Broken Honor (18 page)

He had made an art out of noninvolvement in the past twenty years. To be good at his job, he'd had to; God knew the devastation and hatred he'd seen in Kosovo had demanded it. But it went deeper. He'd lost one father to war, another to divorce. His mother had been destroyed by the army.

Noninvolvement had centered his life. He had no intention of changing now. With this vow firmly in charge of his libido, he sought to dismiss the image of Amy in bed, her tousled hair framing her face, and the long, dark eyelashes that made those gray eyes mysterious and seductive. Even more daunting was erasing the memory of their lovemaking and turning his thoughts toward something more productive. Like how the bad guys had found her.

He ticked off one possibility after another, then decided to take a look at his rental car. Amy's assailants didn't seem to be after him. They had concentrated all their efforts on her. Still, he was thorough, or at least he tried to be.

He went outside, opened the trunk, and searched it carefully. Then the undercarriage of the sedan. Nothing. Next was the interior. He found the small GPS device tucked between the cushions in the backseat.

They hadn't followed Amy. They had followed him.

To get to her? Or to get to him?

He left the device in his car. For the moment it did no harm. They knew where both he and Amy Mallory were. There would be a better time to discard it.

He wished he had a gun. His automatic had been taken by the police. He would head into Brunswick and buy a pistol. He shouldn't have any trouble with his credentials. He would certainly pass an instant check. He wanted one for Amy, too.

When he returned, Amy had dressed in clean clothes: a short-sleeve shirt and shorts. For the first time, he noticed how long and shapely her legs were; he'd been too busy earlier studying other parts of her anatomy. Her hair was wet, and short curls framed her face. She was sitting in the large chair looking out. The dog was in her lap.

She didn't look at him but obviously sensed his presence. “Do they know who the … dead man is?”

He shook his head. “He had no identification on him. No wallet. No credit card. No driver's license. They'll have to run his fingerprints through the computer.”

She shuddered. That said something to her. She watched movies, read suspense novels. “That means he was a professional.…”

“Hit man?” he said. “It looks like it.”

She was silent for a moment, obviously trying to digest the information. “Then there is more than one?”

He nodded. He noticed how valiantly she was trying to hold herself together. Her lower lip trembled. He wanted to reach out and comfort her, but something in her eyes warned him against it.

After a second, she asked, “And my laptop?”

“We can pick it and the boxes up later. I thought it and the files would be safer there for the time being.”

“Can we leave here?”

“
You
can. I just shot a man. I think everyone's agreed it was self-defense, but there are some formalities.”

Fear flickered across her face. He remembered how she'd felt early this morning. Soft and passionate and ever so receptive. Because of what she had gone through. In ten days, her house had been burned, she'd been shot, then someone tried to kill her at the hospital, and now this.…

She had fallen in his arms because of her need. The fear had to go somewhere, or she would break.

Or would she?

Amy Mallory was a survivor.

He went over and put his arm loosely around her shoulder. “I think your grandfather would be proud of you,” he said.

“I don't know what to do next,” she said slowly, pain in her eyes. “My tenure hearing is late next week. I have to be back.”

He was aware of what a tenure hearing meant. It was success or failure. Those that did not achieve tenure usually lost their positions.

He wanted to promise that she could safely return by then. But he couldn't do that. He didn't believe in false promises. The only thing he could do was find an answer to the puzzle. The attackers apparently believed a key lay in Amy's boxes. But another key could be the grandchildren of the third staff officer, General Eachan. Might they have any ideas as to what happened to the missing gold and paintings?

Amy gently lowered the dog down to the floor, then stood.

“Do you think it would be safe to walk down to the beach?”

“The place is still crawling with the local gendarmes,” he said. “I think it's the safest place you—we—can be.”

“What about the FBI? Haven't my attackers crossed state lines?”

“We don't know that,” he said. “And the local officials have to call them in.”

“Can't you?”

He would have to go through Doug. Who would then order him back. There might well be a period of time where she had no protection. Maybe calling in the Bureau would be necessary, but he didn't think they could provide protection for her. There simply wasn't enough proof of a connection to a federal investigation. Someone had twice tried to kill a college professor. That's really all they had.

“Let's go for that walk,” he said, holding out his hand. “I think the bad guys are a long way from here now.”

He opened the sliding glass door. Bo stood and followed them as they went down the sidewalk toward the beach. Their particular section of the motel seemed curiously still. Irish wondered if most of the guests had left.

The beach, though, was crowded with families. And walkers. Joggers. Once more, he wished he had a gun. But on the other hand, he didn't see anyone wearing enough clothes to hide a weapon.

Amy's fingers tightened around his for a moment, then let go quickly, as if suddenly conscious of—and distrusting—the quiet intimacy. He could feel the tension in her body. Or had she just felt his own? He made himself relax.

The sand was hard, not sugary like so many other beaches. The water was gray rather than blue. Birds skittered over the sand while gulls competed with colorful kites as they soared in a cobalt blue sky. A breeze cooled the warm temperature. It was the kind of day made for vacations.

Not for running from murderers.

Bo stayed right with them. He walked stiffly, but his tail wagged. He stopped to sniff a piece of driftwood, then a dead sea creature. Amy's eyes didn't leave him.

They walked silently for a while. Gulls cried. Waves crashed. It all seemed so normal, Amy thought. It clashed against the fear she felt. She didn't think she would ever believe in normalcy again.

Her fingers burned from Irish's touch. She'd wanted to hold his hand, to clasp something strong and solid. But it was a lie. Oh, not that he wasn't strong and solid. But the emotions she'd allowed to run rampant weren't. He had been convenient. She'd been convenient. And the circumstances had created havoc.

It wasn't real, and she wasn't going to let it be real. She didn't want him to think he had to stay, or that she needed him as much as she did. She didn't want him to believe she felt she had a claim on him because of a few moments of passion.

Not just passion. Not just fear. Not just gratitude. There had been more. Much more. But it had been on her side. Men like Irish Flaherty didn't fall for mousy historians
.

She didn't want him to feel obligated.

She tried to turn her attention to the sea. The sea she'd always loved. They could walk miles beneath those oaks, could escape the busy beach for secluded coves, but that would be dangerous. She'd never worried about danger before. She'd never not done something out of physical fear. She hated that feeling.

But the sun eased some of the tension, and the sound of the waves some of the terror. Both, however, made her even more aware of the man next to her, of the masculinity that oozed from his every pore.

They walked farther, and she noticed that he made sure there were other people around. She also noticed that the heads of females turned as they passed.

They sat on an old log and watched the shrimp boats some distance away. She still had trouble putting the two together—that peace and the violence of last night. The rhythms of life—the birds, the skittering small crabs, the children squealing as a wave washed away a sand castle—with the sound of bullets last night and the color red.

The rhythms of life this morning when they'd joined in a whirlwind of want and need
. Why did she distrust it so? She shoved the thought aside.

Bo rose painfully and started exploring again. He wandered a little as enticing beach things apparently beckoned to him. Amy watched carefully as he moved a little farther down the beach.

A lone man whistled to him. Bo looked up, apparently undecided as to what to do. The man approached the dog, and suddenly Amy was up, running, calling his name in a shrill voice. Bo turned and started toward her.

The man shrugged and started walking again as she reached Bo and lifted him up. She realized she was shaking.

Flaherty reached her and put his hands on her shoulders. Safe. They were both safe.

For the moment.

Fear for the dog still washed through her like waves. The man was probably just a dog lover.

Probably
.

The fast beating of her heart slowed. But fear remained.

Would she ever see a stranger again without wondering if he wanted to kill her?

thirteen

G
EORGIA

Amy hated guns. She was a gun control advocate. She was for a waiting period of forever. She had berated her congressman and senators for not supporting such a ban.

And now she stared down at a pistol in her hand, then looked at the target in front of her at the pistol range. Common sense mingled with revulsion. She would no longer be entirely helpless. She despised that feeling, knowing that it justified something she felt was entirely wrong. Too many guns in the country. Too many accidents.

She was angry. Angry at being forced into being a hypocrite. Angry with whoever was responsible for destroying not only her life but her values. Angry with Flaherty for making her see it was necessary.

They had bought two guns at a gun shop in Brunswick. Flaherty had purchased them, because he had both a badge and a carry permit. She applied for her own permit, but it would be several days before it could go through. Still, she could learn how to use the thing. And she would break the law by keeping it near her at all times.

Today was a first for many things. She'd never consciously broken a law before. Not even a speeding law.

The gun felt like a snake in her hand as they entered the firing range. Flaherty had picked it out for her, bypassing the ugly, large pistols for this small, titanium featherweight model. She'd always thought a pistol would be heavy, awkward, but this weighed practically nothing. How could something this light be so deadly?

It was, according to Flaherty. It might not have the range of the heavier pistol he'd purchased for himself, but it had, he said, plenty of stopping power.

His own choice was heavy and lethal-looking. She watched him check it over with an ease and familiarity that sent chills through her. Despite his shooting one of her assailants the night before last, she'd not thought about the fact that his entire life involved weapons and danger. That competence, for which she was grateful the other night, now set him apart. He was someone who lived in an entirely different universe.

It had never been more clear when they stood in the gun shop. Her insides churned while he talked knowledgeably about an assortment of weapons and handled them as if they were a part of him.

The final realization came when she figured out why he was wearing a shirt over his T-shirt. Along with the gun, he'd purchased a belt holster, and she'd watched as he efficiently snapped it on his belt and fitted the gun into it. The shirt covered the weapon.

He'd handed the other to her. “It's a .38 Smith and Wesson,” he said. “Five bullets.”

He might have been talking about a box of cereal, he said it all so matter-of-factly.

“Try it,” he said.

She'd picked it up gingerly.

“There are no bullets in it,” he reassured her.

That didn't matter. It was still a gun. But she would be damned if she let him know how queasy it made her feel. Could she ever actually fire it? She wasn't sure.

She was surprised at how well it fitted into her hands …

Now he actually wanted her to fire it. He showed her how to load it, then how to hold it. “Brace yourself. Plant both feet solidly on the ground.” He wrapped his fingers around hers, and her back was against his hard body. She felt the heat from both places. His body heat went directly to a place terribly sensitive to it, and his fingers burned hers and sent tingling up through her arm.

She tried to concentrate. His hand was still on hers when she fired, surprised at the
pop
that came from the barrel. The shot the other night had been much louder. This one was higher-pitched, softer.

She'd also expected the gun to jerk, but it didn't.

Even with his help, she missed the target. She had no idea where the bullet went.

He released her hand and stepped back. “Try it on your own.”

Amy tried to concentrate, tried to think of the article in her hand as a sporting item, not a deadly weapon. She aimed; squinted at the target, which featured the outline of a man; and fired. She hit the edge of the cardboard. Not the body. Not any of its appendages.

“Again,” Flaherty said mercilessly.

She sensed that her bad aim came from her lack of enthusiasm. She didn't want to shoot anyone, not even a cardboard outline.

“What if he was shooting at you?” Flaherty whispered behind her, as if reading her mind.

She tried again. The third bullet.

It missed.

“What if he was shooting at me?”

She missed again.

“What about Bojangles?”

This time she didn't miss.