Читать книгу The Hunted - Rachel Lee - Страница 9

Four hours and five staples later, Erin was back in the car with Jerrod. In her lap were a bottle of pain meds and standard discharge instructions for wound care and dealing with a concussion. The doctor had wanted to keep her overnight for observation. Jerrod, too, had argued for the stay. Yet here she was, on the way back to her apartment.

“You’re stubborn,” Jerrod remarked.

“You don’t survive in my business if you aren’t.”

“Same here.”

“How cool is that? We have something in common besides Mercator.”

He chuckled. “Amazing, isn’t it?”

She half smiled. At least her lips were remembering that it was possible.

“But you’re not staying at your place.”

“No?”

“No. We’re going to collect some clothes and things, and then we’re going to a hotel.”

“Why?”

He looked at her. It was dark now, and flashes of headlights from oncoming traffic chiseled his face even more. “You were attacked at home. Wanna try again?”

She decided he was okay, because he’d asked her instead of telling her. “Honestly? I’m not so sure.”

“Me, either. I don’t know what’s behind this, but my instincts are telling me they’re not done with you.”

“You have good instincts,” she remarked, then wished she hadn’t, because he was no idiot and caught the subtext as if it had been a headline.

“What don’t I know?”

She hesitated. “Plenty,” she said finally. “And I can’t talk about it. Reporter privilege.” That usually shut people up. Not him.

“We’re going to have to talk about it, Erin. Later. When you feel better.”

Not likely, she thought, but at least for now he was letting her off the hook. She would take what she could get until she was back in shape.

The stairs were easier this time, and the crime-scene unit was still picking over the bones of her life like carrion birds. As promised, she noted what was missing, which hadn’t expanded much from what she had already noticed. Whoever had broken in had been looking for information, of that she had no doubt. Her grandmother’s engagement ring, a nice piece of ice, had been totally ignored. Mutely she held it up to Jerrod, and he nodded understanding. Then she slipped it on the ring finger of her right hand to keep it safe.

He helped her pack a suitcase, and she didn’t object. Not even when he scooped underwear up off the floor. It wouldn’t make any sense to object, since even the thought of bending over left her dizzy and nauseous.

Besides, he seemed as interested in it as if it had been cardboard. He was very…clinical, professional. He avoided her few good dresses and instead packed slacks, jeans, Ts and sweatshirts. Her favorite stuff, to be sure, but it began to seem he had some kind of plan. It was more than she needed for overnight.

Abducted by an FBI agent, she thought. Could the world get any crazier?

When she asked him where they were going, he shook his head and indicated the next room with a movement of his eyes. He didn’t trust the local police? Erin began to wonder what he knew that she didn’t.

“Anything else you don’t want to leave here?” he asked finally, as he prepared to latch her suitcase.

“All I have that mattered is gone.” Except for the ring on her hand.

“Let’s move out, then.”

Huh, she thought. Military background, or too many movies?

They drove off again in his car, this time headed for Loop 410. “Where are we going?” she asked again. “Or do I need to jump out of a moving vehicle?”

“That would hurt considerably more than being hit on the head. I told you, I’m taking you to a hotel.”

“I’m not in the set that can afford hotels.”

“I am. And I’m not going to leave you hanging in the breeze. Not at your place. Not even in a hotel under your own name.”

She squirmed on her seat and managed to look at him. “You’re creeping me out.”

“Good. You should have been creeped out before.”

“I was, but not like this. What are you thinking?”

“You’ve pissed someone off enough to commit felony burglary and battery. That’s very pissed off. You know something, or they think you do. You’re still alive, which can’t make them happy. Two plus two equals four.”

Gingerly, she reached up and touched the staples on the back of her head. “You have a point. Why didn’t you want to say anything in the apartment?”

He glanced her way. “Cops talk. Sometimes idly, and sometimes not.”

He was right, she realized. “So I can’t trust the cops but I can trust you? There’s a disconnect there.”

He reached in his breast pocket and tossed her a flip-phone. She barely managed to catch it, considering the world was still trying to bob on invisible waves.

“Call information. Get the number for the Austin field office of the FBI. Ask about me. Check my creds. Get my description.”

She looked at the phone. Part of her said she didn’t need to do that if he was so willing to let her; part of her suspicious reporter’s mind suggested that he might be expecting that reaction.

So she flipped open his phone, got the number and made the call. A recording answered her.

“Cool,” she said. “A recording can’t identify you.”

“Keep listening. Toward the end we finally admit that you can reach an agent right now.”

“I should hope so. The country could collapse while you guys sleep.”

“We never sleep.”

“Yeah, right.” She pressed eight when the menu promised it would put her directly in touch with an agent. After a couple of rings, a silky woman’s voice answered.

“Agent Dickson. May I help you?”

“Uh, yes. I’m with a guy claiming to be Special Agent Jerrod Westlake. Is he for real?”

The woman chuckled. “We often wonder that ourselves. Yes, he’s a real agent. Do you want his description?”

“Please.”

“Tall, green-eyed, dark and handsome. Well, not really handsome. He looks more like somebody carved his face out of wood. Nice smile, though, when you can get it out of him.”

Erin almost laughed. “That sounds like him.”

“Put him on the phone for a sec, would you?”

“Sure.” Erin passed the phone back to Jerrod.

“Westlake,” he said. “Oh, hi, Georgie. Yeah, with what she’s been through today, I don’t blame her for being suspicious. We’re going to ground overnight. I’ll get in touch tomorrow. Yeah. You got it.”

He flipped the phone closed and tucked it back in the inside pocket of his suit.

“She sounds nice,” Erin remarked.

“As long as you don’t get on the wrong side of her.”

Relieved, Erin let go of the tension. It would come back, she knew, but for now she could allow herself to feel safe. “Isn’t your office number programmed on your phone?”

“Of course. But would you have trusted it?”

“Good point.” He was outthinking her paranoia. Interesting guy. Then, slowly, she let her eyelids droop closed. It was a relief to go to sleep.

Jerrod almost woke her, remembering the doctor’s warnings about sleep, but the hotel was only another twenty minutes away, if that. He figured he could give her that much time safely.

Spunky woman, he thought, wheeling through thinning traffic. Striking. Black hair and bright blue eyes. Arresting. A fair-skinned Irish beauty, with a compact but tempting figure.

But her loveliness wasn’t what had struck him most. It was her attitude that had captivated him. Sassy, sardonic, sarcastic—and very, very sharp. Even with a concussion, all of that showed through. She didn’t like being told “No,” and she didn’t care if people knew that.

But she was also a mystery. Jerrod Westlake was no fool, and he knew she was keeping something to herself, something that had put her at greater risk than testifying at that ridiculous fraud trial. He could sense it in the almost slippery way she edged around some things, in the way she chose her words. She didn’t believe her apartment had been ransacked because she’d testified, nor did she believe she had been fired because of it.

Nor did he. She was on to something much bigger, and he wanted to know what it was.

But first he had to make her as safe as he could.

The thunderstorm had followed him from Austin. Or maybe this was a new one building. Either way, lightning jumped across the sky, cloud to cloud, a beautiful thing. He waited for the thunder, but if it reached him, it was deadened by the car. Another fork of lightning wrapped the clouds like a spiderweb. Still no rain. It wouldn’t be long.

He had chosen to go south, the least likely direction for anyone to look for him because it took him farther from Austin. He was pretty sure they didn’t have a tail, but he took some side streets to make sure before returning to the highway, and finally picking a hotel. Embassy Suites. Two rooms, which would give her a bedroom and him a front room with a sofa bed if he wanted it. Only one door.

He parked, rather than pulling up under the porte cochere. He would not allow them to be separated, even in public.

Coming around to her side of the car, he woke her gently by calling her name quietly. When her blue eyes flashed open, he saw the momentary confusion. Then he saw the return of awareness. It was almost as if something inside her closed the shutters.

“We’re at the hotel,” he told her. “I’ll get our bags, then we’ll go in.”

She wasn’t ready to talk yet, or even nod. He did catch her wince as she moved her head.

“When we get inside, take one of those pain pills.”

“I just might succumb,” she admitted.

He pulled their bags—hers newly packed, his always there in case of emergency—out of the trunk, then helped her out of the car.

“You don’t seem as wobbly.”

“No,” she agreed. “I think I’m off the carousel.”

“That’s good news.”

Inside the lobby, he checked them in, using his own credit card. He didn’t want Erin’s name on anything, at least until he found out what was going on. Check-in was easy and fast, and ten minutes later they were in their suite.

Erin collapsed in an armchair near the door, but despite her apparent physical weakness, those blue eyes of hers suggested she was regaining her full mental faculties, and along with them, a rising curiosity. Reporters weren’t much different from FBI agents. Questions were always turning in the backs of their minds. It was just a matter of who broke the ice and asked first.

“There’s a bedroom back here,” he said, throwing the door open and carrying her suitcase to one of two double beds. “And a bath. It’s all yours. I’ll stay in the front room.”

“Near the door?”

“Near the door. Guard dog on duty.” He came back out and shed his suit coat, draping it from a hook in the back of the small closet.

“My white knight,” she remarked, sounding a tad sarcastic.

He didn’t mind. He wanted her spunky as hell. “That’s me,” he agreed. Unbuttoning his cuffs, he rolled up the sleeves of his blue oxford shirt. “Hungry?”

“Not yet.”

“Stomach?”

“Unsettled.”

Her eyes followed him, and for some reason she reminded him of a cat watching a caged bird. On alert again. Returning to the strength and determination that had carried her this far.

He decided to let her watch him, and say nothing for now. He kept his belt holster and gun on, along with his badge, and went to the phone to call room service. “I can get you something later, but I haven’t eaten since this morning, and I wouldn’t want to become too weak to hold up my lance.”

One corner of her mouth curled upward in a smile. “Do they have French onion soup?”

He opened the loose-leaf binder by the phone, flipped to room service and scanned the menu. “One bowl coming up.”

“Thanks.”

He saw her pull the pill bottle from her vest pocket and went to get her a glass of water from the sink. As he handed it to her, he asked, “Do you always wear those safari vests?”

“Have you ever tried to carry a purse while taking notes on the fly, or even photos?”

“Can’t say I have.”

“I didn’t think so.” She downed one pain pill and drained the water glass before setting it on the end table. “A photographer friend gave this to me after I’d bitched about my purse for the thousandth time. I never leave home without it.”

He brought her another glass of water, then sat on the couch facing her. “I can see it’s handy.”

“Oh, yeah. It would be even handier if I kept to some kind of organization. I tend to drop everything in one or two pockets, though.” She pointed. “Phone, keys, gum, pens.” Another pocket. “Pads, tape recorder, wallet.”

“And the others?”

“Empty.”

“Kleenex?”

“Oh, yeah.” She patted a hip pocket. “Tissues are in there with the notepads. Easy to reach.”

“And now pills.”

She popped the bottle into a separate pocket. “They get their own space.” Then she touched a zippered pocket on the other side. “I forgot. Makeup. Lipstick. I don’t usually wear it, but sometimes…” She shrugged. “You do what you gotta do.”

Her hand wandered up to her neck, then slowly slid downward. “I feel naked without my press credentials.”

“I can imagine. About how I’d feel without my badge and gun.”

“We may be on the same wavelength. I can’t allow that to continue.”

He lifted a brow. “Why not?”

“’Cuz you’re a cop and I’m a reporter, which puts us on opposite sides of a huge divide.”

“Not really. I promise not to compromise your professional ethics.”

“You already have.”

He watched a look of mischief dart across her face. “How so?”

“I’m in a hotel room you paid for, about to eat food you’re paying for. That’s strictly a no-no. Print press never takes gifts, even if TV reporters do.”

“Ah.” He narrowed his eyes, trying not to smile. “Well, you’re not employed at the moment.”

“A saving grace.” She closed her eyes briefly, drew a deep breath, then opened them again. “I wish the guy with the jackhammer would clock out soon.”

“The pill should help send him on his way.”

“I hope. So.”

He raised his brows, waiting. That “so” had definitely been a segue.

“What are your bosses going to say about all this?” she asked, indicating the hotel room.

“That I exercised good sense.”

“Nice bosses.”

“Big expense account.”

A chuckle escaped her, causing her to wince. “I can’t believe you came all the way to Houston just to make sure I testified. You could have called the field office here and told them to keep an eye on me.”

“I knew you were going to be dangerous.”

She smiled. “It’s my job.”

“It’s your nature. Okay, I came partly because of you, and partly because there’s another case I’m working on.”

“I guess I got in the way of that. What’s the other case?”

He hesitated, unwilling and, in fact, unable to discuss an active investigation. But there was something she was withholding, something important, and he would never gain her trust if he didn’t give her some first.

“A teenage girl disappeared a few months ago.”

She cocked her head. “I don’t think I heard about it.”

“Most people wouldn’t. She was a runaway, working the streets. An older street woman had taken an interest in her. Called us when she went missing.”

Erin seemed almost to nod, yet barely moved her head. “You’re right, that’s not the kind of story that gets much coverage. Which is a damn shame.”

“I couldn’t agree more. Missing persons, especially children, are my specialty.”

Her eyes widened a bit. “You’re that agent I keep hearing about? The one who works all over the country on these cases?”

He nodded.

“Jeez, wouldn’t I love to interview you.”

“Maybe after we make sure you’re safe. But I can’t talk specifics about ongoing investigations.”

“I understand that. Still, you’ve got quite a rep.”

“Not enough that you recognized me right off, thank God.”

A half smile lit her face. “You haven’t quite reached your fifteen minutes of fame yet.”

“I hope I never do.”

A knock sounded at the door. In one fluid moment, Jerrod rose to his feet, indicated with one hand that she should go to the bedroom, and with the other unsnapped the guard on his belt holster. He was taking no chances.

Over the years, he’d realized something important about his psychology, and possibly the psychology of others: once the unthinkable happened in your life, there was never anything unthinkable again. Forever after, you always expected it.

And something about this situation had him at high alert. He and Erin McKenna needed to have a serious talk very soon.

“Be right there,” he called to the door, hand on his pistol butt. As soon as he was sure Erin was concealed in the bedroom, he went to answer the knock.