Deadly Secrets, Loving Lies

by Cynthia Cooke

  She glanced once more at the empty dock. Her father’s boat was gone. Had he taken it? Had he left before Emerich’s men had arrived? Without letting Kyle in on her thoughts, she followed him up the hill toward the back of the house. If her father was fine and had left before Emerich’s men had gotten here, he could have called the CTA to let them know. But he hadn’t. There was no reason to bring up the missing boat yet, not until she knew for sure what had happened.

  As they climbed toward the house, she noticed there was no sign of life anywhere. Not a light on in the house, not anyone trimming bushes or cleaning the pool. In her memories, there had always been so much life here, music drifting out from the kitchen, laughter from her sisters playing in the pool or in the grass with their dog. Her father would be grilling meat on the barbecue. Life had been so…magical.

  Tears threatened again and she pushed them away. Why had everything gone wrong? Why had her father sent them all away?

  The CTA caused all our troubles. Becca’s words filled Genie’s mind once more. Kyle stepped silently up to the house and pulled his gun from beneath his dark jacket. The consummate agent. Taking no chances. His first thought for her protection.

  Was that what her father had done, too, by breaking up their family and sending them away? Had he known something she didn’t? Something so bad he’d needed to take drastic measures to protect them?

  Or had he simply wanted to rid himself of the responsibility of raising three unruly daughters alone, while advancing in his high-powered job at the top-secret agency, the CTA?

  Her heart sank painfully.

  Had Becca been right?

  …

  Genie hovered inside the doorway, reaching with her mind trying to determine not only if her father or anyone else was there, but if there was any type of disturbance in the energy of the house. Anything that would indicate there had been trouble. If he’d been scared. But there was nothing. Not that she was surprised; her gift was never strong enough to show her residual emotions very clearly.

  She walked into the kitchen, moving through the rooms. Entering her old family home after all these years, and after her burdensome thoughts, was harder on Genie than she’d ever imagined. The scent of cinnamon and home assaulted her senses, sending echoes of happier times to barrage her memories. She took a deep breath and hurried through the bright kitchen with its off-white cabinets and large granite island where she and her sisters had sat each day eating cookies while doing their homework and talking with their mother about teachers and friends.

  A bittersweet ache grasped hold of her and squeezed. She walked into the family room and felt as if someone flipped the switch on an industrial internal vacuum and sucked the air right out of her chest, leaving her empty and hollow. The echoes of voices from her past swirled through her mind. Her mother calling them to breakfast, the thunder of small feet as they raced down the stairs. The high-pitched peeling laughter of her and her sisters running like hellions through the house as her mother called after them to keep it down, their father was working in the study. Always working…

  She braced herself and walked toward that study now, and stood in the doorway. Funny, she’d never felt even an inkling of danger here, either from his secret CTA work or from the fact of his immersion in it. No, Becca must be wrong. That couldn’t have been the reason for his precautions.

  She took a step inside. This room, like her father, never changed. It was spacious and warm, yet masculine with the deep cherry-wood shelves lining the walls. A large desk commanding the center of the room was cluttered with papers and knickknacks from his travels—silk etchings from Japan and crystal eggs and goblets from Russia and Austria. They reminded her of the necklace, and her fingers immediately found the crystal charm around her neck and held it. A faint hint of cigar smoke lingered in the room. She inhaled it deeply, imagining her father had just left and would be coming back any moment.

  Logic overrode emotion and she pushed the sentiment away. She had to check her feelings at the door and be practical. She must treat this like any other case, as if it wasn’t her own father who was missing. She took another look around, this time with a different, arms-length perspective. She shifted her attention to the filing cabinet’s drawers that were gaping open and the papers littering the floor. Cameron’s people. Obviously, they hadn’t cared whose lives they trashed. Books on the bookshelf had been shifted, paintings tilted as prying eyes checked behind them. Even the corners of the carpet were askew.

  The house was enormous by most people’s standards and took an entire crew to keep it cleaned and maintained. But Stuart Marsters spent the bulk of his time in this one room when he was home. Before his promotion to Director, this was where he schemed and planned and run ops she didn’t even want to know about, but she was now certain she’d have to. Until he was found, she’d have to dig into every dark corner and crevice of his life for clues, no matter what she might find and where it might lead her.

  She stepped farther into the room and stood over the desk, looking down at the clutter of paper and pens, a stapler, tape dispenser, bottle of perfume. Perfume? She picked it up and looked at it, then removed the stopper and inhaled deeply. The exotic flowery scent had been her mother’s favorite. She closed her eyes against the fresh stab of pain. Even after all these years, he still missed her.

  She heard Kyle’s approach and stiffened as his hand grazed down her back leaving a trail of warmth and comfort. She didn’t want him to know how vulnerable she was right then, how much she longed for her family, for some kind of…connection.

  “What is it?” he asked, seeing her hand clutched around the small bottle.

  Her traitorous body wanted to lean into him, to turn in his arms and feel his mouth pressed against hers once more. “My mother’s perfume.”

  Kyle’s hand stilled. “Does your dad usually keep it in his office?”

  “I don’t know,” she whispered, and wished he hadn’t stopped his caresses. The way he was touching her— Stop, she berated herself. She needed to focus on the job at hand. But the truth was, as much as she tried to forget it, the imprint of his kiss still lingered on her lips. It would be so easy to let her guard down and go to him, but she knew she shouldn’t. She couldn’t. That one small step backward to him, back toward what they once had, would leave her wanting so much more. And wanting to give him so much more than she could give—his happily ever after.

  And once they both realized she couldn’t, she’d be lost and more alone than ever.

  “There’s no one here,” he said, the timbre of his voice soothing her frayed nerves. “Yet.”

  “I guessed as much. The air is too still. The house too quiet.” She sensed…no one. “Have Cameron’s men talked to the staff?”

  His fingers absently traced up her spine to the nape of her neck, sending a rush of tingles cascading through her. She wasn’t even sure he realized what he was doing, or how crazy his light touch was making her. Damn his kiss on the ferry. It had been like a gateway drug to her, opening her senses to needing so much more. Was he still feeling its effect, too?

  “They couldn’t find a record of who worked here,” he said, his voice as controlled as ever. “Your father must be paying them under the table.”

  She closed her eyes, fighting to stay focused on his words. “Yes, of course. I know who they are. Mary, his housekeeper, lives on the island along with some others. I’ll talk to them.”

  As he’d done so many times before, Kyle’s hand started to rub the stiffness from her neck and, for a split second, she felt herself leaning into him, wanting, no needing, to rest against his hard chest. To feel his strong arms wrap around her middle, and fall into the security of his embrace. To feel his steady heartbeat against her back, his warm breath against her cheek.

  His fingers brushed against her neck and she was cocooned in tender emotions. His. Hers. He wanted to help her. To comfort her. To hold her. She could feel it.

  And she wanted that more than she’d dared
imagine.

  “Genie,” he whispered, his voice pulling her out of her thoughts. She took a quick step forward before she could drop her defenses and give in to him. She sensed confusion rushing through him, along with a solid shield he once more dropped over himself—his wall to protect himself against her. Inwardly she cringed. She’d hurt him again, when she’d sensed that he’d only been trying to comfort her. But it was just as well. The sooner he remembered she was poison, the easier it would be for both of them.

  She couldn’t be with a man who doubted her, and he would always doubt her because she would never be able to tell him the truth. But even if by some miracle he could overcome his doubts, she couldn’t give him the picture of forever he longed for. He wouldn’t want to be with her if he knew she could feel his every emotion if she chose to, if he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep anything from her. He was too private a man. Too proud a man. She’d known that when they were together before, and had always walked on eggshells around him, careful not to allow herself to probe his feelings too deeply. It had been hell.

  But making love with him…that had been a different story. That had been amazing. Magical. Their connection was unlike anything she’d ever experienced before. But she couldn’t think about that now. She couldn’t let down her defenses. Right now, she had to focus on her dad and on the threat against her family.

  She walked around her father’s massive desk and sat in his chair. As she sat there, questions spun through her mind. What had happened to him? How had Emerich found him? Where was he now? And what about her mother’s perfume on his desk, was that significant?

  She set it down and picked up a UPS receipt sitting on top of his desk and saw her address sprawled across the top. It was dated yesterday and she realized it must be for the necklace he’d sent to her home. Had he been the one to send it? She’d almost convinced herself Becca… Confusion knitted her forehead.

  Why was this just lying here, out in the open for anyone to see? She balled the receipt in her fist. Was this how Cameron had discovered where she was? Had his people discovered her whereabouts when they found this receipt? Was his comment that he’d always known where she was just another lie? Ugly doubts and suspicions circled round her mind. He knew Kyle was the only one who could get under her skin. Anyone else she would have easily ditched by now. He also knew she was close enough to Kyle, trusted him enough, to get into the helicopter with him.

  She studied Kyle’s movements through her father’s study. Confident steps, easy grace. He thoroughly searched her father’s bookcases, looking behind the books and pictures, rifling through the papers on his desk, trying to find anything that would help her find her dad. Or so it appeared.

  Abruptly, she stood. Suddenly, she couldn’t breathe. “There’s nothing here,” she said when he looked up, and walked past him out of the room.

  Was Kyle in on it? Were he and Cameron working against her? Had Kyle agreed to come here with her to see if she could pick up on something the site team couldn’t? Were they using her to find her father?

  Even with her ability to sense Kyle’s emotions, she couldn’t be certain. Her own chaotic feelings kept getting in the way, muddying the waters—thanks to his kiss and his supposedly innocent touches and comforting caresses. And he was too skilled at shielding himself from her. Sometimes it was as if he knew she could read him, and took measures to prevent it. Even before the warehouse. That was one of the reasons she’d known she would have to leave him…and why she could never go back.

  He was getting too close to the truth.

  …

  Kyle bit his tongue as Genie walked out of the office and out the back door. He went after her, confused by her latest shift in moods. She was headed down the hill so quickly he had to run to catch up with her.

  “What?” he demanded and grabbed her arm to stop her. She pulled back, her eyes two glittering stones of fury. Fury, and something else.

  “What? Nothing.”

  “Then why’d you run off?” he asked, each moment regretting further his decision to let her come here. There was nothing to be found here, and the longer they stayed, the bigger the risk that Emerich’s men would find them. “Where are you going?”

  “To talk to Mary.”

  “Without me?”

  “You’re here aren’t you?”

  He bit back the need to snap at her. “We need to get to the chopper and back to D.C.,” he said with forced calm. “We’re wasting time here.”

  “Feel free.”

  Exasperation and confusion finally flooded his system. “Damn it! When are you going to get over yourself?”

  Her face shuttered. “I have no idea what you mean.”

  “Bull. I’ve played along. Done everything you’ve asked. We’re here. We’ve searched for your dad. I’m helping you, remember? So why are you shutting me out?”

  She looked up at him, her expression hard and completely unreadable, unlike moments ago when she seemed to be melting into his touch. “I just want to handle this alone. Do you not get that I don’t want your help? I don’t want to have anything to do with Cameron or the CTA, ever again.”

  “Or me?” he shot back.

  “Or you,” she agreed, and spun to head back down the hill.

  He held onto her arm, stopping her once more. His muscles bunched into tight strings in his shoulders and back as he strained to keep her there…and not shake some sense into the damn woman. He’d told himself to keep his hands off since the ferry. Clearly himself wasn’t listening any better today than Genie ever did. “Do you think I want to be here?” he demanded, his voice coarse and gravelly, barely containing his flash of anger. “That I chose this assignment? You’re the one who left me, remember? I spent weeks in the hospital, weeks, my legs broken all to shit, and you never came. Not once. Not to say thanks for the save, or sorry I fucked up, or kiss my ass. Nothing.”

  She yanked out of his grasp. “Sorry, I fucked up. Kiss my ass.” Then she turned and headed back down the hill.

  “Oh, that’s mature,” he called after her, inwardly seething. He was the injured party, here. Not her.

  So why did he keep having to fight the urge to haul her back into his arms and kiss her until she stopped fighting him and for once started being honest.

  “I wasn’t the one who asked you to come here!”

  “No, and you didn’t ask me to pull you off that ridiculous house this morning, either.”

  She halted and spun back to him, her mouth open wide with astonishment. “My house is awesome. It’s innovative. It’s to die-for. It is not ridiculous!”

  Of all the insane things for her to get upset about. That he’d insulted her house? He cocked his eyebrows. “If you say so.”

  “I do,” she insisted.

  “Whatever.”

  They continued their march down the hill in tense silence for another ten minutes. Kyle was so angry he didn’t trust himself to speak. What was wrong with the woman? And what was wrong with him that he kept letting her get to him? He knew better. Knew damn well he should have picked her up, flung her over his shoulder and forced her butt onto that plane with her sister.

  But no. He had to be the nice guy. He had to be the one to help her out of a jam. Again. Whether she wanted him to or not.

  He didn’t know which one of them was more pathetic.

  “Where are we going?” he asked, trying to keep the sharpness out of his voice. “How much farther until we reach this Mary?”

  “Soon.”

  “What’s her story?”

  Genie took a deep breath and for a minute he wasn’t sure she was going to respond. “Mary has been my dad’s housekeeper and cook forever,” she said at length. “She helped raise me and my sisters.”

  “She doesn’t live at the estate?”

  “No. For many years while my dad was Director of the CTA he wasn’t here. None of us were. She has her own house. Her own family. And she damned well better be there, alive and well.”

  Ky
le heard the desperate edge in her voice and felt his anger seep away. “I hope for all our sakes she is.”

  They turned down a long gravel driveway and approached a two-story wooden home nestled in a grove of towering pine trees. Bright flowers in a multitude of colors lined the walk. It was picture postcard-perfect, and Kyle could see how Genie’s gaze swept over the scene with such longing his anger all but deflated.

  Being here with her on the picturesque island she’d shared with her mother and sisters, he was beginning to understand a little about this woman who had captivated him for so long.

  She’d grown up in an idyllic life, only to have it all ripped away in the blink of an eye, for no apparent reason, and never to be found again. He could tell she yearned for such an idyll again, but didn’t dare reach out for it. Hell, no wonder she didn’t trust—not him, not anyone. Because it seemed every time she’d let her guard down in the past and started to believe things could be good again, something or someone always came along and took it away.

  First her mother, then her family, her home, and her childhood, then a sister who’d died. And now her father.

  Kyle could kill Sean Emerich with his bare hands for doing this to Genie. He’d bet a year’s pay it was Emerich who’d taken her father today. And two years’ pay that it had also been Emerich who’d taken her sister’s life at the warehouse, even if Becca had been a willing accomplice beforehand.

  As Genie turned toward the walkway to the quaint little house in the woods, he didn’t see the beautiful enticing woman she was, he saw the child she must have been, happy and carefree with the whole world in front of her. Before it all came crashing down.

  He looked away, suddenly certain that all of this—the house, her childhood memories, everything that had happened to her was making him soften toward her. But damn it, he didn’t want to see her that way! He didn’t want to understand what drove her. Because when he did, he felt the insidious need rise within him to protect and take care of her, to touch and comfort her, to help her stop looking as if her heart were breaking.