Could one of them have been the man in my hotel room?
At the thought, Maddie suddenly went light-headed. Still, she couldn’t move. She could do nothing but watch with growing horror as they strode toward her through the bars of light that the tall windows on either side of the lobby threw down across the highly polished floor. They were both good-sized men, but the fair-haired one in the garish Hawaiian shirt and rumpled shorts was taller by several inches, and fat. Too fat to be her attacker? Yes, she thought, yes. Please, God, yes. Her gaze shifted. Though the bigger man was moving fast, he was still a few steps behind the black-haired guy in jeans whose eyes were fastened on her like she was a refrigerator and they were magnets. He looked like someone on the morning after the night before, with a couple days’ worth of stubble darkening his jaw and short but untidy hair that probably hadn’t seen a comb since before he had last shaved. This man was definitely not fat. What he was was powerfully built and mean-looking, the kind of guy that she wouldn’t want to run into in a dark parking lot or on a deserted street.
Or in a dark hotel room.
At the thought, all the air left her lungs. Was it him? Was she about to be attacked again? Here and now, in this crowded lobby?
Her eyes widened, and her heart went all fluttery.
But then something about the way they moved, about their quick strides and erect posture, struck her.
They’re cops, she thought. Some kind of cops.
With that, her feet released their death grip on the floor, and she was able to take a quick, defensive step back. To her left, one of the elevators announced its arrival with a ding. The population of the lobby shifted noticeably as a herd of people surged toward it. Pivoting, she turned toward the elevator as every instinct she possessed shrieked at her to flee.
With the single exception of the guy who had attacked her, cops were the very last people she wanted to see.
“Perfect timing,” Jon said, glancing around at her over his shoulder. A few quick steps had put her right behind him, so close that her nose was in danger of flattening itself on his slender, tropical wool-clad back. He was clearly unaware of the drama that was playing out behind him, of the oncoming men, of her urgent wish to escape. Caught up in the throng crowding into the elevator, he paused courteously to allow a pair of elderly women to precede him. Ordinarily, Maddie would have awarded him brownie points for the gentlemanly gesture. Today, stuck behind him, she had to fight the urge to place the flat of both hands in the center of his back and shove. Hard.
Hurry, hurry, hurry. The refrain beat urgently through her brain.
Jon moved at last, clearly one of the final few who were going to make it into the crowded car, then turned to face her, edging back just enough to create a place for her at the very front. In her haste to join him, Maddie got the corner of her full-to-bursting briefcase hung up on the door.
“Piece of crap,” she muttered furiously. Forced to pause long enough to jerk the thrice-damned thing free, she was just about to step into the elevator when a hand caught her arm from behind. Maddie let loose with a sound that was more squeak than scream and practically jumped out of her skin. The strong fingers that gripped her firmly just above her elbow hung on. Her stomach sank as she realized that she’d just been effectively stopped in her tracks.
“Madeline Fitzgerald?” A deep, southern-tinged voice asked.
“Hey!” Jon said sharply, starting forward as he realized what was happening at last. Maddie whipped around, inadvertently clearing a circle in the crowd around her with her ungainly briefcase. From the corner of her eye she caught just a glimpse of Jon’s startled expression as the elevator doors slid closed in his face. Then just like that he was gone, and she was on her own. With the elevator no longer available, everyone around her seemed to simply disperse. Everyone, that is, except the guy holding on to her arm.
“Let go of me.”
It was all she could do to keep the panic out of her voice. Instinctively, she jerked her arm free and moved back until she could feel the smooth, slick coolness of the marble wall against her shoulder blades. Left with no place to go, she pressed her briefcase up against her legs like a shield. Her gaze collided with narrowed eyes the color of black coffee.
“Madeline Fitzgerald?” he asked for the second time. From the dispassionate but assessing way his eyes were moving over her, she was all but certain that her original estimate was correct: This guy had law enforcement written all over him.
Her heart threatened to pound its way out of her chest.
“Who wants to know?” she parried, knowing that her response was a throwback to her younger days, knowing that it was all wrong for who she was now, for who she aspired to be. But she couldn’t help it, she’d been caught by surprise, she was rattled and still recovering from last night and definitely not in control. He frowned at her, his eyes narrowing still more as they held her gaze. He was—no surprise—the black-haired half of the pair who’d come chasing after her across the lobby. The mean-looking one.
“FBI,” said the other, fair-haired half of the pair as he came panting up in time to hear her question.
FBI. Maddie’s stomach dropped all the way to her toes. This was far worse even than she had expected, worse than she would have dreamed. Suddenly unable to draw a breath, she glanced his way. He opened the wallet that was already in his hand to flash something—Maddie presumed it was his ID—at her. Panic swamped her, leaving her too unnerved to focus, much less to try to ascertain whether or not whatever he was waving in her face was the real thing. This guy was huge, maybe six-four, six-five, overweight, with a big beer belly that was not flattered by the scarlet hula girl dancing across his middle. Flushed and sweaty, he looked like he’d just run a marathon in the swampy heat outside. A forest of tiny dark gold ringlets sprang up around his head, giving him the appearance of a giant cherub on summer vacation. Anyone who looked less like an FBI agent would be hard to find.
Except maybe the frowning street bum directly in front of her.
Still, she didn’t doubt for so much as an instant that they were what he claimed. There was something about him, about the pair of them, that practically screamed feds. She should have realized it from the first. Maybe, somewhere deep inside, she had realized it from the first. Maybe that’s why her eyes had been drawn to them to begin with. Maybe that’s why she had felt such alarm on realizing that they were heading her way.
“What do you want?” she asked, her mouth so dry that her voice sounded croaky. Like she had no idea. Like she hadn’t been dreading this day for years. Like she hadn’t expected that sooner or later they would show up ...
“To talk to you.” The black-haired man took a step toward her so that he was once again close enough to make her feel crowded. She could see the tiny lines around his eyes, the deeper ones bracketing his mouth. Too close. Oh, God, she couldn’t deal with this. She wasn’t ready. She wasn’t ready. Her stomach did its best imitation of a pretzel. Her heart was already pounding so hard that she was surprised he couldn’t see its panicked beating beneath her thin silk shell.
Things had been going so well, she mourned. At least, they had been going so well until someone had tried to kill her ...
“I’m Special Agent Sam McCabe. This”—McCabe threw a quick glance over his shoulder at the larger man—“is Special Agent E. P. Wynne. You are Madeline Fitzgerald, right?”
What are my choices here? Maddie asked herself wildly in the split second before she replied. With escape no longer even remotely possible, they were basically down to two: tell the truth—or lie.
“Yes,” she said, and to her own surprise her voice sounded perfectly calm. Or maybe it wasn’t so surprising after all. The first hot rush of panic had receded; she was cold now, icy cold, so cold that her lips felt bloodless, her fingers and toes numb. Her pulse raced; her palms were damp; goosebumps prickled her arms. But she looked steadily back at him, meeting his gaze without, she hoped, giving any of her inner turmoil away.
She had to force herself to breathe.
“We want to ask you a few questions about what happened last night,” McCabe continued. “Do you have a minute?”
About what happened last night. It was so unexpected that it was disorienting. Maddie blinked once as the words sank in. Her lungs deflated like a punctured balloon as all the air suddenly whooshed out. They wanted to talk to her about last night. Waves of relief washed over her. Of course they wanted to talk to her about last night, she scolded herself. What else could they possibly want to talk to her about?
What else indeed, she thought, still feeling faintly dizzy. Still, the sooner she got away from them the better. She needed a little time to recover her composure, at the very least.
As shaken as she was, it would be way too easy to let something slip.
She got a grip and shook her head.
“Actually, I’m late as it is. I have an important meeting in just a few minutes. And you made me miss my elevator.” The faintly accusing note in her voice as she said that last was, she thought, pitch-perfect for the occasion.
“Sorry about that,” the big one—Wynne—said with an apologetic grimace.
“Could you come with us, please?” McCabe reached for her arm again. This guy obviously wasn’t used to hearing the word no. His fingers slid around her elbow, making her glad for the long sleeve of her jacket, which kept him from touching her skin. As his grip tightened, she felt as if the marble walls of the lobby were closing in on her. Suddenly, she felt like she was suffocating.
Déjà vu all over again, she thought with a stab of near hysteria. Here was one more FBI agent doing his level best to intimidate her. Only this time, it wasn’t happening. This time, she was all grown-up.
The thought put some steel back in her spine.
“Sorry, Mr. Special Agent, I really am in a hurry.” Her voice was cool as she pulled her arm free for a second time. “What is it, exactly, that you want to know?”
McCabe’s lips compressed with obvious displeasure. His eyes darkened, seemed to weigh her. Whatever he saw in her face must have convinced him that the only way he was dragging her off somewhere was if she went kicking and screaming, because he didn’t try to grab her again.
Which was a good thing. Making a scene was the last thing she wanted to do. Although, if she had to, she would.
He glanced around as if to assure himself that no one except his oversized friend was near enough to overhear, took a step forward, and lowered his voice. “You were a guest at the Holiday Inn Express on Peyton Place Boulevard last night, right?”
“Yes.”
He was crowding her. Maybe deliberately, maybe not. Either way, his nearness made it an effort to breathe. Stepping out of his path was not an option. With the wall at her back, she had no place to go.
“Can you tell me what happened?”
Between shattered nerves and no sleep, she wasn’t quite operating on all cylinders, and she knew it. Still, his interest made no sense. She knew the kinds of things the FBI investigated, and an attack on an anonymous woman that hadn’t even resulted in significant injury was way beneath their notice. Was there something here that she was missing? Or were they playing with her?
The thought was galvanizing. It made her palms grow damp.
Don’t panic, she warned herself even as she looked at him warily.
“Since when does the FBI care about stuff like that?”
“Since now,” he said. “Could you just answer the question, please?”
For a moment their eyes clashed, and the issue hung in the balance. But answering his questions was probably the quickest way to make him go away, Maddie realized, and what she wanted more than anything else in the whole wide world right at that moment was for him and his partner to do just that.
Just keep it short and sweet.
“A man attacked me in my room.” She swallowed before she remembered that swallowing hurt. Quite above and beyond her reluctance to have anything whatsoever to do with the FBI, recalling the previous night’s near-death experience was not something she wanted to do. If luck, God, whatever had not been on her side, she wouldn’t be here now. She would be in the city morgue, with a tag reading Madeline Fitzgerald tied to her toe. “Look, I’ve already gone over this with the police. It should all be in their report.”
Never mind that the only reason she had talked to the police was because they had shown up at the hospital and she had been left with no choice. And the only reason she had gone to the hospital in the first place was that Jon had taken advantage of her shocked state to take her there. Mr. Special Agent here didn’t know that. All he would see was that in the aftermath of the attack, she had done just exactly what any other upstanding citizen would be expected to do: go to the hospital, talk to the police.
McCabe ignored her attempt to dismiss him. “What time did the attack occur, exactly?”
Maddie made an impatient gesture. “I don’t know. I realize it was shortsighted of me, but when I woke up and found a man in my room, it didn’t occur to me to check the clock. Sometime between midnight and three is the best I can do. I fell asleep just after midnight, and I was at the hospital by a quarter after three.”
Her sarcasm seemed to roll off him like oil off waxed paper. If anything, his expression grew more intent. “Did you get a look at him?”
Maddie repressed a shiver as she remembered the terrifying bulk of the man.
“No.”
“Nothing? Not even a glimpse? Come on, you must have seen something.”
“I didn’t see anything, okay? It was dark. No.”
Their eyes clashed. A beat passed.
“So walk me through what happened, step-by-step.”
Maddie took a deep breath.
“It upsets me to talk about it, you know? If you want details, read the police report.” Her stomach was doing its twisty thing again. The urge to escape was so strong that she could practically feel the muscles twitching beneath her skin. But escape was impossible for the moment. With the elevator gone, there was, once again, no place to go. That being the case, she needed to not lose it with him, she reminded herself. She needed to stay cool, calm, and in control. All the things that at the moment she definitely was not feeling.
His eyes slid over her face. He rocked back on his heels, folded his arms over his chest, and appeared to consider her.
“Is it my imagination, or am I sensing some hostility here?”
Oh, God. Careful.
She had to fight the urge to swallow. He was watching her too closely for such a telltale action to pass unnoticed.
“I just don’t see the value in going over this umpteen times. Like I said, it upsets me.” Her voice turned tart. “Anyway, aren’t you the FBI? Don’t you always get your man? So why don’t you go get him, and stop harassing me?”
“That’s the Mounties,” McCabe said dryly, as, unable to help herself, Maddie cast a longing glance to her left.
Where, oh where, was that fricking elevator?
“Miz Fitzgerald ...”
As if on cue, the elevator closest to them arrived with a ding. The doors opened, and a gush of people spilled out into the lobby.
Thank God.
She met his gaze, summoning the best she could manage in the way of an “it’s been nice” smile.
“Look, I really have to go. Like I said, I already went over the whole thing with the police. You should be able to get whatever you need from them.”
With that and a dismissive nod, Maddie stepped away from the wall and turned to battle her way through the once again surging crowd. Using her briefcase as a makeshift battering ram, she managed to wedge her way through the stream of riders disembarking and make it onto the emptying elevator ahead of the hordes still more or less politely waiting their turn.
It did her absolutely no good.
“Miz Fitzgerald ...”
McCabe was right behind her, damn him, his Southern drawl unmistakable, persistent as a dog after a pork chop as he followed her toward the back of the car. Finding herself nose to nose with the gleaming brass wall as a jostling crowd filled the elevator, Maddie tensed as she realized that, once again, she had nowhere to go. Seconds later she experienced a sudden sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. Glancing up, she discovered that, sure enough, he still loomed like the big bad wolf behind her and was, in fact, watching her reflection. For a moment their gazes met and held. They stared at each other, a pair of faintly blurred golden images apparently equally surprised to find their gazes colliding in a too-shiny wall.
Her stomach clenched.
Then, be cool, Maddie ordered herself fiercely, and pulled her gaze from his. Grabbing hold of her vacillating courage with both hands, she turned around, deliberately bumping his legs with her briefcase and forcing him to step back a pace.
“Sorry,” she said in a voice as bland as milk. Then, to the group at large, “Could someone hit fifty for me, please?”
“Fifty. Got it,” a man replied from the front.
With a slight lurch the elevator headed up. A glance around the packed car told her that McCabe was alone. His supersized friend hadn’t made it on board.
Like the proverbial elephant in the room, he was impossible to ignore. But she tried, staring ahead at the elevator doors. Unfortunately, they too were made of brass.
Their eyes collided in the reflective wall. He was, she realized, once again watching her reflection. Since ignoring him was proving impossible, she decided to take the war into the enemy’s camp.
She turned her head. Their gazes met, but this time without the softening buffer of the brass.
“Are you following me?” That the question was muttered almost under her breath in no way detracted from the force with which she said it.
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