Eternal Nights (8 page)

Brody grinned. “Hey, I’m doing my part. The bruises on my shins were incentive enough to watch what I said.”

It was a struggle, but Alex kept from smiling. Damn, he didn’t want to like Brody, but it was hard not to. All Alex had ever wanted was for Ravyn to be happy and treated well. Her husband filled both those requirements admirably. Hell, the man’s whole world revolved around Ravyn and their son. “My stepsister has you wrapped around her little finger.”

“If anyone would know that, it’s you.” Brody’s grin broadened. “She had you wound there first.”

“No, she had my father there first. I held out for a full day.” Alex stopped fighting the smile. “Your wife is dangerous. You know that, right?”

“By the time I figured it out, it was way too late.” But Brody didn’t sound as if he minded. “What’s up, Colonel?” he asked, sobering. “You didn’t come here to talk about Ravyn.”

Before he could answer, the door opened and his sister came in. She ignored him, which told Alex she was still angry. This was the biggest drawback to his relationship with Stacey. Ravyn and Stace were best friends and he usually took the heat on both fronts when he was in the doghouse with one of them.

“Time for bed, Cam,” Ravyn said.

With perfect diction, his nephew replied, “Oh, shit.”

Alex felt his face heat. This was not good.

Ravyn scooped up her son before turning and glaring. “Damon,” she growled, voice low.

“Don’t look at me, sweet pea.” Brody held up both hands. “I’m innocent.”

“Alex!” Ravyn stormed across the floor without jostling Cam even a bit. “Can’t you control your mouth for five minutes?”

He considered telling her the same thing he’d told her husband—that if he were surrounded by soldiers it was merely a matter of time before the boy heard hard language—but when he saw the sparks jumping in his stepsister’s eyes, he decided not to argue. If he used that as a defense, she’d clean his clock. “Sorry.”

“Sorry,” she muttered. “As if that’s going to erase the word from his vocabulary. Thanks a lot.” And with one last glower, Ravyn left, closing the door sharply behind her.

“You gave me up damn fast,” Alex complained.

“Colonel, there was no way in he—heck I was taking the heat for your mistake, not when I sleep with her.” Alex frowned, but Brody ignored it. “Look at it this way, Ravyn isn’t half as mad as Stacey. You’ll be facing much worse when you go home.”

“Don’t remind me.” Stacey was slow to anger, but once her temper was ignited, it smoldered. He decided not to think about it until he had to. “I need to ask you a few questions.”

Brody sobered. “Is this about the murder? I don’t know anything, but I hope you find the son of a bitch soon.”

“So do I.” Alex rubbed his forehead for a second—fatigue was catching up with him. “I’ve put my best soldiers on the investigation—they haven’t come up with much yet. But Hunter isn’t who I wanted to ask you about.”

“Who is?”

“Wyatt Montgomery.”

“You think he’s responsible? Not a chance in hell.”

Alex was tempted to remind Brody about his language, but it wasn’t worth it. “No, I don’t think he killed Hunter, but he’s missing. You know the kid, if he’d finally scored with the woman he’d been chasing for four months, would he go AWOL?”

“No.”

Closing his eyes for a second, Alex took a deep breath before he pinned Brody with a hard look. “I need you to think about this carefully.”

“It doesn’t matter how long I think about it, Montgomery is levelheaded and responsible. He’d never go AWOL. Sorry if that’s not what you wanted to hear, but you asked for my opinion. If you want your own ideas parroted back at you, there are plenty of ass-kissers around. Go find one of them.”

Brody was right. “Shit,” Alex said quietly. “This means I have two missing officers to find.”

“Hunter and Montgomery went through Spec Ops school together—they were buddies.”

“You’re suggesting that Montgomery’s disappearance might be linked to Hunter’s death? I’m considering that. Especially with one of the pieces of information I was given today.”

Hell, it had to be tied together. Montgomery asks Hunter to watch over Thomas. Hunter gets his throat slit and Thomas and Montgomery go missing. It had to center on the girl—on whatever had her scared. Alex wished to hell he hadn’t blown her off. She’d wanted to tell him something, and maybe that something would have solved the murder.

And maybe prevented two other deaths.

Just because no one had found bodies, that didn’t mean Montgomery and Thomas were alive. The Old City was huge. It was estimated that between twenty-five and fifty thousand people had lived here when the aliens had inhabited it. There were only six hundred Western Alliance troops present, leaving a lot of unoccupied ground—and a lot of places to hide a couple of corpses.

“Shit,” he said again.

Brody knew better than to quiz him, and Alex didn’t volunteer any info. When he met with McNamara tomorrow morning to give her an update on the situation, he’d have to mention that the problem might be bigger than one murder. The post commander had already given him hell over Hunter’s death, and the last thing Alex wanted to tell her was that things might be worse than they’d thought. She’d really push him now.

“I’m going home. Try to sweeten Ravyn up, will you?”

A few moments later, Alex stopped right inside the door of the house he shared with Stacey and watched her. She sat at the table, picking at the edge of a sugar cookie. The plate was covered with small crumbs and he guessed she’d taken more than one apart.

For an instant, he thought about when he’d met her, the way she’d faced him down. Back then her hair had been strawberry blond, and long, flowing halfway down her back. Now it was auburn and cut to shoulder length. But the changes didn’t matter to Alex. Stacey was special. With her, he didn’t have to pretend to be someone he wasn’t, he didn’t have to watch every damn word he said, or blunt his personality. He didn’t intimidate her in the slightest and that freed him. She chewed him out when he deserved it and hugged him when he needed someone to hold him. And she’d given him something he’d never had in his entire life—contentment.

She looked up, hazel eyes hot, and Alex almost smiled. He was going to catch hell, but that was okay.

“So you finally made it home.”

“Stace, I’m sorry.” He still hated apologizing, and the words never came easily to him, but he’d learned how to say them in the three years they’d been together.

Standing, she tugged the belt of her pale green robe tighter and left her fingers tangled in the bow. “Answer one question for me. Did you miss dinner because of some breaking event in the murder investigation?”

Alex had always been honest with Stacey and he wasn’t going to start lying to her now, not even to make things easier on himself. “No, there was nothing that couldn’t have waited until tomorrow. I should have been here.”

With a nod, she pivoted and left him standing flat-footed. He wasn’t sure how to read her; this wasn’t usual behavior for Stacey. Normally, she’d be ripping him up one side and down the other and he deserved it. Alex chased after her. He caught up with her as she stood in the doorway to their room. “Stace?”

“This house has four bedrooms. Use one of the others.” She closed the door in his face.

*** *** ***

Stacey stepped onto the back porch and set her teacup on the small table. She walked to the stone railing and looked out over the backyard. There was a patch of grass, some low bushes and flowering plants. The grounds weren’t large, but they were beautifully landscaped and surrounded by a tall stone wall for privacy.

Even after living here for years, there were still times she looked at this perfection and was unnerved. Nothing ever needed to be trimmed or mowed. No dust ever settled and no bugs or animals made their way inside the city. Every building, every bench, every fountain remained as flawless as if they’d been created that very day. If she were on Earth, there would be birds singing and a breeze to ruffle her hair. Not here, though, and Stacey felt a pang at the absence—and a stronger ache as she realized, despite its oddness, she’d miss the Old City.

She ran her hands over the front of her khaki trousers and returned to the table. Thinking about what she’d miss, who she’d miss, was a pointless endeavor. After adjusting her chair, Stacey rotated the teacup in its saucer so that it was at an exact right angle to her body. Normally, she wasn’t this meticulous, but the precision was a way to hold herself together.

A way to keep the tears at bay.

It was over.

She couldn’t do it anymore. Three years spent trying to break through the fortress surrounding Alex Sullivan was all she could take. Last night had merely been the last straw.

If he’d missed dinner because of something related to the murder, Stacey would have shrugged it aside—that would have been too important to put off. But when she’d asked him if that had been the reason, he’d said no. Maybe she should be grateful that he didn’t lie to her. At the same time, though, she couldn’t help wondering whether he’d told the truth because her response didn’t matter to him. Maybe it was indifference, not respect.

The only place Stacey felt like she had Alex—really had him—was in bed. When they had sex, he didn’t hold back much of himself, but that was the one time she didn’t sense the distance he kept between himself and the rest of the world.

She bobbed the string from the tea bag slowly up and down, then pulled it out and let it rest on the side of the saucer. Her hands weren’t entirely steady as she took a sip.

Herbal tea. For a coffee addict. It was a good thing Alex had cleared out before she’d woken up this morning.

Oh, she’d tell him about the baby. He deserved that and so did their child, but she wasn’t sharing it with him now. After she returned to Earth and had her own home established—and her emotional equilibrium back—she’d give him the news.

It didn’t take much thought to anticipate Alex’s reaction—he’d ask her to marry him. Too bad it would be for all the wrong reasons. She didn’t want him this way. If he ever proposed, she needed it to be because he loved her. He might utter the words now, but they wouldn’t be true. Alex was very goal-oriented; he’d do and say whatever he had to in order to bring her around to his way of thinking.

After taking another sip, Stacey replaced the cup on the saucer and stared into the garden. Life was a gamble, a risk. She’d taken her chances and she’d lost. Part of her felt as if it were dying, but better a fast death than the slow strangulation she’d been living with. It wasn’t any surprise—she’d gone into this relationship with her eyes wide open. She’d known what Alex was like and there was no one to blame but herself for her broken heart. Her broken dreams.

This decision to leave him and return to Earth hadn’t been made in the heat of the moment. For some time now, she’d been considering her options. Of course, getting pregnant hadn’t been one of them, but sometimes the universe had a sense of humor.

A warped sense of humor.

She should have reminded Alex again that he needed to get the shot. The post doctor had been concerned about some indications she’d seen on Stacey’s tests and wanted her off birth control for at least six months to see if the results normalized. Sullivan had been willing to take on the responsibility when she’d brought it up, but the one time she’d reminded him, he’d become short-tempered and told her he’d take care of it. Apparently, he hadn’t.

Stacey used her index fingers to wipe the unshed tears from her eyes. She didn’t regret the baby, but the timing couldn’t be worse. Well, she’d handle it—women had been raising children alone since the dawn of time.

What she needed to do now was arrange to be on the transport when it left Jarved Nine next week. She doubted that would be a problem, though. The only reason she was on this planet at all was because Alex had pulled strings and had CAT Command assign her to the Western Alliance project. The Colonization Assessment Team leaders would want her back if for no other reason than to cut the ties to the military. They didn’t like the precedent it set.

Before she did that, though, she needed to pack. Although she hated putting her friend in the middle, she knew Ravyn would let her stay in her home until the transport left for Earth.

No matter what, Stacey wasn’t spending another night under the same roof with Alex Sullivan.

Chapter Five

“Damn it, Wyatt, hold still!”

Wyatt swallowed a curse. “You need to hurry.”

And she did. He’d been right—the room was airtight. Their breathing and pulse rates had increased and their coordination was off. With the army going into space, Wyatt had been trained to recognize the signs of oxygen deprivation, and they had all the symptoms. When the level fell a few percentage points lower, both of them would drop into unconsciousness without warning.

They’d spent hours and hours checking every portion of the walls they could reach from the floor and hadn’t found a trigger. Now he had Kendall sitting up on his shoulders, letting her feel around in the area near the ceiling; it was a stretch for her. What worried him was they were already more than halfway through and had yet to find a way out. He stepped to his side.

“Wyatt!” she protested.

“We’re running short on air.”

“So you’re saying we don’t have time to do it right, but we have time to do it over?” Bug barely paused. “Wait until I indicate that I’m ready before you move.”

His hands tightened around her knees, but he didn’t argue with her. She had a point. He didn’t think they were going to have a chance to redo their search. The next stage in oxygen deficiency was nausea, maybe vomiting. They weren’t to that level yet, but Wyatt didn’t think they were far off. Kendall’s leg pressed into him and he moved a few feet.

Since meeting her, he’d played out a lot of different scenarios on how their lives might go, but he’d never pictured it ending this soon. Four months. It was nowhere near long enough. He wanted to be able to kiss her, to pull her body against his and hold her without worrying about spooking her. Hell, he wanted to make love with her and wake up with her in his arms.