Sanchez grinned. “You have something that probably says Hey, look at me! wherever it goes.” His fingers flew across his keyboard. Sites flashed by on his screen and on Chay’s. “Also, this pair is synched. What I see, you see. Plus they’re superfast and totally discreet. No kiss-and-tell here, my man. Nobody will ever know we’ve been wherever we end up being. Got it?”
Chay laughed. Yeah. He got it.
“Okay,” Sanchez said. “We’re each gonna take a list. I’m gonna call up search engines. You check the names on your list. I’ll check the names on mine. You come up with anything, anything at all, tell me.”
They got to work.
At first, the sites were recognizable. Google. Bing. Nexis. Spokeo. Names on Bianca’s lists turned up on almost all of them, but none of the information was anything unusual. Addresses. Phone numbers. DOBs. Places of work.
Dull. And useless.
Then the search engine names, the names of sites, grew less familiar.
Government names. Cryptic names. Some names that were obvious acronyms. People on the lists began turning up.
Chay and Declan kept hitting the Print buttons.
There was lots of information. Medical data. Divorce data. Financial stuff. Things most reasonable people would consider private.
It got worse.
Sites appeared that were recognizable enough, secretive enough, that Bianca’s whispered “Mannaggia!” pretty much summed things up.
Sanchez had taken them deep, deep into darkness.
Police records. Military records. Court records. Local and state records. Federal records.
They were in places supposedly walled off from prying eyes, but Sanchez found the keys to them all.
The printer kept pushing out sheet after sheet of paper. Bianca read each page. Sometimes she showed the data to Annie and the two would confer in whispers.
Chay phoned out for pizza. While they waited for it to arrive, Declan and Annie took a walk on the beach, and Bianca made a call to the psychiatrist treating her former patient.
The conversation eliminated the man from a growing short list of suspects.
“The mental condition of my patient—my former patient—deteriorated,” Bianca said. “He’s been hospitalized.”
Chay started to say something, and Bianca shook her head.
“I know what you’re thinking, but he was committed well before these latest incidents, and Dr. Abbott did me the favor of checking while we were on the phone. My ex-patient is still behind the doors of a locked ward.” She gave a quick, sad smile. “I’m glad. Not that he’s sick enough to have been institutionalized, but that he’s finally receiving appropriate treatment.”
Hell.
Despite the phone calls, the ugly and terrifying things the guy had said to her during those calls he’d made to her when she was in Texas, she was still worried about him, thinking of him and not herself.
“You’re an amazing woman,” Chay said softly, and hugged her.
SEAL and STUD operatives understood the importance of duty. So did his Bianca.
She would always put the needs of her patients above her own, even if it put her in harm’s way.
• • •
The pizza arrived.
They ate out on the deck and spent a few minutes talking about nothing more important than the weather. Not much of a topic, considering Santa Barbara weather was almost always glorious, but they all wanted to put aside, at least for a little while, the increasingly gritty stuff turning up on the computers, stuff about people who were in Bianca’s life.
Then they went back to what they’d been doing, Chay on one computer, Declan on the other, the printer tossing out pages that went straight into Bianca’s hands.
Finally, when it was almost sunset, Sanchez groaned, pushed back his chair, raised his arms over his head and stretched.
“Man, I could use a break. And some food. How about getting to whatever you guys brought back this morning? Or we could send out for pizza again.”
Chay got to his feet, flashed a smug grin and opened the refrigerator. “Do you think you could give up pizza for burgers, corn roasted on the grill, and a couple of bottles of Napa Valley cab?”
“Dude,” Sanchez said with delight.
Chay grinned. “Man does not live by MREs alone.”
“MREs?” Annie said.
“Meals Ready to Eat,” Sanchez said, and shuddered.
“We picked up some cheese, too,” Bianca said. “And a loaf of sourdough bread.”
Chay handed her a wooden board. She put the bread and cheese on it. He grabbed silverware, plates and a corkscrew; Annie snatched up a stack of napkins. Sanchez took four glasses from the cupboard, and they all trooped out to the deck, ready to toast the spectacular Santa Barbara sunset. First, though, there was time for Sanchez and Annie to stroll the beach in the last glow of the dying sun.
“Whoops,” Bianca said. “We forgot the burgers and the corn.”
She started into the cottage. Chay grabbed her and pulled her into his lap. She sighed and settled against him.
“Tough day,” he said softly.
She sighed. “Yes. I hate dipping into people’s lives that way.”
“No choice.”
Another sigh. “I know.”
He drew her even closer. For the moment, the reason she was here, the reason they were all here, faded into oblivion. There was only the beach, the sunset, and the woman in his arms.
And he thought, A man could get used to this.
Not just a man.
Him.
• • •
By midnight, Bianca was asleep on the living room sofa. Annie was sprawled in a big leather chair, snoring lightly.
“Breathing hard, she’d call it,” Dec said with a little smile.
Chay looked up from his laptop. “So, what’s the deal?” he said quietly. “This a serious thing, or what?”
Dec sat back. “You know me, Olivieri. Hell, you know yourself. No room in our lives for anything serious, particularly when it comes to women… Although I seem to see some kind of change goin’ on with you.”
Just days ago, Chay would have laughed.
Not tonight.
He sat back too and looked at Sanchez.
“Sometimes life catches you by the short hairs,” he said, even more quietly. “Not that I know where this is taking me, you understand, but—but yeah, things, you know, things change.”
Dec nodded. “Damn right. Like—like I’m the one who won’t talk about anything beyond dinner tomorrow night or maybe, if I’m really into it, a weekend away.” He sighed. “But…”
“But?”
“But,” he said, jerking his chin towards Annie, “she’s the one who won’t talk about anything beyond tomorrow. Or, if I’m lucky, next week. And, man, you know how they say women are mysterious…”
Bianca sighed, rolled onto her back, opened her eyes and said, “What time izzit?”
Chay laughed. He rose from his chair, went over to her and drew her into his arms.
“My lady’s favorite question,” he said.
She flashed a sleepy smile. A minute later, Annie woke up. She and Bianca started making coffee, and Sanchez and Chay got back to work.
• • •
By two a.m. they had cleared all but five names on Bianca’s lists.
Five names.
Five histories. Five serious histories.
One of the instructors in her department, a guy she described as mild-mannered, even meek, had twice been arrested for assault. He’d beaten his ex-wife. Beaten her badly enough that she’d been hospitalized, but no charges had been filed, because she’d refused to press any.
A professor she’d studied with had a history of bizarre psychotic episodes. Under control as long as he took his
meds, but who knew if he was?
A subject in her dissertation study had been arrested for—Holy Christ, Chay thought, reading the arrest report—murder. He’d beaten the charge on a technicality, but the only person—probably the only one on the entire fucking planet—who didn’t think he was guilty was the guy’s mother.
Another subject—a female—was a sex offender. She was forty-five. Her specialty was boys under the age of twelve.
And one of Bianca’s patients was also a sex offender. He was a rapist, out on parole, facts he’d never bothered divulging.
Chay blew out a breath, sat back and folded his arms over his chest.
“We can eliminate the woman who digs little boys,” he said, his voice hoarse with exhaustion. “She deserves to have her picture on a dartboard, but for our purposes only the others are candidates for Shithead of the Year.”
“Couldn’t have put it better myself,” Declan agreed.
Chay rubbed his hands over his face. “It could be any of them.”
“Or not.” Bianca said. “The truth is, he might be nobody I know. Nobody I think I know. He could be a delivery man who dropped off a package at my apartment. A guy who lives in the building. A clerk I bought potatoes from at the greenmarket.”
Her voice trembled.
Chay got up, fast, went to her, dropped to knees beside her chair and took her hands in his.
“We’re all exhausted,” he said. “We need to get some sleep.”
Annie yawned in agreement. Dec began unplugging his equipment.
“I’m sorry,” Bianca whispered. “You’ve all worked so hard. And I know we’ve made progress. It’s just that—that I don’t see how we’re ever going to make sense of this mess.”
“We’ll start by interviewing some of these people.”
“But they’re all back east.”
“I can do a lot by phone,” Chay said. “And after a couple of days, when I think you’re up to me leaving you here, I’ll fly back to New York.”
“You are not doing that without me!”
“Bianca,” Annie said quickly, “you can stay with me. I have an apartment just off campus.”
“Or she can stay right here,” Sanchez said. “I can bunk on the couch until Chay’s back.”
Bianca looked from one of them to the other.
“You don’t understand. Wherever Chay is, is where I want to be.”
The room filled with silence.
Bianca wanted to crawl into a corner and hide.
Oh God! Had she really said that?
Everything she felt for Chay was in that admission. Everything. Declan knew it. So did Annie. She could see it in their shocked expressions.
Most of all…most of all, Chay knew it too. She’d stripped herself bare, told him something he certainly didn’t want to hear.
“Honey,” he said softly.
She had to remedy it. Say something. Twist the meaning.
A deep breath. A fixed smile. Then she tugged her hands free of his and stood up.
“I am the reason Chayton is knee-deep in this situation,” she said. “And I am not going to remove myself from dealing with the problem. Whatever must be done next, I will be there when it is done. You know what they say. If you are not part of the program, you are part of the difficulty.”
It wasn’t what “they” said. Everyone knew it, but only Chay knew that Bianca was in distress. The question was, why? Because she thought she’d stepped on his plans—or because she’d admitted that she needed him. Wanted him.
That she—that she cared for him.
“Well,” Sanchez said briskly, “I don’t know about the rest of you guys, but I need to grab some shut-eye. Olivieri? You need anything else, just yell.”
“I don’t know what to say, Dec…”
“Hey, one for all and all for one. Who said that? A couple of Navy guys? Or a pair of French dudes a long time ago?”
Laughter. Back slaps. Hugs. Doors opening and closing.
At last, Chay and Bianca were alone.
She looked at him, then away. Amazing. This man knew her intimately. More intimately than any man ever had. And yet, because of a handful of foolish words, she felt embarrassed and awkward—and there was nowhere to hide.
“Well,” she said, “let me just clean up…”
She got as far as reaching for an empty coffee mug when Chay’s arms closed around her. He drew her back against him, kissed her hair, her earlobe, her throat.
“Bianca,” he said.
She shook her head. Why pretend she hadn’t made a fool of herself?
“I should not have said what I said,” she whispered. “That—that I want to be wherever you are. I misspoke. You know how I sometimes do that. I get the words wrong…”
He turned her in his arms. “That’s how it is for me too, baby.” He brushed his lips gently over hers. “I want to be wherever you are.”
Her eyes glittered with tears. “Do you, Chayton?”
He nodded. “That’s the only place I want to be. Wherever you are.”
She laughed. He kissed her. Then he led her into the bedroom and this time, when they made love, it was so sweet and tender that she wept.
• • •
Bianca came awake abruptly.
The room was chilly. It held the faint light of very early morning, and the bed beside her was empty.
She rose, wrapped herself in the blanket and padded to the bathroom.
Chay wasn’t there. He wasn’t in the living room or the kitchen. She opened the sliding doors and stepped out on the deck.
There he was! Wearing gray gym shorts, doing push-ups on the hard-packed sand near the water’s edge.
And so beautiful he made her heartbeat quicken.
The morning light dappled his body with gold, and what a body it was. Hard. Powerful. A long, lean mass of incredibly delineated muscle. Her mother used to weave tales of the warriors who had tried to conquer Sicily, whose blood was part of hers. Phoenicians. Carthaginians. Greeks. Romans. Her half-brothers and half-sisters had grown up on their father’s tales of the Viking and Celtic and Apache conquerors whose DNA was within them.
Chayton could have belonged to any of those warrior tribes. To the best of them. He had their strength, their courage…
And he had her heart.
She thought of what he’d said last night. Early this morning, really, just before he’d taken her to bed. That he wanted to be wherever she was.
But what did that mean? Did he love her? Or was she only important to him now? She wasn’t a fool. Love—not that he’d ever mentioned love—did not always mean forever.
It would, for her. She would always love him. Adore him…
Dio. What was she doing? She was a scientist. She knew better than to theorize without at least some basis in fact. And she was a woman. She had watched her mother live for dreams.
It was far wiser to live for the moment.
Besides, she thought, as she went back into the cottage, she had work to do.
• • •
She sat up in bed, her computer in her lap, and checked her email. Some of it she dumped; some she put aside for later.
Only one message had to be dealt with now.
It was from Lacey.
Hope you and The Hunk are having fun! Canceled and rescheduled your appointments for the rest of the week. Hey, why would you only spend a weekend with Mr. Gorgeous? Told Epstein you were called away unexpectedly. A frown, but no complaints. Only one thing you might want to know about. Your patient Susan Abrams called. Sounded very upset. Gave me an earful. Know how you don’t like to put personal details of patients in email, so give me a call and I’ll fill you in.
Lacey
Bianca frowned. Give her a call. How?
She looked at the nightstand. C
hay’s phone lay on it. Of course! She’d use that. The bug had been in her phone, not his.
She grabbed the phone, pulled Lacey’s home number out of her memory. It was nine back East; Lacey was probably up.
She was, and after some jokes about how Lacey was spending her weekend compared with Bianca’s, Lacey told her about Susan Abrams and gave her Abrams’s telephone number. She told her, too, about Dr. Epstein.
“She was surprised, like I said, but she didn’t froth at the mouth or anything. But, you know, you might want to touch bases.”
Bianca ended the call. She dialed her patient’s number. Abrams’s crisis, which hadn’t been a crisis at all, was history. “See you next week,” she said happily. “Ta-ta.”
Two calls down. One to go, this one to Dr. Epstein.
No lies, but she wasn’t going to tell her she’d left New York because someone was terrorizing her…or worse.
So she said that something very important had come up.
Epstein asked how she could reach her if that became necessary.
“Not that I think it will, but…”
“You can reach me at this number,” Bianca said. “I’m staying with a family friend.” True, more or less. Chay was Tanner’s friend, and Tanner was her brother-in-law. “I can’t use my phone. It, uh, it died.”
“Ah. Too bad. And your friend is…?”
“Chay. Chay Olivieri.”
“Great,” Epstein said briskly. “Let me just write all this down. I probably won’t have to call, but if I should… Oh. My son just walked in. Remember him?”
“Of course.”
“David, I’m talking with Bianca Wilde. Do you want to say…”
Bianca rolled her eyes. “Marilyn. Look, I’m kind of busy…”
“It doesn’t matter.” Epstein lowered her voice. “David is in one of his moods. He doesn’t want to talk to you. Nothing personal, you understand. He’s just—”
Bianca stopped listening.
Chay had just entered the room.
Sweat glistened on his skin. His muscles stood out in sharp relief, and his gym shorts hung low on his hips. He was a walking advertisement for sex, and the look he gave Bianca left her breathless.
“I have to go, Marilyn,” she said, even as she pressed the button that ended the call. Slowly, she opened the blanket that hid her from him.
Privilege: Special Tactical Units Division: Book Two Page 23