Rules of Re-engagement

by Loreth Anne White

  “I never wanted to go to that beach party,” he said quietly. “They weren’t my kind of people.”

  “Then why did you come?” She could feel herself being drawn down into the dark waters of her subconscious. And she could feel something swimming there, circling like a snake, something she couldn’t quite grasp in the murk.

  “I went for your sake. They were your friends, Olivia, and I loved you. I wasn’t going to ask you to turn your back on the people you grew up with.”

  “If you loved me so much, Jack, why did you cheat on me?”

  Something hard glittered in his eyes, but his voice remained level. “Let’s stick to the facts, shall we. You were drunk that night, remember?”

  That was part of her guilt, that she hadn’t been fully aware of what had happened. That she couldn’t recall little details, clues that might lie beyond the reach of her memory.

  The horrible darkness crept closer to the surface. She began to feel edgy. Maybe she didn’t want to hear what he had to say. Maybe she wanted it all to go away. Had she done that before? What if she had stuffed something down into her subconscious?

  “So? Everyone was drinking,” she said, her tone growing defensive now.

  “I didn’t drink that night. Do you remember that?”

  She wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure of anything about that night anymore. Especially not after the sessions with the therapist her father had made her see after the murder. The shrink had only made it murkier. Or had the weeks of sedatives done that? Or had she managed that all by herself?

  “I wanted a clear head,” he was saying. “I wanted to keep an eye out for you. There were drugs—some real weird stuff going around.” He sat next to her and took her hands in his. He was so elegantly rugged. So strong. Always had been.

  She’d loved him so much.

  “Do you remember Forbes’s advances, Olivia?”

  She swallowed, nodded, noting how he refused to call him Grayson, always Forbes, holding him at bay.

  “He was high. He came on to you early that evening, right in front of me, like he was trying to prove something, scrapping for a fight.”

  “Grayson always liked me, Jack. He always had a rivalry thing going with you.”

  His brow lowered sharply and his lip twitched. “When you told him to back off, Forbes turned in frustration to Elizabeth. Do you remember that part?”

  She did. Vaguely.

  “Liz and Forbes began to get hot and heavy right there by the fire, in front of everyone.”

  She slanted her eyes away from his, a strange nausea building in her stomach. Vague recollections of Grayson and Elizabeth swirled darkly in her memory. Her stomach tightened. “He…he didn’t deny it, Jack. He told the police.”

  “What he didn’t tell them, Olivia, is that Liz pulled herself together, pushed him off and took a walk down the beach to clear her head. She was cold, and I loaned her my jacket.”

  Her eyes whipped to his. That would explain her blood, her DNA on your jacket. Why your jacket had been found with her body.

  “Forbes got up and followed her down the beach,” he was saying.

  Olivia closed her eyes, the sick darkness swirling tighter, tension mounting in her.

  “I didn’t like the look in Forbes’s eyes. The guy’s ego was wounded, and he was edgy, high, aggressive, sexually frustrated—a bad combination all-round.” Jack moved his thumb softly over the top her hand, and Olivia’s heart began to race wildly.

  Part of her was ready to spring away from him. Another part wanted to fold herself into him, feel his hardness, his comfort, drink in his scent, bury her face in his chest, hide…but from what? The truth? Why did she feel this way? This is what she wanted, wasn’t it? Hadn’t she wanted to look him in the eyes all these years and ask him what really happened?

  “The only mistake I made that night, Olivia—” his lips were so close, his voice low, curling, twisting through her “—was not going after him right away. But when Liz didn’t come back, I got worried. No one else around the fire seemed to notice them missing—” he paused, looked at her pointedly “—including you. So I went looking. I couldn’t find her or Forbes.”

  “And the next morning my cousin’s body was discovered washed up on the beach, battered by waves, her head fractured by a rock that was later found on the beach with your jacket.”

  “Yes.”

  “And a witness said you were seen trying to force yourself onto her.”

  “That witness being?”

  Tension skidded toward panic. “Why would Grayson lie, Jack?”

  “You tell me, Olivia.”

  “No. He would never—”

  “And I would?”

  Panic flared sharply. Memories, fears, repressed questions began to whirl wildly in her brain. “What…what about that letter—Liz’s letter, the one found in your jacket pocket? The one that indicated you’d been having a sexual relationship with her for months, that you wanted to marry me only for my money, that she was going to tell me if you didn’t break it off with me?”

  A look of incredulity, then anger sifted into his cool ice-gray eyes. “I can’t believe you bought that. It was typed on the same kind of paper stocked in Elizabeth’s printer, but it wasn’t Liz who wrote that letter. I’d never seen it before in my life.”

  “You saying it was planted? By who? Who could have had access to your jacket? It was…evidence.”

  His eyes held hers. “Your father was well connected, Olivia.”

  “Oh, some cop or some CSI guy planted it? Get real, Jack.” She jerked free of his hold, fighting back the dark sensations inside her, fighting to move away from his absorbing presence, from the implications of what he was saying. “My father had nothing to do with that investigation!”

  Anger pulsed through his neck. He got to his feet, glared down at her, his voice dangerously level. “Samuel Killinger just happened to hire an army of top criminal lawyers, did he? He just happened to need regular meetings with the lead investigators and the D.A.? His lawyers just happened to brief Grayson Forbes before he was questioned by police, and then just happened to be present when he was?”

  Dread tightened like a noose, and fear hummed through her body. “If…if you really are innocent, why did you run? Why…why didn’t you let them take you in? Why didn’t you stand trial—”

  “Against all the crooked evidence and legal corruption a fortune can buy?” His eyes sparked. “Are you nuts? Your father’s connections and influence make the Mafia look like child’s play, and I was the kid from the wrong side of the tracks.” Anger burned into his features, and powered his voice. “Did you never ask yourself, Olivia, why your father was paying lawyers in the first place?”

  “Liz was his sister’s child. My aunt was a single mother. She was completely crushed and incapacitated by what happened. My dad had to do something.”

  “Yeah, he did something all right. He used me as a scapegoat. He used Lizzie’s murder to get me out of your life. For good.”

  “That’s not true!”

  He snorted. “Think about it, Olivia.” he tapped his temple. “How would it have looked on the national news networks—Senator Forbes’s son guilty of murder? The famous senator was supported by the entire Venturion Corporation board, and your father personally. His son, Grayson Forbes, Jr., was already being groomed by your father’s men—the Cabal—for the highest office in the nation.” His eyes burned into hers like ice fire.

  She backed further into the sofa.

  He pointed his finger at her. “There was more than one political future at stake that night, Olivia. Even your father’s reputation was at risk. And given what we know about the Cabal now, there is no way in hell Samuel Killinger was going to tolerate reporters sniffing around the Venturion board members and their connections to the Senate and Congress—they were already at work on their plan to take over the government back then.”

  She felt truly ill. She didn’t want to believe it. But in a small part of her b
rain he was making sense. Absurd sense, but sense.

  His voice lowered further, growing more sinister. “Your father wanted to see you in the White House even back then, Olivia. And for that it was necessary for you to marry Forbes. Not me—not some left-wing radical roughneck who stood against his global corporate philosophies. He wanted me gone. Forever. And he wanted Forbes in. He found the perfect opportunity. And the perfect scapegoat.”

  Olivia got to her feet and pushed past him. She needed space. She crossed to the middle of the room, closer to the door, then she spun to face him. “That’s just sick, Jack. He’d never use Lizzie’s death for something like that.” But her voice sounded hollow, defeated. “There…there is just no way my father would want me to marry a guy he knew was guilty of murder.”

  He angled his head. “You so sure?”

  She suddenly wasn’t so sure. Of anything. “You’re trying to tell me that the vice president of this country is guilty of homicide? Do you realize what kind of effect that accusation could have?”

  “Oh, so you think I should take the rap instead?”

  She stared at him blankly.

  “Is that what your father managed to convince you to do all those years ago, Olivia? Turn on the man you loved because of the political implications?”

  “That’s not true and you know it.”

  “Sure looks that way from where I stand.”

  She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t seem to order the information spinning in her head. “Is that why you’re back now, Jack? For some kind of revenge? You want to hurt the people you believe hurt you?”

  His face darkened to thunder, the movement twisting his scar viciously. “Call it revenge, retribution or call it justice if you want—however it comes, I’m going to take it, Olivia. You’re damn right on that count.” He was really angry now. “You of all people should relate to the concept of justice. But that is not why I’m back. I’m here because I have a job to do. I’m here because I know how to get to your father. Quickly. Quietly. And efficiently.”

  “Through me.”

  “Through you.”

  “You came back for him, not me.” Why she said it, she didn’t know. But it mattered to say. It hurt.

  She felt as if she was being ripped in two. He was calling her a hypocrite. He was accusing her of injustice, betrayal. He was accusing the people in her life of…she suddenly felt dirty. She had a desperate need to wash it all away.

  “I…I need a shower.” She put out her wrist. “Take this thing off.”

  “It’s waterproof, shockproof. You can shower, you can do what the hell you like with it. Just can’t take it off.”

  “Dammit, Jack, please take it off.” Please make this all go away.

  “Olivia, I can’t trust you.” His eyes were cold. “I don’t know how involved in this you may be, and I don’t know what kind of hold your father still has over you.”

  “That’s absurd! You can’t think—”

  “Look what happened sixteen years ago. Look who you believed back then. Look at how much trouble you’re having believing me now.”

  She fell silent. How could she begin to explain what had been going on in her head back then, when she didn’t even understand it herself. Not even now.”

  “And you are still in a position to be first lady, if your father succeeds, if you change your mind and accept Forbes’s proposal.”

  “I told you,” she whispered, “I turned him down.”

  “You are still wearing his ring,” he said, and turned his back on her. He stalked to the window, stared out over the dark city.

  He looked so alone. Powerful but alone. What had he endured all these years? How much of a part had she played in his pain? Unwittingly? Because she would never, ever have hurt him intentionally. She loved him too much. Pain so raw and sharp spilled through her and burned at her eyes.

  “Jack…it wasn’t like that, it wasn’t like you say.”

  He said nothing.

  “Please, Jack, please look at me.”

  “How was it, then?” He asked, still facing the window. “When exactly did you stop believing in me, Olivia? Why did you not want to at least listen to my side?”

  “Because you never gave me a chance,” she said, her eyes brimming with tears. “You fled.”

  “Bull.” He whirled round. “I tried to see you. I tried to talk to you. But your butler, your servants, they all treated me like some third-rate citizen. They wouldn’t let you take my calls. They wouldn’t even let me enter the gates to your property!”

  “I…I didn’t know.”

  “You didn’t know much, did you, Olivia?”

  “I…I was nineteen, Jack. I was absolutely devastated by Lizzie’s death. And when they said you were a person of interest in her murder—the lawyers, the cops, they instructed me not to speak to you. My dad had me sedated…” As she spoke, she felt sicker, the realization drawing on her that he might have been manipulated in some way.

  “Go on.”

  “You…you left before they could take you into custody, before I could say goodbye.” The tears spilled over her cheeks. “And then you went and died on me.” She wiped her eyes. “Tell me, what was left for me to do then? Apart from try to forget. You were gone!”

  Pain pulled at his face, twisted his scar.

  She sniffed, rubbed her nose. “I would have come, Jack. If you had found a way to let me know you were still alive, I would have come to you. In Alaska. In Russia. In France, Africa, wherever…I would have come.”

  His jaw clenched. “Why? Why would you have come if you thought I was guilty?”

  “To ask you why you’d done it! To hear it from your lips. To look into your eyes when you told me. And maybe, Jack, maybe you could have spared us all by telling me the truth back then.” She held his gaze from across the room. “Maybe our world would be a very different place right now. Maybe there would be no Vice President Grayson Forbes, and just maybe there would be no biological threat hanging over our nation. Have you thought about that?”

  She was shaking so hard she could barely stand. She turned, headed to her bedroom, closed the door behind her, locked it with trembling fingers. She stared at the lock through the tears streaming down her face.

  Jack stared at the door.

  She’d have come? To him? To Africa, Europe? What could have been…

  He sat heavily in the chair. Sick. A lifetime wasted. He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to cut the pain in his head. He couldn’t. He heard the shower go on. He thought of Olivia, naked, apart from the cuff…and Forbes’s ring. He launched to his feet, marched across the room, poured a whiskey, sucked it back sharply. And he felt rage fire into his heart.

  He clenched the glass, too tightly. He was going to kill the man who’d done this to them. He was going to rip Killinger into shreds with his bare hands. He was going to do it before the week was out.

  And then he’d start on Forbes.

  He slammed the glass down, inhaled sharply, squared his shoulders. Maintaining control was imperative for the success of this mission. That was why he was here.

  Yes, he had to deal with the past. And yes, he had to go through this process with Olivia. And yes, it was as damned personal as it could ever get.

  But that was precisely why he had been the unquestionable choice for this phase of the mission. His emotional connection to Olivia Killinger was a tool. And he had no choice but to use that tool.

  He walked slowly back to the window and looked into the streets of Manhattan. A pale-gray dawn would soon be leaching into the sky. A new day.

  And the clock was still ticking.

  He reached for his sat phone, punched in McDonough’s number, cleared his throat. “You still receiving the GPS signal?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “Good. She’s in the shower, and it’s still working.”

  “What do you want us to do about her tail?”

  “Nothing. We use them.”

  “How?”
<
br />   “We make Killinger think his daughter is seeing another man, other than Forbes. It could flush him out, make him do something rash.” He checked his watch. “Does the Devilliers cyber litter check out okay?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “We stick with that alias, then. She’s probably going to try and make a run for it sometime this morning. I’m going to let her go, give her a bit of space to work things out. Keep close. Let me know her movements. And monitor any calls she makes, cell or landline. I want to know who she contacts and what she says.”

  “Will do.”

  “You got any news on December?”

  There was a slight hesitation. “He’s still critical, on life support.”

  Jacques swore. “Keep me posted. Achromat talking yet?” he asked, referring to the albino man who’d tracked Zayed and wounded December in Hamān as they’d brought the scientist out just three days ago—the scientist who’d unwittingly created the biological monstrosity, a variation of which was now contained in a vial on Olivia’s wrist. Jacques figured the man was somehow connected to Killinger, but there was something more about him. He felt like pure evil embodied.

  “Nothing has made him talk. That guy is not human, I swear.”

  “There’s always something to make someone talk. Tell the guys to keep at it.” He signed off.

  December Ngomo was a loyal comrade. He’d saved Jacques’s life on more than one occasion. Jacques owed him.

  He owed them all.

  This was why his resolve, his focus must stay firmly on the mission.

  He listened for the water in the bathroom. He could still hear it. He felt for the box in his pocket, set it on the table, opened it carefully.

  The indention in the black velvet designed to hold the cuff was empty. Next to it was a silver rectangle, a little smaller in shape than a military dog tag, a couple of millimeters thicker. A sealed vial and syringe nestled beside it—the detonator and the antidote.

  Jacques extracted the silver slab, held it in the palm of his hand, studied it. If he flipped the top of the tab open and pressed the electronic pad inside, a remote signal would activate an impulse in the cuff that would shoot a needle right into Olivia’s arm and release the lethal pathogen into her system. It was effective up to a hundred yards away.