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Sullivan glared at him. “Don’t even think it,” he muttered.
Rachel lifted a forkful of spaghetti to her mouth. “I don’t think it’s Jane’s fault that she had twins, or that it snowed.”
“Logically, no,” Sullivan admitted. “But logic flies out the window when Jane walks in the door.”
“How did you meet her?”
“I kidnapped her,” he said offhandedly, leaving Rachel gasping, because he offered no other explanation.
“How did you get away from her?” Kell asked, provoking another glare.
“It wasn’t easy, but she couldn’t leave the kids.” Sullivan leaned back in his chair, an unholy light entering his eyes. “You’re going to have to go back with me to explain.”
Kell looked alarmed, then resigned; finally he grinned. “All right. I want to see you with these babies.”
“They’re already crawling. You have to watch where you step,” the proud father said, grinning in return. “Their names are Dane and Daniel, but beats the hell out of me which one is which. Jane said we can let them decide when they get older.”
That was it. The three of them looked at one another, and Rachel gulped helplessly. Kell made a rough choking sound. In a perfectly choreographed move three forks were laid down on the table and three people held their heads and laughed until they hurt.
CHARLES READ THE hastily gathered intelligence report on Rachel, frowning as he rubbed his forehead with one thin finger. According to both Agents Lowell and Ellis, Rachel Jones was a good-looking but otherwise ordinary woman, even though Ellis was enamored of her. Ellis was enamored of women in general, so that wasn’t unusual. The problem was that the report painted her as anything but ordinary. She was a well educated, well traveled, multitalented woman, but again the problem went even deeper than th
at. She had been an investigative reporter of extraordinary talent, nerve and perseverance, which meant that she was more knowledgeable than the ordinary person about things that were usually kept from public knowledge. According to her record she had been very successful in her field. Her husband had been murdered by a car bomb meant for her when she began investigating a powerful politician’s connection with illegal drugs; rather than backing down, as many people would have done, this Rachel Jones had kept after the politician and not only proved that he was involved with drug smuggling and dealing, she had proved that he was behind her husband’s death. The politician was now serving a life sentence in prison.
This wasn’t the rather unsophisticated woman Lowell and Ellis had described. What particularly troubled Charles was why she had projected such an image; she had to have a reason, but what was it? Why had she wanted to deceive them? For amusement, or had there been a more serious motivation?
Charles wasn’t surprised that she had lied; in his experience most people lied. In his profession it was necessary to lie. What he didn’t like was not knowing why, because the why of something was the heart of it.
Sabin had disappeared, possibly dead, though Charles couldn’t convince himself of that. No trace of him had been found, not by Charles’s men, a fishing trawler, a pleasure boater, or any law enforcement agency. Even though Sabin’s boat had exploded there should have been some identifiably human remains—if Sabin had been on the boat. The only explanation was that he had gone overboard and swum for shore. It almost defied belief to think that he could actually have made it in his wounded condition, but this was Sabin, not some ordinary man. He had made it to shore, but where? Why hadn’t he surfaced yet? No one had found a wounded man; no unaccounted-for gunshot wounds had been reported to the police; he hadn’t been admitted to any of the hospitals in the area. He had simply disappeared into thin air.
So, on the one hand he had Sabin, who had vanished. The only possibility was that someone was hiding him, but there were no clues. On the other hand, there was this Rachel Jones, who, like Sabin, was not ordinary. Her house was in the prime search area, the area where Sabin would have most likely made it to shore. Neither Lowell nor Ellis thought she had anything to hide, but they didn’t know everything about her. She had projected a false image; she was more familiar than could have been suspected with undercover agents and tactics. But what reason could she have for acting like less than what she was…unless she had something to hide? More to the point, did she have someone to hide?
“Noelle,” he said softly. “I want to talk to Lowell and Ellis. Immediately. Find them.”
An hour later both men were sitting across from him. Charles folded his hands and smiled absently at them. “Gentlemen, I want to discuss this Rachel Jones. I want to know everything you can remember about her.”
Ellis and Lowell exchanged looks; then Ellis shrugged. “She’s a good-looking woman—”
“No, I am not interested in her looks. I want to know what she has said and done. When you searched the beach in her area and went up to her house, did you go inside?”
“No,” Lowell replied.
“Why not?”
“She’s got this damned big guard dog who hates men. He won’t let a man in the yard,” Ellis explained.
“Even when you took her out to dinner?”
Ellis looked discomfited, as if he disliked admitting that a dog had scared him off. “She came out to the car. When I took her home the dog was there waiting, ready to take my leg off if I moved in the wrong direction.”
“So no one has been inside her house.”
“No,” they both admitted.
“She denied any knowledge of seeing a man, a stranger?”
“There’s no way Sabin could have gotten anywhere near that house without the dog having him for breakfast,” Ellis said impatiently, and Lowell nodded in agreement.
Charles tapped his fingertips together. “Even if she took him into the house herself? What if she found him? She could have tied the dog up, then gone back for Sabin. Isn’t this possible?”
