Crazy Cool

by Tara Janzen

  “I know, honey. Here, try this—lift your chest, don’t collapse your lungs.” He demonstrated, then moved his hand to her sternum and gently pushed upward. “Yoga could help, or medication. Have you tried medication?”

  “I’ve got a record.”

  That got his attention.

  “A criminal record?” His brows furrowed.

  “In France.” She nodded, her breaths still coming short and shallow. Next, she was going to cry, which really sucked, but there wasn’t a whole lot she could do about it. It was an old, familiar cycle: stop breathing, start crying, get all fucked up.

  “For what?” To his credit, he had the decency to sound absolutely incredulous.

  “Escapee.”

  The change that came over him was very sudden, very frightening. “What did she fucking do to you, Kat?” His voice was harder than granite. “Where did she send you in Paris?”

  “The Bettencourt School for Girls. Actually, it was more like a prison, a very exclusive, very expensive prison for les incorrigibles. Well, no, I guess, actually, it was more like an asylum. They locked us in our rooms at night and gave us lots of medications, and I—” She stopped for a second, tried to think of the right words, but there was no coming up with the right words for what she was trying to say. “I didn’t do so well on the drugs, but she thought, she actually thought I was insane for loving you—and now . . . now here I am, loving you all over again, and I—and I can’t breathe.”

  HAWKINS felt like his skin was on fire, like his hair was in flames. Her mother had committed her to an insane asylum? It was amazing, for someone who was on fire, how coolly he could weigh the costs and benefits of assassinating a United States senator. He could take Marilyn Dekker out. He wasn’t the shot Kid was, but he could take her out.

  But where would that leave Kat? he wondered, still so coolly assessing, still with his head, and his skin, and his heart in flames.

  Probably worse off, he decided. An assassinated mother, even a monster of a mother, would be too heavy a burden to bear.

  “Okay,” he said, his voice amazingly calm. “So here’s what we do. We chuck all this and move into a little thatched hut in Bora-Bora. We live on fish, and fruit, and canned ham—they love canned ham in the islands—and we spend our days swimming and rubbing coconut oil on each other, and that’s all we do, forever, for the rest of our lives.”

  She just looked at him, no doubt struck dumb by his brilliance, or something, because she wasn’t saying a word, until she suddenly burst into tears and threw herself into his arms, knocking him backward into the bed.

  He caught her, and he held her, and he let her cry, and cry, and cry, and he let her use his sheets to wipe her eyes, and her nose, and God knows what, because he had plenty of clean sheets, and he only had one Kat.

  CHAPTER

  22

  THE WORLD SMELLED faintly of paint . . . and jasmine. Kid stirred and immediately knew he was lying in silk sheets. They slid across his skin, nearly as soft and fine as the woman wrapped in his arms.

  He bent his neck, kissed the top of her head, rubbed his lips through the softness of her hair. Precious, precious woman. She’d saved him in the night. He still felt awful, but he didn’t feel like he was dying, and because of her, he no longer felt like he wanted to die.

  They’d come to her studio last night and made a bed on the floor, but not until she’d fed him. He’d kind of forgotten about food for a couple of days, and eating had been enough to restore him a little. Sharing the food with her, having her straddle his lap and kiss him while they ate, had been the real ticket, though. Being with Nikki made him feel like he was part of something bigger than himself, and that had been healing.

  He’d had girls before, but with Nikki he wasn’t alone, and he didn’t know what else to call that except love. He loved her, every square inch of her, inside and out and all the way down to the bottom of her soul.

  She snuggled against him, still so very asleep. A soft rain pattered on the windows, with only a gray morning light slanting in low to the floor.

  Dylan wouldn’t be wasting any time in Washington. The one thing Kid remembered him saying was that he’d be back in less than twenty-four hours. Other than that, he hadn’t made any guarantees.

  That was fine.

  Kid didn’t need anybody’s guarantees or the U.S. government’s approval. With food and the first decent sleep he’d had in weeks, he felt like his head was finally getting back on straight. He knew what he had to do in order to be able to live with himself. General Grant and the Defense Department were just going to have to back off and let him do it.

  Skeeter had told him yesterday that Creed was out of the picture. It could be weeks, even months, before he was cleared for deployment—which meant more than ever that he needed to talk to Superman. That’s what he needed to do—but not this morning.

  This morning he needed Nikki.

  Needed her like his next breath.

  Pulling the sheets up over them, he settled deeper into his pillow, buried his nose in her hair, and just breathed her in, filled himself with her, with the softness of her skin and the sweet, sleek strength of her body lying so close to his.

  NIKKI woke to the feel of his hand sliding down the middle of her back. She woke to the heated strength of his body and the knowledge that she might never get enough of him.

  He’d talked to her in the night, whispered to her of love, of need, and of his brother. He’d told her about J.T., how he’d lived, how wild he’d been, about the chop shop on Steele Street, about how he’d grown up to be a Force Recon Marine, before he’d hooked back up with Dylan and Hawkins, with Quinn and Creed, and once—just once—he’d spoken of vengeance, of going back to Colombia and finishing the job that had gotten his brother killed.

  It had scared the hell out of her. It still did. She’d been a total fool to get involved with him, to give him her heart, because he was going to break it into a thousand separate pieces, and she wasn’t sure if she had the strength to survive that. Her parents had died in South America eighteen years ago, and she was still dealing with that mess.

  She painted, she created. Her whole life was about exploring acts of creation—and she’d fallen in love with a man who was capable of defining the force of destruction, a man who intended to become a force of destruction.

  How had that happened?

  And how was she ever going to let him go, knowing what he’d be going into?

  His stomach growled, and in spite of her fears, she grinned against his chest.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “Starving,” he admitted.

  “Come on, then, before we get distracted.” She gave him a quick kiss and pushed herself up off the bed, reaching for his hand. He’d lost so much weight, she wanted to feed him even more than she wanted to make love to him.

  At least that’s what she thought until he stood up and stretched, his arms over his head, his feet apart in the pile of midnight blue silk sheets.

  Oh, wow.

  “Don’t . . . move,” she said, backing toward her camera shelf. Grabbing a 35mm, she quickly checked it for film, then grabbed a digital as well and slipped the strap over her head.

  “Ah, Nikki, come on,” he said, half a grin curving his mouth. “You can’t . . . oh, come on.” He blushed and turned his back to her as she started firing away. “Nik, really. I’m naked.”

  “Precisely, beautifully.” She worked her way around him, her camera eating up film.

  He kept turning, until he just gave up and faced her, planting his hands on his hips and all but daring her to take his picture.

  She loved it.

  After a second of holding his ground, he got all embarrassed again and put one hand over his face—classic. Then he dragged his hand up through his hair—even better than classic. Then he came after her.

  “Kid,” she squealed, laughing as she nimbly dashed around the small table she had set up in the kitchen corner of the studio. It wasn’t much
of a contest, though. With a couple of moves, he trapped her between the refrigerator and the sink, and food suddenly plummeted to the bottom of his priority list, at least for a moment.

  He picked her up, and she wrapped her legs around his waist, while looking down and kissing his face. In between kisses, she took her cameras off and set them on the counter.

  He was so sweet, his mouth so sweet. She kissed his lips, his cheeks, the side of his nose, ran her lips over his eyebrows, those wild eyebrows that gave his face such a hawklike countenance.

  Stepping backward, he sat down on the kitchen chair with her straddling his lap again.

  “Food, wench,” he growled against her skin, biting her neck.

  She giggled and leaned over to open the fridge. “We’ve got pudding cups and—uh—pudding cups. I’ll call for a pizza.”

  “At nine o’clock in the morning?” He looked up.

  “Pizza Courier delivers twenty-four/seven,” she said, reaching a little farther for the phone.

  A speed-dial connected her, and a couple of minutes later, an extra-large pepperoni, sausage, and Canadian bacon Chicago-style pizza was scheduled for a nine-thirty A.M. delivery.

  “You know the drill,” she said into the receiver, opening the fridge back up and grabbing the carton of pudding cups. “Put it on my tab, give yourself a five-dollar tip, knock once, and go away.”

  “You’ve got rules for pizza delivery?” Kid asked.

  “Sure do, cowboy.” She hung up the phone and ripped the covering off one of the cups, then ran her tongue over the inside of the foil. “When I’m working, I don’t like to break the mojo, don’t want to chitchat with the pizza boys, just want my food, so I set up an account, and they bill me once a month.”

  “Sweet,” he said.

  “Mmmm,” she agreed, dipping a spoon in the pudding and holding it to his mouth.

  He took the first bite, and the next, and the next, until she ripped the lid off the third cup. Then she took about every fourth bite, while they worked their way through another two cups. By the time they’d finished all the pudding and she got half a pizza down him, he’d made love to her again and fallen back asleep on the pile of silk sheets.

  Then she got out her cameras and got serious.

  THE house was in an uproar, maids opening up long-closed rooms and whole wings of rooms, phones ringing with last-minute organizing, caterers scurrying, staffers everywhere. Big Jon and Lily Beth Traynor were back in Denver, and their first political event of the season—a campaign kickoff for Marilyn Dekker—was due to begin in just a few short hours, a fact which did not in any way interfere with Big Jon’s regular morning ritual.

  Albert watched as the older man poured himself a tumbler of whiskey and set about inebriating himself for the day. The bedroom suite was on the west side of the house, overlooking the south gardens and the glassed-in pool house where Albert had often swum as a teenager with the other Wellon Academy kids.

  “You see the paper yet this morning?” Big Jon asked, then in typical style didn’t wait for an answer. “Damn shame about Ted Garraty.”

  “Yes, sir. A damn shame.”

  Big Jon’s hair had long since turned white, but he was still broad through the shoulders and handsome in a beefy, big-man way. Jonathan had been far more delicately built, almost slight, and at eighteen had still been inches shorter than his six-foot-two-inch father. He’d also been far less driven, possibly his biggest fault in Big Jon’s eyes—but then there’d been so many faults, all of them announced in Big Jon’s booming voice, repeatedly, year after year, until Jonathan had finally found a little surcease from all his failures in drugs.

  Albert had seen it coming for years. Dear, sweet Jonathan had simply been no match for his father’s ambitions. The senator had needed a different kind of son, one whose mind did not balk at the harsher necessities of life.

  Albert never balked.

  “You know I never held it against Marilyn,” Big Jon said, returning to the inevitable subject of his son’s death while topping off the tumbler. Coming home to Denver always brought Jonathan’s murder front and center—which is why Albert did his best to keep Big Jon in Washington. “She’s a trouper, and we’ve accomplished a lot for this great nation of ours over the years.”

  Accomplished a lot for yourself, Albert silently corrected. Big Jon had been forced to give up his presidential aspirations after the scandal, and so had left politics only to find he had much more maneuvering room in the private sector. He’d made a fortune lobbying Congress on behalf of the American military-industrial complex. He’d also built a fine web of corporations and partnerships that effectively hid the sizable number of weapons manufacturing companies he either personally owned or oversaw through their boards. He had connections from the State Department to the Department of Defense and personally knew half of the current administration’s cabinet members.

  He’d done very well for himself, especially the last few years, and Albert took great pride in being a big part of that success. As Big Jon’s right-hand man, he had steered the big guy through a lot of rough shoals. He’d been the son Big Jon deserved—bright, ruthless, motivated.

  “But that daughter of hers is a tragedy in the making, if you know what I mean,” Big Jon finished up and took a good long swallow of whiskey.

  Albert knew exactly what he meant. He’d heard it all a thousand times.

  “She used my boy,” Big Jon said, and Albert worried for a second that they were going to head straight into petulance and skip anger altogether.

  Big Jon was prone to petulance and brooding in Denver, but today it simply wouldn’t do. When Big Jon got all petulant and regretful, he got sloppily, idiotically drunk and stopped functioning altogether. Albert didn’t have the patience for idiocy today.

  “She used him and threw him away. He went bad because of her, and got in over his head. That’s what killed him, not the bullet he took.”

  “Christian Hawkins killed him, Jon,” Albert said, knowing that’s what the big guy wanted to hear. It’s what he always wanted to hear.

  Big Jon took another drink of whiskey, then wiped his mouth off with the sleeve of his robe. “The courts said he didn’t, Albert, but I think you’ve got the right of it. The bastard killed my son, and Katya Dekker all but put the gun in his hand and helped hold it to Jonathan’s head.”

  “You say the girl might be here today with her mother?”

  “Possibly. I didn’t want to offend the guest of honor by telling her who she could and could not bring,” Albert said. In fact, he’d practically guaranteed Katya’s presence at her mother’s side, sending the senator a gentle reminder of all the sacrifices the Traynor family had made on her behalf. Big Jon had lost his son and his chance at the presidency, the least he deserved was a long overdue, personal apology from the girl who had been the cause of the whole tragedy. If Katya Dekker wanted to be back in Denver, she first needed to do penance at Big Jon’s feet.

  “As long as Marilyn had her locked up over in Paris, I didn’t worry about her too much,” Big Jon grumbled, “and I figured living in California wasn’t too much different from being in the loony bin, but the girl’s a menace, and I’m not going to have her flaunting herself around my stomping grounds. She can get out of Denver, or be ruined. I’m not settling for anything less. It’s past time for somebody to bring her to heel.”

  Albert’s thoughts exactly.

  “Damn shame about Ted Garraty,” Big Jon went on, repeating himself. He topped off his tumbler again before walking over to his desk. “You were all a damn fine bunch of boys. Damn fine . . . except for Robert Hughes. His screws were always a little loose.”

  “Damn fine,” Albert agreed.

  “Garraty was going to donate to Marilyn’s campaign, so make a note for me to send my condolences to his family.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Where the hell is Herman?” the big man grumbled, looking around for his valet.

  “I think Lily Beth is usin
g him in the drawing room.”

  Big Jon harrumphed and pointed toward the closet. “Well, I want to wear the gray suit today, Albert. You know the one I mean.”

  “Yes, sir.” He knew exactly which suit Big Jon meant.

  “Could you get on the laundry again about the starch in my shirts? Herman tells them, but they’re still not getting it right. They’ll listen to you.”

  “Yes, sir.” Albert headed for Big Jon’s closet.

  “And I’m going to need a reservation for next week in D.C. for a private dining room. You pick the restaurant. I’ve got some Saudis coming in, and you know how nervous the Saudis get in Washington.”

  Albert knew exactly which restaurant to call: the one currently giving him a ten-percent commission off the top of the tab. There wasn’t a maître d’ in Washington, D.C., who didn’t know the score and how he allocated Big Jon’s business. He wasn’t above using Big Jon’s name to throw his weight around.

  Inside the closet, he went straight for the rack of gray suits.

  “My brown shoes need some buffing. You know the ones. Can you remind Herman he was supposed to take care of that yesterday?”

  Yes, he could, and yes, he knew the exact pair Big Jon was talking about. When you were riding a man’s coattails to the top, it paid to know the state of his shoes.

  SKEETER woke on a start, her eyes wide open, her heart pounding.

  Oh, hell. Oh, hell. Oh, damn. She swung out of bed, her feet hitting the floor at a dead run. Steele Street was under attack. An overwhelming wave of danger had crashed into her dreams and set off every alarm signal she had in her brain. And when she raced to the window, the swarm of police cars on the street down below bumped the alarm up to red alert.

  She grabbed her hat, her customized PDA, and her cell phone on her way to the door, and punched a series of numbers into the phone at the same time as she lit up every number in her Class A phone book. Racing out the door, she hit “Send All” and dashed down the hall to Superman’s. She heard his cell alarm go off even as she started pounding on the door.