Shiver of Fear (30 page)

She finally exhaled. “Give her…” She closed her eyes and reached deep into her pocket, pulling out the picture she’d been
carrying since she got here. Taking a pen next to her notebook, she wrote the first thing that came to mind underneath the
tiny image, then handed it to him. “This.” She stole a look at him, trying to read an unreadable expression. “Can you do that?”

“No promises.”

“Please?” Her voice cracked. “Please,” she repeated.

“I’ll try.”

“I have to trust you,” she said softly. “I have to trust you work for the right side in all of this.”

He nodded. “I do.”

“Ian!” Liam barked the name as he threw open the door, and both of them startled a little. “I’ll be right back. Don’t leave
her, not for one second. Do you understand? I don’t care if she pisses herself—she doesn’t leave this room until the last
three cans are done.”

Ian agreed tersely.

“And for Chrissakes, put on some fucking gloves,” Liam added. “You’re no good to me paralyzed, man.”

Behind her, the door slammed again. Ian made no move to add the protective gear, even when Sharon reached for a canister and
placed its open top over the test tube, a silvery cloud moving inside.

“I have two more to do,” she told him.

“And then, Dr. Greenberg, your job is done.”

Ian moved to the door, behind her and out of sight, while she went through the motions without even thinking. The hard part,
the isolation and harvesting, had been done hours ago.

“Do you need anything else?” he asked quietly.

“Only… a chance.” A chance
not
to be the hostage.

“Then take it.”

She popped the top on the canister, handling it carefully. After she’d returned it safely to the shelf, she turned around
to face him.

But the room was empty, and her prison door stood wide open.

For a moment, she just stared, expecting him to appear
at any moment, having stepped away into the vestibule. But he was gone. And she… she could escape.

Slowly, she lowered the goggles and took a few tentative steps toward the door.

She took one deep breath and stepped into the vestibule. Then up the stairs, expecting to be jumped or stopped or worse. The
door at the top of the stairs was unlocked, opening to a dimly lit kitchen. She glanced around the empty room, then entered,
her eye on the door.

She put her hand on the knob and turned it, her heartbeat so loud and hard and fast that she could barely breathe. Outside
it was cold and wet and dark. “Run.” The voice came from behind a hedge, a familiar voice, a woman’s voice. “Run before he
kills you.”

Marie was crouched in the shadows of shrubbery. The housekeeper’s usually sad eyes were bright, and her expression was set
in a strong, serious line. Sharon almost reached for her, but Marie pointed toward the pathway. “As fast as you can!”

“Marie, please, come with me,” she urged, reaching out her hand.

The woman drew back, horror on her freckled Irish face. “I can’t!”

“You can. We can escape. Before the gunfire, before… You know what’s going to happen, don’t you? The raid?”

Marie waved toward the road. “Go. You can get out of here.”

“They won’t care about us,” Sharon insisted. “Come with me. Come!” She reached for the woman again, but Marie jerked back.

“She’s gone!” Someone shouted from inside.

“Go,” Marie said again. “I’ll cover for you!”

Footsteps made her decision; she’d go alone. She launched into a run, following the bushes, taking her path to the cemetery.
It was locked at night, but if she could make it all the way down the one side, there was that gate where she’d been hit.
Maybe it was—

Gunfire cracked through the night, a bullet exploding on the pavement near her feet. Another shot deafened and nearly hit
her.

Stretching her legs, she dug for speed and strength, rounding the bushes into the street, staying in the shadows, wind whistling
through her ears.

She made it to the thickest of the bushes on one side of the massive cemetery grounds. If she could get in there, she could
get lost among those ten thousand graves. There were places to hide, to wait this out.

To wait for the young woman who surely would come to help the mother she’d never met. That had to be what sent Devyn across
the ocean—that need to connect. If it was strong enough, she’d come.

She threw herself into the bushes, hitting the wall behind, the bricks scraping her hands. Could she climb it? If she could,
if she could just get over it, she could hide among the bramble and bushes of the most unkempt areas of the cemetery.

Placing one sneaker on the first brick, she ignored the pain in her legs, the burn spurring her on to pull herself up. With
strength she had no idea she had, her fingers found the top of the wall and she hoisted her whole body up with a grunt.

She lifted her right leg, hooking her calf around the top of the wall, the cone-shaped cement tearing at her clothes and stopping
her cold. Her left foot slipped, driving the
stone deeper into her right thigh, ripping her pants but not her flesh.

A gunshot exploded, the bullet whizzing right over her head. Jesus, they had her. She had one second, maybe less, to live
or die.

With a furious cry, she heaved her body up and finally straddled the top, a sitting target for the shooter. Ducking, she pulled
her other leg over and balanced on her hands, ready to leap to the other side just as another shot blasted the night, the
sound and fury of it thrusting her to the ground.

She thudded onto the earth, her legs buckling, her teeth cracking with the impact. Frozen, she tried to breathe and listen
for the next shot or the sound of them scaling the wall behind her.

In the distance, she heard footsteps and men’s voices.

She stumbled to her feet just as a new pain fired through her body, a burn so intense she cried out, slamming her hand over
her arm, crying into the mask she still wore as she realized what caused the agony in her arm.

A bullet. Blood poured out and fire coursed over her skin.

Now her fingers trembled uncontrollably. She had only one hope. The daughter she’d ignored for thirty years. Would she come?

T
he shower water had to be damn near a hundred degrees, burning her face, her chest, right through to her heart.

And still Devyn was cold.

Why was her mother on a suicide mission?

There was no immediate answer, but the voice in her head was still loud:
No one on the good side goes on a suicide mission.

Or did they? She knew nothing of the spy world, of British intelligence, of the “spooks,” as Marc called them. Maybe they
did
go on suicide missions. Closing her eyes, face to the stinging water, she clung to the hope that started in the bell tower.
The hope that Sharon Greenberg was some kind of high-level government agent working to bring down a terrorist.

“Jesus, Devyn, it’s like a sauna in here.”

Marc stood right outside the glass doors of the shower; she could tell by the proximity of his voice. But
she couldn’t see him through the steam that had turned the door milky white or the puffs of clouds her burning shower water
had produced.

“You better have invaded my privacy with an estimated time of departure.”

“I did not.” His voice was flat, and serious.

She smelled a fight coming on. She smeared her hand on the glass, clearing a section in front of her face, getting a watery
view of his bare chest. She swiped her hand straight down the glass a foot or so, getting a complete view of the rest of him.

So, maybe it wasn’t a fight she smelled. If it was, he fought dirty.

“Then why are you here?” Almost immediately, the glass started clouding again, but it was still transparent enough for her
to see his manhood, nested in dark hair, not erect but alive.

Finally, she started to feel warm.

“I have more information about your… about Dr. Greenberg.”

Her lust subsided. “What is it?”

He didn’t speak, but she could see his silhouette as he shifted from one foot to the other. He didn’t want to tell her. This
wasn’t good.

“I spoke to my brother again.”

“The CIA agent.” She let just a little cynicism taint her tone. Because, really, who
knew
a CIA agent, let alone grew up with one?

“He actually doesn’t work for the CIA.”

She snorted softly. Case closed. “Then you misled me.”

“He works for a contractor for the CIA, but he is extremely well connected in the world of dark operations and—”

“Dark operations?” She almost pushed open the glass door so she could really nail him with a look, but she still needed the
barrier. “What the hell does that
mean
, Marc?”

“It means he knows exactly what your birth mother is doing and who she is doing it for.”

She felt her legs weaken just a little, the familiar cold in her gut radiating over her, counteracting the hot water that
still sluiced over her body. All because of the way he said that.

She didn’t answer, waiting for the verdict. Good or bad? Guilty or not? Pride or shame?

“She’s working for a broker, making biochemical weapons of mass destruction that sources believe are being sold to the Pakistanis
for future terrorist attacks.”

Her stomach turned to ice. “What sources?”

“Really fucking reliable sources. She’s a traitor to our country, Devyn, working on a project that needs to be stopped or
a lot of people could die.” Each word stabbed, more hurtful than the stinging water.

“Fortunately,” he continued, softening the blow with a gentler voice. “There’s a whole bunch of guys out there closing in
and trying to stop her and catch the real terrorists who are buying and selling and using what she’s making. We cannot get
in the way of that, Devyn. It would be foolish and stupid.”

And she could not have a relationship with a woman who would commit such acts. That would be more foolish and more stupid.

Oh, God, where did that leave her? Alone and ashamed and…
alone
.

Just like that, everything that mattered stopped mattering. Everything she wanted dried up. There would never be
a connection with that woman, only another shadow of shame.

“Devyn.” He said her name as his hand landed on the door, but she was fast and grabbed the handle, holding the glass shut.
“You’re deluding yourself if you think—”

“Not anymore I’m not.” She closed her eyes as the pain rolled over her.

He tugged at the door again, but she clung to the metal bar, refusing to face him, naked and shredded and vulnerable.

At least she hadn’t sold Finn MacCauley’s phone number for this information.

“Please,” he said softly. “I understand this is difficult for you, but it’s time to end this search. We’re not infiltrating
a terrorist cell so you can face these facts in person.”

“Yeah, I got that, Marc.” She waited for the fury to rock her, but nothing came. No drive to know the truth. No determination
to face her real mother.

“Devyn.” This time he was truly gentle, coaxing her. “Please, honey. Come out here.”

And do what? Let him comfort her with kisses and sex? All meaningless, without a future, without hope because she could never
have anyone. Not anyone who wouldn’t betray her. Not even…

But she
could
. She could have someone.

She gave the door a push, and it popped open, a puff of steam trapped in the shower fogging over Marc.

Without hesitation, he stepped into the spray, wrapping his arms around her so that they touched full length, nothing but
water between them.

“You know I’m right, don’t you?” he asked, no smugness in the question at all.

She nodded.

“You’re going to give this up, aren’t you?”

Another nod.

“We can go back to the States and you can—”

She put her hand over his mouth. If they were going to do this, then it wouldn’t be with him under the illusion she was paying
with Finn’s number. It wouldn’t be under illusions or delusions. She’d tell him the truth about everything.

“I burned Finn MacCauley’s phone number.”

For a moment, he said nothing, no doubt processing what she meant. Would he explode in anger? Steal this chance before she
even took it?

“I know. I saw you.”

“Oh.” The word came out like he’d punched her. “And still… you risked your life today.”

“So did you,” he whispered. “And this was never about getting information about Finn, Dev.” He eased her to the wall, bracing
her there.

Against her stomach, his erection grew, and deep in her belly, she responded, unable to stop the twist of longing that made
her want to rock against him. Nature’s way, of course.

“This was never about fooling you,” Marc said, already starting to move against her. “Or seducing you or getting you to do
anything except leave Belfast.”

“And yet,” she said, looking up at him, lost in the depths of his eyes as the first shards of ice began to melt inside her
and her need took hold. “You somehow did all those things.”

He gave her a smoky half smile. “I’m good like that.”

“Oh, yes, you are.” So, so good.

Why couldn’t she have exactly what she wanted? From him, by him,
with
him?

It didn’t have to mean… forever. It was just that he was perfect in every way. So perfect that he could give her the one thing
she needed so fundamentally it was like breathing.

Her hope for a bond with her birth mother was gone, lost forever. But her hope for another kind of bond, the one she longed
for the most, was right here in her arms.

A baby. He could give that to her.

She curled one leg around his calf, somehow managing to get them closer still.

“Marc.” She spread her hands on his chest, the flesh and sprinkling of hair soaked under her fingers, the muscles hard under
her palms. “I need something from you.”

He stroked her hair, his hand gliding down to caress her breast, filling his palm and thumbing her hardened nipple. “I noticed.”