AWOL with the Operative (17 page)

“Are you? Thanking me?”

“Yeah, I am. Anything else I should know?”

“Let me see. Oh, yes, the helicopter is gone. It popped up from somewhere on the other side of the river while I was paddling the canoe over to get you back here. I watched it circle the lake. I think the pilot must have noticed the body of our other friend floating out there.” Eve had spotted that dead body herself and told Sam so. It had been another unpleasant discovery.

“I suppose,” she went on, “the pilot decided he no longer had any reason to hang around. Anyway, he didn’t waste time zooming out of here. The way I figure it, this third guy was never visible to us because he wasn’t one of DeMarco’s men, or he would have come after us, along with the other two.”

Ignoring her earlier objection, Sam sat straight up in the canoe with a thunderous “And you’re just now telling me this!”

“Stop getting excited. It’s bad for you. We’re safe enough for the moment. If that pilot was more than just hired to fly the helicopter, if he is loyal to Victor DeMarco, then it will take time for him to contact DeMarco to report what happened here.”

“Which he’s probably doing right now by radio. Eve, DeMarco isn’t going to forget about you just because his two boys failed. Not as long as he thinks you have the evidence to send him to prison. He’ll send others after you.”

“I realize that. But they can’t just suddenly turn up out of nowhere.”

“And you can’t be here waiting for them.”

“What would you have had me do? Leave you there injured on the beach and head downriver on my own?”

“No, but we’re not staying here. We’re getting out.
Now.
”

He glanced at his watch. Then, as though not trusting it, he lifted his head to squint up at the sun. Its position in the sky would be telling him it was already past midmorning.

“We still have most of the day left,” he said. “With both of us paddling and the current with us, we ought to be able to get a long way downriver before dark. Maybe even reach a town of some kind.”

“You are
not
paddling this canoe. You need to rest.”

“It doesn’t take a leg to paddle a canoe. I’ll be fine.”

“You are the most stubborn—”

“Eve, listen to me.” He leaned toward her, a fierce look on his face. “I won’t rest until I get you back to Chicago and under the bureau’s protection. Whatever it takes. You understand me?
Whatever it takes.
”

Chapter 9

T
he river, which continued on its way at the other end of the lake, just as they’d surmised, presented no problems. Its current was swift enough to assist them but not so powerful that it prevented them from maintaining a steady, even course. Nor did they encounter any rapids that might have given them serious trouble.

Eve couldn’t say the same for her companion.

At her insistence, Sam sat in front of her. Only this way could she keep an eye on that wounded leg of his. As it turned out, she found herself paying far more attention to other portions of his body.

The day was warm. That, along with their vigorous activity with the paddles, had them both so overheated they removed their coats. Eve couldn’t take her eyes off Sam’s strong back and arms. Mesmerized, she watched his muscles bunching rhythmically under his shirt as he dipped and stroked, an unconsciously erotic action that had her on edge with desire.

You’re not being fair, you know. This is your fault, not his.

Not that it did her any good to go and remind herself all over again that she had been a fool to fall for him. Nor to torment herself by remembering that he hadn’t forgiven her for denying him the truth about her father, even if that information had no real bearing on the case.

Oh, but the explanation for this harsher Sam McDonough was much more involved than that, wasn’t it? There was the darkness that on some deep level was always with him.

It was just past midday when they navigated the canoe to a still pool at the edge of the river. Both of them were ready for a rest stop, as well as hungry.

“Watch the leg,” she cautioned him when he swung around on his seat to face her. She was afraid he was being much too careless with that injury.

“Stop worrying,” he said, reaching for his sack of provisions. “It’s coming along just fine.”

Maybe he was right, she thought as they sat there drinking from their bottles of water and munching on crackers and dried fruit. Maybe she needed to worry about herself.

She couldn’t seem to shake this perpetual longing for him. This wanting to have both of them naked, his hard body wrapped around hers. Not just wrapped around her but deep inside her, stroking her as he’d stroked the paddle out on the river.

It wasn’t just a physical thing, either. It was as much emotional as anything else. A yearning for the tenderness he had demonstrated so freely and so often before his memory had kicked in.

Eve was convinced of it. People didn’t alter their basic characters. Not overnight, anyway. If all those positive qualities, like tenderness, had surfaced during his memory loss, then they must still be there inside him, buried under the bleakness.

Did she have any right to reach for them? To make any kind of effort to save him from himself?

Why not, if you’re in love with him? Shouldn’t that entitle you to help him?

“Sam, can I ask you something?”

“Ask away.”

“What is it that’s got you all tied up in knots?”

He scowled at her. “What are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about. I could see it in you from the start. You’re carrying some kind of awful burden, and I don’t mean getting me to Chicago. Mightn’t it help to talk about it?”

His voice was brusque when he answered her. “You’re imagining things. The only thing I’m suffering from is this leg.”

He didn’t want to discuss it. He had closed up on her, maybe even resented her for asking him about something he regarded as strictly private.

All right, she wouldn’t pursue it. Not now. But she wasn’t going to give up on him. Sooner or later, Eve promised herself, she was going to confront and defeat the demons that haunted him.

It was late afternoon, and Eve’s arms were aching, when she heard the humming from somewhere ahead of them. She knew from the way Sam lifted his head, suddenly alert and listening intently, that he heard it, too.

“What is it?” she called to him, resting on her paddle.

“Dunno. But it isn’t a helicopter.”

They paddled on toward the droning noise that increased to a distinctive, steady buzzing that identified itself as some kind of machinery in operation.

Throughout their journey downriver, there had been nothing but solid forest on both sides of the stream. Now, suddenly and without warning, as they worked the canoe eagerly around a sharp bend, a huddle of buildings appeared in front of them on the right bank. The settlement that Sam had been so confident existed all along.

The small community was evidently supported by the large, gray structure that loomed at the edge of the river. It was this building that produced the constant buzzing. A sawmill.

If Eve had any doubt about that, the stacks of lumber in the yard, so freshly cut she could smell the pine and spruce, told her they had arrived at a logging operation.

“Civilization at last!” she pronounced with satisfaction.

“Or what passes for it,” Sam said. “But it works.”

They landed the canoe on the riverbank, dragged it up on dry land, collected their gear and headed toward the sawmill. Eve didn’t like the idea of Sam putting his weight on that leg. But though he favored it, he seemed able to walk with ease.

A young man with a ponytail and a gold ring in one pierced ear leaned against the side of the building. One of the workers, Eve assumed, taking a cigarette break.

He was crushing the cigarette underfoot when he spotted them. From the expression on his face, canoers like Sam and her must be a rare sight. One that could use both bathtubs and changes of clothes.

“Where’d you two come from?”

“We’re just off a wilderness canoe trip,” Sam informed him.

“Not the best time of year for that.”

“Yeah, we found that out, which is why we’ve had enough. Any chance of catching a bus or a train here?”

“Not in this place. You have to go down to Dalroy for that. There’s a bus out of there that heads south twice a day.”

“How do we get there?”

“Walk. And, man, you don’t want to do that. Dalroy is a good twenty miles away. But, look, I live there, and if you don’t mind waiting another hour until I get off work, I’ll give you a lift in my pickup.”

“We would appreciate that,” Eve said, thanking him warmly for his offer.

“Sure. Name’s Howie.”

Apparently not interested in learning their names, which was just as well, Howie saluted them with a careless wave and wandered back inside the sawmill.

Prepared to wait for the guy, Eve and Sam perched themselves in the sun on a low pile of lumber. She waited until they had relieved their thirst from the bottles and finished the last of the crackers before she turned to him with her observation.

“You didn’t ask him where you could find a phone.” Which, since her cell phone had been destroyed by the enemy, would be their quickest method for communicating with the outside. “Why not, Sam? I would have thought contacting your squad supervisor in Chicago to let him know we’re still alive and safe would be the first thing on your agenda.”

He shook his head. “Bad idea.”

“Because?”

“We’re not safe. We’re still at risk.”

Eve hadn’t forgotten the threat of Victor DeMarco, their need not just to be constantly vigilant but to keep moving.

“From DeMarco, yes. Except he hasn’t a clue now where to find us.”

“But he could pick up our trail, if I were to inform the Chicago division where we are, ask them to help us get home.”

“How?”

Sam hitched himself around to face her. “Has it ever occurred to you, Eve, that DeMarco and his people just happened to know things they weren’t supposed to know? Like that Charlie Fowler was turning on him, his whereabouts and that you were joining him there? And after Fowler’s death that a special agent was sent to bring you back and planned to take you by bush plane? They learned all of this and acted on it.”

Eve stared at him, understanding what she should have considered long before this. “You think there’s a mole in your division, someone who’s been feeding DeMarco everything he needed to know. Who?”

“Haven’t a clue. All I know for certain now is something I should have decided on long before this.”

“Which is?”

“That I’m not trusting anyone in the bureau, even my squad supervisor. I’ll get you to Chicago, but I won’t hand you over for FBI protection until the informer is revealed and taken out.”

“What about getting help from the Canadian authorities?”

He shook his head. “They’d insist on contacting the bureau.”

“So we’re on our own until we get to Chicago?”

“You mind?”

“I’ll try not to complain about it.”

In one regard she did mind. Feeling the way she did about him, it wasn’t easy being alone with him. Not when she had to endure this perpetual longing for a man who no longer wanted her. Had there been other agents dispatched to them, or even just one more special agent, it might have eased the strain between them.

Or maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe as long as he was anywhere near her, she would continue to be frustrated, whatever the company.

They were quiet for a moment. Sam went on looking at her. Whatever he was thinking, his gaze made her uneasy.

She ended their silence with an abrupt “I have another question.”

“Yeah?”

“You asked Howie about a bus or a train. No mention of a plane.”

“That’s right. Air travel to Chicago would be a lot more convenient. It would also be a problem, what with tighter security in the airports and me with no documents. We can’t afford to have any questions raised about our identities.”

Relating to what he was saying and the urgency inherent in it, she nodded. “Information that could get back to the wrong people.”

“Exactly.”

“So we travel by bus and train.”

“We do providing we can cover the fares.” He eyed her shoulder bag. “How are you fixed for funds? And I don’t mean credit cards.”

“No, I realize that using a credit card leaves an immediate electronic trail for anyone who might be looking for it. As for cash, I have a few hundred in here.” She patted the side of her bag. “Both Canadian and American dollars. And if that isn’t enough…”

She hesitated.

“What?”

“There’s something I haven’t told you. I guess because I’ve been ashamed to share it.”

“Let’s hear it.”