by Lisa Gardner
Oh, God, think, Tamara, think. Do something!
The rough rasp of a twenty-four-hour beard scraped her cheek. And the strong, well-toned man buried his lips in her hair and whispered in her ear, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
She sagged against the wall, the relief so piercing it stung her eyes. C.J. would have none of it. He pressed his body against her more tightly, his eyes cutting through her like lasers.
She said against his palm, “Are you following me?”
“Dammit, Tamara, you don’t want to mess with me after the night I’ve had. If I were you, I would start talking now. And I’d say the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Got it?”
His forearm pressed against her throat with just enough pressure to let her know he meant business. For some reason, it made her more stubborn. She leaned back against the wall as much as she could and dug in her heels.
“How is it you manage to show up every place I am?” she whispered fiercely. “What the hell are you doing, C.J.?” She glared at him right back, and the air between them heated up another few degrees.
“I am here,” C.J. growled, “because I followed you.”
“You are stalking me!”
“You stubborn, ungrateful fool. I’m not stalking you. I’m worried about you! I drove to your hotel at three thirty in the morning because I couldn’t sleep and I kept thinking about your punctured brake lines and scorpion-decorated bed. So I went back to your room, Tamara, and lo and behold, I found you sneaking across the parking lot in a trench coat. A dark trench coat. Have you seen too many movies or what?”
“Maybe.” Her voice had lost some of its fierceness. He had been worried about her? Or maybe he was lying. How would she know? Her lips were dry. She kept licking them, but they were dry, anyway.
“So there you have it. I followed because I was worried about you. And then I discover you breaking and entering the good old senator’s campaign headquarters. So you’d better start talking, Tamara, because I may have been worried once, but I only play the fool so many times.”
She stared at him in the darkness, feeling the intensity of his gaze, the way it seemed to bore into her, turn her inside out and reveal all her weaknesses like dirty laundry. His body was still pressed against hers. His legs clamped her thighs. His torso flattened hers, but the pressure was merely firm, not bruising. And in a crazy way, it was reassuring.
When was the last time anyone had worried about her? When was the last time anyone had held her and stroked her hair and whispered, “Shh. I have you. I have you.”
The exhaustion, the raw, aching need, hit her suddenly. She wanted to lean into him. She had the teeniest desire to wrap her arms around his waist, press her cheek against his shoulder and rest her head. Maybe for a moment, he would make her feel safe. He would make her feel less alone.
She pulled herself up tightly. She squeezed her fists so hard her fingernails welted her palms and caused her pain.
She stated firmly, “I do not need you to worry about me.”
“Good, because I’m not anymore. I just caught you breaking and entering. Now I’m worried about the senator. Are you working for his opponent?”
“No.”
“Are you a thief?”
“Hardly.”
“Well, what in the name of God are you doing skulking around campaign headquarters at four thirty in the damn morning?”
She gazed at him haughtily. “Would you honestly believe me if I told you?”
“Tamara . . .” His voice rose with warning. She had the distinct memory of her father saying her name just that way. Generally when she’d stayed out too late with Patty.
“All right,” she said abruptly. The silence between them grew taut. “I’m a reporter.”
“A reporter?”
“A reporter. I have reason to believe the senator was responsible for a hit-and-run automobile accident ten years ago that killed three people.”
C.J.’s breath inhaled sharply, his body easing back a little and giving her more room to breathe. “Keep talking.”
“The hit-and-run vehicle was a red sports car. The police could never find the car or driver, even though there should have been serious damage to both. I think the senator took himself and his car someplace out of town and paid to conceal his own injuries and destroy the automobile. However, I have no proof of that. I was hoping to find some here.”
“Huh.” His tone was neither believing nor disbelieving.
“Are you going to let me go?”
“I haven’t decided yet. First you’re an eager-beaver PR specialist. Then I find you skulking around like a thief. Now you claim to be hot on the trail of the next Chappaquidick. One thing is for sure: you tell a good story.”
“Well, we can’t stay like this all night. People are going to start arriving soon.”
“That would make it int—” His sentence was cut off by a small beeping. Belatedly, Tamara looked down and realized it was coming from C.J.’s waist.
“Damn,” he swore. “Now what?”
He held up the small beeper until the digital display glowed in front of his eyes. He was frowning. “That’s the number for my bar. Oh, dammit. Sheila. I have to go!”
He was already clipping the beeper to his waist and stepping back. Tamara began to breathe again. Saved by the bell.
“We’ll talk later,” she said, edging toward the door.
“Oh, no, you don’t.” C.J.’s hand snapped around her wrist. His grip was tight and his gaze was hard. “I still don’t trust you, Tamara, and until I do, you’re coming with me.”
“I am not—”
But it was already too late. C.J. simply dragged her with him.
Chapter 5
C.J. drove like a true racer. It wasn’t that he drove fast—any fool could do that. It was that he drove with such incredible control and concentration. He pushed his car the way a jockey might push his horse, urging it toward its limit but never losing grip on the reins. He climbed upward of a hundred and ten on the straightaways, his eyes narrow, his face grim. Tamara gripped the armrest on the door, still uncomfortable being the passenger after all these years. She liked to drive. Drivers were the ones in control. Passengers . . . passengers couldn’t do a thing when it all went wrong.
She kept her eyes on C.J., and she discovered as long as she did that, the fear remained a dull shadow, whispering in her subconscious but unable to gain substance. She understood the look on C.J.’s face. He was paying attention. He was in the zone, listening to his engine, eyeballing the road surface, determining the best line and computing the absolute breaking point. His jaw was tight with concentration, his eyes squinted. His hand rested on his gearshift, and his lean, muscled thighs rippled as he accelerated, shifted and braked. He knew this car. He knew this road. He owned the experience.
A sharp corner loomed. The fear crept up Tamara’s throat. She kept her gaze on C.J. She trusted him to know what to do. She needed him to know what to do.
He didn’t hug the inside of the turn as amateurs did. Instead, he treated the looping corner like a pivot point, downshifting and heading in a straight line for the apex of the turn. At almost the far left corner of the road, with red dust dunes looming beside them like Arizona’s version of a tire wall, he cranked the wheel, stepped on the gas and accelerated like an arrow shot to the track-out point. They zipped back toward the far right, already set up for the next curve.
He was good, very, very good.
And suddenly Tamara heard her mother’s voice clearly in her mind. “Slow down, Robert. It’s not like we’re in a hurry to get home. Besides, who knows what kind of idiots are out driving at this time of night?”
Tamara shook her head and her mother’s voice was gone. She sat alone in the passenger’s seat, confused and feeling slightly nauseated. Goose bumps had broken out on her arms.
They hadn’t crashed because her father was speeding; they had crashed because of Senator Brennan. He’d hit them. He�
�d sped away. He’d cost Tamara her family. She knew this.
She eased her grip on the door. Sweat beaded C.J.’s upper lip and brow. At the second corner, a slow trickle began down the side of his face. He didn’t seem to notice. He glanced once at his mirrors, confirmed there was still no traffic behind them, then returned to the road. He didn’t waste time with his gauges. The sound of his engine as it accelerated, decelerated and labored told him when to shift, when to brake and when to accelerate. His arm and shoulder flexed as he worked the clutch.
People thought racing was easy, just sit and steer, but Tamara knew from firsthand experience that it was physically and mentally grueling. Dressed in a thick, flame-retardant Nomex jumpsuit with flame-retardant socks, shoes and face mask, a driver quickly overheated and began to sweat. Five crisscrossing seat belts bolted the person to the roll cage, placing incredible pressure across the hips, stomach and chest. The constant movement of shifting, braking and steering slowly took its toll on arms, while the heavy weight of the helmet strained the neck and shoulders. Even with earplugs, the sound of twenty raw, unmuffled racing engines was like standing in front of a screaming jet, the noise hammering against temples and pounding against eardrums. A driver couldn’t afford to notice any of this—the heat, the discomfort, the fatigue, the sound. Drive at more than a hundred miles per hour on a track filled with twenty other speeding objects, passing, breaking, swerving, crashing, a driver had to concentrate on driving and only driving. The first five minutes weren’t bad; neither were the next. By halfway through the race, however, the elements took their toll. Reflexes slowed; minds grew tired. Mistakes happened.
And then the physically and mentally fit emerged from the pack, focused, capable and strong till the bitter end.
C.J. would be one of those. She could tell from the fierce, composed look on his face. He wouldn’t tire. He wouldn’t lose concentration. He could go the distance, for himself and for the people he cared about.
He wouldn’t make a stupid mistake and get anyone killed.
She returned her gaze to the window.
C.J. braked hard, let the back end sweep around and suddenly gunned the car into a parking lot. Belatedly, Tamara saw a midsize, two-story wooden structure identified as the Ancient Mariner.
“Wait here for a moment.” C.J. reached across the seat, unlocked the glove compartment with a tiny key and immediately palmed a handgun. He did it so fast, Tamara was still cataloging the moves as he popped open his door and bolted across the parking lot.
Of course, she followed. She had her own hidden under her coat. She had very little experience with how to use it, but she had her gun.
She crept through the front door that C.J. had left swinging open. The bar was dark and shadowed. At five a.m., the sun was just beginning to rise, and the whole world had the hushed, reverent calm of a newly dawning day. She saw a red-tiled floor and old wooden tables with the chairs stacked on top. Brass bar trim gleamed dully in the shadows.
Overhead, she heard sudden footsteps. She stiffened, spotted the stairs in the corner and headed toward them.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” she heard C.J. saying. “You did the right thing to call me.” And then she heard the sound of a woman’s muffled sobs.
Her foot raised for the first step, she froze. Suddenly she felt like an intruder. He was up there with another woman. A woman who had paged him. A woman he had driven like a maniac to help.
She should go back to the car. She should call a cab and return to her hotel before C.J. had a chance to think about her. Hell, she should get on a plane and return to Manhattan, because she was accomplishing nothing here and the whole thing had been a horrible mistake. She was trembling, shaking and overwhelmed with exhaustion. She couldn’t sleep and she was snappy and temperamental. She didn’t know herself anymore. She never should have come to Sedona.
She never should have met C. J. MacNamara.
She found herself heading up the stairs.
The hallway was narrow and poorly lit. Thick floorboards creaked beneath her feet. She followed the faint ray of daylight spilling out of an opened doorway, and the sound of sobbing grew louder.
She found C.J. sitting on the edge of a narrow bed, holding a young brunette and rocking her back and forth as she cried. The girl had her arms wrapped around his neck. She was sobbing hysterically despite C.J.’s efforts. Then Tamara saw the man sprawled facedown on the floor. He wasn’t moving. A shattered lamp decorated the floor beside him.
Tamara didn’t require any other explanation. Keeping her gaze averted from the sight of C.J. holding the weeping girl, she asked, “Have you checked for a pulse?”
“No. Could you?”
She bent down and felt the man’s neck. This close, she could see the blood trickling from his forehead and matting his hair. He’d taken quite a blow from such a small girl. She found a faint but steady heartbeat.
“I’ll call 911.”
“Thank you,” C.J. said as the girl’s sobs began to subside. “That’s Sheila’s husband,” C.J. murmured. “Or, her soon to be ex-husband, Al.”
Tamara nodded. She couldn’t bear to watch C.J. He held the girl so tightly, comforted her so naturally. And the girl clung to him. She collapsed, and he put her back together. Because that’s the kind of man C. J. MacNamara was—the kind you might dream of someday saving you.
Tamara crossed to the window and stood alone until the ambulances arrived.
• • •
The rest happened in a blur. The EMTs arrived in a cacophony of sirens, pounding footsteps and demanding yells. Al was immobilized, placed on the stretcher and whisked away. Sheila sat at the edge of the bed, pale and cried-out.
The police pulled in next. While C.J. stood beside her, his hand steadying on her shoulder, Sheila related how she’d been down the hall in the bathroom. She’d just returned to her room when she’d heard a noise behind her. She grabbed the lamp as Al had stepped out from behind her door and hit with all the strength she could muster. Al had collapsed like a rag doll. Honest, she hadn’t meant to kill her husband, not even send him to the hospital.
Sheriff Brody jotted it all down, occasionally nodding. The sheriff was a large man, with a big barrel chest and a comfortable girth. In his late forties, he had thinning hair that was cut so short none of it appeared beneath the wide brim of his dark brown cowboy hat. In contrast, his mustache was still thick and luxuriant, and he stroked the graying brown strands from time to time as he listened. Beneath the wide brim of his hat, he possessed a pair of keen brown eyes that reminded Tamara of her father.
The sheriff seemed to know both Sheila and C.J. quite well. Apparently, this wasn’t the first time he’d had to deal with Al, either. The biggest difference was that this time, Al was the one going to the hospital.
“She’s got a restraining order against him,” C.J. supplied.
“Yup.” Sheriff Brody made a note of it in his little spiral pad.
“I found a broken window in the back, that must have been how he got in.”
“B and E.” The sheriff wrote that down, too. “Wanna take us to it?”
“Be glad to.” The words were casually spoken, but Tamara had a sense there was a great deal more subtext. Obviously, C.J. and Sheriff Brody were worried about Sheila. No doubt they’d have quite the discussion downstairs—out of Sheila’s hearing—on just how to protect her. Of course, from what Tamara had seen of Al’s forehead, Sheila was doing just fine.
The men bustled out, their faces serious and intent. They would go secure the perimeter. Fix broken windows. Protect pretty women from evil ogres. Talk about sports.
Tamara remained in the room with Sheila, staring at the hardwood floor, the old rocking chair, the red-and-brown Navajo rug adorning the wall. Sheila was still sitting on the edge of the twin-size bed, her arms wrapped around her middle, her blue eyes dim and shell-shocked. Tamara felt the silence stretch awkwardly.
She’d never been good at this kind of thing. Other women had n
urturing, mothering impulses. Tamara snapped at her assistants to get back to work and kept slugging away right beside them. “You have to learn to walk for yourself. Ain’t no one that’s going to walk for you.”
“How . . . how are you?” Tamara asked at last. Bad question. The woman had knocked out her abusive husband. Obviously, she was not doing well. Tamara was ready to go home now.
Sheila shrugged. “I’m tired,” she whispered. Her hands rubbed her arms. She was covered with goose bumps and shivering. Tamara found a blanket and gingerly wrapped it around Sheila’s arms. The girl didn’t seem to notice.
“Come on,” Tamara said brusquely. She sat on the edge of the bed and began to rub Sheila’s hand rapidly. “Everything’s all right now. Al’s been taken to the hospital. C.J. and the sheriff are downstairs. You took care of yourself, Sheila. You knocked the man out. That was quick thinking.”
Sheila still seemed dazed. Tamara tucked the first hand beneath the covers and picked up the second.
“I didn’t mean to hit him,” Sheila said abruptly.
“I know.” Was that the right thing to say? Tamara tried to remember how her mother would’ve comforted her. It was so long ago, she couldn’t bring the pictures into focus. “I’m sure you did the best you knew how,” she said, trying again. It still sounded weak.
“He surprised me. I was scared.”
“I know.”
“I just . . . I just reacted.” Sheila finally moved. She looked at Tamara with miserable blue eyes. “I could’ve killed him. I . . . I kinda wanted to.”
Now Tamara definitely didn’t know what to say. When she had been hurt, when she had needed comfort, none of her family had been left alive to give it. She had turned inward and that had gotten her through. She didn’t know what worked for other people.
She patted Sheila’s hand again. “You . . . you probably have a lot of anger.”
“Sometimes I hate him.”
“It’s understandable.”
“He’s my husband.”
“It sounds like he wasn’t a very good one. Listen . . . You have the right to protect yourself. You have the right to take care of yourself. I don’t know much about your situation, but it doesn’t sound like Al was a very nice man, and I doubt he broke into the bar just to talk. You did the right thing, Sheila. You thought fast—you protected yourself. See, you’re learning how to stand on your own.”
