Unauthorized Access (34 page)

“Want another beer?” she asked when she was done with the cream.

“Sure,” he said.

Tim was never one to abandon a party in midstream.

Lesley pulled open the fridge and got them each a can. Tim took a good pull on his and watched while Lesley walked to the sofa with hers. She left damp footprints on the linoleum as she went. Her pajama bottoms covered most of her legs, but
man
didn’t she have amazing ankles.

“Tim,” she said as she sat down. “What are we doing here?”

Tim looked at her cautiously. He hesitated before answering.

“Escaping,” he finally said. “You know, getting away from all the pressure at home, like we talked about.”

“Getting away, huh?” Lesley took a small sip of her beer. “Feels like running away, more like it.”

Tim looked at the armchair and the spot on the couch next to Lesley. He optimistically chose the couch.

“Either way,” Tim said as he plopped down next to Lesley. “At least you don’t have reporters bugging you.”

“Amen to that,” she said, “and I’m glad we came. I’m already starting to relax.”

Tim grinned. “Even with all the dirt?”

“The dirt’s all gone,” she said. “Now we can just enjoy ourselves.”

Tim held up his can toward her.

“I’ll drink to that,” he said. After they clicked cans, he did just that.

Leo picked that moment to hop up onto Lesley’s lap. He pushed up appreciatively when she scratched the top of his head. She stopped, so he jumped off and dashed away again.

“You know what I was thinking about when we were driving up here?” she said. “Our first date. You remember that?”

Like it was yesterday.

“We went to a movie,” he said.

“That James Bond one.”

“Quantum of Solace.”

“Right.”

After another sip, she grinned and said, “And I hated it.”

“No way.”

“Way.”

“You told me you had a good time.”

Lesley bumped her shoulder against his.

“I did,” she said. “I just didn’t like the movie. Too much fighting and guy stuff.”

“I’ll have to make it up to you somehow.”

She raised one eyebrow and looked at him with a quizzical grin.

“What do you have in mind?” she said.

“Maybe when we get back to town I could take you to another one.”

“You mean like a date?”

Even in his current hazy state, Tim recognized that one as a potential minefield. He searched her face for clues as to what answer she wanted to hear.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Just seems like the right thing to do, seeing as how you didn’t like the other one.”

“Well I’m not sure,” she said. “Depends whether you’re offering guns and car chases or something more suited to my delicate feminine sensibilities.”

“Oh, we’re definitely talking delicate.”

“Really?”

“And sensible. Very sensible.”

When she didn’t respond right away he added, “In fact, you can pick the movie.”

Lesley looked down at her hands and sighed. “I don’t know,” she said. “Everything just seems so complicated right now.”

Tim felt a pinprick of disappointment, but decided to press forward regardless.

“Well things may be complicated back in Boston,” he said, “but they don’t have to be that way here. As far as I’m concerned we should forget everything else and just recharge our batteries. What do you say?”

She gave him a tentative smile.

“Okay, that would be nice.”

Lesley sipped again, so Tim happily followed suit, only his was much more than a sip. Afterwards he felt a beer belch rising and did his best to let it out quietly.

“Do you find it hot in here?” Lesley said. She put down her beer, stood up, took off the bathrobe and draped it on the back of a nearby chair.

Tim caught a glimpse of cleavage when she bent over to pick up her beer, but not quite enough to tell whether she was wearing anything under the pajamas. He would have given anything to find out.

“So what are we going to do all weekend?” Lesley asked as she dropped back down on the couch beside him.

“I hadn’t really thought that far ahead,” Tim said.

“Is it supposed to be nice out tomorrow?”

“I think so.”

“Maybe we could take Leo for a long explore in the woods.”

“Sure.”

“Other than that,” Lesley said, “I just feel like vegging out and trying to regain some sanity.”

“Whatever you need.”

She leaned in and gave him a peck on the cheek.

“Thanks for understanding,” she said.

Tim reacted more with drunken instinct than conscious thought. He turned his face towards hers and tried to return the kiss. Lesley recoiled sharply and turned her head. His lips found only her cheek.

An immediate sinking feeling of dread washed through Tim’s gut. Had he just blown everything by moving too fast?

“Hey,” he said, “I’m sor—”

But Lesley cut him off by placing two fingers over his mouth.

“No, don’t,” she said gently. “There’s no need to apologize. It’s me, I’m … I’ve been through a lot.”

“Yeah, I know,” he said, feeling hope surge within him again.

“I just need …” She pulled both knees up to her chest and hugged them. “I need lots of things, I guess.”

Tim had no idea what needs she was talking about, but if she let him know he would certainly do everything in his power to satisfy them.

Lesley reached over for her beer and took a drink. Tim gratefully used the opportunity to drain his can.

She offered him a weak smile.

“I guess what I need right now,” she said, “is a new can of beer.”

“Now that I can do,” Tim said, bouncing up off the couch.

Once he got moving he found he needed to pee quite badly. When he was finished and emerged from the bathroom, he was surprised to see that Lesley had folded the couch out into a bed and was lying on her side.

Tim grabbed two cans from the fridge and walked over to the couch. Leo was lying on the bare mattress next to Lesley, busily licking his paws and washing his face. Tim stood there awkwardly for a moment, not knowing what to do.

Lesley settled the matter when she lifted the kitten out of the way and patted the mattress. “Could you just hold me?” she said.

* * *

Rob stopped the Pathfinder in the middle of the dirt track and sat there with his engine idling. With no clouds to get in the way, the half moon provided plenty of light. He could see one corner of the cabin through the trees ahead. Lights were on in the windows and Tim’s car was parked out front. Now that he was this close, however, Rob suddenly had a full-blown case of the guilts.

Sheila’s words kept playing in his mind:
Are you sure you want to barrel into the middle of that?

It had seemed like such a good idea back in Boston. He would go straighten everything out. But now he could imagine any number of disastrous consequences. Lesley wanted some breathing room to set her world upright. How much would she hate him for barging in and dumping all her problems right back into her lap?

He could give her some time, but what if later was too late? What if Lesley arrived back in Boston with a new boyfriend and her mind made up? Rob would never forgive himself for not trying at least. But what if he found nothing going on between Tim and Lesley, and Lesley thought he was a jerk for not trusting her?

Rob sighed as he stared unseeingly out the windshield. What a total lose-lose situation. He could drive up to the cabin and risk losing her. Or he could go home and risk losing her.

Stated like that there seemed to be only one way to go. At least by going forward he had some control over how things turned out.

The cautious side of Rob, however, was not quite ready to commit all the torpedoes to a frontal attack. Having options still sounded like a good idea. So, instead of announcing his presence by driving up to the cabin, he pulled ahead to the edge of the clearing and parked the car in the deep shadows. Rob cracked open his door and listened. Nothing stirred but the crickets. He kept his focus on the cabin as he got out and eased the car door shut with a soft click.

He gritted his teeth and grunted softly when he straightened his left leg and tried to walk. A sharp pain knifed through his knee. Keeping his leg bent in the same position all the way from Boston had not agreed with it.

His aches and pains faded to the back of his mind, however, when he approached the Camaro. His stomach churned as he reached the top of a hillock that allowed him to see in the cabin’s front window. A quick glimpse of Tim and Lesley entwined on the pull-out sofa bed was all he needed—in fact, considerably more than he needed. Rob felt as though someone had yanked sharply downwards on a rope tied to his insides. With a physical effort he tore his gaze away from the sight and stumbled back in the direction he had come. The image burned in his mind.

How could they? I’ll kill them!

After a few steps he stopped and bent over, hands on knees, trying to fight the gagging feeling. His breath came in ragged gulps of air. He felt like a combination peeping Tom and jilted lover, and didn’t know which was worse.

What was he supposed to do now? It was bad enough to fear the worst, but to actually see it in living color made him want to explode.

A part of him—a big part of him—wanted to burst into the cabin and tear a strip off both of them.

The rest of him knew what an ass he would make of himself if he did so.

Rob straightened up and walked dejectedly back toward his car.

* * *

Ray Landry drove slowly along Route 31, keeping one eye on the GPS unit while guiding the car through the two-lane road’s twists and turns. His eyes flicked back and forth from the device’s display to the pools of light thrown by his headlights. Dysart had only been able to tell him that Donovan was headed for some cabin out in the woods, so Landry was dependent on the tracking device to guide him in when he got close. Because of the device’s range, Landry had been able to determine easily that his quarry was not in Worcester. The problem was that the area west of the city seemed to be little else
but
woods.

A number of secondary roads crisscrossed this area. He had tried half a dozen of them so far. Throughout these meanderings the display insisted stubbornly there was
No Signal
from the radio in Rob’s car. Landry wondered if he was going to have to go further afield. He could, for instance, try some of the many dirt roads that meandered off in various directions.

Landry was also starting to second-guess his decision to leave Gourley back in Boston. He could have tuned a second tracking unit to the same frequency as the first, and two searchers would be faster than one. Landry had good reasons, though, for going it alone. He didn’t completely trust Dysart’s information. What if Rob was still back in Boston? If so, Landry wanted his watchers to remain in place.

More importantly, he hated having witnesses when he worked, even an old confidante like Gourley. Landry still intended to make Rob disappear—permanently. Dysart would be furious, but losing a client was a small price to pay for eliminating someone who could pick Landry’s face out of a lineup.

Landry was confident he could make Rob talk this time, especially since Rob was on his way to meet a friend. Dysart would get his precious keyword and the bank could go back to making their shareholders happy. When stacked against such gains, what was the loss of one junior employee?

And the friend.

And whoever else happened to be with them.

Bright headlights stabbed at Landry’s eyes as a dump truck lumbered toward him from around a bend in the road. The truck hogged the center line as they met in the middle of the curve, which forced Landry to concentrate on hugging the outer edge of the paved surface. Rob’s location flashed briefly on the tracking device while Landry was doing so. By the time the truck was past and he looked down again, the display was back to
No Signal.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY-
F
IVE

TIM WHITLOCK FLOATED on a tranquil river of limitless happiness, inexorably drifting toward the culmination of all his needs as he lay on the pull-out bed with his arms around Lesley. Each time she moved, the contact between them had the effect of slowing the passage of time and sharpening his perception. Every nuance of her touch, her scent—her
self
—became etched in his memory.

His entire body ached with physical longing. He felt like the film of a soap bubble, attuned to the slightest touch, yet at the same time strong enough to hold Lesley as she needed to be held, as powerful as a raging torrent. This passion was eclipsed many times over, however, by the needs of his soul, which howled to him:
Heal me!
Innumerable long-festering scars were about to be smoothed away as if they had never existed. This night would make up for every girl who had ever laughed at him when he asked her to dance. Lesley’s acceptance would obliterate the memories of the jeering teenaged faces that took such delight in his humiliation. Best of all, the years of waiting and watching while Rob intruded where he had no right to … well, Mr. Donovan would simply disappear as a factor in Tim’s life.