Shadow Woman: A Novel

by Linda Howard

  Or was it?

  Which one was the real her? Which one did X want?

  Which face did he love?

  A bigger question: Did he love her at all? After what she’d done?

  Then he laid her on the bed and she couldn’t see her face in the mirror any longer, and that was just as well. She didn’t want to look; she wanted to feel. She didn’t want to wonder; she just wanted to hold X and follow her body’s lead.

  For a moment they just lay there on the big bed, chest to chest, legs intertwined, hearts pounding. They were eye to eye, and for a moment Lizette felt her breath catch. Good God, he was beautiful! Not pretty, there was nothing pretty about him, but seen with her heart he was … beautiful.

  And whatever face she wore, he didn’t care. Behind this face she was still her, and that was all that mattered to him. Yes, he loved her. He still loved her.

  He kissed her throat as if they had all the time in the world, but Lizette was suddenly certain that they didn’t. They had no time at all, not together. She would live in her world and he would live in his and there would be no more this. Maybe there would be the occasional dream, if she was lucky. No more dreams of him at all, if she was not lucky.

  “Now,” she whispered.

  He half laughed, half growled. “Not yet.”

  Lizette opened her mouth, started to say please, but she didn’t. Begging would only make him more determined to take his time.

  They didn’t have time.

  Lizette shuddered, head to toe. She didn’t want this dream to end, yet she couldn’t wait to have him inside her. She could stay here all night, just holding him. Her body throbbed, and she knew she’d be doing good to wait another full minute.

  More than anything, more even than the urge that pulled her forward faster and faster … she didn’t want to let X go, not ever again.

  Xavier went down the hall toward her bedroom, his movements fluid and ghostly, his footsteps as silent as if he were drifting above the floor. The last thing he wanted was for her to wake up. It was dark. Not being able to see him, she’d automatically think he was a rapist or murderer; any woman would. Hell, even if she did see him, she’d still think that. She hadn’t recognized him in the pharmacy, after all. If she woke up and turned on the lamp, saw him in her home dressed as he was in dark clothing and armed, would her memory come rushing back or would she simply panic and start screaming? He’d bet on the panic and screaming.

  Her bedroom door was open. She lived alone, after all; there was no need to close an interior door. He eased inside and stood for a moment, looking at the bed, at her.

  The alarm clock, and the blue light on another cordless phone, gave off enough light for him to see. She was curled up in the bed, dark hair on an almost-flat pillow, covers pulled up to her neck—and one bare foot sticking out from under those covers. Some things never changed. No matter what they did to her face, her brain … she was still Lizzy, deep inside. He should have known, they all should have known, that one day she’d break free from the prison they’d put her in.

  On the bedside table, inches from the bright clock, sat a tall can of something. He grinned. He’d bet his ass it was wasp spray, or something like that. No handgun, at least not yet, but she’d armed herself anyway. Near the base of the can lay her cell phone—and beside the phone was the battery. Until she put the battery in, the phone couldn’t be tracked. Yes, she was waking up, breaking free.

  Another thing about her had held true. Lizzy was a purse fanatic. She loved handbags, and would save money to buy one good leather bag, rather than several cheaper ones. Other women he’d trained, and trained with, would forego handbags in favor of pockets or fanny packs, but not Lizzy; she’d held on to her purses. She didn’t just drop the chosen bag anywhere in the house, either; she’d always taken it into the bedroom and put it on a chair. She might move the chair around, but that was where the purse went.

  Currently, the bedroom chair was maybe four feet from Lizzy’s head, just on the other side of the bedside table. The bag was white, so he could easily pick it out, and it had a long strap. This was the tricky part. Maybe she didn’t have a gun, but Lizzy had always been a good shot, and if she got him in the eyes with that wasp spray he’d be temporarily blinded. God only knew what she’d do to him then, while he was at such a disadvantage.

  He hooked the strap with a finger and noiselessly lifted the purse, got the cell phone from the bedside table, then backed out of the room as silently as he’d entered. The kitchen, where there was more light, was the best place for him to do this.

  Once he was there, he put the purse on the counter and got to work. He was just about to place another tracker—this one was marked with a 1—in the inside zipper pocket when he paused. This was Lizzy, the handbag fanatic. She’d have more than one purse. She’d regularly changed handbags, to match her outfit or her mood or whatever she needed for the day. She could easily swap to a different purse tomorrow.

  Not the purse, then. He noted the placement of her wallet, then carefully pulled it out and opened it. It was leather, oversized the way women’s usually were, had a place for a checkbook but no checks. What it did hold was cash, a couple of hundred dollars’ worth. There were also a couple of credit cards, her driver’s license and insurance card, and a couple of receipts. He tried to read the date on one of the receipts, but there wasn’t enough light, and he was running out of time.

  It was a good bet that no matter what purse she carried, this wallet would be in it. He removed the bills and set them aside, planted the tiny tracker underneath a bit of torn lining and replaced the cash exactly as he’d found it, then slid the wallet back into the purse.

  Next up: the cell phone. If she was smart enough to remove the battery, that meant she intended to keep it with her. This new phone, a replacement for the one she’d dropped and broken on Friday, was a simple flip phone. No smart phone for Lizzy, which was a good decision on her part. Normally he’d put the tracker inside the battery compartment, but if she was taking the battery out after she used it each time, that upped the chances she’d either see it or perhaps dislodge it.

  For a few seconds, Xavier studied the phone. The light was better here in the kitchen, but it still wasn’t great, so he went as much by feel as he did by sight. There were very few nooks and crannies, and none of them were right. Finally he tested the edge of the keyboard cover. It was rubbery, not a hard plastic. He pushed his fingernail under the edge, lifted it, planted the tracker beneath the cover, and then pressed it down. Not a great placement, but he was limited by not being able to use the battery compartment.

  Purse and cell phone in his hands, he retraced his steps to the bedroom and placed both exactly where he’d found them, being careful not to let the phone click against the table as he released it.

  He took a deep, silent breath and looked down at her.

  If she woke up, he had no place to go. If she opened her eyes she’d see him, in the light of her alarm clock. He should leave, but now that he was this close to her he couldn’t tear himself away, not yet. Seeing her in the drugstore had just made the hunger more intense. To have the luxury of actually seeing her, watching her sleep, he’d risk getting a blast of wasp spray in the eyes.

  Lizzy. Thick dark hair, slightly curly, tousled now in sleep. The shape of her face was different now, but the curve of her lips was the same. That bare foot was the same.

  The smell of her was the same.

  His hands remembered the feel of her.

  There had been times when he’d held her under him and fucked her until she screamed. And then she’d done the same thing to him, though she’d teased him and said that, being a manly man, his scream was more like a long grunt.

  His fingers curled as he resisted the urge to reach out and touch her. His dick twitched, wanting more than just that. Shit, he had to get out of here before he did something beyond stupid.

  Less than twenty minutes after letting himself into the house, Xavier let himself bac
k out. It was still raining, which was a godsend. The surveillance car was still in the same place, but he couldn’t see any movement inside it. Maybe the rain had lulled the guy to sleep, despite the coffee. Maybe he was concentrating on pissing into a bottle. Xavier had been on surveillance himself, so he knew how it went. He was glad he wasn’t the one having to sit in that car.

  He silently locked the kitchen door, both locks, then eased around the back of the house, going from shadow to shadow. When a couple of houses were between him and the surveillance car he picked up speed, wanting to get back to his truck and check the laptop, make sure the trackers were working. Then, assuming everything was working as it should, he’d go home and grab a power nap before Lizzy woke up and got started on her day.

  He had to be prepared. Lizzy was waking up in more ways than one, and the shit was about to hit the fan. He knew which way he was going to jump. He’d made his choice years ago, and right or wrong, he’d stand by it.

  Lizzy was alive, but she hadn’t been living.

  Fuck it all, neither had he.

  In her dream, he parted her legs wider with his knee, and then he was there, plunging deep. She gasped, not in pain but in relief and pleasure and a sense of connection she’d never known before. She was part of him; he was part of her.

  A mirror she hadn’t noticed before—she was pretty sure it hadn’t been there before—was suddenly over the bed. It was as big as the bed, reflecting the dream back at her. The face … which face did she wear? The old one or the new one? Did it matter?

  She could close her eyes to escape the unsettling image, but instead she focused on X, on the broad shoulders and muscled back and hard, round ass. He had the best ass she’d ever seen. Their bodies were entwined on the bed, his tanned skin making hers look so pale, his hard body making hers look so soft, what she could see of herself. He was bigger, wider; he almost engulfed her. But as different as they were, they fit together.

  She studied his strong legs; the way he moved … easier now, almost gently. Thrusting in and out in a slow rhythm that gradually, oh so gradually, increased in speed and power.

  Lizette closed her eyes as she gave over and let herself come and come and come. She screamed, her back bowing as she clutched X to her, felt him come so deep inside her…

  He whispered something, but she couldn’t tell what he said. She frowned at him, opened her mouth to say, “What?” Whatever he’d said was important, he wasn’t someone who chatted just to hear his own voice, but before she could form that one word, before he could answer—

  She opened her eyes. Her body lurched, every muscle tensed … and then she relaxed, unwinding one muscle at a time until she was melting into the mattress. Every muscle in her body felt weak and heavy.

  She needed to go to that Walgreens more often. If X regularly shopped there, maybe she’d run into him again. Maybe this time she wouldn’t freak and run like a scared rabbit. She could give him her number, ask him out for coffee, and then…

  Yeah, right. Lizette Henry, sex-starved stalker. As if real life might possibly come anywhere close to a dream. As if a man like that one didn’t have a wife, or a girlfriend. Or both.

  It was raining. She closed her eyes and listened to the raindrops on the window. The rain on the roof and the windows created a soothing sound that might lull her back to sleep, though the dark morning hours were winding down, edging closer to dawn. She wondered if she’d dream about X again or if that part of the night was done. She wondered if she’d forget the details of the dream, come morning.

  Right now the dream seemed so real, she was almost positive she could still smell him.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Felice McGowan never wasted her time worrying about status or perks, or any of the other ego traps that kept the majority of people in D.C. so preoccupied. In a perfect world, she would have a personal driver who always delivered her right to the door of where she was going, and no one would ever question her authority. Those were the two items on her private wish list, but the world wasn’t perfect, so she forgot about it and dealt with reality.

  Reality, in this case, was that she had to go out in the rain like everyone else, that most good plans usually went to hell somewhere along the line, and because of the nature of the game she had to go to Al Forge instead of telling him to come to her. His willingness to do so wasn’t in doubt, but she worked at NSA now and she didn’t want him there, didn’t want the super-snoopers to see them together. Their relationship was completely off the books, and had to stay that way, for both their sakes.

  In one way she had it easier than Al. She wasn’t involved in the day-to-day, off-the-books surveillance of Subject C. Al not only oversaw that, he was also officially working under the large umbrella of Homeland Security. What he truly did was so wrapped in layers of need-to-know and for-your-eyes-only that probably even the President didn’t have the complete dossier on him. He’d started out at Treasury, with the Secret Service, then switched to DOJ, and from there God only knew everything he’d done.

  The NSA had the goods on everyone who was on the grid—meaning everyone except maybe the homeless and a few hermits—but she hadn’t been able to access everything in Al’s file. There were gaps that probably corresponded to some interesting international events, but she hadn’t tried to match them up. When push came to shove, the country needed people like Al. Back in the day, she’d had a couple of gaps in her own dossier.

  What Al used to do, Xavier now did. But Al had always kept his personal compass set on true north—meaning the best interests of the country—while Xavier was a wild card. When he’d started out she’d thought he was as true blue as Al, and God knows his skill level was off the charts, but along the way he’d gone a little rogue. Her confidence in him had been eroding for the past four years. But Al still trusted him, still believed in him, and that carried more weight than Al probably realized.

  She didn’t rationalize what they’d done. She couldn’t. Every time she thought about it, she still got a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Her head recognized the necessity, but her heart bitterly regretted every action they’d taken, and mourned the outcome. All of them had lost pieces of their souls that day, pieces they’d never get back no matter how much they devoted themselves to their work.

  And now there was this thing with Subject C. No one had wanted to eliminate her, but everyone had recognized that she was the linchpin, the central weakness, that could not only take all of them down but also irreparably damage the country. Despite what Al perhaps thought, Felice wasn’t eager to give the order; still, she understood that such an action might be necessary, while Al couldn’t seem to admit that.

  The thing was, for a while they’d been so close, the whole team, and people who went through such an intense event together developed a sense of family, of connectedness. Al’s loyalty to his team was legendary. But Subject C hadn’t been a part of the team; she’d been a tool the team had used.

  They’d planned to eliminate the threat she posed to them, right from the beginning. As long as she wasn’t a threat, Felice was content to let her live.

  As long as she wasn’t a threat.

  There were disturbing details surfacing now, each of them small and easily explained away. However, taken as a whole, those details formed a completely different picture, one that Felice didn’t think they could afford to ignore. It was a picture that said Subject C was becoming a threat.

  The building that housed Subject C’s surveillance was an ordinary two-story redbrick; the lettering on the door said Capitol Temporary Services. If anyone happened to wander in looking for a temp to fill in for a sick or vacationing office worker, there was a reception area, a receptionist, a “manager,” and, if necessary, a temp could actually be found. But given that the erstwhile business didn’t have a listed phone number, did no advertising, and walk-in business was nonexistent, that had never happened. Every now and then a not-too-bright guy would get the idea that “temporary services” was eup
hemistic for “call girl” and come in to negotiate a rate, but that was about it. Twice people had come in asking for directions.

  Inside, the security was top notch. She nodded to the receptionist, who she knew was armed. Her thumbprint opened the first set of reinforced doors, and from there she progressed through additional layers until she reached the upper level. No building was completely unbreachable, of course. There was always a way to either get inside or destroy it. But this building wasn’t in the center of power or action, and it was so bland as to be almost invisible.

  At its most basic level, the building functioned as intelligence and support. Al Forge ran his black ops, and one very small portion, completely insulated from the rest, was dedicated to the surveillance of Subject C.

  Al wasn’t immediately available, so Felice left word she was there, and she went to the tank to wait. There was very little opportunity for silence in her world, and the tank was completely silent except for her own breathing, her own footsteps, her own little noises and no one else’s. No one was watching her, no one was gauging her reactions, no one was waiting for a decision—well, at least not at this very moment. She selected a pod of French roast and made a cup of coffee, then sat down to enjoy her solitude. Al wouldn’t keep her waiting long, so she had to make the best of it while she could.

  She had some decisions to make, decisions that she didn’t take lightly. Al’s warning that Xavier knew where she lived and where her daughter lived wasn’t something she could ignore. Al had meant it as a warning, and she had taken it as such.