Shadow Woman: A Novel (35 page)

Felice ended the call, smiling at Ashley’s spirit even though it had been for nothing. She’d pay a price for this, but keeping her daughter safe was worth it.

Tomorrow … tomorrow she’d take care of Al.

Lizzy slept. She didn’t know how, because despite Xavier’s warning, the shock was so massive she’d been reeling from it. It didn’t help that she had no memory of what she’d done; she believed him implicitly.
Not
remembering her actions was somehow worse, because she had no context through which to filter the things he’d told her. She didn’t know what she’d thought, what she’d felt, what the other agents had done, where they’d taken her afterward or what she’d said and done. All she had were the bare facts, and on the face of it they were ugly.

Xavier could have told her more, and would if she asked, but all she’d wanted was time to absorb what he’d already said. “I’m okay,” she said steadily. “Just let me deal with it, okay?”

He’d given her a sharp look, one she’d returned without flinching, so he’d given a brief nod, turned out the light, and slid down in the bed with her. She’d turned on her side so her back was to him, not to shut him out, but because that was what felt right. He’d put his heavy arm around her and pulled her back so she was nestled in the cradle of his muscular body. She
rested her hand on top of his. The position, the feel of him, the familiarity, had combined with the sheer physical exhaustion of the day and instead of lying awake fretting about things she couldn’t change, she’d gone to sleep within minutes.

She woke before dawn with his big hand sliding over her breasts, stroking and teasing her nipples into tight peaks. The things he’d told her the night before loomed over her, a heavy weight that could crush her. She shouldn’t enjoy this, she thought dimly. She didn’t deserve to laugh, to feel joy, yet pleasure was already blooming deep in her belly, so that she rose through layers of sleep into need, her breath sighing out, her body moving restlessly. That, too, felt very familiar, not just the sensation, but the timing. How many times had he awakened her in the early morning?

Maybe he understood something of what she was feeling, and that was why he’d chosen to wake her like this. She lived, and he wanted her
to
live, to find the fire and fullness of life that she’d once had. This, what was between them, was both trite and powerful. Civilizations had been risked, had fallen, because of love.

She could no more deny him than she could stop the beat of her heart.

His hand left her breasts and smoothed down her side and hip, over the curve of her belly. His touch firm, he dragged his fingertips through her cleft, found the soft, damp opening between her legs, and bit her in the curve between her neck and shoulder as at the same time he slid two big fingers deep into her. The heel of his rough palm pressed down hard on her clitoris, sending little lightning shocks all through her.

Her body bucked and shimmied under the triple onslaught. A breathless little cry slipped from her lips and she turned her face against the pillow, fighting to contain the sensation, and the sounds she was making. What he was doing felt so damn good, and if she gave in it would be over far too soon.

He licked where he’d bitten, then bit her again. He shifted his position so he was lying half over her, controlling her with his weight. His other hand stroked over the coolness of her bottom, down, between her legs, touching where his fingers entered her and stroking, stroking, taking her higher.

There was so much sensation she was drowning in it, yet when he removed his fingers and slid his erection into her, she was jolted yet again. There was friction, heat, stretching, fullness. He flattened his hand low on her belly and braced her for his slow, powerful thrusts. She felt every inch of him dragging out, squeezing back in. And despite how much she wanted to make it last, all too soon she was lost to the delicious, maddening increase of tension, winding tighter and tighter inside her, until she couldn’t take any more and went flying.

Even then, when the mindless spasms of pleasure eased, there was more. There was the feel of him moving hard, pushing deeper and deeper, until she heard that grunt he gave, followed by the rhythmic surges of orgasm. She loved it, loved that their lovemaking was as intense for him as it was for her.

Sweaty, lungs heaving, they settled together. He brushed her hair away from her face and rumbled, “You awake?”

Despite everything, she found she could laugh, the sound soft in the darkness. “No, I was faking it.”

“I have to go back.”

There it was, the decision that had been hanging over them for the entirety of the time they’d been together, which wasn’t that long at all, only about twelve hours—twelve precious hours when she’d felt as if a missing part of herself had been restored. But they couldn’t run for the rest of their lives, and Xavier wasn’t a man who turned his back on a problem, anyway. Odd that her clearest memories, her strongest instincts, revolved around him; or perhaps it wasn’t odd at all, given what they’d shared, how intense their time together had been.

“Yes,” she said. “We have to go back.”

“We?”
There was iron in his tone. She’d known that particular argument wasn’t over with, so this was as good a time as any to revive it.

“Yes, we. If you leave me behind, I’ll follow. If you lock me in a house and board up the windows, I’ll set the place on fire. Trust me. And don’t tell me ‘your people’ will take care of me, because I’m not buying it. We’re in this together.”

“You’ll hinder me. You’re out of shape and out of practice—”

“Hey.”

“Training shape,” he clarified, running an appreciative hand over her breasts and hips. “Your instincts are good, but how long has it been since you fired a weapon?”

“My guess? Four years.” Since she’d fired the shot that killed the President, in fact.

“It’s a skill set that requires constant practice to maintain. You’d be lucky to hit the broad side of a barn.”

That was an exaggeration, but in his world being able to hit a target wasn’t good enough; the shot placement had to be precise.

“Not only that,” he continued, “but you don’t remember what either Felice or Al look like. Either of them could take you, and you wouldn’t have a clue until it was too late.”

Felice? Al?
The names were new to her, yet they resonated. They were part of her lost years … “They’re behind the people who tried to kill us?”

“Felice, definitely. Al, possibly. It has Felice’s handiwork written all over it.”

“How?”

“She used outside people. Al would have used some of his own people, and we’d both probably be dead.”

“Al … what are his people like?”

“Me.”

“Oh.”

From out of nowhere swam an image of a lean, whipcord-tough
man with short-cut, graying hair. “Is Al in his fifties, gray hair?”

Behind her, Xavier tensed. “That’s Al. Have you seen him?”

“I
remember
him.”

“If you remember anything
about
him, you know he isn’t anyone to fuck with.”

“But you don’t think he’s involved in this?”

“Oh, he’s involved. The big question is whether he’s helping Felice, trying to stop her, or just sitting on the sidelines waiting to step in and mop up.”

“What does your gut tell you?”

“I’m not discounting anything.”

She turned in the circle of his arms and looped her arm around his neck, pressing her face to the warm skin of his shoulder. “Do you have pictures of them?”

“At my condo. I can’t go back there yet. Possibly some of my people could come up with some surveillance shots.”

“Just how many people do you have?”

“Enough to have backup whenever I need it.”

As far as detail went, that was fairly useless.

He pinched her ass. “You’ve met some of them, in a way.”

“I have?” Immediately she thought of nosy Maggie Rogers, and the full-blown suspicions she’d felt the day she first started getting her memory back.

“At the barbecue restaurant. The guy you punched and stole his car? Him.”

“Oh, no.” She was immediately assailed by guilt. “He was on our side, and I punched him!”

“He’ll never hear the end of it, either. The others are teasing him nonstop, for getting mugged by the protectee. But it made him feel a little better when you cut my spark plug wires.”

She didn’t feel at all guilty about that. He’d terrified her enough that she thought he deserved a few cut wires, and she
said as much, which earned her another pinch on the ass, followed by a rub.

She kissed his chest, loving his closeness, made all the more precious by the long, cold years without him. He could marshal some excellent, commonsense arguments against taking her with him; none of them made any difference to her whatsoever. She wasn’t going to let him leave her behind. The sooner he faced that reality, the sooner they could return to D.C. and take care of business.

“The first thing we have to do is find a motorcycle shop and have a passenger seat installed on the Harley—either that, or we rent a car. It’s too far back to D.C. for me to ride behind you the way I did yesterday.”

“You aren’t going.”

“Yes,” she said firmly. “I love you, and I am.”

Maybe it was saying she loved him that did it. Maybe he’d gone into shock. But he’d fallen silent, and there were no more arguments. She doubted both of those possibilities, because this was Xavier; whatever had changed his mind, her emotions wouldn’t figure into the equation.

She’d hoped they would rent a car, but he opted for the Harley. Not only did he not want to leave it behind, but the helmets provided them with perfect identity concealment. He located a shop that could install a small passenger seat with a backrest on the bike; then he bought her a helmet that almost matched his, so they’d look like one of those motorcycle couples who thought it was cute to dress alike. Even better, the helmets had radio capability, so they could talk.

He disappeared for a little while, leaving her to twiddle her thumbs in the bike shop. She wondered if he’d ditched her, after all, but he returned within the hour, wearing a shirt he hadn’t had on when he left, a button-up chambray shirt that he’d left open over his tee shirt.

Lizzy lifted her brows at him in question, but he ignored her.

She sat down and flipped through a year-old magazine on bow hunting. She was anxious to be on the road, to start the endgame, but she felt as if she’d been through this countless times before, the endless waiting for the action to begin.

By noon, they were ready to head back to D.C. He got on the bike, she parked her butt on the much-more-comfortable passenger seat, and they headed northeast. Before they hit the interstate, though—a much faster route than the hilly, curvy route she’d taken the day before—he wheeled off the road behind an abandoned old service station, and from the small of his back produced a black automatic pistol.

“Here. You’ll need this.”

Cautiously, Lizzy took the weapon, and as soon as her palm closed on the butt of the pistol she was flooded with tactile memory, not just of the weight and shape of a handgun, but the buck of the weapon when she fired, the sound, the smell of cordite and gunpowder. It was a Sig Sauer compact, a nice weapon she’d used before, though the model wasn’t her favorite.

“Thanks,” she said, ejecting the clip and checking it, the movements coming back to her automatically, without conscious thought. She slapped the clip back into place. She didn’t have a shirt or jacket to hide the weapon if she tucked it into her waistband, so she put it on top in her backpack.

“Ready?” he asked, the sound coming through the helmet’s built-in earpieces.

“Yes.” She might not be prepared, but she was ready. There was a difference, and she hoped he didn’t make the distinction.

“One more thing.”

She waited. The black face mask of his helmet turned toward her. “I don’t think I’ve ever said this before,” he said in a musing tone. “But I love you too, and that’s why you’re here. I’m not letting you get away from me again.”

*   *   *

They stopped to gas up the Harley, and while Xavier stayed outside to pump the gas, Lizzy went inside to prepay and also to use the bathroom. The pump was activated, and he began filling the tank. The task was fairly mindless, so he began thinking about the situation they were heading into, whether or not they’d be facing both Al and Felice or just Felice. He’d worked with Al a long time, respected him, but if he was involved, Xavier would take him out without hesitation. He needed to start formulating a plan, so he wouldn’t be caught unprepared no matter what happened.

No one had called his cell phone, but then they wouldn’t, even though it was secure, bouncing off satellites, through encryption programs, and with every other safeguard he’d been able to access. If any of his people needed to get a message to him, they’d leave it on the number in the secure room of J.P.’s condo. Good old J.P.; she’d come in handy over the years. When he’d checked his messages the day before, there had been nothing, which was reassuring in a way but also worrisome. The situation in D.C. hadn’t been static while he’d been chasing Lizzy down.
Something
was happening, but evidently nothing with his people, so none of their identities had been discovered yet.

He got out his phone and dialed the number, then input the code that let him access his messages. A robotic voice informed him that he had one new message.

His head lifted slightly, like a wolf’s scenting the wind, when he heard Al’s voice.

“There’s a specialist waiting for you at our mutual friend’s house. She expects you to come calling.”

Xavier deleted the message, then cut off the pump.

The immediate message was simple: Felice had hired an assassin to watch her house and ambush him, because she knew he’d be coming for her. That part was easy. He really wouldn’t have expected anything else, but knowing for certain gave him an edge.

The part that got tricky was whether or not Al had called him to make him think Al was on his side and not Felice’s. Giving up the specialist was nothing; Al would do that without a qualm if it would buy him an extra second, a moment of hesitation or distraction, in which he could take care of Xavier himself.