She would give herself a few moments. She walked to the dock and down it, hoping to find people aboard the boats there. She struck gold halfway down with a couple who were walking toward her. They held tennis racquets.
She stopped them. “Hi,” she said brightly. “I’m trying to find a boat called the Phantom. I want to interview the captain for a story I’m writing about deep-sea fishing. A friend took a trip with him and told me he was really knowledgeable.”
One of them made a face. “The Phantom left yesterday, and we weren’t sorry to see them go,” said the woman. “The crew kept to themselves. Arrogant as the devil. Complained about everything.”
“Really? The clerk didn’t remember a boat like that.”
“Jimmy. He’s as bad as they were.”
“Do you know the name of the captain?”
“Stefan something.” They looked at each other. “Something like Fisher. I thought it funny that a fisherman was named Fisher. That’s how I remembered it. I do know he was foreign. Had a pronounced accent.”
“How long had they been here?”
“I don’t know,” the man said. “Since we’ve been here. Three weeks. I hear they’re here often.”
“Come on,” said the woman, tugging at her companion’s hand. “It’ll be too hot for tennis.”
Robin thanked them and started back to the office. The clerk had lied to her and she wanted to know why. She watched as the young couple got into a small convertible, then she went to the door of the office. It was locked.
She knocked at it, but no one came. Frustrated, she looked around. No one.
Where had he gone?
Then with terrible suddenness, she was aware of someone next to her, pressing a gun into her side.
“Be quiet, Ms. Stuart, and walk toward the parking lot.”
She knew if she did, she probably wouldn’t survive.
She glanced around. No one in sight.
“Move, bitch,” the man said with sudden viciousness.
Maybe there would be someone in the parking lot. Maybe … she could pretend she was terrified.
Pretend?
Her bad foot hit a stone, and she stumbled slightly. She turned around and looked at her captor. “I … have a bad leg.”
“Yeah, that threw us off,” he said, his hand righting her. “We were told to look for someone in a brace. Get going.”
She limped more than necessary, slowing their progress on the short walk to the parking lot. She passed her car.
“That way,” her captor said. She followed the line of his gaze and saw a dark sedan with tinted windows. She knew once she reached it, she was probably as good as dead.
Her gun was in her purse, but with one in her back she wasn’t foolish enough to try to use it.
“Who are you?” she said.
“You didn’t hear what I said. Walk. Naturally. Toward that car.”
“If I don’t?”
“Then you can die right here.”
“I have information with other people …”
“Move,” he ordered again, the gun pressing even deeper into her side.
A car horn blew. Her captor looked to the dark sedan.
A warning?
The blast of the horn sounded again. She was aware of a car roaring toward them, then screeching to a halt between where she and her assailant stood and the dark sedan. Her captor spun around as the door opened and Ben Taylor burst from inside, a gun in his hand.
But her captor had a second’s advantage …
Robin threw herself at him and the shot went wild.
He knocked her to the ground. She rolled over and saw Ben jump her attacker, both of them landing on the cement. Ben hit the man’s head against the pavement and the assailant went limp.
She looked up. Two men from the parked car were racing toward them. A van squealed into the parking lot.
“Ben!”
He looked up and saw the van coming, then grabbed her hand. She resisted, leaned down and picked up her purse, then let him push her through the open door into his car. She scooted over to the passenger side as the two men neared the car. The motor was idling, and Ben stepped on the gas. The car seemed to jump, then accelerated.
The two men scattered as Ben steered toward them, then took a sharp right, barely avoiding crashing into the oncoming vehicle. Then they were over a curb. The car sped onto the highway, the van accelerating behind them.
She turned back. The van was only yards behind them. She doubted it would take much time for the dark sedan to follow. Ben swerved just as a shot rang out. She landed against the door. She managed to fasten the seat belt and he swerved again, driving from one side of the road to the other as she heard another shot.
Every nerve leaped and shuddered as the car swayed. Ben made one more turn and the car headed straight toward a truck coming in the opposite direction.
chapter twenty-seven
Ben jerked the steering wheel and whipped the car around the corner, barely missing the truck.
He glanced through the rearview mirror. The van was just behind him. He watched the driver frantically swerve to avoid hitting the truck and ram into a parked car, effectively blocking the street. The horn blared. Whoever drove the dark sedan, the one that had been waiting in the parking lot, was completely blocked.
Ben turned another corner at full speed, then drove south.
“Do you have a phone with you?” he asked Robin as he made yet another turn and slowed.
She didn’t answer for a moment and he glanced at her. Her fingers clutched the handle of her purse with a death grip. Her face was frozen. So it wasn’t only the purse. He remembered her telling him about the automobile accident. The terror, a kind of acceptance. The crash. Was she reliving that during his wild dash to safety?
He wanted to hold her, but neither of them could afford that at the moment. Instead, he had to snap her out of it. “Call 911 and report the accident,” he said. “Say you heard gunfire, that people in the car and the van might have been shooting at each other. Then hang up. Sound hysterical.”
“That won’t be hard.” The voice was weak but a spunky humor was in it.
He threw her another glance. Hardly. He’d discovered she was not the hysterical type.
Her hands shook slightly as she said exactly what he told her, then turned the phone off.
“Quick thinking, deflecting his shot. But foolish. He could have turned the gun on you.”
“Better you than me?” she asked dryly.
“True,” he said, trying to contain a smile. “I can take care of myself.” Her face relaxed slightly. Her grip on the purse didn’t seem quite as tight.
He drove two more blocks, then turned again on a side street and traveled another three blocks before he heard wailing sirens. He had to get rid of the rental car. No question that the perps had taken the license plate number.
He turned into the parking lot of an abandoned convenience store and drove to the back, where they were completely hidden. He put the car in park, but didn’t turn off the ignition.
He turned to her. Her face was pale.
“Why did you run away without an explanation?” He tried to temper his words, but he realized his voice was cold. Hard.
“I didn’t know I had to give you one,” she shot back.
“You step from one disaster to another. That’s your business,” he continued caustically. “Problem is, you leave chaos for everyone else in your wake.”
She looked stricken, and he wanted to take her in his arms. God, he’d wanted to do that since he watched her throwing herself into her assailant to deflect his shot. She came too damn close to being killed.
“I’m grateful for your help today,” she said stiffly. “Very grateful, in fact. But I had my reasons.”
“You always have your reasons. They’re not always good ones.” He had to give that to her.
Her eyes met his. “Maybe you’re right,” she admitted.
God, but she got to hi
m. The vulnerability in her eyes just then drained his anger.
He itched to touch her face. He started to reach out to her, then hesitated. Bad idea. She hadn’t wanted him around. She didn’t trust him.
Still, something in him responded to the fear that still lingered in her eyes. Even now he wanted to ease it.
He touched her face, pushed back some errant curls. Attraction rippled between them again. Fueled, he knew, by the adrenaline they both felt.
The air was thick with emotion. His fingers stroked her cheek, then curled around her neck, easing the tension. Her arms went around him, her breath whispering against his lips.
Then his lips met hers, lightly at first, then hungrily with all the anger and frustration he’d experienced in the last two days. Her lips moved against his, responding with an intensity that shook him. She opened her mouth, and he plundered it, ravishing and taking and giving.
Somewhere in his consciousness, he heard another siren. And another.
He moved away.
Robin looked stunned, as stunned as he felt. All the feelings between them, all that distrust and anger had exploded into something that went beyond reason.
Somehow he forced himself to put the car in gear. This was not a good place to be.
His hands shook slightly as he turned the car out of the parking lot and toward the interstate.
Robin felt as though lightning had flashed through her body. Yearning and wanting filled her.
She moved closer to him as he carefully drove just under the speed limit, his gaze keeping to the road. She looked at his face.
His jaw was set, a muscle knotted in his cheek.
He was silent, and so was she, until he asked directions to where she was staying.
She was stunned by the impact of that kiss, the feelings it had aroused in her.
Only hours earlier she hadn’t trusted him.
Now he’d saved her life.
But she’d also heard the anger in his voice and it went beyond the words.
He knew she hadn’t trusted him. And she feared she had damaged something fine that had been building between them. They were almost to the motel when he spoke again.
“You didn’t answer me when I asked why you felt you had to run away without telling anyone.”
“I met my source Sunday night. He told me Hydra had someone in the FBI. Then I received a call at the hospital after Mrs. Jeffers was admitted. Someone who knew you were with me. He told me if I spoke to the grand jury my family would die. He also said he would know, that someone close to me was working for them. Someone who also had access to grand jury deliberations.”
“And you believed it? Did you think that someone was trying to get you to doubt me?”
“Yes,” she said in a small voice. “I also thought that maybe one of your superiors could be involved. You have to report to them and …”
“And you couldn’t tell me that?”
She reached for his hand and she laid hers on it. “I should have told you. Everything was happening so fast. I didn’t know who or what to believe.”
“You trust me now?”
“Yes.”
“I could have staged that whole thing, you know. Just to get you to confide in me.”
Robin heard the deep irony in his voice and felt the bitterness behind it. Saying she was sorry wasn’t going to help anything, and she knew it. She just wished his tone wasn’t so cool, so controlled, when she still tingled all over from the kiss.
“And you thought … exactly what, when you came down here?” he continued.
“I thought if … I could get some more information, then the name of the source wouldn’t be so important.”
“That damn source is going to get you killed as well as God knows how many others. God save me from amateurs.”
“I’m not an amateur. I’m a reporter,” she protested. “How did you know where to find me?”
“I found a photo of a boat jammed in your printer.”
“You searched my home?” There was some indignation in her voice but it didn’t sound that convincing, rather as if she thought she should protest.
“We didn’t know whether you’d been kidnapped,” he said. “You disappeared from an agent.” He paused, then added caustically, “You might well have ruined his career in the doing.”
“Why? I wasn’t under arrest. It was voluntary.”
“I suspect it was voluntary because you thought we would watch you if it wasn’t.”
“Wouldn’t you?” she challenged.
“Most likely,” he admitted wryly.
“How did that photo lead you here? Why Brunswick?”
“Trust goes two ways, Robin,” he said in a flat voice. “So far I’ve gotten damn little. From now on, you want information, you give information. Where did you get the photo?”
“My source,” she finally said.
“A deputy with the sheriff’s department.” It was a question as much as a statement.
“Yes,” she admitted. “Now how did you know it was taken in Brunswick?”
“The widow of a Meredith County deputy. Her husband was killed in the line of duty several months ago. A lot of deaths around that department. I asked about fishing trips. She remembered her husband had been on several in south Georgia.
Her gaze riveted on him. “Something to do with the murders?”
“I’m thinking there’s a lot of coincidences.”
“So you were sent here?”
He hesitated, then replied, “No. I took personal leave.”
“Why?”
“I knew you were afraid of something. From your actions, you had to think there was a leak inside the bureau.”
“My source said he’d been told …”
“That could have been an excuse to keep you from coming to us.”
“No. He was scared. Not just scared. Terrified. For his family as well as himself. He said there was someone else who talked too much, and his family was killed. That’s why he came to me. He thought I could make enough noise that no one could cover it up.”
“Who in the bureau? Did he have any clue?”
She shook her head.
He thought about his office. He would bet his life that it wasn’t Mahoney. Hell, he’d already done that more times than he wanted to remember. Holland? He doubted it. Just as he couldn’t see any other agent he knew being involved. He didn’t mix much. He couldn’t return invitations. But he’d worked with them all for years. None lived beyond their means.
“What now?” Robin asked.
“Getting a new car is a priority.”
“What about the one I was driving?”
“I don’t think you want to go back and get it.” He turned and studied her. “Did you leave anything in it?”
“No. Just a map.”
“Did it have a hotel name on it?”
She shook her head. “I bought it at a minimart.”
“Nothing else?”
“Everything is in my purse.”
“The photos?”
She nodded.
“That’s why you grabbed it,” he said. “You know you could have gotten us both killed.”
“Instinct,” she whispered. “The original photo … my notes were in there.”
“What about clothes? Other personal items?”
“At the motel,” she said.
“I notice you’re aren’t wearing the brace.”
“Too easy to identify me.”
“Is that wise?”
“It was supposed to come off next week, anyway,” she said.
He digested that. He knew how careful she had been about it. “Anything else in the car that would give them a clue? A receipt? A parking ticket?”
“No.”
“Sure?”
“I’ve been careful.”
“You’ve been talking to marina operators. Did you use your name?”
“No.”
“The motel?”
“A different one ther
e, too.”
He was grudgingly impressed. She was good, better than he would have thought.
“Where did you learn all this?”
“Books. Movies.” She thought for a moment, then added, “Logic.” She paused, then added quickly, “I hope.”
He had to smile at that. “Sometimes illogic helps. The unexpected.”
“What about my car?” she asked. “I know I can’t get it now, but I can’t leave it there, either. It belongs to a friend of mine.”
“Where are the keys?”
“My purse.”
“I have a few friends down here. I’ll ask one of them to pick it up.”
She stared at him for a long time. “Is this going to get you in trouble?”
He shrugged. “Probably.”
“Why are you doing this?” she asked.
“Damned if I know,” he said and turned all his attention to the road ahead. Ben pulled in at her motel, drove slowly around the parking lot, then backed into a parking place, concealing the license plate from the rest of the lot.
“Move over to the driver’s side,” he told her. “Stay here until I signal you to come inside.” He paused while she handed him her room key.
“I have a gun with me,” she said, her fingers tightening around her purse.
“Where did you get that?”
“Yesterday. In Savannah.”
“You said you know how to use it?”
“On targets.”
“It’s different with a breathing target.”
“Have you ever killed anyone?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he stepped outside the car, mashed down the lock on the door, and waited until she slid over to the driver’s side. Then he went inside her motel room. Almost instantly he appeared back at the door and gestured for her to come inside.
The room looked even smaller to Robin than it had before. And dingier.
Ben locked the door and turned to her. His granite eyes pinioned her with a long, silent scrutiny. Sparks of longing shot through her as she remembered the way his lips felt against hers.
She needed it now. The adrenaline rush had faded, and she realized how close she’d come today to being killed.
But he was grim-faced. Probably regretting that kiss.
Her heart thumped against her rib cage. She’d made so many mistakes. Suspecting him. Being careless enough to leave the jammed paper in her printer. And yet if she hadn’t, then …
Tempting the Devil Page 29
