Into the Storm (39 page)

His mouth was hard and hot, the heat they generated instantaneous, and all she wanted was to be close to him, closer. But just as suddenly as it started, it stopped. He pulled away. First to arm’s length, and then farther, jumping to his feet to get away from her.

“Don’t,” he said, turning his back to her as he wiped his face. Clearly, he didn’t want her to see him cry.

Don’t? “You’re the one who kissed me,” she said.

“No,
you
kissed
me.
I should know when I’m being kissed.” He turned toward her, but it soon became obvious that he was unable to stop his tears.
“Shit.”

“Mark…” She reached for him, but he yanked his arm away.

“Just leave me alone!”

Her temper flared. “What, it’s okay if I cry, but not you? You’re allowed to comfort me, but when I try to do the same—”

“Was
that
what that was? Comfort?” He savagely wiped his eyes with his hands. “I thought it was your tongue in my mouth, but okay.”

“I know you’re angry,” Lindsey told him, her voice shaking. “With yourself, with the entire world. And with me. I get that—loud and clear. I even deserve it, but—”

“Lindsey!” Tom Paoletti was shouting for her.

“Are you going to be okay to drive?” she asked Jenk. “Because Tom needs me to go over to the pharmacy with him.”

Her boss hadn’t been impressed by the FBI agent in charge of the investigation. He’d made a few phone calls, and a replacement—a bigwig from DC—was on his way. But it would be hours before he arrived. Until then, Tom was convinced that Lindsey had more experience working homicide than anyone currently in the county. He’d asked her to pay a visit to the crime scene.

“I’m fine,” Jenk said. “Just go. Be careful.”

“FYI, Koehl and rest of the SEALs are back,” Lindsey told him. “In case you don’t know it—which is stupid because you know everything—Izzy’s UA.” She took her room key from her pocket and held it out to him. “I don’t know what’s up, what happened between him and Tracy, why he felt it was so important to get back here. All I know is that we’re on the verge of a massive manhunt, and I can’t imagine that he wouldn’t want to be part of that. From what Tom told me, Izzy’s facing some serious consequences. If he wants to stay off Koehl’s radar so he can help catch this twisted bastard, he’s welcome to use my room.”

Jenk took the key and put it into his pocket as he shook his head. He made a sound that might have been laughter on a different day. “You always make it hard for me to stay mad at you.”

With a whine from the transmission, Tom started backing his SUV toward Lindsey.

“Will you wait for me at the motel?” she asked Jenk. “I’d like a chance to finish the conversation we started, because…I didn’t kiss you.”

He made that same almost laughter sound and closed his eyes. “It probably was my fault. I apologize. So it’s not necessary to—”

“Yes, it is necessary,” Lindsey said. “You were like, all,
don’t
and
get away from me.
You didn’t stop to ask if maybe, after saying something incredibly honest and…Terrifying.” She met his eyes and nodded. “It was terrifying. For me. To hear that you feel that way, even after…everything. But you didn’t stop to think that maybe after you said what you said, I was okay with you, you know. Kissing me.”

She stood on her toes, wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed him. Right in front of Tom, who had just braked to a stop and started to roll down his window. He immediately rolled it back up.

“
That
was me kissing you,” she told Jenk. “Just so there’s no confusion.”

Jenk laughed. His smile didn’t stay for long, but it didn’t have to. She could see his very heart and soul in his eyes. He nodded. “I’ll see you at the motel,” he said.

“Well,” Tom said, as Lindsey climbed into the SUV.

“Please don’t say anything,” she warned her boss as she fastened her seat belt. “I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing. None at all.”

Tom put the car into gear. “Am I allowed to say thank you?”

“For what?” Lindsey tried not to be too obvious about turning to watch Jenk as they drove away. He was watching her, too. He lifted his hand in a wave.

“For reminding me,” Tom told her, “that even in the face of sheer ugliness and evil, there’s still a lot in life that’s hopeful and good.”

C
HAPTER
E
IGHTEEN

I
zzy didn’t give a shit.

Jenk had offered him Lindsey’s room key, but he just shook his head. He walked right into the motel restaurant—still shivering from the freezing water. He just marched over to the senior chief.

Word of the recovery of Tracy’s body—what was left of it—had obviously made it back here. The entire team was quiet, subdued. And the senior didn’t ream him a new one upon first contact. “Sit down over there, Zanella.” His voice was almost gentle as he gestured with his chin toward the tables by the window. “I’ll be right with you.”

No one came over to talk to Izzy—it was clear they didn’t know what to say. Or maybe they thought he was an asshole, because really, that was what he was. Hell of a lot of good his taking unauthorized leave had done for Tracy, though.

Sophia was the only person who approached. She brought him a blanket, which she put around his shoulders, and a cup of hot chocolate. She even sat down across from him. “You really will warm up faster if you drink something hot.”

So he took a sip. Not that he gave a shit whether or not he stopped shivering. It was just the path of least resistance with her sitting there watching him.

Her buddy Dave was watching him, too. Or rather, he was watching over Sophia. As usual, he was never too far from her. He stood at the next table, collating what looked like computer-generated maps, pretending not to listen in.

“Are you up to speed?” Sophia asked Izzy. “Tom’s got a phone call scheduled, in about thirty minutes, with Jules Cassidy—the FBI agent from DC. He’s going to put it on speakerphone.”

A phone call. They were all sitting around waiting for a phone call from some geek in a suit. Like that was going to make any of this better.

“Cassidy’s flight was canceled due to the weather,” Sophia continued, “but he’s still taking charge of the investigation. I don’t know if you know him, but I do, and he’s very good. Apparently he’s got some information that he wants to share with all of us.”

At which time…what? They’d all hold hands and sing empowerment songs? Unless Mr. Very Good had information that would lead them directly to the motherfucker who had killed Tracy, this was just a waste of time.

“Do you know about the phone call Tracy made to Lindsey?” Sophia asked him, nudging the mug of chocolate closer to him.

“Yeah,” he told her as he took another sip. Tracy had ended up leaving a message on Lindsey’s home answering machine. Apparently she had known she was in trouble and managed to give a brief description of her killer, as well as a partial license plate number. Maybe. She herself had admitted that it was dark and hard for her to read.

“Tess Bailey—our comspesh—has managed to map the routes of Tracy and her jacket. After leaving the cabin, she went in and out of zones that had signal. We now have a pretty clear picture of where she was for at least some of last night. But, unfortunately, not where her abductor is right now.”

“Yeah, I heard that, too,” Izzy said. They’d narrowed Tracy’s killer’s suspected location down to something like a hundred square miles. Give or take a few dozen. And that was assuming their man hadn’t gone over the state lines into Maine or Vermont. “Fuck of a lot of good it’s going to do us.”

Dave bristled at his language. Fuck him, too.

Sophia didn’t seem to care about Izzy’s word choices. “It must’ve been awful,” she said, sympathy in her eyes. “Seeing her like that.”

“It might not be her,” Izzy said, because that’s what everyone else was saying. But if it wasn’t Tracy, then the bastard who did that to her might well be carving her into pieces right this very moment. The thought of that was almost too hard to bear when the chances they would find her were slim to none. All they had to go on was a vague description—who the hell was Ralph Fiennes, anyway?—and possibly incorrect information, along with those dozens of huge chunks of New Hampshire that made up Tess Bailey’s aptly named dead zones.

The current genius plan was to canvass those areas. Knock on doors and politely ask if anyone had seen Tracy, and hope that someone came to the door with blood on their Nikes. But if he didn’t, they could conceivably knock on the motherfucker’s door, have a conversation,
No, I haven’t seen her, but I’ll keep my eyes open,
then drive away, while he tromped back into the basement and blithely went back to sewing her mouth shut with a leather needle.

Izzy put his head down on the table.

“Even if it wasn’t Tracy, it’s still somebody,” Sophia gently pointed out. “It might make it less personal, but it doesn’t make it less awful.” She touched his hand, her fingers warm. “It might not be over, Irving. Don’t just quit.”

It might not be over. The sewing-the-mouth-shut part might still be in Tracy’s future.

“I don’t know what to pray for,” he admitted, lifting his head to look at Sophia.

She understood that he meant whether to pray that the body came back identified as Tracy—which would mean her suffering was over, or…

“I always prayed to stay alive,” she told him, and Izzy knew from Dave’s reaction that she was talking about her own ordeal as a prisoner of some sadistic warlord in some godforsaken country—the ordeal that had left her so badly scarred. He also knew from both her own and Dave’s body language that this was something she didn’t often discuss.

“I prayed that someone would rescue me, and I vowed to still be breathing when they came,” she continued quietly. “As long as there’s life, there’s hope. If Tracy’s still alive, she knows we’re out here, looking for her. So don’t quit on her, okay? Get yourself warmed up and ready to help. And talk to whoever you need to and convince them that you’ll turn yourself back in—
after
we find Tracy. Otherwise, not only will you not be able to help us, but someone else will be forced to stay behind to guard you.”

He hadn’t thought of that. It was completely unacceptable.

Sophia stood up. She got him another mug of hot chocolate and set it down on the table in front of him. “Drink,” she told him.

Izzy drank.

By the time she got back to the motel, the snow had started falling. Lightly at first, with big fluffy flakes.

It was beautiful. Or it could have been, if Lindsey had been able to erase the memory of that horrible face from her mind.

She knocked on Jenk’s motel room door, and he opened it right away, as if he’d been waiting for her. He seemed alert, but she suspected he’d been sleeping. He had total bedhead, as if he’d showered but then immediately crashed for a nap.

He didn’t say a word. No
hello,
no nothing. He just grabbed her and pulled her inside.

And kissed her.

It was quite the kiss. His tongue was hot as he filled her mouth—no warm-up, no foreplay, just wham. Instant soul kiss. His entire body was radiating heat, his T-shirt warm and soft beneath her hands and against her body—he’d definitely been asleep just moments earlier.

Lindsey kissed him, too, harder, deeper, tightly closing her eyes, her fingers in the softness of his hair, banishing all thoughts but those of his mouth, his hands, his body, his solid heat.

He had his hand up her shirt, her back pressed against the wall, before she realized he’d somehow managed to get her jacket unzipped and off of her.

And still he kissed her.

Lindsey felt his fingers at the waist of her pants, fumbling with the button. He got it on his second try, and she knew, even without her help, she’d be out of them in an another instant.

“We should probably talk,” she pulled away to gasp.

He captured her mouth again, kissing her just as thoroughly, stopping only to breathe, “I need you,” as he kissed her face, her throat.

Oh, God. “I need you, too.” Enough said.

He kissed her again as he wrapped her legs around him and carried her to the back of the room, where he had a leather case on the sink counter. He set her down only for a moment as he rummaged in it, during which time she managed to kick off one of her boots. He found what he was looking for and covered himself, then pulled her closer to kiss her again, even as she tried to lose her second boot. It was impossible to pry it off with her other foot in only a sock—no traction—but he ignored it, focusing on removing her jeans.

Having one of her legs free was sufficient for what he wanted, and he didn’t try for more. His own pants were already down around his thighs, and he picked her up and pushed her against the wall by the thermostat, filling her just as unceremoniously and completely as that very first kiss.

She caught a glimpse of them both in the mirror above the sink—his broad back straining, butt pumping—round cheeks bare and gleaming. It would have been comical, with her one boot off and one boot on, jeans flapping from one ankle, her head visible above his shoulder, bouncing with each thrust, occasionally bumping the wall.

It would have been, if it weren’t for the expression on her face.

Eyes half-closed, mouth open as she gasped her pleasure, she looked like somebody else. Like somebody who knew what she wanted and wasn’t afraid to grab it with both hands and hold on tight. Like somebody who was doing just that.

She watched him kiss her throat, his mouth so warm and soft, his eyes closed, lashes long and dark against his freshly shaved cheeks. He was so sweet. So solid and strong.

And she was what he wanted, even though she’d tried her best to chase him away.

“Linds,” he breathed. “God…”

Yeah, he’d seen her at her worst, and he still wanted her. Needed her.

Loved her.

Lindsey watched herself start to come, and then she didn’t watch because her eyes closed as he kissed her, as she felt his own release, as together they crashed past the point of no return.

They would not be mere friends after this. This time, there would be no going back. Only forward.

If she dared.

Lindsey opened her eyes.

In the mirror, Mark’s reflection panted for breath, his head against the wall.

She saw her own hands, twisted tightly in the cotton of his T-shirt, as if, were it up to them, they would never let him go.

Sophia went looking for Tom, but found Decker instead.

He was scrutinizing the maps that someone had tacked up on the restaurant wall, just staring at them as if, were he only to look hard enough, he’d figure out where Tracy was being held.

As usual, he knew Sophia was standing behind him, without even turning around. “Tom’s on the phone with the police chief,” he told her. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“Yes,” she said. “I hope so. I was getting nudgy, just sitting around waiting for this meeting to start, a little cabin feverish…”

Decker finally looked away from the maps. He had this way of looking at her sometimes, as if they were barely acquaintances. As if he couldn’t quite remember her name. Polite, yet distant. She hated when he did that. “Tom still doesn’t want you spending much time outside, and I’m sorry, but I’ve got to agree.”

“No,” she said, “that’s not…Trust me, I’m not in any hurry to go hiking again. In Hawaii, sure, but…”

He smiled, but again it was loaded with politeness.

Getting to the point would be good. “I started organizing the training equipment we were using the other night. Packing it up. But I’ve counted three times, and I’m still short a jacket. In addition to Tracy’s. If she somehow managed to take a second jacket with her…”

Then they could conceivably still track it via the computer. Sure, it would require some effort. They’d need additional sat towers, or teams to move the temporary ones that had been set up…

Suddenly the look in Decker’s eyes was anything but polite and reserved. He advanced on her, intense to the point of ferocity. “Show me.”

Jenk’s watch alarm sounded and, because he was still holding Lindsey, he shifted her to one arm and shut it off with his teeth.

He could feel her watching him, and he turned to meet her gaze.

“Hi,” she said. “I mean, that was kind of like a giant, extraspecial hi, no words necessary, but I just felt it needed to be said.”

He smiled. “Hi.”

“Is your shoulder okay?”

“Never better.”

“So was your watch set for a five- or a ten-minute warning?” Lindsey asked, smoothing down the part of his T-shirt that she’d grabbed onto toward the end there.

“Fifteen,” Jenk told her, searching her eyes, aware that they were having this conversation as if they hadn’t just made love, as if he weren’t still inside of her. “It’s really twenty minutes before the meeting officially starts, but I wanted to get there early.”

“Wow,” she said. “We’ve got time to get some food and coffee. Unless…we’re just going to stay here like this forever…?”

He pulled out, letting her slide down, feet on the floor, and instantly missed her warmth.

Lindsey immediately went about turning her jeans right side out and getting herself cleaned up, so he did the same. Now was apparently not the time to discuss what it all meant—that kiss she’d given him in front of Tommy, and this latest, yes, very special greeting. She was either going to get scared and run again, or not. There was little he could do until it happened.

Although this time, if she left, he was going to go with her. It was definitely much harder to walk away from someone who insisted upon tagging along.

“So did it work for you, too?” Lindsey asked, and Jenk didn’t understand until she added, “For a few minutes, I actually stopped seeing…you know. That face.”

Ah, crap. Jenk nodded. “Yeah, it worked. But yeah, she’s going to haunt me for a long time, too.” Whoever she was. He’d made up his mind that the woman they’d pulled out of the quarry wasn’t Tracy. It was possible that dental records would prove otherwise, at which time he’d have to deal, but until then…Not Tracy.

“She’s going to haunt me forever,” Lindsey said, as she went into the separate room that held the toilet and bathtub. She closed the door only partway, leaving it open a crack so they could continue to talk. “I’ve got a bunch of things already in that file. You know, the one labeled
Nightmare Material, to be reviewed regularly over the next eighty-plus years, including when upon deathbed.
”