“We make love? That's what you were going to say, right? You want to make love with me just as much as I want it.”
Good Lord, he was in trouble. It didn't take much to know how Cassie felt, but hearing her say the words aloud was torture.
“Yes, Cassie. I want to make love to you,” he said, his voice just above a whisper. The need inside him kicked so strong and violently, he couldn't breathe. “But that’s not going to happen.”
He pulled himself up from the sofa and stood, standing on the opposite side of the throw rug on the floor. It was much too far away from where he wanted to be, but at the same time it was a safe enough distance to keep him from reaching out and touching Cassie. To give in to all that he wanted.
“Trust me. It's better this way,” he said, realizing as he said the words that he was trying to convince himself more than her that it was true.
“I don't happen to agree with you,” she said, lifting her chin just a bit as if to keep him from seeing the hurt from his rejection by showing her strength. “But I won't beg.”
“Cassie—”
“It's okay, Jake,” she said, cutting him off. “Really. I appreciate your honesty. I think it helps to keep a line drawn between us, if that's what you need. And you're right in one way. There's too much going on right now, and we're liable to get confused about how we really feel about each other.”
He nodded, the disappointment striking him like a kick in the stomach. Even worse because he'd been the one to deliver the pain.
Damn he’d been a colossal jerk leading Cassie on with that kiss, and then rejecting her when all he wanted to do was make her smile as she had done so many times before. She wasn't smiling now. She was trying to be strong. But Jake knew she was hurting.
And so was he. His body still ached for her.
Cassie wordlessly turned and walked toward the bedroom door.
“Goodnight,” he called out.
Cassie stopped at the doorway, placing her hand on the doorjamb. But she didn't turn around.
She was waiting for him to come with her into the bedroom. To finish what they'd started. To give in to what they both confessed to wanting.
In his heart, Jake knew that. But the professional side of him, the one who'd vowed never to use a woman to take away the pain again, the one that kept screaming for him to detach from his feelings for Cassie, held him back.
After a few agonizingly long seconds, when it was clear he hadn't moved and had no intention of following her, Cassie stepped into the room and quietly closed the door.
Jake pried his clenched fists apart, feeling pain in his joints from holding them so tight.
He’d survived gun fights on gang-plagued streets. He'd stared down the barrel of a gun thinking it would be the very last thing he would see before he left this earth. But not following Cassie into that bedroom had to be the hardest thing he'd ever done in his entire life.
* * *
Angel had broken into his own home in the middle of the night like a damned cat burglar, stalking through the alleyways and staying hunched in the shadows until he saw the cars change. He'd been watching them, just as they had been watching his house. His home. Damn them.
Fucking police had never been able to catch him before. What the fuck made them think they could now?
Climbing through the open window, Angel immediately felt the warm air from the radiator rise up to meet him. At least his mom had paid the electric bill before hitting the bottle. After two days of hiding in the cold, he welcomed the warmth. He didn't have time to take comfort though. He wouldn’t be here long.
He paused when he saw the nearly empty bottle of vodka on the kitchen table and cursed quietly. Could there be any more torture?
The blaring of the telephone was only marginally louder than the noise of the television in the next room. But even that would be enough to at least rouse his mother from the drunken stupor for which she'd buried herself. It wasn't enough that they'd buried Debbie. Santos had to kill them all.
With renewed rage, Angel wrenched the phone from its cradle before the third ring and waited for the caller to identify himself before giving his own identity away. The familiar voice had him taking a sigh in relief.
He glanced down the hallway toward his mother's bedroom on his way to the kitchen. The door was shut and the television was on. He could hear the laughter from a sit-com rerun that his mother always enjoyed. Thinking about the empty bottle he’d found, he figured she wasn't enjoying much of anything tonight.
“I told you never to call me here. This line could be tapped,” he growled.
“If you're stupid enough to go back home where someone can tail you, you deserve to be caught. I'd know if there was a tap on your damned phone. What the hell are you doing there? You were supposed to meet me.”
“I needed cash. My picture is all over the news. I can't show my face anywhere for fear someone will turn on me. And no one wants to know me right now. You said you had things covered. Is it done?” he asked, his voice just below normal level. Although the only other person in the house was his mother and she wasn't likely to hear. Not in her current state.
The voice on the other end was low and muffled. “You always did ask too many damned questions.”
“I don't see your face plastered on the damned television screen.” He slammed his fist on the counter and then quickly stepped into the hallway to see that his mother's door was still closed.
His poor, sainted mother. She'd gone through enough heartache. It was all Santos' fault. All of it. Why didn't he just die in that bar with that bitch? It would have been sweet. It wouldn't have brought back Debbie, but at least there wouldn't be a witness, nothing to connect that shooting to him.
He couldn't hear any movement in the bedroom. His mother was probably passed out. It didn't take much these days.
“Just tell me if they're dead.”
“Not yet. They escaped the explosion,” the voice on the line said.
“Dammit. You said you'd take care of it.”
“And I will. We've got a lead. Seems a Good Samaritan, a truck driver on his way to upstate New York, called the hotline. Was going to sell what he knew to the tabloids but then got a stab of conscience and decided to do the right thing. Don't it give you that warm and fuzzy feeling all over?”
“Not particularly. If you know where they are, what are you doing on the phone with me? Waste them already. Those other suits are probably on their way to pick them up and when they do, I'm screwed. You, too, for that matter. If I'm going down, so are you.”
Angel darted his eyes to the hallway again when he realized his voice had boomed.
“Pipe down. The beauty of all this is that I'm the one who answered the call. I gave only enough information to my superiors to satisfy them. Seems Santos and Ms. Lang had breakfast this morning at some truck stop on the highway. That's about as much as the Bureau knows. They're all chasing a pretty white rabbit that's already gone off to a new burrow.”
Angel's laugh started slow and then grew to a full cackle. It was the first time today he actually felt good. “You know where they are.”
“I've got it covered.”
His voice hardened. “You had it covered the last time and you blew it.”
“You just meet me where we agreed. It won't be long before we can put all this behind us.”
Angel dropped the phone with a thud. So she was on the run again. Cassie Lang. He knew he'd seen her striking face before he'd seen the headlines. It had taken awhile to figure out where, but then he remembered the sleek picture on the back of one of his mother's shiny new paperbacks. His mother always kept a book or two in the living room, a few in the kitchen and the bedroom. There wasn't much to her life these days but her reading.
Walking to the living room, he glanced at the collection of books on the shelf above the television. One had Cassie Lang's name on it. Her face was there, too.
That face. A pretty thing like that wasn't something Angel was l
ikely to forget again.
He reached for the new paperback still sitting neatly on the coffee table. His mother hadn't gotten around to reading this one yet. He leafed through it and found the picture on the back. She was wearing a bright white, high-collared shirt and her hair fell against it in shocking contrast. She was a looker with those big brown eyes and full red lips.
Cassie Lang.
“Bitch, you can run all you want. But with a face like that, there’s no place you can hide that I won’t find you. I will. And when I do, you'll die.”
For the first time that day, Angel smiled.
* * *
Jake was outside behind the cabin when Cassie woke the next morning.
“You deserted me,” she said.
“I thought I'd see if I could get this Jeep started. I found the keys on the hook in the pantry.”
She planted her fists on her hips. “How's it going?”
“Battery is dead. But I expected it might be after sitting so long.”
“There are a whole bunch of storage batteries in the supply room. Could you switch with one of those?”
“Probably not. They aren't the right size. But I can use one to juice this battery.”
A slight stab of guilt pierced Cassie as she thought about Jake sleeping on the sofa last night. She'd wasted a perfectly good bed as she tossed and turned, thinking about Jake and the kiss they shared. And because she was awake, she’d heard every bit of his restlessness as well.
Cassie followed Jake to the supply room. “That sofa isn't the most comfortable place to sleep. Especially for someone your size.”
“Last night it wouldn't have mattered. I could have slept upright in a chair and it would have been fine. I was so exhausted.”
Cassie sighed at his lie. She knew it was only to ease her burden, but it gave no comfort.
“Still, I feel bad. The bed is very comfortable. Tonight, you should take it and I'll sleep on the sofa. I insist.”
“You have a problem letting a man be chivalrous?”
Their gazes locked for a brief moment. She wondered if that was what he was being last night. “There's no need to be at a time like this. We've both been through hell.”
“You've got that right. But it's not something we need to discuss right now.”
“I'm not letting this go,” she persisted.
He stopped what he was doing, and she caught a glint of amusement in his eyes. “I didn’t think you would. But right now I'm hungry. And I want eggs.”
“There are some powdered eggs in the pantry. I could go—”
Jake made a face that was almost comical. “No way! I want butter and grease and if I can manage a slab of steak, I'll get one of those, too.”
She couldn't help but laugh. “Oh, your poor arteries. You were so paranoid about someone seeing us at the truck stop and now you want to go out for breakfast again?”
He heaved a sigh. “We don't really have a choice. We need to get some supplies if we're going to be staying here for any length of time. I'm not comfortable leaving you here by yourself until I get back.”
“I'm a big girl.”
“I know,” he said with a gaze so potent it rooted her in place.
He recovered quickly. “The steak is just wishful thinking. You've been to this area before. Are there any small mom-and-pop stores around where we won't attract attention?”
Cassie couldn't help but laugh.
“What's so funny?” he said, stopping mid-motion as he hoisted up one of the batteries with one hand.
“Why would anyone be looking for us here?”
“Everyone is looking for you, Cassie. People are bound to recognize you,” he said, his face dead serious.
“I'm not famous. Most people have never heard of Cassie Lang. You didn’t even know who I was.”
“Well, maybe not before. But now your name has been splashed across the headlines of one of the biggest newspapers in the country. Your face, too. If you weren't before, you can bet you're famous now.”
Jake took two steps out of the supply closet, holding the door open with the hand not clutching the battery. When she didn't readily follow, he poked his head in.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s just…I’ve worked so hard to build my name as a serious author. Now something like this comes along and…”
His expression was sympathetic. “Come on.”
Jake was right. Cassie Lang was famous now. Not for the eight years she'd worked hard becoming a bestselling crime novelist. She’d seen a murderer. And now that murderer wanted her dead.
* * *
“So much for not attracting attention?” Jake glanced at Cassie as they drove down the unplowed road toward the small town.
She looked at herself in the rear view mirror. “What do you mean?”
“Sunglasses, funky hat. All you need is a mustache and a trench coat instead of the long wool coat you're wearing.”
“You think this is overkill?”
“When I said disguise yourself a little, I meant by wearing a big sweatshirt and ugly pants that don't show…so much of you. You need to blend in, not look so obvious. What you’re wearing is like a neon sign that says ‘Look at me!’ You couldn’t be any more conspicuous if you really had a neon sign over your head.”
Cassie pulled off the hat she'd found stuffed on the shelf of Maureen's closet.
“I'm keeping the sunglasses on though. At least in the car. This snow is blinding. And the coat is warm.”
Jake smiled and turned his attention to the narrow road.
“Maureen has quite a wardrobe up here for someone who comes so infrequently.”
“Yeah, well, Maureen likes to shop. I’ve seen her in action and it’s truly an art form. I doubt she even remembers half the clothes she buys, or misses this stuff.”
“Just how big is Maureen? That coat looks huge on you,” he said, seeming to be satisfied that was enough.
“It might not be hers at all. I don't think I've ever seen her wear it before.”
“Maybe it's her ex-husband's.”
“Or Adam's.”
Cassie knew next to nothing about Jake and yet she was already adept at reading his emotions. His hand gripped the steering wheel and his eyebrows were drawn together making a crease on his forehead.
He didn't trust Maureen like she did. And there was absolutely no reason he should. They hadn't built a relationship over the years, helping one another through not only the professional triumphs and tragedies, but the personal ones, too.
But even he had to know that Maureen had no power or means to cause a gas leak at the safe house.
“What are you mulling over in your head, Jake Santos?” she finally asked.
His hesitation seemed to wrap around her. “I need to check in with Kevin.”
“If we make a phone call from the cabin, it’ll be easy to trace us here. I lost my cell phone in the explosion.”
“Me, too. But cell phones are just as traceable.”
“What about prepaid cell phones? They’re available at just about every corner grocery store.”
“They could always trace the call to the cell tower that was used after the fact and zero in on our location. I’ll need to use a pay phone. But we still have to be careful about call length and not let Kevin keep me on the phone too long.”
“He doesn't believe I'm not involved.”
Jake swept his eyes from the road to Cassie. “He never said that.”
“He didn't have to. I'm a people watcher. I can read people very well. But you trust him?” She knew without hearing Jake's answer that he did.
“When you work side by side with someone the way I do with Kevin, you begin to develop a relationship that can't come close to anything else.”
“Not even with a woman?”
Jake didn't look at her. He just shook his head. “You trust your partner without even thinking.”
“Jake, who were you talking with on the phone before we found the
gas leak?”
“Kevin. Why?”
“Kevin was at the precinct that night. He could have leaked my name to the press.”
He laughed, edgy and raw, and shook his head. “No way.”
“Why not?
“Because I know Kevin. He’s just as concerned with your safety as I am.”
“You had no trouble accusing Maureen and I believe in her completely. How's this different? We can't discount anyone.”
“We're talking about a police officer, Cassie.”
“Now look who's being naive. In all your years on the force, you've never heard of dirty officers? Besides, someone in the damned FBI was responsible for that gas leak. Agent Bellows couldn’t have been the only one. Sure, he could have easily put something to prevent the doors from opening. But he didn’t have time rig a gas leak in the time he had when we got there. Someone else from the FBI had to be involved too.”
She had him there. Not that it made her feel good to put Jake in his place.
“We’re talking about bond fraud and an FBI investigation that has gone on for years,” she pressed. “You don’t know who was involved in this. If the FBI had their hands it in, why not someone on the Providence PD?”
“It couldn't have been Kevin.”
Cassie sighed. “Maybe not. But someone went to a lot of trouble to make sure we’d die in a very messy accident. Can we afford to rule out involvement by anyone yet?”
Jake was silent for longer than Cassie could handle. When she couldn't stand it anymore, she snapped at him.
“Don't shut me out of this. I need to know what you're thinking.”
He quickly glanced at her, and then brought his eyes back to the road as they reached the main drag.
“Fagnelio was nothing but a small time hood with a few loyal members at his side. He had a rap sheet and paperwork on him that could fill my mother’s hope chest starting from the time he was nine years old. He was way out of his league with Ritchie Trumbella, but he was in the organization.”
“What was his connection to Ritchie?”
“The FBI had uncovered information about a bond fraud deal. Angel had made some noise about being cut in on a big deal Ritchie was putting together, but the word is Ritchie was going to squeeze out some people. Angel thought he was double-crossed and was mad as hell about it. He called me for a meeting to give me some details. Instead of a meeting, he shot up Rory’s and everyone in it.”
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