Hit 'N' Run (Under Suspicion #1)

by Lori Power

  With a distinct force of will, she ignored the cravings of her body for his touch and hardened herself again. I must not be swept away until I know what’s going on here. “The beginning,” she reminded him.

  “Yes,” he sighed in agreement, seeming to sense her resolve. One hand came out of his pocket to swing at his side. “I was on a job when we collided. I’m an undercover cop. I won’t go into detail about the job. Not because I don’t want to. I can’t.”

  “Sure. Fine.” She agreed. They were walking a casual pace, and she wanted to lace her fingers through his. Feel the fissure of passion that always lived between them.

  “When you ran into me—”

  “When you ran the stop sign…”

  “Did you do it on purpose?” He stopped walking. “Did you ram me?”

  “What?” She stopped to face him, confused. “No. Why?” She took a couple of steps forward and stopped again. “What an odd thing to say. I don’t know about you, Mitchell, but I don’t go around crashing into people in strange cities.” Feeling the intensity of the moment and a sudden craving to avoid the forthcoming confrontation, she quirked her lips. “Now here, maybe. I ram people all the time, but certainly not in a strange city and in a rental to boot.”

  Her endeavor to lighten the tone failed. He continued to look grave. They were passing the park bench she had eyed earlier, and she decided to sit, picking up his seriousness. “What are you insinuating?”

  “You were driving a truck. You hit me just when a deal was going down.”

  “How would I know a deal was going d—”

  “You got a big wad of cash a few years ago.”

  “What?”

  He seemed impatient to get the words out. “Dirty money. You’ve no loans. No mortgage. A successful business.”

  “A struggling business, you mean,” she said, drawing her agitated hands through her hair, removing the elastic and retying the thick locks into a bun at the base of her neck. “I don’t know what you’re getting at.”

  “And you work for Tim Fong.”

  “Tim Fong? What does he have to do with anything?” She picked up on the last item on his list, unable to process the rest.

  “Yes, you work for Tim Fong.”

  “I don’t work for Tim. He’s my client. I work for myself.” Lorna was shaking her head. Her hands, clasped in her lap, began to tremble. “You think I’m involved in whatever you were working on?”

  His insinuation—of her involvement in criminal activity—was too close to a nerve for her.

  “Not were working,” he said, correcting her, sitting down next to her. “Am. As in a current investigation.”

  “So you think I am involved in your investigation,” she answered in a strangled whisper. “Listen, Lorna. No matter how I shake it out, there are just too many loose ends and they all lead to you.” Mitch reached to take her hand, and she scooted away from him on the bench. She couldn’t let him touch her and accuse her of criminal gains at the same time.

  “Don’t touch me,” she said, her voice sounding shrill to her own ears. “You’re investigating me? You dug up my past? You…you slept with me. We—”

  “It wasn’t like that—”

  “What was it like then?” She leaped from the bench as though she had sat on a tack. “You slept with me.” I will not cry. I will not cry. She took a step back from the bench. “I’m part of your job?”

  “No, not at first.” He reached for her hands to pull her back to the bench. “There’s just too many coincidences, and they all lead back to you.”

  “Me? Why?”

  “You knew me and I was undercover.” He breathed hard through his nose. “Lorna, you have to understand, when my cover gets blown, people’s lives are in danger.”

  “I didn’t know it was you. Not at first. Like I told you. Only when I had your license. You gave it to me.” She spoke in a stilted whisper. “It was the eyes. I knew it was you. I didn’t know you when we crashed—”

  “Then you reported the phony license…”

  “I don’t even remember what was going through my head then. I thought you were in some sort of trouble and it would help if the authorities were involved.” At his look of incredulity, she shook her head. “I know. I know. Stupid. But it felt rational at the time. Like I was doing you a favor.”

  “A favor,” he snorted. “The money, Lorna. Your uncle having worked for the Fongs. All that dirty money he left for you.” He was shaking his head at her now, and it seemed no matter what she said or would say, he had already pronounced her guilty. She was again the child criminal, sitting in a police detachment while waiting for placement at some god-awful foster home where her survival depended on her wits. She could fathom what her guilt was, but it didn’t matter. She had always been guilty and knew she could never outrun her past.

  “You work with the Fongs, Lorna. They smuggle drugs across the border in caskets and crematorium urns. They practice in prostitution. But of course, you already know that. You were sent to stop me.”

  She looked down at her hands, linking them together to calm the vibrations of anxiety coursing through her body at the mention of her uncle’s name. How much does he know? Please God that no one knows about the closet. The records are supposed to be sealed. Her legs would not support her. She slumped heavily down on the bench.

  Breathing deeply to calm the sudden flood of blood rush to her brain, she reverted to a clinical tone. “I have had no contact with my uncle since I was removed from his house. I don’t know who—if anyone—he worked for. I was ten years old at the time.” She turned to watch his face to see if she could discern how much he knew. He closed the curtains of his emotions. His features were a locked vault. She could perceive nothing. Because he offered nothing.

  “I was the sole beneficiary for my parents’ estate, you see. They had life insurance, everything,” she said, flexing her hands in an attempt to control the tremble, wondering when they had come apart as she firmly laced them together again. Sadly, she continued. “The only thing they were unable to provide me with was a guardian to take care of me.”

  Lorna crossed her legs, wanting to curl into a ball to make herself as small as she could. “That money came to me on my twenty-first birthday. Yay me,” she mocked, bitterly raising her arms briefly in the air to salute before returning her hands to her lap. “The Cobalts, who fostered me from the time I was twelve—like a real family, made sure I was properly educated, encouraged me to go to university, took care of me. From the very beginning, they treated me—thought of me—as a daughter when I had been no one’s daughter for such a long time. With money, I had an opportunity to take care of them. I bought this house for them. They wouldn’t take it, of course. Bret, my foster father, Mariam’s husband, told me to drop roots of my own. When he died, I had to do a lot of arm-twisting to get Mariam to move in with me, and she wouldn’t—then we lost Natasha.”

  As Mitch’s hand reached out for her shoulder, she shrunk from his touch, again a little girl who couldn’t stand sympathetic contact. She bathed him with a hard look. “How could you do this to me?” she spat. “After what we shared, how can you think I was involved? How dare you!”

  A shuddered breath racked her tense body, and she refused to let the tightening of her throat release the threatened tears as she continued in a hoarse whisper. “I would have thought your investigation would have revealed where the money came from,” she said, forming air quotes over the word investigation. Swallowing to contain her emotions further, Lorna stood in the hopes of putting an end to the conversation. “As for Tim Fong. He’s the CEO of Aqua Oil. My client. I am their marketing person. I handle PR and media relations. That’s what I do—what my company does. Investigate that! I don’t know and have never heard of the Fong family. I’m sure everyone has some shady characters in their background. As you unearthed, I obviously did.”

  “Lorna…”

  The weight of sadness enveloped her like a blanket, Lorna waved her hand at him
, palm outstretched in dismissal. “I’m tired, Mitch,” she sighed, forcing her feet to move and hold her weight without shaking as she backed away.

  Looking down at the one and only man who ever made her feel special, wanted, desired, Lorna realized all of it—her feelings—the way she thought he felt for her—it was all a big lie. Just another lie. He used her to get to her client, and she felt deflated, drained of all emotion. How could someone she had been so open, so intimate with, assume that she was somehow involved in an illegal crime ring? Because you have a record of being involved in criminal activities.

  “Lorna, please. I can’t lose you again…” Mitch stood to reach for her hand.

  She turned at her name. The anguish in his voice almost, but was not quite able to penetrate her defensive shell. Arms crossed protectively over her stomach, pressing firmly to her sides, she lowered her head. “You’re not the person I thought you were,” she said, turning. She looked over her shoulder. “You’re not someone I want in my life.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “I take it that didn’t go the way you anticipated.” Luke leaned against the hood of the car, parked just down the street from Lorna’s house. “I saw her come back just a bit ago.”

  “No,” Mitch replied, moving to the passenger’s door. “There’s nothing to be gained from sitting here anymore. Let’s go back to the office.”

  “She’s under surveillance,” Luke protested, peered through the windshield at what Mitch and changed his tactic. The older man rounded the car to scoot in behind the steering wheel. “Back to depot then.”

  They rode in thick, unsettled silence until a soft buzz emitting from Mitch’s front pocket brought him out of his reverie. “Holy fuck. Perfect timing as ever,” he said, viewing the readout.

  Blocked.

  “I am not in the mood for this.” He showed the phone’s readout to Luke before pressing the talk key.

  “Morgan.”

  “Have you missed me, Michael?” Veronique’s voice slithered across the airways, making him feel like she was seated next to him.

  “I was worried about you, Von,” he responded, evenly striving to get his head in the game. “Glad you didn’t turn up with the others.”

  When the pause lengthened, Mitch pulled the phone from his ear to ensure they hadn’t driven through a dead zone where the cell coverage was dropped. He glanced at Luke, whose bushy eyebrows rose, accentuating the question in his eyes. Mitch answered with a shrug, but following previous instructions, he didn’t offer anything to encourage the conversation with Veronique. He couldn’t chance leading the suspect and hampering evidence.

  Speaking slowly, Veronique’s tone changed from playful to pained. “No, Michael. I’m still here.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “Are you?”

  “Yes.” And he meant it.

  “I wouldn’t have thought so, now that you have your blonde chippy on the hook.”

  What? Mitch pressed his back to the seat for support, the fingers of his free hand massaging his temples. Why does everything about this case come back to Lorna? Just when he was finally sure she was clean of any involvement, now this. No. This is a game. I know she’s not involved. Not willingly, anyhow.

  “A little unlike you, though, to hook up with a woman with so much baggage, I would think.” Veronique sounded bitchy. Mitch could almost see the sneer in her voice. “Single mom, supporting an old woman. You always struck me as the kind of guy who likes to get in, get on, and get out.”

  Used to be. Not anymore.

  “Get to the point,” Mitch ground out, avoiding the hard look Luke shot him.

  “Did you know her uncle used to be our go-to guy for counterfeit gift cards? Everyone I asked said the guy didn’t seem to have a spare set of brain cells to run together, yet he always managed to come through with the cards and never get caught. Never knew what his secret was. Makes a person wonder, doesn’t it?”

  How does she know so much about Lorna? He checked over his shoulder to see if they were being tailed. No, Luke was very cognizant of that sort of thing. But how?

  “Vonnie—”

  “Don’t use your warning tones with me, Michael,” she cut in harshly. “Uncle Chuck needs me, you see. That’s why I’m still here. He needs me because he knows I found you. He’s coming for you.”

  “Then why the coward’s route? I’m sure you’ve told him where I am. Why doesn’t he just come for me?” Mitch felt hot, his temper close to the surface. He gulped much-needed air, holding the phone down towards his mouth to emphasize his words. “You know where I am. C’mon,” he growled.

  Luke waved his hand in front of Mitch, shaking his head to get his attention, one hand left on the wheel as he alternated his eyes from the road to Mitch’s face. Pointedly ignoring his partner, Mitch kept his eyes trained forward on the traffic they weaved around, not even seeing the familiar landmarks they passed on their way back to the office.

  “He wants his money, Michael. He’s tying up all the loose ends. He wants his goods back. But mostly, he wants his money.”

  “Well, I don’t have it.” He sighed audibly. “As he well knows.”

  “Oh, Michael. The time for choice is over. You have to get it. More lives are on the line if you don’t.”

  “Whose, Von? Yours? Mine?”

  “Yours. Mine. Others.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. Perhaps afraid of being overheard.

  “You interfered with something big here, Michael. You and me, we thought it was all about the drugs in caskets.” She was panting as though in sudden rapid motion. “Bah, that was nothing. Everything was bigger than any of us knew. The money was earmarked, and there’s no way around it. It goes right to the top, Michael, and I—”

  Thump.

  Mitch heard the heavy clatter of a body falling to the ground, followed by a small gasping gurgle.

  “Von?”

  Silence.

  Mitch disregarded protocol. “Von?” he muttered and leaned forward in his seat.

  In the ensuing silence, he heard her phone drop with a clatter as he rested his forehead against the dashboard, training his ears, struggling to discern what was going on.

  Footsteps sounded, approaching the earpiece. There was a shuffle of fabric and the muffled sounds of someone picking up the fallen cell. Mitch ached to say something into the line, fearing the worst. He held his calm.

  With a cavalcade of sounds, he knew the phone had been lifted to another’s ear. The breathing sounded distinctly male. “She shouldn’t have called you, Mike. Or should I say Mitch?” The speaker, with an educated foreign accent, firmly enunciated each word clearly. “You’ll find her soon.”

  Mitch took a deep breath, ready to respond, when a large hand reached over and took the phone from him to press the “end” key. Mitch turned his startled gaze to Luke. He had forgotten he was in a car.

  His partner held up his own phone. “They’ve got the trace.”

  ***

  Kris was tucked happily in his bed, surrounded by his favorite Avenger superheroes. Lorna kissed his forehead, and he snuggled into the pillow, a smile playing at the corners of his full, pink lips. “Did you have a good day?”

  “Best ever,” he replied with a grin to light the room and warm her heart. Suddenly his arm shot out from beneath the quilt. Holding his fist high, he said. “Wook. Feel my muskles.”

  She reached out to wrap her fingers around his small upper arm. “Oh. So strong,” Lorna cooed, enchanted by his animation.

  “Did you see how I used my super-strength to defeat the villain?”

  “I definitely did,” she confirmed, perched on the edge of his bed, visualizing Mitch holding her son in his arms. They were a good fit. She shuddered, feeling the loss. Today was the closest she had ever come to feeling that a complete family of her own was within her grasp. “Close your eyes, my darlin’, and off to sleep with you.”

  Her birthday boy reached his arms around her neck, running his chubby fingers through her h
air, as was his habit. “Nite-nite, Mama.”

  “Nite-nite, sweetie-pie.”

  Lorna turned on the hall light as she moved from his room into her den. Like her, Kris hated the dark. May he never have my reason to fear the dark in the same way as me, she prayed.

  Sitting at her desk, Lorna set her elbows on the wooden tabletop and dropped her face in her hands. Oh, Mitch, just when I thought my heart was mended. Just when I thought I was over you, you’ve come back to break it again.

  In the quiet of the den, she allowed her emotions to flow to the surface. Closing her eyes, the image of his face with those oceanic blue eyes swam amongst the memories of the sensations his touch stirred. Releasing her face, she rubbed her hands down the length of her arms, linking her fingers together, recalling the feeling of being linked with Mitch. The connection, the feeling of oneness. He made me feel like I was finally safe. Will I ever find that again?

  Not likely.

  Staring at her linked fingers, she knew she wasn’t about to get over Mitch. Not anytime soon.

  Had I ever gotten over him? “I’m as much in love with you now as I ever was before.”

  The revelation did nothing to reduce the pain in her heart.

  Rising from her desk, Lorna moved to her own room to complete her toiletries, moving by rote rather than intent. The implication of what Mitch had relayed suddenly hit while she removed her makeup. Holding the warm cloth over her face, enjoying the soothing touch of the fine cotton, Lorna’s head snapped up, and she dropped the cloth to the counter.

  “Fong.”

  She sat at her desk, opened her laptop, and started to scroll through the various documents she had compiled on Aqua Oil. Financial summaries, histories, newspaper clippings, projects, and finally, her list of ever-growing questions she had given to June to have Tim Fong review.

  Rising from her desk, she peeked around the corner to ensure Kris was asleep. Walking with undue care, she leaned over the banister, listening for Mariam. She’s likely in her room, watching one of her shows. Just to be sure, she walked softly down the stairs and checked the kitchen and living room.