It was Rand.
Chapter 19
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
He’d released her from his choke hold, but spun her around to face him. He winced when her hand went up to her throat and rubbed at it as she stared at him, her eyes wide with shock.
“That—” Her voice cracked, making him feel even worse. “That should be my question, don’t you think?”
“Kate,” he began, instinctively reaching for her. She backed up a step, away from him. Hastily, as if she were afraid of him. A wave of nausea swept him at the thought.
She lifted her other hand, and he realized she had her cell phone. She kept watching him as she put it to her ear.
“I called earlier, and now I need a deputy here. I’ve…caught the thief.”
The cops. She was calling the sheriff. Rand sighed inwardly. “Kate, stop.”
“Yes, I have him here right now.” She gave Rand a startled look. “No, I don’t believe he’s armed.”
There was no hope for it. He reached into his back pocket. Kate backed up even farther, hastily. He realized she was thinking he might actually have a weapon, and turned sideways so she could see he was only pulling out his wallet. Her brow furrowed, but she kept talking to the dispatcher on the phone.
He flipped open his wallet to his Redstone ID, and held it in front of her. At first she ignored it, but finally he saw her focus on the card with his photograph. In the middle of confirming the address, her voice trailed off. Her gaze shot to his face.
“Ma’am? Ma’am?”
Rand could hear the dispatcher’s voice as he called out to Kate, clearly worrying that something had happened.
“I’m sorry. Never mind,” Kate said into the phone in a tiny voice he’d never heard from her before.
“Never mind?”
Kate seemed to pull herself together, and when she spoke this time, her voice was steadier. “I am sorry. Cancel the call, please. It appears to be a case of…mistaken identity.”
He knew he wasn’t mistaking the undertone in her voice, he just couldn’t decide if it was anger, bitterness or both. She answered a couple more questions from the dispatcher. Then she closed her phone. She slipped it into her coat pocket.
“Are you crazy?” The words burst from him. “What if I had been the thief, and had a gun?”
“I had pepper spray ready.”
She looked around on the ground, and he realized that must have been what he’d heard drop when he’d grabbed her.
“Pepper spray’s useless against a bullet. Damn it, you could have been hurt! Or worse,” he ended grimly.
She crossed her arms in front of her in an unambiguous display of self-protective body language.
“I wasn’t.”
“But you could have been.”
She let out an audible breath. “All right, but I didn’t think of that.”
“Were you thinking at all?”
“Yes,” she snapped. “If I hadn’t been, I would have gone with my first idea, which was waiting inside the truck.”
Dear God, he thought, his guts twisting at the possibilities of that hammered his suddenly overactive imagination.
“Damn,” he muttered.
“Well, I didn’t do it. And besides, I called the sheriff’s office ahead of time, told them if they got another call from me I’d need them here in a hurry, whether I could say anything to them or not.”
Well, that was smart enough, he thought. Calmer now, he let it go and tried again. “Kate, listen.”
“Oh, I’m listening. To the voice in my head saying that I’ve never been a bigger fool.”
“You’re not a fool.”
“Oh? Then why did it never occur to me that Redstone would send someone?”
“Because you don’t think like that,” he said. “You handle your own problems.”
And suddenly, belatedly he realized that he had all the proof he needed that Kate was not now and had never been involved in the thefts. Relief flooded him, and he couldn’t help smiling.
Kate stiffened. “Funny, is it?”
“No, it’s not, it’s just that—”
“Maybe I just didn’t realize our little problem would draw the elite. I know the reputation of the Redstone security team. Anybody who works here for long does. Why would I think they would turn up here in little Summer Harbor?”
“You had no way of knowing.”
“Sure.”
He glanced around. Time was passing, and he still had a job to do. This was going to have to wait.
“Look, I came here tonight to do something, and I need to get it done. And get out of here, in case our boy shows up early. Then we can talk all you want.”
“Came to do what?”
She had the right to know, he supposed, all things considered. He reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out what had arrived from Redstone just yesterday.
“It’s a tracking device,” he said, showing her the small receiver and the even smaller transmitter. “GPS based and motion activated. It’ll go off the minute this load changes geographic coordinates. I need to slip it into one of the boxes.”
She hesitated only an instant and then nodded, and he realized just how well he’d come to know her by the way he could tell she’d decided to set her own feelings aside for the moment for the sake of catching the thief.
She unlocked the door for him, saving him the trouble of picking the lock. Quickly he placed the transmitter in one of the top boxes.
“Wouldn’t it be better in one of the bottom ones? Maybe delay it being found?”
He looked over his shoulder at her. “Good idea. But think about how the thief will likely go about transferring the boxes.”
She saw it immediately. “He’ll take the top ones first, so they’ll become the bottom.”
“Exactly.”
She shook her head. “You’re right. I don’t think that way.”
“Thank goodness,” he said as he activated the transmitter and checked to make sure the receiver was reading it. “I have enough trouble with the dumb crooks without having smart ones in the woodwork.”
The compliment had been intentional, but he could see by her expression when he hopped out of the back of the truck that she wasn’t ready to forgive him. Yet, he thought, trying to be optimistic.
“We’re set,” he said.
“Now what?”
He considered that for a moment. “We go to my car and turn on the heater while we wait.”
“Now there’s an offer I can’t refuse,” she muttered.
No, she wasn’t anywhere near ready, he thought.
She gave him a sideways look as he led the way past the building that housed her office, and up the hill behind it. “Can you make it?”
“I climbed Rainier once,” she said, “so I guess I can manage this.”
Well, well, she was just full of surprises. And she proved the truth of what she’d said by easily keeping pace with him until they were over the rise and headed down to where his car was parked.
By the time they had moved to where he got a clear signal from the transmitter, the car was comfortably warm. Kate turned sideways in her seat to look at him. Her mouth twisted.
“Pretty good, Singleton. You had me so fooled I called the cops on our own security.”
He winced again at her use of his last name. He’d known she’d be mad, but he hadn’t expected it to sting this much. “At least you called the cops,” he said.
“What?”
“If you hadn’t, you might still be on the suspect list.”
She stared at him. “Me?” Then her expression changed, became thoughtful. “Of course. Who would have a better chance than I to pull this off?”
“Yes. You had knowledge, opportunity and motive.”
She eyed him steadily. “The motive being what? Money, I suppose?”
He nodded. “What you didn’t have was the mindset to resort to stealing.”
“My, I
appreciate your faith in me,” she said dryly.
She had a right to the sarcasm, he told himself. But he tried to explain anyway. “Kate, I couldn’t tell you. Not until I was sure you weren’t involved.”
“I can understand that,” she said, surprising him.
He let out a relieved breath. But her next words made him suck it back in again.
“So, that’s why the charm? The persistence? The—”
“Kate, no!” He’d been afraid of this. “I tried to stay away, damn it. I knew I shouldn’t get involved with you, not on a case.”
“You mean while I was a suspect, don’t you?”
“That, too,” he admitted. “But I couldn’t stay away. I kept telling myself it was crazy, but I couldn’t back off. Every time something would happen that would make me suspect you, I couldn’t make myself believe it.”
“Something would happen?”
He nodded. “Like you going out on the nights of the thefts. Or being so edgy and jumpy on those days. Like you were afraid of being caught.”
Kate drew back slightly. “Just how closely have you been watching me? And for how long?”
“Since I arrived,” he said.
She grimaced. “So that’s why you took the room at my grandparents’. You are using them.”
“Not in the way you mean,” he said. “I needed a place to stay. That it was their place was just good luck. I’d already decided to check into the room before I found out who they were.”
“I see.” She looked doubtful.
A desperate feeling roiled inside him. He put every bit of the turmoil he’d been feeling into his voice when he went on, “I couldn’t be honest with you then, Kate. I hated deceiving you, but I had no choice.”
Her expression shifted, and he thought he saw a tiny flicker of receptiveness. “You really mean that, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I would think you have to do a lot of lying in your job.”
“Sometimes. I never like it, but when it’s to good people I hate it.” He took a breath before adding, “When it’s to people I’ve come to…care about, I loathe it.”
One corner of her mouth twitched. “You’re just a regular Sir Galahad, aren’t you?”
“Hardly. I’m just a guy doing a job.”
“I don’t know. You certainly look the part.”
He blinked. Was she teasing him? He couldn’t tell. He wasn’t used to this floundering feeling, and he didn’t much like it.
“You have every right to be angry,” he began.
“But I’m not.”
“You—” He stopped. “You’re not?”
“No. I mean, even I can see that I was an obvious suspect, from your point of view. I feel pretty foolish, but I’m not angry.”
“Don’t feel foolish.” His mouth quirked. “I’m pretty good at being undercover when I need to be.”
“That I can believe. I’m just glad calling the police on you cleared me.”
“You’re being awfully reasonable about this.” He was having a little trouble accepting her reaction. He’d expected a blowup at the least.
She smiled, but it was a smile more than touched by sadness. “Let’s just say that in the larger scheme of things, something like this isn’t…life-altering.”
“Oh.”
He didn’t know what else to say, because he knew she meant she was comparing this to the loss of her child. And somehow telling her that he knew that about her, too, didn’t seem to be the thing to do at this moment. And he wouldn’t know what to say anyway; he couldn’t even imagine the kind of pain that lost must have caused her. Didn’t like even thinking about her hurting that badly.
She was looking at him curiously. “You’d rather I pitched a fit and screamed at you?”
“Maybe,” he said. “I thought you’d be furious.”
And he couldn’t help wondering if the reason she wasn’t angry was because she didn’t care enough to be. Perverse, he thought. He didn’t like the idea of her being hurt, but didn’t like the idea he didn’t have the power to hurt her, either.
The sudden beeping from the receiver on the front seat cut off his thoughts.
“It’s party time,” he muttered, and reached for the key to start the engine.
Chapter 20
Kate sat staring at the small device on the seat. It was about the size of a television remote control. A green light was blinking. It had started out slowly, but was now flashing more rapidly.
“What’s that mean, when the light speeds up? The transmitter’s getting closer?”
Rand nodded. “When it gets to within fifty feet, it stays lit. Within twenty-five and it’ll beep.”
“Clever.”
“Very. So’s the guy who invented it. In fact, he invented the sensor that made the insulin pump possible.”
She gave him a sideways look. “You know him?”
“Yeah. He works for Redstone. He’s also married to one of our team.”
“The security team?” she asked.
“Yep. Samantha Beckett. Well, Gamble now. She’s my usual partner, in fact.”
“Oh.”
So, his usual partner was a woman. She felt a small twinge. A married woman, she reminded herself. And he obviously had no problem with that.
“We kind of look alike, so sometimes we—”
He broke off, leaned forward, and moved his hand to the gear shift. Kate looked down and saw the light on the receiver was now a solid green. And by the time he’d put the car in drive, they saw headlights coming down the exit driveway. Moments later, the little box was quietly but definitely beeping.
“That’s one of the shop vans,” Kate said, brows furrowing as the familiar white vehicle exited the gate and turned right. “They told me the night mechanic goes home for his lunch break sometimes.”
“Well,” Rand said as he pulled out onto the road and headed after the van, “this time he’s taking the transmitter with him. And likely the box it was in.”
He didn’t turn the headlights on, Kate noticed, but although he was clearly intent on his driving, he didn’t seem to have any trouble. He kept well back from the van even without lights.
Kate stayed quiet, not wanting to disturb his concentration. In fact she was glad of the chance to think. And to wonder herself, as he had, why she wasn’t angry. But what she’d said had been nothing less than the truth; she felt a bit foolish, but not angry, not beyond the first few minutes after his revelation.
In part, her lack of anger was because she was feeling that she really should have guessed. She should have realized that Redstone wouldn’t let something like the theft of crucial medical equipment just slide. That ran counter to everything she had learned about Josh Redstone, and she should have known better. And her reaction, once she got past the shock—and the embarrassment of having slept with someone when she didn’t even know who he really was—had been along the lines of “Well, of course.”
The van made a quick turn to the right again, taking the corner fast enough to make the tires squeal. Rand slowed, glancing at her.
“Where’s that go?”
“Up,” she said. “It dead ends up on the bluff overlooking the cove.”
“Any side roads?”
“Maybe two or three, but they’re little more than driveways.”
He negotiated the turn and started up the hill, still blacked out. “So they’re likely to be heading somewhere on this road. What’s there?”
“It’s either residential or undeveloped, all the way to the top. Very quiet area.”
“So they could be headed to a house. Or just to some open space.”
“Either.”
She thought for a moment, trying to remember the road in her mind. “As a kid I had a friend who lived about halfway up, so I know that first part fairly well. There’s a big curve to the right just ahead, and then a really tight one to the left farther up.”
He nodded. “And the rest?”
“I’ve on
ly been up once or twice. When you get to the top, it’s only gravel and has some spots that are really treacherous in the rain or with ice. Especially since it drops off to the sound about a hundred and fifty feet.”
“Charming,” he muttered.
“No guard rail, either,” she added blithely.
Despite driving in the dark with no headlights, he gave her a quick sideways glance. “Trying to scare me?”
“Not at all. Surely it would take more than that to scare off one of Redstone’s finest.”
He laughed, but there was a rueful note in it. “Right now I’m not feeling much like the finest of anything. I should have had this solved long ago.”
“So should I.”
“It’s not your job.”
“It’s my department. I’m responsible.”
“You instigated new security procedures after the first theft. Good ones. That’s all anyone expected.”
“I’m sure that’ll look good on my résumé when I’m looking for a new job.”
There was a pause while he negotiated the big turn she’d warned him about. She caught a glimpse of the taillights of the van ahead, still moving.
“That,” he said when the road had straightened out again, “is not Josh’s style. He doesn’t just chop off the manager’s head. Besides, he’s pleased with your work.”
“He is?” She found it hard to believe that the man who ran an empire the size of Redstone paid any attention at all to tiny cogs like her.
“Yes. He specifically said so. And he’s pleased with the Summer Harbor operation in general.”
“Oh. Good.”
She didn’t go on. She wasn’t sure she liked being a topic of conversation at that level. The last time that had happened, it had been a discussion on how her work was suffering because of her child’s health problems.
And then, for the first time, it occurred to her to wonder what he’d been told when he was given this assignment. And just how much he knew about her.
“Did Mr. Redstone…suspect me, too?”
“Even if he did, he would never say so. Josh never sends us in with any preconceived notions. He doesn’t want us biased before we even start.”
In His Sights Page 17
