Текст книги "Midnight Secrets "

Автор книги: Lisa Marie Rice

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Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

“He was. Thank you,” Isabel said simply, placing her hand over Suzanne’s.

Suzanne bent forward and gave her a hug, surreptitiously wiping under her eye. “So, I’ll be in touch about the menu,” she said briskly when she pulled away. “I’m leaving you in excellent hands and say hello to Felicity and Lauren. If Allegra can make it, she said she’d pop in to say hello, too.”

“I’m such a fangirl,” Isabel said.

“I’ll be sure to let her know. Douglas said he’d stop by with tickets for the concert. Did he?”

“Oh yeah.” Isabel pointed with pride at the two tickets on the coffee table.

Suzanne smiled. “One thing you’ll learn about these guys—” She waved her arm to include Joe and Metal and Jacko, who had barely lifted his head from his plate. “They’re really reliable. If they say they’ll do something they’ll do it.”

“I know.” Isabel smiled at Joe and it was like a punch to the stomach. “I’ve got a bank vault of a house to prove it.”

“I’ll be in touch.” Suzanne looked at her watch again and winced. “Must go, bye!” She kissed the air and was gone in a cloud of perfume.

“You okay, honey?” Metal and Jacko were back to the food, really absorbed in what they were eating. Joe bent down and kissed Isabel’s cheek, but really it was an excuse to touch her skin. He’d never felt skin that velvety before. Strands of her hair caught on his stubble. He fingered his chin. He had to shave or he’d rough up that smooth soft skin tonight.

And man, he didn’t want to do that. He didn’t want anything rough to touch her, ever again. He himself had big, rough hands but he took care to touch her gently. She was so soft all over, particularly that warm wet softness between her legs.

“Yes, I’m fine. Why?”

He shrugged. “Dunno. Maybe because you’ve got your house invaded by men who from the looks of it haven’t eaten in a year. Then their women are coming over and you’ve promised to feed them. Then Suzanne comes over and asks for help in preparing for the big party up at the Lodge. Is it too much?”

She didn’t even pretend not to understand what he was saying. She’d led the most secluded life he’d ever seen for these past three months. Now that he knew her background, he understood why. Massive trauma, the terrible aftereffects of the Massacre. She’d fled here to Portland to hide away from the world.

Now the world had found her. Metal, Jacko, the Senior, Felicity, Lauren, Suzanne. And the party at the new lodge—the entire crew, fifty strong. Could she handle that?

“Growing up, our house was always filled with people,” she said softly, looking him directly in the eyes. “I loved it. I think I needed these past months of solitude. I wasn’t fit company for anyone. But now—”

“You were absolutely fit company!” Joe protested. “It’s just that—”

“Hey, Isabel.” They both turned to the table where Jacko was holding up a super clean plate. There wasn’t even a molecule of food left. He was trying for pathetic. The waif who hadn’t eaten in days. Even if he was a super buff two-hundred-forty-pound mass of muscle. “Any more of this stuff?”

Chapter Seven

Isabel had never seen a human face with no expression whatsoever on it before. Even blankness was an expression. But Joe betrayed absolutely nothing as he beat the pants off Metal and Jacko. Actually, if it had been strip poker instead of for money, they’d have both been naked right now and a fully dressed Joe would have had a pile of clothes on the table instead of a pile of chips.

They were sitting around the dining room table at her house instead of his and they weren’t talking. The poker game was a form of warfare. Though the three men were clearly very good friends, and Joe had talked a lot about how they’d helped him through rehab, you wouldn’t have known it from the game.

Isabel had offered alcohol. She had a bottle of brandy and a bottle of bourbon, but all three had turned it down, Metal and Jacko with expressions of horror.

“Bad enough playing Joe sober,” Jacko said. So she’d served coffee. The cups steamed at their elbows as they snapped cards up and down.

She didn’t really know the rules of this form of poker, so she wasn’t following the game, she was following the players. It was fascinating. There were moments of tension, but they all came from Metal and from Jacko. Though they had poker faces, too, there were tiny signs of elation or despair. What she knew were called tells.

Metal’s eyelid twitched a time or two, something entirely autonomous. Jacko’s index finger drummed against the hand of cards.

Joe had no tells. None. The skin around his eyes and mouth remained exactly the same. He had deep brackets around his mouth and the skin around his eyes was weather-beaten, but he had those all the time. Nothing at all changed. Not muscles, not his breathing, not his eye movements.

He only broke that utterly blank facade once, to wink at her. Then his face became a blank wall once more.

He’d won either twenty dollars or two hundred dollars—Isabel wasn’t too sure how much money each chip represented—when the front doorbell rang.

“That’s Lauren,” Jacko said, folding with an expression of disgust. “She just texted me. Joe, if you weren’t wearing a T-shirt, I swear I’d think you had an ace up your sleeve.”

“Watch, children, and learn,” Joe said, voice carefully neutral as he spread out his long arms and pulled in a ton of chips.

Metal and Jacko gave loud expressions of disgust just as Isabel opened her door.

Felicity and Lauren rushed in and laughed when they heard the two men groaning. “Joe’s winning again,” Felicity said.

“Winning big.” Lauren shook her head. “That’s real pain I’m hearing.” She offered her hand. “I’m Lauren. I belong to that big sore loser over there—” She pointed at Jacko, who was scowling at his hand of cards. “He’s usually not as sour as that, though he isn’t much of a smiler, either.”

“I heard that,” Jacko grunted as he looked over.

Lauren gave him a sunny smile and, to Isabel’s surprise, Jacko smiled back. It was genuine. He was happy to see her.

Lauren walked over and gave his shaved head a kiss. “Hello, darling, nice to see you, but I’m not here for you.”

“Gotcha. You’re here for the food.”

Lauren laughed. “That, too. But most of all to meet Isabel.”

“Who’s going out with the Prince of Darkness here,” Metal said.

“That’s an interesting thought,” Felicity said as Isabel took her coat and Lauren’s. “Do you think Joe made a pact with the devil? Sold his soul?”

“I’m right here,” Joe complained. “I was shot up but my hearing is just fine.”

“It’s more than possible he sold his soul,” Metal said. “I want a kiss, too.”

Felicity bent to kiss his cheek, whispered something in his ear. He met her eyes and smiled. A private joke.

Isabel’s parents used to do that, all the time. Drove their kids nuts until they got old enough to appreciate the fact that their parents genuinely liked each other. Not many of her friends had parents who even spoke to each other.

Isabel’s throat tightened, then she shook off the sadness. No sadness today, no. For the first time in a long time, her house was filled with people. Friendly people who showed in every single way that they liked her. She was feeding people, which she loved doing. And they were almost pathetically grateful for the food.

The sun had broken through the clouds and though from the outside nothing was visible, the bright light streamed into her living room and kitchen.

“Let’s have tea in the kitchen,” she said.

“Yes!” Lauren gave a little shiver of excitement. “I like you already, Isabel, but I’ve heard such great things about your cooking! I can’t wait!” She frowned. “You’ll feed us, right? I had a light lunch to leave room.”

Isabel laughed. “Yes, I’m going to feed you. Later. But for now, I baked apple tarts and I made some panna cotta.”

“Sounds great.” Felicity linked arms with her. “I don’t know what panna cotta is. I’m Russian by blood and we don’t do good food. We brood. And I don’t know how to cook, so anything that isn’t poison is okay by me. But Metal says that your food is magic, and I am so up for this.”

So was Isabel. She had laid a nice table at the breakfast nook. A lace tablecloth, her best china—a Limoges set her mother had bought as her graduation present—a small bouquet of wildflowers in a Rosenthal vase. Two pillar candles to be lit when it got darker. By a happy chance, the afternoon sun streamed in through the windows and bathed the table in a warm glow.

All three women stopped.

“Oh my,” Felicity said. “How lovely.”

“Can I come over some afternoon and sketch your table?” Lauren was looking at the scene with her head cocked, studying it. Joe had told her Lauren was a gifted watercolorist.

“Of course,” Isabel answered. “I can make cherry tarts, they’re really colorful.”

“Don’t you dare not ask me,” Felicity said in a mock serious tone. She put her arm around Isabel and gently squeezed.

“Of course not.” Isabel hooked her arm around Felicity’s waist for a second. The kettle whistled. “Okay, tea will be ready in a minute.”

She had a special Lady Grey blend with orange peel that she ordered specially from London. Felicity and Lauren loved it. Loved the apple tarts. When Felicity put a spoonful of the panna cotta in her mouth she closed her eyes in delight.

“My new favorite sweet.”

“They’re all your favorites,” Lauren objected.

“True, true. I am a dessert slut,” Felicity cheerfully replied. “So.” She put down her spoon and turned to Isabel. “Joe.”

Isabel blinked. “Joe?”

Felicity and Lauren both leaned forward. “As in you’re sleeping with Joe,” Felicity said.

Lauren elbowed Felicity and rolled her eyes. “You’ll have to forgive Felicity. She spends most of her time with computers and nerds. Luckily Metal is teaching her how to be human. What she meant to say was that you and Joe are...together?” She said that last word delicately.

“You mean are we sleeping together,” Isabel said, amused.

“Exactly!” Felicity smiled in triumph at Lauren. “So, we want to know your intentions.”

Isabel’s eyebrows rose. “My intentions?”

“Yes.” Lauren took over. They’d planned this in advance. They were playing off each other. “We want to know how serious you are about Joe. Because Joe’s a good guy. And, in the eyes of many, you could be considered...well, out of his league.”

Isabel thought about being angry. This was a major intrusion into her personal life, by two people she barely knew. At any other moment she’d have interrupted this, stood up and ushered the two women out.

But...

They cared for Joe. It was clear in their faces. They weren’t curious about her and Joe, they were worried. Worried that she’d break his heart.

Isabel had grown up in a world where people cared about each other. Her family had never been reticent about intruding into each other’s lives because it was done out of love. Right now, there wasn’t anyone who cared enough about her to intrude, to be nosy, to nudge her this way or that.

She’d lived with nosy loving people and she’d lived in an emotional void. She knew which one she preferred.

“Okay.” Isabel clasped her hands. “Let’s look at the facts, here. Joe is a former Navy SEAL. I don’t know much about that but I do know it is not easy to become a SEAL and they do hard, dangerous, necessary jobs. I know he was grievously wounded in the service of his country. I know he has a close-knit group of friends who love him and respect him and are helping him. I know that when I moved here three months ago, we were both physical wrecks. Only, Joe had the willpower to make himself over. I haven’t. I don’t have one-tenth of Joe’s determination. So—” Isabel lifted her hands, making them scales. The right hand tipped way up. “On this side we have Joe Harris, valiant warrior, highly self-disciplined, who is upset because he is on his company’s payroll without being able to do the work yet. He hates that. Further, since the day I moved in, he’s done nothing but help me.”

“And he’s a demon in bed,” Felicity added.

Isabel nodded and lifted her right hand higher. “And, yes, he is a god in bed.”

Both women sighed and leaned back in their chairs.

Isabel glanced at her left hand, way down. “So now let’s look at me. The one who is supposedly out of his league. I’m twenty eight years old and I’m jobless. I have a talent for cooking, yes, but I haven’t trained as a chef. I was blown up six months ago and I haven’t put myself back together again at all, as Joe has done. I haven’t got my strength back, I have dizzy spells. Sometimes I am afraid to go out for walks because I don’t know if I’ll make it back.”

She looked Felicity and Lauren in the eyes. Their faces were now sober as they listened to her.

“I have nightmares. Every night. Last night, thanks to Joe, was the first time I didn’t have a nightmare, but believe me, sleeping with someone who wakes up terrified isn’t fun. I don’t know if I’ll ever be physically fit again. I lost my entire family and that’s left a huge black hole punched in my chest and I can’t be sure I’ll ever be emotionally whole again. I miss my family every second of every day and I grieve for them. How attractive is that? To have a woman who isn’t emotionally stable. Oh, and money. Everyone thinks I’m rich because I am a Delvaux, but I’m not. Our family was well-off, sure. But Dad put all the family assets in a blind trust when he decided to be a candidate. That blind trust was the Solem Group.”

Both of them gasped and Isabel gave a sharp nod. The Solem Group had gone bankrupt two days after the Massacre, destroying thousands of family fortunes, including hers.

“I was left with huge debts. I sold off our house, paid the debts and was left with enough to buy this place, but not much more. My savings will run out in a few months, and whether I’m physically fit or not, I’m going to have to look for a job.”

She leaned forward and they did too. “After the Massacre, my life became a nightmare. The last of the Delvauxes, this wretched creature. I couldn’t go out of the house without being accosted. There wasn’t a tabloid that didn’t catch me looking like a ghost. That was too much for my friends, who didn’t want the Delvaux bad luck to jinx them. And of course, the kicker. I was dead broke. Even if I wanted to go out to dinner, to go to the Hamptons or Aruba, go clubbing, I couldn’t. I didn’t want to but my so-called friends assumed I couldn’t afford to. A grieving, suffering woman who is also dead broke—who wants that?”

Isabel looked at her hands forming the scale. Joe up high, Isabel down low.

“So, ladies, if anything, Joe is out of my league. A strong and vibrant man, attractive and with a good job waiting for him. Surrounded by loving friends. And me. Alone and broke and not in good health. I wonder what he wants with me? Because he could sure do better.”

Lauren and Felicity exchanged somber glances. “You’re not alone, Isabel,” Lauren said.

Felicity lowered Isabel’s right hand, tipped up her left, until the scales were even. “You’re surrounded by friends, too. And Joe’s a really lucky guy.”

* * *

Joe tried to keep an ear out to hear what the women were saying in the kitchen, but their voices were too low. At first he’d heard Felicity and Lauren gushing about whatever miracles Isabel had baked. And then they started talking and he couldn’t make anything out.

He also had to pay some attention to the game. He had a natural bent for card games and enjoyed the strategy and dealing with the element of chance. He could also count cards in his head.

He’d have gladly sacrificed a few hands to be able to listen in on the conversation in the kitchen but pride kept him in his seat.

One thing for sure, there was a friendly atmosphere.

Bless Lauren and Felicity. And bless Suzanne. He knew for a fact that once Isabel met Allegra and Claire, the wife of their homicide detective buddy, they’d become friends too.

She was lonely. He could read it in her face. She’d been through something so horrendous it was hard to fathom. Joe had been in battle, but he was trained and prepared. The Massacre had been horrible beyond belief, and Isabel had lost her entire family.

Joe knew that he was there for her. She was the one, the one he didn’t know he’d been waiting for. But friends were important, too, and now Isabel was going to be surrounded by the finest women Joe had ever met.

She deserved it.

“Fuck, man.” Jacko threw his cards down in disgust. “Who the hell are you bribing?”

“That’s why they call it the luck of the draw.” Joe gave a quick check of his chips. He’d won two hundred and twenty dollars. Jacko wasn’t complaining about the money—he had plenty of money. He was complaining about losing, which he didn’t do gracefully.

Tough shit. Joe smiled to himself but he knew absolutely nothing showed.

Time to make up for the losses. “I bought myself a sweet karambit. Wanna see it?”

It was a peace offering. Metal grinned. “How long?”

“Five inches. So, it’s over at my place if you want to see it.”

The two men were getting up. “Okay. The least you can do after taking all our money,” Metal said.

Joe went into the kitchen, stopped at the threshold.

Isabel, Felicity, Lauren. Three beautiful women, smiling at each other. But though both Felicity and Lauren were good-looking women, they couldn’t hold a candle to Isabel. It was like she had a special aura around her.

Felicity and Lauren stopped talking and Isabel turned around and saw him. And she smiled at him. It was almost staggering. Joe rubbed at his chest where his heart had thumped—hard—inside his rib cage.

He swallowed, hooked a thumb. “Going over to my place to show the guys something. We’ll be back soon.”

Lauren cocked her head. “I’m glad you’re quitting early. Jacko and I want to take a vacation to Europe next summer and we won’t if he keeps losing money to you.”

Felicity, who understood her man, said, “What you’re going to show the guys. How many bullets does it shoot?”

Joe smiled. “None.”

“A knife, then. Don’t be gone long, we have to stop by the Apple store on our way back home.” Felicity often stopped by the Apple store where she had nerd friends who could use her help. Felicity was persona very grata there.

“You got it.”

“Fixed or folding?” Jacko asked as Joe pressed his thumb to his front door. He’d seen a movie where the security depended on the DNA contained in a drop of blood. Very cool. But not practical. The door gave a discreet click and he pushed it open. He would need to program it to recognize Metal, Jacko, maybe Midnight and the Senior. It already recognized Isabel.

They walked in. Joe had a really weird sensation walking into his own home. It felt...odd. Cold. It was clean because he was clean and neat—you couldn’t be anything else in the navy—but there were no nice smells, just bleach and detergent. He hadn’t paid any attention to decor, just shoved the pieces of furniture he needed against the walls. Unlike Isabel’s house that smelled of spices and flowers, full of colors and pleasing shapes.

“Folding. Make yourselves at home. I’ll go get it.”

He’d left the karambit in its box, in the closet. He opened the closet door, pulled out the box, placed it on his desk—and froze.

“Guys.” He kept his voice steady. “Get in here.”

Metal and Jacko came. Whatever they’d heard in his voice made them move fast.

They both held weapons in their hands, coming in high low, Metal to the right, Jacko to the left, as if they’d rehearsed it. Which, of course, they had, in the Teams. Thousands of times.

When they saw what he was pointing to, both of them holstered their Glocks and came closer to his monitor.

Do you know anyone in the FBI you trust absolutely?

“Same guy?” Metal asked quietly.

“Yeah. I think so. But this is new. He just took over my computer. Letters that appear on my desktop. Which means he really knows what he’s doing.”

Jacko was studying the monitor but beyond the words in caps, Arial 40, there was nothing to see. “We don’t know when he sent this.”

“Or she,” Joe answered. “But no. I was at Isabel’s all night. I came over at about nine to grab some fresh clothes and it wasn’t here. It’s seventeen hundred hours. It could have arrived at any time over the past eight hours.”

“He didn’t ping your cell. If he can do this, he can find your cell phone number.”

“Absolutely.” Joe nodded. “So I gotta go with the idea that he wants to communicate this way instead of texting me.”

Metal cocked his head. “If you let me, I’ll ask Felicity. But I get the sense that this is more private and less traceable than sending a text.”

Joe grunted. This was someone who was connected to Isabel in some way. The first message had been to protect her. And now this.

“Dude.” Jacko elbowed him. “You gonna answer?”

Joe sat down and typed:

Yes. Nick Mancino. Former SEAL. Now FBI HRT.

An old buddy and a real stand-up guy. He’d helped find and rescue Felicity’s old mentor, retired FBI Special Agent Al Goodkind.

“He’s answering.” Metal’s voice was quiet. He knew he owed Nick Mancino, big-time. They all did. Was Joe getting Nick into trouble?

Can’t be bought off?

Whoa. Joe sat still. After a moment, he typed:

No. And neither can I.

A couple of minutes passed. None of them spoke. Whoever was at the other end had his own agenda. Joe had no idea whether he was a good guy or a bad guy. All he could do was wait and gather more intel.

Finally, words appeared on the screen.

Good. Call Nick and tell him to meet you in Portland.

Fuck this. Joe’s answer was swift.

Why should I?

And the answer, when it came, was like a punch to the stomach.

The Washington Massacre was homegrown terrorism, directed by someone in the CIA. Our guys. They are going to strike again. We need to stop them.

“Fuck,” Joe breathed.

“Can I talk to Felicity?” Metal asked. “She’s got a higher clearance than any of us have anyway.”

Felicity had done work for the FBI before joining ASI. And Felicity was of Russian blood and had grown up in the WITSEC program. She knew how to keep secrets.

“Yeah, man. Absolutely. We need all the help we can get.”

This was serious stuff. If the Washington Massacre had really been carried out by CIA guys, and Isabel was one of the very few survivors, then she was an eyewitness to one of the greatest crimes in the country’s history. And a real threat to the perpetrators. She didn’t remember anything but memories were notoriously unstable.

Was there an immediate threat to her? Because that was the point of the first message from Mystery Man. PROTECT ISABEL. Had this guy been tipped off somehow that the Massacre wasn’t carried out by jihadists?

Because, if the Massacre was organized by the CIA they were all in real trouble. Joe found it hard to believe it, but he knew that rogue elements existed everywhere. If there was a rogue team within the CIA’s Clandestine Service, the country was in a shitload of trouble, because the Clandestine Service operated almost without oversight.

And they had sneak and peek powers jihadists didn’t have.

“From now on we operate under opsec,” Joe said.

Metal and Jacko nodded.

If this was a conspiracy run by people with access to NSA and Homeland Security assets, every word they spoke on the phone, every email they sent, could be tracked.

“Metal, buy us some burner phones. If this thing is true and it goes to the top, we need to be untraceable.”

“Uh, Joe?”

“Yeah?”

Metal was looking uncomfortable.

“Felicity has, um, about two hundred untraceable burners, and they all have military-grade encryption and voice alteration software.”

“Wow. I don’t dare ask how she got them.”

“Birthday present. From a hacker friend she, um, helped.”

Joe did not want to know what Felicity did to help the hacker friend. He was just grateful that she’d done it and that they had access to those phones. “Great. I’ll make sure Isabel has one too.”

“Isabel...” Jacko said.

“Yeah.” Joe met his sober dark eyes. “She’s right in the crosshairs.”