“I got an email from him after leaving Singapore. It said simply, King of Malaysia. You know, referring to King George II, who Georgetown was named for.”
“Mike told you to come to Malaysia, to Georgetown?” It was a question that lacked the element of surprise. He had seen this coming. Did it mean Mike Olesk was involved? He couldn’t rule it out.
“Mike had nothing to do with this, if that’s what you’re thinking.” She faced him, her fists clenched. “He wanted me to be able to lie low for a while. He got me safely to Georgetown. And he was right. I was safe for a long time. He had nothing to do with any of it, not with Daniel or Emma.” She shook her head, and tears filmed her eyes. “That was over two months ago that he contacted me. The last time I ever heard from him. The last...” Her voice broke up as emotion got the better of her.
This time he didn’t try to comfort her, didn’t put his arm around her. He instinctively knew that she needed space.
Two months for the Anarchists to find Mike, maybe a bit of time for them to come up with the right amount of money. It was possible, even probable. He remembered the shifty look of the older man’s eyes, as if Mike were keeping a secret.
“It’s okay. Trust me. I’ll get you out of here.” It was all he could say for now. The last thing he needed was for her to fall apart. But as he met Erin’s troubled eyes, he realized that falling apart was not an option. Her eyes were filmed with tears but her shoulders were set in a stoic angle. She’d hold it together. He could count on that.
He ran his finger along her cheek, wiping a tear that escaped.
“Don’t,” he said thickly. “Don’t cry. It’s all going to work out.”
She looked up at him and connected in a way that snaked hotly through him as he saw more trust in her eyes than anyone had given him in a long time. He leaned down and kissed her, his hand caressing her cheek, feeling her softness and yet sensing an iron core—an iron core that they’d need to see their way through.
Chapter Twenty
“You can’t outrun them,” Josh said as his hand rested on her forearm, strong and warm. A shiver ran through her. “You have to face this thing. It’s the only way it will ever end.”
She stood up and turned away from him, hating every word he said for it was the truth. “You know, don’t you?”
“About what happened that night?” He walked over to the window, raised the blind with his forefinger and looked out. Then he went to the door, opened it and looked around. He came back and sat down beside her. “I was briefed before I left.”
“Briefed,” she murmured. “It all sounds so cold...so clinical.”
He shrugged.
She knew he wouldn’t disagree with her assessment. She suspected that it was his strong willpower that allowed him to put his emotions and personal judgments to the background, and allowed him to do this kind of work.
“They think you’re a witness who will help pin a murder charge on the leader of one of the most influential biker gangs in the world. They assume, apparently, that your testimony is doubly important because it is also proof of what was already suspected—the gang’s high-priced connections and funding out of Europe.” He folded his arms, his six-foot-plus frame intimidating, she imagined, if you didn’t know how much he cared. “While that’s not exactly how it came down, and not quite your reason for running, I just can’t see how you got involved with them. Was it the thrill? What drives a woman like you to fall in with a biker gang, especially one as notorious as the Anarchists?”
“It wasn’t like that.” She shook her head, ignoring the other implications.
He reached over and covered the back of her hand with his. “Tell me how it really happened. Not how it was reported.” His voice was a low growl that sent a shiver down her spine.
She took a breath.
She needed him for now—to get out of Mulu. That was it. There was nothing else. After that they would part ways and she would flee—alone, as she had for the past five months. There was no other choice. Fear ran through her about what he wasn’t telling her. Did he know about Sarah? He wasn’t saying, and she couldn’t ask without arousing his curiosity. She couldn’t take the chance and she couldn’t ask the question.
Her mind went to that night as it had done over and over again during the months since it had happened.
She remembered odd things about that spring evening, the buzz of a fly that had somehow gotten into the car. The rich smell of living things in full bloom overlaid by the sweet, rather wistful scent of lilac. It was festival time and Cinco de Mayo was only a week away.
She remembered the house, a stately two-story Spanish Colonial set on ten acres just outside San Diego. She’d gone there knowing her boyfriend Steven would be there. Unfortunately, Sarah had insisted she should come along. Sarah, who had been almost four months pregnant.
“The smell of blood,” she whispered. “It was horrible. I’ll never forget...”
“Why didn’t you report it?” Josh asked, breaking into her thoughts.
She looked at him, caught in her memories, and it took a second to bring herself to the present and a question she suspected would be difficult for an outsider to understand. She took a breath. “Steven, he wasn’t there like he promised and then he showed up outside as I was leaving, almost out of nowhere. Told me it was unfortunate and tragic and that he didn’t want me involved. He said that he’d report it to the police immediately, tell them that he’d stumbled on it. Not mention my name.”
“And you believed him?”
“I wouldn’t have in other circumstances but then—well, it was traumatic. I only wanted to go home where it was safe.” She shook her head. “At least where I thought it was safe.”
“Let me guess. He didn’t report it?”
“I didn’t see Steven again after that day.”
“And you didn’t file your report, either?”
“No, by the time I realized that Steven hadn’t, I knew who had died and what I’d seen. I identified the men from pictures on the news report and after that I spoke to Mike.”
She thought of all that had transpired what seemed a lifetime ago. It had all happened so quickly. One day she had been fielding teaching gigs as a substitute teacher in San Diego and the next minute she had been running for her life. Mike was the only person she trusted with what she saw, or rather, what Sarah had seen. Even with him she hadn’t told him the truth of who was the witness. Even then she had tried to protect Sarah. Mike had laid out her options. He had briefed her on how to disappear. He’d given her tips, and she’d cobbled the details together herself. But it had been Mike who had guided her. And with no experience in such things, she had taken his advice and began to consider the worst possibility she could imagine. Leaving her home and running.
* * *
“YOU’RE NOT HOW I imagined you’d be,” Josh said.
“How did you imagine me?” Erin asked. Her heart thumped a little extra beat as she anticipated what he might say, how he had thought of her. Worse, how he might think of her now. Steven and all that he had drawn her into had not been her best moment.
He paced the room and then stopped. “It isn’t a flattering picture, Erin. I have to say that.”
“I imagine it’s not,” she said quietly. “To say my ex-boyfriend was a mistake is an understatement.”
He nodded. “After reading the report I thought you might be a bit ditzy but intelligent. Perpetually drawn to the allure of adventure, to the bad boy. Textbook. And after I spoke to Mike, well, I...”
Her stomach clenched at the thought of that.
“He said you were naive. That you had first real boyfriend syndrome. Finished school too young and were sheltered, spoiled even.”
“He said all that?” The enormity of what Josh was saying was too much to take in. And oddly it was Josh�
�s word she trusted. Mike, the old friend of her father’s, one of the last few reminders of her father—to think he had said those things was a breach of trust, and a smackdown she’d never seen coming.
She stood up, went to the window and then turned away, too disheartened to lift the blind or look out. “I was never any of that.”
“Never?”
She whirled around. “You know nothing about me,” she said through clenched teeth, the memories fresh. She looked at him and saw compassion flirting in the depths of his eyes. She swallowed, cleared her throat and said, “And yet you assume everything.”
“Then enlighten me.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“Trust me,” he said softly.
She took a breath. “Steven never wore the colors or dressed like a biker, at least when he was with me. Not until that night.” She shook her head. “Of course, I knew before that, that something wasn’t right, that Steven wasn’t just a regular guy. I’d seen his friends, heard some of their talk and put some of it together. I knew he was a biker. I just didn’t know he was an Anarchist.”
“Tell me about it.” His voice was gruff with a raw edge. “About that night. The night that Antonio Enrique died.” Antonio Enrique. The Spanish billionaire was proof of the Anarchists’ ties to old money and the European funding connection. And his death was what would take the leader of the Anarchists down—for murder.
She gripped the windowsill as she turned away from him. “I planned to break up with Steven. I wanted nothing to do with him or the gang. But...” She leaned one hip against the sill, her face turned sideways to him. “I would have broken up anyway if Steven had a normal career. He wasn’t my type of guy.”
“Steven Decker,” Josh mused. “Arrested three weeks ago attempting to cross the Mexican border near Tijuana. Drug running.” There was nothing but disdain in his voice. “I suspect there may be other charges pending.”
The news shocked her but emotionally she felt nothing. She’d never loved him and the thought of who he was and what she’d been to him made her sick. But arrested? She couldn’t imagine the free-spirited man she’d known behind bars. She didn’t want to imagine any of it. She wanted to hit Rewind.
“It was inevitable. What puzzles me was what you saw in him.” He frowned as he looked at her. “You’re into bad-boy types?”
She shook her head, and her hair slapped across one cheek. “No. God, no. Like I said, I didn’t know that was what he was. I met him at a movie. Actually, I spilled my popcorn into his lap. I thought there was nothing bad about him.”
“A movie?”
“You don’t believe me?”
“Unfortunately, I do.”
“Steven.” She shook her head. “He didn’t even like to be called Steve. He had a motorcycle, a Harley, but that’s no different than a thousand other bikers in California. The only thing that was strange is that I never saw where he lived. He always picked me up, and we would go different places.” There was a look on her face that almost made him want to believe her, almost. “I didn’t know.” She hesitated. “I should have.”
“But at some point you found out,” he encouraged. “I read the report but a report is nothing more than a dry collection of facts. And...”
She pushed a strand of hair from her face, slipping it behind her ear. “You’ve been briefed, as you call it. So I suspect you know most of it already.”
“I do.” He nodded. “But I’d like if you’d tell me yourself.”
And she did, starting with their first date to that fateful night.
“It was horrible. I didn’t see much. I heard arguing and I saw their faces briefly.” She swallowed, hating the lies she’d told, hating all of it.
“So how did you put it all together?”
“Like I said, a news report that night and then...”
“That’s not how it came down, is it?” he said with a hard edge in his voice.
She looked up at him and saw something in his eyes, something that frightened her. “No.” She shook her head. “That’s exactly how it happened.”
This time she couldn’t look at him for he would see the fright in her eyes.
“You weren’t alone, were you?” He paused and silence filled the room. “There’s a witness to that murder, but it wasn’t you. Was it, Erin?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re protecting someone. I hoped you would tell me who—voluntarily.”
Silence dragged between them as her eyes averted his and dodged to the gleaming wooden floor.
“It’s Sarah, isn’t it? Your sister.”
She stood paralyzed, her hand gripping the sill.
“I know you didn’t witness that murder. That you’re protecting Sarah, but what I don’t know is why.”
“Is she...” Her voice was choked.
“She’s safe. She’s in protective custody. They won’t get her. Either her or, what was the damn cat’s name?”
“Edgar.” Relief flooded her voice. Was he telling her the truth? What reason did he have to lie? “Sarah’s safe?”
“Protected 24/7 by our best.”
“How long have you known...has the CIA known?”
“FBI, you mean. It was their gig until you stepped off American soil. That’s where I came in.”
Her knees threatened to give out and she had to consciously breathe to regain control.
“Are you okay?” Josh asked as his hand rested gently on her shoulder. The heat of it seemed to burn through the light cotton material and she wanted to turn and lean closer into his arms, into the comfort of his embrace. But now wasn’t the time.
“How did you find her?”
“I don’t know the details of that,” Josh said. “The only detail I’m concerned about right now is you.” There was an undercurrent in his voice that sent a tremor through her. “Tell me what really happened.”
She shook her head. It was all so difficult.
He drew her into his arms.
“I care about you, Erin. More than I should. I wouldn’t lie to you about Sarah. I know she’s important to you.”
She looked at him and met the truth in his eyes.
She took in a breath and as he held her she told him what had happened that day. Her voice was steady but she thought that it might only be his arms around her that held her up.
“Sarah heard scuffling and like a fool she went in. And that’s when the murder happened. She saw the leader of the Anarchists turn, saw his face in a mirror and, thank God, he didn’t see her.”
“Giving you the perfect opportunity to run in her place,” Josh said. “Very brave, but...”
“Stupid.”
“No, not that,” Josh said quietly and drew a strand of hair from her face.
She looked up at him and felt hope that maybe with him she could face anything, including the Anarchists.
Together.
She pulled away from him and took a step back.
She tried to reel in her emotions, corral them, but it was impossible. In three days she had done the unfathomable. In the wrong time and place and with the wrong man, worse, one she knew little about, she had done the unthinkable.
It couldn’t be, but no amount of wishing made it go away.
She’d fallen in love.
Chapter Twenty-One
Erin drew in a long breath. It seemed as though her knees wouldn’t hold her, and she found herself again in his arms. She should pull away. She knew that as well as she knew that she didn’t have the will to combat what might follow.
“It’s going to be all right. I’ve got you.”
She turned her face into his shoulder as pent-up emotion, relief, tension, all of it seemed to flood through her. She wasn’t sure she could have stoo
d without the support of his arm around her waist.
“Sarah’s safe?” She shivered as she looked at him. She so wanted to believe that it was true, but it seemed impossible. It had been too long coming, yet, this man had risked his life and saved them both, and he was willing to put his life on the line again.
“She’s well taken care of. She couldn’t be safer. So tell me,” he said. “Why didn’t you file a report, despite what Steve Decker said?”
“I wanted to, but Sarah was adamant that we shouldn’t. She told me she’d heard begging, that the victim...” She swallowed hard. “Was begging for his life. She saw chaps and leathers, too. Bikers. She was sure of it. But what she was also sure of after watching a news report later that night was that she’d watched the leader of the Anarchists murder someone.” She shook her head. “I mean the Anarchists, well, they terrified me, especially after I spoke to Mike.” She looked up at him. “They won’t stop looking.” It wasn’t a question but a fact that she had feared through her entire flight.
“And Steven?”
She shook her head. “He was there, like I said. He showed up as I was leaving the house.”
“Explains why the Anarchists went after you.”
She shook her head. “I never wanted to believe that of him, but who else could it have been? And Mike, he confirmed it.” She took a breath. “Thank God he never saw Sarah.”
“So he was saving his own skin.”
“I suppose so. Saved me the breakup speech.” She smiled shakily.
“Circumstances worked against you,” he said.
“Enough of Steven. How do we stop them?”
“At this point, we don’t. Specifically, you don’t,” he said. “That’s why you need me.”
“Oh, God.” She seemed to fold into herself, her heart beating too loud, too fast. Everything seeming so futile.
His arms were tight around her, and she shuddered.
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