Dead Double

by Cooper-Posey, Tracy

  “Ooooh….” Her breath deserted her as he thrust again but her eyes widened. “I think you’re…wrong,” she managed to breathe.

  “Wrong about what, hmmm?”

  Her breath, her nerves, her very soul, hitched and trembled, as he moved inside her. She struggled to speak clearly. “I think I’m…the one who will be either…dead or ready for…the funny farm when this is over! Oooh!” She clutched at him.

  His fingers tightened around hers for a moment. “We can go together,” he told her. “Ready?”

  He proceeded to show her ways of reaching pinnacles of pleasure that she had not suspected existed. True to his word, he took all night. He reached for her again and again and she willingly obliged.

  The short summer night was over and it was full daylight when at last sleep took them. But still he did not let her go. He pulled her up against him and curled his long body around her.

  It was the closest to heaven on earth Sahara had ever experienced. She slipped into sleep even though she had not intended to, only to wake with a start, unable to judge how much time had passed.

  “Shh…you’re safe,” Logan whispered and kissed her shoulder.

  She realized she was lying on her side. Logan was stoking her back, following the indentation of her spine and she felt his lips softly kiss her flesh where her mermaid tattoo curled over the back of her hip

  “Haven’t you slept?” she asked, her voice hoarse.

  “I’ve been watching you.”

  “You mean watching over me?”

  “Both.”

  She could feel her cheeks heat with embarrassment, even though she lay naked next to him and was glad he couldn’t see her face.

  “Why don’t you sleep again?” he said. “It’s still very early.”

  “I don’t think I can,” she said truthfully. “Especially with you stroking me like that.”

  She could feel his laugh rather than hear it. It was a low subterranean chuckle. “I can stop if you’d like.”

  But she could feel sleep already tugging at her. “If you’d like,” she said drowsily.

  “Sahara, tell me,” he said softly, his voice right by her ear. “Why are you doing this? The exchange, pretending to be Micky? Why are you really doing it?”

  It was enough to jerk her from sleep but she lay very still, pretending it hadn’t alarmed her at all. “We need fusion power,” she said, trying to sound sleepy. “The west needs it…save the planet.”

  He kept gently stroking her, speaking no words, until her alarm faded and she truly began to slip toward sleep again.

  Chapter Sixteen

  When she woke the next time, she was alone in the bed and bright sunlight poured through the open curtains. It looked high overhead, making it late in the morning, or even just past midday.

  She scrambled into her robe, pinned the panic button inside the pocket and went out into the main room, braced for what she might find there.

  Jacqui sat at the table eating a sandwich but otherwise the room was empty.

  Sahara felt a strange twist of both disappointment and relief. She wanted to ask Jacqui where Logan was but was afraid the question would somehow reveal what had happened the night before.

  Jacqui smiled her professional smile and reached for her notebook. “Good afternoon,” she said formally.

  “It is the afternoon, then,” Sahara groaned. “I’ve slept…”

  “Nearly eighteen hours. It’s not unusual when you’ve chased the sun and lost a day.”

  To say nothing of staying up half the night making love. Sahara sat at the table. “I used to be much better at handling jet lag.”

  Jacqui raised her eyebrows. “Oh yes,” she said finally. “When you were a child. I had forgotten.”

  “Is it possible to get a breakfast meal at this time?” Sahara asked. “I really don’t want to wrestle with the kitchen over vegetarian food right now.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Jacqui said, standing and moving to the phone on the sideboard.

  As she was discussing menus and arranged a breakfast for Sahara, Sahara snatched a fast shower. She wrapped herself in one of the luxurious terry towelling robes supplied by the hotel, and went back out into the main room, just as Logan arrived. He had shaved. His jeans were worn and faded…perhaps even the same pair he had been wearing when she had first met him. He wore a black vee-neck sweater that clearly had nothing beneath it, for the vee showed an enticing glimpse of the soft flesh at the top of his chest. It reminded Sahara of last night. She recalled her lips sliding along that flesh and broke out in a shiver that left her with goose bumps.

  Logan nodded at her. “Hello,” he said, his tone neutral. He wasn’t smiling.

  Sahara bit her lip. She glanced at Jacqui, still on the phone. Was he being discreet because of her, or because that’s the way he wanted it to be between them?

  She had to take her cues from Logan. They were moving in his world. The existence she had led in the apartment above her store seemed simple and shallow in comparison.

  Logan sat at the table opposite her but didn’t try to look at her. He wasn’t looking away, either, which was a reassurance.

  She threaded her fingers together but it reminded her of last night, so she spread her hands on the table to hide the tremor in them.

  Jacqui hung up the phone and came back to the table to pick up the rest of her sandwich. “They’ll have something here in fifteen minutes,” she told Sahara. “It didn’t challenge them at all.”

  “Good.” The word came out thick and she cleared her throat.

  Jacqui opened her notebook again.

  Logan leaned forward. “Would you give us the room for a minute, Jacqui?”

  She instantly picked up her plate and the notebook. “Of course,” she said with a smile and left.

  Which left Sahara facing Logan across the table.

  He swivelled on his chair so he was facing her and placed his hands on the table like her. “While the world is awake, Sahara, I have to stay in my role as your protector. Do you understand?”

  “And when the world sleeps?” she asked.

  There was a glint of feral hunger in his eyes. “That’s another matter altogether,” he said, his voice even.

  She could feel her body tightening in response to the look in his eyes but it was mixed with the disappointment she had been braced for. “I’m assuming that it also stays between us. Not for public consumption, right?”

  “It has to be that way, Sahara. You have to trust me. This is the reason I tried to explain to you last night, the one you would not accept. If the wrong people were to learn of our…association, they might use it against me. Right now, the world thinks we hate each other.”

  Association.

  She sighed. “Okay,” she agreed flatly. “But aren’t you assuming a lot? Who said anything about any more nights?”

  “Trying to get even again, Sahara?” he asked softly.

  She felt her shoulders sink. “Yes,” she admitted. “You’re not giving me the answers I want.”

  His hand lifted and covered hers for a moment. “It’s all the answers I can give you.”

  She slid her hand out from under his. “I get it,” she said stiffly. She sat on her hands, keeping them off the table top. “Why are you doing this, Logan? I mean, not just this job—you’ve already explained why you’re doing this job in particular. But any of it. Any of these European operations you keep doing.”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “Well, you keep asking me why. Fair’s fair. You can’t use my reason—you’ve already shown what a cynic you are. I won’t believe you if you try that one.”

  His smile was quick but genuine.

  “Or is that answer off-limits too?” she asked.

  “For now, yes.”

  For now. There was an implied promise there, one that had Sahara’s heart beating hard. She resented the tap at the door but Logan said “come in,” before she could protest.

  El
ias and Nelson entered and Logan instantly grew wary—Sahara could almost feel his caution. He just looked at them.

  Nelson didn’t look very happy.

  “We think it’s time for you to visit Angel,” Elias said.

  “No.” Logan’s refusal was flat and beyond questioning. It was as if a shutter had dropped down behind his eyes. No one was getting past it.

  “It would look unnatural if you didn’t.”

  Logan sat back in his chair, his arms crossed. “I don’t give a fuck.”

  Sahara blinked. She had never heard Logan use more than mild oaths before and it seemed shocking, now.

  “This has to look real, Logan. Not calling on Angel would be out of pattern.”

  Logan crossed his arms and just sat there. Fury was sweeping off him in almost tangible waves. “Are you making that an order?”

  “Do I have to?”

  “Yes.”

  Elias sighed. “Then it’s an order.”

  Logan got to his feet, moving slowly and Sahara wanted to sink back into her chair, away from him. She held her breath.

  “Just how many people do you intend to screw over to get this done, Elias?” Logan’s tone was deceptively mild.

  Elias shrugged. “You know what’s at stake. As many as I have to.”

  Logan just looked at him.

  Elias shifted awkwardly on his feet. “I’ll have the car at the portico at eight tomorrow morning.” He slipped out of the room, leaving Nelson standing in the middle of the clear area in front of the door.

  “We think it’s a good idea?” Logan quoted Elias, fury curling through him as he glared at Nelson.

  Nelson blushed. “It wasn’t like that, exactly. You know what it’s like with Elias. How he can batter you into agreeing—” Nelson stopped mid-sentence, perhaps seeing how little an effect his words were having. He lifted his hands helplessly. “I’m sorry.”

  “Get out,” Logan said.

  Nelson nodded and left. The room was very silent once he was gone. Logan remained still.

  “Shall I leave you alone?” Sahara asked.

  Logan shook his head, just a little. “You have to stay now.”

  “Have to?”

  “You’re about to find out why I’m doing this, after all.” His tone was infinitely bitter.

  * * * * *

  Nelson sat up next to the driver, which killed any conversation Sahara would have liked to have had with Logan. There was another black car behind them but that one wasn’t a long-nosed Rolls Royce with six feet between the front seat and the back.

  It was the first time she had seen Logan since Elias had given his direct order, yesterday afternoon. He had left the suite shortly after Nelson and a few minutes later, Celia had slipped into the room, moved a chair from the table to a spot a few feet away from the door and sat with her feet flat on the floor and her arms on her knees. “Pretend I ain’t ’ere,” she’d told Sahara.

  Jacqui had returned a few minutes later, along with Sahara’s “breakfast”. Jacquie took no notice of Celia other than to nod her head at the Englishwoman when she first entered the suite. It seemed Jacqui was used to security details.

  As Sahara tried to force the food down, Jacqui reworked the next day’s schedule on paper, along with the seemingly critical changes to Sahara’s wardrobe that would be required.

  Sahara waited for an opportune moment, then asked, “Who is Angel?”

  “Did Logan not tell you?”

  “No.”

  Jacqui hesitated. “Then I don’t think it’s my place to share it with you. Logan must do so, when he chooses to.” She swivelled her notebook around so that Sahara could see it. “Sven had some suggestions for unexpected outings. What do you think of this combination? It’s going to be a lovely day tomorrow.”

  Sahara allowed Jacqui to change the subject but had no enthusiasm for planning the next day, when it hovered like a black cloud, the unguessable made worse by Logan’s unexplained fury.

  By ten that night, Sahara began to suspect that Logan would not return that evening. She addressed Celia directly for the first time. “I’m heading for bed.”

  Celia stood up, with no stretching, or any sign that she had barely moved for hours. “You go in, then. I’ll take care of setting up the night coverage.”

  Sahara sighed and went to bed. She had thought she would not be able to fall asleep quickly and lay in bed waiting to hear the sound of the outer door to the suite opening and closing, heralding Logan’s return.

  She had woken to strong early morning sunshine and sat up, astonished. Her gaze was immediately drawn to the window, where one of the wing chairs and an ottoman had been drawn up. There was a tangled blanket and pillow on the chair and a used coffee cup on the window sill.

  Logan had returned, after all.

  But until Celia had escorted her to the foyer of the hotel and Logan had stepped to her side and escorted her out to the long-nosed Rolls, she had not seen him.

  He sat in the corner, tense and silent and Sahara suspected he was bare inches away from the fury that had gripped him yesterday. She had no idea how to speak to him or how to break the silence and her helplessness was a painful novelty for her. She always knew how to open people up. It was something she had always been good at, even when she had been a child and bumming around with her father’s professional surfing friends.

  But the silent, sealed man beside her offered no chinks for her to edge her way inside.

  The car drove them out of London, into the west, moving smoothly and fast. After watching the road signs for a while, she drew a short list of possible destinations. As time wore on, she settled for the furthest possibility. “We’re heading for Bristol?” she asked Logan, not expecting an answer.

  “Close by,” he confirmed shortly and fell back into silence. But as they got closer to their destination, he grew visibly nervous, cracking his knuckles, rubbing at his chin and the back of his neck. He kept pushing up the sleeves of his sweater too.

  Sahara was suddenly glad she had dressed with care. With Jacqui’s help she had selected a pair of short trousers and a matching jacket of polished cotton in a color Jacqui called sky blue but that Sahara privately thought was the blue of Logan’s eyes. The trousers were stretch cotton and were formfitting. They had a huge oval-shaped buckle at the front that reached beyond the top of the pants and below the belt that looped through it. It drew the eye to her abdomen. There was an old-fashioned peasant blouse in the softest cheesecloth and it stopped a good deal short of her trousers. It also dropped off one shoulder and she had given up putting it back. Because of the open neck, she couldn’t wear a bra and she was very aware of her bare breasts beneath the fine fabric. Her espadrilles matched her shoulder bag, which matched her earrings.

  The car slipped elegantly off the major motorway and into the country proper. The road wound around and around, running through villages. The driver turned off onto other roads several times, until she had no idea what direction they were going in.

  “Aren’t we chasing our tail here?” she asked, looking out the window.

  “We’re still travelling west,” Logan said, pointing at the sun outside the window.

  “Show-off,” she accused him. “I hate people who know all the answers.”

  “You just don’t like anyone smarter than yourself,” he said, with a bored expression.

  She remembered then that she was supposed to be Micky. “No, I prefer them richer,” she drawled and moved over to the other side of the car to look out the window.

  Finally, the car pulled into a driveway that was clearly a private one. It had stone walls curving into the handsome iron gates, which stood open. There was a plaque on the gate on Logan’s side of the car, so she missed reading it.

  Ahead, down the very long drive, was a huge old building that looked Georgian or perhaps Regency. It was very symmetrical, with two tall narrow trees on either side of a grand front door and a huge oval expanse of gravel in front of the building and an
ornate fountain in the middle of the gravel.

  There were three people standing out in front of the building, watching them arrive. One of them was somewhat shorter than the other two.

  The Rolls pulled up between the people and the fountain. The two taller people were a man and a woman in business attire. The man had a physical competency and a self-assured air that Sahara was beginning to learn belonged to those who used their bodies for their profession—soldiers and security people. He was most likely some sort of security. The woman was in her late fifties and had an elegance that reminded Sahara sharply of Jacqui. She had the same business-or-die air about her.

  The third person was a slender girl, perhaps about eleven or twelve years of age, wearing a dark blue school uniform with a pleated skirt and a striped tie.

  Logan uncoiled himself from the back seat and pushed the door open. “Hi, sweetheart,” he told the girl.

  “Daddy? Daddy!” She threw her arms around his waist and burst into tears. “They didn’t tell me you were coming!” she wailed into Logan’s stomach. “They just sent me to Madam Gold’s office!”

  Logan hugged her tightly and Sahara shrank back into her seat, hidden behind the one-way glass and held her hand to her mouth as her own eyes prickled hard with tears.

  This was Angel, then. This was the reason for Logan’s fury, for his refusal to cooperate. Sahara quickly reran Logan’s confrontation with Elias and Nelson through her mind, reviewing it now she had the answer. This explained everything.

  Logan glanced at the woman who had to be Madam Gold.

  “We thought it would be a rather nice surprise for her,” the lady said in a very proper English accent. “It has been such a long time since you were able to visit her.”

  Behind her, throughout the building, a bell rang and abruptly, there was a buzz of activity and voices. It was the last piece of the puzzle for Sahara. This was a boarding school.

  Logan nodded to Madam Gold. “Thanks,” he said and his own voice was suspiciously thick. “We’re going to have a picnic on the beach. I’ll bring her back later tonight.”