Ethan was tempted to agree to the plan, tempted to hide her away in the safe house and stand guard. But that was emotion talking, not logic.
“You need me on the investigation, not holed up in the safe house,” he said flatly. He turned to Evangeline. “Take Nicole to the Vault with you. That way she’s safe, and you can run things underground while Robert and I—”
“Don’t even finish that statement,” Evangeline interrupted, eyes blazing. “And don’t think for one second that I’m staying in the Vault while you big, strong men fix everything. Two years ago, Clive Fuentes took the man I loved. I didn’t go after him then because I didn’t know who was behind it, since somebody—” her eyes flicked to Robert “—wanted to protect me by keeping me in the dark like some idiot child. But not this time. Not ever again. I’m going to be on the front lines of this one, and you two can go to hell.”
She stalked out of the room and slammed the door, leaving silence in her wake.
After a moment, Robert let out a breath and glanced at Nicole. “Sorry about that. You two got caught in a bit of a marital crossfire.”
“Seemed like more than a bit,” Ethan said, rubbing absently at a faint ache in his chest. “Maybe I should go talk to her, apologize or something.”
“Don’t bother. It’s me she really wants to have at.” Robert headed for the door.
“Wait!” Nic said quickly. When Robert turned back, she ordered, “Tell me what’s going on here. I deserve to know why someone tried to kill me.”
She’d gotten some color back in her cheeks, Ethan noticed, which made him think anger became her. Then again, pretty much everything suited her. She was a lovely woman, through and through, one who’d made him feel—
Nothing, he thought sharply. She’d made him feel nothing because he chose to feel nothing. No strong attachments, no repeat business, no promises. It was better that way.
“Ethan will bring you up to speed,” Robert said, voice brooking no argument. “He’ll stick with you and keep you safe while you try to remember what you saw from that elevator. It could be the break we need.” He glanced at Ethan. “You said it yourself—she’s yours.”
With that, he turned and exited the hospital room, where the air hung thick with tension.
“Sorry,” Ethan said, knowing she deserved far better than she was getting. But that was the point, wasn’t it? She—and the baby—deserved better than he was capable of giving.
“There’s no need to apologize. You’ve made your position perfectly clear already,” she said coolly. “But since it looks like we’re stuck with each other, how about telling me what the hell’s going on?” She paused, glanced around and frowned. “On second thought, do you have a car here?”
Unwilling to admit that he’d argued his way onto the ambulance with her, he said, “My Jeep.” Robert had arranged to have it driven to the hospital once the immediate panic had settled down.
She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed, giving him a serious eyeful of bare thigh before she yanked the blanket off the bed and draped it around herself, toga-style.
Ethan scowled. “Don’t even think you’re leaving. You’ve got a concussion.”
“And you were trained as a medic,” she shot back, surprising him. “I’ll be fine. Dr. Eballa said I could leave.” Then she looked at him, a hint of vulnerability creeping into her eyes. “Look, Ethan. The situation stinks for both of us, but it’ll stink a whole lot less for me once I get out of here. I want to be in my apartment, wearing real clothes and hunkered down under my afghan, okay? And if that makes me terminally lame, then so be it.”
“You’re not lame,” Ethan said softly, “but you can’t go home. They knew your name and your hospital room number. I guarantee they know where you live.”
“Oh. Hell.” She paled, but pressed her lips together resolutely and nodded. “You’re right. Of course you’re right. But I don’t want to go to your place, and I’m not going to that vault thing Robert was talking about. I want neutral territory.”
“I can respect that.” Heck, it’s what he would’ve insisted on in her situation. “A hotel, then.” When her eyes sharpened, he was reminded of the other time they’d been in a hotel room together. Ignoring the hard, hot stab that buried itself in his gut, he held up a hand. “Separate rooms with a connecting door. Deal?”
She looked at him for a long moment. Then she nodded. “Deal.”
EXHAUSTION beat through every fiber of Nic’s body, but pride had her shaking off Ethan’s offer of help and stalking to his late-model Jeep under her own power. She even managed not to whimper as she climbed into the passenger’s side and strapped herself into the bucket seat, but it was a close call. God, she was tired. And sore. And confused.
Once they were on the night-darkened road, she glanced over at his set profile, visible in the glow of dashboard indicators and the flicker of oncoming headlights. “Okay, give me the short version. I’m not sure I can stay awake for anything longer than that.”
He nodded, but kept his attention on the road when he began. “It all starts with a man named Clive Fuentes. He was Robert’s mentor back in the day, when Robert was British intelligence at MI6 and Clive was working for their Spanish counterpart, IR6. After both of them retired, they hooked back up here in the States and decided to go into the personal security business together. At the time it seemed like a fortuitous coincidence. Now it looks like Clive was trolling for an aboveboard partner to hide some seriously dirty dealings. When Robert started looking too closely, Clive arranged for him to die in a plane crash. That was two years ago.”
Surprise skittered through her, along with new unease at the realization she’d stumbled into something far bigger than she’d suspected. Somehow, the air strike and the incident at the hospital had seemed, if not spur of the moment, then not fully planned out. This new information made the situation seem far more complicated, far more dangerous, which had her feeling a faint hitch of relief when he took the next side street and she realized he was doubling back on their track and keeping a sharp eye on the rearview mirror.
She might not be totally comfortable with him, but she had to admit she felt better knowing she had a trained bodyguard on her side.
“Go on,” she urged.
He glanced at her, and then back at the road before he said, “Obviously, Robert didn’t die in the crash. He went into hiding, figuring that was the best way to protect Evangeline from whoever was after him.”
“I take it she hasn’t forgiven him for that move yet,” Nic said, remembering the scene in her hospital room.
“That’s putting it mildly,” Ethan agreed. “Once he’d tracked the crash and various dirty business dealings back to Clive, Robert contacted PPS, which Evangeline had kept up and running while he was gone. With the help of a couple of our operatives, he was able to transfer a big chunk of Clive’s money out of an offshore account. When that didn’t flush Clive out of hiding, Robert came home. That was last month. Since then, we’ve been doing our best to locate Clive, but he’s disappeared.”
Nic nodded slowly. “If this Clive is trying to protect his own butt by killing Robert, though, why the air strike at the office building? That was pretty dramatic.”
“It’s more complicated than that.” Ethan glanced at her, eyes deadly serious. “Did you follow any of the news surrounding Nick Warner’s death?”
She shook her head. “I’ve seen his movies, sure. And I knew he’d been killed. It was a stalker, right?”
“That’s how the PR people spun it,” Ethan said. “Truth is, his death, and at least six others seem to be connected to an illegal and very big-money oil-rights pyramid scheme. PPS got involved because one of our agents was guarding Warner’s wife the night he was killed, and wound up with an encrypted disk and the name of the next victim. One thing led to another and now we’re all neck-deep in this mess. Most of the evidence points back to a company called Tri Corp. Media, but we seem to have hit a dead end there. The head ho
ncho, Stephen Turner, is clean. His son Peter was one of the major players in the scheme, but he was taken out of the action a couple of months ago, and things have kept getting worse since.” He grimaced. “The bastards are focused on PPS now. They even took out one of our techs. Lenny. Nice kid.”
Nic pressed her fingertips to her eyes, trying to slow the spinning in her brain. “So let me get this straight. There are two sets of people who want to destroy PPS?”
“Yes and no. Thing is, the pyramid scheme was funneled through the same shell company Clive was using—Kingston Trust.” He paused. “What we don’t know yet is whether Clive was working with Peter to run the whole show, or if he was just an investor of some sort, one who didn’t make it onto the list for some reason.”
“List?” Nic’s head was buzzing with all the information, but she was rapidly becoming convinced that leaving the hospital and not going back to her apartment were both very good decisions. This whole thing was way bigger than she’d expected.
“We got our hands on a computerized list of the Kingston Trust investors, including all of the dead men, in order of death, with Evangeline’s name at the bottom.” There was a low burn of anger in Ethan’s voice now, one that suggested his relationship with Robert’s wife went deeper than boss-employee.
The realization jarred Nic with conflicting emotions—both empathy and jealousy for a woman she’d barely met. “I take it she never invested in Kingston Trust.”
“No. It’s a hit list. And I hate to say it, but it’s a safe bet she’s not the last one on it anymore. Not after what happened today.”
“What do you—” Nic broke off abruptly when she realized there was a good chance her name had been added to the list because she’d been in the wrong elevator at the wrong time and had seen something that could lead PPS and the cops to the killers. Something she couldn’t remember.
She shivered and looked out the window as Ethan signaled and pulled into the neon-lit parking area outside of one of the many hotels clustered near the Denver International Airport.
He rolled to a stop, threw the transmission into Park and glanced at her. “This okay?”
“As tired as I am right now, it could be a Shingle Roof Inn with no roof and I wouldn’t complain.”
“Good.” He climbed down from the driver’s side, and she was shaky enough to wait until he opened her door and helped her down. But when they were just shy of the hotel entrance, he lifted a hand to a passing cab. When the vehicle pulled over, he opened the door and gestured her in, crowding her with his big body as he slid in after her. “The Crowne, please.”
“That’s back the way we came,” Nic protested, then realized what he was up to. “Oh.”
He nodded and said in an undertone, “It’s just a precaution, in case I wasn’t as careful as I thought, or they have the Jeep bugged.”
She exhaled and felt tears press as the day’s events began to catch up with her. “Thanks. I’m glad…I appreciate what you’re doing for me.”
“I’m a bodyguard,” he said simply.
“Right,” Nic said, letting her head fall back against the seat, unaccountably disappointed.
She didn’t remember falling asleep, but the next thing she knew, Ethan was nudging her awake. “We’re here. Can you make it a little farther?”
“Of course.” She struggled up, feeling every bruise and ache as she followed Ethan into the hotel, practically dozing on her feet while he rented them connecting rooms. He guided her onto the elevators and off at the correct floor, then swiped the key card and held open the door to her room.
“You’ll be safe in here. Room service is sending up a wrapped sandwich and a couple of bottles of water. I’m right next door if you need anything.”
“Thanks.” She looked up at him, fatigue making her feel so fragile she might shatter from it. “Thanks for everything. I know this wasn’t what you wanted to—”
He touched a finger to her lips. “Turn it off for a few hours. We’ll deal with everything else tomorrow.”
They stood like that for a heartbeat, with his fingertip just grazing her lower lip, bringing a shimmer of contact and awareness to her midsection.
He stepped back before she could react. “Sorry. See you in the morning.”
He let the door swing shut between them. Moments later, the electronic lock engaged.
“Damn it.” Nic pressed her lips together, trying not to feel a hum of warmth at the place he’d just touched. “Just damn it.”
She didn’t bother showering or finger-brushing her teeth, or even undressing. She just toed off her shoes and headed straight for the king-sized bed that dominated the high-end hotel room. She was so tired that the soft mattress felt like a cloud, the cotton comforter like the finest silk.
She was asleep within minutes.
Her dreams teemed with dark, amorphous images and the sensation of falling, of suffocating. Then she was suffocating.
She jolted awake on a muffled scream with her heart hammering in her chest and her breath locked in her lungs. A man’s weight pressed her into the mattress as he straddled her, his knees pinning her arms at her sides and his hand covering her mouth and nose.
He didn’t speak, didn’t react to her struggles except to tighten his legs at her sides. He simply pressed down and waited for her to die.
Chapter Five
Ethan was on his feet and across the hotel room before he knew he was awake. Not questioning the response or the battle-ready adrenaline buzz, he yanked open the connecting door.
A man’s dark shadow leapt off the bed and fled for the hallway door. Ethan roared and lunged in pursuit, nearly going down when the bastard yanked a desk chair into his path. The stumble cost him precious seconds, and by the time he’d regained his balance, the man was out the door and running down the hall.
Ethan bolted after him, but then stopped, knowing that his responsibility to his protectee outweighed the needs of the PPS investigation. He was a bodyguard first, a teammate second.
“Nicole!” He pushed back through the door and slapped at the light switch just inside the room. Bulbs flared to life, showing her lying deathly still on the rumpled bed.
With a wordless cry, Ethan lunged toward her, then stopped, knees locking when he looked down and her image was overlain with another, that of a lighter-haired woman with an aquiline nose and a sprinkle of freckles on her cheeks, lying on rain-slicked pavement, her eyes open and staring.
“No!” Ethan reached for Nicole, intending to nudge her, shake her, whatever it took to bring her back. Then he stopped and stood, paralyzed with history, and with the knowledge that the bastards had gotten past him to hurt his protectee. To hurt Nicole.
Logic, not knee-jerk reaction, he reminded himself. Work it through. What’s the first step, and what are the risks?
His mind was a blank, his old training gone in an instant. There was no sign of blood, but her eyes were closed, her skin was sallow and her breath hitched slightly as she exhaled. Had she aggravated the concussion? Had she—
Her eyelids fluttered, bringing a sharp slap of relief. Ethan leaned over her. “Nicole? Can you hear me?”
She murmured something low and sweet and incomprehensible. Moments later she frowned and shifted, then her eyes flew open and she gasped, lifting her hands to her throat and struggling up on the bed until she was pressed up against the head-board, looking around with her eyes wild and her mouth open in a silent scream.
“You’re okay,” Ethan said quickly, still not daring to touch her. “He’s gone. You’re fine.” He hoped. He couldn’t believe the bastard had found them, couldn’t believe he’d underestimated how important they considered Nicole.
He had only himself to blame for not burying their trail more effectively. He’d been too casual with her protection. In trying to buffer himself against her presence, and the knowledge of the child she carried, he’d nearly let her be killed.
“God.” Nicole touched her throat, where the skin was still red from
the pressure of her attacker’s hands. “That was…” She trailed off, then swallowed with a wince. She shifted on the bed and winced again, this time touching her waist, where the bottom layer of her tattered sweater-shirt combo was still halfway tucked into her jeans. “Something doesn’t feel right.”
“Lie down,” Ethan ordered immediately. “I’ll call Dr. Eballa.”
“No!” she said quickly, sitting all the way up and clasping her hands together in front of herself as if in protection. “No, please. No more ambulances, no more hospitals. It was nothing. Probably just a pulled muscle or something.”
“Or it could be the baby,” Ethan countered, automatically reaching into his pocket for his cell, only to realize he didn’t have his phone. Or pockets. He’d gone to bed in his boxers and nothing else, and he was suddenly far too conscious of his near nudity. He headed for the connecting door. “We’re getting out of here as soon as I’m dressed, in case anyone else comes looking for you.”
In his own room, he pulled on his cargo pants and shirt, shoved his fully-licensed Beretta 9 mm into his waistband and dug out his cell phone. He made a few calls, and by the time he headed back to her room, he’d come up with what ought to be a workable plan to get her checked out without another hospital visit.
“Here’s the deal. We’re going to—” He broke off when he found her sitting on the edge of the bed with her face in her hands. “Aw, hell.” He dropped down to sit beside her, his weight causing the mattress to dip, urging her closer to his side. He slung an arm around her, intending it as a friendly, supportive gesture. “It’s going to be okay, Nicole.”
“Nic,” she mumbled miserably into her hands. “My friends call me Nic.”
Are we friends? he wanted to ask, but didn’t because he knew they weren’t. They were both more and less than friends, two strangers linked by a life created by a point-oh-one percent error factor in the fine print of the condom package. The thought—or maybe the feel of her pressed against his side—reminded him of their night together, of the unexpected flash and flame they’d created together. The echoes of that night warmed him even as a different sort of urgency beat beneath his skin, as his instincts warned that they needed to get moving.
Classified Baby Page 5
