He reached the intersection and spotted the Jeep approaching in the eastbound lanes from Orange Avenue. Jeremy traveled with the flow of traffic to avoid attracting attention.
Ben waited until the vehicle passed. Then he laid on the horn. Startled drivers slowed just enough for him to shoot across three lanes of westbound traffic with only near misses instead of collisions. In a bone-jarring move, the sedan bounced up and over the concrete median.
Spinning the car into the eastbound fast lane, he earned honks and dirty gestures from the drivers he nearly sideswiped. Wishing he had the power of his BMW, he floored the accelerator to climb the steep incline of the bridge.
The Jeep appeared just ahead in the far right lane next to the side railing. Ben pulled alongside and slid across the line until the vehicles were just inches apart. Jeremy jerked the wheels to the right and frantically motioned with his middle finger for Ben to return to his lane. The man’s lips moved, and Ben imagined what he was spewing.
He pressed the sedan closer and closer. The Jeep slowed. Amber leaned forward in the passenger seat, and her eyes widened when she saw Ben. He gave a quick shake of his head, hoping she knew it meant not to identify him to Jeremy.
At the apex of the bridge, Ben suddenly cut in front of the Jeep at an angle. Unable to stop in time, the Jeep’s fender and side crunched into the sedan. The maneuver wedged the vehicle in so it couldn’t advance, and Jeremy couldn’t open his door.
Ben threw the gearshift into park and stomped on the emergency brake. He leaped from the car with his Glock drawn but hidden behind him. So far, so good. Now if the cavalry would just arrive in time.
Jeremy had already climbed over the center console. He and Amber squeezed out the passenger door. Once they were standing between the Jeep and the bridge’s low concrete side railing, Jeremy let go with a stream of obscenities.
Her face as chalky white as the lines on the road, Amber stood rigidly beside him. The left side of her face was a darkening, puffy puzzle of purple and red. Dried blood crusted her swollen lips. Her eyes, wide and glassy, pleaded with him. Her chin quivered erratically.
“What the fuck were you doing?” Jeremy screamed at the end of his tirade.
“Sorry, man. Something’s wrong with the steering,” Ben said calmly.
“Stupid asshole. You could’ve pushed us off the goddamn bridge.”
“Dude, I’m freaked out too.” Ben shook his head apologetically. “Hey look, man, it’s all my fault. Let’s call the cops and get a tow truck out here.”
“No cops. My car will run. We’ll push your piece of shit out of the way. You gimme what cash you got and a check if you got one. We’ll call it square.”
He scratched his head. “But I’m gonna need a police report for my insurance company.”
“I don’t give a damn what you need. I need to get outta here. Now!”
Ben breathed a sigh of relief when he heard a siren approaching from the Coronado end of the bridge. Thank God for whomever had called 911 to report the accident. He’d counted on it.
Jeremy’s head jerked toward the sound and then back to Ben. “Don’t have time to move your car. I’m takin’ it.”
“What the hell you talking about? No way, man. Besides, the steering’s gone out, remember?” C’mon, cops. Hurry.
“You wanna argue with this?” Jeremy yanked a gun from behind Amber and aimed it at Ben.
In the same instant, he raised his Glock. “Yeah, I do. FBI! Drop your weapon!”
Jeremy’s eyes widened with shock. Then they narrowed into menacing slits. His face hardened into a mask of irrational determination.
Damn. These situations never ended well. The crazy bastard wasn’t going to give up. He’d rather die resisting. Suicide by cop. Shit.
Jeremy swiveled the gun to press against Amber’s temple. She gasped.
“Move away from your car or the bitch dies.” Jeremy hunkered down low behind her, using her as a shield.
Ben didn’t have a clean shot.
“The cops are going to be here any second, Jeremy. No one needs to get hurt. Put the gun down and let Amber go.”
“What the hell? You know each other? Shit! You been fuckin’ my woman.”
He turned the gun on Ben, an easy target. Amber’s eyes and mouth opened wide with terror.
“Down!” Ben yelled to her.
Instead of dropping, she bent forward, using the momentum to strike Jeremy in the chin with her bound hands. At the same time, she stomped on his foot.
Jeremy’s gun jerked and fired.
Ben dove for the ground. Peering beneath the vehicles, he saw Amber fall to the pavement. Had Jeremy shot her when she punched him?
He rolled onto his stomach, aimed, and pulled the trigger. Two bullets struck Jeremy in the leg.
Screaming in pain, the man jumped up and down on his uninjured leg.
Ben bolted to his feet.
Jeremy’s arms windmilled wildly as he bounced next to the low concrete guardrail.
Ben took aim. “Drop the gun! Drop it now!”
Chapter 33
Spellbound, Amber watched Jeremy bounce on one leg. Up, down, up, down, the movement playing in slow motion. Blood covered his raised leg from shin to shoe. His arms slashed the air in circles as he struggled to maintain his balance. His mouth wide open, he seemed to be screaming, but her ears rang so badly from his gunshot, she couldn’t hear him.
Suddenly, in the midst of all the moving body parts, his gaze and gun zeroed in on her. His face contorted with hate. His mouth twisted in an ugly sneer.
Jeremy was going to kill her. Right here on this beautiful bridge, high up in the air. On a brilliant day under an endless azure sky and fluffy white clouds. With the ocean breeze whipping her hair around her face. With the salt air tickling her nose. In front of carloads of strangers. In front of Ben.
Christ, she was so tired of running, of hiding, of being invisible, of living in fear. So sick of Jeremy.
Their eyes connected. Hers filled with loathing.
“Fuck you, Jeremy Nelson! Go to hell,” she screamed and braced herself for the bullet that would end her misery.
The blast of another gunshot registered in her ringing ears. But she didn’t feel any pain. No jolt. No burn. No agony. Her heart still pounded. The wind brushed her face. She smelled the sea. I’m alive. I’m alive!
A few feet in front of her, Jeremy’s body jerked hard. The impact of the bullet propelled him backward. Wobbling on one foot, he flung his arms over his head. His uninjured leg hit the concrete railing and buckled. He lost his balance and catapulted over the side.
A second later, he was… gone.
Time stopped. She didn’t move. She didn’t breathe.
She stared at the empty spot until Ben dropped to his knees in front of her.
“Are you hit? Are you hit?” His gaze swept over her, taking in every inch, every bruise, every cut.
Her brain refused to function. She blinked at him. “H-huh?”
Instead of answering, he ran his hands up and down her arms, around her torso, over her legs, and then leaned around to inspect her back. “Thank God. I was afraid he shot you.”
“H-He… fell.”
“I know, babe.”
“H-He’s dead?”
Ben nodded. “People don’t survive a fall from the third-deadliest suicide bridge in the country.”
She started to tremble. From her teeth to her toes, her whole body shook convulsively. Her teeth chattered so hard she thought they might crack.
He pulled a pocketknife from his pants and cut the tape binding her hands. After a circulation-restoring massage, he sat down, pulled her onto his lap, and banded his arms around her. “It’s okay, babe. It’s over. You’ll be fine.”
Reality remained hard to comprehend and accept. Hadn’t she just been seconds away from dying? “I-I’m alive.”
He smiled. “Damn straight.”
A police car screeched to a stop a few yards away. Guns drawn, tw
o cops jumped out and advanced on them.
“The cavalry’s arrived,” he muttered. “A little late.”
“Police! Hands up,” one shouted.
Ben helped her raise her arms and then complied himself with an exasperated sigh. The scene played in her mind like a TV crime show.
“I’m FBI Special Agent Ben Alfren. My service weapon is in my back waistband.”
“Lay it on the ground and scoot it over here. Slowly!”
Again, he complied.
The second cop grabbed it. “Dispatch said there were two men. Where’s the other guy?”
“In the water.”
“Shit.”
“Definitely. Do you want my creds?” Ben asked.
“Yeah. Slowly. And keep your hands where I can see them.”
She shifted her body so he could pull his badge and ID from his pocket. Carefully, he held them out to Cop Two.
“Who are you?” Cop One directed the question to Amber.
“A-Amber Jollett.”
“She’s a kidnap victim. She needs an ambulance,” Ben added.
“Lisa n-needs one too. In m-my apartment.”
Another squad car pulled up, and two more cops emerged. Police radios barked orders.
Horns honked. A crowd formed beyond the vehicles. People shouted questions.
Amber closed her eyes and snuggled against Ben’s chest.
He came for me.
She trusted him to handle anything and everything. She couldn’t care less about all the activity swirling around her.
She was alive.
Ben was holding her.
Nothing else mattered.
* * *
Ben slouched in the uncomfortable plastic chair in the emergency room waiting area. The doctors and nurses had already examined Amber, tested her, and patched her up. Luckily, her cuts had required only Steri-Strips, not stitches. When she hadn’t been interested in talking, he’d tried to get her to take a nap. Had she cooperated? Not a chance. She seemed content to just lie there, staring at the ceiling. Now they’d taken Amber to have her neck x-rayed, and the events of the day began to sink in for the first time.
The adrenaline crash dragged him down, and fatigue wormed its way into his muscles and bones. His brain kept trying to compartmentalize fatally shooting two people, but his heart kept pulling the acts back front and center. Knowing he’d killed to save two innocent women helped. And there was no argument that Raul Garcia and Jeremy Nelson were bad guys. Very bad.
This man felt bad. Very bad.
He straightened in the chair. Marissa’s words crept out of the shadows of his mind. I saw a man and a woman. The scene with Maria and Raul hadn’t fit, but what about Amber and Jeremy? In the sky. In the air. The Coronado Bridge was over two hundred feet high, offering a breathtaking, panoramic, bird’s-eye view of the surrounding landscape. Like being “in the air.”
Holy shit.
His cell sounded a familiar ringtone. No way.
“Benja, are you okay?” Marissa asked immediately.
“Hello to you too, Gypsy. I’m fine. I didn’t know news traveled coast to coast so fast. How did you hear?”
“News? Hear? I didn’t hear any news. I have felt you in danger for hours, but I was in the middle of an op, and I couldn’t call. You are truly all right, yes?”
“Yeah. Hardly a scratch.” He hesitated. “Remember your premonition about the man and woman in the air?”
“Of course. You have figured it out?”
“Most of it. All except the part about the woman being familiar to you. There’s no way you’ve met the woman in this incident.”
A long silence followed.
“Marissa?”
“I’m here.” She cleared her throat. “I’m not sure if I should tell you this.”
He frowned. “Tell me what?”
Another pause.
“Hey, talk to me, Gypsy.”
“Okay. Are you in love with the woman in the ‘incident’?”
He blinked. Not what he expected. “Well, uh…”
“Do not worry about my feelings. Do you love her?”
He drew a deep breath. Did he love Amber? “Hell, I’m a guy. I don’t know.”
“Benja,” she said in a threatening tone.
“Okay, okay. I might be falling… you know. But what in the world does that have to do with her seeming familiar to you?”
“I told you it was as if I’d seen, but not seen, her. Perhaps she’d been in a previous premonition.”
He held his breath. Unbelievable as it was, he knew what Marissa was going to say.
“I remembered this woman… in the air… with the very bad man…” She cleared her throat again. “Because she is the same woman in the premonition that warned me I would lose you to someone else if you moved to San Diego.”
Ben gulped. “That was more than two years ago. Are you sure?”
“Yes. I must go, Benja.” She hesitated. “I am so happy for you. Embrace your new love.”
He sat in stunned silence for several minutes after she disconnected.
“Mr. Alfren, you can come back in now,” a nurse called.
Stiffly, he stood up and followed the woman back to Amber’s cubicle. He pushed the curtain aside and sat down in the only chair. Amber’s eyes were closed; her expression strained. She looked so battered, so fragile, but he knew she had courage of steel. That didn’t keep him from wanting to protect her.
He found it hard to take his eyes off her—even for a moment. Damn, he’d come so close to losing her. Leaving her alone at his apartment had been a critical mistake. But…
He shook his head. But didn’t matter. However Jeremy got his hands on her didn’t matter. Bottom line: If she’d been at the FBI office, none of this would’ve happened.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she whispered, her eyes still shut. “But it’s not your fault.”
“It damn well is. I should’ve—”
“No, I should’ve listened to you. As you said, I’m too stubborn for my own good. Please don’t blame yourself.”
He clenched his jaw and tamped down his anger, which was more unreasonable than the blame. “I’ll agree if you’ll stop lying there blaming yourself.”
She opened her eyes and turned her face toward him. “Is that what you think I’m doing?”
“What am I supposed to think? You won’t talk to me.”
She inhaled deeply and let it out slowly. “I know how Jeremy found me.”
“How?”
“My boss, Laura Eldridge, told him where I lived.”
His anger took aim at a new target. “Didn’t she know—?”
“Oh yeah, she knew. Laura’s the person I told when they hired me, and she put it in my personnel file that no information was to be given out about me to anyone. Ever.”
“Why would she—?”
“Because she’s in love with Dr. Garcia.”
He blinked in disbelief. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I didn’t figure it out until today. After Jeremy told me how she’d helped him find me, something clicked. Yesterday, when we interviewed the surrogates, I saw Garcia hugging a woman in the hallway. She was facing the other direction, so I couldn’t see her face. But something seemed—”
“Familiar,” he finished for her.
“Yeah.”
“There’s a lot of that going around.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind.” Rubbing the back of his neck, he tried to gauge her emotions. Disappointed. Betrayed. But also pissed. Good, because then she wouldn’t be pissed at him for bringing her boss down.
“What Laura did was wrong. But do you think she broke the law?” Amber asked.
“Maybe several, depending on how much she knew about Garcia’s clinic. She might be considered an accomplice to both Raul and Jeremy. But we need evidence.”
“And I know just how to get it.”
Chapter 34
After Ben finished t
aping the listening device on Amber’s chest in the FBI office, they left for SDSA. She felt numb, detached. Was this what having an out-of-body experience felt like?
How could Laura have done this to her? Convinced that Laura had been the woman she’d glimpsed in the hallway with Dr. Garcia, Amber still couldn’t fathom her actions. Her boss didn’t know anything about the raids. She’d only known Amber was investigating the competitor responsible for so many SDSA cancellations.
But if Laura was romantically involved with Raul, she would’ve understood the situation already. Did she know her boyfriend was using slaves for his surrogates? How could she condone such behavior? Why would she want anything to do with a man who could treat people that way?
When Ben reached across the car and touched her arm, she jumped.
“Hey, you okay? You sure you’re up for this? It’s been a helluva day already, and this isn’t going to be easy.”
“How else would you catch her if she doesn’t confess? All you have are my statements that Jeremy implicated her and I saw Garcia hugging her.”
“We’d get her and Jeremy’s phone records. And the copy of the SDSA phone call slip from when Jeremy left a message.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t tell you what they discussed. And it wouldn’t give you any connection to Dream Makers.”
He shoved his hand through his hair. “She’d probably crack under interrogation once she knows her boyfriend’s dead.”
“Probably?”
“Look, I’m trying to protect you. After what… almost… happened to you, why do you want to see her again?”
She stared out the side window, not really seeing the passing scenery. “I don’t. But it’d be worse if Laura isn’t punished.” She sighed. “Please don’t be mad. I couldn’t take it right now.”
“I’m not mad. I’m… worried.”
“I’m sure you have every angle covered.”
“Yeah. Just remember you’re there to talk, not get physical. You’re hurting already.”
She turned to glare at him. “Does that mean I can’t beat her to a pulp?”
“Definitely.”
“Laura may try to run.”
“If she does, I’ll be in the elevator lobby. Plus, I have people stationed at all the building exits and in the garage. She won’t get away.”
Hunted (FBI Heat Book 1) Page 23
