In the Dead of the Night (24 page)

He looked up at Caruso, the glint in his eyes revealing he knew what Thurman wanted the woman for.
She’d calm the rage that burned in him. He couldn’t wait an hour longer.

“Get right on it, boss.”

***

Allan kissed Jenny’s eyelids as she lay beneath him, their skin glistening with perspiration, glad Dale and Cameron hadn’t arrived five minutes earlier while they were in
the middle of lovemaking. Hmm, she was the best thing that had ever happened to him. He rolled off Jenny with a groan. “Guess it’s time to eat dinner, albeit a little cold.”

Then the realization Stevens would come for her and try to take her away from him, chilled him to the bone.

She smiled and touched her naked breast, the nubs still hard and flushed. God, she was beautiful. He fought the urge to stay with her in bed, pulling his trousers on in a hurry before he changed his mind.

A devilish smile played on her lips.
She climbed out of bed as he buckled his belt, then she crossed the floor and pressed her breasts against his bare chest. “Hmm,” she said as she kissed his mouth.

He ran his fingers over her back, her fragrant skin, silky to the touch.
He wanted to return to bed with her, snuggle with her for the rest of the evening, enjoy her loving curves, the taste of her sweet skin, the feel of her warm breath panting against his mouth, but he had to do a job, protect her at all costs. No matter what, he couldn’t let that bastard Wilson get hold of her again.

She li
cked Allan’s nipple. Groaning, he cupped her face in his hands, then tilted her head up.

“Later, honey.”
His voice betrayed the arousal she stirred all over again. He kissed her mouth with feeling, and she parted her lips, encouraging him to explore her deeply all over again. “
You
, are a vixen.”

He grabbed her gown and held it for her.
She stepped into it, and once he’d pulled it up to cover her breasts, she turned around for him to zip up the zipper.

Once he was done, he pulled her back against his chest and ran his hands over her satin-covered breasts.
“You sure know how to get a man all worked up.”

She laughed, throatily, like she had a lot more moves where those were from to use on him later.

He nuzzled her neck. “Keep thinking those thoughts.”

Grasping his hand, she
slid it down her dress. He chuckled deeply, as she directed his fingers to her soft rounded breast.

He massaged her breast and held onto her waist, pressing her back against his erection.
“More…later.”

Then he let her
go and reached down to get his T-shirt while she brushed out her hair. After pulling his shirt on, he led her out of the bedroom.

Sitting
on the sofas in the living room, Dale and Cameron looked up at them. Each had a handful of cards, playing a game to while away the time. Dale smiled. “Noticed you didn’t quite get to your dinner yet. Guess something else came up.” A pregnant pause followed. “I guess we came back too early, but better safe than sorry.”

“Yeah,” Cameron said, tossing a card on the discard pile on the oak coffee tabletop.
“That’s what’s good about microwave ovens. Heat up that cold meal in a jiffy, so you can keep other things warm in the meantime.”

Jenny slipped into the kitchen, her cheeks flaming red.
Allan shook his head at his partners, who laughed in response. He followed her into the kitchen where she’d already started to warm up their plates.

Glancing at the dining table and not seeing their champagne, he called out, “Where are our drinks?”

“In the fridge,” Dale hollered back. “Nothing worse than hot bubbly.”

Allan pulled the glasses of champagne out of
the fridge. Once their food was warmed up, they sat down to enjoy it.

Butte
ring his asparagus, he asked, “Is there anything about Wilson that might help us to identify him when we catch hold of him again?”

She furrowed her brow, apparently deep
in thought. “He had a bullet wound in his left shoulder. In about the same place yours is. He also had a knife wound in his left side.”

“Didn’t you wonder about that?”

She avoided his eyes. “Yeah, well, I guess I’m rather gullible when believing people. Men in particular.”

Allan at once felt like a heel all over again.
Wilson had the serial killer instinct. He could talk himself out of a maximum security prison, if they ever got him confined to one.

“I’m sorry, honey.”
Allan leaned over to kiss her cheek. “I didn’t mean to sound so disbelieving. The guy could sell a desert island in the middle of nowhere, he’s that convincing.”

“After Roy
and then the guy I was engaged to, I shouldn’t have trusted Wilson either.”

Allan shook his head.
“We’re not all like that. You had to feel some of us were decent.”

“Yeah, you.”
She scooped up some potatoes. “He said he’d been taken prisoner by terrorists when he was on vacation in Columbia. They’d nearly killed him.”

“He was telling the truth in part, only he was the terrorist, killing vacationers in Columbia for their money.
Maybe one of his own men got knife happy. As for the bullet in his shoulder…” Allan speared a chunk of meaty lobster. “That was mine.”

Jenny’s full pink lips parted slightly.
“Oh, my God, Allan. No.”

“Yeah.
Stevens was there, disappeared though in the thick of the shooting. I never thought about it before, but now that I know he’s part of Wilson’s terrorist organization, I realize he would have told Wilson who shot him.”

Jenny touched t
he shell of her lobster. “Now you’ve gone and married me.”

“Yeah, and pulled the money out of his grasp.
He’s really not going to be happy when he learns I’m back to haunt him.” He patted her hand to reassure her as her eyes remained big and full of worry. “Can you think of anything else about him?”

“He’s got one blue eye and one brown.
He was pretty mad at me when I walked in on him in the bathroom one time and saw him with his contacts out. I thought I’d heard him in the kitchen, and he hadn’t locked the bathroom door. Seemed to have bothered him that I saw his eyes weren’t the same color. But then he quickly made up to me for getting angry.”

Allan frowned.
He really didn’t like hearing how the bastard had wormed his way into Jenny’s life. He had to know all he could about Wilson, but in hearing about it, his stomach hardened like a rock, thinking of how intimate they must have been.

He waited to hear anything further from her recollections, not wanting to continually prompt her, to force her to divulge what had to be painful memories to her now.
But when she didn’t speak further, just poked at her lobster, he reached over and clasped his hand over hers. “Come here, honey.” He pulled her from her chair. With her nestled in his lap, he said, “Can you think of anything else?”

She rested her head against his shoulder.
“I heard him talking on the phone once. But he quickly ended the conversation. Naturally it made me suspicious because my ex-fiancé had pulled the same thing with me. Only he’d been calling his new girlfriend on the sly.”

He realized the breakup with her fiancé still bothered her, but he needed to keep the focus on Wilson for now.
Anything they could glean about him was more important. Later, he wanted to hear everything about her life. He ran his fingers over her hands. “What did Wilson say?”

“I don’t know.
I mean, I caught bits and pieces. I hadn’t realized until now, but there was something about him that made me afraid. He never seemed to want to talk to me about his past. Even when I asked him about his wounds, as concerned as I was that someone would injure him like that, he seemed annoyed. But I’m not naturally suspicious of people and when he explained things like he did, I believed him. Still, when I heard him on the phone, I grew afraid, terrified he’d catch me listening to him. Yet, I couldn’t break away from listening, wanting to know if he did indeed have another girlfriend, maybe, since it had happened to me before.”

“But
—”

She shook her head.
“He said something about putting someone out of their misery. Of course people say things like that when they’re mad, so I really didn’t think anything of it. And frankly, I was glad he wasn’t talking to a girlfriend. Now that I know more about him, I realize I’d have been better off if he had been.”

“Anything else you can remember?”

She shook her head. “It all comes back in puzzle pieces. Lots of it doesn’t even make sense. It’s like I see a face, sometimes a brief glimpse of an incident. Sometimes even a sound makes me remember something. Like the air conditioner turning on.”

Allan stroked her bare arm.
“Music. Sometimes playing a piece of music will bring on a memory. I was listening to a particular song when Millie told me she wanted a divorce. Believe me, I don’t care for the piece anymore. It always makes me think of the conversation we had.”

“I’m sorry, Allan.”
She kissed his cheek.

Sighing
deeply, he wondered how he could ever have gotten so lucky to have Jenny. Garcia’s words came crashing back to him.
You’ll thank me for this assignment.
Allan hated to admit it, but the boss was right this time around. Then his thoughts shifted to the music and the memories that got him worked up over Millie and their divorce. “I’m wondering if you might have some CDs in your home that could help you to remember anything.”

“I’m on it,” Dale hollered from the living room.

She whispered to Allan, “Are they listening to everything we say?”

“You bet.
Dale will call the details you’ve remembered about Wilson into the boss.”

She wrinkled her nose.

He kissed it. “What, honey?”

“I forgot they were here, quite frankly.”

He smiled. “Only doing their job.” He patted her thigh. “Let’s eat. Then we need to discuss the tactics for tonight.”

He wasn’t used to having a woman under his care while they concerned themselves with a battle with terrorists.
And now for the woman to be his new wife, the whole scenario made his skin crawl. Somehow, they had to capture or kill Stevens and the rest of his goons, then get Jenny to a safe place again.

When they both finished eating their dinner, Al
lan led her to the living room.

Dale jumped up from the couch and sat on a chair next to Cameron’s to make room for Allan and Jenny.
They sat down together, their legs touching, his hand holding hers. He couldn’t help the feeling that tonight he would lose her for good if he wasn’t careful.

“Okay, we need to discuss something of the logistics of the situation tonight.”
He faced Jenny. “Did you have gas mask training in the Army?”

“Yes.
You think they’ll use gas?”

“We have to consider every possible scenario, but yeah, I think it’s a good possibility.”

“Don’t you think they’d expect you to be prepared for them?”

“Yeah, but Wilson’s not a patient man.
Whoever doesn’t get a job done right for him, he terminates. We figure Stevens already said he’d have you delivered to him tonight, since he told you he was going to walk with you.”

“I don’t understand why
he thought I’d go along with his scheme.”

“Dale came up with a couple of reasons.
He didn’t believe he could get you out any other way. Possibly he figured you’d believe him, just like Millie and countless other women believed his lies. But if he had an inkling of what you’d do…run away, not trusting either him or us, he might have thought he could get to you easier that way. I suspect he wasn’t prepared for you to run. I believe he thought you trusted him, and thought we were the terrorists. Otherwise, I’m sure he might have picked you up before you even made it to the bridge.”

She nodded.
“He did put doubts in my mind all right.” She shuddered. “I’m just glad my recklessness didn’t get anyone hurt.” She squeezed Allan’s hand. “So what’s the plan?”

“We stay here until he strikes.
I’ll remain in the bedroom with you. Cameron and Dale will stay in the living area. Lantham and the others are guarding the first two floors. We have four others outside on perimeter alert, an early warning system.”

Pulling her close, he
wrapped his arm around her shoulder. “After Stevens and his men are captured, we’ll move to another safe house. Only we haven’t been told where yet.”

“You won’t reconsider and let me borrow one of your guns, honey?”

Dale grinned, but shook his head. “Never trust a woman with a gun.”

“Got a sordid past?” Jenny teased.

He laughed. “No. But we’ve been trained to shoot at moving objects, in this case, the bad guys. I imagine all you had were stationary targets and never fired on a living being before. Not only that, but we can’t afford to have you shoot one of us by accident.”