Shadows at Midnight by Elizabeth Jennings Page B

said. “Room seven, Kensington House, Warren Street, off Massachusetts. Booked in the name of Claire Day. Get the computer in the room, then trash the room. Make it scary, like some lunatic broke in. She’s messing with me. We want to make sure she stops.”
    “Yessir. What about the woman herself?”
    He thought about Claire Day. What did she know? Had she seen something? Had she been biding her time, waiting to strike him down? Was she planning on fucking with him?
    She’d been a looker in her day, though she probably wasn’t one now. And a real uppity bitch, too. Turned him down flat, secretly laughing at him while she did it. Well, it was payback time. Whatever she thought she was doing, she had just made a big, big mistake. No one crossed him. No one.
    And he wanted no loose ends, not now. Especially not now.
    “Terminate. Make it look like she interrupted the burglary,” he said, flipping the cell closed. He strode down the carpeted hallway under the enormous chandeliers and entered the ballroom to thunderous applause, the man of the hour, a true American hero.
    THERE she was!
    Coming down the hallway, as stunning as ever, only now thin and pale. This morning she’d terrified him. As she’d clutched at him, as his arms had gone around her, it had been like holding an injured bird in his hand. The contrast to the Claire Day he’d known in Laka—smart, resilient, tough—had been shocking.
    She’d been rendered down to bedrock by the blast, and was barely holding herself together.
    At least right now she was looking just a little better than she had in his office, thank God. She must have eaten at least part of the lunch he’d had sent to her and she clearly had gotten some rest. He wouldn’t bet on her stability in a stiff wind, though.
    But she was still Claire. Heart-stoppingly beautiful, a deep intelligence in those gorgeous silvery blue eyes, even if the expression in them now was sadness and despair.
    She was smiling at him faintly as she walked down the corridor, eyes meeting his, and Dan’s heart simply turned over in his chest as he watched her.
    He was a Marine, always would be, even if he was out of the service. He’d been one of the best.
    Marines by nature and by training are tough and unsentimental. Dan was particularly unsentimental, especially about women. His mom had run off when he was two because his dad had been one real mean son of a bitch. Apparently, it had never even occurred to his mom to take her son with her, wherever she went. So she’d left him behind, a small child in the hands of a violent drunk.
    Most of the women Dan had had sex with were out for a good time, which he did his damnedest to give them. The few others who wanted more were the women who hung out at military bars hoping for a soldier husband, with a regular paycheck and government benefits.
    Women who weren’t too good at holding down regular jobs, who often drank a little too much and partied a little too hard and were casting their net for a husband who’d keep them. Most of them expected to divorce eventually, but Uncle Sam would make sure they got those alimony checks, which is what counted. Particularly if they’d popped out a kid or two.
    Claire was completely different, in every way, from any other woman he’d ever known.
    She simply exuded intelligence. It was like an aura around her. Even now, beaten down by life, wounded inside and out, nothing could quench the sharpness of her gaze. He’d done a little rooting around on her in his days of crazy infatuation back in Jakarta and she was exactly what she looked like. Smart, dedicated, hardworking.
    She’d raced through high school— two high schools, actually, a French one and an American one, though Dan could hardly fathom how that could be. He’d gotten his GED after joining the Marines. Though, after that, after not worrying about where his next meal was coming from and not having to deal with his father’s drunken rages anymore, he’d aced