CARRIE'S PROTECTOR

by Rebecca York

  “He was in a position to know. This time you stay here, and keep the door locked.” He closed the computer and stood up, thinking that going to Madison’s house would get him away from Carrie for a while. And right now, he needed that distance. He’d done something stupid, and he didn’t want to remain in the way of temptation.

  But she apparently didn’t understand his point of view—on any level.

  “Uh, I don’t think so.”

  He turned and faced her. “You don’t think what?”

  “I don’t think you’re leaving me here.”

  “It’s the safest alternative.”

  Carrie stood and crossed the room, putting a firm hand on his arm.

  He turned and looked at her. “Your father hired me to make judgment calls. It’s safer if you stay here.”

  “Nothing’s safe.”

  “But there’s less risk keeping out of sight.”

  “That’s not what you said before.”

  “The situation’s changed.”

  “If you’re going to talk to Madison, I’m going with you,” she repeated. “I’m the one they’re trying to kill, and I have the right to know what’s going on.”

  He wanted to say they were trying to kill him, too. He wanted to add that she would be the next person to get any information he picked up, but he knew she wasn’t going to accept that.

  He sighed. “Okay.” Walking over to the bag of clothing they’d bought, he pulled out black jeans and a black, long-sleeved polo shirt, which he took into the bathroom and put on.

  When he came out, she gave him a curious look. “Are we going to talk to the man or break into his house?”

  “You never know.”

  “Give me a minute.”

  She grabbed similar dark clothing and stepped into the bathroom. When she closed the door, he thought about leaving her in the motel but decided not to take the underhanded approach.

  She came out a few moments later, and he handed her the hat and sunglasses he’d bought. “Put these on.”

  When she had complied, he studied her, trying to assess how much she looked like the woman he’d just seen on television. She’d lost weight since he’d met her, which made her face more angular.

  “I can’t wear the sunglasses after dark,” she muttered.

  “You’ll wear them to the car now.” He stopped and gave her a direct look. “And the same rules apply as when we were in the field outside the safe house. If I tell you to do something, you have to obey me.”

  “You mean like an S-and-M master?” she shot back.

  He snorted. “You know what I mean.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then let me go out first.”

  “You wouldn’t have tried to make me stay here if you thought it wasn’t safe,” she pointed out.

  “Yeah, but I’m not taking any chances. When I give you the all clear, don’t run to the car. Walk like we’re here on a fun vacation.”

  “In Columbia?”

  “Maybe you’re planning a shopping trip to the Columbia Mall.”

  When she laughed, he said, “The point is, we don’t want to attract any attention.”

  There were no problems on the way to the car. When Carrie had settled into her seat, he pulled out of the parking space. Twisting the wheel made his arm hurt, but he figured the pain would keep him focused. Beside him, Carrie took off the sunglasses, tucked them into her purse and folded her hands in her lap. She sat very still, and he wondered if she was thinking she shouldn’t have come along.

  Finally, she cleared her throat. “Tell me about Aaron Madison. Why do you think he could be a problem?”

  “He certainly had access to the information about your trip downtown.”

  “Didn’t a lot of government people?”

  “Not really. They were trying to keep it under wraps so nothing bad would happen.”

  She made a dismissive sound. “Well, that certainly worked out well.” After a few moments of silence, she asked, “What else about him made you wonder?”

  “It’s hard to say. There’s something about him that I can’t put into words. I guess you’d call it a hunch that he could be a problem. Maybe because he always seemed on edge when I talked with him.”

  “Meeting with me was a big responsibility. That could be why.”

  “Maybe,” he said, but he was still wondering if it was something more sinister.

  They rode in silence for a while before she asked, “Where does he live?”

  “Bethesda,” he answered, naming a close-in, expensive D.C. suburb.

  “Won’t his family wonder why we’re dropping in after hours—or at all?”

  “He doesn’t have any children, and he and his wife, Rita, recently separated,” he answered, glad to put the focus on Madison again.

  “Do you know why?”

  “No. I only know that she moved out a few months ago and got an apartment in one of the luxury buildings near the D.C. line.”

  “Isn’t it unusual for the wife to be the one to leave?”

  “Yes. That’s one of the things I noticed.”

  “You had him investigated?”

  “Not with any depth.” He tightened his hands on the wheel. “Which may have been a mistake.”

  He waited for a comment on that, but she said nothing about his investigative skills. Instead, she said, “I met him briefly.”

  “How did he seem?”

  She thought for a moment. “Anxious not to spend too much time with me. Now that I think back on it, I felt like he didn’t want to get to know me very well.”

  Not a good sign, Wyatt thought as he drove down Route 29 to the Beltway, where he got off at the Connecticut Avenue exit, then took Bradley Boulevard, which was a shortcut to the section of the posh suburb where the Madison house was located.

  Wyatt turned onto Wisconsin Avenue, then onto a side street where the houses were mostly brick two-stories that looked as though they had been built in the forties or fifties. Large trees marched up the green parkway between the curb and the sidewalk, and all the lawns and shrubbery were well maintained. It was obviously an upscale environment.

  “A solid old neighborhood,” Carrie remarked as she peered into the gathering darkness. “Which house is it?”

  “157.” He pointed to a redbrick colonial where most of the lights were turned off. When he got to the end of the block, he turned the corner, then did it again, putting them on the street in back of the Madison house.

  “What are you doing?” Carrie asked.

  “Taking precautions. I don’t want anyone to know we’re here.”

  “It would make for a quicker getaway if we parked closer.”

  “You think we’ll need to get away fast?”

  She shrugged. “I hope not. I guess I was thinking of what they do in action movies.”

  As they walked up the sidewalk and around the corner, Wyatt kept their pace moderate, as if they were out for an evening stroll. As far as he could see, there was no one else doing the same, and he hoped no one was looking out their windows trying to figure out who the man and woman were.

  As they walked past parked cars, he looked inside but found them empty.

  They reached 157 and turned into the driveway, which was about twenty-five yards long and sheltered by a tall hedge between Madison and the neighbors. At least that gave them a bit of privacy.

  Carrie stared at the large two-story looming before them. “How can the guy afford all this on a government salary?”

  Wyatt’s thoughts were running along the same lines. “Maybe he inherited money. Or maybe he’s got another source.”

  Wyatt walked softly up the blacktop driveway, trying to make as little noise as possible, listening for sounds from the house or
the surroundings. There were none.

  He got to a place where someone who pulled up in a car could turn off and take a path of wide stepping stones to the front door. Instead, he kept walking along the driveway. Carrie followed, and he was glad she wasn’t asking questions.

  They arrived at a six-foot-tall wooden fence to the backyard. The gate was standing open. Wyatt stepped through and looked around, then motioned for Carrie to follow. Inside the yard he led her toward the back door, which featured glass panes in the top half. Like the gate, it was standing ajar.

  Beside him, she drew in a quick breath. “What’s going on?” she whispered.

  He shook his head, drawing his sidearm as he peered through the glass into the empty kitchen, where cabinets stood open and boxes of cereal and pasta had been thrown from the shelves onto the counters and the floor.

  He cursed under his breath, wishing he’d insisted that Carrie stay at the motel. But she was here now, and he had to deal with it.

  “Stay by the door,” he whispered.

  Entering the kitchen, he held his gun in a two-handed grip, swinging it in all directions, looking for whoever had made this mess. There appeared to be no one in this part of the house, but he took a quick run through the first-floor laundry room, then the living room and dining room before motioning Carrie to follow. Both rooms were in disarray, as though someone had conducted a search without caring how much mess they made.

  “It’s spooky.” Carrie wrapped her arms around her shoulders. “What do you think happened?”

  “Someone was searching—in a hurry.”

  “Are they gone?”

  “It looks that way, unless they did the same thing we did and parked around the corner.”

  They walked quietly down a short hall toward the front of the house. On one side were double doors that led to a home office. Wyatt could see books pulled from the bookcase, the rug turned up, credenza drawers open. There was also a glass and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s spilled on the rug.

  It was a worse mess than in the kitchen, but there was something even more disturbing—a pair of men’s shoes and trouser-clad legs sticking out from one side of the desk.

  Carrie gasped.

  “Stay back.”

  Wyatt rushed forward and found the man he’d been looking for lying on the floor behind the desk.

  Aaron Madison was in his early forties with a receding hairline. Once, his features had been handsome. Now his face was battered, and his glasses lay on the floor near the wall, shattered. His eyes were closed, but one was badly swollen. His nose was smashed, and his lips were split and bloody. His shirt was open, and Wyatt saw that a knife had been used to carve up his chest, but not so deeply that he was going to die right away.

  He’d hoped to spare Carrie the gruesome sight, but he knew she was right behind him.

  “Oh, Lord,” she gasped as she stared at the man. “Who did this to him?”

  “I hope it’s not someone trying to get information about you.”

  When she sucked in a sharp breath, he wished he’d kept that thought to himself. As he knelt beside Madison, he pressed two fingers to the man’s neck, where he felt a faint pulse.

  “He’s alive.” Barely, he thought. “Someone worked him over. The same someone who trashed the house. I’m going to call an ambulance.”

  The man’s good eye fluttered open and focused on Wyatt. “Too late,” he whispered. “Internal injuries...bad.”

  “Who did this?”

  Instead of answering, Madison asked, “Wyatt Hawk? What...are you doing...here?”

  “A hunch. Who did this?”

  Again Madison ignored the question as though it were dangerous to tell what had happened to him. Even now.

  “They didn’t get into the safe,” Madison whispered. He dragged in a rattling breath.

  “You need—”

  “To tell you the combo...twenty-six right.” He paused. “Fifteen left.” Again he stopped to catch his breath. “Double right turn to seventy-two.”

  After delivering the message, he closed his eyes again. Wyatt gripped his shoulder. “Where is the safe?”

  “Behind...medicine cabinet in bathroom down the hall.”

  “Stay with him,” Wyatt said to Carrie. “See if he can tell you anything else.”

  Carrie knelt beside the man. “You need medical attention,” she murmured.

  Wyatt left the gun with Carrie and hurried down the hall to the bathroom. The medicine cabinet stood open, and the contents were scattered around the small room, but the cabinet itself was undisturbed. It was not a standard model but an ornately carved wooden box that was fixed to the wall with hooks above the top pediment. The bottom rested on a bracket.

  Wyatt lifted the cabinet up, detaching it and setting it on the floor, revealing a safe embedded in the wall. Quickly he began spinning the dial, working the combination that Madison had given him.

  Twenty-six right, fifteen left. Double right turn to seventy-two. With the last turn, the lock clicked, and he pulled the door open. There was a wad of folded bills inside—ranging from twenties to hundreds. Beside them was a small notebook. Wyatt left the money and took out the book, thumbing through the pages. There were number notations, but he couldn’t tell what they meant, exactly. He’d have to ask Madison.

  A noise behind him made him whirl. It was Carrie, her face stark.

  “I guess he didn’t make it?”

  “No,” she choked out.

  “Did he say anything?”

  “He looked at me and said he’d been stupid.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he know who you were?”

  “I think so.” She swallowed hard. “He must have betrayed me, and—”

  “Don’t jump to conclusions.”

  “It has to do with me!”

  “But maybe not the way you think.” Wyatt held up the book. “We don’t know how he’s connected to the ambush, if he is at all, but I think this is what the people who searched the house were looking for.”

  “Lucky we didn’t run into them.”

  He nodded and handed the book to her, watching as she flipped through the pages. “What is it?”

  She shook her head. “No idea.”

  As they stood in the bathroom, he became aware of a background noise that grew and swelled—a siren coming closer. “The cops are coming,” he muttered. “We’d better split.”

  “What about Madison?”

  “We can’t do anything for him.”

  He reached for a tissue from the box on top of the toilet tank and wiped his fingerprints off the safe dial. Had he touched anything in the office where the cops could get prints? He hoped not.

  The siren was getting louder. “Come on.”

  He sprinted back down the hall and grabbed the gun she’d left on the floor.

  “Sorry,” she muttered.

  “Not your job.”

  He led her into the kitchen and out the door. On the street, he could see flashing red and blue lights. They couldn’t get out that way, but could they get out at all?

  Silently cursing the bad timing, he led her into the backyard, around a swimming pool and over to the back fence, which was about six feet tall. Too bad Madison had been so conscientious about enclosing the pool.

  When he saw Carrie eyeing the fence, he said, “Let me go first.”

  He hoisted himself up and scrambled over. On the other side there were rails where he could rest his feet. Reaching down, he grabbed Carrie’s hand, helping her up and over. They both dropped to the ground in the yard behind Madison’s.

  From the other side of the fence, they heard running feet in the driveway, but now they were screened from view.

  “Come on.”
>
  Thankful that he’d followed his instincts and parked on the opposite street, Wyatt started across the yard in back of the Madison house, another suburban oasis, also featuring a pool.

  Before he and Carrie had made it halfway, a dog began to bark, and he cursed again. It sounded medium-size, and maybe the cops would think the animal was barking at them.

  Apparently, the canine was in the house. Hoping the owner wasn’t going to let it out, he kept moving through the yard.

  Lights were already flicking on in the house, and he ducked low as he reached the neighbor’s gate and swung it open.

  They hurried through, and he thought they were going to make it to the street without further incident when floodlights clicked on, illuminating the yard.

  Grabbing Carrie, Wyatt threw them both into the shrubbery moments before a door opened.

  He waited with his heart pounding, peering out and seeing a man dressed in jeans and a button-down shirt standing in the light coming from the front hall. Wyatt had a gun and the homeowner probably didn’t, but he wasn’t going to shoot anybody.

  Beside him he could feel Carrie waiting tensely and put a reassuring hand on her arm.

  Seconds ticked by. Praying that the guy wasn’t stupid enough to put himself in danger, Wyatt forced himself to wait. Finally he heard the front door shut again. He stayed where he was for another minute, but he knew that the cops could come this way any moment.

  “Got to move,” he whispered. “Stay in the bushes.”

  They crawled through the shrubbery to the next house and waited again.

  When he heard more footsteps, he tensed. This time it was a patrol officer, coming along the sidewalk, shining his light into the greenery.

  Chapter Seven

  Wyatt pressed Carrie down, flattening himself on top of her, hiding his face and hoping that their dark clothing would keep them from being discovered.

  With his mouth near her ear, he whispered, “Don’t look up.”

  Tension zinged through him as the cop made his slow way up the sidewalk.

  When Wyatt heard the footsteps stop, every muscle in his body tightened as he ran scenarios through his mind.

  They were on the run from terrorists, and maybe he could explain why they’d decided to question Aaron Madison, but he knew that if the cops found them, they’d be in for a long interrogation—which would put Carrie in danger because there was no way of knowing who was feeding information to the bad guys.