***
Janna aimed the handheld showerhead at her back for the third rinse. When they’d emerged from the refrigerated cave, the tropical steam bath leached the cold from her bones. The swim back to the Horizon rinsed off most of the glue-like guano, but the stink lingered like a bad memory.
The memory of finding the dead cook at the pit’s bottom. She’d never forget his misshapen sprawl, like a broken puppet. But all too real, all too human.
She could’ve fallen on top of him if she’d taken two more steps. Her stomach lurched. She squeezed her eyes shut against the nightmare vision of what could’ve happened if Simon hadn’t stopped her.
But he had stopped her.
Another memory clogged her throat. He’d ignored his own fears to protect her when the bats swarmed past them. And he sensed her panic at being trapped beneath him and defused it with humor. He considered her pride as well as her fear. More emotion jolted her as waves of memory fanned through her — the strength of him against her, the insight and caring in his eyes, the way he held her gently so she wanted to melt into him. She leaned against the shower stall. But she couldn’t let herself love him. She couldn’t. No relationship was worth losing control of her life. How could she trust anyone, even Simon? He would run from a relationship anyway.
Hot water wouldn’t wash away the jumbled thoughts that clamped her throat. She turned off the shower and dried with one of the yacht’s plush towels.
No more flogging herself with the impossible. Instead, she had to focus on the immediate problem. The tunnel door. After pulling on clean shorts and a tank top, she hit the computer. It was after midnight, but the night’s excitement wired her too much for sleep.
Awhile later, she was finishing an e-mail when Simon joined her at the helm. He postponed his shower and waited on deck while she showered to make sure none of Roszca’s goons had observed or followed them. The scent of oatmeal soap wafted toward her as he settled into the swivel chair.
“Man, I feel three hundred percent better.” He nabbed the satellite phone from its charger, and his finger hovered over the speed dial. “Q, you working on busting that door? If anybody can solve that puzzle, it’s you.”
He was the only person who truly appreciated her abilities, especially her persistence. She smiled. “Can’t do it alone this time. The lock needs Houdini.”
Propping his bare feet on the console, he leaned back in the cushioned chair. He wore only frayed cutoffs — likely sneaked into his luggage, definitely not DARK approved. She ought to be accustomed to seeing his bare torso, but his smoothly muscled chest dusted with silky, dark hairs drew her gaze.
He regarded her with heavy-lidded eyes, a look that made her toes curl. The cocky quirk to his lips told her he was working up a smart-mouth crack. He set down the phone and crossed his arms. “The Internet reaches far and wide, but beyond the grave to dead magicians? Do you have powers I don’t know about, or have you lost your mind?”
She slapped her forehead. “Ah, my mind! But I couldn’t have lost my mind. I have it backed up on an external drive somewhere.” She searched around on the console.
He shook his head. “I must be hanging out with you too much. I actually understood that one.” He eyed her pointedly. “Houdini? Seriously?”
She grinned back, noting how good it felt to laugh together. “Seriously, Houdini is the nickname for my FBI lock wizard. His real name is Harry Demers. The metal plate in that door has to be the back of an electronic lock panel. When I couldn’t find what I needed to crack it anywhere else, I e-mailed him.”
His expression turned serious as his feet hit the floor. “Hope he checks e-mail first thing in the morning. We don’t have much time. It’s the wee hours of Tuesday already. Roszca will expect his nuke-buying bidders on Thursday.”
“But DARK’s going to head them off.”
“When they don’t arrive, he’ll get suspicious of us. We have to hightail it by tomorrow night — whether or not I can lure him into a yacht race.”
She didn’t like the consequences of failing to capture the arms broker. “His computer system might tell us where the nuclear material is, but he could set up other sales.”
“Exactly. We need the man. I want him where he can’t sell arms to kill more innocents,” he said in a dry, disgusted voice. No longer softened by joking, his face was all hard planes and uncompromising angles.
When the satellite phone jangled, he stared at it in surprise. Then he punched in the security code.
“Yo, yacht Horizon. I have news for you.”
At Thorne’s voice, Simon activated the speaker.
She swiveled her chair toward Simon. “Maybe about Roszca’s files.” The uranium. And Gabe’s involvement. She leaned forward, scarcely taking a breath.
Simon settled back into his seat. “I copy. What’s up?”
“You’re not going to like this. It may mean we’ll have to abort the mission. Yesterday, Wharton escaped from custody.”
Simon and Janna exchanged shocked looks.
“How?” Simon barked. “What happened?”
“His watchers were moving him from the safe house to the correction center. Some of his cohorts set up an ambush and sprang him. I don’t know the whole story.”
“Any idea where he went?”
Static briefly interrupted Thorne’s reply. “…people watching for him at ports and airports. If he’s spotted anywhere near the Caribbean, you are to get outta Dodge.”
“Roger.” This did not bode well. He glanced at Janna for acknowledgment of the orders, but her gnawed lower lip meant she was deep in thought. More worried about the involvement of her damn ex, he bet. “What about the computer files Janna hacked into?”
“These files are a gold mine,” the contact officer said, his deep voice crackling over the airwaves. “Tech Officer Harris is a damn fine hacker.”
Simon gave her a thumbs-up sign, and she responded with a brief curve of her lips.
“She’s right here. She knows. Did you track the uranium?”
Static zinged the transmission, but then Thorne replied. “We know the courier’s route and schedule. Officers have been dispatched to intercept.”
Simon rolled his eyes at the man’s jargon. A former U.S. marshal, Jack Thorne was a crack officer, but his super-serious single-mindedness put some people off.
“Lighten up, Thorne,” muttered Simon as the officer detailed more data about the uranium package.
“Simon, ask about Gabe. Please.”
Without looking Janna’s way, he nodded. After Thorne finished, he said, “Did you find any files on Gabriel Harris?”
Silence hung heavily after the query. He heard Janna suck in a breath. She had to be thinking what he was thinking. What did Thorne’s geeks find? Had Gabe been party to the stolen uranium sale? Did he sell government secrets?
“Affirmative,” Thorne finally replied. “There were a couple of entries in a daily-planner file. One under the name of Gabriel Horne and another under his real name. Was Harris undercover or something?”
Or something. Simon angled his head and raised his eyebrows in question. He watched Janna’s reaction. How deep did her feelings still go?
Her expressive eyes widened. They broadcast a flurry of emotions — anxiety, alarm and a desperate need to know the awful truth. In their gray depths, did he see hatred or love for the abusive bastard? And did he even want to know?
He couldn’t leave the contact hanging. Undercover. If the dead officer had committed treason, the truth would come out later. For the moment, Simon saw no reason not to play along.
Apparently, Janna agreed. She bit her lip and nodded.
“Yeah, deep undercover,” he said over the secure connection. “I have to report to the AD how much Roszca knew. If he made Harris. What can you tell me?”
Again, a pause.
Janna’s hand pressed against her chest as if to hold in her fears.
He took
her other hand and squeezed gently.
She worked up a limp smile, but her forehead pleated with worry.
“I copy,” Thorne said. “Ramsey said to keep you and Tech Officer Harris in the loop.”
At her nod, Simon said, “Let’s hear it.”
A rustling of papers. Then, “I have the printout right here. It looks like Harris as Horne made some arms deals with our boy, but then Roszca had him followed. Roszca didn’t get where he is by trusting blindly.”
“So Harris was made,” Simon prompted. He glanced at Janna, pale and rigid in her chair. She gripped the lifeline of his hand as if she’d drown without it.
“Affirmative. After that, Roszca pressured Harris to hand over what DARK had on his arms-dealing network. Farther down the planner, there’s a reference to sending a package to Harris. Code for a contract on his life. At that point, whatever DARK had been trying to accomplish with Harris undercover was aborted. He was extracted and put on the New Dawn Warriors case. He was killed, but not by Roszca’s doing. Ironic.”
Janna wrenched her hand from Simon’s grip and grabbed the handset. “Thorne, why the contract? Why did Roszca want to kill Gabe?”
“I thought that was clear. Harris gave him nada. Not even fake reports.”
Simon scooped up the phone as she clasped her hands together and shot to her feet.
“Oh, thank God,” she whispered. Tears flowing, she rushed to the companionway and up on deck.
Chapter 21
SIMON FINISHED THE call and waited at the console. He’d give Janna a few more minutes to deal with whatever the hell she was dealing with.
He spun out of the swivel chair and made his way up on deck. She was leaning on the port rail, her beautiful face turned up to the sliver of moon. The soft gold glow from the companionway — the only light on deck — mixed with the shadows to highlight the sweep of her long legs, the angle of her cheek, the streaky wheat and gold of her hair. And he couldn’t get enough of looking at her, fool that he was.
He should’ve refused this op, should’ve switched duty with Jack Thorne. Or something. Then he wouldn’t be caught in a maelstrom. The tender feeling scared the hell out of him. Lust he understood. And anger.
They’d made love, sizzling sex in nature’s hot tub, an experience permanently branded on his DNA. She’d taunted him and teased him after a rare honorable impulse — and his guilty conscience, to be truthful — had interfered.
How could she come on to him and still have feelings for a dead man who abused her? That’s what steamed him. The more he thought about it, the hotter he got. The sultry night had nothing on the heat waves rising from him. Stalking toward her, he scraped a hand through his damp hair.
She turned toward him and smiled, a sweet curve of lips that made his heart skip a beat in spite of his temper. “Oh, Simon, you have no idea how relieved I am that Gabe didn’t give Roszca classified information.”
He stopped an inch away from grabbing her and shaking some sense into her. Too close. He backed up a step. “No, I reckon I don’t have any idea. Let me see if I got this straight. Your husband beat you and abused you. He sold stolen arms to terrorists. But since he didn’t betray his country’s secrets, you’ll forgive him?”
She flinched, eyes wide, as if he’d slapped her. “Forgive him?” Frowning, she shook her head.
“How twisted did his abuse make you? How can you still love the bastard after the way he treated you?”
Her gaze bored into him for a long minute. Then her taut mouth relaxed. “Simon, I don’t love Gabe. He killed any love I felt for him along with any chance at a real marriage. Toward the end, I hated him.”
At her admission, every muscle in his body tensed. His eyes burned, trying to scorch through the tangle to the truth. “But you’re so obsessed with proving him innocent. A few minutes ago, when Thorne told us he didn’t sell out to Roszca, you reacted like Gabe had come back from the dead. I don’t get it.”
“I’m relieved, yes. Aren’t you?”
“Yeah, I reckon.” He jammed his hands into his rear pockets. “Relieved we don’t have ten more loose ends to tie up, loose ends that would turn out to be tails of venomous snakes. Relieved DARK doesn’t have a treason case. Relieved it ends here.”
“Precisely.” She sighed and lifted her shoulders in a slow shrug. “It ends here. If Gabe had betrayed his country to Roszca and his terrorist clients, DARK would’ve conducted an investigation, including the sordid story of my marriage. This way, the investigation of his arms dealing can be contained. I can close the door on Gabe and get on with my life.”
Simon stared up at the stars. The waning moon shed little light, but Janna was deliberately blotting out all light. “Close the door? More like slamming it shut.” He stalked forward and fisted the rail on either side of her, bracketing her in place.
“What do you mean? What are you so angry about?” She challenged him, eyes aflame.
“I’m glad to see you’re not scared of me anymore. That’s a step, but you have a long way to go.”
“Let me pass, please. I don’t have to listen to this.” Cheeks flushed, she went from wary to ice-princess frost.
He didn’t touch her, but he didn’t move out of the way. She needed to hear this. “Your Dr. Mary was right—”
“Dr. Sarah. Sarah French.” Apparently seeing he wasn’t budging, she spun on her bare heel and showed him her back. The telltale burn scars blazed above the low-cut tank top, neon reminders of her husband’s cruelty.
Emotions wrenched his heart until he thought it might twist apart. “Dr. Sarah French, then.” He clenched his jaw for control. “Whatever. She was right. You haven’t dealt with the abuse. Not down deep. You’re still seeing it as your shame, not his.”
She jerked erect, her back straight as the deck boards, hands clamped on the rail beside his. “How dare you! You can’t possibly understand.”
“I can because I know you, Janna. Besides, you told me yourself. You saw the abuse as an intellectual problem to be solved. But it was his problem, his fault, not yours. There are some human defects — glitches, in geekspeak — you can’t fix with tinkering or research or—”
“Logic.” Shoulders lowered, she turned around, fixing him with a tear-filled gaze. “I know that. I learned it the hard way.”
“But it didn’t free you. These new rules you repeat like a mantra are just a new kind of trap. A cage you’ve built around yourself. You hide what he did. You hide from the world.” He could see the hurt in her eyes, but he wouldn’t back down. She needed to hear the truth from someone who lo — someone who cared.
“That’s not true. I’m not hiding the truth. I just don’t want anyone’s pity or scorn.”
“I don’t buy it. You hide the truth the way you hide the scars on your back.”
“They’re ugly.” She crossed her arms over her breasts and hugged herself, trembling.
“The truth is ugly. What Gabe did to you was ugly. If I could get my hands on him, I’d do worse to him.” Acid churned like poison in his gut, and he longed to punch something, but he didn’t want to frighten her, so he gripped the rail until his knuckles hurt.
“I couldn’t stop him. I couldn’t…” Her voice trailed off in a sob.
“You couldn’t fix it, so you’re afraid people will see his cruelty as your fault because you still do. Who have you told? Your mom? Dad? Your friend Deena?”
She winced at the truth in his words. “I told you.”
He made a face and lifted his arms in a gesture of frustration. “Nice try. I dragged it out of you. After I saw the scars. Who else knows?”
“Only Dr. French.”
“Not Yelena, when you asked about her bruises?”
Janna shook her head. Tears beaded her lashes, tiny diamonds glittering in the light. “I might’ve alluded to it, but no more. There wasn’t time.”
“Uh-huh. And if Roszca had allowed the picnic, what would you have told her th
en?”
She bit her lower lip and looked toward the island. “I … don’t know. One of the bodyguards might have accompanied us.” Her face crumpled and she covered her eyes.
“Excuses — you got ’em.” He ached with her pain. He couldn’t berate her anymore. She needed reassurance. He smoothed his hands down her arms and pulled her into his embrace.
She fit against him like she belonged there, her firm breasts against his chest, her thighs warm against his, their bare toes touching. Inhaling her female scent, he wished the reason for this closeness was different.
“Sweetheart, you’re right about a treason investigation. It would’ve dug out the abuse. Maybe spread it across the Washington Post. More pain than you should have to bear. More than I bet even Dr. French meant you needed for healing. You don’t have to announce what he did to the world.”
She wept on his shoulder, her tears cleansing for both their souls. After a few last hiccups, she said, “Dr. French said I should tell my family. My friends. You.”
When she raised her tear-stained face, he brushed his knuckles across her cheek, smoothed damp hair off her flushed skin. “Me, huh?”
She nodded and her arms came around his waist.
“Now you’ve told me, maybe the next time will be easier.”
“I’ll try.”
A bird somewhere on the island chirped sleepy approval. The gentle rocking of the boat kept time with the rhythm of their hearts.
Janna felt the breeze flutter her hair, saw it ruffle his. Standing there in his cutoffs and nothing else but his earring and perpetually shadowed jaw, he was so indelibly male. Rugged and tough, yet so tender. He’d forced her to face her weakness and her fears, and then he comforted her. But comfort was no longer what she needed. Or what she saw in his eyes.
Desire drew his skin taut across his jaw. His eyes beckoned her to fall in. She could see her image in his darkened pupils, feel the heat in their depths. Feel the power of his desire against her belly.
Dark Rules (The DARK Files Book 3) Page 17