His voice held all the weariness of someone who had reached the end and no longer had the energy to fight. “Who have you told about this? Do I have time to pack my things and disappear into the night or am I out of time and out of luck, with the final inevitability just outside that door?”
This was a far cry from what she would have envisioned had she been able to project the circumstances. This was certainly not the way the characters in her books would have behaved given the same situation. But then, this was not action—it was real life. He was not someone she had created out of her imagination. He was a real person and apparently in very real trouble.
Andi studied him for a moment before responding to his question. It had almost seemed to her as if he was relieved to have everything out in the open, that he did not need to pretend any longer. “Jim...” She gently touched his arm. “I wasn’t sure myself until just a little while ago. Every instinct told me things were not what they appeared to be, but I had no idea what the truth was. In my wildest flights of imagination I never could have dreamed up this scene.” She paused a moment before continuing, trying to read what was going on inside him. “I haven’t told anyone, but there’s—”
“Andi—” He turned his entire body toward her. His whole manner came alive as he aggressively grabbed her shoulders in his strong grip. His alert gaze quickly scanned her features, then settled on her eyes. Distress blanketed his features. “You mentioned the second attempt on his—” The words caught in his throat as a bittersweet smile played with the corners of his mouth. “Correction—the second attempt on my life.” He regained his momentarily assuaged intensity. “How did you know about that?”
His words caught her totally off guard. She blurted out her answer, surprised at the nature of his question. “It was on one of my interview tapes. Why?”
He felt his eyes widen in shock, the same shock that flashed through his body like a bolt of lightning. “You interviewed someone who mentioned the second attempt on my life? Who? I’ve got to know, Andi. Who told you about the second attempt?”
His sudden aggressiveness seemed to bewilder her. “I don’t remember exactly who it was other than the fact that it was one of the federal agents. I don’t recall which agency he worked for. It’s on one of the tapes at my house.” She shook her head. “I don’t understand what’s so important—”
“No one knew about it, Andi. Absolutely no one. I never reported that second attempt. I’ve never mentioned it to another living soul.”
The realization slammed into her. Panic tried to take hold, forcing her to squirm out of his grasp and jump to her feet. “Jim—Keith said someone broke into his office and stole the file with my name and address.”
The shock and confusion completely cleared from her mind. Her thoughts came one after the other with remarkable clarity. “You! Someone thinks I have some kind of information that will lead them to you!” She grabbed his arm and tried to pull him up from the couch. “Come on. We’ve got to contact the authorities. Once you’re safe they can get these guys and put them away.”
“No!” He yanked his arm from her grasp. “Don’t you understand, Andi? It was someone connected with the case who sold me out to Buchanan. How else could he have known where they were hiding me? That same person is probably still around, and he might not be the only one. There wasn’t anyone I could trust then, and there isn’t anyone I can trust now. If I turn myself in I’m as good as dead. Until I can identify the person who sold me out and see that he’s put away, I’ll never be able to see that Buchanan is brought to trial.”
“Oh, no! I’ve put your life in danger.” The alarm in her voice said almost as much as her words. “Even though there’s nothing at my house or in my research that says I know who or where you are, I’m sure there are several things in my house that say where I went. Anyone desperate enough to break into my agent’s office then go to my house would not stop there. They would come here looking for me—and they’d find you.” She grabbed his hand and again tried to pull him up from the couch. “Come on! We’ve got to get out of here!”
Her thoughts and realizations were moving at such a fast pace that she was not giving him an opportunity to respond to them. He pulled her back down on the couch, grabbed her by the shoulders and took control of the situation.
“Hold it! There is no we in this matter. I’m the one they want. If anyone thought there was any tangible connection between us, then you’d be in real danger.”
“There’s no time to debate this issue. Let’s get packed and get out of here. I have a plane reservation late tomorrow afternoon out of Seattle. We’ll get out of here now and drive to Victoria. I made a reservation on the car ferry to Seattle and then—” Suddenly a new thought hit her. “No, wait a minute. Anyone who traced me here in hopes of finding you would surely have the airports covered.”
She pursed her lips for a moment as she thought about what she had just said, then her manner brightened. “We’ll drive all the way. No one would be looking for a couple traveling by car all the way from Canada to San Diego.”
He studied her for a minute. It was an odd turn of events. She was actually talking about the two of them leaving together. If things were not so deadly serious it would almost have been amusing, the strange way the circumstances had changed. An odd sense of calm settled over him. It felt so good to have someone to talk to, someone to be around without constantly having his guard up while hiding behind a facade. Trust was a luxury he could no longer afford. Did he dare take a chance on her, or was it just wishful thinking?
“Andi...be reasonable. You can’t get yourself mixed up with this.” He moved his hands from her shoulders to her face, framing her loveliness as he studied her features. “You can’t get mixed up with me. You don’t have a clue as to what you’d be letting yourself in for.” His voice was soft with just a touch of sadness. “This is no kind of a life for anyone...least of all a beautiful, intelligent woman with an exciting future ahead of her.”
She maintained eye contact with him for a long moment. “As to what I’d be letting myself in for...I might as well tell you the truth right now because you’ll soon find it out.” She saw the anxiety come into his eyes, felt the tremor move through his hands. “I’m a very stubborn woman and will not be put off by silly platitudes. Even though it was totally unintentional, the fact is that I am involved and I cannot snap my fingers and suddenly make it not so.”
His expression was stern and his manner commanding. A new look of skepticism covered his face. “I don’t understand your attitude. What’s in this for you? Is an accurate ending for your book more important to you than your own safety?”
He had to talk some sense into her, make her understand just how dangerous the situation was. “Listen to me, Andi. One woman is already dead because of me. Do you understand that? Dead—not a little bit hurt or merely frightened. I’m talking blown up by a car bomb. Stone-cold dead. I refuse to put anyone else in a position where it could happen again.” He pulled her closer. “Especially you.”
His expression softened a little, but his command of the situation continued. “I don’t think you’re in any real danger—at least not yet. You’ll check out of here and you’ll go home just as if nothing had happened. Even if someone does go through your house they won’t find anything connecting you to me. I can get Jacob from the village to cover me here. He’s done it several times before, so there’s nothing unusual or suspicious about it. In fact, he’s the one who checked you in when you arrived. By the time anyone realizes I’m not coming back, it will be too late. I’ll already have disappeared.”
His face was very close to hers, their lips almost touching, his voice a mere whisper. “I wish we could have met under different circumstances, at some previous time.”
She placed her hands on top of his as they cupped her face. “But we didn’t meet under different circumstances. We know each other now and under these—”
Without giving her an opportunity to finish her s
entence he lowered his mouth to hers and enveloped her in a kiss that bordered on barely controlled passion.
She slipped her arms around his neck and ran her fingers through his thick hair while returning his kiss, her own heated passion matching every bit of the intensity that radiated from him. She had told him the absolute truth about being stubborn. She had no more intention of letting this story slip through her fingers than she did this man who made her insides quiver like an impressionable schoolgirl’s. There was something she had, one of her taped interviews, that held a clue to solving this mess. They would follow up on this lead together.
He pulled back from her all-too-tempting presence, breaking off the delicious kiss that fanned his longing for more of her. As much as he wanted this to continue, time was all-important. His husky voice laid bare his unfulfilled desires. “Thank you for the romp in the snow yesterday. It was the only carefree moment I’ve had in longer than I can remember.”
Her voice carried a touch of sadness. “It’s not fair. You’re not the criminal. You should be able to have all the carefree romps in the snow that you want.”
He quickly brushed his lips against hers again, the moment of sorrow touching him. “No one ever said life was fair. Now, you have to pack and get out of here and I have some fast decisions to make. First of all, you’ll have to look for the name of the person who told you about the second attempt on my life. It’s the only solid clue I’ve come across that could put an end to this nightmare and I don’t intend to pass it up. By necessity I have to disappear again, but at least I now have something tangible I can grab hold of...something to keep me going when it looks hopeless.”
He looked longingly at her for another moment. “I’ll try to drop you a postcard from time to time. I’m sorry that I won’t be able to let you know exactly where I am or where I’m going, and until this is over I won’t be able to see you again. If things were different, then maybe—”
She placed her fingertips against his lips. “Listen to me. I have influential friends, people who can be trusted. We’ll get to the bottom of this...everything will work out.” She was not sure who was talking, the woman who instinctively knew a hot story when she found one or the woman who had been so involved with this man’s life for the past four months that she could not separate her research from the reality of the situation. She did not want to even think about the woman who had been so strongly attracted to this stranger from the first time she met him, even before she knew who he was.
He cradled her head against his shoulder and nestled his cheek into her short auburn curls. “The answer is no. I can’t let you get involved. You have no idea what you’d be getting yourself into, who you’d be up against. It’s much too dangerous.”
She shoved herself away from his embrace, her determination saying she considered the matter closed to debate. “I’m already involved. Now, we’re wasting time.” Her manner was all business. “You’ll have to leave your car here. Your Canadian license plates would be too noticeable and make us too easy to spot as we get farther south. Besides, mine is a rental that I picked up at the Seattle airport I can turn it in when we get to California and trade it for something different with California license plates. That way it will be just another local vehicle on the highway—one indistinguishable from a million others.”
He slowly shook his head, his disapproval surrounding every word. “Then what? We get to San Diego and then what?”
Her mind was working almost faster than she could keep up with it. “We get my tapes and you can listen to the interview that mentioned the second attempt. Maybe you’ll pick up on some little thing that escaped my notice, a word or comment that didn’t mean anything to me. Then we’ll check out the person who gave me the information. Before we leave here I’ll put in a call to Steve Westerfall and let him in on what’s happening.”
She saw the expression cross his face as soon as she mentioned involving someone else. But Steve was okay, he had to be let in on it. “It’s all right. Steve is one of the most respected investigative—”
“I know who he is. I almost contacted him five years ago. Maybe if I had...” His voice trailed off. Idle speculation served no purpose. All the what-ifs in the world would not change things.
“He has thousands of contacts all over the country. He knows just about everyone, and more important, he can be trusted. In fact, I’d trust him with my life.”
He fixed her with a hard stare. Perhaps she had not intended it that way, but her words were truly prophetic. “That’s exactly what you’d be doing, trusting him with your life. Do you really want to take that kind of a chance?”
Chapter Four
Until now there had not been a glimmer of hope, but with the interview tape Andi had, maybe...just maybe. Jim brushed his fingertips across her cheek as a sigh escaped his lips. Was he desperately grasping at straws?
Her response was all business and put an end to any further discussion of the matter. “We’re wasting time.”
Jim reluctantly followed her across the compound to the office where the pay phone was located. He still was not convinced that he was doing the right thing in agreeing to involve someone else, but Andi seemed to be a force of her own who refused to take no for an answer. He stood by as she placed her call.
She quickly explained to Steve Westerfall about her accidental discovery and what she and Jim planned to do.
“Andi, are you crazy?” Steve’s disapproval shouted across the phone line. “You should have contacted me immediately when you realized he was the missing witness without letting him know you were on to him. You’re lucky he didn’t relegate you to the land of the permanently missing.”
“He’s not like that. He’s a very nice man who desperately wants all of this to be over so he can lead a normal life again. Now, I told you about the second attempt on his life. That was the reason for his disappearance. Without Jim’s testimony, the government can’t hope to get at Buchanan. Someone on the government payroll sold Jim out. He had to go into hiding to protect himself until the day that he could discover who Buchanan had bought off—there’s just no other way to figure it.”
Steve’s audible sigh said he still was not completely satisfied. “All right. I’ll start a background check on everyone involved with the case, particularly those who had access to the protective custody procedures and the witness files. There’s one more thing, Andi. I don’t want you communicating with Keith Martin. There’s a possibility that his office and his phone may have been bugged in addition to the file being stolen.”
He paused briefly before continuing. “I’m sure this line is okay for the moment. I called Keith, he didn’t call me, and, as usual, he didn’t mention my last name.”
Steve’s voice took on all the attributes of a general giving orders to his troops as he issued instructions to Andi. “Get out of there as quickly as you can. You remember the system we used while working on the Radcliff exposé?”
“Yes.”
“That’s what we’ll use on this.”
Nothing more was said. The line went dead as they both disconnected from the call. She silently berated herself for her carelessness. She had been away from the day-to-day reality of investigative reporting for too long. The thought of someone else being aware of Keith’s phone call had not occurred to her. Now she was truly worried.
She turned toward Jim. “We’ve got to get out of here right now.”
The urgency in her voice said it all. He instinctively knew there was no time for discussion or second thoughts. He had to pursue this new lead. He might never have another opportunity like this one.
STEVE WESTERFALL LEANED back in the comfortable easy chair in his den after hanging up from Andi’s call. He carefully turned over several things in his mind, formulating a game plan and making decisions. Milo Buchanan...the original case had exploded out of nowhere. James Hollander had opened a can of worms that led all the way to the top of Buchanan Chemicals, right to the head man himself.
The U.S. Attorneys office had been trying to make a case against Buchanan Chemicals. They had gathered bits and pieces, but nothing concrete, nothing that would allow them to actually go after someone as powerful and influential as Milo Buchanan—nothing, that is, until the day James Hollander walked into the Chicago office of the U.S. Attorneys and presented himself to Phil Herman.
When James Hollander disappeared right from under their noses the day before he was to testify, it had blown the case. Phil Herman had dropped all the charges against Milo Buchanan and then had immediately resigned and taken an early retirement. Buchanan had continued with business as usual. Yes, Steve Westerfall was very familiar with the case.
And now, after five years, Steve Westerfall suddenly had verification that the only person who posed a genuine threat to Milo Buchanan was still alive. And even better, he had someone on the inside close to Hollander who could keep track of his every move.
A slight smile curled the corners of Steve’s mouth as he reached for one of the special hand-rolled Havana cigars. His wife hated the smell of the cigar smoke and insisted that he not smoke them in the house. But this was definitely a special occasion.
IT WAS LATE THAT NIGHT when Andi and Jim arrived in Victoria. He chose a small motel close to the ferry dock on the inner harbor. Her car trunk was crammed full, not only with her things but with everything of his that would fit, including his chemistry books. If it did not fit into the car, then he had considered it gone forever. He had learned over the past five years not to get attached to anything...or anyone. Andi had given him a bad time about taking up valuable room with the useless chemistry books, but he had been adamant. It was his way of holding on to one little piece of who he was. of who he hoped to be again some day.
He glanced at Andi as they pulled into the motel parking lot. He was still not sure he had made the right decision in agreeing to go along with her plan. If something happened to her because of him, or if she had some sort of hidden agenda of her own... He refused to finish the thought.
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