Sex and the Sleepwalker

by Donna Sterling

  Cade called for discreet backup. Keeping a cautious lookout, he then slipped from his car to the other, opened its hood and removed the distributor cap. This sucker wasn’t going anywhere. He then returned to his own vehicle and crouched behind it, his hand hovering near his gun as he maintained a clear view of the restaurant’s back door.

  A call from John came through on his earphones. “I hope like hell he’s there, Cade-man. The hotel maid in Florida identified Fontaine from his photo. We went in for the arrest, and guess what? No one there.” John cursed explicitly. “The bastard slipped out from under our noses. If he’s at that diner, we’ve got to take him down.”

  Cade murmured in agreement, his gaze trained on the restaurant door.

  “Stay back and let my guys apprehend him, Cade. If Brynn sees you, she might cause enough disturbance to give Fontaine an advantage.”

  “If he comes out,” Cade replied, his voice barely above a whisper, “I’m taking him down.”

  “Backup is almost there. Keep out of sight. Brynn already suspects something’s up with you.”

  Cade frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “She called me this morning, right after I talked with you.” Amusement lightened John’s tone. “She asked if I thought you could be the Piper.”

  Cade’s breath congealed in his lungs. He couldn’t have heard right. No damn way had he heard right.

  “Trish found out your travel books don’t exist,” John said. “Lexi remembered you majored in criminal justice, and figured you’d been studying to pull off the perfect crime. They found photos of the kidnap victims in your briefcase—”

  “Brynn believed I was the Pied Piper?” Cade managed to ask, despite the sudden paralysis of every muscle in his body, including those in his face, mouth and throat.

  “Yeah. Talk about irony.”

  Cade couldn’t talk at all. He felt as if he’d been kicked in the chest by a mule. Brynn believed he could be the abductor.

  It seemed then that everything happened at once. The restaurant door opened, and Brynn stepped out, accompanied by a man in a blue Hawaiian shirt, panama hat and sunglasses.

  Cade’s professional training cut through the mind-numbing shock brought on by John’s disclosure, and he drew his gun. But as he rose to yell “Freeze!” the bushes behind him rustled.

  A form loomed up on his left side and sprayed a mist into his eyes, while a woman on his other side cried, “Drop the gun!” and clubbed the wrist of his gun hand with a slim, blunt object.

  The stinging, sticky mist blinded him. It smelled like hair spray. Someone jumped onto his back and choked him with two slim forearms, screaming in his ear, “Run, Brynn—he has a gun!”

  His other assailant took to batting him with her weapon—the handle of a tennis racket, he decided—shouting, “Someone call the police!”

  The only thing that stopped him from seriously disabling his attackers was the fact that he recognized them from their voices. Trish and Lexi.

  His forbearance cost him. As he flipped Lexi from his back, disarmed Trish and wrestled them into arm locks against his car, a third form bustled out from the bushes and shouted in a harsh, age-warbled voice, “I knew you girls would need me!”

  And she zapped him with a paralyzing jolt of electricity.

  BRYNN TOOK A DEEP BREATH in the middle of her tirade against Antoine as he led her to the back door of the diner. The scene she’d caused at the table had embarrassed him, it seemed, since he’d begged her to step outside to finish their conversation.

  He’d also claimed to have proof against Cade in his car, which caused her to clench her teeth and ball her fists as she followed him. She’d look at whatever he had to show her, repeat her warnings to leave her and Cade alone, then get back to Cade as soon as possible.

  But no sooner had she and Antoine stepped out of the restaurant’s back door than a ruckus broke out in the parking lot—screaming, yelling, grunting. A scuffle of some kind.

  “Run, Brynn—he has a gun.”

  Lexi! That was Lexi, hanging on some guy’s back and screaming at her to run. And Trish, wielding a tennis racket. And Mrs. Hornsby…!

  Before Brynn could begin to make sense of it all, Antoine grabbed her arm and shoved her toward a nearby car in the rudest possible way. “Get in the car, Brynn.”

  Another vehicle roared around the corner of the building and squealed to a halt behind the car, very near to the SUV where the scuffle was taking place—an SUV that looked a lot like Cade’s. A police siren wailed nearby on the main highway. And that was Cade, falling to his knees, surrounded by the three angry, shouting women.

  “What are you doing?” Brynn cried at them, jerking free of Antoine’s fierce grip on her arm to run pell-mell toward the fracas. “Stop that! Quit hitting him. Can’t you see he’s hurt? What have you done?”

  “Zapped him with my stun gun,” boasted Mrs. Hornsby. At the same time Lexi cried, “We caught him red-handed, taking aim at you with a gun, Brynn.”

  “He’s the Piper,” Trish swore simultaneously.

  “Freeze!” came a deep, hostile bellow from behind Brynn. “Police. Hands in the air, all of you. Hands in the air, goddammit!”

  Sirens shrieked all around them. Blue lights flashed. Cops swarmed the parking lot with guns pointed at Antoine, Lexi, Trish, Mrs. Hornsby and Cade.

  Things only grew more bizarre from there.

  A DEPUTY UNITED STATES marshal. She should have known. How could she have believed that Cade Hunter had given up his law enforcement aspirations?

  Now that she saw him in his true element, Brynn felt especially foolish for having accepted the falsehood about his career. He’d set up a command unit in the back offices of the local police station, where he directed a crew of men and women, some in uniform and some not, in the task of collecting, handling and analyzing evidence against the suspect. Clustered around desks and tables, his staff went through boxes of the items found, flipped through files, worked on computers and talked earnestly among themselves, while Brynn watched them through an open doorway from the bench to which she’d been relegated.

  When he wasn’t issuing curt orders or speaking intently on the telephone—to her low-down, secret-keeping brother, Brynn assumed—Cade himself disappeared for extended periods of time into the interrogation room with the suspect.

  Brynn wished Cade would take a moment to speak with her. He didn’t, though. He acknowledged her presence only once, when he told a patrolman to drive her home.

  She refused to go. “I’m not leaving until my friends are released and I’ve had the chance to talk to Cade Hunter.”

  “Sorry, ma’am,” the patrolman said, “but Marshal Hunter will be too busy to see anyone for quite some time.”

  “Especially when it comes to women,” said another cop standing at the nearby water cooler. “Can’t say I blame him. A U.S. marshal taken down by two former sorority sisters and an old lady. That’s got to hurt.”

  Brynn glared at him until the amusement left his eyes. She’d had enough with the quips and jokes about the attack. She could only imagine the ribbing Cade was taking.

  How she wished he would talk to her! His refusal filled her with a terrible sense of loss. She wanted to apologize for her friends’ behavior and make it clear that they’d acted without her knowledge or approval. She also wanted to know if their attack had hurt him more than he was letting on. Though his eyes were slightly red from the hair spray assault, and the front of his hair stood up in stiff tufts, he looked stronger and steadier than ever.

  Brynn wanted to ask him, too, why he hadn’t told her about his work with the U.S. Marshal Service. Hadn’t he trusted her to keep quiet about his undercover mission?

  But, most of all, she wanted to hold him, and be held by him. The shocking developments of the last few hours had left her shaky and disoriented.

  She could barely believe that Antoine was the Pied Piper. Or, rather, Doyle Fontaine. An ex-con. A fraud. An abductor! She shuddered to thin
k what else he might be. Until they found the women he’d abducted, no one would know the true extent of his crimes. She’d been so fooled by him.

  Trish was taking the news especially hard. She’d been thrilled at having her long-lost cousin in her life. She was now anguished and infuriated to discover that he was a criminal who had used her. Lexi had also expressed her deepest regrets for her part in the entire affair.

  As they were being marched from the police car in handcuffs, both her friends, along with Mrs. Hornsby, had profusely apologized to Cade for jumping to the wrong conclusion about him. He had said, with only the slightest inflection of the driest humor, “I’ll bet you are.”

  He’d then gone off to the interrogation room, while the local police went about the preliminary motions of charging them for assaulting an officer and obstructing justice.

  So Brynn paced beside the bench outside Cade’s main workroom. By six o’clock that evening, she’d almost given up hope of ever talking with him. Frustrated beyond bearing, she called John on her cell phone.

  “Can’t talk long, Brynn.”

  No nickname. His situation must be serious indeed. “Just tell Cade that I need to talk to him,” she said. “You owe me that much, you secretive jerk.”

  “Cade’s got his hands full. He’s one awesome interrogator, though. He already got the perp to confess. Fontaine’s trying to make a deal with the info of where he’s keeping the women. Claims they’re alive and well. The Atlanta PD is on pins and needles, waiting to see if they are. These women are wives and daughters of our own.”

  “I know, John. I hope you find them safe.”

  “Fontaine says he didn’t take them by force, but ‘lured them with his charm.’ Somehow we doubt that. Gotta go now. Another call’s coming through.”

  “John, about my friends and the charges against them—”

  “Cade’s getting the charges dropped. They’ll be released soon.” After a pause, his voice gentled, as if he’d just remembered her part in the ordeal. “Hey, how are you holding up?”

  Oddly enough, her throat tightened at his concern. “Fine. I’m fine.”

  “Good. I’ll call you as soon as I get a break, okay, Brynnola?”

  Brynnola. That was the brother she knew and sometimes hated. “Okay, John-boy.”

  Minutes later, a dour-faced desk sergeant approached her. “Marshal Hunter would like to see you, Ms. Sutherland.”

  She followed him to the office where Cade sat behind a massive desk, dividing his attention between a phone call and two cops at his elbow arguing about overlapping jurisdiction. He did indeed have his hands full.

  When he noticed Brynn, though, Cade ended his phone discussion and sent the arguing cops out of the office. After shutting and locking the door, he paced back to the desk, sat on its edge and slid his hands into the pockets of his charcoal-gray jacket. That jacket now bore a Deputy United States Marshal badge.

  The warmth that had once been in his gaze for her was markedly absent. Not that he looked at her coldly, just impersonally. Which, to her, was just as bad. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Oh, Cade.” She crossed the distance between them, her chest both hollow and heavy. “I’m so sorry—”

  He stopped her with an upraised palm. “Don’t touch me, Brynn.”

  She froze in the act of reaching for him. Nothing could have communicated his change of heart more succinctly. Nothing could have pierced her more deeply. She’d never dreamed he’d say those words to her, much less mean them. And he clearly meant them.

  Only when she drew back into her own space did he continue. “There’s no need for you to apologize for anything.” His tone remained quiet and even. “I take full responsibility for the conclusions you and your friends reached. And, under the circumstances, I don’t blame them for trying to stop me.”

  “I didn’t reach any conclusions, and I didn’t know they were going to attack you, and I certainly didn’t—”

  The upraised hand stopped her again, along with a darkening of his expression. After acknowledging her outburst with a quelling stare, he continued, “The local police aren’t too happy about dropping the charges. They believed the three of them were working with the suspect to facilitate his escape.” At Brynn’s gasp, he assured her, “I think I’ve convinced them otherwise. The charges will be dropped.”

  “Thank you.” Her throat grew tight and dry. Despite his lack of overt animosity, he was astoundingly unreachable. “But you could have trusted me enough to tell me what you were doing. You didn’t have to lie about being a writer.”

  “As I said, I take full responsibility.”

  That wasn’t nearly good enough. “Was everything you told me part of your cover?” She couldn’t keep the sharpness from her tone. His treatment of her was starting to rankle. “Was everything you did with me part of the grand plan?”

  “Of course not.” A glimmer of emotion surfaced, then faded. “But my personal involvement with you was a mistake.”

  Incredible pain rendered her silent. Had he reached that conclusion because of her friends’ attack, or because the case was drawing to a close and he’d soon be leaving?

  “I never thought you were the Piper,” she stated flatly.

  “You didn’t call John and ask if I might be?”

  That caught her off guard. So John had told him about her call—after she’d asked him not to. She supposed he’d had little choice, though, considering Cade’s cover as a writer had been blown. “I only wanted to prove to Lexi and Trish that they didn’t have to worry about you.”

  “Is that why you came to me with their suspicions? Is that why you let me know you were meeting ‘Antoine’?”

  His sarcasm cut deep. But at least he was responding. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

  “Good job.”

  Amazing, how she felt so overcome by guilt, yet so wanted to lash out and blame everything on him. She was sure she could find a way to do it.

  “I called you in here to clear up another matter,” he said. “Something that has me puzzled, and a little concerned.”

  “What matter?”

  “Among the suspect’s possessions, we found a computer printout, dated yesterday, that has to do with Rhiannon Jeffries.”

  “Rhiannon Jeffries?” The surprises just kept on coming.

  “Why would the Piper have any interest in Rhiannon?”

  Brynn hadn’t a clue. The only time she ever thought about Rhiannon was in connection to her long-ago relationship with Cade. The relationship that had broken Brynn’s heart and shattered her trust in love. Of course, she’d since changed her mind about that whole affair. Cade said they hadn’t been intimate, and she now believed him.

  But she had told Lexi about their alleged affair. She’d also mentioned it to Trish….

  A terrible possibility entered Brynn’s mind. “What kind of information did he have about her?”

  “Just a printout from her personal Web site. Photos of Rhiannon, her home, her daughter.”

  Brynn’s heart dropped. “I…I want to talk to Trish.”

  “Why?”

  “Can you bring her in here, or get her on the phone?”

  He pulled out his cell phone, punched in a number, instructed someone to put Trish on the line, then handed the phone to Brynn. A few moments later, Trish picked up.

  “Trish,” Brynn said, trying unsuccessfully to keep a tremor out of her voice. “You know how I told you that Cade, um, was involved with a sorority sister of ours?” She avoided Cade’s eyes, hoping her suspicion was wrong.

  “Yeah?”

  “I didn’t tell you who it was, did I?”

  “No.” The reply sounded oddly tentative, though.

  “Did you…talk to Lexi about it?”

  “A little.”

  Foreboding pulsed through Brynn. “Did you come to any conclusions about who that sorority sister was?”

  “Sheesh, Brynnie. It wasn’t some classified government secret or anything. Lexi remi
nded me of how Cade brought Rhiannon Jeffries to that party. What’s the big deal?”

  “And did you then surmise anything from that?”

  A thick silence followed the question. “I did wonder if Cade had fathered Rhiannon’s baby.”

  “Did you mention that possibility to Antoine?”

  “I might have,” she hedged. “Just in passing.”

  Brynn shut her eyes and disconnected the call…and wished that the floor would open and swallow her whole. She felt Cade’s gaze on her, growing more intent.

  “Why would Fontaine have information about Rhiannon?” he asked again, his voice immeasurably harder than before.

  “If he’d figured out you were a cop,” she said, forcing herself to meet his gaze, “he might have decided to go after another victim.”

  “Rhiannon?”

  “Maybe, but…I’d be willing to bet he was more interested in her daughter.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, I’m just theorizing, but we know the Piper targeted wives, sisters and daughters of cops. So I’m thinking he might have wanted revenge against you for going undercover to catch him.”

  “What does that have to do with Rhiannon’s daughter?”

  “Trish might have mentioned the possibility that…um, she was also your daughter.”

  Never had she imagined Cade’s gaze could grow so cold. “You thought I fathered Rhiannon’s baby.”

  “Well…” She lifted a hand in a helpless attempt to express a jumble of explanations.

  “And that I’d left her to raise the child without me.”

  She winced. That had, of course, been her belief at one time. “You led me to think you were sexually involved with Rhiannon. When she turned up pregnant a few weeks later, it wasn’t too big of a leap.”

  Cade pushed away from his perch on the desk and strode past her, his face a dark, angry storm cloud ready to burst.

  “Cade, I jumped to that conclusion years ago, but lately, I—”

  “Go home, Brynn.” He unlocked the office door and stiffly held it open, his anger a palpable force. “And cancel the rest of my stay at the inn. I’ll have my things out of there today.”