The Dark Gate

by Pamela Palmer

  He pulled her against him, silencing the noise in his head as he wrapped his arms around her. “You want to complain or you want to get warm?”

  She tilted her wet head against his shoulder. “W-warm.”

  A wet strand of her hair brushed his cheek and he pulled her closer. The night was mild enough that he didn’t feel the urgency to get her out of her wet clothes. Besides, trying to stay unaffected by her naked body was a hell of a lot more than he could handle right now.

  “We need to talk,” he said, running his hand up and down her arm. He felt her tense, felt her muscles bunch as if she were about to pull away.

  “Larsen…if we’re going to get out of this alive, you can’t keep holding out on me. I’ve got to know what you know.”

  “You already d-do. I swear to you, Jack, if I had any information that might help us get out of this mess, I’d share it. But I don’t. Can’t you please believe me?”

  The cop in him didn’t want to let it go, but he could feel her body quaking with cold and he knew…he knew…she was as much a victim in this little scenario as he was. Trusting her when she wouldn’t trust him was damned hard. But his gut told him to do it anyway. Whatever she was hiding wasn’t important. Or at least it would wait until later…until their lives were no longer in imminent danger.

  “Yeah,” he sighed against her hair. “I believe you.”

  He felt her slowly relax beneath his hands. Her arms went around his middle and she pressed her shivering body tight against him. Hard nipples brushed his bare chest through the thin, damp fabric of her shirt, making every one of his senses stand at full attention.

  Her shivering was becoming contagious, but his own body’s quaking had nothing to do with cold and everything to do with heat. His hands shook as he stroked her arm, his palm sliding along the raised gooseflesh. Flesh that was slowly evening out, warming beneath his touch.

  Larsen pressed her lips against the sensitive skin beneath his ear, sending shards of need slicing through him. If he wasn’t such a gentleman, he’d have her naked and beneath him in a heartbeat. Now that would warm her up.

  Get a grip, Hallihan. She’d been through enough tonight. She didn’t need to fend off his advances, too.

  Then something warm and damp touched his neck. Jack froze. It couldn’t have been. Could it?

  There. He felt it again. Definitely her sweet little tongue.

  “Larsen…” His voice sounded strangled to his own ears.

  “You smell good.”

  A laugh escaped his throat on a burst of air. “I don’t know why. I haven’t had a shower in two days.”

  “Maybe because I smell like the Potomac.”

  He slipped a hand into her damp hair and nuzzled her cheek. “No you don’t. You smell like…like every fantasy I’ve ever had.”

  “You must have had some weird fantasies, Detective. Do you dream of mermaids often?”

  He put her away from him far enough to frame her face. In the dim glow of a distant streetlight, their gazes met and locked. “No,” he whispered. “I dream of you.”

  Then he kissed her. He couldn’t have stopped himself for any amount of money in the world. Her lips beckoned. Her eyes, her heat. He had to taste her and taste her now.

  But the moment their mouths came together, he knew it was a mistake. Their near-death experience was acting as a powerful aphrodisiac. As if he needed any additional kindling for the fire that simmered just beneath the surface whenever he was near her.

  He devoured her mouth in an explosion of need, drinking her scent, her taste, the very feel of her tongue wrapped around his and the press of her soft breasts against his chest. Too much fabric. He reached for the hem of her shirt and pulled it over her head. If he didn’t feel her bare flesh against his, he’d go insane—right here. Right now.

  If he didn’t bury himself inside her he’d die.

  “Jack,” she breathed into his mouth as he tossed her shirt against the back window and pulled her against him. Skin met skin, the hard tips of her breasts slid over his chest as she straddled him. Heat built at his groin as his hard arousal strained against his cotton boxers.

  He grabbed her buttocks and pressed her hard against him, letting her feel his need. She began to rock against him in her soft little shorts, a whisper of fabric keeping them apart. His thumbs swept under the bottom hems of the shorts to encounter bare flesh. No panties barred his way.

  Her small hand reached low between them to cup his erection, setting him aflame and pulling a groan from his throat.

  “Larsen…” She was open to him. Wanting him. And, oh, how he wanted her.

  Dipping his head, he pulled one bare breast into his mouth, the soft tip turning hard under his stroking tongue. He hadn’t been wrong. She tasted like nectar. Heaven.

  He slid his hand between them, burrowing it under the loose opening of her shorts until he found her moist, hot center. As he pushed his finger deep inside her, she gasped and rocked against his hand. “Jack…” Her passion spurred his own until he was sweating from the need to take her.

  Releasing her breast, he shifted his hold on her. His hand shaking with a fine need, his finger deep inside her, he ran his thumb lightly over the nub that would pleasure her most. “Do you want this?”

  “Yes.” The word exploded on a sigh, wrapping him in rich, hot silk.

  Jack squeezed his eyes closed against the pain of his own arousal and the exquisite joy of hers. Her body was tight and perfect, the finest of instruments tuned to his touch. Passion rose to her skin, filling his nostrils, his loins, heating his blood as he stroked her. The noises in her throat built until whimpers grew to the sexiest little shouts he’d ever heard.

  He kissed her, swallowing her scream of satisfaction as she exploded, feeling the hard contractions around his buried finger and the quaking of her body as she came unraveled in his arms.

  Larsen pulled back, wrenching her mouth from his. “Jack,” she gasped. “I want you. Now.”

  Every cell in his body, every molecule, strained to give her what she wanted. What he craved. Never in his life had he wanted anything more than to bury his hard erection deep inside her wet, hot sheath, to bring her to another climax as he found his own.

  His hands shook with the need to push himself into the opening of her shorts and pull her down on him. So simple. Never had anything been so simple. Or so complicated.

  “We can’t, Larsen.” The words shredded his throat. “We don’t have a condom.” And he would not risk bringing a child into this world that would suffer from the madness that killed his father and was slowly killing him.

  She stilled. Then with a harsh exhale, she collapsed against him. “You don’t travel very well prepared, Jack Hallihan.”

  He ran his palm up her bare back and into her soft hair. “Honey, if I’d had any idea I’d need a condom tonight, I’d have gone to sleep with one taped to my butt.”

  She laughed and patted his cheek. “Nice visual, Detective.” On a groan, she slipped her arms around his neck and he gathered her tight against the raging need of his body. “The one time I actually want to do it.”

  Slowly, he felt her melt against him and knew she was falling asleep. For a long time he held her, feeling the gentle rise and fall of her bare chest against his, the soft whisper of her breath against his neck. Holding her not only quieted his brain, but soothed the aching fear in his chest, filling him with a surprising tenderness.

  He would do whatever it took to keep her safe. He wouldn’t let anything happen to her. He couldn’t. She was becoming more important to him by the moment, in ways he’d never anticipated.

  “Damn!”

  Larsen reared back, startled out of a deep sleep, still in Jack’s arms. “What’s the matter?” she asked, trying to pry her eyes open. It wasn’t exactly daylight, but it was no longer dark outside.

  “Get dressed quick,” Jack said, sliding her onto the seat beside him. He reached for the door handle. “I can’t believe I fell asleep. I
t’s almost sunrise. We’ve got to get out of here before someone finds us.”

  Memory came back with a rush, nearly swamping her. The bullets flying through her houseboat, her dive into the cool Potomac, Jack’s finger deep inside her.

  She groaned silently, knowing she’d acted like a horny teenager, begging him to do her in whatever way possible. Heat burned her cheeks.

  She’d let him get too close. Under the circumstances, after all they’d been through last night, she could probably be excused for the lapse, but bottom line, she didn’t let anyone get that close, emotionally or physically. Since she couldn’t put the physical distance between them—they were stuck with one another until they found a way out of this mess—she needed to widen the distance between them some other way.

  While she struggled back into her damp top, Jack fished a large, old-fashioned cell phone out of the glove compartment.

  “Is that the one you used to call me?”

  “Yeah. I found it after I stole the car.”

  Larsen gaped at him, but ignored the hand he offered and scrambled out on her own. “You did not steal a car. You’re a cop.”

  The morning was damp. Dew seemed to hang in the air, coating everything it touched. Even the asphalt beneath her bare feet felt wet. At least her clothes and hair had mostly dried during the night.

  “Well, it wasn’t armed robbery, but I probably scared five years off the life of the eighty-year-old owner. I told him I needed the car on urgent police business.”

  “Yeah, well, I guess things couldn’t get much more urgent.”

  She shoved her mussed hair off her face and licked dry, salty lips as they crossed the narrow drive to the trees beyond. “So, if you can steal a car, why not steal a tank of gas?”

  Jack sighed. “Don’t think I didn’t consider it. But most gas stations have security cameras. They’ll be able to pinpoint our location and potentially capture us before we get much beyond the gas station. The way it stands, no one knows where we are. For now. They’ll be looking for the SUV by now. That’s why we’ve got to get as far away from it as we can.”

  “We need help, Jack. We’ve got the phone. Why don’t we call someone?”

  “I meant to do that last night, then fell asleep.” Jack made a sound of frustration. “Honest to God, I don’t know who I can trust anymore. Not the M.P.D. I could call one of my neighbors, maybe, but how do I know the bastard isn’t controlling them, too?”

  “We need someone he can’t control. What about the dad at the Kennedy Center?”

  Jack stopped abruptly. “Damn.”

  “What?”

  “I told him to meet me at the station this morning.”

  “The police station?”

  “Yeah. If that son-of-a-bitch sees him, he’ll kill him. He already knows he can’t control him.”

  “We’ve got to warn him.”

  “I don’t have his number.” But his eyes narrowed with concentration. “Maybe I can remember. The first three were the same as mine. But what were the last?” he asked, muttering to himself. “Four, four something. Or maybe four, five. Eight seven. The last two were eight seven. Definitely eight seven. Or seven eight?”

  Larsen watched with bemused anxiety as he dialed the numbers on the oversize phone. That man and his kids could not die. Not after all they’d been through.

  “Hello? Is this Mrs. Rand?” A moment later he pulled the phone from his ear. Larsen could hear the virulent Spanish from where she walked, several feet away. “I guess not,” Jack muttered, disconnecting the call.

  They were deep in the woods by the time Jack found the man they were looking for. The volume was set so high on the phone, he had to hold it away from his ear, allowing Larsen to hear both sides of the conversation.

  “Mr. Rand, this is Detective Jack Hallihan from the Metro Police.”

  To Larsen’s surprise, the man didn’t question the early hour of Jack’s call. “Thanks for getting back to me, Detective. Are we still on for ten?”

  “No. It’s not safe. In fact, it’s imperative you and your family leave your home at once. Leave town for a couple of weeks, if you can manage it.”

  “What in God’s name is going on?” Harrison Rand demanded, his voice hard.

  “The man who hurt your daughter is somehow controlling the minds of the entire police department just as he did the audience in the Kennedy Center.”

  “How?”

  “I wish I knew. Only a handful of us can’t be controlled. He sent my own men to kill me last night. There’s every reason to believe he’ll try to get to you and your kids, as well.”

  The man on the other end of the phone went momentarily silent. “My kids aren’t here. My ex-wife swooped in and grabbed them out of here yesterday.”

  “How’s your daughter?”

  “I don’t know.” Even from a distance Larsen could hear the pain and frustration in those words. “We had to drug her to stop her screaming. She hasn’t spoken a word since she woke up. Doesn’t even seem to know us. That’s why I wanted to talk to you. I want to know who that son of a bitch is and what in the hell he did to my daughter.”

  “You and me both.”

  “What do you know?”

  Jack met Larsen’s gaze. “Tell you what. I need a ride back into town for myself and another who’s caught up in this.”

  “The woman in the scarf?”

  Jack’s brows dipped in confusion, but Larsen made a wry face and nodded.

  “Yeah. Apparently so. Come get us and we’ll fill you in on the way back.”

  “Deal.”

  Jack gave him their location, though how he knew it from the surrounding woods was beyond Larsen, then hung up.

  She looked at him thoughtfully. “We’re trusting a complete stranger, you know.”

  “I know. But Rand’s got as much at stake in this as we do, and he can’t be hypnotized. That alone is reason enough.” He made a rueful twist of his mouth. “My gut says I can trust him.”

  Larsen heard the certainty in his tone and glanced at him, meeting his gaze for the first time since she woke. Something leaped between them. Awareness. Memory.

  She tore her gaze from his and cleared her throat. “Aren’t we putting him in danger by involving him?”

  “He’s already in danger. Just the fact he wasn’t controlled makes him a prime target.”

  “Then what about…” She stopped herself and thought about what she knew before she said too much yet again. “Was there anyone else, anyone at Tony Jingles?”

  “Hell,” he said. “Brenda Kettering. I’ve got to reach her, too.” He made a few phone calls and warned the woman Larsen had watched strangled by her own husband—a premonition that had, thankfully, not come entirely true.

  The sun rose over the horizon, spearing through the trees as the pair walked in silence. Larsen strode gingerly over the painful twigs and rocks, her feet soft and uncalloused. Jack didn’t try to take her hand again. Neither did he try to draw her out. Finally, through the trees, a school came into view.

  At the woods’edge, Jack brought them to a halt. He called Harrison Rand and told him where to meet them, then tossed the phone on the ground and sat beside it, looking up at her.

  “How did you sleep?” he asked.

  Larsen raised a brow. “Fine.” After that amazing release of tension, she’d slept like a baby. “Why?”

  “I slept well enough, but those four hours barely made up for all the sleep I’ve lost the past few nights. Do you feel up to keeping watch while I nap?”

  He’d be asleep—she wouldn’t have to wonder what he was thinking…what he was remembering. “Absolutely. Sleep away.”

  Something warm, yet guarded, moved in his eyes. “Can I use your lap as a pillow?”

  “Jack…” She was trying to regain some distance between them. This wasn’t the way to get it.

  His gaze wrapped her in cotton. “I won’t sleep unless I know you’re safe.”

  She gave up the fight. How could s
he possibly argue with him over that? He wanted to lay his head in her lap so that he’d know she was safe. To protect her.

  He was making it awfully hard to retain any distance.

  Larsen sighed. “Suit yourself.” She sat beside him, leaning back against a thick oak where she could watch for their ride.

  Jack rolled sideways and laid his head in her lap. “He has a royal blue convertible,” he said, closing his eyes.

  “Perfect,” she said dryly. “A car that won’t draw attention.”

  A smile appeared briefly on his mouth. “He’ll drive through the parking lot twice. Wake me up when you see him…or anything else that looks or sounds suspicious.”

  “Aye, aye. Now go to sleep.”

  He took her hand and slid his fingers between hers. But as he pulled their joined hands against his heart, Larsen’s vision began to waver. No. She tensed for the onslaught of another premonition.

  “What’s the matter?” Jack stared up at her.

  “Nothing.” This vision wasn’t like the others. No splitting pain. No complete blackout. Over Jack’s face was superimposed a tiny bedroom of sorts, small and sunlit and very, very rustic. Straw littered the floor and the window was simply a hole in the wall, open to the outside, allowing the sun to stream in.

  “I think I left the iron on,” she told him. “But I guess it doesn’t matter now. Go to sleep.” She consciously worked to slow her speeding pulse. She didn’t know what was happening, only that Jack could never find out.

  The vision became clearer and, oddly, noisier as her real vision faded. Unlike her death premonitions, she could hear sounds in this one. She could hear chickens squawking. And the sound of a girl crying.

  A door opened and two women bustled in, middle-aged women dressed like peasants from long ago, their dresses long and drab, covered by stained aprons, their hair completely covered by white fabric. Wimples? Was that the term? They looked like they’d stepped out of the Middle Ages.

  It seemed so real. She could almost feel the sun pouring into that small room.

  The women crossed to the bed and Larsen’s vision followed, allowing her a view of the owner of the tears. A girl of perhaps ten or eleven, she was sitting on the edge of the bed, her head in her hands, her fingers digging into her scalp. The women began to speak, but the words were in an old language Larsen couldn’t understand. Gaelic, perhaps?