Beyond Control, page 3
“There is something . . .”
“What can I do for you?” she asked, catching the worry in his voice.
“I may want to ask a favor.”
“From Senator Bridgewater?”
“Maybe. We’ll talk later. This isn’t the place for a business discussion—but I saw you, and I thought . . .”
“No problem. Give me a call.”
“Thanks.”
Feeling unsettled, she moved on. Though the room was moderately crowded, there was an open stretch between herself and the brash Mr. Walker, as if he’d parted the Red Sea to make a path for her to join him in the Promised Land. Obediently she took several steps in his direction. Then, realizing what she was doing, she stopped in mid-stride.
She felt an uneasy shiver start at the base of her spine and travel upward. For a long moment she stood very still. Then, making a quick about-face, she headed for the buffet table.
JORDAN’S eyes narrowed as he watched the slender brunette head for the dining room. Although many of the ladies here were more beautiful, he’d rarely seen one who captured his attention so intensely. As an investigative reporter, he was constantly analyzing people. Now he tried to come up with a reason for his reaction. Her dark hair was piled in a sophisticated upsweep with a few provocative tendrils framing her oval face and emphasizing the graceful carriage of her head and neck. She seemed outwardly at home in this environment of politics and power, yet there was something that set her apart. Maybe it was her eyes. Beautiful, yet analytically assessing. Their color was light. He wanted to know the exact shade.
He had been watching her for several minutes. When she’d returned his scrutiny, he’d allowed himself to engage in a little mental game he sometimes played—seeing if he could influence another person’s behavior through the force of his own will. Sometimes it seemed to work. When she’d taken a step in his direction, his chest had tightened with anticipation—leaving him feeling let down when she’d turned away. On the other hand, the evening was young. There was still time to connect with her.
He’d been glad to get the invitation to Sam Conroy’s party because he thought that some of the men here would have had dealings with Leonard Hamilton.
Now he was more interested in hooking up with the lithe brunette, which was unusual for him. While he enjoyed sex, relationships had never been his strong suit. And in the past few years he’d mostly lived inside his fantasies—as Hamilton had so kindly pointed out.
His work had taught him the importance of patience. For the next forty-five minutes he bided his time. He let Senator Appleton corner him and pump him for information about the publishing industry, then looked noncommittal when the senator let on that he was looking for a ghost-writer to do his autobiography.
Deftly Jordan excused himself to chat with a construction tycoon who’d been in a business deal with Hamilton. But all the time he was talking to the man, he knew where the mystery woman was and whom she was talking to.
His opportunity to meet her came when he saw her talking to Sam Conroy. Skillfully detaching himself from his own conversation, he moved in their direction. “Senator, you’re a hard man to get a word with, even at your own party.”
Conroy laughed. “At your service.”
The woman started to turn away. Before she could flee, Jordan said, “I’d like an introduction.”
Conroy grinned. “Lindsay Fleming—Jordan Walker. Probably doing undercover research for his next book.”
“Now, Senator, even I’m off duty some of the time,” Jordan insisted, although it wasn’t true.
Their host kept the conversation going for a few more minutes before moving off to another group of guests, leaving him alone with Ms. Fleming.
“Conroy’s a gentleman from the old school,” Jordan observed. “I’m going to miss him. Do you work for him?”
“No.”
Up close her eyes were green—and wary.
“Are you on someone else’s staff?”
“Yes.”
“Are we going to play twenty questions?”
A reluctant half smile flickered on her softly curved lips. He liked the effect.
“I’m with Senator Bridgewater. I started off as an intern with Sam Conroy. His encouragement meant a lot.”
“Conroy doesn’t hand out praise unless it’s earned. You must have done a damn good job. You’re a lawyer?”
“No. A sociologist.”
“How did you end up on the Hill?”
“The way most people do. Idealism. The daily grind burns it off. But I’m sure none of this is very interesting to you.”
“What have I done to get your back up?”
“Your writing is slanted to project a particular point of view.”
“Oh, yeah?” he asked, wondering exactly what that crack meant.
She took a half step back, preparing to leave. Despite her put-down, he wasn’t about to let her go so quickly. Acting on some primal instinct, he reached out and captured her wrist. She went very still, her eyes round and alarmed. He was aware of the pulse beating under her delicate skin, but that was simply one perception in a rush of sensations. During the moment his fingers encircled her flesh, he felt warm, dizzy, disoriented, and completely at a loss to explain the intensity of the reaction.
He saw her eyes mirror his surprise. They were dilated now, the pupils almost enveloping the green irises. For an instant all the normal barriers that separate individuals vanished. He was awash with profound emotions. Longing, desire, fear. Some supernatural force seemed to pull him toward her. It was coupled with a perception of danger that made his sharpened senses reel. For frantic heartbeats he was paralyzed, caught in his own trap, unable to draw a full breath into his lungs as he stood in the middle of the room with every nerve ending in his body screaming.
She was the one who wrenched her hand away, snapping the contact.
They both stood in the middle of the crowded room, breath coming in little gasps. His gaze swept the faces around them. Nobody was watching. Nobody was aware that something extraordinary had passed between them. In truth, it must have all taken place in a few brief seconds. The blink of an eye. Yet he felt as if his life had changed forever.
He heard Lindsay make a small sound, and his gaze locked instantly back to her. The color in her cheeks was high, as if she’d just finished a very satisfying session with her lover. He felt the same heat on his own skin.
Her chin tipped up defiantly. “That was certainly novel. How did you manage that cheap parlor trick?”
“Is that really what you think?” he asked, willing his breath to steadiness.
“You tell me.”
When he didn’t answer, she turned and walked away with her back straight and her head up, leaving him feeling more defensive and more isolated than he’d been in his whole lonely life.
CHAPTER
FOUR
GRADUALLY, LIKE MORNING mist evaporating from rocky ground, the fog in Mark Greenwood’s brain lifted.
His mind still felt like one of the Jell-O salads his Aunt Jen used to make. But at least he knew who he was. Mark Greenwood. And he was pretty sure of his current place of residence. A private hospital. But he couldn’t remember exactly what had happened to him.
Did it have to do with intruders at Maple Creek? Two guys who had invaded an impenetrable facility? Or was that just a bad dream? And he’d wake up in his cozy bedroom back at Aunt Jen and Uncle Eddie’s house. Any moment now he’d catch the scent of her breakfast pancakes wafting up the steps.
No, wait—his adoptive parents were dead. And he was in the special forces. On a covert assignment in Iraq.
He squeezed his eyes shut. No. Not that, either.
“How are you feeling?” a man asked, his voice full of concern. But Mark sensed a hard edge below the solicitous tone.
He slitted his eyes and tried to look at the three people hovering above him. Their faces were partially covered by surgical masks. To protect against germs? “I feel bad. Are you a doctor?” he asked the man who had asked the question.
“Yes. I’m Dr. Colefax. I’m here to help you.”
Somehow, Mark wasn’t reassured.
“Can you rate the pain in your head on a scale of one to ten? With ten the worst.”
“Now? Or when the guys burst into the control room?”
Tension gathered in the doctor’s eyes. “Tell me about that.”
Mark didn’t like that look—a mixture of cunning and eagerness.
When he didn’t reply, the doctor prompted him, “What happened to you? A spray? An injection?”
“Not sure.”
“Tell me what you remember?”
“Need to sleep.”
“Stay with me,” the doctor urged.
“No.” He wanted to escape into sleep, but a hand closed over his shoulder, the grip tightening, anchoring him to the hospital room.
“Tell me about the men who came into the control room. What did they do?”
“Don’t know.”
Was this some kind of psychological experiment? Was that it? He’d always believed there was a time and place for violence. This wasn’t it, yet he was unable to control the surge of frustration and rage that knifed through him. Lunging off the bed, he went straight for the doctor.
The man jerked back—his hands slapping out like a girl’s in self-defense.
“Hold him down, dammit.”
He felt the prick of a needle in his arm. “Leave me alone . . .” he tried to shout. But the injection turned the pain in his head to raw fire. When he heard a scream, he wondered if it was him—or someone else.
AS soon as Jordan climbed into his Mercedes, he unknotted his tie, pulled it out of his collar, and tossed it on the passenger seat.
He was still stewing over the disturbing episode with Lindsay Fleming. His reaction tonight had been completely out of kilter. He’d never been the type to lose his head with a woman, and the experience had challenged his well-honed need for control.
No. It was more than that, he admitted as he felt his scalp tighten. For a few moments, when his hand had circled her wrist—and right afterward—he could have sworn that something strange was happening between them.
He sighed. Come off it, Walker. You just need to find a willing bed partner. And it’s not gonna be her.
With an effort, he put the congressional staffer out of his mind as he crossed the lobby of his apartment building. His newly purchased penthouse was on upper Massachusetts Avenue, with a large extra bedroom that he could use as an office. Until a few months ago, he’d been living in a slightly shabby building off Sixteenth Street. But it was scheduled to be gutted and rebuilt, so he’d had to find a replacement. And he’d decided that the royalty money he’d been socking away in bonds and savings certificates might as well go toward a mortgage payment rather than rent.
Once he’d moved into the new space, he’d liked the amenities. Like the twenty-four-hour lobby staff and the gym upstairs, where you could contemplate the city while you sweated.
Though it was close to midnight, the desk clerk called him over.
“Mr. Walker, there’s a package for you.”
“Thank you.” Jordan accepted the red-and-blue envelope, then turned away toward the elevator.
As the car took him upstairs, he noted the return address on the package. It was from Herb Goldman, his former college roommate. Jordan had formed very few close relationships in his life. Herb was one of the people he trusted implicitly. Probably they’d bonded—as much as Jordan Walker could bond with anyone—because they’d both been shy, scared freshman at Dartmouth, neither one of them with a prep-school background. And each had found it easier to face the brave new world with a buddy at his side. Even when Jordan had focused on liberal arts courses and Herb had taken mostly science and math, they’d stayed friends.
Herb was married now, settled down with a wife and kids—providing Jordan a window into a world he had decided he could never enter. Not with what he looked on as his personality defect. He’d never been close to his parents. In fact, he’d earned his father’s dislike early on because he’d had an overactive imagination. Every time he saw a scary movie or TV show, he’d pictured monsters and kidnappers lurking in the dark, waiting to scoop him up and slit his throat or worse. That made him a sissy in his father’s eyes.
His interest in reading over sports had been another one of his sins. So had his devotion to his scruffy dog, Digger. He’d related to that dog better than he had to people because a dog’s mind was so uncomplicated. If you loved him, he loved you back—twice as hard.
What did it mean when you felt closer to a dog than to people? Nothing good, he was sure.
Jordan had been twelve when Digger escaped from the house and got run over by a truck. And Dad had forbidden his bringing home another pet from the pound. Probably his old man had been the one to leave the screen door unlatched in the first place—to get back at his son for being such a damn dud.
Jordan had been lonely after that, although he’d been careful not to let the old man know about it. He’d told himself that he was just fine living inside his own mind. Yet, deep down, intimacy with another human being was something he’d always craved. At the same time, getting close inevitably brought an acute feeling of discomfort.
So he’d kept to himself. And focused on what he was good at. He might not be able to change his personal style, but he could damn well make sure his career was something to be proud of.
Since he didn’t want to get caught like Dan Rather with radioactive fake documents, he’d express-mailed a copy of the pathology report he’d gotten in Wilmington to Herb. A research physician with the FDA, his friend had helped him out on a couple of projects and was in an excellent position to evaluate the material from Hamilton.
As he stepped inside his eighth-floor apartment, Jordan stopped and looked around. He still did a double take every time he took in the subtly textured tweed carpet, track lighting, onyx coffee table, and gray sectional sofa that were as dramatic as the view from the floor-to-ceiling windows.
The whole package was a lot grander than he was used to. In truth, his former apartment had been furnished with pieces he’d picked up at garage sales and the Georgetown Flea Market. But he’d thrown the old stuff out when he’d seen this place and been told he could get a good deal on the furnishings, because the diplomat who’d ordered up the decor was being recalled to Bolivia.
The only things he’d brought were his books, clothing, and a few mementos—like his Pulitzer paperweight.
He was antsy to get to the contents of the mailer, but the signal light on his answering machine was blinking.
When he pressed the Play button, he heard Leonard Hamilton’s raspy voice.
“Any day next week would be convenient for us to meet. Get back to me with the particulars.”
Jordan made a note on the pad by the phone. He was jotting down a few questions he was going to ask Hamilton when a completely extraneous image superimposed itself upon his thoughts. Lindsay Fleming, standing in front of a closet unzipping her black silk dress.
Jordan watched, mesmerized, as the creamy skin of her bare back emerged to his view. When she laid the dress on the bed, his pulse quickened. She was wearing a satin bra that exposed the tops of her creamy breasts and a half slip that draped seductively over the swell of her hips.
The erotic image made him instantly hard. As she reached for the catch of her bra, he murmured, “Come on, sweetheart, take off your bra and turn around. Let me see your nipples. I’ll bet they’re pink, right?”
Instead of turning, she froze. After several heartbeats she glanced over her shoulder, her face wary as though she knew he was watching her.
He drew in a shaky breath, half convinced that he’d stepped into the Twilight Zone.
Immediately he dismissed the notion. He’d met a woman who attracted him, and he was undressing her in his mind. But a fantasy was like a movie in which you were the producer and director, where the actors did anything you wanted. And she was resisting him.
My God, it was as though he were actually a voyeur, and she was somehow aware of his prying eyes.
A mental shutter snapped closed, breaking the contact, and Jordan was left with nothing but the same disoriented feeling he had experienced at the senator’s when his hand had circled her wrist.
“Jesus, what’s gotten into you tonight?” he muttered.
Needing to get out of the room, he strode past the king-sized bed to the walk-in closet, where he changed out of his party duds and into a comfortable pair of worn jeans and a dark T-shirt. Next he opened a kitchen cabinet, took a bottle of bourbon, and poured a double shot over ice cubes.
Too much alcohol dulled his brain. But he’d discovered that one drink helped him focus his thoughts when he was having trouble concentrating. Somehow the liquor blocked out the background noise in his head. At some level or other the interference was always there—like a radio station that wouldn’t quite come in. There had been a time when he had desperately wanted to tune out the static and hear the transmission clearly. The attempt had only led to frustration. It was like trying to open a door without a knob—or climb a sheer cliff without a grappling hook. There had been no way to make any progress, and he’d finally given up trying.
As he’d matured, he’d learned to ignore the cacophony, except when it became so strong that he couldn’t think about anything else. Once or twice, he’d tried to talk to Herb about it. His friend simply couldn’t relate to what Jordan was trying to describe. The knowledge had been one more piece of evidence to support his secret thesis: that he was different from other people. Damaged. A freak, if you wanted to put a name to it.
After a few quick swallows, he set down the bourbon on a glass-topped end table, retrieved the package from Herb, and slit it open.
He discovered quickly that he didn’t need the alcohol to concentrate. The material inside the envelope was enough to rivet his attention. On top was a letter in Herb’s precise writing:
Walker, what kind of trouble are you in this time? The pathology report you sent describes a case of a fatal toxic reaction to a compound that, to the best of my knowledge, has never been available on the streets.
