Love Inspired Suspense January 2014

by Shirlee McCoy

  “Actually,” she said, lifting Sophia into her arms and heading toward the door. “The worst plan would be me sticking around and hoping that you guys can still do what you promised me that you would.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Forget the meeting with Antonio. Forget the whole thing! I’m getting out of here.” The meeting with Antonio had been postponed until they got Annie settled, but Hunter didn’t think now was the right time to tell her that. “Where are you going?”

  “I don’t know.” She tossed the words over her shoulder as she walked into the hall.

  He followed, but he didn’t try to stop her.

  Let her go and see how far she could get with no transportation and no money.

  Not far. That was for sure. She didn’t even have a purse. No identification. Not a cent on her that Hunter knew about. And when it came to Annie, he knew just about everything.

  She made it all the way down to the lobby before she realized how desperate her situation was. Outside, sunlight splashed across the parking lot, dark clouds dotting the horizon. The day was waning, and he was tired, but he’d shadow her for as long as it took for her to realize that she had no choice but to keep cooperating.

  She paused at the double doors, peering out into the parking lot as if she might be able to see any threat that might be waiting for her there.

  “You don’t have any money,” he pointed out, figuring that she might need a little more incentive for sticking around. “Or a vehicle. No clothes for Sophia. No diapers. No food.”

  The muscles in her back tensed.

  “You don’t have anywhere to go, either. Even if you had a cell phone and could make a phone call, would you want to put family or friends at risk?” He hammered the last nail into the coffin, and her shoulders sagged.

  “I’m not happy about this,” she mumbled as she turned to face him. Sunlight glinted in her dark hair and highlighted her high cheekbones. Her eyes flashed with frustration, but her hand was gentle as she patted Sophia’s back.

  She hadn’t asked for the trouble she was in.

  He had to keep that in mind when he dealt with her. She wasn’t a hardened criminal, a drug addict, a con man. She was a young woman who’d done everything right.

  Except when it came to choosing her husband.

  “I know,” he said calmly. “I’m not thrilled, either, but this isn’t about how either of us feels.”

  “No. It’s not. It’s about getting me to trial and getting the men who killed my husband convicted.” She brushed a piece of hair off her cheek, her hand shaking.

  It was the truth, a kind of truth Hunter dealt with every day. His job wasn’t ever about the lives he was protecting; it was always about justice.

  Usually, that didn’t bother him.

  Right then, looking at Annie and Sophia, he felt almost guilty about it.

  “It’s about more than that, Annie. I made a promise to you when this started. I told you that I’d protect you while you waited for trial. I always keep my word.”

  “Unless the person you gave your word to jumps out of a moving vehicle?” she said with a slight smile.

  “Even then, I keep my word,” he said, taking her arm and moving her away from the doors. She was nearly a foot shorter than him, her head barely reaching his shoulders. Not delicate, but not the kind of tall, athletic woman he usually hung around with.

  She wasn’t needy, though.

  As a matter of fact, her independent streak was starting to get in the way of his job. He wasn’t happy about that, but lecturing her on the foolishness of what she’d done wouldn’t change it. All he could do was hope and pray that she didn’t repeat the mistake. Not that he was much for either hoping or praying.

  He tended to trust himself and his instincts rather than waiting around for God to give him help and portents. He was willing to admit it, but not all that proud of the fact. His mother had brought him to church every Sunday for as long as he could remember. His father had attended on holidays if he hadn’t been working. More often than not, he had been. Always too busy for everyone. Including God. That had been his father’s M.O.

  Now it seemed to be Hunter’s. If not for the fact that Annie insisted on attending church every Sunday, he would probably have spent every Sunday morning for the past month in bed or at the gym.

  He hadn’t ever felt guilty about that, but lately, he’d begun to crave the peace of Sunday-morning worship, the fellowship that came from spending time with people who had the same values and beliefs as he did. It was a new feeling, and not an unwelcome one. Church and faith had been a mainstay of his childhood. He was more than happy to have it be a mainstay again.

  He led Annie back through the lobby, walking her out into a parking lot behind the building. He’d had Serena transfer Sophia’s car seat into his SUV, and he opened the door quickly, ushering Annie into the backseat. He let her clip Sophia in while he called Burke. He’d sent the rest of the team ahead to secure the house. They were the only ones who knew that the meeting was over and that Annie was on the move again.

  If something happened in transit, Hunter would know that the betrayer was someone on the team. He’d planned it that way, was prepared for trouble, but he couldn’t believe it would come, didn’t want to believe that any of the people he trusted wasn’t trustworthy.

  “Ready?” he asked, glancing into the rearview mirror.

  “What about the meeting with Steve?”

  “Postponed.”

  “Then I guess we’ve got nothing better to do,” Annie responded. “Home, James!”

  He almost laughed at that. Almost. But he was working, and he couldn’t afford to be distracted by Annie.

  He pulled out of the parking lot, glancing in the rearview mirror. Just to be sure he wasn’t being followed.

  Nothing moved. No shadows, no hints that someone was waiting for the opportunity to fall into place behind him. He wound his way through downtown St. Louis, followed traffic onto the freeway, exited and backtracked. Still nothing.

  Sophia started singing a Christmas song. The words were two-year-old gibberish, but the tune sounded an awful lot like “Silent Night.” Not bad for a little kid. By the next Christmas, she’d be singing the words clearly. A year after that, she’d probably be standing up in front of church making half the congregation cry with her sweet, pure voice.

  He frowned, not quite sure why he was thinking about the next year and the one after that. By that time, Sophia and Annie would be settled into their new lives. They’d be far away from St. Louis. Hunter would have no reason to know what they were doing, where they were attending church, how well they were getting on in their new lives. Saying goodbye to clients had never bothered him before. This time, the idea of it ate away at him.

  Annie had her head back and her eyes closed, her soft dark hair brushing her shoulders. She looked relaxed and gorgeous, and he couldn’t help wondering what it would have been like to meet her years ago. When he’d been just starting out in his career and she’d just started college. Before his commitment to the marshals and her marriage to Joe. She wasn’t his type, but he thought that they would have connected, that he would have seen in her all the things that were missing in him. Maybe he might have given himself over to that. For a while.

  And then he would have broken her heart and his own.

  It was an odd thing to be thinking about. Not something he was comfortable with, but not something he was going to ignore, either. He might have a lot of faults, but lying to himself wasn’t one of them. The more time he spent with Annie, the more time he wanted to spend with her. That was a fact, and it wasn’t one that he could change by ignoring it.

  That didn’t mean he had to act on it.

  She was a witness. He was her protector.

  It was as simple as that.

  All he had to do was keep from complicating it.

  He exited the freeway again, traveled through a residential area and into a newish commun
ity with large single-family homes and oversize town houses. He’d lived in a town house there for a couple of years, but he’d gotten tired of sharing walls with his neighbors. He probably would have stayed there anyway, but Burke had been looking for a bachelor pad, a larger place than the apartment he was in. He hadn’t wanted to shoulder the cost of home ownership alone, so he asked if Hunter wanted to rent with him. Hunter had been in just the right frame of mind to say yes.

  He hadn’t regretted it.

  But then, he rarely regretted his decisions. He spent too much time thinking them through, planning for every inevitability, weighing the pros and cons.

  A dark car pulled in behind him, speeding out of a driveway and hugging his bumper. He tensed, his hands tightening on the steering wheel.

  Annie shifted in her seat and glanced out the back window. “What’s going on?”

  He turned onto a side street, frowning as the car turned with him. “Just being cautious.”

  “Because of the car behind us?”

  “Because I’m worried about anything and everything that might pose a threat to you and your daughter.” He accelerated, speeding through the community and back onto the highway, calling in their location and asking for backup as he zipped along the interstate.

  The car stayed close, keeping pace with Hunter.

  Not threatening in any way, but Hunter never took chances, never underestimated the desperation of the enemy.

  “What if—?” Annie started to ask.

  “Everything is going to be fine.” He cut her off because his attention had to be on the road and on the car that seemed to be following them.

  Would it be fine?

  Annie didn’t think so. Not if the person in the car behind them opened fire with a gun or sideswiped Hunter’s car. “How can it be fine if we’re being tailed?”

  “I don’t know that we are.”

  “Then—”

  “I’m being cautious, Annie. It’s the only way to keep you and Sophia safe.”

  He passed a semitruck, glanced in the rearview mirror, no emotion on his face. If he were worried, she couldn’t tell. But that was Hunter’s way. She couldn’t take any comfort in it.

  Her heart thudded painfully, and she felt sick, her stomach churning. She wanted to be back in Milwaukee, living the new life that she’d carved for herself. Better yet, she wanted to go back in time, get to the house she and Joe had shared before he was murdered.

  The sound of sirens drifted into the car, and she turned to look out the back window. A police cruiser pulled behind the car that was following them. Seconds later, both vehicles pulled over.

  Hunter kept driving.

  “Are you going back to see what’s going on?” she asked.

  “If the driver of that car is anyone to worry about, the police will let me know.”

  “And then what?”

  “We’ll have to move you again. For now, though, we’re going to stick to the plan.”

  Of course they were.

  Hunter always followed the plan.

  She frowned, craning her neck to see what was going on behind them. They’d already pulled so far ahead that she couldn’t see anything more than police cars.

  “Don’t you ever break the rules, Hunter?” she asked.

  “Not when it comes to my job. Lives depend on me doing what I’m supposed to do, the way I’m supposed to do it.”

  She couldn’t complain about that, couldn’t resent it. Because of him, she and Sophia had been safe for a year. She let the subject drop, tried to focus on something other than the car that might or might not have been following them.

  “How much longer do you think we’ll be driving around? I think Sophia is about to fall asleep, and if she does, I’ll be up half the night with her.”

  “Not long.”

  “Way to be specific,” she muttered.

  “I always aim to please,” he replied, surprising a laugh out of her.

  “I didn’t know you had a sense of humor, Hunter.”

  “There’s a lot you don’t know about me.” He smiled as he exited the freeway.

  “Like?”

  “I’ve enjoyed going to church with you on Sunday mornings. I hadn’t been in a while, and it’s been nice to get back into the routine of Sunday worship.”

  “Really? I thought you probably hated it.”

  “You were wrong.” His cell phone rang, and he answered, listening intently for a moment. “Okay. Good to know. Thanks for checking things out.”

  He hung up. “We’re in good shape,” he said. “The guy in the car was on his way to work. Didn’t even know we existed.”

  “He must have been scared out of his mind when the police pulled him over like that.”

  “He was going twenty miles an hour above the speed limit, so there was good reason to pull him over. Besides, it’s better to have him scared than have you dead.”

  “Cookies!” Sophia yelled, breaking into their conversation.

  “You have to wait, Sophia,” Annie responded.

  “I think I have some crackers in my bag. It’s on the floor,” Hunter offered.

  “Cookies!” Sophia replied.

  “Crackers,” Annie responded.

  “No. Cookies.”

  “Yep. You’re ready for bed,” Annie muttered as she found Hunter’s backpack and opened it. She handed Sophia a cracker as Hunter drove through a neighborhood of 1920s homes.

  “Want a cracker?” Annie asked, leaning over the seat, her hand brushing Hunter’s shoulder. Her stomach twisted in response, warmth shooting through her blood.

  “No. Thanks.”

  Hunter didn’t want a cracker. He also didn’t want Annie’s arm brushing against his, her breath fanning the side of his neck as she leaned over the seat. He took the package from her hand, anything to get her back in her seat and away from him.

  “I might have one later,” he muttered, dropping the crackers onto the seat beside him.

  He’d been working too hard. That was the problem. He’d worked Christmas this year. New Year’s Eve. New Year’s Day. He’d worked every weekend since Annie had come back to town. If he wasn’t guarding her, he was at the office, digging through old and new leads in Daniel’s murder investigation.

  Last year had been tough.

  This year had to be better.

  The house was up ahead. Burke’s car was parked to the side, the garage door open. He pulled in, hit the button to close the door.

  “Yay! We’re here!” Annie said cheerfully.

  “Yay!” Sophia clapped her hands.

  They might not be as excited when they got inside. Josh and Serena had been given the task of preparing a room. The way those two had been getting along, Hunter would be surprised if they’d managed to do anything more than argue.

  Annie climbed out of the SUV before he got around to her door. She was leaning in, unbuckling Sophia by the time he reached her side. Her denim jeans clung to long lean legs, her dark hair falling just past her shoulders. It always seemed shiny and bouncy. No hair spray or hair gels. Nothing but clean.

  He liked that about her.

  She was no frills. No demands for makeup or hair supplies. Unlike her husband, she didn’t seem to be striving for more than what she needed. Joe had made a big mistake in that. Interviews with people who’d known him had revealed a man who didn’t know what contentment meant. Even after he’d married his high school and college sweetheart, even after they’d had a daughter, he’d always been looking for more.

  That was what his gambling buddies had said.

  It was what his friends and coworkers had said.

  Only Annie hadn’t said that.

  Whatever her opinion of her husband, she kept it to herself. Anything she did say was complimentary. Maybe for Sophia’s sake, or maybe just because she was too loyal to speak poorly of the dead.

  She turned with Sophia in her arms, nearly bumping into him.

  “Sorry.” Her cheeks were pink, her gaze lowe
red, her battered bandaged knees peeking out from ripped and shredded jeans. She’d jumped from a moving vehicle to get to her daughter.

  She was Hunter’s job.

  She was also a woman, a mother, a daughter and friend. A widow who’d been through too much.

  There was always humanity in the midst of his work. He just chose to focus on other things.

  Lately, he was finding that a lot more difficult than he wanted it to be.

  “The door is this way.” He took her arm, his fingers sliding around firm muscles and soft fabric. A small laundry room separated the garage from the main house.

  Hunter and Burke didn’t spend a ton of time at home. Sometimes, Burke had a date over for dinner. Usually, though, the kitchen stayed empty. The large backyard stayed empty. The communal living areas stayed empty. Because of that, the house would be the perfect place to hide Annie and Sophia for a few weeks.

  They walked through the laundry room and into the kitchen.

  A computer sat on the round kitchen table, the monitor set to display images from the security cameras that he and Burke had installed after they moved in.

  Always better to be safe than sorry, and in their job, enemies were always an issue.

  Someone had started a pot of coffee. Hunter didn’t think he needed any more caffeine, but he grabbed a mug from the cupboard anyway and poured some into it.

  “Coffee?” he asked Annie.

  “No. Thanks.” She glanced around the large room. “Where is everyone?”

  “Probably upstairs getting your room ready.” He opened the fridge. There wasn’t a whole lot to choose from. He and Burke hadn’t been expecting company. “Are you hungry, Sophia?”

  The little girl shook her head, her eyes half-closed, her cheek resting against Annie’s shoulder. She had her thumb in her mouth and her free hand woven through the ends of Annie’s hair.

  “You need to eat anyway, sweetie.” Annie patted her daughter’s back. “Are there eggs? Maybe I can scramble some for her.”

  “A dozen.” He pulled the carton off the shelf, grabbed a pan from the drawer under the oven and a bowl from a cupboard.

  “I don’t think she’ll eat that many, but thanks.” She smiled as she set Sophia down.