“More security than mourners. Alexei’s legacy,” Nick murmured.
“So far all I see are the usual suspects.” She recognized everyone in the chapel. The five employees of Markos Imports, owners of neighboring shops, a couple of D.C. detectives and Alexei’s defense attorney. And, of course, Janine, who had come for them, not for her former employer.
Quiet whispers brushed the chapel’s stone walls like wind gusting through desiccated leaves. The dour Mr. Falstone stepped to the podium. The susurrus ended.
Nick squeezed her hand as the funeral director began to read a prayer. After a Bible reading and two hymns, the service mercifully concluded.
“Now comes the hard part.” He stood and turned, facing the curious and the concerned.
Employees, business contacts and a few others regarded him as if expecting him to voice a tribute to his late brother. No chance in hell of that.
“Dwight Wickham and Abdul Nadim are sitting together.” A low rumble of displeasure emitted from Nick’s chest. “Look for blood in the water.”
“Tsk, tsk. Nadim seems like a teddy bear, not a shark.”
“Trust me. Abdul doesn’t get regular write-ups in the Post financial pages by being cuddly. If those two sharks team up, I’ll be lucky to have a bone of profit from the sale of Markos Imports.”
They proceeded down the aisle and waited at the open doorway to accept greetings and condolences. Wickham and Nadim hesitated by the doorway. Even in suits and somber ties, the two entrepreneurs had the avaricious air of used-car salesmen.
Maybe Nick was right about sharks.
He drew back as they approached the rear. A hawkish-featured man lurked behind the two businessmen.
“Prince Amir. Another shark. Why the hell is he here?” His eyes narrowed to laser-blue slits.
She whispered back, “To pay his respects, I imagine. Behave.”
“I always do, honey. Watch me.” A feral smile curved his mouth as the three men approached the doorway.
Most of the others had trudged out into the steady downpour. Janine, clutching her purse to her breast, waited by the last pew. Two DARK officers dressed in dark suits and darker expressions — undercover as funeral home employees — edged forward, ready to move if the need arose.
Vanessa expected no trouble from these men other than sharp bargaining. DARK reports said Abdul Nadim and Dwight Wickham were what they appeared to be, successful businessmen. Although the king’s abdication had trampled on his son’s future ascension to the throne, Amir exhibited no apparent political leanings or ambitions.
Hands were shaken all around as Wickham and Nadim shuffled between polite comments about the ceremony and oblique references to the sale of the business.
“Gentlemen,” Nick said, “thank you. On behalf of my family, I appreciate your coming out in the rain today.”
Amir bowed over Vanessa’s hand. “Appropriate weather for such a sad occasion.”
“I wasn’t aware you knew my brother.” Nick curved a proprietary arm around Vanessa’s shoulders. “I appreciate the gesture.”
The Yamari prince waved a manicured hand in dismissal. “I knew Alexei but not well. We met a few years ago at an embassy gathering. He subsequently handled the sale of some family pieces. He had wide knowledge of such things.”
“Yes,” Vanessa hastened to say, “in spite of … his other failings, he was an expert on Eastern antiquities.”
Amid farewells, the party stepped out into the rain and mist. More DARK officers covered the grounds. Good. If New Dawn was planning something, now would be the time. But no figurative red flag of danger popped up. Satisfied, she inhaled the raw air, less stifling than the musty confines of the chapel.
Their companions splashed through puddles toward other cars farther down the drive. A liveried chauffeur at attention held a limousine door for the prince.
She jerked a nod toward the fawning driver. “McNair could take lessons from him in proper chauffeur protocol.”
From the corner of her eye, she saw Janine cover a smile.
Nick snorted his disdain as he took the women’s elbows. “I prefer security to sucking up.”
The Mercedes was parked in a reserved space behind the hearse about a hundred feet away. They traipsed toward it across the wet grass.
“Good thing. You won’t get sucking up from McNair,” Vanessa observed wryly. “Instead of holding the door, he seems to have dozed off. I see his cap against the headrest.”
Silent up to that point, Janine said, “Me, I do like a man in uniform. Something about that cap…” She sighed and lifted her shoulder in a very French shrug.
Cap? Ye gods, no!
Vanessa slipped from Nick’s grasp. She grabbed his and Janine’s arms. She tugged and gestured to the DARK officers.
“Quick, get back to the chapel! Now!”
A scowl darkened Nick’s face, but he let her drag him backward. “What the hell!”
His gaze sharpened as if recognizing the alarm on her face. He curved his arms around the women and they all ran.
Behind them, the Mercedes blew apart in a fiery blast of metal and glass.
Chapter 17
THE BLAST THREW them to the ground. Pressure cartwheeled their umbrellas across the muddy lawn. In an eerie echo of Nick’s nightmare, sizzling debris, steaming in the rain, poured around them and on them.
Seconds later DARK officers helped them to their feet.
Nick spat out mud and grass. Heart pounding, he gripped Vanessa’s shoulders. He searched her pale face for blood or signs of pain. “Are you all right?”
Mud smeared her wool coat and the knees of her black pants. Strands of hair plastered the shoulders of her coat, but her eyes were clear. “Fine. Just wet.”
He followed her gaze to the DARK control officer — Byrne was his name. Even in a suit, no one looked less like a funeral home employee.
She quivered in Nick’s grip like a thoroughbred straining at the gate, but didn’t attempt to break free and join her colleagues. Danielle stayed by her lover’s side.
He helped Janine sit up. “Are you hurt?”
“Fine, jus’ fine. Big blow,” she said. “But not so bad like the hurricane that blew away my house.” The unflappable Haitian housekeeper brushed at her muddy clothing with a snowy handkerchief.
He’d long ago informed Janine of New Dawn’s threats, so he wouldn’t have to explain now. She thought the driver was hired protection and knew nothing of DARK’s involvement.
“Pauvre J.T. These enemies of Monsieur Markos, ils sont méchants.”
Nick stared at the smoldering ruin of his Mercedes and its grisly passenger. “Wicked. Yes, Janine, very wicked.”
If not for Vanessa’s sudden alarm, they would’ve died in the same inferno as the driver. He could’ve lost her. All that warmth and passion could’ve been snuffed out in an instant. A steel band vised his chest, and his hands shook. He’d never cared this much before. She was a woman meant to have a home and family, a woman with more strings than the London Symphony Orchestra. And he was a man bound to his demons.
He wrapped her in his arms and buried his nose in her hair. Her familiar fragrance blocked out the confusing thoughts and the smells of burning metal, fabric and flesh. He couldn’t yet grasp what he felt, so instead, he said, “I’m sorry about McNair.”
She shook her head, her face rubbing against his damp suit. “That’s not McNair. It’s not J.T. in the car.” She lifted her gaze to his.
“You saw something at the last minute. What was it?”
She smiled at the housekeeper, who was gaping at her statement. “Janine, you said something about his cap. We all saw the chauffeur’s cap against the headrest. But McNair wasn’t wearing a cap.”
“Mon Dieu! Then where is that man?” Janine exclaimed.
“He can’t be far. The … security people will find him.” She stepped back and stared at her hands. Blood smeared the palms and finge
rs. “Nick, you’re bleeding!”
He hadn’t noticed, but now he felt stinging sensations as if a spray of buckshot had peppered his back. He must’ve taken the brunt when he covered the two women from the blast.
Cheeks pale as parchment, Vanessa turned him around. “Your raincoat’s in shreds. Burned and sliced by falling shrapnel. You’ll need stitches.”
Shrapnel. Staccato bursts of Kalashnikov rounds. RPGs. The sting of cordite and smoke … and burning flesh. The attack in the village tattooed his brain. He squeezed his eyes shut and fisted his hands to keep them from shaking.
“I be fixin’ you a healin’ salve, Monsieur Nick.” Janine clucked her tongue.
Affection and compassion in her eyes, Vanessa lifted his arm around her shoulders, as if she could support him.
He couldn’t utter the words that it wasn’t today’s wounds that coated his face with a cold sweat. If only a salve were the cure. Dredging up strength, he murmured thanks. Over the fire’s roar, sirens and the protest of fire-truck klaxons screamed toward them.
Mr. Falstone stood in the chapel doorway with the organist. Shoulders slumped like his jowls, he didn’t look so pompous. He shook his head at the burning frame that had been Falstone and Drumm’s newest hearse.
Around them DARK was slowly bringing order to chaos. Their tiny radios squawking, men and women strode by — crows with black raincoats flapping over their somber feathers. Behind the barricade the D.C. detectives had set up, the vultures peered and pointed. A man in lime-green bicycle shorts and a helmet craned his neck to see over the somberly clad mourners.
The Somalia flashback receded, and Nick focused on the present situation. Was one of those people a real vulture? Ice congealed in his gut at the image of Vanessa in that inferno. The bomber had killed whoever had been in the car and might’ve gotten them, too. “Look at that bunch. Did one of the guests I greeted set up this bombing?”
Vanessa’s brow crinkled. “Security was tight. And I see no motive. How would Husam Al-Din collect his ten million if you or I were dead? And who is in the car?”
Rage boiled his blood. His jaw tightened reflexively. “If I had the damn money, I’d be tempted to give it to the bastard just to end this thing.” He was vaguely aware of her shocked intake of breath, but his brain was working on the problem.
Vanessa had put her life on the line enough. End the threat? Yes, that was what he must do.
Police, fire trucks and ambulances added to the chaos of who was in charge. No one was injured in the blast but Nick and the unknown driver. The emergency medics dispensed blankets to keep the others warm until the authorities released them.
Vanessa watched as an EMT cleaned and smeared antiseptic cream on Nick’s cuts and burns. Only one cut appeared deep enough for stitches, and Nick persuaded the man to sew him up then and there so he wouldn’t have to endure a hospital. She left Janine standing over him at the ambulance while she went to check on what had happened to J. T. McNair.
After a brief search, Byrne and Harris had found the driver out cold in a clump of shrubbery. A search of the burned Mercedes determined that the so-called chauffeur was a suicide bomber. Sticks of dynamite and a detonator strapped around his torso formed the extra bulk. None of the DARK personnel knew how he got to the chapel. And whoever his accomplice was sure wasn’t volunteering the information.
Vanessa and Nick returned to the Chevy Chase house in a D.C. black-and-white. Against Janine’s protests that she had work to do, Nick commandeered one of his “security” people to drive her home.
When Vanessa returned late that night from debriefing, Nick was waiting for her at the top of the stairs. Showing no ill effects of the day, he looked just as sexy and dangerous as ever in worn and thigh-fitting jeans. His injuries, minor cuts only, were hidden beneath his shirt, a tee as gray as his face had been. She suspected the explosion and seeing his own blood threw him back in time, triggered his emotional reaction and shock.
She let her gaze wander from his black hair to his strong features, stamped with arrogance and determination. And yes, pride in the set of his chin. Protecting her was giving him back some of his lost pride and honor. She would help him beat the remaining guilt if she could. The only softness was in his dark, spiky lashes and the sensuous mouth that could kiss her into oblivion.
Knowing the end was inevitable kept her from blurting out her true feelings for him. Their intimacy had grown and deepened. Beyond sex, they shared themselves, their hopes and dreams. In bed he took control, but also relinquished it to her. He ensured her pleasure — a mild word for the sparkling wildfires that his lovemaking swept through her — until his own climax destroyed his control.
Leaving him, leaving the connection they shared would shatter her already cracked heart. She’d feared becoming too immersed in an undercover role and the worst had happened. She’d fallen in love with a man out of her league. A man who’d hate her if he knew part of her job was to spy on him.
No matter the outcome of their affair, she would find the truth that would set this man free of guilt.
She longed for nothing more than to lose herself in his arms, for reassurance they were well and whole and together, for the wonder she found only in his arms. But she had a job to do. A job made more dangerous by today’s events. And time was running short. There was no time for vulnerability or one-sided love.
After a hot shower, she’d donned her warmest outfit, light wool slacks and a rose-pink cashmere sweater. She still felt chilled to the bone. The bomber nearly included all three of them in his bid for glory in the afterlife. What Nick said worried her more at present. If he found the money, he wouldn’t really give any of it to New Dawn. She knew that.
But Simon Byrne didn’t.
The DARK control officer had been standing nearby. He heard every heartfelt word. She’d given up searching Nick’s papers and laptop, but after today Simon insisted on a nightly report. She had no choice. Duty came first. But it made her feel lower than a snake. She was sure her guilt flashed in neon on her forehead. Nick’s expression showed no suspicion, no hint that he knew she’d just come from snooping in the study. So she manufactured a tired smile.
“How’s the back?” she asked as she trudged up the stairs. His soreness might give her the excuse to sleep alone.
“No worse than a sunburn. Maybe it’s Haitian voodoo, but Janine’s salve eased the sting.” His too-careful stance said otherwise.
“You’ll be sleeping on your belly for a while.”
His sly grin and heavy-lidded gaze gave her heart a kick. “And I promised you could be on top tonight.”
The sexy rejoinder heated her cheeks. He wanted her. Really wanted her. And she fought not to care if he wanted her as herself or as her undercover persona. The way he looked at her and the tender way he touched her made her feel beautiful, desirable and, yes, glamorous. She halted her progress two steps below the top. If she went into his arms, her willpower would melt like an ice cube in a furnace.
The moment and his comment required not drama but levity. And diplomacy. Forming what she thought was a sexy pout, she gazed up at him. “A broken promise. I’m deeply wounded. Maybe this betrayal calls for abstinence.”
His look didn’t waver in intensity. His hot-eyed gaze cruised her body. “Abstinence would punish us both.”
She licked her dry lips. His obvious arousal had her heart thudding. “I don’t want to hurt you. Your back.”
“We’ll apply my company motto. Innovation and creativity. Come here, Vanessa.” It was not a request.
She couldn’t very well remain on the stairs all night. Good sense and emotion battling within her, she mounted the last two steps.
When Nick tugged her into his arms, she yielded to his embrace and the current eddying in her blood. She sighed and rested her head on his chest.
“You worked late tonight.” His voice rumbled pleasurably in her ear. “Anything?”
“J.T. is okay. He was
drugged. A chunky man in a suit and chauffeur’s cap asked him for a light. A jab with a needle and he went down.” She sighed. “But no breakthroughs.”
“Husam Al-Din must have incredible power to convince a man to commit suicide for no reason. It’s beyond me. How did he get there? Did he drive one of the funeral guests?”
She shook her head. “Everyone’s accounted for. He could’ve arrived hidden in one of the cars, or he could’ve sneaked in through the woods. They’ll keep checking.”
“Do they think the bomb was a warning?”
“It’s the only explanation that makes sense. But nothing in this situation makes sense.” She ought to escape and sleep in her own room. But not quite yet. Being held felt so good. So right. “I’m sorry about your car.”
His chuckle tingled through her. “All taken care of. Now I won’t have to find a body shop.”
“There’s another complication to stir the pot.”
He kissed her temple as he pulled her into the master bedroom. “And what’s that?”
When his tongue found the shell of her ear, she shivered with delight. “The bomber had a button to trigger the explosion, but there was also a remote arrangement. The destruction makes it impossible to tell…” Hypnotized by his velvet voice and his ministrations, she couldn’t continue.
“…which way the bomb was triggered,” he finished for her. “I see. I’ve heard of that. In case the bomber gets cold feet. Diabolical.” He threaded the scrunchie from her hair and finger-combed the tresses over her shoulders. “So there are several possibilities.”
She nodded, lost in the sensation of his long fingers on her scalp, on her neck. Her knees were dissolving, along with her resolve. “Mmm, possibilities.”
“One, either the bomber or the accomplice went for it when they planned to, as a warning. Two, they meant to kill us and triggered the blast when they saw us back away.”
She ran her hands beneath his T-shirt and up the muscles of his back. He smelled of soap and fabric softener and the cedar that seemed to be part of his skin. She’d like to keep something of his so she’d always have his scent.
Dark Cover (The DARK Files #2) Page 17