Secrets Of Bella Terra (26 page)

Her eyes opened wide. She stared through the dark at his faint silhouette. “But . . . you were in there. Weren’t you likely to blow yourself up?”

“Like I said. Crazed. Then I went back into the cages, grabbed our commander, and dragged him out. He was dead.”

“What was his name?” She asked because saying the names seemed to mean something to him.

He hesitated, then said, “He was Colonel Federico Martínez from San Antonio, Texas.”

“A good commander?”

“The best.” Rafe’s voice grew thick with emotion. He controlled it and continued. “Next I dragged out Alex White from Boston, Massachusetts, and Isaac Berkowitz from New York, New York.”

“Wasn’t anybody shooting at you or anything?”

“They kept running at us, shooting like crazy. Then when I screamed like a madman and pointed at the charge under the ammunition, they would run. And scream like little girls. I liked that part.”

Screaming seemed like a good idea to Brooke. “How did you get out?”

“I wasn’t thinking right—you had that figured out, didn’t you?”

She nodded. Her sense of dread was growing.

“The good part of that is that I didn’t set the charge right, so when it blew, it blew part of the munitions out the front of the cave. Took out every one of their men, all their computers, all their weapons, all their tactical plans. I don’t know all it took, but it left the way free for me to carry out Berkowitz and White.” Rafe rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand. “Too bad we’d been in there a couple of months, so it was winter outside. I dumped them in the snow and went back to finish the job. I’ll bet ninety percent of the munitions were left, and when they blew, the whole hillside lifted and settled, and the caves, miles of them, collapsed.”

“But you were outside in the snow with nothing.” She was telling him something he knew, but still, she couldn’t comprehend the magnitude of his insanity.

“Took our troops about two hours to come in with helicopters to clean out any remaining nests of insurgents.” Rafe’s voice strengthened. “I managed to get their attention. White died. Berkowitz and I survived.”

“How’s Berkowitz?”

“Better than me.” Rafe’s voice grew hushed again. “But that’s not saying much. I just . . . I can’t sleep. If I sleep, I see them. The guards. My friends. The bodies. I can’t stay inside long. If I do, I start clawing at the walls. Sometimes I jump up in a panic because I need to blow up those munitions. And I remember those guards I shot, and I’m so glad. So glad.”

Brooke had taken a psychology class her freshman year of college. She was so not qualified to deal with this. On the other hand, she knew without a doubt that no one understood him more. “Rafe. You did survive. You completed your mission. And you brought back a man alive who counted himself as dead. More important”—she got up on her knees, and although he was nothing more than a dim outline, she faced him—“you saved yourself. Right now, that might not feel like anything important to you, but to your grandmother and your brothers, and maybe even your father and mother . . . they want you here to talk to, to eat with, to laugh with—”

“What about you?”

Leaning forward, she cupped his chin. “I couldn’t live in a world without you.”

T
he blanket slithered to the floor.

Rafe plunged his fingers into Brooke’s hair, pulled her mouth to his, and kissed her, and she tasted his despair, his anguish, his need. She wanted to cry for him. She wanted to live for him, and make him live for her.

She got up on her knees and leaned into him, across the emergency brake that dug into her thigh, her chest against his.

He slid his hands down her back, under her elastic waistband, and pushed her flannel pajamas off her butt. She struggled to kick them off her legs and suck his tongue into her mouth at the same time.

His palms rode up and down her thighs. He made groaning sounds deep in his throat.

She pushed his T-shirt up, unbuckled his belt, unzipped his pants.

Now he was fighting his way out from under the steering wheel. He tore his mouth from hers, pushed his seat all the way back, leaned across her and down, and pushed her seat back—and when he came up, she’d managed to unbutton her top and he got a faceful of her breasts.

She didn’t know how he did it, got from his side of the car to her, but suddenly his pants were down around his knees and he was on top of her. Then he was inside her, desperate for her, filling her while she cried with the joy of knowing he was here and alive.

Placing her feet on the dash, she lifted herself into his thrusts, over and over, dragging him back to life, forcing him to be with her in this moment.

He kissed her, over and over, her cheeks, her lips, the top of her head. His tears dripped on her as he began to thrust faster and faster, as his climax neared, as the reality of breath and love and freedom burgeoned in him, in them, overwhelming them both.

Then he came. She came.

And for a few precious minutes, he was her love once more.

The next night, Brooke went out the window.

The night after, Rafe came in the bedroom.

The night after that, Kathy Petersson caught them doing the wild thing.

The next day, Rafe left Bella Valley without a word, returning to the psychiatry hospital for treatment, breaking Brooke’s heart again.

She ended her engagement anyway.

She waited for Rafe to come and get her.

That never happened.

She considered going to get him.

But this time, he was the one who had left her. He had gone back to the military. That was a message, wasn’t it? A message she should heed?

Rafe’s ghost face faded off Nonna’s dining room wall. Brooke came back to the present; the memories still made her feel weepy and foolish.

How many times would he get it wrong?

How many times would she?

At the sound of footsteps behind her, she jumped.

“Hey, have you found anything?” Rafe put his hands on her arms, rubbed them up and down. “I didn’t. Nothing in the cellar.”

“I was playing with these bottles, trying to think where your grandfather would put Massimo’s wine.” Brooke looked around the dining room. “This house is so simple, yet it’s been added onto how many times? Over how many years? Plus, Nonno was a builder and an electrician. Massimo’s wine could be anywhere in here.”

“Nonno ran the resort until the dementia took him and Noah got the job. The bottle could be in the wine cellar down at the resort, too.”

“Oh, God.” She turned to face him. “This is the biggest mess I could possibly imagine.”

Rafe pulled his phone out of his pocket and looked, then shook it as if trying to jiggle out a message. “No, there are bigger messes.”

She would start feeling sentimental about him; then he would annoy her like this. “You check that phone every fifteen minutes. What are you waiting to hear?”

“Nothing you need to be anxious about.”

Secretive. No communication skills. What was she thinking, feeling maudlin about Rafe? “I don’t need to be anxious because I wouldn’t understand your concerns? Or because I wouldn’t give a shit? Or because—”

“This isn’t a concern. This is a problem. Okay, listen.” He lowered his voice. “I left my team in Kyrgyzstan dealing with a kidnapping, and I haven’t heard from them since shortly after I got here. I’m worried.”

He seemed suddenly to get that he should talk to her, and she wondered what had turned on the light in his head. “You think something has gone wrong?”

“It’s mountainous. It’s still winter there. The territory is hostile. We were rescuing an American pilot, a female. I wish I were there. I have to be here. I’m not doing that well handling this situation.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize . . . All this time, you’ve been worried about your team? And the mission?”

“I work the case I’m on, and in this instance, my case is finding Nonna’s attacker—and the mystery keeps growing. But yes, I am concerned. They’re good people. They’ve been with me a long time. And the pilot—I promised to do everything I could to get her out. I simply wish I could be there personally.” He took a breath. “Now, tell me, how are
you
doing?”

She had wanted to know what was on his mind, and knowing made her realize the heroic man he had become . . . and how little she knew about him. “I’m fine.” She was. Because of him, she’d eaten well. Because of the situation in the wine bar, she had things on her mind other than yesterday’s rotting body.

“Did Hernández’s body yesterday remind you of the man you shot and killed a month ago?”

“No!” What kind of question was that? “Why would you think such a thing? No.”

“Seeing death of any kind is usually a big deal for a civilian. Shooting someone is usually a big deal for a civilian. It seems as if you should feel some connection between the two bodies.”

Brooke caught her breath. “Is there a connection?”

“You tell me.”

Amazing how he could in the space of a hundred heartbeats take her from heated reminiscences to massive indignation to inglorious rage. “I know nothing about who attacked Nonna. I wish I did.”

“Before DuPey took Victor away, I snatched a minute and talked to DuPey. He said they’d done the preliminaries on Hernández. The gardener was strangled with a wire around his throat.”

Brooke put a hand to her unexpectedly vulnerable-feeling neck.

“No fingerprints and no murder weapon were anywhere to be found. You have to be strong and fast to pull off that kind of murder.”

“I would imagine.”

“Or maybe the killer took the victim completely by surprise.”

Brooke recalled Hernández’s plain, simple face, and knew that was exactly what had happened.

Rafe continued. “We know, because the killer has hacked into the resort’s security, that he’s smart. We’re all in danger, but because of Hernández’s connection to you, I’m afraid you, especially, are a target.”

Perhaps Rafe wasn’t trying to make her angry. Maybe he was trying to make her think. “I have racked my brain, but I don’t even remember what exactly Hernández said that made me think Nonna was in danger. I simply recall that blind panic that had me driving up there, all the while thinking I was making a fool of myself over nothing. If I’d paid attention to my instincts and called nine-one-one, they would have beaten me up there and Nonna would have been rescued that much sooner.”

“Some people have good instincts. I suspect you’re one of them. So if you remember anything about Hernández, who he hung out with, anything he said previous to the day he disappeared, I need to know.” Rafe grasped her arms. “Listen, about this morning when I said what I said.”

She frowned at him. He’d changed the subject . . . sort of.

“At your house. The thing that made you mad. I didn’t mean it.”

Instantly suspicious, she asked, “What did you say that made me mad?”

His eyes widened. He looked to the side as if seeking escape.

“What didn’t you mean?” She pressed him harder.

He struggled to speak.

“You don’t know, do you?” Her phone rang. She pulled it out of her shirt pocket. “You haven’t got a clue what you said, Rafe. You have never had a clue. You are faking it.” Snapping her phone open, she said, “Hello!”

A man’s voice said, “Could I speak to Rafe Di Luca, please?”

Holding the phone away, she looked at the number. Strange area code. Putting it back to her ear, she asked, “Who is this?”

“I’m Darren. I’m Rafe’s hacker. I really need to speak to him.”

Was Rafe invading every part of her life? “Rafe has a phone. You could call
him
.”

“It’s not that easy, Miss Petersson. If you’d let me talk to him, I’d be grateful and humble.”

She snorted, and handed her phone to Rafe. “Did you give him my number? Because I do not appreciate this.”

Frowning, Rafe took her phone and put it to his ear. “Yeah?” He listened for a moment, then turned and walked into the hallway and back toward the kitchen. Brooke could hear his voice fading in the distance.

And she started counting the number of chances she’d given him, and wondered if Sarah was right.

H
olding Brooke’s phone, Rafe walked out into Nonna’s backyard and stood under the immense sweep of the live oak, flush with new leaves. He knew this place so well—the grass that thinned under the trees, the sagging shed some Di Luca had built so long ago, the tall swing Nonno had built for his son. Yet today the familiar felt different. Today he felt surrounded, scrutinized, paranoid. Paranoid in Nonna’s backyard.

Damn it.

The guard stationed at the house stepped out from behind the shed. “Um, sir?” Young and gauche, he flushed under Rafe’s gaze. “Everything okay, sir? Can I help with anything?”

Rafe stared at him.

Had the background check on Alden been thorough enough? Was Alden what he purported to be? Or was he a spy?

Alden flushed again. “Sir?”

Surely the kid couldn’t fake those blushes. And right now, Rafe knew he would be suspicious of anyone who guarded Nonna’s house.

Rafe waved him away, and Alden once more slipped out of sight.

Rafe spoke into the phone. “I don’t understand, Darren. How did my phone get hacked?”

With the patience of a young man for an old duffer, Darren said, “Your phone is a computer, as powerful as I could make it. The hacker, whoever he is, controls the Wi-Fi for the resort. He accessed your phone and, hey! Now it’s his.”

The implications tumbled through Rafe’s brain. “He’s been listening in on my phone calls. He knows about you.”

“He already knew about me, recognized my pattern of hacking.”

“The way you expected to know his—and didn’t?”

“Exactly. He’s studied me, really nailed me. If he hadn’t, I would have caught him by now. But as a hacker, I’m anonymous. No one really knows who I am. Taking control of your phone gave him a lot of information he didn’t have before. He knows exactly who I am, where I live, what my phone number is. There’s blackmail material there.”