The Key to Midnight

he was worried about being relegated to a secondary role in a major operation. To a man like Marlowe, who felt that he had been born to special privilege, any indication that he was not regarded as an insider was not merely a blow to his sense of job security but to his entire self-image. Carrera could hear a burgeoning anxiety in the Brit's voice, and it amused him.
        Marlowe said, 'You must be exaggerating the need for security. After all, I'm on your side. Surely a description of this woman can't hurt anything.'
        'I can't give you even a description. Not yet.'
        'What's her name?'
        'Joanna Rand.'
        ' 'I know that name. I mean, what's her real name?'
        'You shouldn't even ask,' Carrera said, and he hung up.
        A strong gust of wind pressed suddenly and insistently against the window. A few specks of powdery snow spun through the ash-gray afternoon light. A storm was coming.

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    33
        
        Shortly after six o'clock in the morning, Alex was awakened by Joanna's cries for help.
        He was sleeping in the room next to hers, lying atop the covers in pants and T-shirt. His shoes were beside the bed, and he stepped into them as he plucked the pistol off the nightstand.
        When he burst into Joanna's room and switched on the lights, she sat up in bed, blinking, dazed. She had been asleep and calling for help in a nightmare.
        'The man with the mechanical hand?' he asked as he sat on the edge of her bed.
        'Yeah.'
        'Want to tell me about it?'
        'I already have. It's always the same.'
        Her face was pale. Her mouth was soft and slack from sleep, and her golden hair was damp with perspiration, yet she was a vision in yellow silk pajamas.
        She leaned against him, wanting to be held - and they were kissing before he realized the depth of comfort that both of them needed. He slid his hands down her silk-sheathed back, up along her sides, to her breasts, and she whispered 'yes,' between kisses. He was overcome not merely by desire but by a great tenderness unlike anything he had ever felt before, by something that for a moment he couldn't name. But then he did have a name for it - love. He wanted her, needed her, but he also loved her, and in that moment he half believed in love even though he still struggled to resist its pull. The very thought of that freighted word brought to mind his parents' faces, their voices, their protestations of affection always followed swiftly by anger, shouts, curses, blows, pain. He must have become tense, because the quality of their kiss changed. Joanna felt it too, and when she pulled away, Alex didn't try to hold her.
        'What's wrong?' she asked.
        'I'm confused.'
        'Don't you want me?'
        'More than anything.'
        'Then what're you confused about?'
        'About what we can have together. Beyond tonight.'
        She touched his face. 'Let the future take care of itself.'
        'I can't. I've got to know what you expect… what you think we can have together.'
        'Everything. If we want it.'
        'I don't want to disappoint you, Joanna.'
        'You won't.'
        'You don't know me. In some ways, commitment hasn't been any easier for me than it's been for you. I'm… an emotional cripple.' He was amazed that he had admitted it even to himself, let alone to her. 'A part of me is… missing.'
        'There's nothing wrong with you that I can see,' she said.
        'I've never said, "I love you." '
        'But I've known it.'
        'I mean… I've never said it to anyone.'
        'Good. Then I'm the first.'
        'You still don't understand. I've never believed love exists. I don't know if I can say it… and mean it. Not even to you.'
        She was the first person to whom he had ever revealed anything of what had happened to him, and he talked for an hour, dredging up both familiar and long-repressed details of his nightmare childhood. The beatings. The bruises, the split lips, the blackened eyes, the broken bones. Scalded once with a pan of hot water that his mother threw at him. The scar was still between his shoulders. He'd turned from her just in time. Otherwise, his face would have borne the scar, and he might have been blinded. He recalled the psychological torture that filled every potential empty space between the physical assaults, like mortar in a stone wall. The insults, vicious teasing. The shouting,