"How long did you figure the switch would last?" Lawson asked.
"How long would I continue being Melina? For as long as necessary to avenge her death. I didn't think past that. I suppose I committed a crime, didn't I? Impersonating someone?"
"I'm looking into it," Lawson mumbled.
Tobias said, "You exposed Brother Gabriel's crimes. That's my focus."
Gillian turned to Chief. "I was so afraid you were going to forget that we had seen Dale Gordon. That day in Lawson's office, when we supposedly met for the first time, I was prompting you to remember running into him at the taco restaurant. I had to let Lawson know that Dale Gordon was a lead, but I couldn't reveal it myself."
"You recognized him that night?"
"Immediately, although I couldn't place where I knew him from. Not until he said he worked at the Waters Clinic. Then I remembered seeing him there. He'd spoken to me a few times. And... and other things, apparently." She shuddered, thinking of the photos taken of her when she was unaware.
"That's when I learned she had a twin," Chief told the others. "She told me that Gordon must have mistaken her for her sister Gillian."
"But you were Gillian," Lawson said with some confusion. "Pretending to be Melina," Chief reminded him.
Lawson scowled at her. "You're sure you're Gillian now?" "Yes," she said with a weak smile. "I am."
"She is," Tobias said, looking abashed. "The autopsy report confirms that it was Melina who was killed."
"I was terrified that you would discover the discrepancy," she told Lawson. "Why would a woman with no female organs be artificially inseminated?"
"That's why you rushed to have the body cremated."
"Yes. Then when you, Mr. Tobias, told me that Lawson had given you the file on the murder, I was afraid that you would find it."
"I didn't. Not until tonight. I ran to tell Lawson, and we came rushing over here to enlist Ritchey's help to locate you, and instead found Colonel Hart locked in the cell, fit to be tied."
She turned to Chief. "They told you?"
He was about to speak when Lawson spoke for him. "We didn't have to. He had figured it out on his own."
"You had?" she asked huskily. "When?"
One of the deputies who was monitoring Ritchey chose that moment to open the door and interrupt. "Agent Tobias, he's asking for you. Wants to know if he has to see his wife. Says he can't face her or his other kids."
"Be right there." Tobias stood, officially adjourning the meeting. He told her and Chief that he had reserved rooms for them at the motel. "There'll be a chopper here tomorrow at ten to take us all to Albuquerque. From there you can fly on to Dallas." He glanced at Chief. "Or wherever. Just make sure you leave me a number where you can be reached. There'll be a lot of details. Paperwork."
His cell phone rang. He opened it and answered, "Tobias. Oh, yeah, Lucy. Thank you for calling me back. No, nothing else tonight. Go home. Rest. You can resume tomorrow. I just called to tell you again what an outstanding job you did on this case. Truly outstanding." He turned his back to them, but Gillian heard him say, "And to ask what kind of flowers you like. That's right. Flowers."
CHAPTER 42
"
I should have planted one of those transceivers on you myself."
Gillian had opened the hotel room door to find Chief with a hand on either side of the doorjamb, forming a human barrier. He was frowning deeply. "I've been knocking on this door for five full minutes."
"I was in the shower." Which should have been apparent, since she was bundled up in a white terrycloth robe, courtesy of The Mansion. Her wet hair had been combed, but the ends were dripping water onto her neck.
"For three days I've been leaving messages at your office and on your house phone. Why haven't you returned my calls?" "Who told you I was here?"
"Tobias."
"He caved?"
"When I threatened to sic NASA's PR department on his ass. He's got enough to worry about."
"I couldn't go back to my house, Chief. I never want to step foot inside it again. And Melina's house ... it seemed like another violation of her for me to be there. I hated myself for being there before."
"Are you going to keep me out here in the hall?"
She stepped aside and closed the door behind him. "I talked to Candace Anderson this afternoon."
"They got their kid back, I know. Tobias told me. They were
giddy. Said it never occurred to them to reject him."
"He's only seven and a half months old. Hopefully if there's
been any emotional damage, it will be minimal."
"They'll fix it."
She was as confident of that as Chief. "Have you checked on Pax?"
"Bandit's fine. He's fine. We're going for a beer together next week. Everything's bloody fine. Now—"
"Would you like something to drink?"
"No!" he said impatiently. "The trip back to Dallas? I thought you were going to be on my flight."
"How's your face?"
"Stitches."
"How many?"
"Seven, I think. I went to the men's room in the airport, and when I came out and didn't see you, I assumed you'd already boarded the plane."
"It'll scar."
"It'll make me look dashing and dangerous."
"It already does."
"But you weren't on the airplane, and I was stuck sitting next to Lawson. Who, by the way, has a crush on you." "Lawson?"
"Hates my guts. Snorts every time he looks at me." "I took another flight."
"To avoid me?"
"I had something important to do, Chief."
"What?"
"Get a blood test."
His chin went up as though someone had yanked a string on the back of his head. "Oh." He didn't have the courage to ask, but his face looked so anguished she didn't keep him in suspense.
"Negative."
He swallowed thickly. "It could have been mine."
"I thought of that."
She noted a small spasm at the corner of his lips that might have been caused by regret.
"But it could also have been his. And if it had been..." She closed her eyes, but that didn't trap the tears. They leaked out her eyelids and rolled down her cheeks.
He spoke her name softly and cupped her face between his hands.
"I'm sorry, Chief."
"Sorry?"
"For so much." She opened her eyes. "I didn't know I was going to meet you that night. I didn't know how I was going to feel about you from the moment I saw you. When I went to your room, when we started—"
"Shh."
"I didn't even think about the artificial insemination. It never crossed my mind. I swear it didn't."
"I believe you."
"Do you?"
He nodded. "Because I wasn't thinking about anything else, either."
She reached up to comb a strand of dark hair off his forehead. "Do you know how difficult it's been for me not to melt every time I looked at you? That afternoon in Lawson's office, it had only been twelve hours since I'd left your bed, but I had to act like a complete stranger. I thought I was going to die from wanting to hold you and wanting to be held. I'd seen Melina lying there dead, viewed the bedroom and all that blood. I was stricken with grief. Afraid. I needed to be held, and I wanted to be held by you."
"Do you know how depraved I felt, wanting Melina every bit as much as I'd wanted Gillian?"
"When did you figure it out?"
"When I was in the jail cell." "How?"
"I couldn't help comparing Melina to Gillian. Each time I did, I wound up with a thousand similarities but no differences. Not one. And I started thinking about Gillian eating the tacos that night. How she'd sucked on her finger when she got salt in a paper cut. It was sexy as all get-out. It was just as sexy when Melina did it that afternoon."
Her eyes widened with sudden recollection. "When I was eating the french fries in Longtree's pickup. I had reopened the cut and the salt stung it. I didn't even realize I was doing it."
"Me either. Not until I started thinking about it. The two images merged in my mind. Same finger. Sucked on in the same manner. I started piecing it together, and all of it fit."
Tears came again. "I've done you so many injustices. Put you through so much. Can you forgive me?"
He backed up to the bed and sat down on it, then guided her to straddle his lap. He shrugged off his jacket and unbuttoned his cuffs, then pulled his shirt, still buttoned, over his head. By then she had released him from his jeans. He untied the belt of her robe and parted it. Neither could wait. She impaled herself on him.
"I knew it," he whispered into her neck. "I knew I couldn't be wrong, knew this couldn't be duplicated. This doesn't happen twice in a lifetime. Not within a few days."
They hugged one another tightly and remained like that for a long while. Then he pushed his hands into her robe and smoothed them over her back and hips, finally settling on her waist. She nuzzled her face in his hair and lightly kissed his bandaged cheek. He gently touched the nasty bruise on her collarbone.
"How is it?"
"It doesn't hurt anymore."
"I should have killed the bastard."
He lowered his head to her breasts; his tongue caressed her nipple. She whimpered in response.
"Incredibly sensitive," he murmured, sucking her gently. "Here, too." He wedged his hand between their bodies and touched her in a way that caused her to catch her breath.
"Did you talk to Melina about this?"
Momentarily unable to speak, she shook her head. "You didn't?"
"No, Chief. I didn't confide anything. It was too personal. Too special."
"But you shared everything."
"Not you." Her fingers skimmed over his chest and down his belly. She withdrew his hand and lifted it to her mouth, kissing it lightly. "I wanted to keep you all to myself."
"So everything that '
Melina' told me Gillian had said was actually—"
"My feelings. My own words. Things I couldn't tell you, but wanted you to know."
He covered her breasts with his hands, gently rubbing their raised centers against his palms. "Why did you cry after we made love?"
"Because I wanted to tell you how I felt, and couldn't. When you said my name—Gillian—my heart shattered. With joy. And with despair."
"As you said, when a man says something at that particular moment, it's brutally honest."
"Isn't it?"
"It was then," he said gruffly.
She began to rock her hips slowly. Forward, then back. Barely any movement at all, but enough. Each subtle motion coaxed a moan from him. She squeezed his hips between her thighs. "I can feel all of you."
He managed to gasp, "Yes."
Possessively he splayed his hands over her hips. His fingers made deep impressions in her flesh as he guided each erotic undulation. They were close, close...
So she was stunned when he said, "Wait!" and lifted her off him. He turned her quickly and pressed her down onto the
bed. With no wasted motions, he finished undressing, opened her robe completely, and stretched out above her. When he reentered her, she thrust her hips toward him.
"No, be still, be still," he groaned.
"But—"
His mouth sank onto hers. It was a long, deep, and hungry kiss. Their mouths melded in an honest admission of mutual desire, need, and vulnerability. Then it changed character. As they smiled against each other, their lips and tongues barely touched. They tantalized, teased, flirted. He sighed her name and she responded in kind. The kiss then became a very sweet, tender, and heartfelt expression of affection. But ultimately passion flared again, and the kiss grew blatantly sexual. Their roles were clearly defined by the manner in which his tongue made love to her mouth.
At last he pulled back and looked down into her face. "You are incredibly beautiful," he whispered.
Although she was unadorned and without makeup, she felt beautiful. Her cheeks were flushed. She could feel the flattering fever in them. Her lips felt full, bruised, and suggestively wet. She dragged her tongue along her lower lip and tasted their kiss.
"And sexy as hell."
Looping her arms around his neck, she said, "Don't hold anything back."
He didn't, and neither did she. Afterward, damp and deliciously spent, they lay as they were for a long time. When he finally levered himself up, he kissed her forehead, her nose, her cheeks, finally her lips, using his own to lightly rub the words into them. "I'm in love with you, Gillian."
"I know. You told me."
"Doesn't count. I thought I was talking to Melina."
She shook her head and whispered, "But I was the one listening."
THE END
Scanned & Proofed by Nelle