Текст книги "A Little Too Hot"

Автор книги: Lisa Desrochers

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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

Chapter Twenty-Six

AT THE S OUND of my desire, he comes undone, an agonized groan ripping out of him. We tear at each other’s clothes, getting nowhere in our frenzy. I claw at his back, and that’s when I feel the straps under his flannel shirt. My hand slips around his ribs and I feel the bulge of the holster under his left arm.

My hand closing around his gun seems to shake him back to reality. He pulls away and looks down at me, a little stunned.

The night is dead silent as we lay here, staring at each other, deciding what comes next—how far we’re willing to take this.

But in the silence I hear a pop, and it makes all the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. Because I know that sound.

I flash back to the night on the side of the highway, the van in a ditch and the pop of the gun as someone shot at Jonathan and me. I try to convince myself what I heard was just a twig snapping, but in the next heartbeat Blake has me off the ground and pinned behind the closest tree.

“Don’t move,” he hisses.

“What—” I start, but his hand is over my mouth, stopping my words. And that’s when I see the dark splotch growing on the left sleeve of his shirt.

He takes his hand off my mouth and presses a finger to his lips, urging me to be quiet. Slowly, he draws his gun out from under his shirt. “Federal agent! Drop your weapon!” he yells, spinning out from behind the tree.

The quick burst of pops that follow tell me that Blake didn’t get his wish. Tree bark explodes in splinters around us as Blake ducks back behind it.

Adrenaline floods my veins and it’s everything I can do not to scream. In the faint starlight I see his eyes flash to me. “You’re going to be okay,” he reassures me, his voice smooth and soothing. “Just stay here. No matter what happens, don’t move.”

He springs from behind the tree and returns fire. His shots aren’t muzzled, and they sound like fireworks ripping through the dead calm.

There’s a crash as something big lumbers through the brush in front of the cabin, and Blake disappears into the night in that direction.

I do as I’m told. Except for the shake I can’t control, I don’t move.

Izzy appears at the top of the stairs. “Sam!”

“Get inside!” I tell her, as I hear Blake shout, “Freeze!” from up front.

There’s more rustling in the brush and a barrage of fire. She ducks in the door.

“Drop your weapon!” Blake yells again, farther away, his voice strangely muffled in the cool night air. The response is another volley of gunfire. In the distance, an engine revs and tires spin on gravel. Then everything goes still again.

I wait another minute, my shaking breath loud in the silence.

“Sam,” Izzy hisses, and when I look up at the door, she, Jonathan, and Ginger are huddled there, wide-eyed.

As I dart toward them, my eyes sweep the darkness near the road. Out of the shadows, Blake strides toward me, holding his left arm.

“Oh my God!” I say, changing direction.

He grunts as I slam into him. I try to pull away, afraid I’ve hurt him, but he doesn’t let me, holding me tight to him with his right arm. “Please tell me you’re not hurt,” he says into my hair.

“I’m fine, but—”

“Get in the car,” he barks over my head to my friends. “Now!”

“What about our stuff?” Jonathan asks.

“Leave it.” Blake lets me go and prods me toward the Escalade, putting me in the passenger seat. Everyone else scrambles into the back.

“Blake! You’re going to bleed to death,” I say, looking at his darkening sleeve.

He rips off his flannel shirt, revealing the gun in his chest holster over his black T-shirt. He tears the sleeves off the shirt and hands me the bloody one. “Tie that tight over this,” he says, wadding up the dry sleeve and laying it over his upper arm.

I can’t really see anything through all the blood in the dark, but I take the sleeve he handed me and wrap it around his arm, then tie it in a tight knot over the makeshift bandage. As soon as I’m done, he jogs to the driver’s seat and peals out.

We’re winding down the mountain, all of us shocked silent, when I look down and see the bloody handprint on my shirtsleeve. In the glow of the dash lights all I can see is blood. On my clothes and hands, and on Blake’s, where he’s gripping the steering wheel.

“You need a hospital,” I tell him.

He shakes his head. “It just nicked me.”

“This is fucked up,” Jonathan says from the back. When I look at him, his face is drawn and he’s shaking his head. “Fuck.”

Blake’s jaw tightens and he flicks a glance in the rearview. “What did you tell them?” he demands.

Jonathan’s eyes widen and his hands go up. “Nothing, man! Just to leave Red alone . . . that she didn’t know anything. Marcus said it wasn’t them.”

Blake’s eyes narrow and he breathes deep and blows it out, rubbing the back of his neck with a bloody hand. “How was I so stupid?” he mutters to himself.

“Shouldn’t we call the police or something?” Izzy asks from behind me, her voice shaking.

“I’ll call it in to the office as soon as we’re in cell range,” Blake answers, glancing down at his phone.

“So, what do we do now?” I ask.

“That depends on how Arroyo found us,” Blake answers wearily, flicking a glance in the rearview at Jonathan, “and how much he knows.”

A shooting star streaks across the sky in front of us, reminding me that the heavens are crashing down on us tonight. I lean my forehead on the window and watch mindlessly through the shadows of the trees as the universe puts on one hell of a show . . . and wonder how it is that my universe just went supernova.

I glance across at Blake as he picks up his phone and presses it to his ear. “Cooper?” he says. “Get your ass out of bed. We have a situation.”

THE SHOUTING STARTS as soon as we step out of the SUV in the Federal Building parking garage. Cooper, Nichols, and Jenkins are on us immediately, shuttling us toward the elevators and grilling Blake. It’s not until we pass through the doors into the brightly lit DEA corridor that I see how pale Blake is. His face is splotchy white and blood has soaked through his bandage and drips down his arm.

Blake gives them the short version, then Jenkins takes Izzy and Ginger one way, while Blake herds Jonathan and me into an interrogation room.

“What I want to know is how he got a shot off on you,” Cooper says.

“I let my guard down,” Blake answers.

“Did you get a look at the guy?” Cooper asks. “A license plate on the car he was driving? Anything?”

“It was dark,” Blake says with a shake of his head. “Sweep him,” he barks at Nichols, planting Jonathan in a chair at the table.

“What’s going on, man?” Jonathan asks as she disappears out the door.

Blake levels Jonathan in a death-beam gaze. “They found us where they never should have had any clue we were.”

Jonathan’s eyes narrow. “If you’re thinking that has anything to do with me . . . that I’d do anything to hurt Red, you don’t know me very well.”

Nichols comes back through the door with a flat, black paddle looking thing.

“Stand up,” Cooper says, dragging Jonathan out of his chair by the arm and taking the paddle from Nichols.

“What the fuck, man!” Jonathan says, shaking him off and getting his balance. He spins on Blake and glares.

“He wouldn’t have—” I start, but then the paddle in Cooper’s hand emanates a high-pitched whine. I look over to see he’s holding it near Jonathan’s shoulder.

“Take off your shirt,” Cooper commands.

Jonathan complies, eyes wide, and tosses it onto the table.

Cooper waves the paddle over the shirt and it stays silent, but then he holds it over Jonathan’s naked shoulder and the whine starts again. He runs it over the skin near Jonathan’s shoulder blade, and the whine gets louder.

“Here,” Cooper says, pressing on Jonathan’s shoulder with his fingertips.

He spins Jonathan so Blake and I can see his back. There’s a small scab just visible through the black ink of the crossbones tattoo where his neck meets his shoulder. “How did you get this?” he asks Jonathan.

“Get what?” Jonathan answers, reaching over his shoulder to feel. “I don’t know,” he says when his fingers find the scab. “I guess I cut it on something.”

Blake moves toward him and feels the scab. “Take him down to the lab and have them pull whatever this is out of him,” he says to Cooper.

“What the fuck!” Jonathan says. “What do you mean, ‘whatever this is’?”

“It’s a tracking chip,” Blake answers flatly.

I know my shock must be plastered all over my face when Jonathan spins to face me, because he immediately holds up his hand, his eyes widening. “I didn’t know, Red! I swear it!”

I can’t even move, trying to wrap my mind around this. Blake took a bullet because Jonathan was tracked . . . after he was with Marcus for four days.

Did he know?

He’s the only one who knew I’d been released the night we were run off the road. I told him the DEA wanted me to testify against Ben.

My heart clamps tight in my chest.

“You need to get that looked at,” Cooper says, gesturing to Blake’s bloody arm.

“It can wait,” he answers, his face unreadable. “Have you looked at the surveillance at the safe house? Is there any reason to believe we’ve been compromised?”

“No. Everything’s clear up there. And it can’t wait,” he says with a nod at Blake’s arm. “You’re about to bleed to death. Get your ass to the hospital. Now.” He grabs Jonathan’s arm and yanks him toward the door. “Come on, lover boy.”

“No! Wait!” Jonathan says, struggling against Cooper.

But I still can’t move, even just to assure him that I know he didn’t know. Because I don’t know what to think. I just stare as Cooper drags him away.

I hear him in the hall, calling after me, and the desperation in his voice rattles me out of my daze. “Get the fuck off me!” he shouts just before the elevator doors close and the hall goes quiet.

I start to move to the door, but Blake stops me with a hand on my arm. “Just let him go. We’ll sort it all out, and if he’s clear . . . if he didn’t know, then I’ll let you talk to him.”

My heart screams. This is Jonathan. I hate myself for doubting him. But he’s the one who got me the job at Benny’s in the first place. He’s known Ben a lot longer than he’s known me. Could he be working with Ben? Would he really be willing to give me up to him, knowing what it would mean?

I sink into a chair “Where are Ginger and Izzy?”

Blake leans heavily on the table next to me. “Jenkins is taking them home, and I’ve got to get you back up the hill.”

As he pushes off the table, he staggers a step and grabs my chair for balance. I’m out of it like a shot, grabbing him as he starts to topple. All I succeed in doing is slowing his fall a little, and we both hit the ground hard.

“Blake!” I yell. I pull myself out from under him as he struggles to haul himself to a sitting position.

He props his back on a table leg, and he’s sheet white, a thin sheen of sweat covering his face. “I’m okay.”

I gain my feet and crouch near him. “You’re not okay, Blake. You’ve lost a ton of blood.” I say, glancing at the bandage. “You need to go to the hospital.” I reach for his arm and apply pressure over his wound.

He sucks in a sharp breath as his face twists with pain.

“You need help,” I tell him, keeping the pressure on his arm.

He tugs his phone out of his pocket and pokes at a button then props his head in his hand. “Coop,” he says weakly a second later. “I need some help.”

I hear Jonathan yelling, and Cooper’s raised voice over him. “I’ve sort of got situation down here. What do you need?”

“Forget it. Nothing—” Blake starts, but I rip the phone out of his hand.

“He’s bleeding to death. He needs an ambulance!”

“Nichols!” Cooper barks on the other end. “Get your ass back to Interrogation 3!”

“Red!” Jonathan shouts, very close to the phone.

“Can I talk to him?” I ask Cooper.

“He’s a little out of control at the moment.”

“Get these fucking things off me!” Jonathan yells.

“Please,” I beg.

He blows a sigh through the phone. “Sit your ass down and shut up and I’ll let you talk to her,” I hear him say away from the phone.

Through the phone there’s the screech of chair legs scraping on the floor, then everything goes quiet.

“Red?” Jonathan says a second later.

“Hey, Jonathan. You’ve got to calm down.”

“This guy wants to cut me,” he says, his tone somewhere between panicked and indignant.

“There’s something in you they need to get out, Jon. You’ve got to let them do it.”

Nichols bursts through the door into the interrogation room, and when she sees Blake on the floor, crouches on his other side.

“He needs an ambulance,” I tell her.

“I’m not going anywhere in an ambulance!” Jonathan shouts in my ear.

Nichols pulls out her phone and speaks in rushed tones.

“Not you, Jon,” I say, trying to split my attention between what’s happening here and with Jonathan. “Just let them get that thing out of you, okay? Then we’ll talk.” I hang up and focus on Blake. “We should have gone to the hospital first.”

He shakes his head weakly and looks just on the edge of passing out. “Just a scratch.”

“You are so full of shit.”

Nichols hangs up. “Security is bringing them up.”

I sit with him for the next few minutes until they arrive. Just as they start to load him onto the stretcher, he digs in his pocket. He flips Nichols his car keys. “Take the Escalade and bring Sam back up the hill.” He grabs the newspaper crossword puzzle sitting on the table and tears off a corner of the page, scribbling something on it, then presses it into her hand with the elevator key. “For your eyes only. Flush the paper when you get in.”

Nichols looks at the paper in her hand. “I don’t know the address.”

Blake looks at me. “Can you get her there, Sam?”

I nod, hoping I remember all the turns.

He must see all the fear I’m barely containing in my eyes, because his gaze softens and he touches my shoulder. “It’ll be okay. I’ll be right behind you.”

The paramedics strap Blake down and rush his gurney down the hall, and I can’t explain the hole in my chest as he vanishes into the elevator.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

I MANAGE TO get us there without getting lost, and by the time we pull into the garage, the sun is rising. I drag myself though the shower and then lay in bed, trying to sleep. But it’s useless. I find myself lingering on the edge of consciousness, listening for the elevator door, and every time I start to doze, the ring of gunfire in my head jerks me awake.

Finally, I give up. I tug on some clothes, and when I come out of my room, Nichols is in the leather armchair, biting her thumbnail and texting someone. A half-played game of solitaire is laid out on the coffee table in front of her.

I cross to the kitchen and start a fresh pot of coffee brewing, then flop onto my back on the sofa. “Why didn’t you know how to get here last night?”

“Only Montgomery, Cooper, Jenkins, and Special Agent in Charge Navarro were privy to that information,” she says, her thumbs flying over the screen of her phone.

“Why?”

She looks up at me. “Security. The fewer people who know, the more secure the location.”

I spin on the sofa and sit up. “Is that Blake?” I ask, glancing at her phone.

“No. Sorry,” she says, gripping it tighter, like I might make a dive for it or something.

“Has anyone heard from him?” I try not to sound totally desperate, but I can tell from the look on her face that I don’t pull it off.

“Cooper says they gave him a transfusion and the doctor wants to keep him for a few hours. He should be back later today.”

Relief floods through me. “Good. That’s good.” I bring my knees up and hug them to my chest. “What’s going to happen to Jonathan?”

She relaxes back onto her chair. “It depends on whether he knew they were tracking him. If he did, he’ll be charged with any number of things, including aiding and abetting, and obstruction of justice.”

“He’s my best friend. He didn’t know.” I wish I sounded more convinced.

She gives me a grave look. “I hope you’re right.”

Her stomach growls and she rubs a hand over it as she sets her phone on the end table and settles deeper into the chair. “We should have picked up some fries on the way home.”

I give her a feeble smile. “That kid is going to pop out of there with curly red hair and floppy white shoes, you know.”

Her eyes widen, but then she cracks up. Both hands go to her belly as she laughs, like she’s trying to hold everything together.

“Boy or girl?”

She looks at me, then her eyes shift around the room as if she’s afraid someone might be listening. “I’m not supposed to know,” she says quietly, leaning forward.

“What do you mean?”

“My husband says this is one of life’s few surprises, and he doesn’t want us to know ahead of time.”

I give her a skeptical smile. “But . . . ?”

Her face pulls into a guilty squint as she chews on her cuticle. “I couldn’t stand it. I had to know. So I called the doctor’s office after we had the ultrasound and asked him.” She leans closer. “It’s a boy,” she whispers.

“Is that what you were hoping for?”

She sits back in her seat, rubbing her bulging stomach. “I just want a healthy baby. We’ve been trying for three years to get pregnant.”

“Wow. Well . . . congratulations.”

“It put a lot of strain on our marriage when it didn’t happen right away. Mike comes from a big family and he wanted lots of kids, so . . .”

“Well,” I say, gesturing to her stomach. “Maybe it’s twins.”

That gets a nervous little smile out of her. “There was only one baby on the ultrasound.”

I get up and pour us both a cup of coffee, then come back to the sofa, handing her a mug.

“Thanks,” she says, taking it from me. “Something else I’m not supposed to have.”

I settle into the sofa. “Blake told me you were undercover at Benny’s.”

Her hand pauses, her mug halfway to her mouth. “I was.”

“What did you do there?”

She takes a slow sip of her coffee, and I notice a slight shake in her hand. “Danced. But then I got pregnant, so I told Special Agent in Charge Navarro that I had to pull out. I couldn’t risk anything happening to the baby. I’m on leave from fieldwork until after he’s born.” Her hand migrates to her stomach again as she says this in what I’m just now noticing is a protective gesture.

“Huh. I think I might have gotten your job. Jonathan said someone got ‘knocked up,’ ” I say making air quotes, “so there was an opening.”

Her smile seems a little forced. “Yeah, maybe.”

“Blake said you couldn’t find anything on Ben while you worked there.”

She shakes her head. “He keeps that place pretty spotless. Totally on the up and up.”

“So why are you guys so sure he’s guilty?”

She lowers her gaze and swirls the coffee in her mug. “I can’t really talk about anything to do with case with you.” She scoops up the cards and starts shuffling. “But I can whip your butt in cribbage again.”

We play, and she’s in the process of beating me for the third time when the faint clank of the elevator door opening has me bounding out of the sofa. My eyes snap to it in time to see Blake step into the living room.

He’s in a fresh T-shirt and there’s a white gauze bandage wrapped around his left upper arm. He looks like shit—pale, with dark hollows under eyes that look glazed over, mussed hair sticking up in twelve different directions, and slumped shoulders, as if the weight of the world is pressing down on them.

“Are you . . . is it . . . okay?” I stammer.

“It’s fine,” he says, wrapping his hand over his bandage, as if that might hide what crappy shape he’s in. “Wasn’t much more than a scratch.”

“I’ll stick around tonight, if you need me to,” Nichols says, hauling herself out of the chair.

“We’ll be fine,” Blake tells her. “Cooper’s out front, waiting to take you back down the hill. Special Agent in Charge Navarro’s sending him back up tomorrow morning, even though I told her I’m not compromised.”

Nichols cuts him a skeptical look. “You’re not indestructible, Montgomery.”

“I’m fine,” he says in that slow drawl.

Her face scrunches as if she doesn’t believe him. “You’re sure?”

“I’m sure,” Blake answers. “Go.”

“All right.” She moves toward the elevator, jiggling her phone. “Mike will be happy. He’s been texting me every three minutes. He worries.”

“As any husband would,” Blake says with a weary smile. “Thanks for standing in.”

“Just glad everyone’s safe,” she says, punching the elevator button and stepping in. But just as the door starts to close, Blake sticks his hand in and it springs open again.

Nichols tenses as Blake steps into the opening. “Give your elevator key to Cooper. I’ve got his.”

She nods. “No problem.”

He steps back and the elevator door closes.

I move closer. “You’re really okay? Nichols said they gave you a transfusion.”

He nods, flexing his bandaged bicep. “Stitched up, pumped up, and good to go.”

“What happened with Jonathan?” I feel my face scrunch, and I realize as soon as I ask it, I’m afraid of the answer.

He takes a deep breath and settles heavily into the chair Nichols just vacated, elbows on knees. “He’s exactly as clueless as he seems. It doesn’t appear he had any idea about the tracking chip in his shoulder. Apparently, his drinking buddy chipped him when he was passed out. He told Cooper where he’d been with Arroyo’s goon, but when Coop and Jenkins got there, the place was empty.” He hangs his head and shakes it in frustration. “All he had to do was steer clear. That shouldn’t have been so goddamn hard.”

I’m at once relieved and swamped with guilt. Jonathan filled the hole in my life that Lexie left behind. He’s been my closest friend and confidant for most of the last year. I know his heart and I never should have doubted him. I should have told Blake and Cooper that Jonathan would never do anything to hurt me. Shame crushes my heart like a stone fist.

Blake stands and shuffles toward the stairs. “Are you okay on your own for a minute? I need to—”

“Sleep,” I interrupt, gaining my feet. “You look like shit on a plate.”

His mouth curves up on one side. “Thanks.”

“I mean it,” I say with a brush of my hand at the stairs. “Get some sleep and I’ll make you some lunch whenever you’re ready.”

The almost-smile clears and his gaze goes suddenly intense. “Thanks,” he says again, and I get the feeling there’s more he wants me to hear, though I’m not sure what it is.

“You’re welcome. Now go.”

He keeps me fixed in his intent gaze for a second longer, then turns for the stairs.

Mindlessly, I drift to the kitchen and pour myself another cup of coffee, then climb the stairs to the office. I peruse the shelves without reading any of the titles and randomly come away with one of the Harry Potter books. I settle onto the sofa and mechanically thumb past pages of words, but I don’t see any of them.

Jonathan took a bullet trying to protect me the night of the crash. I love him like a brother. Granted, a really horny brother, but a brother nonetheless. The look on his face as Cooper dragged him away—the hurt in his eyes when he realized I didn’t believe in him—is etched indelibly in my mind. I need to apologize to him. If I could just talk to him . . .

If I could just talk to anyone. Izzy. Ginger. Katie.

Mom.

Maybe it’s almost getting killed . . . twice, but I miss her, and I suddenly feel so homesick it hurts. An overwhelming swell of claustrophobia wraps itself around me, and I feel like I’m being smothered. I can’t do this. Mom throwing me out; Blake, Jonathan, the fact that Ben wants me dead—none of this can be happening to me. This is someone else’s life I’m trapped in.

My head swims with the panic that’s taking control of me. I launch off the sofa to the window and press my palms against it, breathing hard. Freedom is just on the other side of the thin glass.

The urge to run is overpowering, and I fly down both flights of stairs and rocket onto the deck, sprinting down the path to the pool. When I get there, I don’t even slow, diving head first into the warm water in my jeans and tank top.

And I swim.

I beat my way through the water, the drag of my clothes making it a challenge to stay afloat. But I keep going. I don’t heed the ache in my shoulder, or my burning lungs, or limbs that are turning to lead. I keep swimming.

And when I can’t move another muscle, I sink to the bottom and just sit here. My lungs are on fire, but I don’t care. It’s quiet down here, even my thoughts muffled.

Down here is the only place I’ve found peace since this whole thing started.

Down here, everything else goes away.