Jigsaw (Black Raven Book 2) (19 page)

Chapter Sixteen

Oh, for the love of God, did I really almost cry?

After their run and their after-exercise activity, after she had showered and recomposed herself into a person she recognized, Samantha returned to her bedroom. Exercise clothes that had been stripped off her body were now folded on the stool at her vanity.

Zeus, ever the thoughtful one.

Missing the warmth of the bathroom, she shivered as she changed into a clean pair of leggings, a long-sleeve T-shirt, and a lavender-colored pullover sweater. The house was large and drafty. It was 9:00 p.m., and the damp chill of the cold winter night seemed to have seeped into her bones. Opening the door that separated her bedroom from the living room, she saw that the door to the hallway stood open.

Zeus?

Nowhere in sight, and she didn’t expect him to be. She knew from experience that once she gave him a solid cue to get the hell away, the man was a master at moving on, without looking back. She didn’t blame him. She’d do the exact same thing. No matter how much it hurt.

Miles and Jenkins stood in the hallway, backs erect, shoulders broad, in a stance that said they took their jobs seriously. She gave them a nod. “I’ll be working in the library.”

There, it would be easier to get past the sick feeling that came with knowing her imagination hadn’t played a trick on her. She hadn’t imagined Zeus was the best she ever had. Now, she knew he was the best she’d ever have.

As she followed Jenkins down the stairs, body aches from deep inside of her and from where his hands had locked on her hips, reminded her just how perfect he was. She may as well make her next therapy appointment now, because she couldn’t wait to tell the doctor she hadn’t romanticized that aspect of her prior time with Zeus.

Doctor Blackmann, I was right! There really is something magical in the way he fucks. Now what the hell do I do? I can’t afford to love him. Cannot.

Blackmann would have a heyday with that statement. Hell. The questions that one would elicit would take hours of his time.

And I know sex has nothing to do with love. But dammit, all I want from him is more. More. More. All of him. In every way. I can’t be this weak. Can I?

More hours of therapy would ensue, and the end result would be that she was going to marry Justin and forget about Zeus. She didn’t need appointments with Doctor Blackmann to know the course of action she needed to take. As soon as the judges reached a verdict she was going to put on her running shoes and sprint away from Zeus as though her life depended on it. Because the life she wanted did depend on it.

She heard his voice as she crossed the threshold of the library. In a steady, calm tone, Zeus asked, “What’s the radiation level in Grid A-5?”

Bracing herself, she entered the room with a calm, collected look on her face, the polar opposite of how undone she felt inside. Wearing black jeans and a gray sweatshirt with a Black Raven logo, Zeus sat at the table with two of his agents. Laptops and iPads were open in front of them. A camera was mounted on a small tripod, and its lens was directed at Zeus. He glanced in her direction as she walked into the room.

Ragno’s voice answered his question, broadcasting through a mic system that made her sound as though she was in the room with them. “Manageable. We marked it orange.”

The crispness of Ragno’s matter-of-fact voice, the absolute nearness of it, all around them, was disconcerting when her face didn’t appear on a television monitor. It was like hearing the omniscient voice of a female god, commanding all who could hear to pay careful attention.

Samantha walked further into the room, Zeus’s attention no longer on her, but on the four flat-screen television monitors. Her gaze followed his there. Each played a different scene. Only one was an actual television station, with a news show providing a recap of President Cameron’s earlier speech. Two monitors displayed three-dimensional maps of a city, with layers of detail being added at dizzying speeds as unseen hands zoomed in and out on different areas.

The fourth screen revealed a man, with wavy hair and green eyes, high cheekbones, and an intensely serious look that was the exact look habitually worn by Zeus. Looking at him was like looking at Zeus—but not. He had the same full head of wavy black hair, the same high cheekbones, square jawline, olive-complexion, and broad shoulders. The left side of his mouth was drawn down in an almost-frown, exactly the expression Zeus wore.

No two men could look so similar and be unrelated. In that final conversation seven years earlier, when Zeus had mentioned others in his life counting on him to do the right thing, he’d told her that his family was close, that his mother had never remarried after his dad had been murdered in an armed robbery. Zeus was the elder of two boys.

Like the men here in the library, Zeus’s doppelganger–they had to be brothers—tapped away at his keyboard, glancing now and then at monitors showing him, she assumed, the same thing she was watching in Paris.

Zeus’s double, save for the eyes, glanced into the camera with laser-like focus. “Zeus, Ragno, Grid A-7. Denver is painting it red, but we’ll need to explore it. High priority.”

“Says who?” Zeus said.

“Bill Goldman, and if he went there, radiation can’t be that bad.”

Samantha recognized the name. Bill Goldman was a well-respected freelance reporter who travelled to far-flung destinations on high-profile stories. He was now in Paris, covering the ITT proceeding for 24-7, the cable news show that dominated worldwide news.

She walked to the table where Abe and Charles sat. Their laptops were open, and each had papers related to the ITT proceeding in front of them. Neither focused on their own work. Their attention was captured by the monitors and Zeus.

Charles, wearing a red cardigan over a white T-shirt, gave her a hello nod, and moved his computer to make room for her. “Sit here,” he whispered, gesturing to the chair on his left, the one remaining chair at the table that had a view of the monitors and the table where Zeus sat.

As she sat in the chair that he indicated, Charles added, “Just received an email. Proceedings are postponed in the morning, but will start at noon.”

She nodded, her attention focused on the monitors. “What is going on here?”

“Analysts are building a map of Praptan for the bounty hunt team to use. They’re using intelligence collected since the meltdown, with radiation levels as indicators of where the bounty hunt team can go.”

“Ragno,” Zeus said. “Do we have all the Goldman data?”

“Yes. Goldman has been there three times. He’s theorized for years that Maximov hides in Praptan. Goldman did us a favor by sending me his backup data after I called him this afternoon. We owe him. I suspect that as soon as he has a chance to breathe after the coverage he’s doing for 24-7 regarding today’s bombing, he’ll call.”

Zeus nodded. “Got it.”

The green-eyed man looked into the camera, at Zeus. “Do not agree to a ride along.”

Zeus glanced at the television monitor. A pulse beat at his temple as their gazes locked. “Wasn’t planning on it, but don’t tell me what to do. Just an FYI, baby brother, I’m your superior. Remember?”

“Yes, Jesus. A fact you never let me forget.” Gabe used the Americanized, son-of-God pronunciation, instead of the Latin pronunciation of Zeus’s full name.

“Grow up, Gabe.”

“Angel, Zeus. Just to be clear…” Ragno’s voice was soothing and calm, as though she was used to being an intermediary between the two men. “Goldman knew we were proceeding with the bounty hunt before I said a thing. Yet another reminder that word is out. If Maximov is hiding in Praptan, and if we hope to surprise him, we only have a limited time frame with which to work.”

Abe leaned towards Samantha, pushing his tortoise-shell glasses up his nose, his blue eyes sparkling with intense interest in the exchange between Zeus and his agent, and what was happening on the monitors. He wore slacks and loafers, but over his shirt he wore a gray sweatshirt with a Black Raven logo. Though the sweatshirt was large for him, he looked comfortable in it, as though he’d given up his Brooks Brothers-style polish and was trying to be one of them.

“Abe,” Samantha asked, “how’s your arm?”

He shrugged. “Fine.” He gestured with his chin to the monitors, and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Gabe is leading the bounty hunt. Zeus—Jesus. Gabe—Michael Gabriel.” He arched an eyebrow, and gave her a slight eye roll and a smirk. “As in Archangels? Do you think their mom had high expectations for them when she named them?”

Samantha chuckled as she glanced from the brother on the monitor to the brother in the room, eyeing each man as they projected a powerful aura of confident determination.

“Ragno, give me a map with nothing but the Goldman areas of interest, and keep radiation levels constant,” Zeus said.

Gabe looked into the camera. “Why don’t we just see what Goldman says, without worrying about radiation for a while? Remember, we’ll be carrying radiation detection devices.”

“I remember, and no,” Zeus said, tone firm. “Keep radiation levels constant on the Goldman map. I want to assess the importance of each grid in light of radiation levels.”

One of the monitors that had shown a map went dark. A new map appeared, as a basic grid of streets. As the map pulsed with an overlay of additional three-dimensional detail, Ragno said, “Radiation levels are red and orange. The Goldman priority areas are purple.”

Gabe glanced at Zeus. “No matter how we dissect the intel, it looks like I’ll need more men. With Goldman’s data, and information I’ve gathered from other search efforts, there are just too many sectors that warrant a search.”

Zeus drew a deep breath, his eyes on the monitors. “We need more intel.”

Everyone in the room fell silent as the Goldman map was layered with more detail. Keeping an eye on the monitors, Sam turned on her laptop as she thought through whether any of the information she’d come upon as she’d worked on the ITT proceeding could be relevant to a potential search of Praptan.

Before her laptop had powered up, Zeus slid into the empty chair at the table she was sharing with Charles and Abe. He placed his iPad in front of him. One of the agents at the table where Zeus had been sitting turned the camera in their direction. “Gabe?”

His attention remained focused on something other than the camera for a few seconds, then his green eyes seemed to look right at her. “Yeah?”

“Meet the Amicus team. Sam, Abe, Charles, meet Agent Michael Gabriel Hernandez. Gabe. My brother. He’s leading the bounty hunt.” Gabe’s eyes lingered on her, even though his fingers flew over the keyboard at the same time.

Years earlier, she’d learned of Zeus’s closeness to his family only after he had started the conversation that led to him leaving her. Before that conversation, she and Zeus hadn’t talked much about the personal issues that had mattered so much to him. They’d been too busy with…other things.

Big mistake.

Falling in love with him before knowing anything of the subtlety and complexity that drove each of his decisions in the real world–the world that she was no part of—had been a bad move on her part. The mistake, of course, had started with the falling in love part. It had simply been exacerbated by the reality of his life. And hers.

Now, as Gabe stared at her with an expression that suggested more than casual interest, she wondered whether he knew that she and Zeus had shared history. Gabe glanced at his computer screen, typed a short burst of commands, and glanced back at her. Something in the questioning look in his eyes made her wonder whether he was typing a question about her, instant messaging Ragno or his brother for more information.

Doesn’t matter
.

With Zeus’s left leg pressed solidly against her right, Samantha nodded hello to Gabe, and shifted her eyes to Zeus as she reminded herself not to dwell upon the interwoven tapestry of personal issues that made him the man he was. Even without thinking of the underlying complexity that drove him, the sheer physicality of him sitting close to her was enough of a distraction.

She shifted her leg away from his, but in a few seconds he found hers again, the solid muscles of his thigh rock hard against hers. The table seated six. It was spacious enough for everyone to have private legroom.

Zeus gave her that slight smirk of a smile, indicating he didn’t intend to respect her personal space. Being in a professional setting at the same table with a man with whom she’d just had mind-blowing sex, pretending that nothing happened, was a new one for her. Pretending there was nothing between them, however, was not new, and she could accomplish that despite the warm pressure of his leg, which had her insides quivering.

Because there is nothing there. Remember?

While her body reacted to the nearness of him with a yearning that took her breath, she composed her features to match the coolness in his expression.

Focus on the task at hand.

Maximov. Find him. Convict him. End him.

She tore her attention from Zeus and stared at the maps on the monitors. Although the Goldman map had been stripped of most of the colors and detail reflected on the other map, red levels remained constant, and various areas were marked with x’s on both maps. The x’s had dates.

“What are the x’s?” she asked.