hadn’t wanted to leave it at home.
Tapping his way back into the living room with the cane, he located a large chair and sat down, holding the Zippo.
Lifting it up, he used his thumb to flip the old lid up, and back down with a brisk snap. Up, and down. Up. Down.
He’d done this before, many times. But not at home in Cortlandt. Everywhere else he went. Flipping the cap, trying to talk himself out of smoking. All those places in his nightmares, whether a faraway sandy hell or a dense jungle. Always flipping.
A sense of foreboding began in his gut. Crept in and ate at him like acid. Something was very, very wrong with him. Wrong, period. He didn’t know himself. Wondered if he ever had.
Was Lily right? Did he have some sort of secret job?
A knock interrupted his dark musings and he made his way to the door, calling out. “Yes?”
“Your breakfast, Mr. St. Laurent.”
He opened the door. “Great, I’m starved,” he said, being friendly.
“Well, this ought to hit the spot,” the man said. “I’ll put it on the table over there for you. Want to charge it to your room?”
“Sure.” Digging in his wallet, he pulled out a marked bill for the tip. After the man set his tray down, he held out the money. “Here you go.”
“Thanks, have a great day.”
The waiter left and Jude went over to the table, famished now that his migraine was under control.
The omelet was excellent, but the juice was a little sour. Maybe they’d given him something made out of exotic fruits rather than the average orange juice he’d ordered. He took another sip. Nope, not orange, but what the hell.
He polished everything off and felt pretty darned good.
For about five minutes.
His stomach did a slow roll. Suddenly, his skin felt clammy and hot by turns. Then agony gripped his gut and twisted. Like the day he’d gotten sick from the bug he’d picked up. Only this was much worse.
Jude shoved to his feet and staggered, the vertigo so bad he fell. He tried to stand. Fell again.
So he crawled in the direction of the bathroom, panting through the ripping pain in his stomach. Sharp lances speared his brain as well, the pain that was nothing at all like his headaches.
The attack was so sudden and fierce he could hardly think. But about the time he hung his head over the toilet, he realized his mistake; he should have brought the goddamned phone with him. Called the front desk for help.
He retched violently, lost his breakfast. Just lay draped over the toilet like a sacrifice, waiting for his body to turn completely inside out.
Sweat popped out on his forehead and his nose began to run. On reflex, he swiped at his nose and was startled to find it kept running. A lot.
Shit, he had a nosebleed.
What the hell was causing this? Even tainted food wouldn’t have hit his system so quickly. No, this was… unnatural.
Almost as though he’d been slipped something. By the nice employee who brought his tray?
Your breakfast, Mr. St. Laurent.
He gasped, clinging to the bowl. No!
To make Liam feel more secure, Lily had made the reservations under assumed names. The resort did not have his real full name. And he hadn’t told his last name to Brenda, either.
“Oh, God.”
What was going on? He had to get help.
Jude crawled down the hallway, stopping now and then to clutch his gut, his head.
He collapsed before he reached the living room, blessed darkness swallowing him whole.
Breakfast was great and Liam had decided taking a stroll down the beach would be fun. Lily wanted to get back and check on Jude, but they decided a quick walk wouldn’t hurt.
Hand in hand, they left the restaurant and passed through the patio area, and started down a pretty, winding path to the beach. Tropical plants and flowers encroached on the walkway, and a lizard jumped from a leaf.
They were almost to the end when Lily glanced through a break in the foliage and spotted a big, dark-skinned man dressed in one of the resort’s uniforms duck his head and take off down another path. Nothing strange about that. The employees were everywhere.
Something about this man, however, prickled the back of her neck.
Liam tugged on her hand. “Whatcha looking at?”
“Huh? Oh, nothing. I just saw an employee who seemed familiar.”
“There’s a ton of them. I’m sure he’s been around.” He started pulling on her. “Come on, let’s go find a crab!”
Laughing at his infectious enthusiasm, she took off jogging with him toward the beach.
How long had he been out?
A few minutes? An hour?
Jude pushed up to his hands and knees, found he still couldn’t stand, and sat instead, leaning back against something. The wall in the hallway, he realized.
His bones ached as though being ground into dust. He’d always had a high tolerance for pain, but this… if he had the energy, he’d scream. The muscles in his joints were on fire, felt scoured raw.
Reaching to his face, he swiped under his nose. The blood was sticky, drying, not flowing anymore. That was something, at least.
His head hit the wall with a
The man who’d brought his breakfast. Had he put something in the juice? Jude had gotten sick immediately. But he’d been hit with this illness before, and that man had been nowhere around.
What did this have to do with the nightmares and the suspicions Jude held about himself?
Flipping the lid of the lighter. Something just out of reach. What?
“What, goddammit?”
And then, a crack in the dam. Growing dangerously wider, revealing truth after ugly truth he would have chosen never to remember.
Jude-using his alias of John Sandborn on this assignment-leaned back in the squeaky vinyl chair so thoughtfully provided by the shitty motel and shook his last Marlboro out of the pack, narrowed eyes never leaving the screen of his laptop. He lifted his antique Zippo lighter from the corner of the scarred desk and stuck the cigarette between his lips.
He lit up and inhaled, letting the rich smoke curl through his lungs in a futile attempt to soothe his nerves, on a whole variety of levels.
Something was royally fucked about this order from Dietz-the one he’d turned down flat not one hour ago, thus hurtling his illustrious career with the Secret Homeland Defense Organization down in screaming flames as nothing else could’ve done. Especially with Michael Ross grieving, secluded, and out of the picture. Indefinitely. SHADO’s take-no-bullshit leader, and Jude’s staunchest ally, had been brought to his knees by his wife’s death-and, blinded by the loss, had left a jackal in charge.
Jude held his pounding head. Dietz. Robert Dietz. Tall, sandy hair. A weaselly fucker.
SHADO. Michael Ross. What the fuck?
Oh, Jude had lost his edge in the last year-he was on his way out and everyone knew it-but with Michael’s
