The Protected tfp-4

by Shiloh Walker

  “Sure.” He slumped deeper in the seat, resting his chin on his chest as he eyed the house across the street. “I was hanging around here waiting for my girlfriend to get back. She was just heading out to pick up some food, maybe a movie, some beer that’s actually drinkable.” He shrugged and eyed the bottle he held with acute dislike. “Anyway, I heard a noise—people shouting. So I come out, see those guys on the porch, and you all are there.”

  “Your girlfriend supposedly had the guy across the street hop in the car with her.”

  Tucker heaved out a sigh. “Yeah? I’m out of town half the time and she’s out running around on me.” He gave the cop a dark look. “Women suck.”

  The cop didn’t even bat an eyelash. “Nobody around here recalls seeing you before.”

  “She just moved in.” Tucker shrugged. “I’m only here about a week out of the month because of my job. I live in Louisiana, actually . . . as you can see by my license. Work keeps me traveling a lot.”

  “And what exactly is it that you do?”

  “I’m a field service engineer.” He watched as the guy’s brows arched up into his hairline and he started to ramble on about how he spent nearly seventy percent of his time either taking QA calls or traveling to fix this, and that, which he had to do because the stupid motherfuckers who called the main office couldn’t handle the troubleshooting steps that he always outlined to them on the phone.

  Halfway through his little rant, Rand’s eyes started to glaze over, and once he launched into a detailed breakdown of his last “job,” the cop abruptly lifted a hand and nodded.

  “Okay, so you’re on the road a lot.”

  Hiding his smile behind his beer, Tucker drawled, “Oh, yeah. A damned shame I worked out a few days to come visit my lady and then I hear she’s out running around with some dumb-ass. When I get ahold of that guy . . .”

  The cop flicked him a look.

  Tucker gave him a shamefaced look. “Shit, I’m sorry. Vaughnne and I . . . well. Never mind. I’ll work that out when I see her.”

  “And that will be . . .”

  He frowned and pulled out his phone. He eyed the messages like he was waiting for one to magically appear, and damn it, it would have to be magical, because he didn’t think he’d given her his number.

  “I don’t know. I’m going to have to call her.”

  “Would you mind giving me her number?”

  Tucker straightened up. “Why?”

  Gesturing across the street, Rand said, “Well, we do have a bit of a problem across the way. The neighbor’s house was broken into. She was last seen with the neighbors, not that long ago, if you’d recall. It seems we should get to the bottom of it.” He gave Tucker a friendly smile.

  Tucker smiled back as he settled comfortably into the seat. “It seems you should. But, you see . . . Vaughnne didn’t really do anything except drive away. I don’t really feel comfortable giving you her phone number.”

  “Maybe you’d feel more comfortable down at the station.”

  Tucker lifted a brow and dropped the shucks, Southern boy charm. “Maybe you’d better produce a reason for taking me there first.” He shrugged and stood up, eyeing the mess going on across the street. The paramedics were there now, working on the men, calling out terms and phrases that Tucker was more familiar with than he cared to be. One of them would be fine, once Tucker dropped his hold.

  The other one, though . . . nah. That man’s mind was toast.

  He kept having seizures and Tucker didn’t give a damn. That son of a bitch had gone after a kid.

  “Do I need to look for a reason?” Officer Rand glared up at him, looking unperturbed by the fact that Tucker had a good eight inches on him, and unperturbed by the fact that Tucker was still on the porch while the officer was on the ground.

  “If you want me to go to the station, I’d suggest you find one,” Tucker said. He hooked his thumbs in his pockets and decided when he ran into Nalini, he just might paddle her ass. And not just because she had such a nice one, either.

  If he got hauled in over this, there were going to be problems. A lot of them. There just might be . . .

  The sight of the black car pulling up in front of him didn’t do a whole hell of a lot to settle his mind. It didn’t do his temper much good when the door opened and a rough-looking bastard climbed out.

  The guy was even bigger than he was.

  Their eyes met over the distance and Tucker tipped back his head and sighed, staring up at the white painted roof over his head. He didn’t bother looking away from it even when the newcomer approached Rand, no doubt flashing his shiny little FBI credentials.

  “Special Agent Joss Crawford.”

  As Rand introduced himself, Tucker figured he’d studied the ceiling boards long enough and he lowered his gaze, staring at Joss Crawford from under the veil of his lashes. A little while back, he’d sort of worked with this guy . . . sort of . . . without really realizing it. Crawford had been working the FBI side of things, while Tucker did what he did best—work his side of things.

  Their sides had collided because one of Tucker’s few friends, Dru Chapman, had ended up right in the middle of the mess. Dru and Joss were shacking up now. Tucker thought she should get her head examined, but what did he know?

  “I’m afraid I’m going to have to take this man into custody,” Joss said, slipping Tucker a narrow look.

  Well, now. Tucker might not be able to read minds, but he could read that look easily enough. It clearly read . . . keep your damned mouth shut.

  Rand rested a hand on his gun. “And just why is that?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t discuss that, Officer, but it’s regarding an ongoing, sensitive federal investigation. This man has information on my case and he’s going to have to come with me.”

  “I am, huh?” Tucker stared Joss down. Yeah, he read the look, all right, but he didn’t do the whole do-what-you’re-told thing well.

  Yes, a voice snarled into his mind. Or would you rather go to the police station? Keep your trap shut and you can walk away with me and I’ll get you out of this. Otherwise, you’re on your own and I don’t care if Dru gets upset.

  As that voice, strong and powerful, echoed through his mind, Joss just smiled and said to the cop, “I have the warrant, if you need to see it. Unless he’s under arrest here?”

  Tucker curled his lip. “They can’t arrest me for not ponying up a phone number.” He slid Joss a narrow look and thought hard. Stay out of my head.

  Joss didn’t bat a lash. “Let’s not make this any harder than it has to be, son.”

  Son. Tucker snorted. Well, at least he hadn’t given up his real name. Sighing, he headed down the steps and fell into place at Joss’s side. Once they were halfway down the walk, Joss shot him a dark look. “Behave, dickhead. Where the hell is Vaughnne?”

  “Fuck off.”

  Joss laughed.

  “The sentiment is mutual, buddy. Now get in the car. I was in the middle of something when the boss called and I’d like to get back to it.”

  Once they were in the car, with the windows rolled up, blocking out the sound, Tucker stopped behaving. He gathered up the remnant energy rolling through him as he shot Joss a look. “You don’t even want to think about trying to take me to the FBI, Crawford. You hear me?”

  “Oh, suck my dick,” Crawford said, looking unperturbed.

  Tucker snarled and went to claw off one of his gloves. Even as the red of rage rolled through him, a gun jammed into his ribs. “You want to think long and hard about doing anything else. I know what you can do, Collins—in great detail. The only way you can stop me is if you kill me. I know killers. You’re not one. So either we call a truce or you cross a line you don’t want to cross. Which is it?”

  “You don’t get the gun away from me, you’re going to find out.”

  The air in the car all but crawled with tension as Tucker turned his head, stared into Joss’s eyes.

  A mean grin slanted Joss’s mouth.
“I think I could almost like you.” Then he withdrew the gun.

  Tucker slumped low in the seat. “If you try to take me anywhere, I’m going to cause you more grief than you can possibly imagine, Crawford. Keep that in mind.”

  “I don’t plan on doing anything but getting you out of the way so Agent MacMeans can do her job.”

  “Well, then, that is a problem.” Tucker closed his eyes. “You see, I made a promise that I’d make sure the kid she has with her was safe and I can’t do that if I’m out of the way.”

  He cracked one eye open and looked at Crawford. “I don’t break promises.”

  “You might have to break this one,” Joss muttered.

  As they neared the end of the block, Tucker had just one thought in mind. He wanted him to turn left. That was all he needed. A left turn. And then he’d take it from there.

  And sometimes, he actually got what he wanted.

  Crawford turned left, driving right past the little alley where Tucker had parked his car. Satisfied, Tucker focused and reached out. The car sputtered to a stop and died.

  He was out of the car in a heartbeat, Crawford reaching for him a split second later. He slammed the door and focused again, listening as the locks snicked shut. All the electronics in cars these days . . . it made some things so interesting.

  Crawford swore and drove his fist against the window, and Tucker flashed him a grin before spinning on his heel.

  The big, mean black muscle car was still waiting behind Vaughnne’s house and he climbed inside. He could feel his hold on Crawford’s car lessening, bit by bit, but that was okay. Once he was out of sight, the man would have a hard time tracking him down.

  He supposed he could have blown the engine, not just killed it.

  But in the end, antagonizing the FBI wasn’t going to do him any good. All he wanted to do was make good on his promise to Nalini. Then he’d relocate. Get a new phone number. Get lost in the world so that the frustrating little work of sexual art could never find him again and make him wish that for once, just once, he could actually lose himself inside a woman.

  * * *

  “WHAT’S the status?”

  “Beats the hell out of me.” Joss shot the phone he’d dropped in his cup holder a dirty look and wished like hell he’d actually finished his job here on time. He was wrapping up the loose ends from the assignment from hell. And it had been the assignment from hell. Somehow, it was one that had Joss both thanking God and cursing fate, all in one breath. He’d met Dru . . . found Dru, because of that job.

  And he’d almost lost her, almost died because of that job.

  Assignment from hell, in a nutshell.

  “Crawford . . . I need to know what is going on in Orlando,” Jones snapped, his voice about as close to pissed as Joss had ever heard him. “There’s a kid’s safety at stake, you understand me?”

  “Yep.” He cut left on the street up from where Vaughnne had been staying and did another drive by but he already knew he wasn’t going to find anything. Tucker Collins had kept him locked in his car, like he’d been trapped inside a damned tuna can, for a good three minutes, and by the time Joss had been able to get the car to turn over or the doors to unlock, the man had already vacated the premises.

  And his phone hadn’t come on for a good hour afterward.

  He was debating on whether or not to fill the boss in on all of that. They hadn’t ever had anybody in the unit that could play with electricity like that. He’d almost bet Jones would get a hard-on at the idea. Figuratively speaking, of course.

  But he also knew, even if he hadn’t picked it up from Collins’s mind, there was no way that guy wanted in the fold.

  And thanks to the gift he had riding hard inside him, he had more than a few blips from the other psychic. Up until a few minutes ago, Joss had been convinced he was the freak show of all freak shows. The label he’d been stuck with was mirroring. He could pick up the psychic gifts of anybody he’d been imprinted with and the gift would stick until he synched with another psychic and was imprinted with another gift.

  It was a weird-ass gift, he knew.

  But Tucker made him look almost normal.

  The man had shut down his car. Locked him in his car. And he’d shut down his phone.

  He’s like a walking electrical rod, basically, Dru had told him. He can do crazy shit, and I don’t know just how much crazy shit he can do, Joss.

  That had been a few months ago, back when he and Dru had been piecing together everything that had happened, both while they were working together, and when they’d been working toward the same end without realizing it. Tucker had been at her back, all along. It was one of the few things that made the nightmare of those months just a little more palatable. As in, he no longer woke up about to choke on his vomit as he thought about the hell that Dru had been living in. She’d had a way out. Tucker had been the way out. One scary-ass way out, but Dru trusted the guy and that meant something.

  That meant, basically, that Joss was going to trust him, too. Dru’s ability wasn’t one that he was going to discount. Not now. Not again.

  “Listen, Jones,” he said as the silence stretched on. “Vaughnne isn’t here. There are cops all over the place and I saw an ambulance. I don’t know what the deal is, but unless you want them being alerted to the fact that we are nosing around, we might have to stay in the dark for now.” He elected, on the side of wisdom, not to bring Tucker into the picture. Sooner or later, he might have to, especially if he got pulled into this job, but he wasn’t sure if that was going to happen.

  He had his own mess, one that he was specially suited to, and Vaughnne was already handling this one. They were spread pretty thin as it was. If Jones had wanted him on this assignment, he would have been put on it from the get-go.

  “You hooked up with Taige Morgan before you headed back to Orlando, Crawford. You can find things out without talking to anybody if you try,” Jones said.

  Joss rolled his eyes and headed back for the street where the cops were camped out. He’d been out of his mind hoping that maybe the boss wouldn’t think about that. Definitely out of his mind.

  The second ambulance was pulling away. He only knew it was the second, because the first had gone blowing past him on the way in and he was pretty positive there wasn’t another emergency going on anywhere in the neighborhood just then.

  Reaching for the police scanner, he turned it on.

  Yeah, he had a telepathic gift crammed into his mind.

  But maybe he could just use good, old-fashioned investigative skills on some of this.

  * * *

  THE little hotel room was one tucked on the bottom floor in the corner of a Red Roof Inn that had seen better years. Better decades. But it was clean and that was all that counted.

  After Gus had laid the sick boy on the bed, Vaughnne knelt at his side and touched his forehead, wincing at how hot he felt. He mumbled a little and batted at her hand before curling in around himself and clutching at his belly.

  “How long has he been feeling bad?”

  Gus was quiet.

  Sighing, she tipped her head back and stared at him. “I need to call my boss and give him an update, let him know where we are so he can get somebody here to treat the kid. It would be helpful if I could give him some background on the kid’s condition.”

  Long, tense moments passed and then Gus nodded slowly.

  He held out a hand, and although she didn’t trust him any farther than she could throw him, she placed her hand in his, let him offer her assistance she didn’t need to rise to her feet.

  He kept hold of her hand as he guided her across the room and toward the one area where they might have a modicum of privacy. Out of habit, she checked the bolt on the door. The latch was secured. The door was locked. Nobody had followed them and Vaughnne wasn’t about to let anybody near that kid. If they tried, she’d blow a hole through them or scramble their brains—whichever seemed to work best at the time.

  Still . . .
she checked.

  Seconds later, the bathroom door closed at her back.

  And then, she seemed to be the one who needed protection.

  Gus went from the quiet protector to the warrior who’d leveled a gun at her, fully prepared to kill her. Before she could even catch her breath, he slammed her against the door, his forearm at her throat, pressing hard enough that she couldn’t draw her breath to scream.

  She could have fought back.

  She knew that.

  And she knew how.

  But as his misty eyes stared into hers, her heart slammed against her chest and she couldn’t breathe, could barely even think.

  It wasn’t fear that seemed to crowd out all of her thoughts, though. Fear she could have handled.

  This was so, so much worse.

  “You need to understand something.” He leaned in, pressing his mouth to her ear. “And I want you to listen to me, very, very closely . . . Vaughnne. Is that even your name?”

  She was pleased that her voice was almost steady as she said, “Yes. It’s my name. I gave you a false last name, but my first name is Vaughnne.”

  “Hmmm.” He nuzzled her neck and little licks of pleasure shot all the way through her. “And FBI . . . are you really FBI?”

  “Yes.” She closed her eyes as he pushed his thigh between hers. Oh, hell. What the hell was this? “You can call D.C. They can verify.”

  “They routinely give out names of their agents, Vaughnne?”

  He licked her. What . . . the . . . hell? She shuddered as he crowded in closer. His forearm was still wedged against her throat, preventing her from moving, but it was no longer pressing against her so tight that it was a chore just to breathe. Well, it was, but that was because of the sheer, burning weight of lust. He traced his tongue down the line of her neck. “You did not answer me.”

  Accent, she noticed dimly. He had an accent—she hadn’t ever heard it before. And she would have noticed, too, which meant the man’s skills just went from Category 4 straight to Category 5. At least.

  Swallowing, she focused on his question. “Generally, no. But if you call and ask for the man I tell you to ask for, he will verify.”