Darkness Before the Dawn (Maggie Bennett 2)

“I’ll call you.”

“I won’t be answering the phone.”

“It wasn’t that bad, Maggie,” he said softly.

“Go to hell, Randall.” She yanked her arm away from him.

“Are you going to be answering your door?”

“Not if I know it’s you.”

“Locked doors won’t keep me out, Maggie. Nothing will.”

She took a deep, steadying breath. “Not even the knowledge that you’re not wanted?”

“It might. But that’s not an issue right now, is it? Your problem isn’t not wanting me. It’s wanting me too much.”

It was enough to make her head shoot up again. For the first time since they made love, she looked into his eyes, and what she saw there shook her. His eyes were dark, almost pleading, in his weary, unshaven face. Randall Carter, the immaculate, impeccable, invincible, invulnerable Randall Carter looked hot, dirty, sweaty, and tired. And he looked as if he needed, wanted, nothing more than her arms around him.

A trick of the light, a trick of her own exhaustion. But one thing was no trick at all. In his scruffiness, with his shirt hanging loosely around his narrow hips and his grubby face, he looked so damned sexy that her wall of numbness began to crumble. And that was the last thing she could bear.

“I don’t want you, Randall,” she said, the lie clear and cold in her voice. “I’ll travel back to Chicago with you, and I’ll see this through to the end for my sister’s sake. But I don’t want you to ever touch me again. Do you understand?”

The emotion had vanished from his eyes so swiftly, she knew she’d imagined it. “I understand better than you think. Go home, Maggie, and sleep.”

As swiftly as the hot anger rushed through her, it vanished. She couldn’t even summon up the energy to form a snide retort. All she could do was turn her back on him and head out to the waiting taxis.

He watched her go, his face now showing his anger and threatening despair. She was so damned strong, walking away from him, her shoulders back, her tangled blond hair swaying slightly in the evening breeze. She was strong enough to turn so far inward that he’d never be able to break through. He’d seen it on her face this morning, and he cursed himself for an idiot not to have foreseen her reaction. She was pulling away from him, but there was no way in hell he was going to let her do it.

But right this minute, he had to let her be. He would find a shower and decent clothes, and then he had to track Bud Willis to whatever slimy hole he was lurking in. The first step in cleaning up this mess was stopping Admiral Wentworth and sealing the leak before the media discovered it. The American public wouldn’t take kindly to an admiral living off his fat military pensions and selling out his country. But what they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.

* * *

Maggie’s apartment had the dry, musty smell of a closed-up place. She wandered through it, stripping her clothes off and leaving them where they lay, turned on the air conditioner full blast, and headed for the shower.

She stood under the pounding streams of hot water for half an hour, letting them beat against her skin as she scrubbed every last trace of Gemansk—and Randall—off it. She thought of Francis Ackroyd lying in her sister’s tub and shuddered, then turned up the hot water until it stung her skin in scalding drizzle. And still she scrubbed her body, rubbing it raw, until finally she felt clean and turned the shower off.

The apartment was icy, thanks to her efficient air conditioner, and the blasts of cold air prickled her wet skin. She ignored it. She ignored the telephone, knowing she should call Kate and warn her about Alicia, knowing she should call Sybil and make sure everything was all right, and knowing she would do neither.

She ignored the front door and the second and third locks that she hadn’t bothered to fasten. If someone wanted to break in and rape and murder her, she wouldn’t stop them. They could be her guest.

She ignored the clothing on the floor, the overworked air conditioner, the lights throughout the apartment. She went blindly into her bedroom, found another one of Mack’s old chambray shirts and sank into bed with it. In moments she was asleep.

The sound in her living room awoke her. She glanced up at her digital clock and groaned. It was only five o’clock in the morning, and someone had clearly taken advantage of her unspoken offer to come and murder her. She raised her head off the pillow, then dropped it back again. She only hoped he’d be quick about it.

Her bedroom door opened, letting in a blaze of light. “Rise and shine, Maggie.” Randall’s hateful voice penetrated her mists of sleep.

She gathered enough energy to raise her head and glare in his direction. “Go away, Randall,” she muttered. “We aren’t going to Chicago until tomorrow.”

“It is tomorrow, Maggie. Five o’clock in the afternoon, for that matter. Get up, or I’ll come over there and get you up.”

There was no doubting the threat in his voice. With an immediate surge of energy Maggie rolled off the bed, only then remembering she was wearing absolutely nothing.

At least Randall was unmoved by her nudity. She was still clutching Mack’s shirt in her fist, and with remarkable aplomb, she pulled it on, buttoning it with calm fingers. “When’s our flight?”

“Later,” he said, his voice flat. “I’ll make coffee.” And he closed the door silently behind him.

She stalled as long as she could while getting dressed. She was chilled from the night in an icy apartment, and only with effort did she remember that it was probably steaming hot outside. When she finally emerged from her room, she was wearing faded jeans and Mack’s shirt still around her. She could hear music, faint and jarring, and she followed the sound.