Release

He got two pieces of whole-wheat out of the bag, then did up the twist tie with his teeth. The mayo jar went under his left arm to hold it steady while he unscrewed the cap. Then he had to put the cap down, take the jar in his right hand and put that down. Get the knife, shove the bread up next to the plate so it would stay steady, then spread each side slowly and carefully. Once that was done, he went through the whole under-the-arm procedure again just to close the damn thing.

It all took too long and felt too awkward, and he didn’t see how he could go through the rest of his life like this.

To add injury to insult, his hand hurt like hell. The left one. He knew it wasn’t there, but still, it hurt. A lot. All he wanted to do was rub it, right in the center of his palm. If he could do that, it would be fine—the cramp, if that’s what it was, would be gone and he would stop thinking about it—but there was no hand to rub. It was just a pain that followed him around like a shadow. Oh, sometimes it itched in addition to the ache, and that was even worse. Harper said it would get better as time went on. Which was fine except every single day felt like it went on forever, so when, exactly, were things going to improve?

It probably would have been okay if it was the only pain he couldn’t assuage. But there was this other thing, this hormonal thing that was probably a result of the amputation, although no one talked about it. It had to be some kind of chemical misfire that made him want her like this. As if he couldn’t breathe until he was inside her. As if she was the magic that would take his pain away.

He opened the pack of honey-baked ham with his teeth, then slipped out a few slices. Good thing he had teeth or he’d have been up the creek. Now if he could only figure out a convenient way to unzip his fly….

“I’m having some ice cream. Oh, you’re not done.”

He spun around, and the plastic bag of ham went flying out of his mouth. It hit the floor and slid, half the ham spilling on the linoleum as it went. Instantly he was so angry he could barely see, his eyes blurred behind a veil of red mist.

The only thing that penetrated was her laughter.

His fist curled into a ball so tight he could feel his short fingernails cut into his palm. His heart beat fast, pounding against his ribs. And Harper thought it was hilarious.

He wanted to hurt her. To grab her by her shoulders and shake her. She had no right. No business. She was a doctor, for God’s sake. She should know. But she didn’t. She didn’t understand, and that wasn’t fair because it was all her fault. She’d stolen his hand, taken it from him when he was too weak to stop her. Bitch. She’d ripped him apart, and her laughter sounded like a Klaxon in the quiet old house, bouncing off the high ceiling and the big plate-glass windows. Christ, he was so angry he couldn’t see. And he was getting hard at her laughter. What the hell was happening to him?

“Oh, God, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t laugh. But, really, it was perfect.”

He needed to get out, to go down to his basement, but she was standing in the way. He didn’t dare touch her. He wasn’t sure what he would do—hurt her or kiss her or…

“Come on, Seth. Where’s your sense of humor? Even you have to see that was funny.”

He saw no such thing. Not when she was in her robe. The material tight against her breasts, curved into her waist. The hollow at the base of her neck pale and delicate. He could imagine the smell of her, the clean womanly scent that made him ache every time she came close.

She walked toward him and he stiffened, panic constricting his throat. He had to get out, to leave before it got even worse, but he couldn’t pass her. So he turned away, forced himself to walk to the front door. Then he was outside and the cold wind slapped him in the face.

He went down the six stairs to the crumbling walkway and the torn sidewalk. He went left, no reason. He walked on unsteady legs and kept walking until he got his feet under him and then he walked until the thickness in his pants went away. But the ache, the wound where he wanted her like air, wouldn’t leave him. Not for blocks or miles.

HARPER GAVE UP WAITING for him an hour after he’d stormed out. She’d been a moron, which wasn’t like her. Of course he’d been humiliated by the whole thing. He hated it when she walked in on him making his sandwich. Hated her to see him struggle. And she’d laughed.

It wouldn’t surprise her in the least if he didn’t come back at all. He’d probably rather sleep in a cardboard box than face her again.

She left the front window and headed to the kitchen, where she put her old kettle on the stove. What she really wanted was a good stiff drink, but she’d settle for tea. If she didn’t have to work tomorrow…But she did. And so did Seth, so wherever he was, he needed to get his act together before seven.

This was not working out the way she’d hoped. She had to smile at the understatement. When she thought about how he’d looked at her…she wasn’t sure if he’d wanted to kill her or take her to bed.

It was that look of his, the one that had confused her for months, only about a hundred times stronger.

What was it with him? She got out her tea collection and went for the chamomile. That and the nice clover honey would at least cut the chill from her bones.

He hadn’t even grabbed his coat. So he was out there without his prosthetic, wearing nothing more than a T-shirt and jeans. If he had the brains God gave a post, he’d at least find himself a nice, warm bar.

She waited until the kettle sang, then poured herself a mug, which she took over to the kitchen table. Curling her leg underneath her, she sipped the hot tea, then pulled the phone close. It took her a minute to remember the number, but it was there, memorized out of necessity. She dialed, and after five rings Kate answered.

“Hi,” Harper said, wishing there was another way. “Do you think you could take Seth for a while?”

NATE WATCHED TAMARA as she peered over her half-glasses, reading test results from her latest run on the antidote. He supposed he could have brought Kate with him again on this supply run, but selfishly he wanted to spend time with Tam alone.

She was close, damn close. She’d managed to take most of the notes from the lab in Serbia when they’d escaped and use them to recreate the serum, but what she hadn’t gotten was a method of dispensing the antidote that would work effectively. Right now the only way to be safe was to have the serum injected, but that wouldn’t work if the gas were let loose in the center of a big factory or over an entire village. So she continued to work, alone, in the underground lab that was too cold and too impersonal to be anything but a prison.

“Come out to dinner with me,” he said.

She took off her glasses and stared at him in disbelief. God, her eyes were great. Slightly Asian, they were full of intelligence and innocence at the same time. “Have you been sniffing the vials again?”

He jumped down from the counter and walked closer to her, close enough to see the little tendrils of dark hair that had come loose from her tight ponytail. She was in jeans, T-shirt and lab coat, but even the coat and the glasses wouldn’t convince a stranger that she was a brilliant chemist.

He’d be the first to admit that he hadn’t been around many scientists in his life. His line of work lent itself more toward dictators and mercenaries. But he knew that Tam was not someone he’d have picked to be the brains of the operation. Like most sexist-pig men, he’d have pegged her as the saucy secretary or the babe on the payroll because she’d slept with the boss.

She’d disabused him of that notion the day they’d met.

“I’m not sniffing anything. You’ve been cooped up down here for too long. You need to get out. Have a beer. Laugh a little.”

“I’m too close, Nate. I’m not going to take any chances now.”

“I’m not asking you if you want to fly to Paris, Tam. Dinner. Even you have to eat.”

“I eat just fine.”

“MREs. Frozen dinners. That’s no way to live.”

“I’ll live when I have the disbursement system ready to go.”

He wanted to argue, but it was useless. She was an incredibly stubborn woman, and since he’d known her, she’d gotten her way in every single dispute. Except for that first one. She’d wanted to stay, convinced the government would be crazy to destroy the only hopes of an antidote to the nerve gas. In truth, it hadn’t been him who’d persuaded her. The first bomb had done that.

“How come Kate didn’t come with you?”

“She’s working on the ledgers from Kosovo. It’s coming along, but slowly. She can only work on it at night. She’s got that waitress gig at the IHOP.”

Tam put down her clipboard and leaned against a large cabinet full of test results. “She likes this cop Vince, huh?”

“He’s a good guy. He’s been a real help since Seth was shot.”

“How is Seth?”

Nate rubbed his chin, feeling the stubble of another ten-hour workday. “Physically he’s improving, but he’s still in a major depression.”

“That’s only to be expected.”

“It’s still tough. The guy’s been in the service since he got out of college. And he was in the ROTC before that. All he knows is fighting.”

“They’re doing amazing things with prosthetics now. In a few years, he’ll be able to do almost anything he could with his real hand. He just needs to be patient.”

“Patient? Seth? Not gonna happen.”

“He has no choice, though, does he?”

“You’re right about that. I just feel bad for the guy.”

“I feel bad for all of us.” Her head went down and she sighed loudly. “I’m so tired. I just want my life back, you know? I want to go to a movie. I want to sleep late and go on dates and shop for shoes. But every time I try to slack off, this major wave of guilt hits me. What if they use the weapon today? What if a village is massacred while I’m watching TV?”

“You can only do what you can do. One step at a time. But it’s important for you to take some breaks. This pace is going to kill you.”

“I exercise on the treadmill. I take vitamins. I’m fine.”

“You’re pale as a ghost. You need to get outside more.”

“It’s almost ten o’clock.”

“I wasn’t just talking about tonight.”

“Soon. I promise.” She sighed.

“Do you need anything else?”

“A team of graduate students would be nice.”

“Anything I can get you?”

“No,” she said, smiling just a bit.

“That’s a good look on you.”

She frowned, looking down at her lab coat. “This?”

“The smile.”

“Sweet but unnecessary. I’m fine. I’m not going completely nuts yet. And, as I’ve mentioned, I’m close.”

He nodded, getting the hint. “Fine. I’m out of here. But don’t be surprised to see me Friday.”

“I’ll have to remember to look at a calendar.”

“Do that.” He touched her shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “It’s not all going to go to hell if you have a nice dinner.”

“Sweet man, it’s already gone to hell.”

He couldn’t argue with that.

4

HARPER HUNG UP THE phone, but she didn’t move. It was late, she should go to sleep. Tomorrow was a long day and she had to meet with the accountant, which made it even worse. But she hadn’t heard Seth come back yet, and that worried her.

There was no question that he needed counseling. But he was such an incredibly stubborn fool that he wouldn’t hear of it. Stupid, stupid. Now that Kate had turned her down, what was she supposed to do? Throw him out on the street? The man was wanted, and if those pricks from Omicron found him, they wouldn’t kill him fast.

She leaned back in her chair, cursing yet again the day she’d gotten involved in this mess. The dreams about Serbia were a nightly affair now. It didn’t matter how late she went to bed, what she ate or drank, how exhausted she was. She kept finding herself back among the dead.

What would it take to purge herself of these memories? Of the smells that filled her nostrils from thousands of miles and years away? Her head told her she wouldn’t be free until Omicron was exposed, but her gut told her it was worse than that. She’d broken her cardinal rule: don’t get involved.

Shit. She should have walked away and never looked back. Kept her eyes on her work and nothing more.

Where the hell was he? She couldn’t even call the police to report him missing, now, could she? It ticked her off that she was even thinking about Seth. He was gone? Good. Let him stay gone. He was nothing but trouble.

Harper got up and headed toward her bedroom. It felt good to have her home as her own once more, even though it really wasn’t her home. Nate had found this place and he’d wanted it because of the basement. Having a trauma room at the ready was fine for the rest of them, but for her it was a sword of Damocles. For the first six months she’d awakened at every noise, at every creak, certain she would end up watching over someone’s death just before the place was raided and she was killed.

Great way to live.

The only thing that had gotten her through it was her work at the clinic. Nate had objected, of course, but she’d told him just where he could go. The job had become her world. She’d kept a nice distance from the staff, but she’d put her all into each patient. That she had to do administrative tasks was bearable as long as she got in her treatment hours.

That’s when it all made sense. When she was helping people. Healing. Everything else in her life might have gone down the toilet, but at the clinic she gave hope, care, medicine, guidance. Nothing was better than that. She had a reason. A purpose.

She got ready for bed, taking her time in the bathroom as she gave her face a good cleansing and a minty mask. In the bedroom, she fluffed her pillows and pulled up her comforter. The room itself was spare—she hadn’t spent much on decorating. Now, as she looked around the place, she wished she’d at least picked up some vases, put some fresh flowers on the counters or by her bed.

By the time she’d gotten the chill out of her feet and read a few chapters in a book she might never have time to finish, it was past midnight. Still Seth hadn’t returned. She wondered if he’d been arrested. Or shot.

She turned out the light, determined to fall asleep immediately, curious if Seth’s absence would give her a dreamless night. She hoped so.

SETH STOOD BY THE pay phone in front of the twenty-four-hour supermarket. It was late as hell, and he was so cold he could barely feel his fingers, but he didn’t want to go back, not yet.

It wasn’t that he didn’t have the number or the correct change. It was that he had no idea what he was going to say.

His parents had thought he was dead. They’d had a funeral for their only son, and he knew that they had died a little themselves to have watched his casket lowered into the ground.

Now they knew he was alive. Not by hearing the words from their son’s mouth but from watching a U.S. senator denounce him as a traitor to his country. Seth couldn’t even imagine the pain his folks had gone through and the questions they must have.

It killed him to know he couldn’t just take off for Seattle and talk to them, explain that he wasn’t a criminal and that he hadn’t disgraced them.

He thought about his little sisters. They weren’t so little anymore, but he’d always see them as the two brats who followed him everywhere, who cried each time he had to leave for assignments that were shrouded in mystery.

His family, who’d stood behind him no matter what, had gone through hell the last couple of years. What was he going to say on this goddamn public phone that would make things better? Even more of a concern was that Omicron might have his parent’s phone bugged.

He thought about what had happened to Christie. She’d thought—they’d all thought—that Nate was dead. She was Nate’s only sister, and his death had been hard on her. Of course, she’d never suspected anything like Omicron when someone began stalking her. She’d just gotten frantic as the stalker had gotten closer and closer, and then Boone had gone to help. Together, they’d discovered that it wasn’t just a stalker. It was Omicron, convinced that Nate was alive, sure that if they made Christie desperate enough, she’d reveal Nate’s whereabouts.

They’d caught the guy directly responsible for stalking her and a few other hit men, but Christie couldn’t go back to her old life. Like him, like all of them, she was on the run—and would be until Omicron was exposed. The only bright spot had been that she and Boone had become a couple. At least Boone had someone who wouldn’t laugh at him.

Which wasn’t the point. His first concern had to be his family’s welfare. There was no choice, so he turned away from the phone, not willing to take the risk. He’d thought about writing to them, but he wasn’t sure who was watching them. He’d put nothing past Omicron.

He should go back to the house. Harper would be in bed by now, so he wouldn’t have to face her. He wasn’t nearly as embarrassed about the ham as he was about running out like a five-year-old.

He shook his head as he headed back down the long street filled with cramped shops. Boyle Heights was an old Los Angeles neighborhood that had gone through a number of transitions. Mary Lee at the clinic had told him that in the forties and fifties it was a haven for Jewish immigrants. Signs of their tenure were still around: an old synagogue converted into an apartment building with the Hebrew letters still outlined on the brick, a secondhand resale shop with a kosher chicken on the window. But now Boyle Heights, like most inner-city neighborhoods, was ruled by the gangs. There was graffiti and tags on every available surface. Bloods, Crips, gangs he’d never heard of—they were all visible in brilliant spray-paint hues.

No one had bothered him on his walk. He’d passed plenty of guys wearing colors, but they’d caught sight of his stump and steered clear. Guess it was good for something.

Of course, they might have been avoiding him because it was thirty degrees out here and he was wearing a T-shirt, jeans and no coat.

His gaze moved to the few feet in front of him as he neared the old house on St. Louis Street. Most of the people who lived in the area knew she was one of the doctors at the free clinic and therefore she was okay. He rode in on her ticket, which probably protected him more than his long hair or his disguise.

When he got to Harper’s, he thought again about not going in. He hated having to come here, having to do the crap work at the clinic. He hated everything about his life now, not the least of which was being a fugitive. The worst of it was feeling so helpless.

He wondered what Nate was doing tonight. Whatever it was, he was furthering their cause. Probably with Kate or Vince at his side, watching his back.

There was nothing for him to do but go on inside. To crawl into the basement and dream of days when he’d been whole. When he hadn’t given Harper a second thought.

He reached across his body to his left pocket and took out his key. The front light was on, so it wasn’t a problem, but the house was wired with some of the most sophisticated alarms in the world. Luckily he’d been the one who’d installed them when they’d bought the house, so he knew exactly how to get in quietly.

The moment he stepped inside, he knew Harper was asleep. Yeah, she could have just been in bed, but there was a different energy in the house when she was awake. He’d never say those words out loud, knowing how crazy he sounded. Shit, his unit would have laughed him out of Delta. Even so, he knew what he knew, and Harper was sleeping.

Another thing he knew how to do was be quiet. He’d had a lot of training in that department. He’d been on a hell of a lot of missions where to fail was to die. So he didn’t make much noise. Not even when he went down the long hallway to Harper’s bedroom, not when he stood in front of her door wondering what in hell he expected to find. He wasn’t about to knock. And he might be a lot of things, but he wasn’t about to go in uninvited. Not that she ever would. Not him. Not ever.

He turned before he did something stupid, but instead of heading to bed, he went to the bathroom. The chill had gone deep and he needed a good long, hot shower.

Once there, he stripped, turned on the water and avoided looking at himself in the mirror. With the room steamed sufficiently, he got under the flow, wincing at the heat. But he toughed it out until his whole body felt warm and relaxed. He hadn’t realized just how exhausted he was. The thought of going down to that cold, sterile basement, with the oversized OR lights and hulking machines all around his bed, was enough to make him wish he hadn’t come back at all.

Like the good soldier he used to be, he grabbed his washcloth off the rod, then picked up the soap with it. That’s how he washed these days. With the soap wrapped in terry. The only thing he hadn’t figured out was how to scrub his right shoulder. A back scrubber helped, but there were just some parts he couldn’t get to.

Even more disconcerting to him was washing his hair with one hand. He had no problem cleaning his hair, but it felt wrong. Weird how some things felt worse than others. Like those slip-on shoes. He hated those with a vengeance.

Finally he was as clean as he could get and warm all the way through, so he turned off the shower. He dried as much as possible and picked up his jeans. But he couldn’t put them back on. Instead he wrapped the towel around his waist, using the side of the sink as a hand substitute.

He shoved his clothes under his arm and headed out into the chilly hallway—and right into Harper.

She gasped. He dropped his clothes, and the knot of his towel loosened. He caught it about a second too late.

“Oh, God, I’m sorry,” she said. She didn’t have on her robe. Just a sleep shirt that draped over her breasts, molding her nipples.

“What the hell are you doing?”

She stepped back abruptly. “Well, excuse me for worrying.”

“What, you think now that I’m a cripple, I can’t take care of myself?”

“No, I don’t—”

Without picking up his clothes, he walked past her, bumping her shoulder, cutting her off. He couldn’t look at her and he couldn’t stand for her to see him like this. It didn’t matter that she’d seen his stump a thousand times, that she’d given him the goddamn thing. He had to get out of there.

Halfway down to the basement his eyes started to burn, which made him want to break down the door, destroy everything in his path. Instead he just went to the side of his bed, dropped his towel on the floor and put his hand on his swelling erection.

VINCE HAD A BAD feeling about this. He should have heard from Corky Baker this morning. When he’d called the reporter, there had been no answer. Not on the home phone, the cell phone. And no one at the Times had any information.

Ever since Vince had gotten involved in this Omicron mess, he’d learned to be extraordinarily cautious. Although he hadn’t been in Kosovo, couldn’t have found the place on a map, he was in this fight to the end. Because of Kate. Because if anything happened to her, he wasn’t at all sure what he would do. She was the first—and last—woman he would ever love. And when it was over, when Omicron was exposed and Kate had her identity back, he planned on having one hell of a good life with her. Yeah. Just the two of them. So he’d be careful. Damn careful.

He’d had to wait until nightfall to come. Nate was pretty sure that Baker’s house was under surveillance, so they had to be in full stealth mode.

Kate had wanted to come, but he’d made up some bullshit about needing Nate to break in when the truth was he just wanted to keep her out of danger. It wasn’t possible, of course. Just knowing what she knew was enough to get her killed. But he didn’t have to watch it happen.

He would never have believed meeting Kate would have led him here. To quit his job as an LAPD homicide detective, to become part of this team of fugitives. Almost more unbelievable is that he’d had to go to Corky Baker and ask the reporter for help. He and Baker had a long, unhappy history of bumping into each other at murder scenes. Vince trying to solve them, Baker trying to earn Brownie points from his editor by snooping everywhere he didn’t belong. That very trait made him the right man to get on Omicron’s case.