Enemy Waters Read online

  “He probably had everything I did monitored. I was just too stupid to see it.”

  “Innocent doesn’t translate to stupid,” Cooper said, “in any language.”

  That harder edge was back in his voice, and this time she realized what it was.

  “You’re angry.”

  He looked at her straight on then. “Angry? No. What I am is furious.”

  She realized abruptly it was nothing less than the truth, realized she’d sensed it in him for some time now. Ever since those moments at Roger’s when he’d realized who had really hired him.

  “I was lied to,” he said, confirming her guess. “And I believed it all.”

  And she, despite some cautions from that little voice in her head, believed him.

  “If I’d seen him, talked to him in person,” Cooper said, “I might have suspected. But everything was on the phone and then email or text messages.”

  “Or maybe not,” she said, feeling the oddest urge to console him. “Jeremy is very, very good.”

  “He was pretty easy to read back there,” Cooper said.

  “That is the most…indiscreet I’ve ever seen him in front of anyone else.” She drew in an audible breath. “He must hate me so much he let his guard down.”

  “Or he hates the idea that you slipped away from him. Out of his control.”

  Oddly, the words were comforting. It was easier to think of someone hating what you’d done than hating you yourself with that kind of fury. Because it would have to be that kind of anger to shake Jeremy’s usually cool control.

  “I’m sorry, Nell. Or should it be Tanya, now?”

  “I don’t think I’ll ever feel like Tanya again,” she said. “But sorry about what?”

  “I believed him. And because I believed him, I didn’t go beyond what he himself provided in the way of information. So I put you through hell all over again. I raised your hopes about your brother, and it was all a lie.”

  The words came out in such a rush she knew he had to have been thinking them for a while. As he apologized so humbly for everything that had had her so angry with him in the first place, she found it hard to hang on to that anger.

  “I just kept thinking it was going to be worth it,” he said. “I didn’t like the idea, but he insisted. Said he wanted the pleasure of telling you himself, and that you wouldn’t believe me, anyway, after that night. And I told myself that when you saw your brother, alive and well, for the first time, it would all be worth it.”

  She hadn’t thought of it from his point of view before; she’d been too irate. And something in his voice, in the sudden tenseness of his body, told her not all of that anger was directed at Jeremy.

  And suddenly the last of her own anger drained away.

  “He’s very convincing,” she said.

  “And I’m supposed to be a detective of some sort.”

  He hadn’t known. And he’d had reason, good reason in his view—as in his employer’s orders—to keep the “truth” from her.

  And he’d thought he was doing something good for her. He’d honestly thought he was going to ease her pain.

  She realized they’d changed direction again, that he’d been making a sweeping and gradual right turn. Starboard, she thought. Her father had explained it once, on a flight when the captain had pointed out some landmark visible out one side of the plane. Port, he’d told her, had the same number of letters as left. The memory peg had delighted her, and she knew she’d never forget which was which again.

  Odd, she hadn’t thought about that in years. Most of her memories of her father were tainted with his disappearance.

  She looked around more carefully. Tried to picture a map in her head, but she was oriented to land, not water. Up ahead she saw an odd shape of something going across the channel.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Back to where we were before you were so pissed at me.”

  It was such an odd way to put it that she drew back a little. If she was just a job to him, why would he care?

  Before she could go down that treacherous road, it hit her. They were approaching the Hood Canal floating bridge.

  “We’re going back to the state park?”

  “The neighborhood, yes.”

  She eyed the bridge up ahead. “Doesn’t it have to open up for boats?”

  “For big ones, and barges. And the Navy. We can go under the high part on the east end.”

  “Why there?”

  “The canal’s in essence a big dead end, so hopefully he’d think we’d head for more open water. Plus, it has another advantage.”

  “Which is?”

  “It’s within running distance of Bangor.”

  She blinked. “The submarine base?”

  He nodded. “Just stray a little too close, and whoever’s following you will have to deal with the might of the U.S. Navy. That would slow even Mr. Smooth down, if he took a notion to come after us afloat.”

  “But…so would we.”

  He shrugged. “Might take some time to straighten out. But it also might be worth it to see him squirm.”

  There was such satisfaction in his voice at the thought of causing Jeremy problems that it warmed her to the core. And for the first time in a very, very long time, she felt as if she just might have someone on her side. Someone she could trust.

  But that didn’t stop her from feeling a qualm when, some time later, after an uneventful passage and a successful anchoring offshore, Cooper turned to her and spoke.

  “Now. Feel like telling me the whole story?”

  No, she didn’t. She didn’t feel like telling anyone her sad, misbegotten tale.

  But she also didn’t feel as if she had any choice.

  Chapter 22

  Cooper had sensed the moment when she’d given in and begun to trust him. It seemed the apology had done it. Not that he hadn’t meant it; he had. Every last word of it. He’d been lugging around guilt about lying to her from the day he’d found her. Finding out he’d bought a bag of lies himself, and in the process destroyed the fragile peace she’d built for herself had only made it worse. He didn’t know if he’d ever forgive himself for that.

  He didn’t know how much of a scumbag Jeremy Brown really was, but at the very least he was a liar and a control freak. And if Nell’s version of what had happened that night was accurate—and since Brown had already proved himself a liar, there wasn’t much doubt left—then he was much, much worse.

  And he used you, he added silently. Don’t forget about that.

  And he had to admit that had ticked him off enough so that he thoroughly enjoyed cold-cocking the guy back at the cottage. He’d have done more if he hadn’t been so focused on finding Nell and stopping her from doing anything foolish. Like vanishing again.

  Nell was watching him, a new kind of wariness in her eyes. She may have come with him willingly, but he knew it was because she’d felt she had little choice. She didn’t trust him, not completely. Not yet, anyway. But she would. And sooner rather than later, if he had anything to say about it.

  They were sitting inside the main cabin, Nell with her legs curled up under her on the main banquette. It was still nice enough they could be outside on the rear deck, but she’d shaken her head rather vehemently when he’d asked.

  “I feel safer in here.”

  “Less visible,” he’d said, understanding the need. Jeremy hadn’t seen them leave, but he might have heard them and guessed, at least if he’d noticed the boat at the dock when he’d arrived. Fortunately she had been moored bow forward, so he couldn’t have seen the stern with The Peacemaker painted on it, and she wasn’t distinctive enough to pick out among the thousands of boats on the sound, unless you knew the make and model well, or spent some time studying.

  “You can dump the glasses, if you want,” he said now, figuring that was a neutral enough subject. “And the contacts. Assuming you don’t need them to see.”

  She looked startled. Then relieved, perhaps at the id
ea of removing the contact lenses. And then, after a moment, troubled.

  “But if I have to run again—”

  She stopped as he shook his head. “No more, Nell. This needs to be over.”

  A visible shiver ran through her. “You don’t understand. Jeremy isn’t a household name, but he has a lot of them in his pocket. He’s raised money for them. That was always his real goal, to have people in power owing him. The charity fundraising he does gets more press—he sees to that—but it’s just to balance the public picture. Make him seem beneficent.”

  “Even powerful men aren’t invincible.”

  She shook her head. She was trembling now.

  “Nell, listen to me. He’s going to go down. I’ll make it my life’s work if I have to.”

  She stared at him. “Why? Just because he lied to you?”

  “That’s one reason,” he said, realizing as he looked at her that it truly was only one reason. And that it was far from the most important one.

  She was still staring at him, as if she were trying to discern those other reasons. He didn’t think she’d be able to, because they were so tangled up in his head that he couldn’t sort them out himself at the moment. He just knew she’d become more important to him than anything else.

  “He’s too big,” she said. Her fingers curled into fists as she spoke, and he realized she was trying to steady herself. He stood up.

  “Come on. Let’s get you settled. I’ll show you where things are.”

  She stood as well, but wariness crept back into her eyes. “You say that like it’s going to be a while.”

  “It might be,” he said. “On board, anyway. That’s the good thing, we can move easily and quickly if it seems he’s figured it out and starts looking for a boat. I gather he has the resources to mount a search?”

  “Jeremy is a wealthy man, yes. Enough to put on the show required to be taken into the confidence of the world he moves in. But a lot of his wealth is in that power he’s collected. His connections.”

  “The ability to pick up the phone and call in a favor?”

  She looked relieved that he’d understood. “Exactly.”

  “Even up here?”

  “He has some large donors up here, yes.”

  “Just how high up the chain does this go?”

  She grimaced. “He helped put the president in office.”

  Cooper drew back slightly at that.

  “I told you he was too big.”

  Cooper reached out and grasped her shoulders. “Nobody’s too big to go down for murder. Nobody.”

  She drew in a deep, shuddering breath. Cooper couldn’t take the fine trembling he could still feel under his hands, as if she were chilled to the bone and beyond. He pulled her closer, wrapped his arms around her. For a moment she was taut, stiff, but then the trembling won and she sagged against him.

  “It’s going to end, Nell. You’re not alone in this any more.”

  She made a tiny, stifled sound he couldn’t interpret against his chest. She felt small, fragile, as he held her. And if everything she’d said was true, she’d pulled off no small miracle to escape and stay hidden this long.

  And then he’d come along and brought her old hell raining down on her again.

  He realized in that moment that he believed her. Completely. It had only taken a few minutes in the presence of Jeremy Brown to give credence to everything she’d told him. He might be smooth on the outside, but he was twisted and viciously sharp on the inside.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered against her hair, thinking he might never say it enough to make up for what he’d inadvertently done.

  He felt her shoulders lift slightly, heard her sigh. “I believed him, too, once.”

  She was kinder than he would have been, he thought. “I just jumped into finding you. I never looked past that first news story he sent, beyond verifying that it was genuine. If I’d looked further, I might have found out—”

  He stopped abruptly, not wanting to jab her yet again with the old pain made new.

  “That Tris was really dead?” she asked, doing it for him. “I understand, Cooper. Really. I know how persuasive Jeremy can be. And he’s a good actor, too. I’ve seen him put on performances that were amazing, cultivating people I knew he despised, or was angry with, or who didn’t trust him. You had no reason not to believe him.”

  “It was a nice change,” Cooper said. “No philandering spouse, no drug-addicted kid lost on the streets, just a sister who’d fled thinking the worst had happened, and a chance to bring some good news to her.”

  She leaned back in his arms, looked up at him. Her eyes glistened but her cheeks were dry, as if she’d started to cry but managed to stop it before it spilled over. He didn’t know which moved him more, the thought of her in tears, or the strength it had taken to stem the tide.

  She’s a delicate, flighty thing, her brother—no, Brown—had said.

  He ran back through his mind all the things he’d been told, things he’d thought were coming from a loving brother. All the things about her being a bit flaky, unstable and high maintenance. How he had, on some level, assumed that was a kind assessment, because her brother loved her and would cut her some slack.

  Instead, what it had been was purposeful denigration by a controlling, emotionally abusive soon-to-be-ex-husband who—

  He stopped his own thoughts with a sour twist of his mouth.

  “What?” she asked.

  “I’m having to go back and put everything he told me into the right context.”

  “Context?”

  “Coming from him, and not your brother.”

  She let out an audible breath. “I can imagine what he said about me.”

  Cooper shook his head. “Not that. I mean, what he said about you never did fit with what I was seeing, once I found you.”

  “Thank you.” She sounded as if he’d done much more than simply credit what he’d seen with his own eyes over what he’d been told. And she was looking at him in a way that made his pulse kick up a notch, as if he’d done something…heroic. When all he’d done was be a fool.

  “What I meant was what he said about…himself.”

  “Himself?” Her brow furrowed. “You mean as Tris, talking about Jeremy?”

  He nodded. “He talked about what a great guy Jeremy was, how the shooting was an accident and completely understandable, how guilty he felt about it.”

  “Jeremy,” she said flatly, “never felt guilty about anything in his life.”

  Cooper grimaced. “He said—speaking as your brother—that Jeremy had felt so guilty he gave him this great job, which was why he was in London, which was what took him so long to get here.”

  She let out a disgusted breath. “London. Big donors to one of his global causes. And a woman, of course. He’s got one of those in every port, as they say.”

  Cooper couldn’t say he was surprised, now that it was all unraveling. “Not to mention it explained why he was paying me out of a Brown and Associates account.”

  “I hope he paid you a lot.”

  “He did. And he’s not getting it back, either.”

  “Good.”

  “Speaking as your brother, he said he was totally devoted to you. That he’d never stop looking for you.”

  “Now that’s the first true thing he told you. He would never stop.” She lowered her gaze. “He never will.”

  He lifted a hand, cupped the back of her head, pressed her cheek to his chest. She didn’t resist.

  “He will,” he said.

  She gave a tiny, disbelieving shake of her head that he felt as much as saw. Just that she was allowing him to hold her like this amazed him. And now that he knew the truth, it was even more incredible.

  “He will, Nell,” he said, meaning it more than he’d meant anything since the day he’d made a graveside promise to his father that he’d take care of his mother. “He will, because I’ll stop him.”

  “You can’t. No one can.”

&nbs
p; It was muffled by his shirt, but he still heard the desolation in her voice. He’d done this to her. She’d escaped what he now knew was a horrible situation, after a devastating loss, not to mention the knowledge that the man she’d married had tried to kill her. She’d escaped and built a new life for herself, and he’d destroyed it. The fact that Brown would likely have found her anyway, that if it hadn’t been him it would have been someone else who tracked her here, didn’t help much. It had been him, he was responsible.

  Then again, if it hadn’t been him, it might have been someone who would have taken Brown at his word, assumed she was unstable, lying, or worse, and who knew what would have happened then. That other guy might have let Brown get away with it, and right now she’d be on her way back into hell.

  Instead of here in his arms. Driving him quietly but insistently crazy.

  He couldn’t stop himself, his arms tightened around her.

  “I’ll stop him, Nell. I’ll find a way. He won’t hurt you anymore.”

  She tilted her head back, looked up at him. He saw the tiniest flicker of hope in her face, nearly crowded out by doubts.

  “You’ll have to help me,” he said. “You’ll have to tell me everything you can about him, about his dealings. And then we’ll take him down.”

  “Cooper—”

  “We will, Nell. And the bigger he is, well, that just means he’s going to fall faster and land harder.”

  That flicker of hope caught, flared and Cooper felt as if he’d pulled off no small miracle.

  And then, because she was a magnet in his arms, with a pull stronger than he could resist, he slowly lowered his head and kissed her.

  Chapter 23

  Nell’s mind was spinning. It had been crazy enough already, but now…

  She heard a moan, low and soft. Realized it had risen from her. Felt vaguely like she should be embarrassed, should pull away, but nowhere could she find the strength—or the desire—to do it. The only desire she had was to stay right here, to savor the feel of his arms around her, and to glory in the feel of his mouth on hers.