“You need to protect her.”
He swung around. Since this illusion wasn’t going away, Trace decided to face it head-on. “Why are you bothering me?”
“Garbo speaks.” Marshall leaned back on the railing, smiling slightly. “You’re a tough nut to crack.”
“Go away,” he muttered.
“I can’t. You need help, Lieutenant. You need a lot of help. For some reason, I got the job.” She frowned, her foot moving restlessly as if she couldn’t quite control it. “I’m not very good at this stuff, but let’s just say you’re my mission. So I have to stay and warn you…until it’s too late.”
Talk about bullshit, Trace thought. He glared at her shimmering face. “The only help I need is getting rid of you.”
“Not gonna happen. Not until all this is done.” Her eyes narrowed as she looked over Trace’s shoulder. Then she shrugged and turned back toward him. “Stop being afraid. There’s nothing scary about you two being together.” Nimble, she pushed to her feet and walked precariously along the railing.
Trace fought an urge to leap up and pull her back to safety.
But he was only watching an illusion, and there was no need to save her from anything.
Then Marshall swayed, losing her balance, and he couldn’t fight old, protective habits. He lunged forward, reaching for her arm.
His fingers cut through empty space.
She laughed quietly. “That’s what being in love is like. You can’t touch it and you can’t hold it and sometimes it hurts. You want to help someone and protect them from harm and ease their pain, but you can’t. That’s the way it works. Unless you drive her off. I hope you won’t be that stupid.”
Trace was about to give her a piece of his mind when she turned sharply. “It’s here. I’m not supposed to feel cold, but I do. It’s…oily.” She shook her head. “I’ve—got to go.” As Marshall stared up at Trace, her features seemed to blur. “It’s closing now and it’s pushing me away. Can’t fight it.”
Her outline flickered.
She seemed to be struggling, as if she were walking into a strong wind. “You need to be very careful. Especially now that he is—”
She seemed to shudder, looking back over her shoulder.
Then in the same instant she flickered away, and the balcony around him was empty, filled only with darkness and the rush of the wind.
Trace didn’t move, feeling a sliver of uneasiness. He braced his elbows on the rail where he had seen Marshall’s image only seconds before. It was too strange to be real—except that she somehow knew things, knew that he was afraid of caring too much and not being able to protect Gina from the dark things in her future.
She’d voiced fears he would barely admit existed in his own mind. Either he was crazy, or this was a clear sign of chip degradation. If it was a chip problem, Izzy would be able to track the source.
The door slid open behind him. Gina appeared, hugging a white bathrobe as she shivered in the wind. “Here you are. When I couldn’t find you, I got worried.” She glanced around the balcony. “Were you listening to a radio? I thought I heard you talking.”
He cleared his throat. “Just humming to myself.” Lame, O’Halloran. “So why aren’t you asleep?”
“Couldn’t.” She rubbed her neck. “Too keyed up. Which is pretty funny, considering what we just…” She cleared her throat. “Boy, did we just.”
He turned up the collar of her bathrobe and pulled her against him. She was warm and soft, and her hair fell like silk against his cheek.
Maybe Marshall was right. Maybe he had to let go and believe, rather than agonize about details he couldn’t control. The problem was, controlling things was what he did for a living. All his life he’d had a playbook in his head.
Places to go. Challenges to tackle. He had always needed to prove something to himself.
Watching her hair slide through his fingers, he spoke without planning or thought, driven to say what he had never said before because now something pushed him to feel what he had never felt before.
“I’ve never thought of a future outside my work, Gina. I’ve never cared about relationships. Then I saw you on a crowded street corner and I suddenly envisioned a different life from the one I’d lived up until then. Believe me, that scares the living hell out of me.”
She tilted her head and ran her finger over his lips, silencing him. “You just said the F word, Lieutenant. Future. That’s not allowed, remember?”
“The rules just changed,” he said harshly. “I want that with you. Damn it, I need that with you. One way or another I will make it work.”
She took a deep breath. His arms were still around her, yet something separated them.
They both started talking at once.
“Gina, I know about—”
“Trace, I have to tell you—”
They stopped, and she laughed softly. “I go first.” She slid her hands around his waist and took another fast breath. “There’s something you should know, since you brought up the subject of a future. I didn’t tell you before because—because it didn’t matter before. Before there wasn’t an us.” Color flared in her face.
“Now there’s definitely going to be an us.” Trace ignored all the reasons why there shouldn’t be. The reasons no longer seemed valid. Now he understood why Wolfe fought fiercely to have a future with the woman he loved.
The rewards overruled any possible risks.
“Okay.” She caught her lip between her teeth. “This is harder than I expected.” She looked away, her face tense. “I’m losing my…”
Trace waited, realizing the precious gifts she was offering him.
The truth.
Trust.
Things that came very rarely in life.
“I’m going blind,” she said in a rush. “Two months or two years. No one seems certain about the timeline.”
“That’s why you take the medicine?” He wanted to draw her out, to make the details easier for her. If she wanted to talk, he was more than prepared to listen.
He slid his hands inside her robe and massaged her back slowly. Then he kissed the top of her head, and she sighed, curling into his body.
“Pretty much. It all sucks. My plans…all the places I haven’t been yet. It’s not the same when you can’t see.”
Something wet brushed his chest. Trace realized it was her tears.
Emotion clogged his throat, tightened his chest. When was the last time he’d allowed anything or anyone to touch him so deeply?
You can’t touch it and you can’t hold it.
“So it’s definite?”
She nodded, her face against his chest. “Yeah, barring a miracle, and I’ve never believed in those. I’m trying to do what I can to get prepared.” She made a small sound of anger. “No, I’m not. I haven’t done anything to prepare. I’m still a lot angry and a little frightened. You’re the only one I’ve told, except for Tobias.”
“I wish I could change it.” His voice was low and fierce.
You want to help someone and protect them from harm and ease their pain, but you can’t.
“You’re shivering. Let’s go in.”
“Not yet.” She stared up over his shoulder. “It’s beautiful out here. I’ve already made a wish on that big star over there.”
Antares, Trace thought. It flashed red above the restless sea, captured in the curve of the Milky Way.
“I wished for us to be…somehow. Which is incredibly silly, but—”
“There are always possibilities.” Trace needed to believe that. He opened the inside door, swung her into his arms and carried her inside, setting her on the edge of the bed. “We’ll handle this together.”
But he knew by the calm resignation in her face that she didn’t believe it.
“Listen, you have calls to make and work to do. I’ll be fine.” She gave a crooked grin. “I might even manage to get a little sleep if you’re not around flashing that killer body.”
Damn it, he wanted to stay. He w
anted to make her believe that there were always possibilities.
But his possibilities were currently running a little low.
His gaze swung to the clock. Four minutes until he had to check in with Tobias again. Not nearly enough time to say all the things he wanted.
He pulled her into his arms, feeling her heart beating strong and fast. “I wish this were different.”
“You don’t have to explain.”
“I do,” he said harshly.
Her robe gaped open.
The sight of her flat stomach and the dark curve of her nipples made Trace harden instantly. He smoothed the robe shut.
No time.
“I want you to have this.” He didn’t examine the instinct, because it was too urgent, nearly primitive. He pulled a worn gold chain with a St. Christopher medal from his pocket and slipped it over her head.
“But I—”
His hands closed around hers. “Wear it for me.” He thought of Marshall’s image out on the railing. “Maybe things exist that we don’t understand and can’t imagine.”
She kissed his knuckles, then opened his palm. “This hurts,” she whispered. “Why does love have to hurt?”
“Someone told me that’s part of the deal. And if it doesn’t make you crazy, you’re not doing it right.”
“Smart person.” Gina took a deep breath and kissed his callused palm. “I’ll wear this. Though I’d rather you have it.”
“No, I think you were meant to have this one.”
His arm tightened around her.
And then, because he wanted to stay and take her again, he moved back.
She smoothed her hands along the glistening chain. “Do you want me to leave? If so, I could—”
“No need. Go shower. This call won’t take long.”
“Since you probably deserve a smile, ask Tobias about the two women who tried to flag down the cruise ship after they ran out of gas. Talk about crazy.”
Trace wasn’t really listening as he pulled out his cell phone. “When did this happen?”
“Early evening. I hear they were completely blotto, staggering across the deck of their yacht. It’s a miracle they didn’t plow into the ship.”
Trace turned slowly. “Blotto how?”
“Drunk. Three sheets to the wind.”
Something skittered across his neck again. “Tonight, you said? Okay, I’ll ask Tobias for the details.”
Gina looked at his face carefully and then stood up. “A shower sounds good. Tell Tobias I’m fine. He’ll be feeling bad about questioning me.” After she left, Trace dialed Tobias, piecing together possibilities and not liking the result.
“Security.”
“Checking in. How are we doing?”
“Everything’s A-Okay down here. I’m starting to get a little bored.”
Trace drummed his fingers lightly on the desk. He checked to be sure the bathroom door was closed. “I understand there was an incident with two women in a boat this evening.”
“Drunk as skunks and completely topless. It was lucky we didn’t plow them down the way their yacht was circling. The idiots were laughing like it was all a lark, without a clue how close they’d come to dying.”
“So they were drunk or maybe on drugs?”
“Hard to say. Whatever it was, they were feeling no pain. It almost caused a stampede when the bridge crew noticed they were topless. I haven’t seen binoculars whipped out so fast since review time at Quantico.”
“Did anyone check out the boat’s registry?”
“The captain reported them to Mexican authorities, but he didn’t pursue the matter. Why? You think this is important?”
Trace couldn’t shake a cold sense of uneasiness. Oily, Marshall had said. Maybe it was time he paid closer attention to that conversation. “I’m not sure. Get me all the information you have on the incident, will you? I need IDs if possible.”
“Sure. I’ll get right on it. I’ve got nothing else to do,” Hale grumbled.
“You said you were bored,” Trace said dryly. “All things come to those who wait.”
“Including baldness, senility and death.”
“Just don’t go to sleep on me. I’ll bring you some of Gina’s special espresso.”
Trace hung up the phone. Was he being paranoid? Maybe this was what happened when you dropped your defenses and let your brain get slammed by lust.
No, not by lust, an inner voice corrected.
By love.
He was about to knock on the shower door when pain shot through his head. Molten steel claws sank into his chest and ripped along his spine. He bent double, feeling the air slowly squeezed from his lungs.
Choking, he dropped his cell phone, dropped the small piece of Gina’s yarn he’d left on the corner of the desk. Fighting to stay upright, he gripped the desk while the world faded, running into black.
The pain shifted, then centered on his collarbone.
Desperately, Trace fought to keep from passing out, one hand pressed to his chest even though the pressure didn’t help. The pain prowled, then settled down to gnaw.
Only one thing would cause this kind of reaction.
Cruz…
Very close now.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
TRACE STUMBLED toward the bathroom, the phone gripped tightly in his hand. He’d been shot in Colombia and struck by crippling knife wounds in Sri Lanka, but neither came close to inflicting the pain he felt now.
His muscles shifted, trying to expel something beneath the skin. He felt a blinding pain at his collarbone, centered on the one chip that Ryker’s medical team had not completely disabled, leaving it intact for passive GPS location. Though it was the slightest of signals, Cruz had to have located Trace through the one active piece of technology that they still shared.
No one had expected Cruz to be alive. Even alive, he shouldn’t have been able to locate a chip that was largely passive. His skills had grown off the chart.
A whine filled Trace’s head as he opened his cell phone and tried to dial.
“Trace, what’s wrong?”
Through a cloud of steam from the open bathroom door, Gina reached out to him. Her hands were cool on his forehead. Like some kind of angel, he thought dimly.
He staggered beneath another assault, and she caught him around the waist, staggering under his weight. “Take it easy. Let’s get you to the bed.”
“Need to call,” Trace rasped. “Get Izzy. He’ll know.”
“To bed first,” she said firmly, grabbing the phone as he dropped it.
Funny, she didn’t seem at all frightened.
But of course, she didn’t know Cruz.
GINA TRIED TO HIDE her panic. She had come out of the shower to find Trace doubled over, rigid with pain. His face was sheet white, his muscles tight. The last thing she wanted to do was make a phone call, but she took the phone when he insisted.
“Dial two,” he said hoarsely. “Izzy—tell him what happened…Tell him—to remember the island…the helicopter had someone else inside.”
None of it made sense, but she did exactly what he said, instinctively knowing it was right.
A man answered on the first ring. “Joe’s Pizza.”
“Oh.” She frowned at Trace. “Wrong number.”
“Wait. Are you Gina?”
“Yes.” She didn’t offer any other information, unsure who was on the other end of the line.
“Where is Trace?”
“Who are you?”
A chair creaked. “I’m—the man with the pizza. What’s wrong with Trace?”
The calm tones of the man’s voice reassured her. “Something happened, almost like he was hit. He’s gripping his shoulder, and I’m afraid he’s going to pass out.”
“Stay with me, Gina. I’m going to need your help. Tell me exactly what happened.”
“I don’t know. I was in the shower, and I heard a noise. When I came out he was bent over in pain.”
“No one came inside?”
>
“No. I would have heard.”
“Anything else disturbed? His equipment or suitcase?”
“No. We’ve been in here for quite a while.”
“Okay, good. Can you hold the phone to his ear?”
“He can’t talk. He can barely breathe.” Panicking, Gina switched the phone to her other ear so she could feel Trace’s pulse. “He’s bad.” She tried to focus. “He said to tell you to remember the island. The helicopter had someone else inside.”
She heard the sound of a keyboard clicking. “Any signs of blood or bruising?”
“None that I can see.” And since they had been naked in bed only minutes before, Gina would have seen them.
Trace tried to sit up, but she pushed him back down on the bed. “Steady, tough guy. Give it a minute.”
“Izzy?”
“That’s right. He said, ‘Joe’s Pizza.’”
Trace grimaced. “Tell him—he’s here…very close.”
“Who?” Gina asked.
But Izzy cut back onto the line and she repeated what Trace had said.
“Look at his collarbone.” Izzy sounded cold and very professional. “Don’t touch him, just look.”
Everything was getting very weird. When she looked at Trace’s shoulder, Gina saw a dark bruise that she could swear was new. A trail of blood dotted his skin. “He’s bleeding.”
Izzy didn’t sound surprised. “Okay, Gina, you need to do something for me. Touch the bruise. Tell me if you feel anything.”
She leaned closer to Trace. “I don’t want to hurt you,” she whispered.
Trace nodded, lines of pain scoring his face. At the center of the bruise she felt a ridge, as if something hard was wedged just beneath the skin.
“Push it down as far as you can,” Izzy said flatly.
“I can’t. It hurts him too much.”
“You have to, Gina.”
Gritting her teeth, she pressed her palm over Trace’s collarbone, feeling his muscles tighten against her. The pain had to be vicious, and she was only making it worse.
“Izzy, nothing happened.”
More keyboard clicking. Then he spoke quietly, calmly. “Get a knife. You’ll find one in the top drawer of his desk. Do you see it?”
“Found it. But I—”
Code Name: Bundle! Page 80
