Shadows at Midnight (20 page)

There was another possibility, too, a nightmarish one, right up there with Dead Claire on a scale of horrible. There was the possibility that whoever was after her wanted her alive, to torture her for something that might be in that beautiful head of hers. She was a former spook. She said she knew nothing, but who the hell knew what was what in the shadowy world of intelligence?

It was a cruel and cold world, with plenty of men and countries willing to kill and maim for anything that might give them an edge.

To lose her horribly just after he’d found her . . . Dan shuddered and hung on for dear life, heart pounding, palms sweating, tightening his arms around her slender body hidden beneath his huge down jacket.

He was sweating all over, drops falling down his temples and his hands were shaking, suddenly totally incapable of thinking of anything but a dead Claire.

Seeing
her, lifeless on the hotel carpet, her life’s blood flowing out to create a macabre red frame, or on his kitchen floor, a bullet through the head, shards of bone and brain on his walls or—a charming scene in the little trifecta of horrors running through his head—Claire’s body, charred and smoking, caught in the fire in her home.

Dan hung on for dear life, sweating and shaking, completely undone. Later, when he could think straight, it would astonish him.

He was known for his cool under fire. In Afghanistan, he’d held off fifteen insurgents single-handedly while the medics worked on the wounded at his back, a cold killing machine, keeping the terrorists back until the medevac helicopters came. He’d moved from rock to outcropping to dip in the ground, making every shot count. The insurgents thought they were facing a full team of snipers and had finally slithered back into their holes when the
whup whup
of the Chinooks’ rotors filled the air.

He’d held them off for six hours, had slept well that night and had gone back into the field the next day.

Part of the job. Part of the mission. No sweat.

But now he was shaken to the core, the adrenaline of the escape coursing through his system like poison and the only antidote was Claire, safe in his arms.

He lowered his cheek to rest it on the top of Claire’s head, shuddering. For a few moments, he lost all tactical awareness, another thing that would astonish him when he could think rationally later.

In danger, a soldier is aware of everything, always. Tunnel-visioning, fear that narrows the world down to what is immediately in front of you, like seeing through a straw, is one of the best ways to get killed.

Dan was always aware of everything, his senses moving outward, even under fire.
Especially
under fire.

But right now, his senses, everything that made him the man he was, focused narrowly and tightly on the woman in his arms, on her softness and vulnerability. He was aware of her hair tickling his nose, the soft puffs of her breath against his neck, her arms around his back, her slight weight pressed against him.

And, oh God, pressed right against his hard-on.

She moved slightly and he was instantly hard as a rock. It was uncomfortable, inconvenient, totally uncontrollable. Post-op horniness, all that adrenaline sloshing around with nowhere to go except straight to his dick. She shifted again and, damn, felt it.

It would be hard not to. He was hard as a hammer. And when she moved against him, he lengthened and thickened even more. She couldn’t help but feel it. Oh, Christ.

Claire pulled away, arms still around his neck, nose an inch from his.

“What do we do now?” she asked softly.

Go to bed. Have sex until we pass out.

Oh man, for just a second there he was so tempted. He’d never been this tempted before, to have sex no matter what the consequences. He’d never felt this horny before, either. Whenever he needed a woman, there’d always been one handy. No big sweat. This past year of celibacy had been totally self-enforced. Hardly a week had gone by when he hadn’t had an offer to break it.

So he wasn’t used to this level of desire, as if he would die if he didn’t have sex
right now
.

And he could picture it, too. Right now and right here. Both the Yukon and the Cherokee were plenty roomy, though he hadn’t been tempted by car sex since the age of seventeen. The seats were large, comfortable and could be let back. Just recline them. Claire on top. His own personal fantasy, one that had kept him awake more nights than he cared to count this past year.

All he’d have to do was unzip, and there he was. All ready. More than ready. Claire’s clothes would need a little more work, but hell. He was a Marine, he didn’t sweat the small stuff. He’d just slide her pants and panties down those long, slender legs, right off her feet. He’d let her keep the boots. And well, her sweater . . .

And then, oh Christ, her breasts with those small pink nipples would be right there . . .

Wait. What the
hell
was he doing?

They’d just escaped twice with their lives and his head was in his
dick
? He was responsible for Claire’s safety while she was in the red zone and he was thinking about
sex
?

He was appalled at himself, ashamed. He willed his hard-on back down and met Claire’s eyes. This beautiful woman’s life was in his hands. He had to think with his big head.

He stepped back and helped Claire up into the Cherokee then got behind the wheel.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“We’re safe, if that’s what you want to know.” Dan blew out a breath. “This is the house of a friend of mine. He’s away for the week.”

“How’d they find us before? At your house? Were we followed?”

“Good question. And it needs an answer because we weren’t followed.” He was going to kill the guy responsible.

Dan reached into the duffel bag and pulled out one of his two throwaway cell phones. He fit a receiver to his ear and punched in the number.

“Stone.” There was a loud background noise, like a diesel engine. Dan could barely hear him.

“Marcus? Dan here. You’ve got a leak on your team. It nearly got us killed.” He could barely suppress the anger in his voice. His vocal cords were as clenched as his jaws.

A leak out of the fucking cop shop. It was the only explanation. Someone on Marcus’s team was in the pocket of whoever was after Claire. And whoever the fucker after her was, he was powerful and connected. That was becoming very clear. The officer who leaked info might not even be aware of the consequences of what he did.

But he’d nearly got them fucking killed.

“What the hell are you talking about?” The background noise, like a loud throb, grew louder. “A leak? What kind of leak?”

“Get to someplace quieter,” Dan growled. “I can barely hear you.”

Half a minute later, Dan could hear a door shut and the noise level dropped. “Better?”

“Yeah.”

“So what’s this talk of a leak? My men and I don’t do leaks.”

No, they didn’t. Marcus ran a tight ship. But goddammit.
Someone
had talked.

“I took Claire home. We weren’t there an hour—” Dan’s eyes met Claire’s. He felt a surge of heat in his body as he remembered exactly how they’d spent that hour. Though he could barely see her, he could almost feel her blush. “About an hour after we arrived, the house came under attack.”

“What?”

“Yeah. Real pros, too. Five of them, wearing tactical suits. Night vision goggles, carrying MP-5s. They knew what they were doing. We got out by a miracle. So you tell me, Marcus. You and your men were the only ones who knew that I was with Claire and that I was taking her home with me. Someone talked. Someone wrote a report back at HQ and emailed a copy to the wrong guy. Or blabbed to a reporter. Or called it in to someone outside the force. I don’t know how the hell it happened and I don’t care. All I know is that we nearly died because someone on your team dropped a dime on us.”

Dan was ready to expect a blast from Marcus, but instead he got a thoughtful tone. “I don’t know, Dan. The thing is—we haven’t filed a report yet.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“I mean that the entire team that was at the hotel—except for the techs who took the body away and didn’t know who you were—has been called to another crime scene. A double homicide on a boat moored at the New Town Marina. The murderer chopped a hole in the hull and we’re sucking out the water now. You heard the diesel engine of the bilge pump. The team’s been with me. We came directly here and no one’s talked on the phone except for me. And I didn’t tell anyone about you. I will, in the report, but I haven’t yet.”

Dan tried to think it through and stiffened. “Goddamn,” he breathed. “From Florida. They traced the call from Florida.”

“What?”

Christ, time was tight. He signaled to Claire to buckle up. They had to move fast.

Dan pulled out into the street, still heading west. “While we were at my house, Claire got a phone call to her cell from her neighbor in Safety Harbor, Florida. The neighbor said that Claire’s house was burning down. Claire spoke briefly with the fire chief there and they suspect arson. Said the house went up all at once. So someone traced that call to her cell and triangulated her location and sent five men to my crib. All in the space of less than an hour. You need to send your men to my house fast. Go in silent without sirens. They had at least one wounded, maybe more. Get some prints, some DNA, get something. And for Christ’s sake find out who these fuckers are because they’re still out there.”

Dan could practically hear the gears grinding in Marcus’s head. The same gears that were grinding in his own. There were conclusions to be drawn, none of them good.

One—whoever was after Claire was ruthless and wanted her dead, badly. There had been two attempts on her life and they’d burned down a home to smoke her out.

Two—whoever wanted her dead was either very powerful or very rich or both. Probably both, which wasn’t good. Someone who commanded huge manpower, too, spread out over the country.

His blood chilled. Just about the only entity he could think of that could field men on an instant’s notice almost anywhere was . . . a government entity.

Christ. Was the CIA after her? NSA? Some shadowy agency even he didn’t know about? If that was the case, their lives as they knew them were over.

“Do my best, Gunny,” Marcus said and rang off.

Dan stretched out his hand. “Let me have your cell phone, honey.”

Without a word, Claire handed it over, blue eyes huge as she watched him. She nodded. “They tracked the phone,” she said. “They can follow our movements.”

“Uh-huh. But not anymore.” Dan buzzed down his window and threw her cell phone out. He watched in his rearview mirror as it bounced once, twice, on the paved surface, and come to rest in the middle of the lane, where the next car would crush it.

Whoever was following the signals put out by her SIM card would expect them to keep tracking west. Instead, on a deserted stretch of residential road, Dan pulled a neat 180 and backtracked.

“Where are we going now?” Claire asked quietly.

Dan reached over, picked up her hand and kissed the palm. “Where no one will ever find you.”

It seemed like a lifetime ago.

She’d forgotten everything while in his arms—the dead man, her trashed hotel room, the past year. All set aside while her body exploded into a bazillion powerful orgasms.

She hadn’t been
Poor Claire
then, a shell of a woman alive by the skin of her teeth, barely together, barely
there
. No, in Dan’s bed she’d been
Hot Claire
. Hot in every sense of the term. The way Dan looked at her, touched her, made her feel like the most desirable woman in the world. Having this strong, uber-male man completely focused on her . . . it had been so wonderful. Even the notion of cold had been banished in the bed, as he warmed her inside and out.

It was all gone now. The heat and the desire and the sheer joy of
life
tingling throughout her body, from fingertips to toes. Gone as if it had never been.

They’d taken it away from her. Her world had been barren and cold and empty but at least it had been safe. And now even safety had been snatched away by unknown forces. Someone or something that wished her harm had come ravening up from some dark hellacious pit to take away what little had remained of her life.

Someone or something that had killed a man, tried to kill her, torched her home, come swarming at Dan’s home like a multi-headed monstrous beast.

She’d gotten a good look at the men as she lobbed the grenade and flashbangs out the window. In their black tactical suits and night vision goggles, they’d looked like aliens. And maybe they were. Because surely nothing human would come so suddenly, so ferociously.

The instant she had that thought, she put it aside. If there was one thing her time in the DIA had taught her, it was that there was no end to the wickedness of man. Humans were violent and avaricious. There were men who would literally stop at nothing to get what they wanted.

She’d seen it so often, especially in the third-world posts where she’d been stationed. Tyrannical dictators, who ruled by the sword and crushed anyone who threatened them. Somehow these men were always able to lift rocks and unleash the crawling monsters who lived beneath them.

She’d seen cruelty and monstrous evil, but it had never touched her personally. She’d been protected by her job, by the fact that she was an emissary of the most powerful country on earth.

And now the monsters were after her. Personally.

Claire had seen cruelty and violence in her postings, but she’d also seen amazing courage.

NGO workers who refused to be intimidated and continued dispensing medicine, vaccines, food, books despite death threats, sometimes from the very people they were trying to help. Women who banded together to fight for their rights, even though they knew that some of them would be tortured or stoned to death. Men and women who marched for freedom and democracy at the cost of their lives.

They’d done it.

So could she.

Whoever “they” were, they’d made a mistake in torching her house. Everything Claire had, everything she owned, everything that was a souvenir of her parents or her past, had been destroyed.

There was nothing left of her old life. She’d been stripped bare. But by the same token, she had nothing left to lose.

Claire glanced over at Dan. “That was a remarkable piece of driving back there. Did you take a defensive driving course?”

He shot a glance at her. A faint smile lifted his mouth. “Actually, I’m a combat driving instructor.”

Oh. Well that explained a lot. “You saved our lives.”

“Actually, you saved our lives. If you hadn’t kept your cool and thrown the grenade and flashbang exactly right, at exactly the right moment, at exactly the right spot, they’d have gunned us down. You kicked ass. I’d say we’re about even in the Saving Lives Superbowl.”

Claire sat up straighter, smiling a little. “You’re right. I did kick ass.”

“Damn straight.” He was grinning now. “I wouldn’t want to meet you in a dark alley.”

Claire looked at him. Immensely broad-shouldered, immensely strong, good with weapons, combat driver, ex-Marine. All-around tough guy. “Oh yeah. Watch your step around me, mister. I take no prisoners.” And she laughed.

She
laughed.

It sounded so odd, coming from her throat. Odd and dry, a sound she wasn’t used to making. She hadn’t heard herself laugh in . . . what felt like forever.

“Sounds good,” Dan murmured. His eyes were scanning the road ahead and the rearview mirrors constantly. “You laughing.”

“Particularly when there’s nothing to laugh about.” Claire shook her head, still smiling. “Do you know where we’re going?”

“Oh yeah.” He pulled out his cell and punched in a number on speed dial.

“Hey,” he said suddenly. Someone must have picked up at the other end. “No names. I need to meet you at that place where you tried to pick up that Swedish girl. Uh-huh.” He listened for a couple of seconds. “Well, I can’t help it if you didn’t score. Can’t stay on the line very long. I’ll be there in ten.” He flipped the cell closed. “Good buddy of mine. He’ll help us out. We need to go to ground and he has a place that’s off the grid.”

“Former Marine?”

“Yeah. Like a brother.”

They all were. It was something Claire admired enormously in the Marines. They belonged to a vast brotherhood for the rest of their lives.

Unlike DIA analysts.

Spooks were unsociable by nature, by training and by command. There was nothing sadder than a DIA or NSA party. Secretiveness was so ingrained in them, they had no social skills at all. They just sat around not talking, getting morosely drunk, and no one ever drove anyone home afterward.

She hadn’t gotten one call from a colleague this past year. She was out of the service and therefore untouchable.

“Are you sure that’s an untraceable phone?” she asked Dan. No one knew better than Claire what cell phones really were—huge transmitters emitting one giant
here I am, come get me
signal, like an enormous arrow in the sky, pointing straight at you.

“Yeah. My name doesn’t figure on any paperwork in connection with this phone. But just in case, I was traveling east while talking and now we’re going north and I only stayed on the line for a second or two.” He buzzed down the window, tossed the cell out. “And now it’s gone.”

“Theoretically, we can be traced,” Claire mused. “If they have your voice on file, they could be trolling the airwaves and trying to come up with a voiceprint match, then put out a watch for that signal.”

“Yeah, they could.” Dan’s mouth tightened. “But only the NSA has those types of resources. And if the NSA is after us, we’re fucked. Pardon my French.”

It was true. If the NSA was after them, they were royally fucked. She shook herself. There was no reason on earth for NSA to be on their tail. She’d never broken security, and she’d been out of commission for a year. Dan was a former Marine, for God’s sake.

As a matter of fact, it would be hard to find two citizens who were less of a security risk to their country than her and Dan.

Claire felt a bolt of heat run through her body, electric and fierce. It wasn’t sexual heat. It was—it was
rage
. She was so
angry
at whoever was after them—or after her. They’d burned her house down, so the efforts of this shadowy “they” were directed against her. Dan was collateral damage.

Never mind that he was a hero, had put himself in harm’s way for his country, had saved two children and a mother only a few days ago. He was with her and this phantom someone was willing to kill him the way you swat down a troublesome insect.

The shock of losing all her worldly possessions was starting to wear off, and in its place was a white-hot anger at the devastation they were willing to wreak, and to no purpose she could understand.

Claire had no enemies. She was sure of that. She’d been a loyal team player. She’d been a good, smart analyst and had been on good terms with all her co-workers and superiors.

Furthermore, she’d been at the beginning of her career. She’d barely begun to climb the ranks. Even if she’d been the type to do so, which she wasn’t, she hadn’t walked over anyone to be promoted because she hadn’t been promoted yet.

For a second, she mourned what might have been. Claire had worked hard because she was ambitious. She wanted to advance in her career, maybe even go all the way to the top.

The bomb in Laka had done more than shatter her life, it had brought an end to her career. All her hopes and dreams had been cut off, forever. There was no way she could ever hope to join DIA again. The job was too important to be put in the hands of someone who was damaged goods.

Her life had been ruined in more ways than one. And why?

There was no way in hell she’d offended someone, or done something wrong that could have brought this level of revenge raining down on her head. She simply hadn’t been powerful enough.

And as for doing something this past year—it was impossible. She’d spent three months in a coma and then nine months basically in the house, with music and her books for company, seeing no one but her doctors.

And yet, and yet. A monster was on her tail, wanting her devastated, wanting her dead.

The only way out of this was to find out who was behind all this violence and why.

The only good thing to come out of this whole mess was that electric jolt of white-hot anger coursing through her body. She had no tools and no help outside gallant former Gunnery Sergeant Dan Weston. But they had his courage and tactical ability and she had her mind back again. Anger was already firing her synapses, like a supercomputer, powering up. Whoever the hell this guy was, he’d raised the stakes so high that she had to get to the bottom of this or die. Because otherwise he’d kill her first.

“There he is,” Dan murmured. Claire hadn’t recognized any of the streets they traveled down. When Dan pulled into a side street along a small park, she had no idea where they were. The park had streetlights ringing it. One streetlight was broken. Under it, a pickup was parked.

Dan parked behind the pickup and got out. A man was leaning against the front fender of the pickup, straightening up when Dan got out of his SUV. Claire followed.

“Hey man.” The gave each other those hard manly thumps on the back that would have staggered her. Dan looked up at the dark streetlight. Claire could see that the big halogen bulb was broken. “Good thinking, bro.”

Dan reached for Claire, grasping her hand. Then he put his arm around her shoulders and gathered her to him as he turned to the other man. The body language was very clear.
This is my woman.
The other man acknowledged that with a sober nod of his head.

He was as physically unlike Dan as it was possible to be
.
Tall, whip-thin, with eyes so pale blue they looked white and a light blond crew cut so severe he looked bald. And yet the two of them shared a look—tough and competent and hard. Not men to be messed with in any way. Good men to have at your back.

“Claire I want you to meet Jesse Conn. Jesse, Claire Day.”

“Ma’am.” Jesse took her hand in his big, rawboned one and squeezed gently. “Pleased to meet you.” He came from somewhere in the deepest south. The “ma’am” had at least eight syllables in it.

“Jesse.” Claire smiled. She looked swiftly up at Dan then back at Jesse. “I think we’re going to be needing your help.”

“Yes, ma’am. Dan’s like a brother to me. I’ll help you bury the bodies.”

She laughed. “That won’t be necessary. To tell you the truth, we came very close to
being
the bodies, but we’re here, thanks to Dan.”

“Roger that.” The pale eyes flicked over to his friend. “Nothing will happen to you, ma’am, as long as Dan is alive.”

It was a nice thought. But Dan was one man, made of flesh and blood. One man, however good, was not going to stop an army. They had to get to the origin of the monstrous shadowy force. They couldn’t win this blind.

“So, man,” Jesse said to Dan, “what’s up?”

Dan told him, concisely and clearly. He was obviously used to giving field sitreps. As he talked, a furrow etched itself between Jesse’s brows.

“Bad juju, bro.”

Dan nodded. “Yeah. We don’t know who’s after us and we don’t know why. We just know he’s got major resources and we’re going to have to regroup until we can get ourselves more intel. So we’re going to need the cabin for a while. I don’t know for how long.”

Jesse was already digging into his jeans pocket and pulling out a set of keys, together with a wad of bills. All hundreds from what Claire could see. “I thought you might. Cabin’s a good place to go to ground. Stay as long as you need it. There’s some basic foodstuffs there, but there’s a small grocery store about ten miles down the road. Bill’s a good guy. If someone comes sniffing around asking for you, he won’t talk.”

Dan took the keys and the money. “Thanks, man. Appreciate it. I’ll get the money back to you. I’ve got some with me but I don’t know what we’ll be needing and they could trace a credit card.”

Jesse shrugged. “Anything else?”