LOVE WITH THE PROPER STRANGER

by Suzanne Brockmann

  No, no! He had to come up with something specific. He had to figure out the details. He was always so good with details, good with alternate plans. He was good at making plans for every variable, every difference in every detail.

  But for now, he'd have to skip the little details. For now, he'd focus on an overall plan. His mind was too foggy for anything but the big picture. It was hard enough to concentrate on how exactly to get from where he was sitting right now to being the one in control of the gun.

  Gun.

  There was something about a gun that he should remember....

  He had a gun. He could...shoot her with the gun that was still inside his boot! Yeah. That was a great idea.

  Except his hands were cuffed behind his back and he couldn't reach his gun.

  Miller fought a wave of dizzying fatigue by calling to mind Mariah's beautiful face, her gorgeous smile. He focused on the dimples that appeared in her cheeks, the flash of laughter that danced in her eyes. That was gone, all gone, forever gone. Serena had stolen Mariah from him. Serena had taken all his hopes and his dreams when she'd so casually snuffed out Mariah's life.

  He used the pain to bring himself back from the edge, to push back the fog that threatened to overpower him.

  Think. He had to think.

  He had to figure out what he had to work with, his strengths as they were – not an easy task since he was finding it harder and harder to remember his name.

  His legs.

  His legs were free. They weren't tied.

  He could kick the dining table over on top of her. Crush her. Or, like she herself had suggested, he could put her in a leghold and snap her neck.

  He had the chair. He could throw himself forward, chair and all, and use the chair he was cuffed to as a weapon.

  And the morphine. He could take that which weakened him the most and use it to his advantage. He could break his legs from the force of the blow he intended to deliver, and he wouldn't feel any pain.

  Miller forced his eyes open. He could see Serena sitting way down at the other end of the table, eating her elegant dinner. She was halfway through the main course, and he knew that when the main course was through, she would take out her razor sharp little knife.

  And then she would come closer.

  If he was lucky, he would break her neck. He'd take her out for good.

  And if he was really lucky, she'd take him out with her and he wouldn't have to wake up tomorrow and know that Mariah was dead.

  *

  The house was dark and quiet.

  Mariah stood in the pouring rain, straining to listen for something, anything at all.

  All she heard was the rain.

  She'd rushed over here as fast as she could ride on her bike, but now that she was here, she wasn't quite sure what to do.

  Ring the bell? Knock on the door as she pushed it open, calling, "Yoo-hoo, Serena, did you just try to blow me into a million little bits by planting a bomb in the basement of my house, and are you about to murder your husband and my lover – who, in fact, seems to be some kind of federal agent?"

  Stealthily, she tested the doorknob. The door was unlocked. She turned the knob slowly and just as slowly pushed the door open.

  It was as dark inside as it was out.

  Darker.

  Mariah silently closed the door behind her and stood for a moment, letting her ears adjust to the now muted sound of the rain on the roof, hoping her eyes would adjust to the eerie, smothering darkness, as well.

  She became aware of a new sound – the sound of water dripping from her clothes and onto the Mexican-tiled floor. And as she took a step farther into the entryway, her sneakers squished. Moving as quietly as she could, she stepped out of them.

  Her eyes were starting to adjust to the dark. She could see a dim light coming from somewhere upstairs. She looked around for a place to hide her sneakers, but gave up as she realized she might be able to hide them, but there was no way she could hide the puddle of water she'd brought inside with her. She might as well leave them by the door and pray she found Serena before Serena realized she had uninvited company.

  Mariah heard a voice speaking sharply, echoing from an upstairs room. It was Serena. She couldn't make out what the woman was saying, but she sure as heck didn't sound happy.

  Mariah went up the stairs as quickly and quietly as she could, reaching into her back pocket and wriggling free Daniel's deadly little gun.

  Dear God, she had no idea what she was going to do. She pictured herself leaping through the doorway, gun raised and held in both hands, like one of the cops on NYPD Blue, shouting for Serena to freeze.

  And then what? What was she going to do if Serena had her own gun? Was she going to shoot Serena?

  Now there was an unlikely scenario. Mariah had never fired a gun before, let alone fired one at a living, breathing human being.

  As she drew closer to the top of the stairs, she saw that there was candlelight coming from the dining room – the room where all her dreams had come crashing down around her just this morning. It was the same room where she had found Serena and her new husband – Jonathan Mills.

  She crept toward the door, careful to stay out of the light, pressing herself against the wall, gun raised. She held her breath and closed her eyes briefly, waiting for the trembling in her knees to stop, hoping that she would hear John's voice, praying that he was still alive.

  The next move was hers. It was totally up to her. She could stand here for another two minutes, or she could get ready and—

  "My gun is aimed at Jonathan's head." Serena's voice was crisp and clear, echoing in the silence. "I know you're out there, and if you don't step into the light with your hands held high, I'm going to kill him right now."

  The next move wasn't Mariah's after all. Dear God, Serena must have heard her coming up the stairs.

  "Do it now!" the older woman said sharply, "or I swear, I'll kill him."

  Mariah stuffed the gun back into her back pocket and stepped into the light, hands held up over her head.

  "You?" Serena laughed. Sure enough, she held a gun trained with steady confidence directly at John's head. "Well, well, look who's come to rescue you, John. It's Mariah, back from the dead."

  "Run!" John shouted. "Mariah, run!"

  Mariah couldn't move. It was as if she'd stepped into some scene from a horrific nightmare, and she couldn't move an inch.

  John was sitting behind the long dining table, his hands behind his back. His left arm was soaked with blood. It looked as if it was all he could do to hold his head up. And Serena was standing across the room, perfectly dressed as usual in an elegant black sheath dress, with pearls and a gun as accessories.

  It was unreal. Mariah didn't understand. What the hell was going on? Why was the FBI after Serena? What had she done? Why would she want to kill John and drug Daniel? Why would she put a bomb in Mariah's basement? It didn't make any sense.

  But Serena held the gun calmly, confidently, as if she was accustomed to it. Clearly, she wouldn't hesitate to shoot – obviously she'd shot John once tonight already. She swung the gun toward Mariah.

  "No!" Miller was drowning. The shock of seeing Mariah whole and alive had transformed rapidly from near euphoric joy to screaming fear. She was alive – but she wouldn't be for long if she didn't get the hell out of here.

  "Well, isn't this different," Serena said. "You are a fool, aren't you? He married me, and yet here you are, rushing to his rescue, empty-handed. You know, he was only using you to get closer to me. Did you know that Jonathan Mills isn't even his real name? God, Mariah, I'm sure absolutely nothing he's told you is true."

  Mariah took one step and then another and another toward Miller. "John, are you all right?" She was soaking wet, shivering slightly as she knelt next to him, as she touched his blood-soaked sleeve. He could smell her perfume, and reality shifted. For one incredible moment, he was back in her bed, making love to her and... He shook his head, trying to bring his focus back to he
re and now.

  "Gun in my boot," he whispered, praying that she would understand, knowing that he had to act, and act fast. As much as Serena was loath to kill him with a gun, she'd have no problem using a bullet to kill Mariah.

  "Of course, Mariah was playing her own game," Serena continued. "Mariah Robinson isn't her real name either. I wonder, John. Did you consider her a suspect because of that?"

  Miller looked directly into Mariah's eyes. "Gun," he started to whisper again.

  She cut him off. "I know. I'm really mad at you," she added, reaching behind him to touch his hand. Except wait – those weren't her fingers that touched him. It was something cold and...

  It was amazing, but somehow she'd managed to get the gun out of his boot without his noticing. Without Serena noticing. Miller's hands were numb, but he took the safety off, preparing the gun to fire.

  Still, this gun wasn't going to do him a whole hell of a lot of good as long as he was holding it behind his back. He was a good shot – at least he was when he wasn't pumped full of narcotics – but trick shooting had never been his forte.

  "Take it back," he told Mariah.

  She shook her head. "I can't."

  Serena's gun was still pointed loosely at Mariah, yet now she brought her hand up higher, taking better aim. "What are telling her?" she asked him sharply, then said to Mariah, "Move away from him."

  "Take it," Miller said. "Now!"

  Mariah didn't want that gun. She knew damn well there was no way she could aim it at Serena and pull the trigger.

  But John dropped it into her hand as he used both of his legs and kicked the enormous table onto its side. A shot rang out as he tipped his chair over in front of her, and Mariah realized Serena was shooting at them. She lifted the gun, closed her eyes and squeezed the trigger.

  The recoil knocked the gun out of her hands and she screamed.

  Miller tried to shield Mariah as the shot she fired went wild. He could feel the dry wood of the old chair he was cuffed to splintering, and he pulled himself free of it.

  His wounded arm should have hurt like hell as he contorted to slip his cuffed hands past his legs and around to the front of him, but he didn't feel even a twinge, thanks to the morphine Serena had given him. Weakness as strength. He was superhuman now. Nothing could hurt him, nothing could stop him – not even Serena's bullets.

  He felt the force of one plow into his leg as he covered Mariah with his body, as he reached for the gun she had fired and dropped. He felt another bullet strike him as he took aim, and he saw Serena's eyes as she realized that only a direct hit to his head would take him down.

  He fired.

  And Serena fell instead, her gun falling from her hand. In the sudden silence, he could hear the sound of sirens.

  It was the sound of fire trucks, rushing to extinguish the blaze that once had been Mariah's cottage.

  But they didn't stop down the street. They came all the way up the hill, all the way into the driveway. He heard the door burst open, heard the pounding sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs.

  He leaned back, resting against the toppled-over table as Mariah tried to stop his bleeding.

  Backup had arrived. Somehow Daniel had managed to call for backup, and they had arrived.

  "I'm going to close my eyes now," he told Mariah.

  "Don't," she said, tears in her own eyes. "Please, John, don't quit on me. Stay with me—"

  He touched her cheek. It was wet with tears. "Don't cry. I never meant to make you cry. I'm so sorry," he murmured. "So sorry..." I love you, he wanted to say, but his lips didn't seem to be able to move.

  "We need that stretcher up here stat!" he heard someone shout as the world went black.

  Chapter 15

  It was thirty-six hours, seventeen minutes and nine seconds before John opened his eyes.

  Mariah knew, because she'd been counting every second. The nurses had brought in a cot for her, and she'd slept fitfully, not convinced that she would be roused if John woke up.

  But he hadn't.

  He had an IV dripping steadily into his right arm. He was hooked up to machines that monitored his heart rate and his breathing. Doctors came and went, seemingly satisfied with his progress despite the fact that he slept on and on and on.

  Daniel came to before John did, and he sat quietly for a while, next to Mariah. He told her about Serena, about all her other husbands, about the years John had spent tracking her down. He told her how, after Mariah had left him in the car, he'd roused himself and crawled out into the rain. He'd forced himself to keep awake, keep moving, and eventually, he'd flagged down a passing car. The driver had taken him to the Garden Isle police station, where a team of local cops had donned their bulletproof vests and driven like bats out of hell to John and Mariah's rescue.

  Except by the time they'd arrived at Serena's place, John and Mariah had pretty much managed to rescue themselves.

  He told her that Serena was in custody, expected to recover from her gunshot wound. He added that her real name was Janice Reed and that they'd found her keepsake collection of hair, which tied her to nearly a dozen murders.

  Daniel managed to answer only some of Mariah's questions. He said she'd have to wait for John to answer the others. Before John woke up, Daniel had been discharged from the hospital and he'd returned to the resort to finish packing their equipment.

  And still Mariah sat next to John's bed.

  Then, finally, he stirred and opened his eyes.

  He just looked at her, and she just looked at him, fighting back the tears that immediately sprang to her eyes.

  "You're not dead," he said when he finally spoke, and she realized that there were tears in his eyes, too. "I'm not really sure what I dreamed and what was real, but I'm glad as hell that you're not dead."

  His mouth was dry, and she helped him by lifting the cup of water the nurses had left for him. She aimed the bendable straw so he could pull it into his mouth and take a long sip.

  "My real name is Marie Carver," she told him without hesitation, "although my nickname has always been Mariah. I've spent the past few months on Garden Isle using the name Mariah Robinson because I read in a book that going on vacation and leaving your name behind was a good way to reduce stress."

  He smiled very slightly as she put the cup back on the table next to the bed. "It's also a good way to make the local law enforcement officials very suspicious."

  "I never even thought of that." She paused. "You didn't really think I was...a killer?"

  "We pretty much knew it was Serena right from the start."

  "I can't believe you married someone you suspected of being a serial killer! Is that part of your job description as an FBI agent?"

  He laughed, then winced, holding tightly to his side where one of Serena's bullets had cracked a rib. "No. No, that was above and beyond the call of duty."

  Mariah was quiet for a moment. She almost didn't ask, but she had to know. "How could you...sleep with her, knowing that she'd killed all her other husbands?"

  He took her hand, interlacing their fingers. "I didn't sleep with her – I didn't want to sleep with her. Besides, I promised you that I wouldn't, remember? I told her I was impotent – that my condition was a side effect of my chemotherapy."

  Mariah gazed into his eyes. Chemotherapy. Cancer. "You never really had cancer," she realized aloud. "That was all just part of your cover."

  He nodded. "That's right. I'm sorry—"

  "Sorry?" She laughed, leaning forward to kiss him hard on the mouth. "Are you kidding? That's such good news! It makes all this hell we've just been through worth it. You're not going to die!"

  Her reaction was pure Mariah. She was focusing on the good, not the bad. Miller felt his heart flip-flop in his chest. God, he loved her.

  He caught her chin, pulling her mouth down to his for another kiss. This kiss was more lingering, and when she pulled away, her eyes looked so serious, so solemn.

  "I don't even know your real name," she tol
d him.

  "It's John Miller."

  "I don't know anything about you – who you are, where you're from—"

  "Yes, you do," he told her. "You know more about me than anyone in the world. I told you more than I've ever told Daniel. More than Tony ever knew."

  "Tony was real?" she asked.

  "Yeah."

  She looked down at their hands, their fingers still intertwined. "Serena said you were only using me to get close to her."

  "If you really believe that, what are you doing here, sitting next to my bed?"

  She looked up at him then. "I don't know," she confessed. "I honestly don't know. I just...I had to know you were all right before I...left."

  Before she left. God, he didn't want her to leave. But if she was going to leave, he wanted her to know the truth.

  Miller took a deep breath. "I did meet you to get close to Serena," he told her. "Yes, that's true. But I kept coming back – I couldn't stay away – because I fell in love with you."

  Her eyes were so wide, so beautiful.

  "I love you, Mariah," he told her quietly. "I have almost from the very first day we met. I made a lot of mistakes in this case – even though I tried my damnedest to keep away from you, I couldn't. And when Serena left the island, I was so sure she had gone for good. And then after we made love, and she came back..." He exhaled noisily. "I made some very wrong choices. I knew that marrying her would hurt you, but I couldn't stand the thought of letting her get away, and I nearly got you killed because of that."

  He took a deep breath, afraid that what he was about to say was going to drive her away for good. "You see, that's who I am," he continued. "I'm a man who can't stand to fail. I have a record of arrests that's unrivaled in the bureau. I have a reputation for always catching the bad guys, for never letting them get away. I'm supposed to be some kind of superhero – the toughest and meanest in the field. I have a nickname – the other agents call me 'The Robot,' because nothing matters to me outside of my job. They think I have no heart and no soul, and maybe they're right, because the truth is I have no life outside of the work I do. I have no family and no friends—"

  "Daniel is your friend."