Take the Key and Lock Her Up

by LENA DIAZ,

  The sound of an engine revving up had her looking down the road. The car that had been following them earlier, the black Mustang, raced up the road and pulled to a sliding stop behind the ambulance. The driver’s door popped open and Devlin hopped out.

  Emily didn’t hesitate. She ran from the cover of trees toward the car.

  Devlin ducked back inside and threw the passenger door open for her. She jumped in and closed the door just as Tuck reached the same tree where she’d been standing moments ago. He stood with his hands on his hips as Devlin pulled out onto the road and floored the accelerator.

  “I think you might have ruined your chances at getting your old job back,” Devlin said.

  “Yeah, well, I think I’m probably not cut out for this police stuff anyway. Mom was right all along. I should go back to school and become a doctor.”

  “Your mom was right all along?”

  “My entire family is in the medical field except for me . . . well, and one of my sisters, but she volunteers everywhere, so I count her too. My dad is a doctor. Mom’s a nurse. The rest are an EMT, another doctor, and a physical therapist. I am the biggest disappointment in my mother’s life, the bane of her existence. Somehow, even though I’m a cop, I’m the black sheep of the family.”

  Devlin grinned. “Finally, something we have in common.”

  She laughed. “Yeah, I guess so.” She looked over her shoulder out the rear window. “I don’t see anyone following us so far. What happened? How did you get their car?”

  He glanced in the rearview mirror. “I saw only two of them—Ace and a probationary enforcer, probably the one who was driving the ambulance.”

  “How do you know he was probationary?”

  “Because I know all of the enforcers and I’ve never seen him before. He screwed up, got in Ace’s way, knocked his gun arm. I got two shots off before he returned fire. Ace was wearing a vest, but I managed to wing him in the leg. Made outrunning him to the car a cakewalk.”

  “What about his helper? Didn’t he chase you?”

  Devlin gave her an are-you-kidding-me look, which told her exactly what had happened. The probationary enforcer was dead.

  “What do we do now?”

  “Ace will have to get that leg taken care of and regroup, replan. We should be able to lie low somewhere and get a few hours’ sleep. After that, if you’ve still got those papers, I’d like to use that detective brain of yours to list out everything we know about the case and see what kind of theory we can come up with.”

  She patted the papers, still tucked into the top of her pants, nestled against her stomach. “Still got them. What about Alex and your brothers? Don’t you want to try to sneak into the hospital to see them?”

  His jaw tightened. “Too dangerous, for us and my family. I can’t worry about them right now. Pierce will make sure everyone is under guard. He may not know why, or who, but he knows our family is under attack. He’ll move mountains to keep them safe. The best thing I can do for them right now is to catch the bastards behind this. And that’s exactly what I intend to do.”

  Sirens sounded from up the road somewhere.

  “Tuck called dispatch,” Emily said.

  “I figured he would. There’s a turnoff a little ways up, a shortcut to another main road.”

  He slowed the car and turned down a dirt road Emily hadn’t known existed. He winced as he made the turn.

  “Your leg hurts, doesn’t it?”

  “Actually, no. That shot the EMT gave me worked wonders for the pain.”

  “Then why did you wince?”

  Instead of answering, he pressed the gas harder and sent the Mustang roaring down the road, kicking up dust behind them.

  “Devlin?” She looked at him more closely, and that was when she noticed the blood smeared on the driver’s door. She gasped and leaned over him. His entire left shoulder was saturated with blood. And a dark, singed hole in his shirt wasn’t from the fire at Alex’s house. “You’ve been shot. Turn the car around. Now. We have to get you to the hospital.”

  “No. It’s not in the muscle, just a flesh wound, more or less. Except that the bullet’s still inside. I just need the bullet out and a few stitches to stop the bleeding.”

  “No kidding. And who do you think is going to do that?”

  He cocked a brow. “You did say you wanted to become a doctor.”

  BY THE TIME they’d made it to a run-down motel on the outskirts of town, Devlin was pale and looked ready to pass out.

  “You’ve lost way too much blood,” Emily said. “You should have driven to the hospital instead of here. Sometimes you just don’t have any sense.”

  He shut off the ignition, slowly, carefully, as if the slightest movement might cause him agony. “Ace would expect me to go to the hospital to check on my family and to get seek medical attention. By now he’s called Gage, and they’re on the alert. Trust me: we never would have made it through the emergency-room doors.”

  Her stomach knotted with tension. “Okay, okay. I’ll quit complaining. Obviously, we need a room. We can argue later about who’s going to pull that bullet out of your shoulder.” She shoved the passenger door open, then stopped. “I need a credit card.”

  “No. Use cash. And a fake name.” He dug into his pants pocket, sucking in a breath when that movement apparently jarred his shoulder. She gently pushed his hand away and reached in herself, taking out an alarmingly large wad of twenty-dollar bills.

  “Good grief. Do you always keep this much cash in your pants pocket? Where did you get all of this? No, wait. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know what you get paid for taking people’s lives, whether they deserve it or not.”

  He didn’t say anything, just stared out the windshield, his profile stiff.

  She shoved the door open and got out.

  “Em, fake name. And just register yourself. They’ll be on the lookout for a couple.”

  “Don’t I need some form of ID?”

  “Here? Are you kidding?”

  She looked past the front office with its sagging, rotting roof. Past the small, grungy breezeway that separated it from the rest of the motel. Down the long, two-story rectangular building of rooms with its neon rent-by-the-hour sign lit. “Right.”

  It was alarmingly easy to pay cash and give a fake name in exchange for a room key. Emily wasn’t even sure the clerk had looked at her during the entire thirty-second transaction. What was difficult was rousing Devlin to drive the fifty yards from the office to the parking space in front of their lower-level room.

  She would have driven herself, but she didn’t think she’d be able to get him out of the driver’s seat, into the passenger seat, and then get him to walk from the car into the motel room. That was just too much effort and probably beyond his abilities right now.

  Somehow, through sheer dint of will on his part and stubbornness on Emily’s part, she goaded and nagged him into driving the short distance and then leaning on her to stagger into the room.

  There were two queen-size beds. She guided him to the closest one. As soon as his knees touched the bed, he gingerly turned and tried to lower himself to the mattress. Emily thought to pull back the covers, but it was too late. Devlin fell on top of the blankets. He sucked in a sharp breath and went stark-white before surrendering to unconsciousness.

  Emily tugged the thick stack of papers from beneath her waistband and tossed them on the dresser beside the TV as she hurried to the bathroom. After grabbing the only two towels, she shoved them beneath Devlin’s injured shoulder and pressed against his wound to stanch the bleeding.

  Once he seemed past the danger of bleeding to death, she tried to think of what he would have done now if he were still conscious. He’d want to make sure no one found them, of course. Was there any way for someone to trace them here? The Mustang; she needed to hide it. If Ace went on a hunt looking for it and saw it parked out front, they’d be dead.

  Figuring the risk of leaving him alone for a few minutes wa
s worth it, she drove the car to the equally cheap, seedy motel next door and parked. Then she jogged back to her own motel.

  Devlin was still out when she got back. She locked the door behind her, made sure the curtains were pulled tightly shut, then flipped on the lights. It was just starting to get dark outside.

  She checked his pulse, his breathing. Both were strong, steady. But he was alarmingly pale, and that bullet needed to come out. He needed medical attention, but he’d been adamant about not going to a hospital. He also needed fresh clothes to replace the bloodied, charred ones he was wearing, not to mention her shabby appearance. Neither of them was capable right now of blending in anywhere—except the dive motel where they currently were.

  So what could she do? And more importantly, what should she do? Her shoulders slumped. She already knew what she had to do, whether she wanted to or not. There really wasn’t an alternative. She was about to do something she never would have considered just a few days ago, something that went against everything she’d ever believed in—but that she knew was the right choice for this situation.

  She was about to break the law. No, she was about to smash it to smithereens.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  * * *

  A SHARP STAB of pain shot through Devlin’s left shoulder. He sucked in a breath and groaned, trying to force his heavy eyelids open. Another jolt of pain. He swore and rolled forward to escape whatever torture was being done to him.

  “Settle down, you big baby,” a feminine voice said from behind him. “This is nothing compared to what you’d be feeling if I hadn’t committed a B and E for you.”

  B and E? Breaking and Entering? “Emily?” He blinked and tried to focus. Heavy, muddy brown curtains hung over a window a few feet away, next to a dingy door, yellowed with age and something else he didn’t want to contemplate. Beneath the rusty-looking peephole, a red-and-white sign warned that checkout was at eleven.

  He was in the motel, lying on his right side, with pillows propping him in place. And as he looked down at himself, he realized he was naked. Or at least naked from the waist up. The rest of him was covered with a comforter that had probably been red at one time but was now a faded orange.

  How had he gotten into the room? The last thing he remembered was parking outside the motel office. And why was his shirt off? He tried to roll on his back, but the pillows, and Emily’s far-from-gentle shove, stopped him.

  “What are you doing? And what’s this about breaking and entering?”

  “I have now officially become a criminal. And now you’ve forced me to take care of you.” She patted his hip as if he were a child, or a faithful pet. “Don’t worry. I think these types of skills must run in families. I’m sure it can’t be all that hard.”

  Was her speech slurred or had he imagined that?

  “Types of skills?” He looked over his shoulder, his eyes widening at the sight of the lethal-looking hypodermic needle in her hand. Alarm spiked through him, tensing every muscle. “What the hell is that?”

  She let out a puff of laughter. “Is the big, bad assassin afraid of needles?”

  “The big, bad assassin is wary of anyone wanting to inject him with some unknown drug. I repeat: what is that?”

  She held up the syringe, displaying the three-inch needle as if it were a badge of honor. “A localized painkiller to numb your shoulder, something I’ve never heard of before. But don’t worry. I Googled it and found a handy weight-to-dosage ratio. Of course, I had to make an educated guess about your weight. And it’s normally used on animals. But I figure it will work just as well on humans.” She patted his hip again. “You can thank me later. After I get the bullet out.”

  He stared at her in astonishment. “You broke into a veterinarian’s office?”

  She beamed at him. “I did! All by myself.”

  Great. He’d completely corrupted a baby cop.

  “And you’re using drugs on me that they use on cats and dogs?”

  She raised a brow in challenge. “You’d rather I took the bullet out without numbing you first? Before you answer, let me remind you I have only very basic first-aid training. Also, I may have to dig around for a while inside your shoulder to locate the bullet and any fragments. I assume this process will be incredibly painful.”

  He groaned and laid his head back down.

  She traced a finger across his back, making him arch in surprise. That made his leg and shoulder throb like the devil. But he didn’t care. He was too busy enjoying the unexpected feel of her soft hands roaming over his body. When her exploration stopped on a particularly sensitive spot near his left hip, he cleared his throat and desperately tried not to picture how she’d look naked, writhing beneath him in bed. That was nearly impossible to do when she kept stroking his skin with those warm, soft fingers, setting his nerve endings on fire. Her fingers fluttered down over his bottom.

  He sucked in a breath. “Um, Emily? What are you doing?”

  “Admiring one of your tats. The symmetry is off, though.”

  She ducked down behind him as if to study his tattoo. The feel of her breath on his hip sent an intense jolt of heat straight to his groin. He groaned again. Now was definitely not the time to have erotic fantasies about her, not when every heartbeat sent an equally unpleasant jolt of pain throbbing in his shoulder and leg.

  “Em—”

  “Sh, I’m trying to see something here. Is that a . . . yes, it is! This tattoo is covering up a scar. You’ve been shot here before, haven’t you? What happened?” She ran her hand across his left flank.

  It took a moment for him to be able to breathe again with the feel of her warm fingers on him. He didn’t know what was worse, the agony of wanting to crush her beneath him or the agony in his shoulder.

  “I’m sure I . . . don’t remember. About that painkiller . . . do you think you could go ahead and inject some into my—”

  “And this one.” Her fingers slid up his spine, killing him just as surely as the bullet throbbing in his shoulder. “This tattoo is supposed to cover up . . . what, a knife wound? Did someone stab you in the back?”

  “Bar fight. Or something. Emily, the painkiller? Please?”

  “Oh, sorry.” She giggled.

  Giggled? He peered at her over his shoulder again. Seeing her holding that needle in a very unsteady hand had sweat breaking out on his brow. He noticed the slight flush to her face and suddenly had a horrible epiphany.

  “Are you drunk?”

  She gave him a sloppy smile. “I might have had a wee little bit of whiskey.”

  “How much is a little bit?”

  “You didn’t think I could do this sober, did you? I picked up one tiny little bottle of Jack Daniel’s at the liquor store to bolster my courage before committing my very first felony.” She jammed the syringe deep into his shoulder.

  He clenched his teeth together to keep from doing something embarrassing, like whimpering. Or worse, shouting at her and hurting her feelings. Thankfully, whatever was in the syringe was potent because the pain began to ebb almost immediately. He drew several slow, deep breaths and forced himself to relax. Or at least he tried to. One particular part of his anatomy was still anything but relaxed, remembering her hands sliding across his skin.

  “I don’t suppose you could share that whiskey, could you?” he asked when he trusted his voice to work again.

  She put the syringe down and held up a pair of silver tongs, snapping them together in a bloodthirsty way that had him suddenly wondering if losing the use of his arm from not getting the bullet out might be safer than letting a tipsy Emily operate on him.

  “Nope. Sorry. It’s all gone. Now, lay your head down and be still. I have a pesky little bullet to find in this big ol’ shoulder here. And then, later, maybe you can tell me all about these interesting tattoos.”

  He gritted his teeth and buried his face in one of the pillows.

  WHEN THE SUNLIGHT seeped in through a tiny crack in the curtains the following morning, Emi
ly was shocked to find herself under the covers on the same bed as Devlin. He was snuggled up behind her, his warm thighs tucked beneath hers. His left arm was wrapped around her waist and his deep, even breaths swirled the hair on the top of her head.

  She glanced down, relieved to discover she was dressed—if wearing a shirt and panties was dressed. She wasn’t so certain about Devlin. The warmth of his body emanating to hers made her think he might be naked. Part of her didn’t mind that one bit.

  But the other part of her—the part that was just starting to realize the headache pounding behind her eyelids and the nausea roiling in her stomach were because of the ridiculous amount of whiskey she’d consumed last night—that part of her wanted nothing more than to escape to the bathroom before she embarrassed herself even further and threw up in front of the man she’d been lusting over.

  After attempting to slide out from under his arm without waking him or jarring his injury, she suddenly found herself flat on her back looking up into a pair of dark gray eyes.

  “Morning,” he said.

  “Uh, morning.” She was relieved to see the glaze of pain gone from them. And his skin had a much healthier tone than it had last night. “Feeling better?”

  “Much.” He ran his finger down the side of her face. “Good enough to show you my tattoos, if you’re interested.”

  She blinked in confusion. “Your tattoos?”

  He sighed. “You don’t remember, do you?”

  “Uh, apparently not. And I’m starting to think maybe I don’t want to.” Her stomach chose that moment to twist into another tight knot. She pressed her hand against her throat. “I need to . . . ah . . . take a shower.”

  His lips twitched. “A shower, huh? From the lovely shade of green on your face, I’m thinking you need to throw up some of that whiskey you selfishly wouldn’t share last night.”

  Her stomach rumbled.

  His eyes widened and he immediately let her go.

  She ran to the bathroom and just managed to shove the door shut and drop to her knees in front of the toilet before Jack Daniel’s made an encore appearance.