Dark Memories (The DARK Files Book 1)

by Susan Vaughan

  She clucked her tongue. “You can’t suspect Stan Hart!”

  “Wouldn’t have confided in him if DARK wasn’t sure of him. Just making a point.”

  “Anyone else?”

  He tapped a pencil on his computer lid as he ticked them off. “The Van Tassel sisters are living on a small pension. Rudy Damon is soliciting funds to buy into a Broadway play. Martin Rhodes’s dental practice is mortgaged to a casino in Connecticut. How’s that for boring, solid citizens?”

  She chuckled. “I’ll remember not to go to Dr. Rhodes for any fillings. But you don’t suspect any of them?”

  “Except for our boy Burt. There’s too much that doesn’t fit.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Whoever has arranged some of your accidents has been damned clumsy. The brake line tampering might have worked. But the boat switch wasn’t surefire. Not professional.”

  “I see what you mean. So if Markos hasn’t found me, hasn’t sent this Janus here, who has been trying to kill me?”

  “That’s the million-dollar question.” He reached across the table, palm up, an invitation she should resist. When she kept her hands in her lap, he scowled and withdrew his hand. “My money’s on Burt for the boat switch. Who else would have known about the damaged boat or known what to do?”

  “But why?” She shoved her chair back and crossed to the window beside the door. She gazed out at the drizzle. Rejecting him stabbed her, but she had to keep distance between them. “Why would Burt want to harm me? He seems to like me.”

  “He likes expensive toys. His outboard. A windsurfer. Remember that Harley he’s saving for? Same reason he might’ve done the burglaries.” The scrape of his chair told her he’d stood up.

  She sensed his body heat at her back and breathed in his scent. This cabin was way too confining. How could she resist him if he persisted in pursuing her?

  Then his words sank in. “You said something once about selling me out. Is that what you think? That Janus or Markos paid Burt or someone else here to—” She couldn’t bring herself to utter the words.

  “To off you?” He curled his big hands around her shoulders. One hand fingered her hair where she’d fastened it at her nape. “It’s possible. But the kid? He’d pilfer cameras and CDs. Maybe he did the boat sabotage, had his boat ready, thinking he’d zip to your rescue and impress you. But murder? I doubt it. And I’ve even checked and eliminated my DARK team.”

  She suppressed a shiver of awareness at his touch. “Um, what about fingerprints on the remaining boat?”

  He flipped her hair aside and began rubbing her neck. “Nothing. Clean as a brand-new set of porker pipes. If Burt’s prints were there, it would prove nothing. He was in the boat shed yesterday, remember? They didn’t touch the skiff in there. The switch could’ve happened before that.”

  With the gentle rotation of his massaging hand, the tension melted from her shoulders, and a different tension invaded. Her skin heated, and her knees grew weak. She could focus only on his touch and the rumble of his voice, not on what he was saying. If she turned to face him, he’d kiss her. And that would lead…

  A vision formed in the dappled droplets on the window-pane — the two of them tangled in the sheets on her iron-framed bed. A rainy day and nowhere to go. Except to Cole.

  She was in big trouble.

  Chapter 18

  COLE BREATHED DEEPLY to ease the tight band of fear for her in his chest. The fragility of the bones and warm flesh beneath his hands underscored her vulnerability. Being so near to her kept him in a constant state of semi-arousal that their lovemaking last night had only increased.

  He cared for her again, more than he’d realized. More than he should. They had their past — and a lost baby — in common. They’d now rediscovered the friendship and understanding that had once bound them. And sex. Past and present fused with the joining of their bodies and souls to sear away pain and brand them only with ecstasy.

  But was it enough in the face of so much remembered pain?

  She’d learned to survive on the street. She gave up luxury and a closet full of designer clothes. She was tough and smart, but still too classy, too generous, too everything for him. She needed him now because he could protect her, but as soon as she was safe, she’d go back to her high-society life. She wouldn’t need him then.

  Outta your league, boy.

  He had to remember that. Last night’s revelations and passionate aftermath had inflated his hopes. Rather than let passion blind him to the facts, he’d better back off.

  He dropped his hands from her shoulders and stepped aside. He cleared his throat. “It’s too wet for a walk, but how about a drive? The Tundra hasn’t been on the road for a few days.”

  What he took for relief whooshed from her like air from a punctured tire. Laura snatched her windbreaker from the hook by the door. “Let’s go.”

  Cole called Isaacs and Byrne to alert them to their plan.

  “The phone surprises me,” she remarked. “You have that little satellite receiver. So why not high-tech communicators?”

  He climbed into the SUV’s driver’s seat. “Talking into a lapel would attract more attention than yakking in a phone. Everyone has one of these pressed to their ears. The DARK phones contain security software.”

  They made it as far as the inn before Stan waved them down with a request for the resort barbecue.

  “Tuesday is the Alderport Founder’s Day celebration.” Laura tucked the grocery list in her jacket pocket as they drove away. “In the village, there’s a parade with floats, high school bands and craft sales, followed by fireworks. Tuesday I’ll have to help with the cooking for the barbecue that the Harts provide guests and employees on Wednesday.”

  “That ought to put you out of harm’s way for a while.” And out of temptation’s reach.

  The brief curve of her lips suggested she welcomed the same relief.

  He wished to God DARK would roll up Markos or that Byrne would spot someone suspicious or the others would ID Janus — so this fiasco could end. He wished his time with Laura would end.

  That was a crock. He wished his time with Laura would never end.

  Hell.

  ***

  Out of harm’s way, Laura mused as she put away the tennis ball machine on Monday afternoon. When would it end? When would Markos be caught and her life return to normal? She was so used to looking over her shoulder that it seemed the norm.

  Yesterday’s outing to town and the supermarket had refocused her on different priorities, but didn’t solve her dilemma about Cole. From being cooped up in the cabin, they went to a closed, moving vehicle. The sheer domesticity of grocery shopping threw in her face the future she’d never have. And their outing showed her a new side of Cole.

  He shook his head at the bountiful produce heaped into tempting displays as he described the deprivation in the resurgence of the Taliban. What open-air markets they didn’t destroy offered only overripe fruit and nuts and a few elderly, stringy goats. Barefoot children scavenged in the ruins and begged in the streets. Along with ferreting out plots, Cole and his fellow intelligence officers had directed food and medicine drops.

  Compassion and charity in the midst of danger and destruction. Love edged aside resolve and burrowed deeper into her heart. Beside the empty part.

  When he met her after she left the tennis court, seeing him gave her pulse such a kick that she bit her tongue. If she missed him this much after two hours, how would she cope with the next decade?

  Emitting small rumbles of satisfaction, he surrounded her with his arms and held her. Longer than was necessary to demonstrate their lover status. But objecting wasn’t in her. The evening loomed ahead. No performance of Diner to occupy them. Only the long night. In the small cabin.

  Alone. Together.

  So when he suggested dinner out, she agreed with alacrity. They’d be out in public, he assured her, and one of the other officers would pr
ovide backup for the outing.

  After a dinner of blackened Atlantic salmon with a side of buttery new potatoes and followed by blueberry pie, they went to the blues club in Rockland.

  From a handkerchief-size table in a dark corner, they listened to the guitar riffs and cigarette voices of Sammy McKee and the Smokehouse Band from somewhere in the Midwest. The five-piece group borrowed songs and styles from a mix of genres, ranging from the Texas swing tune “Blues for Dixie” to “She Gotta Thing Goin’ On,” that was pure Chicago.

  “I’d forgotten you liked the blues,” Laura said at the band’s break.

  “I didn’t know you did.” He covered her hand with his and held it gently but firmly, his hard gaze daring her to object.

  The server delivered their refills, Chardonnay for her, cola for him. A steady parade of more-or-less sober patrons jostled past them, on the way to the restrooms or to the bar. Their passage swirled the odors of hops and smoke. She and Cole were the young ones in this mostly middle-aged crowd filling the dance floor. One man boogied in a kilt and matching plaid socks. Another man sporting a white handlebar mustache danced with every unattached woman in the place.

  Laura smiled and relaxed. “I know you don’t drink because of your dad, but there’s a lot I don’t know about recent years. Can you tell me more about Afghanistan?”

  “You understand I can’t give specifics.” When she nodded, he continued, “But here’s a story I can share. I can’t say where, but my partner and I were scouting a cave.”

  “Alone?”

  “No.” He offered no explanation.

  “Ah. That means you were with a Special Forces unit. Muscle to accompany the intelligence officers. I thought all that was declassified by now, but never mind.”

  He shook his head. “Laura, you would’ve made one hell of an intelligence officer. Nobody’s secrets would be safe from you.”

  “Why thank you, sir. I think. Do go on with your story.”

  “Our Afghan escort lagged behind, but he suddenly caught up to us yelling, ‘Samla! Samla!’ ”

  “Samla. What does it mean?”

  “I’ll get to that.” His boyish grin started a pulse beating low in her body. “That was early days for me in that wild country, and I was still learning the language. Both of us turned. I thought he was just calling for us to wait, not to leave him behind.”

  “But he wasn’t?”

  He shook his head. “When gunfire erupted behind us and he dived behind a boulder, I caught on quick. He was warning us of an ambush. Samla means Get down.”

  “The man risked his life to warn you. Was he all right?”

  Cole’s eyes darkened. “He took a bullet in the leg. But he lived.”

  “And so did you.” With her free hand, she traced the webbed scar on his chin. “Is that when you got this?”

  “I learned to duck lower and faster after that.” His reaction to her caress, a rumble deep within, sounded suspiciously like a purr. “You must have had some adventures as an anthropologist? Or am I thinking archeologist?”

  She laughed. “No digs or aboriginal burial sites. A few trips to Egypt and China. I even spent time in Iraq after the war, where looting destroyed many ancient treasures. Seven thousand years of Mesopotamian history.” She shook her head sadly. “But my most eye-opening adventures were at home. In D.C.”

  “From your expression, I’m guessing you don’t mean the one that sent you on the road.”

  “No, I’m referring to my volunteer work at the Sojourner Truth Community Center.”

  “Work with kids?” Interest lighting his eyes, he leaned forward, probably to hear her better over the canned music.

  To fill the break, a deejay spun tunes by New Orleans songwriter Tab Benoit, the next week’s performer.

  Laura tapped her foot to the Cajun beat as she began. “I do — did — tutoring and tennis lessons with a group of four teenaged girls who’d been in trouble with the law.”

  “I’d sooner shoot it out with Colombian drug lords. What are these kids like?”

  “They’re pretty amazing. Strong, resilient. At least one is ambitious. I miss them as much as my support group. I enjoy the kids at Passabec, but most of them don’t tug at my heart the way those girls did.”

  His brows beetled as though he were trying to picture her — the privileged princess — with ghetto kids. “Go on.”

  “Jamila’s gang member brother dragged her into some of their dealings. Desirée’s quiet, sometimes too quiet. She was sleeping on the street some nights because one of her mother’s boyfriends tried to climb into her bed.” The image of her narrow little face, pinched with fear, twisted pain in her chest. “And Missy was headed down the road — I should say street — to prostitution, under her older sister’s tutelage.”

  “I see they got to you. Who’s the ambitious one?”

  “Tanisha. Now she’s a piece of work.” Laura smiled, remembering the girl quivering with intensity, bells jangling on her many braids. “She’s a cross between Queen Latifah and Serena Williams.”

  “Big mouth and big swing?”

  She chuckled at his perception. “Exactly. She thinks tennis is her ticket out of the ghetto. She has talent, but I’m no expert tennis coach. I wonder what’s happened to them, whether the center found someone to replace me.”

  He brought her hand to his lips. Her skin tingled. “Nobody could replace you. Not with your combination of guts and talent. You’ll make it back to them. I’ll see to it.”

  “I want to believe you.” The heat of his gaze shimmered into her body, and she needed him to keep talking, to give her time to bolster her resistance. “You mentioned Colombian drug lords. Was that duty as dangerous as Afghanistan?”

  He shrugged. “Colombia was more intelligence coordination and less combat potential. Locals were less suspicious of us.”

  “Who is Marisol?” Her cheeks warmed. Drat. The words escaped her mouth before she could stop them. Her heart betrayed her every time she tried to resist him. “I couldn’t help seeing the name on your laptop screen.”

  Sadness infused his eyes. Affection canted his half smile. “Marisol is an orphan. She’s four years old.”

  He might have yanked her chair from beneath her. Her brain could barely process the words. “A child.” Marisol is a small child.

  “At the San Sebastiano Orphanage. I mentioned it before.”

  He’d mentioned the orphanage the first day of sailing class. “You did coin tricks for the kids. And you said something about finding a baby.”

  “Another operative and I found Marisol when she was only eighteen months old. Her family had abandoned her in a field. She was hungry and dirty and screeching louder than a monkey.”

  Tears burned her throat at the thought of a mere baby alone and frightened. “Abandoned her? You said that before, but it didn’t sink in.”

  “Colombia is improving, but there are so many orphans from all the conflict and poverty. Desperate mothers who can’t feed their children feel they have no recourse. And Marisol has a deformed foot, so she probably was seen as too big a burden.”

  Her throat tightened. “And in San Sebastiano?”

  He smiled more broadly. “The nuns take good care of her, but she’s still too thin. She needs an operation to rebuild her foot. I’m acting as intermediary to arrange that at Johns Hopkins. The specialist will do it for free, but I have to get her there.”

  She sat back, speechless. All those phone calls and e-mails were to help a small child have a chance at a full, productive life. No voluptuous señorita at all. And the tragedy of it for him scraped at her heart. This proud man who so longed for his own family had only a long-distance, substitute one. She was grateful when the band’s next set stifled further conversation.

  When the musicians began a softer ballad, Cole murmured in her ear, “I wonder if country music is just blues from an Anglo-Saxon background.”

  “Now who’s thinki
ng like an anthropologist?” Seeing other couples fill the dance floor, she stood and tugged on his arm. “This song isn’t country, but it calls to me. Their singer even sounds like Maria Muldaur. Dance with me.”

  And dancing was a legitimate excuse for being in his arms. She swayed her hips to the dreamy beat of “Meet Me at Midnight.”

  Cole didn’t budge. When his jaw clenched and one eyebrow shot up, she knew. “Oh, no, you’re not going to get out of this by claiming you can’t dance. Anyone can dance to this.”

  With a crooked grin, he set down his glass and followed her to the dance floor.

  “See, you just hold me and let the rhythm take you.” She nudged his right arm around her and clasped his left hand.

  “With you in my arms, babe, I usually move to another natural rhythm.” His arm tightened around her, sliding downward to her derriere, to press her against his solid planes. And a harder bulge.

  Her inner flame flickered higher, shimmering heat along her veins. With each swaying step, their hips and thighs slid together. Oblivious to the press of other couples, they might have been the only dancers.

  She slid her arms up to link her hands behind his neck, but resisted going up on tiptoe to run her tongue along the white scar. Tonight was another memory to carry with her. He didn’t look dangerous to her now, only handsome and unbearably dear with his rugged face and square chin. His hair had grown a little longer, and she longed to run her fingers through the rich midnight waves.

  On a groan, he pulled her hands from around his neck and dragged her from the dance floor. “Laura, we’re playing with fire. Let’s get out of here.”

  Chapter 19

  COLE SLAMMED MONEY on their table and hustled Laura out of the club so fast that their DARK cover nearly missed catching up to them. She appeared so shell-shocked by his rush that she didn’t utter a word all the way home.

  Or was she in the same desperate state as him?

  His jaw clenched and his entire body taut with desire, he set a new land-speed record for the drive to Passabec Lake.