by Dawn Atkins
“Seth didn’t find it?”
“No, he didn’t. I don’t know why. Seth is really good at what he does.”
“Not good enough.”
Boone put his hand on her thigh. “You saved my life.”
“I suppose so.”
“Thank you.”
She nodded, but she couldn’t speak. Not without breaking down, and dammit, she wouldn’t. No more crying. The bastard had chased her out of her home.
“We’re going to my place,” he said. “We’ll regroup. We’ll figure this thing out, and we’ll get him. I swear to God, we’ll get him.”
She stared out the window at the passing cars. She had no idea what time it was. It didn’t matter. She didn’t have to be at work in the morning, so who cared how late it was? She didn’t have to go to the cleaners, or meet with clients, or call her friends, or go to her book club. All she had to do was stay alive. And that wasn’t looking so good.
BOONE KEPT IT TOGETHER ALL the way to Pasadena. It took a hell of a long time, because he used every maneuver he knew, checking for tails all the way across Los Angeles. He wished she would say something.
Who the hell was this guy? What did he want with her?
He turned onto Del Mar, slowing the car down to check the rearview mirror.
“Is this it?” Christie said, shocking the hell out of him. “Am I on the run now? Is this my new life?”
“No. We’ll be going back to the house.”
“Are you nuts?”
“It’s the only way we’ll catch him. We have to get him there.”
“No. I’m not going back there.”
“It’ll be safe.”
“That’s what you said right before he nearly shot you.”
He wanted to reassure her, but he didn’t know how. “Let’s get together with Seth and Kate. We’ll talk it through. If you don’t want to go back, of course you don’t have to. No one will force you.”
“You can’t go back, either.”
“Yeah, I can.”
“He can see through the goddamn walls. And he meant to kill you, not me. You.”
“To get to you.”
She turned back to the window. He didn’t blame her. He’d been wrong about this guy from day one, and for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out how. How could a stalker get equipment like that? The only thing that made sense was that he wasn’t an ex-spook. He was working for the Company. Now. And if he was with the Company, than chances were good he knew who Boone was. Not just Boone, but Kate and Seth.
“Where the hell are we?” she asked, her voice still bitter.
“Almost at my place.”
“Do you have any food there?”
“Not a thing.”
“Shit.”
He smiled, he couldn’t help it. “Tell you what. I’ll have Seth bring you whatever you want.”
“Great. I want cheesecake. And diet soda. And I want size-seven Nikes with cotton socks.”
“Tonight, you’ll have cheesecake. I’m not so sure about the shoes.”
She sniffed, still not looking his way. “Fine.”
He approached his driveway carefully, studying the cars on either side of the street. He recognized all but one, and that was in front of Walter’s place. Slowing the car, he looked at Walter’s windows. The only one that was lit was upstairs. The bedroom.
He turned into his drive and went past the main house to his little place. It had once been a garage, but it had been converted to a guest house before he’d moved in. It was quiet, and hidden from the street.
Christie got out as soon as he’d parked, and she let Milo out, too. The dog investigated the small patch of grass by the front door.
Boone checked his tell, the thin wire he threaded between the door and the frame. It hadn’t been disturbed. Once he’d unlocked the door, he went in, weapon drawn, and checked each room. It didn’t take long. The place had one bedroom, his office, the kitchen, bath, living room. Nothing was out of place. No one had triggered his motion sensor. He went back to the car, got his duffel, and went to stand next to Christie. “I’ll have Seth bring Milo some dog food.”
She nodded. “Don’t forget the cheesecake.”
“I won’t. We need to go in, though. I have to make some calls.”
She called Milo, and the three of them went into the house. Milo investigated with his nose, and Christie with her hands. She touched things, his lamp, the top of the club chair, his books.
He knew it wasn’t a nice place, but at least it was clean. It had never felt like a home. Like everything else in his life, it was a temporary measure, somewhere to hole up while he tried to find his life.
Seth had a place just like it. Quiet, hard to find. So did Kate, and the others. They were displaced persons. Exiles in their own country.
He understood Christie’s despair. It felt like hell to be banished. But for Christie, it was a question of finding one man. A clever man, a player, yes, but one man. And once they got him, she’d get everything back. Boone and his friends would have to find deeper holes to hide in, but Christie would be all right.
He went to his office and looked up Walter’s phone number. He had all the neighbors in his book, listed along with what they drove, if they had pets, where they worked. Walter answered after the first ring. He sounded drunk.
“Hey, Walter. It’s Boone. You in the mood for a couple games of pool?”
“I got company.”
“Oh, sorry. Have a good one.”
Walter hung up, but Boone knew the car out front belonged to Walter’s friend.
The next call was to Seth. It was short, filled with several heartfelt curses, and instructions for a grocery run. Kate was sleeping, but as soon as Boone told her what happened, she was alert, and on her way. The calls made, he went in search of Christie.
She was standing in the kitchen. “You need a decorator.”
“Yeah, I do. But not for here. This is just a room. It doesn’t need to be fancy.”
She turned to him. “Fancy? How about livable? This is like a prison cell.”
“I have cable.”
“So does Leavenworth.”
“Hey, at least it has a coffee machine.” He got the grounds out of the freezer, then fixed a full pot. They’d be up late tonight, and they’d need the caffeine. Seth was bringing cream along with some other necessities. Boone had a lot of protein powder and PowerBars, but he didn’t have anything fresh. He cleaned out the fridge before every job.
“It wouldn’t take much, you know. A little paint, a couple of inexpensive pictures for the walls. It has to be hard, waking up in this place. Boone, you deserve better.”
“I’ll have better. Just not here.”
“Care to explain that?”
“Why don’t I get you a pair of socks. Your feet must be cold.” He walked out of the kitchen, with Christie right behind.
“Wait a minute. What the hell’s with you? You live like a monk. You have all this spy stuff. You’re not in the service anymore. What happened in the Balkans, Boone?”
He turned and put his hands on her shoulders. “I can’t tell you. And it’s not important now. We have a lot to do tonight, and we have to be focused on only one thing. Getting that prick, taking him down. Got it?”
She nodded, but she didn’t look happy about it.
He went to the dresser and pulled out a pair of thick socks, but when he went to give them to her she was standing by his bed.
“This is just sad,” she said, looking at his plain white sheets and old, plaid blankets. There was no headboard. Just a side table, where he kept his gun, and on top of the dresser, a secondhand television.
“I’ve slept in worse places.”
She sat down to put on the socks, but she studied him. “You bring women here?”
“No.”
“You don’t date?”
“Not so’s you’d notice.”
“Come on, Boone. A healthy guy like you? I can’t picture you embrac
ing a life of celibacy.”
He had no reason to, but he felt embarrassed. “I’m not.”
“Who, besides me?”
“Do we have to talk about this?”
“No, we don’t. We don’t have to say another word.” She got up, went into the living room and sat on the floor next to Milo.
Feeling like a total shit, he went to sit beside her. He thought about asking her to join him on the couch, but this would be fine. “Sorry.”
“You have nothing to apologize for. You put your life at risk for me, and you don’t even know me. I’m sure I’m keeping you from your regular work, so you’re not even making any money.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it matters.” She turned to face him. “How much would you charge for this if I wasn’t Nate’s sister?”
“Nothing.”
“Liar. Don’t do that to me. Someday, in theory, I’ll have my life back. I’ll have a job. I want to pay you.”
That bothered him more than he understood. It wasn’t an outrageous thing to offer. He was, in fact, losing money on the deal. “Can’t you just accept that this is something I want to do?”
“Yes. Which doesn’t negate my need to pay you. I’m pretty damn helpless, in case you haven’t noticed. Paying you, even if it is in the future, will at least let me feel like I have something to contribute. Some tiny bit of control.”
“Fair enough.”
“So?”
He took a deep breath as he looked at her. She was a beautiful woman. Strong, sensible and full of courage. He admired her, and he’d always remember making love with her, even if the ending wasn’t the warm cuddle it should have been. He wouldn’t forget what a horrible mistake it was, either. He could have gotten them both killed. It wouldn’t happen again.
“Hello? You still here?”
“Sorry. I got lost for a minute.”
“I could see that.” She touched his cheek. “Where were you?”
“I didn’t have a chance to tell you before. You were amazing.”
She smiled. “We were. Despite the worst ending ever.”
“It could have been worse.”
She shuddered, and the smile disappeared. “So what do I owe you?”
“Two thousand.”
“If that’s all you charge, no wonder you have no good furniture.”
“The job’s not over. Let’s start with two and go from there.”
“Fair enough.” She leaned in just enough to let him know she’d welcome a kiss to seal the deal.
It couldn’t happen. Not tonight. Not ever again. He got up and went to get them coffee.
12
CHRISTIE SAT WITH HER FEET pulled up on the chair and her arms around her knees as she waited for Seth and Boone to put the groceries away.
She should help, but she didn’t want to. Mostly, she wanted to crawl into a hole and never come out.
“I didn’t know which cheesecake to get,” Seth said, “so I got a couple.”
That made her look. He’d picked up plain and strawberry, which perked her up a little. So did the big box of Lucky Charms he pulled out of the bag.
Boone had remembered. A really considerate, sweet thing to do. Now that things were a little calmer, she’d thought about before the gunshot. The sex.
She tried to remember when she’d made love like that. She’d actually come with no extra help. Usually—no, always—she couldn’t. She either asked her companion to give her some specialized attention, or she brought out the vibrator. It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, just the way she was built. Or so she’d thought.
Maybe it was how he was built, or how he’d lifted her legs. Or maybe it was because he was Boone.
No. She wasn’t going there. Boone wasn’t the magic one, he was the temporary hero, which was different. This was a traumatic time, and she was clinging to him for dear life. It would be a terrible mistake to romanticize things. He certainly wasn’t.
A knock at the door brought two weapons into play. It was totally automatic, like covering her mouth when she sneezed. Both Boone and Seth were ready to react in a heartbeat, ready to kill, if necessary. Professional soldiers without a war. Which begged the question, how could the military let these particular soldiers go?
She knew something about their training. It was the most vigorous, brutal routine there was. Delta Force was focused on terrorism, and these men knew how to handle situations from stopping a sniper to foiling an airplane hijacking. They knew how to use every kind of weapon from knives to high explosives. CIA operatives had nothing on Delta Force when it came to surveillance and tracking. If anything, the army should be begging them to come back, not making them hide.
Nate had refused to talk about it. Even when she’d used her sister card, he kept his mouth shut. She knew, though, that whatever had gone down in the Balkans had been seriously bad. Afterward, Nate, who’d always been meticulous about his appearance, had become sloppy about his clothes. He hadn’t had a haircut, which was totally bizarre, because he thought the ladies loved his cut. The last time they’d talked, he’d been sullen and nervous, and he’d barely eaten, even though he was as thin as she’d ever seen him.
Kate walked in, and she nodded at Christie before she got a cup of coffee. The three of them sat down at the table, Boone to her left. Seth and Kate had notebooks and pens.
“So what the hell happened?” Kate asked.
“Wait,” Boone said. “Christie, why don’t you get something to eat. Refill your coffee.”
She nodded. “Anyone else want cheesecake?”
Seth did, so she served up a couple of slices before she sat down.
By that time, Kate had pulled out a spreadsheet. On it was everything she’d found out about every man Christie had dated.
But before they got to that, Seth wanted to know what had happened at the house.
“The geek knew we were in the living room. He had a scoped rifle, I’m thinking an M24. Laser scope. He had a bead right on my chest, so he wasn’t aiming blind.”
“He had a camera.”
Boone nodded as Seth cursed. He’d eaten half his dessert, but now he pushed it away as if he didn’t deserve it.
“I don’t know how I could have missed it. I went through that house with a fine-tooth comb.”
Boone sighed. “I’m pretty sure he drilled, sent in a pinhole on a fiber-optic cable. I don’t think it was there until after you left.”
Seth crossed his arms. “Then we shouldn’t have left.”
“The point is, we have to find this guy. Now. Not later. He’s accelerating, but he’s not entering. What does that tell us?”
“He’s a coward,” Kate said.
“True. What else?”
“His objective is to terrify and control.”
Boone nodded. “He wants me, us, out of the way. So he can have her to himself.”
“To do what? Own her?” Kate asked. “Or is this revenge?”
Now it was Christie’s turn to push away her cheesecake. It turned her stomach, how they were talking about her, but she knew it was necessary. If they wanted to stop the bastard, they had to dissect his motivations. She just wasn’t sure she was strong enough to hear them.
“You okay?”
Boone was concerned, his hand over hers, that crease above his nose deep.
“I think I’m going to go watch TV with Milo. Call if you need me.” She left the room and went right to the bedroom, to Boone’s sad bed. Milo trotted in, and she coaxed him up next to her. Then she looked around for the remote.
“Is this what you’re looking for?”
Boone stood near the dresser, holding the remote.
“Yeah, thanks.”
He walked it over to her and sat on the edge of the bed. “You should try and get some sleep.”
She shrugged.
“Don’t give up. These are the best people I know.”
“What if he’s better?”
“He isn’t.”
She hugged Milo. “Go on. I’ll be fine.”
Boone looked at her for a long time, then he stood and put his gun on the bedside table. “You can use this until we get back to your place.”
She watched his back as he left the room, then she turned to the gun. It was too much to think about. Guns and what she used to think of as home. She picked up the remote and turned on the TV. She hadn’t thought of TV in weeks, if not months. It was so bright and loud. The people looked happy. Normal. How could the world go on when hers had turned upside down? She lay down, hugging the pillow instead of the dog. And she smelled Boone. His scent was in the sheets. It wasn’t a cologne, it was the man. Completely distinct, she’d know it anywhere.
She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, oddly comforted.
TERROR PROPELLED HER UP THE bed where her head cracked against the wall. A hand touched her shoulder, a chest pressed against her side and her breath ran out before her scream.
“Christie, it’s me. Christie.”
She gasped as she struggled against him, the voice familiar but it was dark and her heart pounded so hard it hurt her chest.
“Shh, Christie, honey, it’s okay.”
Her fingers released the blanket and grabbed on to Boone’s shirt. It ripped as she forced him closer, needing to feel him, to make him real. He touched her hair, her side, and she pulled as if she could climb right inside him.
“It’s okay, it’s all right,” he said, over and over, until the words made sense and she didn’t feel as if she were going to die.
Her mouth found his and she breathed him in, and still he wasn’t near enough. Her hand went to his neck, her leg wrapped around his hips and she needed him so much.
If he hadn’t kissed her back, she would have cried until the ocean was dry, but he did, he kissed her, hard and deep.
What she needed was Boone, just Boone. Only him, and no one else. Her hand went under his shirt to touch his warm skin. She pressed her palm over his heart but she couldn’t find the beat.
He thrust again into her mouth, his tongue rigid and thick, and she captured him between her teeth and sucked hard, making him moan and push up with his hips.