Dark of Night (7 page)

She hadn't created an incident, although she'd been tempted to. Instead, she'd sat at her desk and bit back the words she wanted to say
— Personally? I thought the memorial service sucked—
as she'd forced a smile at the imbecile who'd uttered that crap.

Decker had shown the king of the buttholes to the door and headed to his office, hand on the back of his neck as if he'd had a killer of a headache.

“Can I get you some coffee?” Tracy had asked him, and he'd actually looked surprised. Or maybe that had been fear she'd seen in his usually steady eyes, so she added, “Tom just made a fresh pot.” Subtext: Someone else me made it—not me.

She'd long since learned how to make a proper pot of coffee, but those first few months she'd worked as Troubleshooter's receptionist, she'd gotten it really wrong, too many times.

And the myth that her coffee was unpalatable lived on.

“No thanks,” he'd said. “I'm all set.”

“I'm sorry about …” She'd pointed to the door.
“Lovely.
God.”

Deck had smiled ruefully, and disappeared back into his office, leaving her to the scheduling, which was becoming quite the challenge.

Sam and Alyssa had just gotten the boss's permission for a solid month of lost time—what was he thinking? And Dave was going to Boston with Sophia, whose father was in the hospital. Their return date was unknown. Tess was still on medical leave, and Decker, too, was only working part-time and if anyone else called in with some excuse not to show up, they might as well shut the office down for the entire rest of September.

And maybe they should. They could all use a break.

Tracy set her grocery bags down in the hall as she unlocked her apartment door. She went inside, kicking it shut behind her as she hustled the groceries into the kitchen, where she put the salad and the fish in the fridge, because dinner could wait. She hurried into her bedroom, dumping her laptop on her bed so she could change into a T-shirt and jeans.

It had to be Lawrence Decker down there in Tess and Jimmy's apartment. He was probably—finally—helping Tess by clearing Jimmy's clothing out of the place.

His doing so would put the final nail in the coffin
—bad
analogy, wow—of Tracy's fading hope that Jimmy was still alive. For a moment, before she zipped up her jeans, she paused, and considered pretending that she hadn't seen the light, so that she wouldn't have to help, wouldn't have to know.

But throwing out Jimmy's clothes was not going to be an easy task for Deck, who'd been friends with the dead man for more than ten years.

The very least Tracy could do was help get the job done, twice as quickly.

Slipping her sneakers onto her bare feet, she grabbed the laundry basket that was in the corner of her bedroom, and went to do just that.

Jimmy was having a nightmare.

It was a frequent occurrence—and had been, even before he'd been shot and nearly died.

Tess had learned through the years they'd been together that it wasn't always necessary to wake him. Sometimes it was enough just to put her arms around him and hold him tight.

But here, a half-day's drive from San Diego, in this remote desert safe house that Jules and Decker had set up, she was still sleeping on a cot that she'd placed in the corner so as not to disturb him.

He awoke with a shout. “No!
No!
”

Tess scrambled to his side. “Jimmy. Jim, it's all right. We're safe.”

“Oh, Christ,” he gasped as he clung to her. “Oh, Tess …”

“I'm here,” she said.

“Where?” he asked. “What… ?”

“The safe house,” she told him. “Remember?” She fumbled for the unfamiliar lamp on the unfamiliar bedside table, finally found the switch and clicked it on.

“Shit!” Jimmy turned away, closing his eyes against the light. “Don't!”

She switched it back off, but not before she saw that his face was wet with tears—as if she would somehow think him less of a man because he'd wept in his sleep? Still, over the past long weeks of his recovery, he'd been more vulnerable than he'd ever been before—at least in his adult life. Confined to a bed, hooked up to monitors and an IV, unable to move, forced to accept help for his most basic needs…

The ride from the hospital had not been an easy one, and he'd been sleeping pretty much continuously since arriving here early Monday.

His wounds, both from being shot and from the surgery that had saved his life, were still painful. And the infection that had riddled him for weeks had not only made him weak, but had prevented him from moving around, which Tess knew made his back and legs ache all the time.

Not that he'd complained.

Not in the hospital, and not in the cargo van in which he'd ridden here, on a stretcher. FBI agent Jules Cassidy himself had been driving, with Alyssa riding shotgun and Tess in the back.

They'd pulled right into the spacious five-bay garage at the base of this amazing hilltop castle, and closed the door tightly behind them.

Sam Starrett was already there, waiting for them, playing the tough-guy former SEAL even though everyone at Troubleshooters knew that he was an emotional pushover, and that the idea of bunnies falling in love in the spring made him choke up. He'd hugged Tess a little too tightly in greeting before clearing his throat about fourteen times and telling Jimmy that he looked like shit warmed over, which, for a guy who'd been dead for a few months, was pretty damn good.

They'd wheeled Jimmy into an elevator—this place had an elevator!—and gone to a gorgeous two-room suite with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out onto the harshly beautiful desolation of the desert. The windows were one-way—no one on the outside could see in—but Tess had noticed Jimmy's trepidation as he looked at them, so she'd shut the drapes. With the push of a button on the wall by the bed, they'd closed with the softest motorized purr, and Jimmy soon relaxed into sleep.

Over the past day and a half, he'd roused only for meals.

But now he was awake and struggling to control his still-uneven breathing as Tess carefully stretched out beside him. She rested her arm across his stomach as she took his hand and interlaced their fingers, her leg across his thighs.

The full body contact seemed to soothe him, and it wasn't long before he moved—to wipe his eyes with the heel of his other hand.

“Shit,” he said again, but softer this time. “It's the same fucking nightmare, every fucking night.”

That was more information than he'd ever given her, but of course they hadn't been able to talk freely in the hospital, with the nurses constantly coming in and out. Here, however…

Heart pounding, Tess quietly asked him, “Can you tell me … ?”

Jimmy was silent for a long time—which was not a surprise. Talking about himself—his feelings and fears—was not one of his stronger skills, and she'd all but given up on his ever answering when suddenly he spoke.

“Did we get the DNA results back from that shirt?”

Tess sighed at his change of subject. “Not yet. Maybe in the morning.”

“But we sent it out to the lab?” he asked.

The shirt in question was the one he'd been wearing when some unknown person had tried to kill him. It was, apparently, only one in a number of recent incidents in which Jimmy had nearly ended up dead—and Tess couldn't think about that too much or her head would explode.

But the shirt didn't just have only Jimmy's blood on it—it also had the blood of his attacker.

That shirt was—and Jimmy hadn't told her this, but she'd figured it out by doing the calendar math—one of the reasons their apartment had been searched and trashed last July. His attacker had wanted his DNA sample back.

“We sent it on Monday morning,” she told him, her frustration leaking out in the terseness of her reply. “Early yesterday.”

“It's Tuesday?” He was surprised and disgusted with himself. “What the hell have I been doing?”

“Sleeping,” she informed him. “It's what bodies do when they need to heal.”

“We need to back down on my pain meds,” he told her, “because those dreams …” He shook his head—a rustle against the pillow in the darkness.

“The dreams are all yours. Last meds you took were …” She had to think about it. “Before we got into the van.”

He sighed heavily. “Great.”

“I wish,” Tess said so softly she was almost inaudible, “you could tell me. …”

He was silent again, and she closed her eyes, knowing that if he weren't still so weak, this was where he'd kiss her. Make love to her. Try to tell her, through touch and eye contact, all the things he couldn't bring himself say.

“It's okay,” she said, “if you don't—”

But Jimmy spoke, cutting her off. “I'm on assignment,” he said, his voice barely more than a whisper in the dark. “Another black op covert from the motherfuckers at the Agency.”

She was surprised—and a little confused. “In your dream,” she clarified, the words falling out of her mouth even as she realized she should just zip it and let him talk.

But he seemed okay with her question. “Yeah. But the assignment in the dream has the same MO as the others. The real ones. A phone call to tell me where and when. Background information in a file in a bus station locker. Whoever it is on the other end of the phone, he knows my travel plans, my schedule at Troubleshooters—sometimes before I do.”

Tess hardly dared to breathe, praying that he'd keep talking.

He did. “This time I'm in New Mexico—some little town called Ket-tleston—and I can't believe I've gotten a call, but it's not a deletion, thank God.” His voice shook. “God, Tess.”

“I'm here,” she said, through a throat that was tight from the sudden tears that sprang up—tears she didn't dare let escape. “It's all right.”

“No,” he said, “it's not.”

“It's over,” she reminded him.

“Sometimes I think it'll never be over.” His voice was rough with emotion.

“But it is,” she insisted.

“After all this, you still have faith we're going to live happily ever after,” he said, with a sound that was half laughter, half despair. “I don't know why.”

“You're in Kettleston,” she prompted him, tempted to shake him because she was sick and tired of his
lack
of faith—in her, in them. “What do they want you to do?”

Jimmy sighed. “Almost nothing. A simple B&E for a hard-drive download from a computer that isn't connected to the Internet.”

Hence the hard access via breaking and entering. Even a secure wireless setup could be hacked by someone with fairly rudimentary skills, but if a computer didn't have an Internet connection…

“The target's not in Kettleston,” Jimmy continued, “it's in Albuquerque—a three-hour trip. I've got a rental car, so I make the drive.”

Troubleshooters Incorporated had a client based out of Kettleston, New Mexico. Harrison
&
Sons. It was one of their many paranoia accounts—businesses run by CEOs who feared terrorist attacks despite being HQ'd in the land of cattle or corn.

Sometime over the past year—Tess couldn't remember exactly when—Harrison
&
Sons had hired Troubleshooters to redesign their security system, and Jimmy had been in charge of the project. It was an easy job at a high rate of pay—the drawback being the travel and the days spent away from home, housed in a crappy hotel.

“The intel in the file I've been given,” Jimmy continued quietly, recounting his “dream,” if that's what it really was, “is limited. Brief. I'm entering the home of Ronald Fenster. He's a bank manager, thirty-nine years old, divorced, no kids, heavily in debt, suspected drug use, currently in Phoenix, Arizona, at a real estate investment workshop.”

“In other words, he's not home,” Tess said, and felt Jimmy nod.

“No one's home,” he confirmed. “It's a simple job in an empty house. A cakewalk. I'll be in and out inside of thirty minutes, depending on how long it takes to copy his files to my flashdrive. According to the intel, the computer I'm targeting is in the southeast bedroom on the second floor.

“The McMansion is dark,” he continued. “I drive the neighborhood,
but it's after midnight and the whole development is rolled up tight. So I leave the car about a mile away and walk in. Disable the security system and enter through the back door.

“I'm halfway up the stairs when I know something's wrong. Really wrong. I don't know how I know—maybe I smell blood, maybe I hear something. I draw my weapon as I keep going—if I stop they'll know that I know they're there. So instead of going into the southeast bedroom, I head for the master, where I goddamn nearly trip over Ronald Fenster, who's tied to a chair. He's been …”

Jimmy stopped, and Tess just waited, holding her breath, praying that he'd do it—that he'd trust her enough to tell her.

“He's been beaten,” Jimmy whispered. “Tortured. The ends of his fingers are … Christ, he's a mess. His throat's been cut and I slip in the blood, which slows me down. I can hear them now, they're coming for me, and I discharge my weapon at the bedroom door, and I think maybe I hit one of them as as I kick out the window screen. I jump and by some miracle I don't break my ankles, and I'm running as they shoot at me. And I'm hit, but the bullet's spent, and I know I'm not badly hurt. I can get away as long as I don't leave a trail of blood. Except then the dream shifts, and I'm back in the bedroom, only this time it's not Fenster in the chair.”

He took a deep breath, and it sounded raspy and loud in the darkness, but then he whispered, “This time, it's you.”

Oh, God. “I'm here,” Tess said again, unable to keep her voice from shaking. “I'm right here.” She
didn't
tell him that maybe—just maybe— her showing up dead in his dreams was his subconscious fear that his deceit could still kill their relationship. After all, he'd lied to her for
years.

It seemed he might be out of the woods in terms of his physical injury—which meant it was getting close to the time to tell him that the emotional damage she'd sustained from his dishonesty
had
nearly been fatal.

“I know what you're thinking,” he said, and she waited to see if he really did know. “How much of the dream is a dream and … Obviously the last part, with you, is just… But the rest of it is… It's kind of a conglomerate of… What I'm trying to say is that it happened, but not that way. The assignment in Albuquerque
was
just a computer download. But the intel in the file they gave me was faulty. Fenster was home. He was very much alive. He heard me break in, and he had a gun, and when I went out
the window, he shot at me. He didn't hit me, though. The getting shot that I dreamed about was from another black op, in Kansas, about a month later—but I was out of range and the bullet was spent, so …”