Troublemaker (38 page)

She went into an elegantly appointed living room, the furniture upholstered in a yellow-and-white-striped fabric that was probably silk. “Please, sit down,” she said, her voice only slightly strained.

Morgan planted his ass on the striped silk, impassively watching her. He waited for Axel to speak but when Axel didn't and she didn't, the silence grew and deepened until all the color had leached from her face except for the artificial hues of her makeup. Morgan was accustomed to being the weapon, the point of the spear, but he realized that this time Axel was content to let him take the lead.

“Ma'am,” he said, “I regret to inform you of your husband's death.”

She flinched, an instinctive move that was swiftly conquered. She straightened her shoulders. “I see. May I ask . . . the circumstances?”

“Head shot,” he replied laconically. “While he was attempting to commit murder.”

Joan Kingsley wasn't made of steel, she was made of titanium. She sat quietly, watching them, waiting for one of them to betray exactly how much they knew. She wasn't going to give them anything, not a single detail.

Axel spoke up. “We believe Foma Yartsev left the country this morning. A full-press search is going on for Devan Hubbert, but we have his personal computer, and a team is doing a thorough forensic investigation of it now.”

She had gone even whiter as she listened, but she didn't break. She folded her hands, said calmly, “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“I'm sure you don't. Let's be frank, Congresswoman. We know. We can't prove it—yet—but we know.”

“Does this have anything to do with my husband's death?” she asked, still not giving an inch, determined to play her hand as long as she could. If they couldn't prove anything, she was for damn certain not going to confess.

Axel ignored the question. “You won't be allowed to leave the country. The FBI will be watching every move you make. I suggest you re
sign from the Armed Service Committee immediately. In the short term, that might be beneficial to your health.”

She glanced swiftly at Morgan. He met her gaze with all the icy menace he felt.

“And in the long term?” she asked.

He didn't blink. “You have to take your chances,” he said finally.

“I see.” She stood, lifted her chin. “Thank you, gentlemen, for stopping by to give me the . . . bad news. If you don't mind, I'd like to be alone now. May I ask when my husband's body will be released to me?”

“We'll let you know,” Axel said, and they left.

L
ETTING CONGRESSWOMAN KINGSLEY WALK—AT LEAST
for now—went against the grain, but Morgan accepted that he'd have to let Axel do what he did best, which was handle crises. In an earlier time he'd have stayed, resumed his training, reintegrated into his team. But this was a different day, and he had to get back to Bo.

“You know how to get in touch with me,” he said as he let Axel out at the GO-Team headquarters. Darkness had fallen; even driving hard, he couldn't make it back to Hamrickville before midnight. He could have gone to his condo and spent the night there, started out fresh in the morning, but he didn't want to go to the condo. He wanted to look into Bo's solemn dark eyes for himself, reassure himself she was all right even though he knew Jesse would have contacted him if anything went wrong. That was what he knew. What he felt was entirely different.

Startled, Axel said, “Where are you going?”

“Back to West Virginia.”

“Yeah, I guess you need to get your stuff.”

“No, I need to check on Bo, make sure she's all right. We're getting married.”

Axel's eyes literally bugged out. “What? What? Are you crazy?”

“Team members can be married.”

“It isn't that. It's—are you
crazy
? This is my stepsister you're talking about. She's a vindictive viper. She'll drive you nuts. She—”

“Yeah, she feels the same way about you.” One thing about it, those two were never going to reconcile their differences and become friends. Morgan didn't much care; it wasn't as if they were going to be spending their Christmases together.

“But—”

“But, nothing. We're getting married. I asked, she said yes. You can be there if you want, but I warn you, you'll have to be on your best behavior or the people in that town will take you apart on her behalf.”

Seeing that tactic was going nowhere, Axel shifted. “You need to get medically cleared, get back into training.” He paused. “I'm assuming you can pass the physical. You can, can't you?”

“I wasn't sure at first that I'd ever be able to get back into action, but yeah, I could pass the physical. I've been doing a lot of work on my own. That isn't the point. The point is, I'm going back to Hamrickville. You take care of the congresswoman.”

That jerked Axel back to where his attention naturally focused. “She might walk,” he snarled. “We might not find a thing on Hubbert's computer.”

“Taking care of problems is in your wheelhouse,” Morgan said. “Handle it.”

Axel closed the door, and Morgan put his foot to the gas pedal.

The first number he tried was Bo's cell phone, but it went straight to voice mail, which told him it wasn't turned on. The next number was Jesse's.

“I'm on my way back,” he said. “How's Bo?”

“She's good. She'd lost enough blood she had to have a transfusion, but unless there's a fever or something, she can go home in the morning.” Jesse sounded tired. “It's been a shit-storm around here today. How are things on your end?”

“We didn't get all the loose ends tied up, but we're working on it. You don't have to keep the lid on any longer. I'll read you in on the details
when I get there.” Better not say too much on a cell phone, which was about as private as an open door in a motel room.

“Got it. Are you coming by for Tricks?”

“You have her?”

“She's here at the police station with me. I'm still working on the paperwork. I hate paperwork,” Jesse growled. “And there's a shitload of it.”

“Sorry about that.”

“Uh huh. How far out are you?”

“Just got started. About three hours.”

“I'll probably still be here.”

Relieved about Bo's condition but needing to hear her voice anyway, Morgan ended that call and tried Bo again. Got voice mail again. He figured she was asleep, aided by some happy juice. He remembered too well how that went. But he'd rather she sleep than be in pain, so he settled in for a fast, hard drive, pushing to get back to her.

He made it in under three hours; he wheeled by the police station and saw the lights were still on, so he whipped into the rear parking lot and went in. Jesse looked up when he entered, leaned back in his chair, and yawned. “I finished just a few minutes ago.”

Tricks had been snoozing on her bed, but she woke and lifted her head. When she saw Morgan, she shot over to him, her tail wagging madly as she greeted him with a wiggling body and licking tongue. He went down on one knee and rubbed her ears, stroked her thick fur. “It's been a long day for you too, hasn't it, girl? Want to go home?” He shot a glance at Jesse. “Via the hospital. What room is she in?”

“308.”

“Is it one of those hospitals with strict visiting hours?”

“No, people pretty much come and go as they want. Relatives sit up with their sick folks, things like that.”

He stayed long enough to give Jesse a quick rundown of events and fill him in on what was going on. “Shit, that isn't good,” Jesse said, after finding out that Congresswoman Kingsley might be untouchable. “If she sold out the country once, she'll do it again.”

“If she were in any position to do it, but she won't be. She'll have a hard time now going to the bathroom without someone watching her. She might not be in prison, but she won't be free.”

He had to be content with that too. It was a tough pill to swallow, but he'd let Axel do what Axel did.

He thought about taking Tricks home first, but the need to see Bo, see her for himself, was riding him hard. The night temps were cool enough that he could leave Tricks in the Tahoe with the windows down a bit and let her snooze while he paid a fast visit. He walked her around first, then she happily bounded into the Tahoe and settled down. He didn't have her seat harness with him so he drove carefully, even though traffic was almost nonexistent.

He hadn't been to the hospital before, but he programmed the GPS and followed the directions. Half an hour later, he pulled into the hospital parking lot and found an empty slot under a light. There was a surprising number of cars there, given that the hospital wasn't particularly large even by small-town standards, so Jesse was likely right on target about people staying with their relatives.

He lowered the windows down an inch or so, letting the cool night air seep in. He said, “I'll be back in about fifteen minutes. You don't let anyone in, okay?'

Tricks woofed softly. It wasn't until he was inside the hospital, taking the interior stairs two at a time, that he realized he'd been talking to her as if she were human and understood every word he'd said. He gave a mental shrug. He'd bet on Tricks understanding more than some humans he'd met.

He exited on the third floor, checked which way the room numbers were running, and strode to room 308. The nurses' desk was down the hall, a small center of activity, but he didn't have to go that far down. There was no point in knocking, not if Bo'd been given happy juice, so he simply pushed the lever-style handle and went in.

The room wasn't completely dark, for the convenience of the nurse who would be coming in during the night to check on her. The head of the bed was raised a little, and Bo was turned slightly on her left side,
her legs curled and her left hand tucked under her cheek. A big, thick bandage covered her neck and part of her right shoulder, but from what he could see in the dim light, her color looked good. An IV needle was in the back of her right hand. He checked the bags hanging from the rolling stand: an antibiotic and standard saline solution for hydration. Anything she was getting for pain was in the form of an injection or a pill.

“Hey.”

The word startled him. Her voice was low and sleepy, a little slurred. Swiftly he turned to see her half-smiling at him, her eyelids barely cracked enough for her to see him.

“Hey,” he said softly, rubbing the back of one finger against her cheek. “I hear you're getting sprung from this place in a few hours.”

“So they say, as long as I don't have a fever. I'm hoping all these antibiotics they're pouring into me do the job.”

“How do you feel?”

“Sore. Let me amend that:
very
sore. I don't know what they did to patch me up but I think I remember the nurse saying something about staples.”

“Those are a bitch,” he said feelingly. He remembered staples too damn well.

The more she talked, the more he could detect a slight difficulty in her speech. He suspected her throat was swollen, probably up into her jaw. Yeah, she was going to be unhappy for several days.

He'd come so damn close to losing her. The realization, held at bay while he did what had to be done, slammed him hard, hit him where he lived. His eyes suddenly burned and blurred. “Shit,” he muttered, going down on his knees beside the bed.

“Morgan?” She was struggling to sit upright, reaching out toward him.

He caught her left hand and cradled it against his cheek. “You better fu—you better be okay,” he growled, amending what he'd been about to say and leaving out the obscenity, because it seemed out of place with what he was feeling. “You hear me?”

“Back at you.” She turned her hand so she was stroking his cheek. “I was terrified you hadn't paid any attention to Tricks barking, that he
was going to kill you in front of me. Kill both of us, actually,” she sighed. “I figured I was dead regardless of what happened. All I could hope was that he wasn't a very good shot, and that you'd heard Tricks . . . Where is she?”

“In the Tahoe, waiting for me. Jesse kept her with him at the station. I stopped by to find out where you were and picked her up.”

“Don't keep her waiting long,” she instructed. “Anyway, I thought I saw movement out of the corner of my eye . . . the way he had my head jerked back I couldn't be sure. I couldn't think of anything to do except drop to the ground and keep his attention on me.”

She'd expected to die. She hadn't been trying to save herself, she'd been trying to save him. His eyes burned again and his throat clogged. “I love you so damn much,” he said tightly, closing his eyes as he gripped her fingers. “I thought my heart was going to stop when I saw he had you.”

“I love you too.” The words were simple, offered as a gift from a woman who had spent most of her life barricading herself from emotion, refusing to let anyone matter too much to her. When he thought how difficult it had been for her to tear down her walls, he felt doubly blessed, doubly honored. He had to wonder, if Tricks hadn't come first, if the dog hadn't made a huge chink in Bo's walls, if she'd ever have let him in. He figured he owed the dog, and the town, more than he could ever repay.

“One good thing came from it.” The words were soft and sleepy, and her eyes drifted shut.

“What?”

She barely managed to lift her eyelids again. “We don't have to wait to get married.” She sighed and went to sleep, with him still holding her hand.

No, they didn't, he realized. They damn well didn't.

Their wedding day was ten days later. They waited that long only because
of Bo's injury. She didn't want to have a huge bandage on her neck in her wedding photos, however informal those photos were. They decided

not to go to the expense of hiring a professional photographer, but as it turned out Brandwyn Wyman not only swung a mean chair, she dabbled in photography and volunteered to take pictures at her cost, just for the practice. So there would be photos, and Bo didn't want her bandage to be the focus of every one of them. By the time ten days rolled around, a bandage was still in place but it could be covered by a ribbon of lace tied around her throat and dangled down her back. The effect was Victorian, especially combined with the simple ivory gown she wore, and the way Daina had arranged her hair in a kind of modified Gibson Girl, with tendrils framing her face and neck. Sparkly earrings completed her wedding outfit. Her flowers were three ivory-white roses tied with some of the same lace ribbon that was around her throat.

She was still cautious about the way she turned her head, but overall she'd healed well. The staples had come out the day before, at her insistence, a few days sooner than the surgeon had wanted, but he wasn't the one getting married. She was, and she wanted the staples out. When he'd removed them, he'd admitted that the area looked good. He'd simply wanted to be cautious.

As expected, all their friends in town had really gotten into the whole wedding deal. Miss Doris had insisted on baking a cake, gratis, and Bo had had to argue with her, refusing to say what kind she wanted until Miss Doris grudgingly agreed to accept payment—a discounted payment, but still payment.

Morgan seemed cool as ever about the never-ending stream of details on which people wanted decisions, yesterday if possible. Between the two of them, they swatted away their friends' inclination to turn this into a huge production. There was no wedding party, no groomsmen or bridesmaids—just him, her, and likely Tricks, because they were prepared for her to refuse to stay quietly seated beside Daina.

Bo wasn't as sanguine as he was. Getting married was a big deal, so big that sometimes she thought she might have a panic attack at the idea of the huge step she was taking. Then she'd look at Morgan, so big and lethal and intelligent, and hell no, she wasn't letting him get away, panic or no panic. He was hers. She'd do this.

By the time she'd been released from the hospital, her house was no longer a crime scene, probably because Jesse and Morgan between them had been ruthless in moving things along. It hadn't been a normal crime scene anyway, not under the circumstances. The FBI had gotten involved and kept everything very quiet. The official word was that Mr. Kingsley had died in an auto accident. If Congresswoman Kingsley wanted to dispute that and bring the true circumstances out in the open, that was up to her. She hadn't. His funeral service had been remarkably quiet.