Safe and Sound (The Safe House Series Book 3)

by Leslie North

  Lola sank back into the couch by tiny increments. Tiny ab-stressing increments.

  Was she being kidnapped? Better to act natural, if that was the case. Maybe if she didn't let on that she sensed something was amiss, the strangeness would play itself out.

  “You were saying…? The reason you’re out here?”

  “Right. I got an email from the parents of one of my students.” Her voice came out unnaturally high, like her mother when she pretended not to mettle in her love life but failed. Miserably. “It said there was an estate sale out here with books for my classroom library. That all I had to do was show up at this address and they were mine. For free.” God, she sounded pathetic. At the twisted looks on both men’s faces, she charged ahead. “I teach first grade at the elementary school in the next town. The kids have nothing. Less than nothing. Most are on free and reduced lunch. It’s amazing what a little Dr. Seuss can do for word recognition.”

  Shut up, Lola. She babbled when she was nervous. Or tried to keep from stress-eating. On first dates. Pretty much always. A curse of living alone and talking to six year olds all day, according to her mother. Lola pressed her lips together.

  The men exchanged another look, but only the smoker appeared momentarily amused by her diatribe. She flashed a weary smile back. In light of their new solidarity, she reconsidered her opinion of him.

  “She’s full of shit,” he said.

  Nope. The guy was scum. Back to Plan A: the Jack Card.

  She pretended not to hear Captain Tweak’s rude comment. Maybe a mixture of flattery and an adherence to the innocent, damsel-in-distress trope would distract them. She focused on McGinger because he hadn’t yet turned on her. "Thanks for bringing in my bag. I just need to call my older brother, Jack. I was supposed to check in with him as soon as I finished at the estate sale. He'll be worried that he hasn't heard from me. You know how overprotective older siblings can be."

  She gave a false-chuckle in self-depreciation. Her laugh came out sounding like the hundredth time she’d heard a knock-knock joke from an annoying kid.

  “Jack’s a police officer, on top of everything else. I can't tell you how many times he's called out the entire force to find me when I showed up late to—"

  The room erupted then—or at least, that's what it seemed like to Lola. One minute she had been playing the Jack Card to full effect, and the next there was a flurry of activity, the sort of chaos her recently-concussed brain wasn’t prepared to sort: Irish hottie stood; the cigarette drooped from smoker’s lips; a snake of ash dropped to sizzle a glowing ember into the carpet.

  And both men advanced toward her.

  McGinger’s burly arms wrapped around her and hoisted her off the couch.

  “Hey!” she protested. The embrace was familiar, but it wasn't as gentle as she remembered. Lola kicked her legs and connected with nothing but empty air as Max hauled her across the living room. It crossed her mind to scream, but who would hear her all the way out here? The only other person located within miles of her abduction was the boney French man tailing them to the kitchen.

  So much for ‘you should lie back down.’ And any illusion McGinger had concern for her.

  He forced Lola into a kitchen chair. She squirmed, but his strong hands—hands she had willingly let hold her before!—pinned her shoulders against the back of the chair, making the task of raising her arms to gouge out his eyes impossible.

  "Baudin. Rope," McGinger ordered.

  Baudin—the smoker, the thin man, and the party complicit to her kidnapping—looked around. "Where the hell am I supposed to find rope? "

  "If you spent any time in the cellar like I told you to, you would know exactly where," McPsycho growled as Lola bucked against his grasp. "Get it. Now!"

  Baudin vanished out the back door. Lola redoubled her efforts to get out from under the burly redhead’s grasp. She wiggled in the chair like one of her students protesting a time-out, trying not to think of how foolish and futile her resistance must appear. Did she really care what this towering hero-turned-villain thought of her at the end of the day?

  "Get off me!" she demanded. "What's wrong with you? A minute ago you were afraid to let me stand in case I blacked out again, and now you're tying me up in your kitchen?" Breaking down the details of her escalating scenario probably should have made her feel more afraid of the men and what they had in store for her, but she couldn't shake the memory of the red-head’s eyes on her, full of concern for her safety… just as surely as she couldn't shake the hands pinning her now.

  After a long moment of continuous struggling, in which he didn't respond, Lola finally had to let up to recover her breath. He wasn't kidding, she was having trouble staying focused after her head injury. He used this lapse in the action to his advantage.

  His knee pinned both of her legs. “Stop struggling and you won’t get hurt.”

  Now who was full of shit?

  She channeled her energy into one epic swell to buck him off her. He lowered his center of gravity to easily absorb her effort. The move brought the man's face within kissing distance—no, Lola corrected herself angrily, within spitting distance. She was just about to rear back and spit at him when his eyes flickered upward. Their gazes locked.

  Damned if that steamy stare didn’t jolt a hot streak of pleasure straight between her thighs—her body creating a mutiny of its own against her crash-addled brain. In another non-Criminal Minds lifetime, she told herself, momentarily preoccupied with whether or not he had the same passionate look during sex.

  Neither of them moved. Lola was of the distinct impression that he read her mind. His current proximity almost dared her to go through with it. But she was Lola Reyes, queen of phonics and finger paint and be-nice-to-others mantras.

  In the next instant Baudin returned with the rope. The two men worked together to tie her up. Their easy collaboration surprised Lola, considering how divided they had appeared from the start. She suspected both of them had done this a time or two before.

  As soon as they satisfied themselves that she was secure, the red-headed stranger took a step back and pulled open a drawer.

  Lola's heart leapt into her throat. She knew what came next.

  Knives.

  She closed her eyes.

  Chapter 3

  Max applied antiseptic to the wound on the woman's forehead.

  She flinched, trying hard to present a stone face. He doubted she could master a granite-like expression if she tried. Her brows were perfectly shaped into friendly half-moons that brought out her eyes. Her skin was too creamy. Her green irises revealed too much. The fear trapped inside them was a punch to his solar plexus.

  What if her story checked out? What if she wasn’t sent to off Baudin? What if she spent her days reading Dr. Seuss to kids who had nothing? His gaze trickled down her hourglass figure.

  Shit, Max. Focus.

  Max extracted his brain from his dick. Her story was too suspicious to be anything other than an alibi concocted by the guilty.

  The first aid kit lay open on the kitchen table beside them. The ties at her wrist still bound her to the chair, more than competently, but he kept the kit well outside her reach, just in case. Max didn't know what sort of agent he was dealing with here, and he didn't feel like finding out on the wrong end of the kit's nickel-plated medical scissors.

  Baudin paced. All the fucker was good for, really. That, and polluting Max’s air.

  "Don't touch me," she muttered, narrowing her eyes with the promise of mutiny.

  Max continued touching her, dabbing the last of her blood away before turning to pull the tabs off a Band-Aid. He was unsurprised to find Baudin standing closer than expected. The hitman glared at the two of them, before shaking out his pack of cigarettes and lighting up once more. Max wondered where the man stashed his rosary. Clearly, Baudin preferred the cancerous coping mechanism in times of crisis.

  "And now you are bandaging her wounds?" Baudin demanded. "Merde, Max. This woman has been sent
to kill me, and you insist on playing house. Where is that callous and inhospitable American stereotype when I need him?"

  A vein throbbed at Max’s temple. That Baudin had used Max’s real name made him want to test the sharpness of the medical scissors on him. Idiot.

  "Shut up, Baudin." While they didn't know the specifics of the situation, it wasn't looking good. Max needed to address one problem at a time, and he preferred to start with their impossible-to-ignore guest.

  Lola Reyes—if her driver’s license proved, in fact, authentic—was the disheveled vision of a woman who had been through every circle of hell in the span of a single day. She was younger than most assassins and exceptionally pretty when he cleared the blood away. Her hair was long and dark and still held a curl, despite looking as if it could really use the intervention of a comb. One stubborn lock trailed into her dark, infuriated eyes despite Max's continuous efforts to move it aside and finish tending to her wound. Her lips were generous and bow-shaped and pouted naturally, although she tried her best to assume a more intimidating expression.

  Max tried not to notice the way the rope sank into her soft flesh and accentuated her curves. It was possible he had tied it too tight, but he wasn't taking any chances.

  Baudin muttered to himself in French again, and Max broke his personal study of the woman by repeating what he had said before. "Shut up, Baudin."

  "What do you mean, I've been sent to kill you?" Lola fired her question past Max's shoulder as he leaned in to apply the bandage to her temple. "Are you crazy? I assure you there’s been a misunderstanding. I'm a school teacher, for goodness sake."

  "So you've said," Max intoned as he sat back.

  "Oh my gosh," Lola moaned and hung her head in defeat. Now that her vision was concealed by a tangle of dark hair and she no longer looked at him, Max allowed his eyes to narrow a fraction in puzzlement. It hadn't escaped him that the woman avoided every opportunity to swear. Exactly what he would expect from someone claiming to be an elementary school teacher.

  That, or she knew exactly how to sell a lie down to the last detail.

  Frowning, Max turned away. He stood, taking the first aid kit with him. Lola raised her head, eyeing his movements from between a spill of curls, but he pretended not to notice the furious look she fixated on him. He drew Baudin aside in the doorway, joining the French man in a cloud of cigarette smoke.

  "Whoever she is, we can't let her go," Max said in a low voice. "Not without compromising the safe house and your location. I need to figure out our next move."

  "You heard what she said," Baudin insisted. "Her brother is police. Monsieur Sterling, you know as well as me the sort of people I associated with in the past."

  Max knew a huge part of Baudin’s past involved dirty cops. Lola's mention of a brother on the force had triggered an instant reaction in the first place. The chances of her finding the safe house on accident diminished in the wake of her apparent connection to law enforcement. Whatever was going on, it seemed too perfect to be coincidental, and Baudin's attitude was only making things worse. Max did not in any way feel united with the man against a common enemy. Rather, he couldn't help but wonder if Baudin had something to do with the arrival of their recent guest.

  It was possible that Baudin's former contacts in the police force had orchestrated this entire thing. Then again, it was also possible that Baudin's former employer, Miller Freeman—the very man that Baudin was set to testify against in two days—was behind their recent uninvited guest. Either Lola was bait, she was the trap set to spring, or she was telling the truth. They needed to know more about her.

  "Her handbag's in the other room. Go grab it," Max instructed.

  "Oui, capitaine." For once Baudin didn't put up a protest at playing gopher. Max guessed the hitman was as eager to get to the bottom of Lola Reyes' identity as he—or at least, eager to appear as if he was. Max sighed and massaged his forehead as he sat back down in the chair across from Lola.

  "Aww, do you have a headache?" Lola inquired in mock sympathy.

  Max’s hand fell away. He met her glare with a diluted one of his own. If what she said was true, then she had every right to be angry at him. Max felt like he was playing multiple poker hands at multiple tables when he wasn't even clear about the rules of the game.

  One problem at a time, he reminded himself. Once Baudin returned with Lola's handbag, it wasn't long before a very big problem asserted itself.

  "What do you call this?" Max withdrew a snub-nosed Taurus revolver from Lola's bag. He checked to make sure it wasn’t loaded then dangled the weapon by its handle. "A little aggressive for first grade, wouldn't you say?"

  Baudin perched cross-legged on the kitchen counter. The guy was taking the first opportunity of Max’s distraction to break every household rule that had been established, chief among them—his nasty-ass feet off of—well—everything.

  "It’s a .357, but you would know that if you checked my permit," Lola snapped.

  "I know it’s a .357," Max replied in an equally a sharp voice. "The question was rhetorical."

  "Well, you can rhetorically find my permit and see for yourself." Lola winced at the inanity of her response. She continued anyway. "Perfectly legally. And if my profession as a first grade teacher calls that into question, remember that my brother is a cop."

  Her purse rang.

  Lola craned forward. "In fact, I bet that's him now. Ask him yourself."

  Max searched Lola’s handbag for the phone. The inside proved to be a vast, bottomless chasm filled with all manner of crap. After a minute of hunting and producing nothing for his efforts, Max withdrew his hand.

  The purse continued to vibrate and jingle.

  "Merde," Baudin sighed as if he was praying for strength rather than cursing in French. "Dump it out already. Are we on a first date?"

  "I've had worse, actually," Lola muttered.

  Max overturned her bag and spilled its contents onto the table. He found the promised permit. He also found a packet of sweetener, a wallet, sunglasses, tweezers, candy bars, happy-face stickers, three rogue crayons, lipstick, enough Alka-Seltzer to surface a flotilla of meals and a collection of cat toys that seemed to only exacerbate the jingling of the woman's phone. He tossed the wallet over his shoulder to Baudin as he flipped open the outdated cell phone.

  The screen lit up with the caller ID: Jack.

  "Is it Jack?" said Lola.

  Max said nothing.

  "See, I told you he's looking for me."

  Baudin enjoyed the hunt for evidence a little too much. His face alighted at a reel of laminated photos that unfolded from her wallet. For a moment, Max thought they might be photos of nude men for the exaggerated attention and appreciative whistle Baudin cast at the images.

  "Are all of these cats yours?" Baudin asked with a straight face. "Un, deux, trois… six?"

  "That's none of your business," snapped Lola, more red-faced than Max had seen her.

  The phone rang again, drawing his attention away from the interrogation.

  "Who is Eugenia?" he asked.

  "My neighbor. She's probably calling because she needs something."

  The woman shot glances between Max and Baudin, less spirited than before but no less cold. She appeared exhausted, near the end of her tether. Even when he had been uncertain of her motives, Max hadn't liked the way Lola's expression changed when he had necessarily withdrawn from her and began to first regard her with suspicion. Maybe it was the concussion, but the way she had first looked at him outside in the wreckage of her car, with implicit trust, had touched something in him. Now, she looked at him like he was someone from whom she needed saving.

  “Enough, Baudin.” Max regretted bringing the man in on his investigation as if he actually trusted him. As if they were a team.

  "Her identification checks out," Baudin replied as he tossed the wallet back to Max without refolding it. Max was treated to the six laminated portraits of Lola Reyes' cat menagerie, up close and personal. No
ne of them looked attractive enough to be anything but rescues. He was starting to form a picture of the woman tied up in his kitchen, and it didn't bode well for them.

  At this point, Max would have preferred an assassin to the innocent woman against whom he had committed the crime of false imprisonment and, quite possibly, traumatized for the duration of her tedious, cat-hugging, alphabet-teaching, intestine-weary life.

  Chapter 4

  Lola’s phone had been ringing incessantly since the French man—Baudin—had brought her purse into the kitchen. She watched helplessly as McGinger—Max Sterling, she had pieced together—crossed his thick arms and craned to look at the screen once more.

  "Eugenia again," he said. "But it's an overlapping call with your brother."

  "Mademoiselle is popular," Baudin said in a complimentary tone.

  "No," she stressed. "I'm not popular. Far from it, but that's beside the point. Look, there are a lot of people who need me, so if we're done here I really should get back to—"

  "We're not finished," Max interrupted.

  From his roost atop the kitchen counter, Baudin shot the man a puzzled look. "We aren't?"

  "No.” He addressed Lola again. “I'm still not buying your story. Not all of it."

  “Which part? The part where I wrapped my car around your tree? The Dr. Seuss part? I can recite for you, if you wish.” She was done being teacher of the year, PTA board member, afterschool care for zero money Lola. For once, she was done.

  “Por Favor,” said Baudin.

  “Your Majesty, please… I don’t like to complain, but down here below, we are feeling great pain.” She swallowed the thickness in her throat. “I know, up on top you are seeing great sights, but down at the bottom we, too, should have rights.”

  Her voice broke on pain and rights, trapped half-way between sing-song and tears. She looked away, at a distant window, her jaw set, quivering.

  Baudin clapped with acerbic sarcasm.

  Max looked over at him. “You’re an asshole.”