by Rebecca York
There was so much he wanted to say to her. Not just about where he was being held. Things that he should have said to her years ago.
First he had to get free of this place so he could warn her what was going on. But how was he going to do it?
Chapter Thirteen
At the blast of gunfire, Carrie stopped in her tracks.
Wyatt grabbed her arm and pulled her forward, into the shadows of the trees.
Someone had arrived in a truck that looked as if it belonged to the gardeners. Whoever it was had started shooting, and Wyatt didn’t know if the fire was directed at them or at Inez and Patrick. But he wasn’t going to stay around to find out.
They made it into the woods, where they stood panting. Wyatt looked back toward the house and saw several men in green uniforms standing outside. The hedges around the pool prevented him from seeing Patrick or Inez.
“What if they’re hurt? We have to go back,” Carrie said between breaths.
“We can’t.”
“But—”
He shook his head, silencing her. “We have to get the hell out of here.”
He led her back the way they’d come, across the fields and into the manicured yard of the house that was for sale.
“Wait,” he ordered, leaving her beside the back wall while he cautiously looked into the car.
It appeared to be untouched. As far as he could tell, whoever was shooting hadn’t figured out that they’d left their vehicle here.
He came back and motioned for Carrie to follow him. They both climbed into the car, and he drove away. But he hadn’t made a clean escape. As he headed away from the Mitchell estate, he looked in the rearview mirror and saw a car exit the property and come speeding in their direction. Not the green van. A different vehicle.
His curse had Carrie’s head jerking toward him.
“What?”
“Somebody figured out where we were,” he answered as he pressed his foot to the accelerator.
Carrie swung around in her seat, her gaze zeroing in on the pursuer.
“Hang on,” he advised. He took a curve at a dangerous speed and kept going. A truck was ahead of them. Wyatt blasted his horn and swung out into the oncoming lane. He made it back onto the right side of the road just in time to miss crashing into a sedan coming the other way.
Beside him, Carrie gasped, but she didn’t ask him to slow down. They had come to the more populous part of Potomac, and he chose a development at random, slowing down as he turned into a street lined with large two-story houses. He followed the entrance road for several hundred yards, then chose one of the side streets at random. From there, he wound his way through the development.
“Keep looking in back of us,” he told Carrie. “Let me know if you see anyone following.”
She did as he’d asked.
“Nothing?”
“I don’t see anyone.”
He breathed out a sigh, then left the development through a back entrance and made his way toward Route 29.
Beside him, Carrie relaxed a little.
“I have to call Inez,” she whispered.
“You can’t.”
“But—”
“It could be dangerous for her if the terrorists are there. They’d know you were in contact with her.”
“They know we were there, don’t they?”
“Yeah. But they don’t know your relationship with her.”
“You think it’s the terrorists?”
“That’s my best guess.”
“But there was shooting. Maybe two different groups. What does that mean?”
“The cops and the terrorists? The Feds and the terrorists? Or maybe Patrick opened fire on them,” he said as he kept driving. “He was pretty angry. Out of control, I’d say.”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Have you ever seen him that way?” Wyatt asked.
“No.”
“So maybe the pressure is making him unstable.”
“Because he’s worried about me and my father.”
“Maybe.”
She sighed. “I understand the need to let off steam. If I start screaming in frustration, you may have to gag me.”
“You won’t.”
“How do you know?”
“You’ve got your act together.”
“Yes, but I feel like I’m getting people killed or putting them in danger every time I turn around. I feel like I shouldn’t have gone home.”
She gave Wyatt a defiant look, pulled out her phone and called the Mitchell home number.
Inez answered.
“Are you all right?” Carrie asked.
“Yes. We—”
Wyatt grabbed the phone and clicked it off. “That’s all you need to know,” he growled.
She glared at him and he could see her struggling for calm.
“They’re okay, and we got some important information.”
“Like what?” she demanded.
“We have some files from your father’s computer, and we know he’s got—” He stopped and wondered how to phrase the end of the sentence.
“Dementia,” she said.
“Not necessarily.”
“That’s what Inez said. She said that Patrick’s been taking over more and more of his business dealings.”
“We know the business part, but she might not be interpreting the rest of it correctly.”
Carrie dragged in a breath and let it out. “I’m trying to remember what he’s been like. I didn’t notice any difference—except that he wasn’t saying much. And he got angry more easily.”
“That can be a symptom. But we don’t really know what was going on with him. There’s simply too much happening for everything to get cleared up in a few hours. We’ll find out the true story when we find your father.”
“And you think we will?” she asked, her voice cracking.
“Yes.” He reached for her hand, lacing his fingers with hers. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“Not your fault.”
“So you don’t go along with Patrick’s theory that I’m the wrong man for the job?” he asked in a gritty voice.
“No! I’d be dead a dozen times over without you.”
“Maybe I’ve been making wrong decisions that got us into trouble.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“No. I think that we’re up against a...conspiracy that’s bigger and more organized than anyone suspected.”
“A conspiracy?”
“That’s the best way I can describe it.”
When he pulled to the shoulder of the road and then into a clearing, she looked at him questioningly. “What are you doing?”
“Checking for a tracker again. Making sure nobody put one on our car while it was parked at that other house.”
* * *
WYATT CLIMBED OUT and went through the same procedure that he’d gone through earlier. He felt along the undersides of the bumpers, then along the undersides of the chassis. He stopped abruptly when his fingers encountered a small piece of plastic that shouldn’t have been there.
His pulse pounding, he pulled it out and held it up. He hadn’t expected to find anything, but here it was.
Opening the door, he eased back into the car and held the thing up.
Carrie’s eyes widened when she saw it. “What is it?”
“A GPS locator.”
“How long has it been there?”
“You know I checked after we left Rita’s apartment.”
“Yes.”
“It must have been put there while we were parked at your neighbor’s house.”
She kept staring at the thing. “Who would do that?”
“For all I know, it could have been Inez.”
“When?”
“While we were busy.”
“But she warned us that Patrick was coming.”
He shrugged. “This is just more proof that we don’t know what the hell is going on.” He turned the thing in his hand. “It could have been Patrick. He could have done it before he came up your driveway.”
She looked as if she didn’t want to believe either alternative, but she nodded slowly.
“And he’d have good reason. You lied to him about where you were going to be, and he wanted to make sure he had his own means of finding you.”
“I don’t like thinking that.”
“I don’t like thinking any of this. I mean, as long as we’re speculating...it could be the cops.”
“Why would they do that?”
“They might want to find out what we’re up to.”
“Wouldn’t they just arrest us?”
“Maybe not, if they thought we were involved in your father’s kidnapping.”
She made a strangled sound. “That’s awful.”
“This whole thing is awful.” Something in his expression must have alerted her that another thought had struck him.
“What?”
He laughed. “I was wondering... Maybe the bad guys and the cops both showed up back there and they were shooting at each other.”
She shook her head. “Yeah, maybe they can eliminate each other.”
“I wouldn’t count on it. Remember, a car drove away.”
The conversation brought his thoughts back to Rita Madison. Like what had she said to the cop who’d been in her apartment after she told him about Wyatt Hawk locking her and the maid in the bathroom? She’d seemed to want to help him and Carrie, but he could have totally changed her mind by locking her up. He kept his gaze on the tracker, not wanting to open that line of speculation with Carrie.
One thing he knew: they had to get moving.
He got out of the car again and put the tracker on the ground. He was going to crush it under his heel, then thought better of it. Let the bastards think they’d simply stopped moving. That would give him and Carrie a head start to somewhere. After walking into the woods and setting the tracker down inside the circle of an old automobile tire, he got back into the car.
Carrie looked at him expectantly. “You want them to think it’s still working?”
“Yes.”
“If they had the tracker, why didn’t they follow us?”
“I guess to make us think that we’d lost them. Or if there were two sets of guys at your house, one could have the tracker and the other could have followed us.”
“Oh, great.” She kept her gaze on him. “Where are we going now?”
“When we drove away from your neighbor’s, I was thinking about the Baltimore suburbs. Now I have the feeling that’s too obvious. When they realize they don’t know where we are, they’re going to start beating the bushes.” He flapped his hand. “I guess we need to go somewhere I can look at the information on the thumb drive.”
“A motel?”
“Probably.”
He heard her draw in a breath and let it out before speaking. “Somewhere nice. I want to feel like I’m not a fugitive.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“What about Frederick? It’s not that long a drive, and it’s a tourist area with a lot of bed-and-breakfast places.”
He thought about it, then punched the small city into his GPS. He wasn’t concerned with luxury accommodation, but he knew Carrie could use some kind of respite. If he’d had the option, would he have kept the information about the tracker to himself? Although he would have liked to spare her the worry, at the same time he couldn’t in good conscience withhold information from her. But perhaps he could make her hiding place pleasant. After he took care of one more problem.
When he neared Frederick, he stopped at a shopping center on the outskirts of town.
“What are we doing?” she asked when he pulled up in front of a hardware store.
“Getting some electrical tape and scissors.”
“Because?”
“If they found the car, they probably also took down the license number.”
She winced.
“I believe I can make it look different.”
After purchasing the supplies, he drove the car to a secluded section of the parking lot, got out and examined the front license plate. The first digit was the number one, and he used the tape to turn it into an E. He did the same with the plate on the back. If you stood ten feet away from it, he thought, the ruse should work.
Then he headed for the old-town area of Frederick, which had been in existence since Colonial times and was at the center of Civil War activity in the state.
Like many other older communities, it had gone through a period of decline, then began to prosper again, partly due to people moving out from Baltimore and Washington, where housing was more expensive, and partly due to the Colonial charm of the downtown area, where many restored buildings housed antiques shops and restaurants.
When they drove past a Victorian house with a B-and-B sign out front and extensive gardens all around, Carrie pointed. “Try that place.”
“Spur-of-the-moment decision?”
“Yes.”
He slowed and pulled to a stop down the block. “We’d better get our story straight before we go in.”
“Okay, what’s our story?”
“We’re on a road trip traveling around Maryland and Virginia. We stop when a place strikes our fancy.”
“And where are we from?”
“The D.C. suburbs. I work for the government—in a hush-hush job that I don’t talk about—and you...teach...what?”
“Photography. So I can answer questions if I have to.” She kept her gaze on him.
“Do you remember the names we were using?”
“Carolyn and Will Hanks.”
“Right.”
“And we’re married?” she asked.
“Do you want to be?” he countered, wondering why he had put it that way.
“Yes.”
He swallowed. “Okay.”
Wyatt turned around and pulled into a gravel drive, and they got out of the car together. Carrie reached for his hand as they walked toward the front porch.
A few moments after Wyatt had rung the bell, a pleasant-looking middle-aged woman came to the door.
“Can I help you?”
“We’re hoping we don’t need a reservation to get a room.”
“Not at all. Come in.”
“We’re the Hankses,” Wyatt said, as they stepped into a spacious front hall. He looked to the left and saw a living room furnished with comfortable couches and chairs and what looked like antique chests and tables. On the right was a dining room with several tables.
“I’m Barbara Williamson.”
“Nice to meet you,” Carrie answered. She then said, “We want your best room.”
“Are you celebrating something?”
“Not really, but we’re having a very nice road trip, and I want to continue with the top-of-the-line experience.”
“Our best room is in a private building out back. Would you like me to show it to you?”
“Yes.”
They followed Mrs. Williamson through a large modern kitchen to a building that might have once been a carriage house. Unlocking the door, she showed them into a two-room suite. The sitting room was comfortable and cozy. The bedroom had a wide canopy bed. And through a doorway was a large luxury bathroom with a soaking tub, a shower and a double sink.
“Perfect,” Carrie said.
“We can pay in advance,” Wyatt said.
“Would it be possible to have a tray brought over?” Carrie asked.
“That can be arranged. What time do you want it?”
Carrie looked at Wyatt.
“Eight,” he answered.
He paid in cash before they carried their luggage into the guest cottage.
“I’m sure she didn’t recognize us or anything,” Carrie said.
“That seems to be the case. Wait here for a minute.”
She stood in the middle of the sitting room while he set one of their suitcases on a stand. Then he began walking around the little cottage. If need be, they could get out one of the back windows, he decided.
When he turned from the window, he found Carrie standing in back of him. She turned and the expression on her face told him that she was preparing to push him—and push herself.
“Is this the kind of place where you’d like to make love to me for the first time?” she asked in a breathy voice.
He swallowed hard. “I shouldn’t have said that. Do you usually ask that kind of question?”
“Never. But in this case I think I have to. Please answer the question.”
“Yes,” he said, his throat so tight that he could barely speak. Still, his bodyguard’s mind was working, and he was thinking they were at a location where it was unlikely the terrorists would be looking for them.
“You could be making a terrible mistake,” he managed to say.
“I don’t think so.”
* * *
CARRIE HAD BEEN warned. But she stood her ground, swallowing hard as she met his gaze.
She knew he wanted her, but she wasn’t quite prepared for the masculine potency of his look. Yet he made no move to close the distance between them. As she watched a muscle in his jaw clench, she knew that he would not reach for her unless she made the first move.
Was reaching for him enough? Perhaps not.
Quickly, before she could tell herself she was doing the wrong thing, she pulled off the T-shirt she was wearing and tossed it onto the floor. Then she reached around to unhook the clasp of her bra, which she sent to join the shirt.
She saw his eyes burn as they took in the sight of her breasts. If she hadn’t been sure of what she wanted, the scorching look on Wyatt’s face might have sent her running. Instead, in one smooth motion she slid her jeans and panties down her legs and kicked them away so that she was standing in front of him, naked.