Читать книгу Tall, Dark And Wanted - Morgan Hayes - Страница 12

Molly was aware of the pain first. The dull throb stemmed from the base of her skull and spiked upward. Then she felt the heat—a radiating warmth against her left cheek—and she could hear the low crackle of fire in the hearth.

The memories came together like scattered pieces of a puzzle. She’d walked through the house, seen Mitch’s sketches on the coffee table, moved down the hall with her gun drawn, and finally there had been the blow and the blinding pain. Silently, she cursed herself. Yes, she’d certainly done a good job of walking directly into someone’s trap.

Sabatini’s trap? It had to be. She pushed back the instantaneous surge of panic. His men must have gotten to Mitch first, then had probably left her for dead.

But…the last thing she remembered was the cold, ceramic tiles of the kitchen floor. Even without opening her eyes, she knew she was on the leather sofa she’d seen in the living room. Why would Sabatini’s men move her?

“How do you feel?”

In twelve years…no, in a million years, she’d never forget his voice. Its deep, resonant tone slipped through the silence, smoothing out the sharper edges of her pain and wrapping itself around her like a lover’s embrace.

The only thing more seductive than that was the sight of him.

Mitch sat less than three feet away, perched on the edge of the coffee table. He leaned forward with his elbows braced against his knees. His forehead creased and those dark eyes narrowed with what appeared to be genuine concern.

Molly blinked several times, gradually bringing him into focus. She had to be dreaming.

It wasn’t the Mitch of the photos she’d seen over the years—always dressed to the nines in hopelessly crisp suits and expensive ties as he endured the limelight his success garnered, or even donning a hard hat at some groundbreaking event for a new Drake construction, still wearing what appeared to be an Armani.

No, this was the Mitch of Molly’s memories, of twelve years of recurring dreams and fantasies. That rugged handsomeness, that overwhelming masculinity, dressed in a rumpled denim shirt over a sparkling white T tucked into a faded pair of jeans…

And his hair…It was cropped short. The mustache and beard were gone as well. The warm glow of the fire softened his sharp features—the square chin, the strong jaw-line, those chiseled lips and that perfect nose with the smallest of clefts at the tip. But it was his eyes that riveted her and seemed to have stolen her ability to speak as she watched them reflect the flames’ dancing light.

This was the Mitch she knew, the Mitch she’d made love to and believed would be with her forever. This was the Mitch she’d kissed goodbye as she saw him off to college twelve years ago. This was the Mitch who had smiled as he’d driven off to Boston, and out of her life….

“Are you okay?” he asked.

She managed a nod, but her eyes never left his.

“Talk to me, Molly,” he prompted again, the lines of worry etching even deeper. “Are you all right? How do you feel?”

“Like I’ve been clubbed over the head.” Her voice cracked and she cleared her throat. The simple act sent another shot of pain searing through her.

“I thought I was going to have to drive you to a hospital.”

“I’m fine,” she lied, and attempted to sit up. But the effort was more than she’d anticipated. Her vision blurred again and dizziness swept over her.

She should have expected Mitch to reach for her then—strong hands grasping her, guiding her up and then lingering on her shoulders as though assuring himself that she was all right. More than that, however, Molly should have expected the almost instant physical reaction her body had to his touch.

“I’m fine,” she said again, brushing his hands away.

He backed off, but only briefly. From the coffee table he picked up an ice pack and settled onto the sofa next to her. She could smell the faint trace of aftershave on him—something she’d not smelled in years, and yet it seemed as familiar as yesterday. She fought back the memories.

“How long have I been out?”

“Not long. Fifteen minutes…maybe twenty.”

He reached behind her, attempting to settle the ice pack against the tender and throbbing source of her pain. Molly winced and reflexively reached up to take the pack from his grasp.

“I told you I’m fine.”

She heard the release of his breath before she saw him shake his head.

“How could I forget?” he asked, a frown quivering at the corners of his mouth. “Just as stubborn as your old man.”

She watched him lift a hand and run his fingers through the short-cropped hair, as though he expected to find long locks of black hair still there.

“So I guess I have you to thank for this goose egg?” Molly bit her lower lip as she eased the pack against the injury, feeling the initial burn of the ice.

“What do you expect when you come creeping through the dark? And with a gun drawn, no less?”

Molly caught his quick nod to where her Glock lay on the coffee table. She cringed at the idea that she’d so easily lost her on-duty weapon. Yes, she’d certainly messed up. If it had happened in the line of duty, the incident would have been written up in a heartbeat.

“I did knock,” she said.

“Yeah, well, you should have announced yourself.” There was a definite edge to his tone. But the anger wasn’t at her, Molly realized then. It was more at himself, for having struck her the way he had. And judging by the residual dizziness and the pain hammering through her head, it must have been a damned good swing. She could only imagine what had gone through his head when he’d seen her drawn gun coming through the kitchen door.

“So what the hell are you doing here, Molly?”

“You have to ask?” She shifted the ice pack and tried not to wince again.

“You’re wasting your time.”

“Whether or not you testify is up to you, Mitch. All I want to do is ask that you reconsider what you’re doing.”

“And what am I doing?”

“Honestly? I’d say you’re committing suicide. Thinking you can stay out of Sabatini’s reach. It’s insane. After all, I managed to find you. It can only be a matter of time before Sabatini’s men catch up with you as well, and you’re a fool if you think you can hold your own against them. You’re not safe, Mitch. No matter how much firewood you have,” she added.

“And you’re saying I’m safe in Chicago?”

“Certainly safer than running, yes.”

He stared at her for what could only have been seconds, but caught in those dark eyes, it felt like an eternity.

“Well, I’ll take my chances,” he said at last. “Like I told you, you’re wasting your time.”

In the intensity of his stare she thought she saw resentment, anger, and beneath that…a kind of resignation, a glimmer of defeat that frightened her. When he drew himself to the edge of the sofa eventually, and turned to look at the fireplace instead, Molly studied his profile. But she could still see that sense of hopelessness she’d glimpsed. It was the look of a man who didn’t care whether he lived or died. And Mitch Drake was the last person she’d ever expected to see it in.

No, the Mitch she’d grown up with was a strong man. A man who loved life, who had never let anyone or anything cut him down or hold him back. She’d fallen in love with that strength, that vitality, probably before she was even old enough to understand those qualities. And later, in high school, it was that love for him that had left no question in her mind as to who she wanted to be with, who would be her first lover.

She’d been Mitch’s first, too. Sure, she knew he’d kissed a couple of other girls on occasional dates before she had dared to profess her feelings. But Molly knew, beyond a doubt, that Mitch spoke the truth when he’d sworn that night on a blanket along a stretch of Lake Michigan beach, under a full sky of stars, that Molly was his very first. His first and only, he’d vowed.

They’d dated through his senior year and then Molly’s while Mitch started college in Boston. And in their last summer together—before Mitch went for his second year at Boston and Molly joined the Academy as her father had done—they’d made grandiose plans for their future, even dared to speak of marriage a few times. But Mitch had wanted to finish school first so he could afford to buy her a real ring. Even back then Molly had wondered if there was more to Mitch’s holding off than the cost of a diamond ring, because he knew her well enough to know that she would never have worn something as precious as a diamond.

Then, through their grapevine of friends, Molly had learned of Emily Buchanan, a girl Mitch had met during his second year of college. Molly had learned he was bringing his new girlfriend home during the Christmas break, and she’d made it a point to escape Chicago for the holidays, leaving her father on his own and heading to the slopes with friends just so she wouldn’t have to see or speak with Mitch. And when she returned to the city to start her new life as a patrol officer with the CPD, Molly had vowed she was through with Mitch, through with the dreams and the hopes. She’d returned his few letters unopened, and didn’t respond to any of the phone calls he’d placed to her father.

And then, three years later, when she’d heard the news of Mitch’s marriage to Emily, Molly had at last come to the painful conclusion that it had never been a matter of Mitch not being ready for marriage all those years earlier. It had never been a matter of timing, or money for an engagement ring. It had simply been a matter of her not being “the one.”

Even so, it hadn’t been easy seeing the pictures in the papers and the magazines over the years as Mitch’s reputation grew in Chicago and the architectural world. Harder still to look at that one photo in which he’d posed with his new wife on his arm at some Chicago high society event. Emily had been everything Molly wasn’t—tall, elegant, poised; not some tomboy down the street Mitch had grown up with, pitching stones at old factory windows and racing their matching CCM bicycles through trash-cluttered back streets.

No, she certainly hadn’t been “the one,” Molly resolved yet again as she watched Mitch stand and cross the dimly lit room to the fireplace.

There was no missing the way he favored his left leg, the slight limp seeming uncharacteristic of his obviously sturdy, muscular build. Molly was reminded of the crash ten months ago that could very easily have claimed his life. She should have been used to the guilt she felt now; after all, it had plagued her ever since she’d heard about the accident and hadn’t made the effort to see Mitch. Not that she would have necessarily been allowed in to see him at the hospital or even been able to find out the location of the safe house if she’d tried. And not that she would have known what to say if she had.

She watched him throw another log onto the fire. A burst of sparks sprayed out and up the flue.

“I…I’m sorry, Mitch,” she murmured now. “I’m sorry about the accident. About…your wife.” The words sounded flat, even though she’d meant them.

His back was to her, but she could see the rigid tension that straightened his spine then and tightened his shoulders. And when he turned to her again, there was no mistaking the pain that darkened his face. He rubbed at the gold wedding band, and Molly couldn’t help thinking it was a completely unconscious habit of his.

In the uncomfortable silence that fell over the room, Molly tried to imagine the kind of loss he’d suffered. Yes, she’d lost her mother years ago to cancer, but she’d been only four, too young to have known her, too young to fully comprehend the loss.

And then, just as quickly as it had appeared, the dark pain in Mitch’s expression was gone again, as though maybe she’d only imagined it. The wall came up and masked his features in a way only Mitch could manage.

Molly remembered the first time she’d seen him do that—so skillfully construct walls around his emotions. They’d been ten years old when they’d found his dog at the side of the road, killed by a car. Mitch had carried the collie in his arms the whole six blocks home, and it was only days later that Molly had at last seen him cry.

That memory, and many others, flashed before her mind’s eye as Mitch stared back at her. Only when he cleared his throat was she able to return to the present.

“Where’s your car?” She lowered the ice pack and tried to draw herself to the edge of the couch. Another cruel wave of pain surged through her head, and the room threatened to spin again. “About a mile back, at the side of the road,” she answered, remembering the long, cold walk. “I, um, I underestimated. Ran out of gas.”

“Well, you can’t leave it there. With this snow, the plows’ll be through at least once tonight,” he said, turning from the fireplace. “I’ve got a spare tank. I’ll drive you out there.”

SOME OF THE COLOR had returned to Molly’s face before they’d left the house, and she seemed to have regained her equilibrium. But from the moment she’d reholstered her gun and pulled on her anorak and boots, she’d been silent. Even now, in the passenger seat of Barb’s Blazer, she said nothing, only stared out the windshield into the mesmerizing swirl of snow.

Mitch could only imagine her thoughts as he backed the vehicle out the drive and nosed it south along Lakeshore Drive. Was she remembering as well? No, Mitch thought, more likely she was thinking about the years that had separated them. Was it resentment that turned down the corners of her mouth now? he wondered as he snatched another quick side glance. Was it bitterness and anger, harbored over the years because he’d never been able to offer her an explanation?

In spite of the sickly green glow of the dash lights, her features appeared soft and innately feminine. Still, her angular profile had maintained that strong, almost fierce look of determination he’d always remembered. The loose ponytail that drew up her dark hair revealed the delicate curve of her neck, leading to the regal jawline—the same jawline he’d so often watched jut out with that unparalleled Sparling stubbornness.

Another glance and he caught the determined chin, the tight yet exquisite lips, the fine, straight nose, the subtle hollow below her cheekbone, and those gently arched eyebrows. But even with his gaze directed out to the mounting storm beyond the windshield once more, Mitch could see Molly’s eyes. They had long since been burned into his memory—exquisitely wide, and dark…almost black, like a bird’s, Mitch had often thought.

In the confines of the vehicle, it was impossible not to remember the early days of their relationship: the summer evenings at the drive-in theater, when he’d sneaked the same side glances at her and hoped to sneak a kiss as well. The late-night drives home, and then sitting outside her father’s house with the porch light still blazing. That’s where he’d kissed her the first time, at 1:00 a.m. on May 16, in the front bench seat of his father’s old Plymouth.

It hadn’t mattered that he’d kissed other girls before then; with Molly it had felt like the first. From the moment he’d leaned across the seat, buried his fingers in her thick hair and drawn her mouth to his, Mitch had known it was more than just another kiss. Much more. There was no comparing, because that kiss, and every one they’d shared after that, had always felt like…coming home.

Mitch’s body responded to the memories, and he tried instead to shift his focus to the road ahead of them, keeping the Blazer steady through the accumulating drifts. The weatherman’s predictions had certainly been accurate. Between the heavy snowfall and the unrelenting wind, whatever tracks Molly had made in her walk to the house had long since been covered or blown clear. Mitch was grateful that Barb had left him with the four-wheel drive and rented a car to get back to Chicago.

“So the police know I’m alive?” he asked finally, needing something—anything—to break the heavy silence between them.

In his peripheral vision he caught the flash of Molly’s eyes, but the second he tried to meet her stare, she looked away again.

“No,” she answered flatly, her soft voice almost drowned out by the Blazer’s fan and the thumping wipers. “They think Sabatini got to you first.”

“But you didn’t?”

She shook her head.

“Why?”

“Call it a gut feeling.”

“So you came all this way on the department’s budget?”

“No. This is my vacation time, Mitch. My budget. I wanted to find you.”

Was it possible? he wondered. Could Molly have driven all the way from Chicago just for him? Out of concern for his safety and well-being?

No. The truth of the matter was Molly was a cop. Vacation or no vacation, as a cop she’d searched for him, and as a cop she wanted him to come back to Chicago. To testify.

“So how did you find me?”

“I broke into your office,” she said, so matter-of-factly she made it sound like standard police procedure. “Went through your Rolodex. Process of elimination. Figured that of all the places you’d run to, I’d find you here.”

He saw her nod past the windshield.

“My Jeep’s just around the next turn. I thought I saw headlights.”

“Probably the plow,” he suggested. But if there had been a plow or another vehicle it was gone by the time he steered around the bend and caught sight of the Jeep’s four-way flashers.

Mitch drove past the vehicle and pulled the Blazer to the shoulder of the road as well. Leaving it idling, he stepped out into a blast of icy air. In spots where the wind had blown the road clear, the packed snow squealed under his boots as he took out the gas can and walked back to the Jeep. There was no other sound; the heavy blanket of snow over the dense forest muffled the jangle of Molly’s key ring as she unlocked the gas cap, and the clank of the can as Mitch brought it up and fitted the nozzle.

Holding the flashlight in one hand, Molly lifted her collar and tugged her scarf up under her chin against the biting cold. Mitch didn’t know why she unzipped her anorak from the bottom just then and fumbled underneath as though checking her gun’s holster. If he’d had time to think about it, he might have taken the gesture as a warning. He might have thought Molly sensed something that he didn’t. Or…he might have wondered if she’d expected what happened next.

But the thoughts had barely begun to form themselves in his mind when they both heard the low rumble of an engine. Together they turned in time to see the sudden glare of high beams as a vehicle careened out of the darkness and around the corner. Momentarily caught in the headlights of the Blazer, the dark-colored SUV accelerated along the snow-covered road.

“What the hell? It’s coming right at us!” Molly shouted above the revving engine.

But Mitch didn’t need any warning. Instinct drove him. There was no time to wonder what lay in the darkness beyond the snowbank to his right. Anything was better than the grill of the oncoming vehicle. He dropped the empty gas can, and before it even hit the road, he’d snatched Molly’s hand in his.

He cleared the bank before she did, dragging her after him, up and over the hard slope and into the soft, deep snow beyond. Vaguely he was aware of branches whipping at his face and an exposed boulder gouging into his back as he rolled with Molly. And finally, his own wind escaped in a gasp, knocked out of him as she landed on him.

In the same instant, above the engine’s roar came the gut-wrenching sound of impact. It was followed by the scream of metal grinding against metal, of tortured steel and shattering glass.

He heard Molly’s curse as she bellied up the bank, and when he joined her, peering over the top, the Jeep was a good forty feet from where it had been parked. It wasn’t until the assailing four-by-four slowed to a stop farther down the road and finally turned around that Mitch was able to see the damage it had inflicted on the smaller vehicle. In the other vehicle’s headlights, it was clear Molly’s Jeep had been spun around, the driver’s side crushed and the windows smashed out.

Again he heard Molly curse, but this time she followed it up by lifting the edge of her anorak and taking out her gun. In the brief glare of headlights, he could see the determination in her face as she gripped the weapon in one gloved hand.

“Molly, what are you doing?!”

“What does it look like?”

“It might have been an accident.”

“I hardly think so. Get down, Mitch,” she ordered, pulling back the slide of the semiautomatic.

“Molly, what the hell—”

But he didn’t need to ask, nor did he need to hear Molly’s explanation behind the defensive stance she took, her body pressed along the snowbank, her elbows propped against the hardened surface as she brought the gun up. He, too, watched the four-by-four slow as it neared their hiding place, and when the passenger window rolled down, Mitch was shocked to see the weapon in the man’s hand.

“Get down,” Molly warned him once more, a mere second before the night erupted in gunfire.

There was no telling which shots were which then. To Mitch, it sounded like a virtual torrent of bullets. A war zone. From where he crouched just below the top of the slope, he could almost hear the small missiles piercing the air above him, striking trees and ricocheting off boulders in the darkness beyond. When he snatched a look at Molly, he saw she was holding her position at the top of the embankment, one round after the next exploding from the black muzzle of her gun.

Mitch could only imagine that her shots were far more accurate, because as suddenly as the gunfire had begun, it ended. There was the rev of the four-by-four’s engine and the grinding of huge tires against the frozen road as it sped off.

But Molly wasn’t finished. Far from it. Mitch heard her mutter something about them getting away, and in a flash she was on her feet.

“Molly, no! Let them go.” He snatched at her coat, hoping to stop her, but it was pointless. She tore loose and charged down the snowbank to the road before he’d even caught his balance.

In the roadway, Mitch winced with each earsplitting shot as Molly let off several more rounds at the fleeing vehicle. And that was when he smelled the gasoline.

Behind them, only one of the Jeep’s hazard lights continued to blink through the inky darkness. The four-by-four must have struck the Wrangler’s fuel tank.

“Molly!” But his voice was lost to yet another shot as the four-by-four’s taillights disappeared around the bend.

“Molly!” he shouted again.

The blast of her final round echoed through the woods. It was followed by the quiet, yet unmistakable whisper of a fire igniting. In the next second there were flames. Over the low crackle, he heard Molly curse again, turning to the vehicle as though she hoped to rescue some of her belongings.

“Molly, no. Come on!” he shouted above the hiss, tugging at her coat.

She’d lowered her gun, and in the intensifying red-orange glow of the hungry flames that already engulfed the driver’s side of the Jeep, Mitch saw the shock in her expression. The heat of the flames, searing against his own cold-numbed skin, seemed to hold her back.

The air was swollen now with the heat of the fire. Flames licked higher and higher into the stormy night, fanned by the wind.

“Molly, now! It’s going to blow!” This time when he grabbed at her coat, Mitch didn’t let go. He half dragged, half ran with her away from the Jeep and down the empty road, uncertain how much distance was needed.

It wasn’t enough.

There was the low whoosh of gas igniting, followed by an earth-shattering explosion that hurled both of them to the cold ground. The shock of the blast rippled through the air around them, followed by a wave of thick, acrid heat and a storm of flying shards that rained down around them.

“Are you all right?” His body covered hers, and when he raised himself enough that she could move, Molly rolled over and sat up. She brushed snow and grit from her face and stared back at the burning wreckage, the flames reflecting in her wide eyes.

“Are you all right, Molly?” he asked again, taking her by the shoulders.

She managed a nod and instantly scanned the snow-covered ground. Locating her gun, she brushed it off as well.

“Yeah,” she said at last, “I’m okay. I think…I think we need to get out of here.”

“I couldn’t agree more.”

It was when Mitch started to stand that he spotted the two figures in the roadway. Twenty…maybe twenty-five yards away, they were no more than silhouettes in the flickering glow of the fire, but there was no question as to their intent. Each of them carried a gun, and each approached with the steady determination of hired killers.