Flashpoint (28 page)

Breathe. What Jimmy had to do was breathe.

“And you’re certain . . . ?” Decker asked.

Schroeder nodded his red head. “I’ve been paying people to watch the place. They definitely saw her taken inside.”

Decker looked at Jimmy. “Go. I’ll send Khalid to get Miles.”

Jimmy nodded. “If I have phone access, I’ll—”

“Yeah. Go.”

“I love you,” Jimmy told Schroeder and, grabbing his ugly face, kissed him—right on the mouth.

“Jeezus! Why does he do things like that?” he heard the reporter complain as he ran toward the stairs.

Murphy’s phone rang.

Yes! The number on the screen was Nash’s.

Sophia answered. “Nash! I’ve been trying to—”

“Do you trust Deck?” he asked, no greeting, just point-blank.

It was a hell of a question.

She stalled, unwilling to admit to a near stranger something that she’d only recently admitted to herself. “Decker asked me to call you to tell you—”

“I’m up to speed,” Nash interrupted. “Can you hear me as well as I can hear you? This is one freaking great connection.”

“Yes, I—”

“I’m on my way to get Tess. I don’t have time to explain. If you trust Decker—and you should—get dressed. Fast. Full burka and robe. Get over to the Hospital Abdul-Rasheed. Run if you have to. Murphy’s on the fourth floor. If he’s not there, head for the roof. Decker’s with him, he’ll explain. Did you get all that?”

“Yes—”

“Do it,” he said, and hung up.

Sophia ran down the stairs, out of the kitchen, dressing as she went.

“Is everything all right?” Guldana called after her, but she didn’t stop to explain.

She had to slow her pace when she hit the street—a burka-clad woman running would have drawn too much attention. But she walked swiftly—as swiftly as she dared—toward City Center.

Toward Decker—whom she apparently trusted with her life.

The American doctor stuck his head in the door. “Time,” he said to Deck. “Chopper’ll be here in thirty minutes. It’s going to take you that long to get upstairs.”

“Thanks.” Decker nodded at Khalid, and together they began wheeling Murphy’s bed out the door.

He glanced at the clock on the wall. Will Schroeder had left twenty minutes ago, riding Khalid’s horse, broken wrist clutched to his chest. He’d volunteered to get Sophia, so Khalid could help carry Murphy to the roof. If Will could reach her in time, he could bring her back, so she could be smuggled out of the country aboard that helicopter, with Murphy.

There were no guarantees—that Will would make it to Rivka’s without getting lost, that Sophia would trust Will and go with him, that they would get back here before that helo took off.

But sometimes everything in the universe lined up just right.

Sometimes it wasn’t necessary to do every goddamn thing the hard way.

Maybe, just maybe, this was going to be one of those times.

Wouldn’t
that
be nice?

“Mrs. Nash, your husband has come for you.”

Inside the cell, Tess closed her eyes, preparing for this to be another round in this relentless and frightening mind game.

She’d stand up, heart pounding, ready to throw herself into Jimmy’s waiting arms when the door swung open. Only he wouldn’t be there. Her captors would laugh, telling her again that it was going to be days, maybe even weeks, before her husband tracked her down.

Of course, they’d say, maybe he’d be so glad to be rid of such a troublesome wife, he wouldn’t even bother to look. He’d just go home without her.

Tess knew Jimmy would never do that. But finding her was a different story. Even if she managed to connect with him again—her guards hadn’t searched her and didn’t know about her phone—she had no clue where she was.

So she didn’t move. She just sat there, daring to hope, but not to hope so much that she would cry if Jimmy weren’t truly out there.

But the door opened and, dear God, there he was. He’d found her. Tess leapt to her feet, opening her mouth to greet him, to thank him for coming so quickly, but he spoke first.

“Not a word out of you.” His voice was sharp, stern.

He met her eyes only briefly, and then he almost pointedly looked away, letting the police officer do all the talking.

“Put this on.” Tess was handed a burka and robe.

She looked at Jimmy as she fastened the front of the robe. But she read nothing—
nothing
—on his face.

She knew she shouldn’t speak, not after his admonition, but she couldn’t keep from asking, “Is Murphy . . . ?”

“Silence” came Jimmy’s terse reply, but he met her eyes and nodded once.

Murph was alive. Thank God. She put on the burka, and Jimmy reached over and lowered the heaviest screen. Okay. Now it was really dark.

He moved to her other side so he could take her by the elbow—the one that wasn’t badly scraped.

“Watch your step,” the policeman told her.

Yeah, no kidding. It wasn’t easy going up those stairs with a bag on her head. But Jimmy held on to her.

“We hope never to see you back here again.”

The feeling was definitely mutual.

She felt the warm blast of air as the door to the police station was opened. Freedom!

Jimmy kept his hold on her elbow going down the front stairs of the narrow little building and out into the street.

The wind was really starting to kick up—a storm was brewing—and it tugged at her burka, making it even harder to see.

And still Jimmy didn’t say a word to her. He just led her down the street, walking much too quickly. He didn’t slow until they turned first one corner and then another.

And then he stopped.

Tess peeked out from under the edge of the burka. They were in an alleyway, well off the main street, so she pulled it off entirely. It was hard to believe that just minutes ago she’d been cold.

Jimmy had his phone out and was dialing. He glanced at her, but still didn’t speak, and then slightly turned away.

“Dave,” he said into his phone. “Nash. Wow, another good connection. Yeah, I’m over near Rue de Palms, South. I’m not sure why, but my phone works over here.” He paused. “No, I can’t reach Decker either. If you talk to him, tell him I’ve got Tess—it’s a long story, I’m not going into it now.” Another pause. “Shit, you don’t know about this, do you? Murph’s been injured. Deck is with him—he’s going to be all right, Deck’s making sure of it. Just, if you talk to him, tell him Tess is safe.” He glanced up at the sky as another ovenlike burst of wind tugged at Tess’s robe. “I know he’s going to be anxious to hear that, and I doubt he’ll get back to Rivka’s before this storm hits. We’re going to be hard-pressed to make it ourselves.” Another pause, then, “Yeah, thanks.”

Jimmy flipped his phone shut, turning his full attention to Tess, taking in her sweat-matted hair and the collection of scrapes and bruises on her soot-smeared face.

He could probably tell from the tracks of clean on her cheeks just how much time she’d spent crying, just how frightened she’d been.

And still he showed no sign of emotion at all.

Until he spoke.

“I’m fine?” he said, throwing her words from their phone conversation back at her. “I’m
fine
?”

He actually shouted it, and Tess could now see on his face and in his eyes that he was furious—with her, at her, because of her. And he was finally letting it show.

She reminded herself that this was a good thing—far better than his keeping it all inside. She bumped the bricks of a building—a two-story house—with her back, but he still kept coming.

“You don’t think it might be a good idea to mention that—oh, yeah—you’re in a freaking prison cell in a country where civil rights means they only whip you within an inch of your life instead of killing you outright?” he asked her.

Tess was trapped against the building, penned in on one side by a stack of crates and on the other by a set of stairs leading down to what looked like a basement door. She lifted her chin. “I was fine. I am fine. They didn’t hurt me.”

He touched her jaw, no doubt checking to see if the darkness there was dirt or— She flinched. She was bruised from being hit when she wouldn’t leave Murphy’s side.

“They didn’t hurt me much,” she amended.

“God damn it, Tess.” His voice broke and he pulled her into his arms and held her so tightly, she almost couldn’t breathe. “I walked past this room,” he told her, his voice muffled, his face buried against her, “an interrogation room. And I almost . . . Jesus Christ, I almost killed the motherfucker. He was lecturing me on how I should punish you. Fifteen lashes and four days of bread and water and God
damn
it! All I could think was if he’d hurt you, if he’d taken you in there and . . . Please tell me I got there in time.”

Oh, Jimmy . . . “You did,” Tess told him, holding him just as tightly. “You did. They just asked me questions and bullied me—they tried to scare me. They said you wouldn’t find me—”

“You knew that was a lie, right?” he pulled back to ask, to gaze searchingly at her. “That I’d do whatever it took to find you?”

She nodded, her heart in her throat. “Yeah,” she said. “I knew.”

She also knew that he didn’t mean it the way it sounded. It wasn’t meant to be romantic—he’d do whatever it took to find Decker or Dave or Murphy, if they were missing, too.

Although look at her. She couldn’t even manage a friendly thank-you-for-saving-me embrace without playing with the man’s hair with one hand and running the other down the broad expanse of his back. What was it about Jimmy Nash that made it so hard for her to keep her hands off him? She’d cried on Decker’s shoulder last night and hadn’t thought once of grabbing
his
ass.

“Sorry,” she said. “I—”

But she couldn’t apologize, because he kissed her.

He kissed her, hard, and—oh, God, she couldn’t help it—she kissed him back.

Sophia hurried toward the hospital.

There was a storm coming, the wind kicking up whirling devils of dust—which was a good thing. It meant that she wasn’t the only woman moving swiftly along the streets, as if trying to get home before the air got too thick with sand and dirt to see.

She heard what had to be a horse, hooves drumming, and she pulled back the heavy screen of her burka. Sure enough, a horse was charging down the middle of the street.

It looked a lot like Khalid’s horse—it was the same shade of dirty white, and indeed, the rider was bareback. But that wasn’t Decker up there playing cowboy. This man was taller, broader. He rode awkwardly, as if he’d never been on a horse before in his life.

Sophia lowered her veil as he went past, and pressed on. It couldn’t be much more than another mile now.

Afterward—mere minutes after that first frantic kiss in the alleyway—Tess’s first thought was, God, she was an idiot.

Could she
be
any more of an idiot?

And she was a weak-willed, totally predictable idiot, to boot.

Jimmy’s head was down, and he was still catching his breath, but eventually—like within the next twenty seconds—he was going to open his eyes and look at her. It would sure help if she knew what she was going to say.

Sorry
would make it sound as if she thought this was entirely her fault. But she had definitely not been alone in that mad scramble down those steps and through that rickety door into this dusty basement. Jimmy, after all, was the one who’d picked her up as if she weighed next to nothing and pressed her back up against this wall so she could wrap her legs around him and . . .

Oh, God, she’d wanted him so much and it had felt so good. . . .

But
thank you
was entirely too pathetic—as if he’d thrown her a bone. Which wasn’t the case. Because he’d wanted her. Even if he hadn’t told her—succinctly, albeit somewhat crudely—she would’ve caught on from his extreme sense of urgency.

No, what had just happened here wasn’t about him rewarding or even comforting her. Once again, he’d been so quick on the trigger that if she hadn’t been equally revved up, he would have left her in the dust.

This had been about taking, not giving. On both of their parts.

Maybe she should just say,
Excuse me.
As if the sex they’d just had was nothing more than a biological accident, like burping or farting. Whoops. Excuse me. Couldn’t help
that
.

“Shit,” Jimmy said.
“Shit.”

Of course,
shit
was an option she hadn’t considered. But, wow, it really did seem to say it all, didn’t it?

And there it was, in his eyes as he pulled back to look at her. Total remorse.

“Shit,” Tess echoed softly, because it certainly seemed to fit this situation.

There wasn’t time for either of them to say anything more, because she heard it at the exact second Jimmy did—footsteps on the floorboards above them. Whoever’s basement this was, they had just come home.

He quickly pulled out of her—all that solid, thick warmth suddenly gone—and helped her pull her pants back on, somehow putting himself back together, getting rid of the condom they’d used, all at the same time.

Thank God they’d used a condom. Thank God he’d had one to use.

Jimmy grabbed her hand and pulled her out the basement door and up the stairs, into the alley.

“Shit,” he said again as a strong wind hit them. Apparently this was also a good comment to use after getting a faceful of sand.

Tess tried to spit with her mouth closed. God, she now had sand in her teeth. She felt it crunch just from tightening her jaw.

Overhead a helicopter thrummed—where did
that
come from? But talking meant opening her mouth again and there was no telling when another blast of sand was going to hit them.

Jimmy jammed her burka down onto her head, and for once she was grateful for it.

He pulled a bandanna from the same pocket that had held that lucky condom and tied it around his face, covering his mouth and nose. “It won’t be so bad,” he said to her then, “when the wind’s at our back. Do you think you can run?”

Did he mean,
Do you think you can run in that robe?
or
Do you think you can run after that wobbly-knee-making sex we just had?