Читать книгу Strangers in the Night - Kerry Connor - Страница 11

She did her best to ignore him as they wound their way through the back alleys that led to her apartment. There was a faster, more direct route of course, but she wasn’t about to risk running into Taylor on one of those streets.

Already she was plotting her next move for when she reached her apartment and ditched her unwanted companion. She’d memorized the bus schedules out of Chicago her first day in the city. Her bag was packed. All she needed to do was pick it up, and she could catch the “EL” back to the bus station. She should be on her way to parts unknown before dawn. The destination would be wherever the first bus out of town took her. It was pretty straightforward.

She picked up the pace, ready to be on her way. The man behind her didn’t miss a step. She frowned in annoyance. Of all the times to pick up a Good Samaritan.

She didn’t even know what he looked like, she realized. His face had remained in shadow back on the corner. All she knew was that he was tall and strong. The man was muscular as hell, and she’d been pressed up against every one of those muscles.

She wondered idly what she was doing. It wasn’t like it mattered how built the guy was. After the next couple of minutes, she was never going to see him again.

He didn’t say a word to her until they reached the rundown five-story building she’d called home for the past four months. She plowed up the steps without looking back at him, but sensed him appraising the structure.

“Nice place,” he said in a tone dry as dust.

“It’s a dump. You can say it.” The observation wouldn’t offend her. She hadn’t exactly been focusing on the building’s aesthetic qualities when it had come to finding a place to live.

She pushed the front door open, and when she didn’t immediately sense him behind her, she thought for a second he was going to leave. The notion was crushed an instant later when he laid his hand on the door and held it open for her. Rather than chance Taylor coming across them on the front stoop, she plunged inside and let him follow. She’d have to save the goodbyes for her front door. Like it or not, he would be saying goodbye then.

“Aren’t you worried he’ll follow you here?” her Samaritan asked as he trailed her up the unlit stairs.

“No. He doesn’t know about the apartment.” If he had he would have waited to ambush her here. Instead, he’d come after her in a public place.

“So it wasn’t random.”

Had she revealed too much? Too late to worry about it now. “No. It wasn’t random.”

She finally reached the third floor. Her apartment was the first on the left, facing the front of the building. Key already in hand, she shoved it into the lock, threw the door open and whirled back to face him before he’d stepped onto the shadowy landing.

“See. I made it. Safe and sound.”

Looming over her, he looked past her into the apartment. She doubted he could see much. It was still probably enough to let him know it wasn’t any more hospitable than the rest of the structure. Or the woman who lived there. “Lady, I’m not sure I feel safe in this building.”

“Then you’re welcome to leave.”

He made no move to do so. He stared at her, long and hard, until her skin began to tingle in response. She shifted uneasily from one foot to the other, doing her best not to rub at the goose bumps.

“I don’t think you feel safe here, either.”

“I’ll be fine. I’ve been here for quite a while. Nothing’s happened to me yet.”

“Because Taylor didn’t know where you were until today.”

The words were so unexpected she couldn’t hide her reaction. He might as well have punched her. The air whooshed from her lungs, the blood from her face.

She knew immediately she’d made a mistake.

She hurried to cover for it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He moved closer, every bit as big and intimidating as he’d been on the street. She managed to hold her ground.

He planted a hand on the door to keep her from slamming it in his face. A thought that hadn’t even occurred to her, she realized. Damn it. She had to get her head together.

“Nice try, lady. But I’m well acquainted with Roy Taylor. I know the sound of his voice as well as my own, and I know he’s the man you were trying to get away from back there. Just like I know you’re a native New Yorker.”

Oh, God. He was with Taylor.

And she’d led him straight into her home.

The surprise passed quickly, replaced by the anger she knew so well.

She channeled every bit of it into a glare that should have had him stepping back. “I don’t know anybody named Trainer.”

“Taylor.”

“Whatever. And I’m from Chicago. Born and bred right here on the South Side. Go Sox.” She made sure every word dripped with the distinctive accent she’d learned to affect early on. There could be no doubt where she was from.

She couldn’t see it, but she could sense him smile. “You let your accent slip back there in the street. You’ve got it back now. Pretty good, I have to admit. I never would have guessed.”

Was he telling the truth? It was certainly possible. She’d been half out of her mind back there.

He took advantage of her momentary silence to step forward again, forcing her to retreat just enough for him to step inside and shut the door behind him. Not bothering with the lock, he reached over and flipped on the light.

The glow from the single yellow bulb wasn’t enough of a shock that her eyes needed time to adjust. The light flared and then there he was, exposed to her for the first time.

He was just as intimidating in the light as he’d been in the dark. His face matched his body. Shaggy black hair crowned a head composed of sharp features and hard angles. He was older than she’d imagined for some reason, maybe forty. Lines were carved into thick grooves around his eyes and mouth. He wasn’t a man anyone would describe as handsome. He was too hard. Too cold. Too purely masculine in a raw, elemental way. Unyielding. Dangerous.

She found her voice at last. “Who are you?”

“The name’s Ross. I’m a bounty hunter.”

“I hate to break it to you, Ross, but there’s no bounty out on me.”

“I’m not after you. I’m after Taylor.”

A bounty hunter. She almost laughed out loud. All the people who were after her, and the one who’d caught her was looking for someone else. He’d found a lot more than he’d bargained for and had no idea what he had.

“Your turn,” he said. “Who are you?”

“That’s none of your business.”

He grabbed her arm before she could move, his fingers digging through the layers of clothes. “Lady, anything and everything related to Roy Taylor is my business. That makes you my business.”

She didn’t even blink. He’d lost the ability to shock her after that last bombshell. “No,” she said quietly, forcefully, looking him straight in the eye with one arched brow. She jerked out of his grasp. “It doesn’t.”

She noted with some satisfaction the hint of frustration that entered those pale gray eyes. It was quickly replaced by a far less-encouraging hard determination.

One corner of his mouth curved in challenge. “Then you won’t mind if I call the police and report what happened tonight.”

The police. Her heart lurched in her chest at the notion. If there was anyone more dangerous to her than Taylor, it was them.

“I don’t have a phone.”

He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket. “I do.”

She kept her expression impassive. “Do what you want. I’m going to go change.”

Then she was moving again, quickly, before he had a chance to react. She dodged into the bedroom a few feet away—the benefit of living in an apartment roughly the size of a postage stamp—and slammed the door shut behind her. The lock on the door wouldn’t give him much trouble if he tried coming after her. She flipped it, anyway, willing to take what she could get.

She was across the room in a flash. Her backpack was sitting on the mattress where she’d left it. Thankfully she hadn’t set it by the front door like she’d originally planned. Grabbing it, she moved to the bedroom window. It slid up silently at her touch. She created enough of an opening to fit through, then tossed her backpack through it, following a second later.

She landed hard on her hands and knees on the cold metal of the fire escape. It swayed beneath her. She ignored the motion—there was no time to be afraid of anything but the man who’d be coming after her at any moment—slung the backpack over her shoulder and hurried down the fire escape. With each step, it felt like she was moving too slow. Her feet kept slipping on the framework, her hands struggled to find purchase every time she fell. There were only three flights down to the street. It might as well have been a hundred. She glanced down and all she saw was darkness.

Fear lodged in her throat. She swallowed it back with the same ruthlessness with which she’d done everything so far. She couldn’t give in to fear. There was no time for it.

She finally reached the end. She’d have to jump the rest of the way. She dropped her backpack over the ledge, using the sound of its landing to judge the distance to the ground. A few feet. She could make that. She had to.

The landing jarred every bone in her body. It hurt, but not enough to signal anything was broken. Even before her body stopped weaving in an attempt to steady itself, she grabbed for the backpack, threw it over her shoulder and plunged forward into the night.

Two steps later she ran into a wall. Again.

An iron hand clamped down on her forearm. She jerked her head up in shock to face the man who loomed over her. Her first thought was that it had to be Ross, but then she realized it wasn’t. This man wasn’t quite as tall or broad. The uneasy sensation that skittered along her nerve endings warned her he was infinitely more dangerous.

“Gotcha,” he sneered, and her alarm skyrocketed.

“I don’t think so.”

The familiar voice came from behind her, startling both her and her captor. Almost as the words were spoken, she was yanked out of his grasp. He barely had time to lift his head before a fist came out of the darkness and landed a blow to the chin that sent him crashing to the ground.

Her savior spun her around to face him. She looked up in shock to meet Ross’s steely glare.

“How—”

“Back door,” he said, his voice grave. “There’s something you need to understand. I’m not stupid.”

His tone revived her anger. “You have to be. A smarter man would take a hint.” She dropped her gaze to the hand fastened to her arm like a vise. “If you want to keep that hand, I suggest you remove it.”

“Fine.” She was so surprised by his capitulation she didn’t even realize what he was doing until he had the cuff fastened around her wrist.

Outraged, she jerked at the metal ring affixing her arm to his. “Get this off me!”

“Do you really want to argue about this now?”

As if on cue, the man at their feet let out a soft groan.

Ross arched a brow at her. “Another friend of yours?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know who he is.”

“Well, we can wait for your new friend here to wake up and see what he has to say about it. Or maybe we should wait for Taylor to show up.”

“I told you I don’t know any Taylor.”

“And I told you I don’t believe you. Take your pick, lady. Taylor or me.”

She scrambled for another option and came up empty. She just knew she didn’t want to stand there arguing with him. Like it or not, Taylor was out there. “Fine,” she said through gritted teeth. “Let’s get out of here.”

She moved first to take the lead. Ross didn’t give her the chance. He surged forward toward the rear of the building, pulling her with him.

He stopped at the back of the building to make sure it was clear. Once he’d ascertained it was, he started moving again without saying a word. There was nothing for her to do but follow.

For now.

T HE SEDAN had New York plates.

Taylor barely glimpsed the license plate out of the corner of his eye. He was halfway down the block when the fact sank in.

After a half hour of aimlessly wandering the streets, he’d doubled back to the main one where the bar and the drugstore where the woman worked were located. Being on foot was getting him nowhere. He could cover more ground in his car.

But he’d kept alert on his way back, searching for any sign of the woman, paying attention to everything that fell within his range of vision.

Like the sedan with New York plates.

Curious, he turned around and narrowed his eyes on the car parked along the curb. He’d passed a pickup truck with New York plates farther down the block. Then the sedan. And of course his own vehicle was waiting around the corner.

Now what were the chances that three vehicles from New York would all be here tonight without being connected?

It was possible. There had to be millions of cars registered with New York State, all with corresponding plates.

But Taylor didn’t believe in coincidences.

Before he had a chance to consider it further, a man appeared down the street pulling a woman with him. Both quickly looked around them, neither seeing him tucked away in the shadows down the block. They quickly made their way to a truck parked along the curb. The truck he’d noted with New York plates.

He had no trouble recognizing the woman, despite the change in her hair from a year ago. It was the sight of the man that blindsided him.

His mouth curling into a sneer, Taylor bit back a curse. Gideon Ross. The two-bit bounty hunter had been a pain in his ass for too long, ever since the death of that washed-up old man. Taylor had thought he’d been rid of the bastard when he finally left the city.

And now he had the woman.

Damn it. It was all he could do not to grab his weapon from his shoulder holster and take aim. He and Chastain had always known how bad it would be if anyone else got their hands on her before Taylor did. But for Ross to be the one might just be the worst-case scenario.

Taylor took an instinctive step forward, then quickly stepped back into the shadows and considered his options. He could hustle down the block and try to get to the truck before they left, but he probably wouldn’t be able to stop them. Or he could run back to his own vehicle and try to follow. They’d likely be long gone before he got back.

Almost absently, he dropped his hand into his pocket and pulled out the tracking device he’d been fooling around with for a while now. He’d thought it might come in handy if she managed to hop on a bus or grab a cab before he could stop her. The only problem was he was nowhere near close enough to get the transmitter on the truck, and there was little chance he could do so before they took off.

Down the block, Ross pushed the woman into the passenger side of the truck, but not before she elbowed him in the ribs. Even from a distance, Taylor could tell it had to hurt. Obviously the woman was not going willingly. He took no satisfaction from the knowledge.

By the time the truck roared to life and pulled away from the curb, he knew he had no choice but to get back to his car and try to catch them before they got too far.

Just as he started to turn away, a man rushed out of an alley up ahead, coming from the same direction Ross and the woman had.

Taylor froze, his gut telling him not to move just yet. Maybe Ross and the woman hadn’t just been running. Maybe they’d been running from something. Or somebody.

Maybe somebody else from New York?

Without even thinking about it, he used his thumb to flip a tiny switch on the back of the tracking device. It didn’t make a sound. It didn’t need to. He knew the transmitter was activated.

His attention shifted to the sedan parked down the block. The other vehicle with New York plates. Sure enough, the man was quickly striding in that direction.

But who was this guy? Someone else after the woman?

The questions could wait. Instinct told him he couldn’t risk losing this guy.

Taylor darted through the shadows toward the vehicle. The other man made his way down the sidewalk, only crossing when he reached the car. Taylor made it there first and waited, hidden in a darkened storefront doorway. The man had no idea he was there.

When the man climbed into his car, Taylor made his move. He shot out at the exact moment the car door slammed shut and fell to his stomach on the pavement behind the car. As the engine rumbled to life, he reached up and shoved the transmitter under the back bumper.

The car started to pull away. Taylor pushed off on his elbows and shoved himself backward—right under the parked car behind him.

He lay there, immobile, and listened to the car disappearing into the night. A good minute passed before it was gone and the street was silent again.

Only then did he roll out from under the other car. Rising to his feet, he didn’t so much as brush himself off as he crossed the street and headed back to where he’d parked his own set of wheels.

The chase was back on.