“Don’t you want more from life than what you have right now?” he countered.
“Like a tawdry fling with a man I barely know?” she snapped. Her head throbbed as if it was about to explode.
“That isn’t what I meant…this isn’t about sex.” He looked angry, but she didn’t care.
Men.
She stood, knocking over her chair, desperate to escape the stuffy hot lounge. Harvey’s intimate conversation and a barrage of unwelcome questions made her want to keep running and never stop. But she was trapped on this damned ship.
And, OK, she wasn’t deliriously in love with Ed, but they were settled and secure. When Davis had left her bankrupt with no hope of getting a job in the city, Ed had been there to help her out. He’d been the only friend to stick by her. You didn’t forget that sort of loyalty.
She hit the deck at the front of the ship and stared up at the night sky. Pulled an enormous breath deep into her lungs. Then she felt like a fool.
Harvey was rich. Did she really think he wanted to go to bed with her?
She was an idiot some days—most days, it seemed.
Her heart squeezed as she remembered what it felt like to fall in love and then to find out your lover had betrayed you. Wasn’t that what Harvey was about to do to Barb? Even if she was a horrible person—and she was—did it mean it was OK to just discard her like a piece of trash?
Isn’t that what you did to Davis?
Her throat felt like she’d swallowed barbed wire as she held back despair.
She couldn’t bear the thought of going back to the room she shared with Ed, so she started walking, letting the chill night air that flowed off nearby glaciers cool her overheated skin. She walked and found the space to grieve for a man who didn’t deserve it.
CHAPTER 10
They were heading onto the street when Brent grabbed Anna’s arm and started marching her forcibly toward their car.
Ouch. “What’s the matter?” she asked.
“Someone is in a jeep back there, watching the front door of the apartment complex.” There was the sound of an engine starting, and Brent swore under his breath and dug out the keys. “Move it.”
She swiped the keys from his fingers. “I’ll drive.”
“What…?”
She climbed into the driver’s seat while he gaped at her.
“Get in.” She adjusted the seat closer so she could reach the pedals.
He got in fast. She put her blinkers on and pulled out. Stopped for a cyclist. Brent looked at her like she’d morphed into an alien species.
“What?” she asked pulling out sedately into the flow of traffic.
“If those guys are the people I think they are, you need to release your inner Indy 500 driver and ditch the schoolteacher.”
Her cheeks felt hot. “I told you, I’m not made for breaking the law.”
He looked over his shoulder. “Well, look on the bright side. You’ll be too dead to be arrested if these guys catch up with us. Why the hell did you insist on driving?” He sounded pissed and angry, and hurt unwound in her chest.
“Because,” she said with deliberate slowness, “if I get caught I get a ticket. If you get caught breaking the law, you go back to maximum security.”
He rechecked the mirror. “Better that than dead—although maybe not. Drive!”
She slammed her foot on the accelerator and took a turn, then another, until they’d almost gone in a full square.
Brent kept looking behind him. “Not bad. Did you see that on TV?”
“Hawaii Five-0.” She pulled out onto the main highway. “One of those rare shows that’s just as good with the sound off.” She swore when she saw the dark jeep cut back out on the street behind them.
“What do we do now?” This sort of excitement was not something she was equipped for. Thanks, Papa.
Brent leaned forward. “If they shot a cop, they aren’t going to worry too much about injuring innocent civilians.” Anna looked around at the minivans and cars full of people on the road even at this late hour.
“They can probably trace the tags on this vehicle if they get close enough to read them. But from the way they’re hanging back, I don’t think they know we spotted them. Maybe they figured we just got lost back there.” He gave her a look. “Try not to let them get close enough to see our tags.”
Anna bit her lip and nodded. It meant getting off the freeway. Now. She took the next exit and kept going into the burbs, turning into a supermarket parking lot in the hopes she could cut through some back alleys and lose this guy.
“Over there.” Brent pointed to the railway line running along the southern edge.
Anna heard the low rumble and whistle of a train.
“We’ll make it if you’re fast,” Brent urged.
Was he nuts?
“The barriers are starting to come down.” Her heart hammered her chest. She flashed a look in the rearview and saw the jeep moving ever nearer. It was hard to judge distance at night, but the jeep looked a hell of a lot closer than the train.
Red lights flashed and the barriers were almost down. It was now or never.
“Do it.”
She held tight to the wheel in case the tracks wrenched it out of her hands and pressed her foot to the accelerator. Brent braced his arm against the dash. There was a car in front of them and one approaching the crossing from the other side. Anna saw a lot of bright lights and felt the rumble of the locomotive through her clenched teeth. Accelerating hard, she pressed her foot to the floor, whipping past the compact in front and causing the driver to swing in her direction with a look of openmouthed horror. Her throat went dry as she crashed through the first barrier, the sound harsh and loud despite the roar of the train. She lost control as she hit the first rail and the car slowed to a crawl. She swung to face the locomotive. A train had killed her father just a few days ago and now she was staring into her own nightmare scenario. It was going much faster than she’d realized. Her heart thundered. Black spots danced in front of her eyes as she hyperventilated.
The train blew its whistle, brakes screaming through the night.
“Floor it!” Brent yelled. If she’d been in the passenger seat, she’d have gotten out and run.
The train wailed again angrily. She revved the car hard and finally broke through the barrier on the other side and shot away with only moments to spare. There was the sound of brakes squealing on the other side. But a quick glance in the rearview told her they’d lost their pursuers, and from the half-mile-long line of containers on the track, they were going to leave these guys way behind.
“Nice driving, slick.”
She tried to talk but couldn’t utter a word. Her skin steamed with perspiration.
“It’s OK. They rarely give jail time for first offenders.”
Anna tried to swallow but her mouth was too dry. “If you’re trying to make me feel better, it isn’t working.”
Brent rested a large hand on her shoulder. It burned through the cotton of her blouse. “We need to get out of here before they send reinforcements.”
Crap. Her pulse pounded and her skin grew clammy. “I want to go home.” A deep longing rose up inside her. She wanted to return to her normal life.
He looked at her as if considering. “It might not be such a bad idea. We can be in Minnesota in a few hours. But you can’t actually return home until this is over.”
“We could check the mail at school and at my house.” These were the most likely places her father would have mailed the evidence, and damned if she’d let these people find that envelope and get away with murder.
“We can swing by and hole up somewhere else in the city. Figure out our next move. There sure as hell isn’t anything at your dad’s place.”
The need to regain some normality swelled inside her. “Let’s do it.” She longed to see her white picket fence and rambling rose. Talk to people she knew and trusted. See places she was familiar with. And if she didn’t find the envelope, she
was going to the cops. She was done being chased by killers.
It was early in the morning. Rand got out of the shower and toweled off. He’d caught a combat nap. Tension and rage had racked up, before condensing into a solid core of anger. He’d dumped the redhead in the bush—more or less alive—and driven to Victoria, then retrieved his and Marco’s belongings from the motel. Then he’d stolen a small plane from a man who wasn’t going to report it any time soon and made his way back to the mainland, heading across the border into Seattle and catching a commercial flight.
It sure felt good to be home.
Cops were saying Marco was dead. Kudrow had gotten a phone call asking if he could help identify the corpse. Kudrow had been real sorry he couldn’t help. But it raised the question how they’d known to connect the firm with the aborted attack on Brent Carver’s house. Anna Silver had blabbed to someone, but Rand doubted she’d told them the whole truth.
Assuming another of his false identities, he’d decided to retrace his steps.
Last night Kudrow had called to say Anna Silver and an unknown male—probably Carver—had turned up at her dad’s place in Chicago. Vic had compounded a litany of fuckups and lost her. But her turning up there meant she hadn’t found the envelope yet, because if she had, she’d either turn it over to the cops and they were all fucked, or she’d disappear with all their hard-earned cash. Sixty million was a lot of money and he’d bet—if someone hadn’t stolen all his frickin’ money—on the latter. She was still looking for it, just the same way they were, and now he wasn’t just pissed. He wanted retribution.
It was Wednesday. Given the snail pace of the postal service, it could still be a few days until the damn thing arrived, but with two dead cops, they were running out of time before law enforcement started asking the tough questions. Petrie was looking at other angles to figure out where Davis might have funneled the money, but Rand wasn’t holding his breath.
He got dressed. Pulled on a knit cap. Walked the six blocks to a sweet little ranch house with its white picket fence and sweet scented garden. Checked the mailbox before heading around the back with a handful of shit. Fucking flyers.
Cauldwell Lake was nothing more than a subdivision serving the Twin Cities. Anna’s house had been around since the fifties and the city had finally encroached on its borders.
He pulled on latex gloves and removed his lock-picking kit out of his back pocket. It took all of thirty seconds to let himself in, and thanks to the mature, leafy garden, none of the neighbors could see a thing. The kitchen was bright white with oak counters. Nice, classy. He looked around. Examined the quality of the silence, every sense on high alert for a surprise party. Sensing nothing, he searched each room carefully before allowing himself to relax his guard. The first time he’d been here, he’d done a quick search for obvious bolt holes. Now he knew she was smarter than that, plus she had help. He needed to delve deeper to see if he could figure out what made her tick and where she might go. He started in the bedroom. A big-ass painting hung over the bed. Pretty perfume bottles lined the small dressing table along with a framed wedding portrait of her mother and father. He opened the closet and dropped to his knees as he began going through all her junk. Shoe boxes, shoes, jewelry, paperbacks. Nothing.
He rose to his feet, took a walk to her office, and eyeballed the books on the shelves. A lot of self-help books and how to survive abuse bullshit. A small smile curved his lips—at least she’d be well ahead of the game after he finished with her—except, of course, she’d be dead. He stared at the filing cabinet, opened the drawer, and found her banking details and credit card bills. Petrie already had this so he ignored it and dug deeper. Everything was alphabetized and filed within an inch of its life.
No address book, though.
He put aside postcards she’d sent to herself from various places around the country—sad—and a few from friends. He noted their names. Next on the list would be checking into their phone records and see if they’d received any calls from burner cells.
Time was running out and the team would need to get out of Chicago ASAP. The game was over as far as the charity side of things was concerned. In the past, the IRS and Treasury Department had steered clear of probing too deep into the charity’s books. The government used their services often enough that they didn’t want their dealings to become public knowledge. But, with the bodies piling up, there would be an investigation. He could almost hear the feds crunching their teeth on subpoenas and warrants. When they figured out who else Rand & Co had been working for over the last eighteen months, the whole team would be fucked six ways to Sunday. And Rand sure as hell didn’t intend to be extradited to the Middle East to face criminal charges if the administration of the day decided they wanted some political leverage. He knew how to disappear, but he wanted his damn money first.
He sat back on his heels and eyed a stack of color-coordinated boxes. Holy crap. Pain shot through his jaw as he clenched his teeth. For all her organization she still kept too much shit. Why did people do that?
There was a sound at the front door and he drew his weapon.
“Anna. Anna! I know you’re in there. I’m sorry. Please, can we talk about this?”
A smile curled Rand’s lips. Romeo, Romeo. Oh, fucking Romeo.
“I messed up. I’m sorry, but I’ve never dated a girl like you before and I’m…I’m out of my league.”
Rand twitched the curtain in the living room. You’ve got that right, pal.
“I’m on my way to work, but I’m not going anywhere until we talk this through. I’m staying right here.”
Persistent little prick. Noisy too.
Rand thought about it for three whole seconds and then opened the door. The guy blinked as he hauled him one-handed inside, closing the front door with his foot.
“Who the hell are you? Where’s Anna?”
Rand stuffed his gun in the back of his waistband and leaned down until they were nose-to-nose. “She’s already forgotten you, asshole.”
The little toad started scrambling, legs seeking purchase on the ground and not finding it.
“OK, this is what we’re going to do.” Rand took Romeo by the scruff and marched him into the kitchen. He shoved him into a chair and closed the blinds.
The guy made a break for the door and Rand brought his elbow across his face and heard the bone snap. The guy screamed and Rand grabbed him in one hand, the dish towel in the other. Blood poured down the man’s crisp white shirt. Rand stuffed the towel in his mouth, shoved him face-first on the linoleum, and gagged him. He used another tea towel around the wrists. The guy struggled uselessly, wriggling like a worm on a hook.
Once he had his wrists and ankles secure, Rand climbed to his feet. Scared eyes met his from the kitchen floor. Rand extracted the Ka-Bar knife from the sheath strapped to his leg.
“You’re going to tell me where Anna might be, and if I think you’re telling the truth, I might leave your dick attached.” He crouched next to the guy. “What’s your name?”
The guy grunted and Rand pulled the gag out for a second.
“Peter,” the guy gasped.
Rand replaced the gag and nodded. “OK, Peter. Here’s what we’re going to do.” Peter tried to scoot across the pristine floor but it wasn’t happening. “I’m going to cut you every time you don’t answer a question truthfully. Got it?”
Peter’s eyes bugged. Rand smiled. “Too slow.” He swiped the knife across Peter’s cheekbone and watched him bleed. “Got it?”
Peter nodded fast and furious.
Having someone at your mercy was a hell of a high. No wonder there were so many serial killers roaming the world. But he wasn’t doing this for fun. He thought about the redhead and grinned. That had been fun. Anna was going to be fun too.
“Where’s Anna likely to go?” He lowered the rag but already knew the guy didn’t have a clue. Peter shook his head and Rand held his jaw closed with his hand as he skinned the top of his ear. “Now you might not think
you know but dig deep, OK, Peter?”
The poor guy nodded frantically, blood and snot dripping down his face.
Rand wiped his knife on Peter’s expensive pants. “Just tell me what you know, all right?”
Again the frantic nodding.
“How long you and Anna been dating?”
“Six months.”
“You doing her?” Rand asked.
Peter’s spastic head shaking made Rand still the knife. “Six months and you haven’t fucked her yet?”
Peter gasped for a decent breath. “She doesn’t like being touched. She won’t let me anywhere near her.”
Rand replaced the gag. The idea of Anna being frigid was an unexpected turn-on. The thought of how desperately she’d fight him…shit, he shifted uncomfortably, he’d need another redhead if Anna didn’t show up soon.
He smiled. Maybe he’d let Peter live, poor bastard. “She has something of mine.” Sixty million—split five ways now Marco was dead—and a shedload of battered pride. “I need to find her and get it back.” Rand lowered the gag to show his sincerity. Helped the guy sit up with his back against the kitchen counter.
“I don’t know where she is.”
“What do you know?” asked Rand.
“She works at Oakwood School. Has a couple of girlfriends, I can tell you where they live. Works out at a gym three times a week two blocks from here.”
Sold out only five minutes into a new relationship. Such was life.
He nodded encouragingly. “Keep going, Peter. You’re doing great. But give me some names and addresses now. Details.”
Blood covered the guy’s shirt front, lower face, and neck. Rand was beginning to feel a little sorry for the guy. Six months dating and no action? Christ. He’d have dumped her after the second date—somewhere wild and remote. The woman was a goddamned prick tease.
Fear churned in Brent’s stomach for both Anna’s safety and his own freedom, because even the idea of prison was like a noose around his throat. Brent drove. Hell, he’d been driving for hours. They hadn’t checked out of the hotel in Chicago. In fact, they’d booked the suite for the whole week and left the rental in the parking garage—just in case anyone tracked them to that hotel. Let them think he and Anna were holed up, having marathon, dirty-old-man-doing-his-PA sex. Instead, they’d grabbed their stuff, hired another vehicle, and hit the road.
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