Only A Whisper

by Gayle Wilson

  “Then why is his brother doing business with scum like you?” she challenged.

  “Rafe,” the ambassador intervened.

  The man on the sofa raised his hand, palm out to command his silence.

  “Rafe?” Rae questioned softly. It was right. It fit.

  “I am Rafael Ramirez,” he said. “Forgive the belated introduction. And don’t hold Carlos too responsible for offering me refuge. In Colombia, we still believe blood is thicker than water.”

  “The other brother,” she said. Finally something made sense. “The playboy who needed a lot of money for all his little games. The charming one,” she mocked.

  “The black sheep,” he agreed, the hard mouth tilting slightly at the corners. “Every family has one, querida.”

  “Diplomatic immunity,” Rae realized suddenly. “That’s why Paul couldn’t arrest you. Carlos protected you. He provides you with total immunity, no matter what you do, simply by putting your name on the list of diplomats accredited by his government. Of course,” she said sarcastically. “How convenient.”

  “A very convenient relationship, all things considered,” Rafe agreed softly, and he smiled openly at her this time.

  Congratulating her, maybe, for finally figuring it out.

  “How can you protect him?” Rae asked, glancing at the silent figure standing beside the fire. “Knowing what he is, what he does.”

  “I handle their money,” Rafe said simply, drawing her gaze back to him. “That’s what I do, querida. Nothing else.”

  “Is that how you justify it? You and Carlos? Does that make it all right?”

  “I don’t try to justify it.”

  “Rafe,” the ambassador protested again.

  “You’re upsetting Carlos, querida. I think you owe him an apology.”

  “I don’t think so,” she objected bitterly. “You told me once I didn’t owe anyone an apology. I think that’s still true. Certainly not Carlos. He knows what you are, and still he protects you. Paul lets you go because your name’s on some piece of paper that he knows is a lie. The courier I came here tonight to express my admiration for is probably in witness protection, retrieving the dirty millions he hid for Escobar. And they all still sleep at night.”

  “And you, querida, would punish us all,” Rafe said, smiling at her again.

  “It’s wrong. All of it. No matter what you say, what justification you use, none of it’s right,” she argued.

  “That’s true, querida. And there are so few things left in this world that are right. Those you should hold on to,” he suggested quietly.

  When he spoke again, the dark voice had changed, becoming less personal, more businesslike. And remembering his business, she was sickened.

  “Carlos tells me you’re going home.”

  “I’m going back to Texas.”

  “To finish your law degree.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you’ll be able to lock up all the bad men,” he said. The familiar gentle amusement colored his tone. “You’ll put them away, and the world will become a safer place. For your babies.”

  “My babies,” she jeered softly, mocking what she felt.

  Suddenly, unexpectedly, her eyes filled, the tears hot and stinging. Unwanted, all the memories imploded. And through the blur, she watched his eyes change at what was happening in hers.

  “Rae,” he whispered.

  She controlled the tears, the hard lump that blocked her throat, the pain of the memories, so that she could tell him.

  “You told me to guard my soul. I should have listened. I accused Paul of selling his in little bits and pieces through the years. Doing things that he knew weren’t right because they were expedient or necessary or because he had to. And then lying about them. Lying to me. Maybe even to himself.”

  She paused, but he said nothing. The black eyes had never left her face. She felt a tear slip down, against her control, and she brushed it angrily from her cheek with the back of her hand.

  “And Carlos,” she went on. “He sold his soul for blood—in spite of knowing what you are—because you’re his brother.”

  The silence in the room was complete. It seemed that no one even breathed. And no one denied what she was saying.

  “But I gave mine away. And that’s the worst sin of all. To destroy yourself. To destroy who you are. Until there’s nothing left. No guides through the darkness.”

  He didn’t attempt to offer, this time, any comfort in the night she had created for herself, and so she told him the rest. The real reason she had known, somewhere inside, that there was nothing left of the good little girl her father had raised.

  “Even now, Rafe, if you asked me…Even now, knowing what you are…”

  And she found herself waiting. Still, in spite of it all, waiting for him to ask.

  “Go home, querida,“ he said, too softly, his eyes very dark in the shadowed firelight.

  “I should hate you,” she said.

  “If it helps.”

  “It might. If I could manage it. But all I seem able to manage is to hate myself.”

  She turned and made her way back across the expanse of luxurious carpet, the journey endless to the door, and then closing it behind her, she moved through the now deserted rooms of the Colombian Embassy.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The following morning Rae listened to the carefully concealed impatience in the voices that answered her inquiries. There was no space available on any flight from Washington to El Paso, they assured her. Or to Dallas. Or anywhere else, as far as that was concerned, one harried, disembodied voice had confirmed. It was, after all, Christmas Eve, for heaven’s sake. Of course, she could come to the airport if she wanted to take a chance on a cancellation, but the waiting lists for those were already miles long.

  When she had reconciled herself to being stuck in Washington until after the holiday rush, Rae decided that those days could at least be productive. She would have to sublet her apartment and the cleaner it was, the easier that would be. And it wasn’t as if she had exactly been spit-shining the place lately. There were areas of her housekeeping that could certainly stand improvement.

  When her mother called Christmas morning, Rae was scrubbing the grout in the bathroom tiles with bleach and an old toothbrush. She tried to imbue her voice with some seasonal cheer as they exchanged greetings. Her mom’s description of the dishes she was carrying to dinner at Aunt Molly’s created a tightness in her throat, and determinedly she fought off the emotional response. If she gave way just once, she knew, it would all come tumbling down—this house-of-cards control she’d been rebuilding since her confession last night.

  She knew she hadn’t fooled her mother when, at the end of the conversation, she asked softly, “Rachel, baby, you are all right, aren’t you?”

  “I’m fine. I just miss you. I just decided to come home.”

  “It’s not—”

  “Nothing’s wrong,” she interrupted. “Stop worrying. I’m a big girl now. I’ll see you as soon as I can get a flight out. I’ll call you. I love you.”

  “I love you, too, Rachel. Have a Merry Christmas.”

  “Merry Christmas, Mama,” she said softly. The tears had welled as she listened to the dial tone.

  SHE HAD FINISHED the tile and had even scrubbed away the black stuff that grew behind the faucets. She cleaned out the refrigerator and then turned to the stove. There wasn’t much to worry about there, no cooked-over pie juices like in her mother’s oven. And finally, when she couldn’t find anything else to clean, she sat down in the only comfortable chair in her tiny living room, letting her sweatpants-clad legs dangle over its overstuffed arm.

  She picked up the remote and surfed through the choirs singing carols and old black-and-white Christmas movies, trying not to think. Only a couple of days and she would be home. She held on to that promise like a lifeline. Once back home, back in law school, she would manage to find her emotional equilibrium. She wouldn’t always feel like this. S
he never had before. This, too, shall pass, her grandmother had always reminded when some family crisis loomed so large as to obscure the good. This, too, would pass. The bitterness and the disillusion.

  The phone interrupted, and she fumbled to find the Mute button on the remote. She didn’t even recognize the people on the screen, now silently mouthing their lines. She hadn’t been watching, lost in this endless emotional fog. The caller was probably her mother, worrying about what Rae hadn’t been able to hide this morning. Her mother always knew when something was wrong.

  “Hello,” she said, working to keep her voice light.

  “Rae?”

  It wasn’t her mother.

  She knew immediately to whom the deep voice belonged, despite the slight, unfamiliar distortion caused by the phone. She would have recognized his accent if nothing else, although the electronics had changed the dark richness subtly, altering the texture, so that something fluttered at the back of her mind. There was something—

  “Rae?” he said again.

  “Yes,” she whispered. Her eyes closed. This was the last thing she needed. And the last she’d expected.

  “I thought maybe you’d already left.”

  “I couldn’t get a flight. The holidays.”

  There was too long a silence, and she fought the urge to fill it up. His nickel.

  “I’d like to see you,” Rafe said. “Before you leave.”

  “No,” she replied, her mind and not her heart controlling.

  “There are some things I’d like to tell you. Things that I think-”

  “I don’t want to hear anything you have to say. You and I have nothing to talk about.”

  She had remembered even before she heard his soft laugh.

  “I know. We never did. That’s why we decided—”

  “That wasn’t an invitation,” she told him.

  “I know, querida. I know it wasn’t.”

  Again the silence grew. She bit her lip to keep from saying anything. She had confessed enough in the embassy that night. She had laid bare her innermost feelings, and it hadn’t made her feel any better. There was no need to rehash it all.

  As if he had read her mind, Rafe spoke again.

  “There was something you said…” He paused, and she waited. “Something that wasn’t true. In all the truths you told us, there was one thing that—”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she interrupted. She didn’t want to hear excuses or explanations. She thought she had made that clear.

  “I told you from the beginning I couldn’t make any commitments, Rae. I never lied to you.”

  Everyone lies, he had said. Suddenly she was furious to hear him deny it.

  “You lied to me every time you put your hands on me. Every word you whispered into the darkness was a lie. Every time we made love your body said you cared about me, and that was a lie.”

  Another silence. Prolonged.

  Why couldn’t she just keep her mouth shut? Rae wondered. Why did she have to reveal all the pain?

  “I never meant to hurt you.”

  There was nothing to say to that. Maybe it was even true.

  “I’ll survive.”

  “I know you will. I never doubted it. I’m only concerned that what I’ve done has—”

  “You want me to absolve your guilt for taking me to bed?” she interrupted again, still angry. “Is that what this is all about? Is that why you called? Okay, you’re absolved. It was my fault. My decision.”

  Again, silence.

  “I’d like to tell you about the courier. I think we owe you that.”

  “The courier?” she repeated. What the hell did that mean?

  “I’d like to tell you the truth about the man you met that night in Virginia.”

  She didn’t know what to say. She remembered Paul’s assurance. Had Hardesty, for once, not lied to her? And it mattered, she thought. For some reason, it still mattered that her impressions about that man had been correct.

  “Escobar’s accountant?” she asked bitterly.

  “No.”

  “That was a lie?”

  “Yes,” he admitted. “And I need to tell you the truth. I think you deserve to hear it.”

  His brother, she thought. Her guess had not been wrong. Then why—

  “There’s no one here. Carlos and Elena have gone back to Colombia for the holidays. The staff has the day off.”

  “The embassy?” she asked, her body already reacting to the thought of being with him. Just to see him again before she left. Without Carlos. With no one there.

  “There’s a buzzer on the column. Ring, and I’ll open the gate for you. The front door’s unlocked. Come to the library where we were that night. I’ll be waiting, querida.“

  Suddenly, the connection was broken. She held the phone in her trembling fingers, once more listening to a dial tone.

  Did he honestly believe she was going to go running across town to see him? What kind of idiot did he think she was?

  “Bastard,” she said very softly. The people on the muted television made no response. “You rotten bastard,” she whispered.

  SHE BUZZED THE gate, and it opened immediately. He’d known she would come. She walked inside the embassy grounds, pulling the gate inward. Her hand hesitated just before the lock engaged. She might decide she needed to leave before she’d listened to whatever else he wanted to say, besides the truth about the courier he’d promised. And she didn’t want to be dependent on his permission.

  She let the gate rest against the fence, but she didn’t pull it together. If she decided to walk out, she could. At any time.

  The front door was unlocked, just as he’d promised. She stepped inside and closed it behind her. The huge house was silent, but she waited in the foyer, listening. She could see the entrance to the small library, where Carlos Ramirez had stood and watched her and Paul’s departure the night of the party.

  She walked toward it, her running shoes making little noise on the gleaming marble floors. She stood for a moment before the door, again hesitating over whether to knock or just enter unannounced. He’d said he would be waiting, so she turned the handle and stepped inside.

  There was no welcoming blaze in the fireplace today, and the room was slightly chilled. Rafe was seated on the same ivory sofa, wearing a navy crew-neck sweater and worn jeans. On the table beside him was a decanter and an empty glass that matched the one he held, half-full, in his long dark fingers. He was looking down at its contents, and although she knew he must have heard the door, it was a moment before the midnight eyes lifted to meet hers.

  “Thank you for coming,” he said.

  “I didn’t have anything else to do. I’d finished scrubbing the bathroom.”

  She hadn’t even changed clothes. She wore the same ratty gray sweats she’d slipped into after her shower this morning. No makeup and her hair pulled back into a ponytail. Defiantly, she hadn’t dressed for him. She hadn’t even allowed herself to look into a mirror. It didn’t matter how she looked. That wasn’t what she had come for. She just wanted to hear what he’d promised to tell her. Hear some truth and then leave.

  His eyes drifted slowly down her figure in the oversize sweats, all the way down to her running shoes and crew socks.

  Not how the women he associated with dressed, she thought. But then, it’s about time he realized I’m not one of his women.

  His lips quirked suddenly.

  The bastard was trying not to laugh, Rae realized.

  “You look about sixteen,” Rafe said, finally allowing his lips to move into the smile he’d been fighting. Rae could hear the teasing quality of his voice, could feel it inside, curling through all the places he had ever touched. And it was as if he were touching her again. She controlled the responses in her body that just his voice could cause.

  “Yeah? Well, I feel about a hundred. So let’s get this show on the road—whatever it is that’s so important I had to come over here to hear it.”

  “Would you lik
e to sit down, querida? This may take…a while.”

  “Don’t call me that,” she ordered and saw the reaction in his face. He hadn’t liked it. Her request or her tone. She wasn’t sure which, but what she’d said had definitely had an impact. His eyes fell again to the tumbler in his hand. He lifted it and drank, a long, deep pull on the alcohol.

  “Dutch courage,” he said, smiling, when he looked up to find her watching him. “Sit down, Rae.”

  She didn’t move, trying to decide if she wanted to be that close to him, until he added softly, “Please.”

  She walked away from the door and toward the other sofa. She stopped before it because, from across the expanse of the Oriental rug, the faint fragrance of the expensive cologne that had always surrounded him invaded her senses. Again, she fought the memories and the automatic responses of her body. The scent evoked the nights they’d spent together, but the darkness in her memory was cold, somehow, and frightening. Involuntarily she shivered.

  “Please, forgive my intrusion,” a voice spoke from the doorway.

  Rae turned to find a small man standing there. No one she’d ever seen before. Colombian, she thought, judging not only by his coloring, but by the marked accent. She might never have seen him before, but she was familiar with the .357 he was holding. Very familiar with what it could do.

  “Allow me to introduce myself,” he continued softly, his smile still in place, very pleasant, except for the deadly threat he held in his hand. “I am Enrique Grajales.”

  He paused, waiting for some response.

  “Despite a natural vanity, I suppose I should be grateful my name means nothing to you, Ms. Phillips. Perhaps I should tell you simply that I am a former employer of a colleague of yours. Kyle Peters worked for me,” he told her, smiling again.

  It took a second for that to sink in—for all the implications to filter through her brain that had been paralyzed by the unexpected sight of the gun. She had come here today prepared to face a very different kind of threat.

  A former employer of Kyle’s, she thought. Which meant he was…

  Slowly she turned her gaze to the man on the sofa. Rafe hadn’t moved. His eyes were locked on the figure standing in the doorway. And their focus didn’t shift, not even when she spoke to him.