Ethan’s lips twitched. “Scurvy comes from lack of vitamin C, ma’am.”
Undeterred, Caroline nodded briskly. “Make her eat that, too. Dana, give me the keys to your car. I’ll take our friend home.” She held her hand out, snapping her fingers. “Well, I haven’t got all night and Ethan hasn’t had supper. Give me your keys.”
Dana frowned. “Ethan, would you please excuse us?” She dragged Caroline over to where Max still read his newspaper. “What are you doing?”
“Helping you. You said you didn’t want tonight’s client frightened by Max, so that’s fine. I’ll drive her to Hanover House in your car and Max can follow in ours. I’ll get her settled in and Evie can take over.”
“How will I get home?”
“Take the El. Or take a cab.” She dug into her purse and pulled out two twenties. “Cab fare. Dana, don’t argue with me. Go eat dinner with that man.”
Dana pushed Caroline’s hand away. “Keep your money. I have enough for a burger with enough left over for a token. Why are you doing this? He could be an ax murderer.”
Caroline sniffed. “Man hasn’t had so much as a parking ticket. He’s squeaky clean.”
Dana narrowed her eyes. “And you know this how?”
Caroline’s eyes took a tour of the ceiling. “Mia ran a background check.”
Dana pressed her fingers to her now-throbbing temple. “A background check.”
Caroline grinned. “It was prudent. You’re a single woman. You can’t be too careful. Keys, please.”
Max lowered his newspaper. “Dana, just do it. I don’t want to have to listen to her gripe all the way home if you don’t.” Up went the newspaper before she could protest.
Dana slapped the keys into Caroline’s palm. “Her name is Shauna Lincoln.”
“I’ll take care of it.” Caroline gave Dana a hug. “Call me tomorrow.”
Dana hugged her back, more grateful than angry. It was a step she might not have gotten around to herself for several more days. If ever. “Don’t ever do this again.” She rattled Max’s newspaper. “Thanks, Max.”
“Don’t eat onions in case he wants to kiss you,” he said evenly.
Dana rolled her eyes and walked away, hearing Caroline’s chuckle behind her. Ethan stood watching as she approached, his eyes slowly lifting to hers and just that fast her body heated. He’d been staring at her breasts. The very notion sensitized them and Dana didn’t have to look down to know her very modest polo shirt was now showcasing her very erect nipples. She nearly crossed her arms over her chest, then decided no. He was obviously interested and so was she. Flings didn’t happen for shy women.
He swallowed hard when she stopped in front of him. Tried to smile. The fatigue and worry still shadowed his eyes, but now there was a sharpness that hadn’t been there before. Perhaps they could make each other’s worries go away for just a little while. And what harm could there be in that?
He glanced over to where Dana knew Caroline stood watching. “Was she trying to pay you to go to dinner with me?”
Dana shook her head. “Mad money,” she said, her voice gone husky.
“You didn’t take it.”
“I never take her money. Besides, I have enough to get home on the El.”
“I’ll take you home.”
His voice had dropped to a caress and she shivered. “We’ll see. For now, how about a real taste of Chicago?”
His lips curved. “Can you eat vegetables there? Wouldn’t want you getting scurvy.”
“French fries are potatoes. Come on. Let’s go to Wrigleyville. We’ll take the El.”
“I have my car.”
She shook her head. “We take the El.” And waited for his temper.
Instead he considered her with those steady green eyes, turning up the heat several notches. “Single woman. Prudent. Got it. The El it is.”
Chicago, Sunday, August 1, 10:45 P.M.
Sue quietly closed the office door behind her. Dupinsky was gone to pick up a new client and Scarface had shut herself in her room in a pout. Dupinsky had a good lock on this door. She could pick most locks in ten seconds. This one had taken eleven.
Sue could get a new identity if she asked. Dupinsky apparently thought it was a huge secret, but according to old cellmate Tammy, everybody knew. Nobody said a word out of loyalty to Dupinsky. Nobody knew where Dupinsky got the fake IDs, but based on the laminating film and the razor blades on the desk, Sue had a good idea.
She picked the lock on the desk drawer easily. Inside was a finished driver’s license. Sue lifted her brows. Dupinsky could make some real money doing this full-time. The woman had a gift. Sue recognized the picture on the license. It was Beverly, two doors down the hall. There was also a passport with lots of stamps. Again, with Beverly’s picture inserted. So, Dupinsky could make passports, too. Good to know. Sue would need one when all this was done, when the Vaughns’ ransom money was safely tucked away in an offshore account. She wouldn’t want to stick around the good USofA, always looking over her shoulder. She’d go overseas. Paris sounded good. She’d planned to buy a passport, but if Dupinsky’s passports were as good as her licenses, well . . .
She studied Beverly’s license. Her facial structure was similar to Sue’s. A little makeup, contacts, and a dye job . . . It could work. Beverly was leaving this week for California, according to Ruby. The timing was perfect, as were the circumstances. Once Beverly left Hanover House, no one would expect to hear anything from her for days, if at all. Nobody would file a missing person report or check the morgues.
Chicago, Sunday, August 1, 11:45 P.M.
It was a sports bar. TVs hung from every corner, each playing something different. It was a welcome distraction from the fuzzy video Ethan had been staring at for nine of the last ten hours. Desperately needing a break to rest his eyes and fill his stomach, he’d just gotten Bush’s permission to come back later and was headed for the door when he’d seen her. For a split second he’d thought he was imagining her, he was that tired.
Then she met his eyes and it was the same as it had been this morning. Electricity in the air, raising every hair on his body on end, the sudden rush of adrenaline propelling him across the terminal. And just like this morning, she’d felt it, too. He’d left Bush’s office looking for a diversion, a way to clear his mind so that when he came back to search for Alec he’d be fresh and sharp. He’d certainly found what he was looking for.
Possibly in more ways than one.
Cubs fans were everywhere, poor, deluded souls. Seemed like a couple hundred of them crowded the bar, but he couldn’t complain. The cramped quarters put Dana’s back squarely against his chest, her curvy rear end right up against his groin. Yet even so close he still had to shout to be heard. “You’re a Cubs fan, I take it?”
Dana turned, the grin she threw over her shoulder more warning than amusement. “I am and if you’re not, I wouldn’t advise saying it too loud in here. Crowd’s pumped.” She turned, pointing at the scoreboard mounted over the bar. “We won tonight.”
Ethan dipped his head to her ear. “Enjoy it. It might be a while before it happens again.”
Her head whipped around, her brown eyes narrowed. Her pursed lips mere millimeters from his. After a stunned split second, her eyes widened, filling with hot awareness. Her lips relaxed, falling apart just a hair, full and moist, making one of the most provocative, inviting pictures he’d ever seen. And his body, still half aroused from the sight of her walking toward him in that damn bus terminal with her nipples pressing against the soft material of her shirt, roared to full throttle. Just a tiny movement and he’d know what it was like to kiss her. And she wanted him to. Of that he was certain.
But her eyes narrowed again and her kissable lips curved into a smirk, her words barely registering through the noise of the bar and his own thick fog of lust. “For your own safety, I think we’d better take this outside.” She moved toward the bar, leaving him leaning forward, hard as a damn rock. With no small difficulty he straightened and followed her, wordlessly paying the bartender for the beers that came sliding across the bar. Dana took both mugs and gestured to a back door with her head. “Outside.”
Again he followed, noting more than one man eyeing her, pushing back the unfamiliar urge to poke them all in the eye just for looking. But he couldn’t blame them. Curves in all the right places, she was raw sensuality in a sleeveless polo shirt and plain cotton skirt.
He wanted her. It was as simple as that. And complicated as hell. He’d promised himself he’d take time for dinner. He had no time for anything else. No matter how much he wanted it or how long it had been. He’d eat, and then he’d take her home. Then back to the tapes. Until it was time to eat again.
There was symbolism there, on way too many levels.
She snagged a table on the edge of the patio that would sit in the shadow of Wrigley Field on a hot summer afternoon. He took his beer from her hand and lifted it in a toast. “To what could become a winning streak,” he said and her lips twitched.
“So you like baseball, Buchanan, or you just like to poke at the underdog?”
“You don’t know? I thought you checked me out. Me and my . . . injured parts, that is.”
Her cheeks flushed. “Your Website said nothing about your baseball preferences.”
He sipped his beer thoughtfully, watching her. “Orioles fan.”
She grimaced. “Ah, yes. You live in D.C. Baltimore would be the closest team.”
“I live in D.C. now, but I’ve always been an Orioles fan. Have you always rooted for the underdog?”
Something changed in her eyes. “Yes,” she murmured. “I guess so.” Then her full mouth curved in a smile. “So if D.C.’s just where you live, where’s home?”
“Maryland. Little town on the Eastern Shore called Wight’s Landing.” And his mind instantly flashed to the picture of the body in the shed. Followed by that picture of Alec, tied and gagged by the side of the road. Restlessly Ethan cast his eyes on the lights of the skyscrapers poking up in the distance, wondering if he was even in the right city. If Alec was here or a thousand miles away. If Alec was hurt . . . or killed . . . I’ll never forgive myself.
He jumped as Dana’s palm covered the hand he hadn’t realized he’d clenched into a fist. Found himself staring into warm brown eyes that searched his face. Found the turbulence in his soul once again calming. “What’s wrong, Ethan?” she murmured.
And he actually considered telling her. “Nothing either of us can fix right now.”
She tilted her head, her eyes still on his. “I’m a good listener. If you want to talk.”
There was something in the way she said it. It was practiced. Not false or phony, but like she’d had cause to say it many, many times before. And suddenly he wanted to talk. To have her listen. Maybe just to keep those warm eyes looking at him, to hear her smooth voice. Just to keep the feeling of calm in the storm. So he shrugged. And talked. “Whenever I think about home I think about two friends of mine. Brothers.”
Her brows rose. “Your brothers?”
“No. They were brothers. I grew up in Wight’s Landing with my grandmother and they’d come down from Baltimore every summer. Richard and Stan.”
“Where are they now, Richard and Stan?”
Ethan gritted his teeth. “Richard is dead. Enemy fire outside of Kandahar.”
“Where you were injured,” she said softly. “The newsletter I found said your vehicle hit a land mine and you were caught in enemy crossfire. I take it Richard didn’t make it.”
“He died protecting me.” Ethan looked away. “We were thrown from the vehicle and I was knocked out, but Richard wasn’t. He could have crawled back and used the Humvee as a shield until the medics came through to pick us up.”
“But he didn’t. He stayed with you.” She tapped his fist until he met her eyes. “Just like you would have done had the situation been reversed. But you know that, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” Ethan said bitterly. “I know it.”
“But at three A.M. it still gets to you. It can be hard to be the one that lives. Guilt and all that added responsibility . . . You were spared. He wasn’t. It makes a lot of people wonder why, makes them search for a purpose they weren’t as sensitive to before.”
Ethan blinked slowly. “You sound like the hospital shrink.” Better actually. The shrink had stopped at guilt. The responsibility was something he’d grappled with on his own.
She lifted a shoulder. “Was Stan in the Marines with you and Richard?”
Ethan’s smile was grim. “No. Stan was never very disciplined.”
“Do you still see him?”
Only when he needs something. “We haven’t been on great terms since Richard died.”
“He blamed you.” It was murmured softly.
“You could say that.” Ethan took a healthy swallow of beer. “In fact, he did.”
She rubbed his hand with her palm until his fist relaxed. “That was . . . unkind.”
Ethan laughed harshly, thinking of Stan cheating on Randi, forbidding Alec’s visits, trying to drag poor Paul McMillan’s body out to sea. “Well, that’s Stan for you. Unkind.”
Her fingertips stroked the back of his hand. “So was Richard an Orioles fan, too?”
Ethan looked up, found her smile still in place. “Yes, he was. We never missed a game on TV. Bought tickets in the nosebleed section every chance we got.” She said nothing and in the silence he stared at the outer walls of Wrigley, seeing himself and Richard as young boys, hiking up to the cheap seats in old Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, saving their money for hot dogs. Then he smiled as a nearly forgotten memory bubbled to the surface. “Back in ’85, Richard caught a foul ball. I was so jealous, but I stood outside the team entrance with him anyway, waiting for Eddie Murray to come out to sign it.”
Her lips curved. “Steady Eddie. ’Eighty-five was his best year. He hit what . . . 125 RBIs?”
He lifted his brows. “One-twenty-four. Most girls I knew didn’t follow the teams.”
“I knew my stats better than any boy in my class. So did he? Sign the ball, that is.”
“Him and four other players.”
She smiled again. “You guys must have been on a cloud.”
“We were, but by the time we got back to Wight’s Landing, Richard was feeling guilty. We’d switched seats midway through the game because there was a girl he’d wanted to talk to. If we hadn’t, I might have caught the ball.”