Rafe Sinclair's Revenge

It would be a step back to the personal. Back to things he didn’t want to talk about any more than she did. Back to the need for some explanation of why he’d left.

He could make one. He could tell her all the things that he’d never been willing to share before. He had thought about doing that a thousand times.

Even if she knew, even if she understood, it wouldn’t change a thing. Nothing could.

He had always known that one night, as he took her into his arms, feeling the sensual slide of sweat-moistened skin against his, she would suddenly become the woman from the embassy. The woman with the silent scream. The woman who had died in his arms.

And when that happened, she would know everything he had come to know about himself. That was the one thing he had known he couldn’t live with—what would be in her eyes when she looked at him then.

THE CAB he’d called before they left the emergency room had been waiting at the back entrance when they finally made their way through the maze of hospital corridors. The driver, an elderly black man, had been eager to talk about the explosion in Magnolia Grove.

According to him, everyone was buying into the fire chief’s explanation that it had been caused by a gas leak. From their perspective, that was probably a good thing, Rafe decided.

It wouldn’t stand up to an arson investigation, of course. And he’d be willing to bet that the methodology used in this bombing, the so-called signature of the bomber, would be identical to that used in those that had precipitated the CIA security alert Griff had shown him.

By the time that had all been determined, he’d have Elizabeth away. With the care the CIA had taken in destroying any link between the people on Griff’s team and the agency itself, no one would ever connect Magnolia Grove, Mississippi, or Beth Anderson to those acts of terrorism.

Rafe had every confidence that he could keep her safe. The most dangerous aspect would be getting her out of town, simply because that’s where the terrorist was. Or maybe he was wrong about that. Maybe this guy wasn’t one of those who waited around to glory in the results. And maybe pigs can fly.

“Drive around the block,” he instructed the cabbie as they approached the motel.

Despite the ongoing excitement a couple of streets away, the parking lot looked reassuringly empty in the early-afternoon heat. Most of the cars that had been there when he’d pulled aside the drapes this morning had since disappeared, moving on to their next destination.

His own sat fairly isolated among the remaining vehicles. It looked the same as it had when he’d parked it there last night. Of course, looking the same and being the same were vastly different.

All kinds of things might have been done to it in that time frame. Something could have been attached to it, for example. A device set to explode when he turned the key in the ignition. Or when he unlocked the door.

“Want me to drive around again, boss?” the cabbie asked after he’d made the slow circuit of the block.

Not much point, Rafe decided. There was only one way to tell if the room or his car had been tampered with. “That’s okay,” he said. “Pull up near Room 18.”

“You got it.”

The cabbie maneuvered his ancient sedan into one of the parking spaces that had opened up in front of the room since Rafe had left it on foot this morning. Rafe added a generous tip to the fare and handed it to the driver across the bench-type front seat. “Thanks for coming all the way out to the hospital.”

“Glad to do it. Ain’t nothing else happening around here. Not with all that commotion going on. Least the air-conditioning in the car works. Cooler here than at home,” the old man said, carefully folding the bills and putting them in the breast pocket of his cotton sports shirt.

Rafe didn’t argue the point, although the air inside the cab wasn’t appreciably cooler than that he stepped out into. He had thought it was hot this morning, but the afternoon’s heat was a physical assault.

He glanced at Elizabeth’s face as she slid across the cracked vinyl seat and climbed out, using his hand for support. The nearer they had gotten to town, the quieter she had become. Now her expression was closed, her face still colorless, the features pinched with the strain of the last few hours.

She waited until the cab had driven away before she revealed what she’d been thinking during the ride back. “I need to call Darrell. If this is what you think it is, then I’m responsible for what happened to the office.”

“Your partner?”

She nodded. “Semiretired. I handle most of the cases now. It’s what he intended when he took me into partnership. He’s been very good to me, Rafe. At the very least I owe him some explanation—”

“You don’t owe him anything,” he said harshly, taking her elbow and urging her toward the room.

“He owned that building. It was an investment. And if what you believe is true—”

“He’ll have insurance. If he doesn’t, he’s an idiot. And if he’s really ready to retire, the explosion was probably a blessing. He won’t have to fool with selling the place.”

“I’m not sure he’ll think that,” Elizabeth said.

He could tell she wasn’t pleased with his lack of sympathy for her partner’s loss. He was still having trouble dealing with the realization that she was supposed to have been inside that building when it blew. Somehow, in light of that information, he couldn’t be too concerned about the fate of bricks and mortar.

This wasn’t Jorgensen, but whoever it was had already proved that he valued human life no more than his role model. And proved that he was out to make a personal rather than a political statement.

“Stay back,” he ordered when they reached the walkway in front of the motel.

“You think he’s rigged something up in your room?”

“I think we don’t know who or what we’re dealing with,” he said, “and until we do…”

He flattened his hand to fish the key out of the front pocket of his jeans. It was the old-fashioned metal kind, which was rare these days. Of course, there was probably little cause to worry about theft in this setting.

As little as there had been to worry about an act of terrorism. Until today.

“You’re just going to stick that key in the lock and turn it in an effort to find out?”

Her sarcasm was born of anxiety. He understood that. She would be feeling the same sickness in the bottom of her stomach that he’d experienced rounding the corner this morning and verifying that the fire was in her office.

Something about her words nagged at him, however. You’re just going to stick that key in the lock…

“Is that what you did?” he asked, turning to look at her.

“What?”

“Is that what triggered the bomb? When you turned the key in the office door?”

She didn’t answer at once, her eyes again losing their focus as she thought about the sequence. “I never made it that far,” she said finally. “I didn’t get close enough to the building to put the key in the door. Not before it blew.”

That news wouldn’t make him any less cautious. Someone like Jorgensen—someone using his methods—didn’t employ the same trick again. That was the genius of how he managed to do what he did, despite the strictest security precautions. He always came at you from a different direction.

Reminded of that, Rafe bent to examine the lock. There was nothing to hint it had been tampered with. No scratches on the surface. And it was a standard metal door, which would provide some protection from an explosion.

“Rafe,” Elizabeth said softly.

He couldn’t quite read the tone, but it seemed strange. Not caution. Not anxiety. He glanced at her over his shoulder and knew immediately from her expression that she had just thought of something she knew was important.

“I hit the autolock, and it blew,” she said. “It was keyed to my remote. They never meant for me to be inside.”

They. The one word that was the most revealing in what she’d said. The most riveting. They.

“Steiner.” The name sounded like an obscenity.

“You can’t know that for sure.”