by V. K. Sykes
Even after all this time, telling the story made her start to sweat. Heat suffused her entire body. She started the car and turned on the air conditioning.
“In the end, I gave in to their pressure. I was scared, Beckett. Scared of my father. A little scared of the trip, too, though I wouldn’t admit it.” She gripped the steering wheel hard, turning the knuckles of her hands white again. “But nothing scared Ariane. She was always the strong one. Completely fearless. Our parents’ opposition only made her more determined to have it her way.”
“So, Ariane set off by herself,” Beckett said softly. “And you blame yourself for what happened.”
“Of course,” she bit out, swiping at the warm trails of moisture on her cheeks. “If I hadn’t been such a gutless loser, she never would have ended up in that truck. Even if we’d run into Duguid somewhere on the road, which was probably a million to one long shot because everything would have been different if we were together, he wouldn’t have picked up two girls at the same time. No, she was raped and murdered because I was sitting on my ass in Fort Lauderdale like a good little girl.” Useless, bitter anger, so many years old, swelled in her chest. “How the hell am I supposed to live with that, Beckett? It’s been fourteen years and, honest to God, I swear it still hurts as much as the day it happened.”
Beckett captured one of her hands and carried it to his lips. Her chest felt like it was cracking open.
“You were still a kid,” he said, “caught between your parents and your twin. But I know that doesn’t make your pain any less real.”
She finally looked at him, trying to make him see. “She was the other half of me. The brave half. After she died, I made a promise to her and to myself that I’d never be weak again. And I’d dedicate my life to trying to protect other girls from suffering like she did.”
Beckett’s gaze was steady with understanding. “I’d say you’ve fulfilled that promise, in spades. But I don’t think being strong has to mean shutting everyone out.” He stroked her cheek. “It takes real guts to let other people in, to risk getting hurt. Trust me, I know. After Kate, it took me a hell of a long time to figure that out.”
Her skin tingled under his gentle touch, and the warmth of his fingers calmed her.
“You’re as strong as anybody I’ve ever known,” he said. “You can afford to take some risks, Amélie. Give yourself a chance. Give us a chance.” Smiling that glorious smile of his, he cupped her cheeks in his hands, and her last shred of resistance seemed to drift clean away. “This is uncharted territory for me, too,” he said. “But maybe it’s time we both pushed on into the frontier.”
When he lowered his mouth to hers, Amy finally let him in.
54
* * *
Wednesday, August 4
11:30 p.m.
Detective Amélie Robitaille came across to everyone as hard as a baseball bat and as sentimental as a Colt .44. But now, as Luke held her, her smooth back pressed against him spoon-style, the driven cop had vanished, at least for the moment. Sleeping beside him, breathing rhythmically, was a sensitive and deeply emotional young woman who’d carried a burden no one should have to bear.
After one long, hungry kiss in her car, no more words had been spoken. She’d followed him to his Mustang and he’d driven them to Palm Beach. They made it all the way to his bed this time—but just barely—before the last scraps of clothes had been tossed aside and he thrust inside her. And this time she hadn’t run away as soon as they sent each other rocketing over the edge. She’d thrown one leg over him and fallen wordlessly into an exhausted sleep for nearly an hour. He lay beside her then, his mind whirling, replaying their conversation and sorting out his thoughts, wondering whether she would bolt the minute she woke up.
He needn’t have worried. Refreshed from her power nap, Robitaille more or less attacked him, taking charge of the love-making as she murmured long strings of passionate French phrases, only some of which he understood. But he didn’t need a full vocabulary to get the gist of what she was doing to him with her slim fingers and luscious mouth. Luke wasn’t sure whether she needed to regain control, or if that was her way of truly and completely giving herself to him. But within seconds he was too far gone to intellectualize. She managed to keep him on the brink, alternating between ecstasy and agony, for longer than he’d thought possible until he finally exploded.
When she raised herself up and snuggled back into his arms, looking smug as a cat in warm sunlight, he knew that in his arms was exactly where he wanted Detective Amélie Robitaille to stay. But he needed more right now. He’d gotten hard again, and this time he took control, bringing her to a shuddering series of orgasms with his mouth and hands before again seeking his own release in her silky heat.
As she dozed beside him, he couldn’t help reflecting again how much Robitaille and Kate were alike. Not physically. In that department, they couldn’t have been more different. Kate had the big, sturdy frame of the Beckett family, standing six feet tall. But in temperament and personality they could have been sisters. Smart, dedicated, and strong. Devoted to justice and fairness. Above all, both women were utterly fearless.
In Kate’s case, that fearlessness had eventually gotten her killed. And every time Luke thought about the dangers inherent in Robitaille’s job, he found he had to clamp down on it fast before the bitter memories of Kate’s murder slashed through him again.
Robitaille stirred beside him. He stroked his hand down her side, from her neck to her thigh, loving her toned figure and soft, full breasts.
“Tell me it’s not morning, Beckett,” she murmured with a little yawn.
“It’s not morning, but it is almost midnight.” He nuzzled into her neck, lifting the fragrant hair so he could trail kisses around her ear. “And I’m not answering to Beckett anymore.”
She rolled over and smoothed a hand over his shoulder. “That’s going to take some adjusting to. You’re Beckett to me.” She smiled, her beautiful face lighting up like the sunrise. “Luke.”
“Thank God,” he said in mock exasperation.
“But at HQ, you’re always going to be Beckett.”
“Deal.”
“I still think this is crazy, you know. And don’t think your obvious sexual prowess is going to convince me that I’m not nuts to be here.”
“No? I’m shocked.”
“Asshole.” She poked him in the shoulder.
“You called me a lot of things in French a while ago, but I’m pretty sure that wasn’t one of them.”
She laughed. “That was some kind of hormonal hysteria.”
“Well, I’m all in favor of that, then.”
Robitaille lifted herself up onto her elbow, serious now. “Beckett…I mean, Luke, I can’t get something out of my mind.” She paused for a moment. “How did you manage it? Getting past Kate’s murder? Not that you can ever get past it, but you know what I mean.”
Luke’s gaze tilted toward the ceiling. He didn’t speak for a few moments as he watched the blades of the ornate ceiling fan spin lazily above them.
“It’s a bit of a story.”
“I’ve got all night. If you want me to stay.” She kissed his neck twice. Sweet, gentle touches that turned him inside out.
Oh, yeah, I want you to stay.
“Damn right I do,” he said. “Look, Amélie, we both know you can never completely get over that kind of tragedy. What you can do is reach a point where it no longer controls your life, or holds you back from doing the things you want to do. The things you need to do. When I found out about the way Kate died, vengeance was everything for me. All I could think about was hunting down every one of those fucking terrorists and making them suffer even more than she did.”
Robitaille startled. “Calice, you didn’t watch the video, did you?”
“No. I got a buddy to Photoshop the heads and shoulders of the murderers from a still shot and make a print for me.”
“I can’t even imagine having to do that,” she whispered.
“I tried to find a way to get transferred out of my unit and reassigned to Iraq, but the Army knew better than to go for that. And then I got blown up, sent back stateside and discharged. Even then I tried to sign on with every private security contractor that had operations in Iraq but they all refused me. Told me I’d be some kind of loose cannon after what happened.” He sighed. “Looking back, they were right.”
“Were you seriously going to try to take out the terrorists yourself?” Astonishment filled her eyes.
Feeling a little sheepish, he said, “I planned on hiring a little squad of mercenaries to help once I got there. Remember, I’d made enough money from playing baseball that I could practically rent my own army.” He shook his head. “Sounds a little crazy, huh?”
“Sounds bat shit nuts, but I can totally relate.”
“Unfortunately, nobody would cooperate with my obsession, so, I wound up down here in Florida, in the bottle a lot of the time. I managed to hide it pretty well, but I could feel things slipping away.”
She stared at him, her gaze intent. “How’d you get it back together?”
“Some part of me wanted to go back to baseball, but I couldn’t dredge up enough motivation. Everything I cared about had been taken away, and that was all I thought about. All day, every day. Then one of my old teammates told me about the work he was doing with the Children’s Hospital in Fort Lauderdale. He practically dragged me down there the next day. It was Valentine’s Day, and the whole place was decked out. We had a great time. And the kids and the parents I talked to that day made all the difference.”
She arched a skeptical brow.
He shrugged. “Yeah, I know. Hokey. But it’s hard to feel sorry for yourself when you’re talking to a kid with a terminal illness, or one who faces an entire lifetime of struggling with some miserable chronic disease. Or when you talk to parents who are barely able to cope, but have to put on a brave front every day for the sake of their kids. Anyway, not long after I started visiting, I met a young woman named Sonia Salazar. She runs a support group for parents who’ve lost children, and visits with the kids after the meetings. Sonia’s son had the same congenital heart condition as Alicia, but Francisco died three years ago from it. The kid was only eight years old.”
She winced. “God, about the same age Alicia is now, right?”
“Right. We talked a lot, Sonia and me. She told me the only way she got through losing Francisco was by writing a note to herself in magnetic letters that she stuck on the front of her refrigerator. It said, What would Francisco want me to do? After I told her I’d lost my sister, she said maybe I should try sticking up my own note. So I did. The note’s still there. You’ll see it in the morning.”
He saw the skepticism return to her eyes. “And it worked? Just like that?”
“Hell, no. Obviously, it’s not like I snapped my fingers and made the pain disappear. My world wasn’t suddenly dipped in a bowl of warm melted chocolate. I still have bad days, even now. The idea of Kate with those bastards—hell, how could I ever get that out of my mind? But if you want to know the things that really changed my life, it was volunteering at the hospital, meeting Sonia Salazar, and sticking up that note. I started working out again, and three months later I was able to rejoin the Nationals for almost the last two-thirds of the season.”
She gave him a sad smile. “I bet that would have made Kate happy.”
Luke nodded. “I know it would have. For awhile, I forgot how proud she was that I’d made it to the majors. She was my biggest supporter, even though she’d kick my ass whenever I went into a slump. Sometimes, I’d get a call at four in the morning after I had a bad game. She’d be drinking her espresso in Paris and checking the scores on the Internet. And if the box score showed I’d really stunk, she’d wake me up and tell me to stop embarrassing the Beckett name. God, she loved to bust my balls.”
Amy subsided back onto his chest, curling close. “Magnetic letters, huh?”
Luke held her tight, letting her warmth soothe him. “Wouldn’t hurt.”
* * *
A vibrating buzz woke Amy up. For a second, she couldn’t place where she was.
“That’s yours,” Beckett said, his voice full of sleep.
Right, Beckett’s house. “Calice, Beckett, I know my own phone.” She disengaged from his arms and put her bare feet onto the thick pile of his bedroom carpet.
“Luke,” he mumbled.
She sighed. “Luke.” Her phone was attached to her gun belt, which would probably be with her pants. Somewhere.
But where in their mad rush to get naked had her pants ended up? She remembered she was down to her bra and panties when Beckett pushed her down onto the bed, so that meant her gear was probably in the hall or on the landing at the top of the stairs. She glanced at the bedside clock. Two-ten a.m.
Stumbling out of the bedroom and down the hall in the darkness, she nearly tripped over her jeans but managed to pull out the phone and answer before her voice mail kicked in.
“Robitaille,” she said with a distinct edge.
“Jack Vincent,” the FBI agent replied in a cheery voice. “Sorry, but you said to call any time, day or night.”
“So I did,” Amy said, regretting it. “What’ve you got?”
“Kozak,” he said triumphantly. “We’ve got Brett Kozak. Agents tracked him down and picked him up in Billings.”
Amy punched the air. “Great! Have they interrogated him yet?”
“Nah, I told them to get his ass on a plane and bring him direct to West Palm.”
“Beautiful. How soon can they get him here?”
“The closest Bureau aircraft is in Salt Lake, and they said it’ll be in the air within minutes. I figure they’ll be here around ten o’clock or so if everything goes right.”
Beckett sidled up behind her. He nuzzled her neck, sliding his hands over her hips.
She liked that. A lot.
“Great work, Vincent. Thank those agents for me, and keep me posted on Kozak’s ETA, okay?”
“Will do. Get some sleep.” He hung up.
Good luck with that.
Amy twisted to face Beckett. He held her at arm’s length, his hands on her naked hips, his eyebrows raised in enquiry.
“The Feds came through. They found Kozak in Montana and are putting him on a plane. They should have him here by late morning.”
Beckett’s lips curved into a blatantly lustful grin. “Fantastic. But I’m glad you said late morning.”
She laughed. “After this, I don’t think I’d be able to sleep much, anyway,” she said, pressing herself against his very impressive erection.
“Sweet music to my ears,” he said, and carried her back to bed.
55
* * *
Thursday, August 5
11:00 a.m.
Amy grabbed another cup of coffee from the office kitchen and sipped the stale brew as she walked. Homicide coffee was revolting, but she’d long ago finished her morning Starbucks and she needed another caffeine injection. Back at her desk, she stared down at the list of questions she’d prepared for Kozak. But her brain kept rebelling when she demanded that it focus on the interview ahead. Like a musical earworm, seven words pounded through her brain.
What would Ariane want me to do?
Amy had visualized the phrase in multicolored letters on the front of her refrigerator. And she’d spoken those words aloud, in a breathy whisper, whenever she woke during the night. When not making love with Beckett, of course.
Incredible as it now seemed, not once in fourteen years had she thought about what her sister would have wanted her to do, and that realization had stunned her. She’d been so fixated on her fury and grief, and on her thirst for some kind of revenge, that it had never occurred to her that her twin might not approve of her chosen path. She’d just assumed Ariane would want her to take no prisoners—to pursue her single-minded goal with everything she had in her. Because that’s the way her sister had lived her brief l
ife.
But would Ariane really have wanted her to live like this? Amy had known the answer the second she finally worked up the courage to ask herself the question.
The answer was no. Ariane loved life more than anyone Amy had ever known. She’d been open and daring and trusting, determined to squeeze joy out of even the most mundane circumstances. Completely unlike Amy, who had always been the worrier, the skeptic, the president of the glass-half-empty club.
Daring and trust had gotten Ariane murdered, though, so Amy had wanted no part of them. But the price she’d been paying was steep. Too steep.
Sleep hadn’t mattered last night. Not when those seven words crackled along the pathways of her brain in an endless loop. Not when she hungered for the remaining hours to flash by so she could get at Brett Kozak, and get closer to ending the killing spree. And certainly not when Beckett had taken her over the edge into pure ecstasy, not once but three times, with a passion that had left her quivering beside him, clinging to his muscular body like it was a life raft in a storm-tossed sea.
But the lack of sleep mattered now. As excited as she was, fatigue was dragging her down. She should have gone for an energizing run this morning despite the heat, but she hadn’t been able to get out of bed until after eight. And even then it had been hard to leave Beckett’s side.
Vincent had called a few minutes earlier to tell her he’d met the Salt Lake agents and Kozak at the airport and they were on their way to HQ. Martin detectives Foreman and Waldo were standing by in the first floor interview room. Technically, Kozak was Stuart’s jurisdiction, but Foreman had agreed that the questioning take place at HQ, and that Amy and the federal agents could take point.
She drained the last of her coffee and pushed herself up out of her chair, shaking her arms to get some blood pumping. When she passed by Poushinsky, immersed in reports at his desk, she poked him in the shoulder and they headed downstairs, reaching the interview room exactly when Vincent and two other agents pushed their handcuffed charge into a chair.