Force of Nature (36 page)

“I am. I did.”

“Forty-eight hours.” Jules’s anger was palpable. “I give you forty-eight hours, tops, before you take another drink—although it’s probably going to be more like four.”

Jesus. “Your unmitigated support overwhelms me.”

“You want me to take this seriously.” Jules got in his face. “You check yourself in somewhere. You do a lockdown rehab—twenty-eight days, minimum—”

“I can’t do that, and you know it.” Robin stood his ground. “I got a movie about to premiere. I don’t need that anyway. That’s bullshit. I’m not an alcoholic—”

Jules headed for the door.

“I’m
not.
” Robin followed him. His own mother had been an alcoholic who’d lived and died—literally—for her next drink. If she didn’t have her gin and tonic, her hands would shake and she would become physically ill, like a drug addict needing a fix. She’d died when Robin was eleven, when she drove her car into a tree during a late-night booze run—Jules knew that. “I should know the difference between an alcoholic and someone who sometimes parties a little too hard—”

“Yeah,” Jules agreed. “You should.” He closed the door firmly behind him.

“I
do
know!” Robin shouted, because the alternative was to chase him down the hotel corridor dressed only in his boxers.

Instead, there he stood. Alone in Jules’s hotel room, with the silence bearing down on him.
Just don’t be here when I get back.

At least Jules hadn’t said goodbye.

When Robin finally sat down at Jules’s computer, there was an e-mail alert flashing in the lower-right-hand corner of the screen.

He clicked on it. He knew he shouldn’t have. This was Jules’s personal e-mail account.

But Jules knew he was using it. He knew Robin was sitting in front of his laptop computer right now, and maybe he’d sent an e-mail from his phone, saying that he’d reconsidered, and maybe it
would
be a good idea for Robin to wait there for him to get back from this meeting, which he’d just found out was going to take only a few minutes anyway…

But the e-mail wasn’t from Jules. It was
to
Jules. It was from someone with an e-mail address of SpongeBob at some freemail account. And the subject line read
RE: RC WTFO?????

He
was RC—Robin Chadwick. And WTFO was Navy radio-speak for “What the fuck, over?” After playing a SEAL in
Riptide
, he spoke their language well enough to know that.

Robin clicked to open the e-mail, and a picture—a photo—appeared in the upper left corner of the screen. It was the same tall, drop-dead gorgeous man—Sam—who’d come into town to give Jules the bad news about Ben’s untimely death. In the picture, he was standing next to a strikingly beautiful black woman in a wedding dress. Jules, also tuxedo clad, was on the woman’s other side, and all three of them were laughing.

These were Jules’s best friends—Sam and Alyssa. A few years ago, Robin had spent a very pleasant evening with Jules and several pitchers of sangria, in a Mexican restaurant in West Hollywood, listening to stories about Jules’s former FBI partner Alyssa Locke. At the time, he’d wondered if—despite Jules’s claim of being gay—there wasn’t a little unrequited sexual attraction in Jules’s longtime relationship with Alyssa-the-Amazing. But now, looking at that photo, he could see only happiness on Jules’s face.

Happiness, and unconditional love.

And that was when he should have clicked to close that e-mail, and gone back to YouTube to do as Jules had demanded, and watch him nearly kill himself all over again.

Instead, Robin read the words on the computer screen.

Hey, it’s Alyssa, borrowing Sam’s email addy. I just thought I’d give you my 2 cents, sweetiepie.

1) I’m so sorry about Ben.

2) the tadpole is definitely gay, single, and interested in meeting you—and, yes,
really
cute. Really.

3) you spent years trying to talk me into dating people you thought were
really
cute, but I was in love with Sam, so…

4)
the perfect career isn’t perfect if you’re not happy

5) I love you—you’ll always have a private sector job waiting for you, working with me

6) if you really love the fuck-up (Sam’s word, but it does seem to fit) that much, GO FOR IT!!!!

Directly beneath that was a copy of an e-mail that Jules had apparently sent this afternoon, probably while he was setting up his computer for Robin to watch the YouTube disaster. Robin had still been in Jules’s bed, hoping that Jules would climb back in.

He hadn’t, much to Robin’s disappointment.
SpongeBob
, Jules had written.

I’m not offended. I hear you. Thank you for being such a good friend. I’m probably going to do something really stupid, but God help me, I love him.

Robin’s heart was pounding. Jules loved him. Jules
loved
him.

Even today, when I’m so angry with him—when I’m so hurt by what he’s done that I’m practically bleeding from the ears, I still love him with every breath I take. I know exactly who he is and what he is, and God damn him, I love him anyway. He’s an alcoholic and a liar—he lies to himself most of all—and I don’t know if he really loves me enough to try to make this work—or if he’s just going to bulldoze over me and break my heart. Again.

“I’m not an alcoholic,” Robin said, but of course there was no one in the room to argue with him.
I don’t know what I’m going to do
, Jules had written, and now Robin’s heart was pounding for an entirely different reason—fear.

I suspect I’m better off without him. And yes, I know what I’ll be giving up if I don’t make myself walk away. I do hear you, and I’ve obviously got a lot to think about. I love you guys. Stay safe. More later.

Beneath that was, presumably, a copy of the e-mail Sam had first sent to Jules, several hours earlier.

I’m assuming you’ve seen this, but in case you haven’t…

There was a live link to the YouTube.com footage, of course.

I heard what you said in the car, but holy fuck, Squidward, you sure know how to pick ’em. I’m probably going to offend you, but I gotta say it—you sure you’re not confusing love with lust? Maybe I’m wrong about this, but I’m pretty sure you’ve gone a long time without getting any on a regular basis, and that can do funny things to the human brain—particularly the male one.

Again, I’m probably gonna offend you big time here, but I think I know what you’re looking for (Alyssa with a penis?) (only half kidding), and I do understand that Ben wasn’t it. I thank God for that, considering the current circumstances. But I can’t believe it’s crazy-ass RC, either.

Right now Lys is shouting at me not to do it, but I got to tell you that my old team’s in the neighborhood doing drills, and one of the tadpoles has set my highly honed gaydar aflame. I’m not going to give you his name in an email, but after your vacation’s over, I highly recommend you drop in at Coronado. I think he might be your type—tall and blue-eyed. (Holy fuck, did I really just type that?) Lys says he’s even cuter than RC.

Jules had told Robin that Sam—and it was definitely Sam writing this e-mail—was now in Spain, working with Alyssa to track down a rumored suitcase nuke. No doubt SEAL Team Sixteen—which was Sam’s “old team”—wasn’t just in the neighborhood to do drills, but rather to provide any backup that might be necessary should the civilian team need assistance.

As for the tadpole that Sam had mentioned…A tadpole was a young, new member of a SEAL team. Apparently Sam was trying to set Jules up with a gay SEAL. One who was, according to Alyssa, who’d confirmed it in her message at the very top of the e-mail, cuter than Robin.

“Like hell he is,” Robin muttered.

But that wasn’t all Sam had to say.

I know you hate the whole “don’t ask, don’t tell” bullshit that this tadpole brings with him to the table, but think about what you’ll get with RC. You’ve got to know that your career won’t survive a relationship with that crazy fuck-up. Even if he goes into rehab and dries himself up, this YouTube shit’s not gonna go away. It’s going to haunt him forever—any time he so much as farts in public. And that’s not even taking into consideration the scandal that’ll hit when he’s finally outed—and he WILL be outed sooner or later, count on it. Idiot like that’s gonna fuck it up royally, too.

You could risk it—keep your relationship with him on the down low, but that’s some fucking irony, huh? I know you want to be in an open relationship, but even if RC came out tomorrow, you’d STILL have to keep your affair with him jammed in the closet. You know this—don’t fool yourself into thinking there’s a way this will work. No way are you going to be picked to replace MB if you’re in a public relationship with RC. You WILL be passed over. You know it.

MB—Max Bhagat. Holy shit, was Jules really up for that kind of a promotion? He hadn’t mentioned it to Robin at all.

I’m not saying that you can’t be in an open gay relationship and win this position—you can. As long as it’s with some nice, quiet, anonymous civilian. Or even some military hero who eventually resigns his commission and comes out when he joins the civilian world. (And this kid I’m talking about already has a job waiting for him with me and Lys—that’s a guarantee. He’s a solid operator.)

I just want to make sure you think about what you’ll be giving up. It’s a huge deal, Squidward. You’re gay and you’re out—and you will be in charge of THE most important counterterrorist unit in the U.S.

Or you can be tabloid fodder.

Is the fuck-up really worth it?

Sam signed off with
Stay safe. Love, SpongeBob.

Robin closed the e-mail and went back to YouTube, where he clicked on the link to replay the footage that CelebrityHunter had posted there just this morning. Since he’d viewed it last, there had been another additional quarter of a million hits to the site.

And as he watched himself knocking over a pile of deck chairs by the hotel pool, as he watched himself teetering on the rail of his balcony, twelve stories above the ground, shouting “I’m the king of the world!” all he could think was
no.

No, the fuck-up featured in all his drunken glory on this digital video wasn’t worth shit.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-ONE

R
obin looked like hell—probably at least partly on purpose, to avoid the scores of reporters down in the hotel lobby—as he let himself into his hotel suite. “It’s just me,” he said, chaining the door behind him.

“Dolphina called,” Annie told him from the sofa, quieting Pierre, who’d stood up but thankfully didn’t bark. “I wasn’t sure whether to answer the phone, but it just kept ringing. She was pretty upset that you weren’t here. She wanted you to call her back on her cell as soon as you got in.”

When she’d first picked up the phone, Annie had been afraid that the woman’s distress was from jealousy and hurt. But it soon became apparent that Dolphina not only knew that Robin was gay, but that she also knew about his relationship with Jules. Or nonrelationship, as Jules had claimed.

Dolphina had been worried both that Robin was embarking on day two of a record drinking binge, and/or that he would find himself mobbed by paparazzi and end up saying something on the record that couldn’t be unsaid.

“She said to tell you to stay here,” Annie told Robin, who was already heading for the bar. To her relief, he only opened the minifridge and pulled out a Dr Pepper. “She doesn’t want you to talk to anyone about the YouTube nightmare until you speak to her. Apparently, she’s bringing in some major PR guru who’s going to spin this whole thing to your advantage.” If that was even possible.

Robin turned to look at her as he popped open his can of soda. “Did you watch it?”

Annie nodded. “Was that really from last night?” she asked.

“Apparently so.” He was embarrassed, taking a long slug straight from the can, glancing at the bottles of liquor lined up against the mirrored wall behind the bar.

“You didn’t seem that drunk in the limo.”

“I wasn’t,” he said.

There had been so much sexual tension between Jules and Robin last night. Annie had been certain that there was going to be a major change in their relationship status as soon as they found themselves alone. She would have bet a year’s salary that mere moments after she and Ric had left the limo, Robin had been unable to bear it a second longer, and had grabbed Jules and kissed him.

Of course, maybe he had. And maybe Jules had pushed him away.

“What happened?” Annie asked softly. “I mean, I’m not trying to pry, I just…If you want to talk about it…”

“I don’t remember very much,” he admitted. “At least not after I got back to my hotel.”

He’d made room to pour something with a kick—probably rum—directly into his can of Dr Pepper. That was his MO, Annie realized. He could walk around, seemingly drinking an innocuous can of pop, but in truth working to get his swerve on in a major way.

And sure enough, he set his soda down on the bar and grabbed for one of the bottles, opening its twist top.

But then he surprised her by pouring it down the sink. “Help me do this,” he said. “I’ve got to get this shit out of here, like five minutes ago.”

Annie stood up, uncertain. There were so many bottles, some of them almost full. “Shouldn’t we just call room service and have them—”

“I need it gone,” he told her, his voice tight. “Now.”

He was serious—and seriously sweating, as if doing this was neither a whim nor an easy task.

There was so much of it. Annie grabbed the nearest bottle and dumped, vodka mixing with the whiskey already gurgling down the drain. They worked in silence, emptying bottle after bottle. Robin finally turned on the water to help disperse the strong smell of alcohol that was wafting up from the sink.

“So,” Annie finally said. “This is…something of a surprise.”

“I promised Jules I’d quit drinking.” Robin was gritting his teeth as he watched the last of a twelve-year-old scotch disappear.

“Was that where you went before?” she asked. “To see him?”

Robin nodded.

“So you’re just…quitting,” she said. “Just…white knuckle, that’s it, no more…?” She couldn’t hide her dubiousness. “That’s not just stupid—it’s dangerous. Alcohol withdrawal needs to be done in a hospital. Alcoholics have serious side effects when they—”

“But I’m not an alcoholic.” He was instantly defensive. “What is it with people who don’t drink? They think everyone who likes to party has some kind of problem.”

“I drink,” Annie said. “But not the way you do.”

“I’m not an alcoholic,” he said again.

Apparently he didn’t realize that insisting that he wasn’t one was a sure sign that he was.

“My father was,” she told him. “You know, he never remembered what he did when he was drunk, either. He was great when he was sober. A lot like you, actually. Funny and handsome and…really charismatic, but—”

Robin didn’t want to hear this. “I’m sure you think you know—”

She spoke loudly, right over him. “When I was eleven, he hit me and broke my collarbone and my arm. He got a rib, too, and it punctured my lung.”

That shut him up.

“I don’t think he ever really believed he was the one who put me in the hospital,” Annie told him. “He even passed a lie detector test. He was so convincing that the DA didn’t think we could win the case, especially since my mother wouldn’t let me testify, so…We moved to Florida to get away from him. He was too much of a loser to follow us all the way from Boston. But he wrote to me, for years, trying to convince me that it must’ve been someone else who hit me.”

She would never forget, though, the way his face had been twisted with rage. He’d been screaming at her mother, and Annie had tried to make him stop.

Ric had once pointed out, years ago when they’d first tentatively talked about it, that Annie
had
made him stop. Her mother, apparently, had been either able or willing to accept her father’s violence and abuse—but only if
she
were the punching bag. As soon as it was Annie, though, it was over. His theory was that somehow Annie, although only a child, had subconsciously realized that would be the case.

“I’m sorry,” Robin said. “Jesus, I can’t imagine a grown man hitting an eleven-year-old girl.”

“He couldn’t imagine it, either,” she told him. “Too bad we didn’t have YouTube back then, huh?”

Robin emptied the last of the bottles. “It’s nice to know I have your support.”

“You do,” she said. “I think it’s great, Robin, really.”

She didn’t have to say the
but.
He said it for her. “Jules doesn’t think I can do it, either.” He went into the master bedroom—and came back out with four more bottles—two of them empty, the others only a quarter full. “You know, just quit. But I can. I’ve done it before. It’s not that big a deal. I’m nothing like my mother.”

If it wasn’t that big of a deal, then why was he so intent upon removing every last drop of liquor from his suite? Annie kept that question to herself.

“Your mother…drinks?” she asked instead.

“Drank,” he put it into past tense. “She died—DUI—when I was just a kid.”

“You do know the disease—alcoholism—can be hereditary,” Annie said.

“Yeah, well, lucky me—I got my father’s genes,” he retorted as he finished up his task. And then he changed the subject. “I’m trying to get us a flight to California. Leaving tonight. Best I’ve found so far is a charter that won’t leave until tomorrow noon.”

So soon? Annie swallowed past the sudden lump in her throat. “I hate the idea of leaving. I mean, I know Ric and Jules both are good at taking care of themselves, but…”

“Yeah,” Robin agreed. “But it’s what Jules wants, so…” He looked at the bottles as if he wished he hadn’t emptied all of them. “Did you know he’s up for this huge promotion? It’s the kind of position where he’d actually have a shot at being the head of the entire FBI someday.”

“He didn’t mention it to me,” Annie said.

“He wouldn’t.” Robin smiled. He was still looking at those bottles, but his gaze had softened, as if he were no longer seeing them. “I once had…well, it wasn’t really a date with him, but…it really was. I was just too stupid to know.” He met her eyes, his own filled with regret. “God, if I could only just go back in time…” He shook his head. “Anyway, we talked for hours and…I remember he suddenly got embarrassed and he said something like,
Wow, all I’ve been doing is talking about myself
, except here’s the kicker—he wasn’t. He was talking about how great his friends were. His friends, his boss, his mother…I had to really work to get him to say anything about himself. He doesn’t see himself as special and…He’s the most amazing person I’ve ever met.” He picked up the hotel phone. “This is suite 1270. As soon as possible, I need a maid to come up and pick up some trash. A lot of trash—she’ll need a cart. Yeah, thanks.”

He hung up the phone, but his cell rang immediately. “Chadwick.” He took it over to the sofa and flopped down, his legs outstretched and his head back. Pierre moved away, eyeing him mistrustfully, his butt pressed against the far arm.

“Yeah,” Robin said into his phone. “If that’s the best you can…” He listened again. “Okay. Let me know if it changes. We can get to the airport in twenty minutes and…Yeah, okay, I…Yeah. Thank you for trying.” He snapped his phone shut. “No luck with that earlier flight. We’re stuck here until noon tomorrow. But at least we’ll be on a charter—you can take Pierre right into the cabin.”

Annie brought him his Dr Pepper. “Noon tomorrow’s fine with me.” Maybe Jules and Ric would get the evidence against Gordie Junior that they needed before then, and she and Robin wouldn’t have to go anywhere.

Robin held his arm out, offering Pierre his hand to sniff as he looked up at Annie. “So how’d it go with you and Ric last night? Great sex or really great sex?”

Annie had to laugh at his directness. “Those are my only two choices? How about
no sex
?”

Robin gave her a look. “Annie. I saw the way he kissed you. You’re really going to stand there and try to lie to me?”

The scratch that Annie had gotten while climbing up to the deck on the servants’ wing of Burns Point was mostly superficial—barely a welt marking the pale inside of her thigh.

The ouch factor came from a splinter that was in a place from which it would have been difficult for her to remove without Ric’s assistance.

Last night, during that brief reprieve after Martell left and before Junior and crew came a-calling, after Ric had made love to Annie for the first time down in his office, she’d sat on the closed cover of his toilet seat as he’d knelt on the bathroom floor before her, with a sterilized pair of tweezers and a needle and…

“What’s so funny?” Jules asked, startling Ric out of his reverie.

He’d been sitting at Annie’s desk in his outer office, leaning back in the chair with his feet up, and now he nearly went over backward. “Nothing,” he said, catching himself on the desk. “Just…thinking about something Annie said to me last night.”

Jules poured Ric a mug of coffee and brought it to his desk.

“Thanks,” Ric acknowledged. They’d been waiting for Gordie Junior to call them back for hours now. They’d left a message on the man’s cell, as well as his office line. It was nearly sunset, and still no word.

The FBI surveillance teams reported that he’d gone into Burns Point last night. He was either still inside his father’s house, or he’d gone out via a hidden route. Which was not impossible. After two years of investigation, the FBI had determined that there was an unknown way both into and out of Burns Point. They just hadn’t been able to find it.

“I could use a good joke right about now,” Jules said, taking a sip from his own mug. “Annie’s pretty funny.”

Ric shook his head. “This was…You wouldn’t get it. Private joke.” Extremely private.

Ric had finally gotten Annie’s splinter out, much to his intense relief. The idea that he was hurting her had made him sweat. She hadn’t said a word, not a single
ouch
, but he knew from her tension that it had been no picnic.

Of course, the fact that she’d been sitting there with her legs spread, with her panties still in the pocket of the pants that were down on his office floor—that had made him sweat, too, for an entirely different reason.

Damn, but she smelled so good.

He’d made her leg bleed just a little—the splinter had been in deep—and as he reached up for the cloth to wash her off, pressing its coolness against her, he tried to hide the fact that he’d gotten completely aroused again.

Annie, being Annie, was not deceived. In fact, as he met her gaze, he was nearly knocked over by the heat and desire in her eyes.

“Thanks,” she’d whispered. Heat, desire—and amusement—mixed with her own obvious embarassment. But she smiled at him—and it was quite the smile, filled with all kinds of promises.

He’d actually gotten flustered, too, mumbling something hopefully appropriate in response, and sat back to let her up. But she didn’t move.

“I promised you we’d never speak of…certain sexual acts ever again,” she’d said, “so communicating is going to be a little tricky…”

He knew exactly that to which she was referring, and he had to laugh. “I take it back,” he said.

“Nope,” she said. “I promised you. The words will never cross my lips. But maybe if I use telepathy…”

She never did say those words—she didn’t have to. Her telepathy worked just fine. She wanted exactly what he wanted, and he’d kissed her, right there in the bathroom, until she came. And then she took his hand and led him into his bedroom and returned the favor, her mouth so wet and soft and…

“Are you hungry?” Jules asked, startling him again. “Maybe we should send out for something to eat.”

Ric looked at him, and then looked at him again. The FBI agent was clearly exhausted, strain showing on his face. The coffee was only making things worse.

“Are
you
hungry?” Ric asked. There was a fairly decent pizza place nearby that would deliver. Or they could get Chinese…

But Jules shook his head. “No.” He pointed to Ric’s office door, which was tightly closed, and he rolled his eyes. “The forensics lesson pretty much killed my appetite for the next two weeks.”

Before Yashi and his team had left, they’d brought Jules and Ric into the “crime scene,” and told them exactly where Ric would have had to be standing to inflict the fatal gunshot wound to the dead woman who was now lying on Ric’s rug.