So Malcolm must have told him he’d unlocked the door, and Archer wasn’t objecting. What kind of hold did Mal have over her husband?
She glanced over at his door. He’d left it open, but there was no way she was going to risk searching his room in broad daylight. For all she knew it could be a trap—she didn’t trust Mal any more than she trusted Archer. In fact, she trusted him less. With Archer she knew what she was facing. Malcolm Gunnison was an enigma, and she wasn’t about to risk anything, ever again, on some damned man.
Chapter Eight
Malcolm took his time getting back to his room. If there was any trace of the operative Sophie had once been, she would have used that time to search his room, and he’d left an almost imperceptible thread across the threshold of the French doors leading out onto the balcony. It was still in place. His own room was three steps down, and she wouldn’t be able to manage it in her wheelchair, but he’d wondered. Either she’d gotten rusty, or she really did belong in that wheelchair.
There was no sign that she was faking—he was simply trained to question everything. He’d checked the soles of her shoes and the bottoms of her feet—always a simple tell if someone actually walked. None of the countless pairs of sandals had ever touched the ground, and her perfectly manicured feet looked soft and useless. He’d put a bug in her room, one she hadn’t found, but he’d heard nothing unusual during the night—when she got up to go to the bathroom the sounds were clearly that of someone using a wheelchair. Then again, she still had all her cameras in place and a former operative would know that. She wouldn’t dare slip up.
He could always go in and pull out her cameras as well. Archer had accepted Malcolm’s own debugging, but he might not be so sanguine about the surveillance on his wife, particularly when he got off on hitting her. He probably kept the surveillance tapes and watched them late at night, jacking off, the asshole. Then again, he’d suggested that Malcolm fuck her, and Malcolm could make it clear he never enjoyed an audience. It would be a good enough reason.
Except that if he were really going to screw her he wasn’t going to take any chance that Archer could watch.
He still couldn’t figure out why the hell Archer wanted him to bone his wife. It had to be some kind of test, or even a punishment for his bride. He’d known Sophie had come from the Committee—otherwise there’d have been no need to try to kill her, and then keep her prisoner on this island. Whatever game he was playing, Mal had to make sure he wasn’t going to end up on the losing side. Sophie’s place there was a foregone conclusion, and he couldn’t jeopardize his own position in trying to protect her.
He showered off the salt water, pulled on boxer briefs, and headed into the closet. They’d said her fate was up to him. He could kill her if he needed to, leave her, or bring her out. She’d committed an unpardonable act, and he’d had every intention of letting her fend for herself. That was before he’d seen her, though.
She wasn’t his responsibility, he reminded himself. He was there because she’d failed, and it had taken this long to build up the intel, the infrastructure, to get close to Archer again. She deserved nothing.
He rose, glancing out the open French doors to the sunset streaking the sky. He didn’t have to decide yet. Not until Archer’s fucking scientist showed up with the RU48. Until then he’d take it one step at a time. In the meantime he was going to head downstairs and see if he could catch her in some microscopic move that would prove whether she really couldn’t walk. If she was faking it, then she had to slip up sooner or later. If she wasn’t faking, if she really was stuck in that wheelchair, he didn’t know if he still had enough of a conscience that he could live with leaving her behind. Not that he owed her anything—he’d killed for less of a reason than her mistakes.
He should be thinking about his mission, not wasting his time on an extraneous detail like Sophie. He dressed and was headed for the door when something stopped him; that damned, illogical voice that had been interfering more and more with his life. He glanced out at the balcony—no sign, no sound. He should simply go down to dinner, but he knew he wasn’t going to.
Sophie was sitting in her chair, just inside her open door, reading a massive book. She knew he was there—he could read it in the slight twitch in her bare shoulders above the sundress, but she deliberately didn’t look up. All right, he could go with that. He stood there and watched her with interest.
The bruises on her arms could have been worse, he supposed. The imprint of a handgrip was clear, and there were other marks as well. He couldn’t see the pattern of old breaks, so at least Archer had stopped before he reached that point. She was holding a pack of ice to her face, the darkening bruise on her jaw clashing with the flush of pink on her cheeks, and the spattering of freckles was still there from her time in the sun, an oddly lighthearted counterpoint to the signs of abuse. Her shoulders had a touch of color as well, and he noticed that the golden freckles had traveled there too.
Her brown eyes were expressionless as they took him in, and she dropped the ice pack on the table and closed the book, not bothering to hold her place. Momentary insanity, he told himself, strolling through the door to her side. He’d always been a sucker for vulnerable women. Madsen told him it was his knight-in-shining-armor complex. “That doesn’t look like much of a page-turner,” he said in a cool voice that gave nothing away.
She handed it to him, and the damned thing must have weighed five pounds. “War and Peace?” he said in surprise. “You strike me more as the bodice-ripper type.”
She scowled at him, then winced as the expression must have tugged at her bruised cheek. “This was Archer’s idea. He thought, since I had so much time on my hands, that I should improve my mind. He sometimes forgets that I’m not another Rachel.”
“Which one is Rachel?” He knew perfectly well who she was—he knew everyone on the island—but he wanted to see her reaction.
“She’s the one with the plastic boobs.”
He nodded, hiding a smile. Sophie was probably a respectable 34B, if he knew women, and he did, but when it came to boobs and thighs, American women were notoriously insecure. Most women who worked for the Committee didn’t bother with such shallow concerns, but Sophie had been out of the game for a long time.
He was watching her legs covertly, careful to make sure she didn’t realize what he was doing. Not a twitch. Had Archer hit her there as well? He shrugged. “I hadn’t noticed.”
She gave him a disbelieving look. “Don’t be ridiculous. She shoves them in everyone’s face.”
He hid his amusement. “Maybe she’s not my type.”
“She’s every man’s type.”
“Maybe I don’t like women?” he suggested.
She didn’t even pause. “I’d have a hard time believing that,” she said flatly.
That was enough to startle him again. “What makes you say that?” He’d never had any problem convincing people he was gay if his role called for it.
She tilted her head back, examining him slowly, as if considering. “Instinct,” she said finally.
“You have such infallible instincts when it comes to judging men?” It was a low blow, and cruel, but he said it anyway.
Her expression was stony. “No. Just when it comes to you.”