Betrayals (Black Cipher Files series Book 2) (21 page)

“What kind of doctor are you?”

“Cardiologist.” She put a container of salsa on the table. “My father had a massive heart attack in front of me when I was eight.”

Wow. Then her specialty sunk in. Ha. Cardiologist. Not an obstetrician. For a moment, I had hope. She’d made a mistake.

“
Chica
, those home pregnancy tests are ninety-nine percent accurate. It wasn’t a mistake.”

Apparently she was a mind reader too.

“You two are welcome to spend the night in my guestroom. It’s a little on the small side, but will work for a night or two.”

I was too busy shoveling the stuffed peppers into my mouth. I’d never tasted anything so good in my life. “Oh my god, these are great.”

“Go easy on those or you’ll end up with heartburn,” she cautioned. “And drink lots of milk or water tonight. You really need to--”

“Hydrate. I know. I know.”

She swung a Prada bag over her shoulder and headed for the door. “
Adios
.”

The door closed. Whirlwind Thea was gone and suddenly we were all alone.

Totally alone. Just the two of us.

With no catastrophe to rescue me from having to deal with him. I took a large swallow of water, put my head down and kept eating.

Jordan ate slowly, contemplatively. I really didn’t want to know what he was thinking with such a somber look on his face.

“We need a plan.”

We? “Seriously, I can figure this out.”

“I would never abandon my child.”

“No one said anything about abandonment. But really, it’s not like we planned this.” I’d figure something out. At least I had plenty of money. Once I could come out in the open and access the funds again.

I couldn’t think about a baby. I’d never even let myself believe I would have children. I’d have to let someone close to me. Until Jordan, the possibility had seemed remote.

He just looked at me. “I never told you about my father.”

Okay. Right there was a start to a conversation I’d prefer not to have. Not now. Perhaps not ever. “Uh, no. Just, he wasn’t in the picture.”

“My mother worked in his house.”

It appeared I wasn’t going to get a vote. Clearly he needed to get this out.

“Logically, morally she knew having an affair with her employer was wrong. But he was rich and powerful and paying attention to a lowly maid. She said she was so enthralled.”

Okay. His father was a pig.

“When she got pregnant, he gave her money to get an abortion.”

A big pig.

“She didn’t have one. Obviously adultery was one thing but killing a baby...she couldn’t do it.”

I swallowed away the lump from the emotion in his voice.

We wouldn’t be having this conversation if she had. “I promise you, I would talk to you before I made the decision to abort the baby.” Except just the thought of an abortion had me placing my hand protectively over my stomach.

"I want you to keep the baby," Jordan said fiercely. “His wife fired my mother when she found out Mama was pregnant. I’m not sure if she ever knew the baby was his, but she wouldn’t have an unmarried, pregnant maid in her house.”

That sucked.

“They were both unprincipled pigs.”

“No argument from me.”

Jordan rested his elbows on the table, hands gripped tightly together. “My mother is an amazing woman.”

“No question.” She’d raised Jordan into a decent, caring man, alone. “However, I’m not sure what this has to do with me.”

“I refuse to abandon you or the baby.”

Okay. New scenario. So we’re going to spend the rest of our lives, however short that might be, on the run and raising a baby together?

“Let’s take it one step at a time.” First I had to figure out who wanted me dead.

A swell of exhaustion overtook me so completely I nearly fell over. The lethargy was so encompassing, my body felt surrounded by jello.

“Go sit on the sofa.” He jerked his head toward Thea’s ultra-modern, sleek and probably completely uncomfortable, couch. “I’ll clean this up.”

As I sank down, the sofa was amazingly soft and welcoming.

“I think someone has been watching my house lately as well as yours,” he said as he scraped dishes and put the plates in the dishwasher. “Or they’re watching both. But that doesn’t make any sense. No one knew about us.”

There was something in his voice I hadn’t heard before. Had I hurt his feelings by keeping our relationship a secret?

“Any ideas?” Jordan interrupted my musings.

I’d filed the paperwork to declare him a ‘Close and Continuing’ relationship right before I left. I didn’t really want to address this subject, but I should probably let him know.

“I, uh, might have an idea.”

Jordan started the dishwasher and came over to the sofa with his half-full glass of wine and a glass of milk for me. Settling on the other end, he propped his feet up on the kidney-shaped cocktail table.

The normalcy of sitting together struck a weird chord, bringing back memories of making out in my living room.

“It’s probably nothing.”

“Spit it out, Stace.”

“I filed the paperwork to officially register you as my boyfriend.”

He plunked his glass on the coffee table and angled his body to face me. “You have to file paperwork?”

“Uh, yeah. If you start dating regularly, you’re supposed to give the CIA the information so they can check out the significant other and make sure you aren’t putting yourself in a compromising situation. They do a comprehensive background check. I just hadn’t filed the paperwork earlier....”

Because I’d wanted to keep him to myself. Just a little bit longer. Once your significant other has official status, quarterly reports have to be filed.

The invasiveness of the process seemed annoying and stupid.

He was mine.

“I’d heard that their investigations take forever. Half the people I knew weren’t even dating the person anymore by the time the background check was completed.”

“You’d heard?”

Damn. He’d picked up on that. “Uh, yeah. I’ve never actually filed paperwork before.”

He processed that information carefully, his lips curving as he recognized the significance of my answer. “So we need to assume the CIA has connected us?”

“Yeah.” And dammit, I didn’t want to bring my shit down on him.

“We’ll just have to travel carefully.” Jordan’s cell phone rang. He looked at the display. “It’s Thea.”

I could hear her voice on the other end of the line. She seemed pretty upset or excited or something.

“Calm down. It’s okay. I’ll explain when you get home.” Jordan never raised his voice, didn’t panic. “It’s fine. What channel?”

He flipped his phone closed, grabbed the remote and pushed the power button.

“What’s wrong?”

The plasma screen on the wall flared to life.

“That.” He pointed to Thea’s 42-inch, wide-angle screen.

A larger than life-size picture of me was displayed prominently, and
Wanted, Armed and Dangerous
scrolled across the bottom of the screen, along with a phone number in case I was spotted.

Someone had just changed the rules. The private hunt for me had just gone public. They’d given every law enforcement officer in the country permission to shoot me on sight.

I was marked for death.

TWENTY-FOUR

“Who the fuck is after me?”

Thea's modern apartment was silent but for my labored breathing. I looked at the serious faces in the press conference on the television. A White House press secretary spoke at a podium, U.S. Flags hanging on poles behind him.

Two men flanked the press guy. A military official, in full dress uniform decorated out the wazoo with fruit salad and...Senator Jordan.

The same man Jordan had met with earlier in the week.

My stomach roiled from a sense of ultimate betrayal.

“It’s your buddy.”

“Shhh,” Jordan shushed.

“How do I rate a White House press conference?”

The press secretary continued to disseminate information. "Former professor, philanthropist, Staci Grant is being sought in connection with various terrorist networks." After he asked for the entire freaking country to be on the lookout for me, he said, “We believe she used her position of authority as a professor to find and recruit trainees for terrorist camps.”

Jordan’s lips tightened--he didn’t approve. "You really did recruit kids?"

Deep down I’d always known if I told him about my work for the CIA he wouldn’t approve. Even though I knew I shouldn’t, I was compelled to explain.

“In actuality, the people I referred approached me. I just steered them toward organizations the CIA thought might be recruiting. We tagged them and then were able to identify more members of militant factions. Later we turned them into assets promising them immunity from prosecution for gathering evidence.”

Dates, times, leaders, methods of communication, key people.

“The CIA isn’t supposed to operate on U.S. soil.”

“Yeah. Well, what you don’t know can’t hurt you.” Actually we just couldn't recruit Foreign Nationals on U.S. soil or spy on American citizens. These kids were actually U.S. citizens.

“You really thought this was okay?”

I was proud of my work, of my service to my country. My grandparents had raised me to honor and respect the government. To do my duty to the greatest nation on earth.

“Wait a minute, Mr. High and Mighty. You used to kill people for the U.S. government. I don’t think you have a lot of high ground here.”

We both stood, facing off like combatants, the cocktail table in the gulf between us, while the press secretary droned on and on.

“Those kids were going to find a way to support a perceived injustice whether I helped them or not. What I do, did,” I caught myself, “ultimately saved lives. We’ve been able to shut down or deport hundreds of potential terrorists based on the information they obtained. And we stopped attacks on several targets.”

“And what about those kids?” Jordan said, "You used their idealism to put them in danger."

I knew I shouldn’t do it, but I couldn’t help it. “They chose that path. They could have gone into the freakin’ Peace Corps and changed injustices that way. These are kids who wanted to fight.”

Jordan blew out a breath in disgust.

“I redirected far more kids than I ever recruited. Most of the time I tried to channel their idealism into something else.” It really pissed me off that I had to explain. "Some of the kids were recruited to work directly for the CIA."

“They should be giving you a medal instead of hunting you.” Sarcasm was heavy in his voice.

My heart cracked. There was no other word for the sensation. His words wounded me with a physical pain as he dismissed my work.

“You know me.”

Jordan was stoic in the face of my near desperation. He retreated without moving an inch, his face expressionless, closed, remote. “I thought I did.”

He’d known me better than anyone else in my life. His total shut out exploded in my face more effectively than the toe popper that had almost taken off my foot.

I had a desperate need to pull him back toward me, emotionally, physically, any way I could.

Thinking if I could just touch him, connect with him physically, he would accept me again, I lunged toward him. I banged my shin on the coffee table, hitting my already damaged leg, sensitive nerves screeching in protest.

My vision dimmed as pain zinged through me.

Jordan steadied me before I could gasp. Here was the contact I’d wanted, but in a completely different, impersonal manner.

Rather than retreat, I leaned on him, into him. The warmth of his body soothed me, comforting me, familiar and right.

I had thought I loved him.

That was the reason I filed the paperwork. I thought we’d been moving toward something permanent. But I should have known a relationship based on lies would never succeed. Maybe it was time to start using the truth.

My cell phone rang. I ignored it.

This was more important.

“Look. My main job was to track and analyze potential Agency employees for the CIA using a set of criteria I developed based on my own recruitment.”

The CIA didn’t make value judgments on race or religion or politics, and their targets were strictly expedient. They just wanted people who could be of use in the espionage war.

He removed his arm from around my waist. I mourned the loss of affection even as he lashed out at me.

“Wasn’t it dangerous for you to be working both sides, so to speak?”

“I was never the direct contact person for recruitment of CIA personnel or the terrorist trainees. I just identified their names and information.”

Jordan crossed his arms over his chest, withholding his touch and sending out clear defensive signals. “Explain.”

“For the kids they are accusing me of recruiting for terrorism, I never hooked them up. I suggested clubs or religious organizations we thought might be fronts for more sinister groups.”

“They couldn’t prosecute you?”

“Not under normal law.” Although with the expanded power of the Patriot Act, they might be able to get me for recruiting terrorists. The arrest and detainment guidelines were fairly loose.

“For the CIA recruits...they were told they’d been identified as potential recruits. Because the CIA is so secretive, even within the organization, with the exception of a direct superior and a few other higher ups, no one knows exactly what anyone else does.”

“Which brings up an interesting question. Why haven’t you reported in?”

“The CIA didn’t get me out. They left me in that prison.”

And I checked the USA Today classifieds every day. No contact.

“You told me your trip wasn’t CIA,” he accused.

“I wasn’t in Afghanistan for CIA business. It was personal. However, if the CIA was going to set up a...situation, my imprisonment would be perfect.”

“They knew you were there?”

“Of course, but I wasn’t connected with the Agency officially.”

“So you assumed since they didn’t get you out that they wanted you there?”

"Yes." I couldn’t afford not to assume my death would be expedient for someone, somewhere at the Agency.