“My car is in the parking garage. I’ll drive you to wherever you need to go.”
She looked at me, tears clouding her eyes. “Thank you.”
I jabbed my finger against the appropriate button, wondering if I was making the biggest mistake of my life. But then the elevator doors opened at the lobby just in time for us to see emergency lights rushing toward the valet parking area. Shaw tensed against me. Obviously someone had been awake. If we stuck around much longer, they’d drag us down to the police station and might even arrest Shaw when they matched her gun to some of the bullets lodged in the walls of suite 1003. I couldn’t let that happen.
There were only a handful of people in the lobby this late at night. They were all fascinated by the approaching police cars. No one saw us slip through the employee exit and into the parking garage.
Chapter 14
Shaw
The whole thing was a damn blur. The alarm going off, the questions Malik kept throwing at me, the ambush in Alison’s room. She was still out cold when they broke in, probably still was. But they were determined to take her.
I locked Malik out in the hall and charged in, firing as I moved, a pillow held to the end of my gun to muffle the blasts. They fired back, their guns sporting expensively made silencers on the barrels. One stopped firing at me and instead charged, slamming his head into my shoulder as he attempted to body slam me. I managed to twist my body as we were falling, forcing him to take the brunt of the fall. Then a well-aimed punch knocked him out cold for a moment. But there were two more in the bedroom.
One fired, not worried about hitting his buddy, and hit me low on the side of my belly as I rushed toward him. The adrenaline kept me going and he was prepared, throwing a couple of hard punches to my chest and belly. The other had somehow circled behind me and hit me with a stun gun. I could have handled just about anything they had to throw at me—I’d held my own in hand-to-hand combat during boot camp—but no one could withstand the shock of a stun gun.
I went down, unable to move and my vision warped as I tried to focus. I saw fuzzy shapes pick up Alison and their buddy, leaving all her belongings behind as they disappeared through the door. I prayed that Malik had been smart enough to go back into my suite, afraid of what they’d do if they saw him. I strained my ears for any noise in the hallway but didn’t hear anything. I couldn’t fight the pain and the nerve-startling shock anymore. I blacked out.
Waking in the bathroom, bandaging my wounds, stumbling down to the elevator…it was all just a jumble. And now, the movement of the car jarring my sore body was more than I could take. I must have lost more blood than I thought…
The next time I woke, I was lying in a bed and a strange woman was leaning close to me, examining my side. Instinct pushed me up, my arm raised to defend myself. But then warm hands were around my wrists and Malik’s voice was close.
“It’s okay, Shaw. You’re safe.”
I tried to pull away, fear driving me with a rush of adrenaline. But he was suddenly on the bed behind me, wrapping his arms around me as he pulled me back against his very solid, very safe body.
“You’re okay,” he repeated over and over until I stopped fighting him.
The woman had sat back and was watching this whole ordeal, curiosity bright in her eyes. She was a pretty woman with dark hair shot through with gray, blue eyes, full lips, and a square jaw. She was older, maybe my mother’s age if the lines around her eyes said anything. My mom had the same lines, though she tried hard to keep them hidden with injections from a surgeon and carefully applied makeup. This woman seemed to embrace the evidence of her age as though it were a badge of honor rather than a curse.
I liked that.
“Where are we?”
“My house,” the woman said with a smile. “Seems this is the only way to get my son to visit me these days.”
My eyebrows rose. “You’re Malik’s mother?”
Pride filled her eyes as she looked over my head to him. “Yes, he is.”
“You’re safe, Shaw,” he said again, his lips close to my temple. “My mom’s a nurse. She was sewing up your wounds.”
“We might have to start over on this one,” she said, indicating my belly. “Your movement tore the few I had already managed to get in.”
“I’m sorry.”
She touched my knee lightly. “It’s alright, sweetheart. After what you’ve been through tonight, you’re allowed a little panic.”
I glanced back at Malik, but he shrugged slightly. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You’ve got bruises from head to toe and you’ve been shot. Obviously, you weren’t out dancing when this happened.”
She gestured for me to lie back. Malik shifted, lying me down, but staying on the bed with me, our hands intertwined as she returned to her work. She must have numbed the area because I only felt the slightest tugs as she sewed up the wound. When she was done, she sat back and admired her work.
“Eight stitches on the front, seventeen on the back.” She picked up a gauze pad and pressed it to the wound and began to tape it into place. “I don’t think you have any internal damage, but we should keep an eye on you for a few hours, just to make sure.”
I looked down at myself, at the bandages and tape that wrapped around my lower belly, the bruises I could see beginning to form on my ribs. They’d undressed me, removing everything but my panties and bra. Even my shoes were gone—I did have shoes on, didn’t I? Bruises were forming on my thighs, too. I hurt everywhere, especially the place on my shoulder where the one man had slammed his head. I reached up to touch it, causing Malik’s mother to pull my hand away.
“You dislocated your shoulder. I popped it back into place, but you should probably keep it immobilized for a few days.”
I shook my head, looking up at Malik. “I can’t. There’s no time.”
Malik’s expression tightened. He glanced at his mother and she sighed.
“I’ll go put on the tea kettle,” she said, gathering her first aid supplies and leaving the room. As I watched her go, I looked around the room, seeing posters from decades old movies and swimsuit magazines—clearly a teenage boy’s bedroom.
“Your childhood room?”
“It was the best place to bring you since I didn’t think you wanted to go to the hospital or call the police.”
“It’s sweet.”
He gently moved me so he could stand, moving around the bed to sit in a desk chair that looked as though it hadn’t been sat in in more than fifteen years.
“What the hell’s going on, Shaw? The police were at the hotel when we left.”
I pulled myself up a little, resting against a thin pillow and a solid wood headboard. I touched my shoulder despite his mother’s warnings, rubbing at the bruise like that would make the pain go away.
“Have you ever heard of a security firm called Gray Wolf?”
He shrugged. “I’ve seen the name in the paper a few times over the years. They run private security for rich people, right?”
“For anyone who can afford to hire them, really.” I adjusted my position again, but the pain and soreness would not allow me to sit comfortably. “Alison Michaels hired them to give her protection while she waited for her divorce to be finalized. Then we were going to help her relocate somewhere where her husband couldn’t find her.”
He tilted his head slightly. “The computer equipment under the sheet?”
“Computers and monitors, all connected to cameras and motion detectors Gray Wolf put in her suite.”
“You work for them?”
I nodded. “I was supposed to be keeping her safe.”
“And those people who broke into her room tonight?”
“Her husband’s people. He’s some mobster who worked for this organization that’s falling apart now. Their boss was arrested in Wyoming last year, but he and some others have been working to keep the organization going. Gray Wolf was part of a raid a few weeks ago that got him arrested, but he was rel
eased from jail pending trial. Alison thought she could get out of the state before he was released, but she didn’t quite make it. She called him last week out of fear of what he’d do if he found her before she could attempt to make amends. He must have figured out where she was then.”
“And he came for her.”
“And now I have to find her before he hurts her.”
He studied my face for a long moment. “You’re hurt, Shaw. Can’t someone else go after them?”
That would require informing my boss of how badly I fucked up. Not doing that!
I just shook my head. “This is my case.”
He hesitated again, clearly wanting to argue with me, but unwilling to for some reason. He got up and grabbed my bag up off the floor, bringing it over to me.
“Your phone has been ringing from time to time. I haven’t looked at it.”
“Thank you.”
I’d lost track of my phone in the rush to get over to Alison’s room. I was relieved to know it was here. I dug in the bag and pulled it out, quickly tapping in passwords here and there until a screen came up that had a single red dot flashing on it.
“Damn it! They’re already halfway to Mexico!”
“Who?”
I sat up, groaning as the pain in my various wounds and injuries burst through me. There were clean clothes in the bag. I pulled them out and began to dress, forcing Malik to help rather than stand there and watch me struggle. I stood so he could tug my jeans over my waist. Our bodies pressed together and I couldn’t help but slide my arms around his neck. He slid his hand over my back, holding me close to him for a long moment.
“Please tell me you don’t have some sort of crazy death wish.”
“No death wish.” I looked up at him, my fingers slipping over his jaw. “Thank you for getting me out of there and bringing me here. I don’t what would have happened if you hadn’t been there.”
“You’d be in a hospital where you belong.”
I kissed his chin and pulled away, my thoughts already on my next move. I needed to find a car and get my ass down towards Mexico before they were so far gone I couldn’t track them anymore.
“You can’t leave now.”
I glanced back at Malik. “I have to do my job.”
“You’re too badly injured to do this on your own, Shaw.”
“I’m fine. Besides, I have friends I can call.”
I picked up my bag as I scrolled through my phone, wondering who might be answering the phone this early in the morning. Jamey always answered the phone no matter what time it was, but his wife—
Malik had moved in front of the door and was standing there as though he truly believed he could block me from leaving. I would have laughed if I wasn’t so sore, so desperate to get going.
“You don’t understand how important this is, Malik.”
“I don’t think you understand how bad off you were when I got you here. My mom has worked in emergency rooms all over the country for thirty years and she was shaken by the sight of you.” He shook his head. “You aren’t going out there on your own.”
“I know you were frightened—”
“I was frightened. And you should have been, too.”
I inclined my head slightly, showing him I did agree. It had been a difficult situation. A scary one. But it was my job to keep Alison safe and I wasn’t about to sit in his childhood bedroom and twiddle my thumbs while Alison’s ex tortured and murdered her. Or, worse, while Joss sent someone else to do what I should have done.
This was my first assignment for Gray Wolf. I was not going to fail as spectacularly as this.
“What do you want? Do you want to come with me?”
I could see a flash of fear in his eyes but there was excitement there, too.
“You can’t go alone. Either you stay here and let someone else handle it or I go with you.”
“What happened back at the hotel…it could happen again, Malik. But much worse. Are you prepared for that?”
Again, he hesitated. But then he nodded. “I’m prepared.”
I shook my head. It was ridiculous to even consider it and I knew I wasn’t thinking it through all the way—involving a civilian in this was not good practice. But I could always lose him somewhere on the road, leave him at a truck stop or something. And, in the meantime, it might not be a bad idea to have someone to share the driving. My shoulder was burning like the joint was on fire.
He opened the door, gesturing for me to lead the way. His mother was in the kitchen, the teakettle just beginning to whistle on the stove. She smiled when she saw us coming until she spotted my bag over my good shoulder.
“Leaving so soon?”
“I have things I need to take care of.”
I glanced at Malik, half hoping his mother would talk him into staying. But he wouldn’t look at her and she seemed hesitant to tell him what to do.
Must be nice. My mother would have already ordered me back to my bedroom.
“Thank you for all your help, Mrs. Bailey.”
She offered me a stern grimace. “You’ll need to keep those stitches clean and watch them closely for signs of infection. And that shoulder will be prone to slipping out of place again if you don’t keep it immobile for a few days.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Malik moved around me and kissed his mother’s cheek lightly, whispering something in her ear that I didn’t quite catch. Then he moved up beside me, slipping his hand over the small of my back as he led me toward the front door. His mother called out to him as he did, her words muttered under her breath, but I thought I heard them. It made gave me pause, though. She’d said that she loved him, but the words hadn’t been spoken in English. They were uttered in Arabic.
How did an American nurse know Arabic?
Malik didn’t respond as he pushed me through the front door and out into the early morning sunshine. His car, a blue Ford Escape, waited at the curb. He helped me into the passenger seat, adjusting a towel that was draped along the back edge to cover a wet spot that had recently been cleaned—blood, maybe—his eyes avoiding mine as he made sure I was buckled up before he closed the door.
I watched him move around the car wondering what I didn’t know about him. The question would have been easier to answer if I’d asked what I did know about him.
Nothing. I knew nothing about this man. And I was hoping that lack of knowledge wasn’t about to bite me in the ass.
Chapter 15
Joss
It was a little before dawn when the phone rang. I sat up with a start, staring around me at my unfamiliar surroundings. It came back to me slowly, taking until I’d spoken to the voice on the other end of the call before I remembered knocking on Mike Spencer’s door. I’d been a little bit of a mess and he’d welcomed me inside without asking a single question. He took me into the spare bedroom he kept for his children and brought me a cup of tea, sitting close until the tea was gone and my eyelids had fluttered shut.
He was a gentleman. And I was grateful for that.
I don’t know what I would have done if he’d assumed my appearance at his door in the middle of the night meant something more than it had. But I knew it would be the end of my marriage and I wasn’t sure I was ready for that.
It was a small apartment. He must have heard my phone ring through the thin walls. He was knocking on the door as I was pulling my boots back on.
“Everything okay?”
“Do you have eyes on Case Michaels?”
“We did, but he disappeared two days ago. We think he made a run for Mexico.” He tilted his head to one side, his eyes moving over my legs before resting on my face. “Why?”
“There’s been a bit of a ruckus at the hotel where our client, his wife, was hiding. I think he might have come for her.”
“I doubt it was him personally. Probably some of his men.”
“Probably. But they’ll take her to him and then…” I stopped, not really wanting to entertain the tho
ught of what he’d do to her. “It looks like he might have my operative, too.”
“Hell.” He dragged his fingers through his hair, making it stand even more on end that it had already been. “Let me get dressed and I’ll head over there with you.”
“You have coffee?”
“In the freezer.”
While he dressed, I went to the kitchen to make the coffee. He had Folgers, my favorite brand. I took a deep breath of the sweet smell before I scooped good heaping tablespoons into the machine. While it brewed, I checked my phone, a part of me really hoping that Carrington had called or texted or something. But there was nothing.
I called him and left a message, letting him know why I wasn’t home and that I likely wouldn’t be home for most of the day.
It wasn’t like he was going to miss me.
Mike came into the kitchen as I finished up, reaching past me to get the mugs out of the cabinet behind me. For a second, we stood insanely close to each other, his freshly applied deodorant with its masculine scent that woke every nerve in my body. A part of me wanted to touch him, to feel what it would be like to be cradled in his arms, with that smell filling all my senses. Instead, I scooted to the side to give him more room.
“Who let you know what was going on?”
“My office. We had cameras set up in the target’s room that were wired to a system that we can monitor from the office. When the men—whoever they were—entered the room and started firing their weapons, it set off alarms. The night supervisor called me.”
“That’s efficient.”
“It’s a good system. Our CEO’s brother designed it.”
“The FBI might be interested in checking it out.”
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