in it. The bullet went through.”

  “Uh huh. Has Doctor Gordon had a look at it?”

  “He changed the dressing after I showered.” Jack moved closer and got that look in his eye. “And I shaved. Did you notice?”
>
  “Just get one thing straight, mister,” I told him. “I’m not having sex with you in this house no matter how cute and clean-shaven you may be.”

  He looked at me. “Then let’s get out of here.”

  ***

  Jack had rounded up some clothes while I’d been sleeping. A black jogging suit with a red stripe down the sides and a matching red shirt for me, presumably left by one of Harry’s more fitness-minded conquests, and jeans with a gray sweater for himself.

  I scooped my hair back into a ponytail, wincing as I ran the brush over the bump on my head. When I saw myself in the bathroom mirror I was surprised. No makeup, no styling products in my hair, and borrowed clothes, but I didn’t look bad. There was a not-unpleasant flush to my cheeks, and I had to admit, now that the danger was past, I was finding our whole adventure pretty exciting. It was wrong, I knew, because what I’d told Harry the previous night had been true—the person responsible was still out there and we didn’t know why he’d done it or if he’d try something again.

  But it was also true that I wasn’t afraid as long as Jack was around. Even the new Jack, who was apparently accustomed to sprinting through a hail of bullets. The idea of figuring out who the kidnapper was and finding him had a certain appeal. I could picture us, Jack and me, as this incredibly cool crime-solving couple. Something along the lines of the Avengers, but with massive amounts of sex. I was wondering if I could pull off a black leather jumpsuit when Jack stuck his head in the door.

  “Are you about ready? I’m starving.”

  I jumped and dropped the hairbrush. Not a particularly smooth secret-agent sort of move, but, unlike my husband, I was new to this.

  ***

  Gordon offered to fix something for us, but I was bursting to get out of the house.

  “Where’s everybody else?” I asked him.

  “Your uncle took your cousin and Miss Gee shopping.”

  “Shopping?” Of course he did.

  Gordon smiled briefly. “The security people sent some of Miss Gee’s things over, but not everything she needs, and your cousin’s things were all lost in the…recent events.”

  Cece and Brenda shopping together was hard enough to get my head around, but Harry tagging along behind them was simply too much. I looked at Jack. “Let’s get out of here.”

  We borrowed Harry’s Lexus and headed downhill to the little town of Burlingame. There we sat at a sidewalk table and ate mountainous stacks of the world’s best pancakes, while watching what my friend Simon calls “the suburban dog and baby show.”

  I wanted to ask Jack some serious questions someplace with no distractions and nobody to overhear us, so I suggested we head over to Half Moon Bay and the beach. Jack looked doubtful. “Will it be warm?”

  “Of course not,” I scoffed. “It’ll be foggy and windy, but the fresh air will do us good.”

  We took Highway 92 to Half Moon Bay, then turned North on Highway 1. It wasn’t as foggy as I’d predicted, and we stopped at the first of the state beaches that dotted the way up the coast.

  We took off our shoes and walked along the beach near the water, where the sand was wet, cold, and hard. We held hands, which was corny but nice. I had to remind myself we weren’t here just to relax and enjoy the moment. I had an agenda. What I didn’t have was a clear idea about how to approach the subject of my husband’s apparent wealth of experience in covert operations. Finally I just took a breath and plunged in.

  “Jack?”

  “Hmm?”

  I pointed to the sky over an outcropping of rocks to the north. “What kind of clouds are those?”

  He stopped, shielding his eyes from the hazy light of the sun. “Well, that one looks a little like a pony.” He gestured. “And over there I think I see a bunny.”

  I looked at him. “Hilarious.”

  He spread his hands. “I hope I wasn’t too technical.”

  We walked a little further.

  “Jack?”

  “Still here.”

  “You really do have a degree in meteorology?”

  “And physical oceanography. Yes.”

  “And when you were in the Navy, on a ship or something,” I pursued, “you predicted the weather?”

  “I did.” He nodded. “Here’s an interesting bit of trivia. On a ship, the meteorology officer gets a porthole. It’s very handy to be able to look outside when you’re writing the weather report.”

  “This is my own fault,” I said. “I did tell you I liked your line of bullshit.”

  We strolled in tandem for a while, with Jack’s arm draped around my shoulders, stopping occasionally to let the water lap towards our toes or to exchange a brief nibble on the neck. We looked just like any of the other windblown couples out braving the elements on a summer day. Then I tried again.

  “Jack?”

  “Charley?”

  “Was predicting the weather the only thing you did for the Navy?”

  He stopped and squinted out to sea.

  “Because,” I tried, “for a meteorologist, you do a damned good impression of a spy.”

  The sand suddenly became fascinating to him. “Don’t spies, uh, spy on people?”

  “All right, then, a secret agent, an undercover operative, an espionage…person. Whatever you want to call it.” I turned to face him. “Seriously, Jack. Are you one?”

  He pulled me toward him and wrapped his arms around me. “I’m retired.”

  “Yes, but a retired what?” I persisted. “And who the hell is Mike, really? And what has Tom Nelson got to do with any of us?”

  “If I say Mike’s an old Navy buddy and I have no idea who Tom Nelson is, will you let it go?”

  “Probably not.”

  He looked at me long and hard. “Charley, I will do everything I know how to protect you.”

  That was comforting. The list of things he knew how to do was turning out to be rather extensive. “Jack.” I pulled away. “Do you know who kidnapped Cece?”

  He held my eyes with his. “I think so.”

  I nodded. “Is he another spy? Because the whole thing seems pretty elaborate for just a run-of-the-mill kidnapper. Is he someone you used to…work against?”

  Jack’s jaw tightened. “Someone I used to work with.”

  “What?” I reached for the only explanation that made sense. “Does he want money?”

  Jack picked up a stray piece of driftwood. “If it’s the guy I’m thinking of, there’s more to it than money.” He squinted into the distance. “If it’s the guy I’m thinking of, it’s more personal than that.”

  “Why? Who is he?”

  Jack threw the stick into the sea. “I can’t, Charley.”

  “You mean you won’t.”

  His mouth twisted in frustration. “Look, aside from any other reasons I have for not spilling my guts, I may be wrong. This all feels like something this guy would do, but it can’t be him. It’s impossible.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s in solitary confinement in a maximum-security military prison.” He paused. “I put him there.”

  Oh.

  ***

  On the way back to the city I tried to adjust to my new reality. Imprisoned psycho killer toying with us in order to punish husband. Check. Husband undoubtedly some sort of ex-spy, apparently accustomed to shootouts. Check. Husband’s friend Mike presumably the same. Check. Uncle setting up militia-like encampment with best friend. Check.

  I should have felt a lot worse.

  But the same little bubble of excitement I’d felt that morning was percolating again. And as I turned the facts over, one thing became increasingly clear.

  “Jack,” I said. “This isn’t over.”

  He kept his eyes on the road. “No.”

  “Tom Nelson, or whoever he is, is going to strike again.”

  “Strike?” Jack echoed.

  “So we have to do the sensible thing.”

  “Good…”

  “And the only sensible thing is to f
ind him before he finds us.”

  “Charley!” Jack slammed on the brakes and pulled over to the side of the road. “Don’t even think about it! Have you forgotten that lump on your head and this hole in my shoulder? This isn’t a game!”

  I’d never seen him angry before. God, he was sexy. “Of course, Jack,” I agreed. “Whatever you say.”

  He pulled back onto the road after muttering a few things I didn’t quite catch, which was probably just as well. I looked out at the ocean and tried to come up with a question he might actually answer. Which wouldn’t be easy. An hour of demands to know more about the former colleague he’d put in prison had gotten me exactly nowhere.

  I chewed my lip for a while and went over the events of the last thirty-six hours. “Jack.” I decided to tug on a loose thread. “Why did you let Gordon practically perform surgery on you? I mean, he’s Harry’s cook but we all just meekly accepted that he knew what he was doing.”

  Jack waited a few beats before answering, “Didn’t I mention I knew Gordon before?”

  “Let’s not get into the whole list of things you didn’t mention,” I suggested. “How do you know him?” He didn’t reply. “Jack!”

  “All right, all right, calm down.” He glanced over at me. “Gordon and Mike left the Navy at the same time I did, around four months ago. Mike went to Palo Alto to get his company started, and Gordon had plans to go to San Francisco and open a restaurant, but he did some traveling first. I ran into him in London about two weeks after I met you.” He shot me a quick glance. “You’d told me where you were from, and you’d mentioned Harry, but you always avoided any questions about your family.”

  “Can you blame me?” I asked. Then it hit me. “You sent Gordon to spy on my family?”

  Jack had the decency to look embarrassed. “Well, Pumpkin, you did seem too good to be true—I mean, can’t you see why I was a little suspicious?”

  “Oh my God!” I stared at him. “You did! You sent Gordon to spy on my family!”

  “Just to verify what you’d told me—nothing more. But then when Gordon met Harry, and it turned out Harry was looking for a cook…” Jack looked over again to see how I was taking it.