Hard Case (13 page)

Steve sighed. He hadn’t been desperately concerned, but it was still a relief to know he wasn’t going to get carted before the coppers and asked a million questions any time soon.

“I hope they checked the gun, that the scene wasn’t too contaminated?” Steve suggested.

Troy chuckled at that.

“Contaminated?” Troy laughed again. “By what? Your blood? Or the ruined décor from the sprinklers emptying the tanks everywhere? Or the many people tromping through the scene of the crime?”

Steve had to crack a smile at that. He could imagine some finicky forensic expert having a fit over the state of how Keyton’s rooms would be—not to mention everywhere else in that wing of Parliament.

“But the gun?” Steve prompted.

Troy nodded. “Yes, the gun had Leland’s prints on it. And there was the fact that both Keyton and I are witnesses to the fact that Leland shot you then tried to finish killing you. We can both imagine Keyton and myself were next on that list, so there’s going to be no troubles of a legal kind.”

Steven allowed his whole body to relax. Relief washed over him. Tension he hadn’t even consciously known about seeped from his muscles. He felt like he’d sunk a few inches farther down into the hospital cot.

“That’s fantastic. Thank you.”

“Wasn’t me,” Troy said. He shrugged. “Well, my testimony, of course. But this is so far out of my hands now, it’s not funny. At least it’s over, so it’s not like we’ll be missing anything but the boring bits. Police interviews. Newspaper articles. Court proceedings. Nothing fun.”

“And James?” Steve asked.

“Ronald Ramirez,” Troy replied. “Information is still sketchy on him, but I’ve heard there are some solid leads on him, and everything is getting clearer with every hour that passes. A naturalized Brit—he’s been here almost twenty years, slowly but steadily blackmailing his way into power. Those he couldn’t wrestle onto his side he bribed or replaced. It’s looking like he got greedy. Through an intermediary, he sounded out Keyton, found the waters unwilling but hit pay-dirt with Leland.”

“Slimy bastard,” Steve wrinkled his nose in distaste. “As for Leland, let me guess. He wasn’t climbing up the ladder as fast as he’d like, and accepted a deal to sell information for more greased hands and a quicker trip into power. What was their long-term plan? Do you know?”

“I’m not sure yet, but from the whispers I’ve heard, it was to frame Keyton for something and have Leland take over. It gets a bit sketchy here, because I think Leland was double crossing Ronald and Ronald in turn was cutting out Leland to take more for himself.”

There was a silence as Steve digested this all.

“Makes me bloody glad I have no political aspirations,” Steve said, then sighed. “Work drama is much more my style. People screwing each other in closets and popping pills. That’s much more my pace, I think.”

Steve eyed Troy cautiously, surprised his partner wasn’t already up and pacing, wanting to write his reports or move onto the next problem.

“I won’t shatter if you get back to work,” Steve promised. “And it’s certainly not as if I can run off anywhere on you. If you start getting antsy to get back to work, I understand.”

Troy shook his head.

“That was a difficult case, not because of all the deception and double crossings. I’m used to that. But when I saw you on that floor, shot in the gut, bleeding out everywhere and still trying so valiantly to protect me and help my mission, it made me realize how much I’m falling for you.”

Steve smiled, warmth spreading through his chest.

“If I’d been framed,” Steve explained, “that taint would have fallen to you, slurred your name, possibly ruined your career. I know what your work means to you and I was sick with the knowledge I might be your downfall. I’d have done anything to protect you from that. Accepting I would get shot didn’t hurt as much as thinking I might destroy such an important part of your life. It was then I knew I was falling in love with you too.”

They stared at each other for a moment, the silence between them warm and full of unspoken words. Troy leaned over him, brushed his palm down his cheek. Steve turned his head into the caress, enjoyed the feel of his touch.

Troy bent his head, Steve lifted his chin and they kissed. This wasn’t a fiery, passionate kiss of lovers coming together with a blaze of passion, quickly burnt out. This was a warmer, deeper meeting of souls and bodies. They tangled their tongues. Steve lifted his hands and ran his fingers through Troy’s hair. Brushed it out of his eyes.

They pulled apart slowly, neither wanting the tender moment to end. They spoke with their gazes and communicated with the touch of their lips together. Words weren’t necessary and Steve loved that.

Steve loved Troy. This complicated, loyal and breathtakingly sensual man.

And he had no doubt that Troy loved him equally in return.

Also available from Totally Bound Publishing:

In the Presence of Mine Enemy

Helena Maeve

Excerpt

Chapter One

The next seven squares down demanded a synonym for betrayal. Hailey rapped his pencil against the paper’s fluttering corner.
Treason.
He hesitated on the last letter as the waitress glided over with his espresso.

She offered him a beatific smile. “Anything else, sir?” It was November and the harsh breeze whipped at her black skirt like greedy hands.

“Thank you, no,” Hailey answered, his French sufficiently accented to mark him for an outsider. He’d been trying to shed his Britishness for twenty-five years, to little avail. Perhaps that was why his superiors seldom posted him abroad.
Too valuable an assent, my arse.
They hadn’t felt the same way about Osma or Vaughan, and both were throwaways from the competition, living reservoirs of classified information that their American brethren would’ve gobbled up in a heartbeat.

If only GCHQ didn’t play fast and loose with their assignments…

Hailey chased the bitter thought with a sip of equally bitter coffee.

The crossword puzzle wouldn’t solve itself. He turned back to the newspaper. He could hear the breakers in the distance, a steady whoosh and churn of whitecaps crashing against jagged rocks. In summer, the giddy yowling of tourists and families traveling with all their brood would have drowned out the white noise. Hailey had deliberately chosen the off-season to avoid the racket.

Well, that, and the low rates didn’t hurt, either.

His modest civil servant income had been halved since he’d retired and he was fast becoming one of those dreadful penny-pinchers who counted their change in supermarkets. In a few years, the metamorphosis would likely culminate in a cheerless but highly cogent transition from his semi-detached in South London to a room at some moderately well-appointed care facility somewhere in the Midlands.

He would gladly trade London’s callow youths—once a factor of the city’s appeal—for fresh air and clean country living.

He had talked about it often enough with Bernie.

Don’t think about that now.

The tire-screech of doublethink clamped down on the unbidden memory like a lid on a pressure cooker. Hailey felt the prick of tension behind his eyes. He should have gotten new reading glasses before he left for his holiday. His old pair was giving him a headache.

Yes—
he pinched the bridge of his nose—
the glasses are to blame
. Not the twenty-five years of disciplining his thoughts into order whenever he was in public, when he didn’t know what a twitch of muscle at the corner of his lips could betray to the not so casual observer. Not the debilitating, logical consequence of excising sentiment as soon as it took seed.

A screech of metal chair legs against the pavement brought him up short. He expected a clumsy pensioner, or the charming waitress snagging her apron by accident—the kind of minor misadventures that were as common as they were meaningless in the real world.

He did not expect to see a pale, bearded stranger fold himself into a seat at his table. The shock value wore off quicker than a summer fling.

Hailey froze, the newspaper wrinkling in his fist.

“Ah,” the man drawled, “you
do
remember me. I was running a bet with myself all the way here.”

“Did you win?” Hailey heard himself ask. The words were dredged up smoothly, produced by whatever part of his brain wasn’t engaged in floundering panic.

Could he run? Was there any safe place he could run
to
? He wiped a clammy hand against his trousers.
Don’t be ridiculous.

He hadn’t seen Adam in years, ever since an incident in Eastern Europe had foreshortened their acquaintance.

He’d been hoping to avoid the pleasure.

Adam didn’t answer. He merely held up a hand to flag down the waitress. Hailey was ashamed of the jolt in his chest, the stop-start urge to duck under the table in case bullets were about to start flying. He knew Adam had noticed. It was there in the crooked ellipse of his smile. He looked like a predator satisfied to have cornered its exhausted quarry.

His French was perfect, all smooth, round vowels and rasping consonants. The smile that tugged at his lips when he spoke would’ve been enough to melt hearts, were it not for his eyes. Malice lived there now, darkening his irises to a deep emerald green.

Despite himself, Hailey remembered the last time they’d met in the bowels of Whitehall. Adam Asche had been easy with his smiles then, too. It was what had gotten him in trouble in the first place. Or part of it, anyway. Lesser agents screwed up worse and didn’t pay as steep a price. Such was the nature of the job—justice was relative.

“You give yourself away, Mr Hailey,” Adam said when they were alone again. “Black trench coat, black gloves?” He clucked his tongue. “Not very up to the minute. You’re not in mourning, are you?”

His derisive nettling stung more than any juvenile barb about his sartorial choices. Hailey smiled. “Would it matter if I was?”

Adam snorted a breath of mirthless laughter. “Once a spy, always a spy, is that it? Fine, don’t tell me. We’ll just sit and stare at each other. Isn’t that what old dogs do best?” He sprawled nonchalantly in his plastic seat, his back to the promenade and his knees splayed wide apart. He might as well have been shouting ‘I’m not afraid of you’ for all to hear.

Of the two of them,
he
certainly had no reason to be.

Hailey realized he was clutching his paper tight enough to smudge the graphite print. He set it down beside his rapidly cooling coffee and folded his clawed hands. “Why are you here, Adam?”

“There a problem with checking in with my favorite handler?” Adam shot back.

A hitch of shoulders stretched the fabric of his off-the-rack shirt, pulled at the plastic buttons. He had bulked up since their last conversation.

At least prison had been good for something.

“I’m not your handler anymore,” Hailey pointed out, affecting calm. “And you’re a wanted man.”

He didn’t say ‘you’re supposed to be rotting in a gulag somewhere’
because for all he knew, Adam had been turned and released by their Russian colleagues. He wouldn’t be the first serviceman to go from praising the Queen to praising Allah, Stalin or any other idol just to catch a break.

Hailey couldn’t fault him for defecting. Sometimes, it was the only sensible thing to do.

“Oh,
that.
” Adam brushed the reminder aside with a lackadaisical wave. “Minor logistical hitch. Doesn’t stop me getting around.”

“So I see.”

The waitress returned with Adam’s coffee. The napkin under the saucer had been inscribed with digits quickly jotted down in blue ballpoint. Hailey revised his assumption—perhaps the young woman hadn’t sighted that foreboding zing in Adam’s gaze. Perhaps she found that attractive.

She wouldn’t be the first.

“How long have you been following me?” Hailey asked, more out of interest than any real disquiet. If Adam had wanted him dead, he’d be dead already. Any number of ways to do it, but the simplest of all—a bullet to the head—would have spared Adam a trip down to the boardwalk.

Yet here he was, prodding the old dog with a stick just because he could.

Adam smirked, his ginger whiskers twitching with a sharp pull of muscle. “Afraid you’re slipping?”

“A man my age doesn’t fear much of anything anymore. Too costly.”

“I wanted to see you.”

“I can’t take you back in,” Hailey said. “I’m retired.”

“You mean you’ve been disavowed.”

So you know.
Hailey didn’t have to try to conceal the twitch of a smile. It was second nature by now. “New blood at GCHQ. It was high time they made some changes.”

He didn’t owe Adam an explanation, but habit compelled him to make a vague show of civility, for old times’ sake.

It was also for the sake of old times and whatever complicity they’d once shared that he felt obliged to remark on the weather when conversation faltered. He brought up the digits jotted down on the napkin as a lighthearted jab, when Adam wouldn’t answer with more than a vague, noncommittal hum. His attempts fell mostly flat.

“I’m not asking any favors,” Adam muttered, entirely out of the blue.

Hailey arched an eyebrow
.

“I’m done with the Service… With Maxwell, Bowen, the lot.”

“You’re a free agent now, are you?”

He watched Adam grin broadly. There was something still so boyish in his face despite the thick ginger beard. The thuggish slant of his brow was a far cry from the innocence of youth.

“I’m on leave,” he said. It wasn’t a yes or a no, but Hailey hadn’t been expecting confirmation, anyway. “Thought I’d take care of some personal business while I was in the neighborhood…”

“I’m staying at the Grand Hotel.”

“I know.”

It was Hailey’s turn to smile, albeit tepidly. Of course, Adam would know better than to approach him without first performing his due diligence.