Alyssa broke away from him. “I’ll be right back.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
He let his head fall back against the hard plastic of the door with a solid sounding thunk as she climbed into the front seat. She straightened her clothes as she got out of the car, grabbing her fanny pack and neatly pocketing her side arm as well.
“Lys.”
She stopped before closing the door, looking back in at him.
Cuffed to the door, with his pants unfastened and his hair messed, he looked like some kind of fantasy accessory. There was no doubt about it. These cars would sell like crazy if they came equipped with Sam Starrett handcuffed to the back.
He was holding out a twenty-dollar bill. “Trojans. Extra large.” He waggled his eyebrows at her. “And will you pick me up some peanut M&M’s? I’m all out. Oh, and a razor, too? If you’re really taking me in, it’s probably better if I don’t look like a card-carrying member of al-Qaeda.”
She waved off the money, slammed and locked the doors, and ran for the ladies’ room. Three minutes. It took her three minutes, tops, because of course she didn’t buy anything at all.
She rushed back to the door, and the sight of the car, sitting out there under the shade of a tree, relieved her. It was almost funny. What had she thought? That he was going to be able to get himself free, hot-wire the car, and drive away, all inside of three minutes?
Alyssa took her time walking back to the car, trying to figure out what she was going to say to him. “I’m sorry” might be a good place to start.
I’m sorry.
That was what he’d said to her, right after he’d kissed her so sweetly.
She ran the rest of the way to the car, and shit, shit, double shit! The backseat was empty, the cuffs still hanging from the door handle, the gleaming metal catching and sparking in the morning sunshine.
Sam Starrett, damn him, was gone.
Max didn’t say a word as Alyssa Locke told him that Sam Starrett had vanished. He just held onto his cell phone as he looked out the window.
“It’s completely my fault,” she said tightly. “I take full responsibility.”
She sounded upset. Pissed off. Stressed. Pushed beyond the limit.
And he was the one responsible. He shouldn’t have sent her to baby-sit Sam Starrett in the first place. What was he thinking? Max silently shook his head, glad he was alone in the private office of the head of the Tampa Bureau. This way no one could see how hard he was gritting his teeth.
“I underestimated him,” she told him.
What he was thinking was that she would take one look at Starrett and see the same selfish, self-absorbed bastard Max saw.
“Please say something,” she said, sounding human and very vulnerable.
Alyssa—vulnerable. He wished they were having this conversation face-to-face. He would have liked to have seen that.
“Did you purposely let him get away?” Max asked. His voice sounded icy even to his own ears. No doubt about it—he was as much of a prick as Starrett.
Her voice practically shook. “No, sir. I did not. Although I’m not sure if that wouldn’t be easier to admit.”
Did you sleep with him? It was one of the top ten questions itemized in that memo listing things male bosses should never ask female subordinates. Particularly subordinates they had the hots for.
But Alyssa had always been able to read his mind. “I didn’t sleep with him.”
“I didn’t think you had,” Max lied. She’d been out of reach for quite a few hours late last night and early this morning, and he’d had all that time to speculate. “Besides, that’s none of my business.”
“I had to make a pit stop and I . . . ignored proper procedure. I should have called for backup. I’m at fault. I thought I could control him. I thought . . . Obviously I was wrong.”
Max should have had her hold him in Gainesville. But no. He’d wanted an excuse to go to Tampa. So here he was. In Tampa. He’d come up here thinking he would have some time—a lot of time, with plenty left over—to talk to Starrett before members of the investigating committee arrived tonight from Washington.
“I knew he was more concerned about his daughter’s safety than he was about how it would look if he didn’t come in for questioning—”
“He looks guilty,” Max agreed.
“He’s not.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes,” she said. “I do.”
“Okay,” he said. “You know him so well—where’d he go?”
She hesitated only slightly. “I’m almost positive he’ll be heading back to Gainesville. To the bus station. The car dealer told us he gave Mary Lou a lift there around noon on the day she sold him her car. I don’t think Starrett’s going to find anything, but I think that’s where he’s going.”
“You were sharing information?” Max asked.
“It was before the news came down about the fingerprints,” Alyssa defended herself. “Lieutenant Starrett was anxious about the whereabouts of Mary Lou and Haley.”
“So . . . you were just cheerfully helping your lover find his wife and daughter.”
“Ex-wife,” Alyssa said sharply. “And former lover. And I thought that specific detail was none of your business. Sir.”
Okay, this was definitely personal. If he’d had any doubts about it, they were now gone. And she knew that, because she said, “I know you’re going to pull me off this case, so—”
“Oh, I’m not pulling you,” he interrupted.
She was silent, and he just waited. He was a professional negotiator—he could outwait a dead man.
Alyssa finally spoke. “If you want me to hand in my resignation—”
“Do you want to resign?” Max the head of the FBI’s top counter-terrorist team absolutely did not want to lose her. She was that good, despite today’s mistake. But Max the man, well, he wanted that letter on his desk three months ago.
“I asked you first,” she said.
If she quit his team, he’d show up at her apartment with flowers and a bottle of wine that very same night. Hell, he’d bring a diamond ring and drop to his knees and propose marriage right there, the moment she opened the door.
And then, with this extremely attractive, intelligent, very compatible woman he honestly cared about in his life, along with the opportunity to have sex on a regular basis, ending this hellish run of celibacy that had been going on far too long, maybe then he’d be able to hold life’s chaos at bay.
Maybe then he wouldn’t find himself in freaking Tampa for all the wrong reasons.
But when he opened his mouth, “No, I don’t want you to quit” came out. Either the team leader was stronger than the man, or the man was a flipping idiot and didn’t really want the chaos to end.
“I want you to go back to Gainesville,” the team leader told her. “I’m sending Jules up to join you. I want you to make yourself visible as you check out the bus station.” If anyone could find Starrett, it was Alyssa Locke.
Or rather, Sam Starrett would find Alyssa. And once he found her, the son of a bitch wouldn’t be able to stay away.
Kind of the same way Max had ended up in Tampa.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Alyssa’s cell phone rang as she and Jules Cassidy were leaving the bus station.
“On Saturdays, the only bus to Jacksonville leaves in the morning.”
It was Sam.
Who didn’t know what Jules had just told her—that Mary Lou hadn’t left Gainesville the same evening she’d sold her car, despite the ride to the bus station from used car maven Jon Hopper.
Obviously, just as Alyssa had expected, Sam had come to the bus station before them and had gotten a schedule, too.
She’d expected him to call. She wasn’t sure why she was so certain he would, but somehow she’d known that sooner or later, he’d contact her.
If only just to taunt her.
But despite that, she still hadn’t managed to prepare for the sound of h
is voice.
Jules was looking at her, questions in his eyes, as she heard herself ask, “Where are you?”
Sam didn’t bother to answer. “Next bus out isn’t until Sunday morning. But no one remembers a woman with a kid sitting in the bus station all night—not that that necessarily means anything, although it’s not like the place is huge. She would’ve stood out, if anyone was paying attention. Which they probably weren’t. Still, I’m thinking that the two nights charged on her Visa at the Day’s Inn in Jacksonville was her attempt to lead whoever’s following her off her real trail.”
He was probably right, except for the part where Mary Lou and Haley spent the night in the bus station. Jules had reported that Mary Lou’s credit card had been checked—but not used—by the manager of the Sunset Motel, a mere seven blocks from the bus station, right there in Gainesville.
That activity hadn’t shown up on her regular credit card account. It had taken additional digging by the investigative team, since apparently Mary Lou had settled the bill with cash.
And wasn’t that interesting? Combined with the fact that that very same night Mary Lou had charged and paid for a motel room in Jacksonville, it seemed to confirm their belief that Sam’s ex-wife knew someone was searching for her and was actively attempting to evade them.
“Starrett, there’s an APB out for you,” Alyssa told him.
Jules stepped closer, concern on his pretty face. “Let me talk to him.”
Alyssa shook her partner off, meeting his eyes only briefly.
“I’m guessing that since she wanted Abdul duk Fukkar to think she’d gone to Jacksonville, she probably took, what?” Sam asked. “The two-fifteen to Tallahassee instead? Or maybe the four-fifteen to Columbia, South Carolina.”
Neither. Mary Lou and Haley had probably taken a bus out on Sunday, which meant they could have gone to Miami, Tampa, Fort Myers, New Orleans, Atlanta, Jacksonville, Savannah . . .
But she wasn’t about to tell Sam that. “I know you think Abdul duk Fukkar is really funny, but it’s not. It’s rude and it’s direspectful to all the law-abiding Muslims in the world—of which there are millions. And if you think for even one minute that I’m going to help you—”
“But you already have,” he told Alyssa. There was laughter in his voice. On some level he was actually enjoying this. “Thanks for the tip about the APB.”
Alyssa came close to snapping her cell phone shut. But Max seemed to think she was capable of getting Sam back into custody. And she was much closer to doing that if she had him on the phone.
Besides, Sam was no fool. She hadn’t really told him anything new. He had to know she’d called out an APB on his ass ten seconds after he’d gone missing.
He also probably knew that she knew that tracing this call was pointless. He knew that she knew damn well that he was somewhere close by. She and Jules could set up a dragnet with the local police, but as a SEAL, Sam knew enough E&E—escape and evasion tactics—to turn the whole thing into an embarrassing joke.
Another embarrassing joke.
And one per day was enough for her.
“Look,” she said, taking a deep breath. “Let’s meet somewhere so we can talk. There’s a Hardee’s down the street—”
“We don’t need to meet to talk,” Sam responded. “We can talk just fine over the phone. And you know it.” He paused. “Unless you really do want to fuck my brains out. In the bathroom of the Hardee’s. Works in a major way for me. Sweet thing.”
“You want to fight with me, Starrett?” Alyssa asked tightly. “Is that really why you called?”
Jules rolled his eyes and sighed and turned his back on her, giving her as much privacy as he could, considering.
“Yeah,” Sam said, “maybe I do. Maybe it pissed me off to find out that you actually thought I’d chose sex over my daughter’s safety.”
“And you’re really in a position to save her now, aren’t you?” Alyssa laughed her disgust. “With every law enforcement agency in the country looking for you?”
“No one’s going to find me unless I want to be found. Which won’t be until after I find Haley.”
“Yeah, and you know how you’re going to find Haley, Sam?” Alyssa asked, letting her temper give her voice an edge. “You’re going to find her because you’re going to be following me. Because I’m going to find her. With the help of the rest of the Bureau and the local police. I’m going to do it, even though it would be twice as easy and take only half as long with your help and cooperation. With information that only you can provide through the questioning that you’re not participating in right this very minute, you selfish, selfish son of a bitch.”
There was silence for a moment, then Sam said, “It really gives me a hard on when you shout at me and call me names.”
“Can’t you be serious for even thirty seconds?”
“I don’t know why you’re so pissed,” he countered. “I told you I wasn’t going to go in with you. What made you think I’d just sit in your car, waiting for you?”
“The fact that you were locked there, for one,” she answered. “Where’d you get the key, Sam? You start carrying one? Learned from past mistakes, maybe?”
At first she’d thought he’d managed to lift her own set of keys. But, no, the key to her cuffs had been right there, still in her pocket.
“Uh,” Sam said. “Look, just let me talk to Jules, okay?”
He was definitely nearby. He knew Jules was now with her.
“Why?” she asked. It wouldn’t surprise her at all if he was watching them right this second. She looked out at the sea of parked cars in the municipal lot. Where are you, Starrett, you invisible son of a bitch?
If he were in a car, it would be at the edge of the lot, near the entrance to the street, parked facing out so he could leave quickly. He’d probably altered his appearance by now, too, either shaving completely or trimming his beard. By cutting his hair or even getting a crew cut. By dressing in something other than blue jeans and a T-shirt. It didn’t matter what he looked like. She’d still be able to recognize him instantly.
“Why do I want to talk to Jules? Because he’s a friend of mine,” Sam said with obviously forced patience. “And I happen to find myself in a situation where I could use a friend.”
Alyssa closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Tried to make her voice sound calm. Calmer, anyway. “Sam. Come on. I’m your friend.”
“No,” he said. “You know, I’ve been thinking about that, and although I’m not a hundred percent certain, I’m pretty freaking positive that a friend wouldn’t have tried to play me the way you did in the backseat of your car.”
For crying out loud . . . “Like you weren’t playing me right from the start?”
“You know, you were good,” Starrett said. “But the sudden change of heart was a little, I don’t know, too abrupt. I mean, it might’ve been slightly more believable if maybe you’d had a couple of stiff drinks to make the transformation from the FBI ice bitch—”
“You are such an asshole.”
His voice hardened. “Yeah, well, you’re not winning a lot of points yourself today, babycakes. You know when I knew for sure, you know, that you were playing me? Honey, sugar . . . sweetheart, baby?”
“Oh, shit,” she said.
“Ding ding ding,” he drawled. “You called me baby, Miss ‘Terms of endearment make an encounter into something impersonal, something nameless and faceless, so call me Alyssa if you really want to fuck me.’ It might have worked if I were a stranger and I didn’t know you, but . . . You know, right up to that point, I had this wild hope that you were actually . . .” He laughed. “I’m a fucking fool. No, actually, I’m just a fool. No fucking in sight—which is a crying shame. Although I do know where I can get a hand job for a bottle of scotch. And before you start making those outraged noises that happen to be such a turn-on for me, that was just a joke.”
“Not funny.”
“Yeah, well, life’s short, honey. You gotta take you
r laughs wherever you can get ’em.”
“Okay,” Alyssa said. “You can stop now with the names.” Her anger had deflated into something bad tasting and depressing. “The fact that you’re pissed at me has been received and noted. But just like you told me you weren’t going to Sarasota, I told you I wasn’t going to sleep with you ever again. I guess we’re both guilty of not paying attention.”
Jules had been pretending not to listen, but at that, he sighed. Alyssa started toward the car. Her partner followed, still shaking his head.
“I guess so,” Sam said, his voice quiet now, too. “But you can’t blame me for trying. There hasn’t been a single day that’s passed that I haven’t thought about you, Lys.”
Oh, God. “Then, please, Sam, turn yourself in.”
“I can’t do that.”
“You said something about respecting me—trusting me to watch your six, to guard your back—but I don’t think you really meant it,” she said, the words coming out of her in a rush. “If you did, you would believe me when I tell you that I’m going to find your daughter. If she’s still alive—and from certain information we’ve received, I’m starting to believe that she still is—” Certain information. She probably shouldn’t have told him even that much. “I will find her for you, Sam.”
He didn’t seem to notice her slip. “Jesus Christ, if this was about anything but Haley—”
“I just wish you would trust me.”
“Yeah, well, I wish a lot of things, too. I wish you would give us another chance.”
“Okay,” Alyssa said, unlocking the car door.
Sam laughed. “Yeah, right.”
“No,” she said, opening the door and popping the locks so that Jules could get in the passenger side. “I’m serious. You surrender yourself to me and Jules. Right now. We’ll bring you to the local police, who’ll take you to Sarasota while we go and find Haley. And after we find her, we can both go back to D.C. and take it from my apartment. You turn yourself in, and you’ll get to have your do-over, Sam. You pick me up, we’ll go have dinner.”
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