by Gennita Low
“Yes, he’s very wealthy,” Reed said as he backed the car out of its space.
“Maybe you should introduce him to me,” Lily joked. “I need some of his money.”
He glanced at her briefly. “I doubt he’d approve of how you’d spend his money.”
“How could he say that?” Lily asked. “I’m helping girls get out of…”
She stopped, but not in time.
“I’m guessing that’s what those passports are for.” Reed drove the car out of the garage, turning into the side street. “It’s still illegal.”
Too late to deny it. It wasn’t that difficult to put two and two together. “He’s friends with you,” she pointed out, “and he lets you stay at his place. So he isn’t as lily white as you make him sound.”
Her comment obviously amused him. He had the most devastating smile when he used it. She barely knew the man, but she noticed little things about him—that he didn’t smile much, that he knew exactly what to say to fluster her. He also knew how to arouse her.
She looked out the window, trying not to think about his hands and lips. Yes, she barely knew him, but, somehow, in the short time they’d been together, she had gotten to know his touch too well. And, unlike other times, when she’d been the one who’d left her partner satisfied, she was now on the receiving end.
She recognized it because she’d done this to others. He’d deliberately pleasured her intimately but had held himself back. Of course, no available protection had played a part, but he was the first man she’d met who had let that stop his own pleasure. That told her a lot about Reed.
A few days with him. She shivered at the thought. Would she hold herself back like she always did when it came to intimacy?
“Cold? Do you want the heater higher?” Reed asked.
Lily shook her head. She didn’t want to let him know that his foreplay in the suite had been a success. For months all her thoughts had been focused on the girls and survival. How could one man’s touch change all that? It was embarrassing.
She could trace it step by step. He’d seen her naked. He’d touched her. He’d kissed her intimately. And he’d dressed her. But it wasn’t as simple as that. Seeing her nudity and touching her weren’t the same as taking off her clothes and washing her body. She could still feel his hands on her nakedness. And then he’d managed to be even closer this morning when she’d woken up. She felt as if she’d given control of her body to him. He’d put on this sweater. He’d zipped up these pants. And he hadn’t brought up underwear. She knew why. He wanted her to think of him all day.
Foreplay.
“Do you always get weapon supplies so easily?” she asked. “Make a call and then it’s delivered, just like that?”
“I have good credit with my friends,” Reed said.
“You have some good friends,” she said, thinking of Amber. “Have you ever done anything to hurt them?”
“No.”
“Keep it that way,” she advised. “If not, you’ll end up alone like me.”
“What did you do?” he asked.
She listened to the quiet purring of the car for a few moments. “Betrayal.” She hadn’t said that word aloud to anyone. It was almost a relief. “The kind that’s unforgivable. Have you done anything like that to someone you love?”
“No, but it’s happened to me,” Reed said. Stopping at a red light, he turned to her. “It isn’t a nice feeling to be kicked in the teeth.”
Lily laughed humorlessly. “Well, I kicked my friends in the teeth.”
“Have you talked to them about it?”
“Of course not. I betrayed them, and then I ran.” She shoved a hand through her hair. “Besides, it’s not so simple. The light’s green.”
What would he say if she told him she’d been programmed to do it? No one would believe her story.
Reed started the car again. “Nothing’s simple when it comes to hurting those one loves.”
“You sound like you’ve done it yourself.”
“No. I told you, it’s happened to me.” He turned into what looked like a park. “Here we are.”
She had to know. “So did you forgive whoever betrayed you?”
His gray eyes were very cool when he looked at her. “No.”
Lily laughed again. “You’re supposed to be tactful here and say, yes, Lily, I forgave them and now everything’s okay.”
“I have another friend who told me that,” he said as he parked the car. He glanced around. “We’re early.”
She looked around too. There were several other cars parked there, but no one was in the vehicles. “Do we get out or stay in here? What are you looking at?”
“Making sure there isn’t anyone targeting us.”
She couldn’t see anybody. She felt bad she was putting him in danger. “I’m sorry to be so much trouble,” she said.
He reached out for her hand and laced her fingers with his. “I’ve been in worse,” he told her. His eyes warmed as his gaze traveled down the length of her. “And never with such lovely company by my side.”
“Hah, flirt.” She enjoyed the way he looked at her. “So what did you say to your friend who told you to forgive?”
He studied their entwined hands. “His name was Arch. He was sort of a father figure. Forgiveness is earned, Lily. I can’t forgive when everything’s not in the open, when no one talks about it.” He shrugged. “It’s a secret, so I can’t talk about it.”
“Oh, secrets. Well, I definitely can understand secrets.” She had plenty of them. “Maybe the truth’s just unbelievably hard to tell. Have you ever thought about it from my—I mean whoever did that awful thing— their perspective? Maybe we had to do it.”
Reed kept quiet for a few seconds. “Maybe so,” he said. “But if you want your friend to forgive you, don’t let too much time pass by, sweetheart. Time doesn’t heal if there’s silence.”
He was talking about himself, but his words resonated. Lily sighed. Even if she wanted to set things right, she didn’t know where to start.
A black car drove up and parked alongside Reed’s car. “Here we go,” he said. He kissed the back of her hand before releasing it.
* * *
“This is Nikki Harden, a friend. Nikki, Lily.”
Lily hadn’t expected a woman. She studied the petite Asian smiling at her, noting the quick exchange of glances between Reed and her. How close a friend?
“Hi,” Lily said, offering her hand.
Nikki shook it. “Reed’s told me about you,” she said.
Lily shot Reed a glance. “Really.”
“Yes. When Reed called and asked for my help, I knew it had to be a woman, of course.”
“I’d to tell her because she’s my connection to the news on the street,” Reed explained. “If there’s anything out there about you, Nikki will know.”
Lily nodded as she looked around the van. She used to have a great source of information—Amber. She took off her gloves. It was strange to think that she would be news at all. She’d been so careful. Yet someone had found out where she was anyway. Where was she going to go after all this?
“Here’s the hardware you need,” Nikki said to Reed, pulling up a bag sitting by her. “Is this enough?”
Lily watched Reed reach over and open the bag. He pulled out several weapons to examine. They looked new. He handled them with an easy expertise that showed his experience.
“Cool,” he said approvingly, pulling two or three more out of the bag.
It seemed like a lot of weapons for just one man, but Lily didn’t say anything. She turned to Nikki. “You speak English like an American too,” she noted.
“As do you,” Nikki said. “Did you study in the States?”
“I spent some time there,” Lily acknowledged noncommittally.
“I’m from D.C. and do quite a bit of freelancing there. What about you? What did you do in the States?”
Lily noticed that the other woman was just as vague with details as herself
. She wondered briefly what they would say if she told the truth about recuperating and being trained at a CIA facility. At least, that was what she remembered. She knew now that somehow, during that time, the agency had placed her under hypnosis without her knowing it. Reed and Nikki would probably think her crazy.
“Nothing too exciting,” she said blandly. “You seem like a boy with his Christmas toys, Reed.”
Reed grinned. “How good are you with weapons?”
She wasn’t a stranger to guns. Unlike many women, she wasn’t afraid of touching them. The weight of the lethal metal made her feel safe, especially when she had to make the runs through the mountain passes. “I think I can handle a couple of them. If I’d had one of these last night, we’d have caught our guy and his friends in the alley.”
“You look comfortable with weapons,” Nikki observed.
“You sell them, so you should be too,” Lily said.
Nikki shook her head. “I’m just a courier. Personally, I don’t like them. Too violent.”
“That’s a strange thing to say in this business,” Lily said with a smile. “Why don’t you like them? They’re just things, like everything else.”
Nikki shrugged. “Things fall apart.”
There was a short, drawn-out silence in the van. Lily wondered at the long look between Reed and Nikki again. So maybe they were that close. She curbed her disappointment. “Not that weapon,” she said, pointing to the one Reed held in his hand. “I’ve had one of those forever, and it’s never fallen apart. Good choice, Reed.”
Reed handed it to her. She couldn’t quite fathom the expression in his eyes. “You can keep this,” he told her.
“What? I didn’t mean—”
“You’re going to need one for protection. Speaking of which—” Reed turned back to Nikki. “What information do you have on Lily?”
“She’s Llallana Noretski,” Nikki said. “Aren’t you?”
Lily stiffened. Damn, she was good. “Yes,” she replied.
“The description fits,” Nikki said. “There’s a high price for finding your whereabouts. It’s been out there for two months.”
The sum she named left Lily speechless for a second. She blinked several times, trying to digest the fact that she was on some kind of wanted poster, like a criminal. “Who would offer that?” she finally asked, hoping her shock wasn’t too obvious.
It had to be the CIA, of course. She had something they wanted.
“Anonymous through a reliable intermediary.” Nikki cocked her head. “Why are you important to these people? Reed told me you’re part of a human trafficking network.”
Lily turned to Reed. “Who’s she? You’ve told her too much about me. I mean, what would stop her from selling me out? That’s a lot of money on my head.”
She wasn’t afraid for herself. She didn’t matter. Sooner or later they would catch up with her anyway. But she preferred it to be at a time of her choosing.
Reed took her hand. “No, Nikki won’t pass on this information.”
“You trust people too easily,” she said.
“Don’t you trust Reed?” Nikki asked quietly. “You’re here with him, though, aren’t you?”
Lily had to, in her line of work. She’d bribed, bought information, and taken advice from—as well as handed over her girls to—complete strangers. One had to check one’s wariness at the door when one was conducting shady transactions. The only thing Lily had to guide her was her gut instinct.
She looked at Reed, then at Nikki, and then back at him. They seemed to be waiting for some response from her. Strange how the issue of trusting Reed hadn’t even surfaced in her thoughts.
“Point taken,” Lily said. There was nothing much she could do anyway. Her gut instinct was telling her this was the best option. “Reed saved me from drowning. I’m grateful to be here and to have help from you both. But, let’s face it, that’s a very generous sum of money on my head.”
Reed turned her hand over and placed the gun in it. “Take this weapon and go then,” he said. “Here are some ammunition. Car keys. Go.”
“Reed—”
“Go think it over,” he said. “You know where to find me if you think you need my help any further.”
“There’s a warning that Llallana Noretski’s armed and dangerous,” Nikki said. “I don’t think she should be out there alone.”
“Get another blond wig,” Reed said, ignoring Nikki’s advice. “Stay out of clubs like The Beijing Bombshell. Use your cell phone to conduct business instead.”
Lily pocketed the gun. “You’re angry with me,” she said. She didn’t blame him. “I was just stating the facts.”
“So am I,” Reed retorted. “Hey, I’m just another stranger, right? You’re right—all of us are in this for the money, but some of us also don’t sell out people at the drop of a hat. It’s a business, sweetheart, with advantages and disadvantages. I’m not a bounty hunter, by the way. I’m a gunrunner. I don’t go around looking at wanted posters because that isn’t my thing.”
“Desperate people do a lot of things for money,” Lily said. Go. Why was she trying to justify her actions to him?
“Have you noticed I’m not the desperate one here? Nor is Nikki, by the way.” Reed leaned over and pulled on the door handle. “Look, think this over and give me a call if you decide you need me. You do, you know.”
Lily pushed the door open. “Why do you want to help me?”
His gray eyes glinted with anger. “You’re the one with all the answers. You figure it out.”
She jumped out of the vehicle. The door slammed behind her. She cursed softly as she headed toward the blue car. Reed had put the decision solely in her hands. If she went back to him, it would be on his terms.
She started the car, tentatively looking back at the stationary black van.
“I can do this by myself,” she said.
But she missed Reed already.
* * *
“That’s a risk you took, saying the trigger line to her.” Reed looked out the van’s tinted window, watching Lily drive away in his car. When Nikki had said “Things fall apart,” he’d found himself gripping the weapon in his hand tightly. “Why did you choose to do it now?”
During the weeks in training, they’d given him scenarios in which Lily might act, but he hadn’t known her then. Right now he didn’t know what he’d have done if she’d become aggressive.
“No bigger than the risk you just took letting her go. That wasn’t in our plans.”
“I wanted to give her a chance to make up her mind,” Reed said. “Besides, there’s a locator in my car.”
“Which she could abandon,” Nikki pointed out.
“I don’t see you panicking,” Reed countered. “You still haven’t told me why you chose to try the neuro-trigger on her at this very moment. We don’t know how she would react.”
Nikki folded her hands in her lap. “Yes, we do. Do you remember the taped conversation we have, the one before Lily disappeared?”
“Sure, but when the trigger was used, it frightened her into running off.”
Nikki shook her head. “No, it woke her up. I think, depending on the arrangements of the lines in that poem, it can either deepen the hypnotic state or give the individual full recollection. I was waiting to see whether Lily would give an automatic response, like an assigned line from the rest of the poem. That would signal a hypnotic state.”
“Do you think she is under one?” Reed asked quietly.
“As you know, there are several levels of hypnotic states, and the deeper the individual is under control, the less likely she’d remember her past activities or real identity. The commands set by the trigger are embedded into the subconscious.”
“Nikki, I’ve read all that mumbo jumbo. I understand it as much as reading an instruction manual on how to build a rocket ship. What exactly are we looking for?”
“I was trying to find out how much Llallana remembers. If she remembers everything, then it ex
plains why she’s running away from everybody, even her friends. The CIA, whom she’d thought saved her from a horrible life, had used her. She correctly believes that they’re now after her to find out about the missing weapon. She might or might not know that Greta’s after her too.”
“And us,” Reed said. In spite of all her problems, Lily was still concerned about her girls. It was a big responsibility for one on the run, and he couldn’t help but feel admiration for her. “She didn’t abandon her girls.”
Nikki nodded. “I’m looking to save her, Reed.” She looked at him perceptively. “Aren’t you?”
He didn’t want to appear as if his mind was already made up. “I don’t know anything about psychological triggers,” he said, “except for what you and the others have told me. I’ve said it before, I don’t think Lily Noretski should be blamed for the things she’s done.”
“Remember, we have an agreement with Amber Hutchens to bring her friend in once we get the weapon out of her hands,” Nikki said. “I came aboard this assignment because I know exactly what Lily has gone, and, is going, through. It’s part of my job to evaluate the weakness in a system, and in this case, it’s the CIA ‘Project Precious Gems.’ The play in that name with my agency isn’t accidental, Reed.”
“You’re…” Reed sat back in the seat as realization of who Nikki was came to him. With so many new people to meet, he hadn’t tied the obvious together. “That’s how I’ve heard your name before. You’re the CIA operative who returned after being missing for ten years. You were part of a congressional hearing headed by my commander, Admiral Madison. I know you said that you were captured and subjected to psychological and physical torture. Were you—”
