“Yes,” Ian said firmly. “I do.”
“What the hell is going on?”
“I’ll let you know as soon as I figure it out. I’m going silent, but I’ll be in touch when I can.” He hit the button on the steering wheel to end the call and dug his phone out of his pocket. With a sigh, he tossed the brand new iPhone out the window.
Too stunned to make sense of what was happening, Leah remained silent.
“Are you all right?” Ian asked after a moment. His voice was unnaturally steady, only a hint of steely rage threading through it. His hands weren’t even trembling on the wheel. In fact, he’d reacted to the shooting as calmly and efficiently as, well, a soldier.
Leah nodded before she realized he couldn’t see her. “Yes.” Slowly she sat up, and when he didn’t yell at her to get back down, she started to crawl over the console. Before she reached the passenger seat he fished his sweatshirt from the back and used it to wipe shards of glass off the leather and onto the floor. When the seat was cleared she climbed into it and buckled her seat belt, her boots crunching on the pebbles of safety glass.
The wind whipped through the broken windows, pulling strands of hair from her ponytail and dragging them across her face as she stared numbly out the windshield. After a minute she asked, “Where are we going?”
“The train station. It’s about thirty minutes away.”
“Okay.” She was silent for another moment. “Ian?”
“Yeah?”
“What the hell was that?”
Chapter 23
Ian reached over and gently touched her stinging cheek with the tip of his finger. “You’re bleeding. Are you hurt anywhere else?”
She wasn’t sure, but it was a good bet both of them were covered in nicks and scrapes. Her forearms were starting to burn from the hasty retreat underneath the truck when they were being shot at. “I’m fine. Was that Sokolov?”
“You know anyone else who wants you dead?”
“Me? No, he was trying to kill you.” Adrenaline still coursed through her veins, causing her hands to tremble. She tucked her hands beneath her thighs, but then the rest of her body began to quiver.
“No, honey. He tried to kill you.”
Leah’s lips parted and she pointed to her chest. “Me?”
“You.”
She gave a short, hysterical laugh. “You must have bumped your head back there. Remember, you’re the one he wants dead.”
Ian flipped on the blinker and slid behind a van. She noticed that his eyes were sweeping between the side mirrors and the rearview in a steady rotation.
“Is he behind us?” she demanded.
“No. And no, I did not bump my head. I was in the open by the tailgate,” he said. “If I’d been Sokolov’s target I’d be dead right now. He had one clean shot and a choice of who to kill. He chose you. If you hadn’t bent to pick up your sunglasses the moment he pulled the trigger…” He left the thought unspoken, but Leah’s cheeks drained of color anyway.
“I don’t understand.” Her voice came out higher than she intended. “I thought he wanted revenge and I was just the afterthought. You know, dessert after the main course.”
Ian worked his jaw. “Don’t get me wrong, Sokolov wants to feed me to the fish, but it seems that now he wants you dead more than he wants revenge on me—and that’s saying something.”
Leah was flabbergasted. “But why?”
Ian merged into the passing lane, his eyes returning to the rearview mirror. “I was just about to ask you that question.”
“How on earth would I know?” Because her adrenal glands were overworked, or maybe because her ex-boyfriend had just taken three shots at her, Leah’s fear took a sharp turn into anger. “That bastard. I was the most supportive girlfriend he could have ever asked for. I left him alone, I never asked him what he was doing or where he was going, and I never nagged him to meet my parents. I even bought him one of those expensive designer ties for his God-forsaken birthday and it cost me a fortune.” She narrowed her eyes. “It probably wasn’t even his real birthday!” She was shouting, partly because the wind was howling through the broken windows and partly because she was so angry with Sokolov that in that moment she could’ve strangled him with her own bare hands. “Do you know I met his mother? His fake mother. I bought a new outfit just for the occasion, which I so could not afford at the time but I did it anyway, and then I spent all day making polite small talk with an actress. An actress! He must have thought it was hilarious watching me trip all over myself to impress her. And after all that, he has the GALL to shoot at me?”
Ian checked his speed and slowed slightly. He opened his mouth to speak but she cut him off.
“Then, as if that isn’t enough, you have the nerve to ask me if I know why he’s shooting at me. What do you expect me to say? ‘Why yes, Ian, I believe he’s shooting at me because I’m secretly KGB.’ No, better yet, how about, ‘Ian, he’s shooting at me because I stole six million dollars from him and hid it in the lining of my fucking rain boots.’ I don’t know why he’s shooting at me besides the fact that he’s the biggest asshole I’ve ever met!”
She sucked in a breath and leaned back in her seat. Beyond the highway building lights blinked on like fireflies and headlights popped up in the rearview mirror.
“Are you finished?”
“Not by a long shot. I could keep going if you’d like.”
“I think I got it,” he answered dryly.
Leah peered over her shoulder again. “Are you sure he’s not following us?”
“I’m sure. He’ll be busy avoiding the police and getting out of the city. He’s confident he’ll be able to track us down later.”
“You talk like you know him well.”
Ian shrugged. “It’s what I would do.”
“And you’re like Sokolov?”
Even in the late summer light she could see his facial features harden. “I am a soldier like Sokolov. That’s where the similarities end.”
Although Leah hadn’t known Ian long, she already felt as if she knew him better than she ever had Vincente—Sokolov. Both Ian and Sokolov were dangerous men, but where Sokolov had become a slave to his hatred, Ian was in tight control of his actions. Ian wanted revenge as badly as Sokolov did, but he worked within an internal moral framework that he wasn’t willing to compromise. Sokolov, on the other hand, didn’t have morals. Leah couldn’t help but wonder if that put Ian at a disadvantage.
She recognized that she’d offended him with the comparison and made a peace offering. “You’re right, you’re nothing like him. For one, you’re trying to keep me alive and he’s trying to kill me.” She was aware that Ian’s protection wasn’t entirely selfless. The soldier in him had saved her life out of instinct, and now that he’d had a few moments to strategize, she knew he was thinking that if Sokolov wanted her dead now, his number one priority had to be to keep her alive until he figured out why.
“Do you think he’s angry that I went to Northern Wolf Services with you?”
Ian pondered that. “Possibly. But I don’t think he would pass up the chance to blow out my brains for a woman he never cared for.”
He had a point.
“There’s another, more likely possibility: he considers you a threat.”
Leah scoffed. “A greater threat than you?”
“Apparently.”
“Impossible.”
“Is it possible you’re in possession of something he considers valuable?”
Leah wrinkled her nose. She didn’t have anything of Sokolov’s. He’d rarely visited her place; they’d always either gone out for dinner or stayed at his apartment because it was nicer than hers and she didn’t like the way he eyed her second-hand furniture with his lip curled.
Although apparently her bed had been just fine when he needed to bounce Miss Whips-and-Chains around.
Ian accurately read her bewilderment and said, “What gifts did he give you while you were dating?”
She th
ought back to the holidays, birthdays, and special events they’d spent together. It chafed her to realize that although Sokolov had always spent lavishly on dinners and wine, he’d never actually bought her anything. For Valentine’s Day he’d sent her a single, semi-wilted rose with the promise of more over dinner that night. Then he’d had to cancel. Leah was far from materialistic—in fact, she tended to lean toward minimalism since she was messy enough with the few possessions she did own, and yet the fact that he’d managed to weasel out of giving her any sort of token of his affection and she’d never even noticed sent a zap of anger through her. “Nothing. A rose.”
“No USBs, papers, paintings? Jewelry?”
“No.”
“Did he ever ask you to hang on to anything for him, to hide anything?”
“No.”
“You work for the DA’s office. Could it have something to do with a case you’re working on?”
She thought about that. The most high profile case was Senator Roth’s domestic assault charge, but she honestly couldn’t think of why Sokolov would care about a man who drank too much spiked eggnog and smacked his wife last Christmas, or why he’d want to kill her over it. She told Ian as much, and he agreed.
“Okay. Did he ever ask you to keep a secret? Remember a set of numbers, a location, a phrase?”
“No! Ian, I…” She held up her palms in frustration. “I can’t think of any reason he’d want me dead. We saw each other once a week at most, and there were periods of time where we went weeks without contact. When we were together we were usually watching movies or eating at restaurants. To be honest, we didn’t spend a lot of time talking.” She could feel his gaze turn hot on her. “And it’s not because were doing…that.”
“Good,” he growled.
The possessiveness in that one word surprised her. She’d known he was attracted to her; the searing kiss in the office hadn’t left that in doubt, but then he’d been ready to pack her on a plane and ship her off to America without so much as a word about what had happened.
“When we get on the train where will we go?”
“North.”
She waited for him to elaborate but he didn’t. “Do you think he’ll try to come after me again?”
“Yes. And he’ll keep trying until he succeeds or until we figure out what you have, or know, that threatens him.”
Leah’s eyes drifted to the window where she watched the city lights blur into a golden streak. The air whipping into the truck was sharp with night, but she didn’t notice her shaking had intensified until Ian handed her the sweatshirt he’d used to clear the glass off the seat. The black hoodie was so large she had to repeatedly roll the cuffs, and extra folds of fabric bunched at her waist.
After several minutes of silence Ian’s voice cut through the darkness. “What’s bothering you?”
She choked back a laugh. “What’s bothering me? Besides the fact that I dated a terrorist for six months and almost got my head blown off today?”
“Yeah, besides that.”
She’d hoped to put him off with her sarcasm. It disconcerted her how eerily insightful he was, and she didn’t like the fact that she couldn’t seem to keep her own thoughts private around him. “Nothing.”
“Leah.”
She huffed. “Listen, I appreciate that you saved my life today, I really do. So don’t take this the wrong way when I say I think you should take me to the police. For one, there’s no way I can afford your bodyguard services. And two, don’t you think it would be easier for you to go after Sokolov if you had police collaboration and weren’t trying to keep me safe at the same time?”
“No.”
“No what?”
“No to everything you just said. No, you probably couldn’t afford my bodyguard fees, but I’m not charging. No, I don’t think it would be easier to work with the police; I think it would be a pain in the ass. The bureaucracy and red tape would practically cement Sokolov’s success. And no, I don’t trust the police to keep you safe. They’re not trained to deal with a man like Alexei Sokolov. I am. Besides,” he added after a moment, “You’re looking at this the wrong way.”
“How’s that?”
“By bringing Sokolov back into my life you’ve given me an opportunity I’d thought lost to me forever. I owe you.”
It was a serious stretch, but she appreciated his efforts to make her feel better. The truth was that although she would feel more comfortable working with the police instead of around them, she didn’t actually want Ian to leave her in their care. The cops she’d seen in Norway didn’t even carry guns; how would they keep her safe from someone like Sokolv? Her best hope of staying alive was to stick with Ian Haugen and they both knew it. At least now she knew they were both getting something out of the partnership: she, her life. He, bait.
Ian reached over and found her hand in her lap. His fingers were warm and closed tightly around hers. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you, Leah.”
She prayed he was right, but she also knew no one could make that promise.
Chapter 24
Ian left the battered truck parked on the street and lifted her luggage from the back. At the train station’s ticket booth he used the name and license of Andrew Kaine to buy two tickets to Hamar, a city he told her was an hour and a half north of Oslo.
“Do you always walk around with false identification on you?” Leah muttered as they navigated the thinning crowd of night commuters. Even in a city of tall blond men Ian drew looks from people as they passed. It was more than his height and the fact that he was as handsome as a Norse god; Ian had a way of carrying himself that practically screamed alpha dog. His confident stride, broad shoulders, and hard eyes all said he was a man not to be messed with, and that made him stand out.
“Of course,” he answered, glaring at a man who’d nearly crashed into a column to get a better look at her ass.
“Yes, who doesn’t?” she said. “I myself have several.”
He ignored her sarcasm and stopped at a kiosk to purchase a phone pre-loaded with minutes. He ripped open the box and dropped it into a recycling container as they strolled to the platform where their train was scheduled to arrive.
On the outside Ian appeared casual and relaxed, but she knew by his continual scanning that he was hyper-alert to their surroundings. She tried not to jump every time she heard a loud noise or someone walked too close to them, but her nerves were frayed and she was barely holding on to her composure.
“Relax,” he murmured. “He’s not here.”
The train arrived within seconds of its scheduled time. The cars were long and sleek and sped past with unnerving speed, the brakes screeching as they came to a grinding halt. The automatic doors dinged open, and she and Ian walked the length of the train before finding seats in a nearly deserted rear car.
Leah sat next to the window and Ian lifted her luggage overhead before sinking down beside her. The seats were worn, but comfortable. Like the few other public places Leah had been since she’d arrived in Norway, the train was significantly cleaner than what she was used to in D.C. The AC was blasting and far too cold for her comfort, but thankfully she was still wearing Ian’s sweatshirt. The Norwegians may have been cold-conditioned, but she was not.
One of the two other passengers in the car was an older gentleman who immediately took out earbuds and plugged them into his iPad. The second man unwrapped a salami sandwich and started eating. Six rows away Leah could hear his lips smacking and smell the mustard and rye.
The train doors closed with a bell and the PA system crackled as the conductor relayed information in Norwegian. As soon as the train started forward Ian pulled out the phone he’d just purchased and dialed a number from memory.
“L'avez-vous trouvé?” he said quietly when the call was answered.
Was that French?
Ian was silent as he listened to the caller on the other end of the line, his face giving away nothing of the conversation. It was as if he were listen
ing to a radio podcast instead of a live person. Then he said, “Faites ce que vous devez faire. La police a-t-elle parlé à Erik?”
Leah understood “police” and “Erik,” which meant he was probably talking to someone at Northern Wolf Services. After another few minutes of listening he spoke again in rapid French and ended the call
“Who was that?” Leah whispered.
“I’ll tell you when we’re alone.”
She yawned wide enough that her jaw cracked. Her eyelids were heavy and she was having trouble keeping them open. She didn’t know how Ian was still awake. As far as she knew he hadn’t slept on the plane from Scotland to Norway last night, which meant he was going on thirty-six hours without sleep.
“Aren’t you tired?” she asked after another tear-inducing yawn.
He shook his head. “I’ll sleep when we reach our destination.”
“And where is that again?”
“Why don’t you rest?” He brushed a strand of hair off her neck and cupped the back of her head, gently tilting her cheek onto his shoulder. She was about to lift her head in protest, but he was solid and warm and a lot more comfortable than the cold window. She told herself she would leave her head there for just a moment so that he wouldn’t feel rejected. It was the last thought she had before she fell asleep.
Chapter 25
She awoke groggy and confused when the train halted an hour later. Ian led her through the small Hamar train station as if she were a child, and they boarded another train leaving for the village of Dombås. Leah tried hard to stay awake but kept nodding on and off, her head bobbing against the windowpane.
The next time she awoke she squinted at her watch. It was nearly three in the morning and they were just pulling into the Dombås station. Her eyes were bleary and she felt a pang of homesickness for her apartment in D.C. All she wanted to do was lie down in her own bed and sleep for eight uninterrupted hours.
The night air was cool and refreshing, and she was grateful they weren’t getting on yet another train. They walked to the pick-up zone where a few hopeful cabbies leaned against car hoods and chatted with one another over coffee. Ian spoke with one of the men and the driver hurried to load her carry-on into the trunk and then jumped behind the wheel of the cab.
Finding Lies Page 12
