Even as he dropped to his knee, she was already struggling to get up.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
Scraped palms told him she wasn’t. But her distraught expression went right past him as if he was invisible.
“My car!”
“What?” He stood as she did, using his body to protect her from being jostled as well as from the curious stares of passing people.
He’d swear she didn’t even look at his face before her gaze dropped with the intensity of a laser to the keys still in his hand.
“Are you parked close by?” She was not only out of breath, she sounded frantic.
Brett gestured toward his pride and joy, tucked neatly at the curb right in front of them.
“Someone just stole my car,” she gasped. Her desperate gaze now fastened on his face. “Please, I need to follow it.”
Compared to going back to the office, chasing a stolen car sounded like just the pick-me-up he needed right now. So he pressed the remote to unlock his Corvette ZR1, loped to the driver’s side and leaped in. Moving even faster, the woman was already in the passenger seat, buckling her seat belt.
Taking advantage of a probably-too-slim opening in traffic, he put the Corvette in gear and exploded out of the parking spot. Horns sounded behind him, but he didn’t give a damn.
“Can you see your car?”
“We’re so low to the ground... Yes!” Triumph lit her voice. “I think that’s it, almost two blocks ahead. It’s the red Subaru station wagon.”
He seized on a hesitation in oncoming traffic to swerve illegally around a car that was pausing in hopes of finding a parking space. Half the downtown streets were one-way, but not First, wouldn’t you know. “Watch in case your car turns,” he said tersely, riding the bumper in front of him.
She leaned forward as far as the seat belt allowed, her nose all but pressed to the windshield. “I don’t see it... Oh, no! It is turning.”
He consulted a mental map. “Spring Street?”
“Yes. I think so.”
“Did you call 911?”
“Call...? Oh.” She clapped a hand to her mouth. “I left my phone on the seat.”
Brett muttered a profanity and grabbed his own phone from his belt, thrusting it at her. “Here, call.”
The hands that took it from him were shaking. “Don’t lose it. Please don’t lose it.”
“This car accelerates from zero to sixty in three point four seconds. No station wagon is getting away from me.”
The phone ringing against her ear, she cast him a dubious glance. “But you can’t go sixty downtown. Or even twenty-five, or thirty, so what good does that do? Hello?” Her voice changed. Brett listened as she reported the theft and their current location. He heard the dispatcher, in a slightly alarmed tone, counsel her not to make any attempt to intercept the stolen vehicle. His unexpected passenger cut the dispatcher off midsentence.
“You still see it?”
“Yeah.” He relaxed a little as they closed some of the distance. His first assumption had been that the thief was heading for the freeway, but no—a blinking signal dutifully gave notice that the Subaru would be turning north on Fourth. Did car thieves use turn signals?
Yeah, he decided, they did if they didn’t want to get pulled over and have to produce a license and registration.
“Brett Hollister,” he said to the woman, removing his hand from the gear shift and holding it out.
From his peripheral vision he saw her look at his hand for a long moment.
“Oh, um, I’m Ella. Ella Torrence.” After a further, noticeable hesitation, she placed her hand in his and they shook.
For a very pretty woman she had interesting calluses.
“Your car doesn’t look all that new,” he commented.
Her vivid blue eyes flicked his way. “You mean, it doesn’t cost anything near what yours does.”
“You have something against Corvettes?”
“They seem to be manufactured for the sole purpose of speeding.” She wriggled a little. “And it’s not all that comfortable.” Her rather cute nose wrinkled. “At least you didn’t buy it in a look-at-me color.”
His jaw set. “Like red, you mean?”
“I bought my Subaru used. For a good price. I didn’t care about color.”
His mouth twitched as his sense of humor returned. “I did. Cops keep a sharper eye out for brighter colors. Silver slides by unnoticed.”
“So you do get speeding tickets.”
“Uh...” Two in the last year, actually. He’d gotten a little more careful lately. “You were glad to hop in.”
There was a moment of silence. “You’re right,” she said, chastened. “I’m sorry. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this. Not everyone would have agreed to take me on such a...” She hesitated.
“Wild-goose chase?”
“It won’t be if we catch up,” she said grimly.
The car turned right on Pike. Going for the freeway, after all? No, left on Eighth. Brett wove in and out of traffic, mentally converting yellow lights to green. No squad car had appeared, much less closed in on them. Less than a block separated him from the Subaru. He was beginning to wonder what he would do when he caught up.
“What year is it?” he asked, his eye on the square back of her Subaru.
Her tense stance didn’t change. “’95.”
“Good God. Why don’t you let him have it?”
“It’s not the car. I don’t care about the car. It’s...” She almost sounded on the verge of tears. “It’s this package I was going to mail. I can’t lose it. I can’t!”
They’d dodged onto Olive Way now. They’d be coming up on a northbound freeway entrance momentarily. Interestingly, the driver kept going once they passed over I-5. Toward Capitol Hill. The Subaru took a quick left turn, then, a block later, a right one.
“He’s spotted us,” Ella said.
“Yeah, I think he has.” Brett pressed lightly on the accelerator and the Corvette leaped forward. Only one other car separated them from hers. The tension was contagious. He couldn’t take his eyes off the back of that Subaru.
“What’s in the package?” he asked. Wouldn’t it be his luck if this was the moment he found out he was mixed up in a stolen drug shipment.
“A quilt. Actually,” she amended, “a quilt top.”
“A what?” Then, “Oh, crap.”
The light had switched to red ahead of them at Broadway, a major north-south thoroughfare. His prey had barely hesitated before turning just ahead of the oncoming southbound traffic. Unfortunately, the car in front of Brett’s wasn’t making a right. It had braked and sat stolidly, waiting. A parked car blocked any possibility that he could make it past.
“Oh, my God, oh, my God.” She kept murmuring it, grating on his nerves.
“We’ll catch up!” he snapped. “Give it a rest.”
She slumped. “It’s just that this is so important. It’s...” She closed her eyes. “I knew I’d mess this up. I should never have agreed to help. What was I thinking?”
Brett wasn’t sure he’d ever heard a tone of such bleak despair before and, considering that he was a criminal defense attorney, bleak and despair were emotions he witnessed frequently.
The light blinked green. His voice gentled. “Will you tell me why this matters so much?”
CHAPTER TWO
THIS MAN—BRETT HOLLISTER—had really been astonishingly nice. Without him, she wouldn’t have had a chance. Her car and the quilt would have been long gone.
Ella took a covert look at him. Until this moment, she’d barely been aware of him in any way that didn’t have to do with his being useful.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. She had realized that he was young and
good-looking, although not in a way that usually attracted her. He was too stylish, too yuppie, too obviously aware of his appeal. His suit shouted money as much as his car did. His brown hair was mid-length and styled to be a little spiky. His tie... Okay, she actually liked his tie; it had an asymmetrical geometric print in colors that clashed just enough to be eye-catching. The artist in her observed that he had a strong face, with prominent bones, a nose that was probably too big but worked anyway, a lopsided smile and eyes of a warm gray. He was clearly athletic, although she suspected a private downtown health club could be thanked for his physique. A man who worked with his hands didn’t dress like that.
He seemed to be appraising her, too. Excruciatingly conscious of the ticking seconds that might keep them from catching the scumbag who’d stolen her car, Ella tried to convince herself that’s why her skin prickled. Not because those gray eyes glinted in a way she hadn’t seen in a long time.
“There might be some tissues in the glove compartment,” he said. “You could use spit to clean up.”
“Clean up?” She looked down at her hands just as she became aware of the sting. “Oh.”
As she extracted a handful of tissues, he said, “Your leggings are toast.”
Her knees stung, too, come to think of it. She was spitting on the tissue—so sanitary—when the light changed. She opened her mouth to say something but the Corvette accelerated so fast it pressed her back into her seat. This guy was throwing himself heart and soul into the chase. The growl of the engine let her know how much power was under the hood. The scenery out her side window passed in a blur. Apparently, Brett didn’t mind risking a ticket.
Or maybe he believed his silver Corvette could become invisible, she thought with a spurt of semihysterical humor.
She cleaned her hands even as she strained to see ahead.
Brett glanced at her. “He can’t have gotten far. The way traffic’s backed up, he probably got stuck at the next light.”
Ella nodded and wadded the soiled tissues.
“Waste bag is behind the seat.”
When she faced forward again, he was smiling with satisfaction. “Bastard turned off.” He swerved left and shot up the cross street. Indeed, several blocks ahead, the Subaru was slowing for yet another turn, as if it was circling to go back the way it had come.
“I wonder if I dare try to cut him off,” he muttered.
“Oh, God. I don’t know.”
“Best not.”
They were going way too fast for this narrow street and in what was now a residential neighborhood. But Ella didn’t protest.
“What is it about the quilt—top?—that has you so wound up?”
Ella wasn’t much for talking about the past, especially such a painful part of it. He deserved an explanation, though.
“I grew up back East, until my dad got a job out here in Seattle when I was eleven and we moved. I had a lot of family on my mother’s side there. I used to spend part of every summer at my grandparents’ place in upstate New York, in this amazing old house. There were a bunch of cousins who were close to me in age, and we had a great time together. Toward the end, though—” She braced herself as they took a corner with another startling jerk. There was no way her Subaru could have turned that sharply. “Everything was changing. I was the youngest, you see. That last summer, I was eleven and sort of trailing behind the other girls. I felt left out when they talked about boys and middle school dances and high school, but even so...” This was way more than he could possibly want to hear. “It doesn’t matter,” she said with a shrug, not looking at him. “The thing is, I never saw any of them again. My family moved, then my mom got sick, and she died when I was fourteen. My grandparents and a couple of the aunts and uncles came out for the funeral, but I was all but catatonic.” Not just with grief—or, at least, not straightforward, clean grief. But that was something she had never told a soul. Something only she and her father knew, and it had poisoned her already difficult relationship with him.
And probably, she thought painfully, all other relationships since. Another thing Brett Hollister didn’t need to know.
“My father didn’t especially like my mother’s side of the family, or they him. And I—” How to explain without touching on her guilt? There was no way. “Um, I lost touch.”
His brief, sidelong glance echoed her realization of how lame that conclusion was. He sensed there was more to the story.
Well, tough.
But he didn’t press. He concentrated on his driving, and she focused on her surroundings. They were on a winding road, racing through a park she didn’t remember ever seeing before. Tactical error on the thief’s part—there were no cross streets.
“Call 911 again,” Brett said urgently. “He doesn’t appreciate having us on his bumper, and I’m not sure what to do next. If he keeps on at this speed, once he gets into a residential area again, I may have to drop back.”
She called 911, and was told—again—that units would be notified, but pursuit wasn’t recommended. She ended the call midlecture.
“Apparently they think we should just let him go,” she said, frustrated.
Brett flashed her a wicked smile. “It’s not in me to quit.” The smile dimmed suddenly, and she couldn’t help noticing the way his hands flexed on the leather-covered steering wheel. He’d disturbed himself, and she had no idea why.
“Go on,” he prompted. “How does the quilt fit into this?”
She told him about the phone call from her cousin Rachel. “One of my cousins, the oldest, Olivia, is getting married at Christmas. Her mother had started a quilt for her, but died last year before she could finish more than the central panel. My grandmother taught all of us girl cousins to quilt, so two of them and I are going to finish the quilt before the wedding. We’re integrating fabrics into the quilt that hold memories for Olivia and Eric—the guy she’s marrying. His mother let my cousin Jo tear apart a couple of baby quilts of his, for example.” She stopped herself. As if he cared what fabric they used in the quilt. “I did my part, a border—” She could see from his expression he didn’t know what she was talking about, but she went on regardless. “I had it wrapped and ready to go in the mail to Rachel, who will make another border to finish the top. Then, before the wedding, we’re all meeting up to hand-quilt it—to assemble the layers and stitch them together. My grandparents are gone now, but the cottage— Hollymeade—is still in the family. We were going to meet there and...I’d have been a part of the family again.” This was so hard to say. “Only now...”
His hand left the gearshift to grip hers, which was lying on her lap. He hadn’t even had to turn his head to find her hand. His clasp was strong and comforting.
“We’ll get it back,” he promised.
Recklessly, in her opinion. But she clung gratefully to the hand holding hers until he had to shift down to make another turn.
* * *
THE CHASE HAD begun to seem endless. Where were the cops, goddam it?
A couple of worries began to intrude in Brett’s mind. The first was the debacle of a trial he’d lost and the luncheon he’d just suffered through. After a reprimand by a senior partner, a properly humble junior would be wise to have immediately returned to work, making sure he was seen to be slaving away. The way Brett had chosen to spend his afternoon instead was unlikely to impress the partners.
But do I care?
Brett shook off that disturbing thought. Of more immediate concern was the fact that his gas gauge was on the descending side of the arc. The tank hadn’t been much above half full when they started.
“Was your gas tank full?” he asked abruptly.
She looked startled, then alarmed. “Not full. Half? Three quarters? I don’t pay that much attention.”
“Until you run out?”
“Until the light comes on. That
gives me another gallon, which is thirty miles or so.” She cleared her throat. “I don’t suppose you dare take that risk, do you?”
“My mileage is better than you’d think. Twenty-one highway.”
She pursed her lips.
“The car’s worth it.”
“If you can afford the gas.”
Her dismissive attitude rubbed him like a careless touch on raw skin. He’d worked for this car. He was neither lazy nor careless.
So why was he acting like such a jerk lately? Something was going on with him, and he didn’t know what. Only knew the goals that used to matter so much had lost their luster.
One-upping Dad by making partner at a younger age than he had? Shallow.
Okay, how about this one? Making his father proud.
Worthy, but... His mind stuttered to a stop, unable to finish a thought rooted in discontent, one he had a bad feeling would shake him out of all his certainties.
He was glad to be yanked back to the present chase when the Subaru ahead made it through a light he didn’t. Ella looked anxious, but less so than she had the last time this had happened. Was she beginning to have faith in him?
“So why didn’t your mother’s family make more of an effort to stay in touch with you?” he asked, turning his edgy mood in a more useful direction. “You were a kid. Why would they expect you to do all the work?”
She froze, her tapping fingers going still. It was a long moment before she angled her head to look at him. “What does it matter?”
“It matters to you,” he pointed out. “It has something to do with why this quilt is so important to you.”
“Yes, but...” She swallowed and glanced away. “I don’t like to talk about it.”
Brett waited with his usual patience.
“Haven’t you ever made a mistake?” she asked at last, hostility vibrating in her voice.
As smooth as a switchblade, the question slid between his ribs. He was having trouble breathing for a minute.
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