The Bodyguard's Assignment

by Amanda Stevens

  Brady muttered an oath as he glanced in his rearview mirror. “I was hoping we were only dealing with Kane at this point, but if those two goons worked for Rialto…” He trailed off, then flashed Grace a dark glance. “We may be in for a long night.”

  A shiver of dread traced up Grace’s backbone. “I could be mistaken.”

  “Let’s hope you are.”

  They were silent for a moment, then Brady said, “So, why did Priestley come to you in the first place? Why did he single you out?” His words were quietly spoken, but Grace sensed an edge to the questions.

  She answered him just as quietly. “I’d been after Kane for a long time. Ever since you left town.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t think you’d believe me if I told you.”

  “Oh, I believe you’ve worked five years to put Kane away,” Brady said. “What I’d find hard to swallow is that your motive was altruistic.”

  “Then don’t,” Grace said wearily. “You asked me what happened that night and I’m telling you.”

  “Okay,” he conceded. “So what happened after Kane shot Priestley?”

  “One of the bodyguards set the warehouse on fire. I had to climb out a window because the door Priestley left open for me was padlocked from the outside. Someone tried to trap me in that warehouse.”

  Brady didn’t say anything for a moment, nor did he look at her. But his profile seemed to harden. He suddenly looked very much like the cop Grace remembered. “Kane was already on to you before that night,” he finally said. “You could have been killed.”

  “I’ve taken risks before for my job. Just like you have.”

  “You admit you did all this for a story.” His tone was more grim than Grace could ever remember. It hurt her to hear his bitterness, his utter lack of faith in her.

  “That’s what you want to believe, isn’t it?” she asked, not without her own rancor.

  He lifted a hand from the wheel to massage the back of his neck. “Why did you call the police from Burt’s office? It’s pretty obvious you never had any intention of testifying or of turning over that tape.”

  “But I did—”

  “Then what changed your mind?”

  Oh, he was good, Grace thought. Too damned good. He’d put her on the defensive and almost made her blurt out everything. “I wasn’t sure who I could trust. When I got to my apartment, the place had been wrecked. I hadn’t told anyone about the tape except Burt and the police. I got scared. Now it seems with good reason.”

  Brady watched the road almost fiercely.

  After awhile, Grace said, “Who are you working for, Brady? Don’t I have a right to know?”

  “It doesn’t matter. You know everything you need to know.”

  The coolness of his tone sparked Grace’s anger. Or maybe it was a release from pent-up fear and tension. “What do you mean, it doesn’t matter? It matters to me. You keep saying this isn’t about me. It isn’t personal, but it feels pretty damn personal to me. You kidnap me, you take me out of Dallas against my will, you almost get me killed, and it’s not personal? I think I at least deserve to know who you’re working for.”

  “All right, maybe you have a point,” he allowed, but he hesitated, as if still reluctant to tell her anything. “It’s a specialized branch of the Department of Public Safety.”

  “You mean like the Texas Rangers?”

  “Not as big. We do a lot of undercover work, so we try to keep a low profile. We’ve been after Rialto and Calderone for a long time. Kane’s involvement is a break. If we get him, we can get to Rialto.”

  “That’s what I thought, too, and look where it got me,” Grace said.

  “It got you smack-dab in the middle of this thing.” His gaze met hers for a brief, enigmatic moment before he glanced back at the road. “We need your help, Grace. We need that tape, and we need your testimony.”

  He was offering her a chance to redeem herself. A chance to make things right. Two nights ago, that’s what she’d been trying to do. Right what she’d made go so wrong five years ago. But it wasn’t that simple anymore. She couldn’t turn over the tape to Brady or anyone else until her mother was safe. She couldn’t give testimony as long as her mother’s life was in jeopardy.

  But watching those men destroy Brady’s truck had unleashed a new terror inside Grace. If anything happened to her, who would save her mother? If Grace was dead, Kane would have no reason to let Angeline go and every reason to keep her silent.

  Even though her mother sometimes didn’t understand what was happening around her, or even who she was, she had her lucid moments, too. Kane wouldn’t chance letting her go, and besides, it would be simpler just to get rid of her.

  The notion made Grace tremble, and for a moment, the need to tell Brady, to beg for his help was almost overpowering. But could she trust him with her mother’s life? Did she have the right?

  He was involved in an organization he wouldn’t talk about. Moments after he’d found her in Dallas, they’d been shot at, and the gunmen had been able to track them for hundreds of miles. Had her briefcase really been bugged, or had Kane’s men had another way of finding them?

  Kane had said he had friends in places she couldn’t begin to imagine. Did that include Brady’s organization?

  A terrible doubt stirred. What if both incidents had been staged? What if she’d never really been in danger? What if it was all an elaborate charade to force her cooperation?

  Why would Kane want to kill her now? He’d gone to a lot of trouble to kidnap Angeline from the nursing home. He wouldn’t have taken such a risk if he hadn’t been desperate to get his hands on the evidence Grace possessed. After that, she knew he would have no compunction about killing her and her mother. But until he had the tape…

  She glanced at Brady again. His features looked suddenly almost sinister, his demeanor secretive. He was a man Grace had once been halfway in love with, but now he was a stranger.

  A stranger she wasn’t at all certain she could trust.

  Chapter Six

  “We’ll get off the road for a while. Stretch our legs.” Brady glanced at Grace. She hadn’t said anything for a long time, and he figured the shock of what had happened earlier was getting to her. Or maybe his questions had made her clam up. He’d hoped her fear would make her open up to him, but instead she’d withdrawn even more. She sat huddled against the door, looking lost and frightened. Alone.

  That wasn’t the way he remembered Grace. Five years ago, she’d been aggressive, almost arrogant in pursuing what she wanted. She’d been a reporter with an almost overpowering hunger to succeed. Her intensity had sometimes taken his breath away. And so had her passion.

  She’d been a woman of extremes, but Brady couldn’t ever remember thinking of her as lost and lonely. Certainly not frightened. But she was afraid now. Terrified. And that wasn’t like Grace. At least not the woman he’d once known.

  She kept insisting she’d changed. Maybe she had. Maybe he’d been wrong about her. But it was a risk he wasn’t willing to take.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked her.

  She roused a little. “Not really.”

  “I could use a cup of coffee.” He glanced in the rearview mirror. The road behind them was still empty. He needed to pull over somewhere and do some thinking. Figure out how Kane’s men—or Rialto’s—had found them. “We’ll be in Sweetwater soon.” When she still didn’t respond, he said, “Ever been there?”

  Grace shrugged, then said, “Burt tried to get me to cover the Rattlesnake Roundup one year. I declined.”

  “Smart move.” Brady didn’t trust the way she was acting. He couldn’t be certain if she was trying to lull him into a false sense of security, or if her fear had completely taken the wind out of her sails. “I went with a buddy of mine from college once. His old man hunted rattlesnakes for a living. Western diamondbacks. He’d pump gas vapor down into the holes, then wait for them to come out. Hell of a way to make a living, if you ask me.” But the
n, Brady had hunted his fair share of snakes.

  “They use the venom to make snakebite antidotes,” Grace said absently.

  “And the skin for exotic boots. Some of the local restaurants even have rattlesnake on the menu. Tastes just like chicken.”

  That got her attention. “You’ve eaten it?” she asked with a delicate shudder.

  “No, but everything tastes like chicken.”

  She almost smiled at that. “Did your friend’s father ever get bitten?”

  “Fifty-seven times, he claimed. His system built up an immunity to the poison.”

  Grace shuddered again. “So, did you catch a rattlesnake?”

  Brady grinned. “Nah. But I did get a date with the first runner-up in the Miss Snake Charmer contest.”

  BRADY’S GRIN had the same effect on Grace she imagined touching a live wire might have. Shock waves rumbled through her, tingling her fingers and toes. Whatever doubts she’d had about him earlier seemed to dissipate. For a moment, she could hardly even breathe.

  He pulled into a twenty-four hour truck stop and parked near the back of the lot, where the Land Rover would be well-hidden from the interstate by the eighteen-wheelers.

  “Shouldn’t we just keep going?” Grace asked worriedly. “What if someone finds your truck?”

  “I doubt that’ll happen until morning. And even if they do, there’s nothing inside that can be traced back to us.”

  “What about…those two men?” she asked hesitantly.

  “Don’t worry about them.” Without another word, he got out of the Land Rover and Grace did the same. The cold wind was like a slap in the face.

  “We’ve got to pick you up a heavier coat somewhere,” Brady muttered.

  “I’m all right.”

  “Sure you are. That’s why your teeth sound like one of those diamondback rattlers.” Almost reluctantly, he put his arm around her, drawing her close as they hurried across the parking lot to the restaurant.

  A part of Grace wanted to savor the moment, but another part of her wouldn’t allow herself to relax. She wavered between wanting to confide in Brady and not trusting him. She wanted to believe if anyone could help her save her mother, it would be him. But Kane had said no cops, and Grace knew that he was not the kind of man to cross. If he thought Grace had talked to the authorities, he would kill her mother without thinking about it twice.

  The restaurant was crowded inside with truckers too weary to battle the deteriorating road conditions. The overall mood was somber as they sat hunched over coffee and sandwiches, contemplating their blown schedules.

  With his hand on her back, Brady guided Grace to a booth in the back.

  “Just coffee,” she told the tired waitress who sauntered over to take their orders.

  “Sure you don’t want something to eat?” Brady asked her.

  “Trust me, I couldn’t swallow a bite.” She stood. “If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go freshen up.” She said it in front of the waitress, so that Brady couldn’t stop her without creating a scene, or at the very least, arousing the waitress’s curiosity.

  But as she walked back to the rest rooms, she could feel his gaze on her. She knew that he would be watching the exit, making sure she didn’t somehow slip out.

  Not to worry, she thought. The bathroom was windowless, and there was only one way in and out. No escape. She checked her voice mail. Burt was still trying to reach her, even at this hour. She wondered uneasily why he was so desperate to find her. Because Kane had ordered him to?

  Reluctantly, Grace punched in the number of Burt’s private line at the paper. Even though it was nearly midnight, he answered on the first ring. “Grace? Where are you? What’s going on? Are you all right?”

  His rushed tone took her slightly aback. But that was Burt. Thin, wiry, he lived on a perpetual caffeine high. She pictured him in his office, jacket tossed aside, shirtsleeves rolled up, suspenders and tie loosened hours ago.

  “Why have you been trying to reach me?” she asked cautiously.

  “That’s a hell of a question!” he exploded. “No one has seen or heard from you in two days. You just up and disappear off the face of the earth, and I’m not supposed to ask where you are? The police are practically camping out here, for God’s sake.” She heard his chair squeak, and imagined him shifting his sparse frame nervously, his mind splintering in a dozen different directions at once. His voice lowered, “I’ve heard Kane’s about to be arrested. I need you back here, Grace. This is your story. You can bust it wide open. With that tape—”

  Grace’s heart started to pound in fear. Kane was going to be arrested? What would happen to her mother?

  “How do you know Kane is going to be arrested?”

  “I don’t actually know. It’s just a rumor. But the police are acting kind of weird here—”

  “Weird how?” she asked sharply. “Who have you been talking to?”

  Burt paused. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m fine. Just tell me what’s going on there.”

  He sighed, and she could picture him running his hand through his thinning brown hair. “They’ve got people out looking for you,” he said grimly. “It’s an all-out manhunt.”

  “They who?”

  “They, the police. Who else? Listen, Grace. This story is developing hard. It could go national, get you the kind of recognition you’ve always wanted. Maybe even pit you against your old man for a Pulitzer. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t get a charge out of that.”

  Grace closed her eyes for a moment. It was hard to believe that at one time, the possibility of breaking a national story, of being considered for the same award her father had won twice, had been the only thing that mattered to her. Now it was the least of her concerns.

  “Tell me where you are and I’ll come meet you,” Burt urged. There was something in his voice, an odd, desperate note that frightened Grace. Was Kane holding something over Burt’s head, too? “We can talk, figure out the best way to break this thing.”

  “There’s nothing to figure out,” Grace said.

  Burt’s tone was shocked. “What do you mean, there’s nothing to figure out? We’ve got a hell of a lot to talk about. You’re an eyewitness to a murder. Some serious players could go down because of that tape you made. What the hell is the matter with you?”

  “Tell me something, Burt. Why did you run that story five years ago on Kane when I asked you to hold it for verification?”

  “Ancient history, Grace. What difference does it make?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve just always wondered what prompted you to risk both our careers to run that story.”

  “We came out all right, didn’t we?”

  Somehow Burt had talked his way out of the blame, and he’d managed to keep Grace’s job as well. She’d never really known how. “After what we did, Kane shut down his operation for a while. The police had no evidence or witnesses against him. He’s been free all these years, dealing drugs, because of what you and I did.”

  “What’s your point, Grace?”

  “The point is, I’m not so sure I like what we do anymore. There’s not going to be a story from me. I’m not coming back to the Examiner. This is goodbye, Burt.”

  “No! Don’t hang up! Tell me where you are! At least tell me where the tape is. Come on, Grace, you owe me. I’m the one who put you on to Kane in the first place, remember? I’m the one who convinced the chief you could handle a story like that. Don’t make me sorry for going out on a limb for you. At least give me a chance to listen to that tape before you turn it over to the cops.”

  Grace hung up without another word. Shivering, she crossed over to the sink and grimaced when she saw her reflection.

  “Death warmed over,” she muttered, splashing cold water on her face. She finger-combed her hair, then stood restless for a moment, wondering what to do next. Calling Burt had been an impulse, but what had it gotten her? She’d found out that Kane might be arrested, but she still had no idea who ha
d betrayed her, who was on Kane’s payroll. She hated not knowing who she could trust. Burt? The police? Helen?

  The thought of her own best friend turning against her made Grace feel sick. Made her realize how Brady must have felt all those years ago. No wonder he couldn’t forgive her.

  In spite of her earlier panic, Grace couldn’t bring herself to believe that he was involved in any of this—except as her protector. He’d once been the most honorable man she’d ever known, and back there on the highway, she’d glimpsed something of the old Brady in his eyes. He was sworn to protect her, and he would do so with his life, if necessary. The honor was still there. If she looked closely enough, would she find something else from their past that lingered?

  Don’t, she warned herself harshly. Brady didn’t care about her anymore, and Grace couldn’t blame him. She’d killed whatever feelings he’d had for her, and it did no good now to dream about something that could never be again.

  AFTER THE WAITRESS had brought their coffee, Brady took out his cell phone and dialed his contact number at the DPS.

  “John Kruger,” a terse voice answered.

  “This is Brady Morgan.”

  “Agent Morgan, I’ve been expecting your call. How did everything go in Dallas?”

  Brady paused, wondering how much he wanted to say over the phone. The lines were routinely swept, but cell phone calls could easily be intercepted. “We had a few fireworks, but the package is safe.”

  “And in your possession, I trust.”

  “Affirmative.”

  “You’re en route to the destination?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “ETA?”

  “Hard to say. The roads are pretty bad. We’re not making the kind of time I would have hoped for.”

  Kruger paused. “Has she said anything useful?” His voice sounded forced, as if he, too, were afraid their call might be intercepted. Or as if he had someone in the office with him, Brady thought suddenly. At midnight?

  “She hasn’t said much. Nothing we didn’t already know.”

  “Maybe you can change that. I understand you and she have a past.”