Читать книгу Under the Gun - Lyn Stone - Страница 10

Will feigned sleep when Holly left his bed so he wouldn’t do something crazy like ask her to stay. He suspected her compassion had limits he had come close to violating, and his injury was no excuse.

She returned in a little while and shook him gently. “I’m sorry, Will, but this can’t wait any longer. Time for your debriefing.”

It angered him that she had turned all professional after lavishing that very personal warmth on him last night. He knew it was an unreasonable response on his part, but he didn’t feel reasonable.

His answers were curt as he described all that he recalled from the operation at the airfield.

He remembered too damn little of what had happened that night, and would have given just about anything to forget what he did recall.

The interview proved very short and she left to make her report. He knew Jack and the others were waiting on it, such as it was.

Somehow, Will had to face this head-on. He had to do all he could to help catch the one who’d killed Matt. But what could he do lying here blind as a bat and mad as hell? He had to get up, get his mind and body in gear and quit hanging on to Holly at every opportunity.

She said he would get over this, that his sight would return. She’d better be correct. Right now he wasn’t ready to accept any other scenario. He could see a little, make out light and dark. That was something, wasn’t it? A good sign. He wasn’t totally blind.

Will bumped into a chair, causing a loud clatter when it tipped over on the hardwood floor. He stopped, swaying slightly until he regained his balance.

“What in the world do you think you’re trying to do?” Holly cried.

He felt her arms lock around him before he could turn toward her. “I was headed for the bathroom. Do you mind?”

“Yes, I mind!” She shifted to brace her shoulder beneath his arm. “Hold on to me. Go slow. Turn right,” she commanded, grunting when he leaned heavily against her.

“Here you are.” She placed his hand on the edge of the sink. “You need help?”

“No. I’ve been doing this all by myself for several years now.” She was in a mood? Well, so was he. “You can leave now. I promise not to knock anything else over.”

She was still in the doorway. He could vaguely see her move, as if she were shifting from one foot to the other, watching him. “Well? Go!” he ordered.

She moved farther away, but the door still stood open. Light from the hallway outlined her just beyond it.

“Planning to aim it for me?” he snapped. “Are cheap thrills why you’re hanging around?”

She scoffed. “Thrills, huh? I’ve aimed bigger guns into better places, believe me.”

He staggered over and slammed the door in her sassy face. He felt like hell and she was acting mean as the devil. He knew his anger was unreasonable and inappropriate, but he didn’t care right now.

The hook latch on the door was simple enough, even for a blind man, Will thought. He fastened it and began feeling his way around the room.

Let her stand out there and fume if she wanted to. He wasn’t leaving here until he had showered and shaved, and felt at least halfway human again. Maybe steam from the bath would help, lubricate his eyes or something. Hell, he’d try anything.

The sound of banging woke him. A loud crash and rush of air warned him the door had given way. Not a sound he’d mistake, having busted down a few himself. Damn, he’d fallen asleep in the tub.

For a second, he considered covering up, but didn’t. He sat there calmly, arms resting on the lip of the enormous antique bathtub, up to his chest in hot, soapy water. Correction, barely warm, barely soapy water. How long had he slept?

“Why did you lock that door?” Holly demanded. She stood above him, probably had her arms crossed, those long red nails tapping against her sleeves.

He blinked up at her, wishing he could see her expression, even if it was furious. There would be that sparkle in her dark brown eyes. One thing about Holly, she looked damn good when she was mad. Her lips might be drawn down, but that accentuated her dimples even more than her smile did.

She would have those two tiny lines between her eyebrows, visible only when she frowned. Otherwise her skin would look smooth as cream with a subtle hint of mocha. And a blush of dusky pink always flared on her high cheekbones when her temper rose like this.

“God, I miss your face,” he said, without thinking how plaintive it would sound. He could have kicked himself.

She knelt quickly, her hands covering one of his. “Oh, Will. What am I gonna do with you?”

He rubbed his free hand over his face, dipped it in the water and swiped it again. “Get me a doctor.”

“The pain still that bad?” she asked softly.

He shook his head. “No. The eyes are still that bad.”

How am I supposed to get Matt’s murderer if I can’t see to shoot straight?

“I’ll help you,” she said, as if he’d spoken out loud.

A ripple of unease crawled up his spine. How did she do that? She’d done it before. When?

“In the hospital…” She laid her cheek against the back of his hand.

He pulled his hand free and sat upright. “What?”

“In the hospital,” she repeated, “you saw something. You envisioned that guy coming down the hall and warned us. If you hadn’t, we’d all be dead now. You’ve never felt…seen anything like that before, have you?”

He was still too shaken to answer, still caught up in the notion that she might be reading his thoughts. As Matt used to do, answering unspoken questions.

What if Holly had the power to do that, too, and had simply elected not to tell anyone about it? Will didn’t even want to imagine what she might have picked out of his thoughts about her since they’d first met. No, couldn’t be. She would have said something about that, for sure.

As for the other thing she’d mentioned, his warning to them, he didn’t want to think about how he had done it. And he sure didn’t want to talk about it. Matt could have explained it, if only he were around to ask.

His death seemed unreal, impossible. But it was a fact.

If only Matt had experienced a premonition before they’d gone out that night. He’d had no warning something fatal was about to go down. Why was that? Why hadn’t he picked up something—anything—from the shooter before the event? This Odin must have been near enough that Matt could have done so, probably during the whole operation.

Maybe there’d been too many people converging all at once for Matt to have zeroed in on any particular one. After all, just about every man at the airport had been armed and ready to kill anybody who got in the way. And Matt’s ability wasn’t all that consistent. Not surefire.

He had been blessed—or cursed, as Will sometimes thought—with telepathy and occasionally prescience. Will had never before experienced either one, at least not with people other than his brother.

There was the twin deal, of course. He and Matt had always operated on the same wavelength, a fairly common occurrence between identical twins. Besides that, the best Will had ever managed was the tingling along the back of the neck when being watched, a keen wariness when expecting things to go wrong, the usual intuition many people had.

Life without his twin was just too unthinkable.

Will couldn’t decide whether he was now a half person or if he had absorbed Matt’s soul and become two. It was as if his brother were still here…even closer than before he had been killed.

“Going back to sleep? If you are, I’m draining this tub so you won’t drown,” Holly warned, dragging him back to the present. She leaned over the edge and put her hand in the water.

Matt grabbed her wrist, glad to note his reflexes were still working. “You leave the drain alone,” he warned. He moved her hand away and promptly turned her loose.

Her fingernail raked softly down the side of his face. “I see you shaved,” she said, her tone sardonic.

“How observant.”

“Hard not to notice. You have blood running down your neck.” Her nail tapped just below where he had nicked himself.

She stood, her figure wavering as he looked up at her. “Come on. Let’s get you out of the tub. You’re getting all pruny.”

Pruny, huh? Maybe his fingers and toes. Will sat right where he was, wondering how many soap bubbles were left in the tub to provide cover. Probably not many. Maybe none.

He was picking up signals from Holly that indicated she was taking full advantage of the view. He felt himself stir. No matter how cold the water, when a woman was looking at you naked, it had a predictable effect.

“Where’s that guy? The one who’s been helping me,” he demanded.

“Doc Grayson? He’s in the kitchen. He trained as a medic his first stint in the navy, but he’s not a real doctor. He’s just—”

“Yes, but he is a real guy, okay? Leave me a little dignity. You’ve already made one too many jokes about my gun.”

She laughed, the sound merry as Christmas morning. “You rascal! That dry sense of humor’s still working, huh? I’ll go get Doc.”

Will smiled in spite of himself, listening to her laughter trail down the hallway and out of earshot. It was all right, after all. She wasn’t reading his mind. If she had been just now, she wouldn’t be laughing.

He splashed water on his face to wash away the blood from the nick.

In a few minutes, someone else entered the room. “Doc…Grayson, is it?”

“That’s me,” said the quiet, gentle voice. Will sensed he was an older man.

“Thanks for the help.”

“No problem. That’s what I get paid for.”

He didn’t elaborate. Doc was a man of few words, his movements unhurried and methodical as he assisted Will out of the tub and helped him dress.

The sweats were new, judging by the slightly starchy feel of them. Will didn’t care where the clothes came from; anything was a damn sight better than a freaking hospital gown. He sat down on the john and pulled on the socks Grayson put in his hand.

“Here are your shoes.”

One at the time, Will put the stiff new runners on and tied them. This was like being a kid again, but not in a good way. “I’m stronger now.” He stood up and stretched. “I feel better,” he announced, adding a little starch to his voice. Just saying it almost made it so.

“Take it easy now,” Grayson advised. “Don’t want to get too feisty too soon.”

“No, really, I’m okay,” Will argued. “I can make it under my own steam if you’ll guide me around the furniture. The big stuff I can maneuver, but anything spindly sort of blends in.”

“Was the optic nerve damaged?” Grayson asked.

“Hell, I don’t know,” Will snapped, then was immediately sorry. “Look, I don’t even know if the bullet’s still in my head, okay? Let’s go ask Holly.” He started for the door and tripped on the scatter rug.

Grayson caught him. “You better slow down.”

“Or get a fast dog and a cane.”

“No use making light of it, son. We’d best get somebody who can see about your eyes.”

“My thoughts exactly. I told Holly to,” he said as Grayson led him out of the bathroom.

The hallway seemed miles longer than before. Will’s legs felt so wobbly, he had to accept support and lean heavily.

However, instead of walking him back to the bedroom on their left, Grayson guided him right, into the kitchen. No question, that’s what the room was. The scents of bacon frying and coffee perking permeated the place.

Sunlight through the window silhouetted Holly’s head and shoulders. “Brunch?” he asked, forcing a smile.

“You bet. You up to some real food now, kiddo?”

She’d never called him that before. It was a name she reserved for Eric Vinland, youngest of their team. It rankled, being called that, but Will knew it would be childish to make an issue of something that trivial. He decided to ignore it.

“Heaven must smell pretty much like this,” he commented, striving for congeniality, hoping he sounded at least halfway normal. “I don’t know if my stomach is ready for the menu, but my nose is having a field day.”

“Park him right there, Doc,” Holly said. “I’ve got some oatmeal with his name on it.”

“Oh, Lord. Go ahead and shoot me,” Will muttered as he took a chair, his feigned good humor fading fast.

“Somebody already took care of that,” she quipped. “Now we have to get you well so you can shoot him back, okay? Mind Mama and eat your porridge so you’ll be a big, strong boy.”

She set something in front of him and began fussing over it. Adding sugar, butter and cream, he supposed. Not that he was going to eat the stuff, no matter what she did to it.

As close as she was to him, her arm brushing his shoulder, her head next to his, Will caught the familiar subtle scent of her. It jarred memories of holding her close last night, early this morning.

His appetite for food might be nil, but another appetite definitely was increasing. He needed to fight it. Rather, he ought to keep fighting it as he had, off and on, for a couple of years now.

Talk about denial. How the hell had he buried something like that in his subconscious?

Getting as close to death as he had must have loosened his grip. Matt would laugh about this. Matt, the wild one, the compulsive rule breaker. Wouldn’t he just love this little twist of events?

Told you so! Told you so! The voice in his mind was childish, high-pitched, taunting. Matt’s.

Will smiled to himself.

Had he really gone around the bend? Probably he was just delirious from hunger. He rested his head on Holly’s arm as she stirred his oatmeal. “I dreamed about your omelettes. Nobody makes them the way you do.”

She made a rude sound he was used to. “You are not conning me into feeding you something else.”

She lifted his hand off the table, stuck a spoon into his palm and closed his fingers around the handle, then dragged his other hand to the bowl.

“Okay, hotshot. We know your nose is working. Let’s see if you can find your mouth.”

In less than three hours, Holly noted a huge difference in Will. He had been up and around most of the morning. She admired his dedicated efforts to regain his strength and deal with his temporary handicap.

There was no malingering, no slamming things around in anger. She seriously doubted she would have been able to handle herself as well if the situation were reversed. But Will was Will, practical and determined as ever.

Holly couldn’t help thinking how he was the antithesis of the men she had known growing up. Maybe that was the fascination he held for her. He didn’t have that in-your-face attitude—a trait she admitted to having a bit of herself. But even so, Will was anything but soft. That quiet intensity of his could project a much greater menace than any loud posturing or fist waving could ever do.

She had never heard him raise his voice in anger. That tightening of his strong, square jaw and slight narrowing of the eyes, combined with a calmly voiced promise of consequences, was enough to do the trick.

Another thing about Will was that he listened, really heard what a person had to say. And he usually spoke little, just enough to get his point across. The result was that he held everyone’s attention when he did speak.

That reserve of his always made her want to shake him up and see what would happen when he really got ruffled.

It was early afternoon when he appeared at the door to her room.

“Hey, Will, come on in.” She watched Grayson guide him over and place his hand on the back of the empty chair. “Have a seat. Jack pulled some photos he thought might match my little portrait of our perp. I’m waiting for them to download.”

Grayson left them alone, and she shifted impatiently in the computer chair while she waited for the pictures to appear. Jack had formatted them for high resolution and that would take awhile.

“Well, is he there?” Will demanded, obviously as eager as she was to find out whether their shooter was in the array of possible subjects Jack had collected from various data banks. The chair beside hers squeaked as he scooted it closer. Their shoulders touched; his leg brushed hers.

Holly shifted a bit, breaking contact, though she could still feel his warmth next to her. “We’ll soon know.”

Jack needed more details than she had transmitted earlier after she had debriefed Will. She hoped he might have remembered something else since then.

“Describe who you saw that day,” she suggested as they waited.

He sighed. “Okay, one more time. The strike team was late. The plane was loaded. We either had to disable it or put the terrorists out of commission. We counted six guys, the number we’d been notified were involved in the transport. We shot up the plane first. A firefight ensued. We took them down. Firing ceased.”

“Go on,” she encouraged.

He swallowed hard. “Matt and I approached the plane, verified the missiles were inside, then I called you.”

He paused and looked as if he was gearing up to recount the rest.

Holly put a hand on his arm. “How long after the firing stopped were you and Matt hit?”

Will paused for a few seconds, his brow furrowed. “At least seven, maybe ten minutes. We had time to check for survivors and secure the wounded guy, look inside the plane, then call it in.”

“But you had a warning.”

“I saw a shadow move near the hangar. We weren’t wearing night vision equipment. You know how it screws you up if there’s a sudden flare. A flashlight can blind you and make you a target. Firing commenced. Matt threw himself at me and took us both to the ground. That’s all I remember.”

“Okay, now what did you see in the hospital? In your mind, you saw this guy coming down the hallway.”

“No, it wasn’t like that. I knew where he was in relation to us, I guess. I felt his intent while he was psyching himself up for the kill. Matt always said that he could grasp things like that when a subject’s emotions ran high. It was just feelings, and…glimpses of what he was seeing, I think.”

Holly studied Will for a long minute. She was sort of surprised he was willingly describing his episode of extrasensory perception in as careful detail as he had the actual events at the airfield. “What were the visuals?”

Will shrugged. “The weapon. I got a fix on that, unless my mind’s playing tricks. Some kind of plastic deal, I think. Featherweight. Weird looking. He was really proud of it, as if he’d made it himself. Almost laughing at how simple it was to get it past the detectors.”

“Excellent, Will. That’s exactly what he had,” Holly said softly, encouraging him to continue. “Anything else? Try to remember.”

He turned inward, she could tell, concentrating hard. “Anger. Contained fury, though. He had to kill me.”

“He was afraid you’d glimpsed his face that night,” she guessed. “He had to get to you before you recovered and were able to do exactly what I’m about to do right now—match his face with an identity.”

“How would he know that I hadn’t already done that?” Will asked. “He’d have to have a contact at the hospital, or with somebody who was keeping close track of my condition.”

“Right. I’m sure that’s what Eric’s following up on.” She glanced at the monitor, where the first picture had materialized. “Here we go.”

“What did he look like?” Will asked.

“Average height. Bushy eyebrows. I’m pretty sure the hair and mustache were fake. His shoulders sloped, sort of like a no-neck athlete, you know?”

Will sat quietly beside her as she examined the five photos Jack had sent with his first message. “Not any one of these guys,” she reported with a puff of frustration.

She opened the next e-mail, with more files attached. “Rats. This could take forever.”

For a long while there was no sound other than the click of the keys and her own occasional hum of disappointment.

Then Will said, almost to himself, “If I could get something of his, something he touched… I don’t know if I can read him that way, but did he drop anything?”

Holly thought for a minute. “Shell casings at the airport? He would have touched those while loading. The dart from the nurse’s neck?”

Will shrugged. “I don’t know. It was just a thought, something to try, but it’s pretty far-fetched. Tell Jack to send what he’s got, just in case. Eric’s probably tried everything already, since clairvoyance is his bag. Mine is… I don’t really know what mine is,” he admitted with a grunt. “If it’s anything at all.”

“It’s not like Joe’s snapshot images, is it?” She shook her head before he answered. “No, that’s pre-cognitive, and so are Clay’s visions, except that he has to seek them out, and then they’re too symbolic to mean much until after the fact. But yours seem to be real-time telepathy.”

“Added to remote viewing, apparently,” he added. “Like Matt’s.”

“Can you read me?” Holly asked. “Try it.”

He was silent for a while, then sighed. “No. Nothing. What are you thinking?”

“That we’ll ask Jack for the objects, anyway. It’s certainly worth a shot,” Holly said, and promptly fired off an e-mail to that effect.

She really should encourage Will to keep trying to get in touch with his newfound ability and explore it to the max. “If it’s not too painful for you, would you tell me about Matt and how you both dealt with his perceptions?”

“He had them and I didn’t. At least I never picked up on anything from other people. With Matt, I pretty much knew what he was thinking most of the time. We didn’t talk about it, it just was.”

“And you never even attempted to do what he did?”

Will shook his head. “Hell, no. He caught a lot of flack because of it when we were kids. He never denied it, though. It was part of him and he used it, just took it for granted most of the time.”

“Maybe you suppressed your ability early on because people gave him such a hard time about it,” Holly guessed. “That would be a natural reaction.”

“Spare me the pop psychology.”

“That’s my bag, in case you never noticed. People actually pay me for it.”

As usual, Will ignored her tone. “We were thoroughly analyzed by experts, believe me. Matt enjoyed confusing them. He really got into those so-called studies.”

“Matt was a show-off,” Holly said with a smile. “You were always the quiet one.”

“Were?”

She patted his arm and sighed. “Yep. You realize you’ve discussed more personal stuff with me in the last few hours than you have in all the time I’ve known you? And that’s a good thing, Will.”

“Forced proximity, I imagine. Nothing else to do.”

“No, it’s more than that. Different,” Holly argued. “You and I have been on secluded ops before with plenty of time and opportunity for conversation, and you hardly said anything at all about yourself.”

“Maybe you never let me get a word in,” he teased, then sobered a little. “I think I get what you’re trying to say. Maybe I’m even reading you a little right now. You’re worried I’m taking on Matt’s characteristics. Trying to be him now that he’s gone. I was his shadow for so long and now the substance of us is gone.”

“No, that’s wrong, Will. You’re obviously not reading my mind but projecting your own worry. Matt was not the substance. You were two separate and very valuable individuals. You might have looked identical, but you were so different from each other. Maybe you don’t see it that way, but I always have,” Holly assured him. “We chose you for the Sextant team. Just you.”

“Only because of the language thing.”

“No, not entirely. You do have a super background in Middle Eastern languages, but Matt had Russian.”

Will shrugged, looking slightly uncomfortable.

“No! Don’t tell me. You subbed for him in class. Will, that was cheating!”

“No, we never switched. He…we thought about it, but that would have put him at a big disadvantage if he’d ever had to use it. I only…well, sort of tutored him.”

She sat up straight and stared at him in surprise. “You speak Russian? You never listed that!”

He shrugged again. “I never formally studied it. Not in class. I might have had to justify that if I’d put it on my résumé.”

“Yeah, and it would have made Matt’s list of creds look even slimmer than yours, right?”

She slid her arm around his waist and laid her head on his shoulder. “Don’t ever sell yourself short, Will. You were never Matt’s shadow. You were his support. You were his anchor, his rudder.”

Will laughed. “His sail, too? If you knew how much both of us hated boats, you’d come up with another analogy.”

He rested his head against hers and patted the hand she had placed on his arm. “But I see what you’re saying and I appreciate the thought. Matt would have laughed his butt off at this whole conversation.”

“I bet he would. But you ought to listen to me.”

“I always listen to you,” he said softly. “It’s one of the great joys of my life, listening to you, even when you don’t make a lick of sense.”

They laughed together. Holly felt his steady warmth flow through her like a balm. It amazed her how they could be together this way with nothing sexual happening at all, and yet feel empowered with the energy of it.

“You should go back to work,” he said, lifting his head away from hers and disengaging. “I’m getting maudlin here. Must be the drugs.” But they both knew he hadn’t taken so much as an aspirin all day long.

He stood, catching his foot on the leg of the computer desk and cursing under his breath. She barely stopped herself from reaching out and giving him a hand. That fierce independence of his needed to assert itself, and she needed to help it do so more than he needed her in mom mode.

He recovered his balance and braced his hand on the edge of the desk. “If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll make myself scarce for a while.”

“Going out to run a few laps?” she quipped to hide her disappointment.

“Sure, why not? Need me to pick up anything while I’m out? Be sure you describe it by feel.”

Holly groaned. “He made a joke! A blind joke, too! Red letter day in the life of Mr. Solemnity.”

“Point me to the door,” Will said with a disgusted shake of his head. “Now I’m all turned around.”

“Go to your two o’clock and straight ahead,” she suggested.

“Walk me into the wall and I’ll trade you in on a guide dog,” he warned.

“Two jokes in one day. That qualifies as a stand-up routine.”

“Get to work, Holly,” he ordered with a backward wave. “One of us needs to be earning our pay.”

“Slave driver.”

She clicked the keys, pretending to be busy as she watched him make his way to the open door.

He veered a tad off course and touched the wall, then slid his hands along it in both directions until he found the door frame.

Her fingers continued making noise on the keyboard. A tear leaked out and she quickly dashed it away.

What if his blindness became permanent? She wanted so much to hold him, to protect him, but he would never accept that. Not now. He would see any offer she made as pity.

The awful thing was, she did feel sorry for him and couldn’t deny that she did. She knew how she would hate it if he, or anyone else, ever felt that way about her.

Damn, she almost wished she were the one out there running down leads, and someone else had been assigned to watch Will’s back.

She didn’t really mean that, Holly admitted as soon as she thought it. She couldn’t be anywhere right now but exactly where she was. Even if Jack relieved her and ordered her to go, she couldn’t leave Will in anyone else’s care.

With a heavy sigh and a heavier heart, she turned to the computer and began scanning faces for the features of his would-be assassin.