Smoke and Mirrors (36 page)

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Sometime later, the firelight patterns dancing above us on the ceiling, I heard him say, “Do you know what today is?”

“Thursday.”

“And?”

“And the 25
th
.”

“Of?”

“October.”

The corner of his mouth twitched.
Oh damn
, he remembered something I had forgotten.
Bastard.
I feigned confusion then pinched the long weal of white skin on his abdomen with my finger and thumb.

“Can’t feel a thing there,” he fibbed. “Must have been a third class surgeon who stitched me up.”

I punched his shoulder and winced when the mass of muscle bounced me off like a rubber ball. “That’s not fair.”

“Sorry, second class surgeon.” He laughed, eyes closed in contentment.

I aimed a second blow, but he caught my fist before I could punch his mouth. “How do you do that?” I wondered, not disappointed when he pulled me down onto his warm, shirtless chest.

“I smelled the perfume on your wrist.”

Instantly, I was back in that bloody Italian hospital, sick with the knowledge Brad had been poisoned. The arsenic had blinded him, and I thanked God every night since then that his sight had returned after nearly six weeks of pure hell.

“Did it really improve your other senses so much?” I’d known him before he’d gone blind, and he’d already had reflexes that would have made a cat prone to envy.

A shrug rippled under my head as he played with my hair. “Your hair’s longer, Ms. Brothers.” That was that. Brad, however much he’d opened his soul to me, was still a man of few words.

“Should I get it trimmed, Mr. Milton?”

“If you want. I like it long though.” And he wrapped it around his fist and gently pulled it up in a chignon of sorts. “You were wearing it like this the day I met you.”

I’d been sitting in my office at SIS Headquarters filling out paperwork when a nurse practitioner leaned against the doorframe. “Agent Bradley Milton has called down from C’s office. Do you have a few minutes to suture a stab wound?”

I remembered smiling. “How does he know it will take a few minutes?”

“Maybe he’s had it done before.”

And that was almost correct.

“I’ve stitched myself up a couple of times when I was in the field, but this one’s a little deeper, and I can’t quite see the end of it.”

I listened to his voice, conscious that if gravel could speak, it would sound exactly like him. He was big – not heavy – just big. I’m tallish, and he was a good four to five inches taller. His broad shoulders filled the white Hugo Boss shirt he must have been wearing when he was injured, because dried patches of blood marred the expensive garment along its hemline.

“You wear your shirt untucked…” Rolled at the sleeves and unbuttoned at the neck. I left the second two observations unspoken; still surprised I’d muttered the first.

“Very perceptive, Ms. Brothers.”

“Doctor,” I corrected, grabbing a curved needle, desperate not to lose myself in his unbelievably dark eyes. “Take off your shirt.”

“I’m not a doctor.”

I rolled my eyes.

He removed his shirt. The scent of starch, clean and pungent, filled the room.

I swiped an alcohol-drenched swab across the fairly well bandaged wound. Then, pulling away the old dressings, I hit him with another round of disinfection. Admiring the way he managed to keep from flinching, I snatched a sidelong glance at him. His face was Mediterranean in its profile. Thick stubble traced his strong jaw line, ending where a full mouth held the beginnings of a smile. Or grimace. I liked his face immediately. It had character, nobility and more than a hint of devilishness.

“Doctors don’t usually use plastic wrap on stab wounds.”

He grunted. “No? What then? Tire puncture repair kits?”

I laughed and fell into those eyes. They held me tight. “I’m going to numb it with a localized anesthesia and then stitch it up. Any allergies?” I had scanned his thick medical folder, and though it hadn’t mentioned any, I wanted to be certain.

“No. But don’t bother with the anesthetic. I had a few drinks on the plane,” he yawned.

Normally, I would have gone into my, ‘You don’t need to be a tough guy with me’ routine. But I had the distinct impression he wasn’t trying to amaze me with his nerve. He simply didn’t care.

So I stitched him up. It was a straightforward job, but the knife wound had left a rather jagged opening, like the blade’s base had caught itself under the original slice on its way back out.

Momentarily forgetting his amazing abs and the trail of hair that wound its way under his frayed Versace jeans, I had studied the slit running between his ribs. Professional curiosity must have killed more than one cat. “What was it?”

“A Wusthof paring knife.”

“Rusty?”

“No.” He pointed to the edge of the shirt he’d removed at my behest. “Carrotted.”

“Carrotted?” I glanced up at him, realized my hands were resting on his hips, and stood.

A smug grin tipped the corner of his mouth. “Covered in carrot.”

“Were you in a kitchen?”

“Yes.”

I shook my head. He wasn’t very informative. “I guess no one ever died of carrot poisoning. And if it was rusty, your medical records indicate your tetanus shot is up to date.”

Turning, I reached for some clean gauze and waterproof plasters. “I’m going to give you a tube of Bactroban. It should prevent any infection. But on the off chance –” I paused and looked over my shoulder at him. An errant strand of hair had loosened from my French twist, and I blew it out of my line of vision. “Carrot got wedged in there and causes an infection, I’m going to give you a ten day prescription of Cephalexin. Three times per day. With food and water.”

He nodded, the smile never leaving his eyes even when it dropped from his lips. “Anything else?”

I knelt and placed the gauze on first, followed by the plaster.
Yes,
I thought,
ask me out on a date.

I stood. “No.” Two could play this game.

He reached for his shirt, brushing my hand in the process. Sliding his arms into the sleeves he raised them and shrugged his way into it. Then, after securing the bottom five buttons, he turned his flamethrower gaze on me.

“I don’t normally…” Whatever he had been about to say, he omitted, shaking his head. “Let me start again. Would you like to meet for a drink sometime?”

A grin that I would like to have suppressed for at least a second longer, popped out like a Jack-in-the-Box. “I won’t be able to be your physician any more.”

His own smile was back in full force. “I rarely need one.”

The remembered words gave me a moment’s panic, and I shivered. He’d needed one all too often in the months which followed that conversation.

“What is it?” Brad’s sleepy voice was a growl in the dark. “You cold? I can turn the fire up.”

“I was just thinking about the first time we met.”

In the darkness, his features faded away into his now-dark hair. The blond dye-job had gone the day after we landed in Queenstown. “You know I meant what I said back in Moscow.”

He pushes his mouth against my cold ear and bites it softly.
“
The same thing you told me the day I left – that I love you.” Then he chuckles, adding, “That I was lost from the moment you stuck that bloody needle in me.”

I lift my head, relieved beyond words, and look squarely into his smoky eyes. “It's about fucking time.”

“My thoughts exactly, Agent Brothers.”

My fingers found his, and I pressed our double-clutched hands to his hips. Our mouths met again before I dropped my head to the space between his shoulder and his ear. “I fell in love with you that day too.” I listened to his heart refilling the vessels nearest my ear. “Brad?”

“Yes?”

“What happened that time? I mean how did you get stabbed by a carrot-covered knife?”

He pressed a thumb into the center of my palm. “Are there any left in the hamper?”

“Don’t change the subject.” The fingers of his hands stilled.

Letting go of me, he rolled to the side and sat up. The fire flickered along his hardened physique. “I was in Paris eating dinner with an associate at Le Auberge Quincy, you know the little place I took you to on Avenue Ledru-Rollen?”

“Oui.”

It was where we’d shared an unbelievable bottle of 1991 Quarts de Chaume – a chenin blanc from Anjou, that tasted of white currants, peaches, tea and honey.

I also knew about those kinds of associates. Brad had been playing the part of a drug smuggler named Giovanni De Torres, and he had had frequent meetings with dealers, emerald importers and other members of an unsavory crew that was part of the Colombian-European drug business that SIS had so beautifully fucked up.

Brad stared into the flames. “The man I was with was related to the chef, and after dinner, we were invited into the kitchen to share a glass of wine with him.”

“Let me guess, he was a rat?”

Leaning back onto outturned palms, Brad ignored my attempt at Disney humor. “They both turned on me, tried to get back the money they’d just paid. Apparently the cocaine wasn’t enough. Not that they would have had it for long. Eventually, we tried to seize it all or at least the pushers.”

“Until oil became more important.”

“Yeah, well, until all the rich and famous start driving electric Teslas, oil’s going to be more important.”

I draped myself over his shoulder. “Did you kill them?”

“I left them sleeping with the Devil.”

“And you disposed of the bodies, jumped on a plane, and got debriefed before I stitched you up?”

“That’s about it.”

I could imagine the scenario only too well. He’d have boarded the Air France flight and immediately hit the head.

Withdrawing his shirt, Brad examined the knife wound. Relatively small in size, it had skated between his ribs and bled a lot. Plastic wrap, a ripped towel and a self-administered butterfly bandage had done a decent job, but a trip to The Firm’s doctor would be in order. He washed his face next, cleaning off the unseen layer of his dinner companion’s cigarette smoke.

Dark eyes scanned the mirror critically. His hair, a generous gift from his Italian grandmother, was more unkempt than usual. Drenching his hands, he swept his calloused fingers through the thick, wavy mass pulling down the top and sweeping it back toward the wayward tangle of curls adorning the nape of his neck. Unhooking the Diesel wraparounds from his shirt, he jammed them onto his head. It certainly wasn’t the American Red Sox cap he had grown fond of wearing, but it would hold his hair in place until he could reach home. Or a barber.

Moderately satisfied, he replaced his white shirt, rolled up his sleeves, checked to make certain his watch was set for the correct time zone, and slid the bolt back on the accordion door.

Sighing, I turned over and lay on his lap, my eyes staring at the bottom of his unshaved chin. “I hated killing those men in Colombia, but now I know it was them or me.”

“Exactly.”

I suddenly wondered if he missed any of it. Not the killing. I knew he hadn’t enjoyed that. But the action. The unpredictability of our former lives.

And I would have asked him, because I was beginning to rethink our retirement, when I was interrupted by an explosion. A massive blast like the one that was supposed to have killed his best friends, Nigel and Sammy, on the day of their wedding.

It was far enough off this time not to affect us directly. Brad merely froze and listened for a few seconds before saying, “That’ll be the sailboat.”

I began formulating a vague notion of what had happened. And it all pointed back to the meeting we’d had at the police station. Back to what Ms. Emma Barnaby hadn’t told us.

“Those Germans certainly are tricky fuckers,” I said, hugging bent knees to my chest.

Brad smiled a cat’s smile.

As did I.

After all, absence makes the heart grow fonder.

AN EXCERPT FROM

Something Wicked

AVAILABLE NOW

“By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something Wicked this way comes.”

                           ~Shakespeare

K
ing Dagda had long considered immortality a double-edged sword.

What use was life if it consisted of eternal sorrow?

Hands clasped behind his back, he ignored his audience and paced the Great Hall in reflective silence.

His people had drifted south, ethereal as ice floes, in a time long since forgotten. They were a people of peace. A people of the land. They forwent things of flesh, surviving instead on flora and mead. In harmony with all living things, they dwelt, filling the warmer lands with their temperate offspring.

Until one of their members - born on the day when the sun vanished in the path of the moon - devoured the flesh of his murdered kin. Shame befell his clan, and they were left to fend for themselves while Dagda’s people sailed on to an island of green.

Long centuries passed, during which the divided peoples had no contact. Then, when greed for power and treasure proved too much for the Flesh Eaters, they sailed the seas, raiding without remorse.

King Dagda’s scouts had heard rumors of the growing power, and he gathered his council to discuss what was to be done. They met upon the highest hill where two resolutions were put to the vote.

One was to fight.

The other was to vanish into the hills where peace would still reign.

Votes were cast. In the end, by the narrowest of margins, peace won out. All but a handful of his people went underground, sealing the inner world of their much-loved Green Island from its surface.

There they dwelt, rebuilding the cities that now decayed above them.

Time passed, as did most contact with the world above, and all seemed well.

Until the king’s Seer spat forth a prophecy foretelling the demise of the Sidhe at the hand of a Northerner who would steal the soul of a Sidhe princess and turn her traitor.