the kitchen.
“Is that coffee?”
“It is.”
“You have cream?”
“Milk.”
“It’ll do. I’ll be back.” He turned and headed toward the bathroom.
She looked at Milo. “What do you see in him? Besides his big bone?”
Milo wagged his tail, but that was probably more to do with the fact that she’d picked up his bowl than any prurient interest in Boone.
As she gave Milo his two scoops, she had yet another revelation. She’d made a joke. An admittedly poor joke, but still. Nothing had been funny, not since that first phone call. She put the dog dish down and when she stood, she pushed her hair back. It was longer than she liked it, and she hadn’t had highlights in four months. Hair care, along with other nonessentials such as eating and sleeping, had slipped away as she’d been forced into her nightmare existence. Seems, however, that like her sense of humor, she’d discovered she still had some vanity left, and she wished she’d showered before coming into the kitchen.
When Boone joined her, he’d changed into a plain white T-shirt and a faded pair of jeans. Her idea of him as a businessman fell away as he reached down to pet Milo. The muscles of his back strained the shirt, making her wonder how he kept in such good shape. Of course, her gaze shifted downward and his jeans were just tight enough for her to see the curve of his small, tight, high rear end. Not that she had any prurient interest, either.
He stood and she blushed.
“Coffee?”
“Not yet,” she said. “I’m going to take a shower. Help yourself. And don’t leave. We need to talk.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said.
She headed to her room, curious, concerned, confused. But she couldn’t interrogate someone while in her bathrobe. After gathering her clothes, she went into her shower, making the water as hot as she could stand it. She’d had three nozzles installed, not just one, and they hit her in all the right places. Head, upper back, lower back. Perfect to release tension. Maybe today it would do just that.
THE PHONE RANG WHILE SHE WAS in the shower. Boone went to the living room and checked that the answering machine was on. After four rings, the message played—Christie’s voice, no nonsense, nothing provocative. Just a request for a name and number after the tone.
The voice he heard after that wasn’t so benign. He knew immediately that it was distorted by a digital signal processor, and there was a low electronic hum in the background so that nothing could be traced.
“Naughty girl, Christie. You know we can’t let your friend come between us. If he leaves now, he won’t get hurt. And neither will you.”
There was a click, and then the dial tone. Boone opened the answering machine and lifted out the tape. Despite the tricks the prick had used, Boone was going to let Seth give it a look.
He went back to the kitchen, debating the wisdom of telling Christie about the call. She was upset enough. What she needed now was confidence. The decision made, he went back to his duffel and put the tape in a small bag, ready for Seth. He’d drop it off later.
He poured her a cup of coffee as soon as he heard her in the hallway. He’d already had one, but another wouldn’t go to waste. If he was going to be here for a while, he’d have to get to the market. She didn’t have much, and he was a stickler for his coffee his way. Besides, she needed to put on some pounds.
She walked in, changed from her robe into a pair of jeans and a blue T-shirt that he guessed used to be her size. The jeans were big, and where the shirt had a V he could see too much bone and not enough flesh. Shopping, definitely. After he’d done another sweep outside. He wasn’t taking any chances. By tonight, he’d know everything the geek had planted in or around her house. He’d check out her car, too.
“Is this for me?” She nodded at the mug he’d poured.
“Yeah.”
Her look was more suspicious than grateful.
“You had questions?” he asked.
She went to the fridge and got out her low-fat milk, then to the cupboard for a packet of sugar substitute. When the coffee was to her liking, she sat down across from him. “Tell me about you and Nate.”
“We met at Fort Bragg. We’d both been recruited into the First Special Forces Operational Detachment, and we trained together. He became a team leader, I was the radioman. There were four of us, basically, and some UN personnel. We were all together in that picture I showed you. We did a lot of hairy missions. Never lost a man. Never fell short of the objective.”
“Nate would never tell me what he did. Just that he was working for God and country.”
Boone could hear him say just that. In bars, mostly, when he was trying to impress the ladies. As if he’d needed a line. The women fell all over him. Not that Boone had done so badly, but he’d never been the magnet Nate was.
“Why are you smiling?”
He hadn’t realized he was. “Just remembering.”
Christie leaned forward, and he could see the hunger in her eyes. The need to hear about her brother, lost so young.
“He was hell on wheels when we were out of pocket. It didn’t matter where we were. D.C. or Kenya or Panama. He’d own the room before we left, and leave them wanting.”
She bit her lower lip, and he wasn’t sure if it was to stop from laughing or crying.
“I can’t tell you how many times he’d fall back into his cot at three in the morning, totally AWOL, drunker than shit, then get up an hour later and outrun the whole team on the obstacle course. I still don’t know how he did it.”
“God, he was just like that at home. Not the drinking part, he was too young, but he was always sneaking out of the house, and he never got caught. I ditch one day of school, and I’m on restriction for life.”
“Sounds right.” He drank some coffee, more for the distance than the taste. He wasn’t here to get nostalgic and emotional. In fact, the last thing he needed was to care about anything but the job. He’d need to be on his game, and there was nothing that screwed up a man faster than letting his defenses down. “He talked about you.”
“Yeah?”
Boone nodded. “He worried about you. But he was proud. Real proud.”
She turned to look at Milo for a long minute. The dog wagged his tail at the attention, then came to her for a pet. “He was a great brother, until a couple of years ago. Then, I don’t know.” She looked at Boone again. “He changed. He got paranoid, and he hardly ever called. When he did, he wouldn’t tell me squat. Just that he was in the middle of something. I only saw him the one time—”
She stood up and put her mug in the microwave. “What were you guys doing in Kosovo?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Great.
