And who still looked nearly frozen.
“I need to give you back your coat,” she mumbled, but she didn’t make any move to do it.
“I think you need it more than I do right now.”
“Your pants are soaked. You’ve got to be cold.”
“I have a blanket.”
“Maybe you should go back to your house and change into something warmer.”
“Trying to get rid of me?”
“Yes,” she admitted, surprising him.
“Sorry to disappoint you. I’m sticking around to make sure you get to the hospital alive and to make sure you stay alive once you arrive.”
“And to ask me a bunch of questions that I’ve already answered.”
“Maybe,” he admitted.
“My answers won’t change. No matter how many times the questions are asked.”
“The fact that you don’t want me to stick around isn’t going to change the fact that I’m going to,” he responded, and she offered a small curve of the lips that almost passed for a smile.
“You’re funny, Mason. I wouldn’t have guessed that from the research I did.”
“Research?” He tensed, but she didn’t seem bothered by the question or the information that she’d let slip.
“I’m an internet research specialist. I can find almost anything about anyone. Once I realized what was happening to Henry, I started researching. Your name was the first to pop up in the search engine. So, of course, I had to find out more.”
“Of course,” he said dryly.
“You wanted honesty, Mason. I’m giving it. Now how about you give me a little space.”
That wasn’t going to happen, but she’d closed her eyes and leaned her head against her up-drawn knees. He figured she was trying to close him out and keep him from asking more questions. He’d let her have her way. The more time he spent with her, the more convinced he was that she was telling the truth about her friend.
Bryn Laurel and Henry.
He could almost picture them if he let himself.
He didn’t.
He had other things to focus on and bigger problems to deal with.
He’d escort Trinity to the hospital, ask her a couple questions about what she’d seen, and wait for her family to arrive. He felt confident they would. Jackson Miller wasn’t a name he knew, but if the FBI was aware of him, the guy had to be somebody important, his hostage rescue organization well-connected and aboveboard.
A guy like that could take care of whatever trouble might come Trinity’s way, and Mason could go back to the house, do a little research of his own and find out who had the most to gain from locating Tate Whitman.
FIVE
The way Trinity figured things, she had a couple of hours before one or both of her brothers descended on Whisper Lake Medical Center and dragged her back to Maryland.
She glanced at the clock on the wall and then frowned. She’d been at the clinic for nearly three hours. First, waiting to be examined. Then, waiting for MRI results. She’d gotten the all-clear three minutes ago. It had been delivered by a nurse who’d also delivered some borrowed clothes she thought Trinity could use.
Thought?
She’d known.
All of Trinity’s clothes had been bagged and tagged and sent to a forensic lab. Mason’s coat had been taken, too. She’d been hanging around the hospital in nothing but a huge cotton gown, a blanket and Agent Michaels’s coat.
It wasn’t a good look, so she was glad for the clothes.
Plus, hospital gowns weren’t exactly warm and she wanted warmth. Desperately.
She also wanted to be cleaned up, dressed and smiling before one of her brothers showed up. Otherwise her family would worry, and worrying them was top on her list of things she didn’t want to do.
Seeing Mason again was at the top of her list of things she did want to do, but he’d disappeared right after she’d been wheeled into the triage room. She hadn’t seen or heard from him since. She’d been telling herself that was a good thing. He and the sheriff were busy following up on leads and trying to figure out who’d been in Mason’s house. If they weren’t questioning her, they must believe her story. If they believed her story, then she wasn’t destined to spend a night in the local jail.
Not that her brothers would have let that happen, but after a pretty miserable Christmas, a lackluster New Year’s celebration and a couple of months spent trying to figure out what she wanted to be now that she wasn’t part of a couple, a night in jail would have seemed like the mud icing on top of the dirt cupcake that was her life.
She scowled, grabbing the pile of clothes. Oversize sweatpants, huge T-shirt with a picture of a kitten, thick socks. Shoes that were about three sizes too big. She dressed quickly, her hands still nearly frozen, her toes purple.
The doctor had said she wouldn’t have any permanent damage. She didn’t have a concussion, hadn’t needed stitches and should be as good as new by morning.
That was great, because by morning she planned to be tucked away in the bed-and-breakfast room she’d rented for the weekend. Brothers or not, trouble or not, she planned to do what she’d set out to do when she’d left home—find purpose and excitement and renewed hope. This trip hadn’t just been for Bryn. It was for Trinity, too. She needed to regroup, and she couldn’t do that with her entire family hovering around, worrying that she was going to fall apart because she and Dale had broken up.
Actually, she’d broken up with Dale.
She’d told her family it was mutual.
She wasn’t sure why.
Maybe because she’d thought that would be easier for them to understand and accept. After all, Trinity had been singing Dale’s praises for years. Even when he hadn’t deserved it. Even when she’d wondered if he was really as committed to her as she was to him.
You aren’t committed to me, Trinity. You’re committed to the idea of a marriage. It had been three months but she could hear Dale’s words like he’d just spoken them. She could hear the accusation in his voice and she could feel the truth in her heart.
He’d been right.
She hadn’t denied it then and she couldn’t deny it now. That didn’t change the fact that what he’d done had been wrong. It didn’t change the hurt, either.
“Enough,” she muttered, grabbing Agent Michaels’s coat from the chair that sat near a lone window. She pulled it on over the too big clothes and walked to a metal counter and sink. No mirror, but she could see herself in the stainless-steel paper-towel dispenser.
She looked like a hot mess. Scratches on her cheeks. A bruise on her head. Dried blood in her hair. She wet a paper towel and dabbed at the areas, removing as much blood and grime as she could. She didn’t have a brush, so she ran her fingers through her hair, frowning as bits of leaves and pine needles fell out.
She needed a shower.
She needed to see Mason once more.
She’d promised Bryn that she’d give it her best effort. She’d assured her that she’d do everything she could to get Mason to agree to make Henry’s prosthesis. She’d kissed her friend’s cheek, told her everything was going to be just fine, and she’d driven away knowing it might not be. That it probably wouldn’t be. Henry was going to lose his leg. There was no doubt about that. There was a chance he would lose his life.
The thought left her cold. She couldn’t treat Henry’s cancer. She couldn’t cure it. She wasn’t a research scientist or a medical expert. She was a woman who’d spent the past few years working in an office, researching people and places, making phone calls, doing some computer forensics but mostly providing office support for her brothers’ high-stress, high-risk business.
“But you promised anyway,” she muttered. “Because, that’s what you do. Pretend that you can fix things that only God can. Pretend you have control over things you ha
ve absolutely no control over.”
“Everything okay in there?” a man called from the other side of the door.
Mason.
It had to be.
And he was just the person she wanted to see. Just the person she needed to see. She didn’t have the power to change the course of Henry’s surgery and recovery, but Mason had the ability to make at least the latter easier for the young boy. She’d give it one last shot; do everything she could to convince him to help out. If he still refused, she’d call Bryn and give her the bad news. Then she’d find a ride to the bed-and-breakfast with its cute little room and beautiful view of the lake and she’d wait for her brothers there.
“Trinity?” Mason knocked. “You okay?”
“Fine.” She yanked open the door, saw him standing right at the threshold—larger than life, broader and taller than she remembered. Dark hair. Dark eyes. Hard jaw and harder expression.
He didn’t look happy.
That was fine.
She wasn’t happy, either.
“I thought I heard someone talking,” he said, stepping into the room without an invitation, scanning the small triage area.
“I was talking to myself,” she admitted, and his dark gaze settled on her face.
“About?”
“Life.”
He cracked a smile. At least, she thought it was a smile.
“Do you do that often?”
“Only when there’s no one else around to talk to.”
“I’m around.”
“You were in the hall,” she pointed out, refusing to look away from his intense gaze. His eyes were the darkest brown she’d ever seen, the irises nearly as dark as the pupils. He’d changed out of his wet clothes and into a flannel shirt and faded jeans. Both clung to long, lean muscles. “Or, did you go home to change?”
“Judah drove my truck over. I had some clothes in it.”
“Always prepared, huh?” she asked, unsettled in a way she didn’t like. She was good with people. She always had been. She made friends easily. She kept them. She knew how to have conversations with people of all ages and she’d never had any trouble at all looking someone in the eyes. But, with Mason, she had to keep fighting the urge to look away.
“I spent the night in Nyack, New York, attending a friend’s funeral. I packed a few extra changes of clothes. In case I decided to stay longer. They were still in a duffel in the truck.” He watched her as he spoke, his attention never wavering.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” she said, because it was the expected thing. She had no idea who his friend was, how close they were, or why he’d shared that piece of information, but she had the feeling Mason had reasons for everything he did.
“Me, too. John and I go way back.”
“John Roache?” she asked and regretted it immediately.
Mason’s gaze sharpened, his jaw tightening a fraction as he took a step closer. He was in her space, so close she could see the fine lines at the corners of his eyes.
Not smile lines.
She was pretty certain of that.
“What do you know about John?” he asked.
“He was your partner. The two of you developed the computer technology that you use to create prosthetics.”
“John and I parted ways several years ago, so I’m wondering why you know his name.”
“I told you. I did my research before I came out here. I like to know what I’m getting into before I get into it.” She busied herself folding and refolding her discarded hospital gown because she was done looking into Mason’s dark eyes and trying to read his implacable expression.
“If you’d done your research, you’d have realized that I only work with veterans.”
“I did realize that.”
“But you came anyway?”
“Wouldn’t you have? If it was someone you loved?”
“Probably.”
“Probably?” She swung around to face him again. “You know you would.”
“You’re right. I would. And I’m sorry that you did, and that you’ve wasted your time doing it.”
“If you agreed to help, you wouldn’t have to be.”
He scowled. “I don’t work with kids.”
“You haven’t worked with kids,” she countered. “That doesn’t mean you can’t.”
“Yeah. It does.”
“Why?”
“I have my reasons.”
“If you explained, maybe we could both walk away and feel good about things.”
“Walk away? Is that what you think you’re going to do?” he asked.
“I’m certainly not going to stick around here.” She slid her feet into the too-big shoes. “And, since I don’t have a ride, walking is my only option.”
She really couldn’t leave.
Not until someone from her family showed up.
Not unless she could find a taxi. Which might be difficult in a town the size of Whisper, Maine.
Because as much as she might be pretending that she could walk to the bed-and-breakfast, there was no way she was going to risk it. She’d been in enough danger for one night. She’d also been cold enough for a lifetime.
Yeah. She wasn’t going far, but she was going, because she didn’t want to look in his eyes any longer. She didn’t want to say the same words over and over again and hear his same response. She’d known there was a possibility that he might refuse to help, but she hadn’t wanted to think about how it would feel to tell Bryn that her hopes had been dashed.
Now she had to think about it, and thinking about it made her eyes burn and her chest tight. She wasn’t a crier. If she had been, she might have let the tears fall. She loved Bryn and Henry like she loved her family. The thought of disappointing them left her hollow and empty.
Mason didn’t say a word as she headed out the door. The hallway was empty, the muted sounds of machinery pulsing beneath the stillness. Her borrowed shoes squeaked as she walked to the end of the hall, her thawing toes aching every time she took a step.
She made it to the end of the corridor before Mason stopped her. He didn’t put a hand on her. Didn’t tell her to stop. Didn’t remind her that she was part of a criminal investigation and that she couldn’t leave. She could have ignored any of those things.
“They think you’re my girlfriend,” he said instead, and she turned, the movement so sharp she nearly toppled over.
He did grab her arm then, his grip just firm enough to steady her.
“What did you say?” she demanded, looking up into those dark eyes again.
“They think you’re my girlfriend.”
“Who? The FBI? The police?”
“The guys who broke into my house.”
“Why would they think that?”
“I thought maybe you could answer that question.”
“I can’t.” She started walking again, her steps as quick and brisk as she could make them with her feet flopping around in the shoes.
She wanted to pretend Mason’s words hadn’t changed things, but she couldn’t. She’d spent enough time with her brothers and had worked enough hours at HEART to know that mistaken identity could get a person kidnapped or killed. Or both.
She grimaced, pushing through the double-wide doors that opened into a small waiting area. Like the hallway, it was empty, chairs and potted plants the only things filling the room.
“You can’t run away from your troubles, Trinity,” Mason said, stepping in front of her and blocking the path to the exit.
“Maybe not, but I sure can try,” she responded, ducking past Mason, her heart hammering crazily in her chest.
“Where are you planning to run?” he asked, following her outside.
“Telling you that would defeat the purpose of going into hiding.” She eyed the nearly empty parking lot,
the few vehicles glistening with ice and rain. Beyond the exterior building lights, the night was pitch-black, the soft splatter of rain on pavement and car roofs the only sound. There were lights in the distance. House lights. Streetlights. The little town the ambulance had sped through on its way to the clinic. The bed-and-breakfast was there on Lakeview Drive.
How hard could it be to find?
And how far of a walk would it be?
A few miles?
She could do that.
Just like you could swim across the lake?
She frowned.
It was cold. It was wet. She was cold. She was tired. She’d already decided it was too dangerous to try to make the trip on foot.
But the lights seemed bright and cheerful and safe.
“Hiding from me isn’t going to be a possibility.” Mason broke into her thoughts.
She met his eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re either part of whatever went down tonight—”
“I’m not.”
“Or you’ve walked into something that could cause you a lot of trouble.”
“I can handle it.”
“You could have died tonight,” he pointed out, his voice sharp-edged with irritation. “If I hadn’t come home, you probably would have.”
“That’s a lot of assuming you’re doing, Mason.” She shivered, pulling Agent Michaels’s coat closer around her shoulders.
“You think I’m wrong?”
“I think I’ve had enough training to give me a fighting chance.”
“Against men with guns?”
She didn’t respond. There wasn’t much she could say. He was right. They both knew it.
“Okay. Fine,” she conceded, because she knew she had no choice. At least with Mason around, she had a fighting chance of survival. “I need to get to town. Can you give me a ride?”
“Agent Michaels is going to want to speak with you.”
“He can speak with me at the bed-and-breakfast as well as anywhere, right?”
Mistaken Identity Page 6
