Guardian For Hire: A For Hire Novel

by Christine Bell

  Dismissed. She’d been borderline polite about it, as her posh breeding clearly dictated, but it was an obvious dismissal nonetheless. He was officially off the hook. He was about to stand, but some nagging sense of responsibility made him press one last time. “You can’t go on as if nothing’s happening. You do realize that, yes? Can you go away for a while…leave town?”

  She shook her head. “Until I hear from the police, I’m staying put. The other deaths happened weeks apart. There’s no reason to believe that, on the off chance I’m viewed as guilty by association in this mess, anything would happen before the authorities have a chance to set up some protection for me if they feel it’s necessary.” She glanced pointedly at the slim gold watch on her wrist. “I’ve really got to go now. Shall I see you out?”

  He slapped his thighs and rolled to his feet. “That would be great.” He picked up the fussy miniature cup she’d set in front of him and drained the contents before setting it down. “And thanks for the coffee.”

  As she led him through the painfully neat Victorian house, he couldn’t help but watch her move. Even all buttoned-up, she had a real grace about her. The gentle sway of her trim hips held his reluctant gaze captive until she paused next to a table in the entryway. She collected the set of keys resting there and swung the front door open.

  “It’s chilly out today. You going to get a coat?” he asked without thinking. He wanted to bite his tongue off. What did he give a shit whether this woman wore a jacket or not? Maybe it was the ridiculous little glasses she wore perched on her nose like a prairie schoolmarm. Maybe it was the fact that, in spite of the bluster, her hands were trembling. Whatever was throwing his protective instincts into overdrive, he didn’t like it.

  “Of course,” she said curtly. “After I warm up my car and gather the rest of my things. It was a real pleasure, Mr. McClintock.” As she held out her right hand toward him for a shake and aimed her car remote at the Volvo parked in the driveway with her left, his skin crawled in an all-too-familiar way.

  Shit.

  “Don’t press tha—”

  He was a pretty smart guy and, rationally, he was well aware that light traveled faster than sound. But in that moment, it was all about the boom as the Volvo promptly exploded into a gigantic fireball. Working on pure instinct, he dove forward, tackling the doctor to the hardwood floor like a linebacker. Covering her body with his own, he braced himself for a second explosion or the biting rain of shrapnel. Ten seconds passed, and neither came.

  As he waited for the monotone buzzing in his ears to fade, he pushed his torso away from Sarabeth’s to do a cursory inspection. Her eyes had gone glassy with shock, which was to be expected, but he saw no blood or obvious signs of injury.

  He rolled off Sarabeth and onto his feet. She stared up at him, her mouth opening and closing wordlessly until he reached for her. “It’s okay. You’re going to be fine, but we’ve got to go. There’s no choice now, Doc.”

  She hesitated, but then nodded, still dazed. And when she slipped her elegant hand into his, he couldn’t shake the accompanying sensation of a hook sliding neatly into his gullet.

  Well, fuck all.

  Chapter Two

  Sarabeth stood on shaky legs and tried to focus on Gavin’s lips. He was saying something, but she couldn’t quite make it out…

  I’ll gut you.

  Well that couldn’t be right—he’d tackled her to the ground in an attempt to protect her.

  A-ca-choo.

  Clearly not. An absurd giggle built in her throat and spilled over. He didn’t look surprised at all by her bizarre reaction to almost getting blown up. In fact, he rubbed her back in slow, soothing circles while uttering the same words over and over again. Finally, the buzzing in her ears subsided, along with her laughter, and the words became clear.

  I’ve got you.

  “Th-thanks, I’m okay now,” she said through chattering teeth, and stepped back, wriggling from his all-too-comforting touch.

  His tone was low and urgent, piercing her mental fog. “I need you to focus, okay Doc? People are going to start coming outside and see what the fuss is. The cops will be here any minute, I imagine. We need to get gone before that happens. You with me?”

  She nodded. “I can’t. I’m not even packed. I need to…” As she turned toward the stairs, he stopped her with a hand on the shoulder.

  “No time. We’ll get everything you need on the road.”

  He looped an arm around her and navigated her over the glowing chunks of metal that used to be her car littering her front porch and walkway. Thankfully, he’d parked in the street, and she noted dimly that his car looked none the worse for wear. He opened the passenger door and helped her in right as she noticed sirens wailing in the distance.

  She slid in and buckled her belt, on autopilot. What in God’s name was she going to do now? She couldn’t possibly stay with this ginormous, intimidating stranger, but at the same time, someone was indeed out to kill her. And if Gavin hadn’t shown up?

  She could have wound up with a face full of twisted metal.

  A wave of nausea gripped her, and she leaned forward to rest her head on the dashboard. Gavin slid into the driver’s seat a moment later.

  “We’re good now. Don’t think about it. Just breathe.”

  He slid the key into the ignition and turned it. It wasn’t until it started with a grumble that she realized she’d been holding her breath. A moment later they were on the road, speeding toward the interstate. It would probably be a long time before she was able to get into a vehicle without fear. Yet another thing Nico had stolen from her.

  She swallowed hard to dislodge the lump in her throat. How had things turned so ugly in such a short amount of time? It seemed like yesterday that she’d been walking on air over her amazing new job offer. Even her grandfather, who hadn’t approved of anything she’d done since grammar school, had been grudgingly impressed. She should have known it was too good to be true. Great salary, solid benefits, all served up at a stunning locale. And then Lindy and Owen had checked into the retreat, and brought the whole sordid house of cards tumbling down. Lindy had almost been killed in the process.

  The guilt rushed back in, displacing the self-pity. Unwittingly or not, she’d been a part of a plot to entrap wealthy clients into cheating on their spouses. Nico had planned to spend six months filming the guests in premeditated sexual situations with select members of the staff, and then disappear into the night with the footage, later to be used to extort money from the guilty parties. But he hadn’t counted on his past coming back to haunt him. Owen had spent months crafting his revenge, and his hard work paid off when he uncovered Nico’s secret. And thank God he had. There were dozens of recordings, and countless lives could’ve been ruined had Nico been able to follow through with his plans.

  No matter how hard she tried, no matter that she hadn’t known, she couldn’t seem to scrub that oily smudge off her soul. There were signs, and she’d ignored them. Now people were dead. Maybe she could’ve stopped it before it started, if she’d only paid closer attention. Guilt by way of negligence. Was this the price?

  “It’s not your fault.” Gavin’s low voice disrupted her dark thoughts. How had he known?

  “You weren’t there. How would you know?” She was so tired all of a sudden, so damned tired.

  “I know how it is to blame yourself for something you didn’t do. I’ve played that game before. The ‘what if’ game. It’s an illusion because even if you did everything right, other actions would have affected the outcome. There’s no way to know what would’ve happened.” His strong hands gripped the wheel as he took a corner far faster than she would have. “Suppose you did notice something weird. And suppose you did say something to Nico. What’s to say he wouldn’t have made you disappear right then and carried out his plan anyway?”

  She made a noncommittal noise. There was no point in trying to talk about this right now. Her brain was like a colander. Things had gone so tops
y-turvy that nothing seemed to make sense.

  “I’m going to get us some distance, and then we’ll stop for the night and make some decisions,” Gavin said firmly. “I had planned on you coming with me, but I thought we’d have more time to prepare. This changes things, and we’re going to have to think on the fly. Did you have your cell phone on you when we left?”

  She sat back in her seat and shook her head. “No, I always keep it in my purse, and I left that in the kitchen. In fact, I have no money, no credit cards. I don’t even have my driver’s license.”

  “That’s good. You won’t need any of those things. You’ve got to disappear for a while. Lay low, and I’m going to help you do that. It will give us time to figure out what’s going on here, but it will also give the police some time to work.”

  “How long is a while? I have my business to see to.”

  “You haven’t had any clients for over a month.”

  He wasn’t trying to be cruel, she could tell by his tone, but damn that hurt. “And I will continue to not have them if I don’t put the time in to drum up business, make calls, offer workshops, and so on,” she reasoned. “Are we talking days? Weeks?”

  “I can’t answer that. There are too many unknowns right now. They could catch the perp tomorrow for all I know. I say plan for the worst, hope for the best.”

  “Well, I need to contact my grandparents. Let them know I’m all right at least.” In spite of her tense relationship with them, they’d put a very distinguished roof over her head when her mother had abandoned her at the age of three, and they had been her caregivers her whole life. She owed them a phone call, no matter how dreadful it would be. She winced, just thinking of her grandfather’s reaction to the scandal.

  “Fine, but not right yet,” Gavin said. “Once we get settled and I have a chance to set up a secure network, we’ll contact them. We can’t be sure they’re not being watched right now, and we can’t take the risk of them leading the killers to you.”

  She nodded but didn’t say anything. She didn’t trust herself to speak without falling apart.

  He must have sensed that she was on the cusp of breaking because he reached out and patted her gently on the hand. “I’m going to take care of you. You have my word on that. But I need you clearheaded and ready to do what I tell you, so whatever it takes to get you there mentally—sleep, meditation, fucking long division– you go ahead and do that for the next few hours while I drive, all right Doc?”

  …

  Good thing he hadn’t taken his Lincoln. Gavin gave himself a mental pat on the back for that choice. Even if one of the neighbors had seen them leave, hopefully the fact that he’d used a rental car would buy them some time before anyone figured out who she was with and even more time to figure out where they’d gone. One thing was for sure. Whoever was behind this would find her eventually. This wasn’t some second-rate operation. Using explosives and having pockets deep enough to manage intel and surveillance suggested professionals were either behind this or on the payroll. The question was, who’d hired them and why?

  He wondered briefly if the neighbors might have any information, then dismissed it. None of them had so much as peeked out of their gingerbread houses at the sounds of trouble. Rather than making him happy, it annoyed the hell out of him. Bunch of wusses. He definitely did the right thing getting her out of here. Those people were totally apathetic. They couldn’t care less what was happening as long as it wasn’t happening to them.

  He glanced at her sleeping form, grabbed his Bluetooth from the dash, and slipped it over his ear. Owen and Lindy had told him to call when he left Sarabeth’s regardless of the outcome. He’d gotten the feeling that Lindy had been dubious as to whether her friend would even let him in the house, and he knew she was probably a nervous wreck. He engaged the scrambler option on his secure phone and dialed. The phone only rang once before Owen answered his own similar model.

  “How did it go?” His clipped tone was softened by a fair dose of Irish, and Gavin resisted the urge to let it lure him back to his own Scottish brogue.

  He kept his voice low so he didn’t wake up his sleeping charge. “Depends on your perspective, I guess. If you mean did she come with me? Yeah, I have her. If you mean did anyone not try to kill her while I was there? No. Or yes. Wait, is it a double negative if—”

  Owen let out a growl of impatience. “Cut the bullshit. What the hell happened?”

  He glanced at Sarabeth as she shifted in her seat before settling again with a soft sigh. She looked so much less prickly in slumber. “She didn’t want to come with me and sent me packing. Luckily, as we were on our way out, her car exploded, so she changed her mind.” Silence filled the car as he waited for that chestnut to sink in.

  “Are either of you hurt?” Owen finally asked.

  “Nope. But it was closer than I would’ve liked. The only thing that saved her was Chicago’s crazy weather. The temperature dropped to forty degrees last night, and she wanted to heat up her car before she left. Whoever planted the bomb obviously hadn’t factored that in when they set it. They probably had her under surveillance for the past few days. Up until today, it’s been a warm spring by Chicago standards, and she’d had no reason to use her car starter. It wasn’t a habit so they didn’t account for it. Still, it’s starting to feel like this is the work of a pro, which suggests big money behind it.”

  “Do you think you could have been spotted leaving with her?”

  “It’s possible one o her neighbors saw us out the window, although I doubt anything will come of that. They weren’t looking too hard, if you know what I mean. I’m driving an under-the-radar rental from a guy I know so even if they run the plates, it’ll take some real doing to track me. And I don’t have a tail, which leads me to believe the bomber didn’t have anyone on the scene at the time. I think we’re good for a while as long as she keeps her head down.”

  “Okay. Lindy is champing at the bit here. She wants to know how Sarabeth is holding up.”

  Gavin could hear Owen’s wife in the background furiously shooting rapid-fire questions at his friend. “She’s doing all right. I think it was a shock. She thought—actually, hoped is probably more accurate—she wouldn’t be targeted. Denial is a powerful thing. She’s sleeping right now, which is probably for the best. Give her brain a chance to decompress.”

  “So what’s the plan now, and what can we do to help? I was thinking of paying her family a visit, let them know what’s going on.”

  “That’s a great idea. I don’t want her contacting them directly until we know for sure they’re not being monitored, and that’s going to take a while. We’re going to a motel, then we’re going to get a different car and some supplies. Her face will be all over the news by tomorrow, and I want her to look like someone else by the time that happens. Once she’s safe, I’m going to start trying to figure out who’s at the bottom of this mess.”

  “Sounds good. Whatever else you need, call me. Did you have a safe house in mind?”

  “We’re going to head back to my place. There’s no better security in the world. I’ve got an idea that I’m still knocking around. When it’s fully baked, I’ll call you.”

  “All right. In the meantime, I’ll have the jet fueled up and be on my way to Chicago in the next couple of hours.” There was a long pause. “Gavin, I really appreciate this. I know it’s bloody inconve—”

  “Yeah, yeah, don’t get all mushy on me. I’m only doing it so I can have a taste of what it’s like to have you owe me one for a change.” He disconnected and tugged the device from his ear. As he turned to set it on the console, he saw Sarabeth peering at him through clear green eyes.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked, taking in the still-chalky pallor of her skin.

  “Like three people I know were murdered, and I was almost blown to smithereens. You?”

  His lips twitched. “Somewhere between that and pretty good.”

  She reached up and tugged the clip from her hair,
sending the mass of dark-blond tresses tumbling around her shoulders. “How much longer before we stop?”

  She looked like a whole different person with her hair down. Softer. More approachable. Some might even say attractive, if you liked the subtle type. Which he didn’t. He dragged his gaze away and focused on the road ahead. “We can stop any time. I figured I’d let you sleep while you were able. Next motel we pass, we can check in.”

  She nodded and massaged her scalp for a moment before scooping her hair back into its clip, this time in a more haphazard ponytail. “I could use something to eat, if we have the chance. I had a grapefruit for breakfast, but that feels like days ago.”

  “I have to run out anyway. We’ll get you settled, and I’ll do what I have to do, then get food on the way back.”

  She nodded again, settling back into her seat. Damn, she was awfully agreeable. Not at all like the contrary woman who’d blown him off that morning. He’d heard that some people were at their best in the face of adversity. Maybe the doc was one of those types. And, he acknowledged grudgingly, just maybe protecting her wouldn’t be as awful as he’d thought.

  Chapter Three

  “No way,” she said, shoving past him to march into the tiny kitchenette. He must have let her because if he wanted to stop her, it wouldn’t have taken much. She tried not to think of what that slab of muscle would feel like under her hands without the T-shirt covering it.

  What was wrong with her? She never thought of things like that. If she entertained romantic thoughts about a man it was because he was smart, sweet, and easy to be around, not beefy, brusque, and difficult. And right now, difficult didn’t even come close to what Gavin was being.

  “I can’t. I won’t.” She knew she was being a baby but couldn’t seem to stop herself. It had been a hell of a day, but she and Gavin had managed to come to an uneasy truce earlier. Once they’d found a motel, she’d hidden in the car while he checked them in—with two beds, thank you very much. He’d whisked her up the back staircase, given her a pad and paper, and asked her to jot down some information about her former coworkers while he ran some errands.