“I won’t,” he promised her. “I won’t.”
“No, he’s not going anywhere,” the nurse told her. “We’ve got an entire SEAL team guarding this door. And me, as well. I may not be a SEAL, but I am not afraid to call security to remove an admiral who has no business being here.” She glanced at Tom, then leaned closer to Kelly. “Oh, honey, don’t you love a man who’s not afraid to cry?”
By nine o’clock, Whitney was positively antsy. She made the two-year-olds seem staid as they sat at the table in the playroom and colored.
She hopped up. She sat down. She sang bits and pieces of top forty songs. She talked nonstop about movies she’d seen, like some kind of mad version of Chris Farley on speed. “It was awesome …”
“Maybe you should call that friend of yours—Ashley—and the two of you can go for a swim,” Mary Lou finally suggested.
“No,” Whitney said. “I’m having fun with you guys. Besides, Ashley’s a bitch.”
The phone rang, and the girl rocketed out of her seat. “I’ll get it.” She picked it up. “Hello?” A pause, and then a shriek. “Finally! Yes, send him up. Definitely. Front door. Thank you, Jim, I looove you!” She hung up the phone.
“Was that Jim from the gate?” Mary Lou asked.
“Yes, it was.” Whitney danced toward the door. “I’ll be right back. There’s a … a package I’ve been expecting, and it’s finally here. Don’t go anywhere, okay?”
She ran out of the room.
A package.
They colored in silence for a while. In blessed, blessed silence. Even Amanda and Haley didn’t make any noise.
Please, dear Lord, don’t let Whitney’s package be firecrackers. Or a case of whiskey. Or a new powerboat. Or—
“What’s a bitch?” Amanda asked.
“That’s not a very nice word, honey,” Mary Lou told her as mildly as she could manage. She smiled at Haley, who was all eyes—and ears. “So we won’t use that one again, okay?”
“Mrs. Downs is a bitch,” Amanda said.
“No, she’s not,” Mary Lou said, even though she was thinking, Oh, yes, she is. “Mrs. Downs is just a little grumpy sometimes. If we smile at her, maybe she won’t be so grumpy.”
“And maybe the sky will fall.” Whitney was back. “Look who’s here, Mary Lou.”
What did Whitney just call her?
Mary Lou looked up, and, dear Lord God in heaven, Ihbraham Rahman was standing just inside the playroom door.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
Max heard a click as Alyssa answered her cell phone. “Locke.”
“Surprise,” he said, closing his office door, “it’s me.”
“How did you—”
“It’s this new device that sends a signal that messes with the receiving cell phone. The last number you dialed shows up on your screen instead of my real incoming number. Slick, huh?”
“Very.”
“So who’d you think I was?”
“None of your business,” she said much too sweetly. She was definitely still pissed at him.
“I wish you’d called me back. I really have to talk to you.” Max didn’t sit down at the desk, knowing if he did, he’d automatically start reading files. This conversation deserved 100 percent of his attention. He looked out the window, instead.
Florida’s sky was its own special shade of blue. He could see the water from here, sparkling in the sunlight.
“I’m a little too busy right now to return phone calls to jerks,” Alyssa told him. “Can’t it wait?”
“No,” he said. “But I’ll make it quick. I can’t marry you because I’m more of a jerk than you think. I’m sorry. I, um, really screwed up last night and—”
“Oh, Max,” she said. “I already know. You don’t really think you could stop answering your phone for all those hours and not have anyone notice?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I figured there’d be rumors. I just wanted you to hear it from me first. And I wanted you to hear the truth.” He took a deep breath. “God, Alyssa, I slept with her.”
She laughed, a low, warm sound. “About time. Are you okay?”
“No,” Max admitted. It was possible he was never going to be okay again. “There’s something else I need to tell you.”
“Uh-oh, I don’t like the sound of that.”
“I’ve handed in my letter of resignation.”
“Max—”
Max rested his head against the warm glass of the window. “Effective as soon as this mess is over or by the end of the month, whichever comes first.”
“My God—”
“I’ve recommended that Peggy Ryan take over as team leader,” he said, “and that you be moved into the position she’ll be vacating.”
“You can’t do this!”
“I screwed up, Alyssa,” he told her. “I shouldn’t have slept with her. She’s still so vulnerable and … and that’s not even taking into consideration that not even forty-eight hours earlier I’d asked you to marry me, which, by the way, was also completely inappropriate.”
“I said no,” Alyssa reminded him.
“You said you’d think about it.”
“Yeah, but I was going to say no, and you knew it. Come on, Max, we both knew you weren’t serious.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I was.”
“Please don’t quit,” Alyssa said. “How can you quit? We need you.”
“How can I not quit?” he asked. “Look, I have to go. I just wanted you to hear it from me first.”
“Running away is not the answer,” she told him. “Damn it, Max—”
“You get an update this morning from Jules?”
“Yes. Max—”
“Be careful,” he said. “The threat is very real. This is not just a terrorist cell we’re dealing with, with their two weeks of terror-camp training. This is a professional, a high-level operative—I’m guessing a mercenary—who doesn’t want his identity known.”
“Max,” she said. “Please listen to—”
“I’m terribly sorry if I hurt you—”
“You didn’t.”
“I’m still sorry,” he said. “And I do have to go.” He hung up the phone.
Florida’s sky was still its own special shade of blue. He could still see the water from here, sparkling in the sunlight. He could see pelicans gliding effortlessly along on the air currents. He could see the causeway over to Siesta Key.
Where Gina was getting ready to check out of her room.
Max turned away from the window. “Laronda!” he shouted. “I need my car!”
By the time he opened his office door, his assistant was already off the phone. “It’s waiting for you out front,” she told him, giving him absolutely zero crap for shouting.
He hadn’t told her about the letter yet, but she knew something big was up and she was worried. He could see it in her eyes.
“I don’t know how long this is going to take,” Max said. “Field my calls, will you? I don’t want my cell to ring unless it’s the President or someone calling to tell me we’ve located Mary Lou Starrett.”
“Yes, sir.”
He headed for the elevator.
Mary Lou stood up so fast her chair fell over backward.
“Hello, Mary Lou.” Ihbraham Rahman. Alive and well and looking at her with tears in his beautiful brown eyes. He smiled at Haley, too. “How are you, Haley?”
“How did you find me?” Mary Lou breathed. But she looked at Whitney, and she knew.
Yesterday—probably after she’d called Ihbraham—Whitney had referred to Mary Lou’s ex-husband as Sam, even though Mary Lou had never used his real name.
That was what had been gnawing at her, making her anxious.
“Whitney called me,” Ihbraham told her in that musical, faintly British accent that was so familiar to her. “It didn’t make much sense at first—I didn’t know who she was talking about—but then I realized that it must be you. She said Sam is trying to kill you? I don’t un
derstand this. When you spoke of him before you said he’d never hurt you. But she said you were here and that he was after you, and that you needed me, so I got in my truck and … here I am.”
Oh, Lord, oh, Lord …
“I found him by calling information. There was only one Ihbraham Rahman in San Diego.” Whitney smiled, proud of herself. “Aren’t you going to kiss him?”
Mary Lou nearly slapped her. “Do you realize what you’ve done? You’ve killed us all!” Keeping her voice low so Haley and Amanda wouldn’t freak out, she pulled Ihbraham with her out the door and into the hall. “What I needed was for you to stay away from me!” She couldn’t believe this was happening. “I needed you not to get killed, like Janine!”
“Your sister is dead?” he asked.
“Yes, they killed her. Oh, my God, Ihbraham! My God! We have to get out of here. Right now!” Whitney was standing in the doorway, her eyes wide. “Get Haley and Amanda,” she ordered the girl. “Take them to their room, and get Pooh and Dinosaur and sweatshirts for everyone. I have to get something out of my apartment, then we’re heading for the garage. We are leaving here. Now.”
“Who killed Janine?” Ihbraham asked, catching her arm. “Sam? Mary Lou, you need to tell me what’s going on.”
It was his hand, with his long, graceful, dark brown fingers, so warm on her arm, that made her start to cry. She grabbed for him, holding him tightly as she kissed him, her arms around his neck.
“Ah, Mary Lou,” he breathed. He held her just as close as he kissed her, too, just the way she remembered, the way she’d dreamed about for months and months, with real love—his lips so gentle, his mouth so soft. “I prayed for you to call me. I thought you changed your mind.”
“I didn’t call because I love you,” she told him through her tears. “I was afraid they’d kill you, too.”
“Who?” he said, pulling back to look at her.
Whitney, of course, was still standing there, gaping, along with the girls.
Mary Lou wiped her face. She’d promised herself she’d never cry in front of Haley. “Run ahead and get Pooh Bear and Dinosaur,” Mary Lou told the two little girls as cheerfully as she could.
Then she told Ihbraham, and Whitney, too, as she led the way down the hall to her apartment.
About the gun she’d found in the trunk of her car. About the way it disappeared before she could show it to Sam. About seeing Bob Schwegel, Insurance Sales, again, outside Janine’s house. About Janine lying dead in the kitchen. About Mary Lou’s frantic flight and her attempt to hide.
About the fact that Bob knew of her relationship with Ihbraham, and that he’d surely followed him here.
“Get sweatshirts,” Mary Lou told Whitney again as she went into her bedroom, went into the closet, and started loading all those guns she’d taken from King Frank’s office into her beach bag.
She’d never heard Ihbraham curse before, and she wasn’t quite sure she’d heard him curse now, because whatever he said, it wasn’t in English. She suspected, though, that it was the Arabic version of holy shit.
“Wait,” he said, kneeling down next to her on the floor. “Mary Lou. Wait. This is … No, this is not the answer. If you are so certain we’re in this much danger, we need help. We need to call the police.”
“They’ll arrest me,” she told him.
He caught her hands. “If they do, they will quickly see you’re innocent of any wrongdoing. This is not the answer. Running and hiding and living in such terrible fear.” He pushed her hair back from her face. “Please listen and trust me. It’s time to ask someone in authority for help.”
“This is a wild goose chase,” Sam said as they pulled into the Publix parking lot.
They were going back after that help-wanted poster for a live-in nanny that he’d seen there yesterday. Maybe what they should do was go back to the library, look at the want ads from three weeks ago, see what other live-in positions Mary Lou might’ve tried for.
Alyssa glanced at him. “We could head back to San Diego,” she said. “Try a completely different approach. See if we can’t track down this Ihbraham Rahman that Mary Lou was friends with. Maybe he can lead us to her.”
“It’ll take more than twenty-four hours to drive to San Diego,” Sam pointed out. “There’s no way we could get on a plane with the FBI looking for me.”
She nodded. “I know.”
What was she telling him?
She glanced at him again after she parked beneath a tiny, thirsty-looking palm tree that provided only a scrap of shade. “I think it’s probably going to take us more than twenty-four hours to find them,” she told him. “I think we should stop thinking in terms of that particular time limitation.”
“But you said you had to deliver either me or your resignation,” Sam said. “Or has Max changed his mind about that?”
He’d tried not to listen when she’d gotten that phone call from Max. He’d gone into the bathroom and turned on the water and tried to respect her privacy.
She’d said nothing about it when he came back out, which had worried him. Sure, he’d given her privacy, but that didn’t mean she had to take it, did it?
He took a deep breath. Maybe if he silently chanted, I will not be an asshole, he’d start to believe it and behave accordingly.
“No,” she said. “I’m sure he hasn’t.”
Holy fuck, Alyssa was willing to give up her career for him. Sam cleared his throat. “I’ve heard rumors that Tom Paoletti’s going to need an XO for a civilian team he’s maybe thinking of starting.”
“Whoa.” That caught her attention. “Sam, that’s great. You’re a good choice for that.”
“You’re a better one,” he told her.
It was his turn to surprise her.
“A lot of the consultant-type work that would come to a group like that would be handed off from the Bureau or the CIA,” Sam said. “It makes more sense to have a second in command who came out of one of those agencies.” He smiled at her. “You could be my boss. Order me around. Be honest now. Wouldn’t that be a dream come true for you?”
She laughed, but there were tears in her eyes. “I thought you were against the idea of women in the teams.”
“I was and I am,” he told her. “But this isn’t a SEAL team. This is something else. And I’d love to work with you. A shooter like you, guarding my six?”
Alyssa grabbed him by the tie and pulled him close enough to kiss. Which she did, quite thoroughly.
“Go get that phone number from that help-wanted poster,” she told him. “I’m running in to the drug store.”
Sam couldn’t keep his mouth shut any longer. “Alyssa, what if you don’t take that pill?”
She let go of his tie, her eyes suddenly wary.
“I can’t pretend that it doesn’t bother me,” he said. “I mean, what’s the difference between that pill and an abortion? I’m sorry, I know it was my idea, but—”
“It’s my body,” she said quietly. “Shouldn’t the choice be mine?”
“Yes. It should,” he told her. “And it is. I’m not saying it’s not. But it’s also our baby, and … I know you think I’m a jerk, but I really do want to have a family with you. I know it’s way too early for me to tell you that, but it’s true and I think you need to know it before you go taking some pill, just in case you were maybe thinking that it was something I didn’t want. I just think it’s fair—and important—for you to know how I feel.”
Alyssa was quiet for a long time.
So Sam kept going. He’d completely jumped the gun anyway. Might as well go big. “I am going to marry you, Alyssa. And if not now, then someday we will have a baby together. I’m determined. You might want to start bracing yourself for the inevitability of that.”
She was looking at him, but he had absolutely no idea what she was thinking.
And of course, just as she took a breath to speak, her phone rang.
She opened it, frowning slightly as she glanced down at the number. �
��Alyssa Locke.” She listened for a moment, then laughed. “Where are you? Are you all right? Oh, my God. There’re a lot of people looking for you, worried about you.”
She motioned for a pen and paper, and Sam grabbed the pad that they’d been making notes on. There was a pen sticking out of one of the cup holders and Alyssa already had it uncapped.
“Repeat that, please.” She wrote down an address as he held the pad in place.
“It’s Mary Lou,” Alyssa told Sam. “She said she had my cell number and—”
No fucking way.
“She’s fine,” Alyssa said as he opened up their street map of Sarasota. “Haley’s with her. Along with—get this—Ihbraham Rahman. He talked her into calling. Apparently she’s very worried for their safety.”
No fucking way.
“Mary Lou, can you describe the man you saw outside of your sister’s house on the night she was killed? Blond hair? You saw him? You could ID him in a lineup? Wait, hang on a sec, will you?” Alyssa leaned over the map, too. “She described it as a compound, Sam. She said it’s a main house and two guest cottages on a lake, about twenty miles south and west of Sarasota. There’s a gatehouse and guards—not for a development, but for this individual piece of property.”
“Got it.” Sam found the street on the map, angling it so Alyssa could see. “Man, it’s in the middle of nowhere.”
“We’re about twenty-five minutes away from you, Mary Lou.”
“That’s pretty optimistic,” he said.
Alyssa looked at him. “Not if you drive.”
He was out the door and sliding over the hood of the car as she scrambled over the parking brake.
“What’s your phone number?” she asked Mary Lou. “In case we get cut off?”
Sam backed out of the parking spot and headed for Route 41 south as Alyssa wrote the number down.
“We’re on our way,” she told Mary Lou.
The maid knocked, and Gina adjusted her robe more tightly around her as she went to the door.
“I’m still in here,” she said. “I won’t be out until—”
It was Max.
“Hi,” he said. He’d showered and was wearing a very crisp white shirt with a suit that had nary a wrinkle.
Gone Too Far Page 45
