She frowned, thinking, a killer who fastens his seatbelt…very strange.
Pleasance forced back her misgivings and knelt beside the Hummer. She had to slide under him in order to reach the seatbelt latch. In that position she couldn’t help noticing how good he smelled.
Focus, Pleasance! She scolded herself. This man is a murderer! But her instincts, usually very acute, were screaming at her that there had been some misunderstanding. The man she was currently climbing underneath just didn’t seem like a stone cold killer.
It might have had something to do with the thick arc of long, dark red lashes on his pale cheeks. Or the fact that he’d nearly killed himself to avoid hitting a couple of Coyotes for god sakes!
The man groaned and Pleasance gasped and jumped. When she looked up at his handsome face a slightly dazed pair of blue eyes were staring in her direction.
She started to shift out from under him. “I am so outta here.”
But then the front end of the H2 burst into flames with a terrifying whoosh and Pleasance squealed, pressed the latch on the seatbelt, and then said “Umph!” as he landed on her.
She smacked him on the shoulder until he rolled himself out of the fire engulfed car and she scrambled out after him.
She leapt to her feet and took off but she didn’t get far. A large hand clasped her upper arm and she was jerked to a stop. She spun angrily to face him and found herself looking into the prettiest blue eyes she’d ever seen.
“You!” he said in a husky whisper.
That was all Pleasance needed to hear. She jerked her arm from his grasp and turned, running as fast as she could toward her waiting car. She heard him ploughing through the tall, dry grass behind her and tried to run faster. But her damn shoes hampered her. She managed to kick one off as she ran but the impossibly narrow heel of the second shoe got caught in a tuft of grass and she went down hard, face first in the dry grass. An explosion filled the quiet night and something landed on top of her. At first she thought she’d been hit with a large chunk of whatever had blown up. But then she realized the object pressing down on her was warm and relatively pliant. She cranked her head around and found herself looking at the handsome profile of the red headed killer.
“Crap!” Pleasance tried to lever herself up just as a hunk of flaming metal landed close by. Her assailant, incredibly, pushed her head into the grass and kept his hands over it, as if he was protecting her from the flying debris.
A moment later, he rolled off her and she leapt to her feet.
Turning toward her car again she fully intended to make a run for it. But her eyes widened at the smoldering lump sitting where her car had been.
That was when a deep, smoky voice intruded on her jangled thoughts. “Looks like Raia has decided you’re too much of a liability.”
Pleasance looked at him and frowned. “Raia? Why would he…?”
In the distance a Coyote yipped a warning and was answered almost immediately by other feral voices close by. Very close. Pleasance shivered, looking around with terror filled eyes. Suddenly, a warm coat was on her shoulders and a slightly rough hand was grabbing hers.
“Come on. We need to get out of here. His men will be nearby. They’ll want to make sure we’re dead.”
Pleasance shook her head, her mind refusing to wrap around the reality of her flame-engulfed car and the total ridiculousness of his speculations about Raia. But the words she wanted to utter wouldn’t come out through her clenched lips. And her body had succumbed to such a violent bout of shivering that she wasn’t sure she could even walk.
She wasn’t exactly given a choice. Her erstwhile abductor dragged her forward, with ruthless efficiency, toward the distant tree line, and away from everything and everyone who could protect her.
They ran until they reached the trees. Then, Alfric stopped and turned to look back the way they’d come. The woman beside him groaned as she lifted first one foot and then the other to examine them.
A long, dark car pulled up to the smoldering wreck of the woman’s car and two men climbed out. One of them leaned down to look inside what was left of the car and the other headed for Alfric’s Hummer.
Alfric saw the first goon lean over and pick something up from the ground. It looked like a purse. Then he trotted over to where the second goon was looking for Alfric’s body in and around the Hummer.
He swore softly as the two men straightened, had a short discussion, and then looked toward the tree line. Alfric turned to the young woman. “We need to get out of here.”
She had slid to the ground, with her back up against a tree, and was looking at her torn and bloodied feet.
Alfric cursed again and bent over her. “Where are your shoes?”
He hadn’t meant for the words to come out so harshly, but adrenaline had control of him and he knew they had only seconds to move or the two men would be on them.
She looked up, pain quickly replaced in her vibrant blue eyes by anger. “I kicked them off when I was trying to run from you! They weren’t exactly conducive to running in soft dirt and clumps of weeds.” She frowned at him. “If I’d known I’d be running for my life I’d have worn sneakers.”
Alfric forced himself to smile, though his blood pressure was somewhere up around his ears. “They would have looked great with that dress.”
She grimaced a half smile at him.
Alfric looked at her feet and frowned. “You’ll never fit in my shoes, your feet are too small. He reached down and pulled off his shoes and then his socks, dragging the soft socks up over her feet. “That will help a little. We’ll try to avoid sharp stuff.”
The woman just looked confused. Alfric slid his bare feet back into his soft loafers and grabbed her hand. “Come on. They’ll be coming after us here. We need to keep moving.”
She made a soft sound of reluctance but Alfric ignored her as he pulled her toward the edge of the trees again. Sure enough, the two goons were jogging toward them. Alfric’s blue gaze swept the horizon and then he nodded. “Let’s go!
Pleasance fought the urge to call out to the two men she’d seen running toward the trees where they hid. Everything she knew told her they were the good guys and the man currently dragging her along was the bad guy. But her heart was telling her a different story. Despite what Jon-Luc Raia had told her about the handsome, red-haired stranger, he felt more like a friend than an enemy.
The moon was full and lit their way fairly well for the most part. But where they were currently running, the trees cast them into almost total darkness. Pleasance stumbled and cried out as she stepped on a particularly sharp rock in the dark woods.
The handsome stranger caught her before she went all the way down to the ground and hauled her back up with a strong hand under each armpit. “Hang in there,” he told her in a husky whisper, “we’re almost there.”
Pleasance bit back the obvious retort and allowed him to pull her forward again. But her mind formed the question she couldn’t voice. Almost where?
A moment later they burst from the tree line and Pleasance saw they were on the road again. The smell of burning fuel and scorched metal assailed her nostrils and she started, realizing they’d come out of the woods just ahead of her burning car.
As she opened her mouth to ask him what the hell he was doing he tightened his grip on her hand and turned. “Once we leave this tree line we’ll be out in the open. We need to move really fast. I know your feet hurt, but I need you to dig in and run as fast as you can. Do you think you can do that?”
Torn between opposing inclinations, Pleasance could only look at him. Finally, she went with her heart and gave him a short nod.
He smiled at her and her toes nearly curled. “Good. You ready?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
“Let’s go!”
They took off down the road toward her burning car. Pleasance was so focused on her own car that she didn’t even notice the long, dark car sitting beside it on the highway until they were almost
on top of it. “Get in!,” the man yelled at her, just as something pinged against the hood of the car.
Pleasance threw open the door and flung herself into the car, just as a second ping hit the mirror just inches from where she’d been standing.
She ducked and looked toward the nearby woods. The two men were running toward them, guns held at shoulder level, firing.
The red haired man jumped into the driver’s seat and threw the car into gear. They shot out onto the highway with a squeal of tires. When they’d put a mile or two between them and the bullets, he turned to her with a grin. “It was helpful of them to leave the car idling for us.”
Pleasance just stared at him. Finally she asked the question she’d wanted to ask since she’d first clapped eyes on him. “Who are you?”
A riveting pair of blue eyes locked onto her and pinned her like a butterfly on a board. Pleasance fought the urge to grimace and squirm.
“Right now…” he said to her, “I’m the only thing standing between you and certain death. So I think you and I need to come to some sort of understanding.”
“Shit on a stick,” Pleasance murmured. Her heart had done her wrong again.
Chapter Three
Jon-Luc Raia glanced down at the text message on his Blackberry and frowned. The girl had hooked up with Honeybun. This was not good.
He quickly punched in a terse message with his thumbs and hit send. He slipped the phone into his tux pocket and headed out of his office, back to the party. As much as he’d like to take care of the little problem himself he had a front to keep up.
And he had a meeting to reschedule.
Raia sighed as his lieutenant joined him in the corridor. Tamarat’s cold gaze fixed on him. “The American agents have been escorted out.”
Raia’s eyes flashed angrily. “Did they give you any trouble?”
“None. Diplomatic immunity is a beautiful thing, Mr. Raia.” The man grinned briefly. He wasn’t known for his sense of humor.
Raia entered the waiting elevator that would take him from his private rooms to the ballroom where he currently hosted several hundred people. His amusement of earlier that day, when he’d pondered the fact that, as they sipped Champaign and nibbled tasty tidbits, he plotted how to ruin their inconsequential lives, had faded. In its place was a familiar, nagging frustration that had taken up residence in his mind the day Alfric Honeybun was assigned to “escort” him around the country.
Nothing Raia had done had put the annoyingly persistent agent off his track. Running his business had become a chore, interspersed with tedium, colored by risk.
At first, Raia had been amused by the American’s singular focus. It wasn’t often he found an equal in an adversary. But the amusement had quickly dulled as he realized this particular American agent would not be easily side-stepped. And as the wealthy French businessman prepared to bring the culmination of a life’s work into play, Alfric Honeybun became too much of a risk to his plans.
The man had to die.
The elevator stopped and Tamarat slithered out first. Raia followed. The two guards who’d been waiting on either side of the elevator, armed to the teeth with a well-hidden armory of weapons, fell in behind Raia, cocooning him in a protective layer of guards.
Raia accepted a fresh glass of Champaign from a passing waiter and stood, watching the frivolous, stupid swarm of guests broiling around him. He enjoyed his peace for a moment, reluctant to go back to performing as host again.
He turned to Tamarat. “Is there anything left of the girl’s car?”
The man shook his head. “It’s an unrecognizable mess. Our men removed the plate and her purse.”
Raia nodded. “Pity, we had to resort to such measures.” He lamented the loss of the beautiful artist woman, she’d been a nice distraction as well as a gentle buffer against the other guests. He sighed, taking a large drink from the crystal goblet in his hand. He’d had such delicious plans for the young woman.
But she would have to be killed. The information she could give Honeybun about his operation was much too dangerous.
Raia frowned. And he’d lose time replacing her special talents in his operation. The Mayor of nearby Indianapolis spotted him and waved, weaving his way toward Raia with a smile on his corpulent face.
Raia cringed inwardly, his mind running through the excuses he could make to rid himself of the fat American as quickly as possible. He barely noticed when one of his guards approached Qamra Tamarat and spoke in hushed tones.
When the guard left, Tamarat turned to him. “The agent who was posing as a bartender is waiting in the conference room to…speak…with you, Sir.”
Raia nodded. “I’ll be heading there shortly. I can’t take much more of this.” He turned as the pudgy mayor finally shoved his way through the crowd and approached him with an outstretched hand. “Mr. Raia. Wonderful party as always.”
Raia’s smile looked genuine. “Mr. Mayor, how are you?”
Raia felt his phone vibrating with a new text message and hoped his men were reporting the unfortunate demise of a pesky American spy and a beautiful local artist.
The thought widened his smile and the mayor reacted by becoming even more effusive. Raia’s teeth hurt from the tedium of dealing always and forever with idiots. He longed to return to his room and indulge in a fine snifter of brandy and a Cuban cigar. But, for the moment, he had a mayor to escape and a soon to be dead agent waiting in his interrogation room.
Busy, busy. A terrorist’s work was never done.
Pleasance hadn’t spoken in several minutes. She wasn’t exactly sure what to say. Under the circumstances, pleasantries seemed inappropriate. Discussions on the weather surreal. But she just didn’t seem to have it in her to discuss the situation she currently found herself in.
How did you ask someone why they wanted to kill you?
After a few more moments of strained silence Pleasance couldn’t take it anymore. Straight out is best. She told herself. She turned in the seat and opened her mouth.
The rear window of the car splintered under a horrendous cracking sound.
Pleasance ducked and he swore, the big car swerving wildly as a barrage of additional pings announced the peppering of its roof and hood with bullets.
The front windshield splintered and Pleasance panicked. She didn’t know how he could see to drive. They started to swerve so wildly that Pleasance thought he’d been hit and had passed out or died. But when she glanced at him she saw his face was transformed by a fierce concentration and he was deliberately weaving the big car on the road, apparently to make them a more difficult target.
Pleasance braced herself on the dashboard but it didn’t save her from smacking hard against the side window. She cried out and reached for her head. The next swerve put her nearly in her captor’s lap.
He spared her a brief glance. “Seatbelt!”
Pleasance pushed herself back in her seat and fumbled with the belt until it clicked. Then, she sat back and prayed.
The bullets had remained a nearly constant barrage, no matter what he’d done to avoid them. Pleasance didn’t know how it was possible. “Where the hell are they?” She screamed over the constant ping and drone of the attack.
He glanced toward the roof of the car. “Helicopter.”
“What!” she shrieked. Pleasance twisted so she could look toward the sky. She couldn’t see anything, but she did notice the flare of lights on the road ahead. The lights swerved as the helicopter swung around to get in front of them.
Something that looked like a large, dark bug was suddenly hovering in front of them. It hung there and waited as they headed directly for it, going about a hundred miles an hour.
“We’re gonna hit it!” she screamed.
He didn’t seem to be listening. He pressed the gas pedal and they shot forward, moving at an impossible speed directly toward the hovering craft.
Something flared on the side of the copter and he swore.
“Hold on!” he yelled.<
br />
“What?! What are you gonna do?!”
He ignored her and lowered his head, his handsome face like stone. Pleasance saw a puff of smoke and heard a whistling sound and then they were off the road, bouncing painfully across a grassy field, toward a line of trees in the distance.
Behind them something exploded and overhead the bullets started again. “Holy Shit!” Pleasance yelled, “What was that?”
“Missile,” he answered, as if missiles were fired on cars every day.
“Oh, yeah,” she said in a snarky tone that he didn’t even seem to notice, “that was just a missile.” She slumped down in her seat and hoped her panties were still dry. What the hell had she gotten herself into?
The copter’s twin beams of light painted the ground around them, illuminating the occasional tall bunch of tough looking weeds and, here and there, rocks big enough to throw the fast moving car onto its side if they hit them.
Pleasance’s hands were sweating so much they slipped off the dash and the door where she’d been bracing herself.
The big car plunged over the rough terrain at an impossible speed until they reached the tree line. As soon as they breached the trees, he slammed his foot down hard on the brake pedal and they skidded to a stop between two giant trees. “Get out!” he screamed.
The car was still rocking as he jumped out. Pleasance’s violently shaking fingers fumbled with the seatbelt. The passenger side door slammed open and she cried out, and flung a hand in front of her face.
Seeing her intense fear reaction, he visibly reigned himself in. His face softened as he reached over her. “Let me get that. We need to hurry.”
Pleasance swiped at the tears on her face. “You think?”
He threw the belt away from her and grabbed her hand, dragging her from the car. They ran as fast as they could into the trees, the sound of the copter hovering just outside the trees spurring them on.
Behind them, something exploded and he threw her to the ground, covering her with his body as they hit. Overhead, large chunks of debris shot past and crashed against trees. Something large landed on the ground beside Pleasance’s head, throwing dirt into the air in a giant cloud that choked and blinded her.
Life Liberty and the Pursuit of a Honeybun Page 2