Not that she’d thought through the particular risks, whatever they might be, of following a wounded deputy marshal.
She had no idea where Nate was. Upstairs, down the hall. Was there a basement? Should she start knocking on doors?
Feeling less smug about her tailing abilities, Sarah stood at the bottom of the stairs and contemplated her options. Just wait for him here?
“You’re going to be a problem, aren’t you?”
She almost screamed and spun around so fast, her hair whipped into her face. Nate had materialized behind her. Sarah caught her breath. “Scare me to death, why don’t you?”
His blue eyes bored into her. “It’s a thought.”
Sarah told herself he had a right to be irritated with her. But she didn’t let it get to her. “Where were you?”
“Let’s go.”
“This isn’t your apartment, is it?” She glanced around the tidy, worn entry. “I thought you were going home. Juliet and I saw you with the reporters and I was concerned—”
“Bullshit.”
She sighed. No way was she worming herself out of this one. “Okay, fine. You think the FBI has the wrong shooter, don’t you? This guy, Hector Sanchez—”
She was out the door before she realized what was happening. Her feet were touching the ground, but she wasn’t walking on her own—he had her by one arm and was marching her down the stairs and out to his car.
He opened the passenger door with his injured arm, apparently by mistake, and swore, then shoved her inside. “Watch your head.”
“Going to cuff me, too?”
“I could. You’re interfering with a federal investigation.”
“Me? What about you? Last I checked, you were a wounded deputy U.S. marshal who was supposed to stay on the sidelines—”
He banged her door shut and walked around the front to the driver’s side.
Sarah felt a wave of guilt when he climbed in. “Do you want me to drive?”
He didn’t answer.
“Your arm—is it bleeding?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“You didn’t need to haul me out of there. You could have asked politely, and I’d have left.”
He started the car engine. “I’m not in a polite mood.”
“Are you ever?”
“Sure.” He smiled at her then, a smile that reached his hard eyes and was so unexpected and so sexy, so deliberately sexy, it curled her toes. “I can be very polite.”
Juliet had spotted Sarah jumping into a cab and following Nate’s car and almost went after her—then she figured Nate could handle Rob’s pretty southern Ph.D. sister all by himself.
She wasn’t surprised when Nate dropped Sarah off at the private waiting room. “Don’t let her out of your sight,” he said through gritted teeth, then disappeared down the hall.
Sarah’s cheeks were slightly flushed, but otherwise, she didn’t look as stricken as most people would after pissing off Nate Winter. And she didn’t look particularly guilty for having done it. But why the hell wasn’t he home in bed? Juliet couldn’t muster a lot of sympathy for him.
She crumpled up her paper water cup. “Dare I ask what happened?”
“Nothing. I followed him.” Sarah sighed and sat in one of the plastic chairs. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
Juliet tossed the paper cup and poured herself more coffee. It smelled fine to her, but people had been complaining about it all morning. “Most people kind of wilt for a bit after getting chewed out by Nate. He’s not exactly your warm and fuzzy marshal.”
Sarah managed a smile. “Is there such a thing?” But she didn’t wait for an answer. “Did you learn anything about Hector Sanchez?”
Juliet had no intention of getting into the scuttlebutt on Sanchez. “Just what’s in the media. Turns out two witnesses identified him. Said they saw him crouched in the bushes on the bank just below Central Park South. He had a rifle.”
“Does the FBI believe he’s their shooter?”
“There’s been no official comment—”
“Tell me unofficially then.”
Juliet thought a moment. Sarah was upset, if not about Nate catching her following him, then about her brother, the whole situation. She deserved what answers Juliet could give her. “It’s hard to say. Nobody’s talking right now. Everyone’s being tight-lipped around here. We can’t afford to screw up. No one wants the shooter to have another crack at Nate and Rob—or anyone else.”
“Why doesn’t Nate have a security detail?”
Juliet smiled. “He is a security detail.”
Sarah didn’t seem satisfied with that explanation. “Rob has guards just because he’s more seriously injured?”
“Correct.”
With both hands, she raked her fingers through her hair, then made an abrupt change in the subject. “I’ve been in Scotland on and off for months, working nonstop to finish a major project. I saw Rob briefly in Amsterdam last month, but it wasn’t nearly enough time to get caught up with each other. What happened to the two of you?”
Juliet shrugged. “We did great when we were working out of different district offices—not so great when we both ended up in New York.”
“You were here first?”
“That wasn’t the problem. I’m more ambitious than your brother.”
Sarah smiled. “Rob can be very driven, but he’s not ambitious.”
Juliet nodded in spite of her own urge to give Sarah Dunnemore hell for following a marshal. “I should find myself a nice guy who doesn’t know how to shoot. Why on earth did Rob become a marshal? I never figured that one out.”
“I’ve always thought he watched too many Bat Masterson reruns as a kid.”
“Yep. We marshals tamed the Wild West.”
But Sarah, rising suddenly, shook her head. “I think Rob just liked the idea of doing something that made a tangible difference. Catching fugitives and escaped prisoners, protecting the federal courts—it’s more straightforward than what our father does. It’s more like what our ancestors did.”
“He told me some of them were bank robbers.”
“Trains and riverboats, mostly. Not that many banks. And it was only one—Jesse Dunnemore. He ended up going west and getting killed.”
“Probably by a marshal from the sound of him.”
Sarah picked up the coffeepot, but seemed oblivious to how old and nasty its contents were. “Nate—does he hold a grudge?”
Juliet tossed her crumpled cup into the trash. “Forever.”
To her credit, Sarah seemed neither surprised nor distressed at the prospect of having fallen out of his good graces. She set the coffeepot down, obviously having reconsidered the merits of pouring herself a cup—Juliet figured it was rough enough coffee even for a committed coffee-drinker like herself.
“I’m going to check on Rob,” Sarah mumbled.
Given her track record, Juliet followed her down the hall and made sure Sarah was inside the I.C.U. before retreating back to the waiting room.
Juliet was fidgety and jumpy from too much bad coffee and her prolonged high state of tension. She knew Hector Sanchez. Most people in the district office did. Rob had reeled him in as an informant three months ago. He’d provided good information that had led to several high-profile arrests, ones the news conference yesterday had underscored. There’d been rumors Rob had tried to get Hector into the witness protection program, but Hector had balked. He didn’t want to leave behind his neighborhood. Someone had told Juliet that Hector was a peripheral figure who was too chicken to be a real criminal and too stupid to be a real player.
And he was a drug addict who always vowed he was going to stay clean.
The idea of Sanchez figuring out that Nate and Rob were at the news conference, where it was being held, where he should hide to get a couple of shots off—the idea of him even owning a rifle that could do the job—
None of it washed.
Juliet cleaned up the beverage area and found herself staring into
a half-filled mug of cold coffee, gray and filmed over, seeing a dead Hector Sanchez, an AR-15 and a stash of cocaine next to his body. The cocaine she could believe. A drug overdose. Hector dead at twenty-nine. All that made sense. But the AR-15? The silencer? Executing the difficult shots to hit Rob in the gut and even Nate in the arm?
She dumped the coffee into the trash.
Not a chance.
Eleven
Rob looked better and sounded more alert, less hoarse and confused, but he was still tethered to various tubes and monitors. He gave Nate a weak grin. “I can’t believe Sarah followed you. Holy shit. What was she thinking?”
“She wasn’t thinking.” Nate hadn’t ratted Sarah out to his younger colleague—she’d done it herself before Nate got in there. But if he were in Rob’s position, he’d want to know what was going on. Even if he were at death’s door, he wouldn’t tolerate anyone coddling him. He expected Rob was of a similar mind. “We can get her a counselor if you’d think that’d help.”
“Nah. She’s just like this. Where did you go?”
“I checked in with someone I know in Spanish Harlem.”
It was all he could give Rob. Nate had already talked to Joe Collins about his visit with Maria Rodriguez, a Puerto Rican ex-nun who’d moved to New York three years ago. Within a month of her arrival, she contacted Nate with information that had exonerated a man the USMS was looking for. She’d become a regular informant, but only on her terms, only when she could save someone.
She knew Hector Sanchez, not as a street thug or the confidential informant who’d helped Rob Dunnemore take down a USMS Top Fifteen Most Wanted fugitive—Rob’s biggest coup as a deputy—but as a young man who was trying to put his life back together. Sister Maria, as she was known on the street, had encouraged him to listen to Rob and talk to the U.S. attorney, pursue entry into WITSEC. But Hector couldn’t bring himself to fully give up the life he’d known since he was thirteen.
Now he was dead.
Sister Maria insisted he hadn’t tried to murder Rob and Nate in Central Park. That he couldn’t have. She was adamant, and her certainty had nothing to do with her faith in him as a person. She was a realist—she knew Hector would have setbacks, would lie, would disappoint her. He’d done it before. But she was convinced he hadn’t committed the sniper attack two days ago because he couldn’t. He’d cut a tendon in his right hand a year ago and couldn’t pull a trigger, much less manage a sniper rifle.
Hector Sanchez was physically unable to fire an AR-15.
Nate had suggested Joe Collins make sure the autopsy on Sanchez included a check of his right hand. Not that Collins needed any advice—and he sure as hell wasn’t thrilled when Nate refused to tell him his source.
But that was the way it was—he wasn’t putting Sister Maria through an FBI interrogation. She worked in her neighborhood and believed in its people, and no matter how many times one or another of them betrayed her trust, she would never betray theirs.
The FBI had the wrong man. In her mind, it was that simple.
Except Joe Collins wasn’t yet convinced. He had solid witnesses who put Hector in Central Park with an AR-15 at the time of the shooting.
He had the weapon.
He had the silencer.
Collins, in his mild-mannered way, had reminded Nate that he was supposed to be recuperating, not meddling in an FBI investigation.
Rob tried to sit up. “I’m supposed to be blowing in that air thing more. For my lungs. Keeps me from getting pneumonia. It wears me out.” He sank back against the bed. “Christ. I’m a mess.”
“Give it time.”
“Hector was my guy. Is this going to come back and bite me in the ass?”
“I don’t know.” Nate didn’t bother with niceties, but there was no point in Rob dwelling on what he couldn’t change. “I think you were right about getting your sister out of here.”
“She’s pretty, isn’t she?”
She was pretty. Very pretty. Nate had come in contact with her three times in less than twenty-four hours, and he wasn’t immune to the feel of that slim body. But talk about a mustn’t touch. A seriously wounded marshal’s twin sister, the president’s surrogate daughter—an attractive academic who wanted answers to the shooting as much as any of them.
“I’m lowering the boom on her before she does something stupid,” Nate said. “She’s upset about you. It’s making her reckless.”
“Send her back to Tennessee.”
Rob obviously hadn’t changed his mind now that he was more lucid. “Why do you want her out of here?”
“Because she does things like follow senior deputies.”
“Rob, if there’s something else, now’s the time—”
“My parents,” Rob said weakly. “They’re coming?”
“That’s what I understand. I don’t have the specifics. Rob—”
“They can take over family duty. Get Sarah out of here. Wes Poe—that’s out, right? That he and my family are friends?”
“It’s out.”
“Sarah can’t stay here. At home…” His eyes were half-closed, and he was fading fast, sinking into the bed. “Tell her I’ll be there soon. Tell her she can make me a prune cake.”
A nurse came over and checked Rob’s IV line, glancing meaningfully at Nate. He took the hint. “Take care of yourself, Rob. Don’t worry about anything else. I’ll look after your sister myself.”
He managed a wry smile. “Why am I not reassured?”
Nate found Sarah chatting with Juliet Longstreet in the waiting room. He thought he heard his name mentioned, and when he walked in, even Juliet went red. “Looks like I should have eavesdropped,” he said. “What did I miss?”
“Don’t mind him,” Juliet said to Sarah. “You have to pass a jackass test to become a senior deputy.”
Nate pointed at her. “One day, Longstreet, someone’s going to take exception to that mouth of yours.”
She gave him a big, phony smile. “Just kidding, Deputy Winter.” She shifted her attention back to Sarah. “I’ll see you in a bit.”
Sarah made a move to go after her—to escape, Nate thought—then gave it up and cleared her throat, fixing her gray eyes on him. “I apologize for following you.”
“Apology accepted.” He decided not to waste any time on niceties. “Here’s the deal. I’ve talked to Rob. You’re going home to Tennessee. I’m putting you on a plane myself.”
She didn’t seem surprised and just shook her head at him. “I’m staying here until Rob’s better.”
Nate could feel himself responding to her obstinacy with a touch of his own. If they were going to get into a power struggle, he planned to win. Plus, he knew he was right. Rob was right. The woman needed to get out of the thick of things.
“I told him that,” she added.
“Your brother wants you out of here. I want you out of here. So guess what? I can pack your bags, or you can. Make up your mind.”
“It’s not like I committed a federal offense—”
“Actually, yes, it is. Interference in a federal investigation.”
“You’re not investigating—” She stopped herself. “Anyway, Juliet says you had to have known I was following you. You could have stopped me, and you didn’t.”
Leave it to Juliet to open her big damn mouth. “Deputy Longstreet is welcome to her opinion.”
Sarah tilted her head back, the gray eyes cool now, intelligent and not particularly apologetic—she didn’t regret what she’d done. “I’m not always that impulsive.”
Nate didn’t give her an inch. “From what I’ve seen so far, I’ll bet you are.”
His conversation with Sister Maria—Hector’s death—had thrown him. Rob’s certainty that he was the shooter’s target, his determination to get his sister out of New York, her friendship with the president and Nate’s own growing conviction that Dr. Dunnemore, with her pretty eyes and blond hair and her sexy southern accent, was trouble.
It made sense to put her on a
plane.
“You don’t know anything about me,” she said stiffly. “I thought I was following a man who’d gone through a terrible ordeal and had just heard some upsetting news. I wasn’t thinking about you as a federal agent.”
“Your mistake.”
“What, are you going to arrest me?”
“I might.”
She didn’t seem especially intimidated. “You eat, sleep and drink your work, don’t you, Deputy Winter?”
“And you don’t, Dr. Dunnemore?”
“My work doesn’t involve guns and bad guys.”
“Precisely why you’re going home.”
She bristled. “I want to see my brother.”
“Go ahead.”
She walked stiffly out of the room, but Nate was impressed. He’d done his best to wither her, and she hadn’t withered. People far more accustomed to him in a kick-ass mood would have.
He’d have to make sure he didn’t touch her again. Catching her when she’d tripped on his feet yesterday, then when she started to go down in the park, this morning when he’d marched her out the door at Sister Maria’s—no telling what would happen if he got hold of that slip of a body again.
He told himself it wasn’t the reason he was sending her home.
Sarah rode up front with Nate with her knees pressed together, her hands on her thighs and her eyes straight ahead, making no pretense that she liked one damn thing about being sent home. But it was what Rob wanted—it seemed to be what he needed—so she was going.
She didn’t care what Nate wanted. His threat to arrest her was a lot of hot air—he wouldn’t dare. Like Rob, he needed a place to put his anxiety over the shooting and Hector Sanchez’s death, and it was on her shoulders.
Having reporters shouting questions at her about her relationship with the president as she and Nate had left the hospital hadn’t helped her case, either.
Rob was fully on board in the conspiracy to get her out of town.
And maybe it did make sense. He was improving, at least physically. Their parents would be there soon and could help get him back to Night’s Landing to complete his recovery. In the meantime, Sarah would make him a prune cake and fix up the downstairs bedroom for him.
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