Logan shook his hand. “Pete, it’s great to see you. We’ve both been in Europe for nearly four years without a break and we’re just back for a few days now.”
The man called Pete nodded at Sahara. “Micky,” he said. “You’re looking fabulous as usual. Have you been weight training? You’ve got more muscle on you. Looks really good.” He turned back to Logan, already dismissing her.
“Surfing, actually,” she said as calmly as she could. “All that paddling.”
Pete looked staggered. “Surfing?” he repeated, thunderstruck. “What, that’s the thing over there now?”
“Not for a few decades,” she admitted. “Except for the dedicated few.” She shrugged. “It lets me get away from, well, everything. You know.” It was a meaningless statement but Pete took it in one bite.
He nodded wisely. “Sure!” he said. He turned back to Logan. “Have a drink later?” he suggested, then ambled away.
Logan studied her. “That was perfect,” he said. It should have been a compliment but his flat voice turned it into an accusation.
She leaned closer to him. “Logan, what’s wrong? Have I done something? You’re acting strangely.”
His glance settled squarely on her face, then flicked away. “Nothing. You’re fine.” He lifted his hand and a waiter hurried over, forcing her to sit back and study her menu.
“Double Canadian rye, no ice. Two of them,” Logan said shortly.
“Did she like rye?” Sahara asked carefully, keeping her voice down. “Because I don’t.”
“It’s not for you,” Logan said shortly, keeping his eyes on the menu.
“What, trying to get drunk?”
“As fast as I can,” Logan agreed.
She sat back, blinking away the sting of sudden tears. He could only be mad at her. There was no one else she could blame for his sudden need to get drunk. “For god’s sake, Logan, what is going on? I don’t understand what’s happening.”
His first drink arrived and he tipped the waiter and picked up the glass. Finally, he looked at her directly again. “Yeah, well Micky never did bother to try to understand me, so you’re doing just fine, sweetheart.” He knocked the drink back in one swallow.
Sahara stared at him, trying to sort out the mix of resentment and fury in his voice. This wasn’t an act. He wasn’t simply behaving as Logan would have behaved with Micky. Worse, his fury was directed at her. Sahara.
The food waiter arrived to take their orders. Mechanically, she gave her order and passed the menu card back. She had absolutely no appetite.
“Vegetarian?” Logan asked, picking up his second glass of rye.
“I’m not eating meat just to look like her,” she said flatly. “Coax all you want. That’s a non-negotiable point, as far as I’m concerned.”
He considered it, then shrugged. “We’ll say it’s a new cleansing diet,” he said and swallowed the contents of the glass in another single gulp. He lifted his finger and Sahara saw the wine waiter nod and hurry to get another.
She blinked back her tears and picked up the glass of champagne that had been poured for her. It tasted sour, so she merely sipped and put it back down blindly.
The rest of the meal was torture. It seemed like every five minutes, someone else would come up to their table and exclaim about how they’d heard one or both of them were dead and how lovely to see you, please come for a drink…
In between, they sat in stony silence, while Logan steadily drank and she picked at the food she had ordered.
When their meals had been cleared, the waiter placed two plates with slices of a decadent chocolate concoction between them. “Compliments of the house,” he told them. “A small welcome back.”
Logan pushed his plate aside with an impatient thrust, reaching for his refilled glass once more and Sahara felt a touch of embarrassment, for the waiter had barely taken a step from the table. So she reached for her own plate and picked up the fork. But she had absolutely no appetite and even taking a bite of something so rich seemed impossible. She turned the plate, looking for a part of the slice that wasn’t so weighed down with frosting and chocolate and took a thin scoop of the crust at the back.
There was no way she could take another mouthful. Carefully, she put the fork down and slid the plate away from her.
Logan was staring at her, his throat working, as if words were struggling to emerge.
“What?” she whispered.
“You did that…you did exactly what Micky used to do.” He licked his lips, looking almost ill. “Jesus Christ,” he whispered and dug his fingers and thumb into his temples, covering his eyes. “Who told you to do that?” he asked hoarsely.
“No one. It was nothing…” It had only happened to mimic what Jacqui had done that afternoon with her own cake. Jacqui must have learned it from Micky.
Horror touched her. “I’m sorry, Logan. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
He dropped his hand. “You didn’t,” he snapped. “Do you want coffee?”
She shook her head, not willing to risk speaking.
Logan thrust himself to his feet, glanced at the bar and nodded again. There was a young guy sitting at the bar who looked vaguely familiar to her but she couldn’t place him. “I have to speak to Nelson for a moment.”
She reached for Logan’s hand as he moved away and he jerked it out of hers and looked back at her, one brow lifted.
“Can we go home after that?” she asked, trying to keep her voice steady.
“Home? Sure, if you can call it that. Why not?” He headed for the bar and didn’t look back.
She bit her lip and stared at blindly at her lap, trying to avoid staring at anyone else in the room. They must have seen Logan shaking off her hand. They would be watching her. Maybe pitying her.
She didn’t know what Micky would have done about it. Well, Micky wouldn’t have reached for his hand in the first place.
Why had she done something so stupid and childish?
Logan wasn’t the only one with a powerful need to get drunk.
“Excuse me… It’s Micky, isn’t it? Micky Wilde?”
Sahara blinked her eyes hard and looked up. About four feet away, at the next table, two men were swivelled in their chairs to look at her. They were both the last word in sartorial elegance, both slender and tanned, although one was a bottle-blond and the other had cropped salt and pepper hair.
“I’m Micky,” she confirmed carefully.
“I told you she wouldn’t remember us!” the blond hissed. He looked a good fifteen years younger than the other.
The other picked up his chair and brought it over to Sahara’s table. “Of course she doesn’t. Like the fabulous Micky Wilde would remember us!” He plopped himself in his chair, as the blond followed suit and they cozied up together at the side of her table. Salt and Pepper smiled at her. “We waited until your husband—that is your husband, isn’t it? We wanted to wait until he’d gone to have a word with you.”
Sahara’s heart picked up speed. “A word? What about?” Was she going to have to fake her way through a session of “do you remember?” She glanced to where Logan was making his way around the dance floor, heading for the bar. In his mood, the chances that he’d look back and see that she had company were next to zero.
“What about?” the blond repeated and chuckled like she had made a joke.
Salt and Pepper placed his hand on the table, like he was about to reveal a confidence and leaned forward. “You were outrageously rude to me, the last time we met.”
* * * * *
Logan dropped onto the stool next to Nelson and felt the impact resonate through his head like temple drums in the jungle. He gripped the padded edge of the bar and grimaced.
“What’s up?” Nelson asked. “Why did you come over?”
“Just shut up and let me drink in silence for five minutes, huh?”
Nelson cocked his head. “You look like you’re having a perfectly wonderful time. Not.”
“Welcome to
Micky’s world.”
“What, she’s got Micky down that well?”
Logan recalled Sahara’s hurt expression, the tears in her eyes she had tried to hide from him. “Not even close. Thank god,” he muttered.
Nelson sipped at the single beer he was permitted to order in situations like this. “If it’s such a pain in the rear, why don’t you get yourself off the sharp end of the operation? It’s not like you’re really needed. You never did shadow Micky that closely. She had a life of her own. Sticking so close this time might make someone wonder.”
“I’m on ’til the bitter end,” Logan shot back. “Someone has to protect her.”
“Jeez, Logan, we’ve got layer upon layer of security around this one. It looks like a marble cake with all the layers and we’re starting to trip over each other. They’ve even got me sitting in the bar nursing a drink and watching you two kiddies play.”
“I’m old enough to be your father,” Logan shot back. “Don’t give me that kiddy crap.”
Nelson grinned.
This was an old joke between them but right now, Logan had never felt less like laughing. He squeezed the empty glass in his hand. “I’m not talking about protecting her from the Iranians or whoever else pitches up,” he said slowly, to make sure his point was well heard. “I’m talking about protecting her from you guys.”
Nelson straightened up a little. “You guys? Don’t you mean us? You’re part of it too.”
“Don’t be so damn sure of that, kiddo.” Logan picked up the new glass of rye that had magically appeared in front him and got off his stool. Nelson was right. He shouldn’t have come over. But he had been unable to stay sitting at the table for a second more. He should get back.
“Who’s that with her?” Nelson said. His tone was sharp, alert.
Logan turned. There were two men sitting at the table with her. Leaning in close. His heart leapt. “Jesus…Nelson, follow me down. Casual, casual…but hurry.”
Logan climbed down the five steps into the mosh pit that the dance floor resembled and pushed his way through the dancers. They were packed close together, slowing him, but it would have been slower to circle the dance floor, as Nelson was doing. As he thrust between bodies, Logan berated himself for ever leaving the table. Dammit, he had to focus on the job. He had to get his own feelings out of the equation.
He climbed out the other side of the pit and hurried through the glass door into the dining area, trying to make it look like he wasn’t hurrying. He strode up to the table, slipping the button of his jacket undone.
“Micky.” It came out sharper than he intended, which would alert the men bearing down on her.
All three heads lifted and turned to look at him and Sahara plastered a smile on her face. “Logan! Come and meet Alex and Eddie.”
The two men were smiling at him. Logan’s mind stuttered with confusion. Slowly, he lowered himself into his chair and shook the two hands thrust at him. “Eddie, Alex,” he murmured.
Then Sahara shocked him by reaching for the older man’s hand. “Alex, may I?”
Alex wrapped his other hand over hers and squeezed gently. “Yes, please do.”
Sahara’s return smile was rich and warm but when she looked at Logan again, the smile remained while the warmth faded. “Logan, Alex and Eddie are life partners and apparently, it’s my fault they met.” She winced. “I must have been having a very bad day.”
Alex chuckled. “It would have been a real stinker. You called me a self-absorbed bugger who couldn’t get his head out of his own ass.”
Logan blinked. That sounded very much like something Micky would have said when her temper was up. Had these two come to confront Micky about her rudeness? Is that why they were here? But he couldn’t figure out why Sahara was holding the man’s hand. She had managed to turn the situation around, somehow.
“I agree it was unforgivably rude of me,” Sahara was saying now.
“But it worked. You were right. Once I stepped back and really examined it, I realized that you’d had me figured out before I did. I met Eddie two weeks later.”
Eddie smiled warmly at his partner.
Alex looked at Logan. “And now your darling wife has made us see that we need to come out. The hiding, the posing…I confess it has been killing us both. You have an absolute treasure of a woman there, Wilde. Don’t let her go.” He stood up and Eddie with him. “We’ll leave you two in peace. I just wanted to let you know what you had done for us.” He smiled at Sahara. “And have done for us again.” He kissed her on the cheek. So did Eddie and the two picked up their chairs and went back to their table, their heads together, talking hard.
Winded, Logan stared at Sahara.
“False alarm?” Nelson said quietly at his shoulder.
“In every way,” Logan muttered. “Cue everyone in, Nelson. We’re leaving.”
“Right.” Nelson left.
Sahara picked up her little satin purse and the shawl thing that looked more insubstantial than clouds and stood up, giving Logan another look at the long length of her. It caught at his breath still, how much she looked like Micky. But apart from the odd moment like this, all he could see were the differences. Micky had been slim to the point of thin, through diet and obsessive exercise, while Sahara arrived at her slenderness naturally. She had more muscle and more natural grace—Micky had acquired hers through carefully study and building of habits.
And now, as Logan keyed in on the differences, he realized another one. Micky would never have tolerated Alex and Eddie at her table. She would have slapped them down with another choice epithet and sent them on their way.
“You certainly have a way with people,” Logan said at last, as Sahara waited patiently for him to get to his feet.
She glanced over her shoulder at Eddie and Alex and a hint of red built high in her cheekbones. “Oh, that…well, I am from San Francisco.” She shrugged.
Logan got to his feet, hiding a smile. Micky wouldn’t have blushed, either. He found he could take her arm without recoiling.
The front foyer was still busy with people trying to talk or buy their way in and the security staff was on full alert. Nelson was also standing at the door, looking out over the rope line and the paparazzi milling around the entrance. He glanced at Logan and nodded and Logan hurried Sahara forward. “The limousine is waiting. We can step straight in. Remember to smile if someone sticks a camera in your face.”
Out on the sidewalk, it was nearly as bright as daylight, with all the lights and camera flashes. Logan narrowed his eyes, looking past the lights, watching the shadows instead. As he swept his gaze across the range of his view, he saw a shadow moving forward. Pushing through. Bringing an elongated, silvered shape up from hip level.
He spun, curling his arm around Sahara’s waist and thrust her backward, aiming straight for Nelson, who had just stepped out of the club himself. “Get down!” he told them both.
He leapt at the shadow, which was moving into the light and bringing an arm up. Logan collided with him just as his arm reached firing level and the rest was practice, experience. Wrench the wrist holding the gun up into the air, get the man on the ground and immobilize him. Logan pressed on the man’s back with one knee and used the other to grind the side of his face into the carpet. The man tried to struggle, so he applied more torque on the man’s wrist and he stilled.
Behind him, around him, people were screaming, the crowd trying to surge away from him in concentric circles. Away from him and the perceived danger he had pinned beneath him.
Heavy weight slammed into his back, dislodging him. Logan twisted, trying to face the new danger but his arms were wrenched up in a classic security hold, forcing him to his feet and backward.
Nelson was there, talking, flashing credentials. Soothing. Logan realized with a sickening drop in his stomach that something was wrong.
The man he had pinned was getting to his feet, brushing himself off. People were helping him.
Then Sahara was there, st
anding with Nelson, talking quickly, quietly.
Logan forced himself to focus on what they were saying, to ignore the pounding of adrenaline in his ears.
“We led a precarious life in Europe,” Sahara was saying. “And there have been some situations recently…. He was just reacting to what he thought was a moment of danger.” She was still being Micky, still staying in the role. Amazing.
The man he’d pinned was on his feet now. He bent over and picked up the silver, shining instrument at his feet. An open cell phone. The man aimed it at Logan and it flashed in his face. Camera phone. He took another one of Sahara and Logan realized he wasn’t the only one taking photos. Every camera in the area was aimed at them. This was news. This was gossip.
Logan swivelled his head to look at the guard who had his right arm locked up against his shoulder. “It’s okay. You can let me go.”
Nelson nodded and the guards both released him. Sahara stepped immediately to his side and slid her arm through his. “To the car,” she said in an almost soundless whisper.
Logan nodded. It was the best idea he’d ever heard.
Chapter Twelve
Waves of shaky sickness kept washing over her. Sahara stayed in her corner of the limo, shivering. Her shoulder hurt where she had rammed up against Nelson. Logan’s thrust had been powerful enough that she had almost been lifted off her feet and thrown.
Logan was hunched with his elbows on his knees, his hand holding his temples again. Silent. But his silence oozed with unspoken words.
It goaded her into it. They were travelling down Wiltshire Boulevard when it burst from her. “Logan, I don’t understand why you’re behaving the way you are but I wish you wouldn’t. I need you. Don’t you understand that?”
“You don’t need me,” he said flatly. “Nobody really needs anyone. It’s a con dreamed up by romance writers.”
“Dammit, I do need you!” She thumped the doorframe. “You’re the only one in this three-ring circus who I can trust!”
Dead Double Page 12