The Triangle Conspiracy

life, and he’d never seen a gaze as sharp as the one Daryn McDermott was giving him now. Sean was never one to look away, but he finally dropped his eyes from hers. He couldn’t take that gaze any longer.

“You do want to stay with me?” Daryn said, and her voice was very soft. “Michael,” she added, saying the name as if it were the amen at the end of a prayer.

Sean rubbed the back of his neck. He felt a growing heat there, and in some unfathomable way he felt powerless to control, he felt himself becoming rapidly aroused.

“Yes, Kat,” he whispered. “I do.”

A smile touched her face for a moment; then she stood and came toward him, stepping out of her clothes as she moved. Naked, she put her arms around him and held him very tightly.

“Take me, Michael,” she said. “Please, I want you to take me now.”

He looked down at her. This woman was so strange, he thought. She was equal parts power and yearning, strength and vulnerability, all in the same moment.

He kissed her, and both their mouths opened in hunger. Their tongues met. Sean felt as if his body was one giant nerve ending, and that Daryn knew how to tap into every part of it. Her mouth, her hands, her body…she was everywhere.

She was so petite that he could pick her up in his arms and she felt no heavier than a child. He turned around and sat her on the edge of the bed. She opened her legs for him, and within moments Sean had found her center.

Over the next two hours, Sean spent himself three times, something he’d never done before. Daryn drained him, physically and emotionally, until he felt he could scarcely move. They lay spooned together on the bed, the torn and tangled sheets surrounding them, the scent of their lust all around.

“Michael,” Daryn said softly.

Stroking her back very gently, Sean stirred a bit from his stupor. “Hmm?”

“If you really want to stay with me, I know a place we can go.”

“Oh?”

“Do you remember last night, when we talked about my ideas? The social and political changes I want to see?”

Sean blinked, becoming more alert. “Yes.”

“What did you think of what I said?”

Sean let out a long, slow breath. Tread carefully. Tread very, very carefully. “Your ideas are…”

“Yes?”

Sean stepped off the edge and into nothingness.

“Amazing. They would change the way our whole society functions.”

Daryn rolled over to face him. Her dark eyes were wide. “Yes. Yes, they would.”

“But I don’t see,” Sean said, “how any of those things will get done.”

“Michael…I know some people.”

Sean met her eyes.

“I know people,” she said. “We’re starting a movement. It’s called the Coalition for Social Justice. We’re going to try to make these things happen. Will you join us? Will you go with me, Michael?”

“Where?”

“We have a house. It’s in a little town called Mulhall. Do you know where that is?”

Sean shook his head. “No. I’m too new to the area. I haven’t explored many of the small towns.”

“It’s north of Oklahoma City. I know where it is. It’s out of the way. We can stay there. We’ll be safe.”

“What about those goons who came to your apartment?”

Daryn shook her head for emphasis. “They’ll never find us. Whoever they were, we’ll be safe with the Coalition. Come with me, Michael. We can make things happen. The leader of the Coalition is a man named Franklin Sanborn. He’s a visionary, and he and I agree on these things. We’re gathering more people all the time.”

Sean nodded slowly. He remembered something Faith had said, standing outside the AA building, something about how the bottle was holding him instead of the other way around. Now, he wondered, who was in control? Was he holding Daryn, or was she holding him?

He pushed the thoughts roughly away, as if trying to get away from something dead and rotting, something vile.

“I’ll go,” he said.

Daryn smiled.

Part Two: Daryn

14

SEAN COULDN’T STOP LOOKING AT DARYN.

She was that kind of woman. She drew his eyes-and the rest of his senses as well. If “sensual” truly meant to open the senses, then Daryn McDermott was the most sensual creature Sean had ever met. Not only her look, but the sound of her voice, her scent, the way her skin had tasted…and her touch. God, her touch.

But now he’d begun to get into her mind. She’d shown him a few glimpses into her life. Even masked as Kat Hall, she’d been telling him of Daryn McDermott’s life. The “wealthy, powerful” father, the mother cast aside, the father’s hypocrisy, the search that eventually led her to become an escort…both sensual and complex. A rare breed.

He kept the Jeep pointed north on Interstate 35, letting Daryn give the directions. He glanced at her again, then at her left hand, which extended behind her seat. Britt, in the back, was tugging on Daryn’s hand again.

Sean had been suspicious when Daryn told him they needed to pick up a friend. Then he’d had to struggle to keep his poker face when the friend turned out to be Britt. He said nothing, and neither did Britt, but their eyes had met for a short moment as she got into the Jeep and Daryn “introduced” them.

Britt looked at Daryn with absolute love and devotion. For all her time on the streets, for everything she’d done and seen, Britt still seemed like a child, easily led. Sean had known from the time he saw the photo of the Oklahoma City march that Britt had fallen in love with her, or at least into whatever form of infatuation Britt could view as love. She would do anything Daryn asked.

Daryn directed Sean to exit the interstate at the town of Guthrie, thirty miles or so north of Oklahoma City. Guthrie had in fact been the first capital of Oklahoma Territory after the famous land run of 1889 opened the previously “unassigned” lands. Now it was a pleasant town of Victorian homes and a beautifully restored downtown area, capitalizing on its history to draw in a healthy tourism industry.

Daryn showed Sean where to turn, and he headed north out of Guthrie on U.S. 77. A mile outside the city limits, he said, “We’re being followed.”

“What?” Britt said.

Daryn dropped Britt’s hand. “How do you know?”

“Big blue SUV back there, two guys in the front. It’s been with us since before we left the highway.” Sean thumped the steering wheel. “I’m not sure how long. I wasn’t looking for a tail.”

Daryn looked at him strangely, and Sean thought, Be careful! I’m a woodworker, not a law enforcement officer trained to spot surveillance.

“Just kind of spooked after the other night,” he added quickly.

“How could they have followed us?” Daryn said.

“They may have tracked us from the motel,” Sean said. “Hell, I don’t know. You seem to have pissed off some pretty persistent people.”

Daryn said nothing.

Sean let it go. This wasn’t the time to push it, not with a tail right behind them on a lonely stretch of rural highway.

He nudged the Jeep forward, the speedometer moving past seventy. He saw a bridge ahead.

“Shit,” he muttered.

A green-and-white sign took shape, announcing that the bridge crossed the Cimarron River. The Jeep rolled onto the bridge. The blue SUV moved to overtake them, swinging out into the opposite lane.

“What are they doing?” Britt said. Her voice rose. “What’s going on?”

Neither Sean nor Daryn spoke. Sean punched the accelerator and listened to the Jeep’s engine growl in overdrive. The SUV’s driver kept pace, the right front fender of the bigger vehicle moving toward the Jeep’s left rear.

“Oh no, you don’t,” Sean whispered. He wasn’t about to let the other driver tap him on a bridge at nearly eighty miles an hour. “Hold on,” he said to Daryn and Britt.

He floored the accelerator and jerked the wheel to the left, cutting in front of the other driver. Now they were both speeding north in the bridge’s southbound lane. Sean imagined the other driver’s surprise at the maneuver.

Just as quickly, he saw in the mirror that the other driver was starting to slide over into the northbound lane, and Sean thought: amateurs. Then: but I’m supposed to be an amateur, too. Nevertheless, he repeated the maneuver in reverse, cutting off the SUV’s angle of attack again and putting both vehicles back in the right lane.

Five seconds later, a car entered the bridge from the other direction, a white compact sedan. The SUV nudged into the other lane. The white sedan’s driver leaned on the horn. The SUV ducked backed behind Sean. Ahead, Sean saw the point where the bridge ended.

“Hold on,” he said again. “This is really going to piss them off.”

Beside him, Daryn’s eyes were wide. He couldn’t see Britt. As soon as the Jeep’s front wheels left the bridge and Sean saw the land to the side, he slammed on the brakes and spun the wheel hard to the right. The Jeep skidded into the gravel by the side of the road. The SUV’s driver, caught by surprise, slammed on his own brakes and turned hard the other direction. Sean heard tires squealing, whether his or the other vehicle’s he didn’t know.

The Jeep came to rest pointing east toward the river, in a loose gravel area beside the road. As soon as he’d stopped, Sean was out of the driver’s seat. Almost mirroring the Jeep, the SUV was in a similar position on the opposite side of the highway, its nose pointing west.

It was empty.