“And why don’t you trust the cops?”
“This is Boston, my friend. Enough said.” She leaned forward. “Look, I have no reason to advertise my relationship with Josh. I don’t need to squash his wife because, to be perfectly honest, I did that often enough when the man was alive. But he was going to reveal her relationship to Finn because it would have gotten him notoriety beyond belief. And, trust me, that’s what made Josh tick.”
“Why would Finn care enough to order a hit, especially since there are a lot of people who think the man is dead?”
“He is not dead.” She crossed her arms. “And don’t ask how I know because I won’t tell you.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“I assume that Finn would care because anything that brings attention to him is going to fan the FBI flames to go after him again. He’s an old man, living in seclusion, and probably wants to die that way.”
“So he’d have his own daughter’s husband killed?”
She snorted softly. “This is Finn MacCauley we’re talking about. He kills with no compunction.”
He did, Marc agreed. But thirty years had passed without incident. All of a sudden Finn MacCauley rises from the dead to have his illegitimate daughter’s husband taken out?
“So your boyfriend was ready to sell his wife down the river, huh?” Marc leaned back, aware that they were minutes from Starbucks and that she would no doubt end the interview there. “Nice guy.”
“He had his strong points.”
“You’re lucky he didn’t sell you down the river.”
She lifted a shoulder. “Not the way I fuck.”
Lovely. “You know where to find Finn?” Because if the guy was alive, and the Guardian Angelinos brought him in, they’d be made.
“No,” she said simply. “But he’s the one who paid for the kill, and there’s not a cop in Boston you can trust with that information.”
“So take this to the FBI.”
She smiled. “You know they don’t like me either, don’t you, Mr. Rossi?” The limo came to a stop. “Get out now.”
“I’m not done asking questions.”
“But I’m done answering.” The door opened, and the Beretta was back. “It’s time to leave, Mr. Rossi.”
He pushed forward toward the door, keeping his gaze on her instead of the gun. “Thanks for the lead.”
“Any time.” She leaned closer to him. “Hope it helps the cause.”
Whose cause? he wanted to ask. Instead, he climbed out, nodded to Devane, and walked away, the rain stronger now. He shouldered deeper into his jacket and continued through the pedestrian traffic, considering what he’d just learned, and what it could mean to the Guardian Angelinos.
Stepping under a building overhang, he called Vivi, but got voicemail, and then tried Zach, with the same results. He turned the corner and headed toward the public library, anxious to get on a computer and read the docs he’d gotten from Vivi. In the library, he could also do some research on one of Boston’s most notorious criminals, the leader of an Irish mob that terrorized the city in the 1970s and disappeared underground in the early eighties.
He spent about an hour in a computer carrel in the stacks, searching and sending some links to his own email. He dug up plenty of information about Devyn Sterling, too, born Devyn Hewitt, evidently adopted by a truly blue-blooded Boston family, if the papers Vivi had were to be believed. And if Taylor Sly was to be believed.
Who had the best motive to kill Joshua Sterling? An old man who’d found peace in seclusion? A scorned wife? Or his mistress? Or had they all missed someone else completely?
As he got up to leave, he glanced through the shelves, above books, catching the movement of someone a few stacks away. He walked toward the open reading area, and so did the other person. He abruptly turned and pivoted around a stack behind him, purposely moving quickly.
Every instinct he had told him he was being watched.
He headed toward the massive reading room, then to the stairs and then the exit, the whole time hearing footsteps behind him. Not just watched, but followed.
He darted down the wide marble stairs, as close to a full run as he could in the building, slipping out the Dartmouth Street door and crossing Copley Square. He tried to stay with groups moving toward Trinity Church, the massive landmark on the other side of the square.
To his left, he noticed a guy talking on a phone, seeming uninterested, but his gaze followed Marc. Looking over his shoulder again, he saw a man hustling out of the library, a hood over his head, his focus locked on Marc. A group of tourists separated them momentarily, and he used the opportunity to bolt to the church, taking the five stone steps up to the portico in two huge strides, joining a tour group escaping the rain.
Inside, the light was luminous and eerily red from the murals and stained glass, the rows of wooden pews peppered with bowed heads, some voices echoing up to what the architect no doubt thought of as Heaven.
There were columns and a wide aisle circling the worship area, but mostly the church was a vast open space. He glanced back to the entrance, not seeing the hooded runner. He stayed with the tour group of about twenty people following each other with pamphlets open, reading and looking up, taking pictures. He moved with them until he could slip into a far pew, which he did just as the hooded man arrived at the back of the church.
He moved swiftly down the pew, stepping around an old lady in prayer, then diving into the shadows of the side aisle, spying a Bride’s Room.
No one was getting married on a Tuesday morning. He could trap him in here, and get some answers.
He shouldered the door and it opened, leading to a large, empty dressing room decorated with silk and peach sofas and chairs and a dozen full-length mirrors. He moved to the back, down to a bathroom area with toilets and another wall of vanities and stools, just as the door opened and a shoe scraped on the marble.
He popped into the stall, which was enclosed floor to ceiling and protected by a carved mahogany door, which he closed but didn’t bolt, not wanting to risk making noise. A man’s footsteps moved through the dressing area. Getting closer.
Marc drew his Ruger slowly.
“Excuse me, sir, can I help you?” The woman’s indignant voice echoed through the empty dressing room.
“I’m on the tour,” the man replied.
“This is a private room, not part of the tour. You need to leave.”
At the sound of a fist hitting flesh, Marc vaulted out, just in time to see a uniformed woman stumble backward with a cry of shock. The hooded man whipped around, and Marc threw a round kick, thudding a boot into his stomach. The man’s face turned red as he stumbled backward.
Marc raised the gun and the woman shrieked. The other man used the distraction to grab the door and bolt.
“Help me!” the woman pleaded, blood pouring from her nose.
“I’ll get help,” Marc promised, shooting out the door and back into the church, scanning for the hooded jacket.
Gone, or hiding.
There were multiple exits along the sides and any number of hiding places.
He bit back a curse, holstering his gun and starting a careful walk, peering into every face in every pew. Outside, a fresh downpour obliterated the crowds.
The man was gone.
Marc had information, and the real trick was knowing what to do with it. He knew, but Zach would hate it. Too bad.
JP answered on the first ring. “We need your help.”
“Who’s we?”
“The Guardian Angelinos.”
CHAPTER 20
Jesus Christ, Sam. Why didn’t you tell me your foot was hurt this badly?” Zach gently rubbed the towel over the gash, assessing how bad it was.
“Would it have made a difference? We still had to do what we had to do.”
“Wouldn’t you make a damn fine soldier,” he mused, giving her a quick smile.
“No thanks. How bad is it?”
“Pretty bad
, swollen as hell.” He held the foot up and got a good look underneath. “You hit a vein, so let me get the worst of the dirt out of the cuts. As soon as we get on the road with Vivi, we’ll stop and get some antiseptic and bandages. In the meantime, no weight on this.”
“What if we have to run?”
“We’ll cross that bridge… when we’re knocked off it.”
“Very funny.”
The shelter they’d found was more a storage facility than a working barn. The front half, the part visible from the road, was open under an awning of steel. Behind it, where they were, was probably the original barn, built from wood two-by-fours, the only light from two slots in the walls where sections of wood had fallen away.
“We’re not going anywhere,” he assured her. “But it could take Vivi some time to get a car and get out here. Two hours, maybe three. If I had had time, I’da called Marc, too.”
“What if the guy who owns the house comes over here?”
“Unlikely that anyone with a finished basement and workout equipment spends a lot of time in a filthy pole barn.” He placed the other clean towel in front of her, creating a clean spot for her foot by covering the dirt and weeds that had grown up through the cracks in the floorboards.
“You think the cops are following me, Zach? Trying to run me off the road?”
“I think we have to consider every possibility, and that’s one of them.”
“How about the possibility that it was an accident?”
“Don’t be naïve.”
She didn’t want to be naïve, but, God, she didn’t want to believe she was the target for multiple killers, some of whom were law enforcement. “Some of those truckers are surfing the Internet and texting while they drive. Maybe…” She just let her voice and the impossible thought fade. She closed her eyes, her pulse still pumping harder than normal. All the rationalization in the world didn’t change the cold, hard truth. “He knows where I am.”
“Not at this moment,” he said calmly.
“We can’t go back to the safe house in Jamaica Plain.”
“I put that on the message to Vivi, too, to make sure she lets Nino know.” He got the blanket out of the bag and smoothed it out for her. “Just relax. There’s nothing we can do right now but wait.”
She leaned back and automatically reached for him, drawing him to her. “Zach, how long can I live like this? What the hell am I going to do? I can’t spend the rest of my life in hiding.”
“I know,” he said, lying down next to her. “Don’t panic.”
“Is that was this is? Panic?” She held out her hand to show how it was shaking. “I can practically feel adrenaline rushing through me.”
“It’s like a hot, black ball in your stomach, huh?”
“Spoken like a man who’s had a few brushes with death.”
“A few. One really bad one. The one I wanted to tell you about at the reservoir today.”
“You did?”
“That was my plan, to tell you everything.” The deep emotion in his voice caught her by surprise. She skimmed her fingers along the scars, loving that he never flinched anymore, but gave her access to that tender place.
“Then tell me now,” she whispered. When he started to shake his head, she made her touch firmer. “Tell me.”
“I got torn up by some grenade shrapnel. Didn’t wear my eye protection so I could see better, and now I can’t see shit. And I… just made a bad decision.”
Something in his voice said there was more. “By not wearing eye protection?”
“By leaving my position. Rule number one and I broke it.”
“Why?”
He snorted softly. “The million-dollar question, huh? Because I had to make a call to collapse the outer cordon when I heard the SEALs on the inner cordon taking huge fire. There was no air support like there was supposed to be, so I made the call to take my men and pull them in closer to help the boys in the inner ring.”
He might as well have been speaking Latin, but Sam didn’t need to understand the terminology. She heard the pain and regret and remorse. “I’m sure you made the best decision you could have made under the circumstances.”
“That’s not how the Army saw it. I left my position, and the enemy exploited that move, so I lost a man in my platoon and four from another. Oh, and my eye, so I actually got a better end of my decision than those guys did.” He drew in a slow, pained breath, turning away. “I live with that decision every day.”
“I bet you saved more lives than you lost over there.”
He lifted a shoulder.
“You saved mine today.” She curled one long strand of his hair around her finger and gently tugged his head toward her. “Here’s what I think you should do. Let go of that mistake and get on with your life.”
His lips curled in a smile. “I could give you the same advice.”
“I have gotten on with my life,” she said quickly. “Changed it entirely, as a matter of fact. The only vestige of my bad experience is my lack of trust in my own decisions. And you’re already helping me get over that.”
“What about your bad experience with me?” he asked.
“What about it?”
He just looked at her, then took a deep breath and on a sigh, said, “Samantha Fairchild, I want to ask you a very important question.”
The proposal-like tone of the question made her heart stutter. And the way he turned toward her, curling his arms to pull her closer to him, sent a sharp wave of heat through her body. Whatever he asked, she was in no shape to say no. “Yes?”
“Would you forgive me for what I did?”
She heard the sincerity in his voice, and the plea. “On one condition.”
“I say it in a postcard?”
She smiled at that, ridiculously happy that they already had new inside jokes. “It’s harder than that, Zach.”
“What is your condition?”
“That you forgive yourself.”
“For not calling or writing? For not giving us a chance?”
“For making that mistake. For losing those men, and your eye.”
His expression grew serious. “I may never do that. Every time I look in the mirror, I think of them. I don’t see me; I see my mistakes. And I don’t see a man who’s good enough for you.”
She leaned up on one elbow, propelled by how wrong that was. “Zach? You aren’t a man who cares about what he looks like. And, by the way, you still look pretty damn good to me; I’m used to you like this. I don’t see your face or your scar or your missing eye. I see you. A man who is smart and protective and kind and resourceful. I see you exactly how I saw you the day you left for Kuwait. And you know how I felt then.”
“You loved me.” He spoke softly, treating the words as though they were so fragile that just saying them might break them.
“Yes, I thought I did,” she replied.
“You thought you did?”
“Heartache has a way of changing history,” she admitted. “By the time I accepted that I’d never hear from you again, I’d convinced myself I never loved you at all. It was just great sex.”
“It was great sex.” He leaned close, his lips brushing hers. “You know what else it was?”
She shook her head, gripping his arm with her fingers, waiting with her breath held.
“It was the first and last time I really believed I belonged somewhere.”
“With me?”
“With you, in you, next to you. I never felt like that, at least not on U.S. soil. When I was with you, I was… home.”
Something in her cracked, an emotional jolt so real, she felt in her body. “Zach…”
He kissed her, a slow, deep, wet, warm, endless kiss that made her tingle and float and forget everything but his mouth on hers. Home. She was home to him.
She closed her eyes and opened her mouth, taking his tongue as he cupped her face in both hands, then dragged them down the front of her T-shirt, the wet cotton clinging to her body. Yanking the shirt
up, he stripped it off, both of them already breathing heavily.
He reached behind her and unhooked her bra with a flick of his fingers, but the wet material stuck to her. He looked down, and she could feel her nipples hardening under his scrutiny.
Slipping a finger under one strap, he peeled the garment off her like tape, revealing her breasts, wet and speckled with dirt. He removed a tiny twig sealed to her flesh, then thumbed one nipple, staring at it, a low groan of appreciation in his throat.
But he just circled the peak, budding it as he lifted it and lowered his head to suckle her. He licked, sucked, kissed, and sent a thousand electrical impulses down her body, between her legs.
She plucked at his shirt, pulling it up, trying to get it off. He wouldn’t relinquish her breast, so she gave up and dropped her hand to his jeans, fumbling with the snap.
He did it for her, finally breaking the contact, long enough to fight the wet pants and get them off, and then undressed her without hurting her foot.
When they were both naked, he leaned her back so he could stare at her, burning her with scrutiny somehow more intense, despite his debility. “When I was at war,” he whispered, “you kept me alive.”
She tried to swallow, but couldn’t. “How?”
“There were so many nights, Sam.” He closed one hand over her breast, then stroked all the way down. “So many nights with explosions like thunder in the distance, and all I could think about was this. You. Us. The way we used to be together. The way we might never… be again.”
“Why did you think that?”
“Because the explosions weren’t thunder in the distance,” he said, lowering his body to hers. “They were real and they were close. I never thought I’d come back. And even if I did, I’ve never felt…”
“What?” she urged.
“Good enough for the home that you offered with your heart and your body.”
She put one hand on his cheek, skimming the other down his chest to close it over his erection. “You are more than good enough,” she assured him. “More.”
He leaned in and kissed her as his finger curled into the wet, slick flesh between her legs. She opened her mouth so he could dip his tongue in and out with the same rhythm as his finger.
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