Protective Custody

by Debra Webb

  Nicole’s gaze connected with his. Ian frowned. She had a sort of deer-caught-in-the-headlights expression. Ian ignored the glares he got from the people he cut in front of, and the shoulders that banged into him. He moved faster. She was up to something.

  The security guard’s head came up. He leveled his gaze on Ian. Nicole said something to him, her expression frantic now. The big, burly guard ushered her away. Nicole took one last look at Ian before darting for the escalator. Ian started after her.

  “Stop right there, sir!”

  Ian would have kept going, but he knew the guard was armed. So he stopped, held up his arms in classic surrender fashion and waited for the man to approach him. Nicole waved mischievously as she disappeared from view. Ian barely contained the mixture of anger, frustration and fear that boiled up inside him.

  “Turn around real slow, friend,” the guard ordered nervously.

  Ian obeyed. He was surprised to find the guard’s weapon drawn and aimed directly at his chest. What the hell had Nicole told him?

  “The lady said you’d been harassing her,” the guard said pointedly, his eyes studying Ian closely. Sweat beaded on his mahogany skin. “Trying to pick her up, she claimed.”

  Ian smiled as if he had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “I’m sorry—” he looked at the name tag pinned on the man’s massive chest “—Mr. Winslow, I wasn’t aware that there was anything illegal about hitting on a pretty lady.”

  Winslow didn’t smile. “There isn’t. But there is a law against carrying a concealed weapon in an airport.” He nodded toward Ian’s jacket. “The lady said you have a gun.”

  “May I?” Ian inquired, barely banking his fury.

  “I’ll do it,” Winslow said. He moved closer, then lifted Ian’s jacket with his free hand. He removed the weapon in Ian’s holster. “I surely do hope you have a license for this, sir.”

  “Trust me, I do.”

  Winslow did smile then. “Oh, I think we’d better go on down to the security office and straighten this out, Mr…”

  “Michaels,” Ian told him. “Ian Michaels. And the lady you just assisted in flight was in my protective custody.”

  Winslow looked a little startled by that news. “Well, if that’s the case, Mr. Michaels, I surely do apologize. But unless you can produce a badge, we still have to go to the office.”

  Ian waved his arms in defeat. “Fine.” He started in the direction Winslow indicated, then hesitated. “You don’t mind if I make a call on the way.”

  Winslow had put his own weapon away, but still held Ian’s. He quickly patted Ian’s pockets with his free hand, identifying the cell phone. “No problem, sir, be my guest.”

  Ian pulled out the phone and depressed the speed dial button for Alex. Two rings later she answered. The muscle in Ian’s jaw was jumping in time with the pounding in his chest as he followed the guard toward the security office. “Call Martinez,” Ian ordered curtly. “Tell him to move Solomon to the alternate location now. Nicole is probably on her way there.” Ian ended the call and dropped the phone back into his pocket.

  Nicole better have a hell of a good reason for her actions.

  Chapter Twelve

  The taxi driver made the trip across town in record time. For that, Ian tipped him generously. Ian was out of the car before it stopped rocking at the curb. He paused on the walk and surveyed the quiet neighborhood in one sweep. Before long, the yards would fill with children returning home from school, then their parents returning home from work. Solomon lived in a three-bedroom, red-brick, ranch-style house in a middle-class neighborhood that defined the word average. A dog barked from behind the fenced backyard at the house next door.

  Solomon, with his cover as a retired NASA engineer, would never set foot in this quiet, average home again. When this was over, Nicole would have to replant him.

  And that would be the end of this mission.

  The end of their time together.

  That was definitely for the best.

  And all that depended upon whether Nicole, not Daniels, had got here before Ian. Dread pooled in Ian’s stomach. He had to find her first. If for no other reason than to wring her lovely neck.

  Daniels could have been waiting for them at the airport. He could have followed Nicole here.

  The blinds were drawn, Ian noted, directing his attention back to what he had come here for. Nicole had had a twenty-minute head start on him, but the cabbie had regained some of that lost time. Ian moved cautiously up the walk and to the front entrance. Pristine white, the painted wooden door stood ajar. He glanced through the narrow opening and saw nothing but beige wall. No sound, no particular smells. Nothing.

  Ian banished the thought that blood had a very distinct odor. He wouldn’t think about that. Moving to a higher state of alert, he deadened his senses to all other distraction. She had to be here—or, at least, had to have been here. Nicole had not been privy to the alternate location Ian had arranged with Martinez. Nor did she know about the preliminary measures Ian had insisted that Solomon take once he was in Martinez’s care. Nicole had no place else but here to look for Solomon. Ian reached beneath his jacket and withdrew his weapon. He flattened one palm against the smooth painted surface of the door and pushed it inward. The hinges groaned loudly, the sound echoing across the deserted entry hall. Ian stepped onto the polished oak floor, the leather soles of his shoes silent as he moved toward the first door to his left. The living room. An aging collection of value-priced furniture and a couple of cheap paintings made up the decor of the dimly lit space. He turned and started in the direction of the next door, this one on his right. The dining room probably.

  Table, four chairs, sideboard along the far wall. A bowl of wax fruit as a centerpiece. Another painting.

  No Nicole.

  Anticipation rising steadily, Ian eased to the far end of the hall. Silence hung around him like a dark cloud, dragging down his hopes, nudging at his emotions. She was unarmed, defenseless. Anger and fear twisted inside Ian. Where could she be? She had really crossed the line this time. And this time, if she managed to come out of this unscathed, Ian intended to make sure she followed orders. Stashing her with Martinez would be the first order he initiated. She wouldn’t like it, but that was too damned bad.

  To Ian’s left was a corridor that led to the bedrooms, he assumed, on the right another doorway. He readied his grip on his weapon and prepared to enter the kitchen.

  The front door slammed shut.

  Ian whirled toward it, his weapon leveled.

  “You’re losing your touch, Michaels.” Nicole leaned casually against the closed door, pointed her finger at him as if it were a pistol and mouthed the word pow. “If I’d had a weapon, you’d be dead now.”

  A feeling Ian had never before experienced washed over him, something like rage, but stronger. Like relief, but more profound. The desire to lash out, strike something, was a pulsating need mushrooming in his chest.

  “Is the house clean?” he asked calmly, despite the nuclear explosion of sensations erupting inside him.

  “As a whistle,” she said, angling her head a little to the side. “Martinez did a good job. I couldn’t find one single piece of evidence that Solomon had ever even been here.”

  Ian essayed a ghost of a smile as he lowered his weapon, then placed it into the shoulder harness. “We’re good at what we do at the Colby Agency,” he returned, a tightness in his voice now.

  Nicole straightened. The delicate features of her face hardened like stone. She walked slowly toward Ian. “This didn’t happen in half an hour, Ian. Where is Solomon?” she demanded, uttering the words as if each were a separate statement from the other. She stopped right in front of Ian, glaring up at him, those blue eyes piercing points of smoky light.

  “Martinez and I had anticipated this possibility. Solomon is safe.” Ian leveled his gaze on hers. “Which is more than I can say about you, Nicole.” He leaned his head a bit to one side and looked long and hard into her
furious expression. “You’re simply lucky, otherwise you would be dead now.”

  Her chin lifted in a graceful but defiant manner. “I’m not interested in a spitting contest, Michaels. I want to know where my witness is, and I want to know now.”

  Ian looked past her, at the door she had hidden behind. Only Nicole would think of such an obvious place. “We don’t always get what we want, Nicole.”

  “You’re interfering with the protection of a federal witness, that’s a felony,” she stated in a lethal tone. “Now, where is Solomon?”

  Ian felt himself losing control. He clenched his jaw to hold back the irrational words he wanted to hurl at her. He curled his fingers into fists to prevent himself from grabbing her and shaking her. Nothing took precedence over her desire to prove she was the best the feds had to offer. Nothing else, not even her own life, mattered that much to her.

  Ian’s cell phone sounded, breaking the awkward, deafening silence.

  His gaze still locked with hers, Ian pulled the phone from his pocket. “Yes.” It was probably Alex confirming Martinez and Solomon’s arrival at the alternative location.

  “I’ve been waiting for your call.”

  Daniels.

  Ian blinked, then averted his gaze from Nicole. His emotions immediately switched gears. “I’ll call you when I’m ready.”

  “Thought maybe you’d run into a snag,” Daniels suggested sarcastically. “Nicole’s not giving you trouble, is she?” he asked knowingly.

  “I have your number,” Ian said flatly. “I’ll contact you.” He pressed the End button and pocketed the phone. Like hell Daniels had been waiting for a call. He had been waiting all right, waiting at the airport. Ian knew it as surely as he knew his own name. No doubt Nicole would confirm it.

  “That was Daniels, wasn’t it?” Nicole demanded, fury radiating from every inch of her.

  With a reluctance that sapped his strength, Ian’s gaze roved all the way down to her leather boots, then back to those fiery blue eyes. He wanted desperately to shake her, then to hold her. To prove to her that her career didn’t have to be everything, that there was more to life than risking everything for scum like Solomon. But he couldn’t risk opening himself up to that kind of rejection.

  “It was, wasn’t it?” she repeated.

  “Yes,” he admitted.

  She shook her head determinedly. “This won’t work, Ian. Daniels is too smart. He’s playing you, just like he played me.” Emotion glistened in her eyes then, ripping at Ian’s already tattered defenses.

  “And I’m playing him,” Ian clarified. “The difference is that I’m not desperate. Daniels is. He wants that money.”

  Nicole flung her arms upward in frustration. “How can he be certain there is any money? Solomon could have blown it all by now!”

  “That’s not likely,” Ian countered with complete confidence.

  “Why not?” Her hands went to those luscious hips, and he struggled with the impulse to allow his gaze to linger there. “It’s been three years,” she added.

  “He wouldn’t take the risk of spending too much too fast. Big spenders draw attention. Solomon would be very, very careful with his finances.” Ian’s brow quirked. “After all, he was an accountant. He would know all about making his money work for him without anyone ever knowing he had any.”

  Nicole swore as if an epiphany had just this minute dawned on her. “No wonder he was in such a big hurry to testify against his boss. He was probably close to being caught for embezzling. Solomon knew he was dead either way. Witness protection was his only hope.”

  “And somehow Daniels found out about the money and decided to blackmail Solomon,” Ian added.

  “But how could he know unless someone from the cartel leaked the information?”

  “So far, Sloan agrees with Alex,” Ian told her, recalling his conversation with Alex that morning. “He doesn’t believe the cartel is involved.” Ian shrugged halfheartedly. “Daniels outright denied any connection to the cartel.”

  Nicole settled her gaze on Ian’s. “Enough stalling. You’re not leaving me in the dark like this, Ian. Where is Solomon?” she asked again, her impatience as evident as her anger.

  Ian held that infuriated gaze for a couple of beats before he answered. “The only way I’ll give you that information is if you agree to stay out of sight with Martinez until this is over.” She opened her mouth to rant at him, and Ian stopped her with a withering look. “But first, you will explain to me why you pulled that little stunt at the airport. Then I’ll have your word that you will do exactly as I say from this moment on.”

  “Hell no,” she growled in a raw, animal-like tone.

  “Well, then,” Ian said slowly. “We have a real problem, because I won’t budge on the issue.”

  Nicole hesitated, her fiery resolve wavering beneath his unyielding glower. “You’re not going to like it,” she admitted cautiously.

  “I already don’t like it,” Ian assured her in a low, lethal tone.

  Nicole licked her lips, then shrugged. “Daniels was there. I saw him when you first stopped to make your call.”

  Ian swore hotly, his gaze boring relentlessly into hers. “You left the airport—unarmed—knowing that Daniels would follow you!” It wasn’t really a question, Ian already knew the answer.

  Nicole thought about his statement for a few seconds, then nodded. “Yeah, that’s exactly what I did.”

  Ian rubbed at his forehead and the pounding, which abruptly started there. “You do realize how that sounds?” he returned, still not certain he believed her flippancy himself.

  “I know Daniels,” Nicole argued. “There was no way he was going to buy into the concept that I would give you Solomon’s location without a fight. I had to make him believe that I was resisting the idea of giving up Solomon. Besides—” she shrugged nonchalantly “—one of us had to lose him.”

  Ian moved closer. “No more theatrics, Nicole,” he ordered darkly. “I don’t want you taking a risk like that again. In fact, I don’t want you taking any risks at all.”

  Nicole squeezed her eyes shut and let go a ragged breath. “This is my responsibility, Ian,” she countered. Vulnerability stared back at him when her eyes opened once more.

  Ian encircled her arm with one hand and pulled her nearer. “We’re in this together, Nicole. We’re a team.” His voice was taut with emotion now. “But I won’t chance your safety.”

  Nicole turned her face into his throat and sagged against his chest. She sighed wearily and something shifted deep inside Ian. His arms went automatically around her, then tightened.

  “I just want this to be over,” she murmured.

  “Soon,” Ian promised. “For now Solomon is safe. And I will do whatever it takes to keep you safe.” Her hair smelled like heaven and Ian wanted to hold her closer, make her believe that this would all magically work out. His body responded to hers much more than merely physically, it was as if their souls were somehow connected.

  “Daniels and I worked the scene in Landon’s office together,” she said haltingly, her lips brushing his skin, making him ache for her. “How could I have worked with him, gone over and over the evidence and never suspected for one second that I was working side by side with the killer?” She trembled.

  Ian tilted her face up and brushed the hair back from her cheeks. Tears glittered in her blue eyes. “You had no reason to suspect him. You can’t blame yourself. This is not your fault, Nicole. You did the best job you could do.”

  She closed her eyes and sucked in a harsh breath. “I should have paid better attention. Things should never have got this far.” She shook her head. “I bought Daniels’s setup hook, line and sinker. I believed he was dead. I missed all the signs that are so clear now.”

  “Hindsight is twenty-twenty, Nicole,” Ian pointed out, hoping to assuage her distress. “Things are always clearer when you’re looking back.”

  Those wide, watery blue eyes searched his. “Daniels has gone over the ed
ge. He’s crazy. He’ll kill you if he suspects for one second that you’re setting a trap for him. I can’t let you take that chance. This is between Daniels and me.”

  Ian stroked her soft cheek with his thumb, his fingers curled around her nape. He smiled, trying his best to soothe that fearful gaze. “You took this great risk because you were afraid for my life?”

  She chewed her lower lip to prevent the smile that was already shining in her eyes. “Partly,” she relented. “And partly because I was madder than hell at you for leaving me in the dark about your plans. But mainly because I knew that it was what Daniels would expect.” She smiled, though a bit weakly. And Ian’s heart felt oddly full.

  “If anyone around here has a right to be angry, it’s me,” he corrected gently. “It took me fifteen minutes to persuade that security guard that I wasn’t some pervert stalking beautiful, unsuspecting young women.”

  Nicole laughed, a soft, feminine sound that skittered along his nerve endings, making them tingle. “I thought that bit of improvisation was rather ingenious myself,” she enthused. Her brows drew into a questioning V then. “You think I’m beautiful?” she asked almost shyly.

  He sobered. “Yes.”

  “You rushed here to protect me?” she murmured, those wide blue eyes studying him too closely.

  “You know I did.” Ian’s mood turned dark again. “You acted foolishly,” he scolded softly. “What if Daniels had caught up with you?”

  She frowned crossly, as if he should know better than that. “I didn’t just wake up in this business yesterday, you know.”

  “No more, Nicole,” he told her, his tone brooking no argument. “We do this my way or you’re out of the game. No more taking off on your own. No more arguments.”

  She looked far too hesitant for Ian’s satisfaction.

  “You said you trust me. You told Victoria there was no one else you could trust,” he reminded. “Have you changed your mind so soon?”

  Nicole sighed impatiently, then shook her head slowly from side to side.