Leverage

by Janie Crouch

  “Well, your reflexes are better than mine. Thank you.”

  “I had forward momentum going for me, otherwise I wouldn’t have made it.”

  What he really meant was Shelby wouldn’t have made it. Dylan could’ve stayed safely on the side of the road and would’ve been just fine.

  They both began to sit up. Ouch. Shelby could already feel a rip in her coat at the elbow where she’d hit the hardest, although Dylan had taken the brunt of the fall.

  “Are you okay?” she asked him. “You took your weight and some of mine.”

  “Yeah, I’ll be fine.” Dylan got to his feet then offered his hand to help Shelby up. She gratefully took it, grabbing her purse and working her way to a standing position. Now everything was starting to hurt. And this was what not getting hit by a car felt like.

  “Did the person driving just not see me?” They walked the rest of the way to her car.

  “It’s possible.”

  “But?” Shelby could hear the but in his tone. She was trying to get her keys out of her purse, but found her hands were shaking pretty badly. Dylan reached over and held the purse for her so she could manage to fish them out.

  “But it actually sped up. Definitely wasn’t typical rainy-night-driving behavior.”

  “Drunk, I’ll bet you. That’s the second time I’ve been almost run off the road. People around here need to pay better attention.” Shelby got her keys out and clicked open her car. She just wanted to get out of the rain.

  Dylan was looking toward where the car had sped off. “Yeah. For sure.”

  They walked together around to her driver’s side. He held the door open as she got into the car then shut it. Shelby cracked the window so she could hear what he had to say.

  “The motel is just a couple blocks down on the right. Don’t go anywhere else, okay? Just check in and rest until I let you know we can take off.”

  Shelby nodded. She wasn’t planning on doing anything but taking a hot shower and changing into dry clothes.

  “I won’t. I don’t think I’m up for much dancing.”

  A hint of a smile formed at Dylan’s mouth. “You’d be hard pressed to find dancing around here anyway. Unless they’ve got the karaoke set up at the Blue Moon, Falls Run’s bar.”

  The rain was pouring over Dylan. Shelby kind of felt bad for all the mean things she had thought about him since he’d saved her life and all. “Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked him.

  “Fine. Bye.”

  Evidently, gruff Dylan was back.

  “Okay, let me know when it’s time to go.” Shelby rolled up her window and started driving slowly down the road, not even looking back at Dylan in the rearview mirror. She was irritated at him and her whole body ached.

  This was why she tried to stay alone in her house as much as possible.

  Chapter Five

  Somebody was trying to kill Shelby Keelan.

  Dylan hadn’t wanted to say that to her in the parking lot of Sally’s diner while they were both soaking wet and banged up by a hard fall to the asphalt. Although, there probably wasn’t ever a good time to tell someone their life was in jeopardy.

  And Shelby’s was. By someone who was trying to make it look like an accident. The car that nearly ran Shelby down hadn’t been a drunk driver. As a matter of fact, it had probably been the same vehicle that had nearly driven her off the road earlier today. Both attempts had failed, but just barely.

  Dylan walked to his truck, opened it and hopped in, whistling through his teeth as he made it into the cab. Had he cracked a rib again? Damn it, he hoped not. Those hurt like hell. At the very least, his ribs were bruised. His shoulder, too. It had taken the brunt of the fall. But he was in one piece and so was Shelby.

  He’d almost been too late. If he’d reacted two seconds later, or if he hadn’t trusted his gut that told him that car was trouble, Shelby would be dead. No one could’ve survived being hit at that speed.

  Dylan hadn’t gotten any info about the car that would help them. Four-door, dark sedan wouldn’t narrow down anything; it wasn’t even worth calling in. And the car had been speeding by too fast for Dylan to catch helpful details.

  Dylan watched as Shelby pulled out of the parking lot and began driving slowly down the street. He started his truck so he could follow her. He’d make sure she got safely inside, then would try to go get some sleep himself for a couple hours. Surely she would be safe at the motel.

  But there had already been two attempts on her life. What would stop whoever was behind this from coming back to finish her in her motel room? That might actually be easier.

  Dylan knew he needed to get her to come stay at his house. Dylan wasn’t connected to her in any known way, so whoever was following her wouldn’t be looking for her at his house. She could leave her car parked at the motel and Dylan could sneak her out the back door in case someone was watching.

  Of course, he’d have to stop acting like a total jerk if he wanted to convince her to do that. How had Shelby phrased it? Treating her as if she had the plague.

  Dylan ran a weary hand over his face as he parked his truck across the street from the motel and watched Shelby walk into the front office. Yeah, he definitely could’ve handled that whole situation at the restaurant better. But he’d thought Shelby would just give him the codes and they’d go their separate ways. She might think he was a little abrupt, but no real harm done.

  How the heck was Dylan supposed to have known the codes were in her head and that she needed to be at Omega for all of this to work? How was that even possible? If the number sequence was too lengthy to be written up or easily transferred by an electronic medium, then how the hell could Shelby Keelan have them all inside her brain?

  When his ex-boss had called, Burgamy should’ve made it abundantly clear that Shelby would be coming with Dylan to Omega HQ. Dylan had mentioned that fact to Burgamy, who had just quipped back: What difference does it make? Your plane seats more than one, right? You can fit some codes and one woman.

  Yeah, his Cessna sat more than one—up to eight, in fact—but that wasn’t really the point. Dylan would’ve kept much more of a distance from Shelby if he had known they would be together for a few days.

  Because Dylan wasn’t sure he could keep his hands off Shelby Keelan for days. He hadn’t felt this attracted to anyone in a long time. Not since Fiona. Hell, maybe not even for Fiona.

  Which he couldn’t even bring himself to think about.

  There had been women since Fiona, of course. During the beginning downward spiral, there had been way too many women—just part of a series of bad choices Dylan made in the name of dealing with unbearable grief. But none of them had meant anything; none of them had touched him in any sort of meaningful way.

  After just a few short hours in Shelby’s company, Dylan wasn’t sure he’d be able to say the same thing about her.

  Dylan wasn’t proud of how he’d handled the situation at the diner. A yelling match in front of Sally’s was never a good plan. But the thought of spending more time with Shelby? It was both the most exciting and most frightening prospect Dylan had had in his personal life in years.

  And now Dylan had to talk her into coming to his house. Her presence there, even for only a few short hours, was going to disrupt his peaceful, orderly life. Dylan just knew it. But what other choice did he have? He couldn’t leave her in town alone. So even though she didn’t seem too keen on the idea of staying with him, Dylan would have to change her mind.

  And he would just have to keep the attraction he had for this woman, and her damn freckles, under control.

  From across the street, Dylan watched as Shelby came back out of the motel’s office, key in hand. She drove her car a little farther into the parking lot and parked in front of a room. After a moment, she got out of her car with a small s
uitcase and entered her room.

  The Falls Run Motel wasn’t fancy, but it was clean and family friendly. There was one building with two floors of rooms. The back of all the bottom-level rooms had sliding glass doors with small concrete patios; the upper-level rooms all had small decks, both providing views of the mountains.

  Shelby’s room was on the first floor, which made Dylan’s plan much easier. He had to talk to her, but knew he didn’t want to go through her room’s front door. He needed to get her out in secret in case someone was watching. That left the back sliding glass door.

  Dylan pulled his truck farther into the shadows of the bank parking lot that stood across the street from the motel. He turned off the engine and flipped a switch for the light in the cab so it wouldn’t turn on when he opened the door. Just in case. He slid out of the cab, pushing all pain to the side. He felt a little ridiculous hugging the shadows as he made his way across the street in the rain, but he’d learned over the years that an ounce of prevention was worth three and a half tons of cure.

  Dylan made his way around the back of the motel, keeping away from the lights. He silently walked along the line of trees until he was right behind Shelby’s room. No lights were on in the rooms on either side of her, which was good. Shelby had pulled the curtain closed, so only a tiny bit of light cracked through the glass door. Dylan approached the door and tapped on it softly.

  “Shelby.” Dylan put his mouth almost up to the door. He didn’t want his voice to carry. He could see the shadow of movement in the room, but couldn’t tell if Shelby could hear him. He tapped again, a little louder.

  The curtain inched back and Shelby peeked out, but Dylan could tell she still couldn’t see him from where he was in the shadows. He tapped again right where she was looking and brought his face close to the window.

  Her short shriek made Dylan thankful there wasn’t anyone in the rooms next to hers. The curtain flew back down, but Dylan heard the unlocking of the door a moment later.

  “You scared the pants off me,” Shelby hissed. She had a towel wrapped around her neck, drying rain out of her long red hair. It looked even more red against the white of the cloth.

  “Sorry.”

  “What are you doing here? And why are you at the back door? Why didn’t you use the front?”

  Dylan put a finger up to his lips. He didn’t want her to announce to everyone he was here. “I’m trying to talk with you without anyone knowing I’m here. Do you mind if I come in?”

  At least she didn’t hesitate as she opened the door farther and stepped back, which surprised Dylan a little bit. He wouldn’t have been surprised if he had to plead his case from a cracked door after how he’d acted. He walked in and slid the door closed behind him, pulling the curtain to give them privacy from any possible prying eyes.

  “Come back because you found just the right words to let me know how you don’t like me?” Shelby stood, arms folded and eyebrow raised, by one of the beds in the room.

  Dylan winced. He supposed he deserved that, at least a little.

  “I’m sorry about before.”

  If anything, Shelby’s eyebrow arched even higher. She didn’t say anything.

  “Listen, I was going to leave you alone here, let you get some rest, go home and do the same myself before we leave in a couple hours. But the fact is, someone tried to kill you tonight.”

  Shelby looked shocked then sat down on the bed and began smoothing her wet hair with the towel almost absently. “First of all, thanks for saving my life. But me almost dying and someone trying to kill me are two different things, Dylan.”

  “I know. I don’t use the terms interchangeably.” Dylan took a step closer, more to keep his shadow away from the curtain than anything else. But his action drew her attention. She stood and began walking farther away without a word, turning her back to him.

  Dylan sighed. He guessed he deserved that, too.

  But instead of taking the plastic chair at the farthest point away from him in the room, as Dylan thought she was going to do, Shelby walked into the bathroom and came back out with another towel a moment later. She tossed it to him and sat back down on the bed.

  “You look as miserable as I feel. Maybe that will help dry you off enough so that you’re at least not dripping.”

  Dylan began to towel off his face and hair. “Thanks.”

  “Don’t look so surprised. I’m not a she devil, you know.”

  “I never thought you were.”

  Her eyebrow rose again.

  Dylan changed the subject. “That guy tonight wasn’t a drunk driver who got sloppy. That car was someone coming at you with the specific intention of running you down.”

  Shelby stopped drying her hair and clutched the towel to her like a security blanket. Her green eyes were huge in her pale face. “Do you really think that’s true?”

  “Well, let me ask you this. Do you remember anything about the car that almost ran you off the road earlier today while you were driving up here?”

  Shelby shrugged. “Not too much. I’m good with remembering numbers, but not much of anything else.”

  Dylan didn’t want to just feed an image into her mind. He wanted to see if he could help her remember. “Was it a light or dark color, or maybe a specific color you remember, like red or yellow?”

  “No, definitely not a bright color. It was dark, maybe black or gray. I can’t really recall.”

  “That’s okay.” Dylan sat down on the bed across from hers. “Is there anything you can remember about the model of the vehicle? Maybe it was an SUV or a noticeable brand of car, like a VW or a Jeep?”

  “No, I don’t know anything about cars. But it wasn’t anything like that. I just remember thinking it was an old person’s car. That maybe it was some old person who shouldn’t be driving at all if he or she was going to run people off the road.”

  “Okay, an old person’s car.” That was the info Dylan had been hoping for. “A sedan.”

  “Yeah, a sedan.” Shelby nodded. “But I don’t know what make or anything.”

  “That’s okay, you don’t have to. But I think you might find it interesting that the car that tried to run you down tonight was also a dark sedan. Someone has tried to kill you today. Twice. Both in ways that would seem like an accident.”

  Shelby bounded off the bed. The towel was still clutched in front of her. “What am I going to do?”

  “I don’t think it’s safe for you to stay here tonight in case that person tries to come back and finish what he started. It would be too easy to find you.”

  Shelby nodded almost blankly.

  “I know you were pretty resistant to this idea before, but I think you should come back to my house. Nobody would know you’re there and we’ll leave in the plane as soon as possible. It’s not safe for you to be alone anymore.”

  Chapter Six

  Shelby could hear what Dylan was saying, but it was as if she was processing it too slowly to make sense. Someone was trying to kill her? On purpose?

  The whole concept was pretty foreign. And Dylan was afraid someone would find her here at the motel?

  “How would they find me here?” she asked.

  “It’s the only motel in all of Falls Run. If you assumed that what happened earlier was only an accident, you’d probably check in here, get some rest. If I was a killer, I’d look here first.”

  Shelby walked over by the curtains. She wanted to peek out, to open the door and see if the boogeyman was on the porch ready to attack them, but knew she couldn’t.

  Was Dylan right? Could someone actually be trying to kill her? They were dealing with DS-13, which Megan assured Shelby was definitely a group to take seriously. Shelby had the codes in her head and knew the numbers were some sort of countdown. But she had no idea what they were counting down to; that�
�s where Megan’s computer decryption program came in. Shelby and Megan’s computer program had to be in the same room together so Shelby could feed in the data and eliminate what wasn’t necessary. Only Shelby could do that. And once she did, they’d be able to figure out the what and the where the countdown referred to.

  Were the numbers in her head worth someone killing her for? She didn’t want to think so, but the aches and bruises from her close encounter with a speeding car—which did look a lot like the one she’d seen earlier today, now that Dylan mentioned it—told her otherwise. So, yeah, maybe someone was trying to kill her.

  Yet another reason why she should have just stayed home.

  At least Dylan didn’t seem so irritated by her very existence anymore. He wasn’t the sexy, flirty Dylan he’d been a few hours ago, but at least he wasn’t yelling at her. She didn’t necessarily want to go back to his house with him, but neither did she want to stay here with a possible attacker. Uncomfortable was definitely better than dead.

  She nodded at Dylan. “Okay, I’ll come with you.”

  Dylan tossed the towel down on the bed. “Good. That really is the safest thing.”

  “Should I bring my whole suitcase? Everything I brought?”

  “If you need everything, I can carry the whole suitcase out. But it would be better if you had just a small bag with a few necessities. Makes us much more mobile getting to my truck.”

  “Okay.”

  “Plus, if someone does break in here, it makes it look like you’re still around somewhere. It would cause the perp to think maybe he missed you somehow. Buy us more time while he waits for you to come back.”

  Shelby shuddered at the thought of someone coming in here, waiting for her. She looked quickly at the front door and the glass door. Two ways someone could get in. Shelby definitely didn’t want to stay here.

  “Let me pack a bag.” Shelby grabbed a shirt, a pair of jeans and some underwear, rolling them into a ball with the delicates—did it have to be a red-and-black thong?—on the inside. Shelby grabbed a toothbrush and a comb, thankful she’d never been one for wearing much makeup. The tennis shoes and socks on her feet would be fine.