by Lisa Hughey
I still wasn’t even sure what all the data meant.
“I’d been investigating a secret department within the NSA.”
“5491.” Jordan nodded.
I blinked. “You know about it?”
That was information I needed to think about.
“All of the people given the gene manipulation drug were from your 5491 list,” Zeke blurted.
That information gave me pause. “All of them?”
“Yeah.”
Jordan hesitated. “One of the...subjects died.”
“Brad Johnson.”
“Yeah.”
The circumstances of his death had been unusual. Although the press had reported the sensationally public death, reading between the lines I’d known more had been going on.
“He’d been engaging in serious risk-taking behavior,” Jordan said.
I laughed. Didn’t we all?
“His addiction to adrenaline was magnified by the effects of this drug. He literally took outrageous chances outside the realm of even his previous danger level.” Zeke paced around the room.
“Hello. Anyone who works in the espionage business is an adrenaline junkie.”
We stood in the foyer, Zeke off to the side, Jordan trying to make his posture as intimidating as possible.
“What will it take to convince you that this is in your best interests?” Jordan asked softly.
“Nothing,” I said. “If I go to the NSA my safety will be compromised.”
“No.”
“Yes,” I said emphatically. “Besides. Who’s to say they didn’t set me up in the first place?”
The sound of Linkin’ Park blared in the tiny alcove. We all jumped.
Zeke’s cell. He checked the display. “It’s Jamie.”
He stepped away to take the call, and all I could think about was GPS locators and wonder if this was the set up and they would take me in against my will.
I wouldn’t be able to fight them off.
“I need to go.” I appealed to Jordan, hoping he could do this last thing for me. “You found me. You delivered the information. I’m okay.”
“Fine.”
I relaxed momentarily. He was letting me go. Except, this was Jordan. I needed to consider what other angle he might be working.
“No following me.”
“No following.” He agreed.
I should be pleased, but the wash of disappointment was stronger and more intense than I’d expected.
“We both go,” he said.
The disappointment evaporated. “Alone.”
“Either we go together or you don’t get out of this hotel room.”
Resolutely I stiffened my spine. “Alone.”
“Not happening.”
Stalemate.
I leaned in closer and the slight scent of his lunch and the smell of his shampoo suddenly overwhelmed me.
God. The citrus-y odor from his hair surged through my senses, knocking into me like a tidal wave.
I couldn’t stand it.
Nausea welled uncontrollably. I ran for the tiny bathroom, arriving at the toilet just in time to expel the lovely soup I’d just consumed.
Over the sound of my vomiting, I heard Zeke say, “Are you fucking kidding me?”
TWENTY-ONE
Jordan hovered behind Staci, watching her spew her guts out.
He brushed the hair back from her face with one hand and grabbed a dry wash cloth with the other, trying to quell his own stomach as she threw up.
Turning on the hot water, quickly he dampened the cloth, then squeezed out the excess water. A myriad of emotions swirled through him as he tried to objectively observe her on the floor.
She looked...fragile.
Unlike the warrior woman he’d known before.
This bundle of bones and bravado was so far removed from his Staci he had trouble reconciling the two as the same woman.
He gently rubbed the warm cloth over her face. Her lashes lay like dark blond crescents against her splotchy skin. Tenderly he wiped at her mouth. “Okay?”
She withdrew into herself, like a turtle easing its head back into his shell. “Fine.”
She wasn’t fine. “How long have you been like this?”
Staci shrugged. “A month?”
“Since your captivity?” he pressed. “Or longer?”
“Honestly a lot of the last few months is a blur.”
“Are you keeping anything down?”
“Most days after about five o’clock I can eat and I’m okay. But that’s about it.”
He hadn’t been privy to all of the information about the gene manipulation drug. Most of his knowledge was secondhand or through eavesdropping.
His main focus had been to find Staci and bring her in for the antidote. “I don’t think anyone else has had that kind of reaction to the drug.”
“I think I picked up a bug somewhere between Afghanistan and the Bahamas.”
“You haven’t been to the doctor?”
“Right.”
She hated doctors. Hated them. Hated hospitals. Hated anything even remotely medical. She’d been a bear when she’d had to go for her physical. “I forgot.”
“Yeah. Well, I haven’t.”
She’d told him once that they reminded her of her grandparents. She’d been in the hospital recovering from a tonsillectomy when the police had come to notify her of their deaths.
The antiseptic smell would forever remind her of the horror of that day.
A surge of tenderness came over him so suddenly, he wanted to soothe, to offer comfort.
God, wasn’t that a weird vibe?
They hadn’t really done tenderness. They’d been passionate and romantic and heated and intense. They shared a love of fine clothes and fine food and a passion for commercial fiction and obscure non-fiction.
But there hadn’t been any real tenderness between them.
How could he have missed that? How was it that he never noticed the lack? And how could he feel this overwhelming need to soothe her when she opposed everything he tried to do for her?
Whatever he thought they’d had, whatever feelings and emotions he thought they’d shared, he had to accept that he’d been wrong.
The bond he’d thought they had didn’t exist.
He could mourn that loss later. What he’d really been trying to keep alive was the romantic ideal of their relationship. That was foolish and futile.
“It’s no big deal. It’ll work its way through my system, and I’ll be fine.”
The tenderness evaporated in a puff of total disgust.
“You’ll be dead.” He wiped at her face again, a little more roughly than before. “You need to go to a doctor--or you need the antidote. Preferably sooner rather than later.”
Zeke rushed over, pausing in the doorway to the tiny bathroom that could barely accommodate one and couldn’t even begin to hold three people.
“Great, just what I want. An audience,” she snarled.
Zeke ignored her. “We’ve got problems.”
“More?” Jordan couldn’t imagine things could get much worse, unless the guys following him, them, whoever, suddenly showed up at the suite’s door.
“That was Jamie.”
“Get on with it, surfer boy.”
Zeke blinked at her, half lying across the toilet. “Susan Chen escaped.”
“Knowing how difficult escaping is, I applaud her ingenuity.” She rested her arm on the toilet rim and closed her eyes, either totally ignoring or not computing the implications.
“Dammit.” Jordan swore.
“Who is Susan Chen and why do you care?”
“She’s the one who developed the drug and the antidote.”
“Again, why do you care?”
“Because she’s the only one who can make the antidote.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Staci yawned, her mouth wide open, jaw popping.
“You don’t understand.” Zeke said carefully. “Each antidote is tailored to the individual
DNA of the person who received the original drug.”
“So you’re telling me I can’t get this ‘antidote’ now?” Her attitude morphed into suspicion.
“I don’t know.” Zeke moved into the bedroom and began throwing clothes into a duffel bag.
Staci looked like she was thinking about getting up. “Did she really escape, or did they move her to a different facility?”
“The word from very high up is she escaped.”
“How high?”
“Carson Black.”
Staci froze at Carson’s name, just a quick pause. After that small giveaway, she didn’t acknowledge she knew Carson in any way.
“She had to have had help. No one escapes from federal detention without an inside contact.”
“David Armbruster himself is handling the interrogation.”
Staci processed the information slowly. “The Assistant Director of the NSA?”
Zeke nodded while he shoved toiletries into the bag. “We have to get out of here.”
“Yeah.” Jordan leaned against the doorjamb of the bathroom, appearing relaxed, arms crossed over his chest. But his muscles were bunched, his fists clenched.
Zeke stopped packing. “We can’t just leave. We need an exit plan.”
“Give the man a gold star.” Staci pushed off the toilet seat into a crouch before slowly standing up. Her movements told the story of how bad she really felt. She used to move fluidly, even gracefully. “If you were watching for someone, what would you do?”
Jordan reasoned out a surveillance plan. “I’d have one person in the security room monitoring the cameras. The others stationed at exits. We have to hope the security room has a block of monitors and the images rotate through all the floors.”
That would give them some wiggle room.
“Even if they have a photograph of you,” he pointed at Staci, “you’d be difficult to i.d. in your...present condition.”
That would work in their favor.
Jordan took her arm and led her into the little sitting room. “We need to split up.”
“I’m on my way to the West Coast.” Zeke headed for the door.
“Why the West Coast?”
“I’ve got to go see a chick named Sunshine. Since she’s not officially affiliated with any agency, I’m safe in going to protect her.”
“News, surfer boy, women don’t appreciate being called chick.”
“Yeah, well, I’m going to watch her not date her, so it doesn’t matter.”
“What does Sunshine have to do with any of this?” Staci’s tone was belligerent.
“Not a damn thing, but in case we’re wrong, Jamie thinks someone should keep an eye on the woman.”
Staci shrugged, but Jordan noted the line between her eyebrows eased.
“I should leave with Zeke,” Staci said.
“Over my dead body.”
She grabbed the file with the pictures from the prison. “It just may be.”
“Sorry, dude.” Zeke zipped up his bag. “I can’t be seen with Staci. If someone had physical evidence of me meeting with or being in the company of her, my life is over.”
She took a tentative step. “Mr. Melodrama over here.”
“Yeah. That’s me.” Zeke grimaced.
Jordan thought for a minute. “Okay. Before you go, we need to get into the room next door and order a wheelchair.”
“Dude. My B & E skills are a little rusty. Programmer here. Not super spy.”
“I can get you in,” Staci piped up.
“You aren’t going out the door until we’re ready to leave.”
“I can get you in without stepping out of this suite. No problem.”
“Hurry then. We don’t have much time.” Jordan efficiently packed toiletries and tossed them into a small leather backpack. “Zeke, you cannot leave this room until the chair is delivered. If they’re after you, one will follow and the other will search the room. We’ve all got to be gone.”
Staci went into the foyer and opened the closet door. On the back wall of the closet was a cleverly hidden pocket door. “Look in my messenger bag.”
Jordan dug through the pack on her back, and pulled out picks and handed them to her.
“Gotta love a woman who’s prepared.”
Staci grinned, and for a moment, the sparkle, the sheer life of her shone through her tired features.
Within a few minutes, she had opened the lock. Her hands were shaking as she silently put the picks back in their case.
Shit, just the effort to hold her arms up and steady had worn her out.
“Let me check it out before we go in.” Jordan eased into the suite on the other side of the pocket door, to find a mirror image of theirs.
He came back through a few seconds later. “We’re in luck. There are definitely people staying here, but it’s empty right now.”
He and Staci went into the other suite and closed the secret door.
Jordan picked up the phone and ordered a wheelchair from the housekeeping staff. He flipped open his cell and called Zeke. “We’re waiting for the delivery. Should be here in a few minutes.”
Zeke responded. “I’m wiping down any surface we touched. May not get everything, but if they decide to look for prints this will make the job a little more difficult.”
“Good idea.”
Jordan paced around the room, antsy to get gone.
“Where are you going?” Zeke asked.
“Not going to tell you.”
“Yeah, yeah. ‘Cause then you have to kill me.” Zeke laughed. “Jeez, I really want to be back in my little office playing with my software.”
Jordan heard the serious longing through the silly phrase. “Good luck.”
“Yeah,” Zeke replied soberly. “You too. Don’t take your eyes off of her, and don’t let her near your weapon.”
Jordan eyed Staci, perched on the chair by the executive desk looking frail and totally done in. “Shouldn’t be a problem.”
A knock on the door interrupted.
“Showtime. Wait for my signal.” Jordan pulled a twenty out of his pocket and headed for the door. “Get in the closet, just in case it isn’t housekeeping.”
She bobbed her head tiredly, went into the closet, and slid down the wall. He eased the door mostly closed.
Jordan settled his leather jacket over his belt holster and made sure he had unobstructed access.
The delivery of the chair turned out to be a non-event. The housekeeper was grateful for the twenty-buck tip, thanking Jordan profusely.
He slid the closet door open. Staci rested against the short wall, eyes closed, breathing slow and deep.
She was asleep.
He thought of all the times he’d woken her from sleep, early in the morning. Lying in bed together, savoring those few moments of total trust when she curled into him and rubbed her cheek gently against his bare shoulder. The longing for that closeness, that connection took him by surprise.
Jordan knelt down until his face was level with hers. For a moment, he just stared, taking in everything.
With an ache in his chest that wounded, he leaned over and brushed a soft kiss against her forehead. Goodbye.
“Time to wake up.”
He watched her eyelids lift slowly then stood before he could see her draw away again.
His heart couldn’t take the rejection.
TWENTY-TWO
Our exit plan went off without a hitch.
We took a cab to Grand Central Station using the camouflage of the wheelchair.
At the station, I pretended to be helpless, which totally grated on my nerves. Fuck. Even worse--I was somewhat helpless.
I wouldn’t admit the truth, but riding in the chair instead of putting one foot in front of the other had been a welcome respite.
I was a mess.
I could barely hold lock picks.
Couldn’t keep more than a minimum of food down, and when I placed my hand in Jordan’s, the clearly visible bones in my fing
ers shocked me.
I used to be a vibrant vital woman, and now I was a mere husk of my former self.
Jordan rolled me through the station quickly and with purpose. The historic building had gone through a major renovation, restoring the bustling transit center to its former glory.
As soon as we approached the doors on the other side, he rolled me down the hallway toward the bathrooms.
He pulled a black shirt out of his backpack and handed it to me. The material was silky and sensual. He also handed me a black Yankees ball cap. “Put this on, and meet me right back out here.”
I nodded, too tired to do more than acquiesce.
“I have a friend who’s a doctor,” he stated abruptly. “I’ll set it up. She should have the basics at her apartment. You should go to a hospital but....”
“Thanks,” I said, my voice raspy and raw.
I went into the dirty, dingy white-tiled bathroom. Guess the renovations didn’t extend in here...they probably ran out of money. I quickly shed my sweater, slipping the silk over my plain white tank top and knotting the tails at my waist.
The action reminded me of weekend mornings when I’d worn Jordan's cotton dress shirts, tying the tails over my naked body, reveling in the soft material against my bare skin. The cheeks of my ass hanging out the back gave Jordan a peek-a-boo show while we cooked a leisurely breakfast, or lunch if we’d stayed in bed extra long.
Then I’d felt sexy and invincible.
Now I was slowly fading away to nothing, becoming invisible.
He was right. I did need a doctor.
I threaded my hair through the back of the cap. Time to go. Grasping the door handle, I held myself still for a moment, listening to the creaks of my body, feeling as if I’d aged a hundred years. I took a deep breath and opened the door.
He was right where I’d left him, propped against the wall.
“I got a hold of my friend, Thea.” He snapped his cell shut quickly, his gaze shifting for a moment. “She’s going to come get us.”
We took another taxi to Rockefeller Center, stood beneath the flags and waited for his doctor friend. Jordan bought a pretzel for me from a street vendor.
The taste of salt burst on my tongue. God, it tasted good.
“Can you keep it down?”
“It’s usually better later in the day.”
His friend came roaring up in a Porsche 911. My impression was of dark, thick beautiful hair and radiant luminous skin before she turned her attention back to the crowded New York streets.
