After seeing her in her father’s basement, surrounded by traces of her happy past, he’d have a hard time walking away at the end of this case. Her love for her family shone through, the memories invested in each object evident in the way she caressed them.
A gnaw of envy ate at his gut. He found himself wishing she would caress him as lovingly and remember him the way she did her family. His desire stirred, an ache growing low in his belly. If he didn’t get up soon, he’d throw the case to the winds and make love to her all over again.
He couldn’t, not when he would leave soon. How could a woman who still believed in Santa Claus understand why a man would leave her after making love to her as he had? No matter that he’d told her he couldn’t commit. If she was fool enough to fall for him, he’d surely hurt her. Knowing that he might be the cause of putting tears in Mary’s eyes wrenched at his gut, quenching his rising excitement. He’d done wrong by taking her to bed.
Mary slept peacefully unaware of Nick’s churning thoughts. Her straight blond hair splayed across the white pillowcase like a halo of spun gold, her lips parted as if on a sigh. She looked thoroughly kissed, her mouth slightly swollen from their long night of lovemaking.
Nick slipped from the sheets, drawing them up over Mary’s naked breasts, reasoning that it was best to hide temptation. The sooner he found Santa, the sooner he’d leave. Before Mary got hurt.
Before he fell for her so hard he couldn’t leave.
Moving around in the dark, he located the jeans he’d worn the night before and slid the cold denim over his legs. Once he had a sweater on, he padded barefoot across the room to the laptop and booted it to life.
The first message in his in-box was one from Royce. Patch, their techno-geek, had enhanced the photograph to the point he could make out a majority of the name tags on the uniforms. Using the names from the tags, they’d performed a cross-check against information from the military database. He’d listed the names of soldiers based on their position in the photograph.
Nick compared the names to the faces. As he suspected the man he’d pegged as Frank Richards was the one he’d identified from the picture he had stored online. Mary had been right about the one she’d identified as her father, Charles Mercer. But there was another that nagged at him. Gordon Thomas, the senator campaigning for President of the United States.
If he’d learned one thing in his life as an agent for both the FBI and the SOS, never assume something is a coincidence. Charles Mercer had been studying that article about the senator before he’d fled the cabin. Why? If Frank Richards’ death had anything to do with this squad, it made sense that the others might be in danger. Since Gordon Thomas was campaigning in Alaska, he might also be in danger. Royce needed to send a warning to the presidential candidate.
Footsteps rang out in the hallway, and someone pounded on a door across the hall from Nick’s room. That person was pounding on Mary’s door.
“Mary! Wake up, Mary!” a woman called out.
Mary sat up straight, blinking the sleep from her eyes. “What? What’s that noise?” The cool air must have made her aware of her nakedness and she pulled the sheet up over her breasts, her face flushing a sexy pink. “What’s going on?”
“Mary!” the voice carried through the wood paneling of the door.
Nick peeked through the peephole. “Looks like your friend Betty from the diner.”
“Something must have happened.” Mary jumped from the bed dragging the sheet with her as she snatched her clothes from the floor.
“Let me handle it.” Nick waited, his hand on the doorknob, until Mary had ducked into the bathroom. Then he opened the door. “Ms. Reedy, what’s the trouble?”
“I need to find Mary. Someone tried to kill Reuben last night at the hospital!” Betty wrung her hands. Her eyes glazed with tears. “I’m so scared I just don’t know what to do.” She threw herself at Nick and, clutching his sweater, burst into tears.
Nick froze for a second, then did the only thing he could think to do. He wrapped the woman in his arms and patted her back until the tears subsided enough, that he could be heard. “How is Mr. Tyler now?”
“He’s alive. But barely. They have police protection on him now.” Betty looked up into Nick’s face. “Who would do such a thing to Reuben? He’s never been anything but kind.” The woman buried her face in Nick’s shirt again, her tears soaking through to his skin. “He couldn’t even shout for help.”
Mary stepped out of Nick’s room and swung around behind Betty Reedy. She laid a hand on the older woman’s shoulder. “Ms. Betty, Reuben’s a trouper, he’ll pull through.”
“Oh, Mary!” She turned and threw herself at Mary.
Mary held her until the next round of tears faded. “What happened? How did they try to kill him?”
“Someone tried to smother him, but he was able to press his call button for help. Whoever it was got away.”
“Poor Reuben.” Mary’s troubled gaze met Nick’s.
“That isn’t the worst part.” Betty sniffed and rubbed her eyes on her sleeve. “The scare was too much for Reuben and he went into cardiac arrest. They moved him into the cardiac care unit at Fairbanks Memorial.”
Ms. Reedy pulled away and gave a shaky laugh. “Look at me. I never fall apart.” She pulled a clean tissue from her coat pocket and blew her nose. “Your father wanted you to know about Reuben.” The woman’s eyes widened. “I mean with your father, being out of pocket and all, I didn’t know who to turn to. I just knew he’d want you to know.”
Nick schooled his face to keep from showing any reaction to her stumble and cover-up. What did Betty know about Charles Mercer’s disappearance? Could she know where he hid?
Mary wrapped an arm around the woman and hugged her to her side. “I’m glad you came to tell me.”
“I’d better get on over to Fairbanks. Lenn is filling in for me at the diner.” She dried her eyes on yet another tissue. “Be careful, will you, Mary? We’d hate anything to happen to anyone else in town.” She gave a mirthless laugh. “And this used to be such a nice place to live.”
