Linda Howard - Kill and Tell

Night had completely fallen, and he had removed his jeans. Rain still pattered down outside, and the French doors were still open, letting in the damp air. Nothing else in the universe existed but the confines of the bed and man who held her close to his heat and hardness. She didn't think, simply was , for the first time in her life, lost to pure physical pleasure. He could have done anything to her, and she wouldn't have protested.

He slid down her body and pressed his mouth to her, the caress so tender and intimate she almost wept, would have if desire hadn't risen again, throbbing insistently in her loins. He mounted her, said, "I'm going to do you hard this time," and did, ruthlessly driving for his own pleasure and making her come, too. She thought she would faint this time, the spasms were so intense. She clutched his sweaty sides and completely gave herself up to him. This savage lovemaking in the dark, rainy New Orleans night was more intensely carnal than anything she could have imagined doing, and she didn't want it to end. This time, he slept, too, holding her so close that sweat formed between their bodies, sealing them together.

The night felt endless. She woke to the same rain and darkness, the hot damp air, the contrasting coolness of the rain-laden breezes. She couldn't see a clock anywhere, wouldn't have looked at it in any case. She kissed her way down his body. By the time she reached his groin, he was awake, erect, groaning. She kissed his shaft, licked the length of it, and felt it grow even more, then she took him fully in her mouth. Torment was a two-way street, and she wanted him to enjoy it as much as she had. She didn't know how many times they made love that night. Her mind was in a fog, her body completely turned over to him. When she was so exhausted she simply couldn't respond again, he cradled her in his arms and brushed a tender kiss across her eyes. "Sleep, darlin'," he whispered in that black magic voice, and it was as if she only needed to hear the words before she let go of consciousness.

Chapter 10

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Hayes was a careful man. He hired competent people, but when someone told him a job was done, he didn't necessarily take it for granted that the job had been done to his satisfaction. He made it a point to double-check everything. His caution paid off, letting him catch and deal with irritants before they became major problems. The people who worked for him considered him a major pain in the ass, but the people for whom he worked were eternally grateful for his attention to detail. When Clancy called and reported he had taken care of his assignment, Hayes believed him; Clancy was damn good at what he did. But he still contacted another source to have a copy of the police report on the house fire, as well as the newspaper account, faxed to him on a private, untraceable line. He was competent with computers but more comfortable with older technology; he thought the security was better. With computers, who knew what little puke in Hoboken or somewhere was taking a peek at everything he sent or received?

His source called back the next day. "I can't find anything about a Karen Whitlaw's house burning," he said. "There was a house fire, but the house belonged to a couple named Hoerske." Hayes cursed. It wasn't like Clancy to burn the wrong house. "Do me a favor," he said. "Look in the phone book, and see what Karen Whitlaw's address is."

"Okay. Just a minute." The sound of riffling pages came through the phone line. "Whitfield… Whitfield…

Whitlaw. There's no Karen Whitlaw listed, but there is a K. S. Whitlaw."

"Hold on." Hayes checked the file he had on Dexter Whitlaw's wife and daughter. The daughter's middle name was Simone. "That would be her."

"Okay. The address is… hell, the address is the same as the Hoerskes' house." Hayes felt a headache forming behind his eyes. He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Fax everything you have to me."

"Sure."

Twenty seconds later, the fax machine was humming as it spit out the requested documents. Hayes didn't bother with the police report; he picked up the copy of the newspaper account: "A fire yesterday morning destroyed the residence of Nathan and Lindsey Hoerske. According to the fire marshall, the flame began in the kitchen. The Hoerskes, who bought the home only four months before, were not at home at the time of the blaze."

Hayes tossed the sheet down. It didn't take a genius to figure out what had happened; the Whitlaw woman had sold the house. Probably Clancy had looked up her address in the phone book, but phone books were only updated once a year.

He called Clancy. As always, he got voice mail. "Leave a number," Clancy's voice instructed, without identifying himself. "If I know you, I'll call back."

"You fucked up," Hayes said, also not identifying himself.

"The hell I did," Clancy said, picking up the phone. He sounded pissed; he wasn't used to customer dissatisfaction.

"She didn't live there, asshole. She sold the house four months ago."

"Well, sonofabitch. I hate that, burning down a house for nothing."

"Find her. And this time, do the job right."

Senator Stephen Lake expected to be the next president; a lot of other people expected the same thing. He and his older brother, William, had been groomed for public office from the time they were born, but when William died, Stephen had become the heir apparent. The Lakes were lawyers and judges and politicians, and Stephen was the fourth generation to follow that path. Senator Lake had always been acutely aware that William was his father's first choice, the apple of the old man's eye, and after William's death, Stephen had tried even harder to be the perfect politician, to make up to his father in some small way for the pain of losing his favorite son. He had set a sure and steady career course, building a reputation over the years as a man who always took the high road; an admirable position, Franklin Vinay thought, but the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, not to mention the agencies involved, would be better served by pragmatism than idealism. The DDO didn't like being summoned to the senator's office like a schoolboy ordered before the principal. He went anyway, and none of his distaste was revealed in his expression as he sat in the beautifully appointed office. He did wonder, though, what had brought the senator back to the capital during August; the last Vinay had heard, Senator Lake had been happily settled at the Minnesota estate he so loved. Vinay couldn't imagine anything less than a national emergency luring any of the politicians from their vacations during the worst of the summer heat. Since he would have known before any congressman if there was a national emergency, perhaps even before the president, Vinay knew that wasn't the case.

That made Senator Lake's presence all the more curious, and Franklin Vinay wasn't a man who ignored curiosities.

"Coffee, Frank?" the senator asked, gesturing toward a pot.

"No, thanks. I'm not tough enough to drink coffee during this heat." The senator laughed genially and helped himself to a cup, perhaps to prove he was tough enough. Vinay smiled, watching as the senator poured a single drop of cream into his coffee, wondering how many cups the senator would drink before he felt his manhood sufficiently established. He didn't ask why the senator had summoned him. Vinay had been in the game a long time; he knew the power of silence, how to play the subtle game of position: force the other side to come out first. He didn't betray any anxiety, or any secrets, by rushing into speech. That they were ostensibly on the same side didn't matter; Vinay let no one force him into unguarded speech. When he knew what the senator wanted, then he would know how to react.

Unfortunately, Senator Lake was a great one for small talk, rather than getting to the point. "This is the hottest summer I can remember," he said, leaning back in his butter-soft leather chair. "Miserably hot.

Normally, I take August for vacation—"

Like every politician in D.C. didn't, Vinay thought.

"—maybe get in a little trout fishing. Do you fish, Frank?"

"Not in years." He'd been too busy trying to contain some noxious isms , such as communism and terrorism.

"You really should try to get away more. Fishing puts a man back in touch with nature. You get to see unspoiled parts of the country, and you remember that most of America doesn't live in big cities. Our media is so dominated by what happens in the cities that we tend to forget the concerns of the rest of the country."

Vinay opened his mouth to agree, but the senator waved a hand. "Here I am rambling on, and I know you're busy. I'll get to the point. One of my aides informed me that one of your contract agents has been killed in Mississippi. Reassure me, Frank, that he wasn't on an assignment for you, and don't give me the standard quote that the CIA is forbidden to operate within our own borders. Being forbidden to do something and not doing it are two different things."

Vinay looked blank, but inside he was furious. The only way one of the senator's aides could find out about Rick Medina was from an inside source in Vinay's department. "Senator, there are no operations inside our borders, period. If a contract agent has been killed—and I haven't heard anything about it—then it was something unconnected to us."

"You haven't heard?" Now the senator looked blank. "But—"

"We use a lot of contract agents. They also work for other countries, as you well know, whenever they aren't working for us. Perhaps this person was on assignment, but not for us, and if that were the case, I wouldn't have any information on him or her. Which is it, by the way?"

"Which—?"

"A man or a woman?"

"Oh—a man. You truly haven't heard?"

"Like I said, if it doesn't concern the Agency, I would have no reason to be informed."

"I was informed this man's son is one of your people."

The senator had been informed of too goddamned much, Vinay thought grimly. And if he really thought Vinay would identify one of his most important operatives, then the senator also expected too goddamned much. "It's possible, but unless the death affected operations…" He shrugged, to show how unimportant it was to him that a contract agent had been killed.

Senator Lake consulted a file. "The agent was Rick Medina. Does the name ring a bell?"

"Rick Medina!" Vinay managed a credible look of shock. "Are you sure of that?"

"My source is very reliable," the senator said stiffly. He wasn't accustomed to having his word

questioned.

"I've known Rick for years—not well, no one knew him well, but he was one of our most reliable contract agents. Damn!"

"Are you also acquainted with his son?"

"Rick didn't have a family," Vinay lied. "He was a complete loner."

"I see." For some reason, Senator Lake seemed nonplussed. "Well." Vinay stood, his patience at an end. He was glad he was able to tell the truth about Medina not being on assignment for them when he was killed, but the senator knew too much, details of information that should not have come his way. Already, the deputy director was planning how he would bring the mole in his department out into the sunlight—and then fire his ass.

"Was that all you wanted, Senator?" he asked politely. "I assure you Medina wasn't running anything for us. If you want more detail, I'll be happy to check into his death and get back with you on anything I find."

"Oh, no, that won't be necessary. I was just worried about—well, you know the situation in the country these days, with militia groups looking for any detail, no matter how far-fetched, that they can find to prove our government has run amok. It's best to head these things off at the pass." It was a fairly legitimate concern, but something about the way it was stated struck Vinay as a little too pat, as if the answer had been rehearsed. "Yes, sir," he said. Something wasn't right here; he couldn't put his finger on it, but he trusted his instinct. Why would Senator Lake feel he had to come up with a plausible excuse for asking about Rick Medina?

Maybe Rick wasn't the focus of his questions. Maybe he had really been trying to get information on John. Suspicion struck Vinay hard in the gut. He couldn't think of any good reason why the senator would want or need to know anything about John Medina, but several bad reasons occurred to him, and they all needed to be investigated. He hadn't reached his present position by being gullible. After Vinay had gone, Senator Lake sat down at his wide, hideously expensive desk, absently rubbing his fingers along the glassy finish while he stared thoughtfully at the door through which Vinay had passed. Something very disturbing had happened in that meeting. There were two possibilities, and he didn't like either of them. Either Hayes was mistaken in his information, or the deputy director of operations had just lied to him.

Slowly, Senator Lake reached for the phone, then with swift decision punched in the number for a private line in his house. It was answered on the second ring, and a comfortingly familiar, nimbly voice soothed his sudden anxiety. "Raymond, could you catch the next flight to D.C.? I may need you."

Chapter 11

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Dragging her suitcase, Karen let herself into her apartment. Grimly, without letting herself look at the

answering machine because she knew the little red light would be blinking like a caution light, she went into the bedroom and completely unpacked. She took her time about it, hanging what she hadn't worn back in the closet and separating everything else into two piles, one for the laundry and one for the dry cleaner.

She watered her plants, put the laundry in the washing machine, then called her floor supervisor. "Judy, hi, it's Karen. I'm home, and I can go back to work tonight if you need me."

"If I need you?" Judy Camliffe echoed in heartfelt relief. "Marietta's been out with strep throat for two days, and Ashley called in sick today, too."

"What's wrong with Ashley?"

"The brown flu. So hell, yes, I need you. The question is, do you need to come back so soon? I'll manage tonight, somehow, if you need another day."

"Thanks," Karen said, meaning it. Judy was under a lot of pressure to keep her floor running smoothly with fewer nurses than ever, since the hospital wasn't immune to cutbacks. Five years ago, there were twelve registered nurses on the surgical floor, four per shift. Now there were eight whom Judy had to juggle among three shifts and two off days per nurse each week. Some nights there was only one RN on duty. The rumor was they would be going on twelve-hour shifts before the end of the year. "But I'm okay; the funeral was yesterday, and I flew home this morning."

"Really? I looked for the obituary, but I didn't see it."

"He's buried in Louisiana. I didn't have a plot for him here, and one of the detectives suggested I bury him there for the time being. Mom would have wanted them to be buried together, and there's no room beside her, so I'll have to find another place and have them both moved…" Her voice trailed off. She was vaguely surprised at herself. She liked Judy, considered her a friend, but she wasn't in the habit of rambling on about her private problems even to Piper, who was her closest friend. But mentioning Marc even indirectly rattled her so much she could barely think coherently; her heartbeat jumped into overdrive, her stomach clenched, her breasts tightened, her mouth watered. The symptoms of panic and sexual desire jumbled together, just as they had that morning when she had awakened in bed with him.