While She Was Sleeping

by Diane Pershing

  He continued to hold Carly, to stroke her hair. She felt so fragile in his arms he thought she might break into pieces.

  “This woman is Carla Anne Terry,” Nick went on crisply as his wallet was being examined. “She is a good friend. She has my credit card with my permission. I reported it lost, not stolen. Needless to say, I will not be pressing charges.”

  The officer eyed Nick’s identification card, then him, then the card again. Finally, with obvious reluctance, he said, “Well, all right. I guess I don’t have to push it. Though you have to admit it sure is strange, all her stories. I couldn’t keep track of them. Yours are pretty changeable, too.”

  Nick shot him a small, comrade-in-arms smile. “Yeah, well, we’ve both been stressed-out lately. Just give us a couple more minutes.”

  While Carly wept on, Nick held her, glad to be able to offer what he could, but experiencing the sense of utter helplessness most men feel at women’s tears. So, he stroked her hair and murmured soothing words until, eventually, the sobs diminished.

  “I’ve been so scared,” she hiccuped into his chest. “All day.” She raised her head and met his gaze. “So s-s-s-scared.”

  Her skin was red, her eyes water-soaked. His heart did a strange flip-flop at the sight of so much misery. Reaching under her eyelids with his thumb, he wiped some tears away. “It’s okay, you know. Really.”

  “I never cry.” She sniffled.

  He had to smile at the absurdity of her statement. “Coulda fooled me.”

  At first she seemed confused, but then she got it. Her answering smile was shaky, but at least she smiled. “Forget I said that.”

  “Come on, let’s get you out of here.” After thanking Williams, Nick wrapped one arm around Carly’s shoulder and walked with her out of the office, through the terminal toward the exit door.

  Outside, the night air was cool. As he hugged her close, he observed how snugly her body fit next to his. He’d missed touching her, he realized, missed being with her all day. Now he needed to get her someplace quiet where he could find out what the hell was going on.

  Sunday-night travelers made the pick-up and drop-off traffic heavy. Too impatient to wait for the green light, Nick navigated them through the slowly moving vehicles to the parking lot across from the airline terminal. He guided them down the dimly lit aisle to where he’d parked his car in a No Parking zone.

  Carly, still trembling in the aftermath of her emotional release, found herself all too willing, for the moment, to be led by Nick, to be sheltered by his protecting arm around her shoulders. After a day spent running, she was exhausted, ready to drop. Her numbness was of both mind and body. She’d been on emotional overload for too long. All she wanted to do was rest. Against Nick.

  They had reached his car, a dark red Camaro that looked a little the worse for wear, before she became aware of her surroundings. Nick opened the passenger door and started to help her in. “Come on,” he said. “We’re going to my place.”

  His place.

  An alarm went off in her head and she stiffened. No, she thought. Nick’s car, Nick’s place wasn’t where she needed to be. She’d just escaped from a gunman, then from airport security; Nick, with all his soothing words and strong arms, represented even more danger. He was still a cop.

  Don’t go with him, she told herself. As far as she knew, no one had yet connected her with Demeter’s murder, but Nick was too closely associated with the people who might. She had to remember that. She might have flirted briefly with thinking him Sir Galahad, but no more. She could not allow herself to stay with him another minute. She couldn’t take the chance.

  Standing in the car’s open doorway, she stared at the seat back. “Nick?”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “Thank you for coming down here.”

  “Sure. Get in.”

  She took a deep breath, then went for it. “I...have to ask you one more thing.”

  A beat went by before he responded. “What?”

  Forcing herself to turn around so she could look him straight in the eye, she said, “Will you advance me the money so I can go home?”

  Their faces were close, only inches apart. “So you can what?” He obviously hadn’t expected that.

  “I want to go home, Nick. To Boston. Tonight.”

  Nick felt as though he’d been slapped. He took a step back, his shoulder butting up against the open car door. Home, she’d said, she wanted to go home. Not home with him, but to Boston. That’s why she’d been at the airport.

  What was going on here? More to the point, what kind of stupid fantasy had he been playing out in his mind? That Carly had turned to him for help and he’d done the manly thing and taken over and now she was so grateful she was his? Like some sort of prize? He stared at her. In the shadows from the parking-lot lights, her expression was strained, her lids still puffy from her crying jag. But there was determination in her eyes.

  “That doesn’t make sense,” he said evenly. “Unless your memory’s come back. Has it?”

  She shook her head. “No, but I just want to go home.”

  “Before you explain what went on in there? Before you find out where you’ve been, what happened to you?”

  She averted her eyes, as though she knew he made sense but she didn’t want to hear it. “I just want to.”

  Let her, he told himself. Let her go. He’d mopped up the mess she’d got herself in, so his job was done. She owed him nothing, and if she was in such an all-fired hurry to get away, tell her goodbye and be done with it.

  But there was still a puzzle here, and he hated not knowing the answers. The woman changed moods with the speed of a magician. There’d been defeat, sorrow, softness, belligerence. Now she looked and sounded like a scared little kid. Studying her with a frown, he was barely aware when his mind-set underwent a subtle shift of gears. Within the short space of half a minute, the police officer took over from the man.

  There was something more than mood swings going on here, Nick realized, and whatever it was, it was scaring the life out of her. He’d been so busy all day resenting her for walking out on him, then wrapped up in his rescue fantasy since, that he’d let it get by him. But that would stop. Right now.

  “You want to go back home? Tell me why first.”

  She didn’t reply, just chewed her bottom lip and kept her gaze averted.

  “Carly, you’re hiding something.” He rested a hand on the car frame next to her head, subtly but effectively imprisoning her. “A lot of things, I think.” When she didn’t answer him, he went on more forcefully. “Why did you run away this morning? Why did you say you’re in trouble? What kind of trouble?”

  “I...can’t.”

  “Sure you can.” Grabbing her chin, he forced her to meet his gaze. “What are you keeping from me, Carly? I deserve answers. Tell me what’s going on.”

  Carly felt trapped. Nick’s expression was so stern, so unmoved. Her savior was history. Her situation was hopeless, she decided, utterly hopeless. Nick had as good as announced that he wouldn’t lend her the money to leave and he wouldn’t go away.

  Not that she blamed him, of course. In his place, she would have the same reaction. But fair play was not—could not be—uppermost in her mind now. She urged her tired brain to function. Escape, it said. It was her tried-and-true reaction to most unpleasantness, to break away and hide.

  But where? Even if she managed to get away from Nick, what would she do? Wander the streets the way she had all day? Go back to the airport? Sit up all night near a boarding gate? With nowhere to rest? With no money? With an armed man looking for her?

  Even backed into a corner, she tried to weigh all her options. But, she realized, there really was no choice. Of all the alternatives, the man facing her represented the least threatening one—shelter and a reprieve from immediate danger. Temporarily, at least.

  She lifted her chin out of his grip. “I know how I sound, Nick. Believe me, I do. The best thing for both of us would be for me to get out
of your hair. But if you won’t lend me the money to get back to Boston—”

  “Not till I hear some answers,” he snapped.

  She ignored his retort. “—then, I have one more favor to ask of you.” A bitter laugh seemed to come up from nowhere. “If you turn me down, I don’t blame you.”

  He stiffened, but said nothing, waiting.

  “Shelter,” she said finally. “For one more night. I will go with you to your place. I’ll sleep on the couch. Alone. Believe me, you don’t want to get involved with me.” She shrugged with defeat. “I have nowhere else to go. Tomorrow, I’ll get through to my friend in Boston and she’ll pay for my ticket, then I’ll leave. You can forget you ever met me.”

  The muscle in his jaw twitched. “Not good enough. I want answers.”

  “I can’t give them to you.”

  They locked gazes, two combatants facing a standoff. Carly half expected him to get into his car and drive away. She wouldn’t have blamed him if he had.

  Instead, he surprised her. “You’ll come home with me now?”

  “Yes.”

  “But let me get this straight. No sex.”

  “I wouldn’t feel right.”

  Was that a fleeting expression of regret—no, hurt—she saw in his eyes? It must have been her tired imagination, because in the next second it was gone. Now Nick’s gaze turned calculating, and she understood. One more night to work on her, he was thinking, to wear her down and discover her secrets. She prayed she could find the strength to resist another interrogation.

  “Fine,” he said. “Get in the car.”

  She slid into the seat. He closed the door after her, then went around to the driver’s side. He shot one more speculative look at her as he put the key in the ignition, then took off.

  She was not surprised that he drove fast and expertly once they got out of the terminal area. It went with the car, the profession, the man. They were on the freeway within minutes. The air between them was fraught with Nick’s unspoken questions, but Carly told herself that all she had to do was get through a few more hours. Margie would surely be available by morning and would arrange her ticket home. She felt a tug of sorrow at the thought of saying that final goodbye to Nick.

  If only they’d met under different circumstances. If only the timing had been better. But if only’s were a luxury right now. The farther away she could get from this mess, the better off she’d be.

  “All right, Carly.” Nick surprised her out of her reverie. They were exiting the freeway now, and turning onto a main thoroughfare. “Something pretty heavy is going on,” he continued, “but you don’t want to tell me about it. Why, I don’t know. Answer me this—is there anything about the whole situation you can let me in on that won’t upset you?”

  Guilt hit her. Yes, of course, he did deserve some answers.

  She’d done nothing but take and take from him; she had to give something back. She racked her tired brain. What could she say that didn’t incriminate her and yet would be the truth?

  She stared out at the passing cars, the overhead lights, before she came up with it. “A man, at the airport...” She stopped. Was it all right to tell Nick about this? A wave of sheer exhaustion washed over her.

  “A man at the airport,” Nick prompted.

  Carly willed herself to continue. “He held a gun on me.”

  “He what?”

  “I was going to buy my ticket and this man put a gun in my back and told me to go with him.”

  Nick glanced at her quickly, obviously not sure what to make of this latest revelation. Then he returned his attention to the road. “Who was he?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What did he want?”

  “I don’t know that, either. But...please don’t laugh at me, but I think he may have been following me all day. Although it could have been my imagination.” She looked down at her lap and lifted her shoulders. “I don’t know. He could even be following us now.”

  Nick pulled up at a red light. “He’s not.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’m a cop—checking my rearview mirror is an automatic. Why would someone be following you?”

  “I...I’m not sure. I mean, I don’t know.”

  “Take a shot at it,” he said. The edge of sarcasm in his tone made her glance at him again.

  His expression was no longer speculative, and she had no trouble reading it. It was that look of suspicion, the same one she’d seen this morning—had it just been this morning?—when she’d said she had no idea how she’d wound up in California. He didn’t believe her.

  “I’m not lying,” she said, knowing she sounded defensive. “I don’t lie. Nick, I swear I don’t.”

  He studied her, his eyes unyielding green steel. “Maybe you don’t lie,” he said slowly. “But you sure do leave things out, don’t you?”

  The light changed and he took off, passed a slow-moving pickup truck and changed lanes. “What happened after the man put a gun to your back?”

  “I managed to escape. I, uh, caused a diversion. Threw myself in front of a maintenance vehicle.”

  “And then?”

  She shrugged. “He ran off.”

  “I assume you reported the incident.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I didn’t want to deal with the police!” The sentence was out before she could pull it back.

  “Why? What’s wrong with that?”

  She scrambled for some way to cover her gaffe. “Well, I...didn’t want all the fuss—I had no purse, no money, no identification. I was worried, you know.” Weak, she told herself. Pitiful. Her mind struggled to find further, more reasonable-sounding answers for him. “Besides, he was already gone. There was nothing that anyone could do to catch him. And he didn’t do anything to me. I mean, he didn’t rob me or anything.” She let out a shaky laugh. “Not that I had anything for him to rob.”

  “Did you see his face?”

  “Sort of.”

  “What do you mean, ‘sort of’?”

  “Without my glasses, I couldn’t make out details. But he was about my height, and thin and pale with brown hair and a receding hairline, but I didn’t get the impression that he was very old. He wore a long tan raincoat that looked too big on him, like it belonged to someone else.”

  “And you’re positive he had a gun.”

  “It sure felt like it. I mean, what was I supposed to do?” Again she laughed weakly. “Say, ‘Show me your gun or I’m not going with you’?”

  He ignored her feeble attempt at humor. “Yeah, well, it probably wasn’t a gun, because it’s real difficult to get one past the metal detector.”

  “Oh.” Of course, she thought. How stupid of her not to have realized that.

  “Okay.” Nick’s fingers drummed restlessly on the steering wheel as he drove. “Some scumbag points a gun at you, or you think he does. It happens in all big cities, in all airports. We can report it now, we’ll turn around and I’ll go with you. Security should know if there’s some creep hanging around LAX who’s a potential—”

  “No, I can’t,” she blurted out.

  “Why can’t you?”

  There it was again. The million-dollar question. How had she painted herself into this corner? Was it sheer exhaustion? Or had she, unconsciously, done this to herself because she wanted to unburden herself? To throw caution to the winds and just tell him all of it?

  Plus, he was right. If other people were in danger from this man, she should report it.

  But then she came up against the same barrier—to report it would mean involving the police. What if they were already looking for her in connection with Demeter’s murder? What if someone had seen her on the yacht? Or what if they’d traced her fingerprints and knew her name? It was lunacy to go anywhere near the police.

  But she’d called Nick for help and she owed him. Dear Lord, she’d managed to get herself between a rock and a hard place, hadn’t she, and there w
as no relief in sight.

  “Nick, please believe me when I say I would like to tell you all about it, but I can’t.”

  “Dammit!” he shouted, slamming his hand on the steering wheel. “What is it with you?”

  She shrank against the car door, covering her face with her hands. There it was again, the rage. Like her father, that sudden explosion of fury, the violent temper. It was as though she was back in her childhood, helpless against the words, the fists, the superior power of a man. She cowered against the side of the passenger door, trying to protect herself as best she could, trying to hide.

  She felt the car swerve then pull to a stop. The engine was still running when Nick touched her shoulder. She flinched.

  “Carly? What’s the matter?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “What happened? Open your eyes, look at me.”

  Slowly, she removed her hands from in front of her face.

  They were in the parking lot of a convenience store. Several other cars were parked nearby, and people came and went through the glass doors into the brightly lit store. She was not back in her childhood, was she. Her father was not towering over her with that look of fury on his face.

  She was in the present, and she was a grown-up woman who had come a long, long way.

  She faced Nick and told him the truth. “I thought you were going to hit me.”

  He sucked in a breath. “I don’t hit women.”

  “It was because you were so angry.”

  “Hell, do you blame me?” He shook his head with exasperation. “You have got to be the most frustrating person...”

  He let the sentence trail off, then raked his fingers through his hair. He stared out through the windshield, obviously working on calming down. She had to agree with him, she was, must be, incredibly frustrating, especially for him. He had questions he wanted answered, and she was trying to save her life.

  She studied him, his face lit by the neon reflection of the convenience store. She observed his strong profile, his resolute jaw with its dark bristles shading it, the way the ends of his hair curled against his collar. He was beautiful, she thought abstractedly, in a brutish kind of way. Tough, street-smart, untrusting. And his rough beauty affected her deeply. Beneath her breastbone, she felt a breathless, excited fluttering; yes, even on this, the worst day of her life, engaged with Nick in a silent struggle for her secrets, she was still attracted to him, still drawn to him at a deep gut level.