“Because Müller wasn’t the guy who ran from the car. That guy was too stocky. I don’t want the police going off on a wild goose chase for Müller when they can be of some assistance finding the driver who was shooting at us.”
“But isn’t Müller the most dangerous one of all?”
“And the hardest to catch. The guy is a professional and he hasn’t evaded capture all these years because he’s stupid.”
“And you think you can catch him?”
Declan gave her a squeeze. “Actually, I do.”
* * *
By the time Gavin and Tom had picked them up from the sheriff’s office, provided them with a replacement car, and they’d driven back to Declan’s place, the sun was coming up. Every muscle in her body ached with fatigue. It took some doing, but she dragged herself inside and immediately took a seat at the table. Even the guestroom seemed like an insurmountable distance to travel.
Declan immediately started a fresh pot of coffee.
“You drink too much of that stuff,” she chastised him.
“I have to get the taste of the sheriff’s rot-gut coffee out of my mouth,” he joked. “You look whipped.”
“Then I look better than I feel,” she teased.
“You always look good,” Declan said, his voice just a fraction deeper than normal.
The unexpected compliment settled in the pit of her stomach. “Then you have pretty low standards.”
“Actually,” he began as he joined her at the table with a mug of coffee for him and a bottle of water for her, “I have very high standards.”
“Is that why you’ve never married?” she asked, then immediately wished she could reclaim the inappropriate question.
He smiled, then took a sip. “My line of work isn’t very conducive for a relationship, let alone marriage.”
She forced a smile but inside she was sad to hear the finality of his words. Which, she realized, was completely silly and foolish. He was her temporary bodyguard, emphasis on temporary. His attachments shouldn’t be any of her concern. But in the deep recesses of her mind, they were. She took a drink of water and tried to swallow the lump of disappointment in her throat. You are being an idiot, she mentally chided herself. And how and why had she gotten to this pointless train of thought? She had no choice but to give him her trust, but only a fool would give him her heart to boot.
The door buzzer sounded and she gave a little start.
“Calm down,” Declan said. “It’s just Gavin with some bagels.”
Declan buzzed him through and in a matter of seconds he was walking in the front door with a large white bag. The minute Chasyn smelled the baked goods she practically salivated. Until that moment, she’d had no idea she was even hungry.
After Gavin left, Declan grabbed a couple of plates and knives, setting out the bagels and an assortment of flavored cream cheeses. Chasyn wasted no time slathering her bagel with salmon spread, then took a healthy bite. They ate in relative silence; apparently he was as hungry as she was. Once he was finished, Declan said, “You have enough time to take a shower before we leave.”
“Leave for where?”
“It’s time to pay a visit to Dr. Lansing. I want to get to him before the detectives let him know what happened last night.”
“Give me five minutes,” Chasyn said as she made a dash for the guest room. She showered in record time and didn’t bother to dry her hair. She selected a simple cotton print shift dress and a pair of flat sandals from her belongings. She was switching her stuff from her tote to a smaller cross bag when she came across the accordion file they’d gathered a few hours earlier.
When she returned to the kitchen, a barechested Declan was rubbing a towel over his hair. Chasyn very nearly dropped the file, along with her jaw. God, but the man had an incredible body. He was deeply tanned and sculpted, with a patch of hair that tapered from his chest to the waistband of his jeans like some big arrow tempting her to explore.
Like her brain needed any more temptation. Hell, her mouth was dry, her pulse had quickened and she was battling the nearly overwhelming desire to toss him down on the couch and have her way with him. When he caught her gawking at him, she lowered her gaze and felt her cheeks warm. Thankfully he couldn’t read minds.
“I-I have the cases Landry worked on,” she said in a breathy, sultry voice that had to belong to someone else. She cleared her throat and looked up. “What do you want me to do with them?” Or with you?
“We’ll fax them to Ziggy and she can get started.”
He grinned as if he knew what she’d been thinking. Impossible, but disarming. He let the towel drape around his shoulders as he raked his fingers through his damp hair. “Let me get a shirt and we’re out of here.”
He was back in a few minutes wearing a blue T-shirt that mirrored the color of his eyes. Paired with his dark jeans, the combination made him look fabulous, which didn’t do much to quell Chasyn’s inappropriate sexual fantasies. Obviously sleep deprivation had lowered her immunity to the situation.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Very,” she replied without meeting his gaze.
She followed him out to a dark green Ford Explorer. Like the black SUV and the Hummer, it was equipped with all sorts of tech and communications toys. “I’m sorry your car got shot up last night,” Chasyn said as she hauled herself into the high passenger seat.
Declan slid inside and fastened his seatbelt. “Cars can be fixed,” he replied casually. “I’m just glad the guy was a lousy shot.”
“How long do you think it will be before the police identify him?”
“He didn’t have any ID on him, so they’ll probably run his prints later today. If he has any kind of a record, the identification should pop pretty quickly.”
“And then it will just be a matter of linking him to Dr. Lansing and this whole nightmare will be over,” she said with excitement.
“You’re forgetting Müller.”
Her spirits fell. “Can’t the FBI or Interpol hunt him down?”
“They haven’t been successful yet.”
She angled in the wide seat so she was looking at his handsome profile. She tugged at the snug seatbelt, then asked, “What about the boat where he held my parents? He has to have left some sort of trail for them to follow.”
“We’re following it,” Declan assured her. “Adam is all over it.”
“Oh, what about that call to my parents?” she reminded him.
He took one hand off the wheel, fished his phone out of his pocket and said, “Hit speed dial seven.”
Chasyn did and an unfamiliar male voice answered on the first ring. “Hello?”
“May I speak to Mr. or Mrs. Summers?” she asked.
“Chasyn?” the male voice inquired.
“Yes.”
“Hang on.”
“Sweetie, is that you?” her mother asked in a very chipper tone.
“Mom,” she said on a breath of relief. “How are you?”
“I’m beating your father at gin. But that isn’t important. How are you?”
Baffled. “Fine.” She opted not to share the details of the shooting with her mother. No sense in getting her all upset. “Did Müller hurt you or dad?”
“A few bumps and bruises, but nothing major. Don’t you worry about us. You have enough on your plate right now. All things considered, we came out of the situation relatively unscathed.”
“Mom, this isn’t Murder, She Wrote. That man was dangerous.”
“We know that, but Mr. Kavanaugh’s people were on top of it.”
Chasyn spent a few more minutes speaking with her mother, then had an equally surreal conversation with her dad. The two of them sounded as if they were on vacation instead of squirrelled away in some safe house. She ended the call and held out the phone for Declan. For a brief instant during the transfer, their fingers brushed and Chasyn experienced a quick tingle.
“Sometimes I think they’re both nuts,” she muttered.
; “They’re in a very posh place and well-guarded,” Decan assured her.
“In Fort Myers?”
He shook his head. “The less you know the better.”
Declan steered the Explorer through downtown West Palm Beach, then parked in the lot across from City Place. After he’d cut the engine, he turned and held her gaze. “Joey and Sam are set up across the street from the café. We’ll wait here until we get word that Lansing has arrived.”
“Then we just walk up to him and demand to know why he killed Mary and Kasey and is hell bent on killing me?” she asked.
“Something like that,” Declan replied.
“How long do we have to wait?”
Declan checked his watch. “Lansing usually stops in around nine.”
“That’s a half hour from now!”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Declan placed a tentative kiss on her open lips, but within seconds there was nothing tentative about the way his mouth explored hers. No hint of tenderness or restraint. Just pure, unadulterated passion. Chasyn savored every second of it. She explored the chiseled angles of his face with her fingertips while his tongue teased hers. The flicker in her stomach sparked to flame when he ran his hands along her sides, lingering near the swell of her breasts.
Chasyn’s hands dropped to the broad expanse of his shoulders and she dug her fingernails in as he pulled her lower lip between her teeth, then began to kiss his way down her throat. Her head fell back, giving him unfettered access to her neck as her body turned into a taut rope of desire. Everywhere he kissed, her skin burned. She drank in the scent of his woodsy cologne as he nibbled and teased her collarbone. With her pulse pounding in her ears and her heart beating erratically, Chasyn got lost in the pleasurable sensations surging through her. She wanted more. No, needed more.
Then that little voice in her head reared its ugly head. What are you doing?
Making out with a guy in a parking lot. And not just any guy—the man who held her life in his hands. At least temporarily. The man who could make her weak in the knees with just a few well-placed kisses.
Gently, she placed her palms on his chest and pushed away, ignoring the sense of regret that accompanied the action. “This is a bad idea,” she managed over the lump of raw need lodged in her throat.
He tilted his head to the side and regarded her with a sexy half-smile. “It was working for me.”
“I’m sure it was,” she said as she straightened her disheveled clothing. “But it isn’t what I want.”
“Liar,” he said without accusation. “Or did you think I didn’t notice the way you were looking at me a little while ago?”
Chasyn attempted to fight off the urge to blush. “You were the one walking around without a shirt.”
“Well, if it makes you feel more comfortable, feel free to walk around my house without a shirt, too. I won’t mind.”
She gave him a sidelong glance. “Very magnanimous of you.”
His expression grew more serious. “What can I say? I’m attracted to you and you’re attracted to me and we’re consenting adults.”
“I never said I was attracted to you,” she protested, though her words sounded insincere even to her own ears.
His smile broadened. “You’re a lousy liar. Do you think I haven’t noticed the way you look at me? Did you think I wouldn’t respond to that?”
“You’re supposed to be my bodyguard, not my lover,” she lamely protested.
Her shrugged. “I can multitask.”
Maybe he had a point. Maybe there was nothing wrong with a harmless fling. Only something told her it wouldn’t be a casual fling. Could she handle a no-strings-attached relationship with this man? What was the alternative? Walking away? That thought filled her with sadness and a sense of loss. It all came down to what she was willing to sacrifice. Clearly they had different goals, so there was no future in Declan Kavanaugh for her. On the other hand, she was still two years away from her master plan’s timetable for meeting Mr. Right. Maybe Declan could be a temporary diversion. Yes. Just someone to date until she was ready to move on with her life plan. The only flaw in her thinking was the what if? What if her heart got involved? She’d be setting herself up for some serious heartbreak. But taking one look at his handsome face, she decided it might just be worth it.
* * *
You pushed too far, jackass.
Declan pressed his back against the seat and stretched his legs as far as the car’s interior would allow. His erection was subsiding even though he could still taste the heat of her pliant mouth on his lips. Not only had his behavior been unprofessional, it was totally out of character. He wasn’t the kind of guy who dragged women over consoles to kiss them senseless. But Chasyn wasn’t just any woman. She was a client—a client with the most intriguing blend of strength and vulnerability. And it didn’t hurt that she had a body that inspired a multitude of fantasies.
As his breathing steadied, he reached for his phone.
“Sam here.”
“Any sign of him?” Declan asked one of the two operatives he had surveilling Dr. Lansing.
“Parking on Clematis Street now,” Sam said. “I’ve got eyes on him.”
“We’ll be right there,” Declan said, then ended the call. He turned to Chasyn. “Ready?”
“For what?” she asked. “Lansing will never talk to me.”
“You’re not going in,” Declan stated. “I’ll leave you in the surveillance car with Joey while I go see the good doctor.”
“Can you punch him or something?” she asked.
“Why?” he inquired with a snicker as they got out of the car.
“If he bleeds on you, we get his DNA.”
“And I get an assault charge,” he pointed out. “No, this little chat is just meant to rattle his cage.”
“In the hopes of?”
“Throwing him off his game,” Declan said. “I want to see his reaction when I tell him one of his two prospective killers died last night.”
“Which will prove what?”
“We’ll see.”
The late March sun had already coaxed the temperatures into the low seventies. Pleasant enough for the two-second walk to where Joey and Sam had parked their nondescript panel van across from Lansing’s favorite coffee spot. Declan was mildly distracted by Chasyn’s reflection as they passed windows along the busy street. He’d never seen her in a dress and he had to admit, she had great legs. For a petite woman, she was perfectly proportioned. She wasn’t tan, but her skin glowed like she’d just had a healthy kiss from the sun. Her blond hair reflected golden highlights from the sun. She wore a minimum of makeup, which he liked. And no lipstick. He’d kissed that off her in the car. Chasyn was a natural beauty and that was refreshing in an area rife with breast implants, Botox, and collagen injections.
Staying on the opposite side of the street from the café, Declan and Chasyn slipped inside the cramped van. Only the driver’s and passenger seats were in place; the rest of the seating had been removed to make way for video and sound recording equipment. Everyone exchanged pleasantries, then Declan asked, “Is he inside?”
“Waiting on his order,” Sam said after looking through a pair of binoculars. “When he comes out, he always sits at the small table to the left of the door. Latte in one hand, bottle of water in the other. The guy is predictable.”
“This shouldn’t take long,” Declan said as he moved toward the door.
He crossed the street just as Dr. Lansing was coming out of the café. He was easy enough to spot. He was in his mid-fifties, lean, and dressed in a designer polo shirt, khaki pants, and tasseled loafers. Lansing’s wedding band glinted in the sunlight as he moved to take his seat at the small wrought-iron table.
Without hesitation, Declan fell into the seat across from the startled doctor. “Morning.”
“This table is taken,” the doctor returned irritably.
“I’m not staying,” Declan promised him. “I just want to ask you if you’d heard th
e news?”
“News?”
“Your paid assassins blew it last night. One of them is dead and it’s only a matter of time before the police identify the driver and link him back to you.”
No surprise registered in the doctor’s narrowed green eyes. “I can assure you, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Sure you do,” Declan returned conversationally. “We both know you killed Mary Jolsten and had Kasey Becker gunned down. What isn’t going to happen is killing Chasyn Summers.” Declan leaned closer to the doctor. “If so much as a hair on her head is harmed, they won’t even be able to identify you with dental records.”
“I’m not going to sit here and be threatened,” the other man huffed indignantly.
“What are you going to do? Call the cops?”
Lansing scowled. “Who the hell are you?”
“I’m the guy who’s going to make sure you spend the rest of your life in jail.”
“With what proof?” he countered smugly. “The police haven’t been able to link me to any murder.”
“Yet,” Declan said. “But that was before I killed one of your flunkies last night. By this afternoon, the cops should have an ID and then it’s just a matter of time before I find the link between you and the dead guy.”
Lansing stood. “I hate to disappoint you, Mr.—”
“Kavanaugh. Declan Kavanaugh.”
“Well, Mr. Kavanaugh, no one will be able to link me to anything.”
“Right. Because you covered your tracks too well?”
Lansing gathered up his two beverages. “No. Because I’m smarter than you are.”
* * *
“He’s a smug son of a bitch,” Declan announced when he returned to the panel van.
Chasyn nodded. “Always was. Condescending, too. Did you learn anything?”
“He’s very confident that the duo from last night can’t be traced back to him.” Declan told Joey and Sam to stay on the doctor. “I don’t care what you have to do, but get your hands on that coffee cup or that water bottle. I want to bury this bastard.”
“What now?” Chasyn asked as they dashed back to the parking lot where they’d left the Explorer.
Trapped Page 14
