by Tawny Taylor
Kam extended a hand. “The phone.”
I gave it to him, and he got out of the car, strolled to the trash can in front of the store, and tossed it in. Minutes later we were zooming down the road.
“Where are we going now?” I asked, my heart still thumping in my chest.
“There’s only one way to know if they’ve taken our tip seriously. We need to watch Stimpson.”
“She’d be . . .” I checked the vehicle’s clock.
“At work now. Yeah. I know.” He turned to me. “You wanted to do something, rather than sit around and wait. We’re doing something.”
A wave of panic shot through me. What was he thinking? Of going back to MalTech? During the day? That was crazy.
I had to stop him. “Okay, yes, I did say that. And I meant it, but showing our faces anywhere near MalTech is dangerous, don’t you agree?”
“Dangerous, yes. If we’re recognized.” He scratched his stubble-covered face. Since we’d been on the run, not only had he gotten his head shaved but he’d quit shaving his face. Now he was sporting a short, dark beard. He looked a little different from his smooth-shaven, full-head-of-hair self. Darker. More dangerous. Edgier. But he wasn’t completely unrecognizable.
I shook my head, giving him an I’m-sorry look. “I don’t think we’re going to fool anyone.”
“As long as I stay off the executive floors, I’ll be fine. Not too many of the employees have met me. And you . . . you look different enough, I think, to walk in without being recognized.”
I combed my fingers through my bleached and extended hair. “You’re serious? I look that different?”
“Serious.”
I wasn’t so sure about that. When I looked in the mirror I still saw me, Abigail Barnes. Bordering on terrified, I asked, “What are we going to do if we get inside without being hauled off to jail?”
“We’re going to watch the HR department, of course.” Pulling up to a red light, he flipped on the turn signal. “I might keep an eye on my office too, see if anyone’s going in there and what they’re doing.”
“You said you need to avoid the executive floors.”
“Good point.” The light changed, and he stomped on the gas and turned the corner. We weren’t far from the office. Not far at all. I didn’t have much time to talk him out of this ridiculous plan. “I’ll let you watch my office. I’ll watch HR.”
“You’re serious?” I asked, having a hard time believing he wasn’t pulling my leg. He had to be joking. We were wanted by the police. This was the last thing we should be doing.
“Yes, I’m serious.”
“This is crazy.”
“You’re talking to a guy who took bigger risks to grow this company.”
“I hadn’t realized.”
As he pulled up to yet another red light, he glanced my way. “There’s plenty about me you don’t know.”
He said that as though I didn’t realize we were still more or less strangers. “Of course. There’s plenty you don’t know about me too.” Beyond the obvious—like how to make me scream with pleasure.
Looking curious, he nodded. “I hope to change that. Soon. After all of this is behind us.”
“Me too.”
He placed his hand on my leg and squeezed my thigh, and my heart did a flip-flop in my chest. Again, he glanced my way. I could see something dark flickering in his eyes. That darkness was so intense, I couldn’t hold his gaze. My eyes dropped to my leg, to his hand on my leg, so close to the juncture of my thighs. Images of the last time he’d touched me flashed through my mind, and my skin warmed. My face heated.
There was nothing I wanted more than to have all of this awful trouble behind us. I longed to understand this man, to learn all his secrets, to take time to just be together.
As we drove the rest of the way to MalTech, we generated a plan. Kam came up with a story that we worked for a company that provided technical service for computers. We came up with a fictitious company name, and he made a quick call to Stephanie, told her to put our company in the system so that security would let us through if we ran into them. We were hoping to avoid that, because there would be some risk that he would be recognized, but it was better to be prepared just in case.
Before going in we made a stop at a nearby office supply store and picked up two computer bags and some more throwaway cell phones. Kam slid his recently purchased laptop into one and handed it to me. He carried the empty one.
“What about ID? We don’t have ID,” I pointed out.
“Nothing we can do about that right now. We’re just going to have to come up with an excuse if we’re asked for it.”
It would be a miracle if we actually pulled this off.
But in the back of my mind I had a plan. If things got crazy, I would turn myself in, just like I’d planned earlier. And I would claim to not know where Kam was. That would leave him free to keep digging for the information that would prove my innocence.
I hoped.
Oh God, I was petrified this was going to blow up in our faces.
As the SUV turned into the parking lot, I had a mini panic attack. My heart raced. My lungs imploded. I couldn’t breathe. I had chills, but felt hot at the same time.
Kam shifted the vehicle out of gear and pocketed the keys. He took one look at me and asked, “Can you do this?”
“I think we’re making a mistake. Why can’t we just trust that the police will follow up on our tip?”
Kam cupped my cheek and gazed deeply into my eyes. My fears didn’t evaporate, but they did ease a tiny bit. “Because I learned a long time ago that if the police have one suspect in mind, they’ll focus on that suspect and shove any evidence that points to someone else under a rock. We can’t sit around and watch them do that.”
I had kind of learned that too. But in my case it had worked to my advantage. Would the opposite happen now? Instead of being found innocent of a crime I had committed, would I be found guilty of one I hadn’t?
22
As we approached the employee entrance of MalTech, I fought wave after wave of nausea. It was the hope that this crap would soon be over, one way or the other, that propelled me forward, toward the door. I was still fairly sure we were making a mistake going into the building and risking being recognized. But at this point I was almost desperate enough to have it over not to care whether it ended poorly.
After this stunt I figured I would either have more information to take to the police or be conferring with a court-appointed attorney about my case. Once, a long time ago, I’d taken a chance with the system and walked. There was always the hope that my luck hadn’t run out.
Kam stopped when we reached the door. He pivoted to face me. “Okay. You’ll be clear upstairs. Stephanie knows we’re coming in. She’ll give you a signal if anyone comes. Go to your office and stay out of sight. Let me know if anyone uses my computer or searches my office. Got it?”
“Got it.”
He pointed at my computer case. “Do you have the phone I gave you?”
“Yes.”
“Meet me at the car at six-thirty. Not a minute earlier. If I don’t show, take the SUV and go home. I left the keys in the console. The vehicle’s yours, and you’ll be free and clear. If I’m arrested I’ll be confessing to everything. You won’t be a suspect any longer.”
A chill burned through my body, hot and cold. “Six-thirty? We’re staying that long?” With every minute that we spent in that building, our chances of being caught increased. It was insanity spending hours in there.
“Like I said, you’ll be safe.” Once again, he cupped my cheek. His thumb grazed my lower lip. “I won’t let anything happen to you. Trust me.”
Trust him?
I did. Yes.
But I still hated this plan. Absolutely despised it.
Unfortunately, as my gaze found his, I knew there was no changing his mind. He was going in there. And I wasn’t going to stop him.
I found out a very short time later what
a horrible, terrible plan this had been. No sooner did I get to my office than Stephanie came to tell me Kam was being escorted out. In handcuffs.
I couldn’t help wondering if that hadn’t been his plan from the start.
Horrified, I ran to the window in his office and looked down. There were three police cars angled up to the front of the building, their lights flashing. Kam was standing next to one of them, his hands behind his back. From my position I couldn’t tell if they were handcuffed. I assumed they were.
Tears burning in my eyes, I flattened my hands against the glass and swallowed a sob.
“You did this on purpose,” I muttered. “You wanted to be caught.”
As if he could hear me, which was impossible, he tipped his head up. He saw me.
Our gazes tangled.
“No!” I mouthed.
He said something back, but I couldn’t tell what it was.
A flare of anger burned through me. “No, dammit!” I smacked my hands against the glass. The sob I had swallowed surged back up my throat, and this time there was no pushing it back down. Up it came, out of my mouth. Tears obscured my vision. I blinked, trying to clear them.
He’d intentionally arranged this. I had no doubt. This was his way of protecting me. It was the most selfless, giving thing anyone had ever done for me.
I hated him for it. Hated.
His office door opened, and I spun around, my heart jerking in my chest. Had his plan failed? Were they coming for me next?
Stephanie shut the door, closing us in his office. “It’s okay, Abby,” she said, voice soothing as she hurried toward me.
“No, it’s not. He’s innocent. You know that, right? You know he didn’t steal from his own company—”
“Innocent or not, he’s made a choice,” she said, cutting me off. “He’s decided he would rather go to jail than let you or anyone else pay the consequences.”
The way she spoke for him . . . “Did you know what he was planning?”
“I did.”
Her admission was like a knife being plunged into my chest. She’d known. Not me. He’d spoken to her about it. Not me. “How could you let him do it? How?”
“You know Kameron Maldonado. You know there’s no stopping him once he gets an idea in his head.”
I did, but still, I hated her too. They’d planned this together. Behind my back.
I felt deceived.
I felt betrayed.
Yes, he’d done it to protect me. But why wouldn’t he tell me what he was planning? Why? Didn’t he trust me?
I sank to the floor, my legs giving out. My hands trembled as I cupped them over my mouth.
Stephanie squatted beside me. “Abigail, we don’t know each other very well, but trust me, Kam was going to do this whether I helped him or not.”
That wasn’t the point. Not really. It wasn’t just about Kam going to jail. It was about him deceiving me. It was about his lack of trust.
And it was about his sacrifice.
No one, not my mother, not my father, not my brother, had ever done anything like that for me before. I wasn’t sure how to react, how to feel.
“Go home,” Stephanie said, placing her hand on my shoulder. “You have a job, I’m sure. No one has said anything about you being fired. But there isn’t anything for you to do right now. You look like you could use a day or two to yourself.”
Time to myself? Maybe that would be a good thing.
Then again, maybe it wouldn’t.
23
By six o’clock the next morning I gave up trying to go to bed. There was absolutely no way I was going to sleep. Gritty-eyed and foggy-headed, I stumbled into the shower, steamed myself into semiconsciousness, dressed, caffeinated myself into further consciousness, and headed to work. I couldn’t sit around my apartment anymore. I needed to be busy. I needed something other than memories and what-ifs to occupy my mind. As I was dragging down the front walk, I caught the flash of movement out of the corner of my eye.
I jerked my head.
Joss.
A sob ripped up my throat.
I sprinted toward him while he headed my way, arms outstretched. We crashed into each other in the middle of the front yard.
I cried in his arms. Hard. All the pent-up confusion and anger and sadness surged out like huge tidal waves. As much as it physically hurt to cry that hard, I couldn’t stop it. My brother held me the whole time, a hand smoothing down my back.
When I’d finally managed to gain control over myself he asked, “Are you okay now?”
“I was so worried about you.”
“I told you I was fine. Perfectly fine.” He stepped back, extended his arms out to both sides. “See? Not a scratch.”
He looked fine, all right. Hair wasn’t mussed. Clothes were clean. And new. Actually, he looked better than fine. Clearly Kam had given him a generous amount of money to live on while he was in hiding.
“Where have you been?” I asked as we headed up the front walk.
“Staying in a hotel in Northville.”
“You were that close all this time?”
Joss pulled open our building’s front door and stepped aside to let me in first. “I wanted to be near enough to keep track of what was happening at MalTech, and with you. You scared the shit out of me when you took off with Maldonado.”
“Now you know how I’ve felt all these years.”
“Yeah, I do. I can tell you one thing, I won’t do anything like that to you again. I swear this whole thing has knocked a few years off my life.”
I shoved the key to our apartment in the lock and twisted it. “I think it’s knocked a few years off everyone’s life.”
“Glad it’s over now.”
“It’s not over,” I said as I pushed open the door.
“What do you mean? On the news this morning, they said they arrested Maldonado for embezzlement.”
“Yes, he turned himself in.”
Catching our nosy neighbor across the hall poking her head out of her door, I took my brother’s hand in mine and pulled him inside. “Let’s go inside to talk.”
Once we were safely inside, and away from any curious stares, I motioned to the kitchen. “There’s coffee if you want.”
“No, thanks.” His gaze meandered through the space. He smiled, visibly inhaled and exhaled. “It’s good to be home again.”
“It’s good to have you home again.” I gave him another hug, closed my eyes, and tried to push back another torrent of tears. This whole mess had really torn me up inside. Having spent so long not knowing what was happening to my brother, having been suspected of a crime, having watched the man I was falling in love with be carried away in handcuffs.
“You’re a mess,” my brother said, holding me at arm’s length. “Where were you going?”
“To work.”
His gaze wandered up and down my trembling, shaky body. “Like this?”
“Yeah. I figured that now that I’m not a suspect anymore, I will be expected to return to work.” I dragged my thumbs under my soggy eyelashes. “I’m tired. Really tired.”
“You should get some sleep.”
“I couldn’t. I tried. Lying in bed thinking wasn’t working. It was only making things worse.”
“You should take something to sleep, then.” He jerked his head toward the door. “I can run up to the store and buy something.”
“No, I don’t like drugs.”
“A little over-the-counter sleep aid won’t hurt you if you take it only once.”
“I know, but a part of me needs to go to work. They’ve got the wrong person—” Another sob cut off my words.
“You aren’t going to be any good to anyone like this.” Using his bulk, Joss more or less pushed me down the hall toward my bedroom. “You need sleep first.” Once I was in my room, he stood at the door, using his body to block my exit. “Change your clothes and get in bed. I’ll run up to the drugstore and pick up something to help you sleep.”
“Bu
t I have to help Kam. He’s been arrested, and he didn’t do anything wrong. He confessed so I would be cleared.”
“Okay, I get it, but you still aren’t going to do him any good like this. You’re too tired to think straight. You can’t stop crying. Really, what are you going to do when you get to work? What can you do?”
Dammit, he had a point. I couldn’t stop crying, thanks to my exhaustion. My head was still foggy. An obvious clue could probably smack me in the face and I wouldn’t see it.
Smearing my tears with the back of my hand, I nodded. “Fine. I’ll sleep.”
Joss shouldered the doorframe. “You can call in today and report to work tomorrow, or even the next day. When you’re ready. You’ve been living a fucking nightmare, and were unfairly suspected of a crime. Your boss has been arrested. And you were kidnapped—”
“He did not kidnap me! He was helping me.”
Joss shook his head. His expression was sympathetic. No, it was pitying. “Nobody is going to see that but you.”
“Not until I prove he’s innocent.” I poked an index finger at him. “You see now? That’s why I need to go in to work. I need to find out who really stole the plans.”
“Nothing is going to happen to your hero Maldonado for a few days. Take it from someone who’s been in his shoes once or twice. He’s in jail. He’ll be arraigned in a day or two. Who knows, if the police didn’t do their job, and gather enough evidence, maybe he’ll be set free for lack of evidence anyway.”
He had a point there too, but I didn’t like his tone, the sarcasm.
I said, “What he did was honorable.”
“Sure, it was.” My brother pushed away from the door. Set a hand on my shoulder and leveled a pleading look at me. “Please get some rest. Who will you be helping if you collapse from stress and get hurt?”
“Fine. But I’m not going to collapse.”
“I’ll be back in a few minutes.” He stopped once again at the door. “Can I get you anything before I go? Some water? Something to eat?”
“No, thanks.”
“Okay.”
I reluctantly went to my drawer, pulled out a fresh pair of sweats and a T-shirt. And, wishing I had something of Kam’s, even an old, ratty shirt, I flopped onto the bed and closed my eyes.