In Good Conscience

by Gardiner, Cat

  Liz bolted up from the bed, tears streaming down her face, and ran to her Blackberry calendar. Had she been ovulating? No, that was two weeks before their stay at the cabin, the night before Pemberley blew—and man, they had been ravenous for each other that night, too. The wine they’d shared heightened everything to combustion level: her nipples, her wetness, his throbbing size, their orgasms.

  Oh. My. God—could it be?

  She counted back and forward days and weeks, recalling the times they had and hadn’t had sex. Goodness! She was four weeks late.

  Her period was never late.

  Where the hell had her mind been? How had she not even thought about Aunt Flo?

  Doing an internet search, she voraciously read: Six Weeks Pregnancy Symptoms: Nausea, fatigue, excessive urination, prone to crying, irritableness, breast tenderness.

  Check, check, check, check, check, and check.

  “Oh my, God! Baby, are we gonna have a baby?!”

  “Babe, I will be back. You can count on it,” he’d said to her that morning of good-bye.

  “You never left me,” she whispered with hand on tummy, at the dawning reality that they conceived at Pemberley before the explosions. He had been with her on the Dragon.

  “The Dragon! Oh, my God! What did I do? I could have killed you,” she lamented, looking down to where her hand still rested and then the tears came … again.

  19

  Game Plan

  Maryland

  Now comfortably back in his home, Rick stood in the doorway to his master bedroom, apprehensive but determined after an evening of stalling. “I have something to say,” he finally blurted. His heart felt full, swollen with emotions brought to the surface by the niggling reality that his cousin might have executed the unfathomable; the reasons why he’d gone to such extremes were understandable. Plain fact was he’d have done the same to protect Sarah.

  With a quizzical brow, Sarah gazed up to him from her laptop and the paperwork spread out on the bed, and for the fourth or so time since dinner he was taken aback by her essence. She was more than a pretty face; she radiated poised elegance and a pure heart. Tongue-tied, he just stood there attempting to find the right words to that “something to say.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”

  Finally, he tugged the tie from around his neck and stepped into the room, walking toward her side of the bed.

  Closing the laptop, she gave him all her attention. “You’ve been trying to say something all evening? Is everything okay?”

  “Not really,” he finally mumbled, sitting down beside her. This was harder than he thought it would be and not because he felt pressured to say it or because it lacked true feeling behind it. On the contrary! “The thing is, Sarah … I’ve made some decisions and in light of some intelligence I’ve recently uncovered, I think those decisions are sound, but … well, I hope they don’t change our future—you and me.”

  “Whatever are you talking about?”

  He looked down at the gold Corps ring he wore, and thoughtfully shook his head. “After November, I’m leaving Obsidian.”

  Glancing back up to look at her shocked expression, he added, “and I know that might mess with your plans since you seem to really like the work were doing together, but selfishly, I … want you to stay … with me, despite the work.”

  She took his hand, and when a smile spread across her lips he said, with relief, what had been on his mind since that telephone call to Leesburg. Swallowing down the knot, he finally admitted, “The simple fact is that I was wrong when I said no man loves a woman as much as my cousin loves Liz. Turns out—there is another man who loves his woman as passionately. Me. I love you like that. I’d die for you, Sarah.”

  Panic struck his heart when her smile receded and she bit her lip. The seconds of silence that passed between them felt like an eternity and he started to regret his honesty, especially when she furrowed her brow. How had he misread her? Had he now scared her all the way back to London?

  “Rick, yes, I enjoy working with you, but that’s not why I came to America—nor was it for that exclusive scoop I never got.”

  She took a deep breath. “Let me first say when you told me about Darcy’s love for Liz, I was jealous. I knew you cared for me, but I didn’t know how much.” She smiled tenderly. “I know I gave you a difficult time in the hut … I admit, I didn’t really think you were a nutter. In fact, truth is, I’ve been in love with you since the Amazon, and although I said I wanted to take it slow, it turns out I was wrong. I don’t want to remain just partners, I want to marry you.”

  “You do?”

  A slow nod accompanied her blush.

  “Is that a proposal?”

  “I don’t have a ring for you but, yes, I suppose it is,” she said with a grin that lit her eyes.

  Threading his hand upward through the blonde waves framing her pretty face, he beamed. “Then my answer is an absolute yes.”

  Oh, her mouth caressing his burst his heart, and his arms slid around her waist, guiding her down onto the paper-strewn bed.

  It was an amazing moment between them, one filled with relief and joy, yet as he kissed her he couldn’t help but think of his cousin. Without his death, the introspection that brought about this revelation might never have happened. Sarah might have slipped through his fingers from his inability to express himself.

  On his hip, his phone vibrated, but he ignored it, continuing to make love to Sarah’s lips.

  ***

  Sleeplessness wasn’t something Jane ever struggled with, but she was still stressing about how to handle her mother’s arrival on the scene. Damn that woman for screwing with her mojo!—and damn her father for messing with hers and Lizzy’s life! For Christ sake, she could have lived with her mother and become a Londonista, but he’d denied her that choice. Everything could have ended up differently. She was normally a forgiving person, but this required some mack-daddy good will—more than she had. And … there was the fact that she had no choice now but to face the anger she’d hid all these years. Ugh.

  She thought of her sister’s texts from North Carolina. The first one before that crazy motorcycle ride was just what she needed to hear, and it proved to be true about Charlie’s adoration and deserving love. It felt good running to him, not away from him or anything else for that matter.

  Already feeling lonely and missing both Lizzy and Charlie, she sat in the dark in his Dead-head man-cave feeling as though she was trespassing into his inner sanctum since he had left for Turkey. Now, she was the one who felt depressed. Yuppers. It was as though she’d traded places with Charlie last night when he’d shocked the hell out of her with his attentiveness after she came home ready for a pity party. They’d just held each other in the dark, affirming their love and sharing their childhood experiences with each other. His comfort was way more than she expected from him, making Lizzy the wisest woman she knew.

  But she wasn’t surprised when he got up at three in the morning to continue working on the “unexpected cluster-fuck” project. Poor guy left for Istanbul feeling all discombobulated, half his brain still dissecting the scattered papers and stack of passports he decided to leave behind so that he could hopefully refocus on Operation Zeybek.

  The passports still sat where she last saw them: on the edge of his workspace. Why would he be so careless not to lock them up? It was unlike him to be sloppy with confidential intel or Obsidian business.

  Having become even more of a curious girl since joining Obsidian, she rose from the sofa and headed straight for the desk, turning the lava lamp on. Colorful circles and waves licked the walls and she smiled at the thought of her happy-go-lucky lover working in this room with his feet propped on the corner of his desk and heavy metal music playing. Her fingers deliberately displaced some of the paperwork, and she even knocked some off the desk onto the floor to pick up. With a casual glance, she scanned the top piece of paper. It was a copy of a receipt from Paget Fish and Tackle dated August 3, but sh
e dismissed it. What was the harm in looking at the said cluster-fuck? She was after all, Obsidian, if only a part-time apprentice.

  She turned her attention to the passports and examined them one at a time. They were from varying nations and the three belonging to her brother-in-law had a different alias that coincided with four female identities belonging to the same woman in the stack. She assumed it was former Obsidian assassin Lucy Steele who had a very similar look to her sister. Obviously, Darcy had a “type” of woman he was drawn to.

  Placing them back on the desk, she slid out Charlie’s chair with her other hand and took a seat.

  Even his yellow, legal-sized pad was left where she’d last seen it; she turned it over. His kindergarten-like handwriting covered the page with random notes that made no sense to her. It appeared as though his hand was having a hard time keeping up with the rapid fire of his thoughts. The blue ink blots certainly didn’t help matters. Short phrases making zero sense collided with doodles that had smeared from the wet ink. However, one underlined short word was very clear and the hair on her arms stood: chum.

  Lizzy had once used that word to describe Darcy’s gruesome end with the sharks … like he was bait. Bait. In slow motion, she picked up the previously disregarded receipt, reading it through. “Two containers chum: chopped pork and fish (with blood.)” No name of purchaser who paid cash, for delivery the day before the dive in Hungry Bay. It was a telephoned order.

  Charlie had hastily crafted a disjointed timeline indicating events down to months, days, hours and minutes tracking the whereabouts and actions of someone named John Thornton. After several years of inactivity, his travels had resumed on August 8th.

  Her eyes grew wide. She’d just read that name: Thornton!

  Dropping the pad, she shuffled through the passports again until she found one of Steele’s—a Margaret Thornton, the British passport that didn’t have a matching Darcy one.

  She quickly flipped to the next page trying to make out the words he’d scribbled.

  “Confirmed travel plans of John Thornton British passport: From Bermuda (Operation Gombey)—to Panama (Morales compound, banking ?)—to Virginia (funeral?)—Back to Panama—to Bolivia (to re-visit Operation Samba)—to Peru (to re-visit Operation Macarena)—to Paraguay (coca cultivation ?)—to to Cadiz (rat line?)—Venice (rat line ?)—to Prague (Morales ?)—Geneva (banking ?)”

  What the ever-loving hell? Is “John Thornton” Darcy? Why is the passport active? Who else would have had access to it?

  Her mind worked in lighting speed, dissecting the gibberish and putting the puzzle pieces together, trying to discover the common denominator between this man and these locations and ops. Virginia, funeral!!

  Her heart beat thunderously feeling like it was about to jump from her chest! Charlie’s travelogue mess was the Rosetta Stone to this John Thornton … could it be?

  Could it be? Is the late-Fitzwilliam Darcy not late at all but traveling the world under an assumed identity?

  “Ho…ly guacamole,” she said, holding the pad next to the light so she could read the teeny tiny words Charlie had carefully (and clearly) printed in the corner. She whispered, “I think he’s alive. This is your mission, Pussy Galore. Do what you think is best about your sister. I’ll telephone when I land.”

  “Oh. My. God!” Panicked she bolted from the seat, pacing back and forth in front of the Shakedown Street zoot suit poster on the wall. “Alive? Did I just read alive? Oh my God!! How am I going to tell her? … I can’t tell her! … I must tell her! … I’m not going to tell her! Rick’ll tell her! Does he even know? No one should tell her. She needs to see him for herself to believe it.”

  She stopped abruptly, her gaze falling to the passports. “What have you done, Darcy? She’s going to beat the hell out of you.”

  And then it came like a dam bursting forth. For the first time in nine years—she screamed at the top of her lungs then broke down in a guttural cry, falling onto the sofa. Every emotion came to the surface supplanting that easy, carefree spirit she hid behind for so long.

  ***

  September 3 – Midnight Hour

  Washington, DC

  Charlie’s eventual conversation with Rick from Turkey was cryptic at best, but alarming enough for Rick’s decision to call an immediate videoconference back in the Freezer even though it was almost midnight.

  That all-too brief romantic respite between him and Sarah ended with the third annoying phone call and thirty minutes later they were both out the door, headed back down to the District.

  Now, with cups of steaming coffee, they sat side-by-side at the oversized desk in Obsidian’s chilly headquarters.

  The pocket door leading up to the dance studio slid open and Caroline entered from the dark into the light. As expected, she was flawlessly put together in a chocolate-brown designer suit as though ready to start the day, not finish it at twenty-three hundred hours.

  “This better be good,” she said. “I left a perfectly useable guy for this meeting.”

  “Trust me; it’s worth your attention. Sarah put up a pot of coffee for us in the closet—you’re gonna need it.”

  She plopped her cavernous Louis Vuitton onto the desk and flashed an annoying smile down at Sarah. “What a surprise … no Earl Grey tonight?”

  To his astonishment Sarah flashed the same smile back, adding a two-finger salute.

  “Yours is the mug that reads, Scrubber.”

  God, he loved this girl.

  “Hmm.” Caroline huffed, turning on her heel and heading for the coffee closet.

  The door slid open again and this time it was a cosmetic-free Jane who entered, hair sticking up at her crown, bloodshot eyes, and a light blue sweat suit with the word “Juicy” sequined on her backside.

  “Sorry I’m late,” she groaned. “The Camaro wouldn’t start.”

  “You’re right on time, Jane. Thanks for coming at this ungodly hour,” he replied, happy to see how Sarah and Jane hugged. As much as he’d like to announce their plans, tonight was not the night to do so.

  Jane sat beside Sarah, and one of the fuzzy monitors went online. Knightley’s crooked smile filled the screen until it zoomed out to his bald head.

  “Hey … ho, everyone,” he said.

  In unison, everyone said hello.

  “Sorry to mess up your op, Knightley, but this is slightly more important than your Austrian diamond despot.”

  “No worries. I’m in a holding pattern for the next 48 hours until the International Diamond Conference gala. Then I’ll be flying back home. Is there any word on Liz?”

  “She’s traveling,” Jane said. “She went back to North Carolina for some hell-on-wheels mountain motorcycle ride.”

  “I mean, how is she mentally?”

  “I think she’s working it all out. We had a personal situation back home and it knocked us both for a loop, but she seems to have put it on the shelf for now. Darcy is taking up all the space in her brain.”

  “As expected. I’m sorry more crap was added to your plate.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I guess that’s why she’s been avoiding my calls. I had to go dark on this assignment and couldn’t continue to check on her.”

  Holding a—wordless—cup, the ill-tempered ninja master sat on the opposite side of Rick, facing Charlie’s frown when another monitor went live.

  “Brother, you look like hell.” she observed.

  “It’s been a rough 24 hours. Thanks everyone for coming. Jane, babe, did you find my notes?”

  “Yuppers! And I hope you don’t mind but I did a little confirmation on my own. It might be important news, I don’t know, but there was a massive forest fire in the Yungas Valley, the location of Diablo’s coca crops and two cocaine processing labs. Three soap maker bodies were found within the labs. Authorities are reporting that the annual burn-off of overgrowth got out of control. They’re valuing the cartel’s loss to at least $25 billion in lifetime street value, and their pretty happy about it
.”

  “That’s lovely to hear, but why should we care at this point? With Darcy’s death, Operation Samba is long over.” Caroline asked.

  “Because John Thornton was there in Bolivia at the same time as this destruction,” Charlie said, clearly pissed off.

  “Impossible,” she replied, but Rick wasn’t surprised. He’d surmised this some twelve hours ago, only he didn’t know the details.

  “No, it’s not impossible. Liz found Darcy’s alias passports in their bank safety deposit box, and I handed them over to Charlie to clean them from international databases. Thornton’s was missing from the pile.”

  “Wait … there’s more,” Jane eagerly continued like she was ready to burst. “There was something on Twitter about a huge, house explosion on Cerro Azul. Didn’t you tell me that’s where Morales has his compound in Panama?”

  “Wow. You did great, Janie. Guys, I spent the better part of yesterday and on the plane today, tracking Thornton travel. I’m almost positive that these events point to Darcy. He’s alive,” Charlie said, his voice emotionless, his lips drawing into a thin line.

  “Did anything show up on his current alias, the one I gave him before you left for Bermuda?” Rick asked.

  “Edward Ferrars? Nothing.”

  “I’m sorry, Crash, but I can’t believe this. I know what we saw,” Knightley said. “He wouldn’t. He couldn’t do this, not to Liz, at least.”

  “Yes, he would. He did it for her. Three days before the Bermuda mission, he made arrangements over the phone with a local bait shop for a C.O.D delivery of chum a half mile up from Hungry Bay. Remember that late-night walk to clear his head? That was no long walk. He went for a dive.”

  A third screen turned on and the footage from Darcy’s head cam during the dive appeared. Suddenly freeze-framing, Charlie said, “There, see them? The white containers, the soft cooler? I zoomed in on the logo; it’s the bait shop. Everything else was optics left for us and Morales so that Iceman could go on his one-man killing mission—”