fucked it up.
“If Scott abducts another girl, it’s on your conscience.”
The woman raised an eyebrow at him. “Go away.”
Merritt turned and left. He’d already tried to see Mallory, but he was in emergency surgery. Internal bleeding. He might not make it. Dammit, why couldn’t Merritt have spoken to him first? He might know something important about Adam Scott’s next move.
He flashed his badge at a nurse. “I need Katherine Donovan’s room number.”
“One moment.” The nurse went to a station and looked it up. “Five-fifteen,” she said.
He smiled. “Thank you.” Finally, someone who responded to authority.
Merritt closed his eyes as he waited for the elevator. He was so close to avenging Paige. The two people responsible for her death were within reach. Kate Donovan and Adam Scott.
He pushed aside memories of his own culpability. He hadn’t believed that Kate Donovan had found Paige that fateful day five years ago. He was so furious that they had gone against orders, that one agent had died and one was abducted, that he believed Kate was just blowing smoke to save her own ass.
Then, on the computer screen, he saw her jump through the window. Saw her pull the knife out of Paige’s chest. She ran, and the cabin exploded.
Sweat formed on his brow. If he had believed Kate then, would they have been able to save Paige? He didn’t know.
But if Kate hadn’t disobeyed direct orders, Paige wouldn’t have been in that position in the first place. If he had sent backup, even more lives would have been saved.
“God, I miss you, Paige.” He remembered how much he’d loved her spunk, her courage, her beautiful, exquisite face.
And then the image of her brutalized body, the rapes and the stabbing, assaulted his senses and he pounded his fist on the elevator wall.
For five years revenge had been in the forefront of his mind. And now half of it would be complete.
He’d bring Kate up on charges. Going through the Office of Professional Responsibility was merely a technicality. He could keep her in prison until they made their findings.
But first he had to figure out how to smoke Adam Scott out of hiding. Using Kate Donovan as bait.
He squeezed the small DVD player in his pocket. He would show her what she’d been responsible for. Make her work with him. Because now the ends most certainly justified the means.
He opened the door of room 515.
It was empty.
TWENTY-SIX
THE HOTEL WAS on the water, ten stories up, and Kate opened the sliding glass doors to let in the cool, fresh breeze even though the sun had set long ago.
Dillon handed her the backpack from the plane. She didn’t know how he’d gotten it, but the idea that he’d thought she might need something was endearing.
He touched her face and she melted inside. She couldn’t imagine him wanting her. She probably had more baggage than all his patients combined. But she would take it, at least for tonight.
“Do you mind if I shower?”
He shook his head, kissed her. “I’m going to get you something to eat.”
“The hospital fed me dinner.”
He grimaced.
She laughed. “Hey, it wasn’t bad. I’m used to worse food from Professor Fox’s observatory.” She took his hand, squeezed it. “Don’t leave.”
He kissed her again. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Kate hadn’t been intimate with a man in a long, long time. She hadn’t thought she missed it. After watching Trask and his games, she thought she’d never want to have sex again.
But here, with Dillon Kincaid, she saw everything good sex could be, between two people who wanted to please each other.
“Shower,” she murmured into his lips, pulling him along with her.
She backed into the lush bathroom. A single white rose sat on the black marble counter. She picked it up, smelled it, savored it.
“You?”
Dillon took the rose, touched it to her nose, then put it in a water glass.
“How hot?” he asked, turning on the shower.
“Very hot.”
“Ouch.”
She grinned and pulled off her tank. She saw Dillon’s gaze travel down her body. She had a lot of little scars here and there. “I’ve sort of abused my body. This,” she pointed to a long faded diagonal scar down her side, “was made by a skinhead when I went undercover back in my irresponsible youth.” She found herself laughing. She hadn’t been able to think about her previous years in the FBI without thinking about Evan and Paige. But now, recounting the good she had done seemed to free her.
“And this,” she stepped out of her jeans and pointed to a round, gnarled scar on her upper thigh, “was a bank robbery. Hostage situation. I went left, should have gone right.”
She stepped over to Dillon. The bathroom was already growing steamy from the hot water. “Does my body disturb you?”
“Disturb?” He grinned lopsidedly. “I wouldn’t use that word.”
He unclasped her bra smoothly, dropped it with her soiled clothing. He gently touched her shoulders, his long fingers trailing down her breasts, touching the little scars on her stomach, the bigger one on her side.
“You’ve had your appendix removed,” he said, touching a very faint one-inch scar on her abdomen.”
“I was thirteen. I thought I was having menstrual cramps. It burst.”
He frowned. “Dangerous.”
“I survived.”
“You’re a survivor.”
He kissed her.
“Take off your clothes,” she commanded.
He pulled the borrowed shirt over his head. His body was long and lean, but his muscles were hard and tight. He had several nicks on his chest where the branches on the island had hit him. She kissed one, then another, then another.
He dropped his pants and backed her into the shower.
“Damn, that’s hot,” he grimaced.
She sighed, content. The hot water hit her abused body, making it ache even more before easing her pains. She groaned, then allowed the massage jets to pound her muscles. She caught Dillon watching her.
“What?” she asked.
“You’re beautiful.”
She glanced down, feeling embarrassed and excited at the same time. She’d been told she was pretty, but coming from Dillon it came with a heart of sincerity, a frank and honest and unsolicited comment.
“Thank you.” She smiled up at him. “You’re not too bad on the eyes yourself.”
He kissed her, then reached for the shampoo and poured a quarter-size pool into his large hand. “Turn around, please.”
She complied, tilting her face up toward the ceiling to avoid spray directly in her eyes. Dillon rubbed the shampoo into her hair, his long fingers massaging her head from the crown to the base. The rich lather smelled fabulous, but what was more luxurious was Dillon’s attention. Slow, strong, steadfast. Focused all on her head, her neck, rubbing and massaging the tension out of her body. She felt the pressure of the last two days-the last
