Page 71 of Dangerous Secrets

How could?—

The front doorbell rang and her head whipped around, making her faintly nauseous again.

Every hair on her body rose because together with his scent, she somehow felt . . .Nick. Felt his presence, felt his aura. Nick’s aura was strong. He was a force of nature. Whenever she’d been near him, it was as if the molecules in the air speeded up. He cast an energy field around him. He punched a six-foot two Nick-shaped hole in the universe.

The bell rang again, longer this time.

Charity should be rushing to the door, opening it and welcoming Vassily into her home. It was beyond discourteous letting an elderly man wait outside in the freezing cold. But Charity was frozen herself, with horror.

She was drenched in Nick’s scent, drowning in his aura and it terrified her.

Oh God, this was infinitely worse than smelling charred bones, horrible as that was. The moments by Nick’s poor, ravaged body had been traumatic, the memory seared into her very being. No wonder, in her grief, that she could revisit them. She knew she’d revisit the images until the end of time, in her nightmares.

Still, smelling Nick’s death, however awful, was normal.

But smelling and sensing Nick—the live, vital, sexy Nick, not the sad charred sticks that were all that was left of his mortal body—in her bathroom and bedroom took horror to a new level. This wasn’t a memory, something real, something she could hold on to, however horrible. No, this was her mind playing tricks on her. This was insanity.

That slippery hold she had on reality was starting to fray.

She looked down at herself. Her forearms were covered in goosebumps.

The bell rang again, two long rings.

The idea of feeling Nick in empty rooms for the rest of her life was terrifying. Her stomach rejected the very notion.

She bolted for the toilet where she miserably retched the few remaining molecules of milk left. Her stomach spasmed and spasmed again, bringing up only green bile, until she didn’t have the strength to stand and sank down to her knees.

She rested like that, feverish cheek against the cold porcelain bowl, for a full minute. Vassily was waiting outside, but she simply didn’t have the strength to get up.

Another ring, this time with impatience behind it. Vassily would be feeling the cold. His leg ached when the weather was damp and cold, like today. She simply couldn’t make him wait any longer.

Using the toilet for leverage, she stood slowly, straightening and waiting a second to see if her stomach had settled. It had.

She rinsed her mouth out with water to rid herself of the terrible taste.

Gritting her teeth, Charity forced her feet to move, using sheer willpower to make it to the door. One foot after another. Left, right, left, right. Spooked, trembling.

Fuck,that was close!

Nick’s heart was still pounding as he crouched in the space between the garage and the house. His thermal imager had shown that she was in the living room, so he’d taken the chance to seed the back of her house with bugs. In her purse, in the vase on the sideboard, in the pockets of her jackets. He was fast and he was quiet, but she’d almost caught him.

Checking in with the head office this morning had driven his anxiety levels off the charts. After giving him a scolding Nick barely listened to, his boss provided an update.

Chatter in Sandland was off the charts, spiking yesterday, about an upcoming meeting with ‘the Russian’. They’d intercepted a call between Hassad al-Banna and Abu Rhabi, who were a little less circumspect with their cell phones than Worontzoff was.

There was going to be a meeting, soon. And something else was going to happen, soon. And it was going to be big. The details weren’t there but it was enough to make the office crap its collective pants.

That was the only reason Nick hadn’t been sent to Alaska or North Dakota to check on terrorist ties there. And since he’d flat out refused to come back to DC, he was allowed to continue with the mission. Under strictest orders to stay in the surveillance van and not even crack the door open for a piss.

But Charity’s house was a magnet, he simply couldn’t stay away. He’d get on the road to drive to the surveillance van, then find himself driving back in. It was as if Hit Man’s SUV was sensitive to some kind of force field around Parker’s Ridge.

The operator who could never get lost now found himself lost beyond saving, unable to leave.

Being here, now, outside Charity’s house was breaking every single rule in the book, and about a dozen beyond that.

He wasn’t going to be recognized. Dressed in black from head to foot, with thin black shooting gloves and a black Nomex balaclava, nobody could possibly recognize him even if they saw him, which they wouldn’t.

He had been with his head against the downstairs bathroom wall. Through the siding, he could hear her vomiting, then quietly crying. He heard it twice—through the wall and over the mikes he’d scattered through the bedroom.

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