Don't Say a Word (21 page)

When he groaned his release, she clawed at his back as he pounded himself into her again and again. His body spasmed, shaking with the force of his climax. Even as the tremors of her orgasm began to subside, she pressed kisses to his chest and wrapped her legs around him, begging him not to leave her.

They fell asleep, nestled in each other's arms, their bodies intertwined, his length still embedded deep inside her.

* * *

H
E HAD BEEN WAITING
at Dubois's house, lurking in the shadows of the bayou behind the property, hoping to get a glimpse of Dubois and the woman he'd found in Pace's care, determined to see if she was the same woman with Diego that day. But he had just gotten a better show than he'd imagined.

Dubois had complained of guilt over the woman's near-death at his hands, but like the bastard he believed the man to be, Damon hadn't let it keep him from fucking her. The mere sight of Damon stripping her and pounding himself inside her made him hard, and he'd freed his own cock and sprayed his seed across the bayou.

Behind him a bird squawked and a gator skimmed the surface of the water. He squinted through the towering trees and spotted a black cat combing the edge of the property. Another yellow feline appeared from beneath the tupelo tree, and suddenly dozens of them came out of the darkness, their green eyes glittering as if searching for prey.

Damn cats. Had that witch sent them over here, too?

He quickly zipped his jeans, sweat stinging the cat scratches on his chest. Next time he'd bring a goddamn gun and shoot every one of them. They could not protect Dubois or Jacqueline Braudaway forever.

If this woman had been at Diego Bolton's the day they'd made the hit, she should have stayed dead.

Someone had obviously dragged her from the fire. It had to have been one of the E-team who'd gone back in and rescued her—meaning one of them had betrayed him.

Betraying the men of the team was a crime. Nothing was supposed to come between their bonds of brotherhood.

Whoever had done so must be punished with death. Just as Pace had been.

He smiled, still high on adrenaline from the feel of the man's blood running down his hands. If this woman had risen from the dead, then it was possible that she'd seen them at the explosion site. That meant she could expose them.

She had to die again.

It would be even more fun watching Dubois suffer this time.

His fingers itched to do the job, and he pulled the knife from his pocket, ran his finger over the tip and watched a pinprick of his own blood trickle down his hand. He lifted his head and sucked the coppery droplet into his mouth, craving more.

Her blood. Her life force spilling out between his hands. Her last breath as she gasped and begged not to die.

He'd carve her up into tiny pieces and send them to Dubois. If he'd suffered when he'd thought she'd died in that fire, wait until he saw her body parts mutilated and arrayed on a platter.

She wouldn't come back from the dead this time.

N
EED CONSUMED
D
AMON
. He'd never felt anything as powerful as the lust that drove him to make love to Jacqueline again and again during the night. He didn't stop to analyze the reason. He'd been dead for so long that for one night he wanted to live.

She had welcomed him with open arms and hungry kisses each time, whispering her love and desires in the darkness as he'd taken her to bed and touched and kissed every inch of her. An hour later, he had pressed her against the bedroom wall, his heart racing as she cried out his name and he'd thrust inside her. Afterward, they had showered and bathed each other, and had made love with the water cascading down their bodies, steam rising in a cloud of mist that obliterated the rest of the world.

Now standing on the porch in the predawn light, he kissed her savagely, lifted her onto his aching cock and impaled her, then dropped his head forward to bite her neck as he ground their bodies together. The sound of his skin slapping against hers, the feel of her moistness squeezing his erection and the scent of her sweet body made him wild. She clawed at his shoulders, threw her head back and moaned, begging for more. He filled her again and again, sucking her tight nipples into his mouth until she trembled with another orgasm that triggered his own release.

Cradling her against him, he dropped into the porch swing, and rocked her back and forth.

Finally they rushed inside and he made omelets. After devouring the food, she looked at him as if the meal hadn't been enough. Knowing his own hunger would never be sated, he flipped her around against the kitchen table, tore off her robe, bent her over and slid inside her from behind. Her hair formed a curtain around her face as she splayed her hands on the table to brace herself for his thick pounding, and together they shook the table as another mind-blowing climax gripped him.

Still shaking from the impact of their coupling, he turned her in his arms and pressed kisses to her neck and face. God, he never wanted to let her go.

His cell phone trilled though, and he silently cursed. Reality intervening meant he had to face the case again. His reprieve had come to an end.

Was this Max confirming his worst fears about Jacqueline?

“I wish you didn't have to get that,” she whispered, her hands roaming down his chest.

He nodded, his breathing still unsteady as he kissed her gently. “Me, too, but I have to.”

He grabbed the phone off the table and checked the caller ID. Jean-Paul. “Yeah, it's Damon.”

“Hey, little brother. We have more trouble.”

“I'm listening.”

“Some reporter got a hold of a photo of Jacqueline and ran it in the paper this morning, along with a story about the face transplant.”

He glanced at Jacqueline, hating the emotional impact the story would have on her. “I can't believe Pace went public.” Then he cursed. “He must have figured out a way to cover his ass.”

“I don't think so,” Jean-Paul said in a gruff voice. “Pace is dead.”

“What?”

“It's not pretty. Someone cut out his tongue and left him to bleed to death. One of his nurses found him this morning.” His brother paused. “I've got a crime-scene unit there now looking for evidence, and since we're worried about a dirty cop, the bureau has confiscated all of Pace's files including his computer.”

“What did you find in that safety-deposit box?” Jean-Paul asked.

Damn. Damon remembered Kendra's files, the ones implicating himself and the E-team, a team Jean-Paul knew nothing about. They might find information on them in Pace's files, or on his computer.

“Meet me at the station and we'll go over everything,” Damon said. He hung up and explained to Jacqueline that Pace was dead. She went stark-white and he pulled her into his arms, knowing it might be one of the last times she allowed him to comfort her.

He had to tell Jean-Paul the truth. He couldn't let him find out from another source that his brother had been a hired killer.

Then he'd have to endure watching his brother's respect and admiration turn to disgust and disdain.

But if someone related to the E-team had killed Kendra, her mother and now Pace because they feared some exposure of the truth about their missions, that person wouldn't stop until everyone involved was silenced.

Damon had to be on the hit list, and so did Jacqueline. Jean-Paul would be, too, if Damon breathed a word, but he couldn't protect himself or Antwaun if he didn't know what he was up against. Besides, he'd need his brother to help his parents cope with the truth when he exposed himself as a former killer.

But one thought sparked and lingered in his mind: what did the E-team and their missions have to do with Frederick Fenton? And why would the killer draw attention to himself by using the Mutilator's MO as his own, instead of just quietly offing them?

* * *

J
ACQUELINE STUDIED
the photos Damon had accessed earlier on the Internet while he dressed, trying to assimilate everything she'd learned about herself, her willingness with Damon. The intensity of their lovemaking made her senses sizzle, and although she should be sated, her body already craved him again. But he'd acted distant since that phone call with his brother.

Grief for the doctor who'd saved her was tempered by the eerie feelings he'd induced the last few times they'd spoken. He'd seemed so kind in the beginning, so sincere, so determined to help her, but the longer she'd been hospitalized the more it felt as if she'd become some kind of an obsession for him. The fact that he'd taken Kendra's skin without trying to find her family troubled her, too. Had he lied about knowing who'd killed her cousin? Was that the reason the killer had cut out his tongue—because Reginald Pace knew too much, and he wanted to make sure he couldn't talk?

The cell phone Damon had given her trilled. She frowned. Other than Damon, she hadn't given the number to anyone.

Licking her dry lips, she retrieved the phone from her purse and flipped it open. “Hello.”

“Hello, Jacqueline,” came a low voice that sounded as if it had been electronically altered. “So you decided to return from the dead?”

Her heart catapulted in her chest. “Who is this?”

“Do you know who you've been fucking?”

She clenched the phone and stared outside through the French doors, the sense of being watched making her skin crawl. Had this man watched Damon and her make love?

God…

“You can't trust Damon Dubois.” A gruff chuckle rumbled out a malevolent tone. “He's not the hero he appears to be.”

“Who are you? And what do you want?”

“Ask him how he knew Diego Bolton. And where he was the night you almost died, Jacqueline. Then you'll know who he really is.”

The phone clicked into silence, leaving Jacqueline stunned. Just then, Damon appeared in the doorway. “Are you ready?”

She swallowed hard. She shook her head, hands trembling. What had the caller meant?

“Jacqueline?”

“I just received a strange phone call,” Jacqueline said. “A man…”

Damon's jaw snapped tight. “Who was it?”

“I don't know. His voice sounded altered.” She stood and crossed to him, but held herself back. “He told me to ask you how you knew Diego Bolton, and where you were the night I almost died.”

Damon's mouth parted slightly, then his eyes turned darker. Cold. Empty. The look of death returned, the sated happiness from the early morning lovemaking disappearing completely.

“I knew Bolton from the military. He was a well-known terrorist, and I was assigned to an antiterrorist team. We carried out secret missions that I can't discuss.”

She nodded, waiting. Praying he'd say something more to alleviate the anxiety building in her chest.

“Give me the phone when we get to the station, and I'll try to trace that number and find out who made the call and where it came from.”

She followed him to the car, the trust she'd placed in his hands when she'd given him her body crumbling. He had just lied to her. She didn't know how she knew that, but she did.

Lied, and now gone completely cold again, as if she meant nothing to him.

* * *

T
HE BABY RATTLE BURNED
a hole in Damon's pocket as he drove toward the precinct, the lie he'd told Jacqueline eating away at him. He had to tell her the truth. Better she heard it from him than someone else.

The fact that the man on the phone had used that particular question to taunt her told him that the caller had to be one of the E-team members. But which one? Lex was dead, wasn't he? And he couldn't reach Max, which generally meant he didn't
want
to be reached.

Damon had trusted his life in all their hands. He still did.

Cal had mentioned a rogue agent that was violent….

He couldn't discount the files Kendra had put in the safety-deposit box. Someone was out to destroy him. Frame him for murders he hadn't committed. Frame his brother as well. He must have also sent those photos to Damon's parents to hurt them. And he'd tried to kill Damon and Jacqueline. There was no doubt in Damon's mind that he'd try again.

His lungs ached with the effort to breathe. The thought of anything happening to Jacqueline sent a streak of white-hot terror through his veins.

The euphoria on her face from their lovemaking had been replaced with fear and distrust. She was waiting on him to explain. But he had to talk to Jean-Paul first. Maybe the two of them could pinpoint this killer, and then he'd sit Jacqueline down and confess everything.

Twenty minutes later, he had left Jacqueline having coffee and reviewing more of her own charity photos online while he met Jean-Paul in his office. He'd considered having Jean-Paul's partner and the lieutenant present, but until they discovered which, if any, cop was on the take, he didn't trust anyone but his brother.

First, Jean-Paul showed him crime-scene photos of Pace's death. Apparently his killer had wiped the computer hard drive, destroying all his files. Jean-Paul had also spoken with the bank teller regarding Antwaun's accounts, finding that the account had been arranged over the phone. They needed more evidence to go after Smith. But he
had
learned the man had served in the military.

“I have something to tell you,” Damon said. “I think it ties into the murders, Jean-Paul.”

His brother narrowed his eyes. “All right. Let's hear it.”

As Damon explained about the special-ops unit called the E-team, and lightly sketched out the various missions he'd carried out, sweat trickled down his face and his palms went clammy. He gripped the edge of the desk, turned and stared out the window, unable to look his brother in the face as he described the assassinations.

“Damon,” Jean-Paul said quietly. “You have nothing to be ashamed of. You were part of the military. The missions…we were all soldiers, did things we hated. Our work was necessary to protect the country.” Jean-Paul clapped him on the back.
“C'est la guerre.”

French Cajun for
That is war
. Damon's throat closed. “There's more. This woman, Jacqueline…She was involved with Diego Bolton. He was a known assassin, a terrorist. He killed Jacqueline's father, Ambassador Braudaway. Bolton was my last assignment with the E-team.”

“I take it Jacqueline doesn't know that you took out Diego?”

“No,” Damon said, swiping a hand across his brow. “You don't understand, Jean-Paul.” Damon pivoted to face him, knowing he had to be a man. “We had the explosives set up, the house wired. And then Jacqueline showed up. At least I'm fairly sure it was her.” He removed the baby rattle, told Jean-Paul he wanted fingerprint results, then he'd know for sure. “She got caught in the explosion that I set. I tried to go in and save her, but one of the other men said she was dead. I…thought it was too late and left her there to burn.”

“Jesus.” The breath hissed between Jean-Paul's teeth. “How involved with her are you now?”

Damon fought the urge to lie. But he was tired of all the secrets. “I'm in love with her.” A sardonic laugh escaped him. “Pretty twisted, isn't it? When she finds out, she'll hate me.”

Jean-Paul's look held both regret and sympathy. “I still don't see how all of this is connected. You, the E-team, Jacqueline, the first Mutilator, framing Antwaun. It doesn't make sense.”

“I haven't figured it out either.” He rammed his hands into his pockets, then confided about the phone call Jacqueline received. “I'm trying to track down one of the men from the E-team who is missing. Maybe he can fill in the blanks.” He paused. “And maybe one of our federal agents can retrieve the lost data.”

Jean-Paul nodded and carried the baby rattle to the fingerprint lab, while Damon stepped outside and placed a call to Cal. He had been a true leader, one of the men Damon had trusted most.

“Cal, it's Dubois.”