Dark of Night (4 page)

James Nash, aka Diego Nash, was pronounced dead on the operating table at Cedar Vista Hospital in Fresno, California at 6:14
P.M.,
Wednesday, 30 July 2008.

Only a handful of people knew otherwise—and Jimmy trusted them all, completely. There wasn't even a surgeon floating around out there as a potential liability because Cassidy had worked some kind of voodoo at the hospital. Jimmy suspected it involved hacking into and changing medical records, which was probably some kind of a felony, since the agent was acting on his own accord. But Cassidy was purposely keeping his FBI superiors and the entire Bureau out of the loop when it came to the fact that Jimmy was still alive.

In fact, Jimmy's new identity—one Lloyd Howard—had been fabricated without the help of any kind of government protection program. Decker and Cassidy agreed that it was important to hide the fact that Jimmy was alive from any and all government agencies.

Because at this point? They were pretty sure that the very nasty men who wanted Jimmy dead had access to government records—even those labeled top secret.

They were pretty sure that the bad men they had to take down—in order for Jimmy to very literally get his life back—worked for the mysterious and clandestine no-name Agency's black ops sector.

They were pretty sure about that because, at one time, Jimmy Nash had worked for the Agency's black ops sector, too.

“Good morning.”

Tess smiled as she looked up from her book. “Hey,” she greeted
Decker, who came to the end of the bed and actually reached out and held on to Jimmy's left foot.

“You ready to blow this popsicle stand?” he asked Jimmy.

Who laughed and then winced at the surge of pain. “Yeah. I wish.” He held up his arm, IV tubes still attached. “I'm still attached to the mother ship.”

Before the words were out of his mouth, Deck turned to the door, where one of the nurses—Paula, buxom and jolly, a proud new grandmother—came bustling in. She shut off the drip, and almost before Jimmy could blink, she'd extracted the needle from the back of his hand.

“This goes back in, Mr. Howard,” she warned Jimmy sternly, which was countered by the permanent twinkle in her lively brown eyes, “at the least little sign of dehydration. You want to go home? You'll push fluids. Do it right, we'll release you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Tess spoke for him, disbelief in her voice.

Decker was grinning. “Blood test came back clear.”

“But …” Tess was still concerned.

“It'll be easier for him to rehab off-site,” Deck told her, not saying more than that, since Paula was still in the room. It wouldn't just be easier, it'd be safer. For all of them.

Truth of the matter was, as safe as he'd been made by the news of his “death,” Jimmy still worried every time Decker or Tess left his room. He knew he was safe, and they were, too—when they were with him. But the only way he'd ever be fully convinced that the threat was completely gone, would be for him to identify and track down the men who'd threatened and then tried to kill him.

Right now he knew barely nothing. Several vague clues. An e-mail address that he'd already tried to track, that had gotten him nowhere. A shirt that he'd worn on one of the days they'd tried to eliminate him—stained not only with his own blood, but with the blood of the man who'd tried to take him out. The vaguest of descriptions of that man, who'd attacked him in the darkness of a moonless night.

Jimmy hadn't gotten a visual, just a sense of the man's size: average height and weight, medium build.

Which narrowed his search down to, oh, about a quarter of the world's population.

A DNA test on the shirt could provide far more specific answers, but it
would also tip his enemy off as to his current still-alive status. Decker and Cassidy had agreed about that. Their plan was to wait to do that test until Jimmy and Tess were out of this hospital and ensconced in an even safer place. Which was looking to be tomorrow. Saints be praised.

“Don't worry,” Deck was reassuring Tess. “We'll get him back up to speed in no time.”

“He'll be getting into trouble before you know it,” the nurse reassured Tess, then turned to give Jimmy a mock evil eye, “if he pushes fluids.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jimmy said as she left the room, as Decker made certain that the door was tightly shut behind her.

“Are you
sure …,
” Tess started.

“The infection's gone,” Decker told her. “He's healing nicely. It's time.” He turned to Jimmy. “Cassidy wants to bring in additional security for the move to the safe house. He's going to give me a list of names. I want you both to go through it. If anyone on his list makes you at all uneasy—”

“I don't care who's on the list,” Jimmy interrupted, “as long as it includes Dave Malkoff.”

But Decker was already shaking his head.

“Why?” Jimmy asked. “Deck, I have two friends on this entire planet. You and Dave. And Dave thinks I'm dead. He also happens to be one of the smartest operatives we know.”

Decker's smile was gone—he was back to his usual grim.

Tess leaned forward to take Jimmy's hand, but it wasn't just to calm him down. She had something to tell him, and he could tell from her face that it wasn't going to be good news.

“Oh, shit,” Jimmy said, looking from Tess to Deck and back again. “What happened to Dave?”

“No, no,” Tess quickly reassured him. “He's fine. He's just …”

“Sophia happened to Dave,” Decker told him, and the words didn't make sense.

“Dave and Sophia hooked up,” Tess translated, and Jimmy realized that the concern he'd seen on her face had been for Decker, who'd had some kind of twisted thing for Sophia for years now. Fool that he was, he'd never acted on it. And now, apparently, Dave had intervened. Jimmy's disappointment for Deck was curiously mixed with a sense of “you go, boy” for old Dave. Dave and Sophia. Holy Mother of God.

“It happened the night that, you know …,” Tess continued, but he
didn't know until she added, “The hostage rescue outside of Sacramento … ?”

“Are you kidding me?” Jimmy asked.

She shook her head. Not kidding. “They've been hot and heavy ever since.”

“Wait a minute.” He needed her to clarify. “Are you telling me that the night that I
died,
Dave and Sophia decide to skip the grieving and fuck like bunnies?”

Tess winced at his verb choice, glancing quickly at Decker, who was shaking his head.

“Sorry.” Jimmy realized what he'd just said. “I just thought that, you know, Dave would be a
little
upset. Sophia, too. Christ.”

“People deal with grief in all kinds of ways,” Tess reminded him. “And I'm also sure that Sophia knew …”

She didn't finish her sentence. She didn't have to.

What Sophia had known was that her last hope of starting something with Decker had died with Jimmy Nash. Sophia had believed—as had the rest of their friends and co-workers—that with Nash out of the picture, Deck would insert himself into Tess's life, dick first.

And everyone also believed that, without Nash and all of his bullshit around to distract her, Tess would instantly recognize how terrific Decker was, and how perfectly suited they were for each other.

And Jimmy's fiancée and his best friend would get married and live happily ever after, leaving Sophia out in the cold. Jimmy, too—but his cold would be the six-feet-under kind.

“Look, I'm … happy for her,” Decker said now, about Sophia— proving what a Boy Scout he was. Because he meant what he'd said. “I'm happy for Dave, too. He's wanted this for a long time.” He cleared his throat, obviously uncomfortable with this entire discussion, because at the bottom of it lay a truth they all studiously worked overtime to avoid mentioning: that Decker had, once upon a time, had feelings for Tess.

“Seeing them together is… This whole thing is …” Deck shook his head and started again. “It's harder than I thought.”

Jimmy knew his friend wasn't talking merely about seeing Sophia with Dave. Decker was talking about being seen in public with Tess, pretending that he and his dead best friend's fiancée had turned to one another for comfort.
That
was what was harder to do than Deck had thought.

No shit, Sherlock.

And Jimmy would've wagered the entire contents of his bank account that Sophia's watching Decker pretending—yeah, right—to want to be romantically involved with Tess was at least partially responsible for her propulsion into Dave Malkoff's waiting arms.

But wait. The festival of jealousy didn't stop there.

Jimmy was guilty of having a carnival-load of it himself—watching the footage of Deck putting his arm around Tess's shoulders at the memorial service, holding her hand as she leaned toward him for comfort. He'd gotten pissed off, imagining Decker kissing Tess good-night so that those fuckers who'd tried, numerous times, to kill Jimmy would believe he truly was dead.

It sucked the biggest dick ever.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave. …

“I'm sorry,” Jimmy said again, because he was the spider who'd started this multi-level charade spinning in the first place.

“I just think we all need a little space,” Decker told him quietly, pouring a cup of water from the pitcher on Jimmy's tray.

“Fair enough.” Jimmy nodded. “We don't tell Dave. And sorry if I brought an unwanted picture to mind.”

Decker handed him the water. “Drink,” he ordered as he headed back out of the room. “Lots. I want to get the hell out of here.”

Jimmy drank.

The place really was perfect.

Eight bedrooms, ten baths, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, outfitted gym with a climbing wall, home theater, chefs kitchen, fully furnished and equipped—all sitting like a castle atop the summit of a mountain.

And FBI agent Jules Cassidy had the key to the front door in his pocket.

And, okay, this probably wasn't a mountain for most people, but Jules had grown up in the Northeast where the mountains were ancient and tree-covered and worn. Here in California—home of that nifty geological phenomenon known as the Sierra Nevadas—this thing jutting up between two desert valleys really was just a very steep, ragged little hill.

But for Jules's intents and purposes—which were many and varied—a hill of this magnitude was mountain enough.

“Two million dollars,” Sam Starrett mused as he stood at the wall of sliders that opened onto a deck overlooking the scenic desert valley to the south. “He's working for a month, and they're paying him two
million
dollars. That's… what? Over sixty-five thousand dollars a day. A
day.”

“Yeah, but you see,” Jules pointed out, “after his agent takes his cut, and after taxes and expenses? It works out to be only about half that much, so, you know, it's not that big a deal.”

Sam turned and looked at him, eyebrows up.

“Kidding,” Jules said, laughing at his friend. “It's a huge deal. It amazing.”

Jules's husband, Robin, had come ridiculously far in the years since he'd publicly acknowledged that he was gay, and had gone into rehab for his alcoholism. His had been a coming-out of epic proportions, since he was on the verge of becoming one of Hollywood's leading action-adventure stars.

And while Robin's two-million-dollar paycheck for his role in this film was impressive, there had been a time, right before he first came out of the closet, that he could have demanded five times that amount. But Robin hadn't cared. He'd chosen sunlight and honesty over guaranteed fortune and fame. He'd chosen Jules, and had worked his ass off to stay sober. It was never going to be easy, but he now had over two alcohol-and drug-free years under his belt.

The naysayers had assumed his career was over.

The naysayers were not only freaking nincompoops, they were, as it turned out, seriously
wrong
freaking nincompoops. Proof was in the Emmy that sat on the mantel of the home Jules and Robin shared in Boston.

Robin was psyched to be doing this movie—a science fiction action-adventure—during his hit TV show's summer hiatus. He was pleased to be making that much money, but he was
most
excited about using this opportunity to help out Jules with what they'd been referring to lately as “his little extracurricular project.”

The film was shooting nearby in the desert as well as six hours away in San Diego. Robin wouldn't be staying at this fabulous fortress of a house every night, but he'd be here as often as he could. And he'd be footing the bill—a fact that he generously shrugged off as “no big deal.”

“Do you think we should form a search party and go after Alyssa and Ash?” Jules asked Sam now.

“I was checking out the security room.” Alyssa's voice carried up the stairs before she appeared, little Ashton—nearly six months old—on her hip. With his baby-smooth mocha brown skin—as beautiful as his mother's —and his father's blue eyes, he was a remarkably cute baby, with a gleeful smile that was all his own. “May I state for the record that this place has a
security
room? There are forty-two video cameras and God knows how many motion sensors, not just out by the fence, but around the house as well.” She exhaled a laugh and added some attitude.
“If you
can call this castle a
house.”

Sam took Ashton from his wife and sat on the leather sofa with the baby on his lap, putting his cowboy-booted feet up on the heavy wood coffee table.
Clunk, clunk.
“I myself couldn't help but notice the industrial-strength backup generator,” he drawled, heavy on the Texas
—he'p
instead of
help—
as he made a face at his son, who chortled with laughter.

“And by the way, that fence? Electric,” Alyssa informed Sam as she sat down next to him, fishing in her bag for Ash's binky. “The gate's the kind the government uses at embassies in countries that tend to end in
-stan.
You will
not
be getting visitors dropping by unexpectedly.”

“You can see for miles from that deck.” Sam turned to Alyssa. “What do you figure? About fifty clicks on a clear day?”

“At least. Anyone who wants to get through that gate without permission”—Alyssa wasn't done talking about the fence—“ is going to have to use a substantial amount of C-4. And once they do, they've got, what? Two miles of completely exposed driveway up to the house?”