by Gayle Wilson
“She had nothing to do with your brother’s death,” he said, knowing he was wasting his breath, but incapable of not trying.
“No, you did that all by yourself,” Adler responded. “I thought for a while that the CIA was behind his assassination. The more I learned about you, however… And believe me, I learned a lot. I studied you like a textbook. Who you are and what makes you tick.”
He wasn’t looking at Rafe, although the muzzle of the Walther hadn’t shifted. His eyes moved back and forth, from the outside door of the workshop to the one that led into the house. Clearly he was waiting for Elizabeth to appear in one of them.
And since he knew which it would be, Rafe’s own gaze focused involuntarily on the interior door, the nearer of the two. As soon as he realized what he was doing, he turned his head, looking up at the terrorist.
“Not exactly the way you slaughtered my brother,” Adler said, smiling at him, “but I think your anticipation of her death is much better. Gunther’s was so unexpected I didn’t have time to dread it. You, on the other hand…”
The sound was slight, but instantly recognizable to Rafe. Someone had opened the door of the cabin, which despite everything he had done to it, still made a discernable squeak as wood moved against wood.
Not Elizabeth, he prayed, but he knew it was.
Maybe if he could goad the terrorist into shooting him now, Jorgensen would decide there was no point in killing her. Yeah, right, he thought, discarding that hopeful notion in the face of the reality of who he was dealing with.
And there were far worse things than death. The memory of what had been done to Paul Sorrenson and Duncan had haunted everyone else who had been on that rescue team. It had never haunted him more than it did now.
This bastard wanted Rafe to watch Elizabeth die, but he had already passed up a couple of prime opportunities to make that happen. The most obvious explanation was that he was planning to make her dying as prolonged and as painful as he possibly could. Anything would be preferable to that, Rafe thought.
Certainly his own death would. He might not be able to save Elizabeth’s life, but maybe he could prevent—
Jorgensen took a half step to the side, peering down the utility hallway through which Rafe had entered. The opportunity his distraction provided was probably the best shot he could hope for, Rafe decided. He flipped over onto his back, kicking up at the Walther as he did.
His foot didn’t connect. More quickly than he would have believed possible, Jorgensen jumped back, putting himself out of range.
Instantly the muzzle of the gun steadied, again focused on the center of Rafe’s face. The terrorist didn’t pull the trigger, however, unwilling to give up his plan for the perfect revenge. Apparently he had nursed it too long to discard it unless he had to.
And beyond him, in the interior of the cabin, Rafe could hear someone moving. He knew time was running out.
Rafe’s second kick missed the barrel of the gun by a hairsbreadth. It discharged, the bullet striking the floor beside his head. Close enough that he had instinctively closed his eyes to prevent the spray of splinters from blinding him.
He opened them just in time to watch the toe of Jorgensen’s boot, the heavy kind bikers favored, coming straight at his jaw. He managed to jerk his head back and to the side, but the toe of the boot connected solidly enough that the air thinned and then darkened around him.
He fought to stay conscious. Combined with the effects of the first blow to the back of his head this one seemed to create a kind of detachment from what was going on.
He still knew where he was. He could see Jorgensen, but it was as if he were looking at him through the wrong end of a telescope. Everything seemed distant and distorted. Even the urgency he’d felt only seconds ago seemed impossible to recapture. He closed his eyes, trying to clear his head.
“Drop it. Do it now.”
Elizabeth’s voice. The one he would know anywhere. And he did. He tried to find her, but when he moved his head, turning in the direction of that shout, the room swung in lazy, sickening circles. Bile climbed up his throat, thick and sour.
“Let’s try it the other way ’round,” Jorgensen said. “You drop yours, or I’ll blow his head off. You ever see someone’s head explode, Ms. Richardson? My brother’s brains were everywhere. I would imagine that in a room this size—”
“Shoot him.”
Rafe’s command was a croak. As he made it, he was still trying to bring Elizabeth’s face into focus. All he could distinguish was her silhouette, limned by the sunlight coming down the hallway behind her.
“If you do, I’ll still get off the shot. I’ll take him with me,” Jorgensen warned. “I’ve waited too long for that not to happen.”
If that were true, what he was doing made no sense. All Jorgensen had to do to have the revenge he claimed to want was raise his gun and shoot Elizabeth. That he hadn’t meant Rafe had been right about the terrorist’s need to prolong the moment. Just killing them, even making Rafe watch Elizabeth die, would be anticlimactic.
Over too soon, and not nearly enough to savor. It was an emotion with which Rafe could certainly identify. There had been that same void in his own life when he’d completed his quest for Gunther’s death.
He had blamed the resulting emptiness on other factors, all of which had undoubtedly played a role. His loss of Elizabeth. The things he’d seen the day of the bombing. Leaving the agency because they wouldn’t give him permission to hunt Jorgensen. The hated loss of self-control the PTSD represented.
Somewhere inside he had known the root cause of that emptiness was none of those. After a year of searching, he had killed his enemy, exacted his revenge, and it had changed nothing. It hadn’t even changed him.
“Kill him,” he ordered again.
No matter how reluctant Adler might be to end this in some way not in keeping with his personal vision of vengeance, eventually he would end it. The only chance Elizabeth had was to shoot first.
Because his vision had cleared or because she had shifted her position, he could see her face now. It was strained and white, but determined.
Her eyes had never left the terrorist. Not even when Rafe had spoken to her. And the weapon in her hand had never wavered.
“Your decision,” Adler said, his eyes as firmly locked on hers. “You have three seconds to make it.”
“Whatever he tells you,” Rafe warned, “he’s going to kill us both. Your only choice is whether he’ll do it fast or very slow. Shoot him, damn it.”
“One,” Adler counted.
Rafe watched her swallow and knew she would never be able to pull that trigger and bring about his death. He wasn’t sure he could cause hers, not even if he understood, as she probably didn’t, what was going to happen next.
“Remember what they did to Paul,” he said, trying to explain that fear. “You can’t let something like that—”
“Two,” Adler interrupted, his count overriding Rafe’s warning.
“No, damn it,” Elizabeth yelled. The words were filled with such fury the shout stopped both of them. “No.”
He had no idea what she meant. Apparently, neither did Jorgensen. They waited together through the last second the terrorist should already have counted off.
Waiting for her to shoot. Or to put the gun down, giving herself over to as slow and painful a dying as the German could devise. Hoping to keep Rafe alive a little longer.
Suddenly, something changed. Maybe because he knew her so well, Rafe understood that Elizabeth had made her decision. Something about her face or her body told him that she knew what she was going to do. He was terrified it was the wrong thing.
Maybe Jorgensen knew, too. He seemed to tense, the Walther moving a fraction of a millimeter. Swinging toward Elizabeth?
In response to the possibility, Rafe tried again what he had twice failed to do. He twisted, throwing himself to the side. Attempting to slam his body into the terrorist’s legs. Attempting anything to disrupt his shot.<
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The gun went off, so close to his head it seemed to deafen him. He could smell the scent of burned powder. It threatened to fill his brain with memories. Pulling him away from this scent. This time. This struggle.
The room filled with the sound of gunfire, echoing and reechoing as the recorded scream had done. He lifted his leg again, swinging his foot sideways. Aiming at Jorgensen’s groin.
He wasn’t sure if he connected, but all at once the terrorist’s body seemed to fold in two, collapsing onto his leg like a balloon someone had deflated. Uncertain what was happening, Rafe rolled in the opposite direction, carrying Jorgensen with him. The terrorist slammed shoulder-first into the floor, his head striking a split second later. It bounced slightly as it hit.
It was only then that Rafe saw the small, bluing hole in the center of Jorgensen’s forehead. It was exactly between his eyes, which were still open. And just before the last spark of animation flickered out, there was within them a look of deep surprise.
Rafe pulled his gaze away from the dying man, trying to find Elizabeth. Trying to see if she was still on her feet.
She was standing where she had been, her legs slightly apart and bent. The Beretta, held out in front of her, was still pointed at Jorgensen.
“He’s dead,” Rafe said.
Her mouth had opened, but no sound came out. As he watched, her knees began to sag, her body lowering in slow motion. The gun came down with her, still focused on the terrorist.
“Are you hit?” he asked.
At the question, she finally looked at him. She closed her mouth, shaking her head as she did. “Oh, God,” she whispered.
“It’s okay. It’s over.”
“There’s blood.”
“Where?” he asked, a jolt of adrenaline shooting into his bloodstream. She had said she wasn’t hit. Maybe in the heat of the moment she hadn’t yet realized she was.
“Temple,” she said.
He searched her face for the injury, but he couldn’t see anything. No blood. No wound.
She laid the gun very carefully on the floor and began to crawl toward him, avoiding Jorgensen’s body. Rafe struggled to push himself upright. His hands, which were still bound behind his back, made the maneuver difficult. The vertigo he’d felt when Jorgensen’s boot connected with his jaw had returned with a vengeance.
Elizabeth stopped directly in front of him, sitting back on her heels. After a moment she leaned forward, touching the side of his head. He flinched when her fingers brushed a raw place on his temple, realizing then why the terrorist’s first shot had seemed so loud.
She brought her hand down, holding it out, palm up, to show him the blood. “A fraction of an inch—”
“That’s all I needed,” he said. “You can’t waste luck.”
Her lips moved, slowly tilting. “There’s a quota? You think you can use it up?”
“Actually, I thought I already had.”
“I guess you had a fraction of an inch left.”
They were quiet for a moment. Maybe she was thinking, as he was, how close a thing this had really been.
“What were you going to do?” he asked.
No more unfair than some of the questions she’d asked him, he decided, but she didn’t respond for a long time. And when she did, it wasn’t an answer to what he’d asked.
“I need something to cut the rope,” she said, gesturing toward his back with a small lift of her chin.
“There’s a drawer full of woodworking knives behind you. Take your pick.”
She stood, swaying a little. That was hardly surprising, of course, considering all that had happened.
She put her hand on the top of the workbench as she opened the drawer, taking a few seconds to make her choice. Then she stepped around him, bending to slice the rope Jorgensen had used to tie his hands. He closed his eyes against the sting of the blood flowing back into his fingers, bowing his head to hide the reaction.
He heard her lay the knife on the bench. When he opened his eyes, she was holding out her hand to help him up. As numb as his fingers were, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to close them around it.
He put them against the floor instead, pushing tiredly to his knees and then climbing to his feet. The hand he’d ignored was still stretched out before him.
“I asked you a question,” he said.
“I’ll answer it one night when you’re asleep.”
“Pretending to be asleep,” he corrected.
“You use what they give you.”
“You did good,” he said softly, looking down again at the dead boy.
He wasn’t a boy, of course, but Rafe knew he would always think of him that way because he had been when he had watched his brother die.
“I had a good teacher,” Elizabeth said.
Had. Past tense. And that was appropriate, he supposed.
Whatever she had decided to do, lay down the gun or shoot Jorgensen, Rafe knew he would be dead if she hadn’t followed him here. And the surprising thing about that realization was that the only emotion it evoked was gratitude.
“Thanks,” he said, acknowledging it.
“Pure self-interest. I had to make sure you stayed alive long enough for me to convince you of a few things. And since you’re so damned stubborn…”
“Elizabeth—” he began.
“Why can’t you see how…ridiculous this is?”
That was the last argument he’d expected her to make. He had thought she might say that whatever had happened to him, they would deal with it together. Or that it didn’t matter. Just not that it was…ridiculous.
“No,” he said.
“I don’t care about the flashbacks. I don’t care about any of it.”
“You don’t know about any of it,” he said, sounding defensive. Maybe he was.
“I can learn. It hasn’t changed anything about you that’s really important.”
“Elizabeth—”
“Stop saying that,” she said. “How would you feel?”
“How would I feel? About what?”
“If it were me. If I’d been in the bombing. If I was the one having flashbacks.”
If their situations were reversed. A standard they had both tried to impose lately. On a variety of situations.
“I’m not asking you for anything more than what we had before,” she said.
Which was a whole hell of a lot more than he had now.
“No rings,” she said. “And no promises.”
“You deserve better than that.”
“I’m not ruling them out, you understand. I’m just telling you I don’t expect them as part of the deal.” Her voice had lightened, sounding almost amused now at his resistance.
“Elizabeth—”
“Rafe,” she mimicked. “I’m tired of being alone. I didn’t know how tired of it I was until you showed up. There’s been this huge, gaping hole in my life for the last six years. I guess that means I’m a failure as a feminist.”
“You’re a hell of an agent,” he said softly.
“Lawyer.”
“Whatever.”
“Is that a yes?” she asked.
“Would you mind repeating the question?”
“I’ve forgotten what it was. If there was one, it isn’t important. I just want to be with you.”
“There’s more than the flashbacks,” he said, trying one last time to resist what she was offering. Trying to be fair.
“I figured there was. We’ll deal with that, too. Or we won’t. All I know is ‘nothing ventured…’”
Nothing gained. And a great deal lost.
“Are you sure?” he said.
“There may be another Adler Jorgensen out there,” she said, looking down at the man she’d killed. “Yours or mine. Nothing’s ever sure. This breath. This moment. After what just went on in here, are you really considering wasting more of them?”
“Is there a quota on those, too?” he asked, smiling at her.
“I don’t know. But th
ere can’t possibly be enough of them left. I’m all for grabbing those that present themselves.”
The most rational thing anyone had said to him in a long time, he thought. And slowly, holding her eyes, he nodded his agreement.
Epilogue
Four months later
Rafe’s fingers locked with hers, one on either side of the pillow beneath her head. Their hands intertwined as closely as their bodies.
His hips rose and fell, the movement unhurried. Their slow, powerful rhythm created an answering one within her body. A timeless duet in which they had always been perfectly matched.
Friends and lovers. Inextricably bound.
She had lost count of the number of times they had made love tonight. After a separation of three weeks, however, she knew how important it was for both of them to reaffirm their connection, both physically and emotionally.
She had put the trip back to Mississippi off as long as she could, but the house had finally sold. Darrell had even found some eager young lawyer, newly admitted to the bar, to replace her in the partnership. And the old man didn’t seem to harbor any ill will, despite her sudden departure.
The only problem she’d encountered in Magnolia Grove was that it had all taken far too long. Unable to bear being away another day, despite the threat of bad weather she had started back in the middle of the morning, arriving at the cabin well after dark.
Rafe hadn’t expected her until tomorrow. And the look in his eyes when she opened the door had been reward enough for the long journey.
They hadn’t made it to the bedroom. They hadn’t even paused to dispose of any article of clothing whose removal wasn’t necessary to accomplish their goal. She had been surprised to find how little was necessary.
Their lovemaking the second time had incorporated the removal of the items that remained. Rafe’s lips examined every centimeter of skin revealed as he discarded them. Then, once they were both unclothed, he had explored every curve and angle, each hidden recess, as if her body were something wondrous and unfamiliar.