The other men had spread out and were beginning to go through the room. One neared the bathroom. Flame shook her head and pointed the gun at the one closest to Nonny. “I’ll go with you, but I’m keeping my weapons.” She tried to push off the wall and the movement caused her stomach to cramp. There was no way to stop from getting sick. She turned away from them, resting her head on the wall, her finger on the trigger of her gun, hand up to her head.

Even in her misery, she heard the whisper of a body in the air duct followed by the impact of a knife hitting a target. She managed to turn her head to see Raoul, arm around one of the enemy’s neck, holding the body in front of him like a shield, gun trained on the man near the bathroom. The body of the third man lay on the floor practically at her feet.

Instantly a red dot appeared over her heart. “Put it down or I’ll shoot her.” The stranger backed up toward the cover of the bathroom.

Nonny . Flame sent the warning to Raoul.

Hit the floor. Gator squeezed the trigger three times, rapid fire. One bullet in the head, two in the heart.

The stranger fired from reflex, but Flame had dropped down and the bullet went into the wall where she’d been standing.

The man Gator had in a headlock stabbed down with a knife, driving it into Gator’s thigh. He fell backward, stumbling, tracking with his gun a heartbeat too late.

Flame threw the knife from a prone position and the sound of a single gunshot echoed through the room. The enemy went down, knife in his kidney, bullet in the back of his neck. She turned her head to see Nonny lowering the semiautomatic.

Flame crawled to Gator, shouting to Nonny to bring something to tie around the wound. She pressed hard with both hands, ignoring his orders to get the hell out of his way. Nonny returned with towels and her rifle. She put the gun in her grandson’s hands and took over. Flame slid back until her head was in Raoul’s lap. She closed her eyes, feeling his hand in her hair and she gave in, allowing the blackness to take her.

CHAPTER 20

Two months later

Flame sat on the cold tiles of the bathroom floor, her knees drawn up, head down, resting before the next wave of nausea struck. She kept the overhead light off. Her eyes were too sensitive to bother.

“I had dreams the other night. Nightmares, really.” The woman sitting next to her shifted closer and rubbed Flame’s back. “I’m beginning to remember sitting on the floor of the bathroom with you. We did it a lot, didn’t we?” Dahlia Trevane said.

Flame nodded without lifting her head. She never thought she’d see Dahlia again. Whitney had hated her almost as much as he had Flame. “The one good thing about this is that I got to see you again,” Flame said. “I thought you were dead when I read about the sanitarium in the bayou burning down. I knew it belonged to the Whitney Trust and I was pretty sure you were locked in.”

“It was my home for a lot of years.”

“I know it’s hard for you to be around so many people, Dahlia. I really appreciate you coming, but you don’t have to stay with me.”

“I want to be with you. I missed you. I missed all the girls. I thought for the longest time you all were figments of my imagination. Lily said Whitney tried to erase our memories.”

“Do you believe Lily when she says she isn’t working with her father?” Flame’s stomach twisted and she knelt up to the toilet.

Dahlia waited until she finished and handed her a washcloth. “What’s all over the floor? I can’t see but it feels like strings of silk…“ She trailed off, suddenly comprehending.

“My hair.” There was a catch in Flame’s voice.

Dahlia reached out and touched Flame’s face, felt the tracks of tears. “This isn’t the first time for that either.” She knew better than to pull Flame into her arms and try to comfort her that way. “It always grows back more beautiful than ever.”

“You didn’t answer me.”

“About Lily?” Dahlia sighed. “You always get upset when we talk about Lily. You have enough to worry about without thinking about that.”

“Tell me, Dahlia.”

“Lily is our sister and friend. She saved your life years ago when she told Peter Whitney you were planning to escape and she’s saving your life now.”

“Maybe. We don’t know that. Whitney only put the cancer in remission. It always came back.”

“She knows that. She worked on new meds to knock it out completely.”

Flame rubbed her aching head. She couldn’t remember how it felt to be normal, not sick every day. Sick and weak and unable to take care of herself. She couldn’t remember the other Flame. Confident, independent Flame. There was only the bathroom floor and the daily shots and the terrible weariness. Days went by. Weeks went by and every day it was the same.

“I hope you’re right. I hope she isn’t working with Whitney.” Because Flame couldn’t do this again-never again. She was so strong in so many ways, but this was asking too much-even of her.

“Lily’s suffered more emotionally than any of us, because we knew Peter Whitney was a monster. We knew he was a liar. She didn’t. He kept her from knowing for whatever purpose. I’ve read his letters to her. I’ve talked to Arly and Rosa, two of the people who were there when she grew up in that house with him. He acted the part of her father. She believed she was his biological child. This is all terrifying to her. It’s like she woke up one morning to discover her father was a madman and every thing she believed in was a lie. At least we knew all along.”

“Nonny says the same thing about Lily,” Flame said after a long silence. “The thing about Nonny is she’s very good at reading people. She says Lily is suffering.” She pressed her fingertips to her aching head. “Everyone is suffering thanks to Whitney.” Flame rinsed her mouth out several times.

“I’m not.”

Flame looked up. “What?”

“I’m not suffering. I have a good life. It isn’t perfect, but then whose life is? I’m not letting Whitney dictate my life to me. I draw energy to me and I can’t be around people for very long. You and Lily are anchors so it’s easier. Nico makes it much easier to get rid of the buildup, but I still have to be careful and that’s all right with me.”

“Whitney isn’t after you, Dahlia. He isn’t shooting up the swamp and killing innocent people. I put lives in danger. Nonny. Raoul.” Just saying his name made her ache. He’d been so good, so patient with her, but she’d refused to talk to him. She hadn’t wanted to hurt like that ever again. He came every day while he recovered from his knife wound. He conversed as if she answered him. He’d been the one to tell her the press had issued a huge story on terrorists attacking the compound. He’d been the one to bring her books and music-especially blues. He had been the one to talk to her night after night when she couldn’t sleep – and she hadn’t answered him. She had refused to offer him forgiveness.

Flame pressed a hand to her mouth, choking back a sob. How pathetic could a woman get? Just because she’d lost her hair and she felt lousy, she didn’t have to sit and cry about it. Just because she’d sent away the man of her dreams, the love of her life, the one person who mattered most to her. Now he was really gone-not home to be safe in the bayou, but on a covert mission somewhere halfway around the world. He’d left without a word of comfort or love from her and all she could think about was that he could be killed.

“You aren’t putting those lives in danger,” Dahlia pointed out. “If they’re in danger, Peter Whitney is the one responsible. All any of us can do, Flame, is to try to live our lives the best way we can. That’s what I’m doing. If I don’t, he wins. To me it’s that simple. I’m not letting him dictate my life or my happiness.”

“Why do you think he keeps coming after me?” Flame took another sip of water.

Dahlia shrugged. “We’ve all tried to figure that out. We might never know the answer, but maybe when Lily succeeds in knocking out the cancer once and for all, you won’t be so valuable to him. He’s a madman. I’m sure there’s some logic to his thinking, but it’s all his own.”

Flame had to kneel at the toilet again for another long bout, which became mostly dry heaves. “I’m getting to be an expert at this.” She took the washcloth Dahlia handed her. “I think I’ve inspected that toilet a million times now.”

“Lily said you’ve been doing a lot of exercises. Running on the treadmill.”

Flame’s response was somewhere between a snort of derision and strangled laughter. “If you call that running. Nonny does better than I do and makes a point of telling me, I might add.” She wiped her face repeatedly. “Sometimes I think this will never end.”

“You’re just at the worst point and about to start the climb back up. You’ve been here before and this time will be the last.” Dahlia spoke confidently.

“You believe in her that much?”

“Yep. By the way, Gator’s back.”

“He is?’ Flame felt her heart leap. “No one’s told me anything. They’re all so damned secretive. I don’t know how you stand it when Nico goes out.”

“Nico told me they went in to try to get Jack Norton out.”

“Wait a minute. I thought Raoul mentioned Ken Nor ton was captured and a team was going in.”

“Nico was on that team. They pulled out Ken, but Jack went down giving them cover fire. He waved them out and they were under orders so they left him behind. No one knew if he was captured. Gator and Nico went back with some others to see if they could get him. They hit the enemy camp, but he wasn’t there. They found evidence he’d been there, but he was either moved, or he escaped.”

“Or they killed him.”

“There’s always that possibility.”

Flame hung her head. “Is Raoul all right?”

“He doesn’t look good, not at all like himself. He never smiles, never laughs. He’s thinner, but he came back without any more scars, if that’s what you mean. Are you ever going to forgive him for saving your life?” Dahlia asked bluntly.

There was a small silence. Flame could hear her heart beating hard. She swallowed a sudden lump. “I have to forgive Lily if I forgive him.” She closed her eyes.

“I don’t know if I can do that.” She stood up slowly, dragging herself up by using the wall. “I think I can actually go sit in a chair now.”

Dahlia stayed behind her in case she was too weak after her bout of sickness to make it into her room without falling.

Flame was surprisingly steady once she got under way. “Once my nightly bout of sickness is over, whether it lasts an hour or six hours, I feel fine again. I usually walk on the treadmill and try to get in a little exercise before the morning bout starts. I don’t seem to be able to sleep much anymore.” She paused for a moment to survey her room. There were no lights on, just dozens of aromatic candles. “Nonny’s been here. She’s so sweet to me.”

Dahlia waited until Flame curled up in a chair, drawing her feet up under her and taking another sip of water. “One of your best and worst traits is your stubbornness, Flame. I think it’s saved your life, that determination and courage you have, the ability to dig in and go for something no matter what, but it also keeps you from admitting that you can be wrong.”

A faint smile touched Flame’s mouth. “You think that’s why? That I don’t want to admit that I’m wrong? I wish it was that simple.” She sighed and leaned back, resting her head against the soft back of the chair, all too aware of her bald head. She was vain enough that she didn’t want anyone seeing her that way, not even Dahlia. “I don’t trust Lily. She has that same mind. The need for answers outweighs moral issues.”