See How She Runs (A Cape Trouble Novel Book 2)

by Janice Kay Johnson

He didn’t intend to go to bed with her, she realized. In fact, he wanted her tucked away, out of sight. Was probably annoyed because he had to babysit when the real action was taking place elsewhere. Or else tonight’s assassination attempt had reminded him afresh that she was really Naomi Varner, the chef who had dated Greg Cobb, whose knife had been found stuck in Frank Donahue’s chest.

  “I’ll sit down.” She wound through too much clutter to a sofa that proved to be as uncomfortable as it looked.

  Adam stood by the door looking at her, his dark brows bunched.

  “The dead man. He was the FBI agent.”

  His mouth compressed. After a minute he sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “Yes.”

  “The one whose photo I picked out.”

  “Yes,” he repeated, then chose a chair about as far from her as he could get and sat. He laid his gun on a side table.

  “You think Greg Cobb’s guy killed him to save me. Because Greg is still spooked by my threat.”

  “As he should be.”

  “But he doesn’t think anyone else knows.”

  “No. And that means we’ve got to get you into hiding immediately. Cape Trouble isn’t remotely safe for you now. Not until Cobb and Greer have been arrested, and maybe not even then.”

  “Not even—? Oh. Because people in his organization might still be trying to keep me from being able to testify.”

  “Right.”

  I don’t have to tell him anything. I don’t.

  “Are we…safe here? I mean, for tonight?”

  “I think so. Nobody followed us that I saw. With luck, we’ve dropped off the radar for the night.” For the first time since they had pulled up in front and she’d gotten a good look at his face, it softened. “Go to bed, Naomi. This has been a hell of a night. You need to recharge.”

  “And you don’t?”

  “I don’t need much sleep. I had enough.”

  She nodded without meaning anything by it. “There’s something I have to tell you.” You don’t have to.

  Yes, she did. Only…was this a truth that would taint the testimony Adam and Sam were counting on to put away two evil men? She didn’t know, but she couldn’t let them be blindsided, either, if Greg were to try to co-opt her by claiming she’d killed a police detective on his order.

  Adam had stiffened. “Tomorrow. You’ve had enough for one night.”

  “No. This is important.”

  He stared at her for a long moment, then nodded.

  “I stabbed Frank Donahue.” Don’t be a coward. “I killed him.”

  He kept staring. Everything inside her clenched, waiting.

  But she couldn’t stand his silence. “He was going to kill me.”

  “Bullshit!” Adam exploded to his feet and glared at her. His hands balled into fists.

  So now she knew. The hurt was even bigger than she’d expected. She had to finish this, though. She kept talking, her voice dull now. “After Greg left, I told myself I had to wait for a few minutes, in case he had someone waiting outside. I’d told him I had to send some emails. Um, I already told you that. So anyway, everything was quiet and I thought I was alone. He…burst into the kitchen.” She sat frozen, not looking at Adam anymore. Instead, she saw it happening again, as she had a thousand times since that night. “He wore a badge on his belt, so I knew he was a cop. I told him he was scaring me, that if he had questions I’d talk to him in the morning. He said…” Her voice shook. She closed her eyes until she was sure she could go on. “No. He said no. There was no good in putting off something that had to be done. And then he pulled his gun and I knew.”

  “Not Frank.”

  “He was only a couple of feet from me. Crowding me. You know. I saw it on his face. He looked…sorry. He didn’t want to kill me, but he was going to anyway.”

  “No!”

  “I’d had my back to the counter. The minute he came in the kitchen, I sort of…stood sideways, with one arm hidden. My knives were in a block on the countertop. I shifted until I could grab one. And then, as he raised the gun, I…thrust.” Nausea rose again, choking her. Thank God I don’t have anything left in my stomach, she thought. “Under the ribs and up. I saw his eyes…” Her stomach heaved again. She started to stand up and realized she didn’t know where the bathroom was and wouldn’t reach it in time anyway. She cupped her hands in front of her mouth and retched, long, dry heaves that shook her body.

  All the while, Adam stood staring down at her, his eyes blazing, his dark face contorted.

  “No,” she heard him say again.

  Suddenly furious, she lifted her head. “Yes! Yes! He was dirty, dirty, dirty, just like your father!”

  She hated what she’d done to him the minute she saw the transformation overtake his expression. He backed up a step, then another, bumping into a side table, having to stagger. Naomi had never seen him take a graceless step before. His eyes had dilated until they looked almost black.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, trying to rise to her feet but finding her legs wouldn’t hold her. “I shouldn’t have said—”

  “I’m going out.” Adam’s voice was hoarse. “Stay here. Go to bed, Naomi.”

  “But…”

  “Not now!” he roared. “Do you hear me?”

  Her teeth chattered. She covered her mouth with her hand and nodded.

  He turned and blundered out. The front door slammed behind him. She waited for the sound of his SUV engine, but it didn’t come. So he hadn’t abandoned her entirely. But – oh God – he’d left his gun on the side table, his tactical vest on the chair. He’d walked out without any protection.

  Because he’s sure we’re safe here, she reminded herself. Nobody had followed them; nobody could know where they were. He was just…walking. Absorbing what she’d told him.

  Coming to terms with the fact that he’d slept with the woman who murdered his partner, she thought on a surge of bitterness. She’d seen everything in his eyes she’d feared. Oh, not disgust; he hadn’t gotten there yet. But rage, oh, yes. And condemnation. Frank couldn’t be guilty, so she must be.

  How could she have been foolish enough to let herself fall in love with him? Or think for a minute that he might believe her?

  Come morning, she thought dully, he would hand her over to Agent Sam Weismann to haul back to L.A. Would they cuff her, drawing stares at the airport and on the flight?

  Did it matter who stared?

  Would they still want her to testify? Or had she just destroyed all possibility of bringing down Greg Cobb and Congressman Greer?

  The video. She clung to the thought. It was persuasive. And one of the three men there that night had just tried to kill her. They couldn’t argue with that, right?

  She stayed where she was for a long, long time. Somewhere a clock ticked. Otherwise, she heard nothing but silence. Finally, feeling unbelievably weary, her stomach hurting and her head aching, she stood and went down the hall until she found a bathroom. After using the toilet, she flushed, then stood there staring at the closed door as if she was a clock that had wound down.

  I’ll go to bed. Why not? Even if Adam came in, he wouldn’t want to talk to her. She might as well…curl into a tiny ball and hide beneath the covers, she thought with sort of black humor.

  Her brain issued an order and her feet obligingly moved. She stepped out into the hall, and an arm wrapped around throat, jerking her backward.

  “One peep out of you, bitch, and I’ll kill him.”

  *****

  Adam ground his forehead against the rough trunk of some kind of old fruit tree in the yard, his eyes closed. With one hand he gripped a branch. He should go back in; he knew he should. If nothing else, he felt naked without his Glock. But…he couldn’t face her. If she was still sitting there, staring at him with those huge stricken eyes, he might break.

  Frank’s face replaced Naomi’s in his mind’s eye. The bags under his eyes turned into plump pouches when he grinned as he gave Adam a hard time about…who knew? And
then there was his expression one time when he was talking about his youngest, who’d fallen in love with Scripps College. Spanish Colonial architecture, Frank said. Fountains, wisteria. You ought to see the place. Top-drawer college, expensive as hell. So, what was he going to do? Say, suck it up, kid, you’re going to the junior college then transferring to UCLA if you’re lucky?

  No, Frank had found another way. It was the second time since Adam met Naomi that he’d tasted betrayal, as bitter as gunpowder on the tongue.

  He was dirty, dirty, dirty, just like your father!

  Of course he was. Adam bumped his head against the tree trunk. Did Frank’s wife know? How could she not, if her husband was suddenly bringing home a whole lot of extra money?

  Adam really believed his own mother hadn’t. But Dad had done it all along, while Adam’s best guess was that Frank had been a good cop until he made the decision to do whatever it took to give his little girl what she wanted even though putting his boy through college the first three years had been killing him. He’d been mad that the best education cost so much, but what had him ranting was the FAFSA. First time around, with his son, he’d been irked, but Jonah had been content to go to a state school and Frank managed. Sheila, though, she was really smart. Talking about being a doctor. Already stripped of savings to put Jonah through college, Frank had expected Sheila would qualify for some serious scholarship money. Then he filled out the FAFSA and he went off like a rocket. How dared the federal government tell him and the college how much he could pay? For weeks there, he wouldn’t shut up about it.

  Had he convinced himself that aiding organized crime was a slap at the government that had been so goddamn unjust to him? How had that worked when he pulled a gun with the intention of killing an innocent, terrified young woman?

  Imagining the scene Naomi had described, Adam still felt sick. Frank would have murdered her. The chef would have been found dead the next morning in her restaurant kitchen, instead of the police detective. Unless, of course, she’d just disappeared. No – he remembered some puzzlement at the time, because Frank hadn’t been carrying his service weapon. He must have just bought a new backup, people said, one not even registered yet.

  Uh huh. Sure. Adam shook his head. I was blind.

  A vehicle engine started less than a block away. Frowning, he pushed away from the tree and turned his head. No motion at all up and down the street. Side street then. The car was moving, the sound receding. Somebody who left for work early. But…it hadn’t backed out of a driveway. Had to have been at the curb. People didn’t street-park much in this neighborhood; why would they, when they all had driveways, and most had at least detached garages?

  Disturbed and suddenly uneasy, he jogged across the yard and took the porch steps two at a time, letting himself into the house as quietly as he could.

  The lamp still burned, but Naomi wasn’t sitting on the sofa. She’d left the duvet crumpled there, though. She must have taken him at his word and gone to bed.

  The furnace kicked on, the sound making him jump. He grabbed the Glock, on edge. He’d swear he felt something like a breeze, but probably it was just the forced air coming from a vent.

  Bedroom first. The hall was dark, the bathroom door standing open although he was sure it had been closed before. So Naomi had used it. He flicked on the light, then eased open the door to the guest room. The light fell in a band across a neatly made, empty bed.

  Adam breathed a profanity. She’d been upset. She’d gone for one of the other bedrooms. But there turned out to be only one other, empty, too. Ditto the bathroom. Small dining room. He was running by the time he reached the kitchen…and saw the open back door.

  And one of Naomi’s slippers lying on the concrete patio.

  *****

  The black ski mask loomed above her. Death mask, she thought again, on a shudder of horror. Only this time she could see the eyes, an ordinary brown although slitted in anger. She knew on a visceral level that this was the same man who’d plowed into her in the alley and grabbed her bag. The one who’d given her that last, hate-filled stare before he fled.

  “I saved your life tonight,” he growled. “You owe me.”

  Naomi inched her bare feet up under her on the sagging sofa. She didn’t know where she’d lost her first slipper – probably right where he’d snatched her in the hall – but she had managed to let the second one slip off outside, at the foot of the steps leading onto the porch of this old, decrepit lodge across Mist River from town. If Adam got that close, he’d know.

  I can’t wait for rescue, she thought, clammy with fear. Why would he think to come here? No, If she could take Greg’s goon by surprise and make it outside, she’d run for the sand dunes, just like Sophie had with a killer after her. This man came from the concrete canyons of Los Angeles. He’d be lost in a maze of sand dunes.

  “You work for Greg,” she said. Oh, brilliant.

  He grunted. “All he wants to know is where you’ve stashed the video. Once he has it, you can’t touch him. You can flap your lips all you want, and no one will believe you.”

  “I’ve kept my promise. Why hasn’t he?”

  “I don’t know about any promise. I ain’t Cobb. I got a job to do, and I’m gonna do it. You hear me?”

  Naomi nodded, wriggling a little more. If she could get to a near crouch without him realizing what she was doing...

  “Start talking.”

  “The police are all over my cottage. Even if I have something hidden there, you can’t get it.”

  “Cobb thinks you don’t have it on a disk or anything like that. If you do…” The beefy shoulders moved. “Getting it is my problem, not yours. But why don’t we skip the bullshit and you just show me?” He jerked his head toward the laptop, which he’d opened on a wobbly table and started up.

  “You’re going to let me go if I tell you.”

  He shrugged again. “Why not?”

  She could have laughed, but she might not have been able to stop. Hysteria worked that way.

  “And if I don’t?”

  His hand lashed out so fast it blurred, connecting with her cheek in a painful blow that sent her tumbling sideways. Pain bloomed and her vision didn’t seem quite right. She lay unmoving even though the upholstery fabric was so filthy a small part of her brain was appalled.

  “Then I hurt you,” the man in the ski mask said, his tone repellingly unemotional. “And I keep hurting you, until you tell me what I want to know.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “I let him have her.” Adam had never felt anything like the terror jetting through him. “If I’d stayed with her…” Every time he blinked, he saw the same thing: that fluffy pink slipper lying there on the cold concrete.

  He tried not to blink. Focus on finding her. Beat yourself up later.

  Colburn squeezed his shoulder with a sympathetic grip. “The guy might have gunned you down and gotten to her anyway. You’re one man, not an army.”

  He’d walked out on her. Adam couldn’t believe he’d been so stupid, let emotions get to him to the point where he failed Naomi.

  “We don’t know any more about this guy than we did at the beginning. We don’t have a clue where to start looking.”

  “Not much traffic at this time of morning,” Daniel said. “Somebody will have seen them.”

  Lights had come on at houses up and down the street because of the police activity. He and Adam stood on the sidewalk in front of the house from which Naomi had been grabbed.

  “Why didn’t he take my weapon?” He’d been further chilled to realize Naomi’s bag with her laptop was missing, too.

  “Maybe he hoped if everything was undisturbed you wouldn’t look in the bedroom. That you’d sack out on the sofa, give him hours before the alarm was raised.”

  A shout from around the corner had them both spinning toward it. Daniel had called in his entire small force and set them to canvassing neighbors, and Adam knew sheriff’s deputies were on their way, too.

&n
bsp; It was one of the Cape Trouble officers, a raw-boned kid who looked maybe twenty, who jogged up to them. “Old Mr. Hallquist,” he jerked his head that way, “says he doesn’t sleep much anymore. He saw an unfamiliar car park there maybe an hour ago and kept an eye on it. Says it showed up right after he saw lights come on in this house.” The kid didn’t want to meet Adam’s eyes. “Had his TV on, real quiet, but he heard somebody slam a door or the trunk of a car and he peeked out again in time to see a man get in and drive away.”

  So the first slam indicated he’d put something in the trunk or back seat. On a surge of agony, Adam thought, Naomi.

  “Car?” Daniel said.

  “Four door, good sized. Light colored. Maybe silver or tan.”

  A rental. Sure as hell a rental, Adam thought. “Did he get a license plate?”

  “Doesn’t see that well. Says it turned left at the next corner, back toward the center of town.”

  Adrenaline pumping through him, Adam was desperate to give chase, but they still had nothing to go on.

  God. He didn’t even want to think about what that scum was doing to Naomi while he stood here flat-footed. The minute the asshole terrorized her into admitting she’d already handed over the video to the FBI, she was dead. She had to know that.

  Daniel was still talking to his young officer, but no more useful information was forthcoming.

  My fault she’s gone.

  I love her, he thought incredulously.

  Please, Naomi. Please hold on.

  *****

  Three blows later, one eye had swollen shut and her mouth was filled with blood.

  “Where is it?”

  She spat at him.

  Blinded in one eye, she didn’t even see his fist coming this time.

  She lay on the floor, staring under the sofa, not sure if she could pull herself up again. She decided groggily that she’d rather look at piles of dust bunnies than at him, anyway.

  “Where is it?”

  Maybe, if she didn’t move, he’d think he had knocked her out.