O'Halloran's Lady Read online

  One big hand curled around her nape. “You don’t want to sleep?”

  “No.”

  “Good, I don’t want to sleep, either.”

  Extracting another condom from the bedside table, he sheathed himself.

  Her reaction was at odds with common sense. Condoms were good, any person with common sense wouldn’t go near sex without one, unless they were married.

  What she was feeling was silly, bordering on stupid, but a part of her hated it that O’Halloran had sheathed himself, because the condom seemed to symbolise his control.

  The second the thought occurred to her, she wished it hadn’t. For most of the evening, she’d been able to calmly ignore the fact that O’Halloran would probably never feel about her the way she did about him. But that didn’t mean she had to put up with him deliberately controlling his passion, which she was suddenly sure was the case.

  Gaze oddly wary, as if he had caught her mood, he pulled her down until she was sprawled across his chest, and kissed her slowly and languorously.

  She shifted, eased up his body and straddled him, taking control of the lovemaking and taking her time, absorbed by the sensations.

  O’Halloran groaned. His hands framed her hips, adjusting the angle. She felt him lodge deeper and drew in a breath as he began to move. The idea of control crashed and burned as he rolled, pulling her beneath him, and once again the moonlit room spiralled away.

  * * *

  Branden Tell turned down his street and braked behind a dark sedan that seemed to be going nowhere fast. Either that or they were lost.

  After trailing behind the car for long seconds, he put the lights of his Hummer on full beam, just to be obnoxious, and studied the two heads he had spotlighted.

  Not kids looking for a place to park; they were both adults, one male, one female, and she was driving.

  The woman checked him out in the rearview mirror, although with several hundred watts of high-powered halogen light hitting her square in the eyes, she wouldn’t be able to make out a thing.

  On the verge of forging past, she foiled him by speeding up. Tell swore beneath his breath and drove up hard behind them. They had a powerful car, but his Hummer would drive right over the top of them if he put his foot down.

  They slowed, forcing him to brake again, although this time Tell controlled his temper, barely. His drive was just meters away—no point in losing it now—and besides, another car had nosed in behind him. If he wasn’t mistaken it was a police cruiser.

  An indicator light flashing jerked his attention back to the car in front. All the hairs at his nape lifted as the dark sedan turned into his drive.

  Adrenaline shoving through him, he dipped his lights and drove past. His gaze glued to his rearview mirror, he watched the police cruiser park behind what he now knew was an unmarked police car.

  He had been found.

  Cold shock hit him.

  His planning had been close to perfect. There was no way O’Halloran could connect him. He had never used an email address that could be traced to him, and fingerprint evidence was worthless since he had never been booked so his prints were not in the police system. If he needed a vehicle, he usually stole one, and the photo Whitmore had taken of him had also been worthless, because his hand had obscured most of his face.

  The answer was clear. The bitch Whitmore must have found something on her computer.

  A horn blared. His foot jerked down on the brake. The Hummer rocked to a halt, and he stared, disoriented, at the motorway intersection he had almost driven through.

  Directing a one-finger salute at the car he had almost T-boned, he reversed, spun the wheel and headed back to town.

  A pulse jumping at the side of his jaw, he drove into the Lombard Hotel car park and cruised around until he found O’Halloran’s vehicle, which he had followed earlier in the day.

  Satisfaction eased the cold fury that gripped him.

  Somehow O’Halloran and Whitmore had found him and sicced the cops on him. If he had arrived home a minute earlier, he would have been caught.

  Although it didn’t matter now. He was almost ready to leave.

  Now he would finally get to be James Holden, the name on his fake passport. Once he was in his new life, Jenna Whitmore’s book, O’Halloran and the murder investigation would no longer be a threat to him.

  All he had to do was focus on the next few hours, carry through with his plan to pay back both Whitmore and O’Halloran, torch his warehouse and make it look like that loopy serial arsonist did it. It had worked for him once before, it would work again. Then he would leave on the first available flight out.

  He drove until he found a parking space that afforded him a view of O’Halloran’s vehicle and the exit lane.

  It was the middle of the night, but if he didn’t miss his guess, O’Halloran would be getting a call from the cops who were staking out his house. O’Halloran wouldn’t be able to resist wanting a piece of the action. And if he had found his house, Tell was willing to bet the clever bastard had found his other bolt-hole.

  A shame O’Halloran didn’t know about the third one.

  Dousing the Hummer’s lights, Tell set himself to watch.

  Chapter 15

  The vibration of his phone brought O’Halloran out of a light doze.

  Jenna moved sleepily as he slid his arm out from beneath her head, but she didn’t wake. He padded out to the lounge, picked up his phone and texted West, who he’d arranged to meet down in the lobby.

  Earlier in the evening, they’d managed to cross match the wholesaling company on the list of car registrations he had compiled with another firm that imported security alarms and the name that had come up had made all the hairs at the back of his neck stand on end.

  Branden Tell was a name from his, Natalie’s and Jenna’s pasts. A sports jock with a number of minor disabilities, including colour-blindness and mild dyslexia, which had kept him out of the military and the police force, he had tried to date Natalie when she had been a student.

  Marc hadn’t thought of Tell because Natalie had been popular. The list of men who had wanted to date her had stretched from here to next week. He could remember Natalie commenting that she hadn’t been interested in Tell, not because of the disabilities, but because he had been something of a cold fish until he had gotten her alone.

  Finding Tell didn’t make the past any easier to accept, but it had finally supplied Marc with a logical motivation for Natalie’s and Jared’s deaths.

  Rejected by the military and the police, ultimately rejected by the woman he had wanted, Tell had decided to take revenge.

  But Natalie hadn’t been the only one Tell had targeted. Nine years ago he had taken Jenna out, on the night of the ball and she, too, had dumped him.

  If he hadn’t gotten worried and gone after Jenna with the intention of giving her a lift home, she would have been hit and killed or knocked into the river and drowned. Marc was willing to bet that the driver had been Tell and that, like the incident at the mall, he had meant to hit Jenna, both times.

  He had called Farrell to bring her up-to-date with the development. She’d sent out a car, but evidently Tell hadn’t been at his house or his place of work.

  Not bothering to switch on a light, because his eyes were adjusted to the darkness and he didn’t want to wake Jenna, he dressed quickly in a black T-shirt, pants and boots.

  He shrugged into the dark webbing of his shoulder harness, holstered the Glock, put on a loose black jacket and he was ready to go.

  He walked to the bedroom door and checked on Jenna. Her hair was fanned out on the pillow, one arm draped over the end of the bed. His chest tightened as he noted that since he had left the bed, she had rolled over and now occupied the place that he had vacated. Even in sleep it seemed that she gravitated to
him, as if unconsciously she was drawn to his warmth.

  The idea of her warmth was seductive. She had held him and enfolded him in a gentle warmth that he was in danger of becoming addicted to. Tonight, even knowing that he had needed to restrain his libido and take things slowly, he’d had trouble controlling himself. If they stayed in bed for a week, he didn’t think he would be able to have enough of her.

  She loved him.

  She hadn’t said as much, but Marc couldn’t dismiss the knowledge. Even if he hadn’t come to that conclusion, he couldn’t dismiss the fact that Jenna had never slept with another man, she had only ever been his.

  Maybe it was a little primitive and old-fashioned of him to be happy that she had only ever belonged to him, but O’Halloran didn’t care. On that point, his feelings were straightforward and uncomplicated and making love had just cemented what he wanted.

  If Jenna was prepared to take the risk and give him her love, then he was taking it.

  His phone vibrated again.

  Backing away from the open door, Marc strolled to his laptop, which was on the coffee table. He flipped open the computer. It was on sleep mode, so the screen saver flicked off and he went straight into his mail program.

  With any luck he would be back before it was fully light, but just in case he typed a quick email and pressed the send button.

  Leaving the laptop open on the coffee table, he stepped quietly out of the door.

  * * *

  West and Carter were waiting in the lobby. Minutes later, they walked through to the underground parking lot, climbed into Carter’s sleek black utility truck and headed towards the southern side of town.

  Tell had a street office and owned a house under his own name, which Farrell had under twenty-four-hour surveillance. But West, with his uncanny nose for tax and business scams, had been able to unearth the interesting fact that Tell filtered most of what he earned through some murky trust, which just happened to also own a warehouse at a third address.

  It was growing light as they pulled up a block short of the warehouse premises.

  Carter stared at the roofline in the distance. “I’m taking it we’re not allowed to shoot this guy.”

  Marc flipped back the lapel of his jacket. “I’ve got the gun.”

  Carter waited for West to exit then extracted a duffel, which he slung over one shoulder before locking the truck. “If Tell’s got a gun, my wife is not going to be happy. She thinks I’m at a reunion, hanging out at a hotel bar, swapping stories.”

  West turned his head, as movement registered off to the left. “Just hold that thought and try not to get shot.”

  A group of joggers appeared out of the mist, most of them older women with toy dogs on leashes. They were followed by a group of power-walking senior citizens.

  Marc checked his watch and began to walk. They passed a sign that announced that they had just entered the Sunnyvale Retirement Village. He studied the surrounding houses. To go with the retirement village theme, they were all similar-sized cottages painted in soft pastel colours. Plantings of petunias were popular.

  Carter lifted a hand to an old lady wearing a bright red bandanna who was lagging behind the rest of the power walkers.

  A pink cottage with large, painted butterflies adorning the front porch loomed. Marc stepped around a tiny pile of dog droppings that was probably going to get some senior citizen blackballed from the village before the day was out.

  His gaze caught on Carter’s faded rucksack. “What have you got in the rucksack?”

  He snagged it off Carter’s shoulder before Carter could protest, although Marc did it carefully. He had heard stories about Rawlings, and quite a few of them had involved explosives, because that had been one of his particular skills in the SAS.

  Dragging open the flap, Marc peered inside. There was a lump of what looked like putty wrapped in plastic in the bottom. There was also a separate package that had to contain detonators.

  He had told Carter to leave his gun at home. He had just forgotten to rule out fireworks. “Where in hell did you get C4?”

  Carter reclaimed the rucksack with barely a flicker. “A friend had it in his garage. He was worried one of the kids would get their hands on it, so he asked me to dispose of it.”

  Marc moved sideways on the path, giving Carter extra room. “Don’t tell me it’s past its use-by date.”

  Carter’s expression was scarily neutral. “With any luck, that could be today.”

  Marc stopped at the neatly hedged rear of a large building that stood cheek by jowl with the butterfly cottage.

  Shaded by thick trees and with tightly controlled and manicured shrubs that were clearly tended by the village residents, it could almost pass for a modern barn-style house. In reality, it was the edge of a light industrial area. “This is it.”

  West surveyed the building. “Looks like a garden center.”

  Carter stepped into the deep shade of a tree. “Cool. Since we don’t have guns, maybe we’ll get lucky and find some gardening implements of some kind.”

  Marc ignored the banter.

  There was no guarantee they would find Tell, but he hadn’t vanished into thin air. Tell had to be basing himself somewhere in town. If they found him, Marc wasn’t about to worry about the legalities of the situation. They would grab him then place the call to Farrell.

  * * *

  Tell strolled into the Lombard Hotel dressed in a business suit and carrying a briefcase. He had already made a reservation over the internet, using his new identity, so signing in and picking up his key was just a formality.

  He didn’t intend to stay. Not very long, anyway.

  The room key was just a convenience to get him up to the concierge floor where, according to one of Jenna Whitmore’s most popular fan sites, she was staying the night.

  While the fan site had proved a useful resource for tracing Whitmore’s movements, it hadn’t been able to supply him with the exact number of the room. Although finding it shouldn’t be a problem. It would be easy enough to pinpoint the room by the security outside.

  He took the lift, checked his room key then strolled slowly down hushed, thickly carpeted corridors. The Lombard Hotel was five-star and swanky—even the air smelled expensive.

  He passed a darkly suited security guard. Two doors down, he found his room.

  The coincidence that he had been placed so close to Whitmore made up for the inconvenience of having to pay the exorbitant price for the room.

  Checking his watch, he stepped inside, closed the door behind him then, with quick deft movements, unpacked and assembled the 9mm Browning he had tucked into his briefcase. A handgun he had chosen specifically because it had originally been designed for the military, the Browning was a thing of beauty.

  Walking through to the bathroom, he glued on a fake moustache, and fitted in contacts that changed the colour of his irises from light blue to brown. When his eyes had stopped watering, he slipped on a pair of glasses that had a faint tint, enough to distract anyone who took a second look at him.

  A thrill shot down his spine as he slid the gun into the shoulder holster he was wearing and surveyed the effect in the mirror.

  According to Whitmore’s schedule, she would be leaving the hotel to catch an early flight south just after breakfast.

  She wasn’t ever going to make that flight.

  * * *

  Sunlight flowing across the bed woke Jenna. Rolling over, she discovered that she was alone and from the coldness of O’Halloran’s side, he had been gone for some time.

  The faint stiffness of various muscles and the definite feeling of tenderness between her thighs sent hot memory flashing through her. They had made love three times, the third time sleepy and prolonged and intense as they’d lain in the dark, almost more content to hold each o
ther than move. In those long, drawn-out moments it had been easy to imagine that O’Halloran really did love her, that what they had would magically metamorphose into a real relationship.

  Stepping out of bed she searched for something to wear and settled on one of O’Halloran’s business shirts, which was still folded neatly in his suitcase. White and crisp with a thin blue line, it was clean but it still had the subtle, stomach-clenching smell of O’Halloran.

  Maybe it was a cliché to wear it. She didn’t care. She was still high on the humming delight of having spent an entire night in bed with her man, and she was determined to wallow in the experience while she could.

  Hugging the shirt close to her skin, she strolled to the bathroom, refusing to think about an end to her time with O’Halloran. As she stripped off, she glimpsed herself in the vanity mirror. Her hair was a languorous tangle, her mouth pale and swollen, a faint red mark decorated the side of her neck where O’Halloran’s jaw had scraped her tender skin.

  What they’d done together was imprinted all over her and, in that moment, she knew that no matter how modern or independent she strived to be, in her heart all she wanted was a life with O’Halloran. She was in love with him and the emotional risk was huge.

  If she couldn’t have him, she already knew that she wouldn’t have anyone else. She wouldn’t ever get married and, unless she could achieve a solo adoption, she would never have the family she craved.

  She didn’t know why O’Halloran had touched her so deeply. It was a fact that they had never ended up spending that much time together. She knew more about most of her casual friends than she did about O’Halloran.

  Maybe it was simply that she had been so vulnerable when she had met him, or because when she had ended the original relationship she had still been in love with him and had never gotten closure.

  Whatever the reason, at some deep, bedrock level, a stubborn part of her had taken one look at O’Halloran and chosen him.

  After showering, she quickly changed into a business suit, because she would have to leave to catch her flight straight after breakfast.