She didnt see anything out of place in her pretty kitchen, but the back of her neck prickled, warning her that someone had been there who shouldnt have been. Holding her breath, she eased through the doorway connecting the kitchen to the living room. And froze in horror.
A man lay on the floor beside her sofa, blood soaking the carpet beneath him.
Sara stifled a scream, swallowing it in a bubble of hysteria. Her saner self said, Run! Get the hell out of here! But something had her stalling in place as her heart hammered in her chest.
Her brain racked up impressions in quick succession: the big man lay motionless, but he was breathing. He wore jeans, a dark blue jacket and boots with soil and gravel embedded in the treads. She could see their bottoms because he lay on his face, hands outstretched, one nearly touching a pen and notepad as though hed dropped them when he fell.
Her panicked brain replayed info from the radio bulletins: a group of men had disappeared in one direction, carrying a couple of bodies. A single man had gone off alone. Having spent the day listening to snippets about the dead agents and the unsuccessful manhunt in the forests of Bear Claw Canyon State Park, Sara knew damn well she should be running for her life, screaming her head off, doing something, anything other than standing there, gaping. But she didnt move. She stayed rooted in place, staring at the notepad.
She knew that writing.
Emotion grabbed her by the throat, choking her and making her heart race even as logic told her it was impossible. That wasnt his writing. Couldnt be. The man lying there, bleeding, was a stranger. A danger. Get out of the house, she told herself. Youre imagining things.
But she didnt run. She edged around the man and leaned down to read the note. It said: Nobody can know that Im here. Life or death.
Sara reached for the notepad, then stopped herself. Her hand was shaking and tears tracked down her cheeks unheeded.
No, she whispered, the single word hanging longer than it should have in the silence. Hes dead.
But she knew that writing, had seen it on countless notes tucked under her coffee mug, or left beside the phone, telling her where he was going, when hed be back, or that hed pick up dinner on the way. Love notes, shed liked to think them, even though hed never said those exact words.
Hope battered against what she knew to be true. Hes dead, she thought. I went to his funeral.
Yet she reached out trembling fingers to touch thick, wavy black hair that was suddenly, achingly familiar. And stopped herself.
All rational thought said she should call for help. The note, though, said not to. She wouldnt have hesitated, except for the damn writing. It was shaky, but it was his. Shed swear to it.
She could turn him over and prove it one way or the other. It wasnt as if he was going anywhere fast. He was out cold, his back rising and falling in breaths so shallow they were almost invisible. Blood soaked the rug beneath him; the smell of it surrounded him.
Saras inner medical professional sent a stab of warning as she dithered on one level, assessed his injuries on another. Hes pale, probably shocky. If you dont do something soon, it wont matter who he is because hell be dead.
Call 9-1-1, she told herself. Dont be an idiot.
Instead, she reached out and touched himhis stubble-roughened cheek first, then the pulse at his throat. As she did so, she tried to get a sense of his profile, tried to see if it was
No. It couldnt be.
Yet her heart sped up, her head spun and her breath went thin in her lungs as she debated between checking his spinewhich was the proper thing to do before moving himand turning his face so she could see, so shed know for sure.
Then he groaneda low, rough soundand said something unintelligible in a voice that was achingly familiar. Heat raced through her. Hope.
He moved his right arm and let out another groan of pain. Then, as though sensing that she was there, he shifted, snaking out his left hand to grab her anklenot hard, more looping his fingers around her, touching but not restricting her.
Sara squeaked and would have jerked away, but once again she was frozen in place, paralyzed by the memory of a lover whod kept a careful distance between them when awake, but in sleep had always wanted some part of him touching some part of her, as though reassuring himself she was still there.
Romo? she whispered. The single word burned her lips and hurt her chest.
Then he shifted again, this time turning his face toward her, so she saw him in profile against the bloodied carpet.
Her throat closed on a noise that mightve been a cross between a scream and a moan if it had made it past the lump jamming her windpipe. As it was, the cry reverberated in her head.
She knew that profilethe clean planes of his nose and brow; the dark, elegant eyebrows; the angular jaw. If he was awake and smilingor snarling, for that matterat her, she wouldve known his square, regular teeth and the glint in his dark green eyes. It was really him, she realized, her chest aching with the force of holding back the sobs.
Detective Romo Sampson. Internal affairs investigator. Live-in lover-turned-nemesis. And a dead man back from the dead.
Chapter Three
In that first moment of recognition, Saras brain threatened to overload with shock and an awful, undeniable sense of hope. She wanted to scream, wanted to laugh, wanted to shriek, What the hell is going on here? Where have you been? What have you been doing? Why did you let uslet methink you were dead?
Instead, she forced herself to do what she did bestshe buried her emotions, smoothing out the roller coaster.
Clicking over to doctor mode, she shoved her feelings aside, bundling them up along with all the questions that echoed inside her skull. Where had he been for the past four months? What had happened to him? Whose grave had she stood over, dry-eyed but grieving? Whose blood was spattered on his face, arms and hands? It wasnt all his, that was for sure.
He couldnt answer those questions now, though, and might not ever be able to unless she worked fast. Instinct told her he was close to dying a second time.
Saras heart stuttered a little when she cataloged Romos injuries and vitals. His breathing was too shallow, the pulse at his throat too slow. And his eyes, when she peeled back his lids, were fixed, the pupils unequal in size, indicating a concussion, or worse.
Shock, she thought, head injury, and She checked him over without rolling him, hissing in a breath when she zeroed in on the wet seep of blood beneath the jacket. A gunshot wound.
The hole was ragged at the edges, indicating that the bullet hadnt been going full power when it hit him, and the bruise track suggested it had deflected off his shoulder blade and done more damage to his trapezius muscle than his skeleton. The skin around the injury was inflamed and angry, the blood clotted in some places, still seeping in others. She pressed on his back near the wound, digging into the lax muscles on either side of his spine, hoping the bullet had stayed close to the surface, praying it hadnt fragmented and deflected into vital organs.
He groaned in obvious pain, but didnt move. His hand had fallen away from her ankle, as though having made that effort hed lapsed more deeply unconscious.
She couldnt find the bullet, but confirmed that his reflexes were decent in his legs, and, having removed his boots, his feet. Her brain spun. The basic exam didnt indicate an immediate spine injury, but the bullet could lie near the vital areas, poised to shift and impinge on the critical nerves if she made a wrong move. She needed more information, needed an X-ray, neededhell, she needed a doctor who had more experience with living tissue than dead, one who wasnt faintly unnerved to feel warmth beneath her fingertips.
The heat of him, so unlike the refrigerated flesh she touched on a daily basis, unsettled her. More, it wasnt just any living body. It was Romos living body, which shouldve been impossible.
Where the hell have you been? she wanted to shout at him. How could you let everyone think you were dead?
By everyone she meant herself and his parents, because while the funeral had been well attended, and dozens of cops, agents and other staffers had railed against the prison riot that had taken his life, as far as shed been able to tell, she had been one of the few who had truly mourned his death, one of the few whod truly considered him a friend, even after everything that had happened between them.
His parents had been there. Theyd been shattered and disbelieving, and Sara hadnt had the strength to say anything to them, hadnt wanted to try to define her nonrelationship with their son. And maybe she hadnt wanted to admit that shed been grieving more for what she and Romod had in the past, for the man shed thought him, not the man hed turned out to be.
Who, apparently, was alive, though not well.
Crouched beside him, one hand on his warm, bloodsoaked shoulder, Sara fought an inner battle. She should call for an ambulance, get him to the hospital. The surgeons could deal with the bullet, the cops with his fate. She didnt owe him anything.
But instead of reaching for the phone, she picked up his note and scanned it a second time. Nobody can know that Im here. That was straightforward enough, though difficult under the circumstances, when she needed to get him to an ER. Life or death. But whose life or death. Hers? His? A larger threat?
Prior to his deathor what shed thought was his deathRomo had been working with the BCCPD and occasionally the FBI, using his undeniable computer skills in an effort to ferret out the suspected terrorist conspirators within the BCCPD. Though hed set his sights on Saras office as the center of the conspiracyno doubt thanks in part to Proudfoots influenceRomo had also been looking at other departments, other cops. Then hed been killedsupposedlyin the prison riot.
The rumors had said his death had been no accident, that hed been getting too close to the conspirators and theyd managed to take him out.
From there, Sara realized, it was a short leap to believing that his apparently faked death was related to the case, too. What if hed used it to drop under deep cover? Chelseas fiancé, Fax, had pretended to be a killer in order to get himself incarcerated in the ARX Supermax, in an effort to get close to al-Jihad. It was certainly possible that Romo, though a detective rather than an agent, had done something similar. If she assumed he was the lone man whod escaped the net of the manhunt, then maybe hed fled the terrorists because theyd found him out, or betrayed him.
But if that were the case, why hadnt he turned himself in to the members of the task force? If not during the chase itself, then why not later? Why had he come to her? Why tell her to keep his presence a secret?
Damn you, she thought as she stared down at him, trying to figure out if that scenario really made sense, or if she just wanted it to. Her hypothesis did fit the evidence, she decided, but the same evidence would also support the reverse, namely that hed faked his death so he could drop off the grid entirely and go to work for the terrorists, then got separated from them in the melee of the task force raid on the terrorists cabin.
Both hypotheses fit, but which was the right one? Or was there yet another explanation she hadnt come up with?
That doesnt matter right now, she said aloud. What matters is what youre going to do with him. She glanced at the note, brain spinning.
She knew Romo, knew what hed been through as a child, and how those experiences had shaped the man hed become. That, more than anything, told her logic favored the undercover theory. The Romo shed known had been all about justice, sometimes to the exclusion of all other, softer emotions. She had to believe hed been working for the good guys. That didnt explain why he wanted to stay in hiding, but it did suggest that if the wrong people found out he was still alive, he could be in very real danger.
Which, if she followed that line of thought to its conclusion, explained why hed come to her if he felt he couldnt go to whoever hed been working for. Shed had her full medical training before deciding to specialize in pathology, and kept a small set of supplies on hand in case of emergencies. He wouldve known that, wouldve known she could patch him up. And, damn him, he wouldve known that shed be unable to turn him away.
Shaking her head, Sara stared down at him. Youre really a bastard, you know that?
He didnt answer. Didnt even twitch. Which was so not helpful.
She could call an ambulance, then dragoon one of her trusted cop friends to watch over him. There might be suspicions of complicity within the BCCPD and local FBI field office, but she knew for a fact that Chelsea, Fax, Cassie, Seth, Alyssa and Tucker were among the good guys. There was no way any of them were involved with the terrorists. Theyd help keep Romo safe.
But Sara stalled, because hed come to her. Hed asked her to keep his presence a secret. Maybe, just maybe, it made the most sense to follow his instructions for the moment, and make her decisions once he was conscious and could fill in some of the blanks.
Warning bells chimed at the back of her brain, but she couldnt deal with them just then. She needed to make a decision, and it had better be the right one. Except when she came down to it, she knew shed made her decision the moment she stepped toward him rather than away; the moment shed touched his injured shoulder and felt warm skin, and remembered what theyd once been to each other.
Fine, she said, her words seeming too loud in the silence of her secluded home. Have it your way. You always did. Reaching for a double handful of his clothingand steeling herself to be a doctor rather than a woman who still, inexplicably, wanted to weepshe said, I need to roll you. This is going to hurt.
She doubted he could hear her. The warning was more for her own sake than his, because she wasnt used to dealing with patients who still had their pain responses intact.
Doing her best to minimize the amount she twisted and moved him, in case the bullet had ended up someplace grim, she levered him partway up and checked for an exit wound or other injuries on the front of his body. She didnt find either, which was both good news and bad: good news because his injury seemed localized and treatable, assuming the bullet hadnt punched through to something internal; bad news because she didnt know where the damned thing had gone.