by Karen Rose
Chapter Seven
Chicago, Sunday, August 1, 10:45 P.M.
Sue quietly closed the office door behind her. Dupinsky was gone to pick up a new client and Scarface had shut herself in her room in a pout. Dupinsky had a good lock on this door. She could pick most locks in ten seconds. This one had taken eleven.
Sue could get a new identity if she asked. Dupinsky apparently thought it was a huge secret, but according to old cellmate Tammy, everybody knew. Nobody said a word out of loyalty to Dupinsky. Nobody knew where Dupinsky got the fake IDs, but based on the laminating film and the razor blades on the desk, Sue had a good idea.
She picked the lock on the desk drawer easily. Inside was a finished driver’s license. Sue lifted her brows. Dupinsky could make some real money doing this full-time. The woman had a gift. Sue recognized the picture on the license. It was Beverly, two doors down the hall. There was also a passport with lots of stamps. Again, with Beverly’s picture inserted. So, Dupinsky could make passports, too. Good to know. Sue would need one when all this was done, when the Vaughns’ ransom money was safely tucked away in an offshore account. She wouldn’t want to stick around the good USofA, always looking over her shoulder. She’d go overseas. Paris sounded good. She’d planned to buy a passport, but if Dupinsky’s passports were as good as her licenses, well . . .
She studied Beverly’s license. Her facial structure was similar to Sue’s. A little makeup, contacts, and a dye job . . . It could work. Beverly was leaving this week for California, according to Ruby. The timing was perfect, as were the circumstances. Once Beverly left Hanover House, no one would expect to hear anything from her for days, if at all. Nobody would file a missing person report or check the morgues.
Chicago, Sunday, August 1, 11:45 P.M.
It was a sports bar. TVs hung from every corner, each playing something different. It was a welcome distraction from the fuzzy video Ethan had been staring at for nine of the last ten hours. Desperately needing a break to rest his eyes and fill his stomach, he’d just gotten Bush’s permission to come back later and was headed for the door when he’d seen her. For a split second he’d thought he was imagining her, he was that tired.
Then she met his eyes and it was the same as it had been this morning. Electricity in the air, raising every hair on his body on end, the sudden rush of adrenaline propelling him across the terminal. And just like this morning, she’d felt it, too. He’d left Bush’s office looking for a diversion, a way to clear his mind so that when he came back to search for Alec he’d be fresh and sharp. He’d certainly found what he was looking for.
Possibly in more ways than one.
Cubs fans were everywhere, poor, deluded souls. Seemed like a couple hundred of them crowded the bar, but he couldn’t complain. The cramped quarters put Dana’s back squarely against his chest, her curvy rear end right up against his groin. Yet even so close he still had to shout to be heard. “You’re a Cubs fan, I take it?”
Dana turned, the grin she threw over her shoulder more warning than amusement. “I am and if you’re not, I wouldn’t advise saying it too loud in here. Crowd’s pumped.” She turned, pointing at the scoreboard mounted over the bar. “We won tonight.”
Ethan dipped his head to her ear. “Enjoy it. It might be a while before it happens again.”
Her head whipped around, her brown eyes narrowed. Her pursed lips mere millimeters from his. After a stunned split second, her eyes widened, filling with hot awareness. Her lips relaxed, falling apart just a hair, full and moist, making one of the most provocative, inviting pictures he’d ever seen. And his body, still half aroused from the sight of her walking toward him in that damn bus terminal with her nipples pressing against the soft material of her shirt, roared to full throttle. Just a tiny movement and he’d know what it was like to kiss her. And she wanted him to. Of that he was certain.
But her eyes narrowed again and her kissable lips curved into a smirk, her words barely registering through the noise of the bar and his own thick fog of lust. “For your own safety, I think we’d better take this outside.” She moved toward the bar, leaving him leaning forward, hard as a damn rock. With no small difficulty he straightened and followed her, wordlessly paying the bartender for the beers that came sliding across the bar. Dana took both mugs and gestured to a back door with her head. “Outside.”
Again he followed, noting more than one man eyeing her, pushing back the unfamiliar urge to poke them all in the eye just for looking. But he couldn’t blame them. Curves in all the right places, she was raw sensuality in a sleeveless polo shirt and plain cotton skirt.
He wanted her. It was as simple as that. And complicated as hell. He’d promised himself he’d take time for dinner. He had no time for anything else. No matter how much he wanted it or how long it had been. He’d eat, and then he’d take her home. Then back to the tapes. Until it was time to eat again.
There was symbolism there, on way too many levels.
She snagged a table on the edge of the patio that would sit in the shadow of Wrigley Field on a hot summer afternoon. He took his beer from her hand and lifted it in a toast. “To what could become a winning streak,” he said and her lips twitched.
“So you like baseball, Buchanan, or you just like to poke at the underdog?”
“You don’t know? I thought you checked me out. Me and my . . . injured parts, that is.”
Her cheeks flushed. “Your Website said nothing about your baseball preferences.”
He sipped his beer thoughtfully, watching her. “Orioles fan.”
She grimaced. “Ah, yes. You live in D.C. Baltimore would be the closest team.”
“I live in D.C. now, but I’ve always been an Orioles fan. Have you always rooted for the underdog?”
Something changed in her eyes. “Yes,” she murmured. “I guess so.” Then her full mouth curved in a smile. “So if D.C.’s just where you live, where’s home?”
“Maryland. Little town on the Eastern Shore called Wight’s Landing.” And his mind instantly flashed to the picture of the body in the shed. Followed by that picture of Alec, tied and gagged by the side of the road. Restlessly Ethan cast his eyes on the lights of the skyscrapers poking up in the distance, wondering if he was even in the right city. If Alec was here or a thousand miles away. If Alec was hurt . . . or killed . . . I’ll never forgive myself.
He jumped as Dana’s palm covered the hand he hadn’t realized he’d clenched into a fist. Found himself staring into warm brown eyes that searched his face. Found the turbulence in his soul once again calming. “What’s wrong, Ethan?” she murmured.
And he actually considered telling her. “Nothing either of us can fix right now.”
She tilted her head, her eyes still on his. “I’m a good listener. If you want to talk.”
There was something in the way she said it. It was practiced. Not false or phony, but like she’d had cause to say it many, many times before. And suddenly he wanted to talk. To have her listen. Maybe just to keep those warm eyes looking at him, to hear her smooth voice. Just to keep the feeling of calm in the storm. So he shrugged. And talked. “Whenever I think about home I think about two friends of mine. Brothers.”
Her brows rose. “Your brothers?”
“No. They were brothers. I grew up in Wight’s Landing with my grandmother and they’d come down from Baltimore every summer. Richard and Stan.”
“Where are they now, Richard and Stan?”
Ethan gritted his teeth. “Richard is dead. Enemy fire outside of Kandahar.”
“Where you were injured,” she said softly. “The newsletter I found said your vehicle hit a land mine and you were caught in enemy crossfire. I take it Richard didn’t make it.”
“He died protecting me.” Ethan looked away. “We were thrown from the vehicle and I was knocked out, but Richard wasn’t. He could have crawled back and used the Humvee as a shield until the medics came through to pick us up.”
“But he didn’t. He stayed with you.” She t
apped his fist until he met her eyes. “Just like you would have done had the situation been reversed. But you know that, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” Ethan said bitterly. “I know it.”
“But at three A.M. it still gets to you. It can be hard to be the one that lives. Guilt and all that added responsibility . . . You were spared. He wasn’t. It makes a lot of people wonder why, makes them search for a purpose they weren’t as sensitive to before.”
Ethan blinked slowly. “You sound like the hospital shrink.” Better actually. The shrink had stopped at guilt. The responsibility was something he’d grappled with on his own.
She lifted a shoulder. “Was Stan in the Marines with you and Richard?”
Ethan’s smile was grim. “No. Stan was never very disciplined.”
“Do you still see him?”
Only when he needs something. “We haven’t been on great terms since Richard died.”
“He blamed you.” It was murmured softly.
“You could say that.” Ethan took a healthy swallow of beer. “In fact, he did.”
She rubbed his hand with her palm until his fist relaxed. “That was . . . unkind.”
Ethan laughed harshly, thinking of Stan cheating on Randi, forbidding Alec’s visits, trying to drag poor Paul McMillan’s body out to sea. “Well, that’s Stan for you. Unkind.”
Her fingertips stroked the back of his hand. “So was Richard an Orioles fan, too?”
Ethan looked up, found her smile still in place. “Yes, he was. We never missed a game on TV. Bought tickets in the nosebleed section every chance we got.” She said nothing and in the silence he stared at the outer walls of Wrigley, seeing himself and Richard as young boys, hiking up to the cheap seats in old Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, saving their money for hot dogs. Then he smiled as a nearly forgotten memory bubbled to the surface. “Back in ’85, Richard caught a foul ball. I was so jealous, but I stood outside the team entrance with him anyway, waiting for Eddie Murray to come out to sign it.”
Her lips curved. “Steady Eddie. ’Eighty-five was his best year. He hit what . . . 125 RBIs?”
He lifted his brows. “One-twenty-four. Most girls I knew didn’t follow the teams.”
“I knew my stats better than any boy in my class. So did he? Sign the ball, that is.”
“Him and four other players.”
She smiled again. “You guys must have been on a cloud.”
“We were, but by the time we got back to Wight’s Landing, Richard was feeling guilty. We’d switched seats midway through the game because there was a girl he’d wanted to talk to. If we hadn’t, I might have caught the ball.”
“And you weren’t interested in the girl?” she asked.
“Nah. Not then. Cal Ripken was on the field.”
“I understand completely,” she said. “Girls paled in comparison.”
“Well, then, maybe. Richard was always a little faster on those things than I was. First to get a girl, first to get—” He stopped short, but her low laugh told him she’d figured it out. “First to get married I was going to say.” He shook his head with a smile. “Anyway, by the time we got home, we were fighting over who should keep the ball. We flipped a coin.”
“And you won?”
Ethan’s throat suddenly thickened and he had to clear it before answering. “Nah.” He swallowed hard, appalled that the memory stirred him so deep. “He did. Apologized every damn day for the rest of the summer, until I wanted to deck him.”
Her fingers squeezed his hand. “And the girl? What happened to her?”
“They started going steady that fall and got married eight years later, right after we graduated from the Academy.” Again his throat closed. “I was his best man.”
“And the ball? Whatever happened to the ball?”
“It’s in a glass case on a bookshelf in my bedroom. He left it to me in his will.”
“Did you begrudge him the ball, Ethan?”
There was something in her voice, an authority he couldn’t deny. “No.”
“But you switched places. He had your seat.”
Something inside him stirred. “Richard was in the right place at the right time.”
“So conversely, you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Kind of like that day.”
That day. It was how he thought of it in his own mind. “When I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.” The words were out before he knew they were coming.
“Really?” Her brows went up. “You wanted to die?”
“No.” Angry now, he pushed his beer to the middle of the table. “I did not want to die.”
“Do you think Richard would begrudge you your life?”
“There’s a hell of a lot of difference between a damn ball and a life.”
“Yes, there is. But would he?”
“No.” He let out a shuddering breath. “That’s not the kind of man he was.”
“Ethan . . . Some people never find a friend like that their whole life. You did.”
His heart warmed, remembering Richard for the friend he’d been. “Is Caroline that friend for you?”
Her lips curved. “She is. But Caroline wouldn’t have accepted a single coin toss. It would have been best two out three, then three out of five. She’s the tiniest bit stubborn.”
“I figured that out. I have to say I haven’t been threatened by a date’s family since my Academy days. I decided that girl wasn’t worth the risk.”
“And tonight?”
He turned his hand over and threaded his fingers through hers, realizing there wasn’t an army of brothers big enough to keep him from her. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
She dropped her eyes to their joined hands, staring as if the sight were a foreign one. Then looked back up and nodded. Slowly. “Yes. Yes, you are.”
The brown eyes that had encouraged him were suddenly vulnerable, unsure. Sad. And he wasn’t sure what to say to give to her some measure of the peace she’d given him.
But with a hard blink, she made the look disappear, smiling brightly over his shoulder at their waitress who deposited a huge plate of hot wings and two enormous burgers on their table. Dana lifted a limp celery stalk from the plate of wings.
“Vegetables,” she said. “I can now honestly tell Caroline I had some.” With zeal she dug into the hot wings, sighing at the first swallow. “I was hungrier than I thought.”
As Ethan loaded his plate he considered the sad look he knew he had seen. Wondered what prompted it. And where she’d stowed it. She’d claimed to be a good listener and that she most certainly was. He wondered if she was nearly as good at talking.
Chicago, Monday, August 2, 1:00 A.M.
Sue slipped into Scarface’s bedroom and stood there a moment, contemplating the sleeping girl. It would be so easy to get rid of a parasitic social worker in training. But although satisfying, such an action would cause undue scrutiny she couldn’t afford.
Sue slipped Scarface’s pancake makeup into her pocket. She’d need it to cover certain identifying features before she went out to send the Vaughns’ latest e-mail in the morning. She turned from the girl in the bed. Soon enough her day would come, along with Dupinsky and sweet Caroline. First, she had to reach out and touch the Vaughns.
And then, she had an appointment to keep. Her blood was already rushing. It would be the first name on her list she’d cross off. Leroy Vickers.
Chicago, Monday, August 2, 1:45 A.M.
It was one of those trite but true things, Dana decided glumly, watching Ethan Buchanan sleeping in the train seat beside her. She was not that kind of a girl. She’d gotten to know him better and now knew there could be no fling. No sweaty bouts of sex.
No relief from the little sizzles that had become major yearnings as the night wore on. Hell, who was she kidding? They’d never been little sizzles. They’d started out as lightning bolts in the bus station and had just increased in intensity from there. And for that moment she’d been pressed against him in the spor
ts bar . . . God. Just the memory of his rigid arousal pulsing up against her rear end was enough to make her shudder now, hours later. She should have kissed him then, right after he’d made that half-assed jab at the Cubs. They would have combusted, found a room, and fucked like weasels. She could have gotten him out of her system. Topped off her tank. But she hadn’t.
Nope, she’d pulled away. Sat down and talked to the man. And found him to be good and kind and . . . honorable. Not the kind of man a woman used for her own sexual purposes and tossed aside. Not this woman, anyway. Shit. He’d put his gut right there on the table, telling her about his best friend. Trusted her. Her heart still squeezed at the misery she’d seen in his eyes. Two years and he still felt guilt over Richard’s death. But there was no statute of limitations on that kind of guilt. Dana knew that all too well.
But talking about his friend had helped, as she’d known it would, and for the rest of the dinner he’d been downright chatty. He liked baseball and movies, just as she did. He liked Die Hard and Terminator and could give the stats on any player in the league. She searched his face, relaxed in slumber. Any player up until two years ago, that was. More recently, he knew nothing. At first she’d wondered about memory loss from his injury.
But the reason was far more basic than that. Since his release from the hospital, he’d started his consulting business and Ethan had simply worked himself into the ground. Keeping busy kept the guilt at bay. Hell, she was seeing his obsession with his work right now as he sat in the ratty old train seat, snoring softly. He’d worked last night and most of Sunday before going to dinner with her. He’d insisted on seeing her back home, instead of going straight back to the bus station for his car. But he’d lasted less than five minutes on the El, his eyes sliding closed at the swinging rhythm of the train. He was exhausted.
He was also gorgeous. And although her fingers itched to touch, he was off-limits.
Thankfully, her station was approaching. “Ethan.” She shook his shoulder. “Wake up.”
Ethan jerked awake, bolting upright in his seat, his pulse shooting through the roof.
