Man in Control

by Diana Palmer

  Then, suddenly, she spotted him, with another dark figure. They had two people in custody, a man and a woman. They were standing near another loading dock, apparently conversing with the men, when Jodie spotted a solitary figure outside the gates, on the sidewalk, moving toward the open gate. The figure was slight, and it held what looked like an automatic weapon. She’d seen Alexander with one of those, a rare time when he’d been arming himself for a drug bust.

  She had a single button to push to make Alexander’s cell phone ring, but when she pressed in the number, nothing happened. The phone went dead in her hand.

  The man with the machine gun was moving closer to where Alexander and the other man stood with their prisoners, their backs to the gate.

  The key was in the car. She only saw one way to save Alexander. She got behind the wheel, cranked the car, put it in gear and aimed it right for the armed man, who was now framed in the gate.

  She ran the car at him. He whirled at the sudden noise of an approaching vehicle and started spraying it with machine gun fire.

  Jodie ducked down behind the wheel, praying that the weapon didn’t have bullets that would penetrate the engine block as easily as they shattered the windshield of the car she was driving. There was a loud thud.

  She had to stop the car, because she couldn’t see where she was going, but the windshield didn’t catch any more bullets. Now she heard gunshots that didn’t sound like that of the small automatic her assailant was carrying.

  The door of the car was suddenly jerked open, and she looked up, wide-eyed and panicky, into Alexander’s white face.

  “Jodie!” he ground out. “Put the car out of gear!”

  She put it into Park with trembling hands and cut off the ignition.

  Alexander dragged her out of it and began going over her with his hands, feeling for blood. She was covered with little shards of glass. Her face was bleeding. So were her hands. She’d put them over her face the instant the man started firing.

  Slowly she became aware that Alexander’s hands had a faint tremor as they searched her body.

  “I’m okay,” she said in a thin voice. “Are you?”

  “Yes.”

  But he was rattled, and it showed.

  “He was going to shoot you in the back,” she began.

  “I told you to use the cell phone!” he raged.

  “It wouldn’t work!”

  He reached beside her and picked it up. His eyes closed. The battery was dead.

  “And you stop yelling at me,” she raged back at him. “I couldn’t let him kill you!”

  He caught her up in his arms, bruisingly close, and kissed her furiously. Then he just held her, rocked her, riveted her to his hard body with fierce hunger. “You crazy woman,” he bit off at her ear. “You brave, crazy, wonderful woman!”

  She held him, too, content now, safe now. Her eyes closed. It was over, and he was alive. Thank God.

  He let her go reluctantly as two other men came up, giving them curious looks.

  “She’s all right,” he told them, moving back a little. “Just a few cuts from the broken windshield.”

  “That was one of the bravest things I’ve ever seen a woman do,” one of the men, an older man with jet black hair and eyes, murmured. “She drove right into the bullets.”

  “We’d be dead if she hadn’t,” the other man, equally dark-haired and dark-eyed, said with a grin. “Thanks!”

  “You’re welcome,” she said with a sheepish smile as she moved closer to Alexander.

  “The car’s a total write-off,” the older man mused.

  “Like you’ve never totaled a car in a gun battle, Hunter,” Alexander said with a chuckle.

  The other man shrugged. “Maybe one or two. What the hell. The government has all that money we confiscate from drug smugglers to replace cars. You might ask your boss for that cute little Ferrari, Cobb.”

  “I already drive a Jaguar,” he said, laughing. “With all due respect to Ferrari, I wouldn’t trade it for anything else.”

  “I helped make the bust,” Jodie complained. “They should give it to me!”

  “I wouldn’t be too optimistic about that,” came a droll remark from the second of the two men. “I think Cobb’s boss is partial to Italian sports cars, and he can’t afford a Ferrari on his salary.”

  “Darn,” Jodie said on a sigh. “Just my luck.”

  “You should take her to the hospital and have her checked,” Hunter told Alexander. “She’s bleeding.”

  “She could be dead, pulling a stunt like that,” Alexander said with renewed anger as he looked at her.

  “That’s no way to thank a person for saving your life,” Jodie pointed out, still riding an adrenaline high.

  “You’re probably right, but you took a chance you shouldn’t have,” Alexander said grimly. “Come on. We’ll hitch a ride with one of my men.”

  “Your car might still be drivable,” she said, looking at it. The windshield was shattered but still clinging to the frame. She winced. “Or maybe not.”

  “Maybe not,” Alexander agreed. “See you, Hunter. Lane. Thanks for the help.”

  “Any time,” Hunter replied, and they walked back toward the warehouse with Alexander and Jodie. “Colby Lane was in town overnight and bored to death, so I brought him along for the fun.”

  “Fun!” Jodie exclaimed.

  The older man chuckled. “He leads a mundane nine-to-five life. I’ve talked him into giving it up for international intrigue at Ritter Oil.”

  “I was just convinced,” the man named Colby Lane said with a chuckle.

  “Good. Tomorrow you can tell Ritter you’ll take the job. See you, Cobb.”

  “Sure thing.”

  “Who were those two guys you were talking to?” Jodie asked when the hospital had treated her cuts and Alexander had commandeered another car to take her home in.

  “Phillip Hunter and Colby Lane. You’ve surely heard of Hunter.”

  “He’s a local legend,” she replied with a smile, “but I didn’t recognize him in that black garb. He’s our security chief.”

  “Lane’s doing the same job for the Hutton corporation, but they’re moving overseas and he isn’t keen on going. So Hunter’s trying to get him to come down here as his second-in-command at Ritter Oil.”

  “Why was Mr. Lane here tonight?”

  “Probably just as Phillip said—Lane just got into town, and Hunter volunteered him to help out. He and Hunter are old friends.”

  “He looked very dark,” she commented.

  “They’re both Apache,” he said easily. “Hunter’s married to a knockout blond geologist who works for Ritter. They have a young daughter. Lane’s not married.”

  “They seem to know each other very well.”

  Alexander chuckled. “They have similar backgrounds in black ops. Highest level covert operations,” he clarified. “They used to work for the ‘company.’”

  “Not Ritter’s company,” she guessed.

  He chuckled. “No. Not Ritter’s.”

  “Did you arrest Cara?”

  “Our Houston policewoman made the actual arrest, so that Cara wouldn’t know I headed the operation. Cara was arrested along with two men she swears she doesn’t know,” he replied. “We had probable cause to do a search anyway, but I had a search warrant in my pocket, and I had to use it. We found enough cocaine in there to get a city high, and the two men in the truck had some on them.”

  “How about Cara?”

  He sighed. “She was clean. Now we have to connect her.” He glanced at her apologetically. “That will mean getting your boss involved. However innocently, he did let her into a locked parking lot.”

  “But wasn’t the night watchman working for them? Couldn’t he have let them in?”

  “He could have. But I have a feeling Cara wanted Brody involved, so that he’d be willing to do what she asked so that she didn’t give him away for breaking a strict company rule,” he replied. He saw her expression
and he smiled. “Don’t worry. I won’t let him be prosecuted.”

  “Thanks, Alexander.”

  He moved closer and studied the cuts on her face and arms. He winced. “You poor baby,” he said gently. “I wouldn’t have had you hurt for the world.”

  “You’d have been dead if I hadn’t done something,” she said matter-of-factly. “The phone went dead and you were too far away to hear me if I yelled. Besides,” she added with a chuckle, “I hate going to funerals.”

  “Me, too.” He swept her close and kissed the breath out of her. “I have to go back to work, tie up loose ends. You’ll need to come with me to the nearest police precinct and give a statement, as well. You’re a material witness.” He hesitated, frowning.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Cara knows who you are, and she can find out where you live,” he said. “She’s a vengeful witch. Chances are very good that she’s going to make bond. I’m going to arrange some security for you.”

  “Do you think that’s necessary?”

  He nodded grimly. “I’m afraid it is. Would you like to know the estimated street value of the cocaine we’ve just confiscated?”

  “Yes.”

  “From thirty to thirty-five million dollars.”

  She whistled softly. “Now I understand why they’re willing to kill people. And that’s just one shipment, right?”

  “Just one, although it’s unusually large. There’s another drug smuggling investigation going on right now involving Colombian rebels, but I can’t tell you about that one. It’s top secret.” He smoothed back her hair and looked at her as if she were a treasure trove. “Thank you for what you did,” he said after a minute. “Even if it was crazy, it saved my life, not to mention Lane’s and Hunter’s.”

  She reached up a soft hand to smooth over his cheek, where it was slightly rough from a day’s growth of beard. “You’re welcome. But you would have done the same thing, if it had been me, or Margie.”

  “Yes, I’m afraid I would have.”

  He still looked worried. She tugged his head down and kissed him warmly, her body exploding inside when he half-lifted her against him and kissed her until her lips were sore.

  “I could have lost you tonight,” he said curtly.

  “Oh, I’m a weed,” she murmured into his throat. “We’re very hard to uproot.”

  His arms tightened. “Just the same, you watch your back. If Brody asks what you know, and he will, you tell him nothing,” he added. “You were with me when things started happening, you didn’t even know what was going on until bullets started flying. Right?”

  “Right.”

  He sighed heavily and kissed her one last time before he put her back onto her own feet. “I’ve got to go help the guys with the paperwork,” he said reluctantly. “I’d much rather be with you. For tonight, lock your doors and keep your freedom phone handy. If you need me, I’m a phone call away. Tomorrow, you’ll have security.”

  “I’ve got a nice big heavy flashlight like the one you keep in your car,” she told him pertly. “If anybody tries to get in, they’ll get a headache.”

  Unless they had guns, he added silently, but he didn’t say that. “Don’t be overconfident,” he cautioned. “Never underestimate the enemy.”

  She saluted him.

  He tugged her face up and kissed her, hard. “Incorrigible,” he pronounced her. “But I can’t imagine life without you, so be cautious!”

  “I will. I promise. You have to promise, too,” she added.

  He gave her a warm smile. “Oh, I have my eye on the future, too,” he assured her. “I don’t plan to cash in my chips right now. I’ll phone you tomorrow.”

  “Okay. Good night.”

  “Good night. Lock this,” he added when he went out the door.

  She did, loudly, and heard him chuckle as he went down the hall. Once he was gone, she sank down into her single easy chair and shivered as she recalled the feverish events of the evening. She was alive. He was alive. But she could still hear the bullets, feel the shattering of the windshield followed by dozens of tiny, painful cuts on her skin even through the sweater she’d been wearing. It was amazing that she’d come out of a firefight with so few wounds.

  She went to bed, but she didn’t sleep well. Alexander phoned very early the next morning to check on her and tell her that he’d see her at lunch.

  She put on her coat and went to work, prepared for some comments from her co-workers, despite the fact that she was wearing a long-sleeved, high-necked blouse. Nothing was going to hide the tiny cuts that lined her cheeks and chin. She knew better than to mention where she got them, so she made up a nasty fall down the steps at her apartment building.

  It worked with everyone except Brody. He came in as soon as she’d turned on her computer, looking worried and sad.

  “Are you all right?” he asked abruptly. “I was worried sick all night.”

  Her wide-eyed look wasn’t feigned. “How did you know?” she faltered.

  “I had to go and bail Cara out of jail early this morning,” he said coolly. “She’s been accused of drug smuggling, can you imagine it? She was only parking her car when those lunatics opened fire!”

  Nine

  Remembering what Alexander had cautioned her about, Jodie managed not to laugh out loud at Brody. How could a man be so naive?

  “Drug smuggling?” she exclaimed, playing her part. “Cara?”

  “That’s what they said,” he replied. “Apparently some of Ritter’s security people had the warehouse staked out. When the shooting started, they returned fire, and I guess they called in the police. In fact, your friend Cobb was there when they arrested Cara.”

  “Yes, I know. He heard the shooting and walked right into it,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “We were parked across the street…”

  “I saw you when I let Cara into the parking lot,” Brody said, embarrassed. “One of the gang came in with a machine gun and they say you aimed Cobb’s car right at him and drove into a hail of bullets to save his life. I guess you really do care about him.”

  “Yes,” she confessed. “I do.”

  “It was a courageous thing to do. Cara said you must be crazy about the guy to do that.”

  “Poor Cara,” she replied, sidestepping the question. “I’m so sorry for the trouble she’s in. Why in the world do they think she was involved? She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  Brody seemed to relax. “That’s what Cara said. Uh, Cobb wasn’t in on that bust deliberately, was he?”

  “We were in a parked car outside the gate. We didn’t know about any bust,” she replied.

  “So that’s why he was there,” he murmured absently, nodding. “I thought it must be something of the sort. Cara didn’t know any of the others, but one was a female detective and another was a female deputy sheriff. The policewoman arrested her.”

  “Don’t mess with Texas women,” Jodie said, adding on a word to the well-known Texas motto.

  He laughed. “So it seems. Uh, there was supposed to be a DEA agent there as well. Cara has a friend who works out of the Houston office, but he’s been out of town a lot lately and she hasn’t been able to contact him. She says it’s funny, but he seems to actually be avoiding her.” He gave her an odd look. “I gather that it wasn’t Cobb. But do you know anything about who the agent was?”

  “No,” she said straight-faced. “And Alexander didn’t mention it, either. He tells me everything, so I’d know if it was him.”

  “I see.”

  She wondered if Cara’s friend at the DEA was named Kennedy, but she pretended to know nothing. “What’s Cara going to do?” she asked, sounding concerned.

  “Get a good lawyer, I suppose,” he said heavily.

  “I wish her well. I’m so sorry, Brody.”

  He sighed heavily. “I seem to have a knack for getting myself into tight corners, but I think Cara’s easily superior to me in that respect. Well, I’d better pho
ne the attorney whose name she gave me. You’re sure you’re all right?”

  “I’m fine, Brody, honestly.” She smiled at him.

  He smiled back. “See you.”

  She watched him go with relief. She’d been improvising widely to make sure he didn’t connect Alexander with the surveillance of the warehouse.

  When Alexander phoned her, she arranged to meet him briefly at the café downstairs for coffee. He was pushed for time, having been in meetings with his drug unit most of the day planning strategy.

  “You’ve become a local legend,” he told her with a mischievous smile when they were drinking cappuccino.

  “Me?” she exclaimed.

  He grinned at her. “The oil clerk who drove through a hail of bullets to save her lover.”

  She flushed and glared at him. “Point one, I am not a clerk, I’m an administrative assistant. And point two, I am not your—!”

  “I didn’t say I started the rumor.” He chuckled. His eyes became solemn as he studied her across the table. “But the part about being a heroine, I endorse enthusiastically. That being said, would you like to add to your legend?”

  She paid attention. “Are you kidding? What do you want me to do?”

  “Cara made bond this afternoon,” he told her. “We’ve got a tail on her, but she’s sure to suspect that. She’ll make contact with one of her subordinates, in some public place where she thinks we won’t be able to tape her. When she does, I’m going to want you to accidentally happen upon her and plant a microphone under her table.”

  “Wow! ‘Jane Bond’ stuff!”

  “Jane?” he wondered.

  She shrugged. “A woman named James would be a novelty.”

  “Point taken. Are you game?”