Robin knew that because Jules, the love of his life, worked for the FBI. Robin knew what it was like to witness an incident that could well have ended differently and tragically, had the luck of angels not been on their side.
Robin knew this, and had pulled the plug on the night’s party-going. He’d headed back to the safety of his hotel room, where Sam and Alyssa weren’t needed.
Which freed them up to come here.
“I vaguely remember how to do this,” Alyssa breathed now as she wrapped her long, strong legs around him, pushing him even more completely inside of her. “And I remember why I liked it so much. The bed, the pillows, the music and candlelight…”
“Oh, yeah,” he agreed.
“Although,” she gasped as she strained against him, “there’s a part of me … that can’t stop listening—waiting—for Ash to start… crying.” She laughed. “Followed by the sound of you … crying.”
“If you need it, I’m happy to supply the soundtrack,” Sam teased her back. “Wah … Although, this time it’s tears of joy.”
Still laughing, she pulled his head down and kissed him, and ah, God, it was too good, too sweet, too unbearably hot as her laughter turned to sounds of need, way in the back of her throat.
“Come on,” he said into her mouth as he felt her start to unravel, as he urged her to let go. “Come on …” Because he had it back—his control. He was still sweating, but damn it, his arms were solid again and he was fully in charge. He was going to make her come, and then, he was going to make her come again. And only after that, was he gonna—
The phone rang.
It was shrill, it was insistent, and it was startling and disruptive in the quiet heat and intimacy of the moment.
And like one of Pavlov’s dogs, after ten months of coitus interruptus and/or the very real fear of such, Sam instantly went into warp-speed autopilot.
Ringing equaled phone call.
Phone call equaled problem.
Problem needed fixing.
Fixing needed Sam and Alyssa both, up and out of bed.
Come now or don’t come ’til later.
Probably much, much later.
As the phone sent out a second blast of ringing, his body chose now before his brain caught up, and he crashed into her with a shout, “Fuck!” before he could stop himself. “God damn it!”
Alyssa was breathless and laughing, and no doubt a little confused, because in her mind, “That was perfect timing.”
The last thing Sam wanted to do was let go of her, but in order to pick up the phone, he had to roll off of her. He crawled over to the other side of their bed, away from her warmth, which pissed him off even more and made his barked greeting sound far less than friendly. “This better be good!”
There was silence on the other end, then a female voice said, “I’m so sorry, Sam, did I call too late? It’s just… I’ve been trying to reach you for a couple of days. There’s a bit of urgency and—”
“Savannah?” he asked.
Which was when Alyssa took the phone from his hands. “Hey, Van,” she said, her voice just a tad breathless. “Is everything okay? Is Ken—”
But Savannah’s husband—and Sam’s friend—Ken was doing well in his ongoing recovery from last fall’s near fatal gunshot wound, because Alyssa said, “Oh, good. That’s… Oh, that’s great news. I’m glad. Yeah. … No … No, it’s okay. It’s not too late for …” She paused longer this time, listening to Savannah, then added, “No, no—I understand your concern and … Navy SEALs, yeah—and Sam, yes, a former SEAL—it’s a great idea, uh-huh …”
And okay. Now Sam was intrigued. What was going on with Ken and Savannah that was urgent, to which adding SEALs and former SEALs, including himself, to the mix would be a great idea?
“Tomorrow?” Alyssa said, and Sam pushed himself up onto one elbow to better watch her walk across the room. “They are? Wow. I actually think my schedule could … Well, child care’s always an issue for short notice jobs, but…” Her briefcase was leaning against the wall by the door, and she dug into it, looking for something. “Oh, if we could do that, then … Absolutely. I’d just have to check with Tom Paoletti, see if he could spare Sam and … You did? Well, all right then.”
Alyssa fished a notepad and pen from her briefcase, caught him watching her as she straightened up, and smiled. She added a little attitude to her walk as she went to the dresser, where she used the top as a writing surface.
And okay, watching his wife walk around naked was another thing Sam had missed in the past ten months. Quickies tended to involve only partial removal of clothing. And as long as Alyssa kept this phone call short, and then walked—naked—back over here to the bed when she was done …
His plans for the remainder of the evening were entirely salvageable.
“Hang on just a sec,” she said into the phone. “I was getting a pen and … Can you spell the congresswoman’s name for me again? Oh, it’s not? She’s an assemblywoman. Okay. Got it. And her website is … dot gov. Right.”
She wrote it all down on the pad, and then said the words that could, absolutely, not just ruin his evening, but trash the entire rest of his week. “And the flight information … ?”
Sam sat up.
“Oh, that’s perfect,” Alyssa told her friend. “We’re picking up Ash tomorrow at eight and … No, he’s having his first sleepover tonight—with Cosmo, Jane, and Billy and …” She laughed. “It’s really okay, but yes. Let’s plan to talk again tomorrow morning and … After eight, yes. How about I call you from the car? All right—talk then.” And with that, she hung up the phone. And turned to Sam. “Want to go to New York?”
“In January?” he asked. “Not really.”
“It’s almost February,” she pointed out.
“Same thing.”
“Please?”
“No fair,” he said. “Naked begging—how am I supposed to say no?”
She snorted. “Saying please isn’t begging.”
“It is,” he pointed out, “if you say it while you’re naked. Although crawling across the floor would help.”
She crossed her arms and tilted her head. “You really don’t want to go to New York City?”
The idea of leaving her alone here with Ash freaked him out—which, in turn, freaked him out even more. Sam knew it was irrational. It was caused by the residual fear he’d felt when he’d watched, from a distance, as that fuckwad had pulled that weapon tonight. His brain again played the sequence, pushing it into what-if mode, presenting him with an extremely unwelcome image of Alyssa being shot, point-blank, and falling as blood bloomed on her shirt—
What the hell was wrong with him?
He pushed the unwanted worst-case scenario away, wishing he could scrub his brain clean.
The what-if hadn’t happened.
But it could have.
But it hadn’t. Alyssa was safe.
She was skilled. She was careful. She was smart—and she was waiting for him to respond.
“Ah, shit,” he said.
“Shit is yes, right? Fuck is no? Or is it fuck is yes and shit is no,” she teased. “I always get that mixed up.”
“For you, sweet thing,” he conceded, “it’s always, always yes. I’ll go if you really need me to.”
She narrowed her eyes at him because she hated regular terms of endearment, let alone that particular one, which she felt was extra-objectifying. So he quickly pointed out that, “New York in the dead of winter—crowded, dirty and cold—earns me far more than one sweet thing.”
“Yeah, poor baby, it’s only the cultural capital of the entire world, and you get to go there for free, first class flight, four star accommodations …”
“SEALs and former SEALs?” he asked. “Who are the SEALs who’re going with me?”
She smiled at his question and he knew he was right. Whatever he was being sent to New York to fix, he was not going to be assisted by his friends who were still in SEAL Team Sixteen, like Ken or Cosmo o
r even Silverman. No, he was going to get stuck babysitting the young and stupid enlisted men, who were still unattached and thus willing to do Ken—or Chief Karmody, as those very youngsters called him—this kind of favor.
And yeah, it made sense that the young’uns would leap at the chance for an all-expenses-paid trip to spend a few days of their hard-earned liberty in the Big Apple. Sam knew for a fact that they’d just returned from several cold, rough months in Afghanistan. And while he respected that completely, he also knew—from the experience of having formerly been young and stupid himself—that it meant that they weren’t going to be merely young and stupid, but rather, young and stupid and desperate to get laid.
“Jay Lopez, Dan Gillman,” Alyssa listed.
“Seriously?” Lopez was okay, but Gillman totally wore him out.
“Tony Vlachic, and … Izzy Zanella,” she admitted.
“What?”
Gillman and Zanella had been SEAL Team Sixteen’s oil and water long before Zanella married Gillman’s little sister, Eden.
“They’re professionals,” Alyssa reminded him, as she sat down, way on the other end of the bed. “They work together all the time. They’ll be fine.”
“Yeah,” Sam said, lying back among the pillows. “They’ll be fine. Except when they act like moronic children. You better come over here, woman, because I’m gonna need hands-on persuading. You’d best go fetch the chocolate sauce.”
She smiled at him. “Hmmm.” Oh, he loved the sound of a smart woman thinking.
But alas, she brought their conversation back to the topic at hand. “You really don’t want to go?”
Sam sighed. “What’s there that needs fixing so urgently?”
“Remember Savannah’s candidate? The friend from law school who was running for state assembly—that’s what they call their congress in New York.”
He scanned his memory and came up with “Maria Something.”
“Bonavita,” Alyssa reported. “She won the election. She’s been stirring things up in Albany, and … Van thinks she needs a crash course in personal safety.”
“And you honestly think I’m the one to provide that kind of—”
“Wait,” Alyssa interrupted. “No. Sam. Okay, you think I’m sending you there by yourself.” She laughed as he nodded. “No, we’re all going. You, me, Ash.”
“Shit,” he said again, but this time it rang with his unbridled relief. “Really? But—”
“I’m going to work with Maria and her office staff,” Alyssa said.
“You said SEALs and former SEALs—”
“You and the children are going to stand around and look big and scary,” she told him. “Van thought it would be a good idea if the people who have a bone to pick with the assemblywoman get a look at what they’ll be up against if they ever decide to do anything beyond writing a nasty-ass e-mail.”
“Well, shit,” he said again. “If you’re going, of course I’m in.”
“New York—in the dead of winter,” she teased. “I think maybe you talked me out of making you go. I don’t want you to be cold, poor baby.”
Sam laughed. “I’m pretty sure you’ll be able to keep me warm,” he told her.
“Still,” she said. “I think it might take some hands-on persuading to make me change my mind back to—”
“Yeah,” Sam interrupted her. “Come over her.”
But she didn’t. In fact, she stood up, and with that amazing attitude that he loved so much in every step she took, she crossed the room, opened and went out the bedroom door.
“Hey.” Sam sat back up. “Where are you going?” he called.
“Kitchen,” she answered, her laughter-filled voice trailing back as she went, still gloriously naked, down the stairs. “To get that chocolate sauce. Because that, sweet thing, was one damn fine idea.”
He’d stood close enough to her, once, in Starbucks, to smell her.
She smelled clean and sweet, and he’d lurked in the shampoo aisle of a nearby Wal-Mart for hours after, searching for the brand she used.
He used it now, too, even though his hair was so different from hers.
He’d gone into the Starbucks that day, intending to surrender. He was tired, he was sick, and he’d wanted it all to be over, to end. They’d nearly caught him, thanks to her. He’d just barely escaped, and as he’d sat in his car, hands trembling on the steering wheel, he wondered why he’d run. He’d wanted—right then, in that moment of despair—for them to catch him.
He’d wanted her to catch him.
He hadn’t known her name yet—but he’d learned that, too, in the Starbucks, where he’d smelled her sweet, clean hair.
Before he’d gone into the coffee shop, he’d thrown up, right in his car—the car in which he’d hidden Betsy MacGregor in the trunk. She’d choked on her own vomit and died, alone in there, while he was evading them, evading her, and he’d beaten her anyway, but it wasn’t any good because she wasn’t afraid anymore and he’d howled his rage. She had robbed him of his pleasure and her pain.
So he took Betsy’s teeth—all of them—but it wasn’t the same. And in that moment, in the shower of his grimy motel room, as he’d scrubbed himself clean, he knew that it would never again be the same. And the despair was so heavy upon him that he’d gotten dressed, his hair still wet, and climbed into his car, to turn himself in to the police.
It was just by chance, by luck, by fate that he saw her, in the parking lot of that Starbucks.
She was going into the coffee shop, taking a break from their relentless but now faltering search for Betsy, so he’d parked, and then he’d puked, and then he’d followed her.
He’d stood for a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness after coming inside from the bright, cold morning light.
She was standing with a man—dark-haired and short of stature—and she was nodding at something he said.
She was beautiful. As he stared at her, the despair shifted, making room for his awe. She was perfect in every way. She dressed like a man, but it didn’t disguise the fact that she was slender, yet curved. Soft yet strong. And her face …
Sometimes, up close, women who were beautiful from a distance didn’t hold up, but she was breathtaking. Magnificent. With even features that could grace magazine covers had she chosen that path, and flawless, smooth brown skin that he imagined would be soft to his touch.
Her companion leaned close to speak into her ear, and she laughed, and his despair again moved, and beneath it, like the single toll of a bell from a distant church tower came the solidness of certainty.
Kill.
Not her, not yet, not here, not now.
But rather him.
Kill him.
He was this perfect woman’s lover—he had to be. The intimacy of their relationship echoed in the way they stood and moved, the way they talked to each other.
Or didn’t talk. Whoever the man was, he’d noticed him standing here, just inside the door, staring at them, and he somehow told her that, with just one look, even as his cell phone rang.
“Hey, sweetie,” the dead man said into his phone as he turned away, but then the rest of his words were lost, as she turned and looked directly at him, catching and holding his gaze.
Her eyes weren’t a deep, soft brown, as he’d expected. Instead they were startlingly pale—sunlit ocean green—and he knew he shouldn’t stand here like this staring, but he couldn’t look away.
And he knew that it was time to surrender—or not.
Not tolled the certainty within him, and he knew just as absolutely what he needed to do. He let himself stare even longer. And then he pulled his gaze away and turned and stared, too, at the bland, boring, vanilla girl taking orders behind the counter. He made himself shuffle toward the clerk, his movement labored and jerky, and he placed his order in a voice that suggested his mental challenges were many—because no one faulted a retard who stared.
And sure enough, she looked away, no longer suspicious.
His reward was her name—Alyssa—called by the barista who then handed over her coffee.
Her dead lover was Jules, which was a stupid name for a man, but after he took his coffee, Alyssa spoke, her voice musical and rich. “Tell Robin to break a leg tonight,” she said. And Jules nodded and said as much into his cell phone, ending the call with “See you tonight. I love you, too.”
His relief that they were only friends, not lovers, made him magnanimous. He would not kill this man now, not here, not yet.
As he shambled to the place where he was to wait for his coffee, she slipped past him, and he smelled her.
And it was then that he knew.
The last of his despair evaporated. It vanished, replaced by that certainty which now filled him so completely that he thought for a moment that his very skin might rupture and split. But as odd and uncomfortable as that was, he no longer felt sick or tired.
He was stronger than them, he was smarter than they were, and he knew what he wanted.
Alyssa.
The world gave him a gift as, just before she went out the door, her cell phone rang, and she reached for it. He caught a glimpse of a sidearm in a holster beneath her jacket, and it made him as hard as he would’ve been had she flashed him her breasts, which was odd, because the killing had never been about sex for him. It was about death and fear and power and control.
But it was what it was, and he knew not to question the will of his certainty, especially when she opened her phone, and put it to her ear, and told him her full name: “Alyssa Locke.”
Alyssa Locke.
Alyssa.
Locke.
He knew in a blaze of absolute conviction that he should not give Betsy MacGregor back, as he’d always done with his victims before. But not this time. Not now.
Not until he had Alyssa Locke within his grasp, begging for him to kill her quick.
CHAPTER
FOUR
FRIDAY, 30 JANUARY 2009
Lopez kept trying to get him to talk.
“How’re you doing?” he asked Dan Gillman, for what felt like the seven thousandth time in the week since the SEALs had returned from the treacherous mountains between A-stan and P-stan.
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