Undercover Protector

by Melinda Di Lorenzo

  A little moan carried to her still-ringing ears, and it took a second to recognize it as her own. She tried to bite back the noise but couldn’t. Not until Anderson’s strong hands took ahold of her again. Then she sank into them—into him—in relief, glad to let him have complete control of the situation. He pulled her forcefully along the ground. They crawled, belly down, for what felt like a hundred yards. Nadine knew it was probably more like ten, but every inch of her burned with the exertion. Legs. Abs. Arms and chest. Even the muscles in her neck ached. But just when she thought she couldn’t take any more, Anderson at last stopped tugging her hand.

  Nadine sagged to the ground. Catching her breath seemed like an impossible task, and the hot tears that poured down her cheeks made it worse because they were accompanied by near-sobs. But once again Anderson came to her rescue. His palms landed unceremoniously under her arms, and he dragged her to a sitting position, then pushed her back against something cool and bumpy. Automatically trying to discern what it was, she lifted her own hands to feel its ridges.

  A rock.

  It was a huge one. More of a boulder, really, that jutted up from the soil and formed an almost shell-shaped barrier between the two of them and whoever had killed the doctor.

  Oh, God.

  In spite of the man’s atrocious past and association with the man who’d killed her father, Nadine couldn’t help but feel a pang of sorrow for the way his life had ended.

  Anderson’s fingers on her face made her aware that she’d closed her eyes, and as she dragged them open again, she saw that he was crouched down right in front of her, his mouth working in what looked like silence. Nadine shook her head, sure that she was experiencing some kind of post-traumatic-stress symptom. Frowning, she ordered herself to focus. And after a few seconds of intense concentration, she was able to make out the fact that he was saying her name. Asking if she was okay. She even managed a nod, and the slight up-and-down movement seemed to help clear away the residual effects of the last few minutes.

  “Say something, sweetheart.” Anderson’s request was almost a plea.

  “I’m all right. Really.” Saying it made it feel true, and she cleared her throat and added, “Who was shooting at us? Where are they?”

  Anderson’s face flooded with relief, and he kissed her forehead, then sank back on his heels. But his words were anything but reassuring.

  “I don’t know where they are,” he said, “but I don’t think they were aiming for us. Not right then, anyway.”

  The last part of the statement confused her as much as it unnerved her. “Who were they shooting at?”

  Anderson’s eyes flicked to the side of the boulder. “Directly at Salinger.”

  “At Salinger?”

  “You want me to explain what I think, or try to find a way back to the ATV?”

  “Both,” she admitted.

  In spite of the situation, Anderson smiled. “Demanding, aren’t you.”

  “We established that.” Nadine inhaled and swept her gaze over what she could see of the forest. “Can we make a straight run for it? Do you know how far we are?”

  “Not far. But, Nadine...”

  Something in his tone made her heart squeeze nervously. “What?”

  “If we’re running and we get fired at, you need to know that I’m going to do everything in my power to shield you. Even if that means using my own body.”

  All the air sucked out of her lungs, and her reply came out in a squeak. “You can’t do that.”

  He shook his head. “I won’t be able to help it.”

  “Why are you even telling me this?”

  “Because I want your promise that if that happens, you’ll keep going.”

  Now Nadine’s lungs burned. “You want me to leave you if you get shot?”

  Anderson cupped her cheek. “It’s only as a last resort, honey. But I need to know that you’ll keep going if I can’t be saved. I love you and I have to know that you’ll save yourself.”

  “Would you do it if it was me?”

  He opened his mouth. Closed it. Then opened it again.

  “No,” he admitted. “I sure as hell wouldn’t.”

  Some of the pressure in her chest eased. “So then don’t ask me to do it.”

  “Then at least promise me you’ll try.”

  “If you promise me you’ll do the same.”

  After a weighted silence, Anderson finally started to nod. But he stopped before he could finish the gesture.

  “I can’t,” he said softly. “I can’t promise you that I’ll try to leave you. I can’t even wrap my head around thinking about it.”

  Nadine swallowed. “Same here.”

  “All right, then. I guess we’ll just have to make sure it doesn’t happen.”

  She nodded, but a sense of deep foreboding had managed to worm its way into her heart, and even when they started—careful to move slowly and stay covered by the pieces of naturally occurring cover—she couldn’t quite shake it.

  * * *

  Though they reached the ATV safely and quickly, Anderson couldn’t make his muscles relax. Mostly because it seemed far too easy. Which—as usual—made him suspicious. So as Nadine swung her leg over the vehicle, he couldn’t stop himself from taking a slow look around.

  Except for the drip of rain, the forest stayed quiet. No snap of twigs, no rustle of branches. Just the water and the sound of their nearly in sync breathing.

  “Are you getting on?” Nadine asked, drawing attention to the fact that she was already in position, her hand poised over the ignition.

  “Yep,” he said, but paused once more to listen for any sign that they’d been tracked.

  “You’re wondering why no one followed us?”

  “Exactly that.”

  “I’m going to stick to the whole gift-horse-and-mouth thing.”

  “Guess it’s hard to argue against that.” He gave the wooded area another look around, then climbed on behind her.

  “Where to?”

  “Take us farther up the mountain for now,” he said.

  “Just far enough to put more than walking distance between us and the shooter?” she replied.

  “Yep. Hard to travel subtly on the back of this thing.”

  She turned the engine over, its rumble proving his point.

  “Ready?” she called.

  “Whenever you are.”

  He slung his arms around her waist and tucked her close, glad to let her have the lead so he could let his mind go to work.

  Where to start?

  The rush of events over the past few minutes had added a whole new pile of questions to his already crowded concerns. Had the person who shot Salinger really only been after the doctor? Was the shooting unrelated to Garibaldi’s activities? Had he been wrong in his supposition that Salinger was a target in the same way as Nadine? He knew he’d leaped to that conclusion pretty quickly, but he generally trusted his gut on things like this. Years of experience had honed his ability to think on his feet. Right then, though—for the first time since he was a very new detective, really—he wished he had an office. Somewhere to lay out his thoughts on paper. Maybe a stack of sticky notes to keep them straight.

  Instead, he settled for pressing his chin to Nadine’s shoulder and going over it silently.

  Salinger worked—had worked, he corrected silently—for Jesse Garibaldi. That much wasn’t up for debate. His goal had been to retrieve the blackmail and turn it in to his boss. Probably to kill Nadine in the process.

  His grip on her waist tightened at the thought, beyond grateful that the endeavor had failed.

  “You okay back there?” she called over the engine and the wind.

  “Fine,” he said into her ear. “Keep driving.”

  The ATV picked up speed, and he forced his mind back to the details of
the case.

  In addition to the blackmail aspect, it was also a fact that the man had tried to set up Nadine to take the fall for the fire at her mom’s place. He’d stated as much while searching their room at the lodge. Because of that, Anderson had assumed that the tips to the police had also come from him. Harley’s info proved it wrong. And, in retrospect, having the police take Nadine in for questioning put the whole blackmail-retrieval scheme at risk anyway.

  So who else has the motivation to draw police attention to what we’ve been doing? More specifically, what woman has the motivation?

  He racked his brain, trying to come up with an answer. He didn’t even recall encountering a woman over the last few days. Of course, he had to admit that even if he had talked to one, he might not have noticed much about her because his attention was so steadily held by Nadine.

  Nadine.

  He frowned. He hadn’t encountered any memorable women.

  But she had. In the pie shop. The woman who owns the art store and stocks the items provided by Garibaldi. It took Anderson a second to recall her name. Liz.

  It kept coming back to the art. To those paintings in the underground storage facility. He wished like crazy that they’d managed to get inside. The chances of that happening anytime soon were looking slimmer by the second. They needed a new plan, but Anderson suspected that coming up with it while whipping through the woods wasn’t the way to do it. A change of venue was in order, and when Nadine brought the ATV to a halt, his mind was already working toward a solution.

  “How close do you think you can get us to the lodge?” he asked as the engine cut out.

  “You want to go back there?”

  “We need somewhere to regroup. I think the cabins are too close to our shooter for comfort,” he explained.

  She scrunched up her face for a moment before she nodded. “I guess it won’t be the first place they look, either.”

  “Not to mention the fact that we’re both sorely in need of a bath.” He gave her muddy clothes a nod, then added, “I’d like to be close to my truck, too. I know it’s identifiable, but I’d still rather be a hundred percent sure that we have access to a vehicle if necessary. It’s a bad idea to be without transportation.”

  “Okay. The lodge isn’t all that far, and we’ve got almost a full tank of gas. It’s not a straight shot there, though, so it’ll take a while. We might run out of fuel and have to walk the last bit.”

  “That’s fine.” He studied her face. “I sense a but.”

  “We should be fine most of the way because tourists don’t come up quite this far, especially when it’s not peak season. But closer to the lodge...a lot of the trails are pretty well-used. We risk running into other people.”

  “I think we can take the chance. Garibaldi won’t go after us out in a crowd.”

  “All right.” Her hand moved toward the ignition but paused without turning it. “Anderson?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Did I hear you ask Dr. Salinger about working with a woman?”

  “You did. Harley said the person who tipped off the police was female.”

  “Is it crazy to wonder if it was that woman from the pie shop?” she asked. “She talked about Garibaldi. Maybe she was feeling me out for what I knew.”

  “My mind went there, too,” he admitted.

  “So should we be trying to find out if it’s true?”

  “We are trying to figure out if it’s true. But we can’t just go in and ask, can we?”

  “No, I guess not.”

  “We’ll figure it out.”

  “Okay.” Her fingers turned the key, and once again they were on the move.

  * * *

  The ATV started spluttering about three-quarters of the way down the mountain, and though Nadine pushed it to run on fumes for as long as she could, the vehicle finally gave out. And they weren’t as close to Whispering Woods Lodge as she’d anticipated.

  “Guess we’re on foot from here?” Anderson said from over her shoulder.

  He sounded annoyingly okay with the idea, but as Nadine climbed off, she found herself fighting an urge to give the machine a kick. Or maybe a few kicks. And a punch or two for good measure. Reasonably, she knew they weren’t stuck because of the ATV. But reason didn’t seem to apply to most of what they’d been through in the past few days.

  She shot the expired vehicle a dirty look. “You couldn’t just take us one more mile?”

  “You all right?” Anderson wanted to know. “Relatively speaking, I mean.”

  “Yes,” she said with a heavy sigh. “I guess I just feel like... I don’t know. Since the guy who was chasing us is dead, the rest of it should be over, too.”

  He reached up to give both her shoulders a reassuring squeeze. “It won’t be truly over until Garibaldi’s behind bars. But I promise I’ll get you out of this as soon as I can.”

  “We can’t walk away.”

  “I don’t know how many more times I can handle worrying that you’re going to get hurt. Or worse.”

  She stepped forward and leaned the side of her face into his chest. “Me, too. But I meant that kind of literally. Garibaldi’s not going to just let us go. And if he figures out who you are, the other guys will be in danger, too.”

  His hands ran in a circle over her back. “I’m sorry for dragging you into this.”

  She couldn’t suppress a laugh. “I’m pretty sure I jumped straight in before you ever showed up.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Truly.”

  “Then I guess I’m sorry you dragged me into it.”

  “You were already invested, too.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  She laughed again, then leaned back to stare up at him. “Is it bad that I’m not even sure I’ve accomplished what I wanted to, but that I’m over it anyway?”

  He smiled back and lifted a finger to tuck away a stray lock of her hair. “No. I know what you mean.”

  His blue gaze held her, warm and loving, and she knew she would never get tired of seeing that look.

  “Is what we’ve found enough?” she wondered aloud.

  “It’s enough for now,” Anderson said. “We know why your dad was killed. We retrieved the evidence your brother left for you.”

  “Then promptly lost it in the woods,” she pointed out.

  “But not before we sent it off to Harley,” he replied. “The next step is about interpreting that evidence. And keeping you safe, of course.”

  She opened her mouth to tell him that he was not exempt from being kept safe, either, but a vibration at her hip cut her off.

  “I think you’re buzzing again,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Your phone.”

  “Oh. I don’t know what’s wrong with the stupid settings.” He yanked it out his pocket and glanced down at the screen. “Harley.”

  “Better answer it,” she said.

  Anderson nodded, then tapped the screen twice, and Harley’s voice crackled through the air. “Salinger has an ex-wife.”

  Nadine felt her own eyes widen, and she saw the same startled expression on Anderson’s face as he replied, “Had. Salinger’s dead.”

  Harley went silent for a moment. “Is that good news, or bad news?”

  “Wish I knew,” Anderson stated humorlessly. “Tell me about the ex.”

  “She’s got a pretty troubling history. List of petty thefts in her late teens. Then a little break. Then an assault case that was dropped. At twenty-five, she became a nursing student down in Freemont, but was released from the program a year in for stealing prescription drugs from the hospital. She spent six months in court-mandated rehab and a year doing community service.”

  “Her illegal activity could explain the not-so-good-doctor’s connection to Garibaldi,” Anderson said.

 
“Could’ve been the initial contact,” Harley replied. “But guess who turned her in?”

  “Salinger?” Nadine hazarded.

  “Exactly,” replied Harley. “Divorced her right after her sentencing. If I was a betting man, I’d put all my money on her as the female tipster. She’s got more than enough reason to want to see the man suffer. And guess what else? She’s got an address in Whispering Woods, acquired just a couple of weeks ago.”

  Nadine exchanged a look with Anderson, who asked, “Where?”

  “I’m sending you the address. And a picture, too, so you can be on the lookout for her.”

  “Thanks, man.”

  “No problem. And, hey, I’m still working on finding a connection between Garibaldi and the guy in that photo, by the way. But one other thing...you mentioned an art shop? Liz’s Lovely Things?”

  Nadine’s heart rate doubled. “That’s right. I met the woman who owns it.”

  “Well, I know this goes without saying, but I’d step lightly around her,” Harley cautioned. “In the picture you sent that has the guys holding the canvas, there’s a little tag attached to the bottom. When I enhanced it, it was clearly a price tag from her store.”

  “All right, my friend,” said Anderson. “You’re a genius, as usual.”

  “I do what I can.”

  The line clicked and went dead, and a second later, the phone buzzed with an incoming text message. Anderson held out the phone, and Nadine tensed in anticipation of seeing a picture of Liz. Instead, a mug shot of an unknown blonde woman’s face popped up.

  “That’s not Liz,” she said right away.

  “No,” Anderson agreed. “It’s not.”

  Nadine looked up at him, surprised at how sure he sounded. “You’ve never met her.”

  “I haven’t. But I’m sure that’s not her, because that’s the nurse at the care center who told me about the masked man running through the halls.” He met her eyes, concern playing over his features. “You recognize the address? Eight-oh-one Peak Street.”