Point of No Return

by Rita Henuber

  “Oh.” She sucked in a deep breath as the smell of coffee filled the cabin. “I think this is the way heaven will smell.”

  “Yeah, it does smell good.” He thought heaven would smell like her.

  She closed her eyes and took in another big breath. “How long before it’s done?”

  “Not long. Sugar’s up there.” He tipped his chin in the direction of the cabinet in front of her.

  She retrieved the plastic container then rested her hand next to his. Her fingers were almost as long as his. He spread his little finger out and touched her.

  “Why have you been hiding here?” she asked, keeping her gaze on their hands.

  “Not hiding. I thought I was the target and Lee was mistaken for me. Didn’t want to draw trouble to what’s left of my family.”

  “You still think that?”

  “No.”

  He lifted the lid of the beat-up metal pot. “Done.” He filled the mugs and pushed one to her. She held it to her lips, trails of steam circling her eyes.

  “I’m going to sit outside.” He went to the porch and settled into the willow chair farthest from the door. She clomped out in untied boots, wrapped in a blanket, and sat in the other chair.

  “Nice look.”

  “Thank you.” She smiled.

  For a while they watched water birds paddle in and out of heavy fog hanging over the water. “I’ve used up every favor I have and then some getting access to a satellite a couple hours a day. I’ve searched everything I can think of and come up blank.” He paused to drink coffee and watch a flock of tiny birds flit in the high grass looking for breakfast. Honey remained silent.

  “I pushed to get Becca’s personal papers back. Got ’em a few days ago. I have nothing to reference them against. I could be looking at the solution and not know.” He leaned, resting his elbows on his thighs. “I’d like you to go over them.”

  She nodded.

  He stood. “I’m going to clean up and heat water so you can get a shower before the sat passes over.”

  She squinted, disbelief written on her face. “Heat?”

  “Nothing high-tech. Lee devised something. Build a fire under the tank and you have hot water.” He went in and returned with a change of clothes.

  “What about you? We can take a shower together,” she said as he went down the stairs.

  He shook his head, not looking at her. “I’m used to the cold.” His heart hammered and he double-timed it before he changed his mind and took her up on the offer.

  Jack built a fire under what Lee called the hillbilly heater and contemplated removing the disguise he’d hidden behind for months. He didn’t recognize the face that stared back from the piece of stainless steel he used for a mirror. Hell, he couldn’t see the face. His hair hung in his eyes and his months-old beard was wild. He was a hairy beast. He heaved a sigh. Time to quit hiding. He finger-combed as many knots out as he could and cut until a pile of hair the size of a small raccoon covered his feet. Next he skinned the critter on his face. He patted it into submission, put the scissors as close to his skin as he dared and cut. Finished, he turned his head side to side, reexamining his image. Not bad.

  The reason he’d gone mountain man sent bolts of sadness ripping through him. It was Lee he saw looking back. Damn it. He placed a shaky hand over the image and looked back at the cabin. Her being here made things better. Eased the soreness in his heart. Still, a tiny fragment of suspicion and doubt lingered in the back of his brain. Shit. Like she said, all that training. It was ingrained. A honed self-preservation instinct. Shit. Shit. Shit! He opened the shower valve, howling when the cold water hit him. The cold water wasn’t enough to keep him from wanting her.

  • • •

  Jack closed the door harder than necessary and leaned against it, waiting for Honey to finish grinding coffee beans. When she didn’t turn, he cleared his throat.

  She went to the fridge without looking over and perused the contents. Fuck!

  “Do you mind if I cook this red meat?” She turned, a package in her hand.

  “This better?” He raised his eyebrows, tilted his head, and washed his hand over the stubble he’d left. She nodded then shook her head. Her crystalline eyes blinked then blinked again. The corner of her mouth tilted up then went to a wary neutrality.

  Honey went motionless, one hand holding the steak, the other on the top of the fridge door, a tingling throb pulsing through her. Was the damn appliance shocking her? She jerked her hand away. Nope. The Jack she knew was doing that all by his lonesome. Standing tall, sandy hair short and curling. Cheekbones, jaw, and chin clef she loved to caress visible under short stubble, giving her a high-voltage smile that, flaming fish balls, took her breath away.

  “That much better, huh?” he teased as he sauntered to her in a loose-hipped walk, stopping inches away.

  “Mmmm.” She touched the ragged scruff where the wild beard had been. “I was getting used to the thing on your face.”

  He captured her hand in his and pressed her palm against his lips.

  “I made more coffee,” she said, glancing at the pot and trying to keep her lizard brain from taking over rational thought processes.

  “Okay.” He took the package from her, placing it on the counter, and closed the door. Then held both her hands.

  “What I said yesterday, about not trusting you . . . and acting like a horse’s ass . . . I want to know . . . are we good?”

  She nodded. “We’re good.” By now she was backed against the cabinet, only a breath between their bodies. She freed her hands from his and put them on his belly. “I want to know . . . are we going to work together or get naked on the sofa?”

  He released her hands, a mild look of shock on his face. “I’m not asking you to have sex.”

  “Like hell. You come in here all warm and not as fuzzy. If my hands went lower and unsnapped your jeans, we’d be naked in seconds.” She pushed him back. “Don’t throw sex at me, Jack O’Brien, unless you intend to use it. And before you say it . . . this morning, I was just as bad walking around naked.”

  He leaned back and rubbed the back of his head. “Yeah. You’re right. Rules?”

  She nodded. Work had never invaded the world they’d created. Adding it now would definitely take concentration and attention to rules. Getting to know one another. Really know one another to build trust.

  “Work first, play later.”

  “Agreed. Work and play completely separate. Let’s talk about the work part now,” she said.

  He shook his head. “After a while. The water’s warm. Get your shower. While you’re doing that I’ll cook that red meat and we’ll talk.”

  “How long before the satellite comes over? I don’t want to be the star of an NSA porn flick.”

  He checked his watch. “Hour and ten. So you know, I’d pay big bucks to see that flick.”

  She grabbed clothes and personal items, then headed for the door and turned back. “That bag has Saunders’s and Ramsey’s notes. Like your sister-in-law’s.” She went out. Might as well get to the trust thing now.

  A hot shower and a plate of steak and eggs later, Honey got down to business. “I was sent to talk to you, see if there was anything you may have forgotten or didn’t tell investigators.” She paused. “Is there?”

  “Yes.” He didn’t hesitate. “The last communication I had with Lee said he wanted to get my take on some things he was seeing about a government contractor.”

  “Global?”

  “Don’t know.” He looked out to the lake. “Never talked to him again.” He took a drink of coffee. “Now tell me who sent you and why.”

  She did hesitate. His tone, his body language gave her no reason to doubt what he said. She weighed how he would react to the DIA orders, her distrust of Moore and the question of the orders’ legitimacy. For the first time she had no appetite for playing the get-inside-your-head game. Was it because of her . . . her attachment to him? She pinched the bridge of her nose between her thu
mb and index finger. “I was sent to do the job Becca didn’t complete and asked to snoop around Global. It’s possible they’re selling arms or technology.”

  “Are they?”

  “Don’t know. They have a first-class setup. Huge government contacts. I don’t know why they’d go the illegal route. The way they went after me”—she shook her head—“there has to be something there.” She held back that she and Moore had been lovers and the possibility the orders weren’t legit.

  He didn’t try to hide his surprise. Jack went to the window, hands jammed in his pockets, silent.

  “You were already investigating Global, what made you think they were involved?”

  “When I heard about the girls being taken.”

  “Do you know the Ramsey and Saunders connection with Global?”

  He nodded. “Saunders applied for a consulting job and Ramsey is on a board reviewing a contract.” He turned. “It makes no sense. I’ve gone over Becca’s notes until my eyes bled. Abso-fucking-lutely nothing sticks out.”

  “Okay.” She lifted the bags with Ramsey’s and Saunders’s notes and plunked them on the table. “One thing we have going is these notes,” she said, stacking what she had on the table. “How have you categorized hers?”

  He came to the table. “Three years’ worth on the table. I dismissed anything older as being irrelevant. I separated them chronologically and into jobs. She deployed to three and four different places a year.”

  “Same here. I was given four and five years. I say we keep it to three.”

  He nodded.

  Honey retrieved her secured sat cell and powered it on. No connection. Odd. She’d used that phone in the middle of bumfuck nowhere and had no problems.

  He looked at her over his shoulder. “Jammer. I’ll turn it off.”

  She was familiar with jamming equipment. It blocked any communications in its range, and it was expensive. He passed her and picked up the small metal box beside the sofa she’d stubbed her toe on this morning. “That’s the jammer?”

  “This? No.” He flipped open the top, revealing a screen. “It’s connected to the motion detectors and cameras on the perimeter. Something trips it, I get a signal and see it on the screen. I wear the earbuds to prevent anyone out there hearing the warning tone.” He went to the loft and opened a beat-up armoire.

  Honey craned her neck and saw electronics inside, obviously running off the generator. “What’s the range?” she asked.

  “A kilometer.”

  Damned expensive.

  “Go ahead,” he said, passing her on the way outside, giving her privacy.

  She called Gloria, who went right to the scoop. It wasn’t good. Her contacts found no evidence of orders or that Global was under investigation. Quite the opposite. The VP and his oversight committee thought the company walked on water. They were actively pushing for a quick approval of Global’s contract spy endeavor. No one was blocking it. Honey knew not everything done at the Pentagon received a blessing, or was even known about. Gloria knew somebody . . . everyplace and she trusted her info. It was clear Honey wasn’t just piecing the puzzle together, she’d become part of it. A player in an unknown game. She looked at the man pacing the edge of the lake. So had he. Well, fuck them. They put the wrong player in.

  “Anything new with the geek squad?”

  “No. There’s no mention about you in Global’s cyber correspondence either.”

  “Okay, thanks,” Honey said. “I’ll be here three more days working with O’Brien on leads. Cell contact is limited. I’ll check in a couple times a day.”

  She disconnected that call and keyed in a number she hadn’t called for over two years. One she’d vowed to call only as a last resort. A man’s voice came on the line and said, “Identify.”

  “HARRY. KING. TANGO. OSCAR. EIGHT. FOUR,” she replied and waited while the program ID’d her code and voice then determined she was on a secure connection.

  Finally there was a click and another voice said, “Ma’am, how can I help you?” She went to the point. The voice gave her a password and assured, “Everything is in place. When can we expect the first access?”

  “Later today.” She ended the call. She was notifying her flight crew to enjoy Nashville when Jack came in.

  “Done?”

  “Yes.” It was reassuring he didn’t ask for details. She pointed to the notebooks. “Let’s get these sorted.”

  “First we have to set up for the satellite. I don’t use it and they’ll get nosier than they already are.”

  Chapter 18

  They’d worked silently for hours, with Jack working between notebooks and searching off-the-wall subjects during his allotted satellite time.

  Honey looked across the table at him. When it came to a man, she considered her wants and needs uncomplicated. The way he made her feel was as far from uncomplicated as it could get. Last night proved that. “I’m to a place I can break. You ready for one?”

  Jack flipped pages. “Five more.” He sighed and rubbed his face then clasped his hands behind his head and twisted and stretched.

  “I’m making coffee. Strong coffee.” She rose and a cavernous growl came from her stomach.

  He grinned. “There’s deli meat in the fridge. We can make sandwiches.”

  She liked that he said we. Honey dug through the contents, bringing out a package with Bologna scrawled across it. “Oh, my Gawd.” She ripped it open and held up one of the thick slices. “Do you have peanut butter and pickles?” She opened cabinets, searching.

  He was beside her, reaching to the top shelf. “Peanut butter.” He plunked the plastic container of creamy PB on the counter. “No pickles.” A loaf of bread also materialized.

  “Don’t need bread, thanks.” She got a plate.

  Jack folded his arms and leaned his butt against the kitchen counter, watching her spread the PB over a slice of bologna. She rolled it up and took a bite. He made a gagging sound then coughed. “That’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen.”

  Honey swallowed. “I doubt that, and don’t knock it unless you’ve tried it.” She put the roll-up in front of his mouth.

  “Get that away from me.” He pushed her arm away and went back to the table.

  “You want me to make you anything?” she said while she made another roll-up. “Oh. Fried bologna sandwich?”

  “Are you serious?” His eyes were little more than slits.

  She nodded.

  “No. Yes to coffee. Make it fast before you die from eating that.”

  “I forgot. I got so excited about having my favorite thing to eat.” She pumped water into the kettle.

  “Food is your favorite thing to eat.”

  “Ah,” she laughed, “you know me too well.” She dumped beans into the grinder, thinking how easy it was to slip into a familiarity with Jack.

  Jack finished the pages and they took mugs of steaming liquid onto the porch, sitting side by side on the top step. The sun had long ago banished the fog, and the still lake with its surrounding vista was absurdly beautiful, looking for all the world like a touched-up postcard used to entice tourists.

  “Tell me about Ali.” She gave him a sideways glance. This was as good a time as any to begin learning about each other.

  He gave her a stony look. “Why do you need to know?”

  “Chill. I don’t need to know. I wondered. Having two parents who worked in the intelligence community she must be a special kid.”

  A corner of his mouth edged up. “Yeah, she is and she’ll tell you that every chance she gets.”

  “How does she do that?”

  “She claims she’s the smartest kid in her class, and probably is. You know the Kryptos sculpture outside Langley?”

  Honey nodded. The sculpture contained four encrypted messages, three of which had been decoded.

  “She says she’ll be the one to decode that last message. She also says she’ll have her art hanging in galleries everywhere and will be the world grandmas
ter of martial arts.”

  Honey laughed. “I like her already.”

  Jack turned. “I think she’s a lot like you.”

  “I doubt that.”

  He stiffened. “Why? You think she’s not good enough?”

  Honey was surprised by the edge of anger in his voice. “Take it easy, sparkly. I meant you don’t want her to be like me. I was a bratty rich kid from Great Falls. Ali sounds like a smart, good kid.”

  He angled a narrow-eyed look at her across his shoulder. “Bratty rich kid?”

  “Mega bratty. World-record bratty. I ran away three times before I was twelve. I ate nothing but bologna, peanut butter, and pickles for months. I mean nothing.”

  Jack put his cup down and rubbed a hand over his mouth. “Where’d you run to?”

  “First time was the garage for two days. I didn’t want to get too far from food. The second time was a couple of day trips miles away to another town to play baseball with some kids. The—”

  “Baseball? Maybe I was there.”

  Honey laughed. “Maybe. You would remember me. The first day I watched wistfully from afar,” she said dramatically. “The second day, to look like a boy, I cut my hair to an inch. At least some was. Some was cut to the scalp. My sister said I looked like I had mange. Then I dug a boy’s shirt and jeans out of one of those donation drop-offs in a mall parking lot. Traded a kid my fifteen-hundred-dollar ten-speed bike for his no speed one. I begged my way into playing with those kids and had one glorious day of baseball before Daddy and my new bodyguard showed up.”

  Jack’s mouth hung open and he looked at her like she was covered with warts and scales.

  “Third time was right after that. Determined to be free, I used Daddy’s business account to book a first-class ticket to Norway to see my mother’s family.” She sighed. “I was boarding when they showed up. After that, poor Daddy took me everywhere with him. Didn’t trust others to keep an eye on me.” She laughed. “That included high-level meetings. Sitting in those conference rooms is how I learned to speak other languages.”