by Dinah McCall
Jack could hear him walking, then a door opening, then closing firmly. Seconds later, he heard the squeak of a chair.
“Okay, I’m in. Just give me a minute to…yeah…here it is. The download is complete. I’m printing it now.”
“What do you think?” Jack asked.
“I’ll have to give the Company a call and run this through their files. Of course, age enhancement will play a part in this, too. I’ll let you know in a couple of hours.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll be waiting.”
‘Is there anything else?” he asked.
Jack sighed. It had to be said.
“They know who I am.”
“How did this happen?”
“I told them.”
There was another moment of silence, this time longer than the first.
“I assume you had your reasons?”
“Yes, sir, I did.”
“What do the know about why you’re there?”
“Only that I was trailing the man who killed their friend and that we knew he’d used the dead man’s plane ticket to come to Braden. Also…I told them he was Russian.”
“Do you think that was wise?”
“Right now, sir, I don’t know what I think, but I know what I saw. The five old men whom Isabella Abbott calls her uncles were scared out of their minds when I told them. One may have been in the throes of a mild heart attack when I left to come to my room. Oh…I forgot to tell you that I’ve got a friend in research at Quantico getting me information on all the people who were on the same plane with Vaclav Waller. The one that supposedly went down.”
“Really? What are you hoping to find?”
“I’m not sure, but I think I’m on the right track. There were seven doctors on that flight, along with a couple of pilots and a woman, who was supposed to be one doctor’s wife. And, up until a few weeks ago, there were seven old men living in Abbott House. The names aren’t the same, and I can’t tell anything about the faces because the picture is too old and the man are too young, but it’s quite a coincidence, just the same.”
“Let me know what you find out from Quantico.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll be in touch.”
The line went dead, but Jack was already checking his e-mail, hoping for answers from Steven Randolph. He scanned down the list of new messages quickly, then stopped at the second from the last and grinned.
Dubloh7.
That would be Steven, all right. 007 indeed.
“So, you think you’re James Bond, do you, buddy? Let’s see what you’ve found for me.”
He opened the message and started to read, and the longer he read, the more he realized that Frank Walton had been the tip of a much bigger iceberg. Every doctor on board that plane had been involved in DNA research and the theory that human genes could be manipulated as a means of everything from preventing birth defects to healing incurable diseases. And what was more telling, according to what Steven had pulled from the archives, they were all in the process of being pulled off their research when the crash had occurred.
He replied to the e-mail, typing in the names of the men who were or had been living here now, including Samuel Abbott. Walton had pulled a scam by living under a dead man’s name. He wondered what they would find out by running the same check on these men.
A knock sounded on his door as he hit Send. Finally. His food had arrived.
“Come in,” he called, and folded down the screen on his lap top.
He stood, stretching as the door swung inward. But it wasn’t Delia who entered with his food. It was Isabella.
He jumped forward, taking the tray from her hands and then quickly setting it aside.
“Is there anything else you’ll be needing?” she asked.
“Forgiveness? Understanding? A hug? I’m not picky. I’ll take any of the above.”
She sighed, blaming herself for her weaknesses. She’d known when she’d offered to bring up the food that he would confront her like this, and she knew, if she was honest with herself, that was why she’d come.
“I can understand about working undercover. I know there are things within your job that are bound to be highly sensitive.”
“Yes, and—“
“I’m not finished,” she said, holding up her hands and backing up so that there was still space between them.
Jack braced himself for the but he heard coming.
“Then get it said.”
“But you can’t just throw down a verbal gauntlet like you did upstairs and expect me to ignore it. Do you know what I’m feeling right now? I feel like the orphan I really am. You’ve made me mistrust the only family I’ve ever known. I look at those five dear old men and see strangers. I’m scared, Jack, and it’s all your fault.”
He frowned. “No, Isabella, it’s not my fault. I was just the messenger. Whatever is going on with them started long before we were born.”
Her lower lip trembled, but she refused to cry.
“What is it, Jack? What’s going on? Why are they afraid? And don’t tell me thy’re not, because I saw it in their eyes.”
“Did you ask them?”
“No, and I won’t.”
“Why?”
The words burned her mouth like acid, but they had to be said. She turned away to stare out at the mountain, and as she did, the flesh on her skin suddenly crawled.
“Because I know that whatever they tell me would be a lie, so if I don’t ask, they don’t have the guilt of that on their consciences.”
“I’m sorry.”
“God, Jack…so am I.”
“Isabella…look at me.”
She turned, her eyes wet with tears.
Knowing it was wrong didn’t stop Jack from cupping her face and then lowering his head. A second later he was kissing her. Gently. Tenderly.
Then she moaned, and his hands slid from her face to her shoulders, then under her arms and around her back, holding her tighter, pulling her closer, until there was nothing between them but growing need.
Heat built, bodies burned, aching with only one way to stop—and it wasn’t going to happen. Not when she was this vulnerable. Not when the possibility existed that he was going to destroy what was left of her world.
“Oh God,” Isabella moaned, as she tore herself from Jack’s arms.
She dropped to the side of the bed and covered her face with her hands.
“This is crazy, isn’t it? Why am I doing this? I must be mad, thinking of you when I should be trying to save myself from this ongoing hell.”
One step and Jack would have been in bed with her, and there would have been no going back. Because he knew his limits, he stayed where he was—his shoulders ramrod straight, his stance braced against temptation.
“You can deny me and yourself and everything in between, but you do not have to save yourself from anything, because I will not let anything happen to you. It’s what I do.”
Her hands dropped to her lap as she looked up, and he could see more in her eyes than he needed to see. If he asker her, she would say yes. Sweet Jesus. That wasn’t helping him at all.
“So, my white knight still rides,” she said, but the smile on her face was anything but friendly. “However, I’m wondering something.”
“What?”
“When you ride off into the sunset…do you always go alone?”
“Damn it, Isabella, you know I can’t make promises right now.”
She stood too quickly, changing the subject before he could say more.
“I don’t know what I was thinking,” she said. “You were hungry, and now your food is getting cod. Here…I’ll move some of these things on the desk and you can eat there. Or would you rather eat in bed? You could watch TV, although I don’t guarantee too many channels. We don’t get very good reception because of the mountains.”
Before Jack could stop her, she was at his desk, carefully moving papers aside to make room for his tray. Suddenly she paused, then picked up a pa
per. It wasn’t until after she started talking that he realized it was the old photo of the seven doctors as they were boarding the plane.
“Where did you get this?” she asked.
Shit. “It’s just an old photo.”
“But where did you get it?” she asked.
Suddenly Jack knew there was more than curiosity behind the question.
“Why?”
“Because my father is in it…and I think that’s Uncle Frank on the left and Uncle David beside him, although I can’t be sure. I’ve never seen Uncle David with a beard.”
When Jack didn’t answer, her voice started to shake.
“Jack why do you have a picture of my father?”
Suddenly it all began to make sense.
Well, son of a bitch. Of course. “I didn’t know I did,” he said. “I’ve never seen his picture.”
“Oh.” She handed it to him. “I suppose you had it because of Uncle Frank?”
“Yes.”
She nodded. “I’m sorry. I guess I’m seeing the boogey man everywhere now.”
She had turned to leave when Jack called her back.
“Would you do something for me?” he asked.
“Maybe.”
It wasn’t what he wanted to hear, but it would have to do.
“Would you not say anything to the others about this picture…at least for now?”
“It’s more of the lie, isn’t it?” she asked, and then waved her hand in abject dismissal. “Forget I asked. I’m sure that’s just more of the part you can’t talk about.”
She was all the way to the door when she suddenly froze. When she turned around, new horror was on her face.
“Oh my God.”
Jack knew what was coming, and there was nothing he could say to make it better.
“My father is in that picture.”
“So you said.”
“He was part of the lie, wasn’t her?”
“I don’t know,” Jack said.
“But you’re going to find out, aren’t you?”
“It’s why I came.
She started to cry. “What does it matter? Whatever you think you’re after, it’s bound to have been over for years. They’re old and they’re weak. You saw what your news did to Uncle Thomas. Are you willing to have all of their lives on your conscience?”
“Are you willing to let a man get away with your uncle’s murder?”
“That’s not fair,” she sobbed.
“Life is not about being fair.”
“Then what is it about? Make me understand, so I don’t hate you.” Her voice broke as she leaned against the door. “Because I don’t want to hate you, Jack Dolan. Oh God…I don’t want to hate you.”
Her pain gutted him, shattering resolve and homore and everything in between.
“Then don’t. It’s your decision, and that’s what life is all about…living by the decisions we make.”
“You don’t make it easy, do you?”
“There is nothing easy about my job, Isabella, but do not mistake my feelings for you as weakness. No matter what, I will do what I have to do.”
“Then enjoy your food and sleep well, Jack Dolan. If you can.”
She was gone as quietly as she’d come. Jack looked at the tray on the table and knew it was going to go to waste. Something was suddenly wrong with his throat. There was no way in hell he could swallow.
13
It was thirty minutes pas two in the morning when Vasili Rostov reached Abbott House. Careful to stay in the shadows of the surrounding shrubbery, he made his way toward the back of the hotel and then paused behind a large Dumpster. The only lights on inside the hotel were the night lights in the lobby and in the hallways, the same ones he’d seen every night from his bedroom window.
He wondered if they knew he was gone yet. Chances were they did not. They would have had no reason to go l9ooking for a gardener after the sun had gone down and he’d finished the work that had been set out for him before he’d stopped for the evening. Finishing a job was something he prided himself on. Even if it had been nothing more than clipping hedges and mowing grass, he’d given his word.
He thought of the man who’d sent him here. He expected Rostov to keep his word, too. But Rostov had not survived as long as he had without learning a few things about communist rule. When a project failed, someone had to shoulder the blame and suffer the consequences. The way he looked at it, he wasn’t the one who’d let a top-notch scientist get away to begin with. He’d kept his word. He’d found Vaclav Waller. It wasn’t his fault that the old man had chosen to die rather than acquiesce.
Circumstances had forced Rostov to take this path. It wasn’t one he would have chosen, but he was on it just the same. And to survive the transition, he would need money to make himself disappear.
Fingering the key in his right pocket, he went through a mental checklist of the ground floor of the hotel, including the fire exit, the service entrance off the kitchen, or the doors exiting onto the terrace. The odds were in his favor, and he could think of no one who would threaten the success of his mission. The only guests in the hotel were the five old men and a handful of couples desperate for babies, plus the writer. Rostov dismissed them completely.
He patted his left pocket, feeling the hypodermic syringe within the folds of fabric. It was something he’d intended to use on Waller, but it would serve the same purpose for the woman, instead. Careful not to move out of the shadows, he circled the grounds until he was at the service entrance. Within seconds he had picked the ancient lock.
Inside, he stood without moving, listening for signs of activity, but he heard nothing that would lead him to believe anyone was stirring. It was fortunate for him that the hotel operated more like a home than a place of business. The front doors were locked at midnight. No one stood night duty on the front desk, and the kitchen closed at 11:00 p.m. The guests and residents of the old house should be sound asleep, which suited his purposes completely.
Moving silently on rubber-soled shoes, he slipped from the kitchen into the dining room, then from there to the lobby, staying in the shadows until he was certain he was alone.
Confident that all was going according to plan, he hurried past the registration desk, then the stairwell, heading down the hall to the family suite. He considered it fate that Isabella had asked him to help carry her things earlier. It saved him from having to search for her room tonight, not to mention that now he had her key.
When he reached the door, he paused, his eyes narrowing as his expression went flat. He looked down the long hallway, then back behind him. Nothing moved. No one spoke. It was just as well.
Satisfied that all was well, he laid his ear against the door, taking comfort at the silence within. Then, with one last glance around, he took the key that he’d stolen from Isabella’s key ring and slipped it into the lock.
Isabella had cried herself to sleep and for the past hour or so had been locked into a repeat of the same awful dream. In the dream, Jack kept running into the lobby, shouting her name. Only when she saw him, it wasn’t sweat on his clothes and face, it was blood. And every time she tried to ask him what was wrong, he kept pulling his gun and telling her they all had to die.
She rolled onto her back, then to her right side, thrashing beneath the covers as she struggled to stop the sequence from recurring. And then, suddenly, her father was there, standing between her and Jack.
“Daddy…I’m so glad you came. Everything is out of control” She pointed at Jack. “He says the uncles have a secret, but no one will tell me what it is. It’s not fair, Daddy. Make them tell me what it is.”
“Forget the secret, Isabella. Someone is at your door! Wake up. Wake up now!”
Isabella sat straight up in bed, her heart pounding, her eyes wide with fright. Shoving her hair from her face, she held her breath, listening. Listening.
Then she heard it. A faint rattle at the front door of the suite, then a squeak, as if someone had stepped on
a loose board in the floor.
Oh my God…it wasn’t a dream! Someone was really trying to get in.
She crawled out of bed, taking the phone with her as she went, and locked herself in the bathroom. Without turning on the lights, she started to dial the police, then realized it would take them too long to arrive. It was then that she thought of Jack Dolan. Since there was a Federal agent on the premises who was meddling into her life, the least he could do was save it before he tore it all to hell. Seconds later, she was dialing his room.
Jack had fallen asleep on top of the covers, still wearing his socks and sweats. When the phone rang. He rolled instinctively toward the side of the bed and was reaching for his shirt as he answered.
“Hello.”
“Jack…it’s me. Someone is trying to get into my room.”
The voice was barely a whisper, but he knew immediately it was Isabella.
“Where are you?”
“I locked myself in the bathroom”
“Stay there. I’m on my way.”
He dropped the phone without hanging it up and grabbed his gun on the way out the door.
Running in his sock feet, he made little noise, but when he started down the stairs, there was no way he could disguise the fact that he was coming. Boards on the stairwell squeaked in several different places, but there was nothing he could do except keep moving. Seconds later, he cleared the last step and headed down the hall to her room.
The night lights in the hallway were off. Another sign of foul intent. The door was ajar. The rooms dark. Holding his gun with both hands, he held it forward in shooting position and slipped inside.
Instantly he saw a shadow passing between him and the window. It was too tall and too broad for Isabella. His belly knotted. Son of a bitch. It had to be Rostov, but why Isabella? What did he think she knew?
He slipped along the wall now, moving quickly but carefully, unwilling to give himself away.
He heard a door rattle, then a soft chuckle.
“Isabella…come out please. You cannot hide from me.”
Jack heard a muffled cry and then a moment of silence before the door rattled again.
