Bodyguard

by Suzanne Brockmann

  “You’re a …” She couldn’t say it.

  “Start with bastard. I’m a bastard. Come on, Allie. The word’s barely even offensive. Try it. Bastard.”

  “You …”

  “… stinking sack of shit.” He laughed at the look on her face. “Yeah, you’re so polite, but I know you want to say it.”

  “I …”

  “… hate you, you scum-sucking loser. Asshole. Dick-head. Multiple choice, Al. I’m making it even easier for you.”

  “I thought you might be special.” She finally forced the words out. “I thought you were better than the others.”

  Silence.

  Harry stared at the road, all laughter gone from his face. “Yeah, well. You were wrong, huh?”

  She had been wrong. But he couldn’t begin to guess how badly she wished she hadn’t been.

  Ten

  AS HARRY GOT back into the car, Alessandra stirred. She’d been asleep for close to seven hours. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen someone sleep that ferociously in a car. He’d had to pull over to the side of the road two different times to take a leak—he didn’t dare leave her alone in the car at a rest stop and it seemed a shame to wake her.

  But this phone call could no longer wait. He’d pulled the car as close as he could to the phone booth, so she’d be able to see him if she did wake up.

  But it wasn’t until he squeezed himself back into the subcompact, jarred his broken rib, and swallowed a curse of pain that her eyelashes began to flutter.

  Harry put the car in gear and got back on the interstate, watching out the rearview mirror for many miles, still making sure Ivo wasn’t following them.

  But there was no one in the mirror. They were completely alone on the road.

  Dawn was pushing up past the flat horizon behind them, and in the growing light, Harry let himself look at Alessandra. He’d been watching her off and on all night, in the light from the dashboard.

  Watching her sleep.

  Letting himself look at her—really look, without having to worry that she’d catch him staring.

  Amazed that she had kissed him the way she did.

  Listening to her snore.

  He liked that she snored. Liked that beneath her facade was a real, flawed human being. A real woman with a deviated septum.

  The motion of the car and the sound of the engine had put her back to sleep, but it wasn’t a good, solid sleep. It was fitful, filled with movement and soft noises.

  Harry had spent half the night trying not to think about that way she’d kissed him, and the other half trying not to think about the fact that she wasn’t likely to kiss him again, any time in the near future.

  But oh, God, her kiss had been seventeen million times better than his daydreams and fantasies. And he was no amateur when it came to fantasies.

  The ice princess thing was just an act. Beneath the snazzy hairstyles, designer clothes, perfect makeup, fancy perfume, and cool, polite voice was a woman with molten hot lava running through her veins.

  If he hadn’t been part of the conspiracy that nearly got her killed, he knew he would’ve spent last night in her bed. He would’ve had sex again. He actually wanted, really, really wanted to have sex again. It wasn’t that he hadn’t wanted it before, he just hadn’t really wanted it that badly, and it never seemed to be worth the effort.

  Sex with Alessandra would be worth the effort. After that kiss, he knew that for a fact.

  Sweet God, if this had played out differently, he could have been fast asleep right now, with his arms still around her, her perfect body tucked next to his, his face buried in her sweet-smelling hair. He could have been sated and truly relaxed for the first time in years.

  But no, instead, she hated him. She was never going to smile at him again, let alone touch him, never mind get naked with him. It wasn’t going to happen, and the sooner he stopped thinking about it, the better.

  Alessandra made a sound that was a cross between a sigh and a cry, and Harry glanced at her. She made it again—it was a fearful sound. Harry put his hand on her knee and shook her slightly.

  “Nightmare,” he said. “It’s just a nightmare. Wherever you think you are, you’re not there. You’re here, and you’re safe.”

  He glanced up at her face, and her eyes were open. She was still breathing hard, but she was awake. He squeezed her knee before he released it. “You okay, Al?”

  She looked around, looked at the car, at the endless flat highway stretching out in front of them forever, at the morning light streaking across the sky, at him. She drew in a deep breath and let it out very slowly.

  “I can’t believe any of this is real.”

  “It’s not too late to go back.”

  “Yes, it is.” She closed her eyes. “I was dreaming about the dog. You know, I did it again.”

  “Did what again?”

  She opened her eyes. They were almost colorless in the pale light. She didn’t look at him. She just stared up at the hole in the fabric that lined the car’s roof. “I sat there and waited to die.”

  She was talking about yesterday. About when Ivo aimed his gun at her head.

  “It was as if I were five years old again, staring up at that attack dog.” She turned and looked squarely at him. “I’ve decided I’m never going to let myself be that helpless again. That’s why I can’t go back.”

  “And you’re convinced you can hide yourself better than an organization that specializes in hiding people from bad guys?”

  “From what I’ve seen, yes. The Witness Protection Program didn’t do a very good job of keeping me safe, did it?”

  “Whereas you will, yourself?”

  She lifted her chin defiantly. “There’s obviously a lot I’ll need to learn. But there’s got to be some book in the library that will tell me what to do. How to hide.”

  A book from the library? Harry concealed his laughter with a cough. She was going to get a book.

  “The setup was a complete goatfuck, I’ll grant you that.” He took a sip from a can of Pepsi he’d opened four hundred miles ago. It was warm and flat, but it contained caffeine. Christ, he was tired, and she was going to get a book. “Despite that, you’re alive, right? Whatever we did wrong, we still managed to keep you alive. That’s got to be worth something.”

  “I’m alive because of you, not your task force, not the Witness Protection Program,” she pointed out. “If you, Harry O’Dell, hadn’t been there, I’d be dead right now.”

  “Speaking of dead right now,” Harry said, “George is out of intensive care. He’s going to be okay. I just called New York.”

  “Thank God.”

  “Thank you,” he said quietly. “You saved his life, Al.”

  “I saved his life, you saved my life.” Alessandra held open her hands in frustration. “That still doesn’t make any of it okay. No one should have been shooting at us in the first place. If I had died, your task force would have been as responsible for my death as Michael Trotta.”

  “Hey, as long we’re slinging blame, you need to do a little inner soul-searching yourself, sweetheart. You made it pretty damned easy for Trotta to find you. We leaked your general whereabouts to him, but you did the rest. All he had to do was have Ivo ask around, see if any woman who looked like a supermodel had moved into the area.”

  “I don’t look like a supermodel.”

  “A movie star, then.” Harry shrugged. “You aren’t the average, ordinary Paul’s River farmer’s wife, that’s for sure.”

  “But I didn’t even leave the house!”

  “You didn’t have to. All you had to do was drive through town, the way you did, and pick up the keys to the house at the real estate office. You were in the backseat of that car looking like you’d lost your way to a power lunch at Schazti’s on Main with your agent. People noticed you.”

  Alessandra shook her head. “That’s crazy. I was just sitting there.”

  “How many people do you think noticed you that day?” />
  Alessandra shrugged. “I have no idea.”

  “Guess.”

  She sighed, shaking her head. “I don’t know—two or three?”

  “Try twenty-five. At least. And of those twenty-five—and those twenty-five are the ones we know about, there may have been more—most of ’em mentioned you to some significant other or friend, who mentioned you to someone else. We found this out when we canvassed the area after the shooting at the Stop and Shop. The people in this town knew that someone incredibly beautiful had moved into the old Archer house on Devlin Road.” Harry glanced at her. “And, for your information, even if only two or three people had noticed you, it still would have been too many. People in town still would have been talking about you.” He gave her a moment to think about that. “Do you really want to stay alive?”

  She didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

  “Then you have to become invisible, Allie. The clothes you bought when you went shopping with Christine McFall …” He shook his head. “They don’t make you invisible.” He looked at her outfit, a form-fitting black blouse, a pair of silky, flowing black trousers, high-heeled shoes. Christ. She should look rumpled from sleeping all night in the car. Instead she looked ready for a high-fashion photo shoot. “Did you pack all those clothes?”

  “Of course.”

  “Where are they?”

  Alessandra blinked at him. “In my overnight bag. On the backseat.”

  “Open it, will you?” Harry finished the Pepsi. They were going to have to stop soon to get some coffee. He was exhausted. On the other hand, all he had to do to stay awake was breathe. Every time he inhaled, his side felt as if it were on fire. He took a deep breath. Ouch.

  Alessandra didn’t move. “You want me to …?”

  “Grab your bag and open it,” he said patiently. “You have about three pairs of really tight pants somewhere in there. One black, one gray, and one navy blue, I think. Get ’em out. We need to talk about your clothes.”

  “They’re leggings,” she informed him, wrestling the cheap nylon bag George had bought for her up into the front seat.

  “Whatever. And that black turtleneck,” Harry said. “The tight one with the lines.”

  “It’s a rib knit,” she said, unzipping the bag and rummaging around.

  “Rib knit. At last. My life is surely more complete now that I know that.” Harry took the leggings and the sweater from her and held them up. “Tight,” he said. “Too tight, too nice. You look too good in this stuff.” He put them on his lap then reached directly into her bag and pulled out two very tiny T-shirts, one plain white, the other olive green. They were remarkably soft to the touch. That blue sweater she’d worn the other day. “These looked very nice on you, too. Very flattering to your figure. What else you got in there?”

  “Not much. A few more shirts. A skirt. A pair of jeans.”

  “The same style as that black pair you wore yesterday?”

  “Yes, but in blue.”

  “Let me see.” Harry dropped the T-shirts into his lap with the other clothing as he took the jeans from her. Yes, they were definitely cut to be formfitting. “And the skirt?”

  She held it up. It was black and very short. Very sexy. It would make her long legs seem even longer. He took it and put it in the growing pile then reached into the bag for the last two shirts. One was an oversize T-shirt. He tossed that back, along with several satin panties and a lacey bra. It didn’t matter what she wore underneath her clothes. No one was going to see it.

  Especially not him—a thought that hurt him worse than the pain in his ribs.

  The last shirt was a tank top. He hadn’t seen her wear it, but he didn’t have to. He had a good imagination. Too good at times. He put the tank top in the pile.

  “Those shoes you’re wearing,” he said. “Give one to me, will you?”

  With an exasperated sigh, she slipped one of her shoes off and handed it to Harry. “Why?”

  “High heel,” he said. “Too high. Too sexy. You’re going to want to stick to flats from now on, probably even just wear sneakers.”

  He moved into the left lane, rolled down his window, and tossed all of Alessandra’s new clothes and her shoe out of the car.

  “Oh, my God!” She spun in her seat, watching as her clothes hit the ground seventy-five miles an hour, getting caught in the brush. “Oh, my God!” She stared at him, aghast. “Why did you do that? Are you completely out of your mind?”

  “You told me you want to stay alive.”

  “Stop this car!” She was furious. “Stop this car right now and back up and get me my clothes!”

  “Can’t do that. Backing up on the highway is against the law. And as a federal agent—”

  She punched him. She actually hit him in the arm. “You idiot! That was everything I owned in the whole world! And you just threw it all away! Oh, God, how could you do that?”

  “You couldn’t have worn any of it, Al. It would’ve gotten you killed.”

  “I refuse to believe I can’t wear nice clothes, that I can’t just be quietly attractive—”

  He raised his voice to talk above her. “Quietly attractive? Are you nuts?” He gestured to what she was wearing. “This isn’t quietly attractive! This is full twenty-trumpet fanfare. Everybody look quick because here comes one of the ten most beautiful women on earth. This sets off alarms and bells and whistles. There’s nothing even remotely quiet about this!”

  “Okay, so maybe in your opinion, I need to tone it down a little, but—”

  “No buts. No maybes.”

  “I tried not to go overboard with the makeup, but when I looked into the mirror, with my hair this color … I just couldn’t stand looking so sallow.” She shook her head. “It was the same thing when we went shopping. These clothes were all so cheap, I thought—”

  “They don’t look cheap on you.”

  “But—”

  “What do you want, Allie? Do you want to be able to hide, to blend in with a crowd? Or do you want to keep on being the beauty queen, wearing clothes that will make people look at you? You can’t have it both ways.”

  “You make it sound as if I’m Helen of Troy. I’m not that beautiful.”

  “Don’t be coy. You know exactly what you look like. When you walk into a room, people turn to look at you. Men turn to look at you.”

  “But don’t you see?” she burst out. “Being beautiful is all I’ve ever done. It’s all I’m good at!”

  Christ, she was serious. “If that’s really the case, then it’s definitely time for you to learn some new skills. You know, plumbers get paid a shitload—”

  “Stop making this into some kind of joke!”

  “You want dead serious? If you dress so that people notice you, sooner or later Trotta will find you. And if you’re lucky, he’ll have someone put a bullet in your head. If you’re not, he’ll bring you back to New York and let his dog tear you apart for an afternoon snack. How’s that for dead serious?”

  She had gone pale. “Now you’re just trying to scare me.”

  “Bottom line, Al. Unless you agree that the best way for you to hide is by completely—and I mean completely—altering your appearance, I’m not taking you to Colorado. I’m not going to risk my kids getting caught in the cross fire when Trotta’s men finally catch up with you. And they will catch up with you.”

  “I have altered my—”

  “No, you haven’t.”

  She pulled down the sun visor and flipped open the vanity mirror on the other side and looked at herself. “I look completely different with my hair this color. And I’ve never worn this style of clothing in my entire life!”

  Again, she was serious. She actually believed she looked different enough to hide from Michael Trotta.

  “Sorry.” He gestured toward her again. “But this doesn’t cut it. You’re going to have to trust me on this one. From now on, you wear nothing tight, nothing that really fits, nothing even remotely fashionable.”

  “I can’t be
lieve—”

  “Believe it. Think about the word hide. If you hide, no one can see you, right? You can do it by locking yourself away from the world. Or you can do it by making yourself invisible, making it so that no one gives you a second glance. Invisible. Think about what that means.”

  Alessandra started to speak but stopped herself. She sat silently, eyes closed and hands pressed against her forehead as the miles rolled past.

  When she did speak, her voice was subdued. “There’s no other option?”

  “Plastic surgery.” He glanced at her. “Completely change your face.”

  “No other viable option?”

  “Not that I’m aware of, but next town we go through, we can stop and see if the library has a copy of Hiding from the Mob in Ten Easy Steps. Maybe there’ll be some tip in there that I’ve missed.”

  She shot him a dark look. “Very funny.”

  He laughed. “Actually, it was pretty funny. George really would’ve liked it.”

  “I have no money.” Her voice shook slightly, but she cleared her throat and when she spoke again, she sounded as cool as ever. “How am I supposed to buy these new ugly clothes that will render me magically invisible?”

  “My treat,” Harry told her. She shot him another look. “Sorry. Bad choice of expression. Look, Al, we’ll be coming up on Louisville just about when the stores open. We’ll find a Target or a Kmart or an Uglyland or whatever they have out here.”

  “Uglyland,” Alessandra murmured. “That’s just great.”

  “We’ll take care of your hair, then, too.”

  She looked at him. “Mousy brown?”

  He nodded. “Mousy brown.”

  She nodded, too, looking out the window so he wouldn’t see that she was blinking back tears. “Do me one favor, Harry,” she said. “Try to enjoy this just a little bit less.”

  “You have a visitor.”

  George opened his eyes to find the nurse standing over his bed. It was amazing. He’d survived being shot, survived surgery, survived an incredible loss of blood and all those transfusions. They finally pulled him out of ICU, giving him a permission slip to celebrate the fact that his life wasn’t over yet, and what did they do?