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“So I let you have him.” She rose from the chair and moved back to the coffeemaker, where she collected the pot and returned to refill their cups. “What’s your bitch?”
She glimpsed the tightening of his jaw, the way his forehead tensed and had to force herself not to grit her teeth. Was it wishful thinking?
“My bitch is the fact that you haven’t learned your lesson,” he said dangerously. “You’re still trying to bite off more than you can chew.”
Now, this was just supposition, she thought in amusement. He couldn’t be certain why she had returned home, no matter what he wanted to believe.
“I was fired from the agency, John, or did you forget that little piece of information?” She shoved the pot back into the coffeemaker before turning to face him once again. “I’m not on assignment here.”
“You weren’t on assignment in Atlanta, either,” he grunted as he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “Don’t play games with me, Bailey. We both know why you returned here.”
Bailey inhaled deeply, gritted her teeth and forced back the anger that rose inside her at his domineering attitude.
“This is my home, John. Where else was I supposed to go?”
“The same home you disowned fourteen years ago?” He rose from his chair now and faced her challengingly. “The same home you swore you’d never return to when your father refused to believe that his best friend had killed his wife and daughter? Is that the home you’re talking about here?”
Control, control. She breathed in once, twice. She wasn’t going to let him crack the shield she had promised herself she would keep in place.
“That was a long time ago . . .”
“Bullshit!” he snarled. “You came back one time, when your parents were killed. After that you began chasing Orion. You suspected he was involved in their deaths, didn’t you?”
“Was he?” What else had John found when his group had assassinated the assassin? What other files had Orion kept?
Bailey shook her head slowly. “He was here in Aspen the night they were killed, that was all I ever knew. What did you find?”
If he’d kept the information that he’d been hired to let her live, then perhaps he had kept other information as well.
“We found his kill book,” John revealed. “Your father’s name was listed.”
She swung away from him, her hand covering her lips to hold back the cry that would have slipped from them. She had known. She gripped the counter with her other hand to hold herself up, fighting the tremors that wanted to shake her body. She had known her parents had been murdered by Orion.
“Why?” She forced the word past her lips. “Why were they killed?”
She had to fight back the tears that filled her eyes, the pain that clawed at her chest as she felt him moving behind her.
“Bailey.” His hands gripped her shoulders as he turned her slowly to face him.
She couldn’t look up at him. Tears were a weakness. Never let them see you cry, her mother had always cautioned. Never show anyone your weakness.
“Why did he kill them?” She forced the question past her lips as she tried to pull away from him. “What did they know?”
“You know he wouldn’t have had that information,” he breathed out roughly. “No more than he knew why Warbucks wanted you to live.”
She froze. This time, she couldn’t hide her reaction, she couldn’t stop the stiffening of her body or the way her gaze jerked to his.
“That’s why you gave us the information on Orion,” he stated calmly despite the anger that brewed in his eyes. “Isn’t it, Bailey? You cut your losses in Atlanta. You gave us Orion so you could go after Warbucks.”
When she pulled back from him, he let her go. Shaking her head, she pushed her hands into the pockets of her robe and breathed out heavily.
“I didn’t know Warbucks was involved,” she finally told him, hating herself because she really hadn’t known. “I didn’t know until after I came back last year. I decided to return to find out who hired Orion. I found Warbucks mentioned in one of Father’s journals. No one knew he kept them, or where they were hidden. He mentioned in several of the journals that he suspected someone among his set of friends was a traitor. The last journal, he had the name Warbucks written and underlined with a question mark beside it.”
She should have come
home sooner, she thought again. It had been a steady refrain since her return. She had come home to find out who had hired Orion; she should have known it was Warbucks. She should have suspected.
She turned back to John, wishing she could make sense of the need, the demand inside her that she trust him. She didn’t trust anyone; she had learned never to trust that anyone would still be with her tomorrow. They were taken, they were always taken away from her. Or they left.
