Blue Smoke and Murder

74

SEPTEMBER 17

2:15 A.M.

Jill lay with Zach, sweat gleaming, pleasure burning. With whispered words and interlocked bodies, they climbed a long slope of sensation to the cliff at the top of the world. Then they went over, free-falling through fire, landing in a tangle of sheets and one another.

When they no longer trembled and breathed brokenly, he kissed her with a gentleness that made her eyes sting.

“You have to go,” he said in a low voice. “Now.”

Her body tightened around him. “We have hours yet.”

“You need to sleep or you won’t be ready for whatever happens.”

“I can run on less sleep than this.”

“If you don’t leave now,” Zach said, “I’ll keep you here and to hell with the op.”

Jill stared into his eyes and knew that he meant it. Temptation went through her in a shivering wave that had nothing to do with passion. Then she closed her eyes and untangled from him slowly, reluctantly.

“Tell me that after tomorrow,” she said as she eased to her feet.

Zach started to tell her that tomorrow was an expectation, not a guarantee. The look on her face said she already knew that.

“After tomorrow,” he said.

His words could have been a warning, an agreement, or a vow. She didn’t know which.

She did know better than to ask.

Quietly she walked from their shared room to the empty one. She closed the connecting door very softly. Her sat phone was right where she’d left it, drowned by a flock of large, fluffy pillows.

It will work out, she told herself.

There will be a time after tomorrow.

Won’t there?

When she got into bed, the sheets were as cold as her fear.