by Liliana Hart
“So what do you say, Mr. Private Investigator? Am I too dangerous for you?”
Chapter Three
“I guess it’s lucky for you I like dangerous women,” Shane said after a minute of stunned silence. “We need to get out of here. You can tell me the rest on the way. You must be one hell of an amazing woman to have dodged them for this long.”
“You don’t grow up in the Valentine household without learning a few helpful tips, but I’ve felt Angelo’s men breathing down my neck over the last couple of months.”
Shane zipped up the black bag with the weapons, money and a few other necessities and slung it over his shoulder. He turned off the lights so only the glow from the computer screen was visible. He grabbed Rachel by the hand and pulled her toward him. She barely came up to his shoulder in her socked feet.
“I have to say I’m not terribly sorry for meeting you under circumstances such as these.”
Her eyes were luminescent in the shadowed room, and he put his hand on the back of her neck and brought her closer. Her eyes fluttered closed as his lips hovered a breath away from hers. He recognized the low pull in his gut as her body fit against him. He was prepared to explore—her taste and texture—prepared to savor the soft sighs that would follow. But as he brushed his lips gently against hers, he realized he’d made a mistake. He wasn’t prepared at all. Her mouth was a banquet, her lips sweet and her sighs intoxicating. He could lose himself in her taste alone.
He pulled away, knowing that if he kissed her again there would be no turning back. The part of himself he’d kept rigidly locked away would take over all rational thought, and it could only end in pain for them both because he would never be capable of giving what a woman like Rachel Valentine deserved.
But Rachel surprised him when she wouldn’t let him back away. She wrapped her hands around the back of his neck and pulled him closer.
“Mmm, again,” she moaned.
He knew it was a bad idea, but his brain was being overruled by more basic needs. He captured her mouth in a scorching kiss that held two years of pent up desire and longing. It was a kiss meant to stir passions, a kiss meant to threaten his control. It was carnal in its intensity as lips and tongues clashed.
He swallowed her moan and pulled her closer, so the heat of their bodies met and melded. He hadn’t realized he’d been starved for the taste of a woman. But not just any woman. Only this one. Her hands fisted in his hair and he moved her backward, never lifting his lips from hers, until her legs hit the back of the small loveseat and they went down together in a heap of tangled limbs. His hand found its way beneath her shirt and his fingers grazed over a rigid nipple. She arched against him and he buried his face against her neck and fought for control.
What was wrong with him? He wondered. He had to get a grip, and fast.
No sooner had the thought entered his mind than the windows facing the street exploded and a boom echoed where only seconds before the room had been filled with sounds of passion. Terror and adrenaline replaced the feeling in an instant, and Shane rolled off the couch and tucked Rachel beneath him. The rapid-fire sounds of bullets hitting the building continued as they belly crawled to the stairwell.
“Sounds like he’s got an HK MP5,” Shane said, his voice calm and low.
“What’s that?”
“Submachine gun. He’ll have to stop and reload in a minute. When he does we need to get to the back door. There’s an alleyway behind us.”
“Gotcha,” she said.
He admired the fact she hadn’t lost control at the first sound of gunfire. They hunkered down again as the shots continued. The bottom windows were being taken care of now.
“I never realized I had so many windows,” Shane said. “My secretary is going to be pissed.”
“Do you think he followed us when we left the apartments?” Rachel asked. “I looked around, but I didn’t see anyone who looked suspicious.”
“Yeah, I did too, but there was plenty of cover to be found in the park across the street.”
The gunfire stopped as suddenly as it had started and the silence left in its wake pulsed along with the pounding beats of their hearts.
“Let’s go,” Shane said. He grabbed the black bag and shoved Rachel in front of him, shielding her body with his own, as he pushed her down the stairs and led her through a long corridor of offices to an oversized steel door. The door opened soundlessly on well-oiled hinges, and cold rain beat against their skin as they ran into a dark alleyway.
“What are we going to do?” Rachel asked.
“We’ve got to find an alternate mode of transportation. There’s no way we can make it to the Tahoe without him seeing us.” Shane looked around the alley and noticed an older model Toyota. The paint had peeled in several places, the fender was rusted and the tires were bald. He didn’t think the car would get them down the street, much less to Chicago.
“What about that?” Rachel asked, pointing to a black and chrome Harley parked a ways down the alley behind the corner bakery.
“My kind of woman,” Shane said with a quick smile as he grabbed her hand and ran the rest of the way down the alley. He could only pray that the guy shooting out front wasn’t smart enough to think about checking the back entrances, but chances were if this guy worked for the Valentine family then he was plenty smart.
Rachel straddled the bike behind him and her arms wrapped loosely around his waist. Seconds ticked away in his head as he touched wires together and heard the sweet purr of the engine as it started and echoed through the quiet. They wouldn’t be able to keep the bike for long before it was reported stolen. It belonged to the tattooed bakery owner, and he’d notice it was missing as soon as he brought the first load of morning trash to the dumpsters.
“Do you know how to fire a gun?” Shane asked, giving Rachel a quick look over his shoulder as he held out the Glock.
“Point and shoot, right?” she answered with a smile that Shane couldn’t interpret the meaning of.
“Just do the best you can.” He revved the engine and shot out of the alley at a high rate of speed, studying every spot on the street he would have used to hide if he was the one doing the shooting. He caught the reflection of steel as the street light glanced off a weapon pointed in their direction.
“Nine o’clock,” he yelled to Rachel as shots rang out and pinged into a car barely a foot from his front tire. The streets were slick with rain, but his mind and hands stayed in control as he guided the bike across the pavement. He didn’t even flinch as Rachel fired three rounds in close succession. All three hit the corner of the building their attacker was shooting from. It was a hell of a shot, no matter how you looked at it, and it reminded him he knew absolutely nothing about Rachel Valentine other than the fact she sent his body into overdrive and came from a dangerous family who’d obviously taught her how to shoot to kill.
***
Rachel held on for dear life as Shane tore out of New Orleans like a bat out of hell. The feel of freedom washed over her with every mile that separated her from her hunter and giddiness and adrenaline was its own euphoria.
It was just past sunrise when they stopped in a small town outside of the city. Houses were few and far between and trees were thick and covered with vines. The fishermen and trappers who worked the bayous were long since gone and others were still fast asleep.
“What are we doing here?” Rachel asked. “Do you think we should stop so soon?”
“We’ve got to change vehicles. I guarantee the bike has already been reported stolen. It’s only a matter of time before we’re spotted.”
Shane gave her a funny look and she wondered if she had bugs in her teeth from the motorcycle ride.
“Where the hell’d you learn to shoot like that?”
“At my daddy’s knee, of course,” she answered with an attempt at the thick Cajun accent she’d heard so many people speak with since she’d been in Louisiana. “I shot for sport in college. Team captain.”
“If
you ever want a job, lady, give me a call. You’re almost as good as I am.”
“I’d be glad to accept a challenge. Anytime. Anywhere.” Rachel couldn’t believe how brazen she was being with someone she barely knew. She’d never been much of a flirt, and she’d never been promiscuous, but there was something about Shane Quincy that made her want to throw up her hands and say, “To hell with it.” Despite her father’s notoriety, she’d lived a pretty sheltered life. Boyfriends had been few and screened carefully. Her roommate from college had been hand picked, and every tenant in her apartment building had had a thorough background check.
“Be careful. I never back away from a challenge,” he said softly.
The intensity and heat in his stare was enough to bring a blush to her cheeks, and she looked everywhere but at him with a newfound purpose. “It doesn’t look like we have a lot to choose from.”
“We don’t need anything fancy. Just something that will get us part of the way to Chicago.”
Rachel watched as Shane looked in the windows of a beat up pickup truck. It was parked at the mouth of a bayou next to an old wooden dock. “We don’t need to go to Chicago. We need to go to Dallas.”
“Wait. Rewind,” Shane said as he looked up from his task of hotwiring the truck. “Why do we need to go to Dallas? I thought the list was in a safety deposit box in Chicago.”
The truck started with a sputtering cough and Shane threw in his duffle bag and practically tossed her into the cab.
“Why are we taking this? It won’t do us any good if we break down on the side of the highway.”
“Listen to the purr of that engine, Sugar. People down here drive older cars but they keep them in top shape. It wouldn’t do them any good to try and evacuate for a hurricane and not be able to get their cars started. And we’re taking this particular truck because the owner is obviously busy checking his traps for the day. Trappers don’t usually come in until the afternoon, so it should give us plenty of time to get a head start.”
“Oh,” Rachel said.
“Now tell me why we’re going to Dallas when the copy of the list is in Chicago.”
Rachel bristled a little at the demand, but kept her mouth shut. She’d never been one for taking orders. “I work at a large interior design firm in Chicago. Worked,” she clarified. It had broken her heart to give up the job she’d fought so hard for. Sacrificed for. “Dad called me on my cell at the office that last day. I was busy with client meetings, so I didn’t give him as much time as I should have. As I wish now I had. He was excited and told me everything was going to work out just fine, and that Uncle Angelo would take care of me if anything went wrong. Dad was scheduled to meet with Agent Culver like I told you, and then give his deposition. I wished him luck, told him I loved him and hung up. I didn’t give it another thought until I was told he was missing.”
Rachel’s voice cracked on a sob, but she pulled herself together. She hated to show any weakness. Especially in front of a stranger. Valentines did not cry. Her father always told her their enemies would constantly look for vulnerabilities, chinks in their armor. So she’d stood dry-eyed next to her father at the funerals of her mother and sister, though she’d been dying on the inside. If she could hold it together then, she could sure as hell hold it together in front of Shane Quincy.
Rachel took a few minutes to gather her composure and was thankful Shane stayed silent. The rain had picked up and was coming down in blinding sheets, but Shane handled the truck smoothly, focused on the road ahead. She hadn’t seen him lose that focus in any of the situations that had been thrown at them so far.
She spoke softer as she continued. “Just as I was packing my things away for the day a Fed-Ex package landed on my desk. Someone at the front desk had signed for it and sent it up. Since it was sent to me at work I figured it was work related and shoved it into my briefcase. I didn’t give it another thought until I unlocked the front door of my apartment.”
“Let me guess,” Shane said. “Someone had searched your apartment.”
“Searched is too kind a word for what they did. They violated every inch of every space. Drawers were upended and furniture had been slashed to ribbons. My desktop was smashed to pieces on the floor and my laptop was gone. I took one look at the mess, turned around and got out of there.”
“You’re lucky you didn’t run into the person responsible.”
“Believe me, I know. I found out later that night on the news that my doorman’s body had been found in the alley with multiple gunshot wounds.”
“What did you do?”
“I took a taxi to the South Side and stayed in a dirt cheap motel until the next morning. I didn’t sleep a wink that night and jumped at every sound. When I opened the package that had been sent to me, I knew I held the power to destroy a lot of people’s lives. I think my father knew he probably wouldn’t live to see all the wrongs made right, so it’s up to me now.”
“That’s a lot of pressure to put on someone you love,” Shane said skeptically.
“My father was a good man,” Rachel insisted vehemently. “He’d want me to do the right thing.”
“So why are you in Louisiana instead of testifying before a grand jury, and how do you know that your father told Angelo he gave you a copy of the list?”
This guy was a hard nut to crack. It was a good thing Rachel wasn’t looking for sympathy, because she felt sure he didn’t possess the emotion. Her voice frosted over and was hard as ice when she continued.
“Because the police discovered a message when they found my doorman’s body in the alley. Angelo’s men had carved a warning into the poor man’s chest, demanding that I turn over the list or I’d be next. A news camera got it on film, and I saw the whole thing with the rest of the world on the ten o’clock news. The next morning I borrowed a car from the lot of the motel I was staying at and drove back to Chicago.”
“When you say borrowed, I take it you mean stole.”
“Are you going to let me finished the story or not?”
“By all means,” he said.
“I was at my bank just as they were opening, and I told the clerk I needed to put some things in my safety deposit box. My father made sure I was prepared in case something like this happened, so I removed a duffle bag from the box similar to the one you carry. It was full of cash and ID’s, an extra set of clothes and a couple of wigs. I made a copy of the papers and put the originals in the safety deposit box. I changed clothes and hair in the restroom and walked out the front door without anyone noticing.”
“I can put two and two together and assume you sent the copies of the papers you made to someone in Dallas. But that still doesn’t answer my question. How are you supposed to turn this evidence over to the FBI if you’re running away?”
Rachel looked at Shane and wondered not for the first time if she was getting more with him than she’d bargained for. She was out of people she could trust. The list had been short to begin with, but now most of them were dead, and she didn’t want to involve her two closest friends in anything that could get them hurt. Trusting a stranger might be her best shot at survival. Or Shane Quincy could be working for her Uncle Angelo and kill her for the large price that had been put on her head. Her instincts were failing her, and for the first time she wondered if she could even trust herself.
***
Shane noticed the sudden fear in her eyes but stayed silent, quietly driving the stolen truck along rutted and muddy paths. They’d be in Texas before they hit a highway that wouldn’t jar teeth or spew mud onto passing cars.
“You’re not going to get rid of me so easy now,” Shane said. “Whoever’s after you could have burned down my house and they destroyed my business. I’m in this for the long haul, so you might as well stay on for the ride.”
The quick show of fear she’d displayed disappeared. Shane felt her cool stare and the calculating gaze of her weighing the odds of putting her safety in his hands. He kept his grip relaxed over the steering wheel
and waited for her to make up her mind.
“Fine, but I prefer to treat this as a business relationship.”
His curse was short and obscene, but she wasn’t rattled.
“Hear me out,” she said. “I don’t like being out of control, and I’ve never had much faith in my fellow man. In my world people don’t just do things for others out of the goodness of their hearts. But money, honor and pride are always important. Especially in my family. So it makes sense to hire you and your agency to track down the list and protect me when I hand it over to the FBI. There’s no reason I’d have to testify. I have no knowledge of any business dealings my father had going and don’t care to. We’d have a binding contract until I feel I’m in no further danger. And if you do happen to be working for my Uncle Angelo, just know that what I plan to pay you for your services will be far more than anything he could ever dream to offer you. Uncle Angelo doesn’t hold the strings to the Valentine bank accounts since my father’s disappearance. I do.”
Shane clenched his jaw and the throbbing pulse in his neck told him just how pissed off her proposal made him. He’d been through horrors she could never dream of, serving and protecting his country while watching his friends die. Did she think he knew nothing of honor? Of pride? But then he closed himself off to his anger and analyzed the real reason for being so upset, just as he’d been taught to do in the Marines. Yes, he was offended that Rachel didn’t trust him more, but he could hardly blame her for that when he hadn’t trusted anyone but himself in the last two years.
The problem was that he wanted her. All of her. He wanted to know everything about her. What made her tick and what made her laugh. And how her body would feel wrapped around his in the middle of the night. And if she paid him for his services, then his pride and honor would be at stake. Two things he’d never been able to compromise. Which meant that Rachel Valentine was off limits.
