Honeymoon To Die For (21 page)

“Oh, I realized when I heard the news about an airliner almost being taken down on approach to Miami International that it was very likely Wayan’s
unit
, but you saw me on television in a live broadcast on another continent at that moment, just as we’d agreed. You should hire better people next time.”

The General’s dark eyes turned black with frustration. “My man made no mistakes. He said a specialized security team found him as he was activating the laser unit and in the battle they triggered the destruct mechanism on the unit, preventing the airliner from crashing into a Miami suburb. Wonder how that security team knew where to look for my man and the unit?”

She knew exactly how Sabrina Slye’s team had found Wayan’s evil little toy, because Chatton had added a special tag of her own to those three boxes. When The General’s man cut the hair-thin wire concealed along the edge of the packing tape, he triggered a signal that could be tracked by software inside a laptop she’d slipped into a surveillance vehicle belonging to one of Sabrina’s agents.

But the General and Wayan would never figure that out.

Cocking her head, Chatton asked, “So now you’re insinuating that I had something to do with exposing your man’s location and destroying a laser device? Even with evidence of me off continent? Seriously, General? I don’t care what you and Wayan do as long as it doesn’t affect me negatively. What motivation would I have to get involved when our deal was an exchange, which brings me back to why I’m here.”  

“What more do you want? Ryder Van Dyke’s your man.  Has to be.”

“He’s out of prison, no longer suspected of the Kearn killing. Sort of blows the simple math on your theory.”

“A prison romance and legal jockeying does not absolve Van Dyke of guilt. The facts support his being the shooter for both targets.”

“Van Dyke’s alibi—which checked out iron-clad—proves he couldn’t have been in Colorado for the Abbot shooting.”  She’d been far more thorough than US law enforcement in investigating Van Dyke’s alibi and had to admit she’d found a weak spot in it.

Ryder Van Dyke had been observed from a distance at a rented lake house in central Georgia when the Abbot killing happened. But he could have had someone of similar build taking his place while he made the hit.

The General snarled, “I don’t give a flying fuck about any timeline difference. We’re talking about someone trained in black ops and he was working with that Slye Temp bunch. They’re not just corporate security.”  

“That wouldn’t be the team that shut down your man in Miami, now would it?”  She let the fact that they both knew who got to the laser device sink in. “Is that why you put me on Van Dyke? Take care of a little vengeance for you while I’m at it? Not going to happen. I don’t terminate anyone unless they’ve given
me
reason to act.”

“So you’ve got a conscience now?”

She smiled, letting him see how much that amused her. Much like a cat who enjoyed watching a mouse consider his possible escape route when they both knew he had none. “Do you really expect me to believe that Van Dyke would allow himself to be caught after a hit on Kearn?”

The General growled something vicious, clearly not happy to constantly be pushed deeper into a corner. “Hell, Van Dyke probably set himself up to get arrested, figuring that it would look too easy for someone with his expertise to be the real shooter.”

Thin logic at best. Why would Van Dyke shoot Kearn to begin with? Van Dyke had been on the Slye team that Chatton had covertly tipped off about the laser unit. The Kearn killing was completely out of character for a man with Van Dyke’s history. He’d been honorably discharged with an exceptional military record. Then he signed on with an agency that had actually stopped a terrorist attack, but out of the blue he decides to kill an innocent man in cold-blood?

On the other hand, was Kearn innocent?

Something just didn’t add up right.

None of that mattered so much as Van Dyke’s getting arrested.

With her background, Chatton would never put herself in a position to risk getting trapped in prison. Why would Van Dyke?

And what about FBI agent Brady who’d made a complete about-face on Van Dyke’s guilt?

Chatton countered with, “Bianca Brady testified for the DA at Van Dyke’s preliminary hearing, then changed her tune five months later. She must have found something significant to sacrifice her career as an FBI agent.”

“Bullshit. I read the report. Brady’s young, single and an overachiever. Perfect patsy for a player like Van Dyke. He comes from money. Sent someone to convince her to dig harder into the timeline, probably guided her to find exactly what Van Dyke had set up before he got grabbed.” The General shrugged. “Van Dyke meets with Brady a couple of times and convinces her she’s his soul mate.  Next thing you know, she’s found proof he couldn’t have been in two places at once.  Two weeks later, he’s free and getting married. Smooth.”

Chatton never dismissed any possibility. She let The General ramble on with his theory while she considered how she wanted to satisfy their deal.

Opening his hands in a dismissive move, he said, “Van Dyke is playing the I’m-so-innocent role all the way, but only a fool would buy that. He ran some ops for the CIA when he was in the military.” The General leaned back, arms stretched behind his head, signaling this meeting was pretty much over. “Mark my words. Van Dyke is no easy target and he’s probably planning to disappear. In his shoes, I would whether I was guilty or not, because the government isn’t the only one who believes he pulled the trigger both times.”

There was some truth in what The General said and the ballistics matched on both killings.  Chatton leaned forward and placed a burner phone on the General’s desk.  

He glared at the phone. “What’s that for?”

“I’m going to be around until I get the answers I want. I’ll contact you if I need intel. You’ll give it to me. I’ll call from a different phone each time. I’ll let you know when this is done so you can destroy that one. Until then, keep it with you.”

She lifted her walking stick as she stood and turned to leave.

“I’ll help you until you determine it
was
Van Dyke, but once that happens you’re going to owe me much more, Chatton.”  

A warning with an unspoken threat that he’d take payment when she was least expecting it. He wanted the last word, but she would never allow him to think he intimidated her. She turned around. “Like what?”

“A termination. Someone my government considers a danger.”

He thought he’d found a weakness when she said she’d only eliminate someone
she
deemed necessary?

Chatton made a scoffing sound. “Done.”

“What about Van Dyke?”

“If he pulled the trigger on Abbot, I’ll save your government the cost of trials and prison expense.”

CHAPTER 17

Bianca lay on her left side, using the full extent of her adult language to curse Ryder in her head.

The nightlight glow seeping through the doorway from the bathroom washed a pale outline over Ryder’s muscular body. He at least wore a pair of shorts, but the lightweight material outlined his lean hips and the bulge that had been in a half-aroused state for the past hour.

How was she going to get any sleep with him so close?

Sharing the bed had sounded better when she was too tired to come up with an alternative to sleeping on the floor. Taking Ryder’s battered body into consideration, she couldn’t ask him to do that either.

Just like she couldn’t pull her eyes from the slow rise and fall of his chest. Bare chest. Muscles moving with each slow breath.

Her head ached. Her body complained. She should be catatonic by now, but she couldn’t convince her mind to stop imagining what he might do if she just passed out.

Ryder had spent five months locked away from women.

Five months with no sex.

She’d awakened one time with her hands and feet tied spread eagle on the bed and Bernard leaning over her. She flinched just thinking about that again.

“Bianca.”

She jerked at her name ghosting from Ryder’s lips. Was he awake or talking in his sleep? “What?”

“Go to sleep.”  

So he wasn’t really out after all. See? How was she supposed to rest knowing he was alert? What would he do if she
could
reach deep REM sleep?

With a fluid move, he rolled up on his side, facing her with a hand’s width between them. The man moved like a shadow. After a moment, he scratched his head then extended that hand toward her as he lifted up.

She froze, unable to breathe.

But his hand kept going as he reached over her for something. When he dropped back down, he had a remote in his hand and punched a button. Haunting guitar music, something new wave with a Latin flare, flowed through the room, then he tossed the remote on the other side of the bed.

He whispered, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” She was not going to admit she’d been lying awake for the past hour thinking about all the things a man desperate for a woman might want to do. Of course, according to Bernard, it would take a desperate man to want anything Bianca had to offer.

Was Ryder that desperate?

Ryder’s voice had a tired rasp. “That’s one of those trick answers, isn’t it?”

“No.”

“Yes it is.” He sighed. “You don’t want to tell me that you’re afraid to fall asleep because you think I’ll take advantage of you.”

Had she been that easy to read or did he expect that from women now? The sad note in his voice had her leaning toward the latter. Hearing that tugged at her and made her want to say something to convince him that she wasn’t concerned.

But that would be a lie since she had been.

His face gave away nothing. Eyes as alert as when he’d been watching for a threat when they’d run from Kearn’s people. He probably expected a denial.

Just waiting for her to lie about being worried.

She spread her hand out on the sheet between them and tapped a finger then met his gaze. Should she admit that she was so
not
the worldly woman expected to play this role? That she felt as though she’d lied to Murdock when she said she could do this?

Just stick to the truth
. “I admit that I might not have thought all this through during the planning stages, like sleeping in a room with ...”

“A dangerous convict.”

“I was going to say with a man who hasn’t been with a woman in five months.”

“Nine.”

“What?”

“It’s been nine months.”

“Why?”  She wanted to bite her tongue. No man wanted to talk about a lack of sexual activity and now wasn’t the time to remind Ryder of how long it had been since he’d had sex. But it couldn’t be for lack of female interest.

His gaze honed in on her as if he saw through her barriers to all her insecurities. The longer he stared, the more she wanted to take back that one word. “You don’t have to answer—”

“I slept with a couple of women when I first came home from overseas. It was adequate. Not their fault. I was too ... numb for a while to agree to something I just didn’t feel.”

“You
turned down
offers?” she asked with more incredulity than was polite, but
come on
.

“Find that so hard to believe?”

“You’re a guy.”  Didn’t that explain any man’s decision making? Bernard had thought so.
I’m a man, Bianca, with needs. You can’t expect me to turn down an offer when you’re not putting out
. As if she hadn’t felt inadequate enough as a woman at that point, hearing him blame his infidelity on her had crushed what little ego she’d still had.

Ryder blew out a breath. “Guess you’ve got a point, but after I let a flight attendant convince me to spare her from boredom on a layover, I realized I had to get my head straight before doing that again.”

Bianca should be pressing for more, trying to get closer to Ryder like Murdock told her to do, but she couldn’t bring herself to dig around for intel when Ryder was so relaxed and talking. He was not someone who opened up easily. That he was doing it with her meant something, touched her in a way that made her want to soothe the pain that clung to the edges of his eyes.

He’d buttoned up, so she prodded a little more. “You never saw the flight attendant again?”

“She made it clear she only wanted what I could give her that night. I’m pretty sure she had a boyfriend back in Chicago.”

“Didn’t you feel used?” Bianca asked, not sure why she felt indignant on his behalf.

“Nothing new, but it didn’t matter.”

“You don’t mind being used for your body?”

Ryder stayed silent for so long that Bianca wondered if he was going to answer her. “Women have come to me since I was in my teens. It was always just to scratch an itch, except for a couple of gold diggers who couldn’t find their way inside the Van Dyke Dynasty through Terrence.” He shrugged, moving all those muscles in liquid symmetry when he did. “I’ve yet to meet a woman without an agenda.”

Bianca couldn’t argue that point when she was here only for what he could do to get her inside the Van Dyke family, but he’d known that from the start.

So why was she feeling this creeping sense of guilt?

Ryder lifted his fingers to her cheek and she held her breath. His touch was light and careful, his voice a low rumble. “I came home from the military with my head cocked sideways, but functioning. After spending five months locked in that hellhole ... I’m pretty fucked up, Bianca, but I will not hurt you. Ever. Go to sleep. Can you do that for me?”

She wouldn’t have thought she could until he asked her to do it for him. He needed someone to trust him.

To believe his words.

They had to get through this week. He could have overpowered her without even waiting on her to fall asleep, so how hard could it be to extend this small olive branch of trust? “Okay.”  

She rolled over on her back and felt the bed shift as he did the same. She really did want to get some rest, but she couldn’t help thinking about the man in her file who’d been portrayed as a playboy with a different woman all the time.