by Rebecca York
That wasn’t Chad’s fault. But he knew his boss might not see it that way.
Squeezing his hand into a fist, he knocked.
“Come in,” Sedgwick called.
Chad carefully arranged his features before stepping into the den with a file folder tucked under his arm.
Sedgwick took a sip of his scotch and soda, then set the Waterford glass down on the end table.
“Yes?” he asked expectantly.
“I’ve got some more news from our team in Baltimore. We have an ID on the man from the bank video.”
“Excellent.”
“He’s calling himself Luke Pritchard. Does that name mean anything to you?”
“No.”
“Well, we’ve been studying the records of unusual real estate and rental transactions in the area,” Chad continued. “It seems Pritchard has been posing as a computer executive on temporary assignment. He plunked down a wad of cash for a six-month lease on a town house in Canton. That’s a neighborhood near the gentrified harbor area.”
“You’re sure it’s the same man?”
“One of our operatives posed as a government agent doing a background investigation. When he interviewed the real estate agent, this is the description he got—dark hair and eyes, sharp cheekbones, narrow lips and nose, weathered skin. Six foot one. Southern accent. Self-confident.” Crosby laughed, relaxing a little now that things were going so well. “The real estate guy thought he looked more like an underworld type than a computer executive. Still, he was willing to take his money.”
“It could be him. Or it might not be,” Dallas said.
Crosby gave him a little smile. “There is one piece of evidence that’s pretty conclusive. Remember when you had his fingerprints matched against the FBI database?”
“We didn’t find a match!”
“Right. But we have his prints in our own security files. And I’ve obtained some prints from the paperwork he filled out when he rented the town house. Paper is an excellent fingerprint medium. We have several samples, and they match. It’s him.”
The news seemed to send a jolt like an electric current through Dallas’s system. “Good work,” he breathed.
“Give the word, and I’ll authorize a raid on the town house he rented.”
“You’ve got it. And do it tonight. I’ll be waiting here for a full report.”
“Yes, sir.” Crosby wheeled and marched out of the room, satisfied that he’d turned disaster into triumph. In a few hours, they’d have the guy.
AFTER LUKE LEFT, Hannah picked up the messages from her office machine. One of them was from Jed Prentiss. But when she called the number he’d left, he wasn’t there, so she left a message saying she’d get back to him in the morning.
Next she tried to work at the computer, gathering information about Texas and checking airline schedules. But gradually her concentration began to fall apart.
Finally, aware that she had been staring unseeing at Luke’s screen saver for twenty minutes, she set the laptop on the coffee table.
Doing some stretching exercises, she tried to work the kinks out of her neck and shoulders. But the tension remained. Glancing at her watch, she saw that it was almost ten.
God, Luke had been gone for hours. She’d expected him back a long time ago. Either that, or he should have called.
A dozen scenarios leaped to her mind. He’d been in a traffic accident. Gotten arrested. Or the guy from the parking garage had somehow caught up with him, and he was lying on the cold pavement in a pool of blood. A sound of protest welled in her throat, and she shook her head in denial. It wasn’t Luke lying on the sidewalk. It was Sean Naylor.
Luke was all right. He had to be all right, she told herself, even as she felt tendrils of anxiety wrapping themselves around her windpipe, making it difficult to breathe.
When the phone rang, she jumped, then dashed across the room and snatched the receiver from the kitchen extension.
“Hannah, is something wrong?”
The man on the other end of the line was Jed Prentiss, not Luke.
Disappointment closed around her as if she’d just been blanketed by wet fog. “I’m fine,” she managed to say.
“You sound stressed.”
“I’m fine,” she repeated, then asked, “How did you get this number?”
“Easily.”
“But not legally, since I’m sure Luke has the caller ID function blocked.” When he didn’t deny it, she added, “I told you I’d get back to you. You shouldn’t have phoned me here.”
Ignoring the comment, he asked, “Are you alone?”
“Do you mean, am I with Luke?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s out.”
“Okay. I checked the FBI IAFIS fingerprint database. The prints you gave me aren’t on it.”
“Which means he’s not a criminal!”
“Maybe. But there are over three hundred million people in the U.S. and the database only has a fraction of them,” Jed retorted. “In addition, it’s only ninety-two percent accurate. Maybe he’s never been caught red-handed. Or maybe he’s got a record in a state that hasn’t transferred their files to the feds.”
Although she couldn’t see Jed’s face, she could hear the disapproval in his voice. “That’s not a very charitable interpretation.”
“You didn’t come to me for charity, did you?”
“No.”
“Hannah, I don’t like what you’re doing.”
“What aspect exactly? Taking Luke on as a client?”
“You’re putting your life in this guy’s hands.”
“I told you, I trust him.”
“Do you want to tell me about the item on the evening news, the one about the young woman with dark hair and the tall, thin guy who were seen driving away from the Light Street garage after gunshots were exchanged? The incident took place ten minutes after you left Randolph Security.”
She made an effort to keep her voice even. “He’s not tall and thin.”
“Tall. You know, I kind of thought I heard shots. Then I convinced myself it must be something else. But there was an exchange of fire at the garage next door, and you were in it, weren’t you, Hannah?”
“It wasn’t an exchange of fire. Some guy shot at Luke then got away.”
“And you still want to hang out with him?”
“Yes.”
“Hannah, I know your location. I can come over there and get you.”
While he was speaking, she heard the garage door open and said hurriedly, “Please, Jed, don’t interfere. Thank you for checking the fingerprints, but if I need any more help from you or Randolph Security, I’ll ask for it.”
“Hannah, let’s talk about this.”
“No. I want your word that you won’t do anything on your own. You and anybody else at Randolph.” She thought for a moment. “And don’t phone Cal Rollins either. Or anybody at the Baltimore P.D.”
“Hannah!”
“Your word.”
“All right,” Jed answered grudgingly.
“Say it.”
“You have my word I won’t interfere.”
She was still holding the phone when Luke walked into the room carrying an armload of packages. As he set them down, his eyes zeroed in on the receiver in her hand.
She reached out and set it back into the cradle.
“Who were you talking to?” His voice was edgy.
“Jed.”
“Why did you call him from here?”
She forced herself to keep her hands at her sides, when she wanted to fold them defensively across her chest. She hadn’t done anything wrong, and she wasn’t going to act guilty. “I didn’t call him. I picked up a voice-mail message from him and tried to call him back,” she said, enunciating carefully. “When he wasn’t there, I said I’d talk to him in the morning.”
“Did you leave your number?”
“No.”
“But he got back to you anyway.”
She swallowed
. “Yes. He phoned me. But I made him promise he wouldn’t interfere with us. And I trust him,” she added.
“I don’t.”
“Apparently the feeling’s mutual.”
“Well, that’s just perfect, isn’t it? What did he want? Was he trying to make sure I hadn’t murdered you in your sleep?”
“He was calling to tell me what he found from the FBI database.”
Luke was instantly alert. “And?”
“You’re not in it.”
He let out the breath he must have been holding. “That’s something, anyway. But not much.”
“It means you haven’t been arrested. At least as an adult.”
“Right. Unless somebody’s pulled my prints from the files.”
“Who would do that? Who could do it?”
He shrugged. “If I knew that, maybe I’d remember who I am.”
She stared at him, thinking that he’d taken control of the conversation before she’d gotten a chance to register her own concerns. “Instead of focusing on Jed, why don’t we talk about where the hell you’ve been for the past few hours? Didn’t it enter your brain that I might be worried about you? Don’t you have a cell phone?”
He sighed. “No. And I kind of had my hands full.”
“How difficult can it be to pick up a few items?”
“Not all that difficult. Unfortunately I attracted the attention of the store’s security.”
She caught her breath. “What happened?”
“You want the long version or the short version?”
“The whole thing.”
He started to cross to one of the chairs. Then a noise outside made him go rigid. “What was that?”
“I didn’t hear anything.”
He stood very still, listening.
“You were going to tell me what happened at the store,” she prompted.
“In a minute.” Reaching for the remote control on the end table, he switched on the TV.
She was about to say it was way past time for the news when he pressed a button and the scene switched from the commercial channel to four different pictures—all views of the town house and its environs. One showed the garage. Another the street. Two more focused on the small front and back yards.
What Hannah saw made her heart leap into her throat and block her windpipe. Men dressed in black, their faces shaded by baseball caps, were on the front lawn, approaching the garage door. The back and front yards were clear.
Luke reacted instantly. “Come on.”
She went stiff for an instant.
“Get moving!” he growled.
The sharp tug on her arm and the tone of voice unfroze her.
Holding tight to her hand, he raced for the stairs, and she stumbled after him. When she tripped and sprawled across the risers, he hoisted her up and kept moving.
They reached the second floor, which she hadn’t seen until now, and sped down a short hall to what must be his bedroom. Flinging open the closet, he grabbed the suitcase with the money and a smaller bag before shoving open a bedroom window. In front, the house was three stories tall to accommodate the garage. But it was built into a hill. In back they were only two floors above the ground, with the kitchen bay window directly below them, she saw as she looked down apprehensively. Probably that was why he’d selected this bedroom, she thought.
“You first,” he said.
“I—”
“I’m not climbing out and leaving you.”
She might have thought he was looking out for her welfare, but the tone of his voice suggested a different motive. He didn’t trust her to come along.
“Luke…I—”
A loud noise like a door being kicked in from below made them both stiffen.
“Get going,” Luke snapped.
She put one foot outside, then the other, stretching down as far as she could to reach. Her feet still didn’t touch the window projection, so she had to let go, falling several feet and barely catching herself against the rear wall.
Something flew past her and landed with a thunk on the ground. The suitcase with the money. The other bag had barely hit the ground before Luke was lowering himself to the bay-window roof beside her.
Inside, she could hear sounds of men’s voices now. Angry voices. Ignoring them, Luke helped her to the ground.
Automatically, she picked up the smaller suitcase. He took the one with the money and they sprinted through the back gate and down the alley.
Above the sound of her pulse pounding in her temple, she tried to listen for the sound of footsteps pounding after them. Or gunshots.
But they seemed to have gotten away clean. When they reached the end of the block, Luke stopped her forward progress, waiting in the shadows until he was sure the coast was clear. Then they crossed the street and dashed into the next alley. They traveled in that fashion for several blocks until her lungs were burning and a sharp pain stabbed into her side. Then, as they came around a corner, Luke spotted a man get out of his car in front of a house, leaving the engine running.
“Some luck for a change,” Luke commented, and she knew what he was going to do.
When the guy disappeared inside, he grabbed her hand again. “Come on.” Without giving her time to protest, he leaped toward the vehicle, opened the passenger door and shoved her inside. Then he slid behind the wheel and sped off into the night.
Leaning back against the seat, she struggled to catch her breath. Maybe Luke wasn’t in the FBI database now, but he would be if the police caught up with them tonight.
AWARE THAT he was hunched forward, Luke sat up straighter and tried to ignore the acid pain in his gut.
If he hadn’t been constantly psyched for trouble, things would have turned out a bit differently.
“So it looks like the guys who are chasing the money found you,” Hannah said.
“You think so? I reckon that was your friends from Randolph Security.”
Her head whipped toward him. “That’s crazy! Jed wouldn’t do anything like that.”
“This ain’t my first rodeo, darlin’. What was his plan? To scoop me up and turn me over to the police, or interrogate me himself?”
“Jed wouldn’t do either of those things!”
Luke flicked her a doubtful look, seeing the tautness in her face and shoulders.
“Even if they knew about the money, Jed wouldn’t come after me like that. He doesn’t need a million dollars.”
Her voice rang with certainty, but in the moment he’d seen the men outside, he had stopped trusting her or anyone else. He drove for several more miles, then, figuring it was safe to stop, pulled to the curb and cut the engine, studying her in the light from a street lamp.
She raised her chin. There were two ways for her to go—weepy or belligerent. Apparently she’d chosen the latter. “If you’re still thinking I had something to do with what happened back there, you’re…you’re nuts.”
“What am I supposed to figure? I come home, you’re on the phone, and you hang up. The next thing I know, an assault team pulls up. Would you take that for a coincidence?”
“I didn’t call them in. I wouldn’t do that.”
“What would you think if you were me?” he demanded.
“Maybe I’d be suspicious,” she conceded.
“Yeah.” He didn’t know what else to say. He wasn’t about to admit it was possible he’d gotten a bit paranoid. In fact, he really didn’t know what the hell to think. All he knew was that his nerves were strung tighter than a rope clothesline after a soaking rain.
It appeared that the woman next to him didn’t know when to cut her losses. “If I’m in on it, why would I stick with you?” she asked.
“I didn’t give you an option.”
She made a disgusted noise. “I could have given you the slip if I’d wanted to, but okay, have it your way.”
The tone of her voice might have convinced him. But he was in no mood to be convinced. He’d made himself vulnerable to her, been too eager to
give her his trust. Now he was overcompensating, erring on the side of caution. The way he saw it, he had no other choice.
CHAPTER EIGHT
As he’d done before, Luke headed for a residential neighborhood. Feeling as if he was in one of those movies where the main character is doomed to repeat the episodes of his life, he started looking for a house where the occupants were away and also owned an old car. Forty minutes later, they had changed vehicles to something safer—a fifteen-year-old Mustang.
“Where did you learn to hot-wire a car?” Hannah asked in a conversational tone.
“Maybe I was a juvenile delinquent.”
“Maybe.”
He drove on into the night, silent until she asked another question. “Where are we going?”
“Gunpowder State Park.”
“Why?”
“Maybe I’m planning to kill you and dispose of the body.”
She gave a nervous laugh.
Letting her stew, he stopped at one of those huge supermarkets where you could buy everything from hot dogs to hardware—at any time of the day or night. When he came out again, he had a change of clothing for her, an extra toothbrush and bandages for the bump on her head, as well as a box of heavy-duty plastic bags and a shovel. The other things he needed were in the case he’d kept packed for emergencies.
It was lucky he was a millionaire, he thought. This was his third trip to a store that evening.
Next to him, Hannah was silent, and he was glad she was smart enough to keep her mouth shut. He didn’t want to talk to her. He just wanted to get rid of the money and get the hell out of Baltimore.
Almost as soon as he’d arrived, he’d started making contingency plans for the cash because he’d known it might be dangerous—or foolish—to keep it with him.
He’d given himself several options. Tonight, Gunpowder State Park was the closest location.
Making sure to stay within the speed limit, he drove to one of the park entrances, pulled off the road and inspected the area. At this time of night, the park entrance was blocked by a chain. But removing it so that he could drive through was no problem. Once he’d replaced the barrier, he drove slowly with his lights off to the spot he’d picked out.
