To the Brink (39 page)

"Where are you now?" Dallas asked, his voice brittle with concern.

Ethan gave them the address of the hotel. "We'd be on the move again in a heartbeat, but I'm ninety-nine percent certain my SUV is bugged."

"Okay. Sit tight. We'll get back to you as soon as we have something."

"Dallas," Darcy cut in before they broke the connection. "How's Amy's doing?"

The silence on the other end of the line was sludge thick.

"Amy's gone," Dallas said finally, his voice hard.

"Gone?"

"Yeah." Nolan filled another lengthy and uncomfortable gap. "Evidently she felt it was time to move on."

Another heavy silence passed before Nolan spoke again. "Look, watch your six, okay? We'll get back to you ASAP."

Darcy stared at Ethan's cell phone long after the connection was broken. "Amy's gone." She said it as if she couldn't believe it.

"So it seems."

"What do you suppose she was thinking?"

Ethan rose, stretched his arms above his head. "The big question is, how is Dallas taking it?"

"Yeah," Darcy said. "I got the feeling he might have had some feelings for her."

"Been there. Done that," Ethan said, too tired to bank the flare of anger that suddenly swamped him. "I know exactly how it feels to have the woman you love walk away."

Chapter 26

She couldn't do this, Darcy thought,
studiously avoiding Ethan's dark look. She couldn't handle going there. Not now. Maybe not ever, although in between a few minor other bumps in the road—like abductions and guns and hanging out of helicopters and running for her life—she'd found herself thinking about could-have-beens way too often. Could-have-beens and would-have-beens and should-have-beens.

She cleared her head and told herself again, she could
not
do this now. Now she had to figure out how to get through this without getting killed. And without getting Ethan killed in the process.

"I think I'll take a quick shower. Maybe it'll wake me up."

"Yeah," Ethan said. He was watching her closely. "Do that. I'll order room service. I'm running on empty. You must be, too."

"I could eat," she agreed, walking toward the bathroom. Although she wasn't really sure that she could. But he was right. She needed to eat. She just hoped that when she did, she wouldn't end up upchucking it.

"What do you want?"

"I don't care. Anything," she decided, figuring everything would taste like chalk anyway.

Before hitting the shower, she dug into the duffel she'd hastily packed and came up with clean underwear and a pair of white slacks and a red silk blouse. Between Eve and Jillian, she'd ended up with the loan of some pretty classy threads.

Feeling marginally human again after showering, she dressed and took advantage of the lotion and hair dryer the motel provided. When she opened the bathroom door, the smell of food made her stomach growl and roll at the same time.

"At least try," Ethan suggested when she frowned at the burger and fries filling the plate he pushed across the table toward her.

The first bite was the worst. After that, she was surprised to find it actually tasted okay. She'd nearly polished off her sandwich when Ethan's cell phone rang.

"Yeah," he answered before the second ring.

Darcy's nerves jumped as she waited and listened to his side of the conversation. A new, refined tension grew as she watched the grim set of his uncompromising jaw, the dark intensity of his blue eyes. And it had nothing to do with the threat facing them.

He needed a haircut. He needed a shave. He needed about a week of bed rest, she realized with another flare of guilt. Yet despite the dark circles under his eyes and the disreputable look of him, inside of her, woman low, he made her ache. Made her yearn and remember what it had felt like to be his.

She rose from the table abruptly, turned her back to him, and wrapped her arms around herself. It was never going to stop, was it? The regret? The sense of loss? And the unavoidable, undying hope that somehow, someway, they could find their way back to each other?

More than once it had been on the tip of her tongue to ask him if he ever thought about trying again. And a time or two she'd sensed he'd been on the verge of broaching the subject, too.

Yet when offered the opportunity—as he'd offered one just a few minutes ago—she turned away.

Fear did that. Fear of opening up old wounds. Fear of carving out new ones. Fear of not recovering this time.

"Darcy."

She spun around, surprised.

"Where'd you go?" His cell phone was closed and sitting on the table. His expression was puzzled.

"Sorry. Zoned out. What's happening?" she asked, bringing herself back to the here and the now that required she think about life and death, not life and love, when neither was certain in her immediate future.

"What's happening is that Eve reached Jackson," he said.

"And?"

"And he didn't say as much, but Eve sensed that Eddie wasn't at all surprised to find Gatlin's name linked to your abduction and to the possibility of some shady dealings."

"Shady dealings? He thinks the brokering of a potential sale of material that could produce dirty bombs qualifies as a mere shady dealing?"

"Okay. Back up. My words. Not his, okay?"

She calmed herself down. "So what now?"

"Now we wait."

She dropped her chin to her chest. She didn't know how much more waiting she could take. "Wait for what?"

"For the wheels to start turning. Eddie's going to make some calls, set up a meet, then plunk his magic twanger and get us the hell out from under this."

She let out a deep breath. "Okay. Okay, fine. We wait," she said without enthusiasm. She felt so tired suddenly that she could hardly hold her head up.

"Get some sleep." Ethan touched a hand to her arm, then squeezed. "I'm going to hit the shower."

"I don't think I'll ever sleep again."

Then she walked to the bed, fell face-first on the quilt, and passed out to the sound of the shower running in the bathroom.

When Darcy woke up, the glaring red numbers on the digital alarm clock on the table by the bed read 10:05 p.m.

She rolled to her back, her thoughts muzzy, her mind numb. It took a while to do the math. She'd slept almost four hours. It felt like she had just lain down.

She closed her eyes against the sliver of light spilling into the room from the slightly open bathroom door.

Quiet. It was so quiet, she thought drowsily, then felt a sharp stab of unease. Her eyes snapped open.

Ethan. Where was Ethan?

She rolled to her side.

And there he was. On his back. Sound asleep beside her.

If the relief had been sweeter, she'd have gone into sugar shock. Almost went into another kind of shock when his voice, gravelly and gruff, broke the silence of his breathing.

"Tell me something," he said, his arms crossed behind his head, his eyes still closed.

"I thought you were asleep."

"I was. Now I'm not." He turned his head toward her on the pillow.

And Darcy knew, she just knew, what was coming next.

"Why did you quit on us?"

She looked away. Rolled to her back and, like him, laced her hands beneath her head. Maybe this wasn't the time, maybe this wasn't the place, but she was tired of avoiding this conversation. More tired of avoiding it than she was afraid of facing it.

As they lay in the dark, with the threat of the present hanging over them and the ghosts of their marriage haunting them, maybe it was time.

"I wasn't the one who did the quitting," she said simply.

He pushed out a disbelieving snort. "Babe. You left me," he pointed out.

She heard the hint of anger. It didn't begin to match hers. "And you let me."

He lifted up on one elbow, reached across her to turn on the bedside lamp. He pinned her with his gaze and she saw the hurt there. The confusion. "What was I supposed to do? You told me you wanted a divorce. You ran away from our marriage."

"Yeah. I did. I ran so you'd realize what you were throwing away. I ran so you'd follow me." She sniffed, rolled a shoulder. "But you didn't. You let me go. Just... let me go."

She felt the pain of it as if it had been yesterday. And suddenly she couldn't lie here beside him any longer. If they were going to have this discussion, she needed to be on her feet. Where she felt stronger. Steadier. A lot less likely to cry, because she'd be damned if she'd let that happen.

She pushed up on her elbows. And got exactly nowhere. A strong hand clamped around her arm and tugged her to her back again.

"I let you go," he said levelly, "because you wanted it to be over."

She shook her head, willed back those damning tears. "No, Ethan. What I wanted was for it to
start
."

The bewilderment on his face told her he didn't get it before he said as much. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about you being there."

"Wait. Just wait a minute. You knew when you married me that I'd be gone at a moment's notice."

"I'm not talking about
physically
being there. I'm talking about
emotionally.
You were never invested in us."

"That's not true."

"And I was supposed to know that?" She turned her head on the pillow to look at him. "Tell me, Ethan. Tell me how I was supposed to know that. You never talked to me. You never confided in me. Every time things got a little intense, you shut yourself off. You would never let me in."

"I
loved
you," he all but roared, then physically settled himself down.

He wiped a hand over his face, rolled to his back again. "God, I killed for you." His voice broke and, if possible, he looked even more weary than before. "I always knew I'd end up killing for you. What more did you want from me?"

Her heart hit her ribs so hard she felt the bed bounce.

Stunned by what he'd said, she stared at his grim profile. At the way his jaw had tightened, at the grief in his eyes. At the guilt laced with accusation.

I always knew I'd end up killing for you.

Oh my God. There it was. The answer she'd always wanted to a question she'd never known was on the table.

She suddenly understood. Was devastated with understanding.

"You blamed me?" she pressed, so softly and with so much amazement she could hardly get the words out. "You blamed me for what happened that night in Tel Aviv?"

Silence.

Telling silence.

Ethan couldn't answer her. For some reason, he couldn't say the words. Blame her? Hell no. He didn't blame her for anything.

So why don't you tell her? Why don't you flat-out, no bones, deny it? Tell her she's crazy. Tell her
...