The Unsung Hero (50 page)
“Are we together?” she asked, her heart in her throat.
“I’m not sure,” he said, his gaze palpably hot as it flicked across her body. “But I think so. I mean, we’ve been talking for over four minutes, and I’ve managed to keep my pants zipped. I think what happens in the next minute could be crucial in defining whether we’re together or whether we’re just two horny people who like to jump each other’s bones.”
“So Angie called you,” she said.
He laughed, but it was low, dangerous. “Yeah. Angie called and I tracked down David and went over to his apartment, intending to put the fear of God into him and to drag Mal’s ass home. Only it was so obvious that he’s completely in love with her, and she’s happier than I’ve ever seen her. I mean, not since she was four have I seen her this happy. You met this kid, David, didn’t you?”
Kelly nodded. “Briefly. He seems nice.” She cringed at her choice of word. Poor kid. Saddled with the curse of niceness.
“He is. He looked me in the eye, and . . .” Tom cleared his throat. “He’s a good man. So I give ’em my blessing, and I’m about to leave the apartment when I see it. David’s got a camera, Mal’s been using it to take pictures, and on his kitchen table, scattered among all these other shots of people, are four photos of the Merchant in the lobby of the Baldwin’s Bridge Hotel.”
Kelly skidded to a stop. “Oh, my God, Tom, that’s great.”
“Yeah. It got better, too, before it got worse.” He hunkered down, his back against the trunk of the tree, arms around his knees. “We used David’s computer to scan in the pictures and send ’em to a guy named WildCard. He’s the SO squad’s computer expert—he’s in California right now.
“Turns out David’s an artist, and he and WildCard managed to take these new photos of the Merchant and run a comparison with the old photos, to see if, through computer analysis of bone configuration, it’s even possible this is the same man. And the answer comes up yes. Of course yes means there’s a seventy-five percent chance that they’re one and the same. There’s a lot of room there for doubt. So I figure before I call Admiral Crowley and hang myself out to twist in the wind, I’ll get more proof.”
“Like . . . what?”
“I figured getting my hands on the explosives he’s using to build this bomb might be a good place to start. Or hey, the bomb itself would probably even do the trick. So Alyssa Locke put on a dress and high heels and took one of the photos to the same desk clerk who checked the Merchant and his raftload of luggage into the hotel. She flashed the picture, flashed her legs, and—”
“That is so sexist!”
Tom laughed. “Yeah. And do you want to guess how long it took her to get the name?”
“She got the Merchant’s name?”
“Only the name he used to check into the hotel. It’s not his real name, you can bet on that. But in three seconds Locke and her legs find out he’s going by Mr. Richard Rakowski.”
“Locke and her legs. God, I hate that.”
“Yeah, well, it’s the way the world works. Women can go places and do things to get information in ways that men just can’t. Jazz and Sam are so opposed to letting women join the SEAL teams, but it’s not because they don’t think a woman can get the job done. They think their own abilities will be compromised because they’ll be distracted.”
The wind blew, hard, and a shower of leaves swirled down around them. Thunder rumbled ominously. But Kelly didn’t want to go inside. Not yet.
“So you’ve got his name,” she said. “What next?”
“David went to work—literally. The kid’s a waiter at the hotel, and they’re currently short staffed, particularly for room service. So we shined up Sam Starrett, brushed his hair, washed his beamish little face, and sent him with David into the supervisor’s office. While Sammy filled out a job application, and the supervisor kept a sharp eye on him to make sure he didn’t steal anything off the desk, David covertly accessed the hotel computer and found that Mr. Richard Rakowski was in room 104.”
“How could this be bad? It’s great you know this. You don’t have to wait for him to build a bomb. You can just catch him. Why not just bring him in?”
“Well, for starters, because this is America, and when someone with no authority catches someone and takes them someplace they don’t want to go, it’s called kidnapping.”
“But you’re a SEAL, an officer in the Navy—”
“I have no authority here, Kelly. Which is why I need to bring some kind of proof to the attention of my superiors, who in turn need to bring it to the attention of the FBI, who will then apprehend this scumbag.” His voice hardened. “Don’t get me wrong. If I have to, I’ll risk kidnapping charges and grab him up. Starrett and Locke are watching his room right now. But after what we found out this afternoon . . .” He exhaled in disgust. “I’m sure they’re just humoring me.”
“What did you find out?”
“After learning he was registered to room 104, I did a little more research, and I was positive we’d got him. I found out room 104 is on the marina side of the hotel, on the concierge level—which is a fancy name for the ground floor. Room 104 also happens to be directly over the hotel’s oil tank in the basement.” Tom laughed in disbelief. “If I were going to take out the Baldwin’s Bridge Hotel, that’s where I’d start. With the oil tank right there, you’d get the added oomph of all that fuel. And a ground-level blast would do the most structural damage. It’d bring down the whole front face of the hotel.” He looked at her, frustration in his eyes. “I was so sure.”
“I don’t understand. Why aren’t you sure anymore?”
“We went into his room.”
He said it so simply, but Kelly knew it had been anything but. If Richard Rakowski was the Merchant, and a bomb was in that room, his door would have been protected in some way. Booby-trapped, maybe. She couldn’t even imagine the kind of security or warning systems the Merchant might have set up, but she knew that Tom could. And Tom and his friends had no doubt taken precautions. We went into his room. They surely didn’t just pick the lock, turn the knob, and walk in. It had, no doubt, taken grueling hours.
“There was nothing there,” Tom told her, his frustration tightening his voice. “Locke watched the front windows from up in the Congregational church tower, and Starrett watched from the end of the hall while Jazz and I searched the place. No bomb, no explosives, no suitcase filled with semiautomatics. It was just . . . a really nice hotel suite. He had only one suitcase, filled with golf clothes. There was an open bottle of mineral water on the table; we took that—for fingerprints. There was a nice clear set on it, which we sent electronically to a guy I know—who found a match right away. The prints belong to—guess who? One Richard Rakowski.”
Oh, no.
Tom rubbed his forehead. “I need a shower.”
“Tom, are you sure—”
He stood up. “I’m not sure of anything anymore.”
“Jazz is ordering pizza.”
“Great,” he said. “Because I don’t think they serve pizza too often in the nuthouse.”
He started toward Joe’s cottage. She hurried after him. “Being mistaken isn’t exactly the same thing as being crazy.”
He stopped and looked at her, the wind whipping the trees crazily around them. “I still believe this guy’s the Merchant. I still think there’s a threat. I’m still scared out of my goddamned mind about what a man like that could do in a town like this.”
She took a step back from the vehemence in his voice.
He smiled, but it didn’t touch his eyes. “Well, there we go,” he said much more quietly. “There’s the way to keep our distance. Crazy’s okay, but obsessed doesn’t do it for you, huh, babe?” He made a tsking sound. “Too bad.”
________________________________________
Twenty
AT 2315, TOM gave up and dialed Kelly’s private line. He knew she was still up. He could see the light on in her bedroom window.
“Ashton.”
“It’s only me. It’s not about Betsy.”
“Oh, thank God.” Relief was thick in her voice.
“I’m sorry.” Tom felt like a complete ass. “I didn’t want to call on the house line and risk waking your father, but I . . . How is Betsy?”
“Much better,” Kelly said. “She’s been doing much better with this new antinausea drug that Dr. Martin’s trying. I mean, her long-term outlook is still touch and go, but . . .” She laughed softly and he clung to the sound. “Is this really why you called me at quarter after eleven at night?”
He’d called because he’d wanted to talk to her, had to talk to her. But he didn’t just want to show up in her room. They’d restructured all their boundaries this evening out by the swing, and he no longer had a clue about what she wanted or expected from him. But God, he was desperate. His hands were shaking.
“No.” He had to clear his throat. “Look, I know I’ve been a complete bastard, but I . . .” He managed to stop before his voice shook. Shit.
“Tom, are you all right?”
The silence stretched on as Tom fought his tears, fought even to say one word. Fought and lost. No. Dammit, no, he wasn’t all right. “I’m sorry,” he said, and hung up the phone.
Kelly carried her medical bag as she ran across the driveway in her nightgown and a pair of her father’s old boots that had been sitting in the mudroom off the kitchen.
Joe’s house was dark, but the front door was unlocked. Nothing to steal, Joe always claimed. Besides, who’d rob his little house when there was that great big treasure-filled Ashton estate right next door?
She’d thought the rain had let up, and it had, but it was still coming down enough to make her drip as she stepped into Joe’s living room. She pushed her wet hair back from her face, kicked off her father’s boots, and took the stairs to Tom’s room two at a time.
His door was tightly shut, and she stopped outside of it, suddenly scared to death.
She leaned her forehead against it, just listening, clutching her bag to her chest.
She heard what she was afraid of hearing, what she’d dreaded hearing. Choked sobs. Ragged breathing.
Tom was crying.
Oh, God. Oh, God. What should she do? She had to go in there, to make sure he wasn’t physically hurt. The doctor in her wouldn’t let her walk away.
But the woman in her knew that the last thing Tom would want was for her to see him cry.
Still, she’d been reading about head injuries. Even though his CAT scan had come back looking good, there could well have been a blood vessel in his brain weakened by the injury or the operation. She needed to talk to him, to look into his eyes, to take his blood pressure. To make sure his very life wasn’t suddenly in danger.
And she needed that more than he needed her not to see him cry.
She knocked on his door.
There was dead silence from inside the room.
She knocked again. “Tom?”
“Don’t come in.” His voice sounded raw.
It was all she could do to keep from crying, too. “I have to.”
“Just go home.”
“I can’t.” She tried the knob. His door was unlocked.
His room was dark, but she could see him sitting on his bed. He stood as he realized she was coming in, tried to wipe his face. “Jesus! Do you mind? Get the fuck out!”
Her voice shook. “You can’t call me, asking for help, and then expect me to ignore you.”
“I didn’t ask you for help!”
“Then why did you call me?”
“Kelly, please, just leave.”
She went into the room, closed the door behind her.
“Oh, Christ!”
“Tom, I have to make sure you’re all right.” She set her bag down at the end of his bed. “Are you dizzy? Is—”
“It’s not my head. It’s my fucking life, all right? Everything I’ve worked so hard for—and tomorrow I’m going to flush it down the fucking toilet! But I don’t have a choice!” His voice cracked. “I don’t have a goddamned choice!”
He broke down, and Kelly’s heart broke for him. She pulled him into her arms, holding him close.
“I’m sorry,” he sobbed. “Oh, Christ, I’m sorry.”
“Oh, Tom.” She was crying, too. “I wish I could make it right.”
Mallory woke up alone in David’s bed.
It was still raining. She could hear it coming down on the roof directly overhead.
The lamp was on in the corner, by David’s drawing table. He was sitting there, leaning over his work, his left hand holding his hair back from his face.
He’d put on a pair of boxers, but that was it, and the muscles in his shoulders and back gleamed in the light.
Mallory could feel her heart. It seemed to fill her chest with a calm warmth even while it sent her blood surging through her veins. Desire and peace. How could one person make her feel both of those things, both at the same time?
Angela hadn’t understood. After she’d met David, she’d had only two things to say. Mallory’s babies would have slanted eyes. And at least this one—meaning David—would never leave her, implying that he was a loser.
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