Deep Cover

by Moira Reid

  She walked past Liz’s desk again, training her features. “Liz, what time is it?” She could have easily looked down at her own watch, but wanted Liz’s full attention.

  “It’s four thirty, ma’am.” Liz’s voice was the epitome of efficiency as if she’d not witnessed Claire just walk into the broom closet and back out again.

  “Go ahead and finish up whatever you’re working on and take the rest of the weekend off. Be with your family, and we’ll tackle this meeting with the Anthony Group first thing Monday morning. We’re ready.”

  Liz’s eyebrows disappeared beneath her bangs. “Are you sure you won’t need anything else over the weekend?”

  Claire shook her head. “You go and be with your family. Family is the most important thing, and neither one of us is going to forget that. Are we, Liz?”

  Butch walked up beside her and placed his hand in the center of her back. She straightened slightly and leaned into the comfort and reassurance of his palm.

  “Yes, Claire. I completely agree.” Her smile was timid.

  “And while I’m thinking about it, I want you to contact the employee-assistance program personnel immediately. Discuss your situation with their counselors and have them contact me so we can work out a way for you to be in the office as long as possible. After that, we’ll implement an arrangement with the disability-insurance people. Whenever you need to begin working at home, that’s what we’ll do.”

  Liz’s mouth dropped open.

  Claire stepped over to her desk and leaned in close. “I am so sorry this is happening. But you need to know one thing: I want you here as long as you want to, and I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make that happen. You can trust me, and you can count on me. You’ve earned my loyalty, now allow me the chance to earn yours. Okay?”

  Liz blinked away the beginning of tears in her eyes. “Thank you, Claire.”

  Claire placed her hand over Liz’s hand. “Thank you, Liz.”

  She turned on her heel and headed toward her office door. “Butch, would you come with me, please?”

  Claire opened the door, then stopped. Butch bumped into her, causing her to stumble one step. She righted herself at the same time Olivia climbed off her father’s lap.

  “What is going on in here?”

  The question was rhetorical, as it was quite evident what was going on. The two of them had been kissing each other, and judging by the smear of lipstick on her father’s mouth—fervently.

  “A private moment between your mother and me.” Her father’s smile was one of pride and not embarrassment. “Next time, you might consider knocking first.”

  This is my office, she wanted to say but could not form her lips around the words. Olivia glanced at Dirk with the most loving gaze Claire had ever seen, then gently rubbed her thumb over the lipstick on his lips.

  Another brick fell into place as she saw the two of them together. These were not two people who hated each other as she’d believed all these years. These two people truly loved each other. “You really did stay apart for me, didn’t you?”

  “Not all the time.” Her mother’s cheeks flushed pink.

  “That’s where you went all those times you wouldn’t tell me where you were going.” She looked at her mother. “You live near a beach, don’t you?”

  “Near Paradise Island, in the Bahamas.”

  That certainly explained all the beachwear her father brought back to her after his trips, and why he always told her it was none of her business where he went. “I always wondered why a man who doesn’t swim would continually go to a beach. I thought you were just picking up those items in an airport somewhere.”

  “The most difficult part was sending gifts to you and never getting to see your face to see if you liked them. Also, trying to find something you wouldn’t be able to pinpoint to a specific location.” Claire’s mother’s eyes seemed to plead with her to understand all she had gone through for her daughter.

  Her parents really did love each other, and there was absolutely no question in her mind anymore that they loved her just as much. Finding that out almost made having a maniac after her worthwhile.

  She took a step closer to her mother. “Well, do either one of you know why Garren is here? What he wants with me?”

  Olivia glanced at Butch, her kind eyes turning hard. “Have you told her?”

  Butch directed his gaze at Olivia. “I told her about Garren and the princess, how I ended up here. I didn’t know Garren was her biological father until today. I can only assume he wants to hurt her because if her birth became known, he could no longer be joined with the princess under any circumstances. Raanana does not want him, but she could not have refused if he accepted her.”

  Claire’s thoughts spun. “So, he’s trying to erase any proof that I exist.”

  “The birth of her intended’s child by anyone other than herself would make it impossible for her to join with him.” Her mother’s voice was bitter, but she reserved the bitterness in her eyes for Butch. But why?

  “And you ruined that for her when you kept Claire,” Butch said. “No wonder he hates me. I thought he was simply angry because he’d believed…”

  “Not only the princess’s accusations of rape, no,” her father finished. “He believed it, but he didn’t care. He wanted the princess in spite of what she’d accused you of. The knowledge of Claire’s birth, however, would remove any remaining chance for him to join with her. Yes, he hates you and Claire, as well as my beloved Olivia. He’s got plenty of hate to go around for all of us.”

  “You were my baby, and I loved you from the first moment I felt you inside me.” Olivia’s voice pleaded with her to understand. “Garren wanted to kill you when he discovered I was with child, and I came here to hide from him. You were mine, and nothing he could do was going to stop me from loving you. I’d thought…”

  When her mother did not continue, Claire searched for the answer. “You thought you loved him…that he would love me too?”

  Her tortured gaze answered the question easier than any words could have. This was not about love at all. Something else had happened between them. Something far from love.

  Butch cleared his throat. “I can leave the room, if you prefer.”

  “I would prefer.” Her mother’s voice took a vicious bite out of the thick air in the room.

  “Olivia.” Her father pulled her hand into his and squeezed it. “You know Butch was falsely accused. Why are you behaving this way?”

  She turned toward him, and after a long moment, Butch sat back in his chair.

  “That’s impossible,” he said.

  “I wish it were.” Her mother squeezed his hand, then turned cruel eyes on Butch. “I only wish it were.”

  “What? What is going on?” Claire searched the faces of everyone in the room. “Hell, if I’m—what am I, a kindred?—why can’t I hear your thoughts? Somebody had better tell me what is going on here.”

  “The Auquerel has spoken regarding the name of your intended, Claire, but your parents believe that I am he.” Butch straightened. “They are mistaken.”

  “I don’t believe it.” Olivia pulled her hand out of her husband’s grasp and crossed her arms over her chest. “The Auquerel has spoken. Yours is not the name of Claire’s intended.”

  “Your husband does not agree.” Butch’s voice, flat and low, held not the slightest misgiving about whatever it was her father did believe.

  “Does it ever occur to anyone that the Auquerel is wrong?” Her father gestured toward the three of them. “It was wrong about us, Olivia, and it is wrong this time.”

  “The Auquerel is never wrong,” both her mother and Butch said at the same time. They glared at one another, and Claire felt the fury from both of them fill the room.

  “Who did the Auquerel say is my intended?” Not that she cared, because no oracle on another planet was going to tell her who she would or would not spend the rest of her life with. However, whoever this person was seemed to be a stic
king point they could dispense with right now.

  “It doesn’t matter, because there is no way that is going to happen.” Dirk Simonson straightened in his chair and pointed at Butch. “Now, you have a job to do, and I expect you to do it. This Garren is out to kill my daughter, and if he succeeds, no Auquerel or oracle or Roman god for that matter is going to save your ass. Olivia, I have told you many times that whatever happened back on Vivemonde has nothing to do with what is going on here. You and I are together in spite of the Auquerel and everything else, and we’re going to stay that way.”

  Her father backed his chair up and turned toward the door. “Now, this meeting is over. Butch, it’s not safe to take Claire back to the house, so you need to find her a place to stay until Garren is either behind bars or dead. Whichever you choose is up to you. Olivia, you are staying with me tonight.”

  Olivia’s angry countenance instantly changed, and Claire saw the new emotion in her eyes. One of abject terror.

  “I’ve found somewhere safe for us to go. He’s not going to do anything to you there. And once Butch takes care of him, he’ll never be able to hurt you again.” Dirk opened the office door and looked over his shoulder. “Butch, you know what to do.”

  “Wait a minute.” Claire followed her parents into the hallway. Liz had obeyed her instructions and left for the day, and no other employees were in sight. “I asked you a question. Who did the Auquerel say is my intended?”

  Her father smiled. “Claire, since when have you let anyone tell you what to do? Does it really matter? Now go with Butch, and believe me when I say I would only trust you to someone I knew could take care of you better than I could.”

  “But if you have somewhere safe to go—” Claire began, then shook her head. “No, we shouldn’t all be in the same place. We’ll be safer if we’re separated. You already figured that out, didn’t you?”

  “You will be safer with Butch,” he said, nodding. “Garren wants to hurt you because he couldn’t find your mother, and he’ll never find her as long as I am still sucking air on this planet. But I can’t take care of you both. You’ll be safer with Butch. You’ve got to trust me.”

  She leaned over and kissed his forehead, something she hadn’t done in so many years, the movement startled them both. “I do trust you. I still think you should tell me who the guy is. Maybe I’d like him.”

  His father smirked. “Trust me. You wouldn’t.”

  Her mother reached for her hand as her father rolled his wheelchair toward the elevator door. “Claire.”

  Claire folded herself into her mother’s arms, another movement she hadn’t made in too many years. Olivia, however, obviously hoping for this, grasped her daughter to her tightly.

  “Garren wants revenge on Butch. He wants to destroy me for keeping you, and you for being born at all.” Her mother’s voice, soft and tender, was ragged with emotion. She loosened her grasp and touched Claire’s cheek. “This Butch person—your father trusts him, and I trust your father. But I want you to be careful. No matter what your father thinks, the Auquerel is never wrong.”

  In the matter of a few hours, what her mother thought about her life had come to mean something. Olivia had given up the two things that mattered most to her in order to keep her daughter safe. She’d missed every moment of Claire’s teenage years and her entire adulthood—not selfishly as Claire had always believed, but for the most selfless of all reasons She’d done it to keep Claire alive.

  While Claire wasn’t prepared to throw herself into her mother’s arms, she was beginning to understand that while she’d suffered, her mother had suffered too. It was a difficult thing, to forgive someone she’d hated yet loved for so long. The first step would have to be her own.

  “You be careful too, Mother.”

  The word hung in the air for a long moment. Olivia softly stroked her thumb over Claire’s cheek. “I know this Viven’s thoughts, as I know yours. The roads you have traveled will soon diverge, and you have to decide, Claire. Which road will you take? You must truly see with your full consciousness before you act. Listen to your head as well as your heart, my love.”

  Butch came up behind her and touched her shoulder. “We should be going too. Captain, we’ll head out the back in thirty minutes. Which way are you going?”

  Her father looked over his shoulder. “Another way, son. Another way.”

  * * * * *

  Claire had never felt so tired in her life. She laid her head against the headrest and closed her eyes as Butch buckled the driver’s-side seat belt.

  “Where did this car come from?”

  “Your father rented it under a false identity.”

  “So, where are we going there, E.T?”

  “I would think you’d be a little less comical about that „ET.’ thing now, seeing as how you’re one of us.”

  She laughed and looked out the passenger window. “Yeah, well. It’s not that funny when it’s me.”

  “Point taken.”

  They moved out of the parking lot, the tinted windows filtering much of the early-evening light. No one had been in the corporate suites, but plenty of her employees and their vehicles remained after six o’clock. Preparing for the meeting Monday, no doubt.

  God, would she even be back by Monday? She had to be. If Butch could find them a safe place to stay through the weekend and keep her alive long enough, she still had the Anthony Group to deal with bright and early on Monday. She sighed, weariness soaking into the marrow of her bones. If it weren’t for the acidic pain in her belly, she could probably fall asleep. But thanks to Garren, a good night’s sleep would most likely elude her for a long time.

  “How do we know he’s not just sitting out here in that van, waiting for us to leave?”

  “I’ve checked the area telepathically, and I’m watching out for him. He’s expecting us to leave in your car. This decoy should do nicely.”

  She closed her eyes again. Leave it to him to have his mind on his job. With all the thoughts rolling around in her own mind, she was happy for once to let someone else take care of a few important details—like finding them a place to stay and keeping her alive.

  Yeah, just a couple of important details.

  Her mother wasn’t crazy about him. That was apparent. But her father trusted him, and she took comfort in that. She trusted him. Her trust, like that of her father, always began in her gut. And her gut told her unequivocally that he was completely steadfast and trustworthy. Between her father’s gut and her own, she had no doubt next to him was the safest place to be.

  Well, safe might be overstating it a little. She smiled to herself. “Wonder how much my father would like you staying alone with me if he knew what you were thinking right now.”

  “What do you believe I’m thinking?” His voice dropped lower in the quiet confines of the car, but she could still hear the hint of apprehension in his words.

  She didn’t know what he was thinking, although within the tight space of the vehicle, breathing in the masculine scent of his body, she knew what she was thinking. With her life in the balance and a psychopath biological father who was apparently also a rapist after her, she was still remembering how good Butch’s arms had felt around her.

  “You’re thinking about what it’s going to be like later trying to pretend you don’t want to see me naked.”

  She opened her eyes to see what his response would be. He did not disappoint. He looked at her for a moment, then back to the road. “How did you know that? You have not delved into my thoughts.”

  “I’m a woman, and you’re a man. Whatever planet we’re from, that fact remains.”

  He shook his head and laughed. “What are you trying to say? That males and females everywhere are always thinking about being naked together? That isn’t true.”

  “Maybe not.” She smiled and closed her eyes again. “But this female on this planet knows what this male in this car looks like naked. And between you and me, I wouldn’t mind seeing that again. Even if the da
rn Death Star were right around the corner and headed straight toward us. But you’re right. I don’t know exactly what you’re thinking, even though you sort of just admitted it.”

  And why was that? she wondered. Why couldn’t she tell what he was thinking? If she was indeed a kindred, some kind of extraterrestrial-Viven-whatever, then why couldn’t she? He could certainly determine what she was thinking if he wanted to, although from what she could gather, his kind considered it rude to do so.

  Her kind, she reminded herself. Their kind.

  “So, anyway.” She decided to let him off the hook on that particular discussion. There were certainly more important problems on the horizon for her than what would ultimately happen between the two of them.

  “Anyway, what?”

  “Where are we going?”

  The sound of his deep inhale and slow exhale relaxed her yet another step closer to being able to fall asleep, wake up, and hopefully discover all this was just a bizarre dream. “Your friend and loaner of classic Corvettes, Jerry, has a beach house at the Outer Banks in Duck. There is a key underneath the trash can next to the house. No one will be there for another week. The cleaning company he has hired finished yesterday and, from what I can discern, have done an adequate if „ridiculously overpriced’ job.”

  She let her head fall to the left and opened her eyes lazily. “And how do we know this, Mr. I-don’t-read-people’s-private-thoughts?”

  His profile remained stern. “I never said I didn’t eavesdrop on people’s verbal communications, now did I?”

  Her eyelids were so heavy she couldn’t keep them open. “I like the way you think, E.T.” She yawned and crossed her arms over her chest, sinking deeper into the plush velour of the passenger seat. “Wake me when we get to the trash cans.”

  When she’d almost fallen asleep, she could have sworn she heard him say, “As you wish, my queen.”

  * * * * *

  “Claire. Wake up.”

  Butch touched her shoulder lightly to try to rouse her. She’d fallen asleep before they’d gotten outside the city limits and had slept soundly the entire five hours of the trip to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The sound of her steady breathing had, in turn, relaxed him and driven him insane.