“Sorry,” Dan told her, but he knew that she knew that he didn’t mean it. “I know there’s supposed to be this meeting later, after Zanella and Vlachic get back, but I was thinking, regardless of what’s decided, I could maybe install a security system in your apartment myself. Tomorrow. So we could, you know, stay there. Tomorrow night, at least.”
She smiled her surprise again. “You’re in an awfully big hurry to get back there.”
“Damn straight,” he said, tracing the side seam of her jeans with his finger, down near the cushions of the couch, where no one could see, even if they were there and looking. “And I’m pretty sure you are, too.”
But Jennilyn hadn’t just put on her jeans when they’d both hurriedly gotten dressed. She’d also slipped into some too-serious sanity, and it had been reinforced as they’d left the safety of her apartment. It was a shame, after all the work he’d done to make sure that she’d take the lead when it came to having sex that second time.
Danny still wasn’t sure where the idea to cry had come from. He’d felt her get tense, mere moments after they’d both climaxed that first time, and he knew he had to do something, or he wouldn’t get the repeat he already wanted.
At that exact moment, he’d felt the odd pressure of tears, back behind his eyes, and just like that, he knew what he had to do, even though he’d never done anything like it before. It had been instinct, and since he trusted himself completely when it came to women, he’d gone with it.
He’d let himself cry.
He hadn’t meant to tell her quite so much, though. And at one point, he’d actually been afraid that, now that he’d started, he wasn’t going to be able to stop crying. That had been a little scary.
But he’d managed to stop, mostly because it had worked like a freaking charm. She was all over him.
Until Lopez and Zanella made the scene and got Jennilyn tense all over again.
“Dan,” she said now, and paused as if carefully considering what she was going to tell him, and he knew that the next words that left her mouth were going to include the word talk.
So he spoke over her. She said—ding, ding, ding—“I really think we need to talk about—” as he said at the exact same time, “It’ll be easier to talk at your place, you know, in private and …”
He laughed and added, “I’m glad we’re on the same page, you know, about talking.”
But the look she shot him made him laugh. “You want to go there to have privacy to talk,” she said.
He nodded. It wasn’t a lie. “Among other things.”
“Like … baking cookies?” she asked.
“I could make that work,” he told her. “Although turning the oven on? That would heat up the place even more. I’d probably have to be naked. You know, beneath my Kiss the Cook apron.”
Jenn laughed. “I don’t have any aprons, so unless you carry one with you—”
“Always,” he said, “along with Fred the bunny and my favorite book of poetry—Limericks from the Isle of Nantucket.”
She laughed again, shaking her head, and he could tell that she wanted to say something, but that she was holding back.
“What?” He nudged her. “Just say it, LeMay.”
She looked down at her hands, clasped in her lap. “I just… I’m surprised,” she admitted, glancing up at him almost shyly. “I thought this was where you’d be running away. I mean, really Dan. You and me … ? And if the team’s going back to California …”
“The team’s not chained together,” Dan told her. “I already told you—if you want me to stay, I’m gonna stay.”
“But what about what you want to do?” she asked him. She was serious, looking searchingly into his eyes.
For someone who liked to talk, she hadn’t been listening to what he’d told her.
So he took her hand—the one that he’d drawn that X on. It had faded from washing and other activities, but it wasn’t completely gone. And he put it directly on top of the wood he was concealing in his pants, which of course made him even harder, especially when she laughed and squeezed him.
“Wow,” she said.
“What I want,” he said, “is to take you into that bathroom over there, right now, and—”
The conference room door opened, and Jenn snatched her hand back and leaped to her feet.
“Jennilyn, if you’re ready,” Alyssa said, as Maria came out.
There was no way on earth that Maria had seen Jenn touching him, but she surely knew that something was up from the way that Jenni was blushing. Her face was almost fire-engine red.
It was cute—although he’d never tell her that. Not using that word.
But then Jenn turned back to Danny to say, “This could take a while. So in case you get bored … You know, when I was in second grade? My best friend Debbie and I would make Barbie clothes from paper towels and Kleenexes.” She smiled sweetly at him. “Toilet paper works, too.”
Dan laughed, and Maria smiled, but it was clear that she was clueless, thank the Lord above.
Dressed the way Jenn was, in jeans and a T-shirt, sweatshirt on top, sneakers on her feet, hair pulled back in a ponytail, no makeup on—she’d sweated off what little she’d worn to work—she looked like nothing special walking away.
Particularly next to Maria, who remained unbelievably beautiful, with a body that was, undeniably, world-class.
But even if everything were completely equal and no feelings would be hurt, no promises broken; if Dan had a choice between fucking Maria or fucking Jenn …
He’d pick Jenn. No contest.
Go figure.
As the door closed behind Jenn, Dan could feel the assemblywoman looking at him appraisingly, as if she, too, were planning to lecture him.
But—oh, fantastic—before Maria made up her mind about whether or not to approach him, Sam came out into the living room wearing one of those thick, white hotel bathrobes, his hair still wet from his shower, and slicked back from his face.
He sat down, gingerly, in the easy chair to the left of Dan as, across the room, Maria disappeared down the hall to her bedroom.
They both heard the door click gently shut before Sam spoke.
“Danny Gillman,” he said.
“Conference room’s still not free, sir,” Dan pointed out.
Sam had been one of the officers in Sixteen, when Dan first joined the elite SEAL team. This was back when legendary Lieutenant Commander Tom Paoletti led the team, before 9/11—when life seemed so much simpler.
To a very young enlisted man like Dan, Lt. Sam Starrett had been a superhero. He’d been the CO on one of Dan’s first major assignments, the takedown of a hijacked airplane. It had been what the world now thought of as an obsolete and old-style hijacking—the kind where an airliner, filled with civilian hostages, was held by terrorists after landing on the tarmac of an airport in a dangerous third-world country.
Sam had drilled the SEALs in the takedown team over and over and over and over, until they could have burst open the airliner’s doors in their sleep, to take out the terrorists and leave the hostages unharmed.
It was due to Sam’s diligence, his tenacity, and his ferocious insistence on perfection, that his SEAL team rescued all of those hostages with minimal loss of life.
Like a lot of the enlisted men in Team Sixteen, Dan had been upset when Sam resigned his commission as an officer. But he’d had to leave. He’d gotten into some trouble, having to do with his ex-wife.
A lot of Sam’s trouble through the years had had to do with women.
So it seemed kind of ironic that he was going to lecture Dan now about… what? A woman. And sure enough, he jumped right in.
“Jenn seems nice,” Sam said.
“She is, sir,” Dan agreed. “Very nice. I like her, very much.”
Sam cleared his throat. Here it came. “She’s not exactly in your league, though, is she?”
He purposely misunderstood. “I always aim high, sir.”
“I meant—” Sa
m started, but then stopped himself. “You know exactly what I meant, dipshit, so don’t play dumb. You’re way out of her league.”
“I’m sure she’d find that insulting, sir, and I do, too, on her behalf.”
“Cut the sir shit,” Sam said, “I’m talking to you here, Danny, man-to-man.”
“With all due respect, sir, I’ve got to disagree. I think your tone is condescending. I don’t like your implication that Jenn’s somehow not good enough for me, and I think your intention here is to interfere in my personal life, which you have no business doing.”
“She’s not not good enough for you,” Sam said, crossly. “You know damn well that that’s not the league I’m talking about. I’m talking about experience, about expectations. About her being nice, and you being a walking dick.”
“Takes one to know one, sir,” Dan said.
Which was when Sam surprised him. He agreed. “It does,” he said. “I’ve played your game, Danny. What are you going to do if you get this girl pregnant?”
Dan laughed. Jesus. “I’m not, sir. I’m always careful.”
“Accidents happen.”
“Sir, I appreciate your concern—”
“Imagine yourself married to her,” Sam said. “If you can’t do it, if it doesn’t at least make you go, Huh, maybe … then you need to rethink what—or who—you’re doing.”
“I’m pretty sure if Jenn got pregnant, sir, she’d want to be in on any decisions, any choices. Just because your first wife—”
“Let’s not go there,” Sam said.
“I thought this was man-to-man, Sam,” Dan said. “Just two buds, shooting the shit. I’m not sure why you have the right to criticize my relationships when I don’t have the right to—”
“You’re not a kid anymore.” Sam got in his face. “You’re fucking thirty years old, and you’re still playing it like you’re twenty-two, like you’re Gilligan, the fuckup, the green-behind-the-ears dipshit, who gets away with being stupid because he’s so goddamn adorable.” He changed both tone and direction. “When are you taking the chief’s exam?”
“What?” Dan said. “I’m not.”
“Why not?”
“What is this?” Dan asked. “Attack Danny Gillman day?”
“Why the fuck not?” Sam repeated his question more forcefully.
“Because I don’t want to be a chief, all right? What does this have to do with Jenn? I’m careful, I like her. And she likes me. What’s the big deal?”
“The big deal is when you’re working for Troubleshooters—”
“I’m not exactly getting paid here, sir,” Dan told him. “And by the way? I was planning to mention this—I quit. If you need me to, I’ll reimburse Commander Paoletti for the airfare.”
Sam was really baffled. “So … what? You’re just going to leave?”
“No, sir,” Dan told him. “I’ll be staying here in New York. With Jenn. We hooked up and … like I said, I really like her and she likes me. I’ve got about two weeks of liberty left, and I’ll be spending that time with her. I’m happy to help you out if you need me, but I don’t want to be paid, in any way, for protecting my own girlfriend. That’s kinda weird, sir. Could be kinda awkward.”
“Just like that, she’s your girlfriend?” Sam said.
“Not only do I aim high,” Dan told him, “but I work fast. Sir.”
Sam sighed. “Dan, look. What I really wanted to talk to you about is … Lopez told me about what happened in Kabul.”
Shit. “Lopez had no right to—”
“Lopez is your friend, and he’s worried about you,” Sam said. “As he should be. You ever black out like that before?”
Ah, God. “No, sir.”
“Just that once?” Sam asked.
Dan sat forward, on the edge of the couch. “Are we done here, sir?”
“Lopez said it happened twice.”
Fucking Lopez. “Then why are you asking, if you already know? Are we done here?”
Sam sat forward, too. “Head injuries can be tricky.”
“It’s not a head injury,” Dan said. “I wasn’t injured—”
“So then it’s what? PTSD?” Sam offered up the career-flattening acronym for post traumatic stress disorder that no one—including Danny—had dared to utter aloud before this moment. “If I were you, I’d go with mild head injury. An explosion with that much force? Your brains got temporarily scrambled. But either way, it never occurred to you that this might be information you’d need to disclose to Troubleshooters—to Tommy Paoletti?”
Dan hadn’t considered that. And fuck, that pressure was back behind his eyes, only he was pretty sure that his bursting into tears wasn’t going to work to manipulate Sam the same way it had with Jenn.
“Has it happened again?” Sam asked, his voice suddenly gentle.
Dan shook his head. No. At least he didn’t think so.
“You’ve got to tell someone if it does,” Sam said.
“No, sir,” Dan said, his voice tight. “The way it usually works is that someone tells me. I don’t remember shit when it happens.”
Sam sighed. But then he nodded. “If you black out again, make sure it gets to me or Alyssa.”
“Yeah, well,” Dan said, “Lopez is here, so … No worries about that, right?”
“He’s concerned about you,” Sam said again. “He says you won’t talk to him.”
“I’ve got an appointment with the team shrink, sir,” Dan said. “In a few weeks.”
“That’s not the same,” Sam pointed out, “as talking to a friend or … If Jennilyn’s really your girlfriend, Danny, you should tell her what’s going on. At the very least so she knows what to do if you do black out again.”
Dan looked at him. “Are we done here?” he asked again, and this time he didn’t wait for Sam’s answer. He just stood up and walked away.
CHAPTER
TWELVE
He watched from the closet as two of the SEALs returned, as he knew they would.
When they first came down the corridor, he’d thought, with a flash of heat and rage, that the taller one was Starrett—the husband. And even though he knew they must be armed beneath their winter jackets, he almost ruined everything by bursting out at them, just to stab Starrett in the throat.
But it wasn’t him. It was the other one, who was just as tall, but not as ruggedly handsome.
He thought about killing him anyway, about the way his blood would spray, hot and thick against the wall and in his face, coating him and staining his clothes. That would make it hard to escape, but first he’d have to kill the other—the one who was fumbling to get the key into the lock.
He could do it. He wanted to do it. He had his Taser with him, which would give him the advantage.
And killing them would confuse the issue and keep Alyssa from realizing, too soon, who he was, because the Dentist had only slaughtered women.
True, he’d killed that man in the mall parking lot, and of course his father—but they hadn’t connected those deaths to him. Not yet, anyway. And yes, there was also that one horrible man, years ago, with Amanda, but he’d hidden him well and they hadn’t found him.
Right now though, he wanted to surprise Alyssa, and the bodies of these two—gutted and left in Maria’s office—would help him to do just that.
It was a good idea—of that he was certain.
But he was also just as certain that he couldn’t kill them both and be sure he would survive.
Wait. He needed to wait.
“In this lifetime, Chick,” the tall one said impatiently as the really young shorter one tried a second key.
At last the door opened and the light went on, stabbing into his brain, but he didn’t look away.
They wouldn’t be in there long. He’d left nothing for them that would lead back to him. He’d even found the tooth he’d dropped some days ago. It had cut its way free from his pocket, dropping onto the floor from the leg of his pants—a ghost from the past biting him and making thi
s adventure even more lively and nerve jangling, since he couldn’t go searching the floor for it with Jenn sitting at her desk. And he hadn’t had time in the early morning hours when he’d left his gift in the drawer. As it was, he’d almost been seen.
But he’d found it tonight and it was back in his pocket, where it belonged.
He’d cleared his listening devices out of Maria and Savannah’s apartments, too—taking a moment to stand there, breathing in Alyssa’s sweet scent. She hadn’t been there long, but it was enough for him to feel her presence.
The tall one came back out into the hallway, looking at his cell phone. “Here we go,” he said. “Now I’ve got bars. Wait—bar, singular. What is with this city? I get better reception in frakking Mumbai. Let’s see if it’ll let me dial out…” He held the phone to his ear. “Yes! Jackpot! Yeah, hi, Mr. um, Cassidy … Yeah, it’s Zanella. Nope, nothing here, either.” He paused, listening. “Yes, sir, we’ll stop there on our way back to the …”
He waited, holding his breath, hoping to learn where they’d all gone, but the tall man—Zanella—didn’t finish his sentence. But he did provide other information.
“If you’re right, and this homeless guy’s our man, he’s either in St. Sebastian’s or the drunk tank, so he couldn’t have cleared the place. Of course, if he is our man, he’s not likely to have access to high-tech equipment—No, no, I know it’s not a done deal. We were thorough. Yup. Okay. Roger that. I mean, shit, I didn’t mean … I’m just going to hang up now.” He closed his phone. “Holy Jesus. Roger that. Things not to say to your gay boss.”
“You need to lighten up,” the shorter man—Chick, he was called—said from inside the office. “He’s a nice guy. Just treat him the same way you treat everyone. With massive disrespect.”
“Ha-ha, you’re so fucking funny. What I need, right now, is to tinkle.” Zanella stepped inside and returned almost immediately with the key to the bathroom. He vanished into the darkness down the hall.
And he knew that this was what he’d been waiting for. He could do this. While they were separated. Kill the shorter one, put on his jacket, and wait for the tall one to return.
He was already euphoric from the news that they thought their man was a street person—probably the very one who lived in the basement of a nearby building. That was brilliant, perfect, tremendously good news. He wished he could listen in further, to find out more. What were they planning? Were they still interviewing the staff tomorrow? Although, he’d find that out, soon enough …
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