Just Like a Man (44 page)

Oh, Michael…

"Leave with me now," he said suddenly, impulsively. "You and I can go back to your place and talk. Or we can go to my place and talk. Just, please, let's go somewhere. Let me explain myself. Let me tell you how much you mean to me. Let me
show
you how much you mean to me. These other agents, Hannah, they can take care of Adrian. That's their job, not ours. Adrian has nothing to do with us anymore. He has nothing to do with
my
life anymore. You do, though.
You
are my life, Hannah. You and Alex. And I'll do anything I have to do to make you understand that. Because I want to be your life, too. Let's think about ourselves for a change. Just us. You and me. Forget about all the rest of it. It doesn't matter. You and me, that's what matters. Just you and me."

She wanted to say yes. Wanted so badly to do as he asked and think about nothing but herself and Michael. Because thinking about herself
was
thinking about Michael, she realized. He was a part of her now. He'd become a part of her the moment she met him, the moment she became so intrigued by him. She loved him. In spite of everything. And she knew that would never change. She didn't want to face a life without him. Not if there was some chance the two of them could be together. Whatever she had to do to fix what was wrong between them, she wanted to at least try. She wanted to be with Michael. To talk with Michael. To live with Michael. If there was any way she could.

She realized then that he was dipping his head toward hers, and without thinking—which maybe was a good idea, now that she thought about it—she felt herself leaning in toward him, too. His mouth hovered over hers, and he reached up to cup her jaw in his hand. Hannah turned her face toward his palm and closed her eyes, because being touched by him again, even in so small a way, just felt so good. So right. Yes, she wanted to tell him, they should leave and go back to her place. His place. Some place. Yes, they should forget about Adrian. Yes, they should think about themselves. Yes, they should talk. Yes, they should try to work things out. Yes, they should… Yes…

But just as she began to part her lips to receive his kiss, Tiffannee came hurrying up, calling out something that made no sense, something that sounded like "Raptor!" even though that word didn't have any double letters at all. And hearing the panic in the other woman's voice, Hannah jerked guiltily backward.

Raptor,
she thought hazily. Why did she feel like she was supposed to know what that word meant… ?

"Raptor, I lost him," Tiffannee said in a voice that was in no way perky or dewy or blond. And where moments ago her eyes had been so vapid—well, they were—now her gaze was fixed entirely on Michael with clear, keen intelligence. "One minute he was there, and the next minute he was gone," she added, her tone clipped and cold and calculated. "He just melted into the crowd, and I have no idea which way he went. I'm sorry. I failed. Dammit, Raptor, I can't believe I let this happen."

Michael's response to the announcement sounded like the growl of a vicious, angry tiger.

Hannah's response to the announcement sounded more like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. What's going on? Why does Tiffannee suddenly sound shaken, not stirred?"

Tiffannee's response was a roll of her eyes that indicated she couldn't be bothered with people like Hannah because they were just too vapid for words. That was made even more obvious when she disregarded Hannah completely, turned back to Michael, and said, "What do you want me to do?"

Michael thought for a minute, a minute Hannah used to inspect Tiffannee. Gone was the bewildered expression. Gone was the starry-eyed innocence. Gone was the look of a trusting little ingenue. In its place was an edgy tension and a clear intelligence and something else Hannah was afraid to get too close to. Involuntarily, she took a step in retreat. Tiffannee glanced over when she did and smiled, as if she were pleased with the reaction she'd generated. But it wasn't the smile of a Barbie doll, plastic and painted on. No, this was the smile of a desperado. Of a desperada. Of somebody really, really dangerous.

Holy moly, Hannah thought. Tiffannee wasn't a majorette. She was a spook!

When Hannah turned to look at Michael again, he was staring up at the soaring glass walls that surrounded them. "You know, it occurs to me that there's no place in here for cover," he said, as if he were just now realizing the fact. "If Adrian's plan is to assassinate someone tonight or tomorrow, there's nowhere for him to do it in here. Nowhere for him to hide. The debates are going to take place in this room tomorrow night, too," he added as he looked at Tiffannee. "So if he were planning to assassinate someone, where could he stash himself to get a decent shot?"

"Maybe he's not planning to assassinate someone," Tiffannee said, her tone of voice, like Michael's, indicating she was thinking as she spoke. "Maybe the whole assassination thing has just been a ruse. Or maybe it's been something we erroneously assumed. Maybe Sorcerer's surfacing here around the time a presidential debate was announced was just a coincidence."

Sorcerer?
Hannah thought.
Who or what the hell is sorcerer?

Michael evidently understood, though, because he nodded thoughtfully at what Tiffannee had just said. "Or maybe it was something he used on purpose, knowing he could jerk us all around. Maybe he's laughing at us right now up in his—"

"Office," Tiffannee and Michael said as one. And, lightning flash, they were both off.

Instinctively, Hannah followed them. She didn't know why. She was in no way trained for something like this, and it would have been safer for her to stay where she was. Nor could she have helped in any way by following them. But where Michael went, she wanted to go. Wherever he was, that was where she wanted to be, too. Obviously he wasn't the only one on assignment tonight. Because somewhere along the way, Hannah had accepted an assignment from herself that was similar to his. She wanted to stay close to Michael. That was all that mattered right now. She'd figure out the rest of it later.

As she followed their swiftly moving forms from the reception hall, Hannah saw Tiffannee speaking into the gaudy rhinestone bracelet she had been thinking was much too tacky for an affair like this. Her words were fast, clear, and to the point, brooking no argument from anyone. Hannah had to hand it to her—the woman issued orders and voiced directions with all the aplomb of a Bond Girl. No, not a Bond Girl. Like Bond himself. Michael, on the other hand, just acted. Acted with enough efficiency and ease and enthusiasm that Hannah began to worry that maybe this was the life he was more suited to after all. Worse, she began to worry that, in spite of his earlier words to the contrary, he might think that, too.

She didn't ask how they knew where Adrian's office was. That would be a given for OPUS operatives. Nor did she ask how they found an elevator waiting for them in the lobby. That, too, she was certain, had been prearranged. What was surprising—to all of them, she suspected—was that Adrian's office door was standing wide open when they got there. Even more surprising, Adrian wasn't standing anywhere at all.

But the screen saver that scrolled across his computer monitor on the other side of the room said, "Love ya, Raptor. But I gotta go. Sorcerer." Over and over and over again.

"What's 'sorcerer' mean?" Hannah asked when she read it.

Michael blew out a long, weary sigh, but Tiffannee pushed him aside and dove into the office, tearing through everything that wasn't nailed down. Somehow, Hannah got the impression she wasn't doing it so much because she expected to find anything as she was because she just wanted to beat the crap out of Adrian right now, and beating the crap out of his office was the next best thing.

"Sorcerer was Adrian's code name when he worked for OPUS," Michael said. "This is his way of signing off."

"Signing off?" she asked, more confused than ever. "But he hasn't killed anyone yet. He hasn't done anything at all yet."

"And maybe he's not planning to kill anyone," Michael told her. "He is planning to do something, though."

"But I thought that was what you guys figured he was planning," she said. "To assassinate one of the candidates. I thought that was what this whole operation was about."

"OPUS never knew for sure what he was planning," Michael said, sounding more tired than ever. "They just assumed, with the presidential debates being scheduled here, and him surfacing shortly after that announcement, that the two events were connected." He turned to look at her. "It wouldn't be the first time OPUS was wrong about something, Hannah. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen."

"Yeah, and it really pisses me off when it does," Tiffannee said as she ripped a shelf from the wall and sent its contents scattering violently to the floor.

"And it usually happens when Adrian is somehow involved," Michael added.

"Bastard,"
Tiffannee muttered, summing things up nicely, in Hannah's opinion.

She turned again to Michael. "But what do you mean when you say he's signing off?"

Michael shrugged. "He's leaving."

"How do you know?" Hannah insisted. "He hasn't done anything wrong that you can prove. How do you know he's not going to hang around?"

Michael sighed wearily again. "Because when we were partners, 'Love ya, Raptor, but I gotta go, Sorcerer' is what he always said when he concluded an operation. Always."

"So you think he's concluding this one?"

"I know he is."

"So then… he's finished?" Hannah asked hopefully.

Before Michael had a chance to reply, Tiffannee replied for him, with almost maniacal laughter. Hannah took her response as a no. And she also took another step away from Tiffannee.

For the sake of clarification, though—not that clarifica-tion was really necessary—Michael only shook his head. "No. He's not finished. Whatever he's up to, he'll just come at it from a different approach next time. He never quits until he gets what he wants. There's just no way of knowing what he wants. Which will make it tough for the agents who go after him."

That was twice, Hannah noticed, that Michael had referred to OPUS in the third person, indicating he did not include himself in the mix. "But—" she began again.

She never finished what she was going to say, though, because Tiffannee's efforts to disembowel Adrian's office took on new life. She jerked out drawers and upended them, sending their contents flying, then began kicking Adrian's chair.

"She-Wolf," Michael called out to her. "I think you've done enough. Save something for your partner, will you? I think he'll want a piece of this, too."

She-Wolf?
Hannah repeated to herself. Tiffannee was called She-Wolf? Who on earth came up with these code names? Then again, she thought, reconsidering Tiffannee, judging by the savagery of her anger and the way her perfectly coiffed hair was now flying wildly about her face, maybe She-Wolf was an appropriate name for her.

"Right," She-Wolf—
She-Wolf?—
said, calming down. A little. "Right." She relaxed her grip on the crystal paperweight she'd been about to hurl through the computer monitor and began tossing it into the air as if it were a Baccarat baseball. "Don't want to be greedy," she muttered. "And like you said, he'll want a piece of the action, too."

"He?" Hannah asked Michael. "Who's 'he'?"

"I'm 'he,'" a third voice spoke up then.

Hannah turned to the office door to find a half dozen people standing on the other side, led by a very large, very scary-looking man with jet-black hair and piercing green eyes. Hannah wanted to talk to him about as much as she wanted to talk to Tiffannee.

"And 'he' is… ?" she asked Michael, leaning toward him and keeping her voice low so as not to alarm anyone.

"He's the guy who works with She-Wolf," he said. "They're partners."

Partners in what, Hannah didn't want to know. There were just some things that didn't bear thinking about.

The weight of her situation came crashing down on her then, and she realized the only thing she wanted was to go home. And then something significant slammed into her. She wanted to go home with Michael. Her home, his home, it didn't matter. Because wherever she went with him, she realized then, she would be home. And once they were home, she wanted to pour them both a glass of wine—a really big, really full glass of wine. And then she wanted to talk. And she wanted him to talk, too. All night if that was what it took. And then, maybe, if all went well with the wine and the talking, she wanted to make love. And in the morning, she wanted to wake up and realize this had all been nothing but a bad dream. Except for Michael. She wanted to roll over in her bed and find him to be real. And she wanted the air cleared between them.

"Do you have to stay here?" she said.

"Only if you do," he told her. "Like I said, my only assignment from now on is being with you."

"Whether I like it or not," she clarified, smiling tentatively.

He smiled back, too. Tentatively. "Yeah, well, I hope you'll like it," he said. "Otherwise it could get awkward."

"So then," Hannah said, "you don't have to hang around and be debriefed or anything?"

He smiled. "Not by these guys, no."

Good thing, Hannah thought. Because she remembered what it was like to be debriefed by an OPUS operative. And anyone who was debriefed by Tiffannee/She-Wolf might not survive. Not to mention Hannah would have to bitch-slap the other woman silly for laying a hand on the man she loved.

The man I love,
she repeated to herself, a strange mixture of hopefulness and dread splashing through her belly. Could they really make this work?

"So then you can come to the house?" she asked. "You can take me home tonight?"

His expression sobered when she asked what she did, and he didn't answer her right away. Instead, he circled her wrist gently and tugged her out of the office and through the wall of OPUS operatives, ignoring Tiffannee/She-Wolf's and
his
—funny, how no one had mentioned Tiffannee/She-Wolf's partner's name—questions about where Michael thought he was going. Then he guided Hannah down to the end of the hall, where they were alone and could speak without being overheard.