“I’m there.”
“Good. I’m passing that resort that looks kind of like a castle,” he told her. He was very close. Not two minutes away after all.
“I’m sorry,” Gina said. “I know you don’t need this right now.”
“I’m sorry, too,” he said, and he actually sounded as if he meant it.
And then there he was.
Max.
His headlights swept across her as he pulled in to the parking lot. He got out of his car and ran toward her. He’d thrown a long raincoat over—no way!—plaid pajama pants and a gray T-shirt that had a picture of Snoopy dressed up in an aviator helmet and scarf to fight the Red Baron. He’d jammed his feet into a beat-up pair of sneakers, his hair looked like he’d gone straight from his bed into his car, and he definitely hadn’t shaved in the past three or four hours.
It was such a far cry from his usual dress code, she started to laugh. It was either that or burst into tears.
He pocketed his phone as he approached, as he looked at her hard, making sure she really was okay.
“Plaid, Max?” she said.
“If you mention it to anyone,” he said, “I’ll flatly deny it.” He pulled her into his arms and hugged her as hard as he’d looked at her, but it was way too brief. He set her aside and stepped into her room. “Wait out here.”
He actually had a gun.
Gina hadn’t really thought about the fact that as an FBI agent, Max carried and knew how to use a gun. Holding it like that, with that steely look in his eyes, he looked dangerous. Even with the plaid pajama pants and the bed-head.
But a gun was just a gun. Having one in your hand didn’t shield you from the other guy’s bullets.
“Be careful,” she called, then held her breath as he checked under the beds and in the closet.
He vanished into the bathroom, and she could hear the sound of the shower curtain being pulled back.
And then he was coming toward her, reholstering his weapon. “All clear.”
“Thank God. Thank you.” Gina stepped back into the room, closing the screen behind her as her heart started to beat again.
“Is anything missing?” His Snoopy T-shirt was faded and worn, clearly a favorite. It hugged a chest that may have been forty-two years old but looked nothing like her father’s. Not that it would have mattered to her if it had.
“I don’t know. I had my wallet with me. My plane ticket’s electronic, so …” She looked around. “Oh, shit. My CDs and my Walkman.”
“Try not to touch anything as you look,” Max told her.
She’d put her laptop into her suitcase and locked it shut. It was still there, thank goodness. But several pieces of jewelry—all inexpensive trinkets with only sentimental value—were gone.
Along with … She started to laugh. “They stole my underwear.” They actually stole all of it—her running bras, too. “Oh, man …”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.” She gestured to the drawer that was open and empty. “See?”
“I meant, are you sure you didn’t put it somewhere else?”
“Yes, I am, but feel free to search for it.”
“Why would someone steal underwear?” he asked.
“Because the TV was bolted to the dresser?” Gina countered as he opened the other drawers, using the edge of his raincoat to keep his prints off the knobs.
Outside the door, the police were pulling in to the lot.
“Oh, this is going to be fun,” she said. “ ‘Can you describe your missing underwear, Ms. Vitagliano?’ ‘Well, yes, Officer, I could, but I just might give you a heart attack.’ ”
“Is anything else missing?” Max asked. “Anything of real value?”
“Hey,” Gina said. “That was two paychecks’ worth of goods from Victoria’s Secret.”
“I didn’t particularly want to know that,” Max muttered as he escaped out the door.
“That’s four weeks of me going commando before I have the money to buy it back,” she called after him. That wasn’t true. She had the money in the bank. But she was determined. Before this night was through, she was going to push Max past his breaking point.
“Any medication or prescription drugs missing?” the young detective who’d introduced himself as Ric Alvarado asked Gina as they stood in her motel room.
Max had stayed silent through most of this, letting the locals do their job. But now Gina glanced over at him. “I, uh, didn’t look.”
“Would you mind checking?” Alvarado asked. He had one of those ridiculous soul patches under his lower lip, and since he’d come in, he’d spent more time looking at Gina than looking around the room.
She went into the bathroom, and the detective turned to Max. Alvarado hadn’t missed that look Gina had shot in Max’s direction, and knew what it meant. It was possible he was a decent detective after all.
“Would you mind waiting outside, sir?” he said in a low voice. “Your being in the room might make it hard for your daughter to be forthcoming about whatever prescriptions she might have had stolen—birth control pills or antidepressants or whatever.”
His daughter.
“We’ve had a rash of break-ins in this area,” Alvarado continued, apparently not noticing that Max was now grinding whatever was left of his teeth into stubs, “and it’s usually always CDs and whatever’s in the medicine cabinet. We’re pretty sure it’s the same group of kids.”
Gina was already coming out of the bathroom.
“She’s not my daughter,” Max told Alvarado, making sure that she heard him say it. “Although I can understand why you might have thought that she was.”
Alvarado was embarrassed. “Sorry, I—”
“Max is actually my own private stalker,” Gina told him. “And yes, I’m missing some sleeping pills.” She gave Max a challenging look that said “So now you know I have a prescription for sleeping pills.”
As if he hadn’t already known that.
Alvarado, boy detective, really didn’t like that stalker comment. So Max sighed and pulled out his ID and handed it to the young man, while he shook his head at Gina in a silent reprimand.
The detective recognized his name and nearly crapped his pants as he tried to remember if he’d said anything else that might’ve offended the Great Max Bhagat, Law Enforcement Legend.
Max let the little bastard squirm. “You need her for anything else?” he asked as he repocketed his ID wallet. “Or can I get her moved to a more secure location now?”
“We’re done here, sir,” Alvarado said. “And I’m sorry I didn’t realize who you were—”
Gina was looking at Max like he’d grown a second head. “Excuse me? I’m not going anywhere.”
“Yeah,” he said. “You are. Pack your stuff. I’m moving you to my hotel.”
“To your room?” she asked.
Their eyes locked, and Max knew with temperature-raising certainty that she wanted to share a room, a bed, bodily fluids. With him. She wanted him. Right now. Tonight. All he had to do was say yes. “No.”
She turned away. “Then I’m not going.”
He reached down deep for whatever patience he had left. There wasn’t much there. “Gina.”
“Max,” she said with the exact same inflection.
“What do you need to happen?” he asked. “Your room was broken into.”
“By kids. Right, Ric?”
Alvarado was pretending not to pay attention, but now he turned back to them. “Uh, yeah. And these doors are easy to jimmy when you’re out of the room, but with the night lock on they’re—” He saw from Max’s face that he wasn’t helping. “—safe. I’ll go, um … Go.” He looked at Gina. “I’ll let you know if we find your CDs or your, uh …” He cleared his throat.
“Underwear,” she supplied.
“Yeah, but to be honest, it’s not likely you’ll get it back. And if you do, you might want to burn it.”
“Interesting.” Gina gave him a smile. “A man actually sugges
ting that a woman burn her bras.”
Ric laughed aloud, but his broad grin quickly faded when he glanced at Max. “Sorry, sir. I’m going now.”
He closed the door behind him.
“Don’t you get tired of that?” Gina asked. “People treating you like you’re God?” She sat down on one of the beds. “Of course it doesn’t help when you give them your death glare.”
“Please,” Max said. “Let me get you a room where I know you’ll be safe.”
“I’ve already paid for this room. I don’t want to spend more money.”
“I’ll pay for it,” he told her.
“But I like it here. And Ric seemed to think I’ll be safe.”
“Ric’s a fucking child who’s been a detective for about two weeks,” Max countered. He closed his eyes. Shit, shit, shit. “I’m sorry. I’m—”
“Tired?” she supplied. “I am, too, Max.” She stood up, moved toward him. “Maybe if you stay here with me, we’ll both finally be able to sleep.”
Jesus Christ, she didn’t let up. It took every ounce of self-control he had in him not to rip off his raincoat and throw her back down on that bed and—
How could he even think of having that kind of rough sex with someone who’d—
Someone he’d let get—
They’d had to stitch her back up. He’d seen the hospital reports. Brutal didn’t begin to describe it.
“I can’t stay, and you goddamn know it!” Ah, Christ, he was losing it, transforming totally into Max the raving lunatic. The wall puncher. The asshole. “Don’t you goddamn make me sit out in my car, in that parking lot, all night long! If you don’t come with me, that’s what I’m going to have to do, and I’m too goddamn old for that shit!”
He was shouting now—although not about what he really wanted to shout about—and she stopped moving closer. Yeah, that’s right, honey. Meet the real Max Bhagat.
“You want to know why I don’t get tired of people treating me like God?” he told her, practically foaming at the mouth. “Because when they treat me like God, they do what I say! Three hundred million people in this country and everyone treats me like God—except you!”
“That’s because I’m in love with Max the man,” she told him, her voice shaking—because, Jesus Christ, was she actually afraid of him?
When he got like this, he was afraid of him.
He had to get out of here, especially when he paid attention to the words she’d said and not just the tone of her voice. Love.
No. No. Love wasn’t this crazy, emotional tornado. Love was what he had with Alyssa Locke. Love was a comfortable blend of attraction and friendship and passion. Controlled passion.
Not this blinding mix of anger and frustration and howling, gut-wrenching, consuming desire for someone he couldn’t have. Someone he would only hurt if he gave in to his desperate, obsessive need to possess her.
“It’s not love, it’s transference,” he told her harshly as he headed for the door.
She didn’t say another word, but the expression on her face nearly brought him to his knees.
“Lock this door,” he ordered, damn near snarling. “I’ll be in the car.”
Mary Lou sat up in her bed, suddenly wide awake.
She sat in the dark, listening, her heart pounding.
Something was wrong.
It was the same feeling she used to get when she left her curling iron on before going to work.
It was a sense of unease. Something had been forgotten or overlooked. She’d slipped up somewhere, and he was going to find her.
At three o’clock in the morning, she was more often convinced than not that he was going to find her.
The man who’d killed her sister.
The man who’d smuggled those weapons into the naval base, in the trunk of her car.
A man she could identify, pick out of a lineup, help convict, and send to jail.
Provided anyone would believe her. After all, she knew her fingerprints were on that gun. She would bet her life his weren’t.
He didn’t seem to realize that if she came forward, if she called, say, Alyssa Locke, Sam’s FBI girlfriend—Lord, she’d probably already moved into the house with Sam. If Mary Lou called the bitch on the phone and said, “I think you’re probably looking for me,” she was the one who would go to jail.
And then, while she was in prison, she’d get a knife stuck in her heart, because that’s what always happened, at least in the movies. Bad guys always had connections inside the prison, and she’d end up bleeding to death, staring up at the gray ceiling of the prison cafeteria.
But at least Haley would be safe.
Mary Lou’s biggest nightmare was that he would find her, and he would pump a bullet into Haley’s head first, while Mary Lou was forced to watch.
She reached over and turned on the light on her bedside table. Although what good that did, she didn’t really know. All it meant was that she’d see death coming.
Unless he shot her the way he’d shot Janine. In the back of the head.
Mary Lou got up and checked on Haley, who was fast asleep, holding tightly to her Pooh Bear—as if she’d fight to the death before letting anyone take it from her.
Sam had given her that bear—or at least he’d given her its predecessor. But Haley couldn’t tell the difference between New Pooh and Pooh-who-had-been-left-behind, thank the Lord, or there’d be hell to pay.
It was funny—and surely just a coincidence—that Sam should be able to guess so precisely the type of stuffed toy Haley would adore.
She felt a pang of guilt. He’d made plans to come and visit Haley a number of times, but she’d always canceled on him. She’d been terrified even back then that he would be followed by …
Bob Schwegel.
It was such a friendly-sounding name for a cold-blooded killer. A sister killer. A presidential assassination conspirator. An insurance salesman impersonator—was that a crime? Surely Bob Schwegel was an alias.
Mary Lou lightly touched her sleeping daughter’s cheek before moving to the other bed to check on Amanda.
Both girls were fast asleep.
She turned on the baby monitor that she didn’t normally use at night because her own room was nearby, and went back into her own bedroom. Slipping on her robe and slippers, she found the huge ring of keys Mrs. Downs had given her that afternoon before she’d left for her niece’s wedding.
She took the monitor and headed down the hall, stopping briefly to listen for the sound of Whitney’s steady breathing from her bedroom.
Once she was down the stairs, she turned on the lights, leaving them blazing as she went.
Past the dining room.
Past the kitchen.
Past the laundry room.
She turned and went back and into the laundry room, taking an empty laundry basket from the stack by the door.
Then she went on.
Past the library.
Down the corridor.
King Frank’s office was locked, but she and Whitney and the two little girls were the only people here in this great big house, and she had the keys.
It took her a solid ten minutes of trial and error before Mary Lou found the key that opened the door.
She didn’t turn on the overhead lamp, she just let the light shine in from the hallway as she crossed the plush carpeting and set down the basket and opened the wall of cabinets behind King Frank’s desk.
And there they were. Frank Turlington’s vast collection of guns. Firearms, Sam would’ve called them. Whitney’s father had everything from hunting rifles to pre-Revolutionary War flintlocks to teeny little handguns a gangster’s moll would hide in her garter to Wild West six-shooters. Not to mention the three racks of assault weapons.
He had everything you could possibly need to keep an invading horde from storming the King’s castle.
They were locked behind glass that she’d heard King Frank boast about.
It was unbreakable. You could hit it with a ti
re iron and you still wouldn’t get through it.
But Mary Lou didn’t need a tire iron.
Because tonight she had the keys.
At three-thirty, Max called Alyssa.
“Oh, good,” she said. “I needed to talk to you, but I didn’t want to wake you up.”
Max laughed, looking at the light still burning behind Gina’s window curtain. “You actually thought I was sleeping?”
“I know how to get Sam to surrender,” she steamrolled over him. “If you give him forty-eight hours before he needs to come in for questioning, I’ll deliver him—and probably Mary Lou, too, because he’s extremely motivated to find her—to the Sarasota office.”
“I thought we were working on a plan to apprehend him tomorrow morning.”
“We are,” she said. “We’re ready with that, of course. But there’s no guarantee it’ll work. This way, you’ll have them both in forty-eight hours.”
It was entirely possible Gina slept with the light on.
“He wants to find his daughter,” Alyssa said, “and get her safely set up with a relative before he and Mary Lou both turn themselves in.”
“He told you that.”
Max hadn’t asked it as a question, but she answered it. “Yes.”
And you believed him. Crap. He’d called her to talk about Gina. He’d called because he was going crazy and he needed her as a friend. But she was so wrapped up in what was going on with Sam Starrett, that she didn’t even notice the desperation in his voice.
Gina’s curtain moved, and he saw the pale flash of her face as she looked out at him. No, no, no. Don’t come outside.
“Marry me,” he said to Alyssa, “and I’ll give him twenty-four hours.”
It was so obviously the wrong thing to say or do—to bring their relationship into this negotiation.
Alyssa made an exasperated sound, and Max’s heart sank even farther. She was so personally invested in this negotiation, she didn’t even realize that he was messing with her head. “For someone who tries so hard not to be guilty of sexual harassment, you can be an incredible asshole. Sir.”
“I was kidding.”
“Not completely.”
Yeah. The bitch of it was, she was right.
“Help me,” Max said, “I’m in over my head.” But he said it without opening his mouth, without making a sound. Please God, let her hear him anyway.
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