“Oh, of course.”
“Jacob’s a true child of the city,” Tara interjected, sounding eager to smooth things over. “He doesn’t know what to do with himself without all kinds of distractions. At home he went to sleep with the television on, and when I’d turn it off, he’d flip it back on first thing when he woke up.”
“Outer peace leads to inner peace,” said Owen. “The quiet of the compound will seep into your heart if you let it, and you will find all that you need right here.”
He opened the door to the infirmary and stood aside to let them enter. “Dinner will be in another hour. Relax here, and Deborah will bring you food.”
• • •
TARA BARELY RESISTED the urge to spit curses after Owen. With a few words, he’d effectively locked them inside the infirmary, putting paid to any idea of further exploration of the ranch house. And she could practically feel the electronic eyes and ears pressing on her skin and forbidding discussion. A frustrated shriek rose in her throat, and she stuffed it down.
Jake settled on her bed and pulled her down next to him.
“I’m sorry.”
“I knew. I just didn’t want to believe it.”
“Without your friend, are you sure you want to stay? Is this the life you’re choosing, or was it just the one she wanted?”
What was he asking? Did he really think she’d abandon her investigation? She couldn’t prove these fuckers had killed Andrea—not yet—but she knew it. The fact that the Chosen refused to discuss suicides would make her job more difficult, but not impossible.
“Why don’t you take a shower,” Jake suggested when she didn’t answer immediately. He reached over and poured a glass of water from the pitcher on the nightstand between the two beds. “We need to remember to stay hydrated.”
She took the glass and sipped at the liquid, which cooled her throat but not her temper. Men. The lot of them should take a long walk off a short pier. Jake might be playing the part of the skeptical boyfriend for the cameras, but his voice and the look in his eyes dug deeper. He wanted her to leave. To take off without finding the truth, without bringing those responsible for Andrea’s death to justice.
And they were responsible, despite Stephenson’s pious crap about suicide. But Jake wasn’t likely to believe her without proof. Why was it acceptable for any of her male colleagues to “go with his gut,” but when women had no hard evidence to support their intuitions they were accused of “operating on emotion”?
She drained the glass, then stood and smacked it down on the table. “A shower sounds good.” If the bathroom door slammed a bit too loudly behind her, well, perhaps it was just a draft.
She’d left the scrubs they’d given her on her admission to the infirmary hanging on a hook on the back of the bathroom door that morning, but now they lay neatly folded on the edge of the vanity. Just more evidence that nothing in the compound—let alone inside the house itself—was private. A little more psychological manipulation. Tiny terrorism at its finest.
Could there be cameras even in here? She gritted her teeth. If she started poking around in the light fixtures and behind the mirror, she’d arouse suspicion. Assholes. So tempting to give them the finger. Of course, that would blow her cover faster than searching the room for video equipment.
Well, screw ’em. They’d seen her close enough to naked in the shed. She’d handled that; she could handle this. There might not even be cameras.
Her jaw ached and, despite the film of sweat on her body, she cranked the water as hot as possible to create steam before stripping off her clothes and stepping into the shower. The water pounded on her, stinging in her scabs and scrapes. She soaped, shampooed, and rinsed as quickly as she could, then wrapped herself in a towel before stepping out of the steamy shower.
Even in the infirmary the luxury did not extend to a hair dryer, so Tara carefully maneuvered the scrubs over her damp and scabbed-over body and then carried the comb from the vanity out so she could sit on the bed while she braided her hair for the night.
“Shower’s all yours,” she said to Jake. But he didn’t move. Instead, he reached out and tugged on the comb in her hand.
“Let me.”
She backed away. “What?”
“C’mon, sweetheart. You know I love your hair. Let me do it.” His voice was low, rough, persuasive, hypnotic. It slid through her, weakening her resolve, and her fingers let go of the comb and the towel. He took both, then positioned her on the edge of the bed while he took up a spot behind her, his knees on either side of her hips. He shook out the towel, then draped it over her head and began to massage her scalp.
Oh my God. The man had magic fingers. She’d never considered her head an erogenous zone, but clearly she lacked imagination. She held back a moan of pleasure only by sheer force of will.
He dropped the towel to the side and picked up the comb. At home, when Tara had kept her hair to a practical law-enforcement length, she had still used an expensive conditioner to detangle her curls and keep them under control. When she left Dobbs Hollow and went off to find herself, she’d quit with haircuts but had kept up the conditioning. Since joining the Chosen, however, all that had ended. Her hair looked and felt like a haystack. Dragging a comb through it after showers generally involved cursing, and the only reason she hadn’t cut it all off was that she couldn’t imagine how much worse it would be if she couldn’t tie it back.
Jake, however, didn’t seem to care about the straw-like qualities. Rather than forcing the comb through knots as she did, he patiently teased out each one, stopping now and then to run his fingers through the damp mass and to rub her neck and shoulders.
By the time he was done, Tara’s anger had dissipated and she had relaxed to the point that she was half-asleep. She felt the gentle tugs as he partitioned her hair and braided it, then tied it off with the rubber band that had been around the handle of the comb.
And then Deborah opened the infirmary door, and every muscle and nerve awoke once more.
“I’ll be in with dinner in a minute,” she said. “But I’ve brought your pills, Serena. And I wanted to check you over after your first day. How are you feeling?”
“Tired. But I’m okay. If the Leader wants us to go back to work, I’m ready.”
“Not yet.” Deborah handed her the antibiotic pill. “Keep drinking plenty of water. The sheds are hot. Tomorrow is soon enough to talk about going back to work.”
“Okay.” Docile. Stay docile. But Deborah’s appearance had resurrected all her seething anger. If Deborah could get antibiotics to treat infection without Tara seeing a doctor, what would have stopped them from getting some drug to poison Andrea and John and simply claiming they’d killed themselves? It wasn’t as if the compound were crawling with investigators—if Owen announced that John and Pearl had “gone on a mission,” the Chosen would accept it as fact.
Deborah stepped out and came back a moment later with their dinner. She led them in prayer, then left them to eat. Tara could feel Jake’s gaze on her, but she kept her own on the food as she ate. “I didn’t mean to walk so far or fast today that I wore you out,” he said at last. “Maybe tomorrow we should stick closer to the house.” She shrugged. “Maybe. We’ll see what morning brings.”
• • •
JAKE HEARD DEBORAH clearing the trays as he stepped out of the shower, which was just as well. The way Tara tensed whenever the woman entered the room knotted his gut and his fists. He’d just gotten her nice and relaxed after the traumatic revelations at the cemetery when Deborah had spoiled things. Of course, relaxing Tara meant putting his hands on her, which had exactly the opposite effect on him, but he didn’t even mind the fact that he’d become a walking Viagra warning label.
He’d thought about taking the edge off in the shower, but with Tara right outside the door, the idea held little appeal. He didn’t want his own hands; he wanted he
rs. Hell of a thing to be thinking about right now, but there it was.
He scrubbed his hair as dry as he could and combed it out with considerably more force than he’d used on Tara’s. He considered shaving—when he’d been with the FBI, he’d often found himself shaving twice a day to stay presentable because his stubble came in so fast, but here fastidiousness would earn him a strike. Owen Stephenson had a shaggy beard, and his lieutenants tended toward the scruffy.
He slipped into the scrubs some faceless acolyte had folded and placed on the vanity for him while they were out—he’d left them laid out on his bed that morning when he changed into his jeans—and went back into the infirmary.
Tara lay flopped on her back on top of her bed, staring at the ceiling. Her whole demeanor spoke of exhaustion. Not physical—though the olive green short-sleeve top she wore showed the oozing and scabbed evidence of her nights in isolation—but emotional. The light and electricity that always surrounded her, the force and magnetism of her personality, had fled.
He stepped back into the bathroom and grabbed the toothbrushes off the vanity, then flourished them as he entered the room. “Hey, dragon breath, time to clean the fangs.”
“What?!” Tara bolted upright and glared at him. Ah, there she was. Welcome back, sweetheart. She stomped over and snatched the toothbrush from him before storming into the bathroom, and he suppressed a grin.
He didn’t bother to hide the laugh that surfaced minutes later when she held up her hand to stop him from crawling into bed with her for a second night.
“I’m fine. I don’t know what was the matter with me last night, but I don’t need company tonight.”
He opened his eyes as wide as possible. “But don’t you want me to sleep with you?” He watched her struggle for an appropriate response. “Remember, the Leader said you need to forgive me.” He eased under the covers before she could come up with a valid objection, then slid his arms around her and hung on despite the unwelcoming stiffness of her limbs.
Gradually, she relaxed. The single bed gave her no choice but to press against him. She lay half atop him, and every breath pressed her breasts more firmly against his chest and side. Another sleepless night for him.
“Jacob,” she said at last, the words sleepy and slurred, “we’re staying. At least, I am.”
“I know we are, baby,” he replied, giving in to temptation and stroking her hair, curling the braid around his fingers. “I know we are.”
Chapter Four
THE MORNING HORN, though only faint inside the main house, woke Tara. In the weeks she’d lived at the compound, her body had become attuned to the sound. But seeing how it was only the second time in her life she’d awakened in a tiny bed wrapped around a large man, she’d made no such adjustment to that circumstance. During the night, her disobedient hand had managed to slip beneath his pajama top and now rested on a truly spectacular pec.
Holy hell, how did that happen?
She tried to lift her hand off his skin, but the material of his shirt had twisted, so that to free herself she would have to slide her hand all the way down his torso.
She flicked a glance at his face, but he appeared not to have heard the morning horn. Thick black lashes rested on his cheeks, and his mobile lips showed no hint of expression.
Slowly, she began to inch her hand down, careful to disturb him as little as possible. Just when she thought she might escape unnoticed, his voice sounded above her head.
“Well, now things are getting interesting.”
She snatched her hand away, almost falling out of the bed in the process.
“I thought you were asleep.”
He had the audacity to grin at her. “I was. But I woke up when you started groping me.”
“I wasn’t!” She started to punch him in that lovely pec, but he grabbed her hand in one of his and brought it to his mouth. With his other hand, he pried open her fingers. Then he pressed a hot, sweet kiss to her palm.
“I’m just teasing, sweetheart.”
Blushing fiercely, she escaped to the bathroom. Playing girlfriend to Jake Nolan might overtax her acting skills. It was certainly overtaxing her hormones.
• • •
JAKE WISHED HE could afford to examine the pills Deborah brought for Tara with breakfast. Not that he knew diddly about black- or gray-market prescriptions, but he’d love to get the pill number and see if he could find out whether the damn things were even sold in America. The pills had sparked a memory. He’d spotted a familiar face among the Chosen his first night with them, though he hadn’t been able to place the man. The sight of Tara swallowing the antibiotic, however, triggered full recognition: He’d met the guy years before at a task force meeting. He was DEA.
The Chosen hadn’t landed on any official watch lists that he’d been able to track down, but every agency had official and unofficial investigations.
He needed to talk to Tara, and it wasn’t going to happen inside the house. Or anywhere close to it. When she’d told him about the cameras in the security lights, he’d felt a chill he hadn’t experienced in all his years chasing serial killers. He’d heard victims of stalking describe the sensation of being watched, had sympathized as he’d interviewed them, but had never expected to be able to empathize. Owen Stephenson had the whole place wired for sight and sound, and Jake felt the surveillance like spiders crawling over his skin.
After breakfast they tried to walk around the house again, but once more they were shuffled outside.
“Shall we walk out to the orchard?” Jake suggested. The orchard lay fairly far from the main house. They might not make it there, but it would take them out of the range Stephenson probably considered dangerous enough to monitor.
“That sounds nice.”
As they left the house, he took her hand. “How are you feeling today?” “Better. Stronger.” She slanted a look up at him, letting him know she meant it.
“You’re a strong woman.”
Her brow wrinkled as if she might protest, so he picked up the pace a bit. They left behind the buildings and passed by the field workers. When he could breathe, when the spiders stopped crawling over his skin, he brought up the subject of the cemetery.
“What do you think happened to Andrea?”
A muscle popped in Tara’s jaw. He’d never thought about a woman’s jaw before, but hers fascinated him. Square, yes, but also utterly feminine.
“They killed her. Don’t ask how. If I knew that, I’d have the police out here already.”
“Think like a cop, Tara, not like a friend. Suicide means autopsy, and the crematorium would have required a death certificate. It’s not like Stephenson could murder two of his followers, toss their bodies into a truck, and haul them off to the mortuary and have them cremated.”
“I am a cop, Jake, but I was also Andrea’s friend, regardless of the line of bull we were fed about Andrea not talking about me. Maybe you can turn off your friendships, your family feelings, but I can’t.”
Well. There it was. He should have expected her to bring up Lisa sooner or later. God knows, he never forgot her. He swallowed hard and counted to ten before he spoke. “Lucy asked me whether she could put that into her book before she wrote it,” he said at last. “At the time, I thought it only fair. I let Lisa die. My only sister, the only family I had left. I let the heroin take her.”
“You can’t help an addict unless they want help.” Tara touched his face, her tone soft, all the accusation gone.
“I could have worked harder at it. Been there for her. I wasn’t. When Lucy met me, when she was covering the Paxton case, I’d already seen the road my sister was traveling. She’d been on it for years. I’d given up on her the way I’ve never in my life given up on a criminal.
“So, yeah, I let Lucy write about me and Lisa. I even encouraged it. It’s a cautionary tale for workaholics.”
“
No, it isn’t. It’s a public flogging you think you deserve.”
“Excuse me?” He stared at her.
“What I said to you about the loss-of-family feeling, that’s what you wanted. You told Lucy to write about you so people would hate you. But it doesn’t work that way. Especially with Lucy. Nothing she wrote encouraged that perception.”
“She was too kind in her evaluation.”
“How many times had you tried to save Lisa before the Paxton case took you out of town?”
“What do you mean?”
“Had she gone through rehab?”
“Yeah. Look, it happened, okay? It’s history. Let’s talk about the present.”
But Tara wouldn’t let it go. “How many times?”
He shrugged.
“How many times, Jake?”
“Three.”
“And who paid for it?”
“The first time, she was only seventeen. She was on my parents’ insurance.”
“And the other two times?”
“Look, I don’t even know how we got on this topic. We were talking about Andrea, not Lisa.”
“Just answer me. Who paid for your sister’s last two stints in rehab?”
“I did. She didn’t have any money.”
“So you did try to save her. Even knowing, better than most, how unlikely it was that she’d make it after her relapses, you kept on trying.”
“I paid for rehab, but I didn’t give her what she really needed. I didn’t support her enough, care enough. I wasn’t there for her.”
“Did she ask for help?”
“What does that matter?”
“You want to play the martyr card, that’s fine with me. Just don’t expect me to buy into it. I saw how you behaved when Lucy was in trouble. If you’d believed you could do anything at all for Lisa, you would have.”
“Fine. We’ll just have to agree to disagree. Now, before we get interrupted by one or another of the Chosen, can we get back to the question of your friend and what happened to her?”
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