Long Gone (9 page)

Oh, yes, with a little probing, he’d discovered that Donovan was on a mission to expose him. His involvement with the
Skyler
Dulay
fiasco down in Myrtle Beach last month was no coincidence. If Donovan caught word that his boss was leaving the country, he’d automatically assume he was taking his own jet.
Hence, the necessary but distasteful use of public transportation.

He’d told his wife he was leaving on a business trip. Armed with a passport identifying him as a German-American named Hans Steuben and wearing a convincing disguise that he had
donned in the bathroom of the cinema near his home, he was confident of his ability to leave the country undetected.   

He hadn’t become Deputy Director of the FBI by being stupid.

Stepping into line at Security, Bill double-checked his false mustache. As he bent over to unlace his shoes, he spared a thought for the life he was forced to leave behind. His fat, discontented wife could go to hell for all he cared. He would miss his dog and his fishing boat and the almost limitless power he’d enjoyed as the notorious Culprit.

He placed his carry-on luggage onto the conveyer belt. But, hell, he had enough money in his Swiss bank account, padded by desperate Centurions, to buy himself a pack of dogs and a fleet of ships, so why waste time being sentimental?  

Fixing his eyes on the body scanner ahead of him, he shuffled forward in his socks. 

He asked himself if he was leaving the country prematurely. Surely Donovan, despite his suspicions, had little by the way of evidence to indict him, except that Ashton Jameson, who was being held without bond, was copping a plea and spilling everything he knew about the Culprit—not enough to name Milton outright, but enough to root a kernel of uneasiness in his mind.

Yes, it was best just to leave now, while the leaving was good.

Edging closer to the woman in front of him, Bill impelled her toward the full-body scanner before the TSA agent even waved her over.

Then he’d be next. Once through security, he’d be on his way to France and then to Switzerland, free to live out his days like a king.

A whispered conversation of two TSA workers was his first inkling that his plan was about to backfire. The larger of the two men raked the line of passengers with a narrow-eyed look while consulting a photo in his hand. Bill’s skin shrank. His sixth sense told him they were looking for him.

Sensing a commotion behind him, Bill turned to see his nemesis, Connor Donovan, in the company of his son and a gaggle of rookies, all casing the line of passengers. His pulse spiked. What were they doing here? How could they have known that he was leaving town, when his wife was the only one he’d told.

Averting his gaze, he assumed a placid expression while counting on his disguise to get him through security.

“Next,” called a TSA
agent,
and Bill looked up to see himself being waved into the X-ray machine.

“Put your feet on the shoe marks and hold your hands over your head,” said the agent.

Bill suddenly remembered that his doctor had warned him to avoid all imaging technology in case the magnetic fields interfered with the proper functioning of his pacemaker. Should he say something? Right now, he couldn’t afford to draw attention to himself.

With sweat beading on his brow, he stepped into the scanner, put his arms over his head and held his breath. His heart pumped unnaturally fast. Was it the imaging causing that to happen, or was it the fact that both
Donovans
were coming closer?

The TSA agent touched a hand to the radio on his ear as if listening to what the X-ray tech was telling him. “Sir, do you have an implant in your body?” 

The question confirmed Bill’s guess. “Pacemaker,” he said shortly. 

Out the corner of his eye, he saw the younger Donovan’s head whip in his direction. “That’s him!” the young man cried, pointing.

Bill’s heart galloped. The younger Donovan, with his
tendre
for
Skyler
Dulay
had made him such an easy target for manipulation, but perhaps he had underestimated the kid’s instincts.

“
Er
, I’d prefer to be patted down,” Bill informed the agent quickly. He tried stepping prematurely out of the machine. 

“Not so fast,” the TSA agent growled, blocking his path. 

“FBI.
Everyone step back!” In one slick move, the younger Donovan produced a pistol. The crowd shrieked and ducked as all six special agents descended on the full body scanner. The TSA agent locked a hand around Bill’s elbow.

Connor Donovan stepped up to him, his green eyes mocking. “Director Milton, you’re under arrest for the deliberate concealment of evidence pertaining to the crimes of the Centurion mob, for conspiracy to commit murder, and for extortion” he announced. “We’re taking you into custody.”

Bill feigned bafflement. “Who’s Director Milton?” He caught the eye of the TSA agent. “May I take out my passport?” he pleaded.  

The dark-skinned agent frowned and nodded. “Go ahead.”

“Oh, come on,” the younger Donovan scoffed. “He’s the flipping head of the FBI Undercover Division. Of course he has a fake passport.” He lunged at Bill’s face, seized one corner of his false moustache and yanked it off. Some of the artificial skin smoothed over Bill’s cheek went with it.

The crowd gasped in astonishment. 

Drake Donovan pushed his face into Bill’s. “I know it’s you, you son of a bitch,” he growled. “You told me about your pacemaker six months ago. But you can bet we’ll fingerprint you in custody just to make sure. We’ll even probe your ass looking for the arsenic you’ve probably hidden in it. There’ll be no killing yourself to avoid prosecution like Owen
Dulay
did. Now, turn around so I can cuff you.” He grabbed Bill and hauled him around.

“You’re arresting an innocent bystander,” Bill insisted, struggling to free
himself
. He wound up with his ear plastered to a conveyer belt, his legs kicked apart, and his wrists in cuffs.

With a rubber burn on his right cheek, he roared, “I’ll have you fired for this, Donovan! You’ll be sleeping on the streets, living on food stamps by the time I’m done with you!” To his chagrin, bystanders chuckled at his vociferations, which completely belied his earlier impersonation. He lapsed into silence as he was hauled to his feet and prodded forward, surrounded by a phalanx of special agents.

“We’ll read you your rights on the way to jail,” the elder Donovan taunted.

Meeting the man’s cool green gaze, Bill Milton experienced his first taste of chagrin, followed by fear.

Drake swung his black Acura ILX into his mother’s driveway. As he neared the garage, the beams of his headlights glanced over a powder blue Honda. It was parked under the old basketball hoop where Lucy used to beat the snot out of him whenever they played a pick-up game. The color of the car made him think of
Skyler’s
eyes.

Damn it, it was useless. No matter how hard he threw himself into his work, he couldn’t get her off his mind for more than a minute at a time. How long could he live like this?

Thumbing the button that sent the garage door rumbling open, he parked alongside his mother’s Buick and closed the garage behind him. He wondered briefly who his mother’s guest could be. Lucy wouldn’t be caught dead driving a car that frou-frou color, so he knew the car wasn’t hers. Besides, she and Gus hadn’t made any plans to visit home for Thanksgiving, as far as he knew.

His mother wasn’t dating someone, was she?

Between his job that had kept him down in Freeport for weeks and the effort it took not to obsess over
Skyler
, he was too exhausted to notice what Karen Donovan was up to these days. He gave a mental shrug, unable to whip up his curiosity long enough to keep guessing.  

God, he was tired. He wondered if, beyond the actual meal tomorrow, he could get away with sleeping rather than helping to entertain whoever their guest was.  

Dragging his briefcase off the seat next to him, Drake trudged into the house with it. Thank God his assignment in Freeport was over. Every time he saw a yacht, he thought of Jameson and what that scumbag had tried to do.  

The aromas of a basting turkey and pumpkin pie hit him in the face as he stepped into the kitchen. His mother, girded in a flour-sprinkled orange apron, turned with a smile on her face. “There you are, darling. You’re starting to remind me of your father, working so late.”

Don’t ever compare me to him
,
Drake started to say but since his father’s efforts had put Bill Milton behind bars for the rest of his sorry life and uncovered key evidence against several Centurion elite, it was hard for Drake to whip up his resentment.

“Smells good,” he said, dropping a swift kiss on his mother’s cheek. 

“I left dinner in the fridge for you,” she said. The smile hovering around her rosy lips snared Drake’s attention. It occurred to him that she looked nothing like she used to look when she was married to his father. She’d cut her dark hair into a short, sassy style that made her seem ten years younger.
Zumba
classes had toned her petite body so that she looked thirty-something instead of fifty-two. It had taken her almost three years to get over his father’s abandonment, but by all appearances, she was better now, and that was all that mattered.

If his mother could move on with her life, then why couldn’t he? Because he’d promised Sky that he’d wait for her forever, and it’d only been two months.

“Thanks. I’ll go change first.” He started to head for his basement apartment when he stopped to ask, “Whose car is that in the driveway, anyway?” 

“
That
belongs to my new interior decorator.” Karen’s brown eyes sparkled. She bit her lower lip to keep herself from smiling. 

Drake frowned in confusion. “
You
have an interior decorator?”

“I’m redoing the living room and kitchen,” she announced with a wave of her hand. “Time for a new look, don’t you think?”

“Right.”
Either his mother had completely moved on or she was going through a midlife crisis.

“I hope you don’t mind,” she added, “but my decorator will be moving in with us.”

“Mom,” he protested. “You don’t need to rent out rooms.” A sudden thought speared him. “Dad hasn’t been shirking on his alimony, has he?”

“Oh, she’s not renting a room from me,” Karen assured him. “She’ll be staying in the basement with you.”

“What?” His mother wasn’t making any sense.

There was only one bedroom in the basement, only one bed, and she knew his devotion to
Skyler
. . .
 
Wait a minute
.

“How rude of me,” she suddenly exclaimed, casting off her apron. “Of course, you’ll want to meet her first.” Grabbing his hand, she pulled him into the living area.
“Sasha, dear.
My son is home and wants to make your acquaintance.”

A raven-haired woman stood at the picture window wielding a tape measure, her back to them. Drake’s heart suspended its beat as his disbelieving gaze recognized the slim, graceful outline of her hips. The hair color was different, but when she turned to look at him, the heart-stopping curves of her face confirmed his hopeful guess.
“Sky!”

Dropping her tape measure, she ran into his arms. They met in a crush of lips and chests and thighs. 

“Drake,” she breathed against his chin. He could feel her trembling in his embrace as he buried his nose in the hollow under her ear to inhale the scent of honeysuckle and gardenia.  

“It’s really you.” He pulled back just far enough to feast his gaze on her. “What are you doing here?” He tightened his hold on her. “Are you in danger?”

She shook her glossy hair, as black as midnight, with eyebrows dyed to match. “I’m fine,” she assured him. Her eyes sparkled with news she was clearly dying to tell. “I’m free. Higgins said your father took down all the key players that Milton was protecting. WITSEC will continue to monitor my safety, and I still have to live under an alias, but I get to live my own life now.” 

“You’re serious.” He couldn’t believe his ears. 

“Completely serious.”
She clutched him tighter in her excitement. “I’ve decided to use my degree in interior design. Your mother has looked at my ideas and she’s given me my first big job.” Uncertainty overtook her optimism. “I hope that’s okay with you.”

He tossed back his head and laughed. “Okay?
Okay doesn’t come close, babe.”
He blinked back the tears in his eyes. “This is a dream come true.” Turning with her in his arms, he eyed his mother in wonder. “How long have you
known
?”

“Just a couple of days,” she said with a shrug and a doting smile.  “It was your father’s idea, actually.”

“My father’s?”
Stunned that Connor would do something as humane as help to reunite two lovebirds, Drake didn’t know what else to say. He teased his new, secure cell phone from his pocket, unable to wipe the grin off his face as he looked at
Skyler
.