Well, Corbin’s bed. Our bed.
“There’s nothing to discuss,” Corbin said. “I’ve got work to do.”
“Wait!” My voice was plaintive, and Corbin turned at the doorway. He’d taken off his shirt, and normally I would have indulged in a moment’s pleasure of cataloging the rippling of his corded muscles and the impressively sculpted definition of his abs.
But now when I looked at him, I saw power and danger.
“Audrey, it’s done.”
I felt my face go white. “You mean—”
“I shouldn’t be reassuring you.” Corbin shook his head. “The decision’s been made, that’s all.”
“Tell me when.”
He gave me a hard look. “It’s better if you don’t know. Surely you can understand that.”
“Ok,” I said. “What are we doing tomorrow?”
“Whatever you want to do.” He turned.
“Wait!” I crossed the room. “Please don’t go out tonight. I wouldn’t feel safe.”
“Baby, it’s going to happen.”
“I know, but not tonight. It’s… I feel sick to my stomach. I feel like I’m doing this, like I’m the murderer.”
Sadness crossed Corbin’s features, and for a brief moment I thought I’d stumbled upon an exploitable angle. Then he dashed my hopes by saying, “I won’t do it tonight.”
“Hold up,” I said. “You told me once that you’d only lie to me in order to protect me. How do I know you’re not lying now?”
“Jesus, Audrey.” He didn’t try to hide his impatience. “Do you want me to stay with you?”
I nodded. “I think I need you to,” I admitted quietly. “Please don’t lock yourself in your office right now.”
His expression softened. “Ok. I’ll be back in ten minutes. I have to send a couple of emails. Not about Henry,” he offered before I could ask.
I got into bed and stared at the door, waiting for Corbin to return.
How long, I wondered, could we go on like this? A few days, maybe, but I couldn’t be his shadow, his babysitter. I couldn’t stop him.
But I couldn’t live with myself if I just stepped back and let him do it, either.
He returned about fifteen minutes later. We didn’t have sex. Neither of us seemed to be in the mood.
I hardly slept that night, and when the first blades of sunlight sliced through the curtains, I gave up trying.
On his side of the bed, Corbin was awake, too.
“What do you want for breakfast?” he asked.
“Omelets could be nice, if you feel like cooking.” I wished I could think of something more convoluted and difficult, but I doubted I could get away with requesting a soufflé for breakfast.
“Your wish is my command,” he said.
Yeah, right, I thought. If only it were that easy. “Let me shower first.”
I took my time. The longer I could stretch out the morning, the better. As the warm water washed over me, a vague plan started to form.
Henry would have to go back to prison. The sheriff’s department might not be on my side anymore, but there had to be a way. Maybe I could plant drugs on him or… I’d figure out something.
The more difficult part of my plan would be convincing Corbin to hold off.
But if I could get him to leave town…
I toweled off and dressed, choosing a modest black skirt, knee-high boots that were both comfortable and stylish, and a button-down denim shirt layered over a tank top.
I stepped into the hallway and the mouthwatering aroma of freshly baked bread.
Corbin was sitting on the balcony, casually leaning back in his chair and looking toward the swan pond. Two glasses of fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice were sitting on the table next to him along with a plate of fresh biscuits, still steaming from the oven. Just one look and I knew they were flaky and buttery and would melt on my tongue.
Taking a seat, I reached for a biscuit and the jar of apricot preserves we’d picked up at a roadside stand.
“You look nice,” Corbin said.
“Thanks.” The biscuit was so hot that it burned my fingers as I broke it into pieces. “I was thinking,” I said as I smoothed the preserves over a bite-sized morsel, “that you should probably go to France, see this thing through. Get closure with your ex once and for all. Real closure.”
Making the suggestion didn’t hurt, not when Corbin’s freedom was at stake.
“There’s coffee in the kitchen,” Corbin said.
“I can come, too, so you won’t have to worry about anything happening to me.”
“I’m not needed in France.” He picked up his empty coffee cup and left the balcony.
Even two weeks earlier, the idea of sending Corbin to reunite with his ex would have made me insane. Now I was trying to push him toward it. Funny how things could change—the thought of the other Audrey could still make my mouth turn dry and set the world spinning, but she was better than letting Corbin kill Henry.
Corbin returned with two cups of coffee. He set one down in front of me. “I’ll make the omelets in a few minutes,” he said. As he was sitting, his phone rang.
Please let it be an emergency in Paris or DC, I pleaded silently. Somewhere far away, and something that Corbin couldn’t get out of.
“What’s the problem?” he asked.
I frowned. He must have recognized the number, and I doubted he’d employ that tone of voice when talking to the head of an intelligence agency.
“What does he look like?” Corbin was halfway to his feet. The tension in his face was paralleled by the stiffness of his shoulders. “I know who that is. Keep him there. I’m on my way. Do not let him leave.” He hung up the phone.
For a moment, absolute silence sat heavy over us.
That call had to be about Henry. No one else could put that murderous look in Corbin’s eyes.
Desperate, I grabbed his arm.
He gently but firmly pried my fingers away. “Henry’s at the old office, asking questions about you, where to find you.”
A sour taste filled my mouth, and I thought I might puke everywhere. Keep him there. I’m on my way. That was what Corbin had said.
The room tilted. “You can’t do this.”
“He’s agitated, Audrey. The man isn’t thinking straight.”
“Then he should be evaluated by a psychologist, not put down like a rabid coyote. Please, Corbin.”
“One of the things I love about you,” he said, “is that despite having every reason in the world to think the worst about humanity, you can still find the best.”
He spun away and headed through the condo, his steps big, ground-covering.
I rushed after him. “Then take me with you. Corbin!”
“Not happening, baby.” He pivoted to look at me. “Give me your car keys.”
“Are… Are you going to leave me stranded here?”
“Where are they?”
I stared at him. Was this really Corbin? The man I loved? Would he really do something like that to me?
Judging from the stubborn set of his jaw, he would.
I set my own jaw. “If you take them, I’ll call a cab.”
“Good,” he said, nodding, irritation turning his handsome features severe. “I’ll take your phone and your credit cards as well.”
“Then I’ll hitch a ride. I’m not staying here.”
He stepped toward me. “I’m locking you in for your own good. You can’t have anything to do with this, Audrey.”
My fingers curled into fists. “You did not just say that you’re going to lock me in here. That’s illegal, and it’s disgusting.”
He huffed out an incredulous laugh. “You still don’t get it. This is happening.”
“If you lock me in here, I’ll set off the fire alarms.” I smiled triumphantly. Corbin could instruct the computer in the condo to do all sorts of things, but he couldn’t override the fire code.
“Knock yourself out,” he said.
Ok, so ma
ybe he could override it. “Then I’ll start a real fire,” I said.
Corbin clenched his jaw so tightly that I could almost hear his muscles working. And the expression on his face… like he was ready to kill me, too.
“Then we do this the hard way.” He grabbed my arm and towed me down the hall, and for a moment I thought he was going to lock me in a bathroom. No matches within arm’s reach meant no fires.
Let him—I’d break a window and yell for someone to call the cops.
Instead Corbin pulled me out the front door with him. I lunged back in and grabbed up my phone.
Corbin snatched it out of my hand and jammed it into his pocket. “You won’t be needing that.”
The door slammed behind us.
Chapter 19
Rather than getting off the elevator on the ground floor and walking out to where his SUV was parked, we continued down lower, to the parking garage.
It was also where the condos’ storage units were.
“If you stuff me into the storage space, I’ll…” I couldn’t think of a suitably large threat.
“I wouldn’t do that to you,” he spat, shooting me a look of disgust.
“Oh, you’ll murder someone, but you won’t stuff a claustrophobic woman into a dark closet? How the hell am I supposed to know where you draw the line?”
His fingers squeezed into my arm. “Don’t say things you can’t take back.”
I squirmed, trying to break free of his grasp, but Corbin was much, much stronger, and he was both angry and determined.
He dragged me to a gleaming black SUV. The windows were so darkly tinted that they had to be illegal.
He unlocked it and released me. “Get in,” he growled.
Scrambling into the seat was like scaling a tractor trailer. Corbin slid behind the steering wheel.
Because of the truck’s size, I expected it to roar to life. Instead, the engine came on with an almost inaudible hum.
Corbin jerked out of the parking space before I had time to put on my seatbelt, and I had to throw my hands up in front of me to avoid banging into the dashboard.
“You don’t have to do this,” I pleaded as he drove up the ramp with a screech of tires.
“Audrey, I need you to be quiet.” His voice was flat, commanding. It sent chills down my spine.
Yesterday, Corbin had told me to look into his eyes, to see him. But I didn’t know the furious man in the driver’s seat. Someone cold and dead, and very dark had taken over the person I loved.
My protests weren’t doing any good anyway, so I fell silent; I doubted Corbin even really knew I was there.
In fact, it was a lot like the night he’d choked Henry. I’d thought it was the act of physically squeezing another living person’s throat that had made him like that, but now I was seeing the truth.
This was the part of him that was an assassin. This ability to compartmentalize was what had made him so good at it.
I pulled my legs up onto the large, comfortable seat and wrapped my arms around my knees, folding them in close. The outside world rushed by in a dizzying whirl.
And then we were almost there, like we’d driven through a fold in the space-time continuum.
Corbin lurched to an abrupt stop. He’d parked halfway on the curb, halfway in the street. I couldn’t see anything except the outermost edge of the parking lot and two enormous dumpsters, overflowing with construction debris: broken concrete, sharp-edged rebar, splintered wood.
I tried to open my door, but it was locked.
“Childproof safety locks,” Corbin said, pulling a cloth-wrapped bundle from under the driver’s seat. “Perfect for girls who threaten to start fires.” He got out. I scrambled across the center console to try to exit on his side, but he’d already slammed and locked the door.
“Is that a gun? Corbin!” I jerked in vain at the handle.
The keys disappeared into a tight denim pocket.
I pounded on the glass and screamed in frustration. The cars passing… I couldn’t hear them.
Which meant no one could hear me, either.
“Fuck you, Corbin Lagos!” I screamed. “Fuck you, you selfish bastard!” My throat turned raw with the effort, but it didn’t matter. No one could hear me. No one could see me. At least the SUV was large enough, with plenty of windows so it didn’t feel like a coffin.
I settled into the driver’s seat and leaned to the side, straining to look around the dumpsters.
It was impossible to see a goddamn thing that was happening at Stroop Finders.
At that moment, I despised Corbin with every ounce of my being. The one thing he’d never done was to intentionally make me feel small, weak, diminished.
And in just a few minutes, he’d destroyed that. He didn’t respect me, and he didn’t love me.
None of that mattered, of course, because he was probably having his construction crew pour concrete over Henry’s corpse.
Icy fingers of despair plunged into my torso, dragged their frozen nails through my guts and curled around my heart. With each passing second, the line between my fear and my outrage smudged, then faded until I wasn’t angry.
I stared so hard at the edge of the parking lot that my vision went double. Please, please, please, I pleaded silently.
The seconds turned into a full minute, then two. I only knew because of the clock embedded in the rear view mirror. It felt like hours, though, like an entire lifetime. One without Corbin.
Before I heard the sirens, I saw them, flashing blue and red light scattered and sprayed over the glass, visible even though the sun was out. When I did hear them, the sound was muffled.
The cops had to be stopped.
If I could distract them, Corbin might be able to get away. My fingers fought in vain with the handle.
Desperate, I pushed on the horn.
The patrol car sped by.
“No,” I gasped.
But it didn’t stop at the parking lot and instead continued straight down the road.
Then another one rushed past, and a moment later, a fire truck.
Tears of relief flooded to my eyes. If Corbin came back now, I’d forgive him for everything. I’d never take him for granted again, never lose track of time while I was working, never give him a hard time when he wanted to watch a bad movie…
Corbin stepped into view. He was all muscle and grim determination. And he was pulling someone along with him. Someone alive.
“Thank you,” I breathed.
But then I got a better look at the man he held in his grip. I knew that man, and it wasn’t Henry.
Chapter 20
I crawled back into the passenger’s seat. My joints felt stiff, like they’d been locked in place for five hours and not five minutes. Wiping my damp cheeks with my fingertips, I licked my lips and hoped I didn’t look like a mess.
There was a light clicking sound, and the lock popped up.
Instantly I was out of the truck. Somehow, my trembling legs held me up.
“What happened?” I managed.
“Apparently you’ve got two stalkers,” Corbin said. He shoved Oswald, who looked impressively unruffled considering the circumstances.
“We know each other,” Oswald said. “Tell him.”
There probably wasn’t a pleasant explanation for Oswald’s presence, but I was so relieved he wasn’t Henry that I smiled. “We have met,” I told Corbin. “Oswald is Sara’s husband. JD’s brother-in-law.”
“Why is he here, asking questions about you?” Corbin demanded.
I looked at Oswald. “Yeah, how did you find out my real name?”
Oswald wore his indignant expression well. “In this scenario, I’m the one who should be asking questions. You came into my house, gave me a fake name—”
“Your wife gave you the fake name,” I pointed out. Rob and I had merely gone along with her story that we were friends of her deceased brother’s.
Oswald huffed out a sigh. He was an attractive man, with thick chestnut hair
and startling gray eyes. He didn’t look anything like Henry—Oswald was ten years younger, several inches taller, well-dressed and wealthy. But a casual description given over the phone? They had similar hair color, I supposed, and if Oswald had shown up, demanding to know where I was…
He was lucky Corbin didn’t have a “shoot first” policy.
“Is there a reason you’re here?” I asked him.
He smoothed a hand through his hair, and I couldn’t help but notice that for all his bluster, he was trembling slightly. Being manhandled by a guy of Corbin’s size would have that effect on most people, I supposed.
“Yes,” he said. “You were snooping through my house.”
“That’s not true.”
“You told my wife that I’m doing drugs.”
Ok, he had me there. “I’m a private investigator,” I said, crossing my arms.
“Actually, I don’t believe you are.” Oswald stepped closer, and Corbin jerked him back.
“Keep your distance,” Corbin growled.
Oswald seemed to endure Corbin’s restraining grip like it was the latest fashion: uncomfortable but inevitable.
“I had a friend check with the licensing bureau. You’re not a licensed investigator, and you don’t have an application pending.” He jerked his head toward the construction. “The company you supposedly work for doesn’t exist. You aren’t friends with JD. So who are you?”
Interesting that Oswald had friends who could look up that sort of thing. “Haven’t you ever heard of remodeling? If you really flew out here because of that—”
“I flew out here to investigate you, to make sure you aren’t some sick scam artist taking advantage of my wife in these dark times. Also, I’m here to tell you to mind your own business or I’m going to hit you with a lawsuit so big, your grandkids will be paying it off.”
“Where were you Labor Day Sunday?” Corbin asked, walking Oswald back several feet. His tone was casually threatening. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought he was merely giving Oswald a hard time because he didn’t like the man.
Protected by a Dangerous Man Page 12
