Unmasking Kelsey (10 page)

“Who’s holding Jo?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Why not?”

“I just can’t. You’ll have to trust me, Beth.”

After a moment of silence, Elizabeth discovered that she understood this man, at least she understood him far better than before. Blaine asked for trust while offering none, and that told her much about his supposed feelings for her.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he told her irritably.

“Like what?”

He hesitated, then said, “My sister looked at me like that sometimes when we were growing up. It made me feel like she knew I’d just been sneaking a cigarette behind the barn.”

Elizabeth smiled faintly. Then, with a sigh, she said, “You got into the habit of loving me, Blaine. But that’s all it ever was. Just a habit.”

“The hell it was!” His face was hard, his mouth a grim slash. “You’re upset because of Jo, but when all this is over you’ll feel differently.”

“No. I won’t. Do you really think I could ever love a man who didn’t trust me?”

It stopped him, but only for a moment. “That isn’t it at all. I
can’t
tell you anything.”

She shook her head a little. “Won’t, not can’t. But it doesn’t matter. I don’t love you, Blaine. I won’t marry you.”

He was very still, his eyes cold again. “It’s him, isn’t it? That damned Kelsey. Who is he, Beth?”

Gently, she said, “That’s none of your business.”

Blaine got to his feet, his entire body stiff. “I’ll make it my business,” he said tightly, and turned away.

Elizabeth waited until he reached the steps, then said, “Blaine?”

He halted, looking back at her over his shoulder.

Her soft voice was underlaid with steel. “If something should happen to Kelsey, I’ll know where to look.”

He went white. “You think I’m capable of that?”

“I think you’re capable of just about anything.” She sat in the swing, idly moving it back and forth, and watched him drive away in a cloud of
dust. And slowly, very, very slowly, she began to get angry.

Kelsey nearly stumbled over a large vacuum cleaner just inside the doorway of Derek’s room, and growled, “What the hell is that?”

“Now, what does it look like?”

“I’m not in the mood for games, Derek.”

The big blond man looked at his partner for a moment, then said softly, “No, I see you’re not. That, my friend, is a vacuum cleaner. It’s also my cover. I’m a salesman, remember?”

Kelsey grunted and lowered himself into the chair by the window, reaching into a paper bag he carried and producing a bottle. “Damned county’s dry,” he muttered. “I had to drive fifteen miles to get this.” He didn’t bother with a glass. Staring moodily at the vacuum, he asked, “Sell any of those?”

“Three, so far.”

“Any word from Raven?”

“No.”

Kelsey looked up to intercept a very thoughtful look from his partner, and warned, “Don’t lecture me.”

“I wouldn’t think of it,” Derek said politely. He sat down on his bed and reached for a package of cigarettes, saying in a mild tone, “One of my customers this morning happened to mention that she’d noticed several military uniforms out at Meditron when she picked her husband up one day.”

Kelsey, his training and experience too deep to be much influenced by his black mood, frowned and briefly related what Elizabeth had told him a couple of hours earlier.

Derek listened thoughtfully and said, “Think Mallory might have made his deal with the military?”

“Unless your customer confused security uniforms with military ones, it sounds like a good bet.”

“Unlikely. She’s an army brat.”

Kelsey nodded, his moody gaze returning to the bottle he held. “I don’t have much use for the military, but I can’t see them holding a twenty-three-year-old woman hostage.”

“A renegade, maybe?”

“Hell, who knows? From what Elizabeth said, it seems Mallory was furious and planning on taking the matter to the top. If some renegade soldier in charge of their doings at Meditron was going further than Mallory had agreed to … If that soldier was acting on his own authority with whatever it is … If Mallory threatened him openly, and he decided to get himself some leverage in the shape of Jo … Hell. Too many ifs. Too damned many ifs. We’re working in the dark.”

“Are you going to drink all of that?”

“I told you not to lecture me.”

“Who’s lecturing? I just asked a question.”

“Worried about your hide, partner? Don’t. I’ll come through when it counts, professional all the way.”

After a moment, Derek said quietly, “Low blow, friend.”

Kelsey swore, capped the bottle, and tossed it over to lie on the bed. “Yeah. Sorry. I can’t seem to keep my foot out of my mouth today.”

“Getting a little hard to see the boundaries?”

“Between professional and personal?” Kelsey shook his head. “Hard doesn’t cover it, friend. I lost sight of those boundaries long ago. If they ever existed.” He sighed roughly. “I’ve got to call Hagen.”

“We have nothing concrete to report.”

“Not that. Me. He’s got to replace me. I’m a drawback on this assignment, maybe even an active danger.” Kelsey’s voice was hard, remote.

Derek studied him from hooded eyes. “I see. She really got to you, didn’t she?”

Kelsey wasn’t a man who confided easily in others. And what could he have said anyway? That he was just barely able to function around Elizabeth, that he couldn’t keep his eyes off her or his hands to himself? That he was desperately afraid she was right to fear his intrusion into her life, and that something inside him was shaking under a threat he had never felt before? That he wanted her until it required a wrenching physical effort to fight it, until he could only just manage to force himself to think and act professionally?

“She got to me,” he said.

“You’ve been fifteen years in this business,” Derek said. “You won’t lose that.”

“I am losing it. My instincts are colored by her. How can I be sure now? How do I know if a possibility
feels
right, or if I just want it to for her sake?”

“I’ll risk it.”

Kelsey shook his head. “I can’t.”

“Give it another day,” Derek urged quietly. “You know damn well you’ll go crazy if you pull out now, wondering what’s happening, if she and her sisters are all right. Give yourself a little time away from her. We’ll check out Meditron tonight, see if we can get close enough to find out what’s going on.”

Kelsey hesitated, but he knew his partner was right. He
would
go crazy, not knowing. “All right,” he said finally, heavily. “But for God’s sake, keep an eye on me; make sure I don’t do something stupid!”

“Gotcha,” Derek murmured.

When his partner had left to try and get a few hours’ sleep before their planned postmidnight activities, Derek stretched out on the bed and lit a cigarette, frowning. No one had ever accused him of being either cautious or particularly concerned about possible dangers; the sobriquet of “Outlaw Derek” was one he was fully aware of, and often amused by.

He had earned that name with a long series of seemingly reckless actions, and it was for that reason that he understood Kelsey very well even though they’d never worked together before.

His understanding was also due to Raven.

Happily married now and ostensibly out of the business, Raven nonetheless kept an unobtrusive but concerned eye on her ex-partner. She had somehow—Derek hadn’t asked how—learned that he would be working with Kelsey, and had quietly arranged a brief meeting. Raven didn’t tell tales out of school, but she had worked with Kelsey longer than anyone else, and she had explained a few things to Derek.

And, since one’s life often depended upon
understanding and trust of one’s partner, and since Derek wasn’t quite so reckless as he seemed, he had listened carefully.

Derek was troubled now, but not because Kelsey doubted his own instincts. He was troubled by something Raven had told him.
“He’s a chameleon, Derek, and a totally unconscious one. He’ll fit himself into any situation instantly without even thinking about it. The problem is, the real Kelsey has a hell of a lot of bitterness and pain trapped under all those roles. And one day, it’s going to come out.”

Derek knew the reasons, as well as they could be known. He knew about Kelsey’s father, and about others lost in fifteen years of a dangerous business. And today, he had for the first time caught a glimpse of that darkness in Kelsey. The man was torn, hurting, and something between him and Elizabeth Conner had intensified that pain.

It wasn’t Derek’s business, God knew, except that it obviously affected this assignment. And since he liked Kelsey, he wasn’t at all willing to
stand by silently and watch the man tear himself apart if there was any way of stopping it.

But, was there anything he could do?

They were short on time and long on problems, and if Elizabeth Conner was the average intelligent woman, she wouldn’t trust Kelsey very far; she had every right to be wary about the entire business.

Derek hesitated, debated silently for a moment, then sighed and reached for the phone.

“Any luck?” Kelsey kept his voice low as he reached his partner; they had both spent the past hour slowly moving around the fenced perimeter of Meditron, taking care to stay out of range of the cameras.

Derek, dressed like Kelsey in dark clothing, shook his head. “Nothing. They work three shifts; all the buildings are lighted. There’s no way to tell from out here if any one building is holding something it shouldn’t.”

They stood in the shadows of trees that
completely encircled the fenced compound; there were some thirty feet between the trees and the fence all the way around the perimeter. There were several floodlights placed strategically about the six buildings, numerous cars in the parking lots, and the usual industrial noise escaping whenever a door was opened.

A normal industrial plant to all appearances. Except that security was unusually heavy, in the form of an electrified fence, perimeter cameras, two pairs of very alert patrolling guards complete with leashed and very alert dogs, and three armed guards standing watch inside what looked very much like a bulletproof gatehouse.

“I think—” Kelsey began, then broke off abruptly as he felt a sudden itch between his shoulder blades. He had come to respect and pay attention to that sensation over the years, since it usually heralded trouble.

“Over there,” Derek murmured, pointing toward a point in the trees about fifty yards away from them. “We’ve got company.”

“I’ll go.”

“Yes,” Derek said. “I think you’d better.”

Alerted by something in that mild voice, Kelsey looked harder at the distant movement, then swore violently and vanished into the trees.

Derek made himself comfortable on the ground, leaning back against the trunk of a tree and thoughtfully studying Meditron. But his mind wandered a bit.

It seemed that Kelsey wouldn’t find it easy after all to get some time away from Elizabeth Conner.

Not if the lady had anything to say about it.

“W
HAT THE
HELL
are you doing here?”

Elizabeth nearly jumped out of her skin, even though the furious demand was whispered. She was dragged quickly back into the trees before she could respond, and even though the iron grip on her arm wasn’t especially painful, she struggled. “Let go of me!” she whispered fiercely.

“No!” he snapped softly, continuing to drag her unwilling body until they were almost at the main road. His battered car was parked in the shelter of the trees, and he opened the back door and pushed
her unceremoniously inside, climbing in after her too quickly for her to escape.

Elizabeth had taken just about all she was going to take. Her anger had grown all day, until she had finally decided she would be out of her mind if she just sat around any longer and waited for either Blaine or Kelsey to do something to free her sister. Until she had reached Meditron and seen the formidable barriers she would have to cross, she had not fully realized the imprudence of her action; she had simply acted because she had grown very tired of doing nothing.

Now she stared at Kelsey in the dimness of the car’s interior and felt like a fool. It just made her madder. “Let go of me!” she whispered fiercely again.

Kelsey cursed violently. “Do you have any idea how close you came to getting yourself electrocuted—if not shot?” His voice was hard and hoarse.

She went still, and swallowed with difficulty. “I wouldn’t have touched the fence; I saw the signs.”

“What did you plan to do? Walk up to the gate and demand to see your sister?”

“I don’t know!” She began struggling again. “Damn you, I just wanted to
do
something! You and Blaine just talk and talk—neither of you will do anything—and Jo’s being held in there somewhere.”

“I’m trying to do something,” Kelsey told her harshly. “Dammit, Elizabeth, let me do my job!”

“It isn’t a job to me!” she cried softly. “It’s my sister!”

He tried to get a grip on his temper. “I know,” he said in a quieter voice. “I know that. But you have to give us time and plenty of room to work.”