Chapter 12
TWELVE
San Diego
They crowded round Nicole. Ellen noticed that Sam kept a hand on his wife’s shoulder, in encouragement, support. That must feel…nice, she thought. To have someone always on your side.
Then a heavy, warm hand landed on her own shoulder and she looked up, startled, into Harry’s sharp golden eyes. He wasn’t looking at Nicole’s monitor, he was looking at her, face sombre.
Suddenly, he smiled. Straight at her, looking her right in the eyes. Harry had a face that didn’t smile often, the lines and muscles of his face told her so.
This smile lit his face up, made him look younger, approachable.
For the first time Ellen realized that he couldn’t be that much older than her.
Maybe six or seven years. He’d seemed lifetimes older, with his detailed knowledge of the inner workings of violence and with hidden tragedies she could sense.
The smile did something else. It lit her up inside, as well.
Crazily, with all that had happened, even with the fact she had a dangerous man after her, a man who’d tortured and killed her agent, a man who’d probably killed Arlen—when he smiled at her, it all disappeared.
Her head knew that there were monsters outside, monsters with sharp teeth and claws, but for this instant in time, it all felt far away, happening to someone else.
Another Ellen Palmer, not this one. This one had made love all night with the big golden man standing so close to her she could feel his body heat.
That huge hand, elegant and long-fingered, had touched her everywhere.
At the end, it had seemed as if he’d known her body better than she did.
He had a Reality Distortion Field around him and when she was inside it, danger and fear were far away.
They didn’t have anything like the hold on her that sex with him did.
Sex.
God, why hadn’t anyone told her the sheer power of sex? That it felt like plugging into some primordial power source? Who knew?
Sex had been sometimes fun, sometimes boring, sometimes a little painful, but that was usually her fault because often she wasn’t turned on very much.
Sex was always lop-sided. One always cared more than the other and when it finished, someone always left someone else. At times, Ellen had felt as if she made love in some kind of invisible carapace that stopped her from feeling much of anything.
Well, with Harry that had flown out the window.
Her entire body had become a giant touch screen, where she felt everything he did to her.
Her skin had become so sensitive she’d felt every aspect of his body.
The long, striated muscles, so clearly delineated he could have served as an anatomy plate, the textures of the hair on his body, starting from the hair on his head, silky and warm, the crisp dark-gold hairs on his chest, the golden fur on his legs.
She remembered every second of his kisses, the sharp biting ones, the deep, tender ones. Each one with a flavour of its own.
The feel of him inside her…oh God. Heat and strength, mind-blowing pleasure even when he stayed still inside her. And when he moved…
He knew what she was thinking. She must be a bright shade of red by now. She had a red-head’s pale complexion, the kind that showed everything she was feeling. His smile widened.
He’d smiled just like that last night, on top of her, nose an inch from hers, his member deep inside her. She’d smiled back and he’d surged inside her, becoming somehow longer and thicker. At the memory, her vagina tightened, hard, pulling stomach and groin muscles.
“Okay,” Nicole said and Ellen thought okay. Clearly, they had to go back to the bedroom together and—
She froze, pulled her gaze away from Harry’s. It was incredibly hard to do. Stop that, she told herself sternly.
They weren’t alone. They were with his two best friends and Nicole. All of them were doing their best to keep her safe, even Nicole, who was four months pregnant. They were working hard for her and she was thinking about going to bed with Harry, just as soon as physically possible.
She was still red, only this time with shame.
Nicole had been looking up at her, cobalt-blue eyes narrowed, head tilted so that her shiny blue-black hair brushed her shoulders, full lips pursed.
She was such an incredibly beautiful woman.
No wonder her husband was crazy about her.
She was more than just gorgeous, though.
She was smart and kind. And she was looking at Ellen as if…
as if she understood what had been going through her head.
And, crazily enough, as if she didn’t disapprove.
“What?” Ellen shook herself. She needed to find out as much as possible right now, while she still had people—smart, good and brave people—on her side, because soon enough, she’d be on her own again.
She wouldn’t even be able to go back to Seattle, to her tenuous friendship with Kerry, so full of unspoken secrets. No Seattle, no Kerry, no music.
Nothing.
“I checked a couple of government sites I often use for research. They have a low-level degree of confidentiality and I use them ever since I applied for the lowest form of security clearance there is. There’s nothing terribly secret in these databases but they are mines of information and you can’t access them through Google.
There are also the armed forces news sites which are not always rendered public. And look what I found for May.”
Nicole shifted her head so everyone could see what was on the monitor.
It was a PDF copy of what must have been a written text. It was written up newspaper style, in four columns. The article was below the fold and continued on page 4 of the publication. Nicole had split her screen.
Kabul. Byline Sgt. Katina Petrescu. Investigators from Washington landed yesterday to investigate the loss of $40 million. The loss was discovered by accountants the week before..
“The CPA was barely in control,” Harry said.
“Hortung said he needed money and it came. In C-130 transport planes, filled with pallets. The pallets contained forty boxes and each box had 40 bricks of $100,000 each. The pallets were stored in a warehouse and just kept there. CIA agents would stroll in and stroll out with bricks in their arms. Sometimes they’d use wheelbarrows.
It was like the Wild West out there. For a while, it rained money.
They just kept it on hand in a storeroom, couple guys had the key.
More than a billion dollars was lost, unaccounted for. ”
“Gerald was stationed in Kabul then,” Ellen said.
How he’d played that up. Tough guy talk, together with coy references to how he couldn’t say exactly what had gone on.
National security concerns, of course. Whereas the truth was he’d stolen forty million dollars.
“His tour ended in June. He didn’t re-up.
He came home and founded Bearclaw a few months later. ”
“Which immediately landed incredibly lucrative contracts from the US government. Nice work. And look.” Nicole tapped a pink-tipped fingernail at the screen. “Look at the lead investigator’s name.”
“Frank Mikowski. That must have been the guy Arlen was referring to. Do you think he was bought off by Gerald?”
“No.” Nicole shook her head, her glossy hair rippling around her shoulders. “Not at all. I think the problem was he wasn’t bought off.” She clicked to a new page and scrolled down. “Here. Looks like Mikowski investigated the wrong guy.”
This time it was a State Department cable, declassified on June 17, 2025, referring to events six years before.
Frank Mikowski had been found floating face-down in the Tigris River. Forensics established he’d died of a bullet wound to the head and had been dead for at least two days. Sunni insurgents were blamed.
Sam bent to kiss his wife’s cheek. “Nice work, honey.”
“Yes,” she smiled. It was so dazzling a smile her husband blinked. “It was.”
“Sunni insurgents my ass,” Harry growled.
“That wasn’t a terrorist take down. He was executed, to stop the investigation.
And it worked, damn it.” Harry was glaring narrow-eyed at the screen as if it were personally responsible for the theft of $40 million and the death of the investigator and the danger to her.
“I mean people know Montez and know his operation is corrupt but I don’t think anyone knows about this. ”
“So we’ve tied him possibly to two murders, Mikowski and Arlen,” Sam said. Like Harry’s and Mike’s, his face had gone hard, eyes cold. At that moment, Ellen was really glad that they were her friends, not her enemies.
“And my agent Roddy,” Ellen added. “Don’t forget him.”
Her heart gave a lurch. Roddy, dear sweet harmless Roddy.
He was a sweetheart, dedicated to music, with a good ear and a good heart.
Snuffed out like an irritating bug. As if he didn’t mean anything at all.
It made her so angry. He’d merely been an obstacle for Gerald, who’d probably ticked him off a list of things to do to get his hands on her.
“Three murders. Definitely something he’d kill to keep quiet,” Mike said, jaws clenching. “Not to mention the theft of a fortune in cash.”
Ellen shivered and the room went quiet.
Nicole checked her wristwatch and started. “Oh my gosh! I’ve got an eleven o’clock telephone appointment with a client. New Yorker. They’re always so terribly punctual. I must run.”
“Thanks Nicole.” Ellen smiled at her as she rose.
Nicole was dressed in a beautifully-tailored turquoise silk dress and pearls, her pregnancy just visible.
She looked cool and professional and gorgeous and she’d provided invaluable information.
At that moment, Ellen loved Nicole. Nicole winked at her as she closed down her computer.
Ellen liked her so much. She was going to miss her. “See you this evening, then.”
The three men froze and turned to her as if she’d opened her mouth and toads had hopped out. Ellen looked from one hard face to another. “What? What did I say?”