Under the Sheets (Capitol Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  Grant smiled at the image of Brooke’s dark hair and her hourglass figure, on which her suit fit like a custom-made glove, contrasted against the whiteness of newly fallen snow. He must drag his thoughts away from her body. It made him harden just thinking of her.

  No matter what she said, he had to see her again. She’d awakened something in him, and even though it was Robyn he’d begun kissing, he was fully aware of the woman in his arms long before he broke off the hold she had on him. And she, too, had been affected by the kiss. She had lain against him for several exquisite minutes, her breath ragged, her body out of control.

  "Grant, I love Brooke and Kari as if they were part of my own family." Will’s voice pulled his attention back to the present. "I’d never do anything to hurt them. Brooke has already suffered through a deep hurt."

  "I know, I can see it in her eyes." Grant remem­bered the photograph he’d held. The saddest eyes he’d ever seen had stared back from a face smiling at an unseen camera. "Did she ever say who caused it?"

  "No, and I never asked. She’s a fiercely inde­pendent woman."

  Grant agreed. "I could tell that by the way we had to practically carry her out of the hospital to get her to rest."

  Will paused a moment. "Don’t get me wrong, Grant. I don’t mean to sound as if Brooke is hiding anything more than any other person. It’s just that she has boundaries she’s erected. I’m careful to stay on my side."

  "What do you think I should do about them?" They had reached the airport entrance. Will stopped the car at the light. When it switched from red to green, he guided the powerful vehicle into the airport complex, following the directed paths to the terminal entrance. Parking in front of the automatic glass doors, he faced Grant.

  "I can’t answer that one, Grant. What do you feel?"

  What did he feel? Grant turned the question over in his mind. He wasn’t sure how he felt. He only knew that she affected him and that he liked it. She was the first woman in five years whom he wanted to see again. And she made him hotter than hell. He didn’t know where a relationship with Brooke Johnson would lead, but he was certainly going to find out.

  Chapter 5

  Jacob stared at the Capitol through the windows of his office. His desk was cluttered with reports that he needed to go over. Yet, he wasn’t in the mood for them. Usually, he had no problem with his work. He even liked it. Marianne had left a week ago. In the last year, her departures had left him feeling lazy, and he had difficulty concentrating. He attributed it to his having worked almost nonstop for the entire weekend, but the truth was the pint-size redhead got under his skin. He’d been uneasy since Sunday—since Marianne had flown back to Buffalo. She’d been re­porting regularly for four years, yet something about this time was different. He couldn’t put his finger on the cause, but he’d known her long enough to understand that this time the small redhead had held something back.

  It was her eyes. Jacob was accustomed to reading what people meant by the way they moved their hands or shifted in their chairs. But the most expressive fea­ture in all human nature was the eyes. Marianne’s were large and brown. They twinkled when she smiled and filled with tears when she was sad. Jacob had seen many moods cross her face over the years, but this weekend’s had no predecessor.

  He stood up, pushing the curtains aside and pull­ing the miniblinds to the top of the window. Absently, he toyed with the cord. Traffic below hummed its af­ternoon song as taxis and cars vied for strategic po­sitions along the wide thoroughfare. Then, her call last night had unnerved him. It was possible that all the blood supplies in the area were exhausted, but he didn’t buy that. Not after talking to Carl.

  He looked at the white cord still in his hand as if it could answer his questions. Reports on his desk con­firmed there was AB negative blood on the shelves of several hospitals in Buffalo, yet all their computers reported it as exhausted or outdated. Someone was manipulating the situation. Jacob had to find out who and how.

  Maybe he should call Marianne. He checked his watch. She’d be at the restaurant by now. It was just past noon. She’d be too busy to talk, and Jacob didn’t know what he wanted to ask. Plus there was the added concern that Robyn might answer Marianne’s cell. She’d done it once.

  Maybe tonight, he thought, maybe he could ask her what she hadn’t told him before he dropped her at the airport. By tonight he’d have had more time to analyze the reports on the network. Maybe he would have something for her to watch out for. But more impor­tant, maybe he could find out what it was she wasn’t telling him.

  Dropping the cord, Jacob sat down and pulled the Jordan file in front of him. "Eyes Only" was stamped across the manila folder. He opened it, reading the top page. A description of the hit man along with a 5” X 7" color photo. He was holding the photo when his office door was pushed inward.

  "Jacob." Chase Dalrymple strolled unan­nounced into his office. The director of the U.S. Marshall Service was a man in his fifties with sparkling blue eyes and silver hair. He looked more like an aging screen star than the keeper of the national security of the United States. And he was Jacob’s friend. "Are you free for lunch?"

  "Of course," Jacob said, eying the director. Jacob often ate at his desk while he read the hundreds of pieces of paper that crossed it daily. "Is there some­thing on your mind?" Jacob was straightforward.

  "Yes, I thought I’d get your ideas over a meal."

  Jacob quickly closed the files and locked them in his office safe, wondering what would bring his old friend to his office. Chase Dalrymple and Jacob Winston went back to Jacob’s days on the Chicago Police Force. Two men had played vital parts in his career. Chase was one of them. It had been Chase who brought him into the Service after Cynthia was killed, but it was rare for him to show up without announcement.

  Twenty minutes later, a taxi had whisked them through the cobblestone streets of Georgetown to O’Donnell’s Restaurant on Wisconsin Avenue where the second man in Jacob’s life waited for them. Clarence Christopher, Director of the FBI stood as they approached. Throughout the delicious meal of scallops in cream sauce and a tossed salad with a spicy mustard dress­ing, Chase and Clarence spoke of his family, the humid Wash­ington weather, and the National Gallery’s acquisition of a Rodin sculpture.

  Jacob knew it wasn’t his practice to discuss the service’s business openly in restaurants. "Everywhere there are ears" had been a constant caution when he went through the training fifteen years ago. He also knew whatever the reason for the impromptu meal it had to be of national importance.

  Jacob sat still but he was getting anxious. He wasn’t used to holding back, and this small talk had gone on long enough. He wanted to know what Chase and Clarence wanted to tell him. He was kept wailing until the check was paid and they left the famous sea food house. Instead of calling or hailing a passing taxi, they turned left and began walking.

  "Do you remember the Alex Jordan case from five years ago?" Clarence asked when they reached the corner.

  Jacob visibly tensed. "Yes," he nodded.

  "There was a woman who uncovered the Crime Network."

  "Robyn Richards," Jacob supplied.

  "She testified at the trial. In fact, she was the prime witness against Jordan and his assassination network."

  Jacob nodded again, not knowing where this was going.

  "As I remember it, she went into the program."

  "Correct," Jacob said, uncomfortable at Chase’s probing. "Is there a problem with Mrs. Richards?" Jacob had had many problems with Robyn over the years, but none of them had ever made their way to the director of the U.S. Marshal’s Service.

  "I’m not sure." Chase stepped off the curb at the end of the street. "This morning I got a report that someone had been in the files."

  "What files?" He hadn’t had any such report.

  "The Jordan case files."

  Jacob knew he meant the deeply hidden, sealed files.

  "I got no word of this. Do you think it was a hacker who found hi
s way in?"

  "I don’t think we can take that chance."

  Jacob knew he wouldn’t even if Chase offered that option. He’d protected Robyn Richards for five years, and he wasn’t about to stop until he was sure every member of the crime syndicate had been caught and put behind bars.

  "Who do you think it was?"

  "I read the Jordan files this morning. Apparently, Mrs. Richards went into the program, because there was a missing link to the network. I think the link has surfaced, but he’s a shrewd operator. He was in and out of the files before we could catch him. He even managed to erase the trail and overlay it with a computer codes for the Washington Weather Bureau so we couldn’t locate him."

  "What do you want me to do?"

  Chase stopped, then quickly resumed walking. Jacob could tell he was concerned, so concerned he’d nearly forgotten protocol.

  "I think you should discreetly find out if anything out of the ordinary has happened to Mrs. Richards in the past few months. We don’t want to alarm her, but if someone is out there, she’ll be the target."

  Jacob forcibly controlled his breathing. His heart pounded in his chest. For five years, he’d known some­one was going to find out that Brooke Johnson and Robyn Richards were the same woman. Yet, time after time, he allowed her to beat his arguments into the ground. And now that there was almost assurance, he knew he couldn’t tell her he was actively investigating the Crime Network she’d uncovered. A network that had sent many of the FBI’s most trusted agents to jail cells and had cost their leader his life.

  And there was her daughter. Kari. If anyone wanted to force Robyn Richards, they could do it through the child.

  "I’m just alerting you, Jacob," the director broke into his thoughts. "I’m putting a man on this. I don’t want another fiasco like the one Mrs. Richards uncov­ered."

  Jacob knew Robyn’s wide-eyed idealism had caused her to stumble onto the plan. It had ballooned into an ugly scandal.

  "The president raked me over the coals," Clarence continued, as he walked briskly in the humid air. "I’d never felt naked as when I walked into the Oval Office that day. I don’t intend to ever be in that position again." Jacob could hear the determination in his voice.

  The credibility of the FBI had been shaken by Robyn’s discovery. And five years later, it was still trying to live down the stigma of an international as­sassination bureau, with fingers stretching worldwide.

  "We’re looking at working together on this one,” Chase said. “At the moment only a few people know about it. And we have nothing concrete.”

  “But better safe and sorry,” Clarence said. He glanced at Chase. “We want you on it. It’s the bomb that exploded on us five years ago. We don’t want that to happen again.”

  Chase nodded his approval. “You’ll report your findings to Christopher and keep me in the loop.”

  I’ll get right on it,” Jacob said.

  With the sun glinting off Clarence’s uncovered head and his blue eyes squinting against the sun, he stopped in midstride and turned to Jacob. "I was hoping you’d want it, Jacob. This one is a can of worms if I ever saw one, and we both need someone we can trust."

  Jacob sighed. He’d never held anything back from Clarence or Chase. "There’s been a new development," he told him. At Clarence’s questioning look, Jacob related the details of Kari’s accident and the dilemma of the blood supply.

  "What’s being done?"

  "Marianne is keeping me informed. Blood arrived in time, and the little girl is expected to recover. And I’m planning to go and personally check out the situ­ation."

  Jacob purposely held back the information that Kari’s own father was the person who donated the blood that saved her life.

  ***

  The mail came early to Brooke’s neighborhood. By ten o’clock in the morning all the bills, flyers, and weekly grocery circulars were stuffed in the boxes next to doors. The mail delivery people walked, pushing carts with the days deliveries. Robyn could see Morgana, her mail carrier, crossing the street at the end of the block. Walking back to the porch, she opened a large envelope with a typed label but no return address.

  She stopped. A small cry escaped her throat. Questions flowed through her mind as she pulled out the damning photo. The one question she feared most jumped in her mind. Had they found her? She didn’t even know who they were. The reason she’d been inducted into Witsec, the government’s program of permanent protective custody, was because a missing link ex­isted in the Crime Network. An unknown threat still existed and she was the target.

  Did they know who she was? Had Grant’s visit been a signal that Robyn Richards was alive and hiding as Brooke Johnson?

  Robyn paced the room. Someone was suspicious, but did they know for sure. Was this a test? Something to rattle her into making a mistake. She had to do something, but what? She looked at the postmark. The envelope had been mailed from Washington, D.C. Should she call Jacob?

  The envelope slipped from Robyn’s suddenly numb fingers. Her hand clutched her neck and its rapidly beating pulse. On the floor, partially hidden by the manila envelope, lay a black-and-white photo of Robyn Richards. It had been the sole content of the oversized envelope. It was her original face, before the surgery. This was the face that Grant knew.

  Someone else knew too. She wondered if it was Grant who’d sent the photo. Did he know her from the signals she gave? Did the fair winds comments give her away? Had he somehow recognized her? Her hand went to her mouth where he’d kissed her. Did he know instinctively that she was his wife? Did her reaction or her lack of reaction clue him into her real identity?

  Who sent this, Robyn wondered. She stepped to the window, looking up and down the quiet street. No one was about, only the soft morning breeze rustling the leaves on the trees. But someone was out there. Someone who knew her secret.

  ***

  "Hello, Brooke."

  Although her senses heightened, not even the flicker of an eyelash revealed surprise at Jacob’s sudden in­trusion. It had been two days since Grant flew back to Washington. She knew one of Jacob’s men was bound to show up. She just didn’t think it would be Jacob himself.

  "I thought you weren’t coming back," she said dryly.

  His blue eyes flashed. Robyn watched the imper­ceptible straightening of his shoulders; an indication that he was angry. Jacob stood six feet tall, but he appeared to be taller. His frame looked underfed, but she’d seen him training once and knew his strength and agility were concealed by his wiry appearance.

  "Let’s go for a walk," he told her, as if he were commanding troops.

  Time hadn’t changed Jacob. He was still looking over his shoulder expecting the bad guys to come bursting through the door. How he came to be in her dressing room at the back of Yesterdays she’d never know. As much as her logical mind told her he had to have come through the door, his usual method of appearing and disappearing could very well include materializing from thin air.

  He took her arm and led her down the back stairs of the restaurant. The July night was warm when she stepped outside. Silently, they crossed the lawn, skip­ping the circular patio stones like kids playing hop­scotch and passing the white gazebo crowded with flowers from today’s wedding party. Moonlight shim­mered on her sequined gown that clung suggestively to every curve of her lithe body. Earrings, dangling to the soft blush of her bare shoulders, sparkled like fireworks with each toss of her head.

  Robyn looked at the staid countenance of the G-man as his height made it necessary for him to duck under the rose-draped lattice portico. The grounds opened onto a small stream that wound its way through the property, creating pockets of picturesque settings.

  Jacob swept the area with his eyes as if he had some kind of internal radar detector. He must have decided it was free of any bugs, microphones, plastic explosives, or other incendiary devices, for he turned to face her.

  "Is it safe to talk now?" she teased, taking several steps toward the water.


  "What are you up to?"

  "Me?" She gave him a surprised look.

  Jacob rounded on her. "Don’t be flippant with me. You know damn well what I’m talking about."

  "I’m not up to anything," she said calmly.

  "What was he doing here?"

  "Don’t ask stupid questions." She spoke with anger. "If you know he was here, you know damn well why—my daughter was dying. She needed blood. If you remember, it’s a rare type."

  "And was that what made him spend the night at your house?"

  Robyn’s mouth fell open, then shut abruptly. "Is that what brought you out of retirement?" Her voice was savage but barely audible. "You think I slept with him."

  "If you did or didn’t is not the point."

  "You’re right, and it’s also none of your business." She watched Jacob turn away and push his hands deeply into his pockets as he took several deep breaths in an attempt to regain some of the control that Robyn seemed to have taken away from him. When his shoul­ders settled back in the position of G-man-ready-to-deal-with-difficult-female, she told him the truth.

  "Jacob, my thoughts were almost solely on Kari and her chances of survival. I won’t lie and tell you I have no feelings for Grant, but I did not sleep with him." She thought she saw him relax a bit, as much as he ever relaxed in her presence. "My major concern was getting Kari the blood she needed."

  "There were other sources," he said angrily.

  "They were dry." Robyn stopped, sucking her breath in an angry hiss. "And why was that, Jacob? You promised me there would always be AB negative blood on hand for emergencies."

  "I’m sorry. There was a mix-up."

  "Mix-up? Kari could have died over a mix-up?"

  "She wouldn’t have died. Word got to us in time. We had a plane ready to fly out when news came that you had called Grant Richards."

  "Just for the record I didn’t call Grant. I was sur­prised to find he was on his way to deliver the blood in person. And just how did you come by that tidbit of information?" Her voice dripped with sarcasm.