Bad Nights (15 page)

Jack reached into the car and unbuckled her seat belt, then scooped her up in his arms.

One of the other men unlocked the door, and he carried her inside.

“I can stand up,” she said stiffly.

He set her down, and she had to brace herself with a hand against his arm. When she was feeling more sure of her footing, she looked around. The exterior of the house looked like it hadn't been painted since before the turn of the last century. The interior had obviously been modified and modernized recently. Probably it had originally been broken up into a series of little rooms. Now there was a great room which incorporated the lounge, dining room, and kitchen area. The wide plank floor was polished, and the furniture was masculine overstuffed leather.

Jack led her up a flight of steps and into a room furnished with oak antiques—a double bed and a chest of drawers. There was also a comfortable chair, this one in a more feminine mode.

He leaned down to pull the spread and blanket aside, but she shook her head.

“I'm a mess. I can't get into that clean bed like this. Where can I take a shower?”

“There's an adjoining bathroom. And there are clothes in the drawers and closet that should fit you.”

“Clothes that fit me? Where did they come from?”

“They weren't specifically for you. We've had women here who needed a place to hide out. We keep clean clothing in the closet and new underwear in the dresser. There are several different sizes. There's also a toothbrush and other stuff you might want in the bathroom. I'll be here if you need me. ”

She thanked him and waited until he'd walked out of the room before crossing to the closet and looking through the wardrobe.

***

Jack knew his partners wanted to talk to him about the events of the past few days, but he didn't want to talk to anyone at the moment about anything. Knowing the layout of the house, he continued down the hall to another bedroom, stepped inside, and locked the door behind him.

Almost everything inside the building had been modified, including the plumbing system. Because there was enough hot water for two people to take a shower at the same time, he headed directly for the bathroom. Inside he stripped off his filthy clothes and stuffed them into the trash can. Then he turned on the water and let it run hot before stepping under the spray and pulling the shower curtain closed.

The best he could say was that he had gotten out of Wade Trainer's clutches with his life. And he'd managed to take Morgan Rains along with him. But he knew he had failed in the basic mission. He could tell his partners about Wade Trainer's military organization, but he had no specific idea what the militia leader was planning.

Or had he?

A vague memory nagged at him. Something he couldn't quite pull into focus.

Where had he been, exactly, when Trainer had captured him? He didn't know. There was a hole in his memory that he needed to fill, but he simply couldn't do it.

Stop
trying
for
now,
he advised himself. Maybe it would come to him after he'd gotten some rest. Or maybe talking to Shane and Max about the mission would help jog his memory.

Morgan inspected the clothing in the closet. Some were too small for her. Others too large. But several looked like they would work, like the maroon running suit and white T-shirt. And the underwear he'd mentioned in the dresser.

She walked into the bathroom and pulled off her clothes. After looking at them for a few moments, she stuffed them into the trash. When the water was running hot, she stepped into the shower.

After mucking around in the woods and the cave for the past day and a half, she felt blessed to be standing under the pounding water and washing her hair and body. Finally, she stepped out and dried off before using the hair dryer she found in the cabinet and the new toothbrush on the counter. There was even moisturizer, which she used liberally on her face and hands.

By the time she finished, she was starting to feel unsteady on her feet again. She pulled on the T-shirt and pants to the running outfit and flopped into bed, wiggled under the covers—and closed her eyes. She dropped off to sleep, and for a while she was blissfully unconscious. Then suddenly she was somewhere else. Running through a tunnel. Climbing through a trapdoor. Dashing through the woods. Crawling around in a cave. Always alone and fleeing for her life.

She'd been alone for over eighteen months, and she'd told herself she was handling it. But she didn't want to be alone now. There was someone who should be with her.

Glenn?

No, Glenn was dead.

Voices intruded on the dream, and her eyes snapped open. Men having an argument.

For a moment she had to think about where she was and who would be arguing. Then she remembered everything. Finding Jack in the woods, the escape from the burning house, the night in the cave, and the rescue by Jack's friends. Shane and Max.

The men had all seemed on the same wavelength back in Virginia. Now they sounded like they were in the middle of a bitter argument.

She pushed herself up, focusing on the dream to fix it in her mind before it evaporated. She'd relived the experiences of the past couple of days. Alone.

But someone should have been with her.

She made a snorting sound. She was no Freudian analyst, but she was pretty sure she knew what that meant. In her subconscious, she needed Jack Brandt, but she damn well wasn't going to allow herself to depend on him or anyone else, now that they were back in the real world.

She shook her head. The real world? Not quite.

With a sense of determination, she climbed out of bed and straightened the covers, then headed for the bathroom. She wanted to go find out what the fuss was downstairs, but the dream stopped her.

Leaning over the sink, she peered at herself in the mirror. Her face was flushed, and she splashed it with cold water before using the facilities. Next she took a look at the bite marks on her arm. The wound was healing.

Back in the bedroom, she found some socks in the drawer and running shoes that were only a half size too big in the closet.

As she got ready, her mind kept circling around the dream and what it meant, because she knew it was about Jack, not Glenn.

Had she finally come to the realization that there was no future in calling up the ghost of her dead husband? But could there be any future for her with a man like Jack Brandt?

Too bad her subconscious hadn't caught up with her waking self. She dragged in a breath and let it out, trying to sort through her feelings. In her own mind, she was ready to admit that she was attracted to him, and she knew he cared about her—at least on some level. But now that he'd gotten her away from the militia, where did that leave them?

They had been in a pressure cooker of danger together. All that had changed. She wanted to talk to him in private, but she suspected that wasn't going to happen. Not with his friends around. And what if he was planning to use them as a shield to keep her at arm's length?

She could stay up here and silently dither about their relationship. Or she could go down and see how he reacted to her.

That was the better course, unless she wanted to keep making guesses about the two of them and everything else about this situation.

By the time she got to the stairs, the sound level of the conversation had gone down considerably, and perhaps she could get some information by eavesdropping on the men. That wasn't her usual style, but in this situation she felt justified.

Reaching the ground floor, she listened to the men's voices.

“They beat you up pretty bad,” the one named Shane said.

“It could have been worse.” Jack switched the subject abruptly. “You talked to Cunningham?”

“Not since we got back.”

“When?”

“Yesterday. After you didn't report in,” Shane said.

“You called him, or he called you?”

“The latter.”

“What did he say?”

“He told us not to interfere with the situation because he didn't want Trainer to know you weren't acting alone,” Max answered.

Jack laughed. “You sure obeyed orders.” Then his voice turned sober. “I guess when push came to shove, he was willing to sacrifice me.”

“Maybe
he
was, but we weren't going to leave you there.”

She heard Jack drag in a breath. “Yeah, thanks for saving my life.”

“You were doing pretty well.”

“We would have had a tough time making a clean getaway on our own.”

“Which brings us to the subject of Ms. Rains,” Shane said.

“What about her?”

“How did you hook up with her?”

“After Trainer and his men tortured me, one of them was stupid enough to think I was harmless. He leaned over, and I head butted him. Then I got the hell out of there. I made it out of the compound in one of their SUVs but ended up in a ditch. Then I hoofed it as far as Morgan's house, when I passed out. She found me in the woods and somehow dragged me inside.”

“Lucky for you.”

“But not lucky for her. You know we can't let her go.”

The stark words propelled Morgan into the great room to confront the men. They were sitting around on the comfortable leather furniture. A tray of sandwiches was on the round table in the middle of the seating arrangement, along with coffee mugs and beer bottles.

“What do you mean you can't let me go?” she asked. “You're planning to hold me captive?”

Jack turned and ran his gaze over her, and she saw a mixture of emotions on his face that made her chest tighten. He looked glad to see her. Relieved that she was okay. And regretful. That she'd heard them talking about her?

“How are you?” he asked.

“I'm fine. Physically.” She swallowed, fighting to keep her own emotions off her face. She needed to talk to him, but not in front of these two other men.

She took in his appearance. He still looked battered, but his bad eye was fully open. And he'd shaved.

“You look better,” she murmured.

“Yeah.”

“No infections from those bites?”

“No. And yours?”

“They're healing.”

Satisfied that he was on the mend, she went back to her original question. “What do you mean that you can't let me go?”

He shook his head. “Wade Trainer probably already knows who you are. He'll be looking for you. If you go back to your house in Falls Church, he may have someone waiting to kidnap you.”

“I didn't tell you I live in Falls Church.”

“No. We found it on the Web, and so can he.”

“People will worry about me. They'll think I burned up in the house.”

“Yeah. That's a good thing. For now.”

She wanted to shake off the assessment, but the way he said it made her pay attention.

“Why would this Wade Trainer guy want me? I don't know anything.”

“He can't be sure of that. To his paranoid way of thinking, you could have been in the Skyline house, hanging around waiting to help me out if I got into trouble.”

“I just happened to be there that weekend.”

Jack kept looking straight at her. “You don't want to mess with him. Or more to the point—you don't want him messing with you. You saw what he did to me. He won't give you special consideration because you're a woman. Or maybe he will—if you take my meaning.”

She caught her breath.

“It's a lot safer for you to stay here until we can wind up the operation.”

“Which is when?”

“We don't know,” Max said.

“I'm sorry,” Jack added.

“So am I,” she answered.

Shane gestured toward the food on the table. “When's the last time you ate? Why don't you sit down and have something?”

She wanted to be stubborn, but she'd had nothing but power bars, cheese and crackers, and some fig cookies in the past twenty-four hours. The sandwiches looked tempting.

“We've got ham and cheese, roast beef, and we thought you might like chicken salad,” Max said.

“Yes. Thanks.”

“There's tea, coffee, sodas, and most anything you want to drink.”

“Coffee's fine. With milk and sugar,” she added.

Max got up to get the coffee, and she put a chicken salad sandwich on a plate and started to eat.

“This place isn't so bad,” Max said. “We've got a full gym in the basement. We have a ton of DVDs. We can get you any book you want to read. And if you get really bored, we can take you for a helicopter ride over the Maryland countryside.”

“You have a helicopter?”

“In the barn out back. It's really a hangar.”

She absorbed that. Apparently Rockfort Security had technology she hadn't thought possible for a private company.

Still, she wasn't going to just sit there and let them dictate what she could and couldn't do. “But not computer access, I'm betting.”

“We'll have to talk about that,” Shane said.

So they were willing to save her life, but they didn't exactly trust her.

She put down her half-eaten sandwich and turned to Jack. “Why don't you explain what's going on.”

He looked at the other two men, who both nodded.

“You understand none of this can go any farther?”

“Yes,” she answered, because that's what they expected. She'd reserve judgment about what she was ultimately going to say and do.

“Taking this assignment seemed like a good idea at the time. Now it sounds kind of crazy when you try to explain it.”

When she kept her gaze on his, he cleared his throat and began.

“A guy we call Deep Throat came to Rockfort Security with a job offer. He wanted one of us to infiltrate Wade Trainer's homegrown militia and find out what he's up to. Trainer thinks of himself as a real American, in the same vein as Timothy McVeigh. He thinks the U.S. Government needs shaking up, and he's the guy with the balls to do it.”

“Like how?”

“We don't know exactly. We assume he's planning an attack on Washington, D.C. But we don't know where, when, or how. That's what I was trying to find out.”

“The Deep Throat guy, does he have a name?”

“He calls himself Arthur Cunningham.”

“Calls himself? You're saying that's not his real name?”

Jack sighed. “There's actually no record of him working for the government.”

“You think he's with some private company?” Morgan asked.

“No,” all three men said.

“We think—the CIA,” Jack clarified.

“Why?”

“Because that agency isn't tasked with operations inside the United States. Because he considered Trainer a threat, he contracted out the work.”

“Something too dangerous or too controversial for the government to admit they were doing?” she asked.

“That's what we assumed,” Max answered.

“What if he's really working for a foreign power? Did you check that out?”

“No. Looking back, we should have tried to get his real name. But if he was working for a foreign power, why would he be trying to prevent an attack on the U.S.?”

“You're asking
me?
” She set down her coffee mug on the table with a thunk. Since she'd met Jack Brandt under highly unusual circumstances, she'd felt like her world was spinning out of control. The past fifteen minutes hadn't helped.

“So now I'm deep into some kind of mess that you can't really explain, and you're working for a guy who hid his identity. Which means I have to stay here until you figure out what's going on—at some undisclosed time in the future.”

She was angry with them. Angry with herself for going out and taking Jack into her home, although she knew that her thinking was irrational. She couldn't have left a human being in need out there. Moreover, she knew they were coping with a situation they had come to detest.

They were all looking at her, and she hated that as much as anything else. Standing, she marched out of the room, back up the stairs, and into the room they'd assigned her, slamming the door in her wake.