Deadly Little Secrets (30 page)

 

Ana hadn't intended to sleep, but she did. The palatial Waldorf room was dark and cool, the bed turned down and the blinds drawn. A knock on the door woke her, and she called out, “Hang on, be right there.”

Alexia was there, with a clipped set of papers and a tray of coffee. “Mr. G said to bring this in. I'm sorry to disturb you, but he didn't think you wanted to sleep for very long.”

“What time is it?”

“It's around four. You've slept for about two hours or so,” Alexia chirped. “Would you like me to open the blinds? It's still pretty rainy and gray, but the sun's been out a little bit.”

Two hours? It felt like only five minutes had passed. “Sure, go ahead.” She regretted the invitation to draw the blinds when a shaft of sunlight burst through the window. She felt like a vampire.

“Wow, that's bright. So, what are the papers?” She pointed to the stack that Alexia had set on the bed to open the drapes.

“Fax that came in for you,” Alexia said. “It's from your San Francisco office, I think. We have a fax here in the suite, so it's been kept confidential.”

“That's good. I'll be out in a few minutes.”

“Take your time. Mr. B isn't awake yet. Mr. G's waiting another half an hour before he wakes him up.” The young woman bounced out of the suite, and Ana decided she'd have to kill her if she worked with her too much. Perky just pissed her off.

It made her wonder how she and Jen had become best friends. Jen was terminally perky. “Probably a good thing we don't live together or anything,” she muttered, as she pulled fresh clothes out of the suitcase. She took them to the bathroom, along with her makeup kit, to freshen up.

A quick wash and change gave her time to think things through, and thinking of Jen reminded her that she needed to check her e-mail.

“Fax first, e-mail second, new round of data crunching last,” she said as she picked up the neatly printed sheets from the fax. The fax was from Pretzky.

“Couldn't get your cell. Senior Special Agent Hines, McGuire's former partner, is in the wind, his house and all financial accounts cleared,” she read. “Like we didn't expect that,” Ana said sarcastically. She continued to read the niggling little details of the search and was about to move on when the last note popped out at her:
Second attempt on McGuire.

“Shit, shit, shit,” she cursed, hurrying back to the conference room, to pull up the e-mails on her computer. She'd lay money that one of the e-mails was from the retired agent.

The first one was from Jen, hoping she'd passed the review. The second was from the retired agent.

Ana went immediately to her purse and retrieved her phone. “Damn, the battery's totally dead.” She untangled the charger cords, and plugged it in.

She quickly used her laptop to answer Jen and McGuire and decided she'd better give McGuire a call as well.

She left the conference room to find Alexia or Dav and get access to a phone. The first person she found was Alexia.

“Oh, yes, there's actually one in the conference room,” Alexia said, directing her back the way she'd come. “Dav's on a call right now and asked not to be disturbed. Here—” The young woman opened a panel in the wall, took out a business desk phone, and set it on the table. When she finished, the phone was plugged in and ready to use. “Dav's on line one so use line three, please.”

There was no answer at McGuire's, so she left a message.

“Back to the drawing board,” Ana muttered and settled in with the e-mail. She waded through the rest of the spam and offers for health products in her e-mail in-box to open another e-mail from Jen. D'Onofrio had broken it off with Jen. By text message.

“Slime,” Ana muttered, slamming her fist on the table. “Men are slime.” Her hands were poised over the keyboard to respond when Gates came in.

“Slime, are we?” Gates said from the doorway. With careful steps, he made his way to the same chair he'd used earlier. So close, with just three chairs between them, and yet, like before, it seemed they were miles apart.

“Some of you,” she said. “Some are pretty decent, I guess.”

“So do I fall in the slime category or the decent category?” he asked, shifting to find a comfortable position in the seat. He looked both guarded and determined, an unusual combination.

She ignored the winking e-mails and swiveled to face him. Oh, God, they were going to have to have one of
those
talks.
Why now?
She wished like anything that they could put it off.

Luck had never been her strong suit. “I guess that means we're going to talk about this.”

“I know I'm not a good bet, Ana.” Gates went on the offensive before she could even take a breath. “I'm dedicated to my job. I love what I do. So do you. I was harsh when you came to the hospital.” He looked away as he said it. The investigator in her recognized it as a sure sign of remorse, or a lie. Either one said he felt he'd screwed up. She wasn't buying it.

“Harsh? You call that harsh?” She had to get up, get out of the chair and move away from the power he exuded over her senses. Even banged up and pale, he drew a response from her body, her mind; she still wanted him. “Pretty mild word for what you said, don't you think?”

“What do you expect, Ana?” he flared, and she heard the guilt ringing in his voice. “I'd been shot. An inch higher or lower and they'd be putting me in the ground. How I managed to get out alive, much less with as little damage as I had, is a fucking miracle.”

“You think I don't know that?” she fired back, moving in on him now. “I was
there,
Gates. I held you in my arms all the way to the damn hospital. Your blood was on my hands”—she held them up, then pointed to her chest—“on
my
heart, on
my
watch. I thought you were going to
die,
Gates, right there. Another death on my conscience.” She was close to him now, breathing hard with the sheer weight of the words she'd been carrying.

The look in his eyes was powerful, magnetic. It wasn't soft though, it wasn't acquiescence. It didn't seem to be understanding.

She threw up her hands in defeat. She refused to do this again. Refused. “Stop baiting me,” she said. “You've made your decision, Gates. I don't have to like it, but I'm a big girl. If you don't want me in your life, if all the—”

She stopped. How did you condense their brief time of deep, powerful passion into a trite phrase? “If the time we had together was your idea of a fling, so be it. I'm not built that way. My bad. Done. Move on, okay? But if you regret it, if you're trying to make up, you're doing a pretty sucky job.”

She stared at him, breath coming in harsh waves as she stood over his chair.

“Is that what you really want? For me to leave you alone?” He said it mildly, but the waves of tension rolling off him said the answer mattered. Deeply.

“Arrrrrrrrgh!” she half-screamed, smacking the wall next to where she stood. “What the hell are you getting at, Gates? You push me away like some cheap whore, like a fling that you were done with.” She mimicked his cold tone as she said, “So long, Agent Burton, thanks for letting me bleed on you.” She paced away, then back. “And you want to dig it up so you can throw that dirt at me again? What do
you
want?” she demanded. Before he could answer, she had to add, “And whatever it is, well, fuck you.”

With deliberate care, he pushed himself to a standing position.

“I had a lot of time to think about it,” he said, never raising his voice, which was nearly as infuriating as having to wait while he dismissed her yet again. “When I was awake, and able to think.”

“What's to think about? You've already made it clear you're done with me.” She turned, but he moved to her, faster than she thought possible in his condition. Bracing himself on the wall she'd smacked, he grabbed her hand in a firm, unbreakable grip. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction of struggling to break free. She stood there, furious and hurt, with her heart cracking all over again. “What?”

“I said, I had to think.”

“Yeah, and?”

“All I could think about was you.” His verbal bombshell had her gaping. “I told myself we were wrong for each other, that we had different needs, different lives. We're both stubborn.”

“There's news,” she snapped. “Get on with this, will you? I've got work. I get it, okay? We're ships in the night, peas and carrots, not going to work. All the clichés. Whatever.” She tugged at her hand, trying to gesture, but he still held her fast. “We had fun, it was real, blah, blah, blah. Let go of me.” She yanked at her hand, fighting the terrible urge to cry, but he refused to release her.

“No. I've done too much letting go,” he said, never taking his eyes off her face. “On the other hand, I've held too tightly to the past, living in Dav's shadow, surviving, but not really living. This—” He slid his free hand around her neck, the heat of it firing her skin, sending a flush of desire straight to her innermost self, despite the way he'd treated her. “This. You. What we have together is something I want to hang on to.”

She couldn't speak. Couldn't believe what she was hearing.

“I screwed up, Ana,” he said.

She wanted to pull away. Where was the Ana who would stand up for herself, not be walked on this way?

The door opened behind them, and Ana caught a quick glimpse of Dav in the mirror before he retreated and the door clicked softly closed. Smart man.

That glimpse of Dav, of a man who'd faced adversity, who'd made money as a way to make friends in a new town; it gave her courage.

“Yeah, you did,” she said, meeting his gaze squarely. If he wanted her back, he was going to have to grovel. “You fucked up big time. And I don't know if I can forget. I can forgive you,” she said, but stopped him from speaking or moving when he would have drawn her in closer, tried to use the attraction between them to persuade her. “I don't know if I can forget though,” she finished, stepping back. She didn't pull loose from his confining hand, but she did give herself distance. Her heart felt like it was in a vise. She wanted him, but would that ever be enough? Wanting wasn't loving. Wanting wasn't trust.

Gates looked both devastated and determined. “I get that. I know I have to earn your trust back,” he said, hitting the issue dead on. “Ana.” His voice was caressing now. “I don't know how we'll work this out. I don't know if we can, but I want to try. All that thinking time?”

“Yes?” she managed to say, her gut quivering with need, with anger and fear, with everything that welled up to choke and confuse her.

“I realized that I've been looking for you all along.” He lowered his head to plant a kiss on her cheek, a tentative brush, as he had the first time they met. “If I beg,” he whispered, as he kissed her cheek again. “Plead, maybe.” Another kiss, a mere whisper of lips and tongues. “Get down and grovel, even.”

He was seducing her with his mouth, his words. Her hands were gripping his arms now, hanging on instead of bracing to push him away. “If I do all that, do you think you can forgive me?”

If only it were that easy. She wanted to, God knew, she wanted to, but she had the feeling that her life was finally her own again, and that if she gave in now, if she let him off the hook, she'd be right back in the dungeon again.

“Gates,” she said, pulling back, desperately seeking some solid emotional footing. “I don't know. I just, I just…” She couldn't voice the turmoil in her mind. She was an agent. Career wise, literally a hundred options lay before her. None of them would be easy, nor would any be a stable, nine-to-five sort of existence. Not one of the options in the envelope she'd been given had room for a personal relationship.

Not one.

“I understand,” he murmured, resting his forehead on hers. “I'm not good at this, Ana. I suck at talking, at relationships.” He shook his head. “I've had more practice shutting people out than letting them in.” With that admission, he shuddered, closed his eyes. “Even if I try, I don't know if I'll be able to get past that.”

“I don't know if I'll even be here, Gates. Not with my job.”

He nodded. “I know. We've got a lot of stuff to figure out and this isn't the time. But I'd like to ask a favor. Please.”

She was watching him when he opened his eyes. They were full of reflected pain and the strain of his injuries. How could she deny him a favor? How? She sighed. “What's the favor?”

“I want you to play pretend with me,” he said, and his smile momentarily blocked out the pain etched on his face.

“Pretend?” she managed to say. Her voice was choked with the emotion she was struggling not to feel, or show, so she took refuge in sarcasm. “What is this, second grade?”

“Might be better if it were,” he quipped. “Second graders are supposed to be kind, to share and to kiss and make up. Grown men aren't.”

She sighed, knowing she couldn't deny him. “What's the pretend scenario?”

“I want to pretend that I never said what I said in the hospital. I want to pretend that it was the drugs talking and I was so doped up I didn't know what I was saying.”

“You want to pretend it never happened?” She was incredulous. “Even if we did,” she said, trying to pull away, “we still have too much between us. Your job, my job. Dav. No, you were right, Gates. We don't belong together.” Her heart was breaking as she said it, but he'd been right too. It was for the best.