by Ana Barrons
“Step outside, pal,” the taller one said. “And keep your hands in the air.”
“What are you, cops?” John said. “I didn’t do nothin’. I’m in here with my lady, you know?”
“Yeah? Well step outside anyway.”
“Fuck.” John stepped out of the van in his boxers and suppressed a smile at the surprised looks on the men’s faces. He raised his hands. “I’m fucking freezing, okay? What do you want to do, take a look at my dick?”
The shorter guy turned to his friend. “Jesus Christ, Sal. The guy’s telling the truth. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“Let’s see your woman,” the tall guy said. “Get her out here.”
“No fucking way. You want to talk to her, talk to her through the door.”
“I want to see her for myself.”
John called back over his shoulder. “Rita! Put something on and get your ass out here.”
The shorter man was murmuring something to the tall one, but the tall one told him to shut the fuck up, they had to make sure it wasn’t Ms. Duncan.
“Rita!” John called again.
“Fine!” Rita snapped from behind him. She’d wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and was moving awkwardly. Rather than get all the way out, she knelt at the door. “Happy now?”
The tall one smirked. “Step outside, lady.”
“What, do you want a fucking peepshow? Okay, here you go.” She opened the blanket and revealed naked breasts. John knew he would owe her big-time for this. “That better be good enough, because I’m not getting out of this van, and for your information, I already called the police, so you boys better get out of here fast.” She pulled the blanket around her.
John had no doubt Rita had a gun in the hand wrapped up in the blanket, and that she could get off the first shot if it came to that.
The short guy tugged on his friend’s arm. “Let’s go, Sal.”
“I don’t suppose you have a brunette in there with you?” the tall guy asked. “Knockout, real wet?”
John snorted. “Don’t I wish.”
“Fuck you,” Rita said, and started to pull the van door closed.
John grabbed the door and turned to the guys. “Can I go in now? Are you done here?”
The tall guy was still pointing a gun at him. Maybe Rita had gone too far after all. But a few seconds later, he stuck his gun back in his belt and the two men walked away.
Once inside the locked van, John pulled a blanket off the techs and wrapped himself in it, then crawled over to Hannah. Her eyes were closed.
“She’s still shivering,” one of the techs said. “I called for backup when you were outside. We’ll meet the car not too far from here, and they’ll take her to the hospital. Then we’ll set up someplace else to listen.”
“Sounds good,” John said. “I don’t suppose they’ll have any extra clothes with them.”
“Yeah, I told them to bring you both some sweats or something.” He smiled. “I told them they shouldn’t say FBI on them.”
“Good thinking. Meanwhile, grab a blanket. I need some dry clothes so I can drive us out of here. For all we know those guys are waiting for us around the corner.”
The kid grimaced and pulled his grungy sweatshirt over his head.
Rita took the dry sweats and a thick jacket from the agent driving the backup car and ordered the two techs into the front seat with John. She pulled the curtain closed and started to unwrap the blanket Hannah was wrapped in, but Hannah snatched it back.
“Just leave the clothes with me,” Hannah said. “I don’t need your help.”
Rita had the grace to look ashamed. “I’m so sorry. I underestimated on the backup. If I’d had any idea things would go so badly, I never would have—”
“Save it.” Hannah pulled on the sweats, the thick socks and sneakers and the parka and stood up. “I want the car to take me home. I don’t need to go to the hospital, and I don’t want anyone to come with me.”
“You can’t go home alone,” Rita said. “Bradshaw will have sent someone to your house by now. They’re probably waiting for you. We can get you a hotel room for the night and figure out where to go from there.”
“All my stuff is at my house, and that’s where I’m planning to sleep. If you try to stop me, I’ll call the police. Got that, Rita?”
Rita hung her head. “Please, Hannah. Don’t do this. These men are ruthless.”
“Guess you should have thought of that earlier.”
There was a knock at the door. Rita brushed by her and opened it. Hannah didn’t have to turn around to know who it was. Tears threatened, but she steeled herself.
“Ready, Hannah?” John said.
“Do you have a plastic bag or something for my wet clothes?” she asked Rita.
“They’re rags,” Rita said. “They were torn when you got in here, and then I had to cut your skirt off, so… I’m sorry. We’ll replace them, of course.”
“I want them back,” Hannah said. “I don’t want the FBI pawing through them.” She didn’t want to look at John. As it was, she was struggling to keep her emotions under control. After a moment he mumbled something to Rita about waiting in the car and left. Hannah moved to the door.
“He was right, you know,” Rita said. “John, I mean. It was a mistake, but I just didn’t see it. None of us did.”
“When did he come into it?”
“Into the FBI?”
Hannah stopped breathing. Ever since she’d overheard them talking and witnessed the charade John and Rita had put on for Thornton’s men, she’d assumed the FBI had simply recruited John to help them nail Bradshaw. It had hurt to discover that he’d been part of the setup all along and had kept it from her, but she’d never even considered the other possibility.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“I don’t know. Eight or nine years, I guess.”
Hannah lowered herself to the bench.
Eight or nine years. With the FBI. John Emerson is an FBI agent.
“He’s a criminal psychologist,” Rita said. “With a doctorate. He would have ended up a profiler if he hadn’t just screwed up big-time. But then again, the backup was on the far side of the estate, so if John hadn’t gone out after you… Maybe they’ll go easy on him.”
Hannah closed her eyes. It had all been a lie. John Emerson wasn’t a writer, he was an FBI agent with a doctorate in psychology. He didn’t give a damn about those kids who looked up to him, or the fact that an old man believed he was writing a book about his school. And he didn’t give a damn about her. He’d led her on a merry chase, flattered and seduced her—and she’d fallen for his act. One hundred percent. She’d been fantasizing about living with him, having his children.
Only now it appeared that she had fallen in love with a man who didn’t even exist.
Chapter Twenty
Hannah didn’t say a word in the car, and John didn’t push it. He had lied to her, and she had a right to be angry. He could deal with that. What he couldn’t take was the fact that he had hurt her. God help him, but he would never in his life forget the look in her eyes when she stepped out of that van. Santini was holding on to her arm, and he’d heard her tell the driver that Hannah had thrown up inside. Hannah had barely glanced at him when he suggested she sit up front so she didn’t get car sick, but in that split second he had seen the grief in her eyes, and he knew he’d put it there.
Just before they got to the hospital, where John planned to take her regardless of what she said, Hannah told the driver to pull over. Assuming she was going to be sick, he did so immediately, even though it was a busy street. She jumped out of the car before John could get his door open and walked several feet to a waiting cab, climbed in the front seat, and the driver peeled off.
“Aw, shit,” the other agent said, banging his fist on the steering wheel. “Why’d she do that?” He pulled away from the curb and took off after the cab, in the process cutting off an SUV with a squeal of brakes and an angry horn.
Up ahead, the cab raced through a light that was now red. The agent passed the cars stopped at the light and entered the intersection with his hand pressed to the horn to warn the driver of a red pickup approaching from his left. The man stuck his hand out the window and flipped him the finger while shouting some suggestions about where to put it.
“I wonder how she thinks she’s going to pay the cabbie,” the agent said. “He’s going to expect a nice tip for driving like a— Did you see that? The bastard’s going to get her killed with all that weaving in and out! Damn. She’s in the front seat, right? Maybe she’s giving him a—”
“Don’t you even think it, you stupid shit,” John said between his teeth.
“Take it easy, Daly, I was just kidding.”
If the guy hadn’t been driving, John probably would have taken a swing at him. “Just drive the fucking car and keep your comments to yourself.”
The phone was ringing when Hannah walked into her cottage to get the credit card for the cabbie, and it was still ringing when she came back inside, but she made no move to answer it. She locked the door behind her, checked that the kitchen door was locked, swept her eyes over the rooms and headed for the bathroom.
She locked the bathroom door, then turned the shower on hot, pulled off the sweats the FBI had given her and stepped under the jets. The last time she’d showered had been that morning, with John. The pain of the memory was so sharp she doubled over, then sank to the bottom of the tub and pulled her knees up to her chin.
Oh, John, what did you do to me?
So passionate…her perfect lover. She squeezed her thighs together as the memories of their lovemaking poured into her consciousness, as though somehow by squeezing she could keep the bottom from falling out. Then she leaned against the side of the tub and cried.
She cried because she loved him, even now, and it was his arms she wanted around her, to comfort her. Just like when she was a child and her father pushed her away from him, and the housekeeper had tried to comfort her, but no one else’s arms would do. John Emerson couldn’t heal her, because he wasn’t real. He was a figment of the FBI’s boundless and insidious imagination. Was John Emerson even his name?
Her hot-water heater was small, and within a few minutes the water had gone cold. She pushed the shower curtain aside and grabbed a towel to dry off. The tub faced the mirror over her medicine cabinet, and she spotted a couple of small love bites on her breasts, beside nipples that were bright red from John’s sucking and squeezing. As long as she lived, she would never forget what it was like to make love with him. That knowledge made her unbearably sad. Because it meant she would always miss his touch, his kisses, the feel of his body moving over and inside of hers. It meant she would never really get over him.
She towel-dried her hair, slipped into her terry bathrobe and went into the kitchen. The phone was ringing again, but she ignored it. There was no one she wanted to talk to.
Except John.
She pushed that thought aside and reached for the cognac. With a large snifter held tightly between her palms, she went back into the living room and stared into the cold fireplace. The only light in the room came from a small table lamp she had left on when she went out earlier. She settled into her recliner to sip her cognac and try to find a calm place inside her where she could curl up and grieve.
Tears continued to roll down her cheeks, and she didn’t fight it. There was plenty to mourn for besides John Emerson, whoever he really was. Ty would most likely lose his father to the prison system—if not now, eventually.
Grange School might not survive without Thornton’s backing, but then, she’d known that going in. She would turn the reins of the school over to a successor and look for another job, maybe on the West Coast, where there would be no memories of John Emerson or Thornton Bradshaw or the FBI to haunt her. And she would find a little house that hadn’t been violated by some stalker.
When she heard the footsteps on the front porch and the banging on the door she felt afraid, but not of being shot or stabbed or dragged off. She was afraid it was John…and she was afraid it wasn’t. One more sip, and she set the snifter on the end table, rose and went to the door. There was no peephole, and she didn’t have the energy to call out, so she just pulled the door open.
John stood before her, snow on his hair and the shoulders of his jacket, hands in his pockets, an expression on his face she’d never seen before. In that moment, with the snow falling silently behind him and the porch light catching the angles of his face, she could almost believe he was for real. Almost.
“Get dressed,” he said. “We don’t have much time.”
“Go away. You don’t exist.”
He looked down at the porch for a second, then back at her. “I often feel that way, never so much as right now. But we don’t have time for this.”
“You’ve done your job and I’ve done mine. Just leave me alone.” She started to push the door closed but he stopped it with one hand.
He shook his head. “I won’t let it end this way. And I don’t give a damn about busting Thornton Bradshaw. I had nothing to do with that investigation. Just let me in and—”
She shoved at the door, though she knew it was pointless. John Emerson got what he wanted, and if he wanted to come into her house he would, even if he had to break the door down. But she wasn’t going to give in without a fight.
“If you step inside this house, I’ll call the police.”
That got his other hand up, and the next thing she knew, he’d wedged his body between the door and the frame. “Don’t make threats you don’t intend to follow through on. You’re an educator, you ought to know that.” He slipped inside, but not before she jammed his hand in the door. “Goddamn it! You did that on purpose!”
“Damn straight, I did.” She was breathing hard from the exertion. “I’ll go call the police now.” He grabbed her before she could turn all the way around, and held her by her upper arms.
“Look me in the eyes,” he demanded. “And tell me it was all a lie. Go ahead. Tell me I can walk out that door and never think of you again.”
Tears welled up, but thank God she was angry now, and her pride was kicking in. “What more do you want from me?” she shouted. “I’ve done my civic duty, and I’ve certainly kept you entertained while you were on the job.”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh please, John! Or is that even your name? Whoever the hell you are, you took what you wanted from me—or wasn’t it enough? Did you come back for a quickie?”
He pulled her roughly to him and held her tightly in his arms. She flailed, tried to push him away, cursing him. He whispered her name into her damp hair, squeezing her closer. Would anyone ever hold her like this again, as though he would rather die than let her go?
“Don’t do that, damn it,” she said.
“Do what?”
“Act like you’re hurting too.”
He pulled his head back and tipped her face up between his hands, letting her see the pain in his red-rimmed eyes. And his anger, which was never far from the surface. “I had no part in this investigation, Hannah.”
She pulled his hands off her and stepped back. “Yeah, right.” Her voice was scratchy and thick with tears.
He took a step closer. “If I’d known about it, I would have talked you out of it. I would have tied you up or kidnapped you to keep you from going through what you went through tonight.”
She shook her head. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
There was a fierce light in his eyes. “It makes perfect sense and you know it. You’re an intuitive woman. You knew my instinct would be to protect you, no matter how good a reason the FBI might have given you to sacrifice yourself.”
She squeezed the sides of her head with he
r palms. “Stop this. Stop trying to confuse me, damn you.” She pulled her robe closer around her. “Why did you come here, then, pretending to be a writer?”
He ran a hand over his face and pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s a long story, and we really don’t have time to go into it right now. I’m taking you away from here. We’ve already wasted enough time.”
“You think I’m just going to take off with you? Are you nuts?”
He shrugged. “You think I’m going to leave you here to wait for Bradshaw and his cronies to show up?”
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said. “No matter what Thornton may have done, he won’t hurt me.”
John threw his head back. “Hah! Honey, your naiveté never ceases to amaze me. Your good friend Thornton’s connected with organized crime, remember? You think he calls all the shots? Well, think again.”
“I’m not afraid of him.”
“Well, you should be.” He pulled a flat box out of the inside pocket of his coat. “And then there’s the little matter of the stalker, remember him? Here’s the scarf I told you about. The one you didn’t want to see the other day.”
She pulled the top off the box and stared at the delicate gold scarf.
“A thing of beauty to match your eyes, my lovely Belle. Signed B. like last time.”
She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. “How does he know what color my eyes are?”
“Anyone who’s ever seen you would remember the color of your eyes,” John said. “They’re an unusual color. Amber. Like tigers’ eyes.”
She looked away. “My mother’s eyes were the same color.”
He took the box from her and set it on the mantle, then grasped her shoulders. She closed her eyes, but didn’t pull away.
“Look at me,” he said.
“I don’t want to.” Why did he have to keep touching her? Didn’t he know how much she was going to miss his touch? The lump in her throat thickened.
“It’s no coincidence that the scarf matches your mother’s eyes as well as yours.”
“What are you talking about?”
