Dark of Night

by Suzanne Brockmann

  “You're doing it again,” Tracy pointed out as she found a box of cookies—chocolate chips—and a jar of organic apple-pomegranate juice. She tried to open the lid of the juice, but it was stuck. “Remember, the universe doesn't hear don't.”

  He made it all the way over to the counter and reached to take the jar out of her hands. “I don't want any juice,” he said quietly. “Go take a shower.”

  She looked at him. “Careful. You're awfully close. I might touch you.”

  “I'm sorry I… said what I said,” he apologized—even as he put some additional distance between them. “It's not your fault.”

  “It's not my fault, what?” she countered, as she opened the package of chocolate chips. “That I make you feel something—other than miserable?”

  He just stood there looking at her.

  So she held out a cookie. “Sorry it's not a scone.”

  Tom Paoletti met them at the airport.

  Tom, not Decker.

  Dave saw him standing there before Sophia did—he was at the bottom of the escalator in the baggage claim area. His arms were crossed and his legs were spread in that fucking obnoxious Navy SEAL stance that Dave had come both to hate and to love—equally passionately. Sometimes it seemed as if everyone he knew at TS Inc. had at one time been a Navy SEAL. Or else they were currently a Navy SEAL.

  Everyone except for him.

  Which pissed him off because he knew that, in their eyes, it made him subpar.

  And at the same time, as infuriatingly cocky as SEALs could be, he loved having them around, watching his six, as they called it.

  They could never call anything what it really was—watching his back—when there was a way to say it with either military or nautical jargon. Tom himself was the least obnoxious of the bunch, and he still called the bathroom the head and the floor the deck. Walls were bulkheads and terrorists were tangos and Dave knew from experience that if his boss was in a room with another SEAL, the NavySpeak would fly.

  “Paoletti dead ahead,” he murmured to Sophia, who still looked exhausted despite the fact that she'd slept seemingly soundly, almost to the very moment the plane touched down here in California.

  “I thought Decker was meeting us,” she said.

  Dave nodded, unable to look at her, for fear his sudden wave of jealousy was evident on his face. Fucking Decker. “Yeah, I thought so, too,” he said—far more tightly than he'd intended.

  Her patience was fraying, because she exhaled her obvious disgust with him. “I didn't say that I hoped he was meeting us,” she countered, “only that I thought he was. God, Dave.”

  Tom was approaching so he couldn't respond with, God, Dave what? or explain that she'd misinterpreted his unhappiness as being somehow linked to Decker, and yes, okay, it was, but only to some degree. The rest of it had to do with Tom—and why their boss himself had chosen to meet them at the airport, rather than sending someone else.

  Someone lower down the chain of command.

  “Where's your wheelchair, Malkoff?” Tom asked, stepping forward to take Dave's bag off his shoulder. Normally easygoing, the taller man wasn't bothering to hide his displeasure.

  “I don't need one, sir,” Dave answered. “And obviously you didn't think I needed one, either, or you'd've been standing in front of the elevators.”

  “I was,” Tom informed him, pointing over Sophia's shoulder. “You've been out of the hospital, what is it? Ten hours?”

  “I'm fine,” Dave lied, as he turned and …

  Yes, all right. Tom had had a clean shot of the lift from where he'd been standing.

  Sophia answered the boss's question, “Nine and a half hours. I'm sorry, sir,” she added. “I tried to talk him into using a wheelchair, but… I have to confess that I didn't try very hard. It's been a long couple of days and one can only keep hitting one's head against a wall for a limited amount of time.”

  “But I'm fine,” Dave argued, “and we'd've had to wait for them to bring the chair.”

  Tom had turned his attention to Sophia, no doubt taking note of the lines around her mouth and the haunted look in her eyes. It used to be her standard affect—that gone to hell and not quite sure she was back yet expression—and Dave hated that he'd been the one to cause its reappearance.

  “You okay?” Tom asked as he took her bag, too, and she nodded. Forced a smile. “How's your father?”

  “Doing his best,” she said, “to make amends before he—Oh my God, Dave!”

  She was looking at him in horror, and he looked down and realized that he'd bled through both his bandage and his shirt. “I must've pulled some stitches getting my bag from the overhead rack,” he said as he drew his jacket closed. “It's nothing.” He hoped. It hurt—more than it should have.

  “I've got a car at the curb,” Tom informed them. “Let's go. We can do a damage assessment in the car. If you've got checked luggage, I suggest we don't wait for it—”

  “We don't,” Sophia said tersely as she put her arm around Dave's waist—as if he needed her support. And God help him, maybe he did. Ow.

  “Where's Decker?” he asked Tom as they moved swiftly—as swiftly as he could manage—toward the door.

  “He's been delayed.”

  “What's going on?” Dave asked.

  “I don't know,” Tom reported as the glass doors to the passenger pickup area opened with a snick. “I got a call from Alyssa, asking me to meet your plane. She said it was urgent. She told me about your attack, told me that the plan was to set you up in a secure hotel room—make sure you're safe.” He glanced at Dave again. “She specifically said to make sure both of you are safe.”

  “That's a very good idea,” Sophia said.

  Dave knew that now was not the right time to disagree. Besides, he needed about twenty hours of injury-healing sleep—which wasn't going to happen without his complete faith in the fact that Sophia was secure and protected. So he'd go wherever Tom was taking them, and he'd sleep, and when the time came to leave, to hunt down and neutralize the threat, he'd leave—knowing Sophia was in capable hands.

  But… great. Dave's heart sank as he saw that one of Tom's SEAL friends—a chief by the name of Ken Karmody—was behind the wheel of the car that was waiting for them.

  And it was quite a car. Instead of Tom's usual SUV, he'd brought one of the low, sleek, black sedans that were used by the company to pick up high-profile clients.

  Dave had realized that there would be a driver—since Tom had been waiting for them inside—but he'd hoped their boss had brought along one of the other Troubleshooters operatives: Lindsey or PJ or, hell, even Tracy Shapiro.

  While he appreciated Chief Karmody's particular skill set—SEALs were quite the talented drivers—Dave wasn't happy about having him for an audience. The conversation that he knew was coming was going to be hard enough.

  Tom was going to ask for Dave's resignation. Dave didn't blame him. Anise Turiano's unsolved murder had raised its ugly head, and the whispers about Dave were going to start up again. Tom didn't need that. He'd worked hard establishing Troubleshooters’ pristine reputation, and would—rightly—not want this ugliness to tarnish it.

  “The Card was over for a cookout when Alyssa called,” Tom explained as he tossed their bags into the trunk. Ken's nickname was WildCard, which of course got shortened even further. What was it with SEALs and nicknames?

  Sophia helped Dave into the backseat, and climbed in after him.

  Tom got in, and “The Card” put the car in gear and moved them, swiftly and steadily, into the stream of traffic heading out of the airport. “I've filled him in on the situation,” Tom continued. “He's done short-term assignments for Troubleshooters before—he knows how to be discreet.”

  “Sorry to pull you—both of you—from the party,” Dave said.

  “It's nice to see you, Ken,” Sophia chimed in, even as she opened Dave's jacket and pulled up his shirt to look at his bandaged wound.

  The SEAL glanced into the rearview mirror, at
Sophia and then Dave, before nodding. “Always glad to help Tommy. It was either me or the senior, and since Teri's about to pop …”

  “How is Teri?” Sophia continued the small talk, as she peeled the adhesive part of the bandage from Dave's side. He gritted his teeth. “We must be getting close to her due date.”

  “Yeah, it was three days ago,” Kenny reported. “The senior's about to have an aneurism. It's kinda fun to watch.”

  Tom's good friends, Senior Chief Stan Wolchonok and his wife, Teri, were having a baby. They were one of many couples who were expecting—in fact, the entire SoCal SpecWar community was having something of a baby boom these days.

  “Teri's going in for daily checkups,” Ken continued. “But everyone's healthy, so no one's too worried. It's a watch-and-wait thing.”

  “That's wonderful,” Sophia said, and she meant it. And yet there was a wistfulness in her words that Dave knew he wasn't imagining. “How's Savannah?”

  As Ken told Sophia about his own wife, Dave recalled hearing through the grapevine—possibly from Sophia herself—that Teri Wolchonok had had at least one miscarriage. As had Sophia, back when she was married to Dimitri.

  No doubt about it, life could certainly suck a giant cosmic ass.

  “We might need to stop at a hospital,” Sophia said, and Dave realized that she was frowning as she looked at his stitches. “Sir, I'm going to need you to look at this.”

  Dave pulled his shirt up even higher so he could see what had caused her alarm. As he'd suspected, he'd pulled several of the stitches, and it was oozing blood. And yes, it looked a little inflamed. “It's not that bad. We're not stopping. We can't.”

  “I wasn't talking to you,” she told him.

  Tom had turned to look over his shoulder at them, squinting to see Dave's injury. “Did they give him antibiotics?”

  Sophia nodded, as she looked at Dave. “Are you taking them?”

  “Yes, I am,” he said as he looked at Tom. “Sir, this is probably a good time to let you know that I intend to have a letter of resignation on your desk—as soon as I find some paper and a pen.”

  Sophia was now looking at him as if he'd crapped on the floor of the Oval Office.

  Tom, however, surprised him by shaking his head. “That's not necessary.”

  “We both know that it is,” Dave countered. “You don't actually think I'd let both your and Troubleshooters’ good names be tarnished by—”

  “You didn't do anything wrong, Dave,” Tom cut him off. “I'm standing behind you. We had this conversation when I hired you. Nothing's changed.”

  “Are you kidding? Everything's changed,” Dave argued. At his interview, years ago, they had had a completely open conversation about why he'd left the CIA, and Dave had expressed concern about the fledgling personal security firm's reputation. But Tom had had a serious manpower shortage, and had hired him anyway. “You're no longer shorthanded. You don't need—”

  “I didn't hire you because I was shorthanded,” Tom cut him off. “I hired you because I trust you. Like I said, nothing's changed.”

  The emotion that hit Dave lodged squarely in the center of his chest. It joined forces with his fatigue and made him ache. If he'd been alone, he would've curled into a ball and wept. But he wasn't alone.

  “With all due respect, sir”—Dave had to work to get the words out evenly—“you need to reconsider. This could get ugly and—ow!”

  Sophia was applying a new bandage—she had supplies in her purse— with too much force. “I'm pretty sure Dave gave me a letter of resignation today, too.” She looked at him, her anger simmering in her eyes. “That's what that was, right? You actually got me to say I don't know what we're doing here, which is a precursor to I need some time to think, which leads to This isn't working out, which is what you wanted me to say, isn't it?” She didn't give him time to respond. She just yanked his shirt down over the fresh bandage and turned to Tom. “Did Dave go out on an overseas assignment for you last week?”

  Ah, hell. “Soph,” Dave started. “I told you it's irrelevant—”

  “Shh,” she spoke over him. “I'm asking Tom.”

  “I went overseas,” Dave told her, “yes. But no, it wasn't for Tom, okay?”

  “So he requested some days off,” Sophia persisted, talking directly to their boss, purposely not looking at or acknowledging Dave. “Did he tell you where he was going?”

  “Sir,” Dave reminded him, “I told you my plans in confidence.”

  “And I told you,” Tom countered evenly, “that I wouldn't lie if Sophia—or anyone—asked me about your trip. That's always been my policy.” He nodded to her. “Yes, he did tell me.”

  “Please,” Dave begged, because her next question was going to be more direct. “Sir. This is the last thing she needs right now—”

  “What Sophia needs,” his boss came back, about as sharply as Dave had ever heard him speak to anyone, “is for you pack of imbeciles to stop treating her like damaged goods, and respect her enough to let her make her own decisions about what it is that she does or doesn't need.”

  Beside him, Sophia actually started to applaud. “Thank you so much, sir,” she said.

  Behind the wheel, WildCard started to laugh, like the SEAL asshole that he was.

  “Why is this so important to you?” Dave had to ask her. “Because at this point, when you find out where I went—”

  “It's important,” she shot back at him, “because I'd like to know how many other people are going to try to kill you this week!”

  “Ah, Soph …” She wasn't kidding. She was terribly upset with him— and had been since the attack—and he couldn't really blame her. He exhaled hard. “It wasn't that kind of… It was… intelligence, okay? I was gathering intelligence. It wasn't dangerous.” He caught himself in what was a rather intense understatement, especially when Tom helped him out by pointedly clearing his throat. “It wasn't the kind of dangerous that could possibly follow me home. And”—he finished his earlier thought—“when you find out where I went? It's going to be tremendously anticlimactic and actually kind of funny.”

  “Good,” she fired back, “because right now I've got your blood under my fingernails again, and I could use a good laugh.”

  Ah, God.

  “He went to Kazabek,” WildCard told her, shrugging as he met Dave's eyes in the rearview mirror. “I didn't make you any promises and, even sitting up here? This conversation is excruciating. I'm just speeding things along.”

  Dave was incredulous as he turned to Tom, who was sighing heavily and shaking his head at the younger SEAL. “You told Karmody … ?”

  “Yeah,” WildCard said, “he told me. You can say that your trip was irrelevant and assume it had absolutely nothing to do with your taking a knife to the gut in Boston. But Tommy's not about to assume anything— which is why he runs TS Inc., while you work for him.”

  Dave could feel Sophia staring at him in stunned horror. “I'm not laughing,” she whispered.

  Yeah, he couldn't help but notice that.

  “You went to Kazabek?” she continued, getting louder as she went on. “By choice?”

  “Yes,” he copped to it. “I did. And it has nothing, whatsoever, to do with Anise Turiano.”

  “Unless whoever you pissed off over in K-stan is using the Turiano thing to smack you down, after you did whatever you did to piss 'em off,” WildCard suggested helpfully from the front seat.

  “I didn't piss anyone off,” Dave said, as Sophia stared at him as if she couldn't recognize him and was trying to figure out where on earth they'd previously met.

  “That you know of,” WildCard interjected, which was when Dave lost it.

  “Will you shut the fuck up?!”

  “I'm pretty sure he said what we were all thinking,” Tom turned around to say, that edge back in his usually mild voice. “Before I brought the chief into a potentially dangerous situation, I had to be upfront with him about all possible threats, and face it, Malkoff, we don't know en
ough about this situation to assume anything. You know as well as I do that when we take on a case—”

  “This isn't a case,” Dave interrupted him. “You're not taking on anything other than providing protection for Sophia.”

  “And you,” Tom countered. “I want to know who might try to kick down your hotel room door. I want to know all theories, all possibilities. I want to hear about your crazy cousin who hasn't spoken to you since your grandmother died and left you her favorite rocking chair. You don't get to assume anything when we're standing between you and the bullets, and you damn well know it.”

  “I am not a client,” Dave said hotly, “and you're not going to be protecting me. I'll stay far away from you, so that—”

  “Intelligence,” Sophia interrupted, repeating the word he'd used. “You went back to Kazabek because of… me?”

  Her words stopped the argument dead, as both Tom and the SEAL chief tried to become invisible in the front seat.

  Dave didn't answer her—he couldn't figure out how to explain without saying things that he knew she wouldn't want said in front of an audience. But as another mile sped by, he knew she was capable of waiting forever for his answer, so he finally said, “I thought it would be easier—for you. To talk about some of the abuse that you lived through. I thought if I knew … If I could find out what happened to you, then … So, I …”

  “Oh, my God,” Sophia breathed, her eyes filled with horror. “I was wrong. What I said to you before. My secrets could have gotten you killed.”

  “No,” he said, even though everyone in the car knew that he was lying. “Soph, no. I was never in danger.”

  “This could be my fault,” she whispered, stricken. “One of Bashir's nephews, looking for payback …”

  “No, Sophia—”

  “You don't know that,” she said. “Oh, my God. Ken, please, pull over! Please! Right now! I'm going to be sick!”

  CHAPTER

  ELEVEN

  Jimmy was sitting on the floor of the panic room when Tess unlocked the door.

  His shirt was torn—as was one of the knees of his jeans. His lip was swollen and his cheek looked as if he were going to develop a terrible bruise.