now, with his hair down around his collar. A woman would have to be blind not to notice his muscles. Every time he mopped the floors, Harper caught some woman staring at his back. Or his butt.
On the other hand, maybe getting laid was just what he needed. Let him get his aggressions out on Karen. Then maybe he’d stop being such a pain.
She headed back to her office, her thoughts stubbornly staying on Seth and his muscles, despite three attempts to stop it. He was like a bad song in her head, playing over and over. No, he was more of a sore tooth. Yeah, Seth the toothache.
The thought made her grin, but that froze on her face the second she stepped into her office. Seth hadn’t gone home with Karen after all. He was standing by her filing cabinet, glaring her way.
“Where’ve you been?”
“Me?” she asked. “I’ve been looking for you.”
“I had to take the trash out back. I thought…”
“That I’d gone home without you? Don’t be silly.”
He tugged his baseball cap lower down his forehead. “Fine. I’ll wait in the car.”
“Don’t bother, I’m ready. I just need my purse.” She hurried by him, pissed that he was pissed. Embarrassed that she’d gone straight to the gutter. Besides, he wouldn’t sleep with Karen. He liked being miserable too much.
She got her keys out as she walked by him again, and her shoulder brushed his. Brushed, not hit, but he stepped back, his mouth open, his eyes big. It hadn’t even been his left arm. “Come on,” she said. “I couldn’t have hurt you.”
His face turned crimson and he practically ran out of the office. She stood there for a moment, trying to figure out what had happened. She must have done something to set him off, but hell if she knew what. It was worse than dealing with a teenager. And, frankly, she had too many real concerns to worry about Seth’s weirdness.
CORKY BAKER HAD A problem, and from what he could see, it wasn’t going away anytime soon. Sitting in the traffic jam known as the 405 gave him too much time to think. To worry. Ever since he’d listened to Vince Yarrow and Nate Pratchett, he’d been hip-deep in lies, some so outrageous that only the government itself had the balls to go there.
He wondered for the hundredth time what the hell he was doing. He loved his job at the L.A. Times. He loved being an investigative journalist. He just wasn’t crazy about being a walking target. The more he found out about Omicron, the clearer it became that there was, in fact, a conspiracy. Could he prove it? Not yet. But he would. If, that is, he lived long enough.
He’d become almost as paranoid as Vince and his friends. His notes were coded, with copies in his safe-deposit box. He kept his associates and his editors pretty much in the dark. He’d sent his wife and son out of the state, although he was beginning to think that wasn’t far enough.
A smart man would leave it alone. Hell, he’d done more than he should have by exposing the cache of nerve gas in the paper and on national television. It sure hadn’t taken Omicron long to turn that around. Senator Raines had stepped right up to the plate and named the Delta Force men as the people responsible. The official story had holes all over it, but he couldn’t get a soul to go on the record. Nobody wanted to touch this, not in the military, not in Washington. They all ducked when they saw him coming. Not that he wasn’t used to that, but these people, all of them connected in some way to Omicron and the CIA, had let him know in not-so-subtle ways that if he continued to poke around there would be consequences.
Well, screw them. Corky Baker might not believe in much, but he did believe in a free press.
He advanced another few feet on the freeway, then stopped again. Reaching over to the passenger seat, he grabbed the small tape recorder he kept there. Without looking, he hit Record. “Tell Eli to come to the house in the morning to talk about the interview with George Page.” He clicked the machine off, then on again as he thought of one more thing. “Ask N about the lead chemist in Kosovo.”
This time he put the tape recorder back on the seat. He inched his way along the freeway as his thoughts turned to Pulitzer prizes and big damn paychecks. All he had to do was stay alive. Shouldn’t be all that hard. He was a public figure. People would ask too many questions. He’d live, and those Omicron bastards would go down in flames. In fact, he’d be the one to light the first match.
SETH WAITED UNTIL Harper was done in the kitchen before he made his ham-and-cheese sandwich. Not only did he not want her to see how much trouble he had with the knife, with the mayonnaise, with every goddamn thing in the kitchen, but being anywhere near her was getting more and more difficult.
It wasn’t just his dreams anymore. The woman haunted him in the daytime now, too. Even when she was in the next room, in the same room, his thoughts went places they had no business going.
He’d tried to talk himself out of it. He had a million reasons not to want her, but his body wouldn’t listen. He didn’t even have the excuse that she was the only woman around. Not anymore. It was even conceivable that the other doctor, Karen, was interested in him. Probably for the novelty of sleeping with a cripple. But what did he care? He should go for it. Ask her out. It wasn’t natural for a man to go this long without sex. No wonder he was going insane.
He got two pieces of whole-wheat out of the bag, then did up the twist tie with his teeth. The mayo jar went under his left arm to hold it steady while he unscrewed the cap. Then he had to put the cap down, take the jar in his right hand and put that down. Get the knife, shove the bread up next to the plate so it would stay steady, then spread each side slowly and carefully. Once that was done, he went through the whole under-the-arm procedure again just to close the damn thing.
It all took too long and felt too awkward, and he didn’t see how he could go through the rest of his life like this.
To add injury to insult, his hand hurt like hell. The left one. He knew it wasn’t there, but still, it hurt. A lot. All he wanted to do was rub it, right in the center of his palm. If he could do that, it would be fine—the cramp, if that’s what it was, would be gone and he would stop thinking about it—but there was no hand to rub. It was just a pain that followed him around like a shadow. Oh, sometimes it itched in addition to the ache, and that was even worse. Harper said it would get better as time went on. Which was fine except every single day felt like it went on forever, so when, exactly, were things going to improve?
It probably would have been okay if it was the only pain he couldn’t assuage. But there was this other thing, this hormonal thing that was probably a result of the amputation, although no one talked about it. It had to be some kind of chemical misfire that made him want her like this. As if he couldn’t breathe until he was inside her. As if she was the magic that would take his pain away.
He opened the pack of honey-baked ham with his teeth, then slipped out a few slices. Good thing he had teeth or he’d have been up the creek. Now if he could only figure out a convenient way to unzip his fly….
“I’m having some ice cream. Oh, you’re not done.”
He spun around, and the plastic bag of ham went flying out of his mouth. It hit the floor and slid, half the ham spilling on the linoleum as it went. Instantly he was so angry he could barely see, his eyes blurred behind a veil of red mist.
The only thing that penetrated was
