All Through the Night

by Suzanne Brockmann

  A little too well. Jules and Robin would’ve hooked up several years ago, if Adam hadn’t purposely come between them. More things not to say to a reporter. Although, Dolphina suspected if Will dug deeper, he’d find out the whole story. It hadn’t solely been Adam’s fault. Robin and Jules had both made their share of stupid mistakes as they were finding their way to their happy ending.

  But the last thing either of them would want now would be to give Adam an engraved invitation to once again screw things up.

  As if on cue, her phone rang again. And yes, again, it was Adam. She was going to have to go into the bathroom to call him back. This was one conversation she didn’t want Will to overhear.

  “You need to get that?” he asked her now.

  “No.” Dolphina finally just turned her ringer off. “You know, there are other people to talk to,” she said, trying to convince him. “Robin’s sister, for example. Jane. She knows Jules really well—he handled the FBI investigation when she received those death threats a few years ago. She’s the reason why Robin and Jules met—that’s a great story.”

  Will didn’t seem convinced. “One that’s been told before.”

  Jules shouted from the foyer. “We’re out of here. I’m dropping Robin at the studio. Dolph, you need anything before we go?”

  “Just…call me later please,” she said, not daring to look at Will.

  But something in her tone made Jules come into the kitchen to ask, “Everything all right?”

  “She doesn’t want to tell you about the latest catastrophe in front of me,” Will answered for her. He put his empty coffee mug in the sink. “Which is why I’m going. To pick up sandwiches for lunch.” He looked at Dolphina. “I’ll be back in about an hour with food—does that work for you?”

  Considering it would then be close to the exact time of their scheduled appointment? Still, she found his offer gracious. “Thank you.”

  Jules looked at his watch as they followed Will back into the foyer. “Robin, I’m going to be a few minutes. If you need to go…”

  “Actually,” Dolphina said, “I have a couple of…questions for him, too.”

  Will glanced at her—he wasn’t fooled.

  Nor was Jules. But he waited not just until the door closed behind Will, but until the reporter was off the porch and on his way down the sidewalk.

  Only then did he turn to Dolphina and ask, “What’s going on?”

  Robin’s day went from crappy to full-out shitty, as Dolphina cleared her throat and said, “So. Adam Wyndham called me last night. He said he’s been trying to reach you.”

  Goddamnit. “I’m not interested in talking to him,” Robin said from his seat on the couch, even as Jules said, “I left him a voicemail. I was quite clear about…”

  Jules realized it at the same moment Robin did, and turned to look at him in surprise. “Adam’s been calling you, too? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Robin bristled because, crap, they’d run this pattern before. Jules was going to get jealous, and…He did not want to do this right now. Besides…“Why didn’t you tell me he was calling you?”

  “Um, guys,” Dolphina started.

  Robin stopped her. “No,” he said. “I’m curious. Why am I the bad guy here? Why is it okay for Jules not to tell me when his ex has been calling for the past two weeks?”

  “Two weeks?” Now Jules was extremely not happy. “Maybe because he’s only been calling me for two days.”

  Oops. Robin saw in Jules’s eyes the accusation that he was too classy to say aloud, at least not in front of Dolphina. And he was my ex a long time ago—a lot longer than it’s been since he was your ex. And have you forgotten that you ended your relationship with him because you thought he might be falling in love with you…?

  Jules turned to Dolphina. “Will you excuse us for a minute?”

  Robin put his head in his hands. Here we go…

  She sighed, clearly frustrated with the both of them. “Yes,” she said, “but before I do that, may I just point out that Adam said he was calling because he received what he described as kind of weird, vaguely threatening fan mail, which also mentioned Robin. He didn’t go into much detail when I pressed him, which made me a little suspicious—he just kept saying that he wanted to talk to either one of you. Now, what I know about Adam is that he appears to like nothing more than to cause trouble.” She looked from Robin to Jules and back, beseechingly. “Please don’t let him do that.”

  “Call the service that handles Robin’s mail,” Jules ordered her. “Have them send over anything unusual, anything that fits that description.”

  She hesitated. “Jules, it’s probably just—”

  His voice was sharp. “Just do it. Please.”

  “Yes, sir.” She closed the office door quietly behind her.

  Robin spoke first, because Dolph had been right—Adam was probably rubbing his hands in glee right now, thinking about this very fight that Robin and Jules were about to have. He took a deep breath and kept his voice evenly pitched. “I should have told you when Adam first called. I just…I thought I was handling it.”

  Jules was silent, standing by the fireplace, either unable or unwilling to look at Robin. He was a picture of tension.

  He gets really jealous, Adam had once told Robin, talking about Jules, and boy, he wasn’t kidding. I know you think he’s perfect, but he’s not. He’s extremely possessive. It used to drive me crazy…

  But it didn’t drive Robin crazy. He loved the way Jules touched him, the warmth of his hand on Robin’s back, solid and, yes, very possessive. Despite the fact that Robin was taller, Jules was the alpha in their relationship. And Robin loved it, loved him.

  “Please don’t think I was trying to hide it from you,” Robin said now, “because I wasn’t. I was ignoring him. I was hoping he’d just…go away.”

  “For two weeks,” Jules repeated.

  “If it went on,” Robin said, “I was going to change my cell number.”

  Jules turned to face him. “And tell me…what?”

  “The truth.” Robin let a little more affront into his tone than he’d intended, because this was his hot button—Jules’s implication that he could have—would have—lied. He closed his eyes. Can we please not fight today? He clenched his teeth around the words because they weren’t fighting, they were talking, and yes, one of the reasons why he hadn’t told Jules that Adam had been calling was because he knew Jules would be jealous. And the reason he’d be jealous was because he was afraid of losing Robin, which was both ridiculous and flattering, and Jesus, now Jules was standing there, hiding his fear and hurt behind anger, trying desperately hard not to show just how vulnerable he was feeling…

  “I love you,” Robin said, bringing it all down to the bottom line. “You know that. And I would have told you if it kept going. Look, he first called me when we got engaged—when the news went public. It was just…hey, how are you, congratulations, I’m glad things are going well… That kind of call. We chatted, maybe for ten minutes and…Then he called me again, a few days later. And then he called a few days after that, and yeah, it started to feel inappropriate. He was making me uncomfortable, so I was honest with him. I said it was nice to be in touch every now and then, but there was…too much history between the three of us to be friends.”

  Jules had this way of listening with every cell in his body, and he was doing that now.

  So Robin went on. “So then he waited an entire week before he called again. At that point, I told him that wasn’t what I meant, that a week between phone calls is not now and then, and no offense, but I was going to stop answering his calls. Which is what I did.”

  “You should have told me,” Jules said, but then looked as aghast as if he’d farted loudly during a particularly somber moment at a funeral, no doubt due to his accusatory words. You should have… He corrected himself to make his statement be more about himself. It was beyond clear that he was trying hard here, too. “I mean, I just…really wish you’d tol
d me.”

  “Yeah, I wish I had, too, babe. I really do. But it seemed to work,” Robin went on with his story. “At least for a while. But then Adam called me again—this was about two weeks ago. I’ve set my phone so that it doesn’t ring when he calls, so he left a voicemail—something along the lines of what Dolphina said. Was I getting weird letters from some crazy fan. I checked the service and they had nothing stranger than usual. It was obviously an attempt to get me to call him back…And I didn’t want to, so…Since then, I’ve just been deleting his messages.”

  Now Jules was pissed for another reason. “Messages about a potential threat? You should have told me about that.”

  Robin shook his head. “And teach Adam that all he has to do to get us to come running is whisper the words crazy fan? No thanks. You know what this is about. He’s mad that we didn’t send him an invitation to the wedding.”

  “As opposed to, he’s checking in to see if you’re having any doubts?”

  Robin laughed, but Jules wasn’t even smiling, so he said, “If that’s the case, he’s going to be disappointed. I’m a million percent doubt-free—you know that, right?”

  Jules nodded. “Yeah.” But then he shook his head. “Most of the time,” he amended himself. “Sometimes…I get crazy.”

  “Talk to me when that happens,” Robin said. “My God, I lean on you for so much.”

  Jules nodded again. “It’s hard to…But I’ll try.” He managed to force a smile and roll his eyes. “Fuckin’ Adam,” he said.

  “I’m really sorry about this,” Robin said again.

  “I am, too. I’m…very sorry.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me that he called you?” Robin asked again, more quietly this time.

  Jules came over and flopped down on the sofa beside him, his legs stretched out and his head back. “I guess I figured I was handling it, too. I didn’t listen to the message he left—I just assumed, yeah, that he was bitching about not getting invited. God.”

  “I’ll tell you if he ever calls again,” Robin promised.

  Jules turned his head and looked at him, some amusement finally back in his eyes. “If?”

  “When,” Robin agreed. Because with Adam, it was definitely a when. He grabbed Jules by the tie and manhandled him in for a kiss. Mmmm. He wrapped his arms around Jules, pulling him back so they were lying together on the sofa. “Let’s just cancel all our meetings today and stay home. Damn, I was already exhausted from that crap with my father.”

  “I wish I could,” Jules said with a sigh, his head against Robin’s shoulder, his fingers playing with the buttons on his shirt. “But I can’t. Ah, God, I’m already late.” And yet he didn’t leap to his feet.

  “I’ve got to get going, too,” Robin said, also very much not moving, because yes, this was extremely nice—just relaxing here like this. Problem was, he had a meeting with Art that began in forty minutes. It was kind of important, considering they were starting filming tomorrow and they still hadn’t found an actor to play his fictional father. Wasn’t that ironic? “I’m just…doing some heavy-duty wishful thinking.”

  “We’re not done with Adam,” Jules reminded him, his hand warm against Robin’s stomach. “Do you want me to take care of it—check out these e-mails he’s received? Keep you out of it?”

  Robin didn’t like that idea very much—Jules spending time with Adam? “I get jealous, too, you know. You used to be in love with him.”

  Jules turned his head to look at him. “That was before I knew what love really was.” He smiled. “When I met you, Robin, God…I had to redefine everything. You know, there was this country song my mother really liked. It used to annoy me, I was in my technopop phase, but lately I just…I find myself thinking about the lyrics all the time. That was a river, this is the ocean… I thought I loved Adam, and I did, but…It wasn’t even close to this incredible ocean that I feel for you.”

  Robin laughed as his heart did a slow flip. “You are too fucking romantic,” he said, loving the way Jules was looking at him, like he had an agenda. And oh yeah. He definitely did. “You say shit like that to me and I am…putty in your hands.”

  Jules smiled at that. “Hardly,” he said.

  Oh, yeah. Oh…

  Yeah.

  NEWTON, MASSACHUSETTS

  When Will got home, Maggie wasn’t back from school yet, which was good because it meant he could get on the computer and access the Internet.

  Still, the reason she raced for the computer every day, after dropping her backpack of books just inside the apartment’s front door, was one Will could relate to.

  So the first thing he did when he signed on was to check their e-mail account. And sure enough, today’s e-mail from Arlene was ready and waiting. It was brief—thanks for the package, the weather was getting cold, don’t forget to e-mail and report what happened this week on LOST—a TV show she and Maggie had always watched together.

  Will printed it out so that Maggie could see it that much sooner, and then got down to work.

  First things first—Googling the telephone number he’d copied from Dolphina’s incoming calls list on her cell phone.

  And yeah, that was definitely guilt he was feeling, as he typed the numbers in, starting with the Los Angeles area code. Dolphina hadn’t said Don’t snoop through either my cell phone or my computer files before she’d vanished upstairs to help facilitate the delivery of Robin and Jules’s brand-new toilet. But she’d probably assumed it was understood.

  Apparently, she didn’t know many reporters and…

  Whoa.

  Wasn’t this interesting? The number he’d copied down belonged to one A. Wyndham. For some unknown reason, Adam had called Dolphina a number of times over the past few days.

  This was certainly provident. It kept Will from having to search for Adam’s phone number so he could interview him. He stored it in his own cell phone address book.

  Next up was the info he’d swiped from a computer file called Guest List. Just as he’d suspected—due to Dolphina’s reticence to discuss the matter—one of the wedding guests had been red-flagged by the Secret Service. And it wasn’t just a “check more thoroughly” notice. It was a full-scale, red-alert, screaming-meanie “must not attend.”

  The guest in question was one W. Davis Jones, who, according to Dolphina’s records, lived with his wife, Molly, and their two-year-old daughter, Hope, in…Flatulence, Iowa?

  He squinted at the words he’d scribbled on his notepad. That couldn’t be right.

  He had their street address and zip code—as well as their social security numbers, so…

  Okay. Flat Ridge. That was better. It was a ’burb of Des Moines, which seemed kind of redundant—Des Moines being smaller than some of the suburbs surrounding Boston.

  The information he was finding was…weird, to say the least. Jones was an insurance adjuster with Northstar Company—which didn’t seem too dangerous a profession. Although he had been an NCO—a sergeant in the Army—with a relatively recent discharge.

  Honorable discharge, so that didn’t quite fit either.

  He’d served in…Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Germany and Kuwait.

  Jones’s wife, Molly, was almost ten years older than he was. Nee Anderson, she’d worked overseas for years, for several different Peace Corps–type organizations. Kenya, South America, and—this was interesting—also Indonesia.

  Will checked the dates. The record he could access for Sgt. Jones’s service was sparse—no details of when he’d served where. But Little Miss Molly had been in Indonesia roughly the same time that Will himself had been there—back around the time of the Bali terrorist bombing. She’d lived on remote Parwati Island, as a member of a relief organization.

  It seemed likely, since Indonesia was the common denominator, that Davis and Molly had met there.

  Will accessed a search site that wasn’t quite legal and…Mr. and Mrs. Davis and Molly Jones had paid their taxes on time last year. Good for them.

  But dam
n, an insurance adjuster in Des Moines made even less than a reporter in Boston. Of course, Jones wasn’t paying Boston rents.

  Molly worked in daycare—either part-time or at slave wages.

  Yow. Lookee how much huge-large the Joneses had stashed in their money market savings account. And they owned their own home, outright.

  Will flipped back a year to try to find out when they’d won the lottery, and then another and…That was odd. Apparently Davis and Molly were newlyweds, married for not quite three years. Prior to 2005, he found tax returns for Molly Anderson—who lived and worked in Kenya, again at slave wages, and before that, yes, Parwati, Indonesia.

  He found nothing at all for Davis Jones.

  Will searched for William Davis Jones, of which there were only a handful, but none that matched the date of birth. He tried William D. Jones and got pages of hits, but again, no birthdate match.

  Didn’t sergeants in the Army have to pay taxes?

  Unless they didn’t exist prior to 2005. Unless their Army records were a fabrication, handed to them along with a shiny new identity.

  Hmmm.

  Indonesia was more than a pretty ocean nation with jewel-green jungles and turquoise blue seas. It was predominantly Muslim, and populated primarily by people of true faith who were outraged by terrorist violence. But Indonesia also had more than its share of poverty, despair and fear—three of the main ingredients that fundamental extremists needed to succeed.

  And terrorists were just one of the many dangerous factions who used Indonesia as their stomping ground. Drug lords had island kingdoms, complete with private armies that often warred with one other. Kidnapping tourists was a lucrative business venture for the average middle-class citizen—and apparently Americans and Japanese got the biggest rate of return. Pirates roamed the open seas—but they dressed more like the kids who hung out at the Copley Crossing mall than Johnny Depp.

  Will knew the country well—both its history and its current events.

  And just a few short years ago—2005, as a matter of fact, back when Davis Jones had mysteriously first appeared—a major Indonesian presidential political contender named Heru Nusantara had been executed—gangland style—after an ugly story connecting him to greed, murder and intrigue had come to light. In this tale, he was tied to a notoriously violent drug lord named Chai.