Ghosts That Haunt—10
Casey sat on the bar stool and downed another scotch. It was his fourth—fifth?—in a fairly short amount of time. How much time, he really wasn't sure. He just knew it hadn't been all that long. The alcohol blunted the ragged edges, but it did nothing to lighten his thoughts. He was angry. Angry at Beckman for having taken him from Burbank. Angry at Riah for not having told him she was pregnant. Angry at her for not having told him she'd lost the baby. Angry at V. H. for not having told him what happened to Riah. Angry at Faraday for having shot and nearly killed her. Angry at himself for not having made sure she knew he had to leave. Angry at himself for not having found a way to follow up, for not having a real conversation with her so that she could tell him she was pregnant. Angry at himself for not protecting her.
He lifted a finger at the bartender, and his empty glass disappeared, replaced by another drink. He nursed this one, aware the bartender was considering whether or not to continue serving him. He had chosen this bar—sorry, pub (damn Brits ought to speak English)—because it was a little more upscale and considerably more quiet than what his men would choose, and he really wasn't in the mood for either company or talk. He heard a sexy, throaty, female voice next to him and glanced over his shoulder at a stunning woman who took the stool to his left. After she ordered, she met his eyes.
She was just his type—tall, curvy, brunette, beautiful. She smiled at him, and he found himself smiling back. The bartender sat a cosmopolitan in front of her, and Casey nearly sneered at the girly drink until he remembered she was a girl—woman. She gave him a lazy smile, one that was pure invitation. He watched her pick up her drink, and her green eyes fixed on him over the rim of the glass.
Casey turned toward her, and when she sat her drink down, she said, "Nice uniform."
He nearly looked down to see, but then he remembered. He was Major John Casey, United States Marine Corps, again, not John Casey, NSA agent posing as mild-mannered appliance salesman. "Nice dress." Almost dress would have been a better description given how little of it there was.
"Are you here alone?" she asked.
He grunted. He was just enough this side of sober to exercise a little caution. It wouldn't be the first time someone sent a pretty woman to distract a serviceman before rolling him—or worse. He often attracted the worse, it seemed.
She leaned toward him, and he got an easy look down her cleavage. It was very nice cleavage, indeed. More than what Riah had, and from the shape and hang of her, probably real—maybe. "So what's a handsome man like you doing here all alone?" she purred, and her hand landed on his thigh.
There were all kinds of ways he could answer that question, and all of them fought to get out. It had been a long time since someone had called him handsome. It had been a long time since that morning when Riah had ridden him to sexual nirvana and then left him for work. That wasn't fair, a part of his brain reminded him, but he was far enough gone that he didn't care. When the woman next to him moved her hand slowly up his thigh, he cared even less. "Getting a drink," he said, which didn't really answer the question, but he felt certain it was a good answer. He lifted his scotch and took a stiff swallow.
Her hand trailed back down his thigh and up once more, higher this time, more on the inside. She took her hand from his leg, and he nearly groaned. She lifted his left hand and looked at it. "No ring. You're single?"
Casey looked at his bare finger, watched her index finger trace over where a wedding ring would be if he were married. His body begged him to say yes, but what came out of his mouth was, "No." He started to change that, but he had a moment of clarity where he knew he had given the right answer.
If she had been there, he suspected Riah would have cut the woman's hand off, and the idea made him smile.
Her green eyes widened. He suspected their color had more to do with contact lenses than nature. "Married?" He shook his head, and she smiled broadly at him. Her hand was warm where it held his, and her skin was soft. Casey had missed the softness of a woman's hand. Actually, he had missed the feel of Riah's hands. "Girlfriend?" He nodded. She made a show of looking around. "Where is she?"
"California," he said, and her smile turned seductive.
"You're a long way from home, then aren't you?" She leaned toward him, and he got another good look at her chest down her miniscule dress. He said nothing, lifted his glass and swallowed more scotch. He was willing to bet there wasn't a stitch of underwear beneath that dress. He was flooded by memories of Riah in his lap late at night on her stepfather's stoop in Chicago, of the tiny, pornographic excuses for underwear she often wore when she did wear it.
"You must be so lonely," she crooned softly, and she gave him a practiced looked.
He was lonely, and while he was tempted by what she was offering, he suddenly realized he wasn't interested in sex with a stranger. Following quickly on the heels of that thought came a vision of Riah—not as he'd last seen her in the hospital but that image of her that had kept him company all the months he had been gone, the one of her naked in his arms, the silky tangle of her hair on his pillow and those heated blue eyes of hers burning for him. He acknowledged what he really hadn't before: not only did he miss Riah, but he wanted her, not some other woman, no matter how attractive the woman was. And the woman next to him was very attractive, indeed.
He agreed he was lonely, and the woman leaned even closer, her hand back on his thigh. He grasped her wrist and moved her hand to the bar. "I don't cheat," he said gruffly.
"There's no reason she ever needs to know," she said in that low, seductive voice.
"I'll know," he said, and he gave her a level stare. God, he must be insane, he thought. All he had to do was crook a finger, and she would go with him. "I love her, and I have no intention of betraying her."
Where had that come from?
He cared about Riah. He was attracted to her, enjoyed sex with her, craved sex with her, even now, but he'd never thought of how he felt about her as love. And yet it was exactly the right word to describe this feeling he had for her. He loved her. He tried that out: He loved her. He lifted the remnants of his scotch, and he felt a silly grin slide his mouth up. He loved Mariah Adderly.
Who would have thought? He didn't go for dark blonde, short and kind of crazy, but God help him, she had wormed her way into his very soul. She was steady, loyal, and intelligent. She had a strength of character he admired, and even if she came unglued when faced with the darker parts of her past, she always seemed to fight her way back. She could hold her own in the trickiest of situations, and she kept him more than interested in bed. He finished his drink. He had to tell her, he thought, and he squinted at his watch and tried to do the calculations. He suddenly couldn't remember how many hours difference there were between here and Los Angeles. Ten? Eleven? Twelve? What if she was at work? Was it daylight saving time? Did that make a difference?
His thoughts crashed to a stop. The brunette's hand was back on him, but this time, that wasn't his thigh she was feeling up. "You know you want to," she said huskily near his ear.
Casey grabbed her wrist and shoved her hand away. "But I'm not going to," he said harshly.
"Major," he heard, and he knew that voice. He closed his eyes. Of all the people to catch him with a woman's hand in his crotch, General Paul Patterson was one of the last people he would want to do so.
"Sir," he said, and stood, unsteadily. Paul Patterson was in uniform as well.
General Patterson gave the brunette a hard look. "I believe you were moving on," he said to her, and she took one look at his stern, craggy face and picked up her drink and did just that. Casey wished he could leave as well, though not necessarily with the woman. He remembered an incident early in his career which had involved a woman he hadn't realized was married, and the General, then a lieutenant colonel, had nearly thrown him out of the Corps. Patterson had been about to wash his hands of then-Lieutenant Casey, but he had given him another chance. This, though not at all the same thing, reminded Casey nonetheless how close he'd come to ending his career all those years ago.
When the woman was gone, Patterson took her seat. He told the bartender he'd have what Casey was having. The bartender kindly set another glass in front of Casey when he served the General. When Patterson lifted his glass, he slid a sideways look at Casey. "You know, John, I like that pretty little girl of yours," he said and sipped his whisky. Casey recognized a warning when he heard one. "I'm glad to see that even three sheets to the wind and far from home you still have sense enough to keep it in your pants."
Casey didn't know why that chafed so much, perhaps because he knew damned well Paul Patterson more than liked his "pretty little girl." Perhaps it was because Paul wasn't his father, or perhaps it was because Casey knew how close he'd just been to not keeping it in his pants. He said nothing, though, just stared at the bottles behind the bar.
Paul lifted his whisky. "When I met your girl," he said quietly, "she didn't strike me as the type to cling. In fact, she reminded me of my late wife. Caroline was a military brat, and she knew what she was getting when she married me." He sighed. "Despite that, she wasn't always happy about what the job required. We often fought about that. She understood, though, that when she married me, all those things she didn't like were part of the life she had taken on."
Casey leaned forward, rested his forearms on the bar, and twisted his glass with the thumb and middle finger of his right hand. "Riah's not like that. She knows the job."
"Well, John, there's understanding, and then there's understanding."
He turned to squint at Paul's profile. What the hell did that mean?
"Your Mariah seems to understand a whole hell of a lot more than you do, son." Casey was confused. As far as he knew, Paul had only met Riah the once—well, twice—and the other man seemed to know what he was thinking. "I had dinner with her just before I came over—about three weeks ago." He lifted his glass again. "Lovely girl."
Paul Patterson had had dinner with Riah. Casey had an irrational desire to punch the man. In part it was envy that he had spent time with her while Casey was coming off a grueling search of the mountains on the Afghan-Pakistan border. He longed to ask how she was, whether she was completely recovered or still struggling. Most importantly, he wondered if she had been home in Los Angeles or somewhere in Canada. He liked to think of her at home, waiting for him. If she was in Canada, his was a lost cause.
"She was favoring her right side," Paul said conversationally. "She'd obviously been injured, but she didn't say how. It seemed serious. Broken ribs, maybe."
Casey knew he was fishing for information, but that thought didn't catch up with him until he'd already said, "She was shot."
"So you've seen her?"
He nodded slowly and stared into the scotch in his glass. "I was there." His hand shook, and he sat the glass back down. He hadn't had many nightmares about what he did for a living. He rested relatively easily about that. When he did have nightmares, they were about the things that did trouble him—Kathleen, Ilsa, losing good men in battle, watching innocent civilians get slaughtered—but what happened on that ISI training mission had him waking in a cold sweat more often than he liked to admit. The dreams lacerated him. He dreamed she died, bled out before he could get to her. He dreamed she died in his arms. He dreamed that the medics hadn't been able to help her. He dreamed the surgeons couldn't save her.
And then there were the more insidious dreams, the ones where he saw her pregnant, the ones where he held their child, the ones where she was home waiting for him, heavy with child. Those were the most painful of all, and he had a moment when he thought he might cry like a little girl in the middle of an English pub and, worse, in front of the man to whom he owed his life.
"John," Paul said softly. "We all make choices, sacrifices for what we do. We do it because somewhere inside us we recognize that the few frequently sacrifice so the many can live the kind of life we believe in."
Casey nodded. That was why, he told himself, he did what he did. It was what kept him going when the American citizens he had sworn to protect acted like he was a criminal or that what he did, what he was, was somehow wrong. It kept him going when he realized his countrymen didn't care what he did or why but were unwilling to sacrifice themselves. It kept him from dwelling too much on all he had personally given up, turned his back on, to do his duty.
"I'm not sure you fully understand the choices you've made," Paul continued. He turned toward Casey. "I've watched you over the years—at least the years since you finally got your head out of your ass and decided to grow up—and one of the things that has always concerned me is your blind allegiance to duty." The General let that sink in a moment before he added, "It is possible to do one's duty and have a rewarding personal life."
"Riah put you up to this?" Casey hadn't intended that to come out as crankily as it did.
"No, John, but your girl is pretty sharp. It didn't take her long to figure out what it took me years to realize."
Casey waited for him to finish that, but he, apparently, waited in vain. He swallowed some of his scotch, but Paul still sat silently staring ahead. "Well?" Casey finally grunted.
Apparently the other man had been caught up in his thoughts. "Mariah gets who you are, John, and she doesn't want to change that. You're a very lucky man. As you said, she understands the job, but she's also willing to give you the room you need to do that job." He picked up his own glass. "I'm not sure many women would be that flexible."
"Her mother sure as hell wasn't," Casey said before he could stop himself.
Paul swallowed some scotch and nodded. "Ariel wasn't entirely to blame there, John. V. H. isn't perfect, and if he'd been in the position you were a few minutes ago, he would have taken the offer before him. Still, Ariel wasn't willing to share, and I don't think your pretty little girl is, either."
"Is that supposed to be some kind of warning?" Casey demanded, but he remembered what she had said to him that long-ago afternoon in Castle.
"No," Paul said calmly after a moment of contemplation. "No, it's a statement of fact. That little girl is head over heels in love with you, John, and if you're too stupid to see it, then you're not the man I always thought you were."
Casey felt his hands fist. Then he realized what Paul had said: Riah loved him.
He knew that, he reminded himself. She had told him as he held her and tried to staunch her blood. It did him no good, though. She was wherever she was, and he was here, in a British pub on leave from a thankless job that seemed more and more impossible. He briefly wondered if he had called her and told her he was going to spend two weeks with his team in England training with the Brits and other coalition teams if she would have come over to see him. He wondered if Beckman would have let her. Then he was right back to wondering if she had even returned to Los Angeles or if her father had kept her home in Canada.
Paul signaled for another drink. As the General waited, he said, "It doesn't have to be an either/or proposition, John. I know you were pushed into that kind of decision once before, but you can have Mariah and your career, too. I suspect it would be easier with her than any other woman you might choose. My wife, a lot of soldiers' wives, for that matter, resent what we do because it takes us away from them, uproots them again and again. Caroline loved me, though, was proud of what I did, but deep down, she didn't understand how my duty to country could take precedence sometimes. That's the way it had to be, she knew it, and because of that, I made sure that she came first as often as I could make that happen. Your girl thinks she always has to come last, and that simply isn't so. She's never going to try and stop you doing what you have to, but maybe you should think about whether or not there are times when you should put her first. It may be country, God and family, John, but sometimes family should come first."
There was another epiphany as Paul finished. That was how Bartowski saw the world. Family and friends came first with Chuck, and it was part of what made him both maddening and admirable. He put others first as a matter of course, but when push came to shove, it was his loved ones who won over duty. For Casey, it had always been the other way around. Family, friends, even, came after duty. He also heard an echo of one of the things Riah had said in the hospital while she'd been so heavily drugged she'd thought he was an hallucination: that the job always came first. It had been bitterly said, and he had wondered at that bitterness.
"She can't always come first," he said softly.
Patterson stared thoughtfully at him when Casey looked up, the silence having stretched for what seemed many minutes. "Let me ask you something, John," Patterson said. "Do you love her?"
He didn't hesitate. "Yes."
"Have you told her that?"
Casey shook his head. He wasn't going to tell his old friend and mentor that he had only put that word on what he felt a few moments before the General appeared.
Paul picked up his glass. "You really should." He sipped his scotch. "And you should really try putting her first for a change. Your pretty little girl has had a lifetime of coming last—with her father, with her mother, with almost anyone who professes to care about her. If you really love her, make sure she comes first at least some of the time."
Casey woke the next morning with one hell of a hangover. It had been a long time since he'd been in such a state, and it didn't help that Paul Patterson came and personally woke him up. Before the morning was over, he was pretty sure the General was determined to make things as painful as possible for him. Penance, he mused.
Late in the day, Casey considered calling Riah, but he still didn't know where she was. To be honest, he was afraid to call her. What he had to say to her was probably best said in person. He wanted to see her face when he told her he loved her. Then again, if she were to reject him, it might be best to have some distance. Before he could make up his mind, he had orders from Beckman. He was leaving his men once more to do a job for her in Antwerp, and he pushed Riah to the back once more as he was briefed.
- X -
It was nearly the American Thanksgiving when she received the call from an ISI official. After having re-opened the inquiry, Faraday was cleared in her shooting. Not surprisingly, her next call was from her father, who told her the same thing. He went on to warn her that whoever had done it was still at large, and she needed to exercise caution. He also told her that two of the ISI Institute's instructors had been let go in the wake of the broader investigation. "Are you about to tell me I'm not welcome in Canada any longer?" she teased and then wished she hadn't when there was a long pause.
"I think it might be best if you stayed away," he admitted, "at least for a while."
Four days later, she saw Mick Faraday stroll into the Buy More just as she was preparing to leave. He saw her and walked over to her. "Mariah," he said, and she was relieved to not hear any hostility in his voice.
"Mick," she said, but there was an edge of suspicion in her voice.
"New boyfriend?" Lester asked, and Mariah wondered where he had appeared from.
Since he hadn't called her Adderly as he usually did, she hoped Faraday would play along. "This is my cousin Mick," she said easily, and Faraday reached out a hand. "He's here for the holiday."
"Would that be a second cousin?" Jeff asked, materializing beside his partner. "Because that makes him legal."
Mariah closed her eyes a moment and breathed. Chuck had appeared when she opened her eyes, and when she introduced Faraday as her cousin, she saw the flash face start. He gave Mariah a panicked look, and she wondered what had been in the Intersect on the other man. Jeff had engaged Faraday, and Chuck pulled her a few steps away.
"Okay, he isn't my cousin," she said softly. "Unless you're about to tell me he's Fulcrum, let's just say I'm more familiar with his service record than I ought to be."
"He's the Canadian Casey," Chuck said.
Mariah laughed. She hadn't thought about it that way, but there was a certain truth in that—as far as the service records went. "It's okay, Chuck," she reassured him, though she did admit, "but he doesn't much like me."
"So ISI has a job on?"
"Not that I'm aware of," she told him, and he relaxed. For some perverse reason, she added, "But he was just acquitted of shooting me."
For a second she thought Chuck might actually faint, he went so pale. "You're joking, right?"
"Nope," she said and then turned to rescue Faraday. "Come on, Mick, you promised me dinner." She took Faraday's arm, and he let her pull him out of the store. She dropped his arm once they were outside
"I suppose I do owe you dinner," he said reluctantly.
Mariah eyed him. "Since neither of us much likes the other, how about we make it a drink?"
They went to a bar not far away. Mariah had been there a time or two, and she was pretty certain no one from the Buy More would follow them. They took a seat at a table in the back, and both of them sat where they could see the other patrons. She ordered bourbon, he ordered a beer, and then they sat and looked at each other. Neither spoke until their drinks were set before them and the cocktail waitress had moved away. Faraday looked around. It was the kind of dive her father used to love, working-class stiffs, no fancy booze behind the bar, no microbrewed beers on the menu, and the wine list had a choice of white or red, vintage unknown. The food probably contained so much fat it would clog their arteries just to look at it. She eyed Faraday's expensive suit, wondered if it was his or if it had been issued for whatever his mission was.
"I really do owe you a drink," Faraday said at last, lifted the beer bottle for a long swallow. "Your father and everyone else were willing to leave me to rot, but he tells me you argued that I couldn't have done it."
"Don't expect me to be happy about saving your ass."
He stared at her, and she stared back. She was never going to like him, she knew, and she supposed she ought to be glad she was unlikely to ever have to work with him. "You could have taken your revenge and not said anything."
"Not how I operate." She had been tempted to let it go, but she had a strong sense of justice, and that had kept her prodding them to reexamine the facts. "I take it you're headed off on assignment?"
He eyed her a moment. "Indonesia."
Mariah nodded. "Anti-Terrorist Team?" Faraday grinned but said nothing. His expression said it for him. "Congratulations," she told him sincerely.
"You didn't want it?"
She could tell he was surprised by that. "Didn't matter if I did," she said. "I was never going to get that slot."
"Parker said you ended sixth in the class."
"Two fatal errors during the training exercise." She shrugged. "I got a rather interesting reprimand with the notes from whomever they had evaluate the exercise." She had, too. It came from the exercise supervisor, but there had been three paragraphs that were obviously quoted from the evaluator's report.
"You're kidding, right?"
Mariah could tell he didn't believe her, but she wasn't sure which part he found incredulous. "I can show you the documents," she offered.
He took a long pull on his beer. "Adderly, I'd like to tell you why I didn't come down when you gave the order."
Sitting back, she crossed her legs and then crossed her arms over her chest. She didn't much care, and she wasn't interested in hearing he was being a jackass. He surprised her, though.
"I watched Parker and Sontag go to the roof after you told them to go around back. I saw a strange glint across the roof from where they took up position, and when I looked through the scope, there was a guy in gear with a rifle and scope." She uncrossed her arms and frowned. "He sat there, out of sight from Parker and Sontag, didn't move, didn't say anything. When the exercise was over, though, he started creeping toward the front of the building after they went back to ground level. I stayed to see what he was going to do." Faraday took another pull of his beer. "I listened while you chewed everyone out, and I watched him take aim. I couldn't figure out which one of you he was after, but after the others left and you stayed, I figured out he was aiming at you. "
Mariah had what seemed like a dozen questions bouncing around her brain, but she wasn't certain she could get a one out.
"I wondered for a few minutes if the sadistic bastards at the Institute were running a secondary game," he said, "but then I saw there was no band on his magazine." Mariah felt herself pale. They knew they were using the simulated ammunition because the clips and magazines had green bands on the ones containing the simunition. "I had a magazine of live ammo with me, and I switched it for the blanks. You took your vest off, and he shot you. I tried to get a good shot, but he was fast, faster than anyone I've ever seen, and he was out of the line of fire before I could get a clear shot."
She studied him. "Why didn't you tell someone?" she asked.
He sighed, turned the bottle between his two hands on the table. "It was clear they were certain I had done it, and I knew they wouldn't listen because you're the director general's daughter. I'd been a real dick, so I suppose that was understandable. I figured I'd wait for them to see that the bullet didn't match my gun, thought they would be willing to hear me then." He grimaced. "I never dreamed they wouldn't find the bullet."
"I'm sorry," she said automatically, though she supposed she was. Somewhere. Somewhere really deep inside her because she was usually a good person.
Faraday shrugged again. "I also heard what happened to Parker, and I really didn't want that big son of a bitch coming after me."
Totally confused now, Mariah tried to untangle that. "What happened to Parker?"
"That Yank bastard who did the evaluation shot him—four times."
She choked on her bourbon. Faraday reached across and thumped her on the back. "He's dead?" she asked in a strangled tone. For some reason, John's face swam in her head.
"No," Faraday mused. "Hannah Ernst said he used some sort of tranquilizer darts."
John had been an hallucination. He had not been there, but she felt the blood drain out of her head. Big. American. Tranqs. She closed her eyes tightly, forced herself to let it go, to not ask.
"Everyone on the ground heard him, Adderly," he said quietly, "you, too." When she just stared at him, he continued. "Your mike was still live. The Yank was the first one to you. He begged you to stay with him. You told him you loved him."
She stifled the shiver. "I was losing consciousness and hallucinating," she said. Now she knew what Dave had been about to tell her, what all the talk he mentioned was about. It couldn't have been John, she reminded herself. It couldn't have been. He was God only knew where, and her father would have surely told her if John had been there. Probably, he would have told her. Maybe he would have told her. Surely her mother would have said something, even if it had only been to tell her what a bastard John was.
She was going into shock, she thought, dazed.
Faraday looked relieved. "I figured it was something like that, though I have to admit there have been some interesting rumors about you and an American." He finished his beer. "Then again, they mostly started with Gray Laurance, so I doubt they held much truth."
Mariah didn't know what to say, so she finished her drink. Let him think it was nonsense, she told herself, because it was easier than explaining. They didn't like each other, they would probably never like each other, but she had let him thank her for doing what was right. She didn't want to give him any information he could use against her when they were finished making nice with one another. She had no illusions that their apparent truce would last.
Faraday signaled the waitress, paid the bill, and then, when they stood in the parking lot, he told her, "Good luck, Adderly."
"You, too," she said and shook the hand he extended to her before he walked away.
She went home and collapsed on her couch, hugged her legs to her chest and stared blankly at the wall opposite her. She could remember hearing John's voice, but she had been sure she imagined that. She knew she told her mother she had imagined him, and her mother hadn't corrected her. The investigation panel had asked her how well she knew the evaluator, but they hadn't told her who it was when she admitted not knowing.
Beckman would never have let John leave his unit to evaluate a training exercise in Canada. Never. It had to be some other big American with a tranq gun—had to be. She told herself that again and again to beat back the hysteria. If she thought, even for a moment, it had been John, that he had really been there, then the other temptations would come back—the temptation to call him, the temptation to answer that e-mail he had sent her months ago, the temptation to demand Beckman tell her where he was.
Thanksgiving was a quiet holiday. Her mother and Emma came to spend it with her, and Mariah was glad to not have to celebrate it with Chuck and Ellie. She took comfort in having members of her family with her, in being at her mother's Malibu house, and from not having to have Ellie commiserate with her over John's absence. She suspected Kavanaugh would also be present at the Bartowskis', so she was glad to have a reason to decline the invitation. As it was, she was tired, and if her mother or sister thought she was unusually quiet, neither said anything. She listened to her mother talk about agreeing to do a USO show in a week or so, and Emma talked about school. When Mariah's mother asked if she would be going home for Christmas, Mariah shook her head. Beckman had already told her she would have Chuck duty then.
She existed over the next several weeks, but that was it. She did the cover job, she went Christmas shopping with Ellie, and went through the motions of monitoring Chuck.
She absolutely, positively, did not wish for what she could not have. She absolutely did not dwell on might-have-been or could-have-been. She absolutely did not lie awake at night in the bed she used to share with John and remember all the nights she had spent in that bed with him. She absolutely did not replay that last training exercise in her head, did not take it apart second by second trying to get any hint that John had actually been there. That would be madness, and Mariah was not mad. Not mad at all.