Hot Pursuit

by Lynn Raye Harris

  He knew what she wanted to hear—that he thought Kyle was lying and they’d find Sarah in his mama’s trailer, playing Suzy Homemaker or something—but he couldn’t do it.

  “He hasn’t seen her since last night.”

  They were on the sidewalk in front of the jail. She put a hand on the brick wall to steady herself. “How can you be sure? How do you know this tough guy stuff works?”

  He’d broken much stronger men than Kyle Jenkins—though of course he’d been able to use other methods of persuasion while doing so. Kyle was a pussy who disintegrated beneath a strong look and the threat of future violence. He knew the type well.

  “I’ve been doing this for a while, chère. Believe me, he hasn’t seen her.”

  Evie grabbed onto him, facing him squarely, her chin inching up, her lip just the barest line away from quivering. So why did he want to kiss her? Why did he want to wrap her in his arms and make this all go away?

  “What do you think happened to her? I have to know, Matt. I have to. I can’t face my mama without having something to tell her.”

  Sonofabitch, the hard part. He’d been expecting it. And he still didn’t know how to ease the blow. So he just said it. “I think someone took her.”

  Her eyes filled with tears. Behind the tears was the kind of pain that kicked him in the gut. He wanted to make it better, but he was having a hard time doing so. He felt almost as desperate as when he’d been twelve and couldn’t make his mother better again. It was disconcerting, and he worked hard to focus. He had to concentrate on the here and now, not on how his past and her past were all tangled and twisted and how he felt responsible for her now.

  How he wanted to make everything right because he wanted her to smile again.

  She sucked in a breath. “You said last night—”

  “I was wrong. It didn’t happen at your mama’s house, but someone has her. It might not be related to the murder, but it’d be a damn amazing coincidence if it wasn’t.”

  “We have to tell the police.”

  He touched her cheek with the back of his finger and caught the single tear she dared to let spill free. “Tell them what, chère? That I have a feeling?”

  “Why not? She’s still missing. They’d have to listen to me now.” Her eyes shimmered. All he wanted to do, all in the world he could think about, was lowering his mouth to hers and stealing whatever he could take. Taking away the heartache and pain for however long he could manage it.

  “We need something more than that. They have your report from last night, and they’re questioning her friends. But they won’t issue an Amber Alert without something more concrete.”

  “Why not? She’s missing for God’s sake!”

  “Teenagers run away, Evie. They do things they shouldn’t. If the police put out an alert for every teen who disappeared for a few hours, no one would take it seriously ever again. There’s a definite protocol to follow before issuing one.”

  Her fingers dug into his bicep. “But we won’t sit and wait for them to figure this out, right? You’re going to do something, right? Call those men in black of yours?”

  He put his arm around her, pulled her close, and propelled them back to where he’d parked the car on the street. “I’ll do everything possible to get her back.”

  She pulled him up short, looked at him with violet eyes full of both trust and uncertainty. “Have you ever failed a mission?”

  He looked her dead in the eye as his gut twisted into a knot. “No. Never.”

  *

  They had to get the humidor. They’d been sidetracked with the visit to the jail, and now they were on their way to see Mama. But as soon as that was over, as soon as she’d faced her mama and told her that Sarah was missing, they were going to Julie’s house and retrieving her car.

  Evie nibbled her lip, her insides twisting and mixing like a spinning top as they took the elevator to the second floor of William Girard Medical Center. They couldn’t go to the police. Not yet anyway. She had no friends there, that was for sure. They thought she’d killed David.

  Rochambeau was a small town. Murder was unheard of, unless it was a couple of fisherman fighting over traps out in the bayou. That had happened last year. Eighty-year-old Dancy Lafevre shot and killed a man a third his age for poaching his crawdad traps. It took the police ten days, two helicopters, and a team of dogs to bring him out of the swamp.

  Murder in Rochambeau tended to be homegrown. And she had a hell of a motive, no doubt about it.

  “You never showed me how to defend myself.” It was a long stretch from what she’d been thinking about, which was getting the humidor and checking on Mama, but looking at Matt, she couldn’t help but think about badassery. Right now, she wished she were a badass too.

  Matt’s aviator sunglasses hid his eyes. He hadn’t taken them off when they’d come inside, and it certainly added to his appeal. The man was a walking advertisement for testosterone. A white T-shirt stretched over his chest. He’d crossed his arms and tucked his hands into his armpits. He looked like nothing less than a huge, menacing guard dog.

  A sexy guard dog she’d like to strip were circumstances less urgent.

  “Give me your hand.”

  “How is that supposed to teach me anything?”

  His mouth twisted in a frown. “You’ll find out if you give me your hand.”

  She thrust her hand out, trying her best to ignore the frisson of heat that tingled under her skin when he took it in his.

  “Curl your fingers like this.” He pulled her closer to him and placed her hand midway down his forearm. “Now, if anyone ever grabs you and you get the chance, you dig in right here.”

  He pushed her fingers into his arm. All she felt was hard bone and taut muscle.

  She shook her head. Either he was funning with her or she wasn’t doing it right. “I don’t get it.”

  He pulled the glasses off and shoved them into his waistband. Then he picked up her arm in the same place. When he squeezed, she yelped. A sharp pain shot down her arm, up to her shoulder, and through her body. It was like hitting your funny bone, though worse somehow.

  “Sorry, but I need you to understand.” He took her hand again, wrapped it around his forearm. “If some guy grabs you, do it hard, Evie, like your life depends on it. There’s a lot of muscle in a strong man to go through.”

  He nodded, his gray gaze deeply serious, and she squeezed. Not like her life depended on it, but hard nonetheless.

  And watched pain flare in his eyes.

  “More.”

  She complied, digging in harder, and he dropped to his knees.

  She let go with a gasp. “Oh my God, did I hurt you?”

  He shook his arm out and climbed to his feet. “Hell yes, but that’s the idea. Now if you get that hold on someone, don’t let go. Take him to his knees and keep him there. Kick him, do whatever you can to incapacitate him.”

  Evie shivered. She’d had no idea such a thing was possible. “Okay.”

  He pressed two fingers behind her ear, at the base of her jaw. “This is another point. Push hard.”

  His hand dropped away.

  “That’s it? Just dig my fingers into those places?” She’d at least expected a karate chop maneuver or something.

  “The body has sensitive pressure points. Those are only two of them, but they’ll do the job.”

  “What if the guy has a gun?”

  He shook his head. “No, there are other techniques for that. Just remember these as a good way to take down somebody who grabs you, okay?”

  Evie nodded. Holy crap, she’d have never guessed she could incapacitate a big guy like him with nothing more than her fingers. It was empowering. And she never wanted to have to do it for real.

  The elevator came to a stop and she took a deep breath. She had to face Mama and she had to tell her Sarah was still missing. How would she get through it? Sarah was the baby, the little girl who’d come along almost at the point when Mama thought she’d never have
another child. In some ways, Evie felt like an outsider. It was self-imposed, certainly, but she felt it just the same. She’d chosen to leave Rochambeau.

  And now she had to inform her mother that Sarah hadn’t come home and she had no idea where to find her little sister.

  “Evie.”

  She looked up at Matt and realized he was blurry. She turned her head, wiping the corners of her eyes.

  Matt swore and punched the button to close the elevator door. Then he pressed her against the wall, anchoring her with his body. A finger beneath her chin tilted her head up. A second later, he covered her mouth with his.

  Evie gasped as warmth and sensation flooded her. She clutched his shoulders, slowly wrapping her arms around his neck. His tongue dipped inside and drew her into a luscious stroking that filled her with heat and need.

  He leaned into her, leaving no doubt he was aroused and ready to take this moment as far as she wanted to go. A second later, he broke the kiss and lay his forehead against hers. His breathing was unsteady.

  “You can do this, Evangeline. I’ll be with you all the way.”

  Evie shivered, in spite of the heat between them. “I know I can,” she said softly. “And thanks.”

  *

  Matt had planned to hang outside the room while Evie spoke with her mother, but she took his hand and led him inside. Norma Breaux lay in bed, propped up, watching television. She brightened considerably when her daughter arrived, though pain lined her face. Her broken wrist was splinted around a metal contraption that held the bones together, and she moved her arm gingerly.

  “Sugar!”

  “Mama.” Evie went over and hugged her tight. Norma held on, stroking Evie’s hair with her good hand. Matt averted his eyes and rocked on the balls of his feet. His mother had died so long ago he rarely thought of what it must be like to still have one. He’d missed her badly when he was twelve. Hell, he’d missed her every time he wanted affection, a human touch that was reassuring and comforting. The senator had been gone far too often to be more than a distant and somewhat frightening authority figure.

  The stripper-wives were studies in neuroses. Misty Lee, his current stepmama who was actually four years his junior, wasn’t like the others. If the old man had married a woman like her when Matt was a kid, he might have had a normal home life. Or normal enough, considering Misty Lee’s unabashed embrace of human sexuality. She’d have been the mother who thought it perfectly normal to buy him a prostitute the instant he showed an interest in sex.

  “Hello, Matt.” Evie’s mother was smiling at him like she always did. Inside, his heart twisted. She had no idea what was coming, and he hated that they had to tell her.

  “Mrs. Breaux.”

  She turned back to Evie. “Where’s Sarah?”

  Evie sat on the edge of the bed, holding her mother’s hand. “The doctor says you had a bad fall, but your wrist will heal nicely. Do you remember what happened?”

  Norma sighed, momentarily derailed. “I don’t know. The police asked me the same thing earlier, but all I remember is calling Reynier’s Retreat looking for you. And then I woke up here.”

  Normal reaction to being knocked out. It happened in the field sometimes. Trauma to the head was tricky. Victims often couldn’t remember the events leading up to the incident even when they remembered everything that happened only hours before.

  “They said there was a murder,” she continued. “A man.”

  “Yes. He was my ex-partner.”

  “But who would do such a thing?”

  Evie stroked her mother’s arm with her free hand. “I don’t know, Mama. David was a part of some things I didn’t know about.”

  Norma seemed to process that information. “Where’s Sarah?” She sounded more strident this time as if she knew she’d been derailed and it wasn’t happening again. “I called you because she wasn’t home.”

  “Yes, that’s right.” Evie took her mother’s hand in both of hers. “Matt and I went looking for her. She was with a boy.”

  An understatement, but Norma Breaux didn’t need any extra stress heaped on top of what Evie was about to give her.

  “Is she at home now?”

  Evie looked fierce and determined. She was holding it together well. Strong as ever, his Evie. In spite of the ugliness of the situation, he was filled with a sense of belonging just being here with her. He didn’t have to explain himself to Evie. She glanced up at him as if she could feel him looking at her. Understanding passed between them, and she fixed her gaze on her mother again.

  “No, Mama. The house is a crime scene. We can’t stay there yet.”

  Norma looked perplexed. But then her chest started to rise and fall a little bit faster as her face screwed up in concentration.

  Matt’s alarm levels started rising like high tide in the Gulf. Norma wasn’t going to take the news well. He knew Evie had considered lying to her, telling her Sarah was with a friend. But her mother would insist on speaking to her youngest child and the whole thing would unravel. Evie knew she had to tell the truth, no matter how difficult.

  He shot Evie another look, tilting his head toward the door. She nodded.

  He slipped out to find a nurse or a doctor. He made it to the nurse’s station right before a wail came from the room he’d just vacated. His first instinct was to run back, to help Evie.

  He told the desk nurse what was happening and asked if she could help.

  The woman frowned as she got to her feet. “There’s nothing I can give her after a head injury. But I can give her some pain medication. That might help her sleep.”

  Matt followed her back to the room. Evie was holding her mother, tears streaming down her face as Norma sobbed against her.

  “It’s not right… It’s not right,” Norma said in a choked voice. “Something’s wrong. Something’s happened to her.”

  The nurse hurried over and helped ease Norma back on the pillows.

  “Ms. Breaux, let’s get you your pain meds now. Can you swallow those for me?”

  It took a couple of minutes, but somehow she got Norma to take the pills and sip some water. Norma continued to cry while Evie rubbed her good arm.

  “We’ll find her.” Evie sounded determined. “I promise we’ll find her.”

  Matt slipped out of the room again, feeling like he was intruding on something he shouldn’t. He found a chair in the hall and sat, elbows on the plastic arms, fingers steepled beneath his chin. Somehow, he had to find Sarah. He always detached himself enough to think coldly, to get the job done. This time it was more difficult, and he knew it had to be because of what had happened out in the field—the deaths of his men still weighed heavily on him.

  But Evie depended on him. And Sarah’s life might depend on him getting this right. He wouldn’t allow a child to die when he had the capability of preventing it. No matter how much trouble it got him in with Mendez and the board.

  A long while later, Evie emerged from her mother’s room looking pale and tired. She managed a small smile when she saw him. It sent a sharp pain right to his heart. Matt went and put his arm around her, pulling her in close. She looked up at him with such faith shining in her tear-stained eyes it made his gut twist. She believed he would find her sister. Believed he would bring Sarah home alive.

  He prayed to God it was true.

  *

  The contents of Evie’s sad life were arrayed on the garage floor of the carriage house. She surveyed the mess, feeling a myriad of sensations crashing through her. My God, she’d kept a corkscrew. A flipping corkscrew. As if she couldn’t buy another one when she got settled wherever she ended up.

  She thought of Mama, of the way she’d fallen apart when Evie told her Sarah was missing for real. Evie hated telling her mother her baby was missing. She hadn’t said a word about Matt’s suspicions and she hadn’t said the part that terrified her—that maybe Sarah was already dead. And if so, it was Evie’s fault. Evie’s fault for letting David into her life, for trusting him with
her business. No, she hadn’t known anything was wrong—but maybe she should have.

  She dumped the contents of another box. How had she crammed so much crap into her old VW convertible? Matt looked up from where he was systematically going through a different box.

  “You okay?”

  “Yes.” She scattered linens—monogrammed napkins, given to her by Mama when she’d gone off to start her own business after graduating from culinary school—across the floor. The garage door was open and a steady parade of delivery vehicles came and went with supplies for the wedding. She wondered what was on the reception menu because she needed to think about something normal for a second.

  It didn’t last, however.

  “I don’t think you’ll find a humidor under those, Evie.”

  Probably not, but she was stressed and angry—being destructive seemed to help, if only temporarily. She upended the box and tossed the empty cardboard aside.

  Matt frowned. “We need to focus, chère. Time’s not our friend right now.”

  “I know.” She shoved herself to her feet and grabbed another box. “But I’m beginning to wonder if I kept it after all.”

  “We’ll worry about that later. Let’s get through these boxes first.”

  He was right, but she couldn’t shake a strong sense of futility. At twenty-six years of age, this was all her life held? A car full of random junk?

  Matt must think her pathetic. A girl from the wrong side of town who, ten years later, still had nothing to her name. Why couldn’t she succeed at anything she did?

  She set the box down and sank to the floor beside it. “Why haven’t we heard from whoever murdered David? How do we know they even have Sarah?”

  “We don’t.” He sounded so calm. “But we have to operate based on the simplest assumption. Sarah’s missing, no one has seen her, and someone knocked your mother over the head and killed your ex-partner. It’s all related.”

  “Then why haven’t they called and demanded the humidor?”

  “Maybe they don’t know that’s what they want. Or maybe it’s not what they’re after.”

  Evie set a stack of cooking magazines on the floor beside her. “You’re kind of irritating, you know that?”