by Jenna Ryan
Crucible’s PA stepped into a patch of dusty light. “Killian’s covering Chinatown, on the off chance. Crucible’s fencing with the directors. I can’t say your coming here was an obvious play, but it is a bit predictable. Nuh-uh, Nolan. No reaching behind you. Hands where I can see them at all times.”
Kate stepped around him. “Miranda, please don’t turn me in to Crucible. You know how it went the last time we tried it his way.”
Miranda’s brows went up. “Don’t turn you in, Kate? Singular and specific you? As in you believe you’re the person Leshad’s targeted for removal?”
Nolan answered before Kate could speak. “Yes, Leshad wants singular and specific Kate, Miranda. She got a calling card to prove it. But at this point I’m guessing he’ll want me removed as well, for aiding and abetting. From what we’ve learned about him, the word vindictive applies in spades.”
Miranda nodded. “Leshad does tend to murder by association. My take? The guy’s totally anal. Also mad. And we know his trigger man’s not above taking out a whack of innocent people if he thinks it’ll bag him the one he’s after.”
“Was he after Tallulah?”
An expression of genuine surprise flitted across Miranda’s face. “You think Tallulah Black’s involved in this?”
“Say connected,” Nolan clarified.
She lowered the Glock a fraction. “We considered the idea, of course. After all, her sister Twila was Leshad’s second victim. It was only natural we’d wonder about Tallulah. But her landlord assured us she fell unaided. He said he found her at the bottom of a short staircase and that she was both conscious and coherent. She told him not to worry, that she wouldn’t be suing him. He—and we—well, we jumped to the wrong conclusion, it appears. How do you know she’s tied to this?”
“Was tied,” Kate corrected. “She’s dead, Miranda. I was with her at the end.”
“We didn’t come here tonight because of Tallulah.” Nolan glanced at the hallway door. “We came to see what, if anything, we could find out about Phoebe Lessard. We were hoping to get a look at her hospital records. But it occurs to me now that they’re long gone.” He gave a wry laugh. “Stupid. I should have known Crucible would erase them from the system.”
Miranda shrugged. “Don’t beat yourself up. Your miscalculation doesn’t begin to compare with ours.” She used her gun to motion them sideways. “I hear voices outside. They don’t strike me as friendly. I know you’re itching to try and disarm me, Nolan, but before you do something we’ll all regret, I want you to understand that while I may be Crucible’s PA, I’m not his lap dog. I have my own code of ethics, and one of them involves not using people as bait.”
The voices outside grew louder. Kate perceived tension and mounting anger.
Miranda made a head motion. “Get out of here. Go back into the tunnel and wherever from there. Just make sure your wherever isn’t a place Crucible and/or the directors might think to look.”
“Will Crucible be suspicious?” Nolan asked.
“Of me?” Miranda smiled. “Guess I’ll find out.” She glanced at the corridor. “I’d make tracks if I were you. Unless I’m mistaken, there’s a woman newly admitted to this hospital and still rather inebriated who wants your heads almost as badly as Leshad does.”
Kate set a hand on the tunnel opening. “Thank you, Miranda.”
For an answer, the other woman angled her gun at the ceiling and melted silently into the shadows.
* * *
She’d do what she could to help them, Miranda decided. Because God knew no one else had the balls to defy Crucible or the directors.
Still, it was interesting to discover that her team was fallible, that merely on the word of her landlord and possibly more because she hadn’t received a silhouette calling card, Twila Black’s sister, Tallulah, hadn’t been deemed important enough to protect.
Maybe the killer had been interrupted, she mused. No chance to leave a card. Job wasn’t finished in any case. Who knew, maybe Tallulah really had slipped and fallen. But an accident on her part didn’t mean she hadn’t been targeted. It only meant Leshad might have been spared the effort of sending someone to eliminate her.
Maybe, might, could be. Wherever the truth lay, Miranda suspected Tallulah and not her sister had been the one to create a metaphysical link with Kate back at the apartment. Assuming you believed in such things.
Miranda had, all her life. And she knew Killian did. But Crucible tended to be a harder sell. Which was partly, she supposed, why Tallulah’s hospitalization had slipped through the cracks. But where did their mistake leave the team?
Rather than search for an answer, Miranda let it slide. She’d followed her conscience where Kate and Nolan were concerned. She only hoped they wouldn’t wind up as Tallulah Black was now. Dead.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Kate and three canvas bags full of shopping therapy purchases leaned against Duffy’s darkened third Pullman. Nolan banged his fist on the rear door. Ground fog swirled around her ankles, and high above the tree line, clouds stretched like bony black fingers across the moon.
“Maybe he’s at the local bar, having sex with the owner.” She offered an innocent smile when Nolan slid her a dangerous look. “What? Duffy has male body parts, too, and I bet they function almost as well as his brain.”
“One more visual like that, and the next time my brain questions my involvement in this mess, I’m going to take its initial suggestion and walk.”
Kate rested her head on the side of the car. “You could have done that at Shanghai Lily’s, but you didn’t, and the fact that you didn’t tells me you’re not the cold-blooded bastard you want everyone to think you are. I’d ask you why, but I have a feeling you’d tell me to piss off, and we’ve already had that conversation.”
Rather than respond, he left her to check the other cars.
It had taken them the better part of two hours to navigate their way out of San Francisco and return to Duffy’s farm. Kate had expected Nolan to drive straight to the church; however, their run-in with Miranda had apparently gotten him thinking. About what, she didn’t know, but Tallulah Black’s name kept running in tangled loops through her head. Too tangled, unfortunately, for her to do as she’d been directed and think about the night of Phoebe Lessard’s escape. Later, she promised herself. She’d go through all of it later tonight, after an hour of head-clearing yoga.
When Nolan returned, she climbed onto the step-up behind him. “Tallulah talked about bloodlines and how Leshad had both Madeleine Lessard and her sister murdered. Then she mentioned Phoebe Lessard and all the lines that tie her into this ever-expanding web of intrigue.”
“I was in the cave with you, Kate.” Pulling out his iPhone, Nolan swiped the screen with his thumb. “What’s your point?”
“Crucible either missed or dismissed the line between Tallulah and her sister, Twila, who was Leshad’s second victim. He got the connection between Madeleine and her sister, but not between Twila and Tallulah. Why?”
“One, no calling card on Tallulah’s body. Two, whether intentionally or not, Tallulah didn’t tell the man who found her that someone had attempted to kill her. And three, we don’t know whether Crucible drew the line between Madeleine Lessard and her sister before or after her sister died.”
“True.” Kate paused and frowned. “Why do you suppose Tallulah didn’t tell the man who found her that someone had tried to kill her?”
Reaching over, Nolan tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Speculate, Kate, or in your case, and seeing as Tallulah appeared mostly to you, intuit.”
“You think Tallulah wanted me to come to her tonight, that she needed to touch me so she could—what? See into my head? That’s borderline creepy, Nolan.”
“Yeah, it’s creepy, but it makes a certain kind of sense if you believe.” He tapped his phone again. “Guards at the door wouldn’t have allowed many people into her room. You’re on the run. How would you have gotten in? If we accept that prognostication was within the scope
of Tallulah’s mental skills, it could be she did what she did in order to make a last-minute physical contact between the two of you possible.” He shrugged. “On the other hand, maybe Miranda’s right and Tallulah’s would-be killer was interrupted. No time to leave a card. Tallulah seemed coherent, but was in fact delirious when her landlord found her, leaving the rest of it to go the way it did because stuff happens.”
Kate rubbed her forehead. “Push an old woman down a few stairs and chances are good she’ll die as a result. The killer might have decided to let nature finish the job for him, although I can’t imagine Leshad would have been happy about leaving something like that to chance.”
“Be grateful it worked out, Kate, and let the details go for now.” Nolan looked down when his iPhone beeped. “Incoming text.” Through a rising layer of mist, Kate saw his lips quirk. “Your sly’s showing, old man.”
When he didn’t elaborate, she arched curious brows. “And that means?”
“Duffy’s bunking at the church. He left an entry key for the Pullman above the door. He says Nesty’s on a tear, and he—Duffy—wants to keep tabs on him. Apparently he tidied up the sleeping car before he left.”
“Why do I think I’ll miss the graveyard?” As clawlike clouds began to enfold the moon, a chill crawled over Kate’s skin. “I know all I’m hearing are leaves rustling, animals foraging and branches creaking, but if we have to sleep in these gloomy fairy-tale woods, I’d rather be inside the train than out. It is just barely possible we were followed.”
Nolan picked up her bags. “If someone followed us, Kate, the walls of an old Pullman won’t provide much in the way of shelter. But the fog’s getting thicker, and as I recall, bats prefer to hunt after dark.” He smiled a little at the unpromising look she fired his way.
Inside the Pullman, she hit the light switch to her left. Vexation immediately softened into delight.
A trio of softly shaded lamps cast a hazy, golden glow throughout the car. Directly across from her, a TV clicked on and an elderly man appeared. A man, a group of children and a flickering campfire.
Kate stepped inside. “I don’t believe it. Duffy rigged The Fog—the original Janet Leigh, Jamie Lee Curtis classic—to come on with the lights.” As charmed now as she was amused, she asked, “Is this his idea of setting the scene for romance?”
“He probably thought Rear Window would be too obvious.”
“Can’t imagine why. The prospect of a man cutting his wife into disposable pieces is so obviously romantic. And, yes, I know you were referring to the Grace Kelly thing. It’s just that we’ve seen a lot of fog lately, Nolan. I’m not sure I’d say Duffy’s second choice is overly conducive to us having sex.”
Which, come to think of it, no one except her had actually mentioned or even alluded to. Unless the glowing lamps could be deemed an allusion.
Kate began to wonder if this entire bizarre life episode was more than her mind could accept. Couple the threat of violent death with a handful of head-spinning kisses from a brooding surgeon who was the personification of hot sex, and she had to figure any female with a marginally active libido would be toast.
As Nolan brushed past her to dump the shopping bags, he brought her back to reality. “Take what you’re offered, Kate, and be glad Duffy didn’t go with An American Werewolf in London. It’s one of his favorites.”
“Disney cartoons versus classic horror.” Fighting a sigh, Kate followed him in. “You have extremely odd friends, Dr. N.”
“Yeah? Pretty sure Combat Boot Brown considers you a friend.”
Smiling serenely, she draped her coat over the back of an old club chair. “Maybe I should take another look at him.”
Nolan crossed to the fridge. “For some reason, the image of Brown having sex with any female, let alone you, plays like Dr. Strangelove in my head.”
“Ditto you and Holly in mine.”
A sudden wicked gleam in his silver-gray eyes caused the air in Kate’s lungs to back up. “We seem to be having a lot of vicarious sex with extremely unlikely partners,” he remarked. “Why do you suppose that is?”
Rather than sidestep the question, she ran a provocative finger along the edge of the counter. “Psychology’s not my area of expertise, but if I were to hazard a guess, I’d put it down to avoidance of the not-particularly-clever variety.”
“Avoiding sex is becoming more and more difficult for me.” The gleam took on a keen edge. “You’ve had two nice, safe relationships, Kate. I’ve had far more than that, and not one of them could be called nice.”
She walked slowly toward him, her eyes on his. “Okay, I’ll bite. Why?”
“Because I’m not nice.”
“No, you’re not,” she agreed and laughed at his expression. “Not particularly. But you are a good man. Far from safe in some ways, and yet I’ve seen you save many, many lives.”
“It’s not the same thing. Don’t make me into something I’m not. Someone I’m not. Sure, I’ve saved lives. I’ve also taken them. In the military, any void personnel-wise has to be filled. Period. I’d reattach an arm in the morning then blow a man’s legs off at night. Sometimes soldiers would come to us with devices attached to their bodies, explosive devices we might not spot fast enough. I’ve seen makeshift O.R.s obliterated in less time than it takes to blink. I’ve seen surgeons die and insurgents live just long enough to pump their fists in victory. I’ve waded through guts and witnessed the kind of ugly death that makes Duffy’s worst horror flick look like one of his Disney cartoons.”
Halting less than a foot in front of him, Kate cocked her head and looked up. “I understand what you’ve seen and done, Nolan. I had two cousins in the army. Do I really have to explain why, as horrible as everything you’ve told me is, none of it applies to this moment, this place, our situation? I’m not wearing a bomb and strangely enough, I’m not expecting or even wanting safe.”
The barest hint of a smile crossed his mouth. “What do you want, Kate? One night? I can do a night. Can you do that? Or would you want more?”
“I might.” Shaking the hair from her face, she hooked her fingers in his waistband and tugged him half a step closer. “Then again, so might you.” Her lips curved when his muscles tightened. “Correct me if I’m wrong.” Dragging his shirt from the top of his jeans, she began unfastening buttons. “But wasn’t it you who kissed me here at Duffy’s? Not to mention in the woods, outside the cave and down in the hospital morgue?”
She took it as a positive sign that he didn’t grab her hands and shove her away. Instead, he continued to stare. “The morgue’s on you, Kate.”
“The kiss is, not the lead-in.” She undid the last button and splayed her fingers over his warm, smooth skin. “And—pièce de résistance time here—there was also the very telling question you asked me right before we started clearing away the rubble in the cave.”
“You mean the ‘piece’ about you conjuring up a bout of hot sex for us before you died?”
“My potential conjuring, your question.” Raising her mouth to his ear, she whispered a soft, “Everything good or bad starts with a first time, Nolan. In our case, it might end there, too. Sex for us might not be smart, but we both know it’ll be killer. And given that any night, any moment really, could be our last, what have we got to lose?”
He didn’t answer her directly. Rather, he inclined his head until she felt his breath on her face. Then he gripped her hips and made her heart shoot straight into her throat when he lifted her off her feet. “Remember who asked that question tomorrow morning, Kate.”
Before she could utter another sound, he closed his mouth over hers. And took her with him into a new and deliciously terrifying kind of fog.
* * *
He’d frighten her, he decided, in as much as he could make decisions with his brain spiraling down below his belt where Kate’s hands had already begun to explore his strictly male body parts. Wrapping one long leg around him, she returned his kiss with fervor. Sensing he was already lost, Nol
an spun her to the wall and held her there while his mouth devoured her.
Her breasts were crushed to his chest, and oh, yeah, he knew what she wanted by the way she rolled herself against him and arched her body into his.
Freeing her mouth, she let her head fall back so he could feast on the creamy skin of her throat. “It won’t work, you know.” Her voice was a brandied purr. “Speed doesn’t scare me. I want it fast and just a little rough.”
“I can do rough, Kate, believe me.”
“Still not scared.” Raising her head, she defied him with her eyes. “Let it happen, Nolan. Open yourself to this one night, this one time. If that’s all you want, that’s all there’ll be. But don’t shut your emotions away. And don’t tell me again that lust is all we can have.”
His eyes glittered into hers. “Lust and sex.”
He didn’t trust her smile as she drew his mouth back onto hers. “We’ll see about that,” she murmured and this time slid both hands between them.
His blood drained, he felt it go, right out of his upper body. Her tongue was pure wet fire in his mouth. She wrapped her other leg around him and kissed him until he was punch drunk and flat on the canvas, open to any shot she wanted to take. She was better than Jack Daniels, and God knew he and Jack were the very best of friends.
Spinning her away from the wall, he headed in the general direction of the bed.
The only thought he was able to grasp before his brain slithered into oblivion had to do with life and death. And maybe, just maybe, conjuring that final perfect moment before the darkness swept in and consumed them both.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Kate knew he was waging a bitter internal war. What she didn’t know was whether or not she should acknowledge it. But when she landed on the white cotton quilt Duffy must have laid out for them, the clamoring need inside her softened to a sigh.
“You’re still pushing me away, Nolan. Is it really so much easier to stay stuck in the trap of your past than to move through it?”
Rising up, Nolan met her gaze. “I don’t want to care, Kate.”
