by TL Schaefer
And then the repo agent had shown up. Such a tiny thing, thought she was being so sly, snaking the car, when really, they’d let her have it to scare the accountant even more. They knew they’d get it--and him--back with little or no trouble. Not with their badges.
Instead, now their crew was scattered to hell and gone, and the blonde who’d looked like such an easy mark when she’d snagged the car was in the wind. Maybe the target of the snatch-and-grab was with her. Maybe not. Either way, they were hosed. The boss was going to be pissed off, and there was no way he was taking the fall.
He punched the steering wheel, cursing as pain shot through his hand. The next time he saw Nick Coleman, he was going to do the same to his face. Then maybe he’d break a few fingers, just for the trouble the nerdy accountant had put them through.
Then he looked at the repo agent’s Expedition, the one she thought they hadn’t seen, and began to smile.
Cris berated herself as she whipped out her cell, speed-dialing the yard. How could she have forgotten about Karla?
Rob answered with his usual bark. “Red River Recover.”
“Rob. Cris here. Is Karla there?”
“Eagen,” he bellowed through the receiver, “get your butt back here right now. What have you gotten me into?”
“Rob, shut up. Is Karla there?”
“No, that’s why I’m here. No one answering the phone, the yard’s all shot to hell, and one of the tows is missing.”
“Crap. I gave her the SOS; let’s hope she used it.” Cris banged a fist against her thigh.
“Eagen, you’d better start explaining, and right now.” Rob’s voice had gone dangerously low, rumbling in her ear like a freight train.
She gave him a brief run-down of the events, leaving out how she’d acquired the car and the multi-state task force. That would be Nick and Linc’s call if it needed to be made. She was still enough of a cop to make sure it went no further than the three of them. For now.
“Have you tried Karla on her cell?”
“Don’t you think I tried that first? I called from the house before I even headed down here.” Now Rob sounded worried. It was an emotion she was positive he didn’t feel often. At least they were on the same page.
“I’m calling the cops. Should have done it from the get-go, but I just got here.”
“Rob, wait. Give me five minutes and I’ll call you back.”
Silence reigned on the other end of the line for what seemed like minutes, making Cris wonder if they’d been disconnected.
“What aren’t you telling me?” Rob’s voice came through, rough with anger.
“Is there another car in the yard? A Lincoln all beat up?”
There was another long silence before he replied, and when he did, it was with barely leashed fury. “No. Karla logged that you came in with a ‘Vette, and that’s gone as well.”
“They cleaned up after themselves, then. Dammit. The ‘Vette would have been a good lead.”
“Eagen…” Rob warned.
“I can’t say any more, at least not yet. Rob, please, give me five and I’ll see what I can tell you, all right?”
“Goddammit, Eagen, you’d better play it straight with me. Karla’s life may be at stake.”
Cris winced. She didn’t need to be reminded. She had enough blood on her hands to last a lifetime.
“I’ll be waiting.” Silence met her ear as Rob disconnected.
Cris pulled the cell from her ear and looked at her companions.
Nick was across the kitchen, talking to his office on the wall phone, and Linc sat at the table, watching them both with an inscrutable expression. Cris joined him, waiting for Nick.
When he finished his call, she launched straight to the heart of the matter. “Karla’s missing and Rob’s going to call in the locals unless I tell him what’s going on. Not only that, but the perps also took a tow, the Lincoln and the ‘Vette. They didn’t leave any loose ends.”
“Except me,” Nick inserted quietly.
“Except you,” Cris agreed.
“Geez, woman, why didn’t you say something while you were on the phone with Rob? Give me that contraption.” Linc pointed to her cell.
She handed it over after dialing the yard. The sleek phone looked ridiculous in Linc’s huge paw, almost making her smile. Almost. There wasn’t much to smile about today.
“Rob, Linc here.” Cris listened to Linc’s one-sided discussion, her mind flashing back to Austin, two months after the shootout, right about the time Lori Wright had decided to make her life a living hell. Three months before the woman had tried to take Cris’ life.
Linc had shown up on her family’s doorstep, unannounced, ostensibly to reconnect with her dad, his old Army buddy. It had taken her all of five minutes to fall under the spell of the gruff older man with the heart of gold. He’d been to war in places not mentioned on the news and knew that Post Traumatic Stress Disorder wasn’t another glib phrase offered up by psychoanalysts.
He’d read her well enough to know she needed a change, needed to distance herself from the family that loved and supported her, and needed to get out of the media spotlight of her father’s seat on the state legislature. And her fall from grace, which, not-so-coincidentally, dovetailed with her divorce. Not the best of times.
Later, when it got even worse, she’d taken him up on his offer to relocate. It had been one of the best decisions she’d made in a long, long time, and until this morning, had been the balm her soul needed to heal.
Cris later learned that Linc had come at her father’s request. He, too, had known what she was going through, and had seen Linc as someone she could connect with who wasn’t family.
Now, almost two years later, she could understand the sacrifice Christian O’Connor had made in entrusting her life to his old friend. The man whose ideals had driven her to be a cop in the first place. And not just a cop, but the cream of the crop. The Texas Rangers.
The clatter of the phone on the table pulled her from the past. She lifted her head and found herself looking straight into Nick McClain’s eyes. After their last verbal transaction, she certainly didn’t expect to see warmth and understanding on his face, but it was there.
And more than that, the powerful attraction she’d felt before was back, and with a vengeance.
His expression pulled her in, just as she’d been trapped in the past. Pure, molten heat shot through her as his gaze lasered into hers, drawing her as surely as a magnet. Her mind shot back to that moment in the shelter when she’d been a hair’s breadth away from kissing him. Right now, she couldn’t imagine why she’d held herself in check.
“…will wait for us to call him back.” Linc’s voice penetrated the fog swirling through her mind.
With a shake of her head, she disengaged herself from the Nick McLain enigma. Nothing…not one good thing could come from wanting Nick McLain. She had the feeling she’d be reminding herself of that time and again.
Wow. That was all Nick’s mind could seem to formulate as he watched Cristine turn her attention from him to Linc. The moment their eyes had met was quite possibly the hottest he’d ever spent. Since he was far from a virgin, that was saying something. How would she feel writhing beneath him, or astride him? His body throbbed at the thought. He was two steps away from reaching across the table and indulging in the kiss they’d almost shared in the shelter.
He pushed back in the chair and stalked to the counter. He had much bigger things to worry about than Cristine O’Connor. Namely, an investigation that was getting screwier by the moment.
“I suggest that while we wait, we figure out where we go from here.” It didn’t strike him that he’d included Cris and Linc in his plans until after the words had already left his mouth.
What was he thinking? Linc, yeah, he was cool with Linc, simply because he was OSBI, but Cristine was an entirely different story. No matter what she’d been in the past, she was a civilian now, and civilians were who he was supposed to protect, not p
ut in harm’s way.
He quickly amended his comment. “I mean, my handlers want me to continue with the investigation, and Linc, you can certainly help me out with that. I’m going to head back to the hotel and see what shakes out there. If these guys are as smart—or dumb—as I think they are, they’ll be waiting for a second chance.”
“And how are you planning on getting there, Nick? The streets aren’t any better than they were when we came in. Worse in fact, unless the damage trail from that twister was negligible.” Cristine’s argument shot his plan of action straight to hell. Just like she seemed to be shaking his usually straight-on reasoning processes. He needed to get away from her, and fast.
He conceded her statement with a nod. “Point taken. Linc, you’ve been out there. What’s it look like?”
“Debris isn’t too bad…only looks like an EF1 or less,” Linc replied, referring to the enhanced Fujita scale of damage, the thing all tornadoes were measured by. “But I wouldn’t count on there being too many taxis or Uber drivers cruising around. What exactly did Jacobsen say?”
Nick’s boss, Cary Jacobsen, had been quite clear…do what you have to do, but don’t get yourself killed in the process. The action “England” had taken was the first true lead they had in cracking this case, and there was no way Nick was going to squander it.
“He ordered me to proceed…with caution.”
Linc appeared to be rolling this around in his head, then turned to Cristine. “You need to get out of here, especially since you mentioned my name to whoever-the-hell is pretending to be Burt England. You said he’s got the moves of a cop, and he very well might be, or maybe he’s ex-force. Who knows, at this point, but we need to get you to a safe house, at least until Nick here figures out how he’s going to move forward.”
“You’re right.” Cristine went silent for a moment, then glanced at Nick, clearly not comfortable with the idea she was about to postulate. “We’ll go to my house.”
“Hell no!”
“I don’t think so!” Linc and Nick’s replies were in unison.
She held up a hand, forestalling them both. “Listen, okay?” At their wary nods, she continued, addressing most of her attention to Linc. “I buried myself deep when I came here; you know that better than anyone. Everything is under my married name, Eagen, my address is still listed as the hotel I stayed in before I bought the house, and my mail goes to a PO Box. The house is in my real name because it was too much of a pain in the butt to go the other route, but the lawyers ran the purchase of it through a gamut of corporate fronts. In Oklahoma City, I’m plain old Cris Eagen, and last time I looked there were about a dozen men and women with that moniker in the state. Even the car registration goes through my PO Box. There’s no way anyone, cops included, can trace my physical address.” She turned her attention to Nick. “My place is safe. We don’t have to trust anyone, except Linc here, and Rob. No credit cards to check us into a hotel, none of the stuff that would make us easy to trace by someone with the know-how.”
She paused for a long moment, waiting for either of them to protest, to say anything, but both Nick and Linc were mute.
Nick had to admit her argument made sense, even if he didn’t understand why she’d felt the need to hide herself. What he remembered of the bloodbath in Austin wasn’t enough to make anyone dig a hole that deep, and then pull the earth in over them.
“Then it’s settled. Nick, I’d prefer it if you’d use a cell from now on. As much as I’d like to trust your buddy Jacobsen, I don’t want anyone but you, Linc, my Red River folks and my family knowing where I live. My trust level isn’t exactly off the charts right now. Speaking of Rob, Linc, can you ask him to pull the imagery from the yard’s cameras? They’re Karla’s babies, so without her there it might take him awhile, but it’d sure be nice to know who we’re really dealing with. I’d ask, but it needs to be official, for evidence, and my asking would just muck things up.”
She was right and thinking with a clearer head than all of them, which made her trust in him even more puzzling. Nick settled back in his chair, really seeing her for the first time. He made himself look past her appearance, past the choices she’d made up until this point. Yes, she’d been decisive and cool under pressure, but it wasn’t until now that he’d really seen her cop’s mind at work, seen the training that they’d both received, albeit in different departments.
This woman should never have left the Rangers; she was too valuable an asset as a cop. And she seemed too strong to let something like the incident in Austin derail a successful career. Too loyal to her friends and compatriots. It made him wonder what the real story was, what had forced Cristine O’Connor to give up, when there didn’t seem to be one bit of give in her.
Cris drove Linc’s restored ’56 Bel Aire through the carport and into her detached two-car garage. The other spot was conspicuously empty, making Nick wonder for the first time if she had a significant other. She’d certainly given no hint of it, but a woman like Cris wouldn’t be alone for long, unless she chose it.
She stepped out of the beautiful old car and activated the wall-mounted garage door opener. The garage was much like the repossession yard—well kept, with garden tools hanging from hooks, along with a bicycle suspended from the ceiling, and a series of about fifteen license plates tacked to the clean white walls. It was neat, tidy. He was beginning to see Cris in the same way. She liked things squared away but went with what was aesthetically pleasing at the same time. Even whimsical. It was a far cry from his knee-jerk assessment of her this morning. Had it only been a few hours since they’d met? It seemed like they’d known each other for years.
When they entered the kitchen, Cristine’s distinctive touch was even more apparent.
Mosaic tiles covered the floor, complementing the old-style cabinets and countertop. As a man who appreciated craftsmanship and history, Nick could tell that, except for the tile floor, the kitchen had been restored into its original 1920s interior. It felt like a home, one many loving hours had been put into. It was as far from what he’d grown up in as the moon. The thought should have made him vaguely twitchy, but instead, he felt comfortable. Almost more comfortable than he did in his own sparsely decorated ranch home in Tulsa.
“Nice.” He commented, toeing his shoes off at the door.
She shot him a gratified look as she moved through the kitchen, into the living area. “Thanks. It took me a while, but I got rid of the linoleum and crap the previous owners ‘modernized’ with.”
She’d done all this work herself? Very interesting. He still hadn’t figured out one vital fact. Was she single, or would a hulking bodybuilder be coming home for supper? He followed her into an equally restored living room, down to the Craftsman-style fireplace and mantel. Cristine was obviously someone who appreciated history.
“I keep all the charging cords and such in the office, so go ahead and plug in when you need to. There’s also a land line in the kitchen, but I’d prefer it if you’d use my cell until Linc can get you a burner.” She continued down a short hall, bypassing the open doors to a hideously decorated bathroom and what was obviously a master bedroom. Pushing open a door, she motioned him into a room.
“This’ll be your room, at least until you figure out what you want to do, and not get yourself killed. The office is the next door down the hall.” She paused for a moment, as if taking in the situation for the first time, then continued, the consummate hostess. “Make yourself at home. If you’ll excuse me, I need to call my family. They’ll have heard about the tornado by now and be worried.”
Nick nodded at her, wryly surprised at the jolt her words caused him. If his family had known he was in Oklahoma City, would they have even cared? His father, Winston, perhaps. His mother, Helen, only if she were sober. Though she would likely take it as an opportunity to get spun up about the fact he’d been in ‘danger,’ something she’d seemed to forget the entire time he’d been downrange. Multiple times.
Helen was a worrier only wh
en it suited her sense of drama.
He glanced around the homey room, wondering how he was supposed to make himself comfortable when he didn’t have a thing with him except the nine-mil Linc had loaned him.
Cristine left the room, heading for the office, where he watched her connect the phone to its charger.
Yeah, he’d use it to call Jacobsen, but no one in Tulsa except his dad gave two shits about him.
“Hi Dad. Just wanted to let you know that everything’s cool up here.”
“So you’re okay? How big was it?”
“Sounds like a small EF1, at least from what they’re saying on the news. I was in Linc’s neighborhood when it hit, so hid out in his shelter.”
“Good. You know I worry about you when I hear about storms up there.”
“I know,” Cris sighed, feeling at ease for the first time since this morning. It was times like these that she keenly missed her family, even the media exposure and limelight that went with them. “How’s Mom doing? Does she still have the sniffles?” Steeping herself in the mundane was so very comforting.
“She’s up and around, but you know summer colds are the worst. She’s hosting a luncheon today, so she’s obviously back up to snuff. You know how Victoria is. So when are you coming down for a visit?”
“Soon,” Cris hedged, knowing she wasn’t going anywhere until this whole thing with England was resolved. She’d already put her family in danger once. She’d never do it again.
She raised her head as Nick wandered into the room. “Work’s pretty busy.” To say the very least, she thought humorlessly. “Let me get with Rob and I’ll see what I can work out.”
“Maybe we’ll come up there, then. I haven’t jawed with Linc in a long time, and you know I haven’t seen the ‘Stang since you started the body work.”