Deep Breath (22 page)

8:30
A.M.

Walking outside with Georgia and Harry, Finn grabbed up his sister and swung her around the minute they cleared the door.

“I swear, if you ever scare me like that again…” He couldn’t even finish the thought. All he did was hold her as long as he could.

When he finally set her down and away, her response was typical Georgia. “You’re the one who wanted to stop for burgers in the middle of nowhere.”

He had to laugh. “So, this is all my fault then?”

“I’ll let you know in a minute,” she said, her dark eyes growing round and sober. “First, I need to tell Harry good-bye.”

He nodded. She wouldn’t have a chance again. Once Harry dropped them off at wherever Castro had stashed Finn’s truck, the other man would be hitting the road.

This was the couple’s only private time, and it was hardly private at that. Finn couldn’t deny his sister the desperate need he saw in her eyes.

He climbed into the backseat of the Buick, waving at Tracy as she followed Freddy through the diner’s door, turning as the big rig across the street rumbled to life.

He understood that these two—Harry and Simon—weren’t law enforcement, and being here when the authorities did arrive wasn’t an option for either.

He understood, but he still would have liked to meet the truck driver. To thank Simon Baptiste for saving his sanity as well as his life. And for being a fellow Deadhead.

The memory of their impromptu concert caused Finn to smile. And when Simon pulled out onto the road moments later, Finn waved, laughing like a fool when Simon honked back, his horn playing the very tune they’d sung.

Don’t wait. The time will never be just right
.

 

—Napoleon Hill, American author
(1883–1970)

 

10:30
A.M.

“Can I tell you how happy I am right now and not have you ream me a new one for being in insensitive jerk?”

Georgia pouted. Her brother was not insensitive or a jerk. He was just too depressingly well-adjusted. Too balanced, secure, normal. He’d bounced back from his seventy-two-hour hostage ordeal like he was made of Spandex while she was still dragging ass.

“You can tell me,” she said as he pulled into the post office parking lot. “Just don’t expect me to share your Christmas morning moment.”

He laughed, chose a space, put the truck into park. “No expectations whatsoever. It’s just nice seeing you make a fresh start. Hand me my checkbook out of the glove box, will you?”

She dropped her feet from the dash to the floor and sat forward. “It’s only a change of location. Not a fresh start.”

“Bullshit.” Finn took the checkbook from her hand and pulled a pen from his visor. “It’s a new beginning, and you know it. Otherwise you wouldn’t have thrown everything you own into the bed of the truck.”

Did it count that she’d done it at the last minute? The moving crew had packed up Finn’s place two days ago and the van pulled out for the trip to the Keys then.

Georgia had only come over this morning to say good-bye, to help Finn clean, to stow the things he needed for the trip in his truck’s covered bed, and to load her boxes into the backseat of the rental she was driving.

Sometime during all of that bending and lifting and scrubbing she’d hit a brick wall. Harry was gone, everything she’d always believed about her father was gone. She couldn’t lose Finn, too.

So here she was on her way from Houston to Key Largo, in no hurry, with no plans. She glanced over at her brother as he tore the check from the pad. And then she frowned.

The only time she’d seen that many zeroes was when she’d received her share of Duggin’s estate. As he unfolded a pre-addressed envelope from the back pocket of his jeans, she grabbed the check out of his hand.

“Tracy Dunn? You’re giving your money to the waitress?”

He shrugged, grabbed for the check. “Why not?”

“Why not? That much money means you can do anything you want for the rest of your life.”

“And now so can Tracy,” he said, licking the envelope closed and climbing from the truck to buy a stamp.

See? This was why she was a horrible person. She knew nothing about Tracy beyond the fact that the woman waited tables at Waco Phil’s, and yet she was questioning her brother’s actions.

Hadn’t she learned her lesson about people being more than they seemed? Or being less than she’d made them out to be? Her time spent with Harry had taught her more about snap judgments and misconceptions than had her previous thirty-four years.

The truth the general’s letter revealed about her father had been a huge blow, one she dealt with day by day, reminding herself of his motives and looking past the damage he’d caused.

She couldn’t say she wouldn’t have done the same in his shoes; after all, look at the lies she’d told, the hurt she’d been a part of, the deception she’d perpetrated because of her love for him and for Finn.

She didn’t know the specifics of what had happened with the men who’d given life—and apparently death—to the TotalSky project. She doubted she ever would. But she had to move on, to get beyond the standstill her life had become while working to clear his name.

When he’d told her not to let the truth of the scandal die, she’d assumed he was talking about just that, about proving his innocence. Now she was certain he didn’t want the others to get away with what they’d done.

He’d been their fall guy, had borne the brunt of the blame for thirteen years of his life. In death, he wanted the truth to be known, the others to pay.

Only now she couldn’t do anything. The single piece of existing evidence had been snatched from her hands—obviously never to be returned as promised. She’d thought better of Harry. And because of that, she still hadn’t given up hope; spy stuff probably happened on its own timetable.

She looked toward the post office’s door, her gaze snagged by the reflection of the vehicle pulling into the space next to Finn’s truck. She glanced in her side view mirror and saw bright metallic aqua.

It was enough to cause her heart to miss a beat.

Swallowing hard, she pulled her feet from the dash and sat forward, looking down into the open car and Harry’s face. She tried to smile, got off to a shaky start. “Hi. Really long time no see.”

His eyes were hidden behind dark sunglasses, but she had no trouble seeing the dimples in the sexy stubble on his cheeks. “You look so good. You look great. You look better than I remember.”

She pretty much looked like warmed-up crap and knew it. “Try that line on someone with the cash to buy what you’re selling.”

“Don’t tell me. You’ve already burned up all those zeroes.” He put the big Buick into reverse and started backing out of the spot. Then he pulled his glasses down his nose and winked, shifting into park. “Ah, well. Shop till you drop, I always say.”

“That from the man who spent more on clothes in one weekend than I’ve spent on myself in the last five years.”

“Then you deserve a bit of spoiling.”

“Is that what you call it?”

“Damn, I’ve missed you, woman.”

Her heart fluttered, traitorous organ that it was. “Couldn’t prove it by me. No phone calls. No e-mail. No dossier.”

He opened his door, climbed from the car, and stepped up to her window. “I’m here now. And I come bearing gifts.”

He looked even better up close, so near all she had to do to kiss him was lean a few inches to the side. Instead, she said, “Looks to me like your hands are empty. Wait. Don’t tell me. You’re going to pull my file out of a magic hat.”

He ignored her sarcasm and the subject, glancing first at the cover over the pickup’s bed, then at the boxes and bags stuffed in the extended cab behind her seat. “Finn loaded up and headed out?”

Observant, this one. She nodded. “We both are.”

Harry raised a brow. “What? He managed to get you to pull up your roots?”

“Hard to believe, isn’t it?” She looked at the glass doors, willing her brother to hurry. She needed to get out of here before she did something as reckless as forgiving Harry for everything. “Being as they were so deep and all, I’ll probably never recover.”

“You’ll blossom wherever you land.” He swallowed; Georgia watched his throat work, watched the tic pop in his jaw. “But I’d like you to consider landing in New York.”

“What’s in New York?” she asked, her breath held tight in her chest.

“Me,” he said, the one word changing her world forever.

11:00
A.M.

Harry still couldn’t believe Georgia had come with him, but he’d been as happy as a shrimp at a lobster boil when she’d scrambled down from Finn’s truck.

She grabbed a couple of her bags and tossed them into Morganna’s backseat, running into the post office to tell her brother good-bye, running back out as if she couldn’t wait to get on the road.

He liked knowing he wasn’t the only one who’d hated their separation.

The last thirty days had been nothing but work, and work had been hell not having Georgia around. They made a damn good team, and he told her so. “You know it’s been hell not having you around. One long weekend of working with a partner, and I’m worthless on my own.”

She turned sideways and smiled, propping an elbow on the seat back and catching the flying strands of her hair. “If it makes you feel any better, I haven’t even looked at an antique in weeks.”

He couldn’t say that didn’t make him happy. “Sounds like misery really does love company.”

She leaned close enough to smack him on the shoulder. “If you’d showed up sooner, neither one of us would have had to spend the time being miserable.”

“Were you miserable?” God, but being with her made him feel good, even if they were doing nothing but talking about feeling bad.

“Oh, Harry.” Her voice broke, her eyes grew misty. “I love you. Of course I was.”

She loved him. She loved him. He wanted to shout it from the rooftops. He wanted her to reach over and feel how his heart was bursting. He wanted to admit to all of his feelings for her.

But he couldn’t. Not yet. He had something here to finish, so he pushed the rest of the thoughts away. “Georgia, we need to talk.”

“I thought that’s what we were doing,” she said, and he heard the “uh-oh” in her voice.

He went ahead and confirmed her worst fears. “We need to talk about the dossier.”

“Oh.” One word. Myriad emotions.

He slowed the car, suddenly feeling less of a need to rush, and more of one to do this right. “The file held more than government records. There were notes. Handwritten. Duggin’s. Valoren’s. One we’ve assumed to be Gates’s.”

“And my father’s,” she said before he could get out the words.

“He was involved, Georgia. He was guilty. He wasn’t the only one, but the verdict at his trial was sound.”

She didn’t say anything for several minutes, and then only a quiet, “I know.”

He was pretty sure that she had known, that she’d had time to let the contents of the general’s letter sink in. But there was more that he needed to tell her. “Valoren is the one who hired Charlie.”

“I knew it!” She let go of her hair and sat up straight. “I knew from the beginning there was something off with that man. When we had brunch? He gave me this look that seriously creeped me out.”

Harry had wondered about that, the shift in her demeanor that day. “Obviously, he didn’t want it to come out that he’d been involved in the scandal. He suspected you might know Duggin had the dossier, and found an expert in antiquities theft to find it before you did.”

She shook her head, shuddered. “Those two deserve each other. May they rot in hell holding hands.”

And what a picture
that
made, one Harry was really going to have fun with. “Unfortunately, the professor may not meet his fate until then. He sold everything he had years ago, cutting his ties to future gains, making previous ones impossible to trace.”

“God, I hate loopholes.” Georgia sighed, sat back, and propped her feet on the dash, didn’t say anything for another two miles.

He’d thought she’d fallen asleep, and was surprised when she asked, “What happens now? Do you and your group go after them?”

This was the tricky part. “No. At least, not publicly.”

“Then it’s up to me to reveal the truth?”

Tricky part number two. “It would be best if you didn’t.”

“Best for who?”

The citizens of the world. That was the real answer. But before he found a version of that not requiring copious explanation, she cut him off.

“So you’re saying that everyone gets away with what they did except for my father.”

“For now. Not forever.” It still sucked.

“And how does that work?” she asked, her cynicism more than clear.

Harry checked his rearview for traffic before pulling into a rest area and stopping the car. He turned to the side, cocked his knee up onto the seat. “If Duggin’s involvement in TotalSky is revealed, you’ll have to surrender your money. It was illegally gained.”

She was already shaking her head. “I don’t care about the money.”

“I know you don’t. But you might care to know that you could use it to help bring down the final man.”

She considered what he’d said. “You mean Gates?”

Harry nodded. “We think he’s used his money for a lot of really bad things.”

“So I’d be working with your group?” she asked, glancing over.

If that made her feel better about it…“As a project consultant.”

She rolled her eyes. “How long can I have to think about it?”

He breathed a sigh that felt like relief when he hadn’t even known he was tense. “As long as you need.”

“I have to know something first.”

“Anything.” He reached for her fingers. They were icy cold, and his gut knotted. He hadn’t even stopped to consider how worried she must be.

“Is this why you wanted me to come to New York?” she asked, her expression guarded.

“Oh, no. No. I want you in New York because I love you.”

“You do?”

“I do. I figure you can hunt for treasure anywhere. But I’m going to only find it once in my life.” He reached out to cup her cheek. “I love you, Georgia McLain. Even if your middle name
is
Tillie.”

And then he pulled her into his lap and kissed her, the only woman he’d ever loved. The woman who was his life.