Ms. Starr’s Most Inconvenient Change of Heart (A Raven's Run Romantic Mystery Book 1)

by Dorothy St. James

  “I know. I know. I screwed up.” He wouldn’t be in this trouble if Sam hadn’t shown up. Still, he couldn’t find it in him to wish she hadn’t returned to his life.

  He was happy she was in the kitchen. Deliriously happy about it.

  He shouldn’t be. Both of their lives were in danger. Over the course of investigating the head of Global Tech, he’d learned two things. One, Jason Billings loved money and power. Two, no one crossed him and lived to gloat about it.

  Hart Security’s files listed seven cases where employees and competitors, even a nephew, had embarrassed or cost Global Tech money. Out of those seven, all seven were listed as missing. And all seven were presumed dead.

  “How long can you hold out before you have to tell Thacker I’m at the safe house?”

  Rafe didn’t answer.

  “Rafe?”

  Still no answer.

  Instead, he heard a loud crash and a shout.

  Logan wanted to crawl through the phone to find out what the hell was happening on Rafe’s end.

  “Dammit, answer me, Rafe.”

  “Rafe can’t talk right now,” a deep voice said.

  “Who the hell is this?”

  “Officer Dane with the NYPD. Your friend is under arrest. Unless you convince me otherwise, he’ll be booked as an accessory to corporate espionage, attempted murder, and kidnapping. You’ve been a busy boy, Logan Dalton. Why don’t you do all of us a huge favor and cooperate? Give yourself up peacefully. I hear you have a hostage with you. A Miss Samantha Starr. I’d hate for her to accidentally get in the line of fire when we arrest you.”

  There was no mistaking the threat. Apparently, Global Tech owned Officer Dane. There’d be no justice, no investigation. Only a swift execution.

  Logan didn’t believe for a minute Sam’s life would be spared even if he did hand himself over to Officer Dane. And he sure as hell didn’t expect to survive police custody, not when Global Tech was apparently calling the shots.

  He prayed Rafe was still alive.

  He pressed the end button on his cell before crushing the phone under his heel. The phone wasn’t secure now that Officer Dane had Rafe’s phone and the ability to trace the call that he’d just ended.

  The police were undoubtedly already working to track him down, which meant they’d soon be beating down the apartment door. He’d have to get Sam somewhere no one...not even Rafe would know existed. He figured he had thirty minutes, an hour at the most, to convince Sam to trust him enough to go on the run with him.

  Scratch that. Two police cars pulled up in front of the building, which meant he had less than a minute to get her to follow him. If they wanted to survive, they needed to get out of town now.

  Chapter 9

  When Logan returned to the living room from the balcony, his face looked ashen. My stomach clenched at the sight of his sickly pallor. I knew it. There is still something wrong with him. He’s going to die. It was just a matter of time before he fell down dead.

  “Murf urf ogurf?” I demanded while trying to swallow a mouthful of stale oyster crackers. Since it was past dinnertime and I’d skipped lunch, I’d used the time he’d spent talking on the phone to forage through the kitchen in search of something to eat. The refrigerator was empty save for a jar of mayonnaise that looked as if it’d been around since the Korean War. After a thorough exploration of the cabinets, I found a can of tomato soup with a use-by date that was only a few months’ old and a box of soggy oyster crackers. Hungry and slightly desperate, I’d stuffed a handful of those awful crackers in my mouth a moment before Logan had returned from the balcony. I shouldn’t have tried to talk with them in my mouth. I ended up coughing until my eyes watered.

  Logan rushed to my aid.

  “I’m fine,” he said as he pounded on my back.

  He quickly filled a glass of water and then handed it to me.

  I downed the entire glass of water. “I’m impressed,” I sputtered between coughs. “Y-you still understand full-mouth gibberish.”

  He smiled at that. “It’s an underappreciated skill.”

  My heart fluttered and did a little flip in my chest.

  Get a hold of yourself.

  I couldn’t turn all giddy every time Logan smiled at me. I’d tracked him down for a purpose. As soon as I received a new copy of the divorce papers, I would get him to sign them and never see him again. End. Of. Story.

  “What’s going on, Logan? You’re not sick again are you?” I asked after taking a couple of deep breaths.

  “No. No, it’s not that.” He gave me a worried look. “Really. I’m okay. You can stop asking me about it.”

  “If that’s the case, why do you look like you’re about to throw up?”

  His gaze roved the room. “I need you to trust me.”

  “No. No. No. Not again.” I put up my hands. “What’s going on?”

  Instead of answering he glanced over his shoulder back toward the balcony.

  “What?” My heart felt like it was stuck in my throat. “What did you see out there?”

  “They’re coming for me.” He swallowed hard. “And you. Because you were with me at Global Tech, they’re coming after you too.” Moving with quick jerky movements through the apartment’s living area, he pulled on his white undershirt. He then retrieved a gun and shoulder holster from one of his backpacks. “We need to get out of here. Now.”

  After checking his gun clip, he pushed his arms through the holster’s leather straps. He then pulled his blazer on over the t-shirt.

  “Talk to me, Logan. Who’s coming?”

  “NYPD.”

  “NYPD?” That was so not what I’d expected him to say. “What do you need the gun for?” My voice was weirdly strained and high-pitched as I pointed to the gun. He isn’t planning on shooting at the police is he? That is suicide! “The police are the good guys. You shouldn’t be running from them. Tell them what happened. Explain about the virus.”

  “I can’t do that.” He dropped a few extra clips for his gun into his pockets.

  “Why?” I grabbed the corner of the kitchen counter.

  “Sam, you need to trust me.”

  “Trust you? Trust you?” My voice went up another octave. “I don’t even know you. Not anymore. T-the police are the good guys. At least in my world they are. You can’t shoot at them. Promise me you won’t shoot at—”

  “Baby, I’m sorry. I can’t make that promise.”

  “But you can’t—”

  He grabbed my arms and kissed me.

  This wasn’t a gentle brush or a sweet peck on the lips a friend would give to another friend. It was a full-on frontal attack. His lips captured mine with the force of a hurricane. With a nudge of his tongue, he parted my lips and deepened the kiss.

  My head...hell, my entire body felt as if it’d been licked by flames. Was this what passion tasted like? I didn’t know. I’d never felt anything as amazing as his lips feasting on mine. If this was passion, I wanted more.

  Just as my entire body started to melt from the heat scorching me from the inside out, he pulled away.

  “Let’s go,” he said. His hand was on my wrist. He slung his gear over his shoulder, grabbed the stale box of crackers, and then pushed me toward the door.

  “I-I-I—” I sounded like a stuttering parrot.

  “No time.” Before I knew it, we were standing in the dimly lit hallway of the crumbling apartment building. “We have to get out of here.”

  He didn’t even bother to lock the door. I had to jog to keep up with him as he ran toward the stairwell. The urine-scented stairwell.

  “My shoes.” I tugged against the hand that he had wrapped around my wrist. “I have to go back to the apartment to fetch them.” No matter how grave the danger was to us, danger I kind of doubted existed, there was no way in this world I was going to walk barefoot through that filthy stairwell. “I need them.”

  His grip tightened. There was no budging his fingers. “We have to go.” He swung open the
stairwell’s metal door. “They’re already on their way up.”

  “If that’s the case, how are we going to get past the police if this is the only staircase?”

  “We’re not going down.”

  My heart dropped all the way to my toes. I dug in my heels, as if that would stop him.

  “No. Oh, no. Hell, no. Not the roof. This heart I have in my chest might be healthy now, but I’m sure not even the hardiest of hearts could survive jumping off two buildings in one day. It’s just too much. Too much.”

  A smile creased the corners of his mouth. “I promise we’re not going to leap off.”

  “You promise?” I so didn’t believe him.

  “My ears couldn’t take your screaming in them again,” he said and then swept me off my feet. And not in a romantic way, more in a hulkish-caveman-carrying-off-the-woman way like he had back at Global Tech. “See how much of a gentleman I am. Totally trustworthy. I won’t even make you walk through the filth in the stairwell barefoot.”

  “Put me down, you big brute.” I beat on his back. “This isn’t how you treat a woman. And I still don’t believe you aren’t going to pitch us off the roof.”

  “You worry too much.” He gave my bottom a slap. “The building’s not tall enough. We’d crash to our deaths on the ground before the chute fully opened.”

  “Comforting.”

  With me dangling like a ninny over his shoulder, he jogged up the stairs. Just up one flight. He opened the metal fire door. To my relief we weren’t on the roof.

  We didn’t go far. He stopped in front of the first apartment on the right. Its door was nearly identical to the rusty one on the safe house’s apartment. And just like on the safe house’s door, a large gang symbol had been spray painted across its center.

  Perhaps Logan was bringing me to another safe house. A safer, safe house. I hoped this apartment would be just as pleasant on the inside as it was intimidating on the outside.

  Logan heaved a sigh before knocking on the door. “I’m sorry in advance about Dave.”

  “Dave?”

  “He’s our best option right now. Otherwise, I wouldn’t—”

  The door opened a crack.

  “Put me down,” I whispered.

  “Not yet,” Logan whispered back. And then in a louder voice he called, “Dave!”

  A watery, bloodshot eye peeked out at us from around the door. That, and a mess of tangled brown facial hair. I’d had to push up on Logan’s broad back in order to crane my neck enough to see that eye peering suspiciously at us.

  “He’s going to wonder what’s going on. Put me down,” I whispered.

  “No,” Logan said.

  The bearded man growled, “What you want?”

  “Dave, it’s me,” Logan said. “You know, the guy with the fifty-dollar bills?”

  Dave’s eyes widened. “Dude! Long time. What’re you doing here?”

  “Got some heat at our backs. My girl and I need a place to crash. We cool?”

  “Got some more of those fifties?”

  “Wouldn’t leave home without them.”

  Dave’s door swung all the way open, revealing a wiry man. He had to be shorter than me, less than five-six. Wisps of greasy hair tried valiantly to cover his mostly bald head. There was much more hair in his full grizzled beard. There were also bits of food peeking out here and there in that beard of his. He wore old battered jeans, the kind supermodels paid top dollar for, except I think his got faded and battered the old-fashioned way—from years of wear. Dark sweat marks stained the underarms of his once white t-shirt.

  “Come in. Come in. My casa, your casa. Or however the hell the saying goes.”

  Logan strolled into the apartment like he owned the place. He then dropped me to my feet in the middle of the living room. I’m being generous by calling the room we were standing in a living room. This apartment was on the other side of the building, which meant its balcony overlooked what appeared to be a concrete plant.

  I held my breath, afraid of what stenches my nose might encounter in this place.

  Dave stuck his head out the front door. Was he trying to stock up on fresh air? His gaze jerked back and forth several times, as if searching for someone, before he slammed the door shut and then drove the deadbolt home.

  “What’s with the old clothes?” Dave asked. “Not used to seeing you in anything other than black. Black and deadly.”

  Logan glanced in my direction.

  My eyebrows must have risen clear into my hairline as I was picturing him dressed all in black. That’d be kind of sexy.

  He cringed and quickly said, “Not that deadly. Can we sit down?”

  “Sure. Sure. Take a load off.” Dave paced the room, his gaze going toward the door several more times.

  Logan sat in the closest chair to the door, the only hardback chair in the room. He kicked his legs out and then crossed them at the ankles.

  How could he relax like that? I couldn’t stop thinking about the police roaming the building, searching for us. Apparently, Dave couldn’t stop thinking about that either. He unlocked the door, peeked out, and then quickly locked it again.

  I looked around, not sure I wanted to sit anywhere. The once cream-colored sofa was smeared with a crusty rust-colored substance I hoped was pizza sauce and not blood. It also had a dark brown streak across the back cushion that I didn’t want to speculate about.

  The one armchair had a ripped seat cushion and exposed springs. “Don’t sit on that,” Dave said, when he saw me eyeing it. “It’s valuable.”

  “I think I’ll stand.” I hugged myself tightly.

  “Your girl isn’t happy. Kind of skinny, too.”

  “Hey!” I cried. I didn’t like the way Dave’s gaze rove over my body. And his comment stung. It shouldn’t have. But my weight was a sore subject. I knew I was skinny. Too skinny. I hated that I looked like a freaking stick.

  “Yeah, she’s a little boney, but she has a heart of gold,” Logan said without even bothering to glance in my direction.

  “Need to feed her. That’s all. Put some meat on her bones. Then you could sell her for a good price.”

  “Sell me?” I shouted. “Now see here—”

  “She’s not for sale.” Logan rose to his feet. He put his hand on my shoulder, probably to calm me. He pulled me close to his side. “No woman is for sale, Dave. And especially not this one. She’s my girl.”

  I’d never been one to enjoy macho displays of affection. They always felt the man was bolstering his own ego instead of paying the woman a compliment or expressing any kind of true affection. So, I have no idea why my cheeks heated at Logan’s declaration that I was his. I should have blistered his ears for presuming, not acting like a silly schoolgirl with her first crush.

  First of all, I wasn’t his.

  Second of all, women didn’t belong to men. Women were equal to men. Not possessions. No woman should want to be—

  Logan gave my arm a little squeeze.

  I guess he’d noticed my angry huffs.

  When I glanced up at him, he winked.

  This was a game to him? And another lie?

  “Still...” Dave rubbed the back of his neck. He hadn’t taken his eyes off my body. “The girl needs food. Let me fix you guys something.” He wandered into the kitchen before I could tell him that there was no way I’d eat anything of he might have offer.

  Unlike the open design in the safe house, the kitchen in this apartment was separated from the living room by a large wall covered in peeling flowered wallpaper.

  “I’m not eating his food,” I whispered, feeling panic surge. If we didn’t want the police to find us, we were at Dave’s mercy. “And I’m not any man’s—”

  “I know. I know, Sammy Jammy. We just have to stay here and put up with Dave a little while longer. I promise.”

  Dave came back out. Much to my relief he didn’t have food with him. What he had was a knife the size of Montana gripped tightly in his hand.

  �
�I think I like skinny girls after all,” Dave said with a sneer.

  “Dave”—Logan kept one arm around my shoulder, but held up his other hand—”let’s keep this friendly. Remember those fifty-dollar bills I have? This isn’t how you get them.”

  “Oh, you’ll give me the girl, and your fifties.” Dave sounded so sure of himself. His confidence made me shiver.

  “No, that’s not going to happen. And you know it. Put the knife down, Dave.” Logan sounded pretty confident too.

  But then Dave barked out a laugh. “What are you going to do? Run to the cops? Oh, right. You’re hiding from them.” Madness glittered in his bloodshot eyes. “I’m not. If you shoot me, that’ll get the cops that are searching the building up here even faster.”

  Logan lifted his arm from my shoulder and then held up both of his hands in defeat. “You’re right. I can’t shoot you. I can’t fight you.”

  “Damn right.”

  “Your information, once again, astounds me. You have to tell me where it comes from. Who’s your source, man? I didn’t know the police were hunting me until a few minutes ago.”

  Dave merely smiled. After a moment, he shook the knife at us. “Give me your skinny woman.”

  “Okay, okay,” Logan said as he shrank away from the deadly blade. “Looks like you’ve won this one, Dave.”

  “What?” I shrieked.

  Logan gave a slight nod.

  “What?” I repeated.

  “He’s got the knife, Sam. The police are searching for us on the other side of that door. What can I do?”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. Logan would never sell me to any man, especially not to some drugged out madman. The Logan I knew would do any and everything in his power to protect me. But then again, I didn’t know Logan anymore.

  And he was nudging me toward the greasy-haired, yellow-toothed Dave.

  Chapter 10

  There was no way in hell Logan was going to let that creep touch any part of Sam. Pushing her toward Dave had simply been part of his plan. A small part.

  Thankfully, Sam reacted exactly the way he’d expected her to react. She threw her hands in the air and shouted, “Don’t you come near me!” With an angry screech, she pivoted away from both Dave and Logan since in her eyes both men were suddenly her enemy.