Dark of Night

by Suzanne Brockmann

  Deck spread the others out on the table and … Hello, Dr. Heissman. And okay, he'd be pale and blushing, too, if he knew she were looking at similar photos of him, taken during what should have been private moments.

  Oddly enough, the pictures did absolutely nothing for him. Or to him. In fact, he couldn't remember a time when he'd wanted to get with this woman less than he did right now. That was kind of weird. He flipped through the photos again.

  In all six of the shots, her face was in sharp focus.

  Not so much for her lover, though. In fact… “None of these photos show your boyfriend's face.”

  “Is that unusual?” she asked from her chair in the living room, her voice tight. “I've never been blackmailed before, so …”

  “It goes along with my theory,” Deck told her. “That your boyfriend here helped set up the blackmail. That it was insurance—part of the Agency plan to keep former employees compliant. Glad to see you used condoms, because if that's the case, your boyfriend was far from exclusive—he was running the same scam on other women, although definitely not in your department, and probably not even in the Agency's D.C. branch. What did he tell you his name was again?”

  “Peter,” she said. “Olivetti. I'm sorry, I just can't wrap my mind around it. He dated my daughter for… it was at least two months. That seems like such a huge investment of time.”

  “He dated her in order to meet you,” Decker pointed out. “Two months is nothing for this kind of long con. Did he tell you he traveled for work—was he frequently out of town?”

  “More often than not.” She nodded. “I'm a fool.”

  “No,” he said. “Just human. He's… certainly attractive enough, and … I'm sure he made a point to be everything you wanted him to be.”

  “Sometimes I think it's worse to deal with you when you're being nice,” she said.

  He had to laugh. Tracy had said almost exactly that earlier. “As opposed to when I'm threatening to kill you? That's a little twisted—that you like that better, Doc.”

  “I'm human, remember?” she said. “A little twisted comes with the territory.”

  “Do you have any photographs of Olivetti featuring his face?” Deck asked.

  “I do,” she said. “On my computer. May I?”

  She gestured to a corner of the dining room where she'd tucked a small desk. Upon it was a laptop, plugged into a modem.

  “Please,” he said. Their manners were impeccable, even though there probably wasn't a chapter in any etiquette book on “How to Converse with Your Former Therapist While Holding Blackmail Photos of Her with Her Legs Spread.” Please and thank you, however, had universal appeal. He left the photos out on the kitchen table as he joined her in the dining room.

  “They're from the same trip to New York,” she told him as she slipped into the chair. She manipulated the mouse and accessed her pictures file as he moved to look over her shoulder—making sure she wasn't taking the opportunity to e-mail anyone who might want to kill him.

  “We took one of those Circle Line Cruises,” she continued, glancing up at him. “I wanted to see the Statue of Liberty again, and …” She frowned, and rearranged the contents of the folder so that it was a list instead of icons. She scanned it. “That's funny.”

  “File's gone, huh?” He'd expected as much.

  “It was here,” Jo said, clicking back to her pictures file, “in my vacations folder. But there were others. He sent me a download of himself when he went to San Antonio—outside of the Alamo.” She accessed a file called “Downloads,” which was neatly organized in subfolders, one of which was labeled Friends. She clicked on it and … “That's gone, too.” She looked up at Decker. “Son of a bitch.”

  Olivetti—or whatever his name really was—had erased himself from her computer. “Any hard-copy photos?” Deck asked, expecting the answer he got.

  “No. Son of a bitch.”

  “How about any kind of backup? A flashdrive or—”

  “No,” she said. “Not for the photos. I mean, yes, for important ones. My kids, my parents, but… Peter wasn't exactly a keeper.”

  Bang, bang, bang!

  Shit—someone was hammering on the front door.

  They both jumped. Dr. H. leaped to her feet and then flinched, and Decker realized that he'd drawn his sidearm even as he'd grabbed her arm. He pushed her farther into the corner, out of line of the door.

  “Pizza delivery!” came a male voice as whoever was out there found the buzzer and leaned on it. Enhhhhhhhhhhh.

  Decker looked at Jo, who shook her head. She hadn't ordered pizza.

  But then the person at the door lowered their voice. “Chief. It's Lopez. Pretend you don't know me when you open the door. There's no sign of surveillance, but that doesn't mean they're not out there.” He raised his voice again. “Angelo's Pizza!”

  “Who's Lopez?” Dr. Heissman asked, her eyes wide.

  “A friend,” Decker told her. Somehow he and Lindsey and Tracy had followed him here. Somehow? Yeah, right. Tracy Shapiro was too fricking smart for her own good.

  “Come on, Chief, open up,” Lopez was back to whispering. “I know you're in there. Nothing good is going to come from hurting the doctor—”

  What the fuck had Tracy told him?

  But as Deck headed toward the door, the sound of shattering glass came from the kitchen.

  This was not good. This was very, very not good. That was the sound of one of the panes of glass in the back door being broken—end result being that whoever was out there could reach in and release the deadbolt and lock.

  Like Lopez, Decker had seen no sign of surveillance when he'd pulled up. But he'd purposely parked out front—with hopes that whoever had followed him and Tracy to the Seaside Heights motel would likewise follow him here and strike again. At which point, his plan was to charge the attack. It was one surefire way to find out who was attacking.

  But his intention had been to do it without Tracy as a potential target. It made him sweat—knowing that she was currently out there, with Lindsey, no doubt waiting in Lopez's car.

  “Go into the bathroom,” Decker ordered, pushing Jo down the hall as he dug her cell phone out of his pocket and thrust it at her. “Lock the door. Call 9-1-1.”

  He didn't wait to see if she obeyed him. He ran to the front door as he took out his backup weapon—a .22 that he'd taken from the lockup in his truck and tucked into the back of his pants before breaking into the doctor's house. He flung the door open and tossed the .22 to Lopez, who dropped the pizza box in order to catch it. “I need backup, now!”

  Lopez was on Deck's heels as he charged the kitchen, prepared to shoot the motherfucker who was breaking in, if need be. He could identify the body after the fact.

  But whoever was out there was astonishingly inept when it came to breaking and entering. Sure enough, shards of glass glittered on the kitchen's tile floor. And if that weren't proof enough of an attempted illegal entry, a hand was reaching through the broken panel of glass, gingerly feeling for the lock.

  “Don't move!” Deck shouted as he knocked aside the hand and … “Oh, shit!”

  That was Tracy's hand. It was Tracy who was on the other side of the kitchen door. Decker realized it a mere fraction of a second too late. He'd already yanked open the door, and the momentum pulled her into the kitchen, knocking her onto her knees right on the broken glass, her arm still caught in the window panel.

  “Stand down,” he ordered Lopez, who immediately backed off.

  “Ow,” she said. “Ow!”

  Her arm had been forced down onto the glass that edged the broken window, scraping her badly enough to draw blood.

  “Goddamnit,” Deck said as he helped untangle her from the door, cutting himself in his attempt to keep her from getting cut again. “What the hell were you doing?”

  “Is she all right?” Tracy asked, ignoring the fact that blood was dripping down her fingers and onto the floor. She pushed herself to her feet, brushing the glass from the k
nees of her jeans. “Ow! Decker, where's Jo Heissman?”

  “She's right here,” Lopez reported. “She's all right.”

  “Oh, thank God,” Tracy breathed.

  “I was calling 9-1-1, but I'm on hold. Should I hang up?” the doctor asked, as Decker caught Tracy's injured arm and tried to look at it.

  “Ow!”

  “Yes,” Decker told Dr. Heissman, adding, “Sorry,” to Tracy.

  “Everything all right in here?” Lindsey came in through the still-open front door, her sidearm at ready.

  “Get that door closed,” Decker ordered as he pulled Tracy toward the sink. “Lindsey, relieve Dr. Heissman of her cell phone. Take her upstairs and help her pack a bag. We're going to move her someplace more secure. Lopez. Do what you can to get this mess on the floor cleaned up. And let's call someone to come board up the broken window.”

  “I'm on it, Chief.”

  “Ooh!” Tracy drew in her breath in a hiss. She looked at her uninjured hand. “I think I've got…”

  Decker looked closely. Sure enough, she had a nasty splinter of glass lodged in her palm, just below her thumb. “Hold still.” He was able to grab hold of it and pull it out, but not without—“Fuck!”—sticking himself with the damn thing.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  “Next time use your brain,” Deck told her brusquely as he ran the water in the sink and held her arm under the flow. He had to wash off the blood in order to get a better look at her collection of cuts and scrapes. God damn it, he'd done this to her. “Never brush yourself off with your hand when you've got broken glass on you. But you won't have to remember that if you apply the never rule to breaking into someone's house. You suck at it, by the way.”

  The worst of her scrapes looked to be only superficial, thank God, because she'd taken the time to carefully clear out most of the jagged edges of glass left in the panel before she'd reached through. None of her cuts were deep enough to require stitches. Still, it no doubt hurt like hell. It hurt him just to look at it.

  Decker became aware of the fact that he was touching her—her hand, her arm—as she shifted slightly, toward him. She pressed the entire length of her leg against his in a move that was deliberate. Had to be. No way could that've been accidental. Particularly since she kept it there.

  Funny how it was suddenly hard for him to breathe.

  “You suck for running away,” she murmured, glancing up at him.

  “Yeah,” he said, just as quietly, his gaze carefully focused on her arm. He did not, however, move. He could have shifted to the right and put some space between them, but he didn't. He didn't want to. “I know.” He reached for the soap and pumped himself a small handful. “This is going to sting.”

  “Ow!” she said.

  Decker looked at her in disbelief and laughed. “I haven't done anything yet.”

  “It's the anticipation,” she said. “It's killing me. Just do it already, will you?”

  He did, rubbing the soap as gently as he could into her arm. She made that sound again—air drawn in between her teeth—and he murmured, “Sorry.”

  “No, it's good,” she said. “It means it's getting clean, right?”

  “I think it just means that it hurts.”

  “Well, I like to think it means it's getting clean, so don't stop.”

  Wash me. And don't stop until I tell you to. …

  Decker froze, but only for the merest fraction of a second, as an echo of her words reverberated in his head.

  She felt his hesitation and looked up at him, a question in her eyes. A question and the answer—it was clear that she knew exactly what he was thinking. And yes. There it was again. That oxygen-sucked-out-of-the-room sensation.

  He changed the subject—to the next volatile topic.

  “Did you really think I'd hurt her?” he found himself asking. “Dr. Heissman?”

  Tracy answered honestly. “I didn't know what to think,” she admitted. “I mean, I came here ready to … I don't know. Talk you off the ledge. If I had to. You were so angry with her, in the Starbucks, I just…”

  “Much of what I do and say … It's an act,” he told her.

  “I know that,” she said. “And I'm usually pretty good at telling the difference, but… I think I was afraid that we'd, I don't know, maybe … opened some doors.”

  She was talking about what had gone down between them in Starrett's upstairs bathroom. Silly him, for assuming that she wouldn't bring it up.

  “You seemed a little—” She stopped herself. Corrected herself. “You seemed extremely freaked out. And I know I mocked you for it, but I do know that you're not a coward, so—”

  “Maybe I am,” Decker whispered. “You scare me to death.”

  It was obviously not what she'd expected him to say, and she laughed, but then jumped and turned to look as, over by the door, Lopez loudly cleared his throat. He was using a dustpan to sweep up the glass.

  “Sorry to interrupt. I just wanted to make sure you knew I was in here,” the SEAL said, as Decker finally finished rinsing the soap from Tracy's arm and turned off the water.

  “You're not interrupting anything.” Deck stepped back from her—and instantly missed her softness and warmth.

  It was pretty remarkable. He'd always considered himself to be a man with relatively few needs. Some of the other Troubleshooters operatives often bitched and moaned about their hotel accommodations or other travel inconveniences. But Decker rarely gave a flying shit. He needed clothes to cover him, and food to eat, and a safe place to sleep—what kind of bed and whether or not it was or wasn't firm enough just didn't play into it.

  It had always seemed ridiculous to him, but for the first time, he understood why people complained. Because as impractical as it was, the idea of going through his day with Tracy glued, soft and warm, to his side—or maybe sitting on his lap—was remarkably appealing. It would, without a doubt, improve his quality of life on a scale that he'd never before imagined possible.

  And it wasn't even about sex, it was about physical contact. Connection. Jesus, he couldn't remember the last time anyone —anyone—had so much as touched him, let alone given him a hug.

  He reached to pull several sheets off a roll of paper towels and used them to blot both water and blood from Tracy's arm—and as an excuse to touch her again.

  She knew it, too, and she shifted closer, so that her shoulder brushed his. She looked up at him, and their gazes caught and held.

  And held …

  “As long as I have your attention, Chief,” Lopez said, dumping the glass into the trash. “Looks like there're some photos on the table that, uh, might want to get put away?”

  What? Oh, shit. “Yeah,” Decker said, letting go of Tracy, fast, and turning toward the table in question. “Thanks. Sorry, that you, um …”

  “I'm not complaining,” Lopez said. “It's just a little … Okay. A lot unusual. I guess maybe it's just my day to see everyone I know naked.”

  “Oh, my God” Tracy said as she looked to see what he was talking about. Her mouth dropped open as Deck quickly scooped up the pictures and grabbed the envelope. “Decker, wait.”

  But he covered the photos, lowered his voice. “I think it's safe to say that the doctor's being blackmailed. You don't need to see these.”

  “I figured that's what that was,” Lopez said. “Sorry—they were hard not to notice.”

  “Please.” Tracy reached out and caught Deck's arm. “I'm not trying to be cute or freaky or … This has nothing to do with me and you, and me wanting to …” She closed her eyes, exhaled, and started over. “May I please see that top picture again? Because those tattoos. … ? I think that might be my ex, Michael.”

  CHAPTER

  FOURTEEN

  Unable to sleep, Jules found his way into the kitchen, looking for God knows what.

  Only the dimmest of lights was on, but Sam was sitting on one of the four stools at the big center island counter, dressed down in cutoff sweats and a well-worn T-shi
rt, big bare feet hooked in the rungs. Cold cuts and bread were spread out in front of him as he ate a sandwich.

  “Hey,” he greeted Jules through a mouthful of turkey and Swiss on what looked like marble rye.

  “Hey.” Jules opened the refrigerator and stared at the contents. It was well-stocked—with absolutely nothing that he wanted. Because he didn't really want anything to eat.

  What he wanted was for three innocent people—one of them a child—to not be dead.

  But his stomach churned and burbled and he knew he had to put something into it. He wasn't going to be able to hunt down the killer if he made himself sick.

  As opposed to heartsick, which he already was.

  “How about I make you a sandwich?” Sam asked. It wasn't really a question, because he was already doing it—taking a couple of slices of bread from the bag and plopping them onto the same plate he was using.

  Jules closed the fridge with a sigh. “Sure, why not?” He sat on the stool down at the end, leaving one empty between them. “Thanks.”

  “You should probably stay off the Internet for a few days,” the former SEAL advised him as he squeezed a generous amount of spicy brown mustard onto the bread. “Robin is getting reamed by all of the celebrity gossip sites. It's not going to help your blood pressure to see that circus.”

  Jules laughed, even though he wanted to cry. “You know what Robin told me?”

  “Nope. What did Robin tell you?” Sam used up the rest of the turkey and started opening the other packs of meat.

  “Hey.”

  They both looked up to see Jimmy Nash, leaning on a cane for support as he hobbled his way into the kitchen. His dark hair was a mess and he was wearing his plaid pajama pants with a T-shirt.

  “Look at you,” Jules said. “Up and about like a big boy.”

  “Barely,” Nash said.

  “You know,” Jules said, “when you get the doctor's approval to begin physical therapy, it generally means you can begin physical therapy. Which means that you still spend a certain amount of time taking it slow and using a wheelchair and okay, I can see that you've already tuned me out. I'm talking to myself, aren't I? Yes, I am.”