by Webb, Debra
Someone sure as hell had outed him. If his name and photo hadn’t been in the papers, and to his knowledge it had not, then his uncle’s men showing up was related to one thing—Jane Sutton.
And the Colby Agency.
Chapter Nine
4:00 a.m.
The cell phone vibrated against his chest.
Troy roused…felt for the phone.
He answered without thinking. “Hello.”
“Troy! What’s going on?”
He blinked, scrubbed a hand over his face. That was when he realized where he was.
And what had happened.
He turned to the woman lying next to him. Jane Sutton still slept soundly.
The shooters.
He couldn’t go home, couldn’t go back to the diner.
“Ellen?” He sat up, pushed to his feet. “What’s wrong?” Though he’d been half asleep when he answered, the tone of her voice had been several octaves higher than usual. She was upset. “What time is it?”
“Troy, Patsy’s dead.” She made a sobbing sound.
“What?” He rammed his fingers through his hair. The answer exploded in his chest before his coworker could answer. They’d gotten to Patsy. A sweet, free spirit of a woman who never hurt anyone.
“They found her at your house. The place was all shot up and ransacked. What the hell happened? Where are you? Everyone’s worried. You didn’t come to work. The sheriff came here looking for you and told us about your house…and Patsy.”
A new kind of terror lit in his veins. They could be forcing Ellen to make this call.
“Ellen, are you all right? Is anyone there…who might hurt you?”
“What? No. I’m at the diner. Everyone’s worried sick. Most of us have been squalling our eyes out over Patsy. What happened, Troy? I know you couldn’t have hurt her. But the sheriff says you’re a suspect.”
Resignation settled on Troy’s shoulders. “Ellen, listen to me. There are people after me who will hurt you if they think you know anything about me. They’re the ones who hurt Patsy. Don’t tell anyone you’ve spoken to me. Stay away from my house and watch your back.”
She wanted to know what he was going to do and if he was coming back to work. He couldn’t answer any of those questions. He ended the call. Closed his phone and shoved it into his pocket.
Dear God. Someone else had died because of him.
“What’s going on?”
He turned. Jane Sutton stood near the sleeping bag, her eyes searching his face, looking for clues to what the call had been about.
Could he trust her? Would involving anyone else in this situation help or just create another target?
“That was one of the waitresses from the diner. Those men killed one of my coworkers.”
“Patsy.”
The name was scarcely a whisper.
“You knew?” Why the hell hadn’t she told him?
“When they shoved me in the trunk—” Jane moistened her lips “—she was in there…dead. I should have told you.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “But so much happened I…” When her eyes opened once more, her gaze locked with his. “I guess the truth is I knew you’d be upset and you looked like you had enough to deal with last night.”
He stalked over to her. “You didn’t think I needed to know something like that?”
“What could you have done about it?”
He didn’t want to hear that excuse. She should have told him.
“She was dead, Benson. They probably forced her to lead them to your house and then killed her. There wasn’t anything you could have done.”
“Except give them what they wanted.”
“What is it they want?”
His gaze swung back to hers. “Me.”
Jane ran both hands through her sleep-mussed hair, glanced around the dilapidated room. “It’s time, Benson.” She looked directly at him then. “To tell me the rest of the story so I can help you.”
“It’s time for me to get on the road. The sheriff thinks I had something to do with Patsy’s murder.” He planted his hands on his hips. “I can’t be taken into custody. They’ll have me extradited back to D.C. and then it’s over. They win.”
“Then I’m going with you.” She crouched down to roll up the sleeping bag. “You can’t do this alone.”
He started to argue, but for the first time in four years he realized one undeniable truth: he needed help. Maybe he should have trusted someone a long time ago. Maybe things wouldn’t have come to this…an innocent woman was dead.
Four years ago he had picked Plano, Illinois, a nice quiet town where nothing ever happened, to resurrect his existence. His selfish desire to live had cost Patsy the rest of her life.
He wasn’t worth the price she had paid.
While Jane packed up, Troy checked the backyard, then the front. The road was deserted like always. Most of the land belonged to a farmer whose house was on another road that ran parallel to this one. What Troy needed was a different vehicle. They would be looking for his souped-up old junker.
If they could get close enough to Grissom Spring Road, maybe Jane’s car would still be there. Unless the cops had towed it. Or the shooters had vandalized it somehow.
It was worth a shot.
In the house Jane grabbed the flashlight and bedroll. She jogged out to the car and tossed both into the backseat. She closed the door and had started to head off in search of Benson when she spotted his cell phone on the front seat charging.
She really, really needed to call in. She also needed to check on her mom.
Jane glanced at first one corner of the house and then the other. No sign of Benson.
She slid into the passenger seat and grabbed the phone. As much as her daughterly instincts urged her to call her mom, if she only got the opportunity to make one call it had to be to the agency. Someone would contact her mother if necessary.
The first ring echoed in Jane’s ear. She scanned the yard, hoping to see Benson first in the gloom of dawn. Having him see her first would put a serious damper on the trust she was attempting to build.
“Michaels.”
“Ian, it’s Jane.” She surveyed the yard once more. “Any word back on the prints?”
“Yes, but first, are you safe?”
“For now.”
“We heard about the shoot-out at Benson’s home. What do you know about the one casualty?”
“The shooters must have used her to find Benson.”
“We had surmised as much. Are you still armed?”
Jane hated the answer she had no choice but to give. “No, but Benson is.”
“Be very careful with Benson until we have the whole story. He may be dangerous. At this point all we know for sure—”
The driver’s-side door opened. Strong fingers manacled around her hand and snatched the phone away. Her gaze locked with Benson’s. Even in the twilight there was no missing the fury blazing there.
“Get out of the car,” he ordered.
Jane had taken the risk. Now she had to face the consequences. She got out. “I know how this looks,” she began.
“Who did you call?” The way he was looking around signaled that he expected the worst.
“My agency. But I—”
“Did you give them our location?” he snarled across the top of the car.
“No.” Damn. Three or four giant steps back. “I didn’t tell them anything other than the fact that I was with you.”
“Anything else?” His broad shoulders shook with outrage.
She shook her head. “Nothing. Ian Michaels, my boss, wanted to know who killed Patsy. I told him it was the shooters who came after you. That’s all we had time to discuss.” She glared at Benson.
He may be dangerous.
Ian had issued that warning for a reason. He wasn’t the kind of man to overreact. Whatever they had learned, it was volatile and grounded in fact.
“Can they use my number to track our location?”
She’d hoped he wouldn’t think of that. “There’s no reason for them to. I never indicated that—”
“Answer the question,” he demanded.
“It’s possible.” That could seal her fate. “If they chose to, there are variables, as I’m sure you know, that may or may not be successful.”
“What can I do about that?” The fury now throbbed in his jaw.
He didn’t have to say besides shake the hell out of you. She understood he was furious with her.
“Turn off your phone. Take the battery out.” She had to tell him the truth. No matter that the answer put her at greater risk. If there was any chance he suspected there were ways to sever the connection the call had initiated…she had to win back some of the ground she’d lost.
He shut the phone down. Took the battery out and shoved each into a separate pocket. His attention settled on her. “Get in the car.”
At least she wasn’t out completely.
As they set out on the road, Jane tried again to reassure him. “I swear, I didn’t say anything. I just let them know that we were okay. I should have asked first. I was wrong not to. But I have an obligation to my employer.”
He just drove for a while. Didn’t respond. The way his fingers clutched the steering wheel, it was clear he was still angry.
She’d just about given up on him speaking to her again any time soon when he said, “No matter what you say, Ms. Sutton…”
They were back to the Ms. Sutton thing again.
“They didn’t just suddenly find me. They followed you here.”
He’d likely spent the entire night dissecting the events of yesterday. He’d come to the only logical conclusion. And maybe he was right. She couldn’t prove he was wrong. She had only one defense.
“I can guarantee you that no one in the Colby Agency leaked where I was coming or who I was looking for.”
“There’s no other way.”
A few more miles of asphalt disappeared behind them before he brought up the subject once more. She damned sure wasn’t about to broach it again until she thought of something equally logical to his conclusion.
“Four years,” he said softly, “I was here four years and they didn’t find me. If your agency or Mr. Norcross weren’t responsible, then how?”
Right there was the answer. “First off, Mr. Norcross didn’t have any idea who you were. Not your name, address, only your description. The Colby Agency reacted to his request. We had no information other than what he gave us. I approached my investigation quite logically. I laid out a search grid based on reasoning that since you were on foot that night you likely lived within a certain radius. Then I asked around. Locals. The guy in the grocery store. The pharmacist. People like that. That’s how I found you.”
He made an abrupt turn at the next intersecting county road. “You didn’t pass around one of those sketches or anything like that?”
“No. In a rural area like this I didn’t think it was necessary.”
He made another of those turns without giving a signal.
“What you’re saying doesn’t add up. They got the word I was here.”
“I agree, but it didn’t come from the Colby Agency or Norcross. Stuart Norcross had no clue who you were. There’s nothing in the system on a Troy Benson.”
He may be dangerous.
Then she knew. Merri had left Plano with the bowl at approximately five-thirty. An hour or so to Chicago. If Ian’s friend had entered the prints into the system by sevenish…that would mean Benson’s fingerprints were flagged and someone had moved damned fast to get men here within the hour.
That was way too iffy. Not enough time. Benson had said he was from the D.C. area. His enemy, assuming that enemy was in D.C., couldn’t possibly have gotten his henchmen here that quickly.
Unless he’d used hired guns already in the Chicago area.
Maybe this was her fault. The agency’s fault.
She needed more information. She needed to know exactly what he was running from.
Wait.
If Benson’s fingerprints were flagged, and the shooters came after him based on that information, they would have known the alias he was using. Finding his home address would have been simple. Killing someone wouldn’t have been necessary.
She turned to Benson. “It had to be Patsy.”
He sent her a glare. “What’re you talking about?”
“Why would they have killed Patsy otherwise?” Made perfect sense. “If they followed me to you, why abduct and murder Patsy?”
The silence that followed told her he was weighing her deduction.
“Did she know that you’d rescued a woman and child from an accident?” Jane turned in her seat to watch his profile. The sun was up now, she could see every angle and valley. Nice face. Even when he was angry.
“She stitched up my arm.” He blew out a breath. “She used to be a nurse’s aid or something. I tried to do it myself but I was making a hell of a mess. She came over to my house that night. I told her there was an accident and I got hurt helping the victims. That’s all.”
He’d just told Jane a lot more than he realized. “Were you and Patsy involved…?” She didn’t have to say the rest. He knew what she meant.
“No.” Another of those weary sighs. “She wanted to date but I couldn’t get involved. I couldn’t take the risk.”
“I need your phone.”
He looked at her as if she’d lost her mind.
“It’s the only way to know for sure.”
“You’re not calling your agency.”
“It’ll take one minute, I swear. Then I’ll hang up again.”
He surrendered the phone. “Put it on speaker.”
Well, there went her chance of learning what Ian had discovered with the prints. “Okay.” She put through the call.
“Michaels.”
“Ian, this is Jane. I have you on speaker. Benson and I have a question for you.”
Ian’s hesitation warned that he was assessing the next step. “Go ahead.”
“Can you have research run a check on the papers in the surrounding area to see if anything else has been run on the Norcross accident?”
“Research has been keeping tabs. I wanted to pass along this new data earlier, but our call was cut short.”
Jane glanced at Benson, who didn’t look the slightest bit repentant that he’d snatched the phone from her.
“There was an article in one of the online news outlets yesterday. The article showed a picture of the good Samaritan and mentioned Plano. Simon questioned the journalist but he refused to name his source. Not an hour after Simon’s visit the journalist made a call to Patsy Wagner to ask why a private investigations firm would be following up on the article she’d sourced for him.”
“Thanks, Ian.” Jane was glad to have that cleared up.
“Mr. Benson.”
The driver’s posture stiffened when Ian addressed him directly. Jane resisted the urge to hit the end-call button. Ian had no way of knowing where she was with gaining his trust. Her boss’s main concern for now would be her safety.
“I’m certain Ms. Sutton has told you that the Colby Agency can help. You have my word, this agency’s word, that we can fulfill any offer or guarantee she makes.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Benson said before taking the phone from her hand and ending the call.
“Just so you know,” Jane offered, “Ian Michaels is a former U.S. Marshal and Simon Ruhl is former FBI. I don’t know what kind of trouble you faced four years ago, but they have extensive connections.”
“If you’re trying to make your case,” Benson turned to her, “you’re losing ground. The bureau or anyone associated with the bureau is the last place I would go for help.”
Chapter Ten
“Where are we?” Jane scanned the wooded area, which looked exactly like most of the others they’d passed on the back roads Benson had taken.
“We’re going to get your car.”
&
nbsp; “Is that wise?” Since he was already getting out of the car, the question was pretty much irrelevant.
“About as wise,” he said as she rounded the car and met him near the trunk, “as continuing to drive around in this old clunker.”
He had a point. The old clunker, as he called it, stood out, that was for sure. Her rented sedan was more than a little generic in make and color. But getting to it could be tricky. Especially if any of the reunion party from yesterday was still hanging around. And that was a logical conjecture.
“Straight through there.” He pointed east. “You left your car at the old burned-out house. If the cops didn’t spot it, it should still be there.”
She’d left the keys in the ignition; the rental could be anywhere by now.
As if he’d read her mind, he asked, “Keys in the car?”
“Yeah.” She hadn’t expected to be leaving it overnight. Actually, she hadn’t expected to be leaving it at all.
“If it’s still there, I’ll circle back around and pick you up.”
Like she was going to trust him to do that. “It’s my car,” she offered, “I’ll go after it. Considering the police are after you, I’ll be less of a target than you.” Chances were, he intended to be rid of her as soon as possible. Like now.
“I think your logic’s a little flawed.” He opened the trunk of the old car. “Besides, this is my mess, not yours.”
He pulled a second handgun from the trunk and passed it to her. “Keep your eyes open.”
To say she was surprised that he gave her a weapon would be a colossal understatement. “You sure you trust me with this?” She checked the clip; full.
“Just stay put,” he ordered. “If you hear gunfire, drive back to Plano and go to the police.”
“There’s this technique,” she countered, “maybe you’ve heard of it. It’s called backup. Ironically, it works most of the time.”
His glare was lethal. “I said stay put. I’ll bring your car here. You have my word.”
So he expected her to trust him. Another irony. “I’m a pretty fast runner, as you learned last night.” She jerked her head toward the woods. “If we run into trouble that we can’t handle, I’ll come back here and go for the police.”