Sudden Death

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Jack ran hard for five miles, but the workout did little to curb his appetite for a certain lanky blond fed who had legs that went up to Heaven and lips that begged for sin. He’d have to take a cold shower if he was going to get any sleep tonight.

He jogged up the path leading to his room and glanced toward the pool. It was closed, but maybe a quick jump in the deep end would get rid of the ache in his groin. Not the ideal way to ease his hard-on, but he didn’t think slipping into Megan’s bed would go over too well.

Jack wanted to drown the little devil sitting on his shoulder telling him to go to Megan, consequences be damned.

The pool was gated, but the gate wasn’t locked. He approached the edge of the pool and removed his shirt, then saw a lone figure sitting at the opposite end, feet in the water, hands back, face upward.

He’d recognize her silhouette anywhere. Megan.

The breeze was warm and dry even at one in the morning. The underwater lights were dim, framing her curvy, athletic frame. Jack walked around the pool and sat next to her. “Up for a little skinny dipping?” he teased. Why did you say that? What are you planning on doing? “Everyone else in this place is sleeping,” he added.

“Umm,” she said, averting her face.

He touched her cheek to turn her face to his; it was wet.

She batted away his hand, wiped her face with her shirt. “Why aren’t you sleeping?” she asked, her voice cracking. She coughed into her hands and cleared her throat.

“I went for a run.”

“At one in the morning?”

“I needed to release some energy.”

She didn’t say anything and he realized she knew exactly why he was in discomfort.

He asked, “What’s wrong?”

“I’m okay.”

“I didn’t ask if you were okay.”

Of course she was okay, she was a cop. They had to be okay with senseless death and violence. In many ways, cops and soldiers were alike. They saw the worst of mankind and they continued to do the job. The dead and dying; the helpless and hopeless. Dead women, dead children, dead soldiers and cops. Jack had seen more than he’d ever wanted, or expected. He’d been raised by a military father, but he didn’t know what that meant at the time. Not until he saw his first corpse. Buried his first friend. Killed his first enemy.

Megan explained, “Fifteen years ago I graduated from Quantico. I hadn’t wanted to be an FBI agent. I didn’t know what I wanted to be. I’d never been close to my mom, and although I know I romanticized my father as perfect, especially after the divorce, he was still my hero. When he was gone …”

Her voice drifted away. Jack stuck his feet in the water and watched her toes stretch and relax, stretch and relax. Her toenails were painted dark red. What was that on the big toe? A flower? Jack couldn’t imagine Megan sitting still long enough to allow someone to paint her toes. Maybe he didn’t know her well enough. Yet.

“One of my professors had a family emergency,” she said. “We had a substitute for two weeks, a guest lecturer, Hans Vigo from the FBI. I thought that was silly for a psychology class, until I listened to him. I was hooked. He recruited me and the rest is history. I can’t imagine being anything other than an FBI agent. This is what I am supposed to be. I’m nothing without the job. I am the job.”

She looked out at the ripples that their feet made as they moved lazily in the cool water. Her eyes were still bright, but there were no more tears. Jack breathed a silent sigh of relief, though her words pained him. They were familiar and foreign at the same time.

“Before I left the military, I couldn’t see myself in any role other than soldier,” he said quietly.

“You’re still a soldier.”

“It’s different when you can walk away when you want.”

“But can you? Really? Just walk away and never do what you know, what you love? What if it was taken from you?”

Before Jack could say anything, she continued. “I had a kidnapping my first year in Sacramento. A five-year-old girl. At first they thought her father had snatched her because he and the mother had been in court fighting over custody ever since the girl had been born. But we quickly realized he hadn’t, that a child predator had grabbed her.

“I knew the statistics, that if we found her alive, she would have been … hurt. But I also knew that if we didn’t find her fast, she’d be dead. My team worked closely with the sheriff’s department, analyzed every tip, every trace of evidence, and based on a small flower, we tracked them to Amador County, east of Sac. We talked to everyone about our suspect’s black van. We found them. In eight hours, forty-nine minutes. And the little girl was not only alive, but untouched.”

She smiled. “Melody. Her name is Melody and she’s nine years old now. And it’s her and everyone else I can save-and can’t save-that keeps me going. If there’s a victim, I want to catch the perp. If there’s a crime, it needs to be solved. I hate loose ends.”

“But.”

“Most crimes I understand. Melody’s kidnapper, he was a repeat sex offender. I understand that. He needed to be stopped, but at least I could look at the victim and look at the criminal and figure out who and what and why. But those folks at the rest stop? Where’s the why in their murders? Why them? Why did they die? It was senseless and wrong. Hell, if they’d been robbed I could understand it! Hate it just as much, but at least there would be a reason. But the killer just shot them and walked away. Let a family die for nothing. And the baby … oh, God, I haven’t felt this helpless since Kosovo.”

“I didn’t know you were there.”

“After the war. I was part of the evidence response team that dug up the mass graves and identified the remains of those slaughtered. Another senseless crime, on a far bigger scale.”

“You couldn’t have stopped what happened in Kosovo just like you couldn’t stop what happened to that family yesterday.”

“But that’s the thing: I know I couldn’t have done anything about Kosovo, and at least giving families a body to bury, answers to their questions, kept me going. But how do you know I couldn’t have stopped Thomas and Loretta from dying? Hans thinks if I hadn’t jumped to the conclusion that George Price was a victim, the Hoffmans wouldn’t have died. I should have brought Price in for questioning-”

“Stop, Megan. We already talked about this. If you didn’t think your victim was Price, we wouldn’t even be this far in the investigation.”

“But the killers wanted it like this. Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“I feel manipulated when I realize that it’s because of the killers that I’m here at all. They’re jerking me around, pulling me along on a chain, keeping me far enough away so I can’t stop them, but close enough so I can almost see them … then they slip away. I feel so damn helpless! And now Hans is furious that I spoke to Price without a warrant and didn’t bring him in.”

“He spoke to us because Padre assured him he was safe.”

“I didn’t ask Padre to do that. I have the laws of this country to follow. I should have brought him in. What if I’m wrong again? What if he is involved somehow?”

“You don’t believe that. If you believed he was guilty, you would have arrested him in Cortez.”

“What if I missed something? What if I overlooked evidence, or ignored a witness, or-”

Jack put his finger to Megan’s lips. She sucked in her breath, startled by the touch. One finger, but a wholly intimate gesture.

“What happened tonight with Hans?”

Two tears escaped her eyes. Jack’s jaw clenched. He wanted to hit the man who had made Megan cry.

“It’s me,” she whispered. “I messed up.”

His voice was deeper than normal when he spoke. “I don’t have to tell you what you know in that sharp and beautiful head of yours. Shit happens. People like us stop it when we can, but most of the time we’re cleaning up other people’s messes. You didn’t do anything wrong. You followed your head, and it led you to information that is going to lead us to answers.”

“You believe Price is innocent, right?”

“Do you?”

“I don’t know anymore. What if I let a killer get away?”

“Is that what Hans said?”

“He may be right. But it’s out of his hands, and mine.” She turned her head away from him, wiped her eyes, stared at their feet in the water.

“What do you mean?”

“He’s filing a report with OPR. Sort of the FBI’s version of CID.”

Jack put his hand on her jaw and forced her to look at him. “Why?”

“I don’t break the rules, Jack. But since Monday I’ve completely disregarded every rule out there. And if my assumptions led to the Hoffmans being killed-”

“Stop.”

Megan wanted to look away, but Jack held her gaze. He was holding her face too tightly, but in the way he stared at her, she saw the war battling beneath his skin. The same war within her.

“You are not responsible for anyone dying. You did not pull the trigger, and neither did George Price. You know it, I know it, Hans knows it, too. I don’t know what happened today to get his panties in a twist, but tomorrow he’ll think differently.”

“I hope so,” she whispered.

He dropped his hand from her mouth, skimmed her thigh with his fingertips.

This time when Jack kissed her, Megan knew what to expect, but her heart still skipped a couple beats, her blood heated, her breath came heavier. He was intoxicating, and she was an addict. She’d never get enough of Jack, his lips, his tongue, his hands as they moved up her thigh, skimmed her pelvis, landed solidly on her waist. His fingers kneaded her, as if he were a cat getting comfortable. Tom Cat. Jack wasn’t the sort of man to build a relationship, a life, or start a family. Megan knew that in her head, but her heart, and her libido, told her head to stop thinking.

Then she had no room for thought at all. Jack’s kiss was anything but timid and hesitant. His hands moved from her waist, firmly skimmed her breasts, then fisted in her hair, kneading, as he held her head right where he wanted it, his mouth open, his tongue searching for hers. Her senses breathed in his rich, intoxicating aroma of sweat from his run and lust from their embrace. She’d never imagined such an instant passion, a white heat that devoured her, making her yearn for someone, making her want Jack.

He kissed her thoroughly, her lips wonderfully swollen, her body hot and needy. She pushed away thoughts of the future, of how wrong it was to be here with Jack, someone she shouldn’t want and couldn’t have. Megan simply enjoyed the intense heat and mutual deep attraction. Simple? There was nothing simple about Jack Kincaid, and nothing simple about how she felt about him.

He slipped into the pool and pulled her in with him. She gasped as the cool water soaked her clothes. He seemed unaffected. He looked at her, his face inches from hers. Just looked. Her mouth parted. He rubbed his index finger around her lips, up her face, to her eyes. He closed her lids lightly, kissed them with a feather of a touch.

“Come here.” His voice was low and as rough as the whiskers on his face. Without waiting for her to come, he pulled her to him, neck deep in water, holding her up with little effort. She wrapped her legs around his waist, her wet body rubbing against his hard chest. His hand went up under her cami, his thumb rubbing her nipple. She gasped into his mouth and he kissed her hard, his hands stroking up and down her back, her face, her hair.

“It’s time,” he whispered into her ear.

“For what?” She licked his jaw, up to his earlobe and he clutched her tighter.

“To make love.”

She pulled back. “Here?”

He shot her a smile. “I’d love to, but I was thinking more along the lines of a bed. This time.”

This time.

His hand rose from the water and he was holding a key. The number on the plastic tag was 115.

“That’s mine.”

“It was in your pocket.” He grinned as he kissed her, then swam over to the edge of the pool, holding her close to him. He lifted her out, sat her on the edge, then pulled himself out with the grace and sex appeal of a champion swimmer. The water poured off his body and she couldn’t avoid staring.

He held out his hand. She took it and he pulled her into his arms. Jack didn’t take his eyes off her as if fearing she’d change her mind.

She may have lost her mind, but she had no intention of changing it.

They walked to her room, but Megan didn’t notice anything except Jack as he unlocked the door and they slid inside. As soon as it closed, he backed her against the door, his mouth on hers, her arms around his neck. She shivered, from the heat of passion and the cold dip in the pool. He turned her around, walked her over to the bed as if they were in the middle of an intimate dance. His leg was between hers, her leg was between his, and she felt through his wet shorts how this tango was going to end. The thrill coursed through her body, a surge of both lust and apprehension.

“Jack-” She could say no more because he was kissing her again.

“You’re cold.” He pulled off her cami in one motion. His hands cupped her bare breasts, warming them, and she gasped at the extremes, the heat and the cold.

Jack’s hard body radiated a thousand degrees of heat, and Megan’s chill disappeared, filled instead with something she hadn’t felt in … forever. No thought, no responsibility, no doubt, no regret. She opened her arms to Jack, offering everything she had, knowing he would take it all and more. Knowing he would give everything, and then some.

What happened to his shirt? He wasn’t wearing one. He’d left it at the pool. He stepped out of his wet shorts and he was naked. In the dim light, she saw his silhouette, a perfect Cuban god. Her breath caught-Breathe, Megan! Breathe!

She swallowed, her mouth dry, and stepped forward. Her hands rested on his chest, she ran her fingers up and down, back and forth, massaging his chiseled muscles. He leaned into her, and she felt the edge of the bed against the back of her knees. And still he moved forward. Pushing her down, his hands on her hips, tugging her pants and panties off together.

“Megan,” he whispered in her ear, then nibbled on her lobe, his tongue darting in and out and around, his hands on her breasts, her shoulders, her head. His hands moved in a rhythm they created together, seeming to touch her everywhere, but not enough. She wanted more, more of him, as much of Jack as she could have.

She grabbed his hands, held them tight, and arched her back so she could kiss his neck. His day’s growth of beard was both rough and incredibly erotic as it scratched her cheeks and lips. Her tongue came out, licked him like he was a chocolate ice cream cone, up to his lips, where she claimed them as hers. At least for now, at least for tonight.

Jack had known from the moment he kissed Megan in the plane hours earlier that he would be in her bed tonight. One kiss did not satisfy him; he’d been tasting her ever since. He was intoxicated with the need, on the verge of losing control. He never lost control. Not in life, not in the field, and not in bed with a woman.

But with Megan, he felt that hard-wired control slipping away, her body both sexy and timid, arousing him beyond reason. He wanted her now, all of her, without hesitation. Her skin was soft, her muscles hard. The contrast was as sexy as the woman herself. She had no idea how he’d craved her, no idea that the minute she burst into the jail cell when Carlos Hernandez’s goons were trying to kill him that he’d wanted her just like this. Naked. With him. In bed.

Her hands were everywhere, his head, his back, squeezing his biceps. Her legs moved as well, up and down his calves, her back arching whenever he eased up, trying to catch his breath, trying to slow things down. Slow things down before he couldn’t. But slow meant being in control, and his last thread of restraint snapped.

He didn’t want slow. He wanted now.

He put his hand between her legs, damp from the pool, damper with desire. She gasped when he pushed his finger into her. He leaned up, watched her face. The way her flushed face glowed. Her lips red and swollen from his relentless kisses. Her hair was wet and loose around her head, tangled and wanton. Her eyes were half-closed, and she licked her lips, her breath heavy, her fingers clutching his shoulders as she sighed.

“Look at me.”

She opened her eyes at his command. He kissed her softly, his tongue and lips trailing up to her ear and back to her mouth. He stared into her eyes, so dark green and so deep he could drown in them.

This moment in time was perfection.

He forced himself to enter her slowly, easily. She gasped and wrapped her legs around his calves. For a moment they both froze, as if they’d reached a juncture and didn’t know which way led to safety, which way to destruction.

“I want you, Megan.” He sank into her, not knowing which path this union would ultimately take, but willing to fight for them, this primal possession unfamiliar but real. More real than anything Jack had felt or believed in for a long, long time.

He wanted her, yearned for her, needed her. He couldn’t articulate it, he couldn’t fathom how he could have Megan in his life. It was an overwhelming sensation of rightness as he wrapped his arms around her, holding himself deep inside her, wanting to go slow, to savor her touch, her smell, her tightness, her trust. But slow wasn’t in the cards, not this time, as the blood rushed from his head and Jack could no longer think, and all patience disappeared.

Megan lost her ability to reason as Jack began to move deep inside of her, slowly, the muscles in his neck tense with forced restraint. She put her hands on his tight backside and held him inside her, wanting to stay like this forever, but needing to rush the explosion that was building rapidly within her. It was as if all the energy in the room, in the city, in the entire state, had merged within them, combustible, waiting for the blast.

“If you touch me like that I’m going to lose it.”

“I. Am.” She couldn’t finish her sentence. She had lost all common sense and reason when he touched her at the pool. She knew then that they’d only be able to appease their desire in bed. It was lust, pure animal lust.

But it felt so much bigger than simple sex. She didn’t want to think too much for fear their connection would slip away.

His slow strokes moved faster and dove deeper. She gasped, her hands running up his back, squeezing, to his shoulders, her short nails digging in as she felt the last of her energy rushing to the spot where their friction generated combustible heat.

They were in sync, their bodies moving together for the mutual benefit and need to pleasure the other, skin slick with perspiration. Meg closed her eyes again, the sensation of their flesh together so dominate, so volatile. Her hands gripped his shoulders.

“God. Jack.”

He kissed her, his lips moving in rhythm to their hips, and she cried out into his mouth as her body turned inside out, releasing her lust, her mind, and her heart to Jack.

When Megan’s body shook beneath him, Jack let go. It had been an inner battle to hold on as long as he did. He wasn’t a teenager anymore-what was with this insatiable need? He’d gone in too fast, unable to stop himself. He didn’t lose control.

Until now.

He rolled over onto his back, bringing her with him. Kissed her over and over again. Her skin tasted of salt and chlorine.

“Now,” he said, “I can do it the right way.”

“If that was the wrong way, I like the wrong way.”

He smiled and kissed her.

“I want to make love to you.”

“And what was that?”

“That, darling, was sex. Pure lust. Now I’m going to make love to you.” He kissed her. “Slowly.” He brushed her hair away from her face and licked her forehead. “Very slowly.” His heart still raced and he felt hers pounding against his chest. His hands caressed the side of her face. “You’re beautiful, Megan.”

His hands ran down her body as she rested on top of him, breath heavy and satisfied on his chest. He loved the taste of her, especially now, her body hot and slick and relaxed. She seemed to melt all over him, as relaxed as a purring cat.

His fingers trailed down her spine, to her waist, and over rough skin. Feeling … what was that? He circled his hand over the unexpected texture of her flesh.

She tensed and tried to roll away. He didn’t let her. He pulled her back. “This was where you were shot?”

“Yes.” Her voice was clipped.

She didn’t want to talk. Jack wasn’t going to let her remain silent. The light was dim, but he sat up and wiggled her around until he could see the wound clearly.

The scar was large, part of it round, part an incision from where the surgeon had gone in to remove the bullet. But it wasn’t a small invasion. It had been major surgery to remove her damaged kidney.

“I know, it’s ugly.”

He kissed her scar. “All better.”

She’d turned her head away from him. He turned her head back. Her eyes watered. Oh, God, no. He couldn’t take tears. Not these kind of tears.

“Sweetheart, if you think a little scar is going to bother me, you don’t know me.”

As he said it, he realized that they didn’t know each other. Not the details. He didn’t know where she was born, where she grew up, if she had brothers or sisters, why she and her mother didn’t get along.

But he knew her heart and her mind. He could predict with relative certainty what she would say or do. He knew the important stuff. Her compassion was endless and her sense of right and wrong well formed. She was worthy of love. To love and be loved. Jack didn’t know if he was worthy of her.

Megan stared, eyes probing his, and he kissed her. He didn’t care, he would do anything to keep her in his life.

He might not know everything about her, but he knew that she fit with him. He wasn’t good with emotions or explaining his thoughts and feelings. That was why he’d been estranged from his family for so long. He was a man of action. Do it, don’t talk about it.

But something about this scar bothered Megan deep inside. She’d been flip yesterday when she told him about being shot in the back. But she wasn’t flip about it now.

He kissed her lightly on the cheek, and adjusted their bodies so that she was spooned closely against him, his arms tight around her, his lips on her ear.

“Tell me.”

“I have one kidney.”

“I know.”

It took her a minute to speak. He didn’t move. He wasn’t going anywhere. Neither was Megan.

“I was ambushed. I wasn’t watching my back when I should have been. And took a bullet. It’s only one kidney, and it’s gone, and yeah, it still bothers me, but I’m fine.”

The way she said it made it sound like a betrayal, but Megan didn’t say more. She took one of his hands, the one that had been lightly caressing her breasts, and kissed his palm. Her tongue sent jolts of lust down to his hardening cock.

“You were going to show me the difference between having sex and making love.”

“I am.”

He kissed her neck, turning her on to her back so he could have easier access to all her soft skin. Lips to lips, lips to neck, lips to breast. His hands kneaded her shoulders, her arms, her thighs.

“There is not going to be an inch of your skin I don’t taste,” he whispered, his voice rough. “From your head …” he kissed her eyelids, his tongue trailing down to her ears, then to her neck. “To your painted toes.”

He slid off the bed and Meg groaned from the sudden chill. Then his mouth was on her toes and she gasped. Electric bolts jolted her body as Jack sucked her toes, licked the bottoms of her feet, kissed her ankles. The backs of her knees. And higher.

True to his word, Jack tasted every inch of her flesh. Slowly.

And slowly, they brought each other up and over the edge once again.

After killing Ethan and Lyle Hackett, Karin walked a mile to the hotel she’d checked into the day before under one of her aliases, Erin Hunter.

She’d always liked that name. Hunter. It suited her. Erin the Hunter. Erin. Hunter. Huntress. She grinned.

It was late, but the hotel was brightly lit and she wasn’t positive that her late-night dip in the ocean had washed away all the blood. She slipped in through a side door, using her card key, and rode the elevator up to the penthouse suite. She deserved the penthouse. She’d ordered champagne when she first arrived, asking the staff to deliver it while she was gone. It was still cold, sitting in a stainless steel cooler filled with cold water.

She stripped, shoving her bathing suit and sarong into the black bag. The bag had to be disposed of, but she needed to destroy the evidence first. A heavy dose of bleach, then toss it in the ocean or a lake. She hadn’t wanted to take the knife, but after Ethan cut her, she had no choice. She worried about her blood on the floor, but hoped either the crime scene investigators didn’t test the small square where the knife had fallen, or that there was so much contamination they couldn’t differentiate her blood.

Even if they were able to test it, her DNA wasn’t in any database. Still, she didn’t want it to be, and now she would have to be far more careful in her work.

First things first. She had her own vengeance to seek. Then she could go back to business as usual.

She showered and scrubbed her body under water as hot as she could stand it. Shampooed her hair twice. When she stepped out, her skin was pink and she felt fabulous. She stared at her reflection, took out scissors, and cut her hair yet again. She wished she didn’t have to do it, but hair grew and having a straight, short bob instead of shoulder-length curls would help with the disguise.

Next, she took brown hair dye and colored her hair again. The dye wouldn’t stay as well on the blond she’d used yesterday, but all she needed was to change her overall appearance and this light brown was closer to her natural color.

The end result was pretty good, a golden sort of brown. A little lighter than she wanted, but different enough from the woman-Rose-who’d been seen drinking in the bar with Lyle Hackett.

She slipped into a luxurious white hotel bathrobe, the logo embroidered in gold on the lapel.

Time to celebrate.

She popped the cork off the champagne, poured herself a glass, and walked out onto the balcony. It was chilly on the coast this late at night, even in southern California, but she didn’t care. She breathed in the salt air, the breeze raising goose bumps on her damp skin.

She’d take these hours to rest, and then she’d watch the police and the FBI run around in circles. And when the time was right …

… she’d finish the job. She had Ethan to thank for her new skills. She could hardly wait to use them.

“To Ethan,” she said to the ocean and drained her champagne.