“We don’t have time for this,” Rastin said impatiently. He leaned forward and shoved that damned drive in my face. “You gave this to the FBI.”
I didn’t answer. He hadn’t actually asked a question, but I guess he didn’t see it that way, because he hit me hard across the face. My head snapped around, teeth cutting into the underside of my lip, and I gasped with pain as I tasted the blood trickling out of my mouth.
“Yes, damn it!” It was obvious they knew already. “Where did you get it? Somebody get paid off in the evidence lab?”
“Oh, sweetheart,” Keith said, leaning down and putting a hand on my thigh. “I am so disappointed in you. We had such a good thing going.” His hand wandered up my thigh and closer to my groin while I tried to pull away from him.
“Get off me, you asshole,” I gritted out.
“You’re the one with the lovely asshole, darling. I so enjoyed fucking it. Maybe we’ll have time for an encore, but first we need an answer to just one question.”
Rastin held up the drive. “Is there a copy of this anywhere?”
“The system at work is backed up constantly to a remote mirror site. You know that, Keith. The FBI can find the data there. They didn’t even need my drive.”
Keith laughed. “You really do think I’m an idiot, don’t you? Just because I’m in marketing doesn’t mean I know nothing about computers. I arranged for that site to go down just long enough to wipe out that few minutes of data. Now there’s only this flash drive, and whatever computer you copied it from.”
He leaned forward and brushed his lips against mine, murmuring, “Maybe I need to give you a little something from my magic bag? Something to make you feel good? It will take a little longer, but just think how much fun we’ll all have.”
I felt sick at the thought. I knew Keith had drugs that were far more hard-core than anything he had given me. That would be a nightmare, and I would still tell him whatever he wanted to know, and he would still have to get rid of me once he had his answers.
I felt compelled to point that out. “If I tell you, you’re going to kill me anyway. I don’t have a lot of motivation here.”
“Motivation? I can give you motivation, darling. You can die quickly, or you can die in a lot of pain. Or maybe you can watch your new boyfriend die first. Or your sweet old grandmother. Is that motivation enough for you?”
There was silence for a long moment. “Why, yes. Yes, I think it is.”
Keith snorted. “Too bad, I really wanted to go the drug route.”
I looked at Rastin. “My laptop is in my apartment. I’m sure you could have found it there without all this drama.”
He shrugged. “We had to be sure it was the only copy. It is the only copy, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
He looked at me closely and then nodded, apparently satisfied that I was too frightened to lie to him.
“Good.” He dropped the flash drive onto the tiled kitchen floor and smashed it with his heel. “Besides, as you have pointed out, we needed to kill you anyway. Even without the data, you could testify.”
“I wouldn’t,” I said hopelessly. “Not with the threats to Matt and my grandmother. You could just leave us alone. I would never say anything.”
“Too late for that. Let’s go.”
They untied my hands, and we walked out to the car, John carrying my jacket over his arm to cover the gun he had pointed at me. I knew they would kill me as soon as they had retrieved the laptop from my apartment and made sure it had the data on it.
I thought about Matt finding my body, and that made me feel like crying as much as anything else that miserable day. Of course, that assumed they would just leave me there, the way they had left Eckland in his house.
We settled into Keith’s car. It was a tight fit in the small backseat with Rastin on one side of me and John on the other, his gun still out but hidden under the jacket.
I asked Rastin, “Since I’m going to be dead soon anyway, maybe you could tell me why you killed Eckland? Did he see something he shouldn’t have?”
The answer surprised me. “Wasn’t us,” Rastin said. “We would never be that sloppy. Would we, John?”
John grunted.
“No, we’re professionals,” Rastin said. “No one will ever find your body, kid.”
Perversely, that made me feel just a little better. I didn’t want to be killed in my grandma’s apartment, and I didn’t want Matt to see me like that.
Rastin went on. “Not that we didn’t want to do him, after he was wrong about the evidence on your computer. He said that if you knew anything, the evidence would be there. If he had just let us grab you instead of your stuff, we would have had this damn data weeks ago. As it was, we decided you didn’t know anything. Too bad he’s already dead or we’d do him ourselves.”
Knowing that Rastin had been the one in my apartment was actually a relief. It seemed better than having a nameless, faceless threat out there somewhere, someone who might decide to come back in the middle of the night. Of course, I wouldn’t be around to enjoy the better sleep that knowledge might have afforded me.
But Eckland… It sounded like he had tried to protect me, as much as he could under the circumstances. I looked out the window, swallowing hard at the thought, and wondered just how he had gotten so mixed up in all this.
We got to my building before I had time to be sick in their car or ask any more questions. The spaces nearest the elevator were reserved, but they parked in the closest empty one anyway. Rastin told Keith to stay with the car to make sure it didn’t get towed and have it ready to go as soon we got back. Keith didn’t like being left behind, but Rastin seemed to be in charge.
John arranged the jacket over his gun hand again, and we took the elevator up to my floor. My hands trembled so much I could barely get the key into the lock of my apartment. We made it in, and John tied my hands behind my back again. Rastin took my elbow while John walked through the place, checking every room to make sure we were alone.
He came back in a couple of minutes and nodded.
Rastin shook my arm. “Where is it?”
“Through here.” I jerked my head toward the little alcove I used as an office.
Rastin shoved me into a chair, and they started searching the desk and the bookshelves. The laptop sat right on the top of the desk, along with its case, so I didn’t understand what they were doing.
They were emptying desk drawers, throwing papers on the floor, and generally making a mess. “What are you looking for?” I asked.
Rastin turned and hit me across the face again. I cursed, feeling the blood from my cut lip running down my jaw. “What the fuck did you do that for?” I yelled.
“It will be worse than that if you don’t tell me where the printouts are.”
“What printouts?” I’m sure I looked as confused as I sounded.
“Printouts, copies, any other records of the data. Like we found in your offices when we broke in. You know what I’m talking about—we found out that you’re the one who made those printouts.”
He raised his hand to hit me again, and I couldn’t help flinching away. “There aren’t any more. I swear. There’s only the laptop, nothing else.”
I was ready to get out of there. I worried that too much time had passed and Matt would be looking for me. What if he came home and walked into this mess? He could probably kick their asses if they had been unarmed, but the guns made it far too risky.
Rastin glared at me, then lowered his hand and turned to John, who had continued the search. “Find anything?” John shook his head. “Then let’s go.”
They left my hands tied this time, just throwing another jacket over my shoulders to hide them from anyone we might run into in the elevator. Maybe they thought my imminent demise would prompt me to make a break for it despite their threats.
They put the laptop in its case, and we left the apartment and made our way to the elevator, riding down in silence.
The doors op
ened on to the garage level, and Matt stood there, waiting. He took one look at my bloody mouth and went straight for the big blond guy—no questions, no hesitation. A quick blow to the man’s gun hand knocked the weapon to the floor. Then a sharp strike to the abdomen and an elbow to the head and the big guy collapsed in a heap. I knew Matt was fast, but this was beyond anything I had seen in the exhibition. But Rastin had his gun out and pointed at Matt before the big guy hit the floor.
Frozen, I hugged the wall and just tried to stay out of the way while Matt did his thing. But a jolt of panic went through me when I saw that gun lifted toward Matt. I pushed off the wall to shove against Rastin, knocking him off balance. That was all I could do, but it seemed like enough. Matt took care of him with a kick to the head. The laptop went flying to skid across the floor.
A shot rang out from the elevator as John recovered, and Matt threw me to the floor behind a support post. With my hands still behind my back, I couldn’t break my fall, and I made a hard landing on my left shoulder, trying to roll some to help ease the landing. I grunted in pain. I heard Matt cursing next to me, and then he was untying my hands. “Sorry, baby. Damn, I’m sorry, but we’ve got to get out of here now. The little guy is waking up, and the big guy is trying to shoot us. If we stay behind the cars, we can make it. Can you run?”
I nodded, rubbing my left shoulder. “The laptop. Can we get it?” It had landed close to us, or I wouldn’t have bothered. It certainly wasn’t worth risking his life. But Matt snagged it without exposing himself. Another shot rang out, and we ran behind the line of cars to Matt’s beat-up sedan. We got in, staying low, and Matt tore out of there.
I struggled to get my seat belt on, but the car took off way too fast down the ramp heading out of the garage, and I was being thrown from side to side. Another shot rang out, and I saw John aiming at us from the level above.
Matt twisted the wheel, narrowly escaping a head-on collision with an SUV coming up the ramp. Once I had my belt on, I crouched down, staying low and covering my face with my hands. At least I could move my arm; nothing seemed broken, just a little bruised.
I stayed down, not looking, even when the car steadied and it seemed like we must be on an open road. A hand reached over and rubbed my back. “It’s okay, baby. We’re fine now. They’re way behind. You can relax. Everything is all right.”
I didn’t answer, just rested my head in my hands and tried to take deep breaths. He kept rubbing my back and stroking his hand through my hair, and it felt good, comforting.
The car slowed and stopped, and I still didn’t look up. I felt frozen. Matt reached over and undid my seat belt. He tried to pull me over to him, but I couldn’t move. So he stopped trying and leaned over to put his arms around me and kiss my hair, my neck, murmuring reassurances that finally got through the fog in my head.
“Matt,” I whispered, then flung my arm around him, held tightly, and pressed my face against his shoulder.
“God, you’re cold,” he said, wrapping his arms around me, “and you’re shaking.” He rubbed his hands vigorously up and down my back, trying to warm me up.
“I was so scared,” I whispered in his ear, barely able to talk. “They were going to kill me. They were going to take me somewhere I would never be found.” I could still feel the shivers as they ran through my arms and legs, despite the warmth of his body next to mine.
“You’re okay now. It’s over. Take a deep breath, my love.”
The endearment was just a little too much, and I tightened my arms around him, pressing my face against his neck and trying to catch my breath. I fought back the pressure behind my eyes, breathing hard and struggling not to completely lose it.
He gave up on the reassurances and just held me until I calmed down on my own. I pulled back and looked away from him as I rubbed my face.
“Hey.” He hooked a hand around the back of my neck and pulled me close for a kiss. “Okay now?”
I nodded. “I tried so hard to get us out of there before you could come home. When I saw you were already there, I almost died on the spot.” I stared at him, totally impressed and showing it. “But you were amazing. You were so fast.”
He looked pleased, the smile lighting up his eyes. “You were worried about me? Really?” He kissed me again for that. “You didn’t do so bad yourself, knocking that guy with the gun into the wall even though your hands were tied.”
I looked down. “I lost it. I know it.”
“But not when it counted.” His voice sounded gentle. “You waited, and that showed a lot of control. And don’t forget I was a cop. I’ve had training for this.”
I let out a long, shaky breath, feeling the release of tension that his warm voice and hands always induced in me.
“You’re still cold. We need to get you something hot to drink. How’s your shoulder? It doesn’t seem to be broken.”
“No, just a little bruised, I think. Not bad.”
“Let’s go in and get you something. See if we can find a jacket too.”
I looked around, noticing that we had stopped at a truck stop on the New Jersey Turnpike right outside the city. The air seemed colder here, and the leaves had already turned. Matt retrieved a box of tissues from the backseat and handed it to me.
“Those bastards,” he said, his voice tight as he watched me wipe the blood from the corner of my mouth. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”
I shook my head. “I’m fine.”
“Okay, we need to use the ATM and get out all the cash we can right now, and then hit the road. We won’t be able to use our cards again for a while.”
“But Nash… Shouldn’t we call…?”
He looked grim. “I talked to Nash. He said something about some data you had turned over to them being stolen. A flash drive?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll call him later to check in, but I don’t want anyone knowing where you are until they figure out who took it.” I opened my mouth again but he shook his head. “You can tell me the details later. We’ll talk about what we’re going to do, I promise, but right now we have to get moving.”
I guess I still looked doubtful, because he looked into my eyes intently. “Trust me?”
I remembered my moment of doubt about Nash when I had talked to him on the phone and realized that Matt was the one I had wanted then and was still the only person I really trusted. I nodded.
We went into the truck stop and both took out the max cash we could on our cards. Then we used a credit card to buy clothes, junk food, pain reliever, toiletries, and anything else we might possibly need, including a prepaid phone. Matt asked me if I had my phone. As far as I knew, Keith still had it in his jacket pocket. He would probably get rid of it, so no one could track it. Matt dumped his own phone in the bathroom trash bin.
We filled up with gas and got back on the turnpike. My shoulder felt better, and I had a cup of hot coffee and a new sweatshirt, so I felt warmer. For the first time in hours, I could focus on something other than pain and fear. Like how did my life go to shit so fast?
Matt reached over and took my hand. “What’s going on behind those pretty green eyes?”
I snorted. “Jesus, sometimes you’re such a girl.”
That made him smile, and I thought he looked a little relieved.
“Where are we going, anyway?” I asked.
“We need to get away from that truck stop. I’m going to drive down the turnpike for a while, then turn off and go through a couple of towns, just drive randomly until we see a hotel that doesn’t look too expensive. Then we’ll call Nash. He probably knows about what happened at the garage by now, so he’ll be looking for us.”
“When the elevator doors opened, you looked like you were ready for them. How did you know? For that matter, how did you get there so fast? I thought Nash was going to get you to pick me up at work, after your class?”
“Nash called me, and I was in class, but I had my cell phone on, something I always yell at my students for doing. But I knew if y
ou called me, it would be important. I was on my way out the door while he was still on the phone telling me about the flash drive disappearing. I tried to call you on the way, but it went to voice mail, so I called the main number of Brooks and Stillman and told them there was an emergency about your grandmother, so they would really look for you. They transferred me to someone named Sheila.” He looked at me.
“Yes, she has the office next to mine.”
“She said you had left the office with Keith Brooks and some other man she thought was a client. I knew you wouldn’t go anywhere with Keith, not after what he did to you, so then I was afraid that I was too late and…” He stopped abruptly, and his grip on my hand tightened so much I had to grit my teeth to keep from wincing. His jaw was clenched as he stared straight ahead at the road, and I thought he might break the steering wheel with his other hand, his knuckles were so white.
“Um, baby,” I said, trying gently to loosen my hand.
“Oh.” He relaxed immediately. “Sorry about that.”
“It’s all right. How did you know to go home?”
“I didn’t, really, but I couldn’t think of anything else to do. I kept telling myself you had just gotten another ride home, that you were fine. I just didn’t know where else to go.” His voice sounded low, and I could see he must have been as scared for me as I was for him when Keith had threatened him.
“Hey,” I said gently, “it’s okay now.” My turn to give reassurances. I lifted his hand, turned it over, and kissed the palm, kissed the inside of that thick wrist.
He shivered. “You sure know how to distract me.”
We exited the turnpike and drove down a state road, winding through several small towns, turning on to county roads, then back on to a different state road. We stopped for gas, paying cash this time.
Matt told me a little more of what had happened when he got to my building. As soon as he pulled into the parking garage, he saw Keith waiting by the red convertible, and he knew something was wrong. He confronted Keith, demanding an explanation for his presence in my garage. When Keith tried to sound friendly and start up a conversation, Matt knew he was being delayed. He started toward the elevator, and Keith tried to stop him. Matt laid him out and got to the elevator just in time for the doors to open.
Friday Night Jamie Page 15