Where Evil Waits (22 page)

T
HE ALARM ON
S
ASHA’S
watch went off at midnight. He jumped to the sound of it, sat on the edge of the cot for a minute gathering his bearings, then turned on the light in the tack room. Remembered the status of his plan.

Smiled.

The stable was finished—Megan was finished, her nameplate now hanging on the final stall. Only the last gift had yet to be delivered, and Sasha knew just how to do it. Kara’s bodyguard thought that by changing her appearance and taking her on the run, Sasha wouldn’t have any way to send her things. Maybe even thought he would stop killing.

He was about to prove the son of a bitch wrong on both counts. He’d even had time for a couple hours of sleep first.

Now, he pulled on a fresh pair of jeans, a long-sleeved black shirt, and a pair of loafers. Looked in a mirror that hung on the back of the door: a little old for the club scene near a college, but he’d do. His hair barely showed—shaved close and blond, at that. He had a couple days of beard that softened the angles of his face. He didn’t usually
like to go unshaven, but his schedule these past few days had been crazy. He turned this way and that in the mirror, decided to keep it. He went to the corner of the room where he’d built a hideaway for a safe, and punched in the code. The door sprang open.

He helped himself to a few hundred-dollar bills. Didn’t think he’d need that much, but occasionally, he’d found it handy to have enough change on hand to hire someone else to do a deed for him. Like getting Kara’s phone in his hands a year ago to install the tracker.
That
had been a piece of cake. The kid, Aidan, had had a group of friends at their Memorial Day party, and there was one who was perfectly willing to go in on a little practical joke for the host and hostess. Only cost Sasha fifty bucks and the price of a workshirt, to allow him to look like the hired help.

He couldn’t think of any reason he might need extra cash tonight, but he took four hundred dollars anyway. In case a pretty girl caught his eye…

He drove the Lexus instead of the van, parked right in front of the club where Megan had worked instead of down the back alley like he had the night before. He strode through the front doors like any other single man looking for a place to check out some ass, except that he carried an extra special tip in his pocket.

And an extra special message for Kara.

Kara closed her eyes and let Varón—
Mann
—walk away. She watched him climb the stairs to go take a shower, heard him talk on the phone for a few minutes, then heard the water start. Imagined it running down his body and found her imagination spinning out of control.
Can I interest you in joining me?

Oh, yes.

A shiver raced through her limbs and she muttered a curse. Dear God, had it really been only twenty-four hours since she’d propositioned Luke Varón? She scrolled through events in her mind… Blowing up the boat and going to Varón’s “cabin” for new identities, running from a shooter and sending Aidan with Knutson, meeting Varón’s cohorts at The Parthenon and tracking down Ronald Gibson at the marina. She could hardly fathom how much had happened in the one night and one day since she’d hooked up with this man. It seemed like she’d been on the run with him half her life.

And all that time, Luke
Mann
had been protecting her, helping her, keeping Aidan safe.

FBI. She almost couldn’t believe it, and yet, in some tiny corner of her mind she’d imagined and hoped and even prayed that his unwillingness to hurt her was more than a fluke. There had been times she’d wondered—the ease with which he made things happen, little touches of concern that seemed out of character, fleeting moments when she’d felt she could trust him. But it wasn’t until she’d watched him field Ronald Gibson’s reckless assault—fearing that she was about to witness the legendary wrath of Luke Varón—that the truth hit her, like a brick between the eyes. Varón hadn’t threatened Gibson’s family. He hadn’t beaten him or drowned him and hadn’t… well, broken any kneecaps.

That thought actually made her smile. Relief flowed into her body and loosened her limbs. He was a Federal agent. He was keeping Aidan safe.

He would keep her safe.

I want you, Kara. I’ve wanted you since the first moment I saw you.

She took a deep breath, looked at the stairs. She was
no sex kitten; she didn’t have affairs. She had a career and a son, and until a year ago, she’d had a husband. It didn’t matter that her love affair with Andrew had been short-lived; they’d married for Aidan’s sake and they’d both agreed to stay that way. And it hadn’t been a marriage without love: There was Aidan, and a beautiful home and two successful careers. There had been a number of good meals together and family excursions and holidays. Their marriage hadn’t lacked good times.

What it had lacked, Kara knew, was
heat
. The kind of head-spinning, heart-racing heat that Luke Mann set loose in her belly with barely more than a look in his eye or the touch of his hand. Kara had always known it was missing in her marriage, but accepted it as the bed she’d made for herself one reckless night fifteen years ago. She was content to lie in it. It could have been worse. She’d had a home, stability, a child.

No heat.

Her phone vibrated and she jumped. God, it was Aidan.

“Honey?” she said, and just hearing his voice brought so much joy she nearly wept with it. Dear God, she wanted to tell him he didn’t have to worry about her anymore. She wanted him to know the people surrounding him were the good guys, not the gorillas of a ruthless drug henchman. And yet, she couldn’t—at least not until Mann told her to.

They chatted for a couple of minutes. He was fine. He was safe and comfortable. He was talking to one of Varón’s men—giving them as much as he could remember about receiving each gift, trying to help.

He was talking to FBI agents. Thank God.

Before they signed off, Kara told him to think about the name Alexander—first name or last name, she didn’t know—and felt his energy lift with the new idea. They
talked about it a little more and finally, there was nothing more to say.

“Mom,” he said, “you remember our code, right?”

The starch came out of her spine. They didn’t need a code. “I remember,” she said, “but I was thinking about it. I think we should change it to something we could use in normal conversation that no one but us would notice.”

Aidan hummed. “That’s a good idea. Like what?”

She told him what Varón had noticed—without attributing it to him—and Aidan was quick to latch on.

“Okay, so instead of ‘I love you more,’ we’ll say ‘I love you most.’ If one of us changes it to that, then we know we’re in trouble.”

“Got it,” Kara said, hardly able to fathom the relief she felt knowing they wouldn’t need it—at least not for Varón’s sake. It was as if all her bones had gone to jelly. She and Aidan weren’t being guarded by outlaws. They were in the care of the FBI.

She
was in the care of Special Agent Lukas Mann.

“ ’Night, Mom,” Aidan said. “I love you.”

“I know, honey,” she said. “I love you more.”

She disconnected, cocking her head to listen for sounds from upstairs. The water was still running.
Think fast.

She climbed the stairs, trying to re-paint Luke Varón with the hues of Lukas Mann. The new image was enough to forgive him every harsh thing he’d done, every secret and lie. It was enough to forgive herself for melting beneath his kisses and secretly longing for more. It was enough to make her stop outside the bathroom door and slip off her shoes, shimmy from the green dress. To inch into the bathroom wearing only the lace panties, trembling with equal parts excitement and nervousness and sheer, physical lust. He’d awakened her body to cravings
so long-buried she’d forgotten they existed, and awakened her mind to the reality that they were two consenting adults with no one to judge them but themselves.

I want you. I’ve wanted you since the first moment I saw you.

She wanted him, too.

The air hung moist and heavy, filled with steam and the spicy scent of soap. Kara’s nipples tightened to peaks even as the dampness gathered on her skin. The shower filled an entire corner of the room, tiled with rustic travertine behind full-length walls and doors of textured glass. Luke stood inside.

Her breath caught. He faced away from her, his body rippling with water and shrouded by steam, his face tipped skyward in the hot spray. He looked like an Impressionist painting, and Kara found herself staring. The water pulsed down and when he rubbed his hands over his head and turned, he went still.

He looked at her. She couldn’t see the details of his face—or anything else, for that matter—but she knew he was looking at her. She could feel it in the way her blood picked up speed, and in the way steam gathered and made it impossible for her lungs to fill. By small degrees, his hands lowered to his sides and he stepped toward the shower door, reaching for the handle.

She swallowed. He opened the door, water trickling down his face and lather running down the muscles of his chest and arms, over his sculpted belly and lower. Her mouth went dry. Dear God, he was beautiful. Beautiful and strong and competent and—she closed her eyes on a prayer of gratitude—safe.

I’m one of the good guys, Kara. You’re safe with me.

She hooked her thumbs into the lace above her thighs,
stepping out of the panties. His eyes dipped, filled with dark, blatant hunger, then ran a lingering course back up to her eyes. His Adam’s apple dipped.

“Are you sure?” he asked, his voice sounding a little stuck.

Kara looked at him. “Yes.”

He reached from the shower and held out his hand. Kara laid her fingers on his warm, wet palm and he closed his hand around them.

“Thank God,” he said.

The waitress Sasha chose was named Ellie. She was tall and lithe, and more outgoing than Megan. She was covering Megan’s section.

“They’re keeping you busy tonight,” Sasha said, pulling his beer in front of him.

“We’re down a waitress,” she said. “A girl from the college didn’t show up. My manager’s about to have a heart attack.”

Sasha nodded. Show no interest. Don’t engage any more conversation about the missing Megan than Ellie might have with any other patron. He wouldn’t want her singling him out when she went to the Feds.

Because he knew she’d go. He would make certain of it.

A
SHOWER WITH
L
UKE
M
ANN
was an exercise in sensuality. He stroked and massaged, lathered her nothing-hair, his hands exploring her body as if indulging in some long-awaited privilege. She stood with her back against his chest while he worshipped her breasts with his hands, kissed her neck and shoulders, then flattened his hand over her belly and pressed her back against his erection, his fingertips just grazing the apex of her thighs.

Her insides flooded. He was strength and skill and tenderness; he was energy and fervor and raw male heat, and by small degrees, the gentle ardor he began with grew more urgent, more desperate, and soon he’d pulled her from the shower. He threw a giant towel around her and clutched it in one hand, her arms pinned to her sides and his steps driving her to the bed beneath an onslaught of fiery kisses. The backs of her knees hit the mattress and he stripped away the towel and followed her into the soft cloud of a duvet. His body covered hers, his arms bearing the bulk of his weight while his lips closed over a nipple, working it into a tight bud of sensation and then paying homage to the other. Kara ran her hands over his ribs and
around his back, unable to feel enough of him, reveling in the moist heat of his skin and the sensations swirling in the core of her body. His erection probed her thighs, his hands were everywhere at once, and he mouthed kisses down the side of her breast and across the shallow inlet of her belly. Kara thrilled in an onslaught of sheer sensation and he reached into his wallet in the nightstand, ripped open a condom and rolled it on, and returned to her. His hands grasped her buttocks and his hips moved, and he drove into the center of her body so deep she cried out. He took the cry into his mouth and held himself still for an instant, restraint vibrating in every sinew, then he rotated against her and currents of sensation shot to her toes. He began to move—deep, steady strokes that pushed her slowly, unwaveringly higher and higher. Pleasure spiraled around her. She clutched his back and linked her knees around his hips, and he groaned and drove into her harder and faster and when he finally sank into her that one last time, she came apart in his hands like a shattering star.

Luke came back to earth some time later, Kara’s head in the crook of his shoulder and a sheen of perspiration between them. His heart had finally settled into a normal rhythm; for a while there, it had been touch and go. He thought she might have killed him.

He’d have died happy.

He put a kiss in the dark curls against his chin and ran his hand down her slender back. Christ, she felt good here. Of course, a woman usually felt good here, but this was different. Usually, this was a stage of transition: the afterglow and the requisite cuddles, serving as the bridge between their parting for the night or going another round. This stage wasn’t usually part of the sex. It was the price he paid to have the sex.

With Kara, it was different. He wanted her here. He wanted to hold her and caress her and talk to her, to know her thoughts and her feelings and make sure she wanted to be here, too.

That was a first.

Then he wanted to take another shower with her and start all over again.

Her hand roved, trailing down his rib cage, exploring the little scars and marks on his torso. She brushed her fingers down his hip and came to the glossy, gnarled flesh on his thigh.

“Is it still hurting?” she asked.

“No. The heat of the shower helped. And the distraction.”

She shifted, looking at it.

“What happened?” she asked. “I mean, I know it was a bullet wound, but this was more than that.”

“Fifty-caliber bullet. They make big holes.”

She frowned, her fingers brushing over the ragged flesh. “You said the surgeon wasn’t very skilled.”

“Oh, the surgeon actually has many skills. Removing bullets isn’t one of them.”

She scowled at him. “Don’t be cryptic.”

Luke took a deep breath, scooting up against the soft headboard. Kara shifted to sit beside him, cross-legged. Luke thought he just might enjoy this session of pillow talk, until she tugged the sheet over her lap and pulled it just above her breasts.

“Stop pouting,” she snapped when he frowned. “This is a conversation.”

He gave a mild curse and looked at his leg. It wasn’t pretty. “Collado shot me.”

“Collado?”

“Remember I told you he slipped through the cracks of the Rojàs takedown?”

She nodded.

“That’s how he did it. In the middle of the bust, he made me for a cop but I didn’t know it. I went to get him and he was waiting. He killed two DEA agents who came in right after me.”

“Dear God,” she said, stroking his leg with one hand, holding the knot of the sheet with the other. “You’re lucky he didn’t kill you.”

“Oh, he wasn’t interested in doing that. He had a better idea. He paid off some Colombian nationals and put me in prison. For the first week, he came to visit every day. Watched the leg get infected and swollen, stood just beyond the bars and laughed.”

“God.”

“Somewhere around the third or fourth day, I realized I had to get the bullet out. I was burning up with fever and wasn’t very aware of what was going on, but I did know that the reason he came every day was to see me get worse. He was waiting for me to die and I didn’t want to give him that pleasure. So I dug it out.” He tipped his head to the scar. “This is what happens when you use a stick.”

“Oh, Lukas,” she whispered, brushing the scar with a feather-light touch. Hearing his name on her lips stirred something deep inside, warming him from the inside out. There was no lightning bolt from heaven, no earth-shattering moment of realization. But there was a small, niggling notion in the back of his mind that said he might want to hear her say it again tomorrow and the next day, and fifty years from now.

“How did you get out? How did you get back to the U.S.?”

“Elisa.”

She stopped touching him and tipped her head. “Elisa Moran.”

“Yes.” Luke took her hand, stroking it with his thumb. “She wasn’t my lover, Kara, and she wasn’t Andrew’s. She was an agent. She’d been in Colombia with me and worked like a dog to find out where Collado had taken me. Back in the States, she moved mountains between the two governments to get me out of there. It took five months.”

Kara blinked. “You were in prison for five months?”

He quirked a half smile. “The history you dug up was a lot more colorful, I know. Believe me, Luke Varón was having more adventures than Lukas Mann during that time.”

“The windows and skylights,” she said. “Everywhere you stay. Even your cars.”

He shrugged. “I like to see the sky. It’s a little legacy left to me by Collado.”

She shook her head and Luke could see her trying to make it all fit. “This whole thing, starting with Andrew… It’s all been about getting Collado. And now you’re letting him go. Because of me.”

Luke looked at her. Hearing the dismissal of his life’s goal put into words like that was a little daunting. But never had he been so sure of letting something go. “Frank’s not so good in bed,” he said. “It’s a trade I’m willing to make.”

“Seriously, Lu—”

“I
am
serious,” he said. He leaned forward, grasping both hands. “First of all, Collado’s not getting away. There are a hundred and fifty DEA and FBI agents poised in twenty-three states waiting to take him and the entire
network down tomorrow or the next day—just as soon as he’s on American soil and the drugs make it to their first delivery sites. The bastard is going to prison; that much is certain. They don’t need me; in fact, I was already going to have to stay in hiding until all the arrests were made, anyway. Collado will recognize me.

“Second of all,” he continued, “remember, this Alexander didn’t
just
kill Andrew. He killed Elisa. So regardless of the fact that your stalker isn’t part of the drug ring, I have good reason to want him found.”

She nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“And third, even if neither of those things were true, it wouldn’t have mattered.” He stopped, feeling his own sense of amazement over where this was going. “You had me from the moment you took your clothes off in that alley, Kara. When I realized there was something more frightening in your life than stripping down in front of Luke Varón, and when I saw how fucking courageous and determined you were, there was no way in hell I could walk away.”

A breath shivered past her lips and she leaned in and kissed him. “You’re quite a romantic for a ruthless hit man.”

“You have no idea,” he said, surprised that the observation pleased him. “But stick around and I’ll show you.”

Mike Hogan had dozed for an hour when his phone rang. He reached to the hotel nightstand and felt for his phone, found it without opening his eyes, and squinted to see the time. Six thirty-eight a.m.

He answered. “This better be good,” he said.

A voice he didn’t recognize spoke into his ear. “Is this Special Agent Mike Hogan?”

“Yes. What do you want?”

“Agent Hogan, this is Special Agent Cassie Flynn at the Atlanta FBI field office. We received a call from a concerned citizen in the middle of the night. On follow-up, we came into custody of a package and I was told to contact you.”

Mike sat up. Wide awake now. “What package?”

“I’m not privy to the contents, but Special Agent Knutson told me to say ‘barbed wire.’ ”

“I’ll be right there.”