by Karen Leabo
Clint found it perfect for his purposes. It wasn’t air-conditioned, but this time of year that was okay. As he remembered it, the kitchen was June Cleaver—era, the furniture Early American Ugly. But if he ended up a wanted man, no one would think to look for him there, right in the Bureau’s bosom, so to speak. He could only hope no one was planning to use it for an official purpose.
He shut off the car and loudly announced, “We’re home!”
Marissa cracked one eye open. “This it?”
“Yup.”
She yawned again. “Just lead me to a bed or a sofa or something.”
“Coming right up.” He got out, walked around, opened her door, and offered her a hand.
“Mmm, thanks. My muscles don’t seem to be obeying me. All that swimming.…”
“You’re probably gonna be some kind of sore in a few hours. I will too.”
She took his hand, then, trustingly, unashamedly, leaned against him as they mounted the steps to the front porch. She was more asleep than awake, Clint reminded himself. She probably wasn’t completely aware of what she was doing. Nonetheless, all that soft femininity so close to him was giving him fits.
Why did she have to smell so good, when he knew she’d put nothing on her skin except cheap-motel soap? She was dressed like a summertime vagrant, and her hair was tousled, yet she was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen. Or felt. Or smelled.
“How’d you get a key?” she asked when he unlocked the door.
So, she wasn’t completely unaware. “Years ago I was in charge of guarding a witness out here. I lost the key, then found it again months later. I never bothered to return it. Figured it might come in handy someday—”. He stopped.
“What? Oh …”
The living room was glaringly empty. Every stick of furniture had been moved out.
“So much for that bed you promised,” Marissa huffed.
Clint dropped his bag and sprinted up the stairs. Maybe, by some miracle, something had been overlooked. But all three bedrooms were bare. Judging from the scent, the carpets had been recently cleaned too. The Bureau was probably spiffing the place up so they could unload it, and the hideous old furniture had no doubt been a liability.
He checked the linen cupboard. “Eureka.”
“A bed?” Marissa asked hopefully. She’d followed him up the stairs.
“Pillows and blankets. Pick a bedroom and make yourself a pallet.”
She frowned at him. “I’m tired enough to do just that.” She grabbed an armload of linens and marched through the nearest door. Clint watched, amused, as she arranged things to her satisfaction, then flopped down on the floor. But a moment later, his amusement dimmed, replaced by something much more like lust. His whole body cried out to be near her, to lie down next to her.
He couldn’t, though. He still had some business to take care of.
Marissa awoke with an unsettled feeling. Something wasn’t right. She knew immediately where she was, but for the first time in hours she was alone. The house was eerily quiet.
She didn’t think she’d slept long, maybe an hour, but it was enough for her brain to start working again. She stumbled into the bathroom and stared at her reflection in the mirror.
“Egad, worse than I thought.”
After taking care of business, she started poking around the upstairs. At first she was merely looking for Clint, but then the charm of the old house called to her. Wainscoting on the walls, sloped ceilings, dormer windows. As a child, she’d lived in a house much like this one. Then her parents had been murdered, and her whole life had turned inside out.
When she opened a closet, she found a gold mine—clothes! She could get out of the ridiculous, damp things she was wearing. She selected a pair of jeans that looked like they might fit, plus a cotton polo-type shirt in a cranberry color. There was even a pair of old canvas flats.
That should do it, she thought as she stripped down to her panties. The jeans were snug, and she had to roll up the cuffs; the shoes were too large but wearable. If only she could find a hairbrush and her moisturizer, she might feel human again!
She wandered downstairs. “Clint?”
No answer. Surely if he’d gone somewhere, he would have told her. But he was nowhere to be found. A look out front confirmed her fears. The car was gone.
Panic washed over her. Had he abandoned her? Had she interfered with his plans by not escaping when he’d told her she was free to go? Oh, Lord, she hoped not. She needed him. And maybe he didn’t realize it, but he needed her.
Despair was setting in when she heard what sounded like the whine of his 240Z. Relief flooded through her when she saw the burnt-orange car whipping down the driveway. A few hours earlier she’d have traded anything to see the last of him. Now she felt oddly anxious when he was out of her sight.
She actually ran out to the car to meet him. “Where did you go? You scared me to death, leaving me alone.”
“Miss me?” he drawled. But when he saw that she really had been worried, he straightened up. “I thought you’d be asleep for ages. I needed to get a charger for the phone. And as long as I was out, I picked up a few groceries, and—where’d you get the clothes?”
“I found ’em.”
“Nice color. Looks good on you.” His gaze roved over her in a thoroughly familiar way before he abruptly looked away.
Marissa felt herself blushing. She knew he could see her nipples through the shirt. She wasn’t used to going braless. But, shoot, he’d seen her almost naked. Why his frank perusal now should bother her was a mystery.
She grabbed one of the grocery sacks. Her blood was thrumming through her veins in a strange way. It was probably just exhaustion, she told herself.
“Do you know where they took Rusty?” she asked as they went inside.
“Ah, no. But the closest hospital would probably be Clear Lake, or maybe Bayshore in Pasadena.”
“Can we call and check up on him? I mean, you said your cell phone was untraceable, right?”
“Yeah. Each time a call is made, the signal goes through half a dozen relays. It’ll show up as a different location each time on a caller ID, or even a professional trace. Still, we have to be careful.”
“Please? I’ll keep the call short. I’ll just check on Rusty’s condition.” She needed to know if she’d done him serious harm. If so, she intended to give herself up to the police.
“Well, I guess it’d be okay.” Clint set his bag of groceries on the kitchen counter. “The phone’s in the car, charging up.” He handed her the keys.
She looked at the keys, then at him. “You trust me with the keys to your car? Aren’t you afraid I’ll take off?”
He pretended to consider her words, then shook his head. “Nah. I’m getting ready to make cheese omelets.”
Marissa suddenly realized she hadn’t eaten anything since the night before, and then, she’d had only a few graham crackers. “For the cheese omelets, I’ll stick around. Back in a minute.”
She practically skipped down the porch stairs toward the haphazardly parked car. She would feel so much better if she knew Rusty was okay, even if he was a cold-blooded worm hardly worth the cellular charge. She called Information to get numbers for both hospitals Clint had mentioned, scribbling them on her hand with a ballpoint pen from the glove compartment.
Bayshore’s emergency room didn’t have any idea what she was talking about, so she tried Clear Lake Hospital.
“Yes, I’m trying to find information on, a patient that might have been brought in—head injury, found in a motel room?”
“Let me check, one moment please.”
Marissa counted the seconds. What if Rusty had told some wild story when he woke up? Were the police tracing the call even now? If the FBI was brought in, they might put two and two together and come up with this safe house—
“Ma’am?”
“Yes?” Marissa squeaked.
“An ambulance did come in a couple of hours ago with a case like you desc
ribed, but the patient got up and walked out.”
Thank God.
“Ma’am? Could I get some information from you? We need some insurance information, and the police would like to talk to this man—”
Marissa hung up. The police. She’d never had a real fondness for law enforcement people. They ran around in that same shadowy world as the criminals she despised, and she’d never wanted anything to do with either group. But she’d never felt afraid of the police before. In this situation, however, she instinctively knew that to bring them in would be a disaster. Clint had committed innumerable felonies in the past twenty-four hours. He would end up in jail, and that would never do, not if her embryonic plan was going to work.
Jimmy was the key. The temptation to call him was strong. If she could let him know that she was safe … but no, that would be stupid. It was only another hour until Clint was supposed to call him. She would wait until then.
A delicious odor greeted her when she went back into the house. Her stomach rumbled. Cheese omelets. And toast, she definitely smelled toast.
“Any luck?” Clint asked over his shoulder as he tended the eggs.
“He’s okay. Apparently he got up and left the emergency room without even telling his name.”
“Great,” Clint said without much enthusiasm. “I mean, he’s my ex-brother-in-law, and I guess I should be glad he’s not dead, but I’m not exactly comforted by the fact that he’s running around, probably ready to kill both of us.”
Marissa felt a shiver. “He doesn’t know about this house, does he?”
“No. I told him my plans only as he needed to know them.”
“What about Rachelle? Does she know about the house?”
Clint shook his head. “I never confided anything in her.”
Marissa thought there was a certain sadness in that admission. A husband and wife should share things.
Marissa set out paper plates and napkins and plastic utensils on the counter for their feast. Clint had thought of everything, even cups for their orange juice. Good thing, too, since the cupboards were bare.
“So,” Clint said as he slid the second omelet onto a plate. “Earlier you said you had an idea, a way we could help each other. I’d sure like to hear it. ’Cause lately, my ideas haven’t panned out worth dog-doo.”
They carried their plates out onto the porch, where some rusted patio chairs provided the only available seating. Marissa settled down with her plate in her lap, then took a bite. It was heavenly. No omelet had ever tasted better. The man was gorgeous, and he could cook too.
“Okay,” she said, gathering her thoughts. “Now, I know this is a little rough, but hear me out. I figure, if Eddie Constantine has decided to get rid of you, and he went to all that trouble to set you up, you have a real problem.”
“No kidding.”
“You either have to nail Eddie and his buddies—put ’em all in jail—or move to Peoria and change your name.”
“What do you think I’ve been trying to do for the past eight months? I’ve been full-time on this investigation. I’d have taken Jimmy and Eddie and a score of others out ages ago, except that the Bureau wants more. They always want more.” There was a definite trace of bitterness in his voice.
“Like what?”
“Like the guy Jimmy’s been dealing with from a South American drug cartel. He’s the big boss, the real target.”
Marissa decided to ignore, for now, Clint’s implication of Jimmy. She had her own theories about her brother’s role in all this. “So, what you need is evidence.”
“Yeah. We need a name, for starters. Someone to tail, someone to bug. This guy’s been a real slippery character. We know he’s out there because of the amount of cash that’s been flowing through the Foxhunt. But we can’t get a handle on where and when certain key transactions are taking place.”
“What would help you?”
“Well … getting into the Foxhunt would help. I’ve collected enough evidence that I could get a search warrant with no problem, but that would alert the bad guys. Even if we found what we wanted, they would know what we found, and anyone implicated would slither away like cockroaches when you turn on the light.”
Marissa shivered. “So you want to have a look around without anyone knowing.”
“It couldn’t hurt.”
“Perfect. Jimmy can help.”
Clint merely arched his eyebrows at her.
“Here’s what we do. I’ll call Jimmy and tell him I’ve escaped. We’ll arrange for him to come pick me up. Then, once he shows up, we introduce him to you. You tell him what you need, and he helps you get it.”
“Ah.” Understanding dawned. Here was Marissa’s angle. “And when the arrests are made and the indictments start raining down, Jimmy gets off scot-free. Is that what you had in mind?”
“Sort of.” She drained her orange juice. “This is my theory. I think Jimmy’s a patsy. I’m not saying he’s lily white. Obviously he’s been associating with scum, and if what you say about the Foxhunt is true, then he owns a strip club.”
“It’s true.”
“So, he’s involved in some penny-ante stuff. He might be taking a few kickbacks to look the other way. But as for him being a key figure in some huge drug-smuggling, money-laundering scheme, it simply couldn’t be.”
“Why not?” Family members were always the last to suspect. He’d seen it time and time again. “Everywhere I turn, Jimmy Gabriole’s name comes up. He owns the cars, the boats, the planes, the buildings—everything.”
Marissa shook her head. “I’d bet my left arm that Eddie really has control of all that stuff. He got Jimmy to put his name on all of it with that story about trying to keep his assets out of his ex-wife’s hands, and Jimmy fell for it.”
“He couldn’t be that dumb.”
Marissa nodded. “Yeah, he could be. I love my brother dearly, but—how do I say this nicely?—he’s never been known for his IQ. Besides, friendship is everything to Jimmy. For as long as I can remember, that’s all that mattered—being part of the gang, buying everybody drinks even if he couldn’t afford it, having everybody love him. He just wants people to love him.”
She sniffed back a tear. Poor, misguided Jimmy. Always a little overweight, a little slower. Kids made fun of him as a teenager, until he’d show up at school with a hundred-dollar bill or a new, fast car—little presents from their father. Then he was everyone’s best friend.
Clint was silent, digesting what she’d told him. Then he asked, “If Jimmy is so crazy about having friends, what makes you think he’d turn on them?”
Marissa knew this was the weakest part of her argument, but she pushed ahead. “If he knew what was really going on—especially that Eddie was planning to kill a cop—he would have no trouble changing his allegiance. He’s a weak man, but please, you have to believe me, he doesn’t have a truly mean or evil bone in his body. If you could convince him that he was really doing the FBI a service—you know, make him feel important—he would do everything in his power to help you, I’m sure of it.”
“Even if it means going to jail?”
Marissa flinched. To her dismay, she could feel more tears building in her eyes. Jimmy wasn’t a bad person. He didn’t deserve to be locked up. Prison would break him, utterly. He wasn’t strong enough for that.
She forced herself to ask what was on her mind. “If—if he cooperated fully, couldn’t you get him a suspended sentence or something?”
“That would be for the DA to decide, not me.” Clint’s tone was businesslike. But when he looked at her, she saw compassion. He understood, because he was going through the same thing. She’d forced him to acknowledge that his ex-wife, the woman he once purportedly loved and trusted, had turned on him like a cornered rat. Losing faith in someone you cared for—or having it snatched away from you—was one tough pill to swallow. And they were both swallowing with all their strength.
That moment of empathy, more than anything that had passed between the
m, convinced her that she had a lot to learn about Clint—hell, she didn’t even know his last name.
Clint stood abruptly, crumpling his paper plate. “Your brother’s in a lot of trouble. I don’t want to soft-pedal it to you.”
“I know.”
“But … I could put in a good word for him. I guess.”
She could tell what that offer cost him, and her heart swelled. She was on her feet, her tears breaking through the dam. “That would be great. That’s all I’m asking.” Before she could consider her actions, she’d closed the space between them and put her arms around him. “He’s not a bad person,” she said, still sobbing. “You’ll see when you meet him. You’ll see.”
Reluctantly, it, seemed, Clint returned the embrace. He sifted her hair through his fingers and patted her back. “Don’t cry, Marissa. I can’t stand women crying.”
“I’ll t-try to stop.” She pulled away slightly, embarrassed that her tears had made a damp spot on Clint’s T-shirt. She was just so tired, that was all.
Clint looked down at her, then took her chin and tilted her face toward his. “Try a little harder, okay?” Then he touched his lips to hers.
SEVEN
Immediately, Marissa forgot all about crying. At the first tentative touch, a bolt of awareness crackled through her body. Their mouths locked, and something elemental passed between them. Marissa didn’t fight it. She swayed against him, her knees rubbery, her breathing erratic.
Oh, no. How could her feelings for Clint be so strong, so fast? This was foolish. She was grateful, nothing more. But her thoughts blurred into one another as other sensations took over her brain—the taste of Clint, the feel of his powerful arms locked around her as if he never wanted to let her go.
She could have stood that way with him all day. She forgot about Jimmy, about her plan, about her safety, and certainly her sanity. It was Clint who stopped, who lifted his head, gulping in the humid coastal air. Then he looked at her again. Fire blazed in his eyes. They reminded her of lightning-limned thunderclouds. But there was something else in his gaze, something akin to fear.
