Mommy Midwife (17 page)

Not true.
Though Troy and his team didn’t know that Kruger was Clark, they’d picked up a line on Kruger being the financier for Hatari through computer chatter. Was Clark testing him? Trying to get a rise from him?

A good interrogator could get a suspect to open up. A great one was better than a shot of truth serum. Troy wasn’t great, but he had some experience, and he only needed one answer from Clark: Where will Hatari strike?

Olivia asked, “How did you know that I live in the mountains?”

“You mentioned it when we were chatting at the party.”

“Oh, I guess I did.”

Troy could see that she was beginning to be flustered, and he took advantage. His best tactic with Clark was to make him think they were no threat.

Sitting in the chair beside Olivia, he took his eyes off Clark and focused on her. “It’s okay,” he assured her. “You’re doing fine.”

“Adorable,” Clark said with a smug grin. “You’re a cute couple. When’s the baby due?”

Anger tightened Olivia’s jaw. She hated being patronized. “Your men were watching me,” she said. “They followed us into Denver.”

“Is that what this interview is about?”

Olivia demanded, “Did you plan to abduct me?”

“My dear girl, certainly not.”

Clark’s tone was relaxed. He thought he had this interview in the bag. Therefore, his guard was down. This was the time for Troy to make his move.

His team had consulted with other branches of intelligence. Together, they’d homed in on three possible locations for the terrorist strike. But there was another site—one that Troy had favored based on the Clark connection. This building in Manhattan was the corporate headquarters for one of CRG Energy’s main competitors.

He looked into Clark’s eyes. “Hazelwood Oil, Ritter Plaza, New York.”

“Come again?”

He feigned indifference, but Troy had noticed the
twitch of a muscle in the corner of his eye and a minuscule
tremble of his lips. The location meant something to him.

The door behind them opened, and a guard announced, “Your time is up.”

Troy stood. “I have what I need.”

He deliberately turned his back on Clark, a show that the former spy was no longer worthy of his attention. As soon as he left this cell, he’d put in a call to Nelson and tell him that they needed to expand the parameters of their search.

He and Olivia were almost out the door when Clark spoke again. “One more thing.”

They both turned to face him.

Clark’s expression was a mask of disgust. “Olivia, dear, I had no intention of hurting you. But I might know someone who does.”

“Give me a name,” she demanded.

“You’ll have to find out for yourself.”

Troy suspected that Clark’s statement was nothing more than a desperate attempt to gain the upper hand. But he couldn’t ignore the threat.

Chapter Fifteen

After he made his call to Gunny Sergeant Nelson, Troy’s plan was to take Olivia back to her sister’s house where they would spend the rest of the day being safe and secure. With a little persuasion, he might convince her that the bedroom was the safest room in the house, and they could rest in each other’s arms while he figured out what to do next.

She had a different idea.

“Food,” she said as the Range Rover turned onto Colfax Avenue. “I’m starving.”

“Your sister has food.”

“Bianca has organic food,” she muttered. “What I want is a hot dog and fries. Really greasy fries.”

But she was a health nut. The night they’d ordered from room service she’d wanted fish and rice. “Greasy fries? That doesn’t sound like you.”

“Maybe it’s not. Maybe this is a direct request from the uterus. The kid wants a dog. And, lucky us, we’re driving along a street with lots of yummy choices.”

She sounded too cheerful for someone who’d had her life threatened, and he wasn’t sure what to make of her attitude. With her current tendency toward mood swings, he couldn’t tell if she was trying to cover up her fear or really wasn’t scared or was just plain hungry.

He needed to protect her. “When we talked to Clark, did—”

“He was telling the truth,” she said with exasperation. “Good grief, Troy, this must be the twentieth time I’ve told you. Clark isn’t after me, and he never was. I believe him.”

“And why would you trust that snake?”

“Call it a gut feeling.” She patted her belly. “And I’ve got quite a gut.”

Optimism was one thing, but the way she was behaving was almost manically upbeat. “He also claimed to know someone who wanted to hurt you. Is that the truth?”

“When Clark said that, he was blowing smoke. You rattled him when you mentioned that oil company in New York, and he was trying to get back at you.” She pointed at a hot dog stand. “Deli Dogs. That’s what I want for lunch.”

He’d rather take her to her sister’s house with the state-of-the-art security system. “We’re not that far from Bianca’s.”

“Pull over,” she growled.

He drove into the parking lot, fearful that if he didn’t feed her, she’d rip the steering wheel from his hands or start gnawing on the upholstery. Hopefully, she’d be more cooperative after she’d been fed.

Deli Dogs was a squat little diner, painted red-and-white. The concrete patio in the front had picnic tables with red umbrellas, but they wouldn’t be sitting there. An open dining area made it too easy for a drive-by assault.

At the window inside, they ordered two Polish dogs each and cheese fries. “And pickles,” she said. “Is that too big a pregnancy cliché? Wanting pickles?”

“Not unless you put them with ice cream.”

She thought for a moment, and then shook her head. “Not this time.”

They sat at one of the small tables, waiting for their order. Troy maintained vigilance, watching the people who came through the door and assessing their threat potential, but he was more concerned about Olivia. Her high energy level worried him. She was like a kite soaring into the atmosphere, and it was up to him to rein her in before she crashed into the treetops.

He took her hand. His thumb brushed across the diamond she was still wearing. “We need to talk about our meeting with Clark.”

“Again?”

“It’s important.” He gazed steadily into her eyes. “We don’t have a lot of clues to go on.”

She had a talent for putting up a brave front, but he sensed her tension. Her pupils darted nervously, and her grin faltered. “Go ahead,” she said. “Talk.”

Rather than arguing, he decided to accept her so-called gut feeling. “Let’s assume that Clark wasn’t the person who ordered for you to be watched, pursued or abducted.”

She nodded. “Okay.”

“We know there’s someone after you. We saw evidence at the cabin. And we were chased.”

“Right again.”

“Our problem is to figure out who the hell is after you. I see two possibilities. Either Clark knows of a conspiracy among other spies or there’s some other kind of connection between you and him.”

“A connection?”

“He knows somebody who wants to hurt you. Can you think of people you might know in common?”

“There’s my sister, of course.”

“Has Bianca introduced you to anybody else from her firm? Or from CRG Energy?”

“I’ve met a couple of people my sister works with. Once, she tried to fix me up with a blind date, but our schedules were never in sync.”

“So, nobody from the firm or from CRG,” he concluded. “Think of other people you know. Can we rule out ex-boyfriends?”

“We’ve been over this before,” she said. “I can’t think of anybody who wants to hurt me. Of course I have ex-boyfriends. What woman doesn’t? But none of them are psycho enough to try to abduct me. And none of them would have the financial means to set up a two-car chase.”

She couldn’t be sure of that. A two-car chase involving rental cars wasn’t that costly. “Any bad breakups?”

“There was a guy I lived with for three months, a ski instructor. He was angry when I kicked him out, but it was mostly because he didn’t want to look for another place to live rent-free. He wasn’t obsessed with me or anything.”

“A ski instructor might have come into contact with Clark. They might have met at his place in Aspen.”

“I never thought of that,” she said, “but it makes sense. It’s like that six degrees of separation thing. I might know somebody who knows somebody who knows Clark.”

Tracking that sort of tenuous connection was nearly impossible, but they had to try. “When we get back to your sister’s house, you can make a list of everybody you know. We’ll cross-reference with what we know of Clark.”

Their order came up, and he carried the heavy-laden tray to their table. Though Deli Dogs posted notes on their menu claiming to be nitrate-free and pure beef, this plate was a junk food bonanza, which didn’t seem to bother Olivia at all. She took giant bites. As she chewed, she made the kind of orgasmic groans he’d heard from her in bed. Her eyes rolled in sheer happiness.

Her guard was down, and he liked seeing her this way. When she didn’t have an agenda, she was vulnerable and quirky—fun to be around. The more time they spent together, the more he wanted to be with her.

“I love...” He stopped himself before he said the wrong thing and sent her running in the opposite direction. “I love watching you eat.”

She gave him a thumbs-up and pounced on her greasy fries.

* * *

A
T HER SISTER’S
house, Olivia felt safe—trapped but safe. Sitting around the table with her dad and Troy, she tried her best to follow the plan: listing everyone she knew who might also know Clark. The tally was surprisingly high. In her work, she came into contact with a number of doctors and hospital personnel who hobnobbed with the wealthy. Her clients came from all walks of life. Her friends were other people who engaged in outdoor sports or other midwives.

“Nobody stands out,” she said. “And none of these people have a motive to hurt me.”

“You’re doing very well,” her dad said. “If I had a more comprehensive list of Clark’s acquaintances, we might start seeing a pattern.”

Troy’s cell phone rang, and he excused himself to take the call from Sergeant Nelson. As he left the room, she turned to her father and asked, “Is this the kind of thing that spies do? Making lists and checking them twice?”

“Your mother and I usually pass our intelligence back to the analysts who use computers to make these connections. But ninety percent of our work isn’t the least bit exciting.”

“And the other ten percent?”

“The attack last night was more violence than I’ve seen in years,” he admitted. “I hated it. The senseless destruction reminded me of how very out of practice I am when it comes to fieldwork. I can’t tell you the last time I’ve taken target practice.”

His eyes were red-rimmed and tired. Though he was still a healthy man, her dad was in his sixties, no longer in the prime of his life when it came to fighting the kind of battles that Troy faced. “It could be time for you to retire.”

“CIA agents never really retire. The agency becomes part of our identity. But your mother and I will very likely become inactive, no longer taking on new assignments.”

“And what does that mean?”

“Maybe we’ll live in Paris. Your mother always liked France.”

“I like art,” her mom said as she came into the room. “But France will be too far away from my new grandson. I’m thinking of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Or Carmel in California.”

“Or Aspen,” her dad suggested.

“Or Baja.”

“Or all of the above.” Olivia didn’t see her globe-
trotting parents settling in one place for an extended period of time. “You’ll definitely be cool grandparents.”

Her mother gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “I hate to think of you being in any sort of danger, but I’m so glad we’ve had this time together. Your father and I are delighted we can participate in the birthing process.”

“Not so fast,” Olivia said. “I’m not going to a hospital.”

“Whatever you say, dear. I’m sure your sister and I can handle the arrangements. We’ll do it right here.”

As if giving birth was a dinner party? That wasn’t what she wanted. Her time in labor shouldn’t be arranged for everyone’s convenience, and it shouldn’t be an instructional guide for her mother and sister. Olivia wanted it her way. At her home. With a midwife she knew and trusted.

Troy stepped into the room and signaled to her. “Can we talk for a minute?”

She hoisted herself from the table and went toward him. Taking her hand, he led her all the way upstairs to their bedroom where they would have privacy. He must have something serious to discuss.

When he closed the door behind her, she was curious but still focused on what her mother had said. “When I give birth, it’s not going to be here on twin beds that keep sliding apart. And I’m not going to a hospital.”

“Whatever you say.” He crossed to the window and looked down at the yard.

“I want to be at my cabin. I know it takes a village to raise a child, and I want everyone to share in this baby’s life. But the birth is mine. It needs to be natural. I need to be at peace. You’ll back me up on this, won’t you?”

“If I can.”

“What does that mean?” She studied his profile as he stared through the window at the afternoon sun. He seemed distracted. “Troy, what’s wrong?”

“I just got off the phone with Nelson. My team has become an integral part of the search for the terrorist cell.”

“Isn’t that what you expected?” she asked. “Your men speak Swahili. They have firsthand knowledge of Hatari in Rwanda. It makes sense that they’d take the lead.”

He pivoted and came toward her. The faint lines at the corners of his eyes deepened as he squinted. His mouth was a hard, stubborn line. “I want to be with them.”

And not with me.
For the past couple of days she’d been chafing under the restrictions of being protected, but she didn’t want him to leave. “Tell me more.”

“Do you remember when we were talking about my work and I told you my proudest accomplishment?”

“That you’d never lost a man.”

“I trust my guys to do the right thing. They’re savvy, and they’re quick. But I need to be sure they’re following the best leader. I can’t let them risk their lives unless I’m there.”