The Baby’s Bodyguard
Page 13
Hannah…
Her fuzzy outline grew closer as a soft hand landed on his shoulder, warm breath caressed his cheek.
“What’s wrong?” he sputtered.
She folded back the covers and slipped in beside him. She was naked, and the velvety slide of her warm skin next to his created an immediate physiological reaction. What was going on?
He must have asked it out loud, for she laughed against his shoulder. “Could I be any more obvious?” she whispered against his neck. The firm mounds of her breasts pressed against his side, her hip rested against his erection.
“Damn it, Hannah, this isn’t fair,” he said, keeping his voice as soft as hers.
“I know. I’m sorry.” She didn’t act sorry. Her fingers were currently entwined in his chest hair and her lips were inches away from his.
“It’s been a year,” he said. “If you’re waiting for me to kick you out of bed and save you from yourself, you’ve come to the wrong man.”
“A year? Since you and I—”
“Since me and anyone. There aren’t any conjugal visits in a guerilla camp.”
She was silent for a second. He turned slightly, slipping an arm under her head, burying his nose in her silky hair as it spilled over his skin. His body went up in flames.
“I almost died when I heard you were taken in Costa del Rio,” she murmured. “And then when reports came that your body was identified—I didn’t know it was just your watch. I thought you were gone forever, but here you are.” Her lips brushed the corner of his mouth.
“Here we both are,” he said. Her words had caressed his heart in a way he hadn’t realized he’d needed. All those months in captivity, the deaths of the others, the hopelessness—he’d told himself no one would mourn him, would care, but his head had been full of images of Hannah, hopes that she might be thinking of him, might even hope she’d see him again someday….
Was that the real reason he’d come after her?
“Are you going to make me ask you?” she whispered, her hand moving south on his torso. Next stop: the point of no return. He caught her fingers.
“I’m not the kind of man you need, cariño,” he muttered. Hell. He should have those words tattooed on his forehead. He should have them embossed in Braille on his chest. He should—
“You are exactly the man I need,” she said so softly he more or less stopped breathing so he could hear her. “I want you, Jack. Just for tonight…”
Her voice trailed off and then she whispered, “Do you have any protection?”
“No,” he said. “Do you?”
“No. But the last time either of us made love, it was with each other, right?”
“But pregnancy—”
“It’s okay,” she said. “I don’t think I can get pregnant yet.”
“Cariño, I happen to know that’s bull.”
She pulled her hand free and it landed with the most gentle stroke right where he knew it would, right where he’d been aching for her to touch, and that’s when he threw in the mental towel.
IT WASN’T LIKE THE FIRST TIME they’d made love. It wasn’t the all-consuming fire fueled by hours of flirting, tequila and foreplay, the desire so thick and steamy it had rivaled the humidity in the un-air-conditioned South American room.
But it was better. Longer. His attention to detail in pleasing her sending her places she hadn’t known existed. Not at first. At first he was too far gone, she’d pushed him as far as she could or wanted to and he came into her with such need it drilled her to the bed. His release had thrilled her, empowered her, touched her somewhere so deep inside it frightened her. While their responses to each other were by necessity quieter than before because of Aubrielle’s proximity in the other bed, they were no less earth-shaking.
The next time, he made it about her. Touching her, arousing her, his mouth everywhere, tasting her like she was a banquet, crushing her and lifting her and when her own need met his, coming to her again.
They fell asleep in each other’s arms, waking when weak light made its way between the gap in the drapery. She’d wondered if she’d be embarrassed, wondered if he would, but she awoke to find him looking at her with such desire in his expression that parts of her melted anew.
She quickly glanced across at the other bed to make sure Aubrielle was still fast asleep. Cuddling close to Jack she murmured, “Morning,” into his delightfully hairy chest.
His arms closed around her. “Morning. Want to take a shower and see what comes up?”
“Yes,” she said, snuggling even closer. His intentions were clear and her body was already thrumming with anticipation. And then she came to her senses. She kissed his collarbone and wrapped her arms around him, pulling him as close as she could, loving the masculine feel of him pressed against her, the heat…
“I can’t,” she finally whispered. “Aubrielle will be waking up soon. Will you listen for her while I take a quick shower?”
“Of course,” he said with another dozen kisses and a lingering hand on her rear that was hard to resist.
She felt his eyes on her as she got out of the bed and walked nude to the bathroom, remembering to suck in everything possible. Her breasts were fuller than the last time—nursing could do that—and she wondered what else had changed in a year. Besides everything.
She took a very quick shower, washing the last of Jack Starling from her skin. A night like the one they’d just spent would never happen again; it would be stupid to tempt fate and open herself to more heartache, but she’d been powerless to resist his pull the night before.
Oh, come off it, Hannah, she admonished herself as she pulled on her jeans. He was sound asleep.
But the truth was she’d awoken quite a while before she went to his bed. She’d lain there trying to figure things out, her brain still reeling with yesterday’s nightmares, and she’d come up with an idea. She knew she owed it to Jack to run it by him, so she’d sat up in bed and watched his slumbering form and it had come to her that she didn’t want to wake him with a half-baked plan he would want to argue with. But she did want to wake him; oh, how she wanted that. Dare she?
She’d checked to make sure Aubrielle was out like a zombie and then she’d stood and pulled off her nightgown and taken a step and then a half step and she was there and the rest, well, the rest had been exactly what they both needed….
Okay, ideally it wouldn’t have been so good, so fulfilling, gone so deep or meant so much. Ideally it wouldn’t have lived up to the memory of the time before and she could have let him go with a lighter heart.
Fastening her hair into a knot at the back of her head, she was ready to face the day and something told her it was going to be a doozy.
Fran was dead, brutally murdered, and Hannah was positive she knew, maybe even liked, her killer. Harrison Plumber, bumbling on the outside, but maybe conniving on the inside. Old Santi Correa, gutted after his son’s capture. Hugo Correa, who had returned from the jungle with a mangled leg. Gary Jenkins, a quiet bookkeeper-type guy with a family.
She knew Fran’s killer, she just didn’t know his name, not yet, anyway, but she would soon. The trick would be surviving the discovery.
HANNAH, HER VOICE SOUNDING totally reasonable, wound up by saying, “The trick will be getting their attention.”
Jack had had to force himself to sit there and listen. He kept expecting the police to knock on the door. All he wanted to do was get out of the hotel. “You mean showing enough to scare them into the open so we can identify them without causing them to sneak around the back and kill you?” he said dryly.
“More or less. My plan is to send e-mails to each of them. I tell them I have something they want and it’s theirs for a price, meet me at the same place they left my baby yesterday. The note will only make sense to one of them and he’ll be the one who shows up.”
“And you’re the bait.”
“I guess, but you’re the guy with the gun protecting the bait. Do you have a better plan?”
“I told you, her name is Aubrielle,” Hannah said with a flash of irritation.
“Why is it so important to you?” he asked suddenly. “In a few days you’ll never see me again.”
He instantly regretted the words. Coming after the passionate night they’d just spent, they seemed cruel and unwarranted and yet there’d been a flavor of parting in their lovemaking he hadn’t been able to deny and that had left him feeling uneasy. Or maybe it was just the fact that he could feel time ticking away…
She blinked a couple of times before stuttering, “It just is.”
“Okay, Aubrielle it is. What do I do with you two while I go ask questions?”
“You drive us back to Allota. My car is ready and I want it.”
“We’re staying together until this is over. I’m the baby’s bodyguard.”
“Yeah? Well, I’m the baby’s mother and I need my car. You do your thing, I’ll do mine.”
“But—”
“Jack, I am not going to wait around for whoever took Abby—damn, now you’ve got me doing it—whoever took Aubrielle to decide to do it again.”
“If it was really Fran, then her death will stop it,” he said.
“You know there’s more to it than that.”
What could he do? The baby wasn’t his, he was just the hapless idiot trying to be a bodyguard in what was obviously an on-and-off-again proposition.
“We’re ready,” she said a moment later and he looked up to find her waiting in front of him, dressed head to toe in black. She looked sexy as hell. The only jarring note was the bundle of pink held tenderly in her arms and the watermelon diaper bag slung over one shoulder.
The fog of the day before had deteriorated into unabated rain. It took most of a half hour to get to Allota where they found Hannah’s car restored to near new condition. Jack asked her to follow him back to Fort Bragg, but she declined by explaining she wanted to reassure the florist she’d alarmed the day before.
“Then promise me you’ll meet at the mailbox place, say in two hours.”
She rose on tiptoes to kiss the corner of his mouth. “I promise. Stop worrying.”
“Just don’t do anything…impulsive.”
She didn’t respond.
Chapter Twelve
The final version was short:
I know things. I have evidence. Meet me at 3:30 today where you left something dear to me yesterday. Bring the usual payment. Come alone.
She didn’t sign it. One person would know it was her; she didn’t want to admit her identity to those who would take the e-mail as some sick joke. Using an alternate Web site she’d set up months before for another purpose, she sent it anonymously on the library computer.
Her thinking was simple: either Fran’s killer was the same person who had abducted Aubrielle and searched Hannah’s house or he wasn’t. Either way, this note should make his skin crawl. He would be driven to finding out what she knew or what she had. She was counting on it.
The e-mail was sent early so there would be plenty of time for any of the men to get to Allota, even Santi Correa from the Bay Area three hours south. He might be too sickly to drive himself, but he had a chauffeur. If it was him, he’d get here.
And Jack? He would be upset he hadn’t been in on the final decision, but he would come around. The one thing she knew was that he would never jeopardize her safety by agreeing to use her this way. If she presented it as a done deal, he’d have no choice.
She hit the button four times to send the four notes to the four men, and then she swooped up Aubrielle’s car seat and the sleeping baby within and went back out into the rain. Next stop: Mimi’s house. It looked abandoned although when she stepped inside, she could tell someone had been there. The shelves had been searched, closet doors left ajar, drawers open.
Had Fran’s murderer walked these halls?
She knew she should turn tail and run, but the very fact that the search had been such a civilized one emboldened her. The house had an empty feeling now, anyway; whoever had done it was gone, she could feel it. She moved quickly, gathering the things she needed. Jack had the binoculars and she couldn’t find another pair, but the rifle scope would work almost as well. A change of clothes, from black to grays. A knit hat to cover her hair.
It was a relief to lock the door behind her and Aubrielle.
Lastly, she drove to the florist’s shop and parked in back behind the delivery van. Waiting until no one was around, she unhooked the baby’s seat, grabbed the diaper bag and rushed through the back door of the shop, running into a very surprised Lindy, who was prepping flowers at the back station.
Lindy’s expression went from startled to relieved. “Hannah! Are you okay? Yesterday was so odd. I tried calling but you weren’t home.”
Hannah took a deep breath and closed the outside door. “Will you call Jill and ask her to meet me here? I need to talk to you both. I need help.”
“WHO DID YOU SAY YOU ARE?” The wan-looking woman asking the question shifted a small child from one hip to the other.
“My name is Jack Carlin,” Jack said, flashing his false ID one more time.
“And just exactly what do you want with Mitch?”
“I’m working for the dealership that sold him his truck last year, Mrs. Reynolds. They’re doing a customer follow-up survey.”
“Well, he’s not here,” she said. The kid on her hip wasn’t very old but he looked solid and Mitch’s wife was a scrawny kind of woman who appeared to need vitamin shots.
For all her fragility, however, she also possessed a kind of feral quality, made evident when she suddenly narrowed her eyes. “Would we get something for taking part in this survey?”
“It’s worth twenty bucks,” Jack said. He tried a warm smile and added, “Of course, that’s not enough money to make a difference to people like you and your husband.”
“What do you mean?” she snapped, whisking stray dark hair from her cheek. Overhead, the sagging roof of the porch strained under the relentless pounding of the rain. The Reynoldses lived on a dead-end street, which was damn poetic considering the dead-end feel of the place.
He gestured at the RV parked beside the house. “Well, people like you with expensive vehicles and—”
She snorted away his response. The kid apparently grew weary of clinging to her bones and struggled to get down. She put him on his feet and he ran off into the shadows of the house, screaming at the top of his lungs.
“Don’t you believe it,” she said, wilting against the doorjamb. “It cost an arm and a leg to fill the gas tank on that albatross. We only took it out once and then the economy turned and now we can’t give it away. Mitch just had to have it, though. Okay, I’ll take the survey.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It has to be Mitch because he signed the papers. Do you know when he’ll be home?”
“He left yesterday morning on some errand and never bothered to come back. He better not be with those no-good friends of his.” She cast Jack a longer look and kind of straightened herself up. “How about you, Mr. Carlin? You want to come inside and have a cup of coffee…or something?”
Jack did his best to look regretful. “I’m sorry, no time. Can you give me an idea of where I could find Mitch? I mean, isn’t it unusual for him to stay out all night? Aren’t you worried?”
“Yeah, it’s unusual but these are hard times and he’s been distracted lately—”
Her eyes narrowed again as suspicion curled her lip. “What the hell do you care if my husband stays out all night? Who are you?”
“I’ll try to reach him at work,” Jack said, backing up. “Ace Trucking, right?”
She stared at him a second, and then she laughed with a worn-down bitter shake of her head. “Damn it, you’re scamming me, aren’t you? He owes you money. That’s why you�
��re really looking for him, isn’t it? Well, he got laid off two months ago and he hasn’t worked a day since, so don’t get your hopes up.” With that, she slammed the door.
Jack drove away with a frown creasing his forehead. Could it be a coincidence that Mitch Reynolds disappeared on the same day Fran Baker was murdered? Probably. There was nothing to connect them except circumstance. Fran had been dating David and David had been killed by Mitch. Whether it was an accident, as he claimed, or murder was almost immaterial.
And that brought it back to the inevitable: the Staar Foundation.
He had plenty of time to meet Hannah and Abby, but some inner sense of urgency had him racing anyway. He wanted to have them both in sight. Nothing could happen to either one of them, he wouldn’t let it, but that meant he had to be around, not off somewhere else. Hannah’s independence was a giant pain in the neck but technically speaking, the baby was his client, not her sexy mom.
The roads on the north side of the bridge were little more than dirt and the tires on the old truck were hardly new. After a near spinout on a patch of gravel by the road leading off to the quarry, he slowed down.
A minute or two later, a police car sped by going the other direction, lights flashing but no siren. Jack pulled the truck to the side of the road and turned in his seat to stare back at the cruiser, curious if it would continue on to the Reynoldses’ place. The sudden whine of an approaching siren had him whipping around in his seat again, this time to find another police car and behind it, an ambulance. Both roared past him going ninety miles an hour. All three vehicles showed brake lights as they turned left some distance behind him.
Nothing to do with Mitch Reynolds and his pathetic wife.
And yet…
Get yourself out of here, you fool. The thought was so strong Jack could almost hear the words. And then he thought of Fran and Hannah and Abby. He had to know what was going on and how it would affect them.
He found a wide spot to turn around and cautiously retraced the distance, turning left where he’d seen the cops and ambulance turn. A beat-up old sign by the side of the road promised a rock quarry in a mile. He knew he should stop and turn around and yet he couldn’t.