Midnight Secrets

by Lisa Marie Rice

  “Okay,” Senior said. “Let’s go through this again. From the top.” He pointed a long finger at Isabel.

  She nodded briskly, made an imaginary phone out of her hand. “I call him. I call Uncle Hector. The man my father grew up with, who has been a family friend forever. I’ve called him Uncle Hector since I learned to speak. All of that will be in my voice and my demeanor. Utter trust and faith in a man I’ve known all my life. So I call him and I’m puzzled. I’m turning to him because I don’t have a father or a mother anymore and my big brother is dead.”

  Her eyes narrowed and her lips tightened and something fierce passed over her face. She made a hand phone again. “So who else would I turn to but the man who had been like a father to me all my life? My dear Uncle Hector. So, Uncle Hector—you know what? I’ve been having dreams, terrible dreams. Of that night. Yes, I’d lost my memory, isn’t that sad. But what if—what if my memory is coming back, Uncle Hector? Because I see flashes of things and somehow—isn’t this crazy?—somehow you are always in my dreams. What do you think that means? What do I do?”

  Isabel stopped for a moment, looked around. Everyone but Joe was nodding. Were they all fucking nuts?

  “He’s not going to go for that! He’s—”

  Isabel’s voice overrode him. “So I suggest that maybe we should meet, talk it over. I mean I know you’re a busy man, Uncle Hector, but I really need to talk to you. What? Come to Washington? I don’t know...I’m not feeling well these days. It’s a long trip. Do you think you could...you could? Oh great. Whenever you can make it. Yes—thanks so much, Uncle Hector. You’ve always been there for me.”

  “After which—” Senior began.

  “After which I call him about an hour before our appointment. There’s been a leak in the water mains, the house is a mess. Can we meet downtown in a nice place called Three Windows? And I go in all wired up.”

  “With me,” Joe said. “You go in with me.”

  She didn’t even look at him. “You’re going to be with the others, Joe. All of you guys will be within a minute’s reach.”

  Joe’s body hairs still hadn’t settled. Jacko knew the owner of Three Windows. They belonged to a biker club together. Which was weird because Three Windows was definitely upscale and trendy. Whatever. The owner was a former marine and was going to give them whatever they needed. Jacko was on the phone with him for half an hour, not telling exactly what the op was, but his marine buddy didn’t need to know. He’d offered his entire restaurant to them without asking questions.

  “And we’re gonna be armed.”

  “Well, of course.” Isabel deigned to look at him for a split second. “Because I’m secretly hoping that you’ll all shoot him full of holes. But I do understand that might create legal problems for you all, killing a man who could have been president. So we won’t kill him, we’ll just ruin him.”

  “That’s my job,” Nick said grimly. “With any luck, he’ll never see the light of day again after tomorrow.”

  “I would love it if he never saw the light of day again because he was in a box in the ground, but I’ll take what I can get.” Isabel consulted a notepad. She’d been listening very carefully as the plan took shape. “So, I’m wired up, the flowers on the table will be bugged, my earrings will be bugged, when they bring the Brie hamburger the French fries will be bugged. The entire place will have a billion hidden video cameras. The door will be surreptitiously turned into an invisible metal detector that gives a silent signal to—” The phone became a gun that Isabel pointed at Felicity. “You. You’ll be in a back room coordinating all the electronics.”

  Felicity nodded. “Count on it. Every image will be crisp and all the sound will be crystal clear. Every word the man says will feature large in court. The jurors won’t have any trouble understanding every word that is spoken.”

  “You guys.” Isabel looked at them all, then took his hand. “And you, Joe. You’ll be absolutely invisible until dear Uncle Hector confesses. That’s my job. To goad him until he spills his guts.”

  Joe felt his own guts roil. “There, you see? That’s not a good idea. To goad a guy who’s responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people. Can’t you all see that?” He turned to people he’d considered his friends, people who had turned insane.

  “We can,” Metal said gently. “But we can’t let this guy get away with murder.”

  “So let Nick take care of this! That’s what he does, goddamn it! Nick—” He rounded on his FBI buddy. “You tell them.”

  Nick rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, that’s the thing. There isn’t any hard evidence to prove his guilt. Our friend from the CIA has said as much. Blake has covered his tracks and is still covering his tracks beautifully. The instant evidence forms, the money disappears again. And I tell you, there’s no love lost for the CIA in the Bureau but we’re part of the game, as well. We can’t go tossing around accusations about moles in the CIA and the man who might have been president. If we’re wrong we’ll lose face, lose power.”

  Nick held up a big hand as Isabel opened her mouth. “I’m sorry, Isabel, but that’s just the way power rolls. The big guys have an almost automatic get-out-of-jail-free card. You have to have some powerful proof to get at them. And though Sanders—” the current head of the FBI, “—hates Blake, hell stand by him. Because power at the top stays at the top and thats one of the ways it does that. They dont attack each other. And before you say anything, Im not protecting my career. To put the man responsible for the Washington Massacre behind bars, Id trash my career in a heartbeat.

  “You’d always have a job here,” Senior said in his gravelly voice.

  “Thanks. Though it would entail working with these bozos here. But they’re still better than most of the Bureau pukes I have to deal with.” He turned to the computer monitor. “So. Ex-CIA puke, do you have any evidence that would stand up in court? Because Blake would lawyer up fast with the best mouthpiece money can buy. They’d line up to defend him in a high-profile trial. Did you follow the laws of discovery in tracking down Blake?”

  “No. I know he’s guilty but cannot prove it in a court of law.”

  “There you have it,” Isabel said. “So when do I call? When do we start this?”

  “Tomorrow,” Joe said.

  “Right now,” Isabel said and picked up the phone and scrolled through her contacts again.

  “It’s 8:00 p.m.,” Joe protested.

  “That makes it only 11:00 p.m. in Washington. Hector is a night owl.”

  Before Joe could stop her, she’d pressed the number, on speed dial. Everyone could hear the phone ringing, hear when someone picked up.

  And Isabel’s body language changed instantly.

  She’d been standing ramrod straight, eyes flashing, face tight. The instant Blake picked up, she seemed to lose a couple of inches in height. She slumped, her face grew soft and sad. Her hand trembled. Her voice trembled.

  “Uncle Hector?” she sounded apprehensive, frightened. “It’s Isabel.” She sighed. “No, I’m still in Portland. You knew I moved over here, right? Yeah.” She listened. “Not too great, Uncle Hector, to tell you the truth. I can’t seem to move on. And I’m having...” She made an audible swallow. “I’m having nightmares, Uncle Hector. Terrible nightmares. Sleeping pills don’t help, alcohol doesn’t help, nothing helps. I keep having this same nightmare over and over and somehow you’re in them. Always. It’s so...so horrible.”

  She started breathing heavily. Tears were in her voice. Joe had to check to make sure she wasn’t really crying. Her cheeks were bone-dry, but you’d swear she was crying. “I don’t know what to do, who to turn to.” A long sigh. Her face radiated sadness. She perked up. “Oh God really? You can? When? Tomorrow? Oh, thank you Uncle Hector, you have no idea what that means to me. I’ll text you my address. Thank you.” Her voice throbbed with gratitude. “I’m looking forward to it. Bye.”

  She pressed End and straightened up, the lost look gone, voice strong, staring into the
phone screen as if she was seeing him. “I’m looking forward to tearing your heart out and eating it, you scum-sucking son of a bitch.” She looked up. “We’re taking that fucker down.”

  The new Isabel rode back with him in his SUV. It was icy, so Joe had to pay a little attention to the driving, but most of him was focused on her. On the Isabel who wanted to eat Hector Blake’s heart.

  Of course, Joe was down with that. Blake was an evil, scum-sucking douche bag, but Joe was used to being the one who planned revenge. It was all he’d done as a soldier. He’d joined as an eighteen-year-old right after 9/11, just like Metal. He hadn’t lost his immediate family, like Metal had, but his country had been attacked and his country was his family.

  So through all the harsh training that led to his acing BUD/S and surviving Hell Week and all the years of ops, he’d had one thought—revenge. He was going to get back at the fuckers who’d fucked with his country.

  This was the very first time that he was contemplating revenge on a man, or men—because Blake couldn’t do what he’d done without a team behind him—who were fellow citizens.

  And he wasn’t even the one who was going to exact revenge. Isabel was. He was merely backup. The muscle. It freaked him out every time he thought about it.

  “Stop worrying so hard,” Isabel said with a sidelong glance at him. “I can actually hear the worry vibes. It’s distracting.”

  “Sorry. They come naturally.”

  “You’re a navy SEAL. You guys aren’t supposed to worry or feel anxious.”

  True. He’d never felt anxious when going out on an op. He and his team were as well trained and equipped as it was possible to be. They went out, got the job done and came back. Alive.

  “I’m just backup this time. You’ll be on the front lines. If that isn’t crazy making, I don’t know what is.”

  “I’ll have you guys with me. All of you are former navy SEALs, even Nick. Felicity on the computer. What can go wrong?”

  Joe’s sweaty hands tightened on the steering wheel. “God. Don’t say that! That’s like the pretty young chick who goes down into the cellar alone in her baby doll nightgown when there’s a serial killer on the loose. That’s just inviting trouble.”

  “You think too much,” she said. “Don’t think and drive.”

  Joe shot her a glance then back to the road. Or rather, took his eyes off her enough to glance at the road. Because Isabel was an eye magnet. So beautiful it hurt and right now she was crackling with energy. What drove her was the thought of whacking a man, or at least putting him behind bars for the rest of her life, but what she made Joe think of was sex. Hot, sweaty sex. She looked almost aroused. High color, eyes gleaming, lips full and pouty with a pillowy look. Thank God she was wearing a down coat and he couldn’t see her breasts because he’d take odds that her nipples were hard.

  Or maybe that was wishful thinking because under his coat he was hard as a rock.

  Can it, he told himself. No sex tonight. He would hold her and comfort her and give her courage. She also needed to sleep. She’d said she hadn’t had a good night’s sleep since the Massacre. Tomorrow Isabel was going to face a mass murderer. She was going to walk a dangerous tightrope and needed to be firing on all cylinders.

  So sex was out tonight.

  He clenched the steering wheel harder with wet palms because just thinking sex in the same context as Isabel made his dick kick in his pants. It was going to be hell holding Isabel all night with a massive woodie but he was a SEAL and SEALs were the ones who did the hard things.

  His face twitched. Hard was not a word that should be in his head at this moment.

  Was Isabel thinking about sex? Who knew what was in her head?

  Joe swerved and parked his vehicle. Usually Isabel waited until he got out, rounded the vehicle and opened her door. It was still icy slick and she was often unsteady on her feet. Now, though, she was already halfway to her door by the time he got out. She punched in the code, had it read her thumbprint then just as the heavy steel door they’d put in snicked open she looked over her shoulder at him and the hair rose on the back of his neck.

  The look she gave him was trouble. Pure sex, pure trouble. He leaped up the three steps in one bound, pushed the door open above her shoulder and ushered her in. He could hear his blood pulsing in his ears.

  Isabel shoved him against the door, stepping forward until she was pressed against him. “Now,” she said in a low voice that sent shivers up his spine.

  Now.

  Oh God, yes.

  Joe was holding her tightly, lost in her kiss, aware that his arms were full of...down coat. Her mouth was soft, warm, tongue licking his lips.

  He lifted his mouth for a second. “Off.”

  Smart girl, she understood. Good thing, because he wasn’t capable of full sentences. Gloves off, hands undoing the buttons of her coat, then unzipping his. Outer layers off. Now he could feel her shape, the long line of her back, the small waist, the rounded hips. He cupped her ass, lifting her up against his hard-on and she breathed out heavily and bit his lip.

  An electric shock ran through him and now it wasn’t just his dick that was hard. He was hard all over, as if his skin was too small to contain him. Muscles tense, solid as rock.

  “Clothes,” Isabel said when he lifted his mouth from her to get a better slant. “Now.”

  “God yeah,” Joe muttered.

  It became a contest to see who could get naked first. He could hardly tell whose hands were doing what because all the blood in his head had gone straight to his dick.

  His shirt, her sweater. Pants, jeans.

  Something ripped. He didn’t give a fuck because suddenly his hands were full of warm soft smooth woman, naked breasts pressed against his chest, soft belly against his. He smoothed his hand over her backside, pressed her against him. The lips of her sex opened over him and he rubbed himself against her, up and down, feeling her warm and wet.

  It was insanely pleasurable but it wasn’t enough.

  Joe picked her up, turned her around and placed her against the closed door, hoping he wasn’t slamming her because a drumbeat of urgency was throbbing inside him and he couldn’t think much beyond that.

  He hitched her up. “Put your legs around my waist,” he muttered against her mouth and she did, instantly, and there she was, open to him.

  Slowly, he told himself and he tried, he really did. He clenched the cheeks of his ass and moved into her as gently as he could and oh God, she was like wet silk.

  “Move,” she ordered.

  Everything about Isabel was open to him, welcoming him. Her mouth, her arms, her legs, her sex. She was signaling with her entire body that she wanted him. Joe found her mouth with his and pushed forward, as slowly as he could, until he was firmly embedded inside her. He went slowly because he didn’t want to hurt her but also because there was red-hot pleasure so intense he wanted to savor every second, every inch. They were holding each other tightly, kissing deeply, there was nothing anywhere but Isabel.

  “You’re driving me crazy,” he said.

  “Good.” She licked his ear. “Now move.”

  It was like a storm, hot and wild. Joe slammed into her over and over again, not asking if he was hurting her because she was with him every step of the way. Her arms and legs were tightly wound around him, holding him, meeting him. Her head was thudding against the wall so he cupped her head and her kisses deepened.

  She went first, with a wild cry in his mouth, clenching hard around him. She threw her head back, white throat exposed and he kissed her there, his tongue feeling the beating of her heart in her neck. He could feel the beating of her heart in her sex, too, throbbing and clenching.

  He was covered in sweat and thrusting into her in hard little stabs because he couldn’t bear the thought of pulling back too far because that meant leaving her heat. So he set his legs and pressed into her, circling her, stabbing hard and his heart stopped and the top of his head came off and he spilled into her, har
d spurts that made him shake.

  When he was finally done, he put his palms against the wall near her head to hold himself upright. Isabel slowly lowered her legs to the ground and he slipped out of her.

  They were panting, both of them.

  Isabel’s legs were shaking and her knees gave. She slid to the floor and he slid with her, rolling until it was his back against the cold floor and Isabel was lying on top of him, eyes closed, mouth upturned in a mysterious smile.

  Joe lifted his head to watch her then let it fall back with a thud. He was completely wiped out.

  “Forget killing Blake,” he said when he got his breathing under control. “You’re going to kill me.”

  She laughed.

  Washington, DC

  She knew. The bitch knew, somehow. She had to go. It was time.

  Blake had thought of this over and over again. Leaving Isabel alive was a security risk. But she’d been so broken he’d let it ride and all things considered, she’d had a good run. He’d let her live six months. Her memory was returning, and he knew exactly what she was remembering. Isabel alive was now an unacceptable risk, but it was good that it had taken time.

  No one was going to connect the suicide of a troubled young woman with the events of months ago.

  And soon Blake was going to be busy with phase two, and he wouldn’t have time to deal with her if she all of a sudden woke up and remembered halfway through a presidential campaign. So, it was time.

  He arranged a rock-solid alibi then called his personal pilot. The pilot would fly him under an assumed name, flying a plane that was registered under a company it would take forensic economists months to trace back to Blake.

  And why should they?

  Hector Blake in Washington would have nothing to do with the suicide of a young woman across the country.

  He could actually deal with this himself, with the help of his pilot and Kearns, his man on the ground.

  He called Kearns. “Our little dove is going to fly away.” Their code for it’s time to get rid of the little bitch.

  There was just enough of a silence to annoy Blake. Had the moron already forgotten their code?