Keeping Her Close

by Suzanne Rock

  “We could start there. I want to help. We need to be careful what we say so it doesn’t run cold. As our biggest lead, we can’t afford to lose it.”

  She inched the laptop aside and looked up at me. “It’s not our only lead, you know. There’s another we could chase.”

  “Another?”

  She rose from the bed and began to dress as I leaned back against the headboard of the bed. “Kami has been with me almost every day since I started this business. He knows just as much as I do about the plight in Tanzania, possibly more, since his family still lives in the country. Your friend said that he is awake and lucid. If I could just get a few minutes with him—”

  I shook my head and crossed my arms. “It’s too dangerous. The police are questioning him. That will have to be enough.”

  “The police don’t know him like I do.”

  I felt a tightening in my chest at her words. “All the more reason to stay away from him.”

  “Think about it.” She started to close the distance between us. “He’s worried about me, I’m sure. He might say things to me that he won’t say to the police.”

  I slid my hands behind my head and frowned in thought. “He’ll have guards, guards who may very well be on the lookout for us.”

  “Then we find a way around them.” She sat beside me on the bed and placed her fingers on my chest, sending tingles out over my skin. “Before we left on the plane for America, he seemed uneasy. When I asked him about it, he said that he had a bad feeling about this trip. At the time, I was so busy planning my upcoming lecture that I didn’t give it much thought, but looking back, I bet he knew something was going to happen.”

  I had to admit, it did sound suspicious. I covered her hand with my own. “There’s someone else who wants to talk to you, you know. Someone else who suspected that you might been trouble before you left for Africa.” Vash was right. It was possible her father was hiding something important. For an estranged father, he seemed to know a lot about her whereabouts. He wouldn’t talk to the police, but he might talk to his daughter.

  Her features darkened. “My father has nothing to do with this.” She pulled her hand away and walked across the room. As she did, I let out a breath I didn’t realize I had been holding. Tess was so beautiful, so captivating. Being close to her was starting to become a serious distraction.

  “He’s worried about you.” I took a hesitant step forward. “He hired people to protect you while you were leaving Tanzania. It’s possible he knows something.”

  “He’s working with police. I’m sure he’s already told them everything he knows.”

  Vash’s words floated through my head as I got out of bed and pulled on my jeans. They both are hiding something . . . “Maybe, maybe not. He could be withholding something. We might not be able to get it out of him, but you could.”

  “I told you, we don’t communicate well. If he knows something, I’m sure he won’t tell me about it. Besides, I don’t want to put my father’s life in danger. The less he knows, the better.” She pressed her lips together as I closed the distance between us and hooked my finger under her chin.

  “I can arrange for you to talk to him over Skype. You won’t have to be in the same room as him.”

  “I don’t know.” She shook her head free of my fingers.

  “Ten minutes, that’s all I ask. Talk to your father for ten minutes and find out what he knows. If you could do that for me . . .” I slid my palms over her arms until she unfolded them from in front of her chest. “If you could do this for me, then I’ll find a way for you to see Kami.”

  “You will?”

  I nodded. “Do we have a deal?”

  She seemed to consider my words. “Ten minutes, nothing more.”

  I stepped back and held up my hands in mock surrender. “That’s all, I promise.”

  She took in a deep breath and let it out before she spoke again. “Okay, I’ll do it.”

  “You will?”

  She walked over to the bed and repositioned her laptop in front of her. “Yes, now come over here and help me write something to this internet troll. I want to make him squirm.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Tess

  As I sat down at the kitchen table in the apartment and rubbed my sweaty palms on my lap, I couldn’t help but think that this was going to be a fruitless endeavor. My father had a stubborn streak, one that I inherited. He loved throwing his weight around and showing people who was in charge. He told me that it was for my protection, but part of me couldn’t help but think that he just wanted to control my life. My mother was very independent and strong willed, and he had taken great liberties where she was concerned. She could come and go as she pleased, do what she pleased, and I suspect that my father blamed her love of the outdoors for her skin cancer and eventual demise.

  “Remember, I’ll be right here,” Max said as he placed a mug of tea in front of me. “Everything is going to be fine.”

  “I hope you’re right.” I looked down at the tea he had prepared, feeling somewhat comforted. We had only known each other for a short time, but he was already learning my preferences. If we were this close after a few short days, how much closer would we be after a week or a month?

  “I know I’m right.” He moved behind me and massaged my shoulders. “Your father just wants to talk to you. He misses you.”

  I wanted to retort, but Max’s fingers felt so good along my shoulders. I closed my eyes and bit back a moan of approval. “Couldn’t you just keep doing that instead of having me talk to my father?”

  He chuckled and pulled his hands away. “I’m afraid not.”

  I flashed him a scowl and booted up the computer. The laptop was mostly empty with a blue background. It surprised me for a moment, until I remembered that this wasn’t my computer, but one that belonged to Max’s friend. Still, for a personal computer, I found it rather odd that it had no background picture or personal documents on the desktop. In fact, it looked as if the entire hard drive had been wiped clean, or it was a brand-new unit.

  I went through the motions to log into Skype. “Are you sure this is the correct time?” I asked.

  “This was the time Vash gave me,” Max said. “You have the number?”

  “Yeah, I do—oh.” I blinked and sat back as a new screen popped open and my father’s face materialized. He was sitting in front of a blank, white wall that could have been anywhere in America.

  “Is this thing on?” he asked as he squinted at the screen. Someone mumbled something off-camera that I couldn’t quite make out, and then he widened his eyes and sat back in his seat. “Ah, there we go.” His features relaxed into a smile. “Tess.” His face brightened for a brief second before becoming stern. “Where are you?”

  “Dad, I’m fine. There’s no need to worry.”

  His frown deepened. “I always worry about you. You know that.”

  Of course, I did. If worrying was an Olympic sport, my father would bring home a gold medal. “You need to stop talking to the media. The ruckus you created is preventing me from returning to the civilized world.”

  “But that cop . . .”

  “It was the cop who saved me, dad. He’s the one protecting me now.”

  He pressed his lips together as some indefinable emotion crossed his features. “I should have been the one there to protect you.” He shook his head. “I’m so sorry, Tess. I guess when I found out you were in trouble so far from home, I got a little carried away.”

  I blinked in surprise. My father never admitted that he was wrong. Ever. The fact that he was doing so now suggested something was amiss.

  “You had no idea what was going to happen,” I said. “You shouldn’t feel guilty over it.”

  “That’s not necessarily true.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Instead of answering my question, he asked one of his own. “Are you alone?”

  “No, sir, she’s with me,” Max said as he knelt down next to me.
r />   “Who’s that?” my father asked.

  “It’s Max. He’s the cop who has been helping me.”

  My father frowned. “Well, you can tell him that he has nothing more to worry about. I have spoken to his friend and as far as I’m concerned, his name is cleared.”

  “Just like that?” I asked.

  My father shrugged. “If he is in trouble with the Feds, it’s not because of me.” He shifted his gaze to Max. “You didn’t harm my little girl, did you?”

  “No, sir.”

  My father harrumphed. “Good. Now you bring her back safe and sound, and then I can take her home where she belongs.”

  “I’m not going back to London, dad.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. No one can protect you like I can. If you just come home, I can place bodyguards around you and ensure your safety.”

  “I’m not a little girl anymore, daddy. You can’t order me around.” I inched closer to Max. “And we aren’t coming home until these men are caught and Max’s name is cleared—on all counts, not just from your accusations.”

  My father glanced off camera as someone mumbled to him.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I know.” My father held up his hand and returned his attention to me. “Now you listen here, Tess. It’s time to stop this foolishness and come home.”

  “How’s Kami?” I asked, desperate to change the subject.

  “Who?”

  “My friend in the hospital. The one who was in the car with me.”

  My father turned, listening to someone off-camera. I leaned closer and tried to hear the words, but the computer microphone wasn’t picking them up.

  Eventually my father turned back to the computer screen. “They tell me he’s fine. He’s come around and is starting to talk to people.”

  “He’s talking to people?” I raised my brows and glanced at Max. “Did he say anything?”

  My father shook his head. “Only that he wanted to talk to you.”

  “I need to see him.”

  My father shook his head. “It’s too dangerous.”

  “Look, dad,” I said. “I’m doing fine, but Kami is exposed in the hospital. He was as involved with the blog as me and it’s possible he’s a target.”

  “They say he has a police guard. I’m sure he’s fine.”

  I shook my head. “It’s not good enough. We both had a police guard when that car ran into us.”

  My father cleared his throat. “I know if you just came home—”

  “It’s not going to happen, dad. Not until I can figure out who wants to kill us and why.”

  “Have your received any communication from the attacker, Mr. Abbott?” Max asked.

  “What?” my father scrunched his nose in confusion.

  I spoke slow and loud as I repeated the questions. Man, these microphones were terrible. As I talked, a strange sound came from outside, almost like a thumping noise. Max left the room to investigate.

  “Not recently.”

  “Not recently?” I asked. “You mean someone has contacted you before?”

  Voices rose up from the street below our apartment. People were yelling, but it was hard to make out their words. “Max, what’s going on?”

  “We need to get out of here, Tess,” he yelled back. “End the call to your father.

  “What?” I stood up, the laptop forgotten.

  “There are several cop cars outside.”

  “What? How did they know about us?”

  Max returned to the kitchen and frowned at my father on the screen. “This was a set up.” He slammed the laptop shut and grabbed my hand. “You were right. We never should have agreed to the Skype meeting.” He grabbed the laptop bag and searched through it.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Checking for bugs.” He tossed it aside and unplugged the laptop. Lifting it in the air, he flipped it over and examined the underside.

  I went over to the window and peered outside. I immediately saw the cop cars. Several police officers were heading toward the building. One of them pulled a gun.

  “And they’re armed.” I went back to Max, who had abandoned the computer and duffle. He quickly moved into another room and grabbed a bag from the closet.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Taking what we need.” He shoved his wallet and a few necessities inside.

  “Where are we going to go?” I asked as he took my hand once more.

  “I don’t know. Get as far away from here as possible.”

  “We need to see Kami.”

  “What? Are you crazy? Whoever bugged that laptop now knows you were asking questions about your friend. They’re going to be waiting there for us.”

  I tugged on his hand, forcing him to stop. “He’s awake, and he might have seen something we both missed. At the very least, he has contacts in Tanzania and can find out if there is anyone there who might want to hurt me.”

  Max ground his teeth and glanced at the window. The sounds were getting closer.

  “You promised,” I reminded him.

  He returned his focus to me. “Okay. But we need to get out of here first.”

  “Agreed.”

  He went to the door and peeked out into the hallway. After confirming that it was empty, he pulled me out and took me to the right, toward the stairs.

  “Seems like we have done this before,” I joked.

  Instead of answering, he quickly turned around and put his finger to his lips. Then he started walking up the stairs.

  I followed as silently as I could. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask him what he was doing, but then I heard several voices coming from below.

  Max took me to the landing above. There he eased me against the wall and pulled his gun.

  I widened my eyes. There was going to be shooting?

  He turned so his body faced me but never took his eyes off the stairs. His body heat surrounded me as he leaned in close to my ear.

  “Hold very still. They’re coming.”

  I nodded and said nothing. Pressing my body against the wall, I listened to the men come up the stairs. Max slowly clicked his gun and aimed it below. I closed my eyes. My heart beat double time, thudding in my chest and echoing in my ears. The voices stopped on the floor below us and opened the door. Seconds passed as they filtered into the hall.

  Max leaned back and took my hand. “Come on, let’s go.”

  Together we raced down the stairs, passing the main floor and going down to the basement. Max stopped at the door and listened for voices. Not hearing anything, he opened the door and peered outside. Within seconds I was racing across a short alley and onto a side street.

  “Move quickly,” he said. “But don’t look like you’re moving quickly.” He glanced at me. “And keep your head down.”

  I did as I was told. All that we needed was for someone to remember seeing a pale woman exiting the apartment complex. We hurried down one street, then another. I became completely disoriented and hoped that he knew where he was going. After a long moment, we finally stopped moving.

  “Did we lose them?” I asked as I leaned up against the side of a building.

  “I think so. We still need to be careful, though.”

  “So, what do we do now?”

  “Now?” He said. “Now we need to find somewhere to hide until dark.”

  “What happens then?”

  He smiled. “Then I think it’s time for us to pay your friend Kami a little visit.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Max

  I pushed the cart down the hall and tried not to think about how close Tess was standing next to me. We had a job to do, and if we took one wrong step, we were going to get caught. I needed to stop fantasizing about how good her body felt against mine and start focusing on the task at hand.

  I didn’t want to be here. Visiting Kami wasn’t very smart. He was guarded and most likely the people who wanted to harm Tess knew we were coming. It was far too dangerous, but that wasn’t the only reason
why I didn’t want to be here. Whenever Tess brought up his name a bolt of jealousy ran through me. I couldn’t help it. She seemed so attached to this guy. They had been friends forever and it was obvious that he was the person she leaned on when life threw a problem her way. I hated that this person had managed to achieve her trust and commitment in a way I hadn’t.

  We turned a corner and I immediately saw the officers stationed outside of room four-forty-six up ahead. According to the nurse I sweet-talked at the information desk on the first floor, this was the guy’s room, and only staff that had been cleared by police were allowed inside.

  “In here,” I muttered underneath my surgical mask. We had broken into a supply closet on the first floor and had put on scrubs and masks, but we still needed identification if we wanted to get past those guards. They were sure to be on the lookout for someone with pale skin, and even in scrubs and a surgical mask, Tess’s skin would give us away.

  “Any ideas?” Tess asked as she pulled down her mask.

  Instead of answering, I glanced at my watch, then peeked out the door once more.

  “Max?”

  I didn’t want to tell her what I was about to do. I knew that she wasn’t going to like it, but it was the best thing I could come up with on such short notice. We were out of options.

  It only took a few seconds before I saw my mark.

  “Stay here,” I said over my shoulder. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Where are you going?”

  I slipped out of the small storage area before she finished the question. Carefully stepping around the corner, I grabbed the other end of the cart before the nurse could push it into view of the officers.

  “Is this going to room four forty-six?” I asked.

  She nodded. “Is there something wrong?”

  “Is it vegetarian?”

  “No.”

  I shook my head and took the dome off the plate. “Chicken.” I flashed her a look of disapproval. “Are you trying to make the patient sicker than he already is?”

  “No, of course not.”