Night Is Mine

by M. L. Buchman

  Something was wrong in the East Wing but they didn’t know what. Was Katherine’s life in danger? Daniel’s? Beale’s or the President’s?

  Or the unvoiced suspicion? Clearly Beale had an idea, but she claimed that she didn’t trust her own judgment. Her theory was too impossible. She waited for independent confirmation from him. So he watched everything twice as hard and had no idea what she was thinking. The other problem was that he hadn’t met anyone except Daniel as the guy breezed through the kitchen like a blond lightning bolt.

  And now this! Whatever madman had attacked four times, apparently didn’t care who got caught in the crossfire. Some schmuck had tried to shoot down his Emily, then poison her. Mark wanted to meet that man. Real soon.

  The waiting was crazy-making. Watch everything. Trust nothing. And be ready to die in the middle of walking down a flight of stairs.

  The only thing that made him crazier was Beale. Did she know how sexy she was, puttering around the kitchen trying to kill time? In public they held hands, kissed, sparked off each other like small-arms fire off tanks. In private, nada. Zilch. Niente.

  She dropped a sandwich in front of him.

  Okay, there were a few bonuses to being a fake lover to a beautiful woman who could cook.

  Kosher dill wedge, pastrami on toasted Jewish rye, and a frosted mug of root beer. Homemade potato chips; who knew where the hell potato chips came from, and his girl could cook them from scratch. In many ways she was even more terrifying in the kitchen than on the flight line.

  He snarled a thanks.

  “Hey, honey. You need to get out a bit.”

  They both knew he couldn’t leave. Had to be there whenever the moment arrived. If it ever goddamn arrived.

  “You and your stupid-ass ideas. You don’t even know what it means to run a black-in-bl—”

  The kitchen door slammed open, the one he’d been watching for two days. And a pair of lethal-looking Secret Service agents in perfect black suits breezed in. He slapped for a weapon but thankfully didn’t find one. Before he’d even completed the gesture, they both had him in their sights. He’d seen D-boys with less speed.

  “Whoa.” He put his hands up in clear view and then remembered his role here. “Whoa there, pardner. Sorry for the slap.” He indicated where his holster wasn’t, turning his hip forward to make sure they both could see, without lowering his hands. “Old habits, you know.”

  They hadn’t moved.

  “Whew!” He shook his hands out and lowered them to his side. “Been a long time since I had to draw. Didn’t know that was still hardwired inside me.” They’d have definitely cracked down to his former paramilitary cover story by now so not much point in hiding it.

  He wiped his brow, chastened that his hand came away damp with sweat. The boys holstered their M1911s. They packed serious stopping power.

  “Sorry, honey.” Emily came to his side and patted his brow with a clean kitchen cloth. “They greeted me the same way.”

  “Yes, except I was about to be skewered by a chef’s knife,” the older and tougher-looking agent remarked with a touch of chagrin in his voice. Then he looked at Mark with a “but you ain’t nothing, boy” glare. Their contempt confirmed the death of his first-layer cover story. Hopefully, finding the much richer second layer would make them think they’d discovered the truth and stop them from working to go any deeper. Warriors hated paramilitary the same way cops hated vigilantes. And freelancers like his second-tier cover story claimed him to be—guns for hire, mercenaries—were the lowest form of life on the planet in their books.

  And then she breezed in.

  Beale’s briefing on the First Lady had been thorough. Her background. Her charm. Her innate grace and style. Her slightly domineering tendencies, which Mark translated as “screaming bitch,” though Beale insisted otherwise. But there was one thing the captain never mentioned.

  The First Lady was Hot.

  With a capital H!

  She packed a one-two punch of raw sexuality that maybe Beale had missed, but it hit his testosterone head on. This was a mature woman with a body built to last. Long, flowing red hair and cream skin right out of any man’s fantasy. And tall. Almost as tall as Beale. With powerful curves that strained and pressed against the imagination.

  “Is this him?” Katherine Matthews closed in until they were inches apart and her perfume filled his brain. Not some spicy new scent from J.Lo or the decadent luxury of Chanel. This was warm woman. One who knew exactly how good a woman and a bit of lavender soap could smell without any additions.

  “You were right, Emily. He is very cute.” She ran a finger over his three-day beard. “Very cute.”

  The caress was warm and promised more than a woman could possibly deliver. Except maybe this one.

  She passed him by and parked herself on a stool at the counter.

  He pulled himself together and sat back in front of his untouched sandwich. Emily was offering him the evil eye.

  Hey! He hadn’t done the flirting; the First Lady had. And he could pick her out in his peripheral vision just inches to his left. Her curves registered deep in his body. And her hand, perfectly manicured, but with no fingernail polish. He’d have expected electric, fire-engine, come-get-me red. The simplicity of those apparently naked hands was a siren call he bet few had resisted.

  Emily’s scowl was heating up. She either intended to play the p.o.-ed lover or she really was annoyed about it. He did his best to act the lover caught in the act of ogling another woman and took a mouth-stuffing bite of his sandwich before he could say something stupid.

  “Damn!” He managed to mumble as the hot Swiss cheese threatened to sear off the roof of his mouth. “Thas sho gud!”

  Emily smiled as if the morning sun had just washed over her face. And in that instant, in that simple action, she washed all of Katherine Matthews out of his brain. He knew she loved serving food, making others happy with it. But the sheer joy his gasping remark had elicited lit her up brighter than a desert sunrise. It was the most incredible thing he’d ever seen.

  He kept chewing, even closing his eyes briefly to appreciate the interplay of strong, stone-ground mustard and smoked beef brisket with the perfect amount of garlicky sauerkraut. Incredible.

  When he could finally think, the first words out of his mouth were, “Any man that doesn’t do his damnedest to marry you is an absolute idiot.”

  And he meant it, which shocked him to the depths of his bachelor soul, despite wanting family. That was for some other day. At this point in his life, he was strictly a catch-and-release guy. No one would make that mistake with Emily Beale.

  “Well, lover, that’s sweet.” She almost purred, then leaned over to Katherine whom he’d momentarily forgotten. “See, I told you he was cute. I hit him between the ribs with my chicken piccata. Then before he could recover, I socked him with a one-two of the Duke’s braised short ribs and Sophia Loren’s veal parmigiana.”

  Right, slap him upside the head, that’s what she was doing. And doing very well. His script said to get close to the First Lady, not to Emily Beale. He took a long slug from the frosted mug of root beer. An exquisite combination with pastrami. It was hard to think with that much flavor in your mouth.

  He leaned over until his shoulder brushed against Katherine’s and offered in a sotto voce whisper, “Then, after dinner one night, I asked about the sourdough starter for her flapjacks. Good move, huh?”

  “Good move,” the First Lady offered in return. Again all that silky smooth. He knew that type of voice well, as he’d gone to a lot of work to cultivate it himself. The question was, did it improve or impair the picture? On one hand it was sexy as hell, as his body and his heart rate were loudly informing him. On the other, he knew exactly—exactly!—what lay behind it. A lot of promise, a lot of delivery, and not the slightest drip of personal involvement. Sex with her would be as meaningless as it was wild. A weapon that she wielded the way Beale wielded a helicopter.

  He could see Beale
searching for a proper rejoinder, but she didn’t have it in her. A dozen years in this man’s Army, if you included her time at the Point, and she was still at heart a sweet girl. Wouldn’t have expected that of her, but there it was all over her face.

  “Then I showed her my other moves,” he rescued the break in the rhythm of flirting before Beale fell face-first into it. “That went well, too. As you can imagine.”

  The First Lady nudged his shoulder back. “Oh, indeed I can. Indeed I can.”

  He’d just bet.

  Chapter 47

  “Every intuition you had about her is true. That woman is a serious piece of work. Ha! Imagine running into that in a dark bar.” Mark paced back and forth across Emily’s tiny White House apartment, four steps to the antique side table with its small bouquet of chrysanthemums, through the bathroom door, to the shower stall, and back.

  “Keep your voice down.” She stopped his excited strides with a hand on his chest. “Not here.” Emily placed her palm over Mark’s mouth and he kissed the center of it.

  For a moment, just a moment, she let herself drift in the engulfing sensuality of Mark’s lips against her palm. Of their own volition, her fingers wrapped around to cup his cheek. To have him so close, so present every day. Knowing he’d watched over her darkest hours. Knowing his body better from only two encounters than any other man she’d ever—

  “No.” More a caress than a refusal. “No.” She dug deep and found her voice. The last three days had wound her up even more than Mark; she was simply better at hiding it. She could see him fraying at the seams, but thankfully, he didn’t appear able to see her doing the same. Relief washed over her that the second phase of their plan finally had begun. The release from worry left her giddy and susceptible to suggestion. Well, not suggestion. More to caresses or—There went her brain again.

  “No!” She dragged her hand free. She stepped back and could feel the pain that caused both of them. “I’m not going there with you. You’re my CO. And especially not while…” she waved a hand to indicate the building that spread about them.

  “At least there’s hope for me.” His growl didn’t sound faked. “Let’s go for a walk.” His high humor of a moment earlier had washed away, and now she found herself caged with an angry tiger.

  Katherine was off to a dinner so they were free for the evening. Emily snagged a light jacket and held open the door before he could change his mind. In moments, they were out past the barriers and entering the warm afternoon light.

  Only when they were halfway across the Mall and had passed through four very large tourist clumps did she dare speak. They were drifting along between two high school classes being herded toward the Washington Monument. A cluster of giggling teenage girls brought up the tail of the group ahead. And the cluster behind included several dozen third-graders. This was as close to her father’s panic room as she’d find for making the conversation difficult to record.

  She reached for his hand to pull him in close, only to realize he already held hers. Had been holding it. Ever since they’d left her room. Part of the role. Make it appear natural and cozy. But he did it so well, it had felt so natural. She hadn’t even noticed the transition. That same hand that had held hers in the hospital. Now she could feel the tension in it, the instant connection to his emotions through that simple contact. For a few more moments, she let herself enjoy the sensation of walking hand in hand with her boyfriend on a quiet D.C. evening.

  Nice fantasy. Forget about it, girl.

  “Now, back to reality. What were you saying?”

  Mark cleared his throat and almost dropped her hand as if suddenly uncomfortable, a superior officer holding hands with one of his underlings. She held on because she cared about how they looked, not how they felt. At least that’s what she told herself, and she almost believed it.

  “First La—”

  “No names.”

  “She,” his voice little more than a low growl. “She is one manipulative, conniving, convincing, charming, sexy-assed lady.” But not all low growl.

  “She impressed you?”

  “Impressive lady. Haven’t had my own tricks worked on me that well in a long time, probably not since Denise Hartnagel in kindergarten. Now there was a man-killer.” He offered her the stupid look of a man head over heels in love for a moment before chuckling.

  “We are in so much trouble on this one, gal. Do you know how deep in you are?”

  Emily thought she knew but wanted his assessment.

  “The wine thing?”

  One case of a stuffy nose or just a little less knowledge about how that Chardonnay was supposed to smell, and she’d never have detected the potassium cyanide.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if she planted it to have you killed so that it would look as if someone were attacking her.”

  “There’s a comforting thought.” She fought down the shiver that had nothing to do with the sun setting. Though not totally successfully, as Mark answered by squeezing her clasped hand for a long moment.

  Then her brain kicked in, “But—”

  “Right. But! That would mean she was the one behind the plot to kill herself.”

  “Or apparent attempt to.” Emily rolled her father’s words around in her head, but the thought didn’t want to settle yet. She’d had the idea that maybe Katherine had done the attacks herself but couldn’t come up with why. Especially when they had so nearly succeeded. She’d decided they must, somehow, be attacks by Peter but she couldn’t stand that thought. Mark was contradicting that, to her relief.

  He had also just confirmed that the itch she had around Katherine Matthews might have some basis.

  “If she could use a person and toss them aside so easily…” The first group of kids peeled off, headed up the monument, their pass tickets clutched desperately in sweaty hands.

  She and Mark circled the monument slowly, passing between the massive stone monolith and the circle of benches holding those who had arrived before their timed ticket’s mark. A group of girls lay on their backs on the stone with their feet up against the monument’s base. They looked for all the world as if they were about to start walking up the vertical face. A friend snapped photos with a camera turned vertically.

  Emily glanced skyward. The monument appeared to taper upward forever, its top still sunlit, sparkling far above. That would take real magic to climb. She knew the feeling.

  “So, if Kath—”

  Mark glared at her briefly.

  “So, if She was willing to waste my li—” There had to be an easier way to do this. It was easy enough when they were flying. Go military.

  “If our target of interest is willing to waste an asset such as me, such as my father’s daughter, then what is her target of interest?”

  “You tell me, honey. You’ve been doing the fieldwork on this one. Me? I’m just the itinerant boyfriend of some babe.”

  “Babe?” No one had ever called her a babe, except for a few of the newbies who’d learned better real fast.

  “I’m a twenty-nine-year-old woman who is way past—”

  “Being a cutie and now deep into babeland. A babe who looks even hotter in dress blues than an apron, I might add.”

  “You may not.” For one thing it was making her blush. For another, if he kept complimenting her and teasing her like this, she might let her guard down around him. No matter what else, he was still her once—and hopefully future—commanding officer. Though the present was foggy… No. She couldn’t risk going there. Not with how she already felt about this man.

  “Maybe…” She searched for a return to the subject as they followed a fresh set of high-schoolers east along the mall toward the Capitol. “Maybe she’s into cheap thrills.”

  “Murder’s usually a pretty spendy thrill. Generally has a lot of hard time associated with it.” Mark winked at a little blonde who had slowed down at the back of the pack, causing her to blush wildly and return to her friends. By the time she dared look back, Mark had led E
mily deep into a crowd of Japanese tourists headed toward the World War II Memorial.

  “It’s the light weapon that makes a hole in that. That came closer to, um, bringing about the demise of herself rather than me. I can’t make it scan.” Emily let her eyes casually sweep the crowd, but even if any of them spoke English, none were paying them any mind.

  “You’re right on that.” Mark harrumphed unhappily and stopped to stare up at the sky. “No airplanes.”

  Several of the Japanese tourists noticed him looking up and checked out the darkening October sky themselves. A couple took pictures of it. They’d get home and look at the blank blue photo and wonder, “What was I thinking when I took this?” Emily covered her mouth to keep from laughing.

  “Peter’s in his big white home. Twenty-five kilometers around him are no-fly. It’s the clearest airspace on the East Coast, a real pleasure to fly in.”

  “Twenty-five klicks? About a minute and a half for a subsonic cruise missile. Twenty seconds for a Sidewinder if you could get within the fifteen-klick range to launch it.”

  “It’s not considered polite to point out the defense-system fallacies of the house you’re a guest in.”

  Mark nodded. “Point taken. Never thought of it that way. Seems all so safe with the men in black stalking about.”

  “And the bubble follows him, too. That’s why the motorcades always book out of the airports so fast. As long as he’s there, nothing flies.”

  “And you’re enjoying this?”

  Now there was an interesting thought. Did she enjoy being inside the “bubble” her father had warned her about the day she landed? Perhaps she did. She’d grown up as the daughter of a senior FBI agent, then assistant director, then director. She’d spent most of her life in the center of very heavily protected forward bases and training camps as secret as any terrorist training center.

  “What if—?” Mark studied a massive willow tree as if it were the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen. He focused so intently on whatever he was thinking that he dropped her hand to cross his arms over his chest. She resisted the urge to move closer and slip her fingers around the crook of his elbow to stay close.