“Let me look at you,” he said.
The overhead light snapped on, a plain, pewter chandelier that made me think of Revolutionary War–era taverns, and with enough light to make me blink. Barrett tipped my face closer to his own. His grimace swam in and out of focus.
“You’ll have to come clean now,” I mumbled, “about the wiretap.”
“What wiretap?”
“The illegal wiretap you’ve got on Tim’s phone box.”
“Honey, I don’t have a tap on his phone.”
I seemed to be slipping toward the floor. I pushed myself higher in the chair. “But you were at the church—”
“I called the FBI the second you ran for the hospital parking lot. Your buddy Kev didn’t tap the phone box, but he did authorize some monitoring without your ex-husband’s knowledge.”
“Kev actually broke the rules?” Sentiment made me sniffle.
“It’s a good thing he did. It’s how the FBI and I found you. You should’ve reported the ransom demand.”
Outside, tires crunched on the gravel. The sound sent a fresh rush of adrenaline surging into my bloodstream. I tensed, ready for fight or flight.
Weak and woozy, I couldn’t do either.
The back door whipped open. A woman walked in. Barrett didn’t look surprised to see her.
“When did this happen?” she demanded, setting a fishing tackle box on the table. She shrugged out of her corduroy barn coat, tossed it on a chair like she owned the place.
To me, Barrett said, “This is Elise. She’s a doctor.”
Elise was lovely. She had honey-blond hair tucked into a glossy French braid. And her eyes were deep caramel.
Did she visit Barrett often? Did she spend the night with him? It was none of my business. Even though he’d kissed me. Even though I’d liked it.
She crossed to the sink, washed her hands there. Opening the tackle box, she snapped on a pair of latex gloves. She placed a hand on the top of my head, tilted my face toward the chandelier.
The light felt like a meat cleaver splitting my skull.
“Adam tells me you’ve had a little trouble tonight.” Her face filled my field of vision as the caramel eyes measured the dilation in mine.
Caramel eyes.
Like Barrett’s chocolate ones.
“You’re his sister,” I gasped, unspeakable relief flooding through me.
Elise smiled. “That’s right.”
Her fingertips probed my skull. “Have you lost consciousness?”
“Maybe briefly.”
Her hands worked their way out from the wound, across my crown, down my forehead, and behind my ears. “Have you experienced tunnel or double vision?”
“Not really.”
Elise felt the back of my head where my skull met my neck. “Have you vomited?”
“No.” Though her poking around made me seriously consider it.
The sensation passed as she took my pulse, my blood pressure, my temperature. She frowned over the dilation of my pupils. And made me track her index finger with my eyes. Barrett looked on, not getting in the way. When his cell phone rang, he slipped into the next room to answer it.
When he returned, he crouched beside my chair. “Your attacker escaped. And so did his accomplice. The FBI believes one of them could be Brown.”
I tried to nod, winced, then stopped.
“Jamie,” Barrett said, “I want you to stay here tonight.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll be fine on my own.”
Elise cleared her throat. “Staying alone is out of the question. You have a concussion. As far as I can tell, your skull isn’t fractured, but you should be in the hospital.”
“No,” I repeated. “Brown can find me in the hospital.”
“Stay with me,” Barrett said.
“Or you can stay with me,” Elise offered. She smiled. “I’ve got two little boys, though. So you’ll know when it’s morning. They’re up with the sun.”
Two boys. Barrett’s blue boys. His nephews. And as unlikely as it was that Brown would connect the dots from me to Barrett to them, I wouldn’t risk two little boys for anything. So that left me with only one option.
I accepted Barrett’s offer.
While he went off murmuring about sheets and blankets, Elise stitched me up. She said it would hurt, even with a lot of Lidocaine and the two Percocet she fed me. She was right.
“He practically scalped you,” Elise muttered as she cut the elastic band from my ponytail.
My hair, falling free, felt like it was taking the top of my head with it. But that was nothing compared to the tug of Elise’s needle. Once she finished, and the stinging receded, I turned my head one way, then the other. It didn’t fall off. Tentatively, I touched the bandage Elise had stuck over the stitches.
It was larger than I’d thought it would be.
By the time Barrett returned to the kitchen, my stitches throbbed, my bloody face had been wiped clean, and the heavy pain pills were kicking in.
“You can call me at any time,” Elise told me. “I’ll be here within minutes. If you experience double vision or vomiting, make Adam drive you to an emergency room. Or better yet, have him call nine-one-one.”
“Thanks. It was a pleasure to meet you in spite of…well…all this.”
Elise’s smile was bittersweet. She glanced fondly at her brother, then back at me. “The pleasure was mine.”
Barrett walked her to the door.
“The good news is she’ll be fine,” she told him. On the threshold her smile returned—and turned wicked. “The bad news is she won’t be in the mood for anything besides sleep tonight.”
Barrett’s reply got lost as they crossed the porch.
Still, I knew what she thought we would’ve been doing. Alone in his house. All night long.
The notion made my face hot.
“Are you all right?”
Barrett had stepped into the kitchen and I hadn’t realized it.
He closed the door and locked it. “You look a little flushed.”
“I’m just tired,” I said, and prayed he wouldn’t know a blush when he saw one.
Thankfully, he didn’t. “Let’s get you upstairs, then.”
“Upstairs?”
Barrett crossed the kitchen, slipped a hand under my arm. “What? You thought I’d make you sleep in that chair?”
“I kind of assumed I’d take the couch.”
“What else did you assume?”
My face flamed hotter.
Barrett helped me to my feet. When we cleared the kitchen, my head began to swim. We were in the living room now. The foyer, with its staircase to the bedroom above, seemed impossibly far away. Barrett’s sofa, on the other hand, was just inside the room.
“I should take the couch…”
“You’ll rest better in bed.”
“Your bed’s all the way upstairs.” I tried to smile, tried to turn it into a joke. My knees felt like water. My head felt like wool. And a sick prickle tickled the back of my throat.
“Can’t you make it up the stairs?”
“Of course I can!” I said indignantly. But my eyes closed of their own accord.
Like a bridegroom carrying his bride to their honeymoon suite, Barrett scooped me into his arms and started up the stairs.
“Still all right, Jamie?”
His voice rumbled pleasantly through his chest, beneath my cheek. For one dizzying moment, I felt better than all right. But the prickle in my throat became a burn in my stomach.
“It’s not too late for that trip to the hospital, you know. Get you that X-ray.”
“If you don’t like houseguests, Barrett, just say so.”
My words were close to mush, but he got the message. He stepped from the top stair, crossed the bedroom, and deposited me on his bed. He leaned close.
“It’s Adam.”
“Adam,” I whispered obediently.
He brushed a kiss across my lips.
Or maybe I imagined he did.
“You’ll feel better in the morning,” he promised, slipping my Beretta from my hip. “Is there someone you want me to call tonight?”
“No.”
As the Percocet pulled me under, my eyes felt so much better closed. Barrett grasped my ankle, untied my boot. And found the Bobcat in its rig.
He unstrapped the holster. “Want me to call someone in your office?”
“Huh-uh.”
“Should I call your father?”
The burn in my stomach became an ache. I frowned against the pillow. Which was answer enough for Barrett.
“Good,” he said. “Because I’ve met your father. And frankly, I don’t know how I’d explain this to him.”
In my sleepy state, I thought of the only explanation my father would ever accept: “No problem, sir. No failure, sir. Army strong, sir.”
Barrett went completely still. Too late, I realized why. I’d voiced my thoughts out loud.
“Well,” Barrett said, his voice a grim monotone, “that explains a lot.”
I wanted to dismiss what I’d just said. I wanted to deny the truth of it. Meaning to argue, I sat up.
Just in time to throw up.
Chapter 32
In my experience, there’s nothing like vomit to put the kibosh on unwanted attention.
Since that could be my only consolation after throwing up in front of Adam Barrett, I clung to it as I drifted off to sleep—alone—in the warm flannel nest that was his bed.
When I’d puked, Barrett had moved fast enough to shove a wastepaper basket in front of my face and, consequently, spare those flannel sheets. Still, I’d been completely mortified. For yakking, sure.
But mostly, for confessing the true nature of my relationship with my father.
And while throwing up had made my stomach feel better, it made my head pound harder. Against Barrett’s advice, I’d dragged myself to his bathroom for a cold compress and mouthwash. He’d been too busy punching up Elise on his speed dial to haul me bodily back to his bed.
He didn’t beat down the bathroom door and come in after me, so she must’ve told him I’d live.
For my part, I wasn’t so sure that was true.
Eventually, I slept, practically dead to the world. Barrett woke me periodically. Standard procedure for concussion patients.
After one of his visits, I struggled out of my rumpled turtleneck and shucked my grass-stained trousers. I flung them to the floor. Later, I found them folded and placed beside me on the empty side of the bed.
Sometime around dawn, I woke to the soft sound of rainfall. But the patter and splat weren’t raindrops ticking the window, I realized. They were the sound of Barrett in the shower.
I dozed again, hot thoughts keeping me dreaming as I heard movement in the room. When the bed pitched, I woke. I couldn’t open my eyes all the way, but I could open them enough to see Barrett sitting beside me on the edge of the bed. He wore crisp ACUs; his hair was damp. And the scent of his aftershave was like spiced wine and firelight.
“How do you feel?”
I mumbled some kind of answer, drifted toward sleep again.
He rose.
“Wait,” I managed. “You’re going?”
“It’s morning, honey. Time to catch the bad guys.”
“Brooke?”
“No.” Barrett sank onto the bed again. “The ransom demand is looking like a ploy to get Colonel Thorp on his own. By the way, he’s having a hard time explaining the cash in the pillowcase. The FBI finally agreed to let me take a turn with him. I’m going to press him about that cash, Jamie. And about the soldiers who got killed when he reassigned them overseas.”
That woke me. “I want to go with you.”
I sat up. The comforter slid south. And gave Barrett an eyeful of the pink French silk and black Alsace lace I wore against my skin.
He cleared his throat, got to his feet. “You need to stay in bed. Elise will be here in a few minutes.”
I wanted to argue, but my body was already sagging back against the pillows.
I must’ve fallen asleep again because the next thing I knew, his sister was leaning over me. Elise fed me a pill and I slept some more. I woke sometime later to find my luggage, including the hard-sided case Matty had dropped off at my house, lined up across the room.
I hoped Barrett hadn’t looked in that particular valise.
Elise appeared, bearing a tray. “How’s the patient?”
Starving, I realized, as I inhaled the scent of the tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches.
After I ate, I found out the hard way I wasn’t quite back to normal. I couldn’t even take a shower under my own steam. With Elise’s help, though, I managed. She washed the dried blood from my hair. Well, most of the dried blood.
I couldn’t risk getting the stitches across my scalp wet.
And I had a lot of stitches.
I also had a growing headache by the time I slipped on china-blue pajama bottoms, a white pima cotton cami, and a spare pair of squared-off brainiac glasses. Pearce called as Elise helped me into bed.
“You’re late, Jamie.”
“For what?”
“You and I had a date today.”
I had no idea what he meant.
“A counseling session,” Pearce reminded me. “At my chapel office.”
I’d completely forgotten it. “I’m sorry. I won’t be able to make it.”
Like my father, the chaplain tolerated no excuses. But unlike my father, his concern was all for me. “We need to talk, Jamie. You need to talk. I’ve heard every excuse in the book.”
Well, he hadn’t heard the one I gave him. When I told him I couldn’t meet with him because Charles Chapman Brown may’ve tried to scalp me with a shovel during a ransom attempt, Pearce’s tone turned from a clergyman’s concern to a friend’s alarm. “Where are you? I’ll come get you.”
“I’m fine,” I assured him.
“But you’re—”
“I’m safe, Pearce. Really.”
“Are you alone?”
Like a terrier shaking a rat, the man wouldn’t give up. But speaking of rats…“Tim’s being held for questioning.”
“What?”
“Pearce—has Tim made any extravagant purchases in recent months?”
“No. I mean, he bought a BMW, but they’re not uncommon, and some models aren’t terribly expensive.”
This was true.
But so was something else.
“Tim’s an army colonel, Pearce. Hasn’t it struck you that he has too much cash for a colonel?”
“Take it from a man who lost his trust fund, Jamie. One can never have too much cash.”
“This is about more than cash. Have you ever known him to accept a bribe? Perhaps from parents eager to see their kid assigned stateside instead of sent to Iraq or Afghanistan?”
Pearce’s tone could’ve chilled wine. “How can you suggest such a thing?”
Very easily.
It was proving it that was difficult.
I made peace with Pearce as best I could, said goodbye, then thumbed through the death-threat file on my BlackBerry. I tracked down all the people who’d signed their real names and called every last one of them, despite a growing headache. No one would tell me anything. They’d had time to cool down, time to reflect. And maybe time to recall that sending threats through the mail, over the Internet, or via fax was a federal offense.
Elise fed me a couple Tylenol. My pain eased. I wanted to make more calls, but the pills sucked me into a dreamless sleep.
In the dead of night, I woke in a panic. I couldn’t remember where I was. But the flannel sheets and soft citrus-and-spice scent had it all coming back to me.
I snuggled deeper into the covers, but unease refused to leave me. Then I heard a noise: a metal-on-metal clang outside the house. The sound that had woken me in the first place.
I grabbed my glasses from Barrett’s nightstand and crept t
o one of the kitty-ear windows overlooking the back of the house.
In the drive below, I saw no sign of a vehicle belonging to Elise. I saw my Taurus, however, and Barrett’s truck was parked behind it. A ring of blue-white light, falling from the fixture over the barn door, circled them.
At the corner of the barn, a pair of toppled trash cans wobbled just at the edge of the light. Behind the cans, shadows flowed. Something moved.
Someone paced between the barn and the Pine Barrens.
I hoped to God that someone wasn’t Charles Chapman Brown.
I hunted for my guns in the dark, but couldn’t find them. Barrett must’ve locked them up. Well, I’d have to do without them. I’d have to do without shoes, too. I’d wasted enough time hunting my Beretta and Bobcat.
As I tiptoed down Barrett’s staircase, adrenaline overrode my remaining light-headedness. Over the banister and through the living room arch, I spotted Barrett, sleeping on his couch. Slivers of faint moonlight filtered through the windows, silvered his golden hair. And slicked his bare chest.
If he’d worn a shirt to bed, it was long gone, probably lost in the tangled blanket that trailed across the floor. His pajama bottoms rode low on his waist. His arms had arched over his head to hook the pillow there.
Outside, the trash cans rattled again.
I hurried down the remaining stairs. A tread groaned beneath my foot. Barrett jerked. Half awake, he sat up, his right hand groping the air beside him. The movement was automatic and all too familiar.
I’d seen this kind of reaction before.
And I knew what it meant.
I’d seen the shrapnel wounds in his side and heard his story of how they came to be there, so I knew this to be true: Adam Barrett had served in a combat zone not long ago. There, soldiers catch any sleep they can, dozing with their weapons at their sides. Even if they got to spend the night in a tent, they would be ready to wake at a moment’s notice because their lives might depend on it. Barrett had no doubt done these things. His reaction more than proved it.
“Barrett!” I whispered, hoping he’d wake fully.
He didn’t. Half-asleep, he reached for his nonexistent weapon. Panic began to overtake him when he couldn’t find it.
The Kill List Page 22