Always Look Twice (29 page)

‘‘Holy Moses.’’

The idea stunned her and left her reeling, but it made perfect sense. For two years, she and Mark had been having what amounted to a legalized affair— spectacular sex in exciting cities with next-to-no commitment. She’d wanted more. She’d needed to give more. She’d needed to receive more.

To her Kansas-farm-girl psyche, more came in the way of a baby. Babies were the ultimate commitment. Not just for Mark Callahan, but for Annabelle Monroe, too. She hadn’t wanted the child; she’d wanted the marriage. A real marriage. That’s what she’d been ready for that day in New York. That’s what she’d waited for until that day in her office on Oahu.

‘‘How could I have been so blind not to see it?’’

At that, exhaustion claimed her and all her limbs felt like hundred-pound weights. She knew she’d best return to dry land before she drowned. Pushing the cushion in front of her, she swam for the dock. Upon reaching the swim ladder, she grabbed hold with one hand, threw the soggy boat cushion onto the dock, and climbed from the water.

Mark met her with a fluffy white beach towel. Without speaking a word, he wrapped it around her and tucked one end between her breasts. Then he reached for a second towel and used it to dry her hair, gently squeezing strands between its absorbent folds with a tender touch.

She wanted to run from him, but she couldn’t quite make her feet move. Why couldn’t this be forever? Why couldn’t this work? They worked in so many ways . . . but not the most important one. They didn’t trust.
I don’t trust him and he doesn’t trust himself.

‘‘If this isn’t the damnedest situation. I expected we would land in the middle of Torie’s having the kid and all the focus would be on her.’’ He finger-combed her hair, smoothing it back away from her face. His face was a solemn study of shadow and light as he stared down at her and said, ‘‘I don’t know what to say to you.’’

He knew what to say. He just didn’t want to say it.

A wisp of a cool night breeze swirled around them and Annabelle shivered, whether from that or the chill inside her soul, she didn’t know. ‘‘Don’t say anything, Mark. Just don’t say anything.’’

He made a low growl of regret and wrapped his arms around her, sharing his warmth, and she was so numb that she let him. His hands stroked her, up and down her back, over the damp chill bumps on her arms, massaging the taut muscles at the base of her neck.

The first brush of his butterfly kisses against her temple barely registered, so lost was she in the whirl-wind of self-discovery.

What an idiot she’d been. When she first suspected she might be pregnant, she had not jumped for joy. Not that she’d considered it a disaster, either, because after all, they were married and in their thirties and it was time. That reaction should have told her something, shouldn’t it?

Mark’s mouth moved over the whorl of her ear, licking, nibbling. Instinctively and unconsciously, she tilted her head to allow him better access to her neck.

Instead, she had ignored that big red light and decided she wanted children more than anything because he so obviously did not.

‘‘Ah hell, Annabelle.’’ He tightened his hold on her and captured her mouth in a long, deep, peppermint-flavored kiss.

That broke through the numbing chill and finally got her attention. Warmth spread throughout her body, then collected in the core of her as she kissed him back, her body humming with need and hunger and heat. He molded his body against hers, his erection hard against her belly. She lifted her arms and sank her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck.

Dear God, she loved this. Loved him.

‘‘I want you so damned much.’’

And that, she realized, was it in a nutshell. She loved. He wanted. Two different things. Same song, second verse.

She wrenched herself from his arms. ‘‘No. I’m not going to do this. Not again. I deserve more.’’

Mark muttered a curse and shoved his fingers through his hair. He stared at her, baffled, confused, and a little wary.
He realizes he’s not going to be able to fix this.

He did try, however. ‘‘I know. I know you do, honey. I’m making an effort here. You need to know that. If you’ll just give me a little time.’’

‘‘Time? I’ve given you time, Callahan. All you did was take advantage of me.’’

‘‘Hell, Annabelle. I never intended that. You have to know that.’’ He rubbed the back of his neck, his expression grim. ‘‘I’m sorry. I’m so goddamned sorry.’’

She grabbed her shorts and slipped them on, then looked around for her shirt. Where was it?

Mark picked it up from behind a Sea-Doo and handed to her. ‘‘Look, Annabelle, your mother said something to me . . . told me I needed to make peace with the past in order to look to the future. It got me thinking. Maybe she’s right. It’s just . . . now isn’t the time for me to stretch out on the analyst’s couch. Not when we have a killer after us. Maybe once we’ve dealt with Kurtz, I can tackle my . . . um . . . demons.’’

Annabelle yanked on her shirt and shoved her feet into her sandals. ‘‘Maybes and wants aren’t enough, Callahan. I don’t—’’

‘‘I love you, Annabelle,’’ he interrupted.

She closed her eyes as the words echoed in her mind, her heart, her soul. ‘‘You know what?’’ she said slowly, finally. ‘‘I think I believe that. I think you probably do love me, as much as you are capable. The problem is . . . I don’t trust it. I don’t trust that it will be enough. I don’t trust you to battle your demons for me, Mark. I guess I believe you fear them more than you love me. And I’m done waiting for you.’’

A muscle in his jaw twitched. His hands fisted at his sides, but he did not comment.

Annabelle closed her eyes and reached deep for the strength that had sustained her for so long. ‘‘I think I’ll go to bed now. Tomorrow, I’ll go on to Melody Key and do what I can to bait our trap for a killer.’’

‘‘I can’t believe there is only one way in and out of this crappy-ass town,’’ Ron Kurtz muttered as he studied a Texas road map. He sat in his car in the parking lot of the public observation area of the dam at Possum Kingdom Lake and wondered if it was just his bad luck that today some numb-nut bureaucrat had decided the road through Brazos Fucking Bend was the primo spot to catch smugglers bringing illegals into the country. Or was it possible that Callahan expected him and this was a setup? A trap?

He hoped so. That meant his plan was working. Kurtz stared out over the lake and imagined the asshole pacing the floor as he worried about his family. He grinned with delight.

This was so damned great. His decision to slow down his attack, to give Callahan time to wait and anticipate and worry, was risky but right. So what if it took extra effort to circumvent whatever defenses he erected? The challenge was half the fun of it.

He drummed his fingers against the steering wheel and considered his next step. He needed to get a better map. There had to be farm roads or something leading in and out of that place.

He also needed to don his disguise. Even if Callahan had identified Nada Marić by now, he wouldn’t know whose payroll she’d been on. He wouldn’t know that through her partner, she had given Kurtz the heads-up that Annabelle Monroe’s mama had fingered him as their bomber. Callahan would expect him to arrive in his family’s little burg as himself. If the roadblock he’d spied up the road a bit was a means to search for him, he needed to go in as someone else.

Kurtz twisted his mouth and scratched his jaw. Good thing he had anticipated this possibility and come prepared.

‘‘Right, Killer?’’ he murmured to the part of his costume that had four legs and a tail. He’d picked up the small Heinz 57 at an animal shelter in Fort Worth. She was the perfect accessory for his disguise.

He snapped a leash onto the dog’s collar, then opened his door and exited the car. Immediately, the furry mutt put her head down and sniffed out a place to piss. Once her business was done, he strolled over to the concrete display that held a brass plaque, and read the information about the building of the dam. ‘‘Possum Kingdom Lake,’’ he observed. ‘‘What a goofy-assed name.’’

The dog let out a whimper and held up a paw. Kurtz spied sticker burrs embedded in the tender flesh and he knelt and clucked his tongue. ‘‘Poor thing. Sorry about that.’’

He liked dogs. He’d had a couple of his own he’d been forced to give away when he began this quest for vengeance. That’s another thing he owed Callahan and his buddies for.

With the burr disposed of, he glanced around the parking lot, taking inventory of the other visitors. One older couple and a younger couple and their six-year-old or so child. One uniformed type who was getting into a vehicle marked BRAZOS RIVER AUTHORITY and who never glanced Kurtz’s way.

Kurtz surreptitiously watched the young family a few moments and decided they were so wrapped up in one another that he’d need to set a bomb off to get their attention. Excellent. Next he studied the older couple and judged them to be an observant pair. He’d wait on them a bit.

He spent ten minutes playing fetch with Killer. When the gray hairs loaded up into their car to leave, he sauntered back to the car and coaxed Killer into the backseat. Then he thumbed the trunk release on his key fob and removed the duffel bag full of supplies. He ambled toward the restrooms and, after making certain that Mom’s and Dad’s and kiddie’s attention remained elsewhere, ducked into the ladies’ room.

Fifteen minutes later, an attractive woman in her early sixties strolled out wearing brown polyester pants and a long cotton tunic in a paisley print, a gray wig, glasses, and a nice rack of tits.

She climbed into his car and batted thick, mascara-coated lashes at the growling dog. ‘‘Now, Killer, calm down. It’s just me.’’

She started the car and exited the parking lot. A few minutes later, she pulled back onto the highway headed north, toward the roadblock. ‘‘Brazos Bend, here we come.’’

Chapter Fourteen

Murder was the topic of the day as Matt Callahan gave his brothers a tour of the trellises at Four Brothers Vineyard. Amid intermittent talk of fruit production and root disease, they discussed bodyguards and electronic security monitors and enemies out of their collective pasts. Luke’s career with the DEA, Matt’s with the CIA, and Mark’s with military intelligence gave them plenty of names to discuss as they attempted to figure out how the dead woman in Noah Kincannon’s parents’ house could be connected to Ron Kurtz.

‘‘We had, what, three missions that overlapped over the years?’’ Luke observed.

‘‘Four, if you count Ćurković.’’ Matt studied the sticky yellow paper the size of a note card positioned at the end of one row of vines, which helped him and his partner, Les Warfield, monitor the state of insect infestation in the vineyard. ‘‘He might be dead, but his organization continues to thrive.’’

‘‘I’ve thought from the beginning that our Balkan friends might be involved in this. Annabelle claims there’s no logic to that suspicion, and that I have a blind spot where Radovanovic and his goons are concerned.’’ Mark gave a fist-sized rock at his feet a kick. ‘‘That sonofabitch sent Annabelle flowers.’’

Matt and Luke shared an incredulous look; then Luke commented, ‘‘The hell you say.’’

‘‘I thought she maintained her cover in the aftermath of the business in Hawaii,’’ Matt said.

‘‘The flowers weren’t a threat. He wanted to date her.’’

‘‘Holy crap.’’ Luke gazed across the vineyard to Matt’s house. ‘‘Maddie said some Italian called her bright and early this morning, and that Annabelle said she’d meet him in Paris after this thing with Kurtz is done.’’

Mark stiffened at that news and damned if his brothers didn’t notice. Matt and Luke shared a look. Then Luke said, ‘‘You’re going to let your wife go to Paris with an Italian?’’

‘‘Ex-wife.’’

‘‘She’s only your ex because you’re a dumb-ass,’’ Matt observed.

‘‘Drop it.’’

He wasted his breath. ‘‘Why the hell are you letting this happen, Mark?’’ Luke continued. ‘‘That woman is the best thing that’s ever happened to you.’’

‘‘Don’t start.’’

Matt shook his head. ‘‘Your personal life is—’’ ‘‘Personal,’’ Mark snapped.

‘‘—a wreck. Haven’t you learned anything from Luke’s and my mistakes? You’ll avoid a lot of grief if you’ll just fix things with her now.’’

‘‘It isn’t that simple.’’

‘‘It never is, not with women. But it’s worth it. You need to stop being such a hard-ass. I always thought Branch won the prize for granite head in the family, but I think you might just win that contest, after all.’’

Mark was already strung tight as skin on a sausage. He didn’t need this now. ‘‘Look, y’all. Annabelle and I—’’

‘‘Help!’’ The feminine cry brought all to a halt. ‘‘Luke! Help us!’’

The three brothers took off running for the house. Mark drew his gun. They’d taken no more than five steps when Annabelle burst through the front door and headed in the opposite direction. ‘‘What the hell? Belle!’’

His brothers continued sprinting toward the house as Maddie shouted from inside. ‘‘Luke! Matt!’’

Mark veered off toward Annabelle. She hadn’t drawn her gun, he noted. Fear lodged in his throat and he put on his afterburners attempting to catch up. But his ex-wife ran like a rabbit and she’d jumped in the helicopter’s pilot seat and started flipping switches by the time he reached her. ‘‘It’s Torie. She’s hemorrhaging.’’

Mark holstered his gun as he pivoted and raced toward the house. He sprinted up the porch steps as a grim-faced Matt exited the door carrying a pale and wan Torie in his arms. A streak of bright red blood stained her clothes and his arms. Mark understood the plan without being told and he turned right around and dashed for the helicopter. There he opened the passenger door and took Torie from Matt so that his brother could climb into the passenger seat.