Reach For the Spy (35 page)

Kane’s voice. “Oh my
God, Aydan, I’m so sorry!”

I blinked stupidly,
clearing tears from my eyes while the gun wavered in my grip. Kane
lay in my bed in all his glorious nakedness, his expression
anguished as he repeated, “I’m so sorry!”

“Wha...?” I shook my
head vigorously. “You’re dead,” I quavered.

“I know I deserve
that...”

“What? No, this is
another stupid dream. I know you’re dead. I saw you die. I went to
your funeral. You’re dead. This is a dream.” My gun shook
uncontrollably.

“It’s not a dream. I’m
not dead.”

“Yes, you are.” My
heart refused to believe otherwise. Soon I’d wake up, and the pain
would be too great.

“I was captured and
drugged. I don’t know how long I’ve been held. I don’t even know
what day it is...”

My gun dropped to my
side and I stared at Kane open-mouthed. “It’s... Tuesday morning.
You mean... this is real? You’re really alive, and we really
just...”

I checked in with my
body.

Oh yeah. No mistaking
that feeling.

We’d really just...

I grabbed for a tissue
to wipe at the trickle running down my leg.

“I’m sorry.” His voice
vibrated with emotion. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am...”

I dove onto the bed and
smothered him with kisses, floating in the blissful sensation of
his living body against mine.

“Thank God, oh, thank
God! You’re alive...” I kissed him some more. “You’re alive,
ohmigod, we have to tell Arnie and your dad right away...”

“Aydan, stop.” He held
my shoulders and looked into my eyes.

I surfaced from my joy
to register how upset he was. “What’s wrong?”

“Everything’s wrong.
Goddammit, I can’t believe what an idiot I am. Criminally stupid
idiot.”

“But what...?”

“Aydan, how can you
stand to look at me? I broke into your house in the middle of the
night and raped you, for God’s sake.”

“What? No! Jeez, no,
you didn’t. What part of me screaming, ‘Oh God, John, harder’
sounded like rape to you?”

“Oh.” A sheepish look
crept over his face. “I guess... I’m still a little foggy. I woke
up, and you were lying there bruised and crying, and I thought...
All I remembered was coming in here and you were naked... and...”
He took a deep breath. “God, that was mind-blowing.”

I cuddled up to him.
“That’s more like it.”

“But, Aydan, this is
bad. This should never have happened. Damn drugs, messed up my
judgement, I should have known better...”

I looked more closely
at him in the dim light and realized his eyes were dilated and
unfocused. The first shiver of concern shook me. “Are you okay?
What did they give you?”

He shook his head
vigorously and ran a hand over his stubbled face. “I don’t know.
Some kind of long-acting drug. Not a hallucinogen. Maybe a
barbiturate. They shot me with a trank gun each time so I was out
when they injected me.” He gestured to his forearm, where needle
marks tracked across his skin.

“But… I still don’t
understand how you’re alive. I heard the bang. I saw the blood. I
know what gunshots sound like. Trank guns just make a little
‘phhtt’ sound.”

Kane blew out a long
breath. “Sirius has developed a special-purpose trank gun that
mimics real ordnance. You’re right, the propellant for the actual
trank is virtually silent, but the gun shoots a blood-coloured
paint pellet along with a blank cartridge for sound, and the casing
from the blank gets ejected so it looks real. It’s for undercover
use, for when you need to appear to kill somebody. It doesn’t hold
up under close scrutiny, but if you just need a gunshot and a
falling body, it works.”

“But why would they
keep you drugged?”

He rubbed his face
again. “I don’t know. Maybe to make it harder for me to escape. Or
they might have been planning to interrogate me or apply some kind
of psychological leverage. They’d want to lower my inhibitions and
impair my judgement. Make me easier to influence.”

He groaned. “I’m
trained to withstand those effects, but I guess I let my guard down
when I saw you. I should have known better. I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry? Is
there something you need to tell me? Do you have a sexually
transmitted disease?”

“What? No!” He frowned
at me. “No, I’m clean.” He paused. “How about you?” he asked
cautiously.

“No, I’m clean. It’s
all good.”

“What about... Could
you get pregnant?”

“No. No chance. I had a
hysterectomy ten years ago.”

“Oh.” He eyed me
uncertainly. “But... I still owe you an apology. I could have hurt
you badly, losing control like that.” His hand reached as if to
touch my arm, but stopped. “You’re covered with bruises. I must
have hurt you. I’m so sorry.”

“Trust me, I wasn’t
paying attention to any bruises.” I tugged gently at his arm.
“Relax. Now that I know I’m not dreaming...” I grinned at him and
lay back on the pillows. “Come a little closer.”

He swallowed hard, his
eyes locked on me. “Aydan, we can’t,” he said hoarsely.

“Why not?” I sat up to
swing astride him and leaned forward to kiss him, letting my
nipples trace lightly across his chest. I felt another magnificent
hard-on growing under me as I slid slowly against him.

He groaned. “Aydan, I
have to get out of here. It’s a miracle they haven’t found me
already. You’ll be in danger, too, if I’m here...” His hands cupped
my breasts despite his words as he began to move under me. “Damn
drugs... Damn fool... Aydan... stop...”

Even my lust-clouded
judgement had to bow to reality. I didn’t know exactly what time
he’d arrived, but he’d been in my bed for at least an hour and a
half, probably more. Too dangerous.

I sighed deeply and got
off him.

He rolled out of bed
without looking at me and started yanking on his clothes. I flopped
back on the pillow and watched. I could’ve looked at that body all
day long. Among the other things I could’ve done to that body all
day long.

“Aydan, get dressed.”
Kane was still looking away from me. “I need to get up to speed
with what’s happened, but it’s too dangerous to do it here. I’m
going to hide in the woods down by the creek for now. I need you to
come and brief me.”

I grinned as I crept
out of bed. “I’d rather de-brief you.”

“Meet me down by the
creek.” He made for the door without looking back.

Struggling to overcome
the lassitude caused by a head-banging orgasm and a gigantic
emotional roller-coaster, I stumbled brainlessly around the
bedroom. Eventually I got all my clothes on in the proper order,
and tucked the Glock into my waist holster.

On my way through the
kitchen I snagged a handful of cereal bars and lifted a small
backpack out of the closet as I went out the door.

The dawn light was
turning from grey to rose by the time I arrived at the woods around
the creek that divided my land from Tom Rossburn’s to the south. I
stepped into the cover of the trees and stood still, listening.

A movement caught my
eye, and Kane stepped out from behind a small thicket of diamond
willow.

I looked up at him in
the pink light. “Come on, I have a spot where I like to sit.”

“Does anybody else know
about it?”

“No. It’s a good
vantage point, you can see out without being visible.”

“Good.” He motioned me
forward and I led him along the game trail. When we reached the
smooth fallen log tucked into the underbrush, he grunted approval
and sat down beside me. I handed him the cereal bars and the
backpack.

“What’s this?” He
hefted the pack.

“Survival gear. I
wasn’t sure what your plans were, but I’m guessing you don’t have
your gun or any equipment.”

The laugh lines
crinkled around his eyes while he sorted through the items,
smiling. “Aydan, you’re amazing. Did you just pack this?” He
strapped the hunting knife onto his belt.

“No, I had it by the
back door.”

“It’s a joy to work
with a professional like you.”

I shifted on the log.
“I’m not a professional. That’s the kit I carry in my car in the
wintertime. I just never got around to unpacking it.”

“Of course,” he agreed,
straight-faced. “Thanks. This will hold me until I can get to one
of my caches.”

“How did you even get
here?” I asked. “It’s ten miles out of town.”

He shrugged. “I lay low
after I escaped yesterday afternoon. As soon as it was dark, I cut
cross-country on foot. I wasn’t trying to set any speed records, so
it was an easy trip. That doesn’t matter, though.” He eyed me
intensely. “Tell me everything that’s happened.”

I tried to gather my
thoughts into an organized narrative. The memory from the dump site
was still so vivid that I clasped my hands together to hide their
trembling.

“Stemp shot you in the
back.” The words choked out of me, my throat constricted by rage
and remembered pain. “He said you were dead. I tried to kill him. I
couldn’t get to you...”

“Slow down.” He took my
hands and held them gently between his own. “Stemp shot me? So it
was a setup,” Kane muttered. “It felt like it to me, but...”

“Yes.” The words burst
out. “He lied, the filthy fucking scumbag! I’ll kill him! I’ll kill
him slowly so the bastard suffers like he made everybody else
suffer...”

“Aydan, stop. Tell me
what happened after he shot me.”

I took a deep breath.
“I’m sorry. I just... He hurt so many people...” I clamped down on
my emotions. “He shot you,” I said levelly. “He told me you were
dead. I tried to shoot him, but he’d tampered with my gun. Switched
the magazine out for a load of blanks. I checked it after he gave
it back to me, but I didn’t pull the magazine all the way out to
look at the bullets.”

“Then what
happened?”

“I completely lost it.
I tried to get at him, but his guys knocked me down and sat on me.”
My hands clenched with remembered fury. “I’d have torn him apart
with my bare hands if I could have. I tried...”

“His guys? Who? How
many?”

“I don’t know who they
were. They were wearing combat gear, and they came back to Sirius
afterward. I presume they were on government payroll. I felt really
bad about the two I put in the hospital when I realized they were
just doing their jobs.”

Kane’s eyebrows went
up. “You put two in the hospital? How many were there?”

“Five to start
with.”

“You took on five
trained soldiers. And sent two to the hospital.” He eyed me
quizzically. “Tell me again how you’re just a bookkeeper.”

I sighed. “I’m just a
bookkeeper. It wasn’t like I did some big ninja thing. They weren’t
trying to hurt me, just hold me. I was fighting for all I was
worth, and they just sat on me.”

He frowned at me in
silence for a few more seconds. “So Stemp set this up using
department resources,” he said finally.

“Yes. He told me he’d
set the whole thing up to draw out Fuzzy Bunny’s operative. Said he
had guards and snipers set up, but that nobody showed up except
you. And he said you were a traitor, that you had a trank gun and
you were going to take me to Fuzzy Bunny, so he’d killed you.” I
realized I was babbling, and took a deep breath. Anger overtook me
again.

“Filthy liar,” I ground
out. “He lied to me, he lied to Briggs, he lied to your dad. And he
made me lie to Arnie. I had to tell him you were dead. Your funeral
was on Saturday.” I broke off. “We need to tell all of them right
away.”

“Don’t tell anybody I’m
alive.”

I bolted upright. “But,
John, what about your dad? And Arnie? You should have seen them, it
nearly killed them...” I broke off at the pain in his eyes.

“Aydan, Stemp obviously
wanted me out of the picture for some reason. Now that I’ve
escaped, he’ll pull out all the stops to find me. I might not get
out of this alive. The funeral’s over. If I survive this, there’ll
be plenty of time for good news. If I don’t, then at least they
won’t have to go through it twice.”

I subsided. I had to
agree, as much as I hated it. “But what will you do? How can we
nail Stemp?”

“First, tell me the
rest. He told you I was dead, and that I was a traitor.” His voice
was level, but his eyes blazed. “Then what?”

“I didn’t believe it.
But I was so... in shock. It was all a blur. I didn’t have any
proof. He and Briggs debriefed me, and I went down to Calgary to
tell Arnie in person. But then I realized that Stemp had lied.”

I looked up at him and
clutched his hand tighter. “I knew he’d lied. Because I remembered
seeing your Sig in your hand. You were really going to kill me. I
was so glad. I knew you weren’t a traitor.”

“Aydan, only you would
say you were glad I was going to kill you. You’re insane.”

“Well, no, I
meant...”

His lips silenced
me.

A long, tender kiss.
Kane pulled away at last, holding my face between his palms.
“Aydan, I wasn’t going to kill you. I couldn’t.”

“But...” My mind reeled
dizzily. “I saw your finger on the trigger.”

“I didn’t say I wasn’t
going to shoot you. I said I wasn’t going to kill you.” He sighed.
“I was sure it was a setup. I caught sight of one of the snipers as
I drove in, so I knew we were being watched. And I knew...”

He smiled and stroked
my hair back from my face. “I knew you’d stand there and take a
bullet because you thought it was the right thing to do. I was
counting on it, that you’d stand still and let me shoot you. It was
a tricky shot, but makeable. If I hit you in the upper chest, it
would look like a mortal wound, but you might survive. I was
planning to put you into a body bag and rush you off for treatment.
It was incredibly risky and you might have died anyway, but it was
the only thing I could think of. I have some medical contacts who
owe me favours. And you’d have been free of this.”