by Fiona Brand
He wasn’t happy. They had a contract. He had retrieved Baby, and he’d made sure he wasn’t followed. He had gone out on a limb for her and it had cost him.
Rina stuck to her guns. Wendell could bill her for any extra costs, but she needed to know he’d gotten the right dog, and that her ex-husband hadn’t followed him.
She watched as Wendell appeared with a big, light-colored dog on a leash. Her chest squeezed tight. It looked like Baby.
As Wendell stooped to fasten the leash to the streetlamp she placed her fingers in her mouth and whistled. The dog’s head shot up. A split second later, he jerked free of Wendell’s hold and lunged across the road, leash trailing.
A car braked, horn blaring. Baby ignored the traffic, blatantly disobeying years of careful training, as he threw himself across the road, his gaze zeroing in on the clump of bushes Rina was hiding behind. A split second later, he barreled through the garden, scattering bark and snapping branches. Rina crouched down as he skidded to a halt. Her eyes blurred as her arms clamped around his neck. A rope, not a leash, hung from his neck. He was thin, close to emaciated, his coat rough. Scars encircled his neck, where the rope had bitten in, but Baby was alive.
A wet tongue swiped across her cheek and she pulled him closer, her chest squeezing tight as she buried her face against his coat. He was quivering, his eyes dilated as if had been permanently stuck in fight-or-flight mode, which he probably had. She couldn’t believe she had gotten him back, that against all the odds Wendell had retrieved him.
The snap of a twig sent a shock of adrenaline through her. Grabbing the rope around Baby’s neck, she urged him to be quiet. Slinging the strap of her handbag over her head so that it hung securely beneath one arm, she backed into the dense shade of the trees. Baby slunk beside her, sticking close, as if he understood there was danger. As they moved behind the trunk of a tree, she straightened. Simultaneously a gunshot split the air and she was knocked to the ground.
Twenty-Four
Panic exploded. Rina had a confused impression of a dark T-shirt, a muscled bicep, the sharp scent of sweat. Baby leaped sideways, to avoid the tangle of limbs. The toes of her sneakers gouged the thick layer of leaf mold and soft dirt as she lunged forward, trying to scramble free of the man’s hold. An arm snaked around her waist, a hand clamped her mouth, stopping her forward momentum. He shifted, pinning her more firmly.
Instinctively, she bit down, fastening on the pad of his palm and an index finger. He swore, and pressed his hand more tightly into her mouth, nullifying the bite.
“Don’t move.”
JT.
The heat of his body burned through the cotton of her shirt. The familiar smell of him registered; her heart rate began to slow. Jaw aching, she eased the pressure of the bite. He withdrew his hand and she gulped in oxygen. She’d bitten him hard enough to draw blood, but for once, she didn’t have a reaction.
“Are you all right?”
Another shot cut off any reply she might have made, this one more distant now, and recognizable as a souped-up vehicle backfiring.
JT’s weight shifted. “Stay down.”
Rina grabbed Baby, commanded him to lie down and watched as JT began working his way toward a spot where he could get a clear view of the motel, a large black gun in his hand. It was the first time since he’d gotten her out of the estate at Winton that she had seen him with a weapon, and it was a blunt reminder of exactly what he did for a living.
Seconds later, he joined them, put a finger to his lips and indicated they start falling back, keeping to the cover of the trees until they reached the nearest boundary, a chain-link fence that separated the rear of the shopping center from the park.
Placing the gun on the ground, he gripped the bottom of the aging chain-link fence and lifted it so she and Baby could shimmy beneath, then retrieved the gun and followed. When they pushed through the belt of trees and shrubs running along the fence line they found themselves in a loading bay at the rear of a supermarket.
Slipping the gun in the waistband of his jeans at the small of his back, he adjusted the fall of his T-shirt so it would hide the bulge of the weapon and led the way down a side alley and out onto a street. His truck was parked directly across the road, which meant he must have entered the park from this end. That was how he had taken her by surprise. She hadn’t thought to look behind her. Her attention had been on the motel and Wendell.
The truck beeped as the door locks disengaged. JT opened the passenger-side door. Baby jumped in and settled on the floor. JT’s hand landed in the small of her back. This time there was nothing remotely sexy about the pressure as he boosted her into the seat. He was in work mode, retrieving her like a cop rounding up a runaway kid.
Bending forward she ruffled Baby’s ears. A rough tongue swiped across the back of one hand and her eyes burned again. She had taken a risk, but she would do it all again.
JT swung behind the wheel and she fastened her seat belt. Seconds later they were in traffic.
“My car is back in the shopping center car park.”
“I know where it is. I’ll arrange to have it picked up.”
Rina’s jaw tightened. She understood why JT had followed her, and why he was taking such elaborate precautions, but she and Baby hadn’t been in danger; she had had it covered.
His gaze fastened briefly on hers, the chill enough to take the heat out of the evening. “Tell me exactly what’s been going on.”
In clipped sentences, she filled him in on Wendell and how he had retrieved Baby. Technically, what she had done had contravened her agreement with WitSec, but she wasn’t about to apologize for doing it. No one had been hurt, she had maintained her anonymity and her security, and she had saved Baby.
He picked up his cell phone and began making calls as he drove, to someone named Kurt, a CIA agent who evidently worked with JT, the Beaumont P.D. and, finally, Bayard.
Rina listened in silence to the long list of information JT wanted, and the checks he requested on Wendell. “Wendell isn’t a criminal.” Unless you counted locking Baby in the trunk of his car, she amended silently. “He’s a P.I.”
“If Wendell found Baby, he’s a bona fide lead to either Slater or Lopez.”
“Slater and Alex didn’t have Baby, someone else did.”
“According to Wendell.”
“That’s right.” She stared at the thinning houses. They had just left Liberty. “If he had broken into a property controlled by either Alex or Slater or any of his people, he wouldn’t be here now.”
“Unless he’s working for Slater and his aim is to locate you.”
She shook her head. “He’s a P.I. and an ex-cop. I met him for the first time two days ago. He took over the case when Sayer ran off with my money.”
The gaze that pinned her was remote. “Who is Sayer?”
“His full name is Harold Sayer. He runs the investigation business with Wendell.”
“So that’s what you were doing when you disappeared in the mall.”
The flat comment flicked her on the raw. “Last I heard, I’m not allowed much, but Marlow said I can have a life. I didn’t sign up to be babysat 24/7.”
“Honey, I don’t usually babysit.”
She stared at his profile and had the satisfaction of seeing a small muscle pulsing along the side of his jaw. “Just remember, I didn’t ask you to.”
She sat in stony silence while he made more calls, this time about Sayer. Rina couldn’t argue with that. If they found Sayer, Wendell had a chance at getting his money back.
He drove in silence. It was a while before Rina realized that they weren’t driving in the direction of Beaumont. “Where are we going?”
He took his gaze off the road. “We’re not going back to Beaumont until I get Wendell and Sayer checked out.”
“Wendell’s got to be in his sixties.”
“For what it’s worth, so far the cops think he’s harmless, but he did get Baby back when Bayard and our people failed. Now, that�
��s interesting. They’re pulling him in for questioning.”
She stared straight ahead. “If Bayard’s got a mole, maybe that’s the reason he hasn’t been able to find either Baby or Taylor.”
“It’s a possibility.”
She was silent for a while. She listened while he phoned Kurt again and gave him the registration and description of her car. The sun finally sank below the horizon. As night fell they were still driving. They’d been through three towns and counting, and most of those in dead silence. If JT hadn’t interfered, she and Baby would be safe and sound at home by now.
JT flicked his lights on, and she made herself comfortable, leaning her head into the curve of the seat and closing her eyes.
When he pulled into a service station she roused herself. “Baby needs a drink and some food.” She rummaged in her knapsack and pulled out the half-filled bottle of water.
JT walked into the service station, then came back with a small bag of dog biscuits and a plastic bowl. She watched as he filled the bowl with water and tipped a small pile of biscuits beside it.
He whistled. Baby glanced at her. When she said “go,” he scrambled out of the car and immediately began lapping at the water. She noticed he had a limp. Tomorrow she would have to take him to a vet to get him checked out. He also needed a flea treatment and vitamins. If he’d been around Slater or Alex, he probably needed a shot for rabies, as well.
Baby wolfed down a pile of biscuits, moved back to the water bowl and emptied it while JT filled the truck with gas, then walked across the forecourt to pay. When JT returned, he walked Baby out onto the grass verge to one side of the garage. When Baby had finished his business, JT produced a plastic bag he must have gotten from inside the shop and cleaned up the mess. Baby followed him, tail wagging, as he deposited the tied-off bag in a trash can.
JT disappeared inside once more, presumably to wash his hands. When he reappeared, Baby scrambled over the driver’s seat and settled at Rina’s feet. JT handed her the rinsed-out dog bowl and the biscuits, a new bottle of water and an ice-cold can of soda. He flipped the top on his own can as he started the truck.
An hour later, he pulled into a motel, checked in then moved the truck to a unit at the rear that wasn’t visible from the road.
The motel unit was standard, a bedroom with a double bed, a couple of couches in the main room, a tiny kitchenette and a large TV. Baby followed her as she checked out the rooms, then waited outside the locked door while she used the bathroom. When Rina went back out to the sitting room, he settled on the carpet, keeping her in sight.
JT walked in with an extra pillow and a blanket. He dropped them on one of the couches. “You can take the bed. The next hurdle is getting something to eat. I can order takeout, or there’s a late-night café down the road.”
She settled for takeout. She was hungry, but after everything that had happened, she didn’t care what she ate, and she didn’t want to leave Baby. He’d been through enough of an ordeal. Every time she moved, she was aware that he was watching her with a haunted look in his eyes.
JT picked up the phone, ordered burgers and fries, then dug the truck keys out of his pocket and headed for the door. While he was gone, Rina adjusted the setting on the air-conditioning unit and found that the reason the room was so warm was that the unit didn’t work, period. She compensated by opening windows as wide as she could and still keep them latched, but even so, the amount of air circulating was close to zero.
Fifteen minutes later, JT was back with a sack of food and foam cups of coffee.
Rina dug in, sharing tidbits with Baby. Normally, he wasn’t allowed, but after what he’d been through he needed the extra pampering, and she wasn’t about to say no.
She watched as JT ate, observing idly the controlled way he demolished his burger and the sheer volume of food he put away. When his gaze caught hers, she turned her attention to her own burger. “I guess you get tired of takeout.”
“I usually cook my own food. This stuff’s okay at a pinch, but you can’t operate on it all the time.”
It was the most civilized conversation they’d had since he’d thrown her to the ground in the park.
When she’d eaten all she could of the burger, she handed the rest to Baby and reached for her coffee. The quietness of the small town and the room, with its neutral walls and bland furnishings, sank in as she sipped, a stark contrast to the hours of nervous tension and adrenaline. At her feet, Baby whimpered and twitched. He had finally fallen asleep, his muzzle heavy on her foot, as if even in sleep he wanted to make sure he wouldn’t lose her again.
She watched as JT cleaned up the wrappers and put them in the small stainless-steel trash can in the kitchen. After the tension and drama of the early evening, the only sign that anything out of the ordinary had happened were faint stains on his T-shirt, and the wounds on his hand where she’d bitten him.
He examined the air-conditioning unit and punched in a new setting.
“I already tried, it doesn’t work.” And that reminded her of something else that hadn’t worked. “How did you find me?” She was certain she had gotten away clean. At no point had she seen JT’s truck following her. “Did Marlow have me followed?”
“If Marlow knew I was within a hundred miles of you he’d break out in a rash.”
She went still inside. “I thought you were working with WitSec.”
“I have a working agreement with the U.S. Marshals, not WitSec. Maybe when hell freezes over Marlow would give me his list of most-wanted witnesses.”
“Then how did you find me?” If JT had broken the Witness Security Program, that meant she wasn’t safe. If he could locate her, chances were, so could Alex.
“Give me your watch and I’ll show you.”
Reluctantly, Rina set her empty coffee cup down, peeled her watch off her wrist and handed it to him. JT dug in a pocket of his jeans and extracted a small multipurpose tool that sported a tiny screwdriver and levered the back of the bezel off. Once the bezel was off, he used the screwdriver to indicate a tiny metallic device attached to the watch mechanism by a small spot of clear glue. “I put a transmitter in your watch in Winton. It’s a miniature global positioning device, designed for military use. The signal gets picked up by military satellites, which means I can track you.”
Rina stared at the small metal dome. It was so simple it defied belief. “I don’t believe you did that and got away with it.”
“I knew you were going into WitSec. It was the only way I could break the protection program.” He seated the bezel back into place and handed the watch to her. “You can leave the transmitter in, or take it out. It’s up to you. You can tell Marlow if you want, although he won’t take it well. He doesn’t strike me as having any kind of a tolerance level for interference.”
She put the watch on the coffee table. “Who else knows about the transmitter?”
“Kurt knows I’m tracking you. He has clearance to use the system, but he doesn’t know the code.”
He checked the lock on the door and pulled the drapes more securely, closing out the narrow slit that allowed a view into the motel unit from the small, lit area outside. She noticed the gun was still lodged in the waistband at the small of his back. She hadn’t seen him do it, but at some point, probably when he had gone to get takeout, he must have taken the gun out of the glove compartment of the truck.
The gun, the calm way he secured the unit and the ease with which he had sidestepped WitSec to continue with his own investigation put him firmly in context. As attractive as JT was to her, she couldn’t afford to trust him. He had fooled Alex and Slater, he had negated Marlow’s security and he had run rings around her. He had his own agenda, his own reasons for watching her, and they had nothing to do with either her personality or her legs.
She could pick up the phone, call Marlow and be out of here within an hour, but the plain fact was, despite everything, in a bone-deep, instinctive way, she did trust him.
When Alex had tripped
her and set the scene to make it look like she’d walked into a piece of furniture, JT had given her first aid and made sure she got to the hospital. He had gotten her out of the Winton estate alive then, and once she was safe, he had gone back to look for Baby. Both times he had risked himself and his investigation. Ambiguous or not, there was one thing she was clear on about JT: he might be working to his own agenda, but she couldn’t ask for a better protector.
She picked up the watch and refastened it.
JT didn’t make any comment, but she was aware that he had noticed as he settled down with the remote and began flicking through channels, finally selecting a game of basketball. “I’m not going to tell Marlow. Yet.”
Not until she knew she was in the clear from Wendell and any possible connection with Alex. She wanted to avoid being shunted out of Beaumont and the life she was slowly building, and the second Marlow knew JT was in the picture, she would be gone.
He grunted and picked up his coffee, not taking his gaze off the ball game.
Feeling distinctly on edge, she watched as he swallowed and was reminded of the few minutes she had spent in the cab of his truck yesterday. It felt like a week ago. A strange thing had happened to her perception of time. Maybe it was the stress and the danger, the fact that after years of slow, quiet retreat, her life had gone crazy. In the past few months she’d packed in enough action to last a lifetime, and JT had put himself in the midst every time.
His gaze didn’t move from the screen. “Don’t do that. I’m trying to keep my perspective.”
“Don’t do what?” She picked up her empty foam cup, carried it through to the kitchen and dropped it in the trash. She was trying to figure out what emotion was uppermost in her mind—betrayal, irritation, confusion or the tension that just being this close to JT engendered. When she spun around, she walked into his chest.
His fingers curled around her arms, that first instant of physical contact electrifying. His gaze fixed on her mouth. “Don’t watch me like that.”
