To the Brink (32 page)

She was disgusted with him, too. He was so good at that. Good at insisting he could take care of himself—
thank you very much
—when anyone offered a hand, then somehow managing to make her feel indispensable. At least he tried to make her think she was indispensable to him. She hadn't figured out yet why he felt the need.

"Still take it black?" she asked, setting her cup on the patio table. Rising, she headed for the kitchen, playing his game.

"If it ain't black, it ain't coffee."

"Never knew it could taste so good."

Since Jolo, there were a lot of things Darcy would never take for granted again. Like clean clothes, showers, shampoo. And toothpaste. Lord, had she missed toothpaste.

"Thanks." He gave her a sleepy smile when she set the coffee on the table beside him. The kind of smile he used to give her when their love was fresh and innocent and new.
And enough,
she reminded herself.

"Sit with me," he said when she hesitated.

She'd like to run for the hills. He must have seen it in her eyes. But since they both knew she had no place to go and pretty much nothing to do, she sat.

"It was nice of Mr. Kincaid to send the nurse," she said inanely.

Ethan nodded. "Well, it would be a little difficult to explain a wound from an automatic weapon to an ER staff. They'd have to report it to the police. There'd be an investigation." He lifted a shoulder in a negligent shrug. "We could work around it, but, frankly, I'm relieved to have avoided the hassle."

"And how did they explain Amy when they checked her in at the hospital before transferring her to Nolan's?"

"If need be, admissions in the Darin Kincaid Wing of the hospital don't require explanations. Or insurance," he said easily.

"Why is Kincaid so generous with us? He doesn't even know me or Amy."

Ethan smiled. "Before Nolan married Kincaid's daughter, Kincaid had hired him as Jillian's bodyguard to protect her from a stalker. Without going into the entire ugly mess, suffice it to say that Jillian's alive because of Nolan. Kincaid's gratitude—especially once his princess fell in love with and married the commoner—extends to the entire Garrett clan."

He gave a go-figure shrug. "He likes us. And I think maybe he's a closet adventurer. When we needed funds to get you out of Jolo, he couldn't open his checkbook fast enough. I think that if he hadn't known he'd jeopardize the mission, he would have joined us."

"Well," she said, constantly overwhelmed in the face of Kincaid's generosity, "I don't know how I'll ever be able to repay him."

"You'd insult him if you even tried."

"Still—"

"You'll get your chance to thank him sometime," he assured her. "Have you called your parents yet?"

Her stomach took a dive. She shook her head. "No. Not yet."

And she couldn't call them. She couldn't let them know she was alive and well until she figured out what to do. And she couldn't figure out what to do until she figured out whom she could trust. Until then, she needed to keep her presence in Florida quiet and her whereabouts unknown or her parents could be in danger, too.

"I imagine they're thinking the worst by now," he prodded gently. "Don't you think you should be contacting them?"

She pinched her lips between her teeth and nodded. And hated herself for the torture she was putting them through. But calling them now would be too risky. No matter how much they suffered now, she couldn't drag them into this.

"Darcy."

She couldn't look at him.

"Darcy ... whatever is going on, you've got to tell me. I can't help you if you won't tell me what you're up against."

It was pointless to deny she was still in trouble. He hadn't bought her lies on the plane. Wasn't going to buy them now.

"My trouble almost got you killed once. I'm not going to risk it again. I'll work this out on my own. I just need a couple of days to think it through."

"For God's sake—"

"No," she said. Closed her eyes. Touched her fingers to her temples. "No. You've done enough. Beyond enough. I've got to handle this myself. That's just the way it's got to be." When she glanced at him, his expression was stormy. "Look. You're doing better. Maybe it would be best if I just leave now."

He snorted. "And go where? You don't have any clothes. You don't have any money. Hell, you don't have a driver's license or ID. How far do you think you'd get?"

Yeah. There was that. She had a small bank account that she'd always kept in D.C. along with her post office box. Without an ID, however, she couldn't access her account. Without money, she couldn't get to D.C. and the PO box. Both were critical if she was going to survive this.

"Don't you know people? People who could take care of getting me an ID? A driver's license?"

"Since I'm not allowed to help you anymore, I guess those are rhetorical questions, right?"

"You wouldn't be helping me," she argued. "You'll just be putting me in touch with them."

"The hell I will."

She glared at him, accepted the truth. She was no longer a captive of a group of barbaric terrorists, but she was a hostage of circumstances just the same.

She had to think. And she couldn't think about anything but the way he looked, the way he looked at her, when she was this close to him.

"I'm going to take a shower."

"Fine. You do that. And while you're at it, think about this. I'm the only game in town, Darcy. You knew it when you called me from Zamboanga and you know it now."

Chapter 22

Amy had been staying with Nolan and
Jillian a little over two days. She was doing fine. Dallas knew that and he'd told himself he'd just stop in for a few minutes and check on her. That had been two hours ago.

"Well," he said, figuring he should leave so she could rest and wondering why he really didn't want to go. "I've left Eve holding the fort long enough. I should get back to the office."

They'd been playing gin most of the time. Hell. It had seemed safe enough. She'd looked so lonely and unsettled when he'd found her sitting on the lanai playing solitaire. So he'd stayed.

Any old excuse.

"Absolutely," Amy said. "You ... you should go. I feel guilty taking so much of your time."

"What you should feel guilty about is beating me out of fifty cents."

She grinned, which was what he'd wanted, and gave back as good as she got. "Fifty-six. It was fifty-six cents."

"The world hates a gloater," he teased, encouraged by this little bit of foolishness after everything she'd been through. "And if I wasn't so rusty, you'd be into me for a helluva lot more than chump change."

Yeah. He liked seeing her smile. Liked it a little too much. And he liked seeing her bruises healing and a healthy glow returning to her skin.

She was wearing a long-sleeve silk blouse and pants. Both were blue. The color of her eyes.

They were Jillian's clothes, he imagined, and even though Jillian was a slim woman when she wasn't seven months pregnant, the outfit still hung on Amy. But in a good way, he realized, just a little too intrigued by the drape of the silk over her breasts.

Don't even go there,
he told himself. Amy Walker carried a cargo bay full of baggage on her back. None of it would fit in his closet or his life.

"I'm already into you for more than I'll ever be able to repay," she said, sobering. "You. And your brothers. Jillian. My God. She and Nolan have treated me like a queen."

They'd better, Dallas thought, or they'd have him to answer to.

And where the hell was that coming from?

"Are you getting enough to eat?" Better to concentrate on her health than why he felt so protective of her. Rehydrated and on the way to clearing up the infection caused by her numerous cuts, she actually looked like she'd put a few pounds on. "To hear Nolan tell it, Jillian's not much in the kitchen department."

"So she says. But she's got a heck of an array of gourmet restaurants programmed into her speed dial. And Nolan knows his way around a grill. I've never eaten so well."

"Good," Dallas said, wondering about where Amy Walker had come from and where she would eventually be going. "That's good. You'll be back to fighting weight in no time."

She nodded, too, a tight smile tilting her lips. "You'd ... um ... you'd better go," she reminded him.

Yeah. He'd better. But for some odd reason, he felt a kernel of trepidation take root at the idea of leaving her. "You'll be okay, right? Until Jillian gets home? You've got my cell number if you need anything?"

"I'll be fine. Thanks. And yes. I've got your cell number."

"Well. Okay then." He turned to go.

"Dallas."

He paused in the doorway. Turned around slowly.

Her blue eyes searched his for a long time, sober, thoughtful, before she forced a smile. "Thank you. Thank you for... everything."

He looked at her long and hard. Couldn't shake the feeling that her thank-you sounded a whole lot like something else. Something like good-bye.

"I'll see you later," he said, and waited for her to nod. It took a long time until she finally did.

"Yeah. I'll... I'll see you later."

Dallas thought about the look on Amy's face all the way across town as he headed for E.D.E.N.'s suite of offices. And wondered why he thought about her so much. Wondered why, later that afternoon, he spent the better part of three hours running a search on Amy Walker.

He'd held off doing it until now. It hadn't felt right. Like he'd be adding insult to substantial injury if he invaded her privacy after all she'd been through.

If she would just talk to him. But she wouldn't. And he'd have felt like a bully pressing her. So he'd given her time.

Now he felt like he was running out of time. And after leaving her today, it felt like the clock was ticking faster and faster.

What he uncovered told him why. The information he found was puzzling and incomplete. When they were back on Jolo, Amy had told him she didn't have a family. That there was no one waiting for her back here in the states.

She'd lied.

She had a mother. He didn't turn up anything on Amy's father, but he'd found a grandfather. And what he found was beyond disturbing.

Evelyn Walker, sixty-two, was a longtime resident of Pleasant Manor Mental Institution in upstate New York.

And Edward Michael Walker, eighty-two—Amy's grandfather—had a last-known address in Manila, the Philippines.

Where Amy had been abducted.

Dallas broadened his search on Edward Michael Walker. The name popped up several times linked to some damn spooky stuff. One item in particular made Dallas's blood run cold.

"Jesus," he swore, slumped back in his desk chair, and stared at the screen on his laptop. He reached for the bottle of water. Took a long deep pull.

"Jesus," he swore again.

PARC-VRAMC was a nonprofit organization set up to educate the public about sadistic abuse, ritualized torture, and invasive nonconsensual mind control experimentation.

Edward M. Walker was referenced several times on the site, along with a list of Nazi scientists and physicians who had found refugee after World War II in any number of countries—the U.S. included—and had been granted funding to conduct "medical" research.