by Jule McBride
Fritzi turned and limped to the fireplace as if she could no longer stand to be this close to him. At least she’d forgotten the.38, he thought as she leaned her back against the wall.
He lowered his voice. “I did do it for you.”
“Don’t do me any favors.”
Her tone was so horrible, so bitter. “I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Didn’t you?”
Nathan’s eyes drifted over her face. Nearly a week had passed since he’d killed the man on the No Name Bridge. And now Fritzi had been attacked. At this point, she had to know what she was up against, so she could defend herself—even if telling her the whole truth would also increase the danger. He just wished he was straight about his own motives. What did he want more—to restore her peace of mind or make her love him again?
“I love you,” he ventured softly.
A strangled sob escaped Fritzi’s lips. She’d clearly been fighting a desperate battle to control her emotions—and now she was losing. “Mal-Malcolm. He’s your child. Your son.”
The words were out before Nathan could stop them. “As if I don’t know that!” Regretting his explosive passion, his jaw set. Then he felt that tick in his cheek that he could never control. “So, how long were you pregnant without even telling me?”
Fritzi gripped the mantel, so tightly her knuckles turned white. “You left!”
“I had to leave.”
“You had to leave in the middle of the night? You had to take all your clothes, the pictures—everything? When I woke up, I thought I’d lost my mind! But you’d just simply walked out on me and the baby.”
He was a hairbreadth from losing his temper. His tone turned low and rough. “I didn’t even know about the baby.”
“Oh—” Her voice dripped with sarcasm. “But, when Dear Old Dad saw my ad in the Post, I guess he had to come to Alaska and take a peek. Not that he was going to bother sticking around. Just break in like a thief, use Mom for some sex and—”
Nathan covered the space between them, snatching her upper arm. Didn’t she know how much he needed her? “I’ve never used you for anything.”
“Funny, because I sure feel used.” Fritzi wrenched from his grasp, then shoved him so hard he reeled back. “I loved you.”
She said the words as if they were curses. And Nathan knew they were true. She’d loved him the way he still loved her. With everything in his power. With a vengeance.
“I loved you,” she repeated, her voice a wail. “But I didn’t mean a thing to you.”
With lightning speed, Nathan pulled her into his arms. “Didn’t mean anything to me?” he growled. against her cheek. “You and that baby mean everything.” Realizing how forcefully he held her, how angry heat was radiating from his body, he abruptly let her go.
Turning away, Nathan rested his elbow on the mantel and stared down into the fire. The warmth on his face was like a salve for his rage. Suddenly he just felt bone-tired.
Fritzi’s voice was panicked. “What’s going on here?”
Nathan glanced from the tongues of flame to her face. She was watching him warily, her eyes searching his for lies. “Like I said, my name is Nathan Lafarge. I’m French-American. My father was a liaison between the French and American governments. His name was André Lafarge.”
“André Lafarge?” Fritzi’s voice caught, as if those words explained something significant. Though, of course, they didn’t. “My parents mentioned him,” she murmured in shock. “They knew him. He was…”
On the same cocktail circuit as Fritz and Erin Fitzgerald years ago. “A known Washington power broker.” Nathan’s voice hardened. “Until he and my mother were killed.”
“In a car wreck?”
That’s what he’d told Fritzi a year ago—sharing his emotions, if not the real facts. Now he shook his head. “No, in an attempted coup d’etat.”
Suddenly the air seemed charged with the dangers inherent in the Washington lives they’d both been born to. And with their shared memories—the nights he’d held her in the dark, loving every inch of her body. Or shielding her from her nightmares. Even now, he could hear her describe the exploding aircraft that had carried her parents to their fiery deaths.
Nathan suddenly blinked, drawn from his reverie. “I was young when my parents died….”
“I’m not going to soften because you lost your family,” she said stoically. “I don’t have one, either.”
You have me. Not that it mattered. Fritzi had been ready to love another man. And she was hardly welcoming him home. Pain welled within Nathan and he forced himself to shrug. “My parents left a large estate, so I got bounced around a lot. Went to boarding schools, vacationed with various relatives…”
And became accustomed to institutional living, he thought, feeling furious again. He’d never had a stable life. Or been able to be himself as a teenager, to form his own identity. All he’d wanted was vengeance for his parents’ deaths. And he’d gotten it by helping other people hide from killers. “With my background, it seemed natural I work for the government.”
Fritzi’s voice cut the air like a knife. “At a watertesting facility?”
Nathan sighed. He was so tired of seeing so much hurt on her beautiful face. He wanted her to look at him as she had moments ago—with her mouth slack and her eyes glazed and her arms clinging around his neck in aroused abandon.
Fritzi feigned a disinterested shrug. “I just wondered where you worked. Since you think you’re my husband, is it really too much to ask?”
His eyes dared her. “So now you’re my wife?”
“I think I said ‘until death us do part.’“
He nodded. “Death us do part—is that really how you want it?”
Fritzi’s voice turned sharp. “What do you mean by that?”
That she wouldn’t simply trust him really made his blood boil. Especially now that his desire had ebbed. Scenes from the last year riffled through his mind—the hard labor at physical jobs, the long nights with nothing but a bottle of whiskey to keep him warm. Once or twice, hours after midnight, he’d tortured himself by calling her. There weren’t words for the pain he’d felt when he’d remained silent on the line, just listening to her voice. “Hello? Hello? Is anybody there?” she’d say. And then the dial tone would sound, breaking his heart.
“I’m a surgeon,” he forced himself to continue. “Among other things.”
“Believe me, I won’t ask about the ‘other things.’“
The way she said it, “other things” could have included cold-blooded murder. And did. “You want to hear this or not?”
“Maybe I’d better not.”
That false denial was more than he could take. “Your every look and breath has begged me for the truth. And now you’re going to get it.”
He stepped close to her then—so close that one of his feet fell between hers and the scent of her skin made his nostrils flare. “I was a plastic surgeon. I worked for a government antiterrorist unit. The watertesting facility was really a government-operated surgical unit where we—”
He wondered if he should go on. Every word he said put her in more danger—and yet she had to know the odds. Besides, he’d pledged himself to her. As far as he was concerned, she was his wife. And maybe that didn’t just mean in sickness and in health. Maybe it meant in safety or in danger…
Heaven knew he’d seen all the danger in the world, but it was Fritzi’s capacity for sweetness that suddenly made him shiver. That and her proximity.
“Where you what?” she prodded.
“Changed identities for mercenaries. Soldiers of fortune. High-profile military men. Every once in a while, we’d get a fairly innocent political.”
From the horror in Fritzi’s eyes, it was clear she was getting the picture. Nathan didn’t traffic in runof-the-mill witnesses or inner-city mob turncoats. These were international military. Seasoned killers with enemies all over the world and webs of contacts just as wide.
Fritzi swallo
wed hard. Faint disbelief was in her eyes now, a willful denial. “But what about the building where you went after our lunches?”
The wounded, underlying plea in her voice flooded Nathan with guilt. His mouth went dry. “It was just a building. I walked in the front door, out the back.”
For a long time she merely stared at him—her blue eyes wide, her cheeks chalk white. “You gave killers new identities?”
He wouldn’t have put it that way. “I helped anyone who was willing to trade information our government desperately needed.”
Fritzi’s mouth was hanging open. Snapping it shut, she edged away from him. “So why did you leave?”
“A year ago someone offered our government priceless information in exchange for a new identity. The client’s name at the time was Kris Koslowski.”
Fritzi gaped at him again. “You call them ‘clients’?”
He surveyed her coolly. “For having lived in the D.C. limelight, you pretend to be awfully naive.”
“I don’t follow politics,” she shot back venomously.
“How irresponsible,” he returned. “Somebody has to.”
“And I guess that noble somebody is you?”
Nathan felt his cheek quiver with that tick again. “Yeah, and I don’t have much patience for people who enjoy limitless liberty while decrying those who get their hands dirty to make sure it exists for them.”
At that, Fritzi colored faintly. She shot him a purselipped stare. “Go on.”
“I intend to. Koslowski—”
Drawing a sudden, sharp breath, Nathan recalled Koslowski’s horrifying face. It had been destroyed years before in a terrorist explosion in a train station. The right cheek had been ripped away by metal shards, leaving a tattered scar. And without a full cheekbone, the whole right side of the face sagged—the eye drooping, the jaw slack, the lips curling into a permanent frown.
Kris Koslowski had made a real killing from the business of sanctioned murder. But not a dime was spent on fixing that ruined face. The left side was unmarred, the other terrifying. Like the pure embodiment of evil.
“Koslowski,” he said again, “was a gun for hire with connections to groups responsible for terrorism in the U.S. This client knew names, faces, personal histories. And a lot of people wanted this person dead.”
Nathan glanced at Fritzi, wondering what she was thinking. But she was utterly motionless, her eyes blank. “I helped give Koslowski a new name and face. It had to be done in a fell swoop—the surgery, the documents—”
“Documents?” Fritzi stiffened. “You stole my photos in D.C. and negatives from the shoe box upstairs, and you doctored them. That’s why the windows in the cabin were blackened,” she rambled on, “and why the place had that chemical smell. The camera was missing from my drawer, too. You put yourself in the pictures.”
Nathan nodded, thinking of how happy he and Fritzi had looked in the photographs from the town house in D.C. And of how quietly he’d removed them, fully intending to destroy them. But then he never could. “I brought my wedding ring, the ID cards for David Frayne and the pictures that used to be on the dresser, in case I approached you and you didn’t believe it was me.”
“In case you approached me?”
When understanding blazed in her blue eyes, Nathan could have kicked himself. He’d meant to make sure she was all right, then leave without ever speaking to her. That’s how he should have played it, too. But then he’d broken into the house and held the baby. That first moment with Malcolm had taken away his breath. In the silence, he’d listened a full hour to the brave beating of his baby son’s tiny heart.
And to Fritzi’s breathing. She’d been asleep, and he could smell her in the room. Leaning in the darkness, he’d rested his fingertips against her face. After that, of course, there was no turning back. Especially not after what happened on the No Name Bridge. Besides, Fritzi was his soft spot. His one weakness. And unfortunately, the dangerous Achilles heel that would probably get them all killed.
Nathan forced himself to continue. “Within hours after Koslowski’s surgery, everybody was dead….” Except me. Guilt assaulted him. “The two agents who took Koslowski’s statement in the Hamilton Hotel. And the woman who assisted me in the surgery.”
Fritzi gasped. “Those murdered men in the pictures I found were agents?”
Nathan nodded. “They were using the names Mo Dorman and Al Woods.”
Fritzi murmured, “And the call on our wedding night?”
Bittersweet memories flooded him. Fritzi had seemed so peaceful that night—her breathing steady, her hair curling on the pillow. He’d tiptoed around her, his heart aching as he removed every trace of himself from the town house. But of course he’d left things behind—clothes, a woman pregnant with his child, Fritzi’s memories. How had he ever conned himself into thinking she could forget him?
Nathan’s eyes met hers. “The call that night was from a woman using the name Katie Darnell.”
Fritzi looked hurt in some deep part of herself. “That poor blond woman in the pictures?”
Nathan nodded. “She was a highly trained operative, and I guess she tricked Koslowski into mistakenly leaving her for dead. She almost was. I heard her die that night, on the phone, right after she managed to alert me.”
“Koslowski knew about my house?”
“No. Only about an apartment I rented in Arlington. But I knew I’d be hunted down. I got in touch with an old contact who helped me change my name, my face….” Nathan’s voice trailed off. Because in spite of all that, he’d been on the run for the past year, with Koslowski always just a step behind.
Fritzi’s eyes narrowed. “What about that report? The one by the detective, Sam Giles—where did you get it?”
Nathan shrugged. “My old supervisor got me copies of police reports, hoping I could find something useful. The envelope you found in the cabin is hidden inside the back of your boom box.”
Pure terror suddenly crossed Fritzi’s features. “This is a government problem,” she whispered.
Nathan gave a tired, soft chuckle. “The government’s made up of people. Just people like you and me, Fritzi. No one on earth can protect us now.”
“Or Malcolm!” Fritzi’s eyes flashed fire. “How could you do this to us? To him?”
Nathan’s jaw dropped. Didn’t she know how much he loathed himself for involving her and the baby? “I hardly saw it coming.”
“Comforting,” she snapped. Then she gasped—and stared at him warily. “You killed that man Joe Tanook found in the river, didn’t you? Your ID cards were on the bridge.”
Nathan nodded again. Even now he was haunted by the life-and-death struggle on the No Name Bridge that night—the man losing his balance and plunging over the rail, the hard smack that sounded below, the blood that splattered on the packed white ice. Nathan could still see the man’s automatic pistol sliding across the ice floe and into the choppy water. He sighed. “It was self-defense. But under the circumstances, I could hardly approach the local law.”
Fritzi merely stared at him as if trying to reconcile his new face with the man she’d once known. “When Joe Tanook accused me of murder, I guess the least you could do was step forward.”
“Listen,” Nathan said with feigned calm. “The guy had a.45 automatic. He was firing it, too. It was him or me. That simple.”
“And you lost the ID cards…”
“I dropped them. By the time I realized they were gone, you were in jail.”
“I wish he had killed you,” she muttered.
Strong words. Nathan’s eyes lasered into hers and he stepped close again. “That man came here to kill me,” he ground out. “And if he hadn’t found me first, he might have grabbed you.or Malcolm for leverage, hoping to lure me into the open.”
Fritzi’s gaze wavered. “So, the man you killed was Koslowski?”
Nathan wished. “No, he was just some hired gun.”
Now Fritzi looked confused. She glanced toward the new locks
he’d installed on her windows. “So, who chased me through the schoolhouse?”
Nathan shrugged. “I don’t really know. Another hit man, maybe.”
“Not Koslowski?”
No. But Nathan was sure Koslowski was coming. If Fritzi had met Koslowski in the flesh, Nathan sincerely doubted she’d have lived through the ordeal. He shook his head but said nothing.
Fritzi’s chin quivered with sudden, self-righteous anger. “When you told Joe Tanook you were a jackof-all-trades, you left out one minor point.”
“Which is?”
“That those trades involved endangering me and your child. And you definitely lied about the other thing.”
“Other thing?”
“You’re not the man I married.”
“Aren’t I?” Nathan closed the scant space between them once more. “You loved me for my passion and my extremes. But you only saw and heard what you wanted to.”
Fritzi ignored the barb and raised a quivering finger. “Never come near me or my son. You have no claim on either of us. You followed us here and brought killers with you.” Her voice broke. “Why—why couldn’t you just leave us alone when you saw that ad?”
Nathan could no longer bite back his fury. He leaned so close his lips nearly brushed hers. “I kept away for a year,” he snarled. “It killed me, too. Hurt so bad I didn’t even care that Koslowski might take away my last breath. I despised myself for involving you.”
Fritzi had been so innocent, so lovely. He’d have sooner died than see her hurt. He suddenly thought of the day he’d met her—of how he’d been tailing her, of how he’d switched their bags in the bookstore. He’d fallen in love with her at first sight, and he hadn’t rested until she was in his arms. His voice broke. “Don’t you think I wanted to tell you I was alive?”
Fritzi’s eyes darted wildly around the room. “You’ve endangered my son!” she shrieked.
Nathan grabbed her arm then, held her so tight she couldn’t move. And his voice became still and lethal. “Wake up,” he said. “You put that ad in the Post, Fritzi. You printed your name next to David Frayne’s. Do you think Koslowski doesn’t read newspapers?”
