She’d given him a lot to think about, and he knew he would spend hours mulling over what she’d said. But as the sun rose higher and spread its golden fingers over her face, he focused on only one thing. Tess.
He flashed her a lazy smile. “I know one thing they’ll say about me when I’m gone.”
“Oh?” She hesitated, eyeing his grin curiously. “What’s that?”
“That I was the luckiest damn man in the world to find you.”
She ducked her head to stare at her toes. “I don’t know about that. I’ve been nothing but a burden so far.”
“Tess,” he said sternly, and she looked up. “I’ll make a deal with you.”
She groaned. “What?”
“I’ll rechannel that wonderful fire toward something more positive—” he wiggled two fingers of each hand as if drawing quotation marks, and she gave him a lopsided grin “—if you’ll promise to work on rebuilding your self-esteem.”
Her expression shifted abruptly to one of incredulity and incomprehension, but he didn’t have a chance to pursue his meaning.
An elderly man arrived at the foot of the steps to the church. “Can I help you folks?”
Tess turned her attention to the gray-haired man. “We . . . we were burned out of our house last night.” The lie bothered her, but wasn’t a lie better than stealing? “We need clothes and something to eat. Is there an emergency shelter around here or some kind of Goodwill center?”
“Well, let’s see.” The man rubbed his chin. “Yes and no. There’s a place a couple blocks from here, but they’re closed on Sunday. I think we might have something to tide you over until Monday. The youth group has been collecting things for a rummage sale, and there’s always coffee, juice and doughnuts for the Sunday school classes. You can help yourself to whatever you can use.”
Justin took a deep breath. “Thank you, sir. You’re a godsend.”
***
An hour later, after they’d scrounged clothes and a backpack full of other items from the rummage sale collection, Justin and Tess flagged down an eighteen-wheeler along the interstate, hitching a ride out of town. Justin grabbed Tess’s arm as she started to climb into the cab.
“You sit by the door,” he murmured in her ear.
“Why?”
Justin shifted his gaze to the man behind the steering wheel. “I’m sure he’d love to have you squished up against him, but I’d prefer you weren’t.”
A tiny grin tugged the corner of her mouth as Justin climbed into the truck and shook the trucker’s hand. She struggled up to the ripped seat and closed the door. The stale odor of cigarettes filled the truck, and country music twanged over the radio.
“Where ya goin’?” the trucker asked.
Justin gazed out the windshield at the highway. “Anywhere.”
***
Randall sat behind his antique desk and stared at the human body parts that Morelli had brought him in plastic bags. He would have been convinced that Morelli had finished off Tess and her lover if Dominic La Bosa hadn’t reported back that morning that he’d been ambushed and knocked out. Dominic recounted that when he woke up, Tess, Boyd, and Morelli were all gone.
Randall played it close to the chest, revealing nothing in his expression or his tone. He gauged Morelli’s behavior, his responses.
And decided the man was a traitor.
Gritting his teeth, he hid his anger. “Well done.”
Morelli grinned. “The little woman put up a fight, but she won’t be giving you no more trouble.”
Randall scoffed. “That’s all. You can go.”
The hit man frowned. “What about my payment?”
“You’ll get what’s coming to you. Don’t worry.”
Morelli scowled as he backed away from the desk then turned on his heel and marched out of the office.
Randall weighed his options before dialing his phone. “Henry, I think we need to pay Maria Morelli a visit. Get the car. And bring your gun.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Brian lowered the evening newspaper, a tidal wave of nausea washing over him.
“Honey, what is it?” Hallie asked, glancing up from the needlepoint in her lap.
“They’re dead.” He stared in stunned silence at his wife, who gazed back at him with wide eyes.
“Who’s dead?”
Her expression said she knew perfectly well whom he meant. He’d told her about the police station.
He handed her the paper, folded to display the small article that included a head shot of Tess. According to the newspaper, Tess had been found dead in her bedroom, the victim of an apparent suicide following a long bout with depression. A memorial service had been scheduled for the wife of businessman and millionaire Randall Sinclair that afternoon in San Antonio.
“There’s nothing about Justin here, Brian. Maybe he’s—”
“They were together. You know as well as I do that Tess didn’t kill herself. Sinclair or his men killed her. And Justin.” Brian dropped his gaze to the floor. “If Justin were alive, he’d have called by now or contacted me somehow.” Sighing to suppress the knots of grief choking him, he covered his face with his hands. “Justin knew those men were Sinclair’s. He didn’t put up a fight when they came for him, because he didn’t want anything to happen to us.”
“But maybe—”
“I know my brother, Hallie. I know, because I’d have done the same thing. I know because of the way he looked at me, the way his voice sounded when he told me he loved me.” Brian’s voice cracked, and Hallie rushed over to him and put her arms around his neck.
His gut twisted, and his chest felt as if his heart had been ripped out. He’d lost another sibling to a vicious crime. Even though he’d dedicated his life to putting criminals behind bars, Justin and Becca had both been stolen from him by the savagery of criminals. That irony added sting to the wound in his heart.
After indulging himself in a few minutes of grief, Brian focused his despair on the man responsible for his loss. Randall Sinclair.
Calling the state attorney general, one of his golfing buddies, at his home, Brian told him everything Tess and Justin had confided about Randall Sinclair. Brian laid out his suspicions about Tess and Justin’s disappearance, and his friend promised that a full investigation would be launched first thing in the morning. The attorney general said he was as eager to put Sinclair away as Brian was.
But Brian knew better. Randall Sinclair had murdered his baby brother. For Brian, it was personal.
***
After several hours on the highway, the driver of the eighteen-wheeler finally made a pit stop at a truck stop. Tess climbed out of the truck and headed straight for the women’s restroom. The relief of emptying her aching bladder blinded her to the blood at first. When she did see the crimson spotting her panties, her heart lurched. Blood served as a vivid reminder of her bullet wound and Justin’s stab wound. She stared, trembling for just a moment, before understanding crept in. Her period. She’d simply gotten her period.
Two days earlier she would have greeted her period with relish. Now, however, the knowledge that she wasn’t carrying Justin’s child brought a momentary pang of sadness. She sobered quickly, though, admitting that the timing was wrong for a pregnancy. Not while they were on the run.
Still, she had a new problem. She had no tampons. And no money to buy any. She grunted in disgust at the inconvenience. Sighing, she headed out to find Justin. She hated the idea of stealing the tampons from the convenience store and weighed the embarrassment of explaining the situation to the teenage boy behind the counter.
She spotted Justin, pumping gas for a white-haired woman and smiling at her with a disarming charm. When he replaced the gas nozzle, he washed the lady’s windshield, and the woman virtually swooned. Tess watched curiously, wondering what he was up to, until he opened the car door for the woman, and she handed him a tip. He flashed her another charming smile and waved good-bye.
Tess crossed the pavement to hi
m and grinned. “So, Casanova, how much did you get?”
“Three whole dollars.”
His cocky smile made her laugh.
“I’ll take that.” She plucked the money from his hand and turned toward the convenience store.
“Get me something to eat,” he called to her as she walked away. “I’m starving. I’ll go hustle a few more dollars before we have to leave.”
She didn’t answer him. Her stomach begged for food, too, but tampons were her priority. First things first.
After buying the smallest pack of tampons she could find, she only had enough money left for a pack of cheese crackers. She took her purchases and met Justin by the gas pump.
“What did you get?” He held out his hand for his dinner, and she plopped the crackers in his palm. His eyebrow arched in question. “That’s it? I gave you three bucks.”
“I bought something else with the rest.” She rolled down the top of the small paper bag and started across the parking lot for the ladies’ restroom again. She felt his incredulous stare following her.
“What about food?” he called after her.
“Sorry,” she tossed over her shoulder without stopping.
The heels of his newly acquired boots thudded on the pavement behind her, and he grabbed her shoulder, halting her escape to the restroom. “Tess, I’m starving. I told you to get us some food!”
Crediting fatigue, hunger and frustration for the sharpness of his tone, she drew a slow breath and lifted her chin. “I said I’m sorry. This was more important than food.”
“What did you buy?” His eyes shots sparks, and the volume of his voice drew looks from other customers. A twinge of familiar ill-ease started deep inside her.
“Never mind,” she mumbled through clenched teeth.
He pressed his lips tighter. “Tell me what you did with my money, Tess!”
His tone, his phrasing, the angry glint in his eyes were all too familiar. A frisson of panic spiraled through her gut. Then something inside her snapped like a rubber band stretched beyond its limits. She’d risked her life to free herself from the cruelty and control Randall wielded over her, and she’d be damned if she would give up that freedom from male dominance now.
Squaring her shoulders, she met his penetrating gaze with a determined one of her own. “Back off!”
Justin’s temper rose along with hers. “What did you buy, Tess?”
She balled her fists and glared at him. “Tampons, you big jerk! I got my period! All right? Satisfied?”
Knowing that with Justin she was safe to express her anger, safe from retribution, she stomped her foot and jabbed his chest with a finger. Yelling at him felt good. So good. Like a cork popped on years of bottled emotions, she savored the release. “Would you like for me to go without tampons?”
Red stained his ears as his pique drained from his expression, replaced with almost comical discomfort. “All right. Easy. I didn’t know. Keep your voice down.”
Shifting his weight from one foot to another, he glanced nervously at the people who had stopped to stare.
Drilling her finger into his hard pectorals, she furrowed her brow. “I’m as hungry as you are. I know we need food, but how am I supposed—”
He grabbed the finger she poked at him and pulled her up against his body with a firm tug, silencing her argument with a kiss. Stunned by his tactic, she gave him no resistance. When he broke the kiss, she blinked at him, uncertain what to say.
A lopsided grin blossomed on his face. “That’s the spirit. Good girl.”
“Huh?”
“I acted like an ass, and you let me know it. I’m proud of you.” Amusement sparkled in his eyes.
She opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
Smiling broader, he tweaked her nose. “I consider it an honor to keep you in tampons.” He paused, and his brow wrinkled with wry humor. “Although I can’t believe we’re having this discussion in the middle of a parking lot.”
Twisting her lips in a droll grin, she curled her hand around the back of his neck. Her fingers wound through the thick waves of his hair. “Frankly, neither can I.”
Her heart swelled as she gazed up at the blush of embarrassment staining his cheeks. She wasn’t sure she could admire anyone more than she admired Justin at that moment. True chivalry, true heroism, she decided, was when a man scraped up the money to buy a lady in distress a box of tampons.
Kissing her soundly, he sent her off to the restroom with a wink. “Don’t be too long, or our trucker friend might leave without us. I’ll see about earning us some dinner.”
When she returned from the bathroom a second time, she met Justin at the store’s front door, and he handed her a sandwich wrapped in cellophane. “Ham and cheese.”
Tess rose on her tiptoes and rewarded him with a peck on the lips. “Thank you.”
He grinned. “Anytime, gorgeous.”
***
Tony Morelli opened the door to his apartment and strolled inside, carrying a small bunch of daisies he’d bought for Maria. A lingering guilt lived inside him for what she’d suffered through no fault of her own, and he looked for little ways to try to make it up to her. Not that any amount of flowers and promises could make up for the brutality Sinclair’s men had inflicted on her. But he did what he could, just the same.
He lived for the day that he could bring Randall Sinclair’s empire crashing down around his ears.
“Maria, caro,” he called, using the Italian endearment she loved. “Where are you?”
Only silence answered his call, and an uneasiness inched up his spine. She made a point of being home to welcome him, and when she greeted him, she did so with volume and verve.
“Maria?” Morelli poked his head into the kitchen and found a pot of what had probably been spaghetti sauce, charred and smoking on the stove. Snapping off the burner, he turned to head down the hallway toward the bedroom, his apprehension growing.
Had she left him? Had she finally had enough of his erratic hours and secretiveness? Had she connected her kidnapping and mistreatment to his work and blamed him?
“Caro? I’m home.” As he put distance between himself and the burned pot, he smelled the metallic scent he’d learned through his own grisly profession. Blood. A lot of it. A chill arced through him.
Gasping for a breath, for his lungs were suddenly leaden, he lumbered to the door of the bedroom. “Maria!”
He found her on the bed with her throat slit and a note on her bloodstained stomach. Shock rendered him still for a moment, then grief tore an animalistic cry of despair and rage from his throat. Cradling her limp body in his arms, he wept like a baby for his wife, the only woman he’d ever loved.
Sometime later, he took the note from her stomach and opened it with shaky hands.
“YOU ARE NEXT TRAITOR” was scrawled in red ink.
A hatred so strong he shook from it filled his veins and blazed with a white-hot fury. He no longer wished to bring Sinclair’s empire down. Destroying his business was not enough.
He would kill him. A life for a life.
With a contract now on his own head, he had to lay low. He knew Randall Sinclair was too well-protected for Morelli to off him and escape with his own life. First he would hunt down Tess Sinclair and her lover for breaking their bargain, for that was the only way Sinclair could have found out. Their treachery had cost Maria her life. Tess and lover boy were the bait he’d use to trap Sinclair. He’d bring them back, offer them as evidence of his continued allegiance, and worm his way close enough to Sinclair to exact his revenge. Then once Sinclair was dead, he could finish off Tess and her boyfriend. Once and for all.
***
As Justin watched the scenery flying by the window, he ran his and Tess’s future through his mind. The muffled trill from the small backpack puzzled him until he remembered the cell phone from Morelli.
Could Morelli be calling in his favor already? Hell.
Tess leaned against him, asleep, and he tried not t
o wake her as he dug in the pack and pulled out the phone.
“Hello?” he answered hesitantly as the trucker cast him a sidelong glance.
“You stupid sonofabitch! I told you to kill Dominic! Now my Maria is dead, and Sinclair is on to me.” Hearing the venomous voice, Justin stiffened.
“So help me, I will find you and—”
Justin jabbed the disconnect button and stared at the phone with his heart thumping.
Damn it! He should have known their luck wouldn’t hold. He gritted his teeth. Time to make his own brand of luck. Glancing sideways at the driver, whose attention was fixed on the road, Justin reached behind the seat and stuck the phone under the trucker’s bags. Maybe, just maybe, Morelli would chase the eighteen-wheeler and the phone across the country, buying him and Tess time to hide.
Justin cleared his throat and enacted the next part of his plan to throw Sinclair’s thug off their trail. “I don’t suppose you’re headed toward Nashville, are you?” he asked the trucker. “I’ve got a friend there I think we’ll stay with for a while.”
“Sorry. Minneapolis.”
Justin grunted acknowledgment, satisfied he’d planted a feasible, though false, destination for them in the driver’s memory should Morelli track down the phone. “Thanks anyway.”
Tess slept on, and with a weary sigh, Justin put a hand on her knee. The next stop the trucker made would be where he and Tess got out.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Later that night, the trucker pulled off the interstate at a sparsely populated exit near the Missouri-Arkansas state line. He parked his rig behind a tiny motel that reminded Justin of the Catch-a-Wink motel, where he and Tess had spent a memorable night several days before.
After thanking the driver for his help, Justin and Tess climbed down from the cab and headed toward a small diner across the street. When they slid into a booth, a waitress handed them menus.
Justin gave the woman his most disarming smile. “Mind if we just sit here for a minute and talk? We don’t have any money, and we’re trying to figure out what to do next.”
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