by Katie Knight
Jake careened through the pay station without stopping and winced when the bar struck the front bumper. Poor Ruby. She had already been through hell. He’d make it up to her when all of this was over—but until then, he needed her to get them the hell out of Dodge.
There was no sign of the van behind them. It seemed, at least for the moment, that they were safe. Once they hit the freeway, though, Jake realized he didn’t know where to take Hanna.
“What the hell was that?” Hanna asked, still hunched over in the front seat. “Are you in some kind of trouble?”
Jake checked his rearview mirror as he raced down the highway. Still no sign of the black van. “You can sit up,” he said. “For now, at least. But keep an eye out and duck again at the first sign of trouble.”
Hanna sat up and surveyed the damage.
“Are you in trouble?” she asked again. “Why were those guys after you?”
“They weren’t after me,” Jake said. “Look at the broken mirror and window—look where they were aiming. They were after you.”
“After me?”
Jake nodded. “Can you think of who they might be? Or why someone might be trying to hurt you?”
Hanna shook her head. “I can’t think of anything.”
“Did you run into any strange characters in Tokyo?”
“Of course not. At least, not that I can recall.”
“What about your clients? Are any of them tied up in anything shady?”
“I don’t think so. I mean, my clients don’t lead very dangerous lives.”
“Well whoever those guys were, they want you dead,” Jake said. “Which means we can’t go to your house. Chances are they’re still following us. Or they’re waiting for you at home. So where can we go to figure this out?”
“I guess we could go to my office. It’s not far.”
“Perfect. We can do some research while we’re there. Maybe get to the bottom of this.”
“Okay. But shouldn’t we call the police on the way?” Hanna asked.
Jake shrugged. “To be honest, there’s not a whole lot they can do for us yet. Nobody was hurt, and we didn’t get the license plate number. It won’t exactly be a priority for the force. They’ll probably treat it as little more than a hit-and-run.”
“What are you talking about? It was a drive-by shooting! In the middle of the day! In the heart of the city! Of course the cops will prioritize it.”
Jake didn’t want to add to Hanna’s stress—or take away her faith in local law enforcement, some of whom truly were the nation’s finest—but he knew how these things usually went. They’d file a report, the cops would promise to look into it, and that would be that. If calling the police would make her feel better, though, he wasn’t going to stop her.
“I guess if there’s surveillance footage of the van, the cops will actually be able to do something with that,” he said. “Plus I’ll need a police report to file an insurance claim for all these bullet holes.” He figured a joke was in order to lighten the mood. “It’s a pretty badass look, but I’m sure it will also attract a lot of unwanted attention.”
Hanna rolled her eyes. “People are literally chasing after us with guns and you’re talking about auto body work. You and Tyler really are two peas in a pod.”
Jake laughed. “We SEALs are trained to compartmentalize. It’s the only way to keep your cool in a crisis.” He nodded toward the glove box. “There’s a fully charged burner in there that you can use to call the cops. Turn off your phone and only make calls on the burner from now on. Until we know what kind of tracking these guys have on you, we have to be extra careful.”
Nine
After Hanna spoke to the police, she directed Jake to a garage near her office. He didn’t want to park out in the open, where anyone driving by could see the car. As she led him to her building, it was obvious he was scanning their surroundings vigilantly. His eyes darted left and right as they hurried down the sidewalk. It wasn’t until the elevator opened on her floor that he finally seemed to relax. They walked down the hallway in silence, but before Hanna could unlock the door to the office, Jake grabbed her arm.
Holding a finger to his lips, he motioned for her to stay close behind him. With one hand he reached into his waistband and pulled out a pistol. With the other, he unlocked the door, opening it so slowly that it didn’t make a sound. Then he barged in abruptly, holding his gun out.
She followed. The small foyer where patients waited to see her appeared undisturbed, but the door to her office was slightly ajar.
Hanna’s heart started hammering. Was there someone waiting to strike on the other side of the wall? She sidled even closer to Jake as he cleared the foyer, which didn’t take long. Her office had neither closets nor restrooms.
Before he approached the actual office, he held out an arm, instructing her to stay back. Then he kicked the door hard enough that it swung flat against the wall on the other side.
Good. No one had been hiding behind it. Relief washed over Hanna until she glanced past the doorway and saw that the room had been ransacked. All her filing cabinets were opened—one was even overturned—and there were papers everywhere.
Jake checked every corner of the room before turning around to face her. “All clear,” he said. “There’s no one here. But there obviously was someone here before. We need to determine what’s missing. Then maybe we’ll be able to figure out what they want.”
Hanna started sorting through some of the papers. “It looks like everything’s here,” she said. “It’s just been disorganized.”
“What about that filing cabinet?” Jake asked, pointing to the one that had been flipped over.
Hanna walked over and gathered up the paperwork scattered on the floor around it. “These are my clients’ files,” she said. “Though I can’t imagine what anyone would want with them.” She started sorting through them. “Alvarez, Beauchamp, Coxwell…”
Jake lifted the cabinet back in its upright position while she continued looking through the documents, murmuring each name to herself as if going down a mental checklist of clients.
“Wait a minute,” she finally said. “At least one is missing.”
“Which one?”
Hanna scanned all the files again, just to be sure. “Yeah,” she said. “Everything looks to be here except Gordon’s file. That one is definitely missing.”
“Gordon?”
“He’s an art dealer. He sells works that are worth a lot of money, but he’s not a dangerous guy.”
“He may not be,” Jake pointed out, “but the guys going after you definitely are. Any idea what they might want with him?”
“No,” Hanna said, shaking her head. “Unless… wait a minute.” She pulled out her phone before remembering she had turned it off on the drive over. “He left me a voicemail. Can I play it for you?”
Jake reached into his own pocket and pulled out another burner. He handed it to her.
“How many of these do you have?” she asked.
“As many as I need,” he said with a shrug.
“How do I access my voicemail on here?”
“Dial your number, and then press star during the voicemail recording.”
While Hanna followed the phone’s prompts, Jake pulled out a notebook. He turned to a blank page and glanced around the office before scribbling something down.
“I found the message,” Hanna said a moment later. Jake closed the notebook and slipped it into his back pocket while she turned on the burner’s speakerphone function.
“Hi, this is Gordon. I just wanted to let you know I wasn’t totally honest during our last session. Everything wasn’t resolved yet, but I’m finally doing what you encouraged me to do. There shouldn’t be any cause for concern. If anything happens to me, though, I left something for you at the place where I had my first date with my ex-wife. I mentioned it during one of our sessions. I hope you remember. Thanks.”
“What did you encourage him to do?” Jake asked.
>
Hanna shook her head. “I don’t remember.”
She flipped through the rest of her files, hoping that might jog her memory. Then she thought about their last few meetings. Could Gordon have been referring to the session when she told him to go to the police? And could doing that have put some kind of target on his back? Was his life in even more jeopardy because he’d followed her advice?
“He seemed a bit nervous during our last few sessions,” Hanna explained. “But when I saw him right before leaving for Tokyo, he told me everything had been settled.”
“But in that voicemail he said he was lying about that,” Jake pointed out. “What was he referring to anyway?”
“I don’t know. He wouldn’t talk about it in any detail. I mean, he used to talk about work being stressful, but he never made it sound especially dangerous or anything.” She walked over to her desk—it appeared the thieves had found what they were looking for before reaching her desk, and, thankfully, the contents of its drawers were undisturbed—and pulled out her client list to get Gordon’s number. “I’m going to call him.”
Jake sifted through the rest of the paperwork strewn about the office while Hanna waited for Gordon to answer. After several rings, she reached his voicemail. That was strange. Gordon always had his phone on him. Considering he made multimillion-dollar deals on a weekly basis, he couldn’t afford to leave clients hanging. She hung up and turned to Jake. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” she said. “We have to do something.”
“I get that you’re worried about your client,” Jake said. “But right now, I’m worried about you. You wrote down that officer’s direct number, right? You can call him when we get back to the car. Give him an update while I take you somewhere safe so we can decide our next move.”
“Somewhere safe? Do you think they ransacked my home, too?” The thought was almost too much to bear. It was one thing to tear apart her office, but to go through her personal things? That was utterly violating.
“They might have. But we’re not stopping by to check.”
“Then where are we gonna go?” Hanna asked.
“We’ll go back to my place,” Jake said. “We can spend the night there and then decide what to do in the morning.”
In any other scenario, Hanna would have objected. After all, Jake had made it abundantly clear that that he didn’t want to carry on any kind of relationship with her. Going back to his place was only asking for more heartbreak. For another rejection. Even if they did have another night together, he’d probably push her away again the next morning. Considering the fact that her life was literally at stake, though, it didn’t feel like she had much of a choice. Whatever might happen—or not happen—between them didn’t matter. At least not until this whole mess was resolved.
It wasn’t until they got back to Jake’s car and started heading toward his house that Hanna remembered the pregnancy test in her purse. She hadn’t been able to think about anything but the possible pregnancy for the past seventy-two hours. The gunmen had forced all thoughts of having a baby with Jake out of her mind. Now that she was sitting beside him seemingly safe—at least for the moment—she realized she ought to tell him sooner rather than later. But what could she say? And how would he react?
She thought about what he’d said during their night together about a flipped coin—about once it was in the air, you realize which way you wanted it to land. Which way did she want Jake to land on the baby question? Did she want him to make a commitment, to the child if not to her? Or did she want him to pull away once and for all, and force her to let go of the idea of anything more?
Ten
“You can have the bedroom,” Jake said as he unlocked the door. He wheeled her luggage inside, and Hanna followed. “I’ll get you set up in a few minutes. I just have to make sure they didn’t stop by my apartment, too. I wouldn’t have been on their radar before today, but they got a good look at my license plate. If they have the right resources, they could have tracked down my address with that.”
He locked the door behind them and instructed her to stay close behind him as he performed a full security check. First, the windows. They were all closed and locked. It did not appear that anyone had tried to jimmy one open. Good.
Then he checked the back door that led out onto a small deck. That door was closed and locked, too, and there was no sign of a forced entry. Since Jake knew you couldn’t be too careful, though, he also checked all the closets, crawlspaces, and small hideouts throughout the apartment. When the security check revealed nothing amiss, Jake glanced out the window at the street below. No sign that they had been followed there.
“I think we’re good,” he finally said, turning to Hanna, who had trailed him from room to room. “Let’s get you set up in the bedroom.”
Considering the fact that they had already slept together—and there was clearly still chemistry between them—Jake found it silly to set up separate sleeping arrangements. But while he would have been perfectly happy sharing the bed with Hanna—indeed, he would have preferred it—he knew that him sleeping on the couch would be for the best. As long as he kept his distance, nothing else could happen between them. In other words, neither of them could develop stronger feelings for the other. That way, once this whole mess was resolved, they could both resume their normal lives.
“The bathroom is through that door,” he said, pointing toward the master bath, “And there are extra blankets in the closet.”
“Great, thanks.” Hanna put her purse on the bench at the foot of the bed. “I guess I’ll take a shower. This has been the longest day of my life.”
“I can only imagine,” Jake said. He started to leave but turned back around. “There are clean towels under the sink. Let me know if you need anything else.”
“Thanks.” Hanna sounded tired. Defeated, even. Jake wanted to ask what was wrong, what had been worrying her when she last talked to Tyler, but he knew better than to go down that road. Talking about their feelings would have been nearly as dangerous as giving in to them.
The connection he had with Hanna was unlike any other he’d had with a woman. It was more than just physical. And that was just another reason why he couldn’t afford to get distracted by her body or her emotional needs. Giving in to one would inevitably lead to giving in to the other, and he was too wrapped up in her already. With her life literally at stake, there was never a worse time to give in. Which meant he had to keep his distance—even if she was sleeping in the next room.
Jake grabbed a pillow and blanket before heading back to the living room. He placed his bedding on the couch, where he would be spending the night, and decided to do another security check. After all, you can never be too thorough when it comes to your safety. Especially if someone really does want you dead.
He checked every window again, squinting at the dust that had settled along each frame to see if it had been disturbed recently. Then he went out on the back deck. He peered over the railing, scanning the road below for any suspicious vehicles. As far as he could tell, there were none.
He went back inside and started scouring the closets again. He knew there were ways to break in without forcing entry, which meant even if it looked like no one had breached the doors or windows, someone could very well be inside the apartment, waiting to kill them both.
After Jake had checked all the closets and cabinets, he started pacing in the living room. He always paced when trying to work himself through a predicament, and this was indeed one of the most stressful scenarios he’d faced in recent months.
Who was after Hanna? What did they want? And how was he going to keep her safe? He knew they couldn’t stay at his apartment for more than a day. The guys who had been shooting at them—or, more accurately, the one ordering them around—would surely find her if she stayed in one place for too long, especially if they’d already figured out Jake’s identity and address.
Jake continued pacing as he thought about all possible outcomes to the situation. Natu
rally, there was only one way to ensure a favorable outcome: Get to the guys behind the attack before they got to Hanna.
Hanna. Jake sighed. This situation would be a whole lot easier if they didn’t have such immense chemistry. He’d been tasked with keeping people safe before, but he’d never had to do so in spite of an unyielding physical attraction. The thought that she was showering in the next room was enough to make him crazy. If he was being honest with himself, he hadn’t conducted a second security check because it was necessary. The first one was thorough enough. He’d done it to keep busy. To stay distracted. To work off some of the tension while Hanna showered.
He was still pacing when Hanna had finished and joined him in the living room. Even though she had washed all her makeup off, she looked as sexy as ever. If anything, she looked even more beautiful fresh-faced and dewy from the shower. It didn’t hurt that she was wearing his gray sweatpants and threadbare white undershirt. He could see the trace of her nipples through the thin cotton and quickly averted his eyes before any intrusive thoughts about taking her right there could invade his mind. Better keep pacing.
“I hope you don’t mind,” she said as she toweled off her hair. “I just grabbed the two things I saw on top in your drawers.” They both glanced at her suitcase sitting in the middle of the living room.
“Shoot,” Jake said. “I’m sorry. I should have brought your luggage in the bedroom.”
Hanna shrugged. “It’s okay. Your sweatpants are way more comfortable than anything in my bag. Plus it’s all dirty anyway.”
“We can do some laundry tonight,” Jake said.
“Thanks. That’d be great.” She finished toweling off her hair then walked back to the bedroom, leaving Jake to continue his circuit of the living room in peace. When he turned around a moment later, though, Hanna was standing in the hallway holding a little blue package.
Still trying to avert his eyes from her sexy figure, he turned around and started walking toward the kitchen.
