Tempe sped past the exits. Lights and sirens blaring, Nast closed the distance between them. Where had he gotten the car? Had he killed a cop?
“He must have been watching the house,” Quinn said. His dark hair glittered with pellets of broken safety glass.
“I told you to watch your ass,” Tempe said. “Hang on.” She put the sedan into a controlled slide as she turned onto a small side road, the asphalt changing to dirt. The vehicle decelerated to sixty miles an hour as she spun the wheel into each skid, regaining control.
“You might want to buckle up,” she said, glancing at Eva out of the corner of her eye and flooring the gas. “This could get tricky.”
“Thanks for the warning,” Quinn said.
“How do we lose him?” Eva asked. There wasn’t anything around them but trees and bushes. Evading someone on a single-track road was improbable, if not impossible.
“We don’t,” Tempe said.
“Then how do you propose to stop him?” she asked.
“Just watch.” Tempe set her mouth in a grim smile.
Eva tightened her grip on the handle above the window. She’d heard stories about Tempe, that it wasn’t just her acting skills that made her a great agent. There were stories about her lack of fear. How she’d charged into the thick of a firefight, firing as she ran like something out of a movie. And there was more. Jumping a motorcycle over a drawbridge. T-boning a car in to capture kidnappers.
Until now, she’d dismissed them as exaggerations—a political excuse used to promote her at the age of twenty-five.
Now, seeing the glint in Tempe’s eyes, red hair flying, Eva wasn’t so sure.
In the backseat, Quinn leaned over in crash position, hands wrapped around his head. And through the broken rear window, Eva watched Nast gain on them, the straight road compensating for his lack of skill.
“Brace yourselves,” Tempe said, taking her foot off the accelerator. The car slowed.
Nast grew closer.
What the hell was she doing? Was she going to let him catch up?
Nast was almost on them. In less than a car length, he’d be able to sideswipe them and knock them off the road.
She jerked the wheel toward the ditch and slammed on the brakes.
Nast clipped their back bumper.
Their car spun, and Eva held on as Tempe fought to keep them from flipping.
…
The world slowed as the car spun like a tilt-a-whirl at a carnival. Glass fragments flew through the air, and Eva bent over and covered her head.
Tempe is insane.
I don’t want to die.
I think I’m going to be sick.
Finally, the spinning slowed, and when she poked her head up, they were at a standstill on the side of the dirt road facing in the direction they’d been driving.
Had Tempe planned that? She spotted Nast’s car. Ahead of them, his stolen vehicle was in the bushes, turtled.
Unbuckling, Eva opened the door and ran toward the car, Quinn on her heels.
When she arrived, she dropped to her knees and peered inside. There was no sign of Nast. She smacked the side of the car with her palm. “Dammit. Where is he?”
A groan was her answer.
Eva rounded the front. Felix’s kidnapper lay on the ground, twenty feet from the wreck and half-hidden by the tall grasses. Covered with dirt, his legs were bent at an unnatural angle. The bones above his right ankle protruded from the skin. His head was a mass of blood. His left cheek was smashed in, the bone visible through a torn flap of skin and muscle.
He might be a kidnapper that had tried to kill them, but a part of her felt pity for the man at her feet.
Not that he deserved her sympathy.
“Should have worn a seatbelt,” she said, kneeling beside him. “Where’s Felix? Where’s Pauline?”
“He can’t hear you,” Quinn said. His shadow fell over her as he took a stance on the other side of the dying man.
“He can hear,” she snapped. She grabbed Nast’s shoulder and shook. He screamed.
A part of her wanted to shake him harder. He was dying, and she needed information only he had. Instead, she released her grip. She wasn’t going to be like him. Not even when he deserved it. “Where are they?” she shouted into his ear.
Quinn knelt down beside her. “Eva, that’s not going to work.”
Eva held up her hands in surrender. “Fine. Make him talk.”
Quinn turned Nast’s face toward him. The man’s blue eyes flickered open, strained with fear and pain. But the right pupil was dilated, filling the iris, while the left was smaller.
Blown pupil. There was blood pouring into his brain. He wasn’t going to last much longer.
“You help us, and we’ll call an ambulance,” Quinn said. “You want to live, don’t you?”
Nast blinked.
“Where are they, Nast? Where did you take Felix?”
Come on. Come on. Tell him.
Nast coughed, spattering blood over Quinn’s jeans. “Talk,” Quinn insisted, as if sensing Nast’s impending termination.
Nast’s eyes flickered backward, whites showing. His breath hitched. Once. Twice.
Then nothing.
“Dammit.” Eva leaned over him and pumped on his chest. “Come back here, you bastard.” He was their last link to Felix and Pauline. If they lost him, they lost everything.
Ribs cracked beneath the pressure of her hands, but Eva kept at it. One. Two. Three. Four.
“Don’t bother. It’s a head wound. Not his heart,” Quinn said.
Out of the corner of her eyes, her partner rose and brushed the dirt off his jeans as he rounded the body. Then, he yanked her to her feet even as she counted the compression thrusts.
Her vision went hazy and red, and Eva jammed an elbow into Quinn’s ribs as she tried to smash his instep. Who did he think he was? Didn’t he care?
She knew how stubborn Felix could be. She’d seen it on more than one occasion when they were in the FARC encampment. He’d defy the guards. Refuse to do as asked. Dig in his heels for no other reason than to prove he still held some power over his own life.
Then the guards would threaten to hurt others if the scientist didn’t do what they wanted.
And he’d comply. Every. Time. Felix was stubborn, but he’d fold when faced with the prospect of others being hurt in his name. And now that the kidnappers had his daughter, who knew what he’d create in order to keep her safe.
Quinn let her go, and she rounded on him, fists flying.
He grabbed her clenched fingers, pulling her toward him, his arms locking around her. “Don’t.”
Her arms wedged against his chest, she glared up at him. “You don’t understand.”
His grip softened. “I’m not the one you want to fight.”
“He can’t die. I’m not going to let him.” She was tired of losing people to the enemy.
“It’s over.” He let his hands drop away, releasing her. “It’s over.”
On the ground, Nast’s unseeing eyes stared at the sky. The fight left her body. “I know.” Her knees weakened as the last of the adrenaline evaporated in the face of utter failure.
He wrapped his arms around her again. This time, his embrace was consoling and brought her to tears.
But she didn’t want to cry. Not in front of him.
“We’ll find Felix,” he whispered in her ear.
“Thanks.” He might be the jerk who broke her heart, but right now, solace was the priority. Not pride. Eva leaned into him.
On the other side of the wrecked cop car, their sedan sputtered back to life. “Move it,” Tempe shouted. Eva stepped out of Quinn’s hold, grateful for the interruption and not caring what Tempe thought. She glanced at the corpse. “What next?” She hid a sniff behind a cough.
“The plan hasn’t changed,” he said. “We hit the Marble Room and see what we can learn.”
True. Nast’s death was unfortunate, but there were others who might be able to give t
hem the info she needed.
She hoped.
She nudged Nast’s body with her toe. There was no way they could leave him here. The body needed to disappear for a few days. If the kidnappers found out one of their flunkies was dead, they might go farther to ground, and she’d never find them. As it is, they were almost proud of their ability to take people and get away with it.
It was best to let them think they were invulnerable. She grabbed Nast’s feet. “Help me carry the body to the car and load it into the trunk.”
…
The Taurus limped to the curb, the muffler hanging on by a single strip of metal and the trunk tied down with Tempe’s jacket.
“Remember. Two days,” Tempe said, referring to their agreement that they had a short time to infiltrate the poker game, get the information they needed, and find both Felix and his daughter. “No more. After that, I expect you to give yourselves up.”
“Deal,” Eva said, not missing the undercurrents. Finish this or not. But either way, you turn yourselves in, or I will bring you in myself. “What are you going to do with Nast and the car?”
“I’ll have to take the dead guy to the local HRS office.”
“Ouch.” Eva winced. Tempe had wanted to avoid involving them, but with a body in the trunk, there wasn’t much choice.
“Yeah, thanks for that.” But she looked less than thrilled. “And I’ll get a message to Harris about the car. If a cop was killed or hurt by Nast, he’d want to know. I know I would.”
“Thanks,” Eva replied. She and Quinn got out of the car, exiting onto 16th Street and next to the Windsor Inn. A European-styled hotel, it was closer to DuPont Circle than the U Street Corridor where Gretchen had told them they might find her brother and his cohorts, but there wasn’t anything else in the area.
Being so close to a neighborhood that thrived on clubs and bars, Eva had been expecting a seedy, sad area. Perhaps trash in the gutters and a few hookers. Instead, there were brick buildings and tree-lined streets, giving it an almost hometown feel.
“Take this,” Tempe called to them before they walked away.
Quinn leaned toward the open driver’s side window, and Eva spotted a flash of green. “That’s all I can do,” she said. “And you can’t ask me for any more help. You want to risk your careers, be my guest. But I’m not going to risk mine.”
But Tempe was already risking her career, and they all knew it, even if no one wanted to admit it aloud.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Eva said.
Without a nod or another word, Tempe guided the car back into the thick D.C. traffic.
Eva sighed in relief that Tempe had been able to drop them off with no police contact. They’d passed a few police vehicles, but none had seemed interested in stopping them.
Perhaps the citywide manhunt was something that only occurred in her imagination. Harris might be eager to find her but not so eager that he was going to admit to the world that he’d lost her.
The sedan disappeared around a corner, and they were truly on their own.
Quinn ducked onto a brick walkway that split the hotel from the building behind it and used the trees and bushes as convenient cover. He opened his hand. In his palm was a small stack of folded dollar bills in a variety of denominations.
Tempe’s gift. She might be tough, but she wasn’t so tough that she’d set them up for failure. “How much?” Eva asked.
He counted. “Five hundred. Plus mine makes almost a thousand.”
“Is it enough to get us into the poker game?”
“It’s going to have to be. If we use the ATM, Harris will use it to track us,” Quinn replied. Behind his yes, she could imagine the calculations. Where was the game? Could he get more money if needed, and if not, what were the alternatives? Gone was the tender man who’d held her only an hour ago.
He was an HRS agent. All business. All the time.
The exact man she needed.
He continued, “Which they’ll figure out soon enough when they catch up and talk to Gretchen.”
“How much time do you think we have?”
“Not much. Tempe won’t offer Harris information, so they’ll have to figure out Nast’s identity and then find Gretchen on their own.” He massaged the furrows on his forehead. “A few days at the most. Maybe only a few hours. In the meantime, we need to get cleaned up. Maybe some food.”
He nodded at the Windsor Hotel next to them. “You wait here. I’ll get us a room.”
“Wait?” There might not be a manhunt for her, but she knew that the longer she remained in the open, the better chance she stood of being spotted.
“Have you seen you?”
He pulled the hem of her shirt out from her body a few inches.
Eva looked down. The green cotton was a mess of dried blood and dirt. “Crap.”
And her hands.
She hadn’t noticed, but they were equally grisly. Granted, the blood was dried, but still, how could people not know what it was?
She could only imagine what her face looked like.
She ducked farther into the bushes, arms over her chest trying to hide the worst of the stains. “Why didn’t you say anything? I probably scared the hell out of anyone who saw me. I’m surprised no one called the police.”
“I’m not. Most people are normal. They’ll assume it’s mud. But I’d rather not take a chance that the clerk will recognize either you or the stains.”
Now that she had seen the filth, she was itching to take a shower. It wasn’t the first time she’d been bloodied from an encounter with a hired thug, but standing in the open made it seem more like something to be ashamed of rather than a badge of honor. “I’m disgusting.”
“Like I said, wait here. I’ll let you in through a side door.”
Eva rolled her eyes but waited, and minutes later, Quinn came walking out from behind the hotel. She hurried across the street and through the exit door that he’d propped open, down the quiet hallway, and into his room.
A king-size bed occupied the majority of the space. “A bit presumptuous, don’t you think?” she said, glancing from the bed and back to Quinn again.
“It’s supposed to be just me. Why wouldn’t I want a king?”
Why not, indeed? The sly thought crossed her mind followed by others she’d rather avoid. The sharp contrast of his calloused hands and gentle touch as he gave her a massage. How he liked to wash her hair.
Or how he’d loved her. His body joined with her in sweat and heat.
She swallowed back the unexpected desire that accompanied the memories and tossed a pillow and some of the blankets on to the floor. “There ya go.” If she planned to keep her sanity, there was no way she could share a bed with him. Not now. Not ever.
His brows went up. “I paid.”
“Shower now. Argue later.” She headed toward the bathroom, closed the door, and leaned against the cool wood. Shutting her eyes, she ran through the day’s events, wondering if they could have saved Nast. But she knew the answer. No. And there was no guilt in his death. Only frustration that they’d lost their last link to Felix and his daughter.
That was her biggest problem now.
Eva stripped, adjusted the water to almost scalding, and stepped in, scrubbing the last twenty-four hours off her skin and letting it slip down the drain. Once the hot water ran clear of blood and grime, she stepped out and wrapped a towel around herself.
Human again.
She glanced at her discarded dirty clothes. Much too human to put those back on again. She kicked the pile to one side with her foot. Let Quinn get an eyeful. She wasn’t putting that heap of sweat and gore back on.
She stepped into the bedroom, and steam billowed around her.
Quinn was nowhere in sight.
Abandoned already.
Not that she truly believed it. He was a workaholic with a “save the damsel” complex who was incapable of ditching a woman he thought needed him.
And she needed him, whether she wanted t
o admit it or not.
Sitting on the edge of the bed—the king-sized bed—she ran her fingers through her hair, detangling it as best she could. The door lock clicked. She shot to her feet and pressed herself to the wall and out of sight. If the person on the other side was anyone besides her partner, she’d need the element of surprise, since it seemed her only weapon was the towel.
“Eva?” The question sounded concerned, and just like Quinn.
She stepped out. “I wasn’t sure who it would be.”
“I bought...” His voice died off as he scanned her from ankle to forehead, hesitating at the top edge of the thin, white towel.
Heat followed his gaze—king-sized bed.
It’s just Quinn, she reminded herself. He’d seen her naked before.
But past experience told her how that usually ended—his clothes on the floor and hours spent touching, kissing, and making each other crazy with need.
And when both were satiated, she’d fall asleep, wrapped in his safety of his arms.
Drop the towel. See what happens.
A desire she thought she’d forgotten whispered the suggestion, daring her to give in. One. More. Time.
Instead, she clamped a firm hold on both her emotions and the corner of the scrap of nearly threadbare terrycloth. “What’s that? Food?” Her voice squeaked.
“Yeah.” He shook his head, his glazed eyes refocusing... “No. Clothes.” He tossed her a piece of blood-red fabric.
She caught it midair. A single piece of stretch jersey with spaghetti straps and a few fake rhinestones following the neckline. She held it against the towel. “What is this?”
“A dress.”
“If I was a stripper.” She shook the tiny piece of fabric at him.
Slowly, his gaze followed the curve of her body, but this time there was no sense of intimacy. It was more of a calculation. “It’ll fit.”
She envied his ability to turn off desire like one would turn off a tap. Of all the things he taught her, he’d left that one out.
She held the flimsy dress against herself again. The hem would land only a few inches below her butt cheeks. “They didn’t have anything that came above the crotch?” Next, he’d be asking her to go commando.
“Sadly, no.”
Risking It All for Her Boss: A Heroes for Hire novel (Entangled Ignite) Page 10