by Vicki Hinze
“Yes, indeed you have,” Andrew admitted, though he couldn’t even pretend to feel good about that. He didn’t, and he wouldn’t lie to himself anymore.
“I hope you invested in the Egyptian cotton. I got the word about an hour ago they’re going to have a total crop failure in Texas this year. As soon as the market rings the opening bell, cotton prices are going to soar.”
Money. Andrew stood up and reached for his glasses. That’s all it had ever been about for the director and all it ever would be about.
Maybe if Andrew had married money and felt he hadn’t measured up, he would feel the same way. But he hadn’t and he didn’t, and considering some of the horrors that were being committed to amass wealth, he was grateful for that.
Grateful, yes. But not stupid or courageous enough to report it.
Chapter Nineteen
“Max?” Gabby stared at the ceiling she couldn’t see. The bedroom was still dark. “I’m sure there’s a perfectly logical explanation why you’re sleeping with me and your hand is on my breast. Would you care to share it?”
Startled from a light doze, he jerked back his hand.
Their legs were twined, and just to annoy him, she clenched her muscles to keep him in place. “Well?”
“You told me to come to bed.” He shook his head, clearing it. “So I did.”
“Uh-huh.” She considered letting him roll away, but decided against it. She’d never seen Max off balance. It was kind of cute. She swiped at her damp hair, refusing to even try to remember whether or not she actually had issued the invitation. She was happy she wasn’t dead. And if she’d had to sleep with him to be alive, so be it. But if she had slept with him, after having thought about sleeping with him for five years, she wished she could at least remember it.
Max sank deep into his pillow, clearly not ready to wake up, but he was alert. As alert as she was, and she knew it. SDU operatives often worked for days without sleep and functioned on ten-minute naps caught here or there; it was part of the training and common on the job. Operatives were generally inserted into ongoing missions under rotten conditions and with lousy survival odds. They learned quickly to think straight even when exhausted, or they ended up dead.
So say she had issued him the invitation. He was in bed with her, so he clearly had accepted it. Knowing that brought her a certain satisfaction. It wasn’t as good as feeling special or knowing what he’d actually been like in bed, but considering the circumstances, it would do.
God, your mind has gone to mush.
Hearing Sybil’s voice inside her head, Gabby smothered a groan against her pillow. Sybil would be rolling on the floor, laughing, swearing Gabby had become neurotic, and Gabby would be cursing a streak because Sybil was usually right.
She rubbed her nose against the bronze silk pillowslip. Its soft scent didn’t dull the edge or help a bit. Maybe she had become neurotic.
And wouldn’t that be a blessing … when your choices were neuroses or the Z-4027 infection? Maybe it was. She’d choose neurotic anytime.
She slung an arm up over her head. There was a dull ache throbbing at the base of her skull. Her thoughts still weren’t exactly clear, and she felt clammy, feverish.
The superbug had taken hold in her system. Squeezing her eyes shut, she mulled over her options. It didn’t take long; there weren’t many. Max had to be told the truth.
Fear knotted in her stomach and she tried not to cringe. Instead, she rested a hand on his shoulder, letting the warmth of his skin seep into her. Inside, she was as cold as ice. As soon as she told him, of course, he would kill her. There was nothing to be done about that really. But maybe that would be easier on her than letting the infection run its course. Z-4027 didn’t offer a merciful death. She’d watched Judge Powell die and, man, had he suffered.
“You’re shaking, Gabby.” Max rubbed small circles on her back. “You okay?”
“Mmm,” she mumbled to avoid lying to him outright. In her career, she had seen awful things. Chemical burns, biological poisoning, the aftermath of various weapon-system detonations, including dozens of types of bombs. But those deaths had been swift. More often than not, the people had died not knowing what had hit them. With Z-4027, Powell had known. He hadn’t lived long, but his pain had been unrelenting—so severe and intense that morphine hadn’t touched it. When a person hurt like that, a minute could seem lifetimes long. “I’m okay.”
He tried to free up his legs, but she refused to let him. “Are you planning on holding me prisoner here for a while?” he asked.
“Just a little longer,” she whispered, recalling being with Elizabeth at the hospital, standing at William Powell’s bedside. Gabby had been a maniac inside. Even though she had nearly seen it all, she hadn’t been immune. Watching him suffer had shredded her emotions. That was the first time in her life she had seriously considered mercy killing. It had scared the hell out of her—to see that side of herself. It still did, because she knew it lurked inside her.
Cold shivers crawled up her back, and the hair on her neck stood on edge. She couldn’t go through that kind of death. She just wouldn’t do it. She turned onto her side. “Max?”
“Mmm?”
Her throat went thick. Facing him, she scrunched her pillow and stared at the crown of his head. “I’m dying.”
He opened his eyes, met and held her gaze, and waited.
Gabby waited too, until it occurred to her that he would wait forever to say anything at all. Considering he’d slept with her and probably—maybe—had sex with her, he could at least say something. But, no, not Max. He would just lie there with his head propped on his hand, elbow bent, watching her. The way things were moving along, if she didn’t say something, she’d be in hell three days before he uttered a word.
She wet her lips with her tongue and put it bluntly. “Death by cancellation or Z-4027, it doesn’t much matter. Dead is dead. But I expect you to spare me from suffering and use a bullet, Max.” She paused, terrified he would refuse, even more terrified that he wouldn’t, and that he would hate her for asking this of him. “I would do it for you.”
He blinked twice, swallowed hard. Understanding flashed across his face. “I won’t let you suffer, Gabby.” He cupped her face in his hand, stroked the line of her jaw with his thumb. “I swear it.”
For the first time in her life with a man, she felt and believed to the marrow of her bones she was special. Max had orders to kill her. But killing her had nothing to do with them. He would honor her wishes. Act with loving compassion to shelter her. He would protect her.
Gratitude welled inside her, and her heart felt too big for her chest. Her throat went tight; she couldn’t find her voice. “Thank you,” she mouthed the words and managed a ghost of a smile. The urge to really open up to him hit her hard. But sharing would add to Max’s guilt.
“What?” Probing, he searched her eyes. “Something’s on your mind. I can see it.”
Oh, the temptation was strong. But she had to fight it. This wasn’t the time to grow weak-spirited or to lose her resolve. “It’s nothing.”
“Even now you’re shutting me out. Don’t do it.” He let his warm hand drift down her neck to her shoulder and gently squeezed. “Tell me, Gabby.”
“I—I can’t.” She lowered her lids, blocking the sight of him. This wasn’t just a matter of her being strong. It was a matter of her wanting to just let go of all the things she had never said and had never shared with anyone. To toss aside all the years of handling whatever crisis came her way alone, on her own.
“Look at me, Gabby.” Max held her face in his hands, spoke softly, encouraging not insisting, tempting her even more.
She did, and saw his tenderness and concern. Genuine. Sincere. And she saw his fear of being refused.
“Tell me,” he whispered again.
Lifting her hand, she covered his on her face, lowered it and clasped his fingers. “I don’t want to make you feel guilty for killing me, Max.”
“You won
’t,” he promised. “Just talk to me.”
Believing him, she rolled over onto her back. She could talk to him, but she couldn’t look at him while doing it. Not once in her life had she bared her soul to any man. Not once. And she’d shared her private thoughts and deepest secrets with only one woman: Sybil. Gabby wasn’t even sure she knew how to share things this intimate and private. Not after so many years of burying herself under her covers and refusing to expose even hints of her real self for fear they would be used against her. Planting the oaks. That had been it. Her only concession to even remembering her real self. She’d do it. But she needed to know one thing first. “Have we slept together?”
“Slept together? Yes. Had sex? No. You’re ill, Gabby,” he said. “I don’t take advantage of any woman, much less an ill one. Or any partner, for that matter.” He turned and propped against the headboard. “Does whatever is on your mind have to do with regret?”
His homing in on her internal debate didn’t surprise her. Give a man insight and you’ve given him ammo he wouldn’t hesitate to use against you. “Yes,” she admitted. “I’m in a jam, and I hate standing on shaky ground.”
“What kind of shaky ground?”
She closed her mind to the warnings that he’d turn on her, and opened her heart. “I’m wishing I’d lived my life differently.”
“Differently, how?” He tugged the covers up half over his chest, looking about as threatening as a teddy bear.
It was the right approach. Her defenses against him were melting. Before she decided whether or not she wanted them to totally drain away, she was answering him. “I should have left SDU years ago and married a nice guy with a dull nine-to-five job.” She turned back onto her side, moved closer to Max, and rested her head on his chest. “We could have had a couple kids. I could have joined the PTA.”
Max laughed out loud.
Gabby lifted her head and glared at him. “I’m bearing my soul on my deathbed, you son of a bitch. I trusted you to take me seriously. The least you could do is to fake it.”
“Whatever for?” He drew her back to him, wrapped an arm around her, and pulled her closer. “Gabby, you would have died of boredom in that life. It’s just not you.”
“It could have been,” she said, shocked at her own reaction. She sounded petulant. Good grief, she was neurotic! “I would have missed the edge, I admit it. But dying in that life would have had to be better than this.” Because that was true, her eyes blurred with tears yet she refused to cry. She bit her lips to divert the pain. If she cried, he’d lose all respect for her. He’d know she was a fraud. And he’d know she was terrified. “No one will even notice I’m gone, Max.”
“Sybil will notice,” he countered, his voice gentle.
“And Westford.”
“I mean no one man, you moron.” She let out an exasperated huff. “Could you at least try to get a grip on this? I’m human. I want a man, a family, who will miss me. Is that so hard for you to imagine?”
Max stilled, confused more than he cared to admit. Gabby. Married—with kids—and living a typical suburban life?
He tried, but he couldn’t imagine it; it was just too alien. Yet he understood her point and what she was feeling. Strangely, he had a prickle in his gut warning him he’d feel the same way, and because he did, he couldn’t insult her with platitudes. About the best he could do was to offer a truth that might or might not give her a small measure of comfort. “I’ll notice, Gabby.”
She looked up at him, her eyes wide and huge in her face. “Will you?”
He nodded. “I’m not much of a husband, but I am one you’ve got, and I will notice.”
A tear slid down her face to her chin. A moment passed, and then she said, “I misjudged you, Max. You might just be worth dying for, after all.” She leaned forward and kissed him.
Certain she was worth dying for, Max kissed her back.
Gabby held back, keeping the kiss tender and gentle—an unthreatening exploration intended to coax and reassure. But a telling groan signaling a need as strong as her own rumbled deep in Max’s throat. It unleashed a rush of feminine prowess and a sensory assault that had her nerves sizzling and her rioting emotions imploding. She let go, melting into pure heat, with eager hands and gasped breaths, she revealed all, her naked skin seeking naked skin. They joined on mutual sighs, moving together in harmony, stretching, seeking, until finally their union expanded beyond the limitations of their bodies. Flushed and damp and breathless, they shuddered in climax, and for the first time during sex, Gabby felt connected to a man in body, mind, and spirit.
Gratified and horrified by that, she accepted it as an undeniable truth, and closed her eyes. And then, they slept. This time, wound in each other’s arms without pretense or apology, aware that they were holding each other because that was exactly what they wanted to do.
For Gabby, it was her first restful sleep in recent memory. Max was here. He would be alert to any intrusion attempt by that second Warrior, and Gabby could let down her guard and just sleep. Maybe having a partner wasn’t so bad …
The director reviewed the listing of buyers who had already opted in on the Z-4027 vaccine and pesticide offering from the Consortium and then phoned the chairman and gave him the details.
“What about the others?” The chairman sounded more bored than pleased or displeased, though only a fool would believe that true.
“No formal responses yet, sir, but two have significantly shifted funds. It’s likely they’re preparing to come on board.” The director tipped up the cell phone, freeing his mouth, sipped at a coffee cup, then stared out through his tinted windshield at the front windows of the Silver Spoon Café. The parking lot was jammed; the café had been a central gathering point for Covers since Hurricane Darla had destroyed Carnel Cove’s communications systems, short of satellite service. Little had been restored. “As for the others, it’s early yet.”
“Keep your nose clean. We have it on good authority that that bastard Conlee is sending down a team of operatives to do some reconnaissance.”
He had to work to keep his voice steady. Andrew’s warnings about Gabby Kincaid replayed through his mind and this news made them a little harder to shove off. “Sorry to hear that.” The last thing the director needed was more complications. Andrew would crack; no doubt about it. He was going to have to do something about that.
“It’s manageable. Stay above suspicion, avoid risks, and don’t jeopardize our position.”
“Yes, sir.” Terrific. For now, his hands were tied on Andrew. He’d have to make sure he didn’t so much as sneeze wrong, and that the man stayed in line.
The chairman had made the director a very wealthy man. But his first loyalty was to money and his second was to the Consortium. If the director ceased being an asset to either, the chairman would have him killed. About that, the director had no illusions. And he was far from ready to die.
Chapter Twenty
Max had awakened and was in the shower. Gabby heard him stirring in the bath, but trapped in that mystical place between being asleep and awake, she couldn’t seem to push herself to fully move toward either. The veil was back. Her mind felt foggy, full of sludge and confusion, her temperature was up again, and she would swear under oath that a Mack truck sat parked on her chest. Her breathing rattled. Not horribly labored yet, but noticeably different.
Max walked out of the bath and back into the bedroom fully dressed in gray slacks and a pale blue golf shirt. He looked at her and frowned. “You’re worse.”
Making love with him had been wonderful, better than her dreams, but in a way she regretted it, too. Max had become attuned to her and she to him in ways she didn’t understand, and she wasn’t sure she liked anyone else having the fast track to her innermost feelings and thoughts. “Yes, I’m worse.” Definitely no more stall time. “I need to tell you a few things.”
He sat down on the bed beside her and dumped two aspirin into his palm. He passed them to her with a glass of water. �
��Take these, then I’ll fix you something to eat.”
“I can’t eat, Max.” Just the thought had her stomach in full revolt. She rubbed her abdomen lightly to calm it down. “I don’t think the Warriors are finished attacking. I think they have something significantly more destructive planned.”
“Are you sure?”
She swallowed the pills and then nodded. “No. But my source predicted hundreds, maybe thousands, would die. Even if all the mosquitoes in the lab had escaped, I can’t see them killing that many people right away. Maybe over time, but the warning didn’t feel like that. A devastating catastrophe is expected, Max. A single-blow attack.”
“Your source?”
“Yes.” Gabby couldn’t make herself reveal the name. In her entire career, she had never revealed a source’s name to anyone. Not even to Conlee.
Max noticed and was only slightly irritated by her withholding. He had to work at it, but kept his expression masked. Irritation or direct confrontation with Gabby had never produced positive results. “Where did you put your evidence?”
“Don’t worry, darling,” she said, sounding only a little caustic. “You’ll get it when the time is right. Even if I’m dead.”
What did Max make of that? Or even think about it? Despite her denials, he had thought for a time she had been bargaining the evidence for her life. But now she tells him that if she dies, he still gets the evidence? That didn’t make sense. “Why not just give it to me?”
“I have my reasons, Max. Trust me.”
Trust her? His partner, who never trusted anyone but herself? Yet Gabby always had had her reasons, and sooner or later he had figured them out—usually later, which totally ticked him off. But being clueless and up against the wall on time now annoyed him and put him at a distinct, possibly deadly, disadvantage. He needed information and insight to make wise choices. To stop the attack she swore was coming. Only now he knew one important thing he hadn’t known before coming to Carnel Cove. “Don’t protect me, Gabby.”
