He cleared his throat and stared at the ground. He was under control again.
Sadly, she knew she’d missed her opportunity. Next time she wouldn’t think; she’d simply act.
Con pulled his keys from his pocket. “Good night. I’ll see you Monday.”
On Monday, he wouldn’t get away.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
On Sunday morning before seven, Jack lounged in a leather recliner in Aldo’s guesthouse reading the Sunday paper and sipping a dark-chocolate mint mocha that he’d had to drive twenty minutes out of town to get. Yes, he’d gone rogue and gotten what he wanted, damn it all. He had to satisfy one of his cravings before he went crazy and went to Willow’s to do what he really wanted—make love to his wife.
Which would blow everything to hell.
The sun still wasn’t up. Jack liked the peace and quiet of the morning.
The guesthouse was a one-bedroom, one-main-room, one-bathroom affair. The kitchen occupied the wall opposite where Jack sat in direct line to the bedroom. Though the kitchen was small, Aldo had spared no expense on it. He’d lined the counters with fine Italian marble, installed Italian tile backsplashes, and put in top-quality stainless-steel appliances. A round, four-person table and chairs completed the ensemble.
The apartment was homey and upscale, decorated in a rooster motif and Italian design, with vases and wreaths of fall flowers. Except for the rooster motif, Jack liked it. He’d like it even more once Kennett was dead. Damn, that man had nine lives.
Jack opened the paper to the Sunday crossword and pulled a pen out of his pocket. Doing the crossword cleared his mind and opened him up to creativity, which he sure as hell needed right now—a creative way to kill. One Willow wouldn’t inadvertently interrupt.
He’d thought about sneaking into the hospital where Kennett had had to stay overnight for observation and taking Kennett out. He’d even scoped it out. But it was too dangerous and had too little chance of success. Too many medical people around to revive Kennett. Not enough time to figure out their schedules. Too many questions would be asked. In a cost-benefit analysis, the risk of failure outweighed the chance of success. So Jack would have to chill, be patient.
He started the crossword. A five-letter word for low point …
He became so engrossed in the puzzle, he almost didn’t hear the gentle click coming from the kitchen. Almost. He cocked an ear.
Click. Click, click. Click.
The little apartment was full of pops and hisses, the bump as the gas furnace ignited and kicked on, the whisper of the furnace fan. But this was something different.
Jack pushed the footrest down, set the paper and pen in the chair, and stood, listening. Click. Click, click. Click.
Not an explosive. Not a detonator noise he recognized. It sounded like … an oven turning on and warming up. At that moment, he glanced across the room at Aldo’s beautiful glass-top stainless-steel oven. The electronic display glowed orange-yellow, happily lit to display the setting and rising temperature.
Broil. Four fifty. What the hell?
He hadn’t turned the oven on.
Acting on instinct, Jack pushed the recliner aside, jumped out of the line of fire of the oven, and rushed toward it. Standing off to the side of it, he fumbled with the controls, found the OFF button, turned the thing off, and opened the oven door at the exact instant the oven fired a bullet at him.
It whizzed past him and where he’d been sitting in the chair and sliced through the wall between the bedroom and living room. If he’d slept in and been in bed or was still in the chair, he’d be dead.
Jack swore beneath his breath.
Damn that Kennett! What the hell else has the Rooster booby-trapped?
Jack took a look around the room with a trained eye. His range of motion around the apartment was limited until the oven cooled down and he could disable the gun. He couldn’t risk stepping into the line of fire. Place a gun in an oven, heat it up, and it will discharge.
Very creative, Kennett. Not particularly effective, but creative.
Had it been successful, no one would have suspected Kennett, not when he’d been in the hospital having his vitals checked every half hour. Jack wondered whether the Rooster had slipped in and set the oven timer or he’d rigged it so he could arm it remotely. Remotely seemed like the most efficient and certain way to make a clean kill. And the Rooster was sneaky—the gun had been quiet. He’d even used a silencer.
Jack did routine sweeps of the guesthouse for bugs and monitoring cameras, which had most certainly thrown the Rooster off and made him take a gamble that Jack would be in bed at the time of the shooting.
Jack shook his head. He had to take that asshole out soon.
The bathroom wasn’t in the direct line of oven fire and was the next most lethal room in the place. Jack had been out all night and was so groggy when he got home and again when he’d gotten up, he hadn’t paid much attention when he’d used it.
He scoped it out now with a keen eye. An aerosol can of germ-killing cleaner sat on the heating vent.
Heat an aerosol can up and it will explode. Jack wasn’t certain the vent would blow hot enough air to explode a regular can, but he had a feeling this can was specially modified to blow up when the Rooster wanted it to. He removed the can and stored it in the explosive containment container he’d brought.
He unscrewed the showerhead and found it filled with powder that would produce poisonous gas when water coursed through it. A careful search turned up nothing else.
Jack didn’t scare easily.
He went back into the kitchen. The oven had cooled enough for him to take a look. He grabbed a pot holder from a drawer and, using caution, removed the pistol from the oven. He shook his head.
The serial number had been filed off and he was certain there’d be no prints. Jack set it on the counter and followed the line of fire into the bedroom, where he dug the slug out of the wall.
He didn’t like the fact that the Rooster had gotten past his security measures. Time to step up things around here. He grabbed his laptop and listening gear and did a quick check on Willow’s place to make sure she was safe, lingering a second to watch her as she sat sipping her morning coffee, braless in a sheer tank top, as she pounded away on her laptop. He knew what he’d rather be pounding. He also knew what she was doing when he looked at the keystroke-monitoring software. She was trying to get the dirt on him.
Good luck, baby.
When he was satisfied she was safe, he grumbled and forced himself to turn off the laptop and think about something other than Willow. He was going to have to fix Aldo’s walls. And jam the gun to make it look as if it hadn’t fired. Just in case Kennett came back for it. Which Jack was sure he would try.
Well, good for him if he did. Jack was going to lace the damn thing with poison.
Jack took a look out the window. The sun was rising over the mountains to the east, lighting up the world with a breathtaking sunrise. A herd of deer walked across one of Aldo’s fields.
Damn deer.
It was hunting season. Too bad he didn’t have a license. He could go for a taste of venison.
Jack grinned. He might not have a license to hunt deer, but he sure as hell had a license to kill the Rooster. In fact, Jack had something even better—a direct order.
He returned to his newspaper, picked it up, and began to hum. As a kid, he’d made all kinds of things out of newspaper—hats, boats, papier-mâché masks, and volcanoes. As an adult spy, he knew exactly what he was going to make out of this one—a paper crossbow. Yes, few people, even those in law enforcement, realized that an arrow fired from a paper crossbow could be perfectly lethal.
And destroying the evidence, so easy! Burn the crossbow and presto, no weapon. It was archery hunting season. And accidents did happen.…
* * *
Willow sat at her kitchen table with her laptop open, going over Con’s online presence again, frustrated in her search to out Con as Jack. At least she??
?d sold out her caramel yesterday and didn’t have to be in town manning her booth.
She grabbed her smartphone and studied the picture she’d secretly snapped of Con yesterday.
She saw a straight nose instead of a crooked one. Perfectly white teeth instead of slightly imperfect ones. A slightly different shape to his cheekbones, more prominence. And Jack’s eyes. Jack’s.
Which all fit if he’d been blown up and had reconstructive surgery.
She needed help, big-time. Scientific help. She had to find out the truth before Con left town and disappeared. Because if he really was Jack, he’d disappear without a trace.
Willow needed a DNA collection kit. She could venture half an hour out into the neighboring big city and get one. No big deal. But it wouldn’t do her a bit of good if Con left town before she got the results. It would take three to ten business days at least; that’s what all the Web sites said. And, of course, she needed that DNA report to compare the sample she took from Con to.
None of the test kit sites mentioned anything about comparing their results to a findings sheet. They all compared samples to samples.
She also needed a good bug-sweeping company. But none were open until Monday.
She closed her computer. It was almost eleven. The stores should be open by the time she got there. She’d better grab the report and take it along so she could ask about it when she bought the kit.
Now that she thought about it, she also had Jack’s hairbrush with several strands of hair on it. That might work better. Maybe they could test that. But she was loathe to part with even a strand of it. She hoped the report would suffice.
Of course, the CIA had Jack’s DNA on file. But she couldn’t have their lab run the test. She’d never trust Emmett to tell her the truth. Especially since she suspected him of concocting Jack’s death.
She slid off her chair and rushed to the bedroom, got on her knees, and pulled out the memory box she’d made to remember Jack.
The box was slightly out of place, skewed. She didn’t remember leaving it like this. Oh, well, she probably accidentally hit it with the vacuum or something.
She pulled the box out from beneath the bed, removed the lid, and carefully lifted the folded flag, feeling, as always, the deep sense of loss. Beneath it was the report, and then the little crystal dog collar that always made her tear up.
And then, her heart stopped. The coffee sleeve from the first time she met Jack sat on top of everything else. The hair on the back of her neck stood up. This was becoming its permanent position.
She always kept that sleeve at the bottom of the box. Always.
Someone had been through her box.
Jack.
She swallowed hard and pawed through it, looking for Jack’s brush. Nothing. It was gone. She took every item out one at a time. Jack’s brush had vanished.
She would never, ever have misplaced it.
She swallowed hard as a horrible suspicion dawned on her—the report she had was probably bogus. That’s why whoever had been in her room hadn’t bothered to take it. The hair on that brush, however, was Jack’s, undoubtedly Jack’s.
She pulled her own hair and resisted screaming. Jack’s beautiful dark hair was gone. Her precious memento and her one true chance at Jack’s DNA, gone.
She sat on the bed, freaked out of her mind. She truthfully didn’t know whether to feel more scared or more optimistic. Someone had taken that hair. Who even knew about this box besides her and Spookie?
The only person with motive to take the hair was Con, if he was Jack. But how could he know about it? She’d never mentioned it. But if he was a spy …
She had to think. Think, think, think!
She needed help, really needed help now. There was only one person she could trust to help her. Well, actually two—her good friend Staci Fields and her husband, Drew. Drew was a CIA agent and had been one of Jack’s best friends. Drew was with Jack on that fateful mission when Jack was blown up. Drew had been injured, too. Just not fatally.
Willow couldn’t believe Drew would have lied to her all this time. No, if Jack was alive, Drew must not know. His wife, Staci, had been with him on the mission to the city of smugglers and drug lords, Ciudad del Este, Paraguay.
Jack and Drew were assigned to bring down a dangerous drug cartel. At least, that’s what Jack told her, all he could tell her. Willow had always been opposed to violence and, unlike other wives, had never gone on one of Jack’s missions with him. Staci had begged Drew to finally take her on a mission, so he took her to Paraguay.
Willow sighed. That mission had proved to be fateful for her friendship with Staci, too.
Drew relented and finally agreed to take Staci with him, provided she stay in a separate apartment from his and that they both keep her identity and their relationship a secret. Somehow, Willow never did know how, the horrible drug lord Beto Bevilacqua discovered that Staci was Drew’s wife, tracked her down, and tortured out of her information about where Drew and Jack were going to be that fateful night.
The Bevil, as the Agency referred to Beto, sent his men out after Jack and Drew. The drug lord’s men blew them up. Drew was badly injured. Jack was blown up into pieces, many too small to recover. Staci blamed herself for what had happened, saying she’d told the Bevil where to find Jack and Drew.
Willow sighed and shook her head. She believed in forgiveness and had never blamed Staci. What was there to blame her for? For thugs torturing information out of her? Staci had spent a week in the hospital herself. And then she’d separated from Drew because of her guilt. They’d only recently reconciled.
Willow sighed again. Staci had apologized a dozen times, even though Willow asked her to stop. Finally, they’d drifted apart. Willow realized it was because of Staci’s guilt.
Jack, Drew, and a third friend, Kyle Harris, met as trainees at the CIA training facility The Farm. All three men were from Seattle and became good friends. When they each married, their wives became good friends, too. Kyle was dead, gone before Jack. Murdered by terrorists in Afghanistan. Willow and Kyle’s widow, Mandy, kept in touch. But Willow really missed Staci.
If Jack was alive and Drew could prove it, it would relieve Staci’s burden of guilt. And Drew would want to know that his best friend lived; of course he would. Drew would help Willow find out for sure, wouldn’t he? Maybe bend a few Agency rules? To get his best friend back?
Because bend them he’d have to. Willow didn’t want NCS chief Emmett Nelson to get wind of what she was up to. Not until she knew the truth about Con. She needed Drew’s help if she was going to find out the truth.
She closed up the box, stuffed it back under the bed, grabbed her cell phone, and auto dialed Staci.
“Staci, I think Jack’s still alive. He’s here in Orchard Bluff, pretending to be someone else. I need your help.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“What?” Staci’s shock reverberated through the phone. “Let me get Drew. Skype me back and the three of us will talk.”
Willow did as Staci asked, though she felt nervous, as if she was being watched. She probably was, by whoever had been in her home and taken Jack’s hair.
When she got through to Staci again on Skype, Drew was sitting next to Staci, holding her hand. In typical spy form, the camera was positioned so Willow couldn’t identify where they were.
“I think I’m being watched.”
Drew interrupted her. “You definitely are. Someone’s installed CIA-grade keystroke-monitoring software on your laptop. It’s probably nothing to worry about, just us making sure you’re okay.
“I’ve disabled it remotely using an app I have. But I can’t sweep your house from here. We’ll have to speak guardedly. And, of course, I’ll recommend a sweeping service. You should get the house cleaned as soon as possible.”
Willow nodded. “I’m already planning on it.”
“Good.” He then gave her further instructions. “In the meantime, we’ll all need to speak in low voices. Willow, pick up
your laptop and walk around the house as we’re speaking. Even in a thoroughly bugged house it’s impossible to place bugs so that they cover every inch. When you’re walking around, anyone listening in will be likely to lose bits of information from time to time. It’s the best we can do on the fly.”
“Got it.” Nervous as she was, she was eager to move around. Pacing was a good thing. Willow picked up her laptop and began roaming. “We’re clear. I’m wandering. How do you like the tour of the house? Do you like my new pillows?” Willow pointed her laptop toward her pillow-covered sofa.
“Very nice.” Drew said, but he sounded less than enthused.
What was it with men? Why didn’t they appreciate a beautiful decorative pillow? Must be something in their genetics.
“Willow,” Drew said softly, gently, when Willow turned the laptop screen back to focus on her. “I know this anniversary is a hard time for you. It is for all of us. But I saw Jack.…” He took a deep breath, as if it was difficult for him to talk about it. “I saw Jack during the explosion. He couldn’t have survived the blast.”
Drew sounded genuine in his grief and belief. But Willow was not going to budge. She knew what she knew—Con was Jack. She had to convince Drew to at least consider the possibility.
“I know, Drew. I believe you saw what you saw. But you have to believe me. I know my husband. And this guy in Orchard Bluff who calls himself Con, he’s very likely Jack.” It was hard to keep from speaking loudly when she was so excited and emphatic about the possibility. She had to force herself to modulate her voice.
“This isn’t about the Sense, is it?” Drew asked.
Her friends knew all about the Sense.
“Not just, but it’s been niggling at me. It’s more than that, though. It’s his eyes—” She grabbed her cell phone from her pocket. “Let me show you.” She brought up the picture of Con and turned it toward her computer camera so Staci and Drew could see.
Staci gasped. “He does remind me a bit of Jack, only—”
“—more perfect,” Willow finished for her. “As if he’s had reconstructive plastic surgery.”