by Various
“You’re Lily, aren’t you?”
She nodded. In the gloom, she could see that he was looking up at her, curiosity and acknowledgement in his eyes. Their intimate online connection set off a tide of mixed emotions, and she had to bite her lip to level herself. She was already upset and aggrieved about the situation she’d found herself in here. The reminder of why she was here in the first place only served to add to the confusion. When the street light reached him again, she saw that there was intimacy in his gaze.
“All this time I wondered what your voice would sound like.” He gave a husky laugh and Lily’s attention caught.
“Softer than I imagined,” he added, very quietly, as if her ears alone. There was a seductive edge to that comment. It made her think of sex and of all the fantasies they had shared, her body heating instantly. “And so are you… You’re beautiful, Lily. I’m so sorry you got dragged into this.”
The car sped through the city, and the lights moved in strange patterns over the back seat, making the conversation seem even more surreal. “It’s not your fault,” she whispered, wanting to reassure him, this man who had given her so much pleasure over these last few weeks.
“Oh yes it is.” He sighed heavily.
The scent of his cologne made her think of woodland space, not cars and the city and guns. Had he worn that cologne for their date, or did he wear it every day? She liked it, either way. In the passing lights she could see he grimaced in pain, his hand reaching for the knee that was up on the seat. She’d be a whole lot happier if he was checked out at a hospital. “Hey, try not to move around.”
He nodded.
She put her hand to his forehead again, gently pushing back his hair so that she could check his head wound. One corner of his mouth lifted as he looked up at her. Her skin prickled with awareness as she thought about the things they had confessed to each other, and what she had hoped for from this date, her chest growing tight with emotion. His hand closed over hers where it rested on his head, and he squeezed her gently. “It’ll be okay, Lily, don’t worry. Seth will make sure you’re safe.”
Seth. The policeman’s name was Seth.
She nodded. When he closed his eyes, she turned away and looked out at the passing London streets. Where was the police officer taking them? What the hell had she walked into back there? She still didn’t quite understand. It had all happened so fast. Then the questions melted away as she remembered the feeling she’d had when the driver, Seth, had answered the door. How it had felt when she had reached out and kissed him, thinking that he was all her dreams come true.
When she glanced in his direction, he was looking her way in the rear view mirror. Was he listening to what was said? Curiosity was there in his expression. She wasn’t surprised. It wouldn’t take a genius to work out that she was supposed to be meeting with Adrian. Instead, she’d thrown herself at him. The way she had come onto him in the corridor hung between them like static in the atmosphere—an unanswered question, a broken encounter. She looked away, and then back, studying him as he watched the road.
The oncoming lights highlighted his strong bone structure. Her hand itched to touch him again, her thoughts instantly running through what had happened between them in the corridor outside Adrian’s office. He had short black hair, rugged features, and his dark brow shadowed intense blue eyes. Did he have to be so gorgeous? She’d been so ready to meet Adrian, and Adrian was attractive, too. Why was her life suddenly so complicated? She watched him until she saw his eyes flicker and once again he caught her attention in the rear view mirror. The tension heightened. Apparently he had eyes in the back of his head, because he seemed to know every time she looked his way.
Meanwhile, the man in her lap nestled down, an approving sigh escaping him as he settled in against her for the journey. She looked down at him, matching his warm smile with those words that echoed around her mind. This man knew so much about her.
With one hand, he stroked her arm, affectionately. His actions told her exactly how intimate her online relationship with him had been and she pressed her lips together, trying to steady her confused emotions after all that had happened.
Just then she caught sight of a road sign. They were headed west. Where? He’d mentioned a safe house. Wherever the hell they were going, it looked as if she was stuck with the pair of them—one bloke who she’d revealed all her intimate sexual fantasies to online, and another who she’d come on to before she even knew who he was.
Great, just great.
Her cheeks heated and she turned away, focusing on the flickering lights outside the window as the car sped on, headed out of the city.
Chapter Four
When Seth saw the big old house up ahead on the hillside, he slowed the car to a crawl, flicking his headlights down from full beam to sidelights. He didn’t want to attract the attention of the neighbors. The nearest house was a good half a mile away, but on a clear night the lights could be spotted across the valley floor.
The lane that led up to the place where he had grown up was bumpy and Adrian woke up as they approached. “Where are we?” he asked as he sat up. “This doesn’t look like ‘an average Midlands housing estate’ to me.”
Seth noticed there was no lack of sharpness to Adrian’s thinking. He’d remembered where they were supposed to be going. It was a safe bet that possible head injury could be ruled out.
“Wales,” the woman responded, with a terse edge to her voice, “North Wales.”
She hadn’t rested for a moment. Watchful and alert, she’d pouted thoughtfully—and provocatively—all the way from London. Seth had felt her attention on him over the course of the journey, attention that was mutual. What was her role in this? She could be one of Carlisle’s people. That was part of the reason he’d kept her close. He didn’t want to think that, but he had to, because that was his job. Whatever their connection was, he wanted her under his watch so that he could monitor her.
“Wales?” Adrian repeated, and moved around in the back seat as he peered out of the window.
“Change of location,” Seth said.
Adrian didn’t respond.
Seth was relieved. He didn’t want to explain why he had changed the plan. The less the witnesses knew, the safer they would be. The less anyone knew, in fact. Out there on that fire escape outside of Adrian’s office, he’d caught sight of the assailant, and he’d recognized him. It was Emery Lavonne, a fellow officer in the force. That distinctive blond hair of his gave it away. Seth had just about kept a lid on his anger, but it had enraged him. He’d heard of good policeman being bought out, but he didn’t understand that. Never would. Whatever, he needed time to think and he couldn’t risk taking the primary witness to the designated safe house when Lavonne might already have got his hands on that address.
Instead he had brought them to Hafod Y Coed, a country hotel nestled in a wood in North Wales, the place where he had grown up.
Adrian attempted to read the sign as they passed, stumbling with the Welsh word structure. “What does it mean?”
“Summer woods,” Seth responded. “It’s a small private hotel, out of the way, and it’s currently closed up for the winter season. We’ll be using it as our safe house.” Out of the way, that’s why he’d opted for it. They didn’t usually take witnesses into Wales, and it had seemed safer than booking into a regular hotel where the staff would be curious about who they were.
He pulled the Land Rover up in front of the building and wondered what his parents would say if they were in residence and he turned up with two strangers in tow, two people who were under his witness protection. Thankfully his parents were in Spain for their winter break. He switched off the ignition, then reached for the keys at his belt and sought out the one he hadn’t yet used, the key his mother had given him.
“You never know when you might need to pop home,” she’d said. They knew what sort of work he did. Maybe they thought someone would be on his back, one day, and he’d need to hide. “Keep it,” s
he insisted, when he tried to tell her it wasn’t necessary. “The alarm code is always the same, your birth date.”
He’d never had to use it before. She’d always been at the door to greet him when he arrived on a visit.
Two minutes later he had the alarm switched off, and both his witnesses together with all the supplies from the car were in the hall. He walked to the system’s control panel box and flicked on all the alarms and the heating. If he housed them in the rooms on this floor and at the back of the house, there would be less chance of the lights being seen by their distant neighbors.
When he turned back he saw that Adrian had sat down in the tall leather porter’s chair—a much loved piece that his mother had found at a furniture auction—that stood in the reception area. The woman was peering up at the framed accommodation certificates on the wall and the brass plate that listed his parent’s names as the license holders of the premises. When Adrian pulled up his trouser leg and groaned, the woman dropped to her knees beside him. “Oh my god, your leg is badly swollen.”
“It’s an old injury, a cartilage problem, but I think I’ve given it a jolt it as I went down.”
Seth watched her tending Adrian. Once again he wondered what the hell the story was with these two. He’d been trying to figure it out all the way from London—that, and what the hell a cop was doing moonlighting for a lowlife like Carlisle.
“Do you have a first aid kit, with bandages?” The woman looked at Seth as she eased Adrian’s shoe off. “This needs to be strapped for support.”
Seth was already on it. He headed for the kitchen and was back a moment later, first aid case in hand. Setting the case down on the floor beside the porter’s chair, he nodded at the woman. “You should find everything you need in there. I’ll secure the place while you do so.”
She was about to speak—and she looked pretty snippy—but he turned away before she had the chance to get started. Securing the place was his first priority. He checked the ground floor rooms, drawing closed the heavy curtains after he’d made sure the windows were locked. He lit the gas flamed log-fire in the residents’ lounge and then headed into his stepfather’s office, where he disconnected the phone and locked it in a drawer, pocketing the key.
Jogging up the stairs, he thought back over what action he’d taken, as he went—as he had done several times on the journey from London. He’d had to act on instinct back there, because the normal avenues were no longer an option. Even though it had been the best thing to do, he had to be sure. He always played by the rules, but when it had come to the crunch he had to step outside the boundaries. He’d taken the option he’d been trained to do: always protect the witness. Their chief, Stephen Ward, had always been adamant about that. But Seth had to take action fast, and those actions were all beyond his remit.
He checked the rooms on the first floor, assessing the security. The rooms were all dark and quiet. Taking them to the original safe house had no longer been an option. Lavonne would have access to the address. They could have gone to a hotel, but that involved other members of the public. That would have put more innocent people in danger, and every single person who knew where they were opened up a potential risks. He paused and scanned the road from a window, he saw no lights. Lavonne wouldn’t find them here. He squinted into the darkness. They had not been tailed, and he had no intention of using a phone that could be tracked by sat. His job –and his nature—didn’t let him rest easy though, not yet.
On the top floor of the building his parents had their private living accommodation. He jogged up the next set of stairs, locked the door to that part of the building, and added the key to his fob. He’d done the best thing under the circumstances. Brooding on it, he wrapped his hand around the back of his neck. Pieces of a jigsaw were falling into place. His department had lost the last two high profile witnesses under protection. It had been devastating to their team, and now Seth knew why it had happened. Lavonne was a turncoat in their midst. It made Seth’s gut knot with anger.
He could try to get word to his boss, when the time was right. He knew what Stephen would say, he would tell him that his priority was his witness, and the woman who could finger Lavonne. That’s why he had fast-tracked to a new plan. There was no way that snake Lavonne was taking these two out, no way. And if he knew she could ID him, he’d want the woman as much as he’d want Adrian Walsh, because she could identify him. And me. He’ll have to take me out, or be exposed.
Each and every protection duty was life and death to Seth Jones, but this one had now become a challenge and a duty above and beyond everything that had gone before. He put his hand against the locked door to the private apartment at the top of the house. This was home, this was off the radar, and this location was entirely unknown to Lavonne. If they kept their heads down, they were safe. He’d done the right thing.
Patting the door, he smiled to himself. Thanks Mum, he thought, before he headed back downstairs.
By the time he got back down to the ground floor Lily had bandaged Adrian’s leg and had his foot raised up on a footstool. She was kneeling beside the chair and they were deep in conversation. Seth slowed down as he approached and tried to catch what was being said.
“No, I arrived there maybe a minute or so early. When I got to your office there was a bloke hanging around in the corridor. He gave me a really filthy look, but then he went out of the window and I assumed he was a maintenance man. Obviously not.” She looked at Adrian, and he shook his head, his expression overcast.
Seth noticed then how they were with each other, conversing like old pals. It was odd because there was a suggestion of closeness, and yet they can’t have met before because Lily had thought he himself was Adrian. Intriguing.
“I knocked…” She paused and glanced towards the staircase. When she saw he had returned, her cheeks flushed and her eyelids lowered. “And your friend answered the door.” She nodded her head in Seth’s direction. “Then I heard gunshots and I was pulled inside the office.”
Seth stifled a smile. She’d rather conveniently abbreviated her story to cover her error. He watched her, but she didn’t look back at him.
Adrian reached out and rested his hand on her arm, squeezing it gently. “It’s my fault you’re here. I am so sorry you’ve got mixed up in this.”
“I’ve put the fire on in the main sitting-room,” Seth interrupted. “If you’d like to convene in there, we’ll run through some ground rules.”
The woman, Lily, was on her feet in a flash, pulling her short coat around her as if readying to leave. “I don’t want to convene anywhere.” She spoke tersely, but that embarrassed flush was still on her cheekbones. “How long are you going to keep me here?”
“At the outside, until Adrian gives evidence at trial.”
“When is that?”
“Two weeks.”
Her eyes rounded. “I can’t stay here for two weeks!”
Seth noticed how sexy she looked when she was outraged. Would she look that way if he reminded her about their first encounter? The idea of it turned him on. Quickly, he reminded himself that he was a cop on duty and relationships were off the agenda. Then again, he considered, he’d effectively just gone off radar—absent without leave— so he wasn’t currently functioning within the protocol his role usually required. He considered that fact while he studied her.
He had to stifle a smile in order to concentrate on getting her on board, which was the number one priority right now. Anything else could wait a while. “Unfortunately you’ve seen too much. None of us want to be here, but there’s an issue of safety and justice involved. Adrian is giving evidence at a trial. He’s in danger, and now you are too, because of what you’ve seen.”
“I could go home. Nobody knows me or where I live.”
Seth looked at her. He hated to see anyone this uncomfortable with the set up, but there wasn’t a choice. Lavonne’s status was his burden. Trying a different tactic, he shrugged. “Adrian here is a friend of yours, yes?”
Maybe that wasn’t a good move. Heat flared in her face and she shifted uncomfortably. He had to get to the bottom of this. It set a thread of doubt loose. What was it with these two? Was it anything to do with Carlisle? He had to know, and soon.
“Yes, we are friends.”
That was carefully worded. “Consider how he feels. He doesn’t want to be here either, this is a stressful time. Your support would be helpful.”
She glanced at Adrian and quieted. Adrian lifted his hands in a silent apology.
“Adrian is my charge,” Seth continued, “but you have inadvertently become a secondary witness and you can ID the man who made an attempt on Adrian’s life.” He looked at her to gauge her understanding. She seemed to be taking it in. “My duty is to protect you both until the danger has passed.” He gestured towards the sitting room door and gave her an encouraging smile “If you’d like to come this way, we can have a chat and get settled in.”
She didn’t return his smile. Instead, she shook her head dismissively. “Do I have my own room here?”
He’d made a slight inroad with her, but she was still reluctant. “You do, but before I show you to your room, I need to request you hand over your mobile phones to me. Both of you.”
Her eyebrows drew together and her lips tightened.
This was the worst part—people and their mobile phones were inseparable. It was their last little bit of independence and it was always hard for them. “It’s for your safety. The house phone is also disconnected.”
Adrian rummaged in his trouser pocket. A moment later he handed his phone over. Seth took it and put it on the sideboard that stood against one wall in the hallway. The guest ledger was there, and he closed it as he put the phone down. He put out his hand to the woman. She had a small bag over her shoulder that rested on the opposite hip. It was large enough for a phone and a wallet, maybe some make up. She glared at him for the longest moment, then reluctantly opened the bag and handed her phone over. “This is ridiculous,” she muttered.
