Into the Night (47 page)
His smile was so sweet, and his eyes were so warm and filled with emotion.
He moistened his lips slightly before he spoke. Cleared his throat. Here it came...
"I'm starving. Want to get room service?"
Joan had to laugh at herself. It had been more than twenty years since she was a ten-year-old, and she still struggled with her Snow White complex. Some day her prince might come, indeed, but if he did, honey, the truth was, he was going to have to run to keep up with her. He was going to have to hunt her down, because she wasn't sitting at home waiting for him to show. And he was going to have to be willing to abdicate the crown to be with her.
Muldoon was a prince, for sure, but she just couldn't see him doing that. As much as she might want him to.
Oh, but don't do this, Joan. Don't make this into something that it's not. Don't start making any plans that include Mike Muldoon.
"I hear they have a mean fish chowder here," he told her, a devilish light in his eyes.
Enjoy this for what it was. Enjoy him. "Kiss me first," she said.
"With pleasure," he whispered, pulling her more completely into his arms.
He kissed her slowly and quite thoroughly, his mouth hot and sweet.
Just like the man himself.
Chapter 19
Sam was hung-over.
Mary Lou knew from just one glance when he walked into the kitchen. She'd seen more than her share of hangovers starting back when she was Haley's age.
"When did you get home?" she asked.
He winced—she was talking too loudly. Well, screw him. He had no right to go out and get drunk with God knows who and then come crawling back home at some ungodly hour, after last call, no doubt.
"A little after two," he said.
Last call, indeed.
Sam Starrett was a very good-looking man—tall and lean with blue eyes and brown hair that streaked golden when he spent a lot of time out in the sun. His face wasn't pretty-boy handsome like a movie star's, though. Instead, he had prominent features that were going to be called craggy when he got a lot older. But regardless of that, he was one of those men who was going to be just as attractive at sixty as he was at thirty-something.
Because no matter how old he got, he was still going to have that smile.
It was a killer—a combination of genuine amusement with life and a sly awareness that he was, indeed, the King of the World. It had slayed her completely the first time he'd aimed it in her direction.
But he wasn't smiling right now.
"You stink," she told him sharply. "Go take a shower and brush your teeth. And shave while you're at it. I'm getting Haley up in a few minutes and I don't want her seeing you looking like human garbage."
Well, that surprised the shit out of him. Just a few days ago, she would've quietly gotten him some painkillers and a big glass of water, and tippy-toed around, talking in hushed tones, treating him like royalty. She would have ignored the fact that she'd already made a pot of oatmeal. She would have woken up Haley and then taken her out of the house for some high-calorie fast-food crappola breakfast so her little girl wouldn't have to see her father at his worst.
But that wasn't fair—why should she and Haley be the ones always to accommodate him?
What was he going to do? Move out? Tell her he wanted a divorce?
And so what if he did? She loaded dirty dishes into the dishwasher with a rattle and bang that made him wince again. She'd be better off without him.
"What time do you have to be at work?" he asked, opening the cabinet where they kept the aspirin and shaking more than he should be taking into his hand. He swallowed all of the pills at once, without any water.
"Same time that I always have to be there," she told him. "I always work the same hours." It felt good to allow herself to be pissed at him. "I'm mad at you, in case you haven't noticed."
Sam nodded, so serious. "Yeah, you have a right to be. I've been... I don't know. Phoning it in, I guess, for a long time." He took a deep breath. "I know you've been really unhappy, Mary Lou, and I have been, too. We need to find some time to sit down and talk."
Mary Lou felt faint. Oh, shit. He wanted a divorce. He was going to ask her for a divorce. What had she done?
"I'm not unhappy," she said. "I'm very happy. I shouldn't have spoken to you that way. That was wrong of me and I apologize. Do you want some oatmeal? Why don't you sit down and I'll get you a bowl?"
He caught her arm as she was reaching up into the cabinet. "Stop," he said. "I'm the one who should be apologizing, not you. I'm going to go shower, like you said. I have to be on base in just a few minutes—I don't have time to talk right now. In fact, the next few days are going to be hectic. I just thought that maybe after this President's thing is over, we can sit down and be honest with each other."
"We don't need to do that," she said. "Really, Sam, I'll try harder—"
"Jesus, Mary Lou..." He rubbed his forehead, rubbed his entire face. "Will you just do me one little favor, please?"
"Of course. You know all you ever have to do is ask. I'd do anything for you, Sam. Anything," she stressed. "I know it must bother you not to have beer in the house, and well, I've been thinking, I've been doing so well that I'd be fine if—"
"Stop," he said. "Christ, just stop and listen."
She shut her mouth, trying to hide the fact that her lower lip was trembling. He was going to leave her. She just knew it. And she wouldn't be better off without him. She'd be alone, just like her mother had been, with a baby and bills she wouldn't be able to pay and—
"I don't want alcohol in this house. Under no circumstances whatsoever. Is that clear?"
She nodded.
"Now. All I'm asking you to do is to spend some time over the next few days thinking. Think about what you want out of life. Think about what makes you happy—truly happy. I know it has a lot to do with Haley—I think you're a wonderful mother, I really do. But look beyond her, if you can, and try to think about what you want. Can you try to do that?"
Mary Lou couldn't keep her mouth shut any longer. "This is about Alyssa Locke, isn't it?"
He sighed. "No, it isn't. I'm taking a shower."
"She doesn't want you—she's with someone else now. You told me that yourself!" She followed him out of the kitchen and into the hall. Her voice was shrill but she couldn't seem to make herself shut up.
From the other end of the house, Haley woke up and started to cry.
"Yeah, see, but you don't want me, either," Sam said, his voice surprisingly gentle, his eyes not unkind. "Not really."
"You are so wrong!"
"Am I?" Sam asked as he went into the bathroom. "Maybe you should think some about that, as well. I'm going to be late and you are, too, if you don't get going."
He shut the door.
Heart racing, Mary Lou went in to Haley. She had to stop and sit down, putting her head between her knees to regain her equilibrium, before she got the little girl out of the crib.
She hadn't been this panicked, this uncertain about her future since those unsettling weeks before her wedding day.
Husaam slid down in the driver's seat so that Mary Lou wouldn't see him as she loaded the kid into her car.
She looked upset.
Of course, she looked upset most mornings—who wouldn't, with that asshole Sam Starrett for a husband?
And yet Mary Lou was no prize. He'd thought she might be—he'd actually started to genuinely like her. She was pretty and stacked and none too bright. He didn't like women who were rocket scientists. But then...
He still couldn't get over the way she'd so casually pulled up her shirt and fed Haley out in the churchyard, where anyone could see.
That was no way for a married woman to behave. If she were his wife, he'd have her beaten for indecency. She had no right to go and flash the world. No right at all.
And what was with this man who was following her around? This wasn't the first time he'd seen this loser with Mary Lou. Clearly, he was after something.
He'd had him checked out, but background checks could be falsified. He himself knew that quite well.
Still, the information he'd found seemed to be real.
Ihbraham Rahman, born in Saudi Arabia—not too far from the city where Husaam had spent much of his childhood—had became an American citizen in 1990. He owned a share in a Lincoln dealership in Anaheim with three younger brothers, two cousins, and an uncle—none of whom were even remotely tied to any terrorist activity. And why should they be? They'd embraced the American Dream and were making it pay off.
Not that there wasn't strife in their lives. Apparently Ihbraham had quit his job at the dealership a few years back, ditched a fiancée who was the only daughter of the ailing owner of a nearby BMW dealer, and ran off to reinvent himself as a landscaper, courtesy of the twelve-step program.
The fiancée was still carrying a torch and the brothers still had hopes of turning Rahman Lincoln Mercury into Rahman Lincoln Mercury BMW.
So what was Ihbraham doing with Mary Lou?
Obviously, he was sniffing out an easy target—looking for an easy lay. And there was no doubt about it. Mary Lou Starrett was ripe and ready for the picking, thanks to her husband's neglect.
She got into her car, and Husaam followed her along the same route she always took to her baby-sitter's house, letting her get way ahead of him. There was no chance she'd see him. None at all.
He was going to have to make it clear that if Mary Lou wanted some extramarital sex, she wouldn't have to look to the hired help. He was willing to do whatever he needed to do—even sleep with her, what a hardship—to make sure Rahman didn't mess up this operation.
It was bad enough when Mary Lou had sent her car in to have the trunk lid replaced. His clients had been ready to bolt after she'd discovered one of the weapons he'd put in the trunk of her car.
But Husaam doubted she was bright enough to put two and two together and come up with a plan to assassinate the U.S. President. Still, if she told someone else what she had seen...
But she hadn't told anyone. He was willing to bet his reputation and his very life on that—and even use her and her car as a delivery vehicle one last time, even though her trunk now locked.
A lock wasn't much of a problem in the first place, and it was less of a problem because he now had a key.
No doubt about it, this was going to be some of the sweetest, easiest money he'd ever earned.
Muldoon woke up alone in Joan's bed.
He could hear the sound of the shower running. Light was coming in through a crack in the curtains, and when he turned to look, the clock on the bedside table read 5:24 A.M.
Hello, morning after.
He briefly closed his eyes. Please, God, let this time be different.
He'd woken up shortly after 0200 to find Joan sprawled bonelessly on the bed beside him, her head on his shoulder, her hand resting almost possessively over his heart.
That was the time—were she just some random woman he'd met in a bar—that he would have slipped out of the bed, put on his clothes, and left, leaving his phone number if she'd mentioned she'd be in town for a few days, or just a note—It was fun—if she'd made it clear right from the start that there would be no tomorrow.
Only rarely did he stay until dawn. He'd learned the hard way that the morning after could be fraught with all kinds of peril and pain.
The morning after was the part where he either had to leave or be left. It was the time in which there would be a slight change in the voice of last night's warm lover. There might be a second or two of uncomfortable silence before she cleared her throat and spoke just a shade too politely, or maybe a tad too cheerfully.
Either way, he'd learned that it meant that the night—and their brief relationship—was over.
Was it any wonder that he'd made it his MO to leave before being shown the door?
At 0210, he'd gotten up to go to the bathroom, careful not to wake Joan. Or so he'd thought. When he came back into the bedroom and climbed into bed—no way was he leaving her until he absolutely had to—she'd snuggled up against him, resuming her same position with her head on his shoulder.
Only her hand had slipped down to his stomach and then lower and...
Muldoon lay there now, tangled in the sheets, smiling up at the ceiling. He should be tired after a night with so little sleep, but really, he couldn't remember the last time he'd felt better.
He had two immediate options. Stay here in bed until Joan got out of the bathroom, or go in there, maybe join her in the shower.
Getting it on in the shower would put an entirely new spin on the concept of a morning after. It would be the Energizer Bunny version of the morning after—where the night before just kept on going and going.
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