Reckless Pleasures (10 page)

13

THE FOLLOWING DAY Dari was so distracted by his worry for Megan, he barely noticed the throbbing of his leg. He and Jason were paired up again. Despite his contention that he could lead a search team on his own, his old pal and partner insisted that they go out together.

He didn’t argue.

They were all on the outskirts of their search sites just before dawn, the sky above the color of an old bruise. He and Jason and a couple of the more experienced Lazarus members were to follow a path close to where the girl’s bike was found. The others had been placed at twenty-yard intervals. It was a pretty good bet that the sheriff’s deputies would be arranging for citizen volunteers to search the same area, so they wanted to get a head start.

As for the FBI, Linc had indicated that they’d already swept and cleared the area, turning up no further evidence. But their search area had been limited, so the Lazarus team was to assume that something still might turn up.

They were two hours in and the sun had fully risen, turning even the forest air stale and hot. They passed the place where the bike had been found some time ago and he and Jason kept close while the other two team members were some yards ahead.

“You okay?” Jason asked.

Dari’s back teeth ground together. “I wish everyone would stop asking me that.”

His friend raised his hands. “Hey, excuse me all to hell and back for caring.”

Dari grimaced, fighting to concentrate on the area around him. There was still far too much standing water around for his liking. Some areas were covered up to his shins, making for slow going and impossible search conditions. Anything could be under the murky surface. And the chance existed that their tramping might send a key piece of evidence deeper into the muck at the bottom.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “Didn’t mean to bite your head off.”

“No harm no foul. So long as you answer my question.”

Dari stretched his neck, using an expandable metal poker, not unlike those used by people who collected litter to probe the deeper puddles.

“It’s not me I’m worried about,” he said quietly.

Jason didn’t immediately respond, so he thought maybe he hadn’t heard him. Which was just as well. He’d never been one to discuss personal problems with friends or family.

“It’s Megan,” he continued without planning to.

Jason looked at him.

“She’s… I don’t know. Something’s wrong. I don’t know what. I’m almost afraid to ask, but…”

His friend remained silent as they made slow but steady progress.

“Something’s not right.”

“I’m sure everything’s fine,” Jason said. “She’s happy to have you back.”

“And I’m happy to be back. Despite the circumstances. But…”

Jason chuckled as he checked under a low-hanging branch. “What’s the saying? Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth?”

That made him smile. “Doesn’t that refer to bad dental care?”

“More your area.”

“Kind of like not asking an attractive woman with bad teeth to smile.”

His friend gave an exaggerated shiver. “God, makes me think of that one girl in Omaha. Remember?”

“I remember you bitching about it. I also remember it didn’t stop you from sleeping with her.”

His friend went silent.

They continued their forward movement without speaking for a few minutes.

Then Dari cleared his throat. “Did something happen while I was away?”

Jason stared at him. “What do you mean?”

He shrugged and watched his footing through a patch that was flooded to his knees. His right foot hit something and he winced. “With Megan. Did something happen?”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Did you notice anything different while I was away?”

“She missed the hell out of you. I know that. And she pretty much shut herself off from everything else outside work.”

“Really?”

“Really, what? That she missed you?”

“No. That she shut herself off from everything.”

“Yeah. It surprised me, too.” They were close enough that Jason slapped his hand on his shoulder. “I’m sure she’ll be fine. Probably emotional overload. You know chicks. Your being hurt. Coming home. This case and the odds of the girl being found alive dwindling. Hell, isn’t there a full moon tonight?”

He chuckled. “Then there’s that.”

They fell silent again. But what refused to be quieted was the small voice in the back of his head telling him something was wrong. And it wouldn’t be right again until he found out what it was.

LATER THAT EVENING, Megan cleared the dinner wrappers in the command center. None of the search teams—theirs or the sheriff’s—had turned up anything noteworthy. Dari had gone with Linc and a couple of the guys to catch a beer at a nearby bar. Seeing as it was a Friday, most of the team had done the same, leaving her and a couple of stragglers behind. And now even they had left.

She’d been relieved when Dari had agreed to join the guys for a beer. Ever since last night she’d been an emotional wreck. While there had been hope that time might heal all before, after crying in front of him she knew he’d be like a dog with a bone between his teeth. And the way he looked at her now…

She swallowed hard.

Distracting him with sex had been a great idea. Right. What she hadn’t counted on was what would happen when they made love.

Or when he proposed.

She’d found the exquisite diamond ring he’d tried to give her on the bedside table along with a note: “You don’t have to give me an answer now. Keep this until you do.” Signed simply, “Dari.”

She’d packed the ring in with her gear to keep it safe after sitting staring at it for a long time, not daring to put it on.

“Mind telling me what’s going on?”

Megan slowed her movements as she tied off the garbage bag at the sound of Jason’s voice behind her. She took the bag to the door where she’d put it in the Dumpster outside later.

“With what?” she asked.

“What in the hell did you say to Dari last night?”

She averted her gaze and felt her face go red. “I didn’t say anything.” Which was true enough. She hadn’t been able to say a word—she’d been too choked up. Then she’d cried herself to sleep and woke up to find him in the shower, giving her the opportunity to duck out of the room and get straight to work.

She hadn’t been alone with him since. And she wasn’t looking forward to when she would be.

“Well, something happened because he grilled me to no end today.”

She stared at him, her heart doing a triple beat in her chest.

“No, no, nothing like that. He says he knows something’s wrong with you and was trying to see if I knew what it might be.”

“Are you sure he doesn’t suspect…?”

“Positive. If he did, I wouldn’t have been grilled, I’d have been eaten raw.”

Megan leaned against the main table and briefly closed her eyes. “What did you say?”

Jason didn’t immediately respond. Restlessness coated her stomach.

“You know, never mind. Don’t answer that.” She pushed from the table and paced. “This… You and I just talking like this feels like a betrayal.”

“We didn’t betray him.”

“How can you say that? Of course we betrayed him!”

“Now you’re just talking stupid.”

She’d never seen Jason so upset before. At least not with her.

“He and I are a couple,” she said. “Any relations outside that sphere is a betrayal. It doesn’t matter that we didn’t kiss. Or that we made a point of not looking at each other. It was infidelity, pure and simple.”

“It was sex. Nothing more.”

“Well, when you put it that way…” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m going to tell him. I have no other choice. Not now that he knows something’s wrong.”

“Damn it! Don’t I have a say in the matter?”

He paced across the room and then back again, looking like a caged animal desperate to escape.

“Don’t worry. I won’t say it was you.”

He stared at her. “Right. You’re going to tell him that you slept with some random stranger.”

She crossed her arms. “That’s right.”

“And you’ll do that because…?”

“Because you’re too big of a coward to fess up yourself.”

She began to walk away, firm in her decision. He grasped her arm a little roughly.

At least six ways to take him down leaped to mind; she suppressed all of them. He wouldn’t hurt her. She knew that. Just because he overreacted didn’t mean she was justified in doing the same.

At least not in a way that she hadn’t already volunteered to.

He took a deep breath and released her. “Sorry.”

She didn’t say anything.

“I just don’t understand how telling him is going to make anything better.”

“It will clear my conscience.”

“And rip his heart clean out of his chest.”

She winced at that.

The last thing she wanted to do was hurt Dari. But she couldn’t keep this from him any longer.

“Look,” Jason said quietly, “he’s the best friend I’ve ever had. My only true friend, if you want to know the truth. If you tell him…”

She searched his face, relating all too closely to what he was saying. Dari was her first love. Her only love. To jeopardize all that because of one night that didn’t mean anything to her beyond physical release…

Well, she should have thought about that before she did it, a small voice in her head said.

“Do what you need to do,” Jason said finally.

He turned and strode toward the door.

“I meant what I said,” she whispered. “I won’t mention it was you if you don’t want me to. I have a feeling he won’t even ask.”

He stopped midstep. “Trust me—it will be the first question out of his mouth.” He looked over his shoulder. “And if you’re going to tell him the truth, then tell him the whole truth. The way I see it, you’re not going to rest until he knows everything anyway. Better to do it in one shot than drag it out.”

Seeing the logic in his words, she opened her mouth to say something. Only, he was out the door before she could put her thoughts together.

OF COURSE, THE INSTANT she’d made the decision, the opportunity to tell him was denied her at every turn. That night, he’d come back so late she’d been asleep when he’d entered the room. The next morning, she’d woken to an insistent knock, one of the team members needing to return home due to a family emergency.

Now it was Sunday morning, and everyone had suspended their searches due to the weather; Mother Nature seemed to be hell-bent on reclaiming the already soggy mass of land and giving it back to the sea.

Midmorning, Megan was in the command center reviewing the search map, a couple of other team members milling around, drinking coffee and shooting the breeze. Dari, Jason and Linc had gone to meet up at the sheriff’s office to see if they couldn’t scare up any additional information at the sheriff’s invitation. They’d taken doughnuts with them as an incentive.

With a sigh, she tucked the map under her other papers and reviewed the evidence so far: bike, partial thumbprint, the last time she was spotted, interviews. Nothing jumped out at her.

Of course, it would help if her thoughts didn’t keep returning to Dari and how he was going to react to her news when she finally told him.

There was a squeal that could no how, no way, be attributed to any of the team members in the room. She looked up to find little Daisy skipping into the room in a pretty yellow dress, her blond curls brushed to a bouncy sheen. She made a beeline to the table Megan sat behind, her smile as big as the state.

“Megan!” she exclaimed.

Megan couldn’t help smiling. “Good morning, Daisy. You look very pretty this morning.”