The Waiting Game

  Just like old times, Adrian thought with a chill that did not come from the rain. Maybe you could never really leave the past behind. Maybe it stayed with you forever.

  He had told himself a year ago that a good, solid, iron-tight cover was the answer. A good cover had saved his life often enough in the past. Logically it should be able to provide him with a new life in the future. He’d had it all worked out, every detail in place, every aspect of his new world under control. He was a writer now, a slightly eccentric vegetarian, a man who could fall in love and marry just as other men did. If asked, he could have supplied a complete life history that would have satisfied any inquiring reporter.

  The cover had been letter perfect until this afternoon when he’d walked into his study and seen the truth in Sara’s eyes. That’s when Adrian had learned that there was no such thing as a perfect cover.

  She knew who he was. He’d blown it all when he’d stood in the hall with a gun in his hand.

  A good cover, it seemed, couldn’t quite cover up the past.

  Vaughn was moving with increasing carelessness. Probably because there hadn’t been any traffic on the quiet road. Maybe he was beginning to realize that making his way to the other end of the island was going to be very difficult.

  Not difficult, Adrian thought savagely. Impossible. Vaughn wasn’t going to drive, walk or fly off Bainbridge Island. At least not under his own power. Adrian quickened his pace, gliding silently through the rain-wet trees, skirting the berry bushes and listening with every nerve in his body.

  In another couple of minutes he heard the first faint sounds of his quarry. Vaughn might be good but he obviously didn’t know much about this kind of fieldwork. He was probably more accustomed to the streets of foreign cities. Most likely he’d never done a lot of real fieldwork in Vietnam or South America. An office spy. A man who worked embassies and cocktail parties.

  Easy hunting.

  Adrian could hear him clearly now. Vaughn wasn’t far ahead of him. What lead he’d had had been chewed into by berry bushes, a driving rain and a woodsy terrain with which he wasn’t familiar.

  Adrian, on the other hand, knew every inch of the woods around his house. He’d walked them often enough, head bent against a cold drizzle, hands stuffed into his jacket. He’d thought about Phantom during those long walks. And he’d thought about the mysterious Sara.

  Sara. My passionate, impulsive, loving Sara. Sara, from whom he would have done anything to keep the truth. Too late now. The cover was blown.

  A rough, hastily bitten-off oath from the man ahead blended with the steady beat of the rain but Adrian heard it. He slipped forward, starting to reach for the gun in his holster at his back. And then he caught sight of the muted, striped shirt Vaughn was wearing. Vaughn was having to swerve in order to go around another thicket of blackberry bushes. Adrian changed his mind about the gun. Easy hunting. Easy prey.

  You should never have touched her, Vaughn. You should never have gone near Sara. It’s going to cost you everything.

  Vaughn trotted to the left, searching for a way around the thorny bushes. He heard nothing as Adrian made his silent rush through the trees. In the last second, though, Vaughn felt the movement behind him. He whirled, clawing at his pocket to withdraw a switchblade.

  But he was too late. Adrian’s body catapulted into his quarry’s, bearing both men to the soggy ground. Adrian had his hands locked around the fist that held the knife. He crushed with all his strength, hearing something snap. Vaughn yelled. The knife fell into a pile of leaves.

  It was all over in less than a minute. Adrian had the advantage and he used it. With brutal efficiency he used his hands to stun his opponent. In a startlingly short period of time Vaughn lay limp and dazed beneath his attacker.

  Chapter Ten

  Sara adjusted the bandage on her shoulder for the twentieth time, using the bathroom mirror to guide her. It had been exceedingly awkward trying to bandage the wound without help but at last she’d gotten the bleeding stopped. She had been right. It hurt like hell, but the slicing cut wasn’t all that deep. Her gaze went to the watch on her wrist. It had been over two hours since Adrian had left the house in pursuit of Vaughn.

  Too much time. She was growing increasingly frightened as the minutes ticked past. But she felt incredibly helpless. Not because she thought for a moment that Vaughn would succeed in ambushing Adrian, though. Her mouth twisted in response to another stab of pain from her shoulder. No, Adrian would get his man. The wolf was on the hunt and he always did what had to be done.

  Just as Phantom always did what must be done.

  What truly frightened her was the thought of Adrian being thrown back into the life he had left behind. She would have given anything to keep him from having to resurrect the past. Because now she knew just how hard he had worked to put it behind him. But there was nothing she could do.

  Adrian was the man they had once called Wolf, the legend who had been only too real. She had been coming slowly to that conclusion all day as bits and pieces of evidence came together in her mind.

  When she had realized that her only hope of escaping Vaughn lay with Adrian, Sara had acknowledged the truth. Her life had depended on the man code-named Wolf, the man she had once imagined was a renegade killer.

  And she had known on some instinctive level that Adrian would save her. That was why she had lured Vaughn back to the island house.

  It was her love for Adrian that had enabled her to view the evidence of his past with different eyes. That love had begun from almost the first moment she had turned to find him watching her going through his study. She had known in that first glimpse that this man was different. He was her uncle’s friend. The kind of man you could count on when the chips were down.

  She had known for certain she was in love last night when she’d lain in Adrian’s arms and prayed he wouldn’t leave in the morning.

  It was all so clear now. Crystal-clear, in fact. She probably should have been suspicious from the start about his identity. He was a man who needed to control his environment, to maintain a cover. It was the way he had built a new life.

  Sara shuddered and tears filmed her eyes as she wondered how Adrian had felt when he’d realized his carefully structured world was crumbling around him. She ached to be able to comfort him but she was terribly afraid he wouldn’t want the comfort. He had depended on no one but himself for too long.

  The knock on the door shocked her into dropping the roll of tape she had been using. Sara frowned into the mirror. Adrian wouldn’t knock on his own door, surely. Nervously she held a square of gauze to her shoulder and adjusted her shirt as best she could. Then she went cautiously down the hall to the front door. Standing on tiptoe, she peered through the tiny viewing port.

  A man dressed in a wildly patterned aloha shirt and holding a festive-striped umbrella stood on the porch.

  „Uncle Lowell!“ Sara flung open the door and rushed into his arms. „My God, Uncle Lowell, are you all right? We’ve been so worried. Adrian’s gone after Vaughn and it’s been over two hours! I’ve been going out of my mind. How did you get here? Where have you been?“

  „Easy, Sara,“ Kincaid said, smiling down at her. „One question at a time. Where did you say Adrian was?“

  Sara stepped back into the house and held the door. „He’s gone after Vaughn.“ She shook her head, trying to sort it all out for him. „Vaughn was holding me prisoner. He was going to trade me to you for information about that damned gold. Adrian rescued me but in the process Vaughn got away.“

  Kincaid arched shaggy eyebrows. „He did?“ He followed his niece through the door, shaking out the umbrella as he did so. „That doesn’t sound like Adrian.“

  „Well, it was all very chaotic, believe me.“ Sara sighed. „Vaughn was holding a knife at my throat and he’d made Adrian throw down his gun. Oh, it’s a long story. But the end result is that Vaughn got clear and Adrian went after him. I’ve been worrying myself sick, Uncle Lowell.“

&
nbsp; „What’s wrong with your shoulder?“ Kincaid leaned forward, thick brows drawing into a solid line.

  „Vaughn scratched it with the knife.“ She turned her head, trying to look at the gauze-covered wound. „It’s not really that bad but it hurts so.“

  „Knife wounds generally feel like fire. Here, let me see if you’ve got it properly bandaged.“

  „The wound is all right, Uncle Lowell. It’s Adrian I’m getting frantic about.“ But she stood still while Lowell glanced at the slice in her shoulder and then taped down the gauze.

  „Adrian can take care of himself.“

  „You two keep saying that about each other but, personally, I’m having severe doubts! And I didn’t want Adrian having to… to go back to his old business!“

  Lowell tilted his head to one side, studying her speculatively. „So you’ve figured out what the old business was?“

  Sara nodded grimly. „And I mean to have a heart-to-heart chat with you about that. But we can do it later. I’ve got other things on my mind just now.“

  „So have I. Got any coffee? After a few days in sunny Hawaii, it’s a bit of a shock to come back to Seattle.“ Lowell started in the direction of the kitchen.

  „But what about Adrian?“ Helplessly Sara followed in her uncle’s wake.

  Lowell Kincaid was the same as ever, she decided. You’d never know that behind the laughing blue eyes was a brain that could function in the most convoluted patterns. He was nearing seventy now and had gone quite bald except for a fringe of well-trimmed gray hair. Kincaid had never gone to fat; his body was still whipcord lean. In addition to the aloha shirt, he was wearing sandals and a pair of white cotton slacks that were spotted with rain. On his wrist was a gold watch. It went nicely with the thin gold chain around his neck. Sara knew the gold was real. Her uncle never wore fake gold.

  „Adrian will be back when he’s taken care of things.“ With the familiarity of a man who has frequently been a guest in the house, Lowell began making coffee. „Damn sorry he had to clean up my mess, though.“

  „Uncle Lowell,“ Sara said with forced patience. „Why don’t you tell me what, the hell has been happening?“

  Lowell stretched and lifted a hand to rub the point between his shoulder blades. „Well, to put it in simple terms, I’ve just spent the last few days following a false trail in Hawaii. Came back today when I realized it was a dead end. Vaughn really had me running around the countryside,“ he added ruefully. „I feel like an idiot.“

  „Who is Vaughn, anyway?“

  „Old business.“

  „Oh, yes.“ She nodded, remembering the taped message. „You said something about taking care of old business.“

  „Look, when Adrian gets back, he’s going to want some explanations, too. Why don’t we wait until we’re all sitting cozily around a nice warm fire. And what about dinner?“

  „Dinner,“ Sara said vengefully, „is the last thing on my mind at the moment. What are we going to do about Adrian?“

  „Absolutely nothing. Never was much anyone could do about Adrian,“ her uncle said reflectively as he poured boiling water over instant coffee. „Just aim him and pull the trigger.“

  Sara felt sick to her stomach.

  Sara knew who he was. She knew who he was. Adrian couldn’t forget the memory of her description of the man she knew as Wolf. Her words still rang in his head. A renegade killer or something equally picturesque. A man who, when he walked into a room, chilled everything and everyone. He’d seen the expression in her eyes when he’d stood in the ball just outside the study early this evening. She had looked up from the manuscript and he’d known that for her the room had grown very cold.

  It was all over.

  He drove back to the cabin with a sense of deep foreboding. There was a good chance she wouldn’t even be there. Then what? When he pulled into the drive and saw the familiar green Toyota, he felt some sense of relief. Lowell was back. And that meant Sara was probably still around. Her car was still there but that didn’t mean much since he’d disabled it earlier.

  It was nice that Kincaid was home safe and sound, of course, Adrian told himself as he opened the car door. But the real benefit to his return was that it meant Adrian wouldn’t have to face Sara alone. He still hadn’t figured out what to say to her and he was beginning to accept the fact that he might never figure it out. He’d never been very good with words around Sara. In any event, she would probably be gone from his life soon, anyway.

  She wouldn’t want to hang around a wolf.

  He walked slowly up the porch steps. The wet night had descended completely now and the warm lights of the house beckoned. But Adrian wasn’t fooled. He knew the warmth was an illusion. Without Sara, there could be no real warmth in his life. He tried to dredge up some polite greetings, the sort of thing a man might say in this situation. He should be a gentleman about it. Give her an out. But deep inside he wasn’t sure he could do it. He wanted her so and he’d begun to believe lately that he could have her. The thought of letting her walk out now filled him with a tight, gnawing tension.

  There were a lot of things a man could take in this world but a woman’s love was not among them. It had to be given willingly and it had to be for real. He had spent the last few days realizing the truth of that. The wonder of having Sara for himself couldn’t be pushed back into the corners of his mind where he now kept other things that were better forgotten. He couldn’t give her up.

  But she hated and feared the man called Wolf.

  The mechanical-sounding words Adrian had been practicing as he climbed the steps were wiped out of his head as the front door was thrown open.

  „It’s about time you got back!“ Sara cried as she flew across the porch. „Adrian, it’s been hours!“

  He felt the soft impact as she hurled herself against him. Automatically his arms went around her. He was dazed by the greeting.

  „Sara?“

  „You said you’d be back on the five-fifty-five ferry,“ she whispered into his wet shirt. „I knew you’d get back on time. I knew all I had to do was have Vaughn here and you’d take care of everything.“

  He held her fiercely, absorbing the warmth of her. „Yes.“ He stroked her hair wonderingly. „I got the readout from the house alarm system right after I drove off the ferry.“ His fingers tightened abruptly in her hair. „I’ve never been so scared in my life, Sara.“

  „Hi, Adrian, sorry about all this. Everything okay?“

  Adrian gazed over Sara’s head, his eyes meeting those of his friend. „Everything’s taken care of.“ He felt Sara shiver in his arms.

  Kincaid nodded. „Figured it would be.“

  „You may have a few questions to answer from your old pals at the agency in the morning, though.“

  Kincaid’s eyes gleamed. „How’s that?“

  „I left Vaughn tied up in a neat package a few yards off 1-90. Then I called the West Coast agency office and left a message telling them where they could find him. When the guy who took the call demanded to know who was leaving the message – “

  „You gave him my name.“ Kincaid grinned ruefully. „Thanks a lot, pal. Well, I guess I can’t complain. I deserved it. Lord knows I owe you for taking care of Sara. Besides, maybe Gilkirk and his boys will be so delighted to have their hands on Vaughn they won’t want to ask too many questions.“

  Sara lifted her head, her hands moving upward to frame Adrian’s face. „You didn’t kill him.“

  „No.“

  She smiled. „Of course not. Supper’s ready. Go and take a hot shower. I’ll pour you a glass of wine.“ She pulled free and disappeared back into the house.

  Adrian stared after her, aware of a gnawing uncertainty. The uncertainty was painful but it was better than the cold, dead certainty of loss he’d been feeling earlier. Uncertainty contained hope. He followed Lowell into the house and headed for the bathroom, stripping off the wet Windbreaker as be moved.

  Adrian had been watching Sara since he’d emerged f
rom the shower, trying to second-guess her thoughts. She’d chattered about the gold while she’d prepared a hearty rice and vegetable salad, making a joke out of her uncle’s idea of a wedding gift. She’d poured him and Lowell a glass of wine and put the sourdough rolls in the oven while discussing Lowell’s unplanned vacation in Hawaii. Then she’d kept up a running monologue on Kincaid’s new aloha shirt and how typical it was of him to bring something like that back from Hawaii.

  Lowell had talked easily, too, leaning against the kitchen counter while responding to her teasing about his new shirt.

  „Glad you like it. Got three more in the suitcase. Picked ‘em up while I waited for the flight back this morning.“ He’d glanced down at the front of the splashy shirt with obvious pleasure.

  Adrian had felt left out of the conversation but he hadn’t known how to get into it. Sara and her uncle kept up a bright dialogue that covered everything under the sun except the subject of the man called Wolf. Adrian told himself morosely that it was probably because they were both too polite to talk about someone when the object of the conversation was within hearing distance brooding over a glass of wine.

  During dinner Sara finally pounced on her uncle, demanding answers. Adrian surreptitiously kept an eye on her lively hazel eyes while she quizzed Lowell Kincaid. He searched for signs of disgust or fear or rejection in her expressive features. The stranger inner anxiety was eating him alive, demanding assurances and explanations and at the same time preparing him for the worst. Surely, after everything she had believed about the man named Wolf, she couldn’t possibly be this warm and nonchalant now.

  Adrian’s fingers crumpled the napkin in his lap and he glanced down, vaguely astonished at the outward show of tension.

  „All right, Uncle Lowell, let’s have it,“ Sara demanded as the meal came to a close. She leaned back in her chair, her fingertips steepled beneath her chin as she regarded Kincaid with a gleaming gaze.

  „Well,“ Lowell began with an easy grin, „I had to go to about three shops before I found just the right selection of shirts but when I saw this one with the pineapples on it, I knew – “