Princess

by Christina Skye

  He turned up his collar against the rain and moved out into the road. Jess wasn’t going to like it, but right now Jess wasn’t his problem.

  chapter 16

  Jess gripped the wheel, squinting through the rain. She had already passed a big tree on its side and several cars stuck in the mud by the side of the road. There was debris everywhere and all the traffic lights were out, so she was taking every curve slowly while she watched for fallen power lines.

  She tried to block out the memory of Hawk’s body, the rough brush of his hands. Even the thought of his rare laugh made her heart catch.

  His eyes had been hard, his hands achingly gentle.

  But any connection between them was over, she told herself firmly. You couldn’t have a relationship with a shadow.

  And given the continued bad weather, she needed all her concentration for the road.

  Suddenly she made out a dark shape in the middle of the road. Please, not a bear, she thought anxiously. Jess knew they were scattered over the isolated mountains and forests of the Northwest, but she hadn’t actually expected to see one this close.

  She flipped her lights to bright, peering through the rain.

  Not a bear, but a man was standing squarely in her path, waving his hands. As Jess slowed the Jeep, she recognized the line of his shoulders.

  Hawk?

  Why was he standing out here in the rain?

  Quickly Jess pulled to the shoulder. Rain blew in her face as she rolled down her window and leaned out. “Hawk, why are you—?”

  “I need your Jeep.”

  “You need my what?”

  The man reaching for her door looked more dangerous than ever, with his hair wet, his backpack shrugged over one shoulder, and his face absolutely unreadable. “You heard me. I’m taking the Jeep.”

  She decided it had to be a joke—except there was no trace of humor in his eyes.

  “Why don’t you drive that expensive motorcycle?”

  “The motorcycle is currently unavailable.” He didn’t look at her, his gaze focused on the road that snaked south along the coast.

  “But I don’t see why—”

  His head swiveled. His gaze bored into her like gun barrels. “You’re not listening to me. I need the Jeep now.”

  He was a cold, distant stranger who bore no resemblance to the man she’d just had reckless sex with. Twice.

  But if he could be stone cold, so could Jess.

  “Okay, you drive.” She started to climb over the gearshift into the passenger seat, but Hawk’s leather-gloved hands circled her hands on the wheel.

  “I can’t take you along. You’ll have to stay here. You can wait under that tree over there.”

  “Under a tree?” Was he crazy?

  Jess fought back a wild urge to laugh. Things like this didn’t happen to her. Her life was orderly, predictable and mundane. She completed her investigations, wrote her detailed reports, then headed off to start her compliance research on the next hotel. She didn’t get trapped by strangers in her room, have sex in elevators with big, commando-type guys, and then get carjacked by same in the middle of a rainstorm.

  “Forget it.”

  “This is serious business, Jess. I need the Jeep. It will be returned to you.”

  “I’m not leaving.”

  His face was a mask as he opened her door. “Easy way or the hard way.”

  When she realized he would not be deterred, Jess grabbed her handbag and suitcase and shoved open the door, avoiding any contact with his black-clad body. “What now? I’m supposed to call myself a taxi to Portland?”

  He tossed his backpack into the narrow backseat and swung up behind the wheel. “Someone will be by to pick you up in less than five minutes. I already made the call. Go wait under the tree.”

  And miss her ride? No way.

  Jess put down her suitcase near the edge of the road, frowning. “How will I recognize them?”

  Hawk revved the motor. “You won’t have to. They’ll recognize you. And don’t get the crazy idea to start walking. Stay put.”

  She put one hand on the fender of her Jeep and glared at him. “This thing is quirky, so remember to baby it with high-octane. The fuel light comes on sometimes for no reason, and I’ve had some trouble with the prop shaft slip-joints.”

  There were other things to tell him about the Jeep, but Hawk wasn’t paying much attention.

  “I’ll keep it in mind,” he muttered.

  He pulled the door closed and shot around in a tight half circle, headed for a dirt road that wound straight up into the mountains overlooking Puget Sound.

  “Be careful,” Jess called. “With my car,” she added quickly, even though Hawk was too far away to hear.

  Five minutes passed.

  Then ten more passed, while dense clouds rolled in from the ocean, and the rain increased to a hard spray. Squinting, Jess pulled out her umbrella and angled it over her head, watching the road.

  No cars appeared in either direction.

  Maybe Hawk’s contact had gotten lost. Maybe there was a problem somewhere else. Feeling anxious and very alone, Jess scanned the road again, then pushed to her feet, grabbed her suitcase, and began the wet trek back to the hotel.

  Stranded. Alone. Now soaked.

  Truly, one of her better days.

  A rusted green Explorer topped a hill behind her. Jess moved off the road and waited as the SUV slowed.

  The driver studied her impassively. “Ms. Mulcahey?”

  “Why?” Jess didn’t want to give her name quite yet.

  “Lieutenant Mackenzie sent me.”

  The man wasn’t wearing a uniform, but he had military written all over him. He looked a little jumpy, too.

  Jess watched him slide out, grab her suitcase, and stow it in the backseat, then hold open the passenger door for her. “If you don’t mind, I’ll drive. Lieutenant Mackenzie wants you to have an escort.”

  “Me?” An escort?

  Jess had so many questions, she didn’t know where to start. Besides, she was shivering. She needed to warm up before she could sort through what was happening.

  There was something dreamlike about slipping into the heated car, protected from the pounding rain. She’d been irritated with Hawk for taking her Jeep, but now more than anything she was worried about him and whatever dangerous business he was involved with. It was sobering to realize that he had pushed her out of his thoughts completely, treating her like a stranger as he commandeered her car.

  She, on the other hand, was having serious trouble forgetting their recent intimacy and the little scar above his right eyebrow.

  “Ma’am?” The driver was studying her curiously. “Are you okay?”

  Jess cleared her throat. “I’m fine, just very cold.” She brushed rain off the sleeves of her jacket, shivering. She was coming to the conclusion that she had made two major mistakes that day.

  The first had been getting carried away with Hawk in the damned stalled elevator. The second had been when she dug out her cell phone and called her boss back in Virginia. She was tired of living under a false identity, tired of being on the road fifty weeks a year. So she had quit, just like that, and the relief had been astounding at first. Now that reality was setting in, Jess knew she’d have to scramble for new work, because her bank account was scraping zero.

  And there were no fairy godmothers flying around this neck of the woods.

  She winced as water trickled down her neck. “I’m going to Portland,” she said firmly. “I’ll get a flight there.”

  “Not a problem, ma’am. Lieutenant Mackenzie said to take you wherever you wanted to go.” The driver seemed tense as he studied the road.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “No, ma’am. I’m just going along to keep an eye on things.”

  “What things?”

  “Nothing in particular.” His voice was polite, but there was an edge to it that implied he would brook no further discussion on the subject.

&nbs
p; Jess persisted. “You mean, like a bodyguard?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Wait a minute. Did Lieutenant Mackenzie tell you that I needed a bodyguard?”

  “He said you needed a driver, ma’am. This storm has created dangerous conditions all over the state,” the driver said quietly. “As you can see, the winds are still high.”

  But Jess doubted that he was worrying about the weather. She noticed him checking the wooded shadows along the road as much as the passing traffic, and she was certain the bulky shape under his left arm was a holstered gun.

  What in the heck was going on?

  Target, Hawk thought.

  Alma Donovan didn’t look dangerous or even particularly noteworthy, dressed in trim flannel pants and a fleece jacket. The last school bus had left hours before due to the storm, but the teacher was still in her room, hanging posters and art for the next curriculum change.

  Looked like she was finishing a presentation on the Civil War, Hawk thought, scanning the room through high-power field glasses. The woman appeared to be a dedicated teacher. Judging by her smiles, she loved her job. But the question was whether or not to believe the report she had called in the night after the lab animal had been stolen.

  Finding out was Hawk’s current assignment.

  Her call had been placed at 10:42 P.M. Every word was captured on tape by the local sheriff’s department in Bright Creek. Hawk had listened to the tape a dozen times, checking inflection and tone for any wrong notes, but he’d found none. The woman sounded worried, confused, and even a little embarrassed to be bothering the police with what was probably not important. But the lights on state land, converging abruptly and hovering just below the ridge of the hill, had seemed out of place. Since the school was located on a promontory above an isolated stretch of road where there had been occasional problems with drifters, she thought she’d better report it.

  You couldn’t ever be too careful, she’d said anxiously.

  Three teams of experts had listened to the call. Voice analysis had suggested that she was telling the truth.

  But machines could be fooled.

  And Alma Donovan’s anxious description of motorcycles traveling fast dovetailed with Hawk’s trail observations. The time and location matched, too, except that she had seen only two motorcycles.

  Why the extra rider on the cliffs?

  Hawk ran through several scenarios as he stowed his field glasses in the Jeep’s glove compartment, pulled on a gray cap, then picked up a heavy box with tools. His orders were to assess the teacher’s story and determine its credibility along with any possibility of her involvement.

  Pacific Pest Control to the rescue, he thought grimly.

  He let himself into the school with the key Izzy had provided, and once inside he flourished brushes, traps, and poison spray while heading toward the only lit room in this wing.

  Alma Donovan was pinning up a four-color diagram of the Battle of Gettysburg when Hawk tapped at her door. She spun around, one hand to her chest. “Yes?”

  “Sorry to disturb you, ma’am. The principal says there have been several mice sightings this week. I’m here to handle it.”

  “Mice?” Unconsciously she stared down at the floor. “I haven’t seen any in this room.” She noted the name em-broidered on the front of his uniform. “You’re Mr. Stanford?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And who did you say called you?”

  “Your principal, Mr. Rukowski.” Hawk smiled a little. “You can call him and check if you’d like.” He held out a fake business card. “Or feel free to phone my boss.”

  She studied the card carefully, then handed it back. “I don’t think that’s necessary. It’s just that—we’re all a little jumpy. The school was robbed about six months ago, so we were told to be careful during off-hours.”

  “Security is always a good idea,” Hawk said calmly, pulling out a specimen bottle and a small brush. “Do you mind if I look around the room? It should only take a few minutes.”

  “That’s fine with me.” She watched curiously as he brushed along the floor near the far wall, then placed the brush inside the oblong bottle. “What are you doing exactly?”

  “Looking for any sign of rodent droppings. We need to determine a dispersal pattern before we can come up with a good control program.”

  “Very scientific.” She nodded in approval. “Well, don’t let me interfere. I’ll just finish up here.”

  “You’re teaching Gettysburg, I see.” Hawk’s tone was conversational as he continued taking more “specimens.” “General Lee made a big mistake in keeping his orders vague that day. He was probably trying to soothe the big egos of his key commanders, but it lost him the battle, probably the whole war.” He looked up, smiling slightly. “I’m a bit of a Civil War buff. I’ve been to visit most of the key battlefields over the last five years. Antietam. Bull Run. Gettysburg.” Since the story was a lie, he prayed she wouldn’t press for many details.

  But Hawk did remember tramping through the woods in Virginia and spinning stories with his Civil War–fanatic brother.

  “You have? What a wonderful idea. I try to make my students see the smoke and hear the shouts—rather like an immersion experience, though nothing compares with actually being there. Walking the ground and listening to the cries on the wind.” She finished tacking up the big poster of the battlefield and stood back, looking a little embarrassed. “Some people don’t understand how important it is to know where you came from. Otherwise, you can’t possibly know where you’re going, can you?”

  “Sounds logical to me.” Hawk took another fake sample and glanced outside, where clouds hugged the road. “Pretty isolated up here. Not surprised you’ve got a pest problem.”

  She crossed her arms, looking at the road. “When the school was built, plenty of parents opposed the location, but it was a question of cheap land, I’m told. Sometimes in the evening, I worry about being here all alone.” She continued to stare out at the wooded hills that faced the Sound, as if lost in thought.

  “I hope you’ve never had a problem, ma’am.”

  “Me? Oh, nothing really.” She began to erase spelling words off the chalkboard. “Of course, there was that odd business on National Forest Land,” she said slowly. “I saw lights up on the ridge about midnight.”

  “You must be a good teacher if you’re still here working at midnight.” Hawk shook his head, grinning. “You ought to get overtime pay.”

  “Not in this job. It seems the work is never done. Homework to check, reports to grade, lesson plans to finish. I came back for a recital that night and then I decided to stop by the room and pick up a book I’d forgotten. That’s why I was here so late. But something about those lights just felt wrong.” She moved the eraser back and forth against her palm, unaware of the white powder raining over her fleece sweater. “There was a Humvee, too. No one in Bright Creek has a Humvee. Down in Seattle, maybe. Not here.”

  Hawk leaned an arm against the wall. “Maybe it was tourists.”

  “In black uniforms? With automatic weapons?”

  No one had mentioned this. “Pretty strange. But it had to be dark. I mean, maybe you saw something else.”

  The teacher shook her head slowly. “My ex-husband was a Marine, and I know a submachine gun when I see one. I’m certain these men had some kind of military background because they moved as if they’d trained together. With all the security concerns, I decided to watch them.”

  Why hadn’t she included these details in her call to the sheriff? Hawk wondered. And why hadn’t anyone checked her out personally until now?

  “You probably think I’m nosy, but I didn’t watch because of that. It was simply because . . .” Her voice trailed away.

  “Ma’am? Was it something they did?”

  “No, it was what they didn’t do. They didn’t keep their lights on; they didn’t make much noise, and they kept stopping to look down at the ground. It was almost as if they were lookin
g for tracks.”

  Hawk kept a look of polite curiosity on his face. “Maybe they were hunting.”

  “No hunting is allowed here, Mr. Stanford. They were on national forest land, and of course there’s no hunting permitted on school grounds. No,” she continued slowly, “these were no regular hunters. I told the sheriff that when I called, but the operator was too busy to take down any details.”

  “I guess you’d know what you saw,” Hawk agreed. “Not many hunters travel in Humvees, either. Sounds plenty high-tech to me.”

  “That’s what I thought. Their clothes were odd for hunters, too. Black, not camouflage, with none of the reflective things that hunters wear. And their boots had big silver toes.”

  Hawk remembered the bootprints he’d found in the mud. Now he had confirmation.

  He shoved his work cap back on his head. “You must see pretty good from up here,” he said casually.

  Color swirled through her face. “Actually, I used these to watch them.” She opened a drawer and pulled out a pair of heavy black 12x field glasses with image stabilization.

  Hawk had used those kind of glasses a number of times and knew they were powerful enough to pick up details out to five hundred yards. That part of her story fit.

  He pulled out a new specimen bottle. “Funny that the sheriff’s people didn’t seem more curious when you called.”

  The teacher shifted restlessly. “I’ve seen things before.” Her eyes narrowed. “Last month I saw one of the teachers meeting one of my female students up there in the woods,” she said. “Another time I saw a janitor taking a computer. At least, that’s what I thought. But it was only a box of broken lab equipment that he was hauling to the dump.”

  That explained the lack of follow-up. Someone figured she was just a lonely busybody and filed away her report under “Idle Gossip.”

  But one thing bothered Hawk. “So these people had lights on, did they?”

  “Lights?”

  “Flashlights. Car lights, that kind of thing. I mean, other-wise, how could you have seen what they were wearing and how they moved?”