Eve

by Iris Johansen

  “No!” Queen said. “Stay away from her. She’s CIA.”

  Gallo smiled. “Do you think that would make a difference to me?” He could see the anger and frustration in Queen’s face. But there was also the fear. Gallo made sure that the fear was always there. It was easy. All he had to do was look at them and let them see. “All your tight little agencies and bureaus with all their rules. They make me sick.”

  “You’re already sick.” He was silent a moment, gathering his arguments. “Look, you do anything to a CIA agent, and it will be twice as hard for me to protect you.”

  “Do you protect me, Queen? It’s rather like a wolf protecting a sheep, isn’t it?”

  “You’re no sheep,” Queen said roughly. “And I’ve protected you for years, and you know it. You made sure of that.”

  “Now how could I intimidate a powerful colonel with Army Intelligence?” He tilted his head, pretending to think. “Maybe because it gave you the opportunity to position yourselves outside my lair to wait for me to make a mistake?”

  “That’s a possibility,” Queen said. “I’d like nothing better than to bring you down, Gallo.” He was clearly trying to overcome his anger. “Be reasonable. Let me handle this. You don’t want the CIA on your ass.”

  Gallo shrugged. “Why do you say that? I don’t care, Queen.”

  Queen shook his head. “I can see that you don’t. That’s why you should have been exterminated years ago.”

  “A lot of people agree with you. I assure you that it’s not from lack of trying. From the moment I was born until your appearance in my life.”

  “Let me handle it,” Queen repeated. “Leave Catherine Ling and Eve Duncan alone.”

  “I’ll think about it.” He turned back to the window. “You may go now, Queen.”

  “May? You arrogant bastard.”

  “I can afford to be arrogant. You’re on my turf.”

  “You’d be arrogant anyway, you crazy, murdering, son of a bitch.” The door slammed behind him.

  Should he go after him, Gallo wondered idly. It wasn’t good to let Queen’s fear of him dissipate when it took very little to reinforce it.

  No, it wasn’t necessary, and he wasn’t in the mood. He could deal with Queen at any time. Queen might have thought it was pure arrogance when he’d dismissed him so summarily, but he did have some thinking to do.

  He gazed out at the mountains. He must think clearly and carefully and not let emotion get in the way. Queen might think he was a cold-blooded killer to be exterminated, but the emotion was definitely there. He did not feel cold.

  He was eager.

  For the prospect of the deaths and torment that might come? That would be Queen’s interpretation.

  Or eager for something else?

  Either way, it was not a decision to be taken lightly.

  * * *

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” JOE was standing behind Eve in the porch doorway. “You look like you’re communing with the moon.”

  “Maybe I would if I thought it would do any good. I was only getting some air.” She turned and came toward him. “I just finished talking to Montalvo.”

  “I was about to call him myself.”

  Which only showed Eve Joe’s sense of urgency. Montalvo and Joe were on guarded terms most of the time. She could see that tension now. “Now you don’t have to do it.”

  “Did Montalvo offer to come and help you?” he asked. “It wouldn’t surprise me.”

  She didn’t answer directly. “I don’t need anything but information from Montalvo. He couldn’t give me much.” She handed him her telephone. “A photo of Paul Black. Montalvo still hasn’t been able to get a lead on his current whereabouts.”

  Joe glanced at the photo. “I’ll give it to Venable in case he doesn’t have it yet.”

  “And there’s nothing in Black’s report that indicates he ever had a partner or even an associate. He was never in the service, and how that report from him on John Gallo ever got into Agency files is a mystery.”

  “It seems everything about John Gallo is a mystery.” He handed her back the phone. “Except to you, Eve.”

  She stiffened. “How can you say that? The John Gallo I knew doesn’t exist any longer. Any more than the girl I was back then exists.”

  “That’s right, you told me that, didn’t you.” He turned. “I admit I’m very interested to meet John Gallo.”

  And she hadn’t told him that Catherine might have a possible location on him. Her decision had evidently been made. “He may not be Bonnie’s killer. Catherine wasn’t sure.”

  He went back into the house. “I’ll still be interested to meet him.”

  Should she stay out here and wait for Catherine’s call or go in and go to bed?

  She hesitated before following Joe inside. She’d let him have a little time to himself, then she had to talk to him. She was going to make him more angry and resentful before this was over, but she didn’t want the strain to go on right now. She wanted to be close to him and try to make him understand.

  Make him understand that sixteen-year-old Eve? He’d already told her that he couldn’t comprehend her motives because that girl wasn’t the same person he knew.

  Then talk to him, make him understand.

  Joe was already in bed by the time she came into the bedroom. He was naked as usual, the sheet flung carelessly over his body.

  “No call from Catherine?” he asked.

  She shook her head and went into the bathroom. “I’m not waiting up for it.”

  He was still lying in bed, his arm beneath his head, when she came out a few minutes later. His muscles were tense, his face without expression. “But you wanted to wait up for it, didn’t you? You just thought it would be more diplomatic to soothe the savage.”

  “When have you known me to be diplomatic? Particularly with you. Our lives are based on being painfully up-front with each other.” She got into bed. “And you’re not a savage … most of the time.”

  “You see, you know me very well,” he said mockingly. “All my moods, faults, and virtues. You know what I am and what I can be.”

  “Not necessarily. If you’re claiming to be predictable, it’s far from the truth. You change, you surprise me.”

  “Do I?” He paused. “But not as much as you surprise me. This one threw me into the stratosphere.”

  “It wasn’t a surprise that I deliberately sprang on you. I was just as shocked as you were. Probably more.”

  “And you’re straining at the leash to go on the hunt again.” He was staring into the darkness. “And I’m the leash, aren’t I? You want to break free and go find Paul Black … and Gallo.”

  “I don’t regard you as some kind of restraint, Joe. You’ve always helped me.” Be honest. “It’s just that this time I’d feel more guilt if anything happened to you.” She wearily shook her head. “Or maybe not. I always worry that I’m going to get you killed when I’m the only one who should be putting her life on the line. Perhaps this time it just seems different.”

  “Because of Gallo.”

  “Yes. And because it could have been my mistake that caused Bonnie to be killed if I linked myself with a monster. You don’t blame me any more than I blame myself for being such an idiot.”

  “I don’t blame you. I have no right. I was no saint when I was a kid. Hell, I’m no saint now. That’s not why I’m so damn upset.”

  “Then why?”

  “I’m jealous.”

  “What?”

  “Oh, not of Gallo,” he added grimly. “Though that may come. I’m jealous of the fact that there’s part of you I don’t know, that I might never know. I hadn’t thought about it before. When I met you, I knew I loved you almost from the very first. I couldn’t do anything about it because you were in agony about losing Bonnie, and you stayed that way for years. All I could do was stand by and be your friend. Then I got my chance, and I took it.”

  “Thank God.”

  “But because there was so much
history between us, it blurred everything else. You were the complete package by the time I met you. I couldn’t imagine you any differently.”

  “A very broken package.” She cuddled closer to him. “You helped put me back together. As I said, by that time, that other girl didn’t exist.”

  “She has to exist. She’s part of you.” He added flatly, “And I don’t know her. I have to know her.”

  Because Joe’s love was as possessive as it was passionate. Even Catherine had recognized that about him.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “I can’t demand, you have to offer. And you’re not willing to do that right now. Because I wasn’t part of your world, you don’t think I’d be able to relate.”

  “And could you? You were a rich kid. You went to Harvard, for heaven’s sake. Do you want me to tell you about the stink of the projects, the graffiti on the walls? How it felt to be a teenage female and afraid of when I’d be targeted next? How I was afraid I’d never break free of them? As a cop, you’ve seen them, but you haven’t lived them.”

  Silence. “And John Gallo has.”

  “Yes, he told me that the project where he grew up was worse than the one where I lived.”

  “So you became soul mates.”

  “Our souls had nothing to do with it. Do you want me to tell you that we were drawn to each other because we were both slum kids? I can’t do that.” She was saying exactly what Catherine had warned her against. She couldn’t help it. She wouldn’t be anything but honest with Joe. “We were both loners. The only reason we came together was chemistry. And the reason we separated was that both of us realized that chemistry could ruin any chance of our climbing out of the dung heaps where we were born.” She was silent, then said, “Is there anything else you want to know?”

  “Hell, yes. Every single detail, but I’m not going to ask because that would probably drive me crazier than not knowing. Damn chemistry.”

  She suddenly started to chuckle. “Joe, don’t damn something that we value so highly. Chemistry may not have brought you and me together originally, but it’s helped to keep us together and strong for years. Do you think that anything I had with that kid, John Gallo, could have had the same kind of endurance and staying power?”

  “I’ve no idea. But you’re not going to find out.” He was suddenly on his knees on the bed. “And I find I’m becoming annoyed at being thought of as the steady, boring stallion in the barn.” He threw the sheet that covered them on the floor. “Endurance? Staying power?”

  She inhaled sharply as she gazed at him. She always loved the look of Joe naked. Beautifully muscular shoulders and thighs, tight buttocks and belly. He looked completely at home with his nudity, like Adam in the garden, or a sultan in his harem. Joe was a magnificent lover, innovative, passionate, sometimes teasing, sometimes wicked. In those moments, he was completely sexual, completely devoted to the act itself. Yet tonight there was something else …

  His expression. His eyes were glittering recklessly as his hand reached out and cupped her breast. “Shall I show you endurance, Eve?”

  Her heart was suddenly pounding beneath his hand. “I don’t know. Should I be worried?”

  “Not you.” His mouth was suddenly on her nipple, drawing strongly. “You can take me.” His lips moved down to her belly. “You can match me. We just have to go to the next level.” He moved over her, cupped her buttocks in his two hands and sank deep. “Like this.”

  The fever was starting. No, it was here, rising. She was moving, arching against him, trying to take more.

  “That’s right.” His tone was guttural. His words came hard and fast with every thrust. “Give—me—everything.”

  Harder.

  Madness.

  Deeper.

  It couldn’t be deeper, but it was.

  Her entire body was on fire. The sensitive nerves beneath her skin were causing the flesh to swell, become part of the act itself.

  He was shifting her back and forth and rotating, each movement taking, building, peaking.

  “Now,” he whispered in her ear. “Now, Eve.”

  He drove deeper.

  She arched. Her teeth bit into her lower lip as her entire body convulsed. “Joe!”

  Pleasure. Intense. Explosive. Mind-blowing.

  She was panting, clinging desperately to him, as the room whirled around her. Over. Dear heaven, it had been more intense than she could—

  But it wasn’t over.

  Her gaze flew up to his face. “You didn’t…”

  “No.” His mouth was tense, but full and sensual. Everything about him held that same extreme sexual tension. He lowered his head and kissed her, his tongue teasing hers, then outlining her lower lip. He whispered, “Endurance.”

  And he started to move again.

  Skilled, teasing, alternating hard and gentle.

  Her climax had been so intense, it wasn’t possible that she could climb to that peak again.

  But it was happening. Joe was bringing her with him, using every sexual skill in his arsenal.

  And it happened again.

  “Endurance?” Joe asked as he looked down at her. “Not such a bad trait, is it?”

  And he started to move once more.

  The entire night became a sensual dream of arousal and satisfying that arousal. It was hours later that the passion ebbed enough for her to roll over and put her head in the hollow of his shoulder. It was her favorite place, but tonight even that position seemed to lack a certain security. “Were you … angry?”

  “Did I seem angry?”

  “I don’t—I guess not. It was just … fierce.”

  “You didn’t enjoy it?”

  “Of course I did. Don’t be an ass. You were … extraordinary.”

  “Then I’ll have to do it more often until it becomes ordinary.” He kissed her temple. “And then we’ll go on to the next level.”

  “There can’t be a next level.”

  “Yes, there is. We’ll find it.” His tone was absolutely positive as he got out of bed and strode toward the bathroom. “Maybe I can’t ever know what made up the psyche of that sixteen-year-old girl, but I can make sure that our chemistry comes out way ahead of anything you knew back then.”

  “It always did, Joe.”

  “Maybe.” He stood there in the doorway, naked, confident, handsome, totally mature. Joe, who had been her salvation and her love. Joe, who could raise her to the realm of complete eroticism.

  He smiled. “But I’m an overachiever. I think we’ll stretch our limits.”

  He disappeared into the bathroom.

  She lay there, her gaze on the door. Her body felt flushed, lazy, yet her muscles had an underlying tingle that wouldn’t leave her. It was as if they were waiting for the next touch, the next—

  Her cell phone rang on the bedside table.

  She reached over to get it.

  Catherine.

  “Sorry to call you in the middle of the night, but I thought you’d want to know as soon as I did. I just talked to Nate Queen.”

  “And?”

  “Nothing. He says he can’t find any more information than he gave me before. Bullshit. He knows something. He’s stalling.”

  “So what are you doing?”

  “I’m going to keep after him. What else? And if I don’t get answers, I’m going to zero in on him in person. I won’t let him weasel out on getting us what we need.”

  Joe had come back into the room and was staring at Eve. “Catherine?”

  Eve nodded, before saying to Catherine, “You thought he’d be able to tell us. What changed?”

  “How do I know? His superiors stomped on him? He got panicky? I don’t know much about him. Queen wasn’t my original contact. I’d done a favor for Dan Murphy, an agent on the lower rungs at Army Intelligence, and I tapped him for help. He was willing at first, but he just handed me off to Nate Queen like a hot potato when I brought up Gallo. I’ll call you back when I know more. What did you find o
ut from Montalvo?”

  “Not much. As far as anyone knew, he never worked with a partner and was never in the service.”

  “That’s a start. Elimination can be valuable, too. Bye.” Catherine hung up.

  “Am I to be told what Catherine found out?” Joe asked quietly.

  “Zero. Nate Queen, with Army Intelligence, thought he might be able to find John Gallo. He just told Catherine he was mistaken. She thinks someone got to him. She’s going after him.”

  His lips tightened. “Maybe she needs help.”

  “Believe me, she can handle him.”

  “You’re probably right. It appears half the Intelligence community owes Catherine a favor, and the other half is wary of her.” He got into bed. “And she’s collecting all of their debts in your cause, Eve.”

  “I told her she didn’t owe me anything. Catherine doesn’t listen to anything she doesn’t want to hear.”

  “Single-minded? Is that the pot calling the kettle black?”

  Catherine and she were alike in so many ways and also had a multitude of differences. “Whatever. This time, I’ll take what she’s offering.”

  “Naturally.” He had not pulled her close. He was lying on his own side of the bed. “That goes without saying.” He was gazing into the darkness. “She’s offering you Bonnie.”

  * * *

  CATHERINE CALLED HER BACK AT TEN the next morning. “Still no luck with Queen. He’s not taking my calls. I did find out that he wasn’t at headquarters. He was out in the field.”

  “Where?”

  “I couldn’t find out. He’s supposed to be back this afternoon and I’m going to fly up to INSCOM and ask him.”

  Eve chuckled. “And Joe was wondering if you were going to need his help with Queen.”

  “I might call him if I can’t get the bastard to talk. Joe and I could play good cop–bad cop. We’d be a good team. Is he at the precinct today?”

  “Yes, it’s a wonder he keeps a job the way I constantly pull him away from it.”

  “I didn’t notice any pulling. Are you working?”

  “Not yet. My adopted daughter, Jane, just called me from London, and we talked for a while.”

  “But I bet not about Gallo.”

  “No. Why would I worry her? She’d want to jump on a plane and come here. This is my problem.” She added, “But I’ll be working soon. I’m expecting a skull from Austin, Texas, today. A little boy they found buried in the woods near the freeway.”