by Unknown
“What’s the problem?”
“We’ve received intelligence of a credible threat against Lila Wickham.”
Dex drew back, frowning at the phone, the statement not at all what he’d been worried about. “From whom?”
“We don’t know, they are encrypted and classified.”
In other words, even Dex wasn’t getting that information.
“Could it be someone associated with one of the cells she helped take down?” Dex asked.
“It could and we’re investigating that possibility.”
“Can you protect her?” Dexter asked.
“She’s released and out of our care,” Hollings replied. “She’s left no forwarding information, and her apartment in DC is empty. That’s what we agreed on, but obviously we want her to know and take precautions. While we look for her, I assumed you were the best and safest way to reach her. Is she still in the country?”
“I’m not sure.” And that was the truth; she’d refused to tell him where she was going or how she was getting assistance. They agreed it was better if he didn’t know.
“Are you in touch with her?”
“Occasionally.”
“Then tell her to get out of sight and be on constant guard. We think this is a real threat. We also think it could be someone with access.”
Dexter frowned. “How much access?”
Hollings let out a low, long sigh. “Someone with access to seriously classified information.”
An insider? Someone Lila might trust?
There are spies among us, he thought bitterly. And he always knew it.
“We’ll be in touch,” Hollings added. “And Merry Christmas.”
“Sure.” Dex disconnected the call and fell into his chair with a soft moan. He’d dragged her into this, knowing that having an insider in the operation assured that he’d never be out of the loop. He knew from the beginning it meant a complete change of her identity and had made the calculated decision not to tell her.
He had no idea that the woman he hand-picked for the job would be pregnant, but she’d handled it. And quite well. But this cloud over his head had to go away, and if she—
“Dexter?” Anne’s voice and a sharp rap on the door startled him.
He got up and opened it, his chest squeezing at the sight of her tears. “Who is she?” she asked on a half sob.
Of course her mind would go there. Anne had no idea the intricacies of the intelligence community.
“She’s no one you have to worry about,” he assured her.
“That’s what you said about the woman at the Brazilian embassy.”
Who was no more his lover than Jeffrey Hollings was. He was tired of her constant suspicions, but, deep inside, he understood them. She lived with a level of subterfuge the wife of a senator shouldn’t have to endure.
He closed his eyes and puffed out a breath. “I swear to God, Anne, I’m not cheating on you.”
“Then what was that phone call about?”
“An undercover CIA agent, actually former CIA, is being threatened, and they need to find her.”
“And you know where she is? Why? Are you sleeping with her?” And she jumped to ridiculous conclusions.
“God, no.”
She crossed her arms and worked so hard to look furious, but all he could see was the hurt. She sighed and closed her eyes. “I can’t take this anymore. The lies and the secrets. I just can’t. It wasn’t always like this.”
“Of course not, but—”
“Ever since Isadora died. Ever since.”
He stepped back, surprised by the connection, determined not to let on that even the mention of her name meant anything anymore. “It just seems that way.”
She wrung her hands and made her fretful face. “I guess it’s the holidays. They make me blue. They make me miss her.”
“Don’t…be blue.” He started walking back to his desk to hide the secure phone.
She took a slow breath and closed her eyes. “I know you were in constant contact with her. You know what really happened to her, don’t you? It wasn’t an accident in Cuba, was it?”
“Anne.” He whipped around. “What do you mean?”
“She died of a brain tumor, didn’t she?”
“Why on earth would you even suggest that?”
“Because…because…” She bit her lip. “I know things, too, Dex. Things her mother told me before she died.”
“What did Mary Lou tell you?”
“Everything. She was my closest friend.” Anne put her hand on her chest, her eyes welling. “I grieve for that whole family every single day.”
“What are you talking about, a brain tumor?”
She blew out a breath and walked to the leather sofa, falling onto it. “Isadora’s dead, so it doesn’t matter.”
Maybe it did matter. Very much. “Tell me anyway.”
“Mary Lou was diagnosed with a brain tumor. She told me before she was killed. No one knew except her husband, of course, and me. She told me she knew her mother had one, and her grandmother.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because Mary Lou died on 9/11, and I certainly wasn’t going to make Isa’s life any worse by sharing the news. Periodically, I’d ask her if she got headaches, and she said no, then she joined the CIA, and I knew she would be undergoing rigorous health testing, so I thought it better not to tell her.”
But someone better tell her. “Well, I’ll tell her and…”
“Dexter.” Her eyes widened, and she stood. “What did you say?”
“I said…I’d…I meant I should have…I…”
She put both hands over her mouth and stifled a scream. “She’s still alive!”
Damn it. What the hell was wrong with him? He looked at her and slowly shook his head. “No, no, that was a slip.”
But she had fire in her eyes now. “No, it wasn’t. Tell me, Dex. Please, dear God, for once in your life tell me the truth.”
He closed his eyes, defeated. “She went undercover for five years.”
Blood drained from Anne’s face as she made a strangled noise. “I cried at her memorial service.”
“That wasn’t her in the casket.”
She drew back, pale now as the snow outside. “I…can’t believe it.” She pressed both hands to her chest. “I can’t breathe, Dexter. It’s too much.”
Relief and regret roiled through him. “She’s in the process of disappearing again, so please don’t get too excited.”
“I am excited!” She fluttered her hands and walked back and forth. “Oh my word, she’s like another daughter to me. We have to tell the—”
“No!” He reached for her. “You cannot tell anyone. I’m a fool to have made a mistake like that. Her life is in danger, and no one knows where she is anyway, including me. That’s what that call was all about. She and her son are in danger.”
“Her son?” She clutched him. “Dexter! I need to go to her,” she whispered. “I need to see her. You know how I adore her.”
“You’ve actually seen her, Anne. She was at a dinner we had at the condo in DC a few years ago. A blond British woman by the name of Lila Wickham.”
“A blond British woman?” Her voice rose in disbelief.
“She’s undergone a complete physical transformation.” Anne could never understand the world of intelligence, which was clear by the look of incredulity on her face. “Technically, Isadora is dead and will stay that way. It’s for her own good.”
“But she’s not,” Anne said, shaking a little. “She’s alive and, oh my God, Dexter, she has to know about her mother. Otherwise, she could fail to recognize the symptoms and get help. She could die, Dex.”
She might die anyway if she wasn’t careful.
“I’ll talk to her,” he promised.
“Dexter.” She squeezed his arm. “I’d give anything to see her. Anything in the world. You can trust me.”
He shook his head. “That’s not going to happen, Anne. I’
m sorry.”
Chapter Nine
Back inside her villa, Gabe couldn’t help but interrogate her.
It was Gabe’s nature to analyze every word and consider every angle, like any decent spook. And the angles of Lila Wickham had just thrown him a curve.
She wanted to leave her only child? Why not take him along? Not that he’d let her; he’d fight her to the end. Did she know that and give up in advance? That didn’t seem like…
Well, he didn’t know Lila Wickham. So he set about fixing that in his usual way—by asking questions.
“You’re one hundred percent certain of this decision?”
She shot him a look. “Not a hundred, but I believe it’s better this way. Safer.” She shifted on the sofa, squaring her shoulders as if she expected a fight from him.
Better to leave her son?
“Is that the only reason?”
She closed her eyes, and he watched pain leave its mark on her features. “I suppose I feel guilty for taking him away from you for almost five years.”
“Another good reason. Are there any others?”
She sighed. “Not really.”
Lies. Lies. And more lies. Weren’t they? New doubts mixed with old doubts and churned in his belly with every inch he moved closer to believing this crap.
“Of course, I don’t want to leave him, but I know so much, too much,” she said quickly. “And I’ve put so many people either in prison or in the grave, and those bad people are related to other bad people. When I took this job, I didn’t know I’d have a son I care about so much it literally hurts.”
She pressed two fingers to her forehead as if her maternal love had her temples throbbing. “It’s what’s best for him, a life with someone who I know will be sure he’s safe. Someone who will love him like I do. Better than I do.”
Shit. She was rambling. Gabe sat back, remembering everything he knew about spies who went hell-deep undercover. Those bastards got effed up hard in the head. Maybe she was worried she’d go off the deep end. Hell, maybe she had gone off the deep end.
“You’ve never, uh, hurt him, have you?”
Her head shot up with a gasp. “God no! He hurts me.”
“How?”
“Because I…I love him so much, sometimes it hurts.”
What the jumpin’ jack shit crap did that mean? “Listen, we’ll figure something out,” he said. “Something that will be safe for both of you. I need some time to put together a plan and then execute it.”
She turned to him. “I’ve already figured something else out. I have a plan. You want to hear it?”
“Sure. What’s your plan?”
“I’ll stay here for a little while, and you and I will…pretend to be a thing. In a little bit, I’ll bring Rafe here. You’ll fall in love with him, of course. And I’ll…disappear. I can die or run away or just break it off with you, and you’ll keep him and raise him.”
Holy fuck, she had gone off the deep end. “That’s your plan? That suckfest of stupid is your plan?”
A smile pulled at her lips. Isa would have smiled at that, too. The thought tweaked his heart, startling him. “More or less. You have anything better?”
“Don’t have anything dumber, that’s for sure.”
“Well, it’s something of a plan.”
“Actually, I do have an idea,” he said. “How about you bring Rafe ASAP, and he and I get to know each other, and you take a job in the area, and we both have perfectly healthy, normal roles in our son’s life?”
She sighed with so much longing it sounded as if he’d just offered her a full-body massage with warm oil. Naked. “No. They’ll find me.”
“Let them. Whoever it is will have to get past me, and I’ll mess them up so bad they’ll wish they hadn’t been born. I want them to find you, but only if you and Rafe are under one hundred percent constant supervision.”
She let out a soft groan. “I almost believe you.”
“Now you know how I feel. I almost believe you.”
She squeezed his hand. “Gabriel. You really are my angel.”
He flinched and caught himself. “I’m sorry, but it’s weird to hear you…and look at you. It’s like I don’t know who you are, but I do.”
“You don’t know me,” she agreed. “This experience, this life, all these decisions and surgeries and the constant pressure of living a lie have changed me. All the way, deep inside. You just can’t understand what it’s done to me.”
He took a long, slow breath. “I think you need to fix your problems, not run away from them. See a shrink if you have to, get help, let me get you safe and secure, and set you up here with a job and a life.”
“Oh God, you make it sound so easy.”
“It’s a helluva lot easier than pretending we’re dating, faking another death, and handing our kid off to yet another new life.”
“I just need to…”
Just again. Her Isa tic. It did something to his gut, knowing she was in there. But not out here.
He ran his fingertip over her knuckles, then spread her hand over his. “You hated nail polish.”
“I still do,” she confessed. “But I had to change in every imaginable way. I’m the opposite of the woman you loved so much. I know that. I’m flat-chested, too skinny…not pretty like she was. I don’t think like her or sound like or…or…feel like her. Sometimes I don’t feel anything. It’s just”—she took their joined hands and pressed them to her breastbone—“empty in here. And that’s the way I want to keep it.”
So she wasn’t in there. It was empty. “Wow.”
“What?”
He shook his head, not quite able to put his sadness into words.
“What is it?” she asked.
“If you’re telling the truth—”
“I am.”
“Then what a damn shame. Isa was passionate. She was the opposite of empty. She was full of heart and life and feelings. It’s where we connected.”
“And why we fought.”
The statement slapped him, like someone knocking sense into him. Or the truth.
“Kind of. You might be who you say you are, but she’s still dead.”
She made the softest little grunt in her throat, as if the truth of that hurt. But how could it, if she felt nothing?
“And you’re wrong,” he added. “You’re very pretty.”
She gave him a look. “You hate blondes.”
“Hate is a strong word.”
She pointed to him, a knowing look in her eyes. “Your grandfather says it’s the curse of Italian men to want every woman to look like Sophia Loren. Dark hair, wide hips, and nice big bosoms.”
Oh man. He remembered the moment he’d shared that with Isa, crystal clear. It was in DC, a few weeks after they’d met. In the shower, with her wet hair and slicked against her skin, her gorgeous breasts and generous hips on display.
And then the truth hit him. Clobbered him in the head and heart and dragged his unwilling corpse to the other side of common sense.
She was telling the truth.
Maybe not completely about giving up their son; he’d get to the bottom of that. But Isadora Winter was alive and sitting one foot away from him. And just like that, something clicked in his brain. The angles lined up. The facts couldn’t be denied. He had to stop doubting her.
“Hair color can change back,” she mused, unaware of his lightning-bolt moment. “But the bosoms are gone, baby, gone.”
Gabe blinked at her, maybe because he’d stopped fighting, or because that statement was so…Isadora.
Was his passionate, funny girl still alive and kicking, deep inside this narrow, cool woman? “Whatever,” he said, picking up the thread of the conversation. “I assume they still function the same.”
“I was done nursing by the time I had that operation.”
Another thing he missed—his son being nursed. Now that he would have liked to have seen. “I meant feelingwise. I remember that as a pretty erogenous zone for…”
Isa. “For you.”
He saw her swallow and shake her head.
“No feeling?” he asked. What the hell was left of her?
“I don’t know. I mean, I can feel my own hand, but no one…I haven’t…” She let her shoulders drop. “I have been alone, Gabe. For five years.”
“Alone…like nothing? No one? Not even a quickie to relieve stress?”
“Never. It’s not a life that invites…intimacy,” she explained, studying him for a moment. “I’m guessing you haven’t been celibate for five years?”
“Not celibate,” he replied with a soft laugh, then grew serious. “Not exactly intimate, either. Just, you know, getting by.”
Her whole body seemed to soften. Then she reached over and stroked his hand, which felt ridiculously natural. And intimate. “Yeah, by the way your housekeeper-turned-asset tried to matchmake us, I figured that there’s no one in your life.”
“No one special,” he confirmed. “How did you figure out Poppy works for me?”
She rolled her eyes. “The general desire to walk through fire for you. You get that out of people.”
“Yeah, I guess…” His voice trailed off as he looked at her. Really looked at this all-new model of his very favorite person. She was definitely wrong about not being pretty.
A man could get lost in those eyes, and even her strong nose had an exotic quality that reminded him of Cleopatra. Her body was thin but toned to perfection, and her mouth…man, that surgeon had done a helluva job there. A nice lower lip that begged to be bitten and—
She drew back. “Don’t,” she whispered.
“Don’t what?” He released her hand and held his up. “I’m not doing anything.”
“You are. I know that look.”
“You know my looks? Well, I’d say that gives you an unfair advantage.” He went for light, pushing away because, damn, this was way too complicated already to add sex into the mix.
“Anyway,” he said quickly. “Pop Star definitely works for me and…what were we talking about?” Besides her mouth.
“Your love life.”
He snorted. “Nil. And here in Bareass Bay, the best I can find is the occasional bridesmaid at a destination wedding.”
“Ah, I see.”