Heavy silence followed her words, and then Jonas wrenched open his door and hurled himself from the car. In the glow of the headlights, he paced the shoulder of the road, the internal war he waged evident in every rigid line of his body. Kate watched him for a few minutes, then she switched off the ignition, leaving the headlights on, and slid from the car. Jonas rounded on her as she joined him at the front of the vehicle.
"None of this was my idea, damn it," he snarled. "They've taken away my entire life, Kate. All of it, along with all my options. What am I supposed to do, sit back and let them? Not fight back? Is that what you want?"
He towered over her, his face cast in fierce, shadowy angles. Kate shrugged.
"I want you to do what you think is right," she said. "It's that simple."
It was like watching a balloon deflate. First Jonas's jaw unlocked, then his fingers uncurled, then his shoulders sagged. He opened his mouth, closed it, turned away, swiveled back.
"That phrase," he said, in the most reasonable tone Kate thought she'd ever heard from him, "has got to be the biggest killjoy there is in the English language."
She blinked at the transformation he seemed to have undergone. "Um...I'm sorry?"
"No, you're not."
"No," she agreed. "I'm not."
Not if what she'd said had made him rational again. If.
Shoving his hands into his pockets, Jonas regarded her narrowly. "Mike would have liked you," he said, making it sound like a pronouncement.
"Mike?"
"The Chicago cop I told you about. The one responsible for my career path. Do you know how sick I got of hearing those words from him?" He grimaced. "'Do what you think is right.'"
"Does that mean...?"
"It means I won't go taking pot shots at my enemies," he replied. "Yet. But you'd better have an alternative, because I'm fresh out of ideas at this point."
Kate levered herself onto the hood of the hot rod, the metal warm from the motor's heat. She rested her feet on the bumper. Then she hesitated.
Jonas watched her for a moment. Then he sighed. "You do have an alternative."
Kate nodded.
"And I'm not going to like it."
She shook her head.
Jonas rested hands on hips and tipped his head back to stare up at the sky. "Out with it."
"We call the FBI."
Jonas snorted. "Are you kidding? We walk into an office with those warrants out on us, and they'll arrest us first and ask questions later. Only we won't likely get a later. Unless..." He lowered his head to look at her. "You know someone there, don’t you?"
Define know, she wanted to say, thinking of her former fiancé.
"Yes," she actually said. "I do."
Chapter 33
Jonas hovered in the doorway of the restaurant, every muscle tensed for flight. Kate was putting way too much trust in this former relationship of hers, in his opinion, and he fully expected a dozen armed undercover cops to be waiting for them. He scanned the interior, looking for the telltale signs of interest: a covert glance, an exchange of looks, a barely there nod.
He saw nothing but people eating their lunches.
His tension remained.
Kate touched his arm and nodded toward a table along the far wall. A solitary, dark-suited man sat watching them, a salad before him, a water glass to his right, his hands out of sight beneath the table. So. That was him. The man who had once shared Kate's bed. The knot in Jonas's gut wound tighter.
"You're sure we can trust him?" he asked, trying to dislodge the image of Kate in the other man's arms. "You dumped the guy. What if he's ticked with you? He could be setting us up."
Kate snorted. "Trust me, Grant Douglas is not the kind of man to carry a grudge that far. Even if he was ticked with me—which he's not—he wouldn't fly up from New York just to get back at me. It would be far more sensible to have the local cops do the honors."
Jonas slanted a sideways glance at her. She hadn't offered much of an explanation about her former engagement to FBI Agent Grant Douglas, but the dry emphasis in that last sentence spoke volumes. It also helped ease the knot a tiny bit as Jonas followed her across the restaurant.
The man stood as they reached the table. He was shorter than Jonas but powerfully built, and he held himself in a way that spoke to his own tension. His gaze slid past Kate to settle on Jonas, turning hostile.
"Grant." Kate reached up to kiss the man's cheek, and his arms went around her in return, holding her close for a long moment. The gesture of familiarity twisted through Jonas with all the subtlety of a prison-made shank. He exhaled a slow breath, his gaze locked with the other man's.
Kate stepped back. "Thank you for coming," she said quietly. She looked over her shoulder, her expression inviting Jonas into the conversation. "This is—"
"He knows who I am," Jonas said.
Douglas shrugged. "I knew before I left the office. You two are pretty unpopular with law enforcement agencies in these parts."
"Have you told anyone?" Kate asked.
"No." Grant Douglas looked down at her. "Not yet. You have ten minutes to tell me why I shouldn't."
"Then we should get started." Kate pulled out the two chairs opposite her ex-fiancé, settled into one, and shot a pointed look at Jonas.
He hesitated. Douglas remained standing. Kate cleared her throat. Jonas tightened his lips and dropped onto the chair—but only its edge. Across the table, Douglas sat, pushed away the uneaten salad, straightened his tie, and rested his elbows on the table. Then, as Kate took a breath to begin, he held up a hand.
"First things first," he said. "Are you sleeping with him?"
Jonas was half out of his seat, hands curled into fists, before Kate's hand stopped him. He shook her off and leaned across the table, his face inches from the other man's, fury leaping through his veins.
"What the hell does that have to do with anything?" he snarled. He felt the eyes of other patrons on him, sensed the unease, but didn't care. He knew his reaction was extreme. He didn't care about that, either.
Nor was he about to analyze why.
Douglas looked past him at Kate. "Well?" he asked. "Are you?"
Jonas straightened, drawing back a fist, anticipating the pleasure he would derive from wiping that supercilious expression from—
Again Kate's hand stopped him, her fingers digging into his rigid forearm. He couldn't shake her off this time.
"No," she said. "We're not sleeping together, and no, my judgment isn't compromised."
Jonas's breath left him in a hiss.
Oh.
The response put Douglas's question in a whole other light. Of course he needed that reassurance; Jonas would want the same if the tables were turned. Any decent cop would.
But it didn't mean he liked the FBI agent any better.
Fingers uncurling, he subsided into his seat again. Kate's hand moved from his arm to his thigh, pressing lightly, then remaining in place. As the gesture of comfort and encouragement he suspected she intended it to be, it failed miserably. But it certainly succeeded in distracting him.
Grant Douglas studied him as if he knew exactly where his former fiancée’s hand sat—and what it did to the man it sat on.
"I'm listening," he said.
With all his being, Jonas wished he could stand up and walk out. He didn't want to be beholden to this man. Didn't want anything to do with him, apart from the lingering urge to deck him just on principle.
But Kate—Kate, who had come so far and given up so much, Kate who trusted him but also trusted Douglas—Kate needed them to work together if she was going to survive this. And so Jonas swallowed his anger, along with what he would have liked to say, and in a low voice, began laying out the facts as he knew them, the theories as he supposed them, and the conclusions he'd had no choice but to reach.
Douglas stared at the tabletop for long, silent seconds when Jonas was done, toying with the butter knife beside his wilting salad. Beneath the table, Kate's fingers
remained on Jonas's thigh. They tightened as Douglas shook his head.
"It's not enough," he said.
Jonas was unsurprised by the words, but Kate almost came up out of her chair in objection.
"What? But the tap on Dave's phone line, and the—"
"I can't do anything on the Canadian side, Kate. You know that," Douglas interrupted. "And as big as the rest of it—what your...friend is telling me—is, I can't open an investigation into another agency based on hearsay from a fugitive. Hell, he's a rogue agent. Most people would say he's just trying to put the blame elsewhere."
"It's not just his word, Grant. It's mine, too."
"And what exactly do you know? You have no more evidence than Burke does—a lot less, in fact," Douglas pointed out, speaking as if Jonas wasn't sitting right there with them. "He’s fed you everything you know. I can't go to my director and ask for people based on that."
"Can't or won't?" she asked, weariness edging her voice. Making it catch. "Damn it, Grant—"
"He's right," Jonas cut her off, his words made abrupt by Kate's defeat and his own disillusionment. They should have known better. He should have known better. "It was a long shot at best. We don't have—"
"Hold on." Douglas held up a hand, and for the first time since they'd sat down, his gaze encompassed both of them. "I'm not saying I won't do anything at all; I'm just saying I can't do anything official. I'll make some inquiries—discreet ones," he assured Kate when she opened her mouth to object, "and see what I can dig up. If I find anything, however remote, I'll take it to my director. You have my word."
Kate did a slow slump in the chair next to Jonas. Her gaze sought his. He read the question in it, saw the half-hearted reassurance. He considered pulling her aside so they could discuss her former fiancé's offer—then he sighed. They didn't need to discuss anything. He knew what she was thinking, just as she knew what he thought.
It was like they were partners, or something.
He sat back in his chair and looped an arm across the back of hers. "Go for it," he said.
She turned back to Douglas. "All right. But only because we don't have a lot of choice right now."
Douglas nodded satisfaction and took a notebook from his inside breast pocket. "Right. Burke, can you think of anyone I can start with? Someone in your bureau who owes you a favor, maybe?"
Honeyman, Jonas thought. But he shook his head. "No. No way. If I send you directly to anyone, I may as well be painting a target on their back. First, you find a way to make this official and guarantee their safety, and then we'll talk."
Grant Douglas regarded him in silence for a long moment, then looked to Kate. "What's your cell phone number?"
"I don't have one. It was in the vehicle they impounded in Cornwall."
"The vehicle they—then how did you—no, never mind." Douglas waved a hand to ward off a reply. "I'm better off not knowing." He replaced the notebook in his pocket, then stood, pulled a twenty dollar bill from a clip, and dropped the money on the table. "Give me twenty-four hours, then call me. We'll decide where to go from there."
"And what exactly do you suggest we do for those twenty-four hours?" Kate asked.
Bitter disappointment laced her voice, echoing Jonas's own. Despite his misgivings going into this meeting, he'd allowed a tiny part of him to share Kate's optimism. He'd wanted to share it, damn it, because they'd needed this. Because without it...without it, they would lose. It was that simple. That definitive.
"Lie low," Douglas replied to Kate's question. "Find somewhere to stay out of sight."
Kate exchanged a sardonic look with Jonas. When Douglas raised an eyebrow, she explained, "We don't exactly have a great track record at that."
Once again, Douglas's gaze traveled back and forth between them. Then, with a sigh, he took pen and notebook from his pocket for a second time. He stooped, scribbled some notes, then tore the paper from its binding and slid it across the table to Kate.
"Directions to a friend's fishing cabin," he said, straightening. "It's about halfway between here and Jersey. No one uses it at this time of year. There's a key on the window frame to the left of the door. Top right corner. You'll be safe there."
Kate stood as Douglas tucked pen and notebook back into his pocket. She stepped away from the table and reached up to hug her ex a second time. "Thank you."
Douglas returned the embrace, then pulled back. "Twenty-four hours," he repeated. "And Katie...be careful."
Jonas doubted the real meaning of his words was lost on any of them.
Chapter 34
Jonas lifted a log from the woodpile beside the shed at the side of the cabin and balanced it on top of the load in his other arm. With luck, that would be enough to keep the fireplace—their only source of heat—going until morning. He certainly hoped so, because the October air held a distinct chill here in the Adirondacks. He'd be willing to bet on frost overnight.
He looked over his shoulder at the cabin. A light glowed from the kitchen through the dark, as warm and inviting as the company of the woman it silhouetted. Kate, doing dishes, waiting for him to return. Kate, who had him feeling tighter than an over-wound clock spring on the verge of tearing apart its housing. Bloody hell.
Jonas shifted his hold on the load of wood and turned his collar up against the cold.. At first, he'd quite liked Douglas's suggestion they stay here, for a couple of reasons: First, there was safety in the cabin's isolation; and second, the peace of a lakeside cabin offered an undeniable reprieve from the insanity into which he and Kate had been thrust.
The idea had seemed perfect—until they'd pulled up in front of the solid, squat log cabin, Kate had switched off the rumbling engine, and solitude had settled around them—quiet, absolute, and knife sharp with the tension that had been building between them.
Far from finding themselves rested or relaxed, he and Kate had circled each other all afternoon with exaggerated care, barely spoken during dinner, and pushed the food around on their plates until by mutual, unspoken consent, they'd given up any pretense of eating. He, acutely aware of every move she made, every look she gave him through lowered lashes. She—hell, he didn't know what she was thinking, and he didn't dare speculate. Not when his thoughts alone had him waffling out here in the cold, yearning to return to the cabin and dreading it, all in the same mangled breath.
He shifted his weight to the other foot, exhaled in a fog, and started toward the cabin. Desire intensified with each step, licking through his belly, adding its traitorous whisper to the sound of the wind rustling the trees. Would it really be so bad? They were both adults, after all. Experienced, with their eyes wide open. Surely they were capable of handling a brief relationship before they went their separate ways...
Except that wasn't how it would go. Not if he was honest. Kate wasn't the brief relationship kind—and worse, he didn't want her to be. If he got involved with her on any level, he'd want more. He'd want it all—forever. And he, of all people, knew there was no such thing. Not where he was concerned.
He tipped back his head to stare at the night sky. Billions of pinpricks of light dotted the dark like specks of dust scattered across velvet. He breathed in. Breathed out. Centered himself. Then he climbed the stairs and crossed the porch.
No. He had no intention of opening himself up to another lesson in the kind of pain that went along with the death of a dream. And that was what someone like Kate ultimately amounted to: a dream. Balancing his load in one arm, he twisted the door handle and pushed into the cabin's darkened living room. He just needed to hold out for a few more days. He’d get his evidence, he and Kate would part ways, and he could go back to his life. Maybe look up someone for a little companionship of the distracting kind—maybe Valerie, if she wasn’t married yet. It had been a couple of years since they’d dated, but—
Jonas stopped dead in his tracks as Kate half-turned from the fireplace she'd been tending. She'd changed from jeans and sweatshirt into a nightgown she'd found somewhere. Voluminous
folds of fabric stretched from multiple ruffles under her chin all the way down to her toes. It should have looked ridiculous. Should have, but didn't.
Instead, backlit by the firelight, the garment had become a magical, translucent creation, draped over and simultaneously highlighting every line, every contour. The curve of her breast, the gentle swell of her hip, the long, slender legs. Jonas damned near dropped the armload of wood. Then he clung to it as he might a shield between him and certain doom.
Damnation.
Fireplace poker gripped in one hand, Kate looked over her shoulder. "I thought you'd gotten lost."
A throat that had gone dust-dry refused to let him respond. Kate straightened up, replacing the poker in its stand.
"Jonas? What's wrong? Is someone out there? Did you see—" She started toward him, but stopped when he held up his free hand.
"We need to talk," he said. Using his foot, he shoved the door shut behind him and stalked across the room. He dumped the wood into the box sitting by the fireplace, then toured the living room, turning on every lamp he could find.
"Again?” she asked warily. “What about this time?"
"You. Me." He stopped moving and faced her, fireplace between them and the room as bright as day. The nightgown had turned opaque again. Thank God. He raised his gaze to Kate's. "Us," he said.
* * *
It was funny how a single word could tip a person's entire existence on its head and knock the air from their lungs. Kate went still, trying to process that one word. To decipher it.
To breathe.
"Jonas, I—"
"No. Let me talk." Jonas turned away to lean both hands against the brick of the fireplace.
Us. The word hung in the air between them.
Kate felt for the couch near her and sat down, staring at his back. What ifs whispered through her mind. What if she stood and joined him by the fire? What if she ran her hands over fabric drawn tight across muscular shoulders? Tugged it from the waistband of his jeans, slipped her hands beneath it and around his waist, and then slid them up to caress the deep, powerful chest?
Shadow of Doubt Page 18
