Unmasking the Mercenary (23 page)

Rem forced himself to keep his eyes direct and detached as her remembering eyes found his.

“The last thing I remember is I was topless and one of them held my hands while the other went for the buttons of my pants. I kicked him and he hit me with his rifle.”

Rem gritted his teeth.

“That’s the last thing I remember,” she said.

He knew then that she’d finished.

“Haley.” He heard the rasp in his own tone. “I wish I could have been there for you.”

She breathed a soft laugh. “I wish that, too. But it’s okay now. I’m okay now. It’s behind me and I can move on with my life.”

“Does that mean you’re going to quit TES?”

“No. I’ll always fight terrorism. But Cullen and Travis were right. I can do that without ever leaving the States.”

Looking at her, seeing the peace on her face, he knew that she had put it behind her. Confirming that she had gone unconscious during the abuse helped. She would never have to relive the worst of it.

He smiled, glad for her. But then he recalled her withdrawal and felt his smile drain away as it dawned on him what must have happened. She’d been held captive by Farid. If he’d spoken with her…

“It isn’t true,” he said.

She turned her gaze on him.

“Whatever he told you,” he added.

“Who?”

“Farid.”

“You won’t tell me the truth anyway.”

“Is that why you didn’t say anything?”

“Why bother?”

“So, you believe him.” The notion dug into his heart and twisted.

It took her a while to respond. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Exactly as he’d feared. She believed Farid. The confirmation of that swelled into a caldron of emotion. He felt betrayed. By her. And a sinking feeling followed when he realized why. Somewhere along the way, he’d fallen in love with her. Her sweetness had worked its way through him. So had her constant conviction that he was more like Cullen than he thought. But along with that had always been her doubt.

He turned his head, unable to look at her beauty any longer.

She’d been wavering since the beginning. Her heart wanted to believe he was good enough for her, but her mind knew better. Never in his imagination would he have thought he’d ever want to be wrong. That for the first time ever, he regretted the bad decisions of his youth. That he could be the man Haley wanted him to be. He could almost despise her for making him feel that way. Except he couldn’t. Because he loved her. He loved her, but he couldn’t have her. He’d known that from the start. Why had he let himself forget that? Even for one minute?

“Why?” she asked from beside him.

He met her eyes and couldn’t discern what thoughts hovered beyond their deep blue depth. “Because I knew what you’d think.”

“Tell me the truth, Rem.”

“I already have.”

Chapter 14

H
aley followed Rem into RC Mountaineering; she hadn’t missed that he carried the diamonds. After talking to Cullen without Rem knowing, she more than dreaded this meeting. She’d told her boss about the drugs and what Farid had said. Cullen worried she’d never get out of South America if any of it was true, so he’d told her not to say anything to Rem until they arrived at Headquarters in Roaring Creek.

I already have.

Whatever Farid had told her, it wasn’t true. That was what he’d meant on the plane. And Haley believed him. She believed whatever he’d done, he had a good reason that whatever wrong was in it he’d righted. He was too accustomed to people thinking the worst. She didn’t know how to show him how wrong he was.

Odie approached from displays of clothes and gear, dark hair bunched in a messy pile on top of her head.

“It’s about time you two made it here,” she said.

“Odie,” Haley greeted.

Odie gave her a brief hug before turning to Rem, unabashedly giving him an observant once-over.

“Rem D’Evereux, Odelia Frank,” Haley introduced.

“Well, you brought her back,” Odie said. “That’s something, anyway.”

“Leave them alone, Odie.” Cullen emerged from the basement, stopping before he reached the top step, just far enough to see them. He didn’t sound or look happy. “Let’s go downstairs.”

Rem sent her an accusatory look before following. She followed, too, struggling with how to convey she’d never stopped believing him, in him. In a conference room to the right of the stairs, Cullen pulled a chair out for Haley.

“I’ll stand,” she said.

Cullen turned to Rem, who’d moved to the other side of the long table. Not much else adorned the room. One wall was left blank to hang maps and satellite images, the other had a huge, currently blank whiteboard. The far wall opposite the door had a picture of the Twin Towers under a crystalline blue New York City sky, before 9/11. It was the only picture in the room.

“I had an interesting talk with a friend at the DEA,” Cullen began. “Any ideas what might have been the topic?”

Rem smirked. “I’ll bet he gave you an earful.”

“He confirmed what Haley told me.”

That removed any expression from Rem’s face, but when he turned his head his eyes were cold. It was like invisible daggers pierced her.

“She wasn’t inclined to believe Farid, but in this case, it turns out he was right.”

Haley turned from Rem. “Cullen.” She silently implored him.

He didn’t acknowledge her, but she knew he was aware of her anxiety.

“If it isn’t true, why didn’t you tell us?” he said to Rem.

“What did your friend tell you?” Rem asked instead of answering.

“They’d like to ask you a few questions, the biggest being why you took cocaine from Dane Charter and sold it to Ammar.”

“I never sold anything to Ammar.”

“The agent I spoke with said he saw you. Even has pictures.” Cullen dropped them on the table. Rem looked down at them and then at Haley.

She could read what he was thinking, wondering what she thought, if she believed all of this. She shook her head. Could he see in her eyes that she trusted him?

But his gaze left hers for Cullen’s. “Ammar promised to tell me where I could find Charter in exchange for the drugs. I wanted that more than anything at the time.”

“How long did you work with him and his son?” Cullen asked.

“I never worked with them.”

“You gave him drugs.”

“That was an exception.”

“You make pretty loose exceptions, given they were terrorists.”

She couldn’t take it anymore. “Cullen, stop.”

“We need to resolve this, Haley,” Cullen said. “Why did you go after them? Why did you want them dead? Seems to me they did you a favor.”

Rem just stood there, letting Cullen piece it all together. All the bad news. Why wasn’t he defending himself? Why was he letting Cullen think so poorly of him?

“Were you afraid of what they’d reveal to the DEA?” Cullen pressed.

That pulled a change from Rem. Anger radiated from him as he dumped the leather bag onto the conference room table. “I hope you put these to good use.” Then without another word, he straightened and went to the conference room door.

“Rem,” Haley called.

But he never paused. He just kept going. She let him. Nothing she said right now would sway him anyway. And that made her feel so hopeless. What was she going to do?

“I’m sorry, Haley. I thought he was different.”

I already have.
He’d already told the truth.

She turned from the empty doorway to look at Cullen. “Farid was lying about Rem’s sister.”

Cullen gave her a sympathetic frown. “Too much of what he said corroborated with the agent’s claims.”

“But…what if Farid and Ammar lied to Rem? They wanted their cocaine back. And in the end, they wanted their diamonds back, too. Wouldn’t they try anything?
Say
anything?”

She watched Cullen mull that over. “I know you want that to be true, but—”

“No,” she cut him off. “Listen to me. It gives Rem a compelling reason to go after them.” It explained the depth of his emotion, too, and his relentless drive to taste revenge.

“Whatever happened between him and Ammar, whatever reason he gave Ammar those drugs, it wasn’t without a cause,” she said.

“Haley—”

“He had a reason.”

He stared at her. And finally she watched him relent. “I’ll look into it.”

Smiling, she pivoted and ran out of the conference room and up the stairs. Past Odie’s startled look, she swung the door open and ran into the street, turning, searching. But he was nowhere. He was gone.

She had no cell phone number. She didn’t know where he lived. She only knew he had a villa in Monrovia.

Odie walked into the street and stopped at her side.

“You don’t want to wind up with a guy like that anyway,” she said.

Haley was too consumed with loss to pay too much attention, looking down the empty street. “You have to help me find him, Odie.”

“Why bother? Nothing but heartache from those kind,” Odie said. “You can do better.”

Haley shook her head. “You have to help me find him.”

Odie’s silence made her turn and look at her. Being scrutinized by a woman with Odie’s bold self-assurance was never a comforting experience.

“You love him?”

“More than I could ever put into words.”

“He’s going to break your heart.” Odie gave her a once-over. “Look at you, he already has. He walked away, Haley. He’s gone. G-o-n-e,
gone
. How could you allow yourself to fall for a man like that?”

Something in Odie’s tone clued Haley to a deeper emotion, one that this dynamo had done a good job of hiding until now.

“Go find yourself a nice, steady…anal…and boring…engineer,” Odie continued, apparently having missed Haley’s growing awareness of the change in her. “Boring is good sometimes.”

Her choice of words and the faltering sass in her tone made Haley even more curious. “What do you have against men like Rem?”

Odie shrugged, a bad attempt to appear nonchalant. “They’re always on a mission. And as a result, always walking with their back to a woman.”

“Have you ever had a relationship with an operative?”

Odie’s chin jerked up a fraction and her expression sort of stiffened. “I’ve had relationships with a lot of different men.”

“Hmm.” Haley bit off what she really wanted to say. The one that hurt the most had to have been an operative. “Is that why you’re marrying an anal, boring engineer?”

Odie blinked a few times, as though trying to conceal her fracturing effort to hide the turmoil building in her. It was quite a sight. Haley felt like she was watching history unfold. “They don’t come with any complicated baggage.” She paused as though debating whether to continue. Her vigorous personality overruled. “Other than a nauseating fondness for detail.”

Haley laughed. “You aren’t getting married, Odie. You might make it to the altar, but you won’t get to the ‘I Do’ part.”

Rem stepped into his condo in Taos, New Mexico, unable to shake the lasting knowledge that Haley was no different than anyone else he’d encountered. Just like the rest, she didn’t understand him. Just when he’d begun to trust her. It annoyed him that he’d allowed himself to fall for her so hard.

He took two stairs at a time up to his bedroom. A platform bed barely filled the space of the large room, although it was king-size. He had one dresser and nothing on the walls. He hadn’t lived there long enough to make it feel like home. Pulling a carry-on-sized luggage from his closet, he put it on the bed and paused.

Looking at his walls again, white, bland and bare, it struck him that he’d never spent much time here. Once he’d found the place in Monrovia, he’d settled right in. But here, in the States, where so much of his childhood haunted him, he’d never opened his heart to risking a life here.

Funny, how easy it had been to risk a life in places like Monrovia. Meeting Haley had melted a little of that armor. He supposed he’d still been too frozen to see it until now. Until she had to go and turn out like all the rest. Or had she? He’d never given her a chance to talk to him when he’d left. Not liking where his thoughts were headed, he began tossing his belongings into the bag, irritation making his movements more forceful than necessary.

This had happened to him before. He’d met women who ran as soon as they figured out he wasn’t ordinary, but there was one, six years ago, who’d wormed her way into his heart the way Haley had. But she couldn’t handle what he was. What he did. His actions weren’t enough. The label said it all. It was the only affirmation she’d needed. Mercenary. He was a merc. She’d never gotten past it and she’d ended up running. Haley would never know how accurate she’d been about the clothes.

She’d also never know that getting over her would hurt a lot more than the one who’d worn the clothes before her. It would take a long time to forget Haley. But some day he would. It’s what he always did. He moved on. He did the best he could and he moved forward.

Continuing to pack what little he’d need, he eased his mind off the woman who’d haunt it for God only knew how long. Aside from feeling the loss of Haley, there was the grave news that Cullen had imparted. The DEA. After him. In his wildest desires for revenge, he’d never seen that one coming. But it wasn’t surprising. Farid was on the U.S. government’s radar. They’d likely been watching Dane Charter and that was how they’d put it all together. Rem should have considered the possibility that he was being watched by someone other than those affiliated with Dane and Ammar.

It hardly mattered now. What did matter was securing his future. He was practiced in that. It was something he was good at. Nothing he’d aspired to, but the talent was there nonetheless.

He’d go back to Monrovia until he figured out what to do. He’d lay low for a while and see what happened. Move if he had to. Haley knew where to find his villa. She might lead the law to him.

Just the thought of her tightened his chest. He hadn’t thought he’d gotten so tangled with her. Maybe it wasn’t so much the way he felt about her as it was her easy sway to Cullen’s side of things. After all her persuasions. Her taunts and comparisons. Why couldn’t she accept him the way he was?