Dark Memories (The DARK Files Book 1) (21 page)

If he knew the answer to her questions, he could lay his hands on the killer. A killer close enough to know Cole had left that night. A killer who was getting closer to accomplishing his job.

And there was one piece of news he’d keep to himself. Laura had been through enough. When Cole’s contact officer had finally called, he reported that they’d lost Markos again.

The importer had vanished.

WHEN COLE AWOKE the next morning, Laura had already left the bed.

How could she even think about going out alone after the beating last night? The woman didn’t know when to quit.

He flung off the light blanket and was about to hit the floor when he heard water running in the bathroom. Swinging his legs back up, he lay back on the pillows.

Last night had been so hectic and she too upset and shocked to think clearly. But today he’d have to do damage control. Explain more to her. And to Stan.

He would let Stan think he’d driven the Harley out earlier and that vandals wrecked the old piano. Announcing this new attack on Laura would mean having to call in the cops for more than vandalism. He couldn’t risk exposing the DARK team and blowing the trap, so they would keep mum. But it grated on him not to let Stan know the truth and not to hustle Laura somewhere safer.

A moment later, she appeared in the bedroom doorway, wearing only boxers and bruises. Varying shades of purple blotched her thighs and calves. Daring but so vulnerable, too much so, she made him feel he needed a sword and shield to defend her.

Heat pooled in his groin. Lust mingled with satisfaction that she’d had few lovers over the years. She’d confessed a deep freeze ever since their disastrous weekend. That he’d been the one to reawaken her passion fed his ego.

The violet and purple on her legs, arms and back told the tale of her tumble down the stairs. She wasn’t flaunting herself, but neither was she hiding her near nakedness. She’d stopped concealing the neck scars from him. A teasing smile tilting her full lips, she attempted a limping pirouette for him.

“I was checking out my war wounds. So what do you think?” she said. “Will these rainbow hues catch on fashion-wise?”

“I hope not, babe.” He held out his arms, and she eased down with him on the rumpled sheets. Semi-prone against the pillows, he helped her to lie half across him, one leg thrown over his and her head on his shoulder, her breasts against his side. “How do you feel?”

She threaded her index finger through his chest hair. “Last night I felt as if I’d been pounded with hammers, then flattened by a paving machine—or an upright piano, like Wile E. Coyote. I ache, but I’m reinflating.”

He ran his palm over her hair, sexy and disheveled from sleep. Smudges beneath her eyes spoke of her pain, but a glint in the gold flecks had been missing last night. A tough cookie, she was more resilient than the cartoon coyote.

“Tell me what you found out last night. I know you got up after you thought I was asleep.” Her fingers grew still on his skin, her gaze alight with intensity. Her hands were cool, but electric tingles spread from their touch.

Hating this sordid business, he gave a grunt of disgust. “Not much to tell. The phone cord wasn’t cut, just unplugged outside.”

“And who did you call?”

He grinned and smoothed a hand down the one shoulder with no bruises. She’d washed her face and smelled of soap and her apple lotion. In spite of her bruises, she felt supple and warm in his arms.

“You don’t miss much, do you? I let the others know what happened. Mixed communications last night put Isaacs outside Blow-Dry’s cabin standing guard until the local cops could take over instead of watching over you. Byrne was with me. Snow did his usual walk-around about nine-thirty and saw nobody.”

“Interesting that Butch and Zach noticed this Mr. Blow-Dry and your men didn’t.”

“Apparently our friendly neighborhood thief put on a good bird-watching act. Snow talked to the guy a few times and thought he was clean. He even threw off suspicion by reporting a portable CD-player missing.”

“You weren’t too hard on Vanessa, I hope.”

“Not me. When I told her, she nearly choked. She was ready to go out and hunt Janus herself. Alone.”

“She shouldn’t feel guilty. Everything seemed safe when she left.” She propped herself up on one elbow, one leg bent beneath her, the other with the swollen knee stretched out before her.

“I told her that. And I’ll get you a phone and set speed dial so you can reach me no matter what.” It would also contain a GPS tracker. She should’ve been able to call for help. Hell, she wouldn’t have needed help if Isaacs had done his job or Ward had stayed. But Cole couldn’t blame the lapse on them. He was in charge.

He wished Laura would throw something over herself. No, he didn’t. But she was too tempting, sitting there so open, her world-class legs within reach.
Did she have any idea what she did to him? She would soon because his reaction was becoming acutely visible.
Down, boy, she’s injured.

Naked and on top of the covers, he had little means to hide his reaction to her. He raised one knee in partial concealment. “I saw Burt—” he couldn’t help inflecting the name with disdain “—driving to Alderport for the fireworks.”

“I doubt his involvement in this anyway. And we know he’s not the thief.” She tugged her hair behind her ears. The action lifted her breasts and drew his gaze.

He nearly groaned. “Protecting the little twerp?”

She batted her eyelashes at him. “Jealous, cowboy?”

Jealous? If that was the name for this tangle wrenching his gut. Hell, yes, he was jealous, murderously so of any other man who’d ever touched her. He felt like breaking faces.
Straining for control, he schooled his features into detachment. “You do remember that someone — Markos’s hit man — has tried to kill you? More than once? And he’ll try again?”

“Right. But it’s not Burt.”

He plucked up her hand from the bed and brought it to his lips. Even the tennis calluses felt feminine. “Maybe now you’ll let me take you to a safe house. We still have nothing concrete to ID this damn killer, and I want you to have more protection.”

She shook her head vehemently. “That piano almost made dust out of me. Or part of the cellar floor. I considered a safe house, but no, I’m making my stand here.”
Arms folded, she appeared ready to duke it out if he disagreed. She’d win because he couldn’t take his eyes off her body.

He kneaded the sheets instead of reaching for her. “Providing you
can
still stand.”

“Very funny. I’m better now. See, the swelling’s down on my knee.”

He nodded, dragging his gaze downward to the still puffy knee. “The ice packs helped.”

“I know what would make me feel even better.” Her throaty voice dropped to a heated honey-dripping tone that sent his heart whacking his ribs. She bent closer so that the hard peaks of her nipples tickled the sensitive skin on his torso. When her pink tongue moistened the hollow at the base of his throat, he shuddered.

Her caresses were stiffening him like the wrought-iron bedposts, but sex might chafe her injuries. He could wait. He wasn’t some horny kid. Or maybe he was.
A groan escaped his lips. “Another ice pack?”

Her husky chuckle doubled his aching need to nearly bursting. “No, but ice might decrease a certain other swelling. Interesting — that swelling looks hard, not puffy like my knee….”

“Fiend.” As her fingers trailed down his belly, he gritted out the next words between clenched teeth. “I don’t want to flatten you again, Wile E.”

“You won’t. And until you yield, I’ll just keep you pumped up — like my knee.” She gazed at him with enough heat to incinerate the bed. The pink tip of her tongue crept out to lick her full lower lip. “What was that Pashto word for get down?”

He groaned as she scored one fingernail down his belly toward the more than ready anatomy in question. “
Samla
.”

She smiled, a feline creature with her prey. “
Samla
, big boy,
samla
.”

Unable to withstand her torment any longer, Cole rolled to his side, pulling her full against him, skin to skin. “Be gentle with me, Murphy.”

In reply, she clasped her hands behind his neck and covered his mouth with hers. Her tongue swirled around the textures of his inner lips, the underside of his tongue. He reveled in the taste of her — mint toothpaste and Laura.

Sliding lower, he dropped kisses down the curve of her neck, along her breast bone, to one breast, where he closed his lips over the pink nipple. Sweet.

Her answering moan was one of pleasure, not pain.

His fingers found her. She was ready for him, hot and tight and slick with wanting. With his thumb, he massaged the key nerves that would unlock her passion.

When she arched off the bed and stripped away her boxers, he barely had time to reach for protection before covering her with his body and sliding into her welcoming heat. The throbbing ache of need instantly surged into a wave of pleasure. She clamped herself around him to complete their joining.

“Cole!” Tears trickled into her temples as she thrashed beneath him. “Please!”

He couldn’t get enough of her. If sex was all they had, then he’d take it. And her. Only connected with her did he feel secure. Whole.

Home.

“Laura,” he rasped out. You’re mine. Mine.”

When he felt her contractions begin, he could hold release back no longer. Uttering a shout of ecstasy, he poured himself into her in a scalding tide of completion.

***

Before the sailing class, Laura applied makeup, which nearly concealed the scrape on her cheek. A bit warm for long sleeves, but they and light-weight pants hid most of the bruises.

On the dock, she and Cole had a talk with Butch and Zach about the man who’d been arrested the night before. Cole explained that the man they called Mr. Blow-Dry was the thief who’d taken Zach’s camera and Kay’s MP3 player, but he probably hadn’t switched Laura’s skiff for the damaged one.

Laura hugged both boys. “You guys were great to go to Mr. Stratton with your sharp observations. You’re my heroes.”

They beamed. They blushed. Then they ran off, punching each other in the shoulder.

At Cole’s tight mouth, she made a mental note to tell him later that he was her hero too. He’d rushed off thinking he’d be able to tie up the case only to find Mr. Blow-Dry was the wrong man and she’d faced a serious threat by herself. Clearly, he felt he’d failed her.
Success for him was intertwined with his past and his need to prove himself. If he cared for her again, that was also part of his emotional stew.

Or maybe she should keep quiet. She didn’t want him to care more than he already seemed to, didn’t want him to think their relationship was more than sex and friendship. She’d initiated this morning’s lovemaking out of a deep, fierce need for him that had made her wanton, made her burn for his touch, for his possession.
He knew most of her body intimately, even the scars on her neck, but she’d concealed the most telling one along with her secret. Although he might’ve seen it this morning…

He believed that she disdained the hoodlum lurking within him, no matter what respect and stature he’d earned in his work and as an honorable, kind and generous man. He deserved to know the real reason she must leave him once this horrible situation ended. It was the same reason he would ultimately resent her and reject her.

But revealing the truth now would alter the way he looked at her and the way he thought of her, and she couldn’t face it. Not yet. Not while they still had time together. Cowardly of her. But there it was.

After the sailing class ended, she and Cole helped Stan and the two DARK officers masquerading as grounds crew set up tables for the afternoon barbecue. Her tennis class and any other regularly scheduled activities were canceled. Games and contests at the barbecue would take their place.

Once the tables were arranged, Cole hustled her to her cabin and made her rest her knee until the barbecue. He tossed her an ice pack and immersed himself in his laptop.

In his faded jeans that clung to his muscular thighs like Lycra and a black Harley T-shirt, he looked so masculine and handsome her heart did a little flutter kick. As he worked, he grumbled to himself and occasionally ran his fingers through already disheveled hair.

“Damn thing!” He slammed the laptop cover shut. “Frozen again. I hope to hell the hard drive’s not kaput.” He stomped off to a corner chair with his phone.

He was concentrating so hard, he seemed to have walled her out. She picked up the Elizabeth Peters novel she’d started a week ago. The historical mystery, set in Egypt, would ordinarily suck her into its world, but today her mind and heart lingered with Cole. Something was wrong, but she didn’t think it concerned her situation.

The feel of the phone he’d promised tucked in her pants pocket constantly reminded her of the danger she was in. God, she hoped she never had to use the speed dial, a smiley face on the touch screen.

Later they walked to the barbecue under a July sun floating high in the azure sky. The aromas of barbecued chicken and other traditional summer treats feathered to them on the freshening breeze, but couldn’t dispel her concern. “Problems beyond the laptop crash?”

He heaved a sigh and curled a hand beneath her hair and around her nape. The gesture of familiarity and affection pleased her. “It’s Marisol. The little girl in Colombia.”

She gasped. “Has something happened to her?”

He gave her neck a gentle squeeze. “Nothing, no. Just glitches in the red tape. The State Department is balking at issuing her a visa. Something about no relatives or a sponsor. I can’t be the sponsor. DARK already frowns on my connection to the San Sebastiano orphanage. Hell, I’m stymied. I’ve contacted everyone I know in D.C.”

“I know a few people I could call. Old colleagues of Dad’s.”

He shook his head, his jaw firm, his mouth clamped. “No way. Too dangerous.”

She stopped walking, wrapped her hand around his forearm. The tension in the muscles was electric. “But Markos already knows where I am. How can it hurt?”

Removing his hand from her nape, he kneaded his own. His eyes burned with intensity. “As far as all those people you know are concerned, you’ve vanished. If you start calling bigwigs in Washington, it would take about three seconds for the word to get out. The vampires — news media to you — would descend and suck the life out of our op here. Janus and Markos would slip out of the trap, and we’d be back to square one.”