“Well, screw their operation. I won’t lose anybody else.”
Anybody else? Who? Who had he lost? Jeez, her mind was chaos. She had to think, she had to get more of her memory back.
Sam took a step in retreat, turned, and rubbed her fingers against her temples. Think, damn it! When she reached the threshold to the office, she stopped, and her head snapped up.
TWELVE
“Doesn’t the FBI have to inform the local authorities before they start an investigation in their territory?”
Max’s shoulders lifted and dropped. “Mostly. Common courtesy thing. Good for public relations. Sometimes it helps to have local officials involved because they know the lay of the land and the people. It can make getting under cover that much quicker.”
“Did you contact the local cops?”
“No. I didn’t want to tip anyone off to my brother, just in case.”
“But you just said that’s common protocol for an FBI agent.”
Opening his mouth to reply, Max paused when he realized his mistake, and chided himself silently. Caught off guard, his mouth shut tight, he stared at Sam.
She grew nervous under his unblinking gaze, but he needed time to regroup. Scratching his head, Max wondered how they got to the point of him revealing so much and she nothing. Sam was an enigma, one minute sweetly innocent, the next, cunning interrogator.
Exhaling, he realized it was too late to take back anything he said. One of the first things he learned about reading people was that whatever he or she revealed in a passionate outburst was true and real. And he’d just been crazed. Okay, so what had he really exposed? That he loved his brother. Kevin was FBI. And, he himself was FBI, past tense.
“I’m not with the FBI.”
She eyed him, suspicion in her arched eyebrow. “Liar,” she hissed, and stormed from the room, footsteps pounding on the hardwood floor.
“Oh, hell.” He fucked up. Sam wasn’t stupid. She just figured out what was probably behind the entire mess. She was probably the sharpest woman he had ever met, including his dead partner, Lucy.
The sound of the bedroom door slamming made him cringe. He needed Sam on his side if he was going to get his brother back. Thumping his hand against the wall, Max strode down the hall after her.
He tried the knob. Locked. Just his luck.
“Sam, open up.”
He tried the knob again. No luck. Then he hit the door with a sigh of frustration, resting his forehead against the wood.
“Samantha, please. I didn’t lie…exactly.”
“Bite me,” she yelled back.
“I will if you open the door.” He couldn’t help grinning. He pictured Sam standing there, hands on hips, telling him to do something he would love to do.
“Damn it, Sam,” he pleaded to the door, “let me in.”
He heard her moving around, opening and closing things. What the hell was she doing? What was she searching for? “Shit.” Max did a quick mental check of the room assuring himself there wasn’t anything she could get into. None of his weapons were accessible. Not that he thought she would shoot him for not being completely honest. Would she?
“Samantha Spenser, open this damn door now.”
Before his fist pounded the door again, it swung open. Holy Mary! Sam leaned against the door wearing one of his dress shirts…and nothing else but a seductive grin. She stood there, one arm poised above her head holding onto the door, one foot resting against the other ankle, and a hand on a hip, while his shirt hung completely open from nape to…
“You said you wanted in,” she purred.
He had to pick up his jaw, stick his eyes back in their sockets, and adjust himself before he could walk into the room. The gorgeous woman scrambled his mind and turned it to mush.
“Sam.” His tongue caught in his throat, Max cleared it and continued. “Sam, I didn’t exactly lie.”
“Mmm.” She reached for his shirt, tugged it from his pants. “You already said that.”
His shirt on the floor, he tried to explain further. “I was with the FBI.”
“But you’re not any longer?” she murmured, licking one of his nipples and deftly unbuttoning his jeans.
“Oh, Sam. I’m trying to explain, but you’re making it very hard…” He gasped. She had taken him in her mouth.
“Very hard.”
Max groaned with pleasure. Sam was doing things with her tongue, tasting him in ways that made him want to be a never-ending dessert. He wanted her, had to be inside her before she finished him off.
He hauled her up by the shoulders, kicked the rest of the way out of his pants, and cautious of her wounds, tossed her on the bed.
Sam laughed and scooted up the bed, crooked her finger at him. Max followed her on his hands and knees, an animal on the hunt for his prey. He caught her at the ankle, tugged her underneath him, and slid into her. Heat and heaven.
As she tipped her hips to meet his, Sam wrapped her legs around him, and flipped their positions. Sitting astride his waist, she beamed at him. He would not last long.
“Oh.” That did not seem to be a problem for Sam. She increased the rhythm.
When he put his hands on her hips, she shook her head at him.
“My fantasy. You hold on and enjoy the ride,” she told him, placing his hands on the headboard.
Eyes shut, Max intended to do as Sam suggested. Then he heard a click. His eyelids sprung open and there was another click.
* * * *
“Let me out of these cuffs,” he snarled.
Afraid his bark might be worse than his bite, Sam hesitated. Max’s eyes bore right through her, and for a minute, she second-guessed her actions, but then she stood, stepped off the bed, and started buttoning the shirt.
“Nope,” she told him and walked into the bathroom.
“Sam, get your ass in here!”
Ignoring his demands and shouts, Sam washed her face, gave herself a quick sponge bath to get rid of any lingering sex smells, and brushed her hair back into place. When she re-emerged fully dressed, she held a small duffle in her hands.
“Where the hell are you going?”
“I’m leaving.”
“Over my dead body,” Max exclaimed.
Sam lifted a brow. “Really? Doesn’t look to me like you’re in any position to argue or do anything about it.”
Crossing the bedroom floor, she turned back before she reached the door. “I’m sorry you don’t trust me, Max, but I can’t trust you either.”
“I do trust you. I was trying to explain before…before… you seduced me. Incomplete information is ingrained in me. I’m no longer with the FBI. Sam, believe me. Damn, I made love with you!”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Like that makes a difference to you. You used me. You don’t trust me.”
Before she let Max see how she really felt, Sam spun back toward the door.
“You can’t leave me like this!”
Once again, she stopped and reversed direction. “Payback’s a bitch.”
“Sam,” he pleaded.
“Fine.” Picking up the towel from the floor, she tossed it over his lower torso. “There.”
“Gee thanks.”
She nodded.
“Where are you going?”
Tilting her head back in exasperation, Sam moaned, and closed her eyes. Then she righted herself, and stared Max in his whiskey eyes. Eyes, that ten minutes ago were liquid amber pools that drew her into their depths, now, cold stones that froze whatever they captured.
“I’m going to get to the bottom of this. Alone. I’m going to find my father.”
“Let me help you.”
“I don’t need your kind of help.”
This time Sam went to the door and kept on walking. “By the way, the keys are exactly where you left them. Good luck,” she teased from the hallway, wiggling her fingers in a last goodbye.
Sam slid into the driver’s seat of Max’s SUV and tossed the duffle in the back. Heart pounding, rea
dy to leap out of her chest, Sam prayed she was doing the right thing. She had to be. Max would not help her. He wanted to save his brother. He thought she was involved. Still. Even after he slept with her. How could he?
“Damn,” she cursed herself, hitting the steering wheel with her fist. Is Kevin the reason her father had called her home? Did he know Max’s brother? Had Kevin contacted him? What had Max’s brother dragged her father into?
She pressed the button, and the garage door slid up. Sam started the ignition, and gunned the car in reverse. Shifting into drive, she sent the door back to its original position, then drove off in the direction of the Mountain, hoping she would find her father before she had to deal with the wrath of Max. The thought sent shivers skating up her spine. There was no doubt in her mind she would meet up with Max. Probably too soon.
THIRTEEN
He was going to kill her.
“Sam!”
Max struggled against his restraints.
“Sam!”
If it was the last thing he did, he would make certain Sam Spenser paid for leaving him trussed up, naked, and in his own home. She had better hope he found a way out before someone found him in what appeared to be a sex game gone bad.
He wrestled the cuffs, tugged, pulled, and nothing happened. The sound of an engine starting halted his tug-of-war. “Son of a bitch.”
She had his Beemer. Of course, she took it. It still had a windshield, and no one on the mountain had seen it. Max instinctively knew her destination, back from where they came; secure in her thinking she could take care of herself and the asshole that wanted to kill her.
Sam wasn’t thinking. She was feeling. She reacted to his less than truth with her heart, not her mind.
Oh, he inwardly groaned. Squeezing his eyes shut, he remembered the startled look on her face when he fibbed. Lied. He saw her throat constrict and her mouth open in outraged insult. It wasn’t the look you get from a stranger. It was the look of a woman wounded. He wounded her.
“Shit.” He had to get out of the cuffs. Emotions were dangerous, he knew. Sam’s adrenaline was nothing but fiery emotions. She would get hurt, or worse.
“No.” Not this time. Not again. He would not lose her. He would not lose someone he loved.
He shook his head. Whoa. Where the hell had that come from? When had he fallen for his snow bunny, possible jewel thief, kidnapper, sharp-shooter, seductress, and who knew what else?
Throwing his head back against the pillow, Max knew the answer. The day she landed on his doorstep. Now, if he did not take care, she would end up dead on someone else’s foyer floor.
Max cleared his mind with deep, calming breaths. First, get out of the cuffs.
Using his foot, he slipped his big toe under the handle of the nightstand, and pulled at it. The drawer opened in slow inches. He stuck his foot inside, felt for the keys. Found them. Holding his breath, he curled his toes around the keys, lifted them from the drawer, dropped them on the bed, and exhaled a sigh of relief.
He scooted the keys up the bed with his foot to about his waist. Then he had to do some squirming and maneuvering so he could get the keys up close to the headboard where his hands could reach them.
Despite his nerves, Max kept his hands from shaking long enough to get the key in the lock and turn it. A prisoner released from his shackles, he rubbed at his wrists as he grabbed clothes off the floor and got dressed.
From a safe in his closet, he retrieved a Glock, slipped the holster on, and before heading to the car, stuck the handcuffs in his pocket. Forget the shooter. When he got a hold of her, he would kill her himself. With his bare hands. Max smiled.
In the powder blue Bronco, he opened the glove compartment and pulled out a GPS. He plugged it in and turned it on, waited for the GPS to come to life. Then he hit a couple options on the screen, and voila. There was the little red light he wanted to see.
“Gotcha.”
* * * *
Sam put the SUV in park, idling. Getting out of the vehicle, she went to the side door, punched in a code, and the garage door went up. She pulled the BMW forward, parked it in the garage, and shut the door. Sam noticed the vacant spot that usually held her father’s car.
Ignoring the emptiness, she entered the house, and immediately felt chilled. The place was cold, too cold. Sam flipped the switch and light flooded the basement. Just as she remembered. Area rugs covered the floors because her father never got around to picking carpet and the ceiling still bare, exposed beams and insulation. He planned to finish it when he retired. Yeah, retirement must not have kicked in yet.
At the top of the stairs, Sam switched off the lights, and opened the door to the dining room.
“Dad?”
No reply. She hadn’t expected one. As she climbed more stairs to the top floor, she hollered for her father again. Just in case. “Dad?” Come out, come out, wherever you are, she finished silently.
He didn’t come out. He hadn’t greeted her with his usual bear hug, sloppy wet kiss on the cheek, followed by the ruffling of her hair as he told her, “Missed you, Annie.” What she would not give to feel her dad’s arms around her right now, his hugs a security blanket. They made her feel safe and sound.
Sam stopped in front of a door at the end of the hall on the top floor. She opened the door to an empty room. Messy but empty. The bed unmade, dirty clothes strewn on the floor. By habit, she bent to pick them up and put them in the hamper in the master bath. Her father’s toiletries on the vanity, everything appeared as it should. Like he had gotten up and ready for a regular day in the life of Sam Spenser, widower, father of one, retired police chief. That was not the case. Sure as her name was Samantha Annie Spenser, she knew in her bones something was wrong.
On the way back down the hall, she checked the spare bedroom and bath. She ended her tour at the room she had while growing up, which her father always kept ready for her visits home. When she moved out, he refused to convert it to a hobby room, or another guest room, or anything else. It was hers and always would be.
In the closet, she pulled out her own clothes she left behind. Dressed in jeans, tank top, and a hunter green cashmere sweater, Sam was grateful to wear something that fit, especially the all-purpose leather boots.
“Okay, Dad, where are you?” she asked no one, descending the stairs.
She checked the answering machine. Nine new messages. Sam pressed the play button and listened to them one-by-one, noted the date and caller of each message on a pad of paper next to the phone. The oldest call came the same day her father left the voicemail for her to come home. Seven of the messages were from Betty. Sam shook her head, smiling. She loved that woman.
The eighth message startled her. “Hi, Annie.” Her heart jumped into her throat. Sam pressed the pause button. She forced tears back, knowing what she was about to hear would not be good, and hit the play button. “In case you don’t find the note at the cabin I’m leaving a note here. Go to our secret place. Love you. Be good. Oh, and tell Jacks that despite being a pain in the ass, I loved her.” When she heard the click of the phone, she paused and rewound the machine.
This time she pushed emotions aside and focused on the facts. She noted the time and date of her father’s message. He left it the day before she had arrived.
“Damn it!” She slammed her fist on the counter. It would be her fault if anything happened to her father. She had let him down. She hadn’t arrived home quick enough.
The blinking light on the machine drew Sam back from her self-rebuke. There was one more message. She pressed play. “Listen carefully and understand. Accidents happen to the ones we love.”
Fear gripped Sam with cold fingers. Her heart kicked painfully in her chest, beating out an erratic rhythm. She couldn’t breathe. Sam played the message again. Something familiar about the caller. She pressed play one more time, closed her eyes in concentration, and tried to imagine a face to go with the voice. No luck.
Standing in the silence of her childhood home, she
wrapped her arms around herself, trembling. She stared out at the mountain she loved, the mountain she once considered her escape but now offered no solace. For the first time in her thirty years, she was scared to the core of her being.
The only other time she had come close to this degree of fear was the day she came home from school and found her mother dead on the kitchen floor. She hadn’t been able to save her mom. The hole in her chest too big, and so much blood, too much blood. She shivered at the memory. From that day forward, it had been father and daughter. He would not let anyone else in. The day they buried her mother, her father closed the door to his heart, except where she was concerned. Sam Spenser poured all his love and attention into his daughter and his job.
The day after they laid her mother to rest her father took her to the shooting range and started teaching her how to shoot. He worked with her every day he had off until she could shoot center mass with every weapon he introduced her to. Sam Spenser made damn certain that what happened to his wife would not happen to his daughter.
But now, the man who taught her how to ride a purple banana seat bike, defend herself against sleazy boys after only one thing, and shoot a 9-millimeter with deadly accuracy was MIA, and needed her help.
“What happened, Dad?” she asked the empty room, rubbing cold hands against her chilled arms. “What did you get involved in?”
The secret place. Her father had gone to a lot of trouble to leave her a note and a voicemail, both instructing her to go to their secret place. Sam looked around the room, tried her damnedest to remember. Her memory had come back in bits and pieces, but it still was not a hundred percent. She hadn’t even remembered where she lived until a few hours ago then it was like being on autopilot to get to her father’s home.
“Help me, Dad,” she coaxed her memory. “Help me find the secret.”
In answer, her mind flashed to a younger version of herself at thirteen, not long after her mother passed away, the same time her father taught her about boys. The memory of her father stuttering and stammering as he attempted to explain the birds and the bees made her smile.
Killer Bunny Hill Page 8
