MARRYING MCCABE

by Fiona Brand

  The doors slid open. Roma stepped out and turned sharply right, walking quickly toward the rear of the hotel and the car park. She wasn't leaving by the front. If the gunman had been able to see into the lounge of the suite, that meant he was in one of the buildings across the road from the main hotel entrance.

  She didn't fool herself that Ben wouldn't be able to track her movements at the rear of the hotel; the security system incorporated a series of video cameras in all the major traffic areas. She would be observed until she left the car park.

  The glass doors to the car park parted as she approached, and one of the hotel security staff stepped through. A shock of adrenaline went through her as he glanced at her, gaze moving across her face and locking on the cap.

  Roma walked past him, heart racing, her breath impeded. When she glanced back over her shoulder he was still watching her, his radio out.

  Adrenaline pumped again, but she held herself to a sedate walk. If she looked as if she were hurrying, he would come after her. Seconds later she walked down the exit ramp, took a right turn, then a left, and joined the bustling crowds of shoppers and office workers inhabiting central Auckland.

  Ben searched the suite, then slammed the palm of his hand on the door of Roma's room. She was gone. He snapped out an order for someone to ring down to security, then jerked the front door open and headed for the lift. Carter, West, Blade and Gray piled in with him.

  All the way down, he cursed himself. He should have known she was up to something; he should have watched her, kept her by his side, but he'd made the basic mistake of letting her have her space while her family was there, and he hadn't wanted her in on the discussion about how they were going to hunt down the guy who was stalking her. The last time he'd looked, she'd been cuddling babies.

  She'd been too quiet, too subdued. God only knew what had been going through her head. She'd hated the fact that he'd been shot, but she'd stopped fussing a while ago. He would take note of that in future, he thought grimly; if she was quiet, that meant all hell was about to break loose.

  The doors slid open. Ben didn't bother to stop at reception but headed straight for the street. The late-afternoon sun hit his eyes, making him squint as he swept the bustling scene. Heat radiated from the pavement, shimmered off bitumen. Rush-hour traffic was gridlocked at the lights, and everywhere he looked there were holiday-makers, shoppers and office workers walking to their cars or the buses, university students strolling from their last lecture of the day.

  West joined him. "Security said she walked out through the car park. Guess she was too quick for them."

  "She was too quick for all of us."

  Seconds later Carter appeared, his face grim. "What do we do now?"

  Ben surveyed the busy street, automatically studying people, cars, his mind working over everything that had happened and coming up with a frustrating blank. He had no idea where she had gone. "We comb this damn city until we find her."

  And he would find her. She was in danger, and it was his fault. He hadn't paid enough attention. He'd forgotten who she was, the events that had moulded her character. West had reminded him at the fashion show when he'd coaxed Roma to give up Ben's gun. He had warned him that she was a Lombard, and that she had a gun in her hand, but he'd continued to disregard her for the classic male reason: because she was female. But she'd acted cool under fire twice now in a matter of days, putting her own personal safety at risk to protect those she cared for. Male or female, it made no difference; she was a damn gunslinger, just like her brothers. Now she'd decided to strike out on her own, and his gut twisted with dread.

  The gunman was targeting men who were close to Roma, but they only had a sample base of two incidents; the pattern could change without notice. She'd removed herself not only to keep him safe, but to protect everyone she loved. When her family had arrived with all the babies and small children, she must have been horrified at the possibilities.

  She'd picked her time and slipped out amid the chaos of all the arrivals. Ben had been only minutes behind her, but he might as well have been days late; the trail was already cold.

  Blade joined them on the pavement. "I checked the car park and rear of the building. No sign of her there." He shook his head and echoed Ben's sentiment. "I should have known she was up to something. She was too damn quiet."

  Gray arrived seconds later. He flipped his cell phone closed and slipped it into his pocket. "I've phoned the taxi companies. They're checking on fares."

  Ben shook his head. "She wouldn't have taken a taxi. Would you have?"

  Gray scanned the street, fixed on the busy bus stop in the distance. He looked thoughtful. "No. She would have walked, maybe caught a bus if there was one leaving straight away." His gaze swung back to Ben, the tension that had shimmered, unacknowledged, between them ever since Gray had stepped into the suite finally out in the open. "We know this guy's shooting anyone who gets too close to Roma. The question is," he murmured coldly, "just how close did you get?"

  Blade stepped forward, black eyes glittering. Gray's hand clamped his arm, restraining him.

  Ben met Gray's gaze, then Blade's. When he replied, his voice was equally cold. "Close enough to know she's mine."

  * * *

  Chapter 18

  « ^ »

  Gray's cell phone rang, breaking the tension. Seconds later, the call was terminated.

  "That was Roma," he said tersely. "The son of a bitch called her. Somehow he got hold of her number." He looked up at the hotel opposite, his gaze bleak. "She said he could see her, that he was watching. He described what was happening in the suite."

  Minutes later they were standing in a hotel room directly across from the Lombard suite.

  The tripod was still set up at the window, the camera trained on the terrace of the Lombard suite. The bed was neatly made, although it was wrinkled, as if someone had lain down on it after it had been made. There were toiletries left in the bathroom and clothes neatly folded in the drawers. The room was eerily complete, as if the occupant had just stepped out for a few minutes. There were no signs that it had been abandoned in a hurry.

  "Cocky," Blade said grimly. "Or crazy. He chose the most obvious room."

  Ben took in the details, all his senses condensing into cold alertness. "Something doesn't fit," he said slowly. "This guy's a professional. He wouldn't have stayed in this room. He would have used it strictly for surveillance and stayed somewhere else. And why has he left everything behind, when he knows he's not coming back?"

  He took a pen from his pocket, lifted the lid of a briefcase which was sitting on the bureau beside the television, careful not to touch anything before the cops had a chance to dust the room for prints. He studied the contents. A passport sat neatly on top of a stack of photos, the first of which was a portrait of Roma taken when she was younger, her hair in a plait. Ben's jaw tightened. He used the pen to flip the document open. The colour snapshot showed a man with blond hair, a tanned face, his features aquiline, eyes a pale, colourless grey. According to the passport details, his name was Michael Linden. He was fifty-two years of age, but he looked younger, his face lean and firmly contoured, as if he kept himself in good physical condition.

  Something cold and hard settled in his gut. He didn't know the man—he was a stranger—but the emerging personality was familiar. Oh, yeah, he'd met his kind before, seen those dead eyes. He was willing to bet the guy was a mercenary, or a hired gun of some type, with an added kink to his character: he was stalking a woman young enough to be his daughter. "The bastard's playing some kind of game," he said flatly. "This whole room is staged. He wanted us to find this stuff. And he wants us to know who he is."

  West looked at the passport photo. "That's the guy who shot you," he murmured. "Be interesting to see if his identity is legit."

  Gray's phone rang again. When he terminated the call, his expression was curiously blank.

  Blade's head came up, his dark eyes sharp. "What is it?"

  "I go
t our people to run the description of the handgun the shooter used through our data base. They came up with a match. The gun is the same make and model as the one that killed Jake's fiancée nine years ago. We'll have to wait for the analysis on the bullet, but I'm betting we've hit pay dirt. After all these years we've finally found the hit man Harper contracted to execute Jake."

  The wind gusted, tugging strands of Roma's hair from beneath her baseball cap as she walked down the street toward her motel. Automatically, she adjusted the grip on the bag of groceries she was carrying, her gaze skimming the street, noting people and cars.

  It was hot, the sky leaden with dark, sulphurous clouds, the air charged with ozone and heavy with the promise of rain. Her skin prickled uncomfortably beneath the cheap, oversize shirt she'd bought, but comfort was secondary. The shirt was like a dozen others she'd seen at the mall where she'd done her shopping. It flapped around her thighs, disguising her figure so that she could be taken for any one of the androgynous teenagers hanging out at the mall, and easily covering the gun slipped into the small of her back. The cap added to the effect, hiding her hair and shading her face, making her even more anonymous.

  A low rumble had her glancing at the sky. Several large droplets of rain plopped down, hitting the dusty pavement in front of her. Water splashed off the bill of her cap, but she couldn't work up the energy to care if she got wet or stayed dry. The sky had been grumbling, threatening for the past half hour, with no result except that the day had gotten hotter and even more humid, resembling nothing so much as a steam bath.

  When she reached her unit, she slipped the key out of her jeans pocket and inserted it in the lock. She'd been here three days now, and her situation was still unresolved. She'd rung Gray as soon as she'd gotten the room, and explained what she was doing and why. He'd gone crazy. She'd listened for a few seconds, then terminated the call and turned off her cell phone. She didn't want Gray or Ben trying to ring her or track her down, and she didn't want the gunman ringing her. She went cold every time she considered how he'd managed to get her number. He'd either snooped through the private records of one of the few people who had her number, or he'd gotten close enough to her to get it. If that was the case, he would have had to take her phone from her holdall, note the number, then replace the phone, all without her or any of the security people around her noticing.

  In a few days, when most of the fuss had died down, she would take a bus to another city, go to the international terminal, wait until it was almost time to board, then buy a ticket from the airline counter for a flight to Sydney. Her name wouldn't appear on the passenger manifest until the plane was practically in the air. It would be too late for her brothers, or Ben, to catch up with her. Too late for Ben to try to protect her and, in doing so, put himself in danger.

  Briefly she relived the moment when he'd been hit in the chest, and a shudder moved through her as she pushed open her door and stepped inside.

  She'd avoided thinking about Ben, and for the first few hours after she'd left the hotel, she'd almost succeeded. Finding the motel had been her first priority. That hadn't been difficult. She'd simply ridden buses for a couple of hours, until she'd become tired and hungry; then she'd gotten off and walked until she'd seen a motel sign.

  Her unit was small, dark, bordering on tacky, with the bare essentials of a double bed, a couple of easy chairs grouped around a television and a cheap dining set next to the kitchenette. After she'd checked in, paying cash, she'd walked to the nearest shopping centre and bought some basic groceries, remembering to include toothpaste and a toothbrush, and a comb for her hair. She'd barely noticed what she'd put in her trolley, let alone cared. She'd been numb, although that had soon changed.

  The days were bad enough, because she was at loose ends, yet too wound up to read or to watch television, but the nights were worse. At night she ached for Ben. The temptation to ring him and simply hear his voice gnawed at her, at times so great that she considered throwing her phone away, because if she heard his voice, she would break and probably beg him to come and get her.

  She shifted the grocery bag onto her hip as she closed the door and slipped the key back into her pocket. She was going to have to buy more clothes, another pair of jeans, a couple of T-shirts, perhaps risk using her cash card again. This time she'd simply bought the minimum: food and underwear.

  When she got home…

  Dully, she considered flying home, but the thought of leaving the city where Ben lived, let alone the country, was wrenching. At least here she was physically close to him, even if she couldn't be with him. When she did get home, her options were limited. She would have to live under heavy security until the situation was resolved.

  The motel unit was dim inside, the temperature slightly cooler than outside, because she'd left all the curtains drawn when she went shopping. A subtle difference in the air, a sense of not being alone, made Roma freeze in the act of putting on the chain. Her nape tightened, all the fine hairs lifting as she let the chain drop and turned, using the bag of groceries to shield the movement of her arm as she reached back and groped for the Sig.

  Ben was sitting sprawled in one of the easy chairs near the television, blue eyes glittering in the shadows as he watched her.

  The breath jerked from her lungs, and her knees turned to jelly. For a moment she thought she might have conjured him up because she wanted him so much, but he wasn't an illusion. It was Ben; he was here.

  She leaned back against the door, the gun digging into her spine, as she hungrily soaked in all the details of his appearance. He was wearing a white T-shirt and a pair of faded jeans, and he looked wonderful. Then reality intruded. If Ben could find her, then the person stalking her could, too.

  Her attempts at hiding hadn't been sophisticated; she'd simply opted for cheap accommodation because it was easier for her to be anonymous in a down market area, and she'd tried to keep a low profile. Obviously it hadn't worked.

  "Were you going to contact me?" His voice reflected a mild interest in her answer as he eased to his feet and covered the distance between them, but she wasn't fooled. He looked big and remote and dangerous. The very air sizzled with tension.

  "When I got home I would have rung you."

  He was still for a moment; then he took the bag of groceries from her, strolled to the kitchenette and dumped the bag on the bench.

  Roma wanted to walk up to him, wrap her arms around his waist and bury her face against his back, but his very restraint stopped her. "How did you find me?"

  Instead of putting groceries away, as she expected, he opened up her fridge and began placing the few meagre items in with the things she'd bought.

  "None of the rental car agencies turned up any evidence that you'd obtained a car, so I worked on the assumption that you were still in the general area. You used a cash card at the local mall yesterday, which narrowed the search. I canvassed all the lower priced hotels and motels, because I knew you wouldn't risk staying at any of the more expensive ones in case you were recognised. Only problem is, you're a distinctive-looking woman. People remember you—especially men. The guy at the front desk nailed you instantly."

  Roma straightened away from the door, watching blankly as he finished cleaning out the fridge and began inspecting her cupboards. "You know why I left."

  He gathered up the groceries and put the bag on the dining table. It was then that she noticed he'd already packed what meagre possessions she had; they were stacked in a small pile on the table. He was ready to leave, and he was taking her with him.

  Briefly she considered running. There was nothing there she couldn't leave behind. She was carrying her credit cards, passport and gun on her against just such an eventuality. She'd even been sleeping in her clothes, the gun under her pillow, because she needed everything within reach if she had to move quickly. But one look at McCabe told her she wouldn't get far.

  "I know why you thought you had to leave," he amended as he moved to the window beside her and shift
ed the curtain just enough to see outside. "But you had to know I'd come after you."

  "So what now?" she demanded. "What if he's watching?"

  "I'm not leaving you to face this alone, so get used to that fact."

  Roma's jaw tightened. "You are so hard-headed, McCabe, you drive me crazy. I love you. I left for you, and it wasn't easy. Now you're ruining everything. What about Bunny?"

  His gaze swept her. "She's safe," he said absently. "My mother's taking care of her, and Gray's taking care of them. He chartered a flight and sent everyone who's not needed to Sydney. You just said you loved me." He let the curtain drop, then reached over and pulled the cap off her hair so that it cascaded around her shoulders. "I hate this cap." He tossed it aside and stepped closer, tangling his fingers in her hair. "Don't wear one again."

  She closed her eyes against the sensation of his fingers gently combing through her hair. "You're a control freak, McCabe."

  "I know, and now you're going to wear baseball caps every day." His breath stirred against her forehead. "And you say I drive you crazy? When you walked out of that suite, you took ten years off my life." He cupped her face. "The guy who's stalking you isn't on the level. He keeps leaving us clues. We found ammunition in his room that matched the bullet that was taken out of Lewis Harrington's shoulder. The markings on the bullet that was dug out of my body armour are a perfect match for the bullet that killed your brother's fiancée nine years ago. You think this guy only shoots men? Think again. One of the names he uses is Michael Linden, and he's a contract killer—a hit man—and he's on Interpol's Most Wanted list. His kill list is longer than my arm, and those are only the known kills. The only reason we're getting close to him is because he's letting us. He's the hit man who killed your brother, honey. You aren't safe. I found you, which means he's one step behind, because I know for a fact that the canny bastard's been following me."