No Rules (6 page)

She didn’t have to be told how bad that was, not after her father’s experience. If they didn’t want something in exchange for the hostages, their lives were in extreme danger. Desperate for any other explanation, she asked, “And you’re sure they were kidnapped and didn’t just get lost in the desert or something?”

“Evan does the background checks, and he’s sure. Also, Omega’s help doesn’t come cheap. If they asked for it, believe me, it’s because they have no other recourse. All you need to worry about is what Wally told you.”

She racked her brain for anything her father might have said during their dinner about Luxor or Egypt, and came up blank. There hadn’t even been a reference to Middle Eastern cuisine or hot, arid climates. Just that damn story about animals going to a housewarming party.

“Come on.” He opened his door, letting cold air swirl into the car. The full force of winter hadn’t hit Chicago yet, but the sting of moisture in the air told her snow was coming soon. She stepped out, ducking her head against the wind that blew through the high-roofed portico. Donovan waited for her, more solicitous now, but still impatient. She knew he’d pluck the information straight from her brain if he could, and it was killing him that he had to depend on her memory to get it.

“I’ll introduce you to the team,” he said, guiding her with a light touch on her arm. Kind but purposeful. “Then we’ll go over everything you remember.
Everything
, Jess. In detail.”

“Tonight?”

“Yes, tonight. Everyone is waiting for you inside. There are two hostages who might not have time to wait while you sleep.”

She sighed, wishing she’d had more than a brief nap on the plane. It looked to be a long night. “Can I at least get something to eat?”

“Eat while you talk. Lives depend on it.”

Chapter Four

It was a house, but it wasn’t. Donovan had to buzz for admittance, and the man who let them in wore a gun in a shoulder holster.

He must have seen her eyes go wide. “We don’t always go around armed,” Donovan told her. “We’re on alert now.”

“Because of the hostages?”

“Because of you.”

Her stomach tightened at the thought that she was still in danger. “Did someone follow us?”

“No. Not yet, anyway. But Wally obviously discovered something they don’t want you to talk about. They won’t give up.”

He ushered her through a normal-looking living room, past a couple closed doors, to a library. The shelves of books and comfortable chairs looked inviting; the four people sitting there did not.

A man with steel-gray hair and a closely trimmed beard got to his feet and met her with both hands outstretched. “Jessie. I’m Evan Lang. Wally was a good friend and a colleague, and I can’t tell you how sorry I am for your loss. ”

“Thank you,” she said, embarrassed that the loss was evidently greater for everyone here than it was for her. “Please call me Jess.”

He put an arm around her shoulder in a fatherly gesture as he ushered her to a chair. “Come meet our team. I’m sorry we have to ask you to jump right into this, but time might be crucial. This is Mitch,” he said indicating a young man to her left.

She’d expected hardened warriors and camouflage uniforms, like video game commandos. Mitch looked like a kid fresh out of college, untouched by life. He broke the somber mood with a smile. “Hi, Jess.”

She started to reply, but Evan spoke over her. “Sit, please,” he said, more of an absentminded order than a request as he continued the introductions. “This is Kyle, and this is Avery. And of course, you know Tyler.”

Kyle looked a little more like what she’d expected, but cleaned up. His muscled body and short hair screamed military, even without the uniform. He gave a quick nod, the kind that said getting to know her was unimportant because theirs would be a brief acquaintance.

Avery did a more feminine assessment. Crossing long legs and casually twirling a short strand of her blond hair, she gave Jess a longer head-to-toe look, followed by a polite smile. Jess blinked stupidly in return, surprised that a hostage rescue team would include a woman, especially one who didn’t look like a Russian weight lifter.

She sank slowly into her chair. “You all knew my father?”

They all nodded, and Kyle explained, “We tend to be a little more than coworkers. We faced life-and-death situations together, many times. Wally was a partner, a mentor, a friend…” His voice tightened and he stopped to clear his throat. “He was our friend.”

It was brief, but touching, and their solemn gazes proved how much they all shared the emotion behind it. As she tried to absorb it, Donovan pulled a chair next to hers as Evan took his seat, completing a circle. “I’ve filled them in on your dinner with Wally and the children’s story,” Donovan said. “We just need you to reproduce that conversation as nearly as you can and leave the rest to us. If you think any gesture or action stood out, please include that.”

As if someone had shouted, “Go,” he put his elbows on his thighs and leaned forward expectantly. Five pairs of eyes fastened on hers.

She cleared her throat nervously and licked her lips, remembering the phone call that had come out of nowhere.
Hi, Jessie, it’s Dad. I’m in Houston. Can you meet me for dinner? It’s important. I’ve got a great story idea for you.

Dad. A powerful word, implying affection and familiarity. She hadn’t thought of him that way in a long time, but for a moment the twelve-year-old inside her had leaped with joyful recognition. The next moment she’d remembered how they parted, and shut it down.

He’d rattled off a restaurant and street address, and before she could say no, he’d hung up. She’d spent the next hour flip-flopping over whether to go or stand him up, but curiosity finally got the better of her. She’d gone.

She’d caught her first sight of him when she was taken to his table. He’d been freshly shaven, eyes bright and alert. He hadn’t looked like someone two days from death.

Jess put a firm lid on her roiling emotions before speaking. “He called with an invitation to dinner, and we met at the restaurant. He seemed calm, not nervous or looking around at other people,” she told them.

Donovan nodded, his eyes bright and alert. “If he wasn’t sure you’d be safe, he would never have contacted you. Just tell us what he said.”

It was even harder than she’d thought it would be, recalling her stiff greeting and his friendly one, obviously restrained in deference to her when she’d flinched from his quick hug. She’d been in a daze, noting the changes that fifteen years had brought and feeling nervous enough to crawl out of her skin. She couldn’t have replayed the conversation five minutes later, much less five days, but she tried.

As she spoke to them, a tray of food was brought in by a man she hadn’t met and set on a folding table. Eating while everyone watched her felt awkward, but hunger won out. The meal of roast beef, potatoes with gravy, carrots, green beans, and cherry pie was too good to ignore. She talked with her mouth full, because they expected it.

She went through the awkwardly abbreviated family news she’d shared and ordering from the menu. Dull stuff. Kyle and Evan listened closely without expression. Mitch gave her an encouraging smile. Nice guy. Much friendlier than Avery, who couldn’t have looked more disinterested if Jess had been reciting the alphabet. The woman slouched in her chair, examining her cuticles while one foot bounced in an impatient rhythm.

Donovan was not nearly so detached. For a half hour as she ate and talked, he prodded her for details like a prosecuting attorney, taking notes and making her back up when he thought she hadn’t provided enough detail.

“You said Wally told you he still worked at the university. What did he say about that, exactly?”

“Just that he enjoyed it.”

“Is that the word he used, ‘enjoyed’?”

She frowned. “I don’t know. Maybe he said he liked it. But that was the gist of it.”

“Don’t give us the gist of it. Give us the exact words.”

She didn’t appreciate the admonition. “I can’t remember. He liked being there, obviously. Was glad he’d stayed and hadn’t gone somewhere else. Something like that. I remember I took it to mean that he was glad he hadn’t done what my mother had wanted him to do. That he didn’t regret—” She snapped her fingers as the memory clicked in. “That was it. He said, ‘I have no regrets. None.’ It was just another dig at my mother for leaving…” She trailed off as the awful truth registered, and she turned to Donovan, her mouth falling open in silent shock. “That wasn’t what he meant, was it?”

“No,” he agreed softly. “He was telling you, and us, that he knew what was going to happen to him. He wanted us to know he had no regrets.”

She looked at the somber faces and tried to wrap her mind around it. “He knew someone was coming to kill him, and he wouldn’t have changed anything?”

“Yes. What we do was very important to him. It’s important to all of us.”

Even Mitch’s friendly expression had gone sad, and Jess flushed, realizing she’d blown off her father’s weighty sentiment as simply one more salvo in an ongoing war between her parents. These people must hate her for how much she disrespected a man they clearly admired. But Donovan’s eyes were kind as he nudged her back on track. He might just be coddling her to get what he wanted, but she appreciated it. “Go on, Jess, you’re doing great. What did he say next?”

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, trying to shut out the strange reality of four trained commandos and their boss hanging on her words, so she could remember the equally strange conversation with her father.

Massaging her temples as if that would help the thoughts take form, she said, “I’m pretty sure that’s when he brought up the story characters for the first time. He, uh, said he’d seen all my books and he wanted to give me one more idea.”

They all stiffened to alertness. “One more?” Donovan asked.

“My first book was based on a story he’d helped me write,” she explained. “When I was nine or ten, I started inventing animal characters. I had a whole book of illustrations. I always knew I wanted to illustrate children’s books, but I wasn’t very good at developing plots until I was older. That last year when I was twelve, after he came back from Iran, my dad helped me make up stories to go with them. It was just for fun, but they were good stories, and I used part of them in my first book.”

Avery raised one delicate eyebrow. “Plagiarism?”

Jess blushed. “No.” At least, that’s not how her twelve-year-old mind remembered it. “We developed the story together, and I did all the drawings. And every book after that was entirely my creation.”

“Never mind,” Donovan said, with a sharp glare at Avery, who shot him a resentful look but shut up. “What did he tell you?”

“I know you want the exact words, but I don’t remember them. It was a story about a wolf and a rabbit who are invited to a housewarming party when the beaver family builds a new lodge. The main character arc is that the rabbit is timid. She’s afraid to travel and afraid of water. The beaver lodge is smack in the middle of a river, and the wolf wants her to trust him to get her there safely, but rabbits are naturally deathly afraid of wolves.” She rushed through it, already aware of the tolerant smile on Mitch’s face and rolled eyes from Avery, their lives so far removed from children’s stories that they couldn’t relate. “It wasn’t anything I could use, though.”

“Did he do anything while he talked, like sneeze or scratch his head?” Evan asked.

She gave him a puzzled squint. “No, why?”

“Code,” Donovan said. “It would have meant something. Why couldn’t you use his story?”

“Because the wolf and rabbit aren’t from my latest series. The stories all center around Gordon Groundhog and his best friends in the Mossy Log Meadow, a turtle and a snake.”

A snake with an adorable lisp, a cute turtle, and a cuddly groundhog. Kids loved them. But belatedly, she realized how silly her characters must sound to tough commandos trained to risk their lives in dangerous situations. Cute and cuddly were not in their vocabulary.

Kyle rubbed his cheek, seeming to struggle for the right words. “You, uh, you write books about a groundhog who lives in a mossy meadow?”

“Mossy
Log
Meadow,” she corrected, not caring that she sounded prickly and defensive. “The name evokes feelings of softness and security for kids. The softness of the moss, and the security of the hollow log that little animals can hide in. The same way a scared turtle can duck inside its shell. And seeing a snake as a friendly playmate helps kids get over the pervasive fear of snakes.” Avery’s mouth developed an amused twitch, and Mitch snickered. Jess stuck her chin up. “Maybe it’s not as momentous as terrorists and hostages, but its basic child psychology and kids love it. So does my editor. I have a contract for the next three books. Wally’s idea didn’t fit with the plan.”

“Did you tell him that?” Donovan asked.

“Yes,” she said, relieved to focus on someone who wasn’t making fun of her stories. “I told him I couldn’t do a wolf and rabbit book right now. He said maybe I could use it later. I doubt it, but I agreed, just to pacify him.”

“Okay.” Donovan nodded as if changing the subject pacified him, too. “Then what?”

She told them about every trivial side topic she could think of until Kyle complained, “Can we skip the parts about rabbits and vegetables and get to the message?” she said.

“There is no message,” Jess said for the hundredth time.

Donovan turned to Evan. “I’m pretty sure Wally used the children’s story as a lure to get Jess to see him. Maybe we
should
skip ahead.”

Jess sighed. “And maybe I should save you all some time.” They all looked at her, but she spoke to Evan. “You said I should mention if I noticed anything unusual. I did, and that was it. Every chance he got, Wally kept bringing the conversation back to his story.” She realized she’d picked up their habit of calling her father Wally. It sounded strange to her ears, but appropriate, since her father was more of a stranger to her every minute.

“There had to be something else,” Donovan insisted.

She gritted her teeth. “There wasn’t.”

“Just groundhogs and turtles and snakes,” Mitch said, and snickered. She simmered and decided he wasn’t so nice after all.

“And a mossy log,” Avery added, pointing a manicured fingernail at Donovan’s notepad. “Don’t forget the log.”

Screw you,
Jess thought, drilling her with a hard stare. The
Mossy Log
stories had won numerous awards, no matter what Avery thought.

Kyle shook his head. “We have to be missing something. There must have been
a signal, and you just didn’t realize it meant something. Did he drop his napkin at any point during the meal?”

“No.”

“Ask for more water?”

“No.”

“Scratch his ear? Sneeze?”

“No. What kind of stupid codes are those, anyway? What if a sneeze just meant he had a cold?”

“Then he would have said something to that effect so we wouldn’t be confused.” Evan’s calm voice was obviously meant to soothe her. “Otherwise sneezing, for instance, would mean that whatever he’d just said should be taken to mean the opposite. Such things allow us to pass information even when someone might overhear it. Wally could have communicated to us through codes without you knowing it. It’s subtle and elegant in its simplicity.”