In His Safekeeping

by Shawna Delacorte

  “Duck!” Brad pushed Tara to the pavement behind a parked car then dived for cover as he reached inside his jacket for his gun. A shot rang out, ricocheting off the concrete with a loud ping. A second shot and then a third followed before the black car sped out of the parking lot and down the street toward the harbor and ferryboat dock.

  Brad jumped to his feet, yelling at Tara over his shoulder as he charged across the parking lot. “You stay here.”

  He ran out into the street, gun drawn and the safety off. He came to an abrupt halt. A raging frustration coursed through his body as he stood in the middle of the street and watched helplessly as the car disappeared around the corner. A quick glance around told him there weren’t any witnesses to what had happened. Being the off season, the island population had drastically decreased. He holstered his gun and returned to the parking lot…only he didn’t see Tara.

  He ran toward the car where he had shoved her out of the way. He froze in his tracks. The acrid taste of fear filled his mouth. She lay on the ground where he had left her, a red smear of blood on her forehead.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Tara…” Brad kneeled beside her, a sick feeling rising in his throat. His hands trembled as he touched his fingers to her neck. A wave of relief settled over him when he found a strong pulse. He carefully cradled her limp body in his arms. A hollow sensation started in the pit of his stomach, then guilt shoved it to every part of his consciousness. He quickly and efficiently checked her before trying to move her. The blood on her forehead gave the only evidence of any type of injury.

  He smoothed back her hair and found the source of the blood. It appeared that a ricocheting bullet had grazed her forehead close to the hairline. It was a minor superficial injury that was no more than a scratch, so why was she unconscious? He made a quick survey of the parking lot. The confrontation, screeching tires and shots hadn’t aroused any curiosity.

  Brad scooped her up in his arms and carried her the few remaining yards to the room. He placed her on the bed, then dampened a washcloth and gently dabbed at the blood on her forehead until he had it cleaned away and could get a clear look at her injury. No new blood appeared. It was a good sign. He took the first-aid kit from his duffel bag and applied antiseptic. She was still unconscious.

  He touched her cheek and hair. Someone had managed to track them down in a location that had been a last-minute decision on their part for a place to go. How had that happened? A flash of anger ignited, followed by a feeling of helplessness and frustration. Part of his job entailed protecting people, yet he had not been able to keep his wife safe and now he had not been able to keep Tara safe. And he had compounded matters by taking advantage of her vulnerability. He had made love to many women in his time, but none had impacted his life the way she had. She trusted him and he had betrayed that trust.

  He didn’t know who was trying to kill her, he didn’t know why someone wanted the witnesses dead, he didn’t know who within his own office he could trust. And even more perplexing was that he didn’t know why someone would still be blatantly trying to kill her since the appearance of accidental death was no longer valid. Why would the person continue to take the risk?

  All he knew at that moment was how frightened he’d been when he saw her crumpled on the ground with blood on her forehead. He touched her cheek again. For someone who was accustomed to being in charge and making split-second decisions, he found himself at a complete loss. He didn’t know what to do.

  A soft moan escaped her lips. She stirred, then slowly opened her eyes. She tried to sit up only to fall back into the softness of the pillow with her hand pressed to the top of her head. She looked up at him, her gaze locking with his in an emotional moment. A surge of excitement pushed at him. She had regained consciousness and didn’t seem to be disoriented.

  “Welcome back to reality. Do you remember what happened?”

  “Well…” She shook her head to clear the confusion, then tried to collect her thoughts. “You shoved me behind the car…shots rang out…something hit my forehead…then I heard the car drive away. I started to stand up and banged my head hard on something. I think it was the side mirror on the car. I went down. Next thing I knew, I opened my eyes and I was here.”

  A tender smile spread across his face. “You had me worried. It was a bullet that hit your forehead.” He saw the immediate shock dart across her face. “It’s not serious.” He tried to make light of the event, to calm her fears. “The bullet barely grazed you…nothing any worse than scraping your knee on the sidewalk. I’ve had paper cuts worse that that. The wound shouldn’t even leave a scar.”

  She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. He helped her to her feet. “I’ve never been shot before.” She touched her fingers to the small wound, wincing at the quick jab of discomfort it produced. Her words came out tentatively, the emotion attached to them clearly evident. “I guess I was lucky.”

  He wrapped his arms around her and brushed a tender kiss across her lips. “Why don’t you stay here and rest for a while?”

  “Oh? And what are you going to do while I’m resting?”

  “I’m going down to the ferry dock before our suspect and his stolen black car can get off the island. The next departure back to Anacortes is in half an hour.”

  She stepped away from the inviting warmth of his embrace. A new determination swelled inside her. “I don’t need to rest. I’m tired of resting.” She looked him in the eyes, making sure he was paying attention to what she said. “You were shot because of me. Your career is in jeopardy because of me. And now you want me to rest some more.”

  “You’ve been through—”

  “What I’ve been through is clumsily banging my head on the side mirror of a car. I’m fine. Now, let’s get over to the ferry dock.” Without waiting for him to respond she headed for the door. She glanced back over her shoulder. “Are you coming?”

  He took hold of her arm and stopped her from going outside. “Listen to me. You’re in danger and today’s incident only goes to prove that I’ve been too careless, that I’ve allowed you to be too exposed. I thought we’d be safe here for a couple of days, but I was obviously wrong. Someone has been able to track us here. I don’t know exactly how it happened…yet.”

  He pulled her into his arms. “I’ve been giving this a lot of thought the last few minutes and the only connecting thread that anyone could have followed was the credit card. Several people would know that credit card and name had been assigned to me, but only a select few would have approved access to information saying that the card had been used and where…at least that quickly. And none of those people are on my list of possible suspects. That leaves us with two possibilities. Either someone within the Marshals Service who’s unknown to me is involved with this and has been feeding information to Danny Vincent, or someone on my suspect list has managed to gain unauthorized access to privileged information. I’m not happy with either option.”

  He released her from his embrace, but continued to hold on to her hand. “So, what I want you to do is stay here out of sight.”

  “But whoever it is knows where we’re staying. He attacked us in the parking lot of this motel. Couldn’t he still be watching? If he sees you leave by yourself, wouldn’t he assume I was here alone? Wouldn’t that be more dangerous for me than being with you?”

  He stared at her, then slowly shook his head. “I can’t find any fault with your logic. I don’t like it, but I can’t refute it.”

  “Good. Now, let’s get going before he gets away again.”

  They drove to the ferry dock. There were a minimal number of cars in the staging area waiting to board the ferry. They immediately spotted the mysterious black car with the tinted windows waiting in line with the others.

  Brad parked on the street. He sat for a couple of minutes, his gaze furtively darting from place to place…scrutinizing everything he saw, searching for answers. He finally opened the car door, but turned toward her before getting o
ut.

  “You stay here. If you see me walk on the ferry as a foot passenger, pull the car in line and board with the rest of the vehicles. Stay in the car and I’ll come down to the vehicle level and find you.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m not sure. Right now I’m just going to look around.”

  Brad wandered over to the vehicle staging area. A tingle of nervous energy ran through his body as he tried to appear casual, just one more person returning to his car in preparation for the arrival of the ferry. He approached the black car from behind. He tried to see in the rear window but the tint was too dark.

  He purposely dropped his keys. When he bent down to get them he leaned against the back fender so that the car bounced, then waited for any movement from inside the vehicle. But nothing happened—no indication of anyone being inside the car. He grabbed his keys from the pavement, taking a second to run his hand by the tailpipe to feel for heat. It was cold. He strolled toward the front of the car until he could see in the front windshield. It only confirmed that the car was empty. He felt the hood. A slight warmth told him the car had been there for a while, probably only minutes following the attack in the motel parking lot.

  He scanned the surrounding area, but didn’t see any familiar faces. The sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach told him the car had been abandoned with the driver possibly being one of the anonymous faces waiting to board the ferry as a foot passenger. Or the other possibility said the driver had already taken a commuter flight from Friday Harbor’s small airport to Seattle. Either way, the culprit had eluded him once again. It appeared to be a dead end for the time being.

  Brad returned to his car and slumped in behind the steering wheel. Just about everything had gone wrong. No matter what he did, it seemed that the suspect was one step ahead of him. He sat there staring at the black car.

  After several minutes of silence Tara finally spoke. “Is he gone?”

  “I think so. We’ll wait until the cars load, but I don’t think there will be anyone showing up to claim the car.”

  She studied him—the frustration that covered his features, the determined set of his jaw, the tautly drawn muscles. She wanted so much to be able to contribute something helpful, to be more than just excess baggage. She leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes. If only she could remember, if only…

  The image popped into her mind as clear as if it had been just yesterday. She jerked to attention, turned to Brad and grabbed his arm. The words spilled out in an excited burst. “It was a couple of years ago…he was in our offices!”

  He creased his forehead in confusion. “Who?”

  “Pat…he was at Green Valley Construction. He met with John Vincent. I was never given his name, but he’s the one.”

  Brad sat up straight. Her animated features spoke as much of her excitement as her voice did. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. The memory just popped into my mind. I can see him walking in the front door. He stared right at me with cold dark eyes. He just kept staring until John called him into his office.”

  Brad’s excitement level increased, although tempered by caution. He pulled out a pad and began making notes. “Was anyone else at that meeting?”

  “There was another man who came in right after Pat. I was never introduced to him, either. I don’t know who he was, and to the best of my knowledge I haven’t seen him since then.”

  As more of the memory returned to her, a sick feeling began to churn in the pit of her stomach, then rose in her throat. She actually felt the color drain from her face accompanied by a cold shudder. She tried to blink away the tears welling in her eyes. She looked at Brad. She made an attempt to speak, but no words came out.

  “Tara?” Deep concern blanketed his face as he moved closer to her. “What’s wrong? Are you in pain?” He smoothed her hair away from the place where the bullet had grazed her. “Is it the scrape on your forehead?” A hint of panic crept into his voice. “Do you need medical attention?”

  “Uh…” She forced the words. “No…it’s not that.”

  “What is it? You look like you’re about to pass out. What can I do to help?”

  She swallowed several times in an attempt to stop her throat from closing off. “That meeting in John Vincent’s office—” she locked eye contact with Brad “—Danny was at that meeting. He knew Pat. Whatever they discussed behind that closed door, Danny was part of it.” She desperately needed some type of emotional support. She wanted Brad to hold her, to tell her that it really wasn’t true. Danny Vincent wasn’t trying to kill her. It was all some huge mistake…some horrible nightmare. He had continually said Danny was at the top of his list of suspects, but she had refused to accept it…until now.

  Her feelings of betrayal, the emotional turmoil…every painful moment of her trauma reached out to Brad to the point where it nearly overwhelmed him. He put his arms around her, drawing her close to him. He cradled her head against his shoulder.

  “I’m so sorry, Tara. Is there something I can do to ease—”

  She looked up at him, her eyes pleading for understanding. “Why would Danny want me dead?”

  “We don’t know that it was Danny. We still have things to check out. We still need to call John’s attorney and see if we can get a location on Doreen Vincent. We still haven’t determined a clear-cut motive for the murders yet. And if it is Danny, then he’s not in this alone. Someone has to be providing him with information and whoever that person is could have much more involvement than merely being a source of Marshals Service information and someone who is tracking our movements. This is far from over.”

  He continued to hold her, sensitive to her needs while at the same time keeping an eye on the black car. The arriving ferry docked, cars disembarked, foot passengers boarded and still no one returned to claim the black car. He kissed her on the forehead. Her life was still in danger and he couldn’t afford to let down his guard, no matter how much he wanted to give her his full attention.

  “Well, that’s it.” He watched the last of the cars being loaded onto the ferry. “Whoever was driving has definitely abandoned the car. There’s nothing more we can do here. We need to get busy.”

  She sat up and stared out the window at the lone car remaining in the vehicle staging area. She visualized the driver, dressed all in black, wearing a ski mask and pointing a gun straight at her. Had it been Danny? If she had agreed to meet him for dinner when he called would she now be dead? A man she had once been engaged to, a man she thought she had once loved, a man who had professed his love for her…could he be the same man who had just tried to shoot her down in a parking lot? A hard shudder of fear shook her to the very depths of her soul.

  They returned to the motel, packed and checked out. They boarded the next ferry to Vancouver Island in British Columbia, headed in the opposite direction of Anacortes and the Washington State mainland.

  Knowing that they would be going through a customs check twice, once entering Canada and the second time reentering the United States, Brad reluctantly removed his gun and holster and hid them in the trunk under the spare tire. Unless the border officials had some specific reason to make a thorough search of the car, they would clear through customs without any problems and without the need for him to identity himself as a deputy U.S. marshal.

  From the city of Victoria on Vancouver Island, they took a different ferry to Port Angeles, Washington, on the Olympic Peninsula, then drove to Seattle, arriving late in the evening.

  Brad pulled up to an ATM machine and withdrew as much cash as he could. Anyone checking transactions would find that he had withdrawn the cash within ten miles of his home, which would give no hint of his comings or goings. He turned to Tara. “How about you? Do you have an ATM card? We need as much cash as we can get our hands on. We can’t take a chance on using any credit cards for anything, including the Marshals Service credit card assigned to me. That card had to be the means of someone being able to locate us.”


  “Didn’t you say that the financial operations were a separate system from what your office computers could access? We only checked in to that motel late yesterday afternoon. How could someone have known about the use of that card so quickly?”

  The frown that spread across his face said as much as his words. “The motel must have run the card to get an authorization rather than waiting to put the charge on it when we checked out. I don’t know how, but someone managed to get their hands on that information. So, from here on out we’re strictly cash. The ATM system only allows so much cash to be withdrawn each twenty-four hours. I can make another withdrawal tomorrow but I’d feel better if we had some more cash now.”

  “Of course.” She retrieved her ATM card from her purse and made a cash withdrawal from her account. She held out the money toward him.

  “You keep it. That’s only for backup emergency.”

  She stifled a yawn. It had been a long day and the stress had added to her exhaustion. “Where are we going now?”

  He brushed a soft kiss against her lips. “I know you’re tired, but I’m afraid we still have a couple of hours of driving ahead of us yet tonight. We’re going someplace where we don’t need reservations, where we don’t need to check in, where we won’t have to pay and where we won’t leave a trail.”

  She looked over at Brad, at the determination covering his features. “That sounds like a camping trip…a tent in the wilderness.”

  “No camping, but we are heading for the great outdoors. My sister and her husband own a cabin at Mount Rainier. I have a key for it and they’re in New York right now so they won’t be using it. I should have thought of it earlier. My name isn’t on any records connected with the property…not on the deed, the utilities, the tax rolls.”

  It was late, but he wanted to be on familiar ground before stopping for the night. He gave her hand a loving squeeze in an attempt to instill a feeling of confidence. “Only a couple more hours, maybe a little longer depending on traffic, then we can call it a day.” He bought gas, then headed toward Mount Rainier. In a little over two hours they arrived at the cabin.