Night of the Hawk (LS 767)

by Victoria Leigh

  The kind of people that hunted Hawk would think nothing of killing her if that was part of their orders. He had to assume it would be.

  From the moment he'd taken her with him from the parking garage in San Rafael, she'd been marked by Con-stantine as a lead to Hawk and by the authorities as a suspicious disappearance—if, in fact, they'd been notified. It didn't really matter. With Marchand in his DEA role monitoring and, no doubt, interfering in police activities, there was nowhere "normal" she could hide. The police might believe she was an innocent bystander, but Marchand wouldn't take the chance Hawk had told her something that would land Marchand right in it.

  Paul Marchand, Hawk's supervisor in the DEA, had made the mistake of succumbing to the lure of drugs and easy money. Hawk had made the mistake of finding out. Added to a couple of other complications, he'd been on the run ever since.

  He had to take Angela somewhere beyond the norm, somewhere she'd be safe until he could organize a way out for both of them.

  He kept the Jeep at a steady five miles over the limit, his desire to cross the bridge with its manned tollbooths before Angela woke up tempered by the greater risk of being pulled over for speeding. His strategy paid off, and soon they were across the bridge and heading steadily north. He drove without stopping for an hour, passing through Napa, then Yountville and Oakville, where the road narrowed to a single lane in each direction. Calistoga was still fast asleep as he negotiated its quaint streets and kept pressing north. When he finally pulled off onto the gravel road winding into a fold in the tree-covered hills, dawn's pale shadow had just begun the subtle, inexorable process of softening the harsh blackness of the night.

  Almost immediately the road forked. Hawk veered right and followed the deeply rutted path for ten minutes before coming to a dry wash. The land ahead was fenced and posted for trespassers and hunters, but he ignored the warnings. Feathering the gas in an effort to minimize the bounce of the truck, he drove through the wash and across the cattle guard at the gate. He then followed the road another mile until it ended at a white painted fence where a paved driveway took over. He stopped and waited with his hands in plain sight on the wheel as two men armed with automatic machine pistols closed in on the truck from either side.

  They were dressed in dark jeans, windbreakers, and baseball caps, and looked neither pleased nor alarmed to see him. The man on the far side of the Jeep disappeared from his peripheral vision, and Hawk assumed that particular weapon was now trained on Angela. This would not, he mused, be a good time for her to wake up.

  He stared down the barrel of the compact machine pistol and waited until the one on his side indicated he should roll down the window. The man seemed content to let Hawk speak first.

  He obliged him. "I want to see Sammy."

  "You're not expected."

  "I was too busy to call." The grit beneath his eyelids had taken on the texture of coarse-grade sandpaper, and he fought the urge to rub them. Not that he thought Sammy's men were trigger-happy, but he'd rather not take the chance he was wrong.

  He held the man's cool, unblinking gaze and said, "Tell him it's Hawk."

  "And the woman?"

  "She's with me."

  Without lowering his weapon, the man backed up several paces and used the mike wrapped around his throat. Hawk listened as the man told someone on the other end about himself and Angela, but he couldn't hear the response that fed into a small ear receiver. Whatever it was caused the man to lower his weapon. His partner must have been plugged into the same channel, because by the time Hawk looked around, he'd shouldered his machine pistol and was striding back toward a small building set just inside the trees.

  "Drive on up to the house," the first man said. He kept his weapon handy, and Hawk knew it would stay that way until Sammy told him otherwise.

  Hawk nodded curtly and put the truck in gear. By the time he'd parked in front of the sprawling white ranch house that was hidden from the gate by a stand of pine, the man who gave the orders was walking down the flagstone path to meet him. Hawk eased out of the truck and left the front door ajar as he went to meet him.

  Sammy—Hawk had never heard him called anything else—was a man of medium height and medium weight who dressed with the kind of flair that would be admired in boardrooms and casinos, and on yachts drifting across the Mediterranean. That morning he wore a cream knit shirt tucked into forest-green chinos that were obviously dry-cleaned, not washed. A black wool jacket—probably cashmere, Hawk guessed—flapped open as he walked, and the dark, curly hair that was trimmed neatly over his ears didn't look as though Sammy had combed it in a hurry. He'd either gotten up early for reasons that had nothing to do with Hawk, or—as Hawk suspected was the case—he'd been alerted the moment Hawk had taken the right fork.

  About twenty feet from the Jeep, Hawk stopped and waited for Sammy to come to him. When they were even, Hawk turned so that he could watch the Jeep, a move he knew Sammy wouldn't miss. He'd meant him to notice, because Sammy needed to know Hawk did not intend to be careless with the woman in back.

  Sammy didn't offer to shake hands and Hawk wasn't offended by the omission.

  "I thought you might show up," Sammy said. "Sooner or later."

  "You were too expensive for sooner."

  Black eyes flashed in momentary amusement. "From the way I hear Constantine has been abusing your good name, I'd say you could afford just about anything."

  Hawk let the comment pass. There was a lot he wanted to learn from Sammy, but he was too tired to pay much attention. Since any conversation with Sammy had a price, he knew enough to wait.

  "I need a place for tonight, probably longer."

  "The woman too?"

  "Yes."

  Sammy named a figure that was twice what Hawk had estimated. It worried him—not because of the money, but because he was hotter than he'd thought. Either that, or Sammy already knew who the woman was.

  "Anything else I can do for you?" Sammy asked, pushing aside his coat to slide his hands into his pants pockets. He looked down the walk to where the Jeep was parked.

  "I'll know more later. We'll talk then."

  Sammy nodded his acceptance and pointed to the farthest of three cottages that were separated from the main house by lush green lawns dotted with rhododendron bushes. "It's the same one you used before. Walt will have everything ready by the time you get over there."

  "It's been two years since I was here. You have a good memory."

  "A computer." Sammy laughed again with his eyes. "I would have remembered without it, though."

  Hawk remembered, too, but was considerably less amused than Sammy. The last—and only—time he'd availed himself of Sammy's broad range of services, he'd ended up paying for a jailbreak (a high-placed dealer Hawk had been cultivating), a Mercedes two-door coupe (burned as a diversion), and a substantial bribe for the officer in charge (incentive to look the other way). Added to the cost of Sammy's hospitality for two weeks while he learned everything he needed to know from the dealer, it had been an expensive exercise.

  Worth it, though, because he'd gone on to penetrate Constantine's organization—something that had been on the DEA's wish list for a decade.

  "I need to get some sleep," Hawk said. "Can you post a man near the cottage in case the woman decides to go for a walk?"

  "Naturally."

  Hawk knew Sammy would have a man in the area regardless, but it was the only way he could bring up the subject delicately. "I don't want her hurt, not for any reason."

  Sammy quirked a single brow. "Will she faint at the sight of a gun?"

  "No, but don't leave it where she can pick it up." Turning his back on Sammy's soft laughter, Hawk went down the walk to the truck and checked that Angela was still sleeping before starting the engine. Five minutes later he tucked her barefoot but otherwise fully dressed between the sheets of the king-size bed. He shrugged out of his leather jacket and threw it onto a brightly upholstered chair and pulled off his shoes. His holster and gun we
nt out of sight under his pillow and the sports bag under the bed before he lay down beside her. Covering himself with a quilt he'd found folded at the foot of the bed, he shut his eyes and let the rhythm of her gentle, even breaths lull him to sleep.

  * * *

  Angela was lying on her side when she awakened. Her face was pressed into a soft pillow. One arm was tucked beneath it while her other hand rested on Hawk's chest. He was sleeping on his back, fully dressed and snoring so lightly, she wouldn't have heard if her own breath didn't lie strangled in her throat. The stubble of beard she'd noticed before had darkened, and the lines that fanned out from his eyes were as deep in repose as they were when he was awake. All in all, he looked just as dangerous asleep as he'd been the last time she'd looked at him through eyes misted with tears. Keeping her hand exactly where it was in case he noticed its absence, she counted the beats of his heart and wondered how the hell she was going to get away from him.

  Just how her hand had landed there in the first place was a curiosity in itself. She was, out of preference, a solitary sleeper. If there happened to be a man sharing her bed —a rare but not unknown experience—he soon learned she wasn't the cuddly type.

  Staring at the man beside her, she decided he had placed her hand on his chest as a means of keeping track of her. She supposed it was better than being tied up, then shivered as the previous night's madness filled her thoughts.

  She had always envied those people who had the ability to retain a rosy fuzziness after waking that left them unsure of what day it was, where they were, who they were. A mellow, slow-blinking start to the day was as foreign to Angela as snow in Egypt.

  She always came blindingly awake, rushing from deep REM sleep into total awareness with an abruptness that jarred her senses and oftentimes left her winded. Thought patterns that had been with her at the other end of the night came back with clearly detailed precision. Moods weren't softened or forgotten. She always knew who she was, where she was, why she was there, and how she felt about it.

  Except today, and the only variable that was out of whack was the where one—which left everything else pretty much as it had been when she'd died. Or thought she'd died.

  Biting her lip so that the fears inside of her wouldn't escape, she looked across Hawk's massive chest to the peach-colored curtains that were only partially effective against the day's light. This wasn't the dreary little house where she'd tried not to cry and failed. This room had a refined feel to it, a hushed elegance that was ingrained in the soft quilt, smooth sheets, and luxuriant drapes. He had brought her here afterward, she realized, feeling markedly uncomfortable as emotions like gratitude and relief roiled through her.

  He didn't deserve either.

  She'd fallen asleep thinking it was for the last time, yet here she was, alive and surprisingly rested. Anger, real and potent, surged through her, and she would have hit him if she'd thought it would do her any good. She almost did it anyway, going so far as to clench her fist against his steadily beating heart. Blood pounded in her head as thought and reason took the reins and pulled hard, and she realized that if he hadn't awakened when she curled her fingers, she might be able to move her hand and get away with it.

  If she was very, very careful, she might even escape. It was worth a shot.

  Taking care not to shift her body in any other way, she lifted her hand. He didn't stir, and she was congratulating herself when her gaze landed on the gauze around her wrist. Holding that hand in the air above her, she pulled the other out from under the pillow and saw the matching wristband. It didn't make sense that someone so ready to kill her would bandage her wounds, and she thought about that for a second before more immediate questions surfaced.

  Just how was she supposed to escape if she didn't know where she was? Lowering her hands to the covers, she began pushing them down and decided it didn't matter where she was. Getting away was a priority, because anywhere was better than her current location. One thing at a time.

  It took forever, it seemed, to move the covers enough so that she could roll over without tugging at them, working with hands that trembled despite her resolve not to. When the sheet and blanket were finally down to her thighs, she rolled onto her back, then sat up and prepared to slide from the bed.

  A vise of flesh and steel clamped around her arm, yet even in her first rush of panic, she knew he was being very careful not to hurt her. "Don't go outside the cottage," he said. "There are people out there whose job it is to keep you from leaving."

  Her hair got in her face as she swung around to look at him, and she had to push it out of her way before she could meet his heavy-lidded gaze. He hadn't moved any more than it took to grab her with his hand, and he dropped that to the covers before she could demand he do so. She almost did a delayed jump through the ceiling, but calmed her speeding heart with deep breaths as she wondered how long he'd been awake.

  He spoke before she could think what to say. "No more lies."

  She blinked, then did it again because he wasn't making sense. "Excuse me?"

  "I said, no more lies. I told three last night. I won't do it again." He rolled onto his side and rose up on one elbow. "Whether you live or die depends on your doing exactly what I say."

  "I imagine the spider said something similar to the fly, and look where that got him."

  "I'm not the one you need to be worried about, Angela. I know that's a little hard to believe right at this moment, but things have changed since you went to sleep. I'm on your side now."

  "That's not hard to believe," she said, gritting her teeth as waves of remembered terror washed over her. "It's impossible."

  "The only way I can make you understand just how much trouble you're in is by telling the truth." He yawned, then shook his head as though it would help him stay awake. "I know it will take a while before you believe me, but it's important that you do, and soon. For your sake as much as mine."

  She was disconcerted by what he was saying, and it bothered her that she was paying more attention to that than to her own questions and demands. She tried to get the dialogue back onto a track she could follow. "The only trouble I'm in will be history once I get out of here."

  He shook his head again. "It's too late to get out. I know that's my fault, but I can't change what happened. I made a mistake, thought you were someone else."

  "Who?"

  "An assassin, like the other man in the garage. I assumed you were there to kill me."

  "You can't be serious!"

  "Very serious," he said. "I know now I was wrong. All we can do is accept that and try to work through the consequences."

  "But—"

  "No buts, Angel. I'm too worn-out for them right now." He fell back onto the pillow and shut his eyes. "There should be food in the kitchen, and if you're tired of those clothes, you'll probably find a robe somewhere. Take a shower, eat, try not to worry. We'll talk later."

  She opened her mouth to protest, then realized she might never have a chance like this again. Hawk was clearly exhausted, much too tired to listen for an opening door. She could be miles away before he noticed she was gone. His reference to "people outside whose job it was to stop her" didn't faze her, because she didn't believe him. He'd lied about the cocaine, just as he'd admitted to lying about other things. True, he had a fearsome-looking gun, but a quick glance told her it wasn't anywhere handy. She'd wait until he was snoring, then she'd sneak away.

  "Please don't try to leave the cottage, Angel. What you'll find out there is a lot worse than what's inside."

  She thought about reminding him her name was Angela, not Angel, but it didn't seem worth it. Sliding off the bed, she went into the bathroom and looked longingly at the richly appointed shower with its gleaming fixtures, marble floor, and glass siding. It occurred to her that by the time she showered, Hawk would be sound asleep.

  The knowledge that she'd have to get back into the same clothes didn't dissuade her so much as the feeling of vulnerability that washed through her. She
stared unseeing into the huge mirror over the marble-topped vanity, imagining herself naked and totally defenseless against the man who'd given her her first taste of violence and terror. There was nothing sexual about her fears. That particular brand of assault didn't seem to be in Hawk's repertoire.

  Her clothes, wrinkled and soiled though they might be, gave her a sense of control in a world gone mad. Stripping them away would be a form of acquiescence.

  Her toes curled into the deep-pile carpet, and it occurred to her that she'd have to find her shoes or escape barefoot. Either way, she intended to be long gone when Hawk next opened his cold, dark eyes. Stretching out a hand to the porcelain tap, she turned on the hot water and scrubbed her face until the white blanching of fear was replaced by a healthy glow. Then she used the toothbrush and comb she found in a drawer, telling herself that basic grooming wasn't the same as taking a shower.

  She didn't have to get naked to brush her teeth.

  FIVE

  Hawk pretended he was asleep when Angela came out of the bathroom and crept past the bed and through the door to the living room/kitchen area beyond. Her bare feet made almost no sound on the thick carpet, and he had to listen hard to track her movements.

  A click that must have been the front door opening confirmed his suspicion that she didn't intend to heed his warning. He stayed where he was until a second click announced the door's closing, then swung his feet to the floor and went over to peer through the slit in the drapes.

  The Jeep was parked about twenty feet from the cottage, and he watched as she went there first and checked the ignition. The keys were in his pocket, and he was wondering what the chances were she knew how to hotwire a vehicle when she retreated from the Jeep with her high-heeled pumps dangling from one hand.

  She paused for a moment as though considering her options, then struck out toward the thick forest bordering the lawns. She walked boldly and without any apparent sense of being watched. He guessed she assumed no one would bother her even if they noticed, an innocence that was refreshing and almost impossible to credit. Hawk couldn't remember a time when he wasn't constantly looking over his shoulder, a day when he could relax without having to rely on someone to watch his back.