by Lisa Childs
“Why?” he asked. “I’ve been getting updates about his condition. I’ll just keep doing that.” And keeping her safe.
She shook her head. “I have to see him.” She sighed. “I didn’t trust him earlier.”
“Why didn’t you trust him?” he asked.
“Something about his uniform or how he looked.” She shrugged. “I didn’t trust him, and now he might not make it. I need to apologize.”
“You have nothing to apologize for,” he assured her. But he had another question for her. “Why did you trust me?”
“Because you keep saving my life,” she said. “You’ll keep me safe.”
“Yes, I will,” he readily agreed. “I will keep you safe here.”
He wouldn’t bring her back. He wouldn’t put her in danger because she had a misplaced sense of guilt. “We are not leaving...”
* * *
HE JERKED AWAKE as the SUV exited the parking garage. He knew they would leave—eventually. He just hadn’t expected them to leave while the moon was still visible in the slowly lightening sky.
It was just light enough that he could see two shadows behind the tinted glass of the SUV windows. They were both inside that vehicle.
But of course Agent Reyes wouldn’t have left her alone and unprotected. He had too big a hero complex. Too bad that complex would prove his downfall. His demise.
His hand shook slightly as he reached for the keys and turned them in the ignition. This is it.
He turned his vehicle around and followed them in the light morning traffic.
This was his chance to finish this.
To kill them both...
Chapter Nine
Some might have called it his gut instinct. It had kept him alive when so many of his friends and former associates hadn’t survived. Ever since his grandmother died, Dalton had figured it was her voice in his head—her as his guardian angel warning him to watch his back. Instead of his back, though, he’d been watching his rearview mirror.
At a discreet distance, the car had followed them from the city. The luxury all-wheel-drive sedan was a vehicle he would have been following, the way he had followed the Mercedes, if he was still concerned about the car theft ring. It was the least of his problems now.
He glanced to the passenger’s seat. Slumped against the leather, Sybil slept now. He didn’t want to wake her up; he didn’t want to scare her.
But that vehicle had been following them for too long for it to be a coincidence. That wasn’t a Bureau vehicle, so it wasn’t backup.
That left only one option. Only one person with a reason to follow them...
Sybil’s and Littlefield’s attacker.
He pressed on the accelerator. The other man had managed to lose him on backcountry roads. But Dalton couldn’t be outdriven on pavement.
The closer they came to that hospital in Michigan, the less pavement there was. Maybe that was why the guy had waited and watched instead of closing the distance sooner. He had been waiting for those back roads again. For his chance to run Dalton off into one of those damn suicide ditches...
Or worse yet, this highway wound close to the Lake Michigan shore, with steep shoulders leading down to the rocky beach below. Unlike the way the ambulance had only crumpled a little in the ditch, the SUV would get crushed if it rolled off here.
Dalton gripped the steering wheel in tight fists. If Sybil hadn’t been in the vehicle next to him, he would have spun the SUV around and become the pursuer instead of the pursued. Above all the promises he’d made her, he wanted to keep his promise to catch her would-be killer.
He had called in for backup when he’d first noticed the car following them from the city. Fortunately, she had already been sleeping, and deeply enough this time that he hadn’t awakened her.
But he didn’t see that backup behind him yet. There were no government vehicles on the road, nor were there any helicopters in the sky. He saw only that luxury sedan bearing down on them. So he couldn’t confront the killer with the man’s almost victim riding along with him.
He couldn’t put her in any more danger than she already was. So he pressed harder on the accelerator.
The car thief had stolen the wrong vehicle if he had intended to catch Dalton’s SUV. His engine was far more powerful. But he had to slow for a sharp curve as the tires began to skid across gravel. The pavement had given away as the highway ended and became a two-lane gravel road.
A curse slipped through his lips as he fought the wheel, and the sedan gained on him. The front bumper of the car struck the rear of the SUV, spinning it more—spinning it nearly out of Dalton’s control.
* * *
SYBIL AWOKE WITH a scream as a jolt sent her flying forward toward the dash. But Dalton’s arm was there, catching her before she struck her head. He held her back against the seat.
“Hang on,” he warned her.
And she instinctively reached for him. But he was pulling away, putting both hands back on the wheel. He steered the SUV into a circle, gravel and dust kicking up from beneath the tires. And then he was bearing down on a car.
“What’s going on?” she asked. She braced her hands on the dash now. How long had she been sleeping? Nothing looked familiar to her anymore.
They weren’t in Chicago. Because, for some reason, the city had been familiar to her. This area was familiar only in that she knew she had been here since she’d lost her memory. This was the area in which Dalton had found her in the trunk of that car.
Dalton sped up and knocked the front bumper against the rear bumper of the car. The car fishtailed on the gravel, spinning nearly out of control.
“What are you doing?” And then she knew...
Dread filled her, making her stomach churn—making her nauseated. “It’s him?”
“I would love to find out,” he murmured. But as the car sped up, he slowed down—letting it get away from them.
“Catch him!” she said.
He shook his head. “I can’t risk it. Not with you.”
“Why?”
“He’s probably armed,” Dalton said. “If he shot me and then something happened to you...” He shuddered as if the horror was what would happen to her.
If he shot me...
He said it as though it didn’t matter what happened to him, only what happened to her.
But she cared. She cared too much about Dalton Reyes.
“If I wasn’t with you, you wouldn’t have cared whether or not he was armed,” she said.
“Of course not.” He tapped his holster. “I’m armed.”
“But it’s not the Old West,” she said. “You can’t just have a shoot-out in the street.”
“You need to tell the criminals that,” he said. “I’ve had more than my share of shoot-outs in the street.”
Of course he had. He had grown up in a gang and then he had joined law enforcement. If he hadn’t been shot yet, he would be shot eventually. Maybe he would survive. Maybe he wouldn’t.
That was why she cared too much—because she cared about him more than he cared about himself. And eventually he would leave her—whether or not her memory returned.
“That’s why I couldn’t go after him,” he said. “Because you might get caught in the cross fire.” The tires hit asphalt again as he drove down a paved road before turning into a parking lot. “And then I would be bringing you here for you—not for Trooper Littlefield.”
As he pulled into a parking space, other vehicles pulled into the lot behind him. The sedan he’d struck wasn’t among them. These vehicles were all black, like his SUV. He stepped out just as Agent Campbell came around the front of one of those other SUVs.
“You okay?” the blond-haired agent asked him.
Dalton nodded.
“What about you?” Agent Campbell asked as she stepped out.
She nodded. But she wasn’t fine. She had already confronted her own mortality, but now she’d confronted Dalton’s. Like the paramedics and Trooper Littlefield, her pres
ence had put him in danger.
But he was used to it. He put himself in danger all the time. And that bothered her most.
“Did you catch him?” Dalton asked.
Agent Campbell shook his head. “Found the car abandoned, though.”
“Figured he’d ditch it,” Dalton said. “I’m sure you’ll find it was stolen.”
Agent Bell joined them. He hadn’t come from one of the SUVs, though. He’d stepped out of the hospital. “You still think this guy is a car thief?”
“He has stolen at least a few cars that we know of,” Dalton pointed out. “So, yeah, he’s a car thief.”
“He’s not just a car thief,” Bell insisted.
“Nobody’s just one thing...” She hadn’t realized the words had slipped out of her lips until all the agents turned toward her. “What I mean is that no person is just one thing. A woman is a daughter, a mother, a sister, a lawyer or doctor...” Her face heated with embarrassment over how philosophical she sounded.
“So a car thief could also be a killer,” Dalton told Jared Bell.
The profiler shrugged. “Too bad you didn’t catch him.”
Dalton’s hand curled into a fist—as if he was tempted to slug the other man. She and Agent Campbell both stepped closer to him—to hold him back if necessary. “I couldn’t risk Sybil’s safety.”
“Then you shouldn’t have brought her back here,” Agent Bell told him.
Sybil was tempted to slug the man herself. “I insisted. I want to see Trooper Littlefield.”
And she had threatened to take a cab or bus to the hospital if Dalton had refused to drive her. Of course, it had been a bluff and one he could have easily called since she had no money for taxi or bus fare.
“He’s in the ICU,” Agent Bell warned her. “There has been no improvement. He may not regain consciousness.”
Trooper Littlefield may not be able to hear her apology, but she still felt the need to make it. She had doubted him, and he might lose his life because of her.
“I want to see him,” she insisted.
Bell shrugged. “We’ll have to sneak you in the back, then, because reporters are staked out in the lobby.”
She nodded. “Of course, a state trooper being attacked would be big news.”
“He’s not the only news.”
“They’ve found out about her?” Dalton asked, and his voice was gruff with bitterness and dread.
Bell nodded. “They’ve been asking questions.”
“Bet you love that,” Dalton murmured.
The other man shook his head. “Let’s sneak her in before someone notices us all in the parking lot.”
All the FBI vehicles and agents had drawn attention. A couple cameras clicked, bulbs flashing. She felt as if she was dodging paparazzi as Dalton and Agent Bell rushed her into the back entrance of the hospital.
“This is probably the door he came out,” Dalton murmured. “Has it been dusted for fingerprints?”
Bell nodded. “It and the pipe he used to hit Littlefield.”
“He left it behind?” Dalton asked as they boarded the elevator.
“There were no prints on it,” Bell said. “Or on anything else. He’s too careful...like someone else...”
The serial killer who had eluded him.
“No,” Dalton said. “He’s not that careful or he wouldn’t have tried to run me off the road again. I could have had him.”
If he had been willing to risk her safety...
“Maybe he just had no idea what a crazy driver you are,” Agent Campbell teased him.
Dalton glared at his fellow agent, who, like Ash Stryker, was obviously also his friend, as they stepped off the elevator.
Because the trooper was in the ICU, he could have only one visitor at a time. So she stepped into the room alone—well, relatively alone—since all three agents watched her through the glass wall.
Tubes and machines were connected to the bald-headed lawman. He looked old and small lying in the bed. She couldn’t believe how uneasy he’d made her before. He was no threat to her.
She had been the threat to him.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I’m sorry you got hurt...” And he hadn’t even been protecting her. He had only been pretending to protect her.
What about Dalton—who really was saving her over and over again? What would her attacker do to him?
She knew the answer to her question. She knew that the man would kill Dalton the first chance he got—if only so he could get to her.
* * *
HE WAS SO damn mad that rage blinded him. That was probably a good thing since he’d had to rent some fleabag motel room. But it was the only place that wouldn’t have wanted a credit card from him.
His cash was beginning to run low, though. He had to end this soon.
Agent Reyes kept getting in his way. The man drove better than any other lawman he knew. But then, he probably hadn’t learned to drive on some driving range. He’d learned on the streets.
He could have caught him...if he hadn’t slowed down. The man had probably known the other agents were coming. He’d barely slipped out of the car before those other SUVs had driven up.
They’d searched the area, but they hadn’t found him. They wouldn’t. He knew how to be invisible. He wouldn’t have survived prison if he hadn’t learned that. Or maybe he’d just gotten lucky.
He couldn’t risk going back. He couldn’t risk his freedom.
But he couldn’t leave this undone, either. He had to kill the woman. And he wanted to kill the agent.
He knew where they were. So he just had to wait again—until another opportunity presented itself. He wouldn’t try to run Agent Reyes off the road again.
His rage dissipating, he could see clearly. The motel room was run-down, the bed lumpy and low to the floor. But in the middle of the mattress lay the gun he’d picked up while he was in the city. Next time he would use that.
Agent Reyes had been able to outrun a car. But he wouldn’t be able to outrun a bullet.
Chapter Ten
Dalton hadn’t brought her home. Maybe he regretted that he’d brought her to his condo the night before, because he hadn’t brought her back.
“So is this one of those safe-house places?” she asked as he closed the cottage door behind them.
It was a small house, but its whitewashed walls and floors made it seem bigger and brighter. Bright furnishings and curtains made it cheerful and welcoming. It reminded her of someplace she’d been before—before she’d lost her memory.
Or maybe it only reminded her of a picture she had seen in a magazine. She couldn’t trust her mind—not when so much of it was blank.
“We don’t have any safe-house places in this area,” he replied. “This is the cottage Ash and Claire rented for their wedding night.”
She could see the romance of the cottage—could imagine the dark-haired agent carrying his petite blonde bride over the threshold. Dalton hadn’t carried her. He wouldn’t even look at her.
He cracked the blinds and peered through them. But he wasn’t looking at the view of Lake Michigan. Instead, he was uneasily watching the driveway and the street.
“You have agents out there,” she reminded him. “They will watch for him and make sure he doesn’t get to us.” But he had already gotten to them. He had nearly killed her. She had been lucky to lose just her memory. She could have wound up like Trooper Littlefield, barely alive, or she could have wound up dead.
“I’m not looking just for him,” he said. “I’m making sure no reporters followed us, either.”
They had ambushed them in the parking lot when they’d left the hospital. More cameras had flashed, and microphones had been shoved in their faces to answer the questions that were hurled at them.
“Who are you?”
“Do you really not know who you are?”
“Were you raped?”
She shuddered at the thought. But that had been one of the first questions she’d asked
the doctor who had examined her. She hadn’t been violated that way. But she had been violated. She’d been dressed in a wedding dress that she was certain wasn’t hers. And she had been shoved into the trunk of a stolen car.
But more than that, her memory had been stolen.
“I don’t think any reporters could have followed you,” she said.
Nobody could have followed him, given the way he had been driving. If he hadn’t told the backup agents where they were staying, she doubted they would have found them, either.
He uttered a ragged sigh and rubbed a hand around the back of his neck. Dark circles rimmed his dark eyes. And she realized how tired he must be.
“You didn’t sleep last night,” she said.
He shrugged. “You didn’t sleep much last night, either.”
And not for the reason she’d wanted to be awake—not because they’d been making love. “No, but I slept in the car.”
“For just a few hours.”
“It’s more than you had,” she said. “You should lie down for a while. We’re safe here. Nobody could have followed you, and we have other agents watching to make sure nobody hurts us. We’re safe here.”
“Are you trying to convince me or yourself?” he asked.
“I was scared today,” she admitted. “Being that close to him...not knowing who he is...”
Could it be the man to whom she was engaged? Could he be that determined to get rid of her that he didn’t care who else he hurt in the process?
She shivered. And Dalton stepped close to her, offering her comfort and protection. She wanted more from him. She would lose him eventually. He wouldn’t keep her case forever. He would either solve it or pass it over to Agent Bell. Or he would wind up getting hurt like Trooper Littlefield was hurt. Or worse...
She couldn’t think about that. She couldn’t lose him before she’d had him—before she’d felt as close to him as she could get to another person.
“We’ll figure out who he is,” he reiterated his promise. “And we’ll stop him. He won’t hurt you.”
“I’m not worried about him,” she admitted. “At least not right now.”
He touched the spot between her brows, which had furrowed with anxiousness. “What are you worried about, then? The reporters?”
