Son of the Enemy (12 page)

Hannah blinked absently, as though she’d barely heard the question, then slung her purse over her shoulder. “I’m fine. See you tomorrow.”

“Not tomorrow, Ms. Duncan. Just Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Remember?”

“Yes, of course. See you Thursday.”

John followed her down the steps and stopped her in the foyer. “If I can’t feed you I can at least drive you to your door.”

“I’m fine walking.” Was her tone a few degrees cooler than it had been when he’d been massaging her feet not so long ago? Before Edna had intruded.

He shrugged to hide his anger and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Your choice.”

“Edna’s right. I really do need some sleep, so…” She looked away.

Fucking Edna.

Some kids from the drama club came banging through the front door, so involved in their own excited conversation they barely acknowledged the two tense adults facing off at the bottom of the steps. God
damn
it. Why was she blowing him off like this?

“I’ll walk you home,” he said quietly when the kids were out of earshot. “I don’t want you walking alone in the dark. And I want to talk to you.”
And pull off your clothes and feel you everywhere, taste you, bury myself inside you.

When she finally turned to him her eyes were hooded, as though she’d read his mind and was embarrassed to show her reaction. “That’s probably not a good idea,” she said softly.

He felt like his head was about to explode. “Let’s discuss this outside.”

She took a deep breath and let it out, then crossed the foyer and half ran down the steps. He followed her, frustration and anger burning his gut. Okay, maybe he just had to lay it on the line for her. “Hannah,” he said, more sharply than he’d intended. It got her attention.

She stopped at the bottom of the steps. “Can’t this wait till tomorrow? I’m wiped out.”

“Then hop on my motorcycle and I’ll drive you around to your door.”

She huffed. “Do you
always
have to get your way?”

He took her upper arm gently and led her to the parking lot. “I don’t know why you’re being so stubborn.” He handed her a helmet. She popped it on her head quickly and swung her leg over the bike behind him. “Hold on tight.” The tighter the better. The feel of her arms around his waist, her breasts pressed to his back made his cock lengthen and thicken until it hurt. He discreetly adjusted it.

As he drove slowly out of the parking lot, he glanced up at Hannah’s office window. A figure was silhouetted in the dim light. Well, he hoped she’d enjoyed the show.

He gunned the engine once they hit the main road. It was paved for the first mile, and then dirt for the half mile down to Hannah’s cottage, which explained why she walked across the soccer field to and fro, even in the dark. The second they pulled up, she hopped off the bike. It was dark and overcast, but back in the woods it was darker. Ominous.

“Thanks,” she said tersely.

John turned off the engine and removed his helmet. “What happened back there?”

She pulled off her helmet and handed it to him. “What? Nothing.”

“Don’t tell me nothing. We were talking, I was massaging your foot. Then Edna came in and, I don’t know, you changed your mind.”

Hannah turned and climbed the steps to her porch, running her fingers through snarled hair. “This can’t go anywhere, okay? So there’s no point starting something.”

He climbed off the bike and took the steps two at a time. She turned, eyes wide when she realized he was behind her. He pressed her back against the doorjamb, took her face between his hands and kissed her. She grabbed his wrists as though to pull his hands off her, but went still as he deepened the kiss. Her mouth was soft and giving, and within seconds she was kissing him back, opening to his tongue, humming her pleasure in the back of her throat. He pressed his erection into her and felt her body tighten.

She pulled her head back. “No,” she gasped. “We have to stop.”

He nuzzled her neck, and she stretched it to the side, breathing heavily as he kissed his way to the tender hollow in front. He threaded their fingers together and pulled their hands behind her hips so he could feel the thrust of her breasts against his chest, the pounding of her heart. Once again he assaulted her mouth, and this time she tangled her tongue with his and pushed back against the bulge in his jeans.

“Hannah,” he whispered against her lips. “Let me in. I’m begging you.” Without waiting for an answer he kissed her more deeply, thrusting his tongue into her mouth in rhythm with the movements of their bodies, making it clear it wasn’t just the cottage he wanted to be inside.

She was trembling against him, whether from need or fear he wasn’t certain. He stroked their joined hands over her hips, his thumbs kneading the sensitive front hollow so close to where he wanted to be. Groaning, she opened her legs, and he stroked her through her corduroys. He reached for the zipper, wanting desperately to feel her flesh.

A sudden furious squawking and squealing from the trees made them jump and pull apart. “What the hell?” John said, turning.

“Oh my God,” Hannah gasped, grabbing at his arms. “What happened?”

“Go inside.”

She fumbled the keys out of her pocket and managed to get the door open. John pulled it closed behind her and headed into the woods in the direction of the ongoing racket. It sounded like squirrels screaming, but why? Was there a larger predator out there? He knew the very occasional cougar invaded wooded areas in Virginia, which had him reaching for his SIG pistol.
Damn.
It was in the tail bag.

“John,” Hannah called from the porch. She held out a flashlight. “Use this.”

He ran up the steps and took it from her, but the squawking had stopped. She rubbed her hands briskly up and down her arms. Scared, he thought. And for good reason. “Is something…dead out there?”

He nudged her. “Go back inside. I’ll join you in a minute.” He aimed the beam of light toward the trees, hoping to spot some large movement he could track, but the animals had calmed down. Was the timing of that disruption truly coincidental? Or had there been a two-legged predator in the woods watching them? He retrieved his gun from the tail bag and tried following Hannah’s thin path through the trees, pushing his way through low bushes, shining the light at the ground, but found nothing. Ten minutes later, he let out a deep breath and made his way back to the cottage, locking up his gun before he climbed the steps.

Hannah let him inside, but her body language made it clear the mood had been broken and her defenses were back in full force. Resigned, he checked all her locks, peered into her closets and declared her safe, then kissed her on the forehead and left.

An hour later he slammed the door to his apartment, threw his helmet on a chair and grabbed a beer out of the fridge. He glugged down half of it and began to pace.

His control was slipping and he didn’t know how to stop it.

On his way past the TV, he grabbed the remote and clicked on CNN. Tanks were crawling through some Middle Eastern town, but he couldn’t focus on the reporter’s words. He finished the beer, crushed the can in his hand and grabbed another. The CNN reporter droned on, but John’s thoughts crowded everything else out.

Working undercover, playing a role, had never been this hard, even when he knew the woman was up to her ass in guilt. Maybe that was the problem. Hannah was a victim, and had been all her life. A victim of her mother’s killer and her father’s neglect. Now she was a victim of John Emerson Daly, the son of the man she believed had
murdered her mother and shattered her world.

The son of her worst enemy.

He fingered the phone in his pocket. Maybe this time he would ask the question. Sweat beaded on his upper lip. He finished his beer and opened another. He paced the room, fingering the phone in his pocket. It was a simple question with a simple yes-or-no answer. He wiped the sweat off his lip with his sleeve. All he had to do was pull out the phone, punch in the numbers he knew by heart, and ask the question.
Nine minutes to six.
If he didn’t do it soon, the call wouldn’t go through.

One more beer ought to do it.

At four minutes to six he took his phone out and discovered his palms were sweating. He punched in the numbers and took deep breaths while it rang. The same man answered, with his distinctive New England accent, and John said the name in a voice hoarse with anxiety. Less than a minute later, the deep, familiar voice came on the line.

Ask!

His breathing accelerated.

Ask and get on with your life.

He opened his mouth to speak…and closed it. Just like he had a couple dozen other times over the past several years.

“I’m here, son,” the voice said as John pressed
End Call
.

Edna’s snoring woke her up. She gazed around the small living room, disoriented as always. The clock on the mantle said it was eight thirty in the evening. She pushed herself out of the La-Z-Boy chair, clicking the footrest shut with her ankles, and went to the back door. Maybe that good-for-nothing son of hers had left her something nice for once. Some flowers, maybe. She opened the door and shook her head.

Another critter with its throat ripped out.

She bent down and picked it up by the tail, swung it into the trash can, then went back into the kitchen to wash her bloody hands. “Can’t put up with much more of this,” she called over her shoulder as she spurted yellow dish detergent on her hands and rubbed them together under the tap. “I thought we were done with punishment, but I guess we’re not. It’s of your own making.”

She dried her hands thoroughly, then went into the bedroom. It was her burden to bear, as his mother, to take his evil from him. She would shut her eyes tight, that’s what she’d do, just like she did when his father gave his evil to her, may he rot in hell.

“Get on in here, you evil boy,” she called out. “It’s punishment time.”

Chapter Eleven

Larissa buzzed the office at two fifteen on Thursday afternoon to say Mrs. Santini had arrived for her appointment. Hannah groaned. She’d barely slept the past couple nights—since the night John had stayed with her. As though that one taste of sleeping in his arms had spoiled her for all the other nights he wouldn’t be there.

She’d nearly taken him to bed after he’d gotten her so unbelievably turned on out on her porch. What a mistake that would have been. As it was, she spent way too much time thinking about him, fantasizing about what it would be like to make love with him. If only the fantasies stopped there. But they went from lovemaking to living together to getting married and having babies.

She had to keep John Emerson out of her bed.

She rubbed her hands over her face and yawned. If she didn’t get at least eight hours tonight—no, make that ten—she’d be delusional soon. She stood and stretched as far as her muscles would go in a desperate attempt to wake up. It wouldn’t do to keel over while the woman was talking about her child.

Mrs. Santini turned out to be an attractive redhead with a very short haircut and a compact body that told Hannah she spent a lot of time working out. Hannah offered coffee but she declined, and they settled into comfortable chairs to talk.

“I understand your son, Jason, is fourteen,” Hannah said to kick things off. Once she started the ball rolling, most parents couldn’t stop talking about their kids. Her challenge this afternoon would be to stay focused and listen.

“Well, that
is
what I told your secretary,” the woman said. She reached into her bag and pulled out a wallet. “I’m actually here on another matter, Ms. Duncan.” She held up a badge and credentials identifying her as Special Agent Rita Santini, Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Hannah sat back in her chair, stunned. “Is this about Christian Smythe?” She was afraid to even mention Ty’s name.

“Indirectly. It’s very important that this conversation remain confidential, Hannah. May I call you Hannah?”

Hannah nodded slowly, her mind spinning in a million directions. “What do you mean, indirectly?”

“Well, I’m here to talk about a friend of yours. Thornton Bradshaw III.”

“Thornton?” Her mind flashed to the posters in front of the courthouse where Judge Palmieri’s trial was underway. They had accused Thornton of being a drug dealer, an idea she rejected totally. “What did he do, not pay his taxes or something?”

The agent shook her head, her expression almost apologetic. “The FBI has been investigating Mr. Bradshaw’s activities for quite a while, Hannah.” She pulled a manila file folder out of her bag, set it on her lap and folded her hands on top of it. “You’ve heard of organized crime.”

Hannah stared at her. Maybe she was already delusional. “Thornton is somehow involved in organized crime? Is that what you’re suggesting?”

“He’s under investigation for certain activities that fall under that category, yes.”

Hannah shook her head. “No. I don’t believe that. Some of his friends, maybe. Does this have something to do with Judge Palmieri?”

The agent leaned forward in her chair. “I’m not at liberty to discuss that particular case. But you’re right to think that some of Mr. Bradshaw’s associates are known organized-crime figures.” She glanced at the folder on her lap. “Before we go any further, I’ll need you to sign a confidentiality agreement. And then just hear me out. Will you do that?”

Hannah signed the agreement, more out of curiosity than any desire to help the FBI go after Thornton. She was actually surprised at how protective she felt toward him. Granted, those men in the black suits who followed him everywhere had been making her uncomfortable lately. They struck her as out-and-out thugs. But damn it, Thornton was no criminal. He couldn’t be. Could he?

“Why did you come to me?” Hannah asked. “I don’t know the first thing about Thornton’s associates or any crimes they’ve supposedly committed.” She sensed the agent was weighing her responses very carefully to see if she was lying—which annoyed Hannah even more.

Rita Santini crossed one leg over the other. “You and Mr. Bradshaw had dinner at the home of Judge Emil Cervantes on August 27. Twelve days later he was murdered.”