by Marta Perry
Her fingers covered his lips. “I’m sure you’re about to find some way to blame yourself for this, but don’t even try. You knew what to do. If I’d been driving, I wouldn’t have made it past that first S curve.”
Her voice shook a little on the words, and he had a sudden vision of what that S curve looked like to her.
“Juli—”
He just wanted to reassure her, to comfort her. Without thought, his lips found hers, tentatively at first, and then more surely as her arms went around him and her lips softened under his.
Tenderness flowed through him. She was so sweet, so caring, and he wanted to hold her close and kiss her until they’d both forgotten where they were and why.
His breath caught, and he pulled back. He shouldn’t be doing this.
Juli’s face was scant inches from his. Her eyes had a dazed look, maybe from the shock of the accident, maybe from the kiss.
“Sorry.” He brushed a loose strand of hair back from her face, her skin smooth and warm to his touch. “I guess I got a little carried away.”
“It’s all right.” Her voice was husky, and she made no effort to pull away from him. “Seemed like a good idea to me, too.”
“In that case—”
A shaft of light hit them, illuminating the inside of the car like a spotlight. He pulled away, holding up one hand to shield his eyes.
Both doors of a pickup truck flew open, and two people started toward them, dark figures against the light. He tensed. Good Samaritans, probably, but if not—
“You folks okay?” The man scrambled along the bank to shine the beam of a flashlight in at the driver’s side window. Pueblo, Ken guessed the man was, wearing a loose, dark shirt with a headband tied around his forehead. His face was creased with concern. The second person, smaller and slighter, was back there in the shadows.
“We’re okay, but we’re going to need some help to get out of here.”
“Hold tight. We’ll get you both out the passenger side.” The flashlight flickered to that seat. “Juli! I didn’t know it was you. You okay?”
“I’m fine, Dan.” Juli struggled to put another inch of space between them. “Ken, this is Dan Nieto.” Her voice seemed to change slightly. “He’s Jay’s father.”
Jay appeared behind his father, his expression scared as he set to work getting them out of the car. So Jay had been at the powwow. He filed that away to consider later. He couldn’t talk to Juli, because other cars began pulling up behind them as people, leaving the powwow, realized what had happened.
Harvey Red Feather rushed up to enfold Juli in his arms. “Juli, are you all right?”
She must be getting tired of answering that question, but she snuggled into her grandfather’s arms, nodding. Ken couldn’t suppress a pang of what had to be envy. A few minutes ago she’d been in his arms.
“I’m sorry, sir.” He met the man’s gaze over Juli’s bent head. “I didn’t take very good care of her.”
“Not your fault.” Juli’s grandfather studied the car, frowning. “Looks like you did a pretty fair job of landing that thing. A rental, isn’t it?”
He nodded. “I hate to think what my insurance company is going to say.”
“The brakes went?”
“Completely gone, as well as the emergency brake.”
Harvey seemed to hold Juli a little tighter. “That’s odd.”
“Yes.” He sounded grim. Well, he felt grim. Either someone at the rental company was guilty of gross carelessness, or else…
Or else it hadn’t been an accident. His mind flashed back to Juli’s nervousness, her sense that they were being watched. She would hate him for thinking it, but he very much wondered whether Jay Nieto had been under his father’s eyes the entire time he was at the powwow.
It was late—too late to be going down the rickety steps into the tunnel, but she didn’t exactly have a choice. When he summoned her, she had to come.
For now. Eventually that would change, but for the time being, she’d play her role.
He waited for her in the damp room, pacing back and forth, his whipcord-lean body tense with anger. She approached cautiously.
“What’s wrong?”
He whirled on her. “I’ve just heard. That idiot O’Brien hired loused it up. Kenneth Vance survived again, without a scratch on him.”
“Yes, I heard.” She kept her voice low and even. Sometimes she could calm him. Always he teetered on the brink of losing control. “It was always a chance. It’s not easy to make something look like an accident and be sure of fatal results.”
“Easy?” His face twisted. “I’m paying for results. I don’t care how easy or hard it is. I want him dead.”
She took a cautious breath. “You said you wanted to keep them off-balance. Your orders were only to act directly against him if it could be made to look like an accident.”
His fist clenched, but she didn’t think he was so far gone that he’d strike her. He might threaten, but he depended upon her. Still, there was always the chance that his mania would outweigh everything else.
“Look, my darling.” She made her tone soft, caressing. “We’ll get all your enemies. We will. But right now we should be concentrating on the latest shipment.”
“Do you think I cannot do both?”
“No, of course not.” Dealing with him was walking a tightrope. “But you haven’t fully recovered your strength yet. You must give yourself time. Time, and they will fall into your hands like a ripe plum.”
“Always you speak sense, querida.” He stepped closer, and she forced herself not to cringe when his hand wrapped around her throat.
“That is my job, isn’t it?”
“That, and other things.” He drew her closer. “I understand that woman, Julianna, was with him again tonight. Are they becoming involved?”
“Kenneth Vance, with her? Nonsense. The Vances of this world don’t become involved with people like her.”
His laugh rasped. “I’ve seen her. Any man would be interested.”
“I don’t think—”
His grip tightened, his face thrusting toward hers like a snake. “You’re interested in him yourself, aren’t you?”
“Of course not.” Fear curled in her stomach, but she wouldn’t let it have sway over her. “I need no one but you, my darling.”
His fingers pressed. For an instant her head swam, the dark cavern turning blood red. Then he released her.
“As long as you remember that.” He turned away, pacing the width of the small room as if it were a cage. Or a cell. “This Julianna—tell O’Brien. She is a target as well. Anyone who aids my enemy is my enemy. And hurting her will hurt Kenneth Vance.”
“I’ll tell him.” Anything to calm him down. Besides, what did she care if Julianna Red Feather suffered?
“Good. Good.” He slumped into a chair, his manic energy seeming exhausted. She wondered, not for the first time, if he’d been sampling his own wares.
“I’ll go and call O’Brien, then.”
He nodded, lowering his head to rest on his arms. “All my enemies,” he murmured. “All will be punished.”
She backed away cautiously. Escalante was becoming a liability. Still, as long as the money poured in, she would bide her time. When she struck, she wanted to be sure she had enough to spend the rest of her life in anonymous luxury.
She mounted the stairs and pressed the latch that opened the door. It was ironic, and she enjoyed irony. On this side of the door she was the second in command to a drug lord. Step through, close the door, and she was in her elegant office. Dahlia Sainsbury, curator of the Impressionist Museum, working late as she often did.
In fact, she was neither of those personas, but no one would know the truth until it was too late.
It was not the first time Julianna had come into the office late and groggy from lack of sleep, but she certainly hoped it was the last. Her grandfather had insisted on driving her home the previous night, leaving Ken waiting with the wrecked rental car for the
tow truck.
Maybe it was just as well that she hadn’t had another opportunity to talk with Ken. While he’d nodded and smiled at everyone who said what an unfortunate accident it was, she’d sensed the aura of suspicion that emanated from him. Sensed it, and known she was too shaken to deal with it.
In fact, she still wasn’t ready to cope. She could only hope Ken had decided that the late night gave him a good excuse to sleep in this morning.
The long, low office building nestled against the red barn that housed the design and cabinetry divisions like a chick against a mother hen. She had her key out as she approached the door, but it was already unlocked. Clearly she hadn’t succeeded in beating everyone here.
Quinn swung from the coffeemaker when she entered, looking dismayed. “Julianna. What are you doing here? I heard about the accident. You don’t look fit to be out of bed.”
She grimaced. “Since I wasn’t injured, that’s really not much of a compliment.”
He crossed the office and gave her a quick hug. “You know what I mean. You look exhausted, and it’s no wonder. What does that idiot friend of mine mean by smashing you up against a mountainside?”
“Your idiot friend got smashed, too, remember?”
Her heartbeat accelerated at the sound of Ken’s voice, and she turned slowly to see him standing in the doorway.
“Hey, I figure a tough Air Force pilot like you wouldn’t be bothered by a little thing like that.” Quinn studied his friend’s face. “Tell you the truth, you don’t look so good either.”
“I always look like this after a hair-raising escape from death, ol’ buddy.” Ken crossed the office to lean against the desk next to her. “Why don’t you send Juli home?”
“That’s what I was trying to do before you so rudely interrupted. For that matter, you go home, too. Believe it or not, Montgomery Construction can get along without the two of you for one day.”
“I have no intention of going home,” she said firmly. She tossed her bag into her desk drawer and slid into her chair. “Now if you two will just get out of my hair, maybe I can get some work done.”
Quinn lifted his hands in despair. “All right, all right. I don’t know which of the pair of you is more stubborn. Stay if you’re so bent on doing it, but if anyone keels over today, I’m not taking responsibility.”
He grabbed his coffee mug and headed into his office, closing the door behind him.
She couldn’t look at Ken, not after the way Quinn had insisted on pairing them together. But Quinn hadn’t meant anything by it—she knew he hadn’t. It was just the memory of that kiss that was clouding her mind, making her see innuendo where there was nothing but friendship.
She would not look at Ken. If she did, her face might give something away.
And it was ridiculous, anyway. She was imagining a bond that didn’t exist. Any two people who’d gone through a traumatic ordeal together might have feelings that—
Ken leaned over the desk, touching the bruise on her forehead with a gentle brush of his fingertips that she seemed to feel all the way to her heart.
“I didn’t notice this last night. I guess it was too dark. Did you have it checked out?”
“Of course not.” She tried to sound impatient, because if she let him see how she really felt their relationship would become impossible. “I’ve had far worse when I’ve been deployed on a mission, and believe me, no one gets very excited about a few bruises.”
“You weren’t out on a dangerous mission. You were just riding down the mountain in my car, and you were nearly killed.” His voice was somber, and she knew he was blaming himself again.
“I wasn’t, thanks to you. If I didn’t say it last night, I’ll say it now. Your good driving saved both our lives. If we’d gone over the edge—”
She shouldn’t have mentioned that. It made the images too alive in her mind.
“I guess we’re matching now.” He touched the scar on his forehead.
It was the first time he’d referred to his injury lightly, and she managed a smile in response. “We could get matching outfits.”
“Somehow I don’t think so.” But he was still smiling, and she felt as if she’d accomplished her good deed for the day in wiping the worry from his eyes.
He crossed to the coffeemaker and poured out a mug. “Do you want some of this? Quinn makes it strong enough to hold the spoon upright.”
“That sounds like just what I need this morning.”
He poured a second mug and brought it to her. “Bad dreams?”
She shrugged. “I get them sometimes. It doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the accident.”
“If it was an accident,” he muttered.
“What do you mean?” She set the mug down, standing to face him. “If there’s more to it than brake failure, I have a right to know that.”
“The brakes failed all right. And the emergency brakes. The chances of that happening on a fairly new rental car are pretty slim, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know.” She didn’t want to think about it. She wanted to bury her head in a pillow and forget.
Ken’s face was grim. “I do. So I went back to the garage and waited for the mechanic. I made sure he went over that car with a fine-tooth comb.”
She wouldn’t be a coward about it. “What did he find?”
“The brake lines had been cut. That didn’t happen by accident, Juli. It happened while the car was parked at the powwow.”
Even while she was shaking her head, she knew he was telling her the truth. She’d sensed it, hadn’t she? Her instincts had told her that someone was watching them, wishing them ill.
“You think it was Jay, don’t you?”
“He was there.”
Her anger flared. “So were several hundred other people. It could have been anyone.”
“I know that.” He shook his head impatiently and then grabbed her hands. “Juli—”
He stopped, looking at her. That meant that he felt it, too—that irrational surge of attraction between them.
His hard grip gentled, until it was almost a caress. “And this complicates matters.”
“What do you mean?” She had to pretend she didn’t know.
“This.” His fingers moved gently across the palms of her hands. “Us.” He shook his head. “I’m not a safe person to be around. Bad luck seems to be following me.”
She took a breath, trying to think past the thrumming of her nerves in response to his touch. “I don’t believe in luck, good or bad.”
“Actually I don’t either. But I’m still not going to expose you to it, whatever it is.”
She met his eyes. “If you’re thinking that Jay cut those brake lines—”
“Actually, I’m not. At least, not on his own.”
“I don’t understand.”
He shook his head. “I’m not sure what’s going on, but I am sure that wasn’t a simple act of vandalism.”
A shudder went through her. If Ken’s reactions had been a fraction of a second slower they’d both have been dead.
“Whoever did it had to know we’d be headed back down the mountain after the powwow.” The S curve sign seemed to flash in her mind like a warning.
“Right. This isn’t in the same ballpark as putting sugar in gas tanks and painting on walls.”
“You should tell Quinn. And your cousin.” The police would come into it. They’d have to.
“Right. I will.” His hands moved absently on hers, as if he’d forgotten he still held them. “Look, Juli, so far everything has been directed at the Vances and the Montgomerys, but you were with me last night.”
“I don’t think that matters. Really—”
The pressure of his hands cut off her words. “Maybe it’s nothing, but I’d feel a lot better if I knew you were being careful. Keep Angel with you when you can, all right? She’d scare any bad guys off in a hurry.”
“She would, wouldn’t she?” She smiled, touched by the concern and carin
g in his voice. “I’ll be careful, but I think you’re right. This isn’t aimed at me.”
“Well.” He straightened, letting go of her hands. “I guess I’d better go tell Quinn the bad news.”
She nodded, wishing she didn’t feel so reluctant to let him go. “And I’d better get to work. Montgomery Construction isn’t paying me to sit around.”
She flipped on the computer, watching him walk toward Quinn’s office door while she waited for it to boot up. It probably would make a lot more sense to send Angel along with him as a watchdog, but she didn’t suppose Ken would agree to that.
She turned to the computer and stumbled back a step, the chair clattering, a cry choked in her throat. She stared, heart pounding, dimly aware of Ken reaching her, grasping her shoulders.
She couldn’t tear her gaze from the screen. Her usual blue desktop was gone. Instead, the screen glared with a red symbol on a black background—the zigzag line that struck at her heart like lightning.
NINE
Quinn had finally insisted she take the rest of the day off, and Julianna had to admit he’d been right. She’d taken Angel out to Palmer Park and run them both until she’d been physically exhausted enough to sleep.
She’d come in all the earlier this morning, rested and ready to put in some extra time to make up for having been off the previous day. Quinn had said he’d have an expert go over her computer for any clue to how the hacker had gained access and to look for any other problems, but it seemed to her that she was far more likely to spot something wrong than a stranger would.
She’d said once to Ken that she remembered figures, and she wasn’t sure he’d believed or understood. She couldn’t explain it herself—that was just the kind of mind she had. If anyone had tampered with any of the financial reports on her computer, she’d know it.
A uniformed guard stepped out in front of the car as she approached the gate. Apparently Quinn was taking the stepped-up security he’d talked about seriously.
“’Morning, miss.” The elderly man touched his hat brim as he approached her car window. Lou Davis didn’t look especially threatening, but he seemed to be taking his new responsibilities seriously. “You’re here early.”