Wild Encounter (23 page)

She swallowed. Okay. Even if she gave him that—

“What about this week? It was my life you were
playing
with, Simon. What if they’d just decided to shoot me long-range from the bush? How would
that
have been keeping me safe?”

He shook his head fiercely. “They wouldn’t, even if they could make that kind of shot. I knew they’d use you to get at me.”

She stared. “You knew that and were okay with it? Would you have watched while they took turns with me, here in the dirt? In the interests of your case?”

His eyes burned.

It was a low blow, but she wasn’t sorry she’d taken it.

“You miss the point,” he said evenly, his entire body shuttered.

She folded her arms carefully over her midriff. “Oh? And what would that point be?”

“You aren’t the only eyewitness, Clare.”

She blinked. What was he—?

Oh.

“Yeah,” he said, slowly coming closer as he spoke, a step at a time. “They were using you to get to
me
. It was
me
they wanted. You might have been able to put them in prison, but I could throw away the key.
I’m
the one they wanted to slowly torture until I begged for the mercy of death.” He was right in front of her now. He leaned over her, nose to nose. “I was the bait, Clare. Me. Not you.”

They stared at each other for a tense, endless moment.

She didn’t know what to say. Or think.

Had she been breathtakingly self-centered? Or was she completely justified in her anger?

She hadn’t a clue. She needed time to process.

The sounds of an approaching vehicle rumbled behind them, snapping them out of their impasse. She turned to see a shabby green Land Rover picking its way up the track in the far distance. Nadia. Clare started to limp away from the sedan and the body. “I don’t want her to see this…”

“Go with her, Clare. I’ll wait here for the police.”

She halted, turned back to Simon, her heart as sore as her body and heavy as her head. She licked her lips, stalling, unable to bring herself to ask. But he answered anyway.

“Then I’m going after Mbuutu.”

She licked them again. “And I really have to get my dogs to the release site. They’re going to start waking up soon.”

The Land Rover shifted gears, still a way off.

He eased his weight from one leg to the other, favoring the left. “I probably won’t see you before I leave Africa.”

Or after
. It was there in his gaze.

And why would he? His assignment would be over. Case closed. And she’d be back in Boston.

His face went carefully blank. “I’ve been with MI6 my whole adult life, Clare. I don’t know anything else. I don’t have anything else. I make my choices using a whole different set of rules than other people. I don’t mind being the bait. I’ve never cared that I risked death just going to work. Because I had nothing to lose.”

Had…?

“The picture you paint of what I’ve done at your expense… That’s going to take a bit of reconciling on my part, but I want to…” His eyes dropped. “You’re right. I did use you. That last day, back in the farmhouse. You were looking to me for strength and I—” He blew a puff of air from between stiff lips. Straightened as much as he could with his injuries. “Allowing myself to get physical with you was weak. I took advantage of your vulnerability, and I’m so sorry.”

Clare sucked an incredulous breath past the thundering ache squeezing up her chest. “Out of everything that’s happened,
that’s
what you’re sorry for? Making—” No, she wasn’t going to give him that. “
Sleeping
with me?”

The sound of the Land Rover’s engine was getting louder. Nadia would be here soon.

He cleared his throat. “My professional choices might be all screwed up when it comes to you. But please believe me, everything else I’ve done, I did to keep you safe.” He took a step toward her. “But that…I did for me. Because I needed you like I needed air to breathe.”

He needed her.

Not wanted. Not loved. And—P.S.—entirely past tense. As tempting as it was to read much, much more into his breath-stealing words and his beseeching expression…these were clear-the-air words.

Closure words.

Goodbye wasn’t really the time to fall at his feet and admit how badly she wanted and needed—
and loved
—him.

P.S.
Not
past tense.

Her heart fisted. “I’m not proud of some of the things I did in that week, either,” she said evenly, “but extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures and all that.” She took a breath and gave her best Simon deVries shrug. “I don’t think there’s any point in holding each other responsible, now that it’s over.”

And it was over.

Totally.

In every imaginable way.

His brows dropped but his steps continued until he stood right up against her, toe to toe. She battled the urge to step back. Or throw herself into his arms.

He hesitated, the pause charged with unbearable tension. Then he bent slowly toward her and whispered, “Good-bye Clare.”

His scent enveloped her, his body heat reached for her. Her eyes drifted shut in anticipation of the feel of his lips on hers. At the very last second, he leaned in more, so his kiss landed farther back, below her jaw. Where he’d once marked her. Back where Boots’ filthy mouth and hands and violence had not just gone.

Firm lips molded to her jaw line and pressed lightly against her pulse point, which pounded with things left unsaid. His mouth brushed briefly over her throat, spilling shivers down her whole body. The mere seconds it must have really taken felt like forever.

The old Land Rover drove up and halted nearby, the gears grinding a little as Nadia struggled it into neutral.

Simon straightened and turned away.

“Wait. There’s something—”

The words tripped over her lips almost unconsciously. He turned back, molten fire in his eyes. She took a breath.

“Artie Lyfe was in charge of the collar manufacture for the last trip. It was outside of usual procedure.”

Simon blinked. Seemed to shift focus. He nodded. “Thank you. I know what giving me that information will cost you.”

Everything
.

She broke free from the pull of him, and turned to reach for the Land Rover’s passenger door. Nadia’s eyes were already wide from witnessing Simon’s kiss, but they flooded with anxiety as Clare swung the door open, revealing her battered, torn condition.

Hauling herself up into the passenger seat was agony, but nothing like the torture deep inside.

Nadia took one look at the damage to her face and wordlessly slipped the vehicle into gear. As they reversed off down the rocky track, Simon looked up. Found Clare’s eyes and held them. And she knew with her whole being that this was the last time she’d ever see the man she loved.

In the wilds of Africa. Bloodied, bruised, and utterly alone. Standing next to the faceless corpse of a dead man.

Holding her bleeding heart in his hands.

Chapter Sixteen

London, England

August

Clare stepped off the tube at Vauxhall station and hurried the few blocks to the Thames-side offices of MI6. Even without the address in her hand, she could never have missed the distinctive, towering complex that housed the central offices of the British Secret Intelligence Service.

Some secret.

She paused out front, gathering her courage, and then—schooling herself not to look around like a tourist—pushed through the street doors into the very heart of Simon’s territory.

Breathless.

Because you’ll see him again.

It was the first time in the weeks since her return to London that she’d felt anything but numb, emotionally. Even the considerable panic of stepping up into Artie’s shoes and struggling to drag WildLyfe back from the brink of ruin hadn’t done more than make her nights restless. And she couldn’t hold work entirely responsible for that. Not when her dreams were filled with piercing, accusing gray eyes.

A history of horrendous business choices became apparent when someone other than Artie looked at his corporate records, but Clare’s accountant got straight to work extracting WildLyfe from the dodgier relationships and nurturing the good ones, while Clare kept the admin side of things running smoothly. What was left of the thirty-grand Tim—
Jim—
had let her keep from the fake grant paid for a month with a high-end recovery specialist who worked a corporate desk like a concert pianist, spinning challenges and accusations to a more positive angle with as much loyalty and courage as Jambi would have shown. It was one hell of a wake-up call to the kind of sheltered, single-focused world she’d been living in all this time. Artie’s world—like Simon’s, maybe?—was a tangled web of third-party politics and high-stakes expectations. It wouldn’t take much to set the whole lot unraveling.

Thankfully, being numb meant she’d experienced all this drama dispassionately. It felt good to be in an emotional white-out. It felt, well, if not good, then at least gratifying, to have things with Simon turn out just as disastrously as she’d always feared it would. It served her right for having hoped for more.

So why was just being in the same building with him exciting?

Why did walking the steps he walked and sitting where he might sit and meeting people he worked with have her heart fluttering?

She was in for one hell of a nasty fall if she didn’t tame her wild heart.

Especially since she didn’t have a shrink to help her pick up the pieces, anymore. Dr. Douglass had taken it pretty well, considering all the nasty names she’d called him. And then he’d asked her when he’d see her again because her treatment wasn’t finished.

Uh…yeah, Doc, it really is.
No Stockholm, no capture-bonding, no PTSD.

Just an ordinary, run-of-the-mill broken heart.

Yay for her.

She signed in at the first security check and ignored the curious stare of the receptionist. The bruising on her not-fractured jaw face was almost gone—who knew you could sprain a jaw?—and the stitches across her nose had been removed just yesterday. And her macerated heart was well-hidden under her warm sweater. So whatever had the woman’s interest so piqued it wasn’t carnage.

She flushed to the roots of her dark hair. Maybe her reputation preceded her?

Clare dropped McKenzie’s name to fast-track her through the second security check. Deep inside the building, she was greeted by name at a smaller reception desk in a simple waiting room. She didn’t see the receptionist make a call or announcement but, moments after she arrived, the statuesque figure of Agent Amazon swanned through an internal door.

“Ms. Delaney,” she said, thrusting forward her hand formally. “Thank you for agreeing to this interview. If you’ll follow me?” They walked still deeper into the building, and up a long hallway.

“How did it end up going with the pack in Africa?” McKenzie said to fill the long corridor walk.

“Good. The dogs were all settled in when I left, hunting successfully.”

“And you? Recovering well?”

From the attack. “Yes. Thank you for the specialist referral.”

She pushed through yet another door. “deVries arranged that.”

In case she thought Clare gave a rat’s, presumably. But that was as good an opening as any.

“I’ll have to thank him before we start the interview.”

“I’m afraid he’s not permitted to participate in the interviewing process, since he was directly involved in the alleged incident.”

Alleged? Seriously?

And had she really imagined he’d be in a hurry to see her again? He’d not made a single attempt at contacting her since hot-footing it back to London with his suspects.
Déjà deVries
.

They stopped at a pair of nondescript doors.

“Ms. Delaney, this is Brian Radcliffe, who will be sitting in on your interview.” McKenzie walked ahead into the austere room. Radcliffe brought up the rear and closed the door. A large, flat table sat in the middle of the room, with two chairs on one side and a single on the other. A jug of water and three glasses sat at the ready.

McKenzie sat across from her and Radcliffe took the chair to her right. Clare could see herself, pale and nervous, reflected in the mirrored glass of the window behind McKenzie. The whole room looked a lot like in the movies except the lighting seemed unnaturally bright.

Useful for interrogation
, she thought, and then smiled at herself in the mirror. Everything she knew about police procedure she’d learned from late night television. Or in Africa.

“Ms. Delaney, thank you for agreeing to meet with us,” McKenzie began. “I should let you know, officially, your involvement in the alleged incident has been completely ruled out.” A lump in Clare’s stomach dissolved. “Your signatures on the purchase order for the modification to the housing have been proven as forgeries and your transport of the collars has been confirmed as unwitting by one of the suspects. Therefore, the nature of this interview is simply to get final statements from you in your capacity as witness and also to build a picture of the events surrounding the previous and most recent trips to Africa. Do you understand?”

Clare nodded. “I gave full statements to the police officers waiting for me at Heathrow several weeks ago.” As the words left her lips she realized they had probably not been police at all, but rather SIS officers.

“That is correct. Those statements and the ones you provided in Zambia last year will form part of our investigation. However, other relevant information may have come to mind since you learned the true nature of the events surrounding your kidnapping. You won’t be required to repeat the details of the events, simply to answer questions which have arisen as a result of your first statement.” McKenzie rattled off the statement in a voice like a receptionist answering the phone.
Good Afternoon, Secret Intelligence Service. How may I direct your call?
The thought made Clare smile—and relax—just a bit.

McKenzie announced each of them aloud for a recording device Clare couldn’t see and then brought her keen gaze back to Clare. “Can we begin?”

Clare nodded again and swallowed her nerves.

Her boss was the first topic across McKenzie’s lips. Clare reiterated what she knew, stumbling over parts of the history with Artie and the collars, overly conscious of the formality of the situation.

McKenzie was ready with her next question the moment Clare finished sealing Artie’s fate. “We have a statement from Reginald John Preston, who makes the collars for your organization, that he was specifically asked to build into one batch of collars a second chip housing. Do you recall ever asking him for that or have any knowledge of anyone else asking for that?”

“No. I did not, and no one else asked for it as far as I’m aware.”

“Would you ordinarily know about such a request?”

“Yes. Reg would normally double-check any kind of change with me as project leader.” She paused. “Unless the request had come from higher up.” She looked at her hands.
Or been on a forged purchase order.

“From Lyfe. Your boss.”

Clare nodded.

McKenzie continued. “No one else?”

“There is no one else. Artie’s the director of the company.”

Was.

McKenzie frowned. “He implicated you intentionally and caused you to come to harm. Yet you hold remorse for providing your evidence?”

She took a deep breath. “Boots and Zimbabwe knew the travel route of the convoys. Both times.”

“For the record, Ms. Delaney is referencing the suspects.”

“That information could only have come from Artie,” she went on. Which meant he knew what they must have planned to do to her on that deserted track. “But I considered him a friend. I trusted him. So, yes, I find giving you what you need to imprison him for life difficult.” She held McKenzie’s eye. “But it’s not unearned.”

The smallest of crosses formed between Agent Amazon’s perfect brows. Radcliffe wrote a few more notes. Clare sipped her water.

“Ms. Delaney, I’d like to move forward now to the time after your convoy was hijacked. You have already made a thorough statement.” McKenzie cleared her throat. “However, Mr. deVries has made a statement which does not entirely correlate with yours. We need to discuss some of those discrepancies.”

She stared at McKenzie, waiting.

“Mr. deVries has alluded to certain physical interactions between you two during your confinement.” Heat surged up her neck. For the first time, McKenzie’s steely expression softened. The tiniest hint of sympathy crossed her face. “I’m sorry, Ms. Delaney. Out loud for the record, please?”

Clare spoke but her voice croaked. She cleared it roughly. “Yes.”

“You elected not to include these details in your earlier statements to the Zambian authorities?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I didn’t see they were relevant.”
God this was excruciating
. She just wanted the floor to open and swallow her whole.

McKenzie paused, considering. “Perhaps understandable under the circumstances. You were unaware he was operating undercover for SIS?”

“Yes. I was unaware.”

“You believed he was one of the criminals?”

Clare knew what it was McKenzie wanted to know. “Yes, I thought he was one of them. But I also thought he could keep me alive.”

“He was protecting you?”

To her mortification, tears sprang into her eyes. “He made me feel safe.”

That got her attention. “Safe?”

Clare nodded. “At the time, I thought he was just trying to prevent me from escaping, but he seemed determined that I not put myself at risk in any way.”

“Yet you did put yourself at risk, repeatedly. Much to his frustration.”

Clare smiled weakly. McKenzie’s turn of phrase reminded her very much of Simon. “I was working on my escape plan.”

“We’ll discuss your escape shortly. First, were you grateful to him?”

The barest twitch of expression in Radcliffe’s face told Clare he was not expecting this line of questioning. He glanced at the senior officer for direction.

“Uh. Yes, I guess so,” Clare murmured.

“And so did you develop real feelings for him, or was it strategic? Part of your escape plan?”

“Uh…” There was no good answer to that question. One made her a cold bitch and the other made her a fool. Radcliffe gave McKenzie a disapproving frown.

Reflected in the mirror behind the agents, a red light lit up on the wall behind Clare’s seat. McKenzie looked up, irritated, and then glanced at her watch.

“Interview suspended 2:34 p.m. Ms. McKenzie exits the room.” She stood. “Excuse me a moment.”

With no further word, she left Clare teetering on the edge of an unanswerable question, and Radcliffe busily reviewing his notes. He looked up at Clare and smiled awkwardly. She clearly wouldn’t be leaving today without publicly detailing the choices she’d made at the farmhouse. She supposed they had to know everything so there’d be no surprises later in court.

A moment later the red light went out and McKenzie came back through the door, apologized for the interruption, and did her little spiel for the recording. She puffed out her cheeks, then resumed. “I was asking you whether the physical interactions were planned in advance.”

“No you weren’t, you asked whether they were genuine.” Clare had to be honest but she didn’t have to be a victim.

McKenzie tilted her head in acknowledgement.

“Early on, it was strategic,” she admitted. “I needed someone in my court. But he caught onto that immediately and put an end to it.”

“And after that?”

“We spent a lot of time together and…he was kind. He made me feel…” Clare was at a loss for words.

Special
.

“Safe?” Radcliffe chimed in, consulting an earlier comment in his notes. Then he looked horrified that he’d even spoken. Agent McKenzie gave him a withering glare.