Force of Nature

by Suzanne Brockmann

  “I’m sorry,” Jules said, his eyes now contrite. “And you’re right. I’m an idiot. But you’re still going to the hospital, where you’ll be safe.”

  Ric didn’t get a chance even to open his mouth to begin to argue.

  Because his doorbell rang.

  This was not good.

  This was very, very not good.

  Annie hit play, and Robin’s laptop computer ran the latest digital video, this one posted on a popular celebrity news website. In it, Jules was here, in this very hotel suite.

  “Tell your friends it’s time to go.” That was definitely Jules’s voice, even though it took the camera several moments to find him. And then there Jules was, wearing the same suit he’d worn to Gordon Burns’s party, sans tie.

  Whoever was filming him must’ve been using their cell phone, the quality was so poor.

  But they got a good close-up of him as he turned away from the sliders to the living-room balcony, as someone nearer to the phone’s mic said, “Robin Chadwick invited us here. Who the hell are you to tell us to leave?”

  It was then that Jules just stopped. He not only stopped moving, but he practically stopped breathing.

  Robin was sitting next to Annie, reading a printout of the impending accompanying TMZ article. “Look at how much he wants to just say it,” he breathed. “I’m his lover…”

  Annie glanced over to see that he’d looked up from the article and was transfixed by the image on the screen. By Jules.

  Tears gleamed in Robin’s eyes. “God, I wish he had,” Robin whispered.

  But Jules finally spoke. “I’m one of his producers,” he said. “I’m also a good friend. I make sure people don’t take advantage of him. Close the door on your way out.”

  The camera followed him as he headed toward the French doors that led into Robin’s bedroom. He disappeared through them.

  There was a cut, and the film jumped to an even grittier, lower-light shot of Jules, crouched next to Robin, who was facedown on the tile of the bedroom balcony.

  It must’ve been a woman holding the cell phone camera now. Her voice was clear as she spoke to Jules.

  He asked her about any drugs that Robin might’ve taken.

  She brought up Viagra, and the expression on Jules’s face was not that of a mere friend. The filmmaker knew it, and froze on it, zooming in as tightly as possible.

  Annie risked another glance at Robin, who’d started to cry. He didn’t cry the way he did in his movies, with one tear and then another sliding down his perfect face. Instead, he tried to hide it from her, wiping his eyes, trying to blink back all of his emotion.

  “I can’t believe I did that to him.” Robin’s voice shook. “What the fuck is wrong with me?”

  That was the end of the video, but the website included links to photos, as well as another video link—no doubt to the now infamous Robin Chadwick YouTube footage. Annie clicked on the first of the photos. It was a still of Robin and Jules. They looked to be standing on a soundstage, and Robin was wearing some kind of old-fashioned military uniform.

  “That’s from when we were filming American Hero,” he told her. “It was taken two years ago.”

  Jules looked the same, but Robin was obviously younger. He was much skinnier back then, his face more boyish and slender.

  In the photo, the two men were smiling at each other, as if sharing a joke. A private joke. Their gazes were locked, and their attraction was palpable.

  The second link led to a photo that must’ve been taken just seconds later. They were still standing in the same spot, but in this picture Jules had looked away while Robin still gazed at him. Neither man was smiling now, and the look of sheer longing on Robin’s face was heartbreaking.

  “I was in character,” Robin said. “I was playing Hal Lord, who was gay, and I was still in character.” He paused. “That’s what we’ll say.”

  Annie looked at him. “Or…you could tell the truth.”

  “I can’t.” Robin stood up, taking the article with him to the sofa. Annie had already read it, and it was all conjecture, but pretty damn accurate.

  She swiveled in her chair to face him. “Sure, you can.”

  “No”—Robin raised his voice—“I can’t.” He pressed his hand to his forehead. “God, I have a headache. I think I’m coming down with something.” He flipped open his cell phone and speed-dialed a number. “Yeah, Dolph,” he said into it, “it’s me. Here’s what we’re going to do. You call the reporter back, you identify Jules—his full name is Julian Young.” He spelled it for her. “You tell the reporter that he’s a friend of mine, that he’s a producer, that I’ve known him for several years.”

  Annie turned back to the computer as Robin continued speaking to Dolphina. She clicked the back button and clicked on the link to the second video.

  There was a pause while the computer downloaded it into Media Player and then…

  Oh, shit.

  This was not the video she’d expected.

  “Robin,” Annie said, “you better come look at this—right now!”

  “My cell service is down,” Ric reported.

  Jules’s Treo, too, was completely useless. “The signal’s being jammed,” he realized.

  Ric swore. “The landline’s dead.”

  It was, of course, Gordie Junior and three members of his goon squad, standing on Ric’s front stoop, ringing the doorbell again. The fact that they were here at dawn when Junior had just called to say they’d be delayed until noon was ominous. Disinformation, anyone?

  “Here’s what we’re going to do,” Jules decided. “You’re going out the back—”

  “Two more men on the back porch,” Ric informed him. “And e-mail’s not an option. They must’ve taken my cable out, too.”

  “You’ll have to hide,” Jules told him.

  “You think they won’t search for me?” Ric countered. “I say we play it like we don’t know they’ve taken out our phones. We’ve got the tracking device in the body…”

  That was assuming Junior was going to take the body with them. Of course, if they played it as Ric suggested, maybe he would.

  “Okay,” Jules said. “Get the door. I’m going to leave a message up here, for Yashi.”

  Ric nodded and headed downstairs.

  Jules stood in Ric’s bedroom, trying to think.

  Really, the only piece of information that Yashi wouldn’t have was the time of day that Junior had shown up. But how to tell him that without leaving something as obvious as a note—something Junior’s men might find if they searched the place.

  Over on Ric’s nightstand, his alarm clock’s LED display switched from 5:22 to 5:23.

  As Jules heard Ric opening the door and greeting Junior—“Man, it is so good to see you”—he went across the room and set Ric’s alarm for 5:22 A.M. There was a notepad on the table, right next to the clock, and a pen that Jules used to write with.

  He made a short To-Do list. Get milk. Clean bathroom. Set alarm. Go to Post Office.

  “I broke away much earlier than I expected.” Junior’s voice carried up from the office. “Where’s Julian?”

  “Right here.” Jules came down the stairs. “Hey, I thought you had a situation that was going to keep you until noon.”

  “It got itself handled,” Junior told him. “I figured since we just spoke on the phone, you’d be up. I tried calling you back but the fucking cell service is down. Some dipshit must’ve hit a tower.”

  Or some dipshit—like Junior himself—had access to a signal jammer. Jules’s hair was standing up on the back of his neck, but he made himself smile. He had no doubt now that Junior had somehow found out that Ric and Jules were a threat. There was something about the man’s eyes, the way he was standing, the tone of his voice…Junior knew. But he was playing it like he didn’t, so Jules played along. “Well, thanks for coming,” he said.

  “No problem.” The men who were with Junior were all young—younger than the men in the security team Jules h
ad seen at the Burns Point party. They were dressed for the beach, or maybe a fishing trip out on Myakka River—Hawaiian shirts hanging open over barely concealed shoulder holsters and weapons aplenty. “So where the body?” Junior asked.

  “In my office,” Ric answered, pointing toward the closed door.

  “Get it ready to travel,” Junior ordered, and two of his men went to do just that, closing the door behind them.

  “Ric was asking her about some missing money, and the gun went off.” Jules volunteered the information, but Junior wasn’t interested.

  “Whatever.” He smiled at Jules and Ric. “My boy Donny here’s gonna pat you down and check you for wires. It’s something I learned from Daddy. I check out my own boys every time we meet up. It’s just my thing, so no offense.”

  “None taken,” Jules said, watching Donny run his hands down Ric’s jeans-clad legs—he’d come downstairs bare-chested.

  “You want me to run upstairs and get you a shirt, bro?” Jules asked Ric.

  Maybe if they stalled in a major way, the teams assigned to watch and follow would arrive in time to do their jobs.

  “Yeah,” Ric said. “Thanks,” but Junior thwarted that plan.

  “Go upstairs and grab him something to wear,” he told the goon in the purple shirt, who immediately thundered up the stairs.

  It was more than obvious, from the amount of time he was gone, that he was making sure there was no one else up there, and that they’d left no notes or messages behind.

  Meanwhile, Donny tossed Ric’s cell phone onto Annie’s desk.

  “I kind of need that,” Ric said. “I know it’s not working right now, but—”

  “No technology,” Junior said. “I like you guys, you know I do, but with people using phones these days to take picture and movies…? You can live without your phones for a couple hours.”

  Jules took his own phone and handed it to Donny, then spread his legs and put his hands on Annie’s desk. He’d always hated getting patted down, but Donny, though thorough, was quick. He ran a bug sweeper over them both, then…

  “Check out the body,” Junior ordered him, adding, “No offense.”

  “It’s clear you’ve got a system down,” Jules said, praying that the hot new technology that the FBI had used so they could track the body was as hot and new as promised.

  And sure enough, Donny was back in a flash. “It’s all good,” he told Junior, holding the door for the other two men, who’d rolled the dead woman in Ric’s area rug. Junior held the outside door, and they trotted out to the van that was in the driveway, just behind a shiny new Lexus.

  Purple Shirt came downstairs, carrying…Jules’s windbreaker?

  “That’s mine,” Jules said. “It’s not going to fit him.” Stall. Stall.

  But Purple held it up. It was loose on Jules and it looked as if it would fit Ric just fine.

  “It’s just until we get on the boat,” Junior said. “While we’re out on the water, you’re going to wanna work on your tan, anyway. I got a bit of a time crunch, so we’re going to have to get moving. So let’s do it.”

  He led the way, and with Donny behind them, there was nothing left to do but walk out the door, sans weapons, sans phones.

  Ric gave stalling one more try as he pulled on Jules’s jacket. “Guys, I just woke up. I really gotta take a leak before we drive all the way to Myakka.”

  Junior turned to Donny in exasperation. “Go with him.”

  He put himself between Jules and Annie’s desk—where their phones had been left—as Donny followed Ric into the office bathroom. They kept the door open, and it was clear Ric hadn’t been lying about needing to go, at least.

  Still, when he came back out, the look he shot Jules was unhappy.

  “How far is it to Myakka?” Jules asked as they got into the Lexus with Junior and Donny. One of the other men, a skinhead, squeezed into the backseat with Jules and Ric. “I’ve never been.”

  “Yeah,” Junior said as Donny, behind the wheel, pulled out of the drive, following the van. “Change of plans. Myakka’s too crowded this time of year. We’re going to do a little deep-sea fishing instead.”

  Swell. But not unexpected.

  Junior turned to face them from the front passenger seat, two cups of coffee in his hands. “You boys want Starbucks? We picked up a couple extra on our way over.”

  As if they were going to drink anything that Junior offered them. “No. Thanks, though.” Jules kept his voice light.

  “I’m good,” Ric said. “I had a little too much caffeine yesterday.”

  Junior laughed. “No such thing, in my book.” He took a sip from one of the cups.

  So much for the poison-in-the-Starbucks theory.

  Still, despite the friendly show Junior was putting on for them, Jules knew—he knew—that their cover had been blown. And unless someone was constantly monitoring the movement of their dead body, it was possible that Ric and Jules were going to disappear as completely as Peggy Ryan had.

  He should have broken Ric’s arm instead of spending all that time arguing with him about whether he should or shouldn’t’ve gone to the safety of the hospital.

  He should have made Junior break down the door, instead of opening it for him.

  He should have met the bastard with a hail of bullets.

  He should have knocked on Robin’s door a year ago—why the hell had he waited so long to see him again, anyway? Stupid arbitrary rule—it shouldn’t have mattered that Robin was in the closet. What mattered was that Robin loved him.

  He should have called Robin last night and told him that he loved him, too.

  Because now it was looking more and more likely that that was something Robin would never get the chance to hear.

  Robin’s hands were shaking so badly, he almost dropped his cell phone. But he sat down next to Annie, which helped him gain his equilibrium, as he hung up on Dolphina and dialed Jules’s cell.

  Annie was using her own phone to try to reach Ric.

  Because there, under someone’s amateurish cell phone video footage of Jules running toward a house from which people were firing rifles at a crowd of police and FBI, was the identifying caption Federal Agent Jules Cassidy—Heroics Under Fire.

  Jules’s voicemail picked up. “Cassidy. Leave a message and I’ll get right back to you.”

  “Jules! Jesus, your cover’s been blown,” Robin said. “Call me—please, God, call me right back!”

  As he hung up, Annie was leaving a similar message for Ric. “I’m trying Martell,” she told him when she was done.

  “Do you have what’s-his-name’s number?” Robin asked. “Yashi.”

  Annie shook her head. “No, I’ve always called Jules directly. Ric had Yashi’s…Damn it, Martell’s not picking up either. Martell, it’s Annie. Call me.”

  “Should I call 911?” Robin dialed Jules again, as on the computer screen the video footage showed Jules skidding to a stop next to an injured man who was wearing some kind of police uniform. He grabbed the enormous man beneath the arms and hauled him to safety. God, he had balls…

  “That might make it worse.” Annie’s voice was shaking, too. If Junior saw this video…“Ric was certain someone on the police force was on Burns’s payroll.”

  Robin was again bumped to Jules’s voicemail. He cut the connection and dialed information. “I need to speak to an operator,” he told the computer system when it asked him which city and state.

  Annie, meanwhile, was digging in her handbag for something.

  His phone’s call waiting beeped, and his heart leaped, but it was only Dolphina. Robin stayed on his call, ignoring her. He was rewarded as, miraculously, a real, living person spoke into his ear. “May I help you?”

  “Please,” he said. “I need the number for the FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. I’m trying to reach an FBI official named Max Bhagat.” He spelled Max’s last name for her since it was tricky with that extra h.

  But of course, Jules’s boss wasn’t
on any phone list available to the public. “I’m sorry,” the operator told him. “I don’t have…”

  “Can you just give me some kind of main number for the FBI,” he implored. “It’s an emergency, so please hurry.”

  Annie had found what she was searching for—a business card. She was dialing a number off the card, and when she was done, she saw that Robin was watching, so she showed it to him.

  Sam Starrett, he read, Troubleshooters Incorporated. It included the company’s California address and phone number.

  “It’s the middle of the night in San Diego,” he told Annie as his call waiting beeped again. Again, it was only Dolphina and again he ignored her call.

  “I know,” Annie said. “I’m getting sent to some kind of voicemail system. Shhh, there’s a message—maybe there’s an emergency number…”

  Robin stayed silent, praying as he waited for the operator to give him the FBI’s main phone number, but Annie too quickly shook her head no. “No luck,” she said, but then left a message. “Hi, my name is Annie Dugan, I’m a civilian working in Florida on an important case with FBI agent Jules Cassidy. I can’t reach him and I’ve just discovered that his cover has been blown in a huge way. He’s in terrible danger. If you get this message, please contact anyone you can think of who might be able to help him…”

  “Shall I connect you directly?” the operator asked.

  “Yes,” Robin said, “but give me the number, too.” He wrote it down on the TMZ article as she rattled it off.

  Whatever number she’d connected him to rang. And rang and rang. He looked at his phone—it was barely 5:30 in the morning. “Come on,” he said. “Someone be there…”

  There was a knock on his door—it was, no doubt, Dolphina, pissed that he’d not only hung up on her, but was ignoring her repeated calls.

  Good, he could enlist her help. “I need you to call the White House,” he said as he unlocked the chain and opened the door. “I want to talk to the—”