Under the Gun
Under the Gun
HelenKay Dimon
About the Author
Award-winning author HELENKAY DIMON spent twelve years in the most unromantic career ever—divorce lawyer. After dedicating all of that effort to helping people terminate relationships, she is thrilled to deal in happy endings and write romance novels for a living.Now her days are filled with gardening, writing, reading and spending time with her family in and around San Diego. HelenKay loves hearing from readers, so stop by her website at www.helenkaydimon.com and say hello.
Under the Gun
Helenkay Dimon
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To Ethan Ellenberg for convincing me
to give romantic suspense a serious try.
Chapter One
Luke Hathaway scanned the surveillance monitors set up in the nondescript Washington, D.C., office building’s underground security headquarters. The wall of television screens showed every inch of public area and private offices of the financial firm on the eighteenth floor.
He and partner Adam Wright had flashed a fake subpoena ten minutes earlier. The official-looking paper convinced the guard to give up his comfortable seat and call someone in charge for guidance. That provided Adam with just enough time to slide into the chair, tap into the system and send the feed directly back to Luke’s office across town.
Luke put his palm on the console and leaned in close to the monitors. The move blocked the guard’s line of sight and gave Luke a good look at every angle of the business on the small screens. “Seems only the bathrooms are sacred in that place. Every other square foot has a camera hidden somewhere.”
“Yeah, no paranoia there,” Adam said.
The security guard covered the phone’s mouthpiece. “What are you two doing? You can’t touch the equipment.”
“Just looking.” Luke smiled at just how easy it was to infiltrate a company in supposed lockdown.
Adam had tried to tap into the computer’s hard drive from back at the office but needed direct access to the financial company’s internal system. One cover story and a stack of forged documents later, they were in. Just proved Luke’s theory that when the back door refused to budge, you used the front. He found that most people with something to hide spent their time covering all the tough routes to information and missed the obvious ones like an overweight fifty-year-old security guard who nearly wet himself at the sight of a sheet of paper with a big seal on it.
“Now there’s something worth watching.” Adam let out a low whistle and hitched his chin at the screen to Luke’s right. “The lady with the fine—”
Luke saw the flash of jeans out of the corner of his eye. “Yeah, I can see.”
Adam laughed. “It’s your lack of enthusiasm that has me concerned.”
Even in black and white Luke saw long dark hair and an impressive shape. Still, he needed Adam to focus on the job so they could get out of there before the guard hung up the phone and figured out what was going on.
“Drool on your own time.” Luke returned to memorizing the area around the receptionist’s desk in the financial office upstairs. But a prickling sensation at the base of his neck pulled his attention back to the image of the woman at the elevator.
There was something familiar about her. Something about her perfect posture with shoulders back and chin lifted high, almost daring anyone to question her. That curvy shape, from her full breasts to her slim waist to the way her dark jeans hugged her hips.
Something …
Just then she turned around and stared straight into the security camera. Didn’t even pretend not to notice the device in the black bubble hanging above her head. Big eyes. Flirty smile. Hands resting on her hips in a way sure to highlight the rocking body underneath that slim-fitting T-shirt.
The hair was darker but Luke would know her face anywhere. Hard not to recognize the woman who dumped him right before their wedding two years ago. The same woman now on the run and wanted for murder.
“Is that … ?” Adam came up out of the chair and pressed his face close to the screen.
The woman always did have the worst timing. “Yeah.”
“Man, it can’t be.”
Luke fought off the urge to throw something. “Definitely is.”
The security guard dropped the phone and joined Adam at the desk. “Who is she?”
Adam shook his head as if unable to believe his eyes. “Claire Samson.”
Luke mentally skipped ahead to his next move. Analyzing how and why Claire had dropped right in front of him could wait. Catching her was the priority here.
He reached into his jacket pocket, grateful he’d worn a suit and brought the microphone just in case. “Got it.”
“What are you doing?” Adam asked.
“Washing my car. What do you think?” Luke slipped the tiny disk in his ear and tapped it to test its strength. “We’re good to go.”
“Care to fill me in on where?” Adam asked.
Luke pointed at the screen. “You are staying here and watching her. I’m going to get out there and grab her before she runs again.”
The guard looked back and forth between them. “Isn’t she an escaped convict or something?”
“The official term is ‘person of interest,’“ Adam said.
Enough talk. “Adam, your job is to tell me exactly where she goes. If she moves, I want to know it. You’re my eyes on this.”
The guard shook his head. “Her photo’s been all over the news for the past two weeks. We need to call someone or … wait. Are you the guys we call?”
Luke knew better than to sit around and debate the issue. The one thing he was an expert on was watching Claire leave. Give her a couple of minutes head start and she would slip into a crowd and disappear.
Adam grabbed Luke’s arm before he could take off. “She clearly knows you’re on-site. She wants your attention.”
Oh, she has it. “Looks that way, yeah.”
Even now while working this other job, watching an idiot businessman who made his chief financial officer disappear, Luke had been thinking about Claire and where she might be. About how he could drag her back to Virginia and put her in jail.
“It isn’t our job to go after Claire. We’re on this …” Adam shot the guard a scowl before lowering his voice. “We have another assignment, Luke. We need to stay here and let the police handle Claire.”
Luke had tried that. He had sat back and watched law enforcement lose her trail. No way was he letting her walk out on him again. There was only one reason for her to be in this building, a place she didn’t belong, on this day. She was following him. She wanted him to notice and come after her. He was happy to oblige.
When she hit the elevator button Luke knew his time was up. “I’m going after her. Do not call anyone official about her, hear me? She’s mine.”
He waited until Adam nodded before pushing open the door and hitting the emergency stairs at a run. Claire chose some millionaire over him—fine. Killing the guy, taking his money and trying to disappear—not fine.
“She’s on the elevator,” Adam said.
Luke adjusted the small speaker in his ear. “Bring up the schematics and tell me how many exits there are to this building.”
“You don’t know she’s leaving. She could duck into an office on another floor and wait you out.”
“Wrong.” Luke made the prediction as he took the stairs two steps at a time. “She’s headed for the street. Her plan is to blend into the lunch crowd and metro commuters roaming around McPherson Square.”
Then she’d be gone. The woman was playing some kind of game. Luke knew that much. Why else was she hanging around the D.C. metro area, instead of taking the money and heading for a country that wouldn’t extradite her back for trial?
No, Claire had some sort of plot in mind. Something that involved him. Boy, would she be disappointed, because once he had her he was done running around after Claire Samson for any reason other than to turn her in to the police.
“She stepped off on the second floor and is headed toward the stairwell on the east side,” Adam said.
“Exactly what I would do.” It was the smart thing to do, and Claire was not dumb. As she came down the stairs, he went up. After one flight Luke stopped and stood at the door to the garage level. “Where next?”
“She’s out on the first floor walking toward the west-side stairwell now. Looks like she’s zigzagging.”
Luke took the stairs to the lobby floor two at a time. “Can she get outside?”
Computer keys clicked before Adam answered. “Once she hits the lobby, she can turn to her right and take a service exit that dumps her in an alley off K Street.”
Luke pressed the disk tighter against his ear. “Gates, locks, people? Anything there to stop her?”
“Once she’s outside her only choice is a long alley to the sidewalk. She won’t be able to turn around and reenter the building without a code.”
Busy downtown street and one with loads of business traffic at this time of day. Definitely not dumb. “Got it.”
“She’s in the lobby now,” Adam said.
Luke shoved open the door to the opposite end of the large area. The force sent it banging against the wall. Heads turned. Two people standing nearby stopped talking. Luke ignored all but the brunette at the other end of the lobby. She didn’t even glance around, proving she had her escape route planned.
“Claire!” His voice bounced off the stone walls.
When their eyes met, Claire went still.
He pointed at her. “Do not move.”
A hush fell over the businesspeople gathered at the elevators. Everyone glanced around and shuffled their feet as if embarrassed by being caught in the middle of a private conversation. Despite that, they listened in, but no one seemed to notice a notorious fugitive standing right there in front of them.
“Help! He’s following me.” The words barely left Claire’s mouth and she was off. She threw open the door to the exit and let it slam shut behind her.
The race was on.
Luke ran past a security guard, ignoring the shouts to stop. Using a shoulder, Luke knocked a twenty-something male Good Samaritan to the floor when he tried to block the path to Claire. People crowded around Luke to slow him down. He dodged, even jumped over a chair someone threw in his way.
A high-pitched alarm blared through the building as he hit the door Claire had used for her escape. The piercing sound echoed throughout the lobby, making it impossible for Luke to hear Adam screaming directions in his ear.
But Luke didn’t need any help from here. Even through the harsh scent of the alley, he could smell her familiar flowery shampoo. He was right behind Claire. As long as he grabbed her before she got to the street he was good.
He looked around for anything to stick in the door and slow down any do-gooders who decided to follow him out there. The piece of wood under his foot wasn’t perfect, but it might buy him some time. He shoved it through the door handle, then raced down the pavement, following Claire and getting closer with each step.
She kept her body toned, probably from hours of aerobics like before, but he was still faster. Only a few feet away now, he could see her on the other side of the Dumpster, hear her heavy breathing and watch her hair fly around in the warm October breeze. Then she slid to a stop. Actually lost her footing and fell back on one hand.
Instead of getting up and breaking out of the dark alley into the sunshine and possible freedom, she scrambled to her feet and ran toward him with her cheeks puffing and eyes wild. She landed with a thump against his chest but didn’t stop moving. With her hands wrapped in his shirt, she tugged him toward the door and back into the building they’d just left.
“We have to move,” she said. “Inside. Now.”
Luke planted his feet to stop the slide across the loose gravel under him. “Claire, stop.”
She grabbed his jacket sleeve and pulled hard enough to rip the fabric at the shoulder. “No time. We have to get out of here.”
Luke looked at the shadowed figure standing near the distant sidewalk. From the bulk, Luke knew it was a man, but that was all. “Who the hell is that?”
“I don’t know,” she said, her usually husky voice interrupted by huge gulping breaths.
Luke knew there was no way back into the building without a code, and he sure didn’t have it. They had to go through the guy at the other end.
“Tell security to back off!” Luke yelled the order loud enough for Adam to pick up through the honking horns and other sounds of the nearby street.
“Who are you talking to?” Claire asked.
The shadow at the end of the alley moved closer. The figure took his hand out of his windbreaker pocket. The sun behind him glinted off the metal of his gun. The baseball cap pulled over his face hid his identity, but the casual clothes and quiet stalking told Luke they had a problem. This other guy was no cop.
Luke positioned his body in front of Claire’s. A bullet or knife or anything else would have to go through him first.
He could hear people on the other side of the building’s door and a dull thud as they pushed against it. He needed backup and a way out that didn’t involve fighting through an angry crowd that viewed him as Claire’s attacker.
“He with you?” Luke asked her over his shoulder.
“Does he look happy to see me?”
Adam’s voice crackled in Luke’s ear. “Luke, there aren’t any security guards outside. They’re all standing around the lobby with their thumbs up—”
“Then who’s this guy I’m looking at?” Luke heard a short buzzing and saw the outside camera switch position to aim at the end of the alley.
The other man pulled his cap even lower. The gun pointed down, but Luke knew that could change in a second and didn’t wait. He shoved Claire behind the Dumpster, ignoring her squeal of surprise. The mystery guy’s footsteps fell faster against the pavement now. Luke ducked and squeezed in next to Claire.
Her eyes grew wide when he slipped out the gun he had tucked at the small of his back. “Where did you get that?” she asked.
“Not important.”
“You told me you sold art for a living.”
“I find antiques.” That was his cover and he was sticking to it.
“Find them or shoot them?”
Luke ignored the sarcasm and checked his gun. “This is your last chance to tell me the truth. Do you know how to do that?”
“You may want to remember I’m wanted for murder. Ticking me off might not be your best move.”
As if he could forget that fact. “Who’s this guy coming after you?”
“Don’t know.” Her skin paled. “Probably someone Phil sent.”
Phil Samson. Her husband. Make that her dead husband. Luke vowed to deal with her lies later. Now he needed to get them out of there alive.
The other man’s steps stopped. Except for the soft rustle of his slick jacket, he didn’t make a sound. But Luke could feel the tension radiating off the guy. He motioned for Claire to stay quiet as he peeled her fingers off his shirt. The last thing he needed was her slowing him down.
Glaring at her one last time, Luke mentally started the countdown. In one swift move he stood up and pivoted around the Dumpster, gun raised, to face the other man head on. The guy’s eyes bugged out the second before he lifted his weapon. The slight hesitation gave Luke the opening he needed. His bullet hit the man’s shoulder, sending him stumbling backward.
At the sharp bang people gathered at the end of the alley. Someone shouted for the police. Another person started yelling about a robbery. Luke heard it all, but his focus remained locked on the man in front of him. The guy refused to go down easy. Instead, he held on to his weapon and stayed on his feet.
Claire ran for the back door to the building and yanked on it. It took her a few tugs to see the wood Luke had shoved there. With a growl of frustration she ripped it out.
When the door still refused to open, she hammered it with her fists. “Open up!”
Luke lunged for her. “Claire, no! It’s—”
The other man’s roar cut off the rest of Luke’s warning. Everything moved in a blur. Claire jumped away from the door, holding the stick in her hand like a bat. At the same time the mystery man lurched, shifting his gun to waist height.
When the man pivoted toward Claire, Luke didn’t hesitate. No way was he going to let the guy get a shot off in her direction. Luke shoved her against the wall as he fired a second shot at the attacker. The explosion from the gun mixed with a second crack Luke couldn’t place. For a moment all he heard was the whir of distant sirens and screams from the street.
As he watched the man drop to his knees, the twitching began. Luke tried to flex his hand to keep it from going to sleep, but the muscles fell limp. Heat raged in a line down to his fingers as if every nerve ending had caught fire under his skin.
Claire picked that moment to run out of her hiding place with the stick held high. She slammed it into the back of the other man’s neck, knocking him face-first into the gravel.
“Claire, what are you—”
Grunting with a mania Luke guessed was fueled by adrenaline, she finally faced him. Her gaze zoomed in on his arm and her cheeks blanched even more.
“Are you okay?” Her question came out in a voice both breathy and uneven.
He had no idea what she was asking or why. “Fine.”
“You’ve been shot.”
“I … what?” Luke caught her around the waist to keep her from running. His head spun and his vision blurred, but he knew he had to hold on. No way was he losing her this time. Only thing was, she didn’t struggle or try to break away. He couldn’t figure out that part.
“Luke, stop moving around.”
“You recognize that guy now?” Luke asked, forcing the words out over the sudden searing pain radiating through his shoulder.
She stared at the man lying at her feet with the bullet hole in his back. When she glanced back at Luke’s face, her hand tightened on his forearm. “You have to sit down.”
“Why?” With the noise at the end of the alley and police sirens blaring, Luke knew they had to move. “Doesn’t matter. It’s time to get out of here.”
As the whirring screech from the approaching police cars grew louder, two men started down the alley. Luke guessed the body sprawled on the ground grabbed their attention. He couldn’t blame them for wanting to check it out. Still, he had his fill of knuckle-heads rushing in and trying to save Claire.
“Stay back.” Luke tried to lift his hurt arm, but a new bolt of pain blinded him, forcing him to let it fall uselessly to his side. He finally looked down and saw the blood. “What the hell?”
“You can’t feel that?”
The thumping increased. “I can now.”
“You’re injured.” She ripped the bottom edge of her T-shirt and held it against his shoulder. “Badly.”
The pressure of her palm knocked the breath out of him. He bit back the shout rumbling around in his throat and forced out the words he needed to say. “Adam, get here now.”
Claire glanced around. “Who are you talking to?”
A white van appeared at the end of the alley a few seconds later. Adam got out, flashed his fake badge and started issuing orders.
“Our ride is here,” Luke said through teeth tight with agony.
“Where are we going?” Claire shifted her attention from the commotion back to him.
“Out of here.”
“Not to the police.”
“Not yet.” He vowed to get the real answers first.
It was about time Claire Samson learned there were consequences to her actions. He was the perfect person to teach her—as long as he didn’t pass out first.
Chapter Two
A half hour later Claire heard Luke hiss as he shrugged out of his suit jacket and got the material caught on his watch. He sat on his kitchen table with his legs dangling and his dress shirt unbuttoned down to his stomach. The only blemish on his bare skin came from the dark red stain spreading across the white material.
Slumped shoulders and face drawn tight with pain, Luke looked ready to drop. Claire half hoped he would. If he fell over she could run. Well, she could if she somehow managed to knock out Luke’s friend. Mr. Blond, Big and Ticked Off. Yeah, that guy looked ready to kill someone, namely her.
Both men had chests and shoulders broad enough to make football players jealous. Luke’s light brown hair with bangs that brushed his eyebrows gave a boyish quality to his handsomeness. But in the two years since they were together he had changed. He now possessed a lethal air, making him more like his tough friend than the charming man she once thought would be her future.
Neither man gave off the upper-crust snootiness she expected from guys who supposedly spent their days locating precious works of art. She doubted Luke could tell a Chagall from a cartoon. The comfortable gunplay made her think his work was something more along the lines of law enforcement, but he lacked the clean-cut government-man look she associated with FBI agents. Now that she had experienced the great misfortune of being questioned by a few, she recognized the beast.
One thing was for sure. Luke, the man she followed from a distance and tracked to the office building—the same one who ran her down in the alley and kept a gun in his waistband—did not spend much time behind a desk. She’d bet her life on that. In fact, that’s exactly what she was doing.
She needed Luke’s help and cooperation, wanted to get him interested in her case and set him loose to find the truth. She just had the tiny problem of earning his trust first. With their history that was going to take some time, and probably some begging, which was not her strongest skill.
Luke focused on his friend. “You can get me the whiskey. The rest of the supplies are in the bathroom.”
“You’re thirsty?” she asked. “Now?”
Luke ignored her and kept talking to his friend or partner or whatever the other man was. “Then you’ve got to get back to the scene and help clean up the mess with the police.”
The guy shot Claire a blank stare. “I’m not leaving you alone with her.”
“My name is Claire.”
The man made a face as if he’d tasted something sour. “I know who you are.”
“Adam, meet Claire, and vice versa.” Luke peeled off his shirt, gasping when the blood-soaked material caught on his skin. “The supplies? And now would be good.”
Adam nodded, then headed down the hall.
The second they were alone Luke pinned her with the same green-eyed gaze that used to make her forget what she was saying.
“If you even try to move out of this room, I’ll stop you,” he said.
“You only have one good arm.”
“I can do a lot with that.”
Which was exactly why she hadn’t yet made a run for the door. “I’m not leaving.”
“That’s not my experience,” he muttered under his breath.
Adam stalked back into the room and dumped a small box on the table, along with gauze, some medicine, a knife and a bottle. “What are we looking at in terms of injuries here?”
Luke tried to lift his arm but groaned, instead. “It’s a through and through. Not serious. Just bloody and stings like a son of a bitch.”
She eyed the whiskey. “Which is cause for a celebratory drink?”
Both men stared at her but only Luke answered. “I’m going to use it to clean the wound.”
She noticed his husky voice had cleared and his swaying had stopped. Still … “Shouldn’t you be at a hospital? I mean, how bad is this?”
Luke picked up a bandage packet and put the edge between his teeth and ripped it open. “It’s a gunshot, so it doesn’t feel good. But unfortunately for you, I’m not going to die.”
She forgot how dizzying his stubbornness could be. “You are if you don’t stop with the attitude.”
He peeked up at her through his mop of hair. “I’d like to remind you how I got shot.”
That was an easy one. He refused to stick with the mental plan she had worked out for him. He might hate her, but his rescue tendencies hadn’t dulled.
“Have we figured out who it was you two killed?” Adam asked.
Luke nodded in her direction. “Ask her.”
They both stared at her, but she ignored it. Her mind wandered back to that alley. The acrid mix of blood and sweat filled her nose. For a second there Claire had forgotten this death was on her. She actually had killed a man this time. It was in self-defense and in an effort to save Luke, but someone was still dead.
She swallowed hard to keep from gagging on the bile that rushed up the back of her throat. “He was following me. I don’t know who he was.”
“Your partner?” Luke crumpled the empty packet in his fist. “I’m betting you weren’t really the victim out there today.”
If she thought for one minute Luke intended to save her when she walked into that alley … yeah, not the case. He hunted her down for one reason only—to turn her over to the police. She could see it in the intensity of his eyes.
He had been in that building for a job of some sort. Hung out on every floor until the security cameras finally flared to life. She showed up hoping to get his attention, but she’d miscalculated. She expected he would catch a glimpse and get the bug to start digging into her story. She hadn’t been prepared for a multifloor rundown that ended with a shoot-out.
The entire situation made her want to scream. Phil did this. He set her up, pretended to be dead and now had someone on her tail. Marrying him had been the worst decision of her life.
Adam spilled the alcohol on Luke’s wound, earning an impressive string of yelled profanity in return.
Men. “You’re going to kill him. Here, let me.” She pushed Adam out of the way. Kind of felt good to surprise the guy with a shove.
Then she stepped between Luke’s open legs, resting her thigh against his. The reality of being separated by only two thin pieces of material made her freeze in place. An accidental brush against him shouldn’t mean anything. Certainly shouldn’t send her stomach into flip-flop mode.
“What are you doing?” Luke asked.
“Helping.” She sucked in a few deep breaths as she struggled for control. Even after all this time he had the power to shatter her into a thousand useless pieces.
Instead of dwelling on her weakness to a man so determined to forget her, she went to work. Grabbing the gauze out of his hand, she rubbed the swab over the jagged wound with infinite care. When his lips stayed pinched, she knew the whirling in her stomach only went one way.
Adam plunked down in the chair beside her. His gaze never left her hands. It was as if he expected her to injure Luke with a cotton ball.
“You have a problem with me?” she asked.
Adam’s eyebrow lifted. “Other than the fact you killed your husband?”
Nothing like being found guilty without a trial. “Allegedly killed.”
“Does it sound better to you when you make that distinction?”
“Answer this, Adam. Do you always judge people you don’t know?”
Luke exhaled. “Maybe you two could spar another time. Like when I’m not bleeding to death.”
“I see you’ve taken up exaggeration.” She worked on Luke’s arm, ignoring the pain that flashed in his eyes as she swiped the pad over his injury with delicate care. “Not a very attractive quality, by the way.”
“Yeah, well, it’s a hobby.” Luke leaned over and tried to grab for something from the table. The move put his head right by her cheek and close enough for his breath to tickle her ear.
As soon as his hair brushed her skin, he sat up straight. Even grunted.
The quick move broke her trance. “What now?”
“Hand me the needle and tape.” He barked out the order.
And she ignored it.
He sent her a wide-eyed surprised look. “I’m bleeding here.”
“I’ll get it.” This time Adam did the shoving. Without any fanfare he crowded Claire to the side and away from Luke. Before Luke could argue, Adam started sewing. “You need anything else right now?”
“An explanation from Claire here would be good,” Luke said.
She glanced at the syringe and bottles sitting on the table. “I was just thinking the same thing.”
Luke’s skin whitened as Adam worked. With each tug of the thread and poke through his skin, Luke’s mouth stretched flatter into a thin line. His jaw tightened to the point of breaking.
“I’ll take her to the police after this.” Adam ignored Luke’s squirming. “We should end this now and get back to work.”
She decided to focus on the latter point. “And exactly what is your work? You were clearly looking for something in that building and it wasn’t me. Wasn’t a painting, either.”
“Speaking of that.” Adam put a hand on his hip and stared her down. “How did you know we’d be at that building?”
She’d stalked Luke, of course, but admitting that was out of the question. “I got lucky.”
Adam snorted. “Right.”
“Don’t worry about Claire and her snooping. I’ve got this situation under control,” Luke said.
Situation? She assumed that was his new pet name for her. Interesting how he couldn’t use his arm and was six seconds away from passing out but still thought he was in charge. Only the Y chromosome could result in that kind of bent logic.
Luke inhaled. “Just call the office—”
“You mean your antique storefront or your real job …” She hesitated until she knew she had their joint attention. “Whatever that job actually is.”
Luke scowled in her direction before turning back to Adam. “Go back to the scene,” he said. “Claire and I are going to have a little talk.”
She noticed Luke sounded more like police and less antique expert by the minute. “I’m fine, but thanks.”
“Then?” Adam asked.
“I’ll bring her in.”
“Never going to happen.” And she meant it. Injury or not, she would knock Luke down, press against his wound. Do whatever it took to stay free.
The idea of sitting in a cell and depending on the services of a court-appointed defense attorney made her head spin with fear. She knew how the system worked—poor people lost. Despite everything she had done in the last two years to escape her past, she had somehow slipped back into a situation where she had nothing. The exact place she’d spent her entire adult life trying to avoid.
“One more thing.” Luke used his good hand to cuff Adam’s shoulder. “This all stays between us.”
“How exactly do I explain the dead guy in the alley?”
Claire shook her head. Antiques experts. Right.
“You’ll think of something. I just need a little time with Claire.”
“How much?”
“Some. Might need a cover, too.” When Adam started to argue, Luke stopped him. “This isn’t up for debate.”
Silence lingered while Adam just stood there. When he finally spoke again, he sounded anything but convinced. “You’ve got twenty-four hours.”
Luke nodded. “Agreed.”
“Not by me,” she muttered.
“Just be careful.” Adam grabbed his keys but not before shooting Claire one last warning glare.
She waited until the door closed to say anything. “I get the distinct impression your friend doesn’t like me.”
“And here I thought you weren’t good at reading people.”
She picked up a damp towel and wiped the area around Luke’s wound before taping a bandage over Adam’s surprisingly professional stitching. The process took a few minutes. Rather than haggle and argue, she used the quiet to come up with a plan to leave Luke before Adam’s twenty-four-hour deadline expired.
She saw the mess of ripped paper and blood-drenched pads on the table. “You’ve ignored this question so far, but care to tell me why a businessman keeps a syringe in his bathroom?”
He smiled in a way that was more warning than welcoming. “Why? Want to learn a new way to get rid of your next husband?”
“I see you’ve decided to be as much of a jerk as possible.” She threw the towel on the table and plunked down in the chair Adam had abandoned.
“Some people like me,” Luke said.
She didn’t doubt that one bit. From creeping around and watching him for the past few weeks, she knew about his dating life. Women came over, stayed the night, and a new one showed up a few nights later. It was an endless parade of blondes and brunettes, each one looking easier than the one before her.
But that wasn’t Claire’s business. Her focus was on clearing her name. Like it or not, she needed help for that. When the whole town judged you guilty, you had to find someone who didn’t. Luke didn’t fit in that believer category yet, but she hoped he would.
“What’s the plan now?” she asked.
“You tell me what happened to your husband.”
She hated that word because it made Phil sound special, and he wasn’t. “And then?”
“I’ll decide that after I hear what you have to say.”
“How is that fair?”
“Do you have a choice?”
She didn’t.
Chapter Three
Four hours and two confusing explanations from Claire later, Luke was ready for a handful of painkillers and a bed. But thanks to his unwanted female sidekick, he didn’t have the option of the sweet oblivion of sleep.
They stood at the double doors to his office suite. He positioned his body in front of Claire to block her as much as possible from the security cameras he knew were shooting them from all angles.
Following her gaze, he looked at the words stamped on the door: Recovery Project. On the outside, the fifth-floor office on a side street in the Georgetown area of Washington, D.C., housed an antiques salvage operation. In reality it served as headquarters for an off-the-books agency tasked with finding missing people, both those who wanted to hide and those who prayed for rescue. That’s what he did for a living. He hunted people.
Since he didn’t directly work for the government, he didn’t have to obey its stringent rules. The Recovery Project was the place the guys with the real badges came when they needed the dirty work done. Luke and his team worked outside the law. They flashed fake credentials or whatever else it took to get in the door and never asked for credit when they succeeded in reaching their goals. To Luke’s way of thinking, they accomplished more in one day than most law-enforcement agencies could manage during a year-long sting operation.
Lights on the security panel flickered when he swiped his key card through the reader. The doors to the main reception area opened with a click. The place was in after-hours mode, dark except for one small lamp in the lobby area. Just as he expected—quiet and empty. It was about time something worked right today.
He had called seven times on the way over, trying the main number and then each private line to make sure they’d be alone. The idea was to protect Claire’s secret for a few more hours. The gun tucked into his sling protected him from her. If she made a move in any direction he didn’t like, he was ready.
Not that he could shoot her. Despite everything that happened between them before and everything bubbling under the surface now, physically hurting her was out of the question. But the desire for emotional revenge had not dulled since she’d left him holding a stack of bills for a wedding that never happened.
He had spent those first days dreaming of her coming back to him broken and despondent, begging his forgiveness for leaving. In his fantasy, he turned her away. He would listen, laugh in her face and walk off. That proved to be much harder in real life. Those chocolate-brown eyes and body born for the bedroom were enough to drive any sane man to do something really stupid. She had done it to him. Likely did it to most men unlucky enough to cross her path.
No, he couldn’t push her out of his head. But he could threaten. Oh, boy, could he threaten.
“What is this place?” She walked up to the receptionist’s desk and fingered the business cards piled there in individual holders.
He started to follow her and groaned when the swift shuffle to the side sent pain rippling down his injured arm. “My employer.”
“Ready to tell me what you really do for a living?” She glanced around at the stark white walls that gleamed despite the relative darkness. “Seems sort of modern for a place that supposedly deals in antiques.”
“We find them. We don’t collect them.”
“For some reason I doubt you do either of those things.”
When she leaned against the counter, her hair caught the light. Mahogany replaced the rich brown color he remembered. He guessed the longer, darker look was part of her disguise. Little did she know, all the dye in the world couldn’t cover her high cheekbones and smooth skin. Purple or green hair, he would know her anywhere.
“Let’s move on to a conversation I actually care about. Your missing husband,” Luke said.
“Former.”
Luke refused to let that distinction matter.
“The divorce is final, but the financial settlement wasn’t signed. That’s the point of the murder, wasn’t it?” When she ducked her head, he lowered his to meet her eyes. “Right? With Phil dead and the money issues not resolved, you would inherit. With Phil alive and the agreement signed, you got whatever the prenup and final paperwork said.”
“I see you’ve been reading the newspaper again.” She picked up a business card and tapped it end over end against the counter.
“You would have been a very rich widow.” He watched the card twirl faster between her fingers. “You know, if you hadn’t actually been caught in the act.”
“I was set up.”
“Tell me again why I’m supposed to believe that.”
“We’ve been through this. I told you the entire story twice on the way over here.”
He folded his hand over hers. The goal was to stop the annoying clicking of card against counter before his head exploded. At the touch, he felt a shot of a different kind. The feel of her soft hand beneath his brought back a flood of memories. Skin against skin, touching her, making love to her. He didn’t even have to close his eyes to picture her sprawled naked across his white sheets.
When the image refused to leave his mind, he shook his head to knock it out. He also pulled back his hand, because touching her skin was just plain stupid.
“Let’s go to my office,” he said.
“This should be interesting.”
That was just about the last word he’d use. But rather than debate, he slid his fingers under her elbow and steered her down the short hallway to his room. Letting her peek into an area so private made him nervous, but it was better to bring her here than drag her to his house. Here he would stay focused and he could make sure she only saw what he wanted her to see.
The conference rooms, computer rooms and most of the back half of the space were off-limits to visitors and anyone else who failed to get through the retinal scanner and other security measures in place there. That included Claire. Especially Claire.
He swiped his key card at the second door on the left and punched in his code. When the door unlocked, he gestured for her to move inside ahead of him.
The spare and minimalist look of the rest of the space continued in here. No dark heavy wood or oil paintings featuring somber sixteenth-century faces. He preferred clean lines, a comfortable leather chair and a desk sturdy enough to hold the stacks of documents piled on top of it.
Not that the papers contained anything of value. Everything on his desk was there for show. The actual work files sat secured in his hidden safe along with his removable computer hard drive and every other piece of confidential information from his cases. She would see what he wanted her to see and nothing else.
He waved at the black chair in front of his desk and took his seat behind it. With his computer switched on and his mind engaged, he was ready to hear her story one more time.
“Again,” he said.
“You’re going to type with one hand?”
Her reminder made his arm ache even more. Thanks to her presence, he had to skip the heavy-duty painkillers and go with antibiotics and aspirin for the injury. The combination wasn’t working. Every nerve ending throbbed.
“I’ll get by.” He stared across the desk right into her dark eyes. In that moment he wondered if he really would survive a second round with her. Last time she won, but he vowed to be the victor this time.
IF HE WANTED to be some sort of martyr and plow ahead with questions when he should be in a hospital, Claire wasn’t about to argue. She needed his help. If she tried to tell him how to provide it, his testosterone would kick in and she’d never get through this uneasy alliance.
“It was three weeks ago. Phil called and asked me to come to the house,” she explained.
“Is that normal?”
“I don’t understand the question.”
Luke leaned back in his chair. Held on to his injured arm while he did it. “According to everything I’ve read, the divorce wasn’t exactly amicable.”
She had known the accusations would come eventually. Still, the idea that Luke so readily believed the absolute worst of her stung. “You mean because Phil told everyone who would listen that I was a whore.”
“I was trying to be tactful.”
“Why start now?”
“Fine.” Luke tapped his fingers against the space bar on his keyboard. “He accused you of sleeping around.”
“I didn’t.”
Luke hesitated before tapping again. “Okay.”
“You believe me?” Something deep inside her chest tightened into a hard ball while waiting for the answer. It was as if every cell waited to see what he would say.
Instead, he waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. “It’s not important. Not my business.”
Yeah, well, it mattered to her. But she refused to justify or explain. If Luke was so determined to judge her guilty on that point, let him. She knew she had damaged his ego when she walked out. A man didn’t forgive that sort of thing easily. But no matter how much he hated her, the important thing was that he believe in her story enough to help her.
“Why did you go to the house?” he asked.
“It was stupid.” In hindsight, the dumbest move of her life, even less intelligent than her marriage. “Phil called and said he wanted to come to a reasonable financial resolution. Asked me to come over to talk. I should have questioned the change in him, but I was so relieved. And when I got there everything was wrong.”
The scene unfolded in her mind. The dark first floor. Music playing in the background. The strong odor of cleaner. She had called Phil’s name from the front door, but no one answered. When she heard a thump upstairs she figured he was moving stuff around and couldn’t hear her. She followed the curving stairway to the second floor. There was a light on the landing and more spilling out of the master bedroom down the hall.
“I walked into our old bedroom. Something seemed off. My jewelry was on the bed, the same items Phil insisted I stole when I left the first time. He must have had them all along.”
“Anything else? Was anyone there?”
The remembered smell filled her head. It was a mix of sickening sweetness and harsh cleanser. The same wave of dizziness that hit her that night flowed through her again.
She could hear the floor creak as Luke shifted around in his seat. She knew she was safe in his office, but she couldn’t pull her mind from the memory.
“Just relax and tell me what you saw.”
Luke moved his hand over hers. She didn’t even realize she had twisted a business card in her palm until Luke slipped it out from between her fingers and put it on the desk.
As soon as the warmth of his skin came, it left again. His hand was back at his keyboard, but the touch had returned her to the present. She could finish the story. She had to finish.
“There was blood splattered on the walls and on the floor. I remember kneeling, looking around trying to figure out what I was seeing. Then I heard the sirens.”
“The police.”
“Yeah, but it still didn’t sink in. Even seeing the cleaning bucket didn’t compute.”
“And that’s where the police found you.”
“On the floor by the bloodstain.”
“They say you killed Phil and hid the body.” Luke’s hand hovered over the keys. “That they caught you cleaning up the scene.”
“But they conveniently forget that Phil made a call from the house only a short time before that.” She scoffed. “I mean, did he turn into smoke or something?”
Luke nodded. “Admittedly, the timeline is going to be the prosecution’s weakness at trial.”
“Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence. Maybe you should be on my defense team.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“Phil set me up with a brilliance I didn’t know he had in him. He called his brother that night and claimed I broke in.” The prosecutor depended on the delay in calls from Phil to Steve to the police to explain the problem. “The theory is that I killed a 190-pound man and hid the body within a fifteen-minute window.”
The evidence didn’t fit. The fact that everyone refused to see that made her seethe in frustration.
“I’m assuming you deny killing him.” Luke said it more as a fact than a question.
“I can’t kill someone who’s not dead.”
Luke began typing. Even with one hand, he moved fast. Images flipped by on his screen. She could see him trying to log in passwords as fast as possible. Probably feared she would somehow break into his system.
A Web site she recognized popped up. “Wait, you’re with the FBI?”
He smiled. “Definitely not.”
“But you just entered a password to get on their system.”
“True.”
Lines of information filled his screen. She leaned in closer to see.
He eyed her for a second. “Sit back.”
“But that said something about Homeland Security.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“We’re talking about my life here, Luke.”
“This is confidential information.” He said the words but didn’t do anything to hide the monitor from her view.
“Then why do you have it, Mr. Antiques Expert?”
Another window opened. This one had the D.C.
Police logo on it. A few more strokes and Luke entered another password. The page that popped up looked like a bank statement.
“Other than violating about a thousand state and federal laws, what are you doing?” she asked.
“Checking for evidence that Phil is alive. Phone and bank records. Something that would support your theory about Phil setting this up to make it look like you killed him so he had cover to run.”
“That’s exactly what happened.”
Luke’s gaze did not leave the monitor. “So you keep saying.”
“You don’t work for the FBI.”
“I already said no.”
“Or the police.”
“Still no.”
Wariness spiraled through her. He had access to all sorts of information he shouldn’t have access to. “Exactly what side do you work for?”
Luke stopped typing long enough to stare at her. “Do you really care?”
“Yes.” She said the word but didn’t mean it. Her question wasn’t about following the rules. It was about trying to figure out who he was—the man he claimed to be or the one who carried a gun.
Luke hit a few more keys and then sat back in his chair. “There’s nothing on Phil. No sign of life at all. He hasn’t accessed any account or anything else in the three weeks since he disappeared.”
“The man is a multimillionaire.”
“I seem to remember you mentioning that when you left me for him.”
She dug her fingernails into the arms of the chair to keep from shaking him. “Phil has money hidden all over the place.
“None of it’s moving.”
Luke didn’t believe her. The fact hit her with enough force to push the breath out of her lungs on a whoosh. Desperation bubbled in her stomach. She had to move before it ran up her throat and she embarrassed herself.
She got up and paced the few feet between her chair and the open door to the office. A few steps and she could hit the hallway, run as fast as possible for the door and hope his injury slowed him down enough to let her get away.
“Don’t even think about it.” Luke issued the threat without moving an inch.
If he worried that she was about to make a break for it, he sure wasn’t showing it. Open hand, relaxed shoulders, even a small smile playing on this mouth. Yeah, he was sure he had her under control. She saw it in every line of his body.
He was hiding more than his real profession. Behind the passwords and key cards there might not be an easy way out of what looked like an otherwise normal office. Still, she had to try.
She moved her foot closer to the hallway to test her theory. If the door slammed shut and locked her in, she’d deal with his anger then. It wasn’t as if Luke trusted her, anyway. He probably expected her to bolt. Was waiting for it.
She inched the same foot outside the office. Her gaze stayed locked on Luke. He taunted her by leaning back further into his oversize leather chair. With one last deep breath she stepped out of the doorway. She turned her head to look down the hall.
A second later the barrel of a gun pressed hard against her forehead. She bit back a scream as she stared into the blue eyes of a stranger dressed all in black.
Adrenaline pumping, she raised her hands in surrender. “It’s okay. I’m here with Luke.”
The other man’s smile never reached his eyes. “Luke who?”
Chapter Four
Blood thundered in Claire’s ears. If her heart drummed any harder, it would come right out of her chest and land on the floor at her feet.
With Luke injured and her without a weapon, she tried to use reason to keep the big guy with the gun from firing straight into her forehead. “Listen to me. We can work this out.”
“I doubt it.” Black-haired and well over six feet, the guy radiated danger. His arm stayed straight and the gun never wavered. If ever there was a man ready to shoot first and talk later, it was him.
“You don’t want to do this,” she said, trying to stall for time as she mentally searched for a way out of this.
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”
At this range, there was no way the guy would miss unless he was cross-eyed, and she was just not that lucky. Not lately. If something didn’t change, she’d die with the presumption of guilt tied around her neck.
And Luke, injured and vulnerable. She didn’t want to think what would happen to him. Her only hope was for the meds to wear off and his brain to kick-start him into action. That even now he had his gun drawn and was working on a plan to free them.
“Phil’s just using you.” She didn’t have any money, her ex saw to that, but maybe this guy didn’t know the intricacies of her financial settlement. Only possible if he never watched the news or read a paper.
“Phil who?”
“I can beat his price. Whatever he’s giving you to do this, I’ll double it.” A total lie, but she was desperate to keep the conversation going and the gun’s trigger exactly where it was right now.
The guy pursed his lips as if considering the deal. “Interesting.”
“Problem out there?” Luke asked from inside the room.
Her heart dropped at the sound of his deep voice. She closed her eyes in defeat. Maybe Luke really was an antiques dealer. Seemed a guy with a badge would be smart enough to understand the benefit of sneaking up on a situation like this rather than announcing his presence.
“Are you going to answer him?” the guy asked.
She thought she heard a touch of amusement in his voice, which made about as much sense as everything else that had happened in the past hour. “No.”
“You should.”
She took that as an order. “We have company.” She shouted that obvious assessment to Luke. She wanted to tell him to bring his gun, but she was pretty sure that would tick off the guy who wanted to put a bullet through her brain.
After a bit of paper shuffling and chair squeaking, Luke appeared in the doorway. He stared down at the gun. Up at the guy. Didn’t show an ounce of surprise.
“Ahhh, I see you weren’t kidding.”
Her hands balled into fists. “That’s all you have to say?”
“No.” Luke stepped into the hall and leaned against the wall. If the other man’s presence worried him, he sure didn’t show it. “I saw you two on the monitor.”
“What monitor?” she asked.
Luke hitched his chin in the general vicinity of the gun. “Ease up. You’re scaring her.”
Oh, he was way past that point. “Lowering the weapon would help. I can’t go anywhere, anyway.”
The mystery man’s shoulders relaxed. “I wouldn’t let you.”
“Looks like we have an agreement, then.” Luke rubbed his shoulder. “Holden Price, this is the infamous Claire Samson.”
“Wait, you know him?” Her heart flip-flopped at the thought. When she tried to turn her head to let Luke see just how angry she was, the gun scratched her skin. “Uh, could you call your friend off?”
Holden looked her up and down. “When I’m ready.”
“Lower the weapon,” Luke ordered, his voice suddenly stronger and harsher. “Now.”
Holden hesitated before pulling the gun back closer to his side. “What’s going on?”
“So that’s a yes?” She looked back and forth between the men. What she really wanted to do was knock their heads together as payback for scaring the crap out of her. “You two do know each other.”
“We both work here,” Luke said.
“Now that we’ve cleared that up, why is she here?” Holden still held his gun at the ready. A fact that kept Claire on edge.
“We had an incident.”
It was as if the testosterone had rushed to Luke’s brain and swamped his common sense. She fought the urge to roll her eyes. “It’s a little more than that. You were shot.”
Luke shrugged on his good side. “Yeah, like I said, an incident.”
“I know about the alley. I’ve already been there to make sure Adam has everything under control.” Holden nodded in the direction of the sling. “You okay?”
Since Holden actually frowned, looking as if Luke’s health mattered, Claire decided to let the gun threat slide. Luke might not understand how serious his injuries were, but from the way Holden’s eyebrows snapped together she assumed he got it.
“Will be,” Luke said.
The color had returned to his cheeks, but the dark circles under his eyes just kept getting darker. She was convinced he’d drop over at some point. Probably right when she’d need him to show off those impressive shooting skills of his, because that was how her life worked at the moment.
“You should be at home resting,” she pointed out. “It’s not normal for most people to get shot. Not even for supposed art dealers.”
“Antiques,” Holden muttered.
“Only way I can take the night off is to turn you over to the police. That scenario interest you?” Luke actually smirked as he made the observation. The man knew when he had a conversation won. He knew and she knew.
But she wasn’t ready to give up. “Not really.”
“Why did you bring her to the office?” Holden asked.
When the barrel of Holden’s gun finally pointed toward the floor, instead of at any part of her, she coughed out the breath she’d been holding. “I have a bigger question. What’s with all the weapons?”
Luke’s hand inched toward his gun as if she had reminded him. “We like to be prepared.”
“In case you encounter a dangerous collectibles shop owner?”
Holden nodded. “Something like that.”
Only a man bathed in darkness who grumbled more than he spoke could throw out a line like that and make it sound menacing. Without thinking, she shifted closer to Luke. Yeah, he hated her, but he’d had the chance to shoot her in the alley and passed it up. She wasn’t convinced Holden would do the same.
“What are you doing here this late?” Luke asked.
“I was in the back when the phones started ringing. The way they went a desk at a time sounded suspicious to me. Thought I’d stick around to see if we had trouble.” Holden stared at her. “And we do.”
“I don’t want to be here, either, if that helps,” she said.
Luke talked right over her. “Was just trying to see who, if anyone, was here. I had to use the computer and couldn’t exactly leave her waiting in the car.”
“Makes sense.” Holden’s lips quirked in what Claire assumed was his version of a smile. “How’d you manage to trip the alarm?”
Luke went still. “What?”
“You forget to swipe the card or something?”
“No. Followed protocol exactly.”
With a suddenness that shocked her, Holden straightened. Both men morphed from relaxed interplay to an on-guard stance in an instant. Holden’s gun was raised as Luke started pushing buttons on his big square watch.
She knew enough to be worried. Wide-shouldered macho men didn’t spook that easily. “What is it?”
“Quiet,” Luke said in a voice that hovered just above a whisper.
With guns out, they surrounded her. She couldn’t move or run. The closeness suffocated her as they walked her backward into Luke’s office. “What’s happening?”
“You have someone with you?” Luke took a position on one side of the doorway.
With his good arm, he pushed her behind him. Since the idea of dying in a shoot-out didn’t exactly appeal to her, she stayed put. They’d talk about his tendency to shove her around another time. Right now, it worked for her. “No.”
Luke stared at her.
“No, really,” she said. “No partners. Nothing.”
His facial features took on a nasty sharpness. “We’re going to take this guy out, so tell me the truth.”
She knew she’d be blamed for what was happening now, whatever that was. “I just did.”
“Possible you were followed?” Holden asked from the other side of the doorway.
Luke’s concentration switched between his watch and the hallway. “I don’t see how.”
“Maybe you’re off your game.” Holden stood on the other side of the open door. “The injury, meeting up with your old—”
“No.”
Together they made up a wall of angry brooding male. Claire couldn’t hear or see anything. Except for their breathy whispers, a deadly quiet filled the office. But she knew from the way Holden and Luke held their bodies so still that something or someone very bad lingered out there waiting for them.
The reality hit her. Phil. Again. He had access to endless resources and a deep hatred for her. Throwing the blame on her for his mess was one thing. Having someone track her every move was another. Years before, she had seen Phil as a safe alternative to Luke. Everything about Luke was shrouded in mystery. Phil had nothing to hide. She never dreamed he would turn into her biggest nightmare.
Luke motioned for her to stand with her back against the wall behind him. “You do everything we say when we say. Got it?”
She nodded, afraid to utter even a syllable and risk having her voice carry back to whoever was out there.
Holden stared at his watch. It matched Luke’s perfectly. “He’s in conference room two.”
She grabbed the back of Luke’s shirt and tugged to get his attention. “He who?”
“Whoever is trying to kill you.”
“You believe me?”
“I believe someone wants you dead. The ‘why’ is a question for another time.”
She rested her forehead against his back for the briefest of moments. “If we live.”
Luke pressed a button on the side of his watch. From over his shoulder she could see the face. Instead of the time, a floor plan flashed in green lighting. She saw four red dots in the outlined rooms. Only one of them moved.
She pitched her voice as low as possible, which was hard given the way her head buzzed with fear. “Is that him?”
“Last chance.” Holden slid his gun along the door frame until the barrel was at eye level. “You know this guy or not?”
If either of them asked again, she might lunge for a gun. “No.”
“Then you stay in here while I kill him,” Holden said.
“Negative.” Luke gave one shake of his head to match his clipped tone. “She doesn’t move, but I want him alive. Need to know what’s happening here and who’s behind all this.”
She knew. “I told you. It’s Phil and he’s—”
Luke ignored her. “The dot is moving.”
And so were they. Holden and Luke slipped into the hallway. Back to back they moved, guns up and bodies snapped stiff with tension.
Claire glanced down the hall toward the reception area. Everything in her screamed to run down the dark path and out the front door. She’d figure out her next step once she hit the street. But she didn’t know the office building well enough to know where the mystery man could go and how he could get there. She couldn’t risk a bullet in the back.
Plus, the idea of leaving Luke while danger swirled around them made her stomach heave. She had dragged him into this mess. She would get them both out. She just needed access to information and a way to hunt Phil down. A weasel like him couldn’t hide for long. Sacrifice was not his style. She just hoped her last stand wouldn’t be in a fake office with her furious ex nearby.
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HelenKay Dimon
About the Author
Award-winning author HELENKAY DIMON spent twelve years in the most unromantic career ever—divorce lawyer. After dedicating all of that effort to helping people terminate relationships, she is thrilled to deal in happy endings and write romance novels for a living.Now her days are filled with gardening, writing, reading and spending time with her family in and around San Diego. HelenKay loves hearing from readers, so stop by her website at www.helenkaydimon.com and say hello.
Under the Gun
Helenkay Dimon
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To Ethan Ellenberg for convincing me
to give romantic suspense a serious try.
Chapter One
Luke Hathaway scanned the surveillance monitors set up in the nondescript Washington, D.C., office building’s underground security headquarters. The wall of television screens showed every inch of public area and private offices of the financial firm on the eighteenth floor.
He and partner Adam Wright had flashed a fake subpoena ten minutes earlier. The official-looking paper convinced the guard to give up his comfortable seat and call someone in charge for guidance. That provided Adam with just enough time to slide into the chair, tap into the system and send the feed directly back to Luke’s office across town.
Luke put his palm on the console and leaned in close to the monitors. The move blocked the guard’s line of sight and gave Luke a good look at every angle of the business on the small screens. “Seems only the bathrooms are sacred in that place. Every other square foot has a camera hidden somewhere.”
“Yeah, no paranoia there,” Adam said.
The security guard covered the phone’s mouthpiece. “What are you two doing? You can’t touch the equipment.”
“Just looking.” Luke smiled at just how easy it was to infiltrate a company in supposed lockdown.
Adam had tried to tap into the computer’s hard drive from back at the office but needed direct access to the financial company’s internal system. One cover story and a stack of forged documents later, they were in. Just proved Luke’s theory that when the back door refused to budge, you used the front. He found that most people with something to hide spent their time covering all the tough routes to information and missed the obvious ones like an overweight fifty-year-old security guard who nearly wet himself at the sight of a sheet of paper with a big seal on it.
“Now there’s something worth watching.” Adam let out a low whistle and hitched his chin at the screen to Luke’s right. “The lady with the fine—”
Luke saw the flash of jeans out of the corner of his eye. “Yeah, I can see.”
Adam laughed. “It’s your lack of enthusiasm that has me concerned.”
Even in black and white Luke saw long dark hair and an impressive shape. Still, he needed Adam to focus on the job so they could get out of there before the guard hung up the phone and figured out what was going on.
“Drool on your own time.” Luke returned to memorizing the area around the receptionist’s desk in the financial office upstairs. But a prickling sensation at the base of his neck pulled his attention back to the image of the woman at the elevator.
There was something familiar about her. Something about her perfect posture with shoulders back and chin lifted high, almost daring anyone to question her. That curvy shape, from her full breasts to her slim waist to the way her dark jeans hugged her hips.
Something …
Just then she turned around and stared straight into the security camera. Didn’t even pretend not to notice the device in the black bubble hanging above her head. Big eyes. Flirty smile. Hands resting on her hips in a way sure to highlight the rocking body underneath that slim-fitting T-shirt.
The hair was darker but Luke would know her face anywhere. Hard not to recognize the woman who dumped him right before their wedding two years ago. The same woman now on the run and wanted for murder.
“Is that … ?” Adam came up out of the chair and pressed his face close to the screen.
The woman always did have the worst timing. “Yeah.”
“Man, it can’t be.”
Luke fought off the urge to throw something. “Definitely is.”
The security guard dropped the phone and joined Adam at the desk. “Who is she?”
Adam shook his head as if unable to believe his eyes. “Claire Samson.”
Luke mentally skipped ahead to his next move. Analyzing how and why Claire had dropped right in front of him could wait. Catching her was the priority here.
He reached into his jacket pocket, grateful he’d worn a suit and brought the microphone just in case. “Got it.”
“What are you doing?” Adam asked.
“Washing my car. What do you think?” Luke slipped the tiny disk in his ear and tapped it to test its strength. “We’re good to go.”
“Care to fill me in on where?” Adam asked.
Luke pointed at the screen. “You are staying here and watching her. I’m going to get out there and grab her before she runs again.”
The guard looked back and forth between them. “Isn’t she an escaped convict or something?”
“The official term is ‘person of interest,’“ Adam said.
Enough talk. “Adam, your job is to tell me exactly where she goes. If she moves, I want to know it. You’re my eyes on this.”
The guard shook his head. “Her photo’s been all over the news for the past two weeks. We need to call someone or … wait. Are you the guys we call?”
Luke knew better than to sit around and debate the issue. The one thing he was an expert on was watching Claire leave. Give her a couple of minutes head start and she would slip into a crowd and disappear.
Adam grabbed Luke’s arm before he could take off. “She clearly knows you’re on-site. She wants your attention.”
Oh, she has it. “Looks that way, yeah.”
Even now while working this other job, watching an idiot businessman who made his chief financial officer disappear, Luke had been thinking about Claire and where she might be. About how he could drag her back to Virginia and put her in jail.
“It isn’t our job to go after Claire. We’re on this …” Adam shot the guard a scowl before lowering his voice. “We have another assignment, Luke. We need to stay here and let the police handle Claire.”
Luke had tried that. He had sat back and watched law enforcement lose her trail. No way was he letting her walk out on him again. There was only one reason for her to be in this building, a place she didn’t belong, on this day. She was following him. She wanted him to notice and come after her. He was happy to oblige.
When she hit the elevator button Luke knew his time was up. “I’m going after her. Do not call anyone official about her, hear me? She’s mine.”
He waited until Adam nodded before pushing open the door and hitting the emergency stairs at a run. Claire chose some millionaire over him—fine. Killing the guy, taking his money and trying to disappear—not fine.
“She’s on the elevator,” Adam said.
Luke adjusted the small speaker in his ear. “Bring up the schematics and tell me how many exits there are to this building.”
“You don’t know she’s leaving. She could duck into an office on another floor and wait you out.”
“Wrong.” Luke made the prediction as he took the stairs two steps at a time. “She’s headed for the street. Her plan is to blend into the lunch crowd and metro commuters roaming around McPherson Square.”
Then she’d be gone. The woman was playing some kind of game. Luke knew that much. Why else was she hanging around the D.C. metro area, instead of taking the money and heading for a country that wouldn’t extradite her back for trial?
No, Claire had some sort of plot in mind. Something that involved him. Boy, would she be disappointed, because once he had her he was done running around after Claire Samson for any reason other than to turn her in to the police.
“She stepped off on the second floor and is headed toward the stairwell on the east side,” Adam said.
“Exactly what I would do.” It was the smart thing to do, and Claire was not dumb. As she came down the stairs, he went up. After one flight Luke stopped and stood at the door to the garage level. “Where next?”
“She’s out on the first floor walking toward the west-side stairwell now. Looks like she’s zigzagging.”
Luke took the stairs to the lobby floor two at a time. “Can she get outside?”
Computer keys clicked before Adam answered. “Once she hits the lobby, she can turn to her right and take a service exit that dumps her in an alley off K Street.”
Luke pressed the disk tighter against his ear. “Gates, locks, people? Anything there to stop her?”
“Once she’s outside her only choice is a long alley to the sidewalk. She won’t be able to turn around and reenter the building without a code.”
Busy downtown street and one with loads of business traffic at this time of day. Definitely not dumb. “Got it.”
“She’s in the lobby now,” Adam said.
Luke shoved open the door to the opposite end of the large area. The force sent it banging against the wall. Heads turned. Two people standing nearby stopped talking. Luke ignored all but the brunette at the other end of the lobby. She didn’t even glance around, proving she had her escape route planned.
“Claire!” His voice bounced off the stone walls.
When their eyes met, Claire went still.
He pointed at her. “Do not move.”
A hush fell over the businesspeople gathered at the elevators. Everyone glanced around and shuffled their feet as if embarrassed by being caught in the middle of a private conversation. Despite that, they listened in, but no one seemed to notice a notorious fugitive standing right there in front of them.
“Help! He’s following me.” The words barely left Claire’s mouth and she was off. She threw open the door to the exit and let it slam shut behind her.
The race was on.
Luke ran past a security guard, ignoring the shouts to stop. Using a shoulder, Luke knocked a twenty-something male Good Samaritan to the floor when he tried to block the path to Claire. People crowded around Luke to slow him down. He dodged, even jumped over a chair someone threw in his way.
A high-pitched alarm blared through the building as he hit the door Claire had used for her escape. The piercing sound echoed throughout the lobby, making it impossible for Luke to hear Adam screaming directions in his ear.
But Luke didn’t need any help from here. Even through the harsh scent of the alley, he could smell her familiar flowery shampoo. He was right behind Claire. As long as he grabbed her before she got to the street he was good.
He looked around for anything to stick in the door and slow down any do-gooders who decided to follow him out there. The piece of wood under his foot wasn’t perfect, but it might buy him some time. He shoved it through the door handle, then raced down the pavement, following Claire and getting closer with each step.
She kept her body toned, probably from hours of aerobics like before, but he was still faster. Only a few feet away now, he could see her on the other side of the Dumpster, hear her heavy breathing and watch her hair fly around in the warm October breeze. Then she slid to a stop. Actually lost her footing and fell back on one hand.
Instead of getting up and breaking out of the dark alley into the sunshine and possible freedom, she scrambled to her feet and ran toward him with her cheeks puffing and eyes wild. She landed with a thump against his chest but didn’t stop moving. With her hands wrapped in his shirt, she tugged him toward the door and back into the building they’d just left.
“We have to move,” she said. “Inside. Now.”
Luke planted his feet to stop the slide across the loose gravel under him. “Claire, stop.”
She grabbed his jacket sleeve and pulled hard enough to rip the fabric at the shoulder. “No time. We have to get out of here.”
Luke looked at the shadowed figure standing near the distant sidewalk. From the bulk, Luke knew it was a man, but that was all. “Who the hell is that?”
“I don’t know,” she said, her usually husky voice interrupted by huge gulping breaths.
Luke knew there was no way back into the building without a code, and he sure didn’t have it. They had to go through the guy at the other end.
“Tell security to back off!” Luke yelled the order loud enough for Adam to pick up through the honking horns and other sounds of the nearby street.
“Who are you talking to?” Claire asked.
The shadow at the end of the alley moved closer. The figure took his hand out of his windbreaker pocket. The sun behind him glinted off the metal of his gun. The baseball cap pulled over his face hid his identity, but the casual clothes and quiet stalking told Luke they had a problem. This other guy was no cop.
Luke positioned his body in front of Claire’s. A bullet or knife or anything else would have to go through him first.
He could hear people on the other side of the building’s door and a dull thud as they pushed against it. He needed backup and a way out that didn’t involve fighting through an angry crowd that viewed him as Claire’s attacker.
“He with you?” Luke asked her over his shoulder.
“Does he look happy to see me?”
Adam’s voice crackled in Luke’s ear. “Luke, there aren’t any security guards outside. They’re all standing around the lobby with their thumbs up—”
“Then who’s this guy I’m looking at?” Luke heard a short buzzing and saw the outside camera switch position to aim at the end of the alley.
The other man pulled his cap even lower. The gun pointed down, but Luke knew that could change in a second and didn’t wait. He shoved Claire behind the Dumpster, ignoring her squeal of surprise. The mystery guy’s footsteps fell faster against the pavement now. Luke ducked and squeezed in next to Claire.
Her eyes grew wide when he slipped out the gun he had tucked at the small of his back. “Where did you get that?” she asked.
“Not important.”
“You told me you sold art for a living.”
“I find antiques.” That was his cover and he was sticking to it.
“Find them or shoot them?”
Luke ignored the sarcasm and checked his gun. “This is your last chance to tell me the truth. Do you know how to do that?”
“You may want to remember I’m wanted for murder. Ticking me off might not be your best move.”
As if he could forget that fact. “Who’s this guy coming after you?”
“Don’t know.” Her skin paled. “Probably someone Phil sent.”
Phil Samson. Her husband. Make that her dead husband. Luke vowed to deal with her lies later. Now he needed to get them out of there alive.
The other man’s steps stopped. Except for the soft rustle of his slick jacket, he didn’t make a sound. But Luke could feel the tension radiating off the guy. He motioned for Claire to stay quiet as he peeled her fingers off his shirt. The last thing he needed was her slowing him down.
Glaring at her one last time, Luke mentally started the countdown. In one swift move he stood up and pivoted around the Dumpster, gun raised, to face the other man head on. The guy’s eyes bugged out the second before he lifted his weapon. The slight hesitation gave Luke the opening he needed. His bullet hit the man’s shoulder, sending him stumbling backward.
At the sharp bang people gathered at the end of the alley. Someone shouted for the police. Another person started yelling about a robbery. Luke heard it all, but his focus remained locked on the man in front of him. The guy refused to go down easy. Instead, he held on to his weapon and stayed on his feet.
Claire ran for the back door to the building and yanked on it. It took her a few tugs to see the wood Luke had shoved there. With a growl of frustration she ripped it out.
When the door still refused to open, she hammered it with her fists. “Open up!”
Luke lunged for her. “Claire, no! It’s—”
The other man’s roar cut off the rest of Luke’s warning. Everything moved in a blur. Claire jumped away from the door, holding the stick in her hand like a bat. At the same time the mystery man lurched, shifting his gun to waist height.
When the man pivoted toward Claire, Luke didn’t hesitate. No way was he going to let the guy get a shot off in her direction. Luke shoved her against the wall as he fired a second shot at the attacker. The explosion from the gun mixed with a second crack Luke couldn’t place. For a moment all he heard was the whir of distant sirens and screams from the street.
As he watched the man drop to his knees, the twitching began. Luke tried to flex his hand to keep it from going to sleep, but the muscles fell limp. Heat raged in a line down to his fingers as if every nerve ending had caught fire under his skin.
Claire picked that moment to run out of her hiding place with the stick held high. She slammed it into the back of the other man’s neck, knocking him face-first into the gravel.
“Claire, what are you—”
Grunting with a mania Luke guessed was fueled by adrenaline, she finally faced him. Her gaze zoomed in on his arm and her cheeks blanched even more.
“Are you okay?” Her question came out in a voice both breathy and uneven.
He had no idea what she was asking or why. “Fine.”
“You’ve been shot.”
“I … what?” Luke caught her around the waist to keep her from running. His head spun and his vision blurred, but he knew he had to hold on. No way was he losing her this time. Only thing was, she didn’t struggle or try to break away. He couldn’t figure out that part.
“Luke, stop moving around.”
“You recognize that guy now?” Luke asked, forcing the words out over the sudden searing pain radiating through his shoulder.
She stared at the man lying at her feet with the bullet hole in his back. When she glanced back at Luke’s face, her hand tightened on his forearm. “You have to sit down.”
“Why?” With the noise at the end of the alley and police sirens blaring, Luke knew they had to move. “Doesn’t matter. It’s time to get out of here.”
As the whirring screech from the approaching police cars grew louder, two men started down the alley. Luke guessed the body sprawled on the ground grabbed their attention. He couldn’t blame them for wanting to check it out. Still, he had his fill of knuckle-heads rushing in and trying to save Claire.
“Stay back.” Luke tried to lift his hurt arm, but a new bolt of pain blinded him, forcing him to let it fall uselessly to his side. He finally looked down and saw the blood. “What the hell?”
“You can’t feel that?”
The thumping increased. “I can now.”
“You’re injured.” She ripped the bottom edge of her T-shirt and held it against his shoulder. “Badly.”
The pressure of her palm knocked the breath out of him. He bit back the shout rumbling around in his throat and forced out the words he needed to say. “Adam, get here now.”
Claire glanced around. “Who are you talking to?”
A white van appeared at the end of the alley a few seconds later. Adam got out, flashed his fake badge and started issuing orders.
“Our ride is here,” Luke said through teeth tight with agony.
“Where are we going?” Claire shifted her attention from the commotion back to him.
“Out of here.”
“Not to the police.”
“Not yet.” He vowed to get the real answers first.
It was about time Claire Samson learned there were consequences to her actions. He was the perfect person to teach her—as long as he didn’t pass out first.
Chapter Two
A half hour later Claire heard Luke hiss as he shrugged out of his suit jacket and got the material caught on his watch. He sat on his kitchen table with his legs dangling and his dress shirt unbuttoned down to his stomach. The only blemish on his bare skin came from the dark red stain spreading across the white material.
Slumped shoulders and face drawn tight with pain, Luke looked ready to drop. Claire half hoped he would. If he fell over she could run. Well, she could if she somehow managed to knock out Luke’s friend. Mr. Blond, Big and Ticked Off. Yeah, that guy looked ready to kill someone, namely her.
Both men had chests and shoulders broad enough to make football players jealous. Luke’s light brown hair with bangs that brushed his eyebrows gave a boyish quality to his handsomeness. But in the two years since they were together he had changed. He now possessed a lethal air, making him more like his tough friend than the charming man she once thought would be her future.
Neither man gave off the upper-crust snootiness she expected from guys who supposedly spent their days locating precious works of art. She doubted Luke could tell a Chagall from a cartoon. The comfortable gunplay made her think his work was something more along the lines of law enforcement, but he lacked the clean-cut government-man look she associated with FBI agents. Now that she had experienced the great misfortune of being questioned by a few, she recognized the beast.
One thing was for sure. Luke, the man she followed from a distance and tracked to the office building—the same one who ran her down in the alley and kept a gun in his waistband—did not spend much time behind a desk. She’d bet her life on that. In fact, that’s exactly what she was doing.
She needed Luke’s help and cooperation, wanted to get him interested in her case and set him loose to find the truth. She just had the tiny problem of earning his trust first. With their history that was going to take some time, and probably some begging, which was not her strongest skill.
Luke focused on his friend. “You can get me the whiskey. The rest of the supplies are in the bathroom.”
“You’re thirsty?” she asked. “Now?”
Luke ignored her and kept talking to his friend or partner or whatever the other man was. “Then you’ve got to get back to the scene and help clean up the mess with the police.”
The guy shot Claire a blank stare. “I’m not leaving you alone with her.”
“My name is Claire.”
The man made a face as if he’d tasted something sour. “I know who you are.”
“Adam, meet Claire, and vice versa.” Luke peeled off his shirt, gasping when the blood-soaked material caught on his skin. “The supplies? And now would be good.”
Adam nodded, then headed down the hall.
The second they were alone Luke pinned her with the same green-eyed gaze that used to make her forget what she was saying.
“If you even try to move out of this room, I’ll stop you,” he said.
“You only have one good arm.”
“I can do a lot with that.”
Which was exactly why she hadn’t yet made a run for the door. “I’m not leaving.”
“That’s not my experience,” he muttered under his breath.
Adam stalked back into the room and dumped a small box on the table, along with gauze, some medicine, a knife and a bottle. “What are we looking at in terms of injuries here?”
Luke tried to lift his arm but groaned, instead. “It’s a through and through. Not serious. Just bloody and stings like a son of a bitch.”
She eyed the whiskey. “Which is cause for a celebratory drink?”
Both men stared at her but only Luke answered. “I’m going to use it to clean the wound.”
She noticed his husky voice had cleared and his swaying had stopped. Still … “Shouldn’t you be at a hospital? I mean, how bad is this?”
Luke picked up a bandage packet and put the edge between his teeth and ripped it open. “It’s a gunshot, so it doesn’t feel good. But unfortunately for you, I’m not going to die.”
She forgot how dizzying his stubbornness could be. “You are if you don’t stop with the attitude.”
He peeked up at her through his mop of hair. “I’d like to remind you how I got shot.”
That was an easy one. He refused to stick with the mental plan she had worked out for him. He might hate her, but his rescue tendencies hadn’t dulled.
“Have we figured out who it was you two killed?” Adam asked.
Luke nodded in her direction. “Ask her.”
They both stared at her, but she ignored it. Her mind wandered back to that alley. The acrid mix of blood and sweat filled her nose. For a second there Claire had forgotten this death was on her. She actually had killed a man this time. It was in self-defense and in an effort to save Luke, but someone was still dead.
She swallowed hard to keep from gagging on the bile that rushed up the back of her throat. “He was following me. I don’t know who he was.”
“Your partner?” Luke crumpled the empty packet in his fist. “I’m betting you weren’t really the victim out there today.”
If she thought for one minute Luke intended to save her when she walked into that alley … yeah, not the case. He hunted her down for one reason only—to turn her over to the police. She could see it in the intensity of his eyes.
He had been in that building for a job of some sort. Hung out on every floor until the security cameras finally flared to life. She showed up hoping to get his attention, but she’d miscalculated. She expected he would catch a glimpse and get the bug to start digging into her story. She hadn’t been prepared for a multifloor rundown that ended with a shoot-out.
The entire situation made her want to scream. Phil did this. He set her up, pretended to be dead and now had someone on her tail. Marrying him had been the worst decision of her life.
Adam spilled the alcohol on Luke’s wound, earning an impressive string of yelled profanity in return.
Men. “You’re going to kill him. Here, let me.” She pushed Adam out of the way. Kind of felt good to surprise the guy with a shove.
Then she stepped between Luke’s open legs, resting her thigh against his. The reality of being separated by only two thin pieces of material made her freeze in place. An accidental brush against him shouldn’t mean anything. Certainly shouldn’t send her stomach into flip-flop mode.
“What are you doing?” Luke asked.
“Helping.” She sucked in a few deep breaths as she struggled for control. Even after all this time he had the power to shatter her into a thousand useless pieces.
Instead of dwelling on her weakness to a man so determined to forget her, she went to work. Grabbing the gauze out of his hand, she rubbed the swab over the jagged wound with infinite care. When his lips stayed pinched, she knew the whirling in her stomach only went one way.
Adam plunked down in the chair beside her. His gaze never left her hands. It was as if he expected her to injure Luke with a cotton ball.
“You have a problem with me?” she asked.
Adam’s eyebrow lifted. “Other than the fact you killed your husband?”
Nothing like being found guilty without a trial. “Allegedly killed.”
“Does it sound better to you when you make that distinction?”
“Answer this, Adam. Do you always judge people you don’t know?”
Luke exhaled. “Maybe you two could spar another time. Like when I’m not bleeding to death.”
“I see you’ve taken up exaggeration.” She worked on Luke’s arm, ignoring the pain that flashed in his eyes as she swiped the pad over his injury with delicate care. “Not a very attractive quality, by the way.”
“Yeah, well, it’s a hobby.” Luke leaned over and tried to grab for something from the table. The move put his head right by her cheek and close enough for his breath to tickle her ear.
As soon as his hair brushed her skin, he sat up straight. Even grunted.
The quick move broke her trance. “What now?”
“Hand me the needle and tape.” He barked out the order.
And she ignored it.
He sent her a wide-eyed surprised look. “I’m bleeding here.”
“I’ll get it.” This time Adam did the shoving. Without any fanfare he crowded Claire to the side and away from Luke. Before Luke could argue, Adam started sewing. “You need anything else right now?”
“An explanation from Claire here would be good,” Luke said.
She glanced at the syringe and bottles sitting on the table. “I was just thinking the same thing.”
Luke’s skin whitened as Adam worked. With each tug of the thread and poke through his skin, Luke’s mouth stretched flatter into a thin line. His jaw tightened to the point of breaking.
“I’ll take her to the police after this.” Adam ignored Luke’s squirming. “We should end this now and get back to work.”
She decided to focus on the latter point. “And exactly what is your work? You were clearly looking for something in that building and it wasn’t me. Wasn’t a painting, either.”
“Speaking of that.” Adam put a hand on his hip and stared her down. “How did you know we’d be at that building?”
She’d stalked Luke, of course, but admitting that was out of the question. “I got lucky.”
Adam snorted. “Right.”
“Don’t worry about Claire and her snooping. I’ve got this situation under control,” Luke said.
Situation? She assumed that was his new pet name for her. Interesting how he couldn’t use his arm and was six seconds away from passing out but still thought he was in charge. Only the Y chromosome could result in that kind of bent logic.
Luke inhaled. “Just call the office—”
“You mean your antique storefront or your real job …” She hesitated until she knew she had their joint attention. “Whatever that job actually is.”
Luke scowled in her direction before turning back to Adam. “Go back to the scene,” he said. “Claire and I are going to have a little talk.”
She noticed Luke sounded more like police and less antique expert by the minute. “I’m fine, but thanks.”
“Then?” Adam asked.
“I’ll bring her in.”
“Never going to happen.” And she meant it. Injury or not, she would knock Luke down, press against his wound. Do whatever it took to stay free.
The idea of sitting in a cell and depending on the services of a court-appointed defense attorney made her head spin with fear. She knew how the system worked—poor people lost. Despite everything she had done in the last two years to escape her past, she had somehow slipped back into a situation where she had nothing. The exact place she’d spent her entire adult life trying to avoid.
“One more thing.” Luke used his good hand to cuff Adam’s shoulder. “This all stays between us.”
“How exactly do I explain the dead guy in the alley?”
Claire shook her head. Antiques experts. Right.
“You’ll think of something. I just need a little time with Claire.”
“How much?”
“Some. Might need a cover, too.” When Adam started to argue, Luke stopped him. “This isn’t up for debate.”
Silence lingered while Adam just stood there. When he finally spoke again, he sounded anything but convinced. “You’ve got twenty-four hours.”
Luke nodded. “Agreed.”
“Not by me,” she muttered.
“Just be careful.” Adam grabbed his keys but not before shooting Claire one last warning glare.
She waited until the door closed to say anything. “I get the distinct impression your friend doesn’t like me.”
“And here I thought you weren’t good at reading people.”
She picked up a damp towel and wiped the area around Luke’s wound before taping a bandage over Adam’s surprisingly professional stitching. The process took a few minutes. Rather than haggle and argue, she used the quiet to come up with a plan to leave Luke before Adam’s twenty-four-hour deadline expired.
She saw the mess of ripped paper and blood-drenched pads on the table. “You’ve ignored this question so far, but care to tell me why a businessman keeps a syringe in his bathroom?”
He smiled in a way that was more warning than welcoming. “Why? Want to learn a new way to get rid of your next husband?”
“I see you’ve decided to be as much of a jerk as possible.” She threw the towel on the table and plunked down in the chair Adam had abandoned.
“Some people like me,” Luke said.
She didn’t doubt that one bit. From creeping around and watching him for the past few weeks, she knew about his dating life. Women came over, stayed the night, and a new one showed up a few nights later. It was an endless parade of blondes and brunettes, each one looking easier than the one before her.
But that wasn’t Claire’s business. Her focus was on clearing her name. Like it or not, she needed help for that. When the whole town judged you guilty, you had to find someone who didn’t. Luke didn’t fit in that believer category yet, but she hoped he would.
“What’s the plan now?” she asked.
“You tell me what happened to your husband.”
She hated that word because it made Phil sound special, and he wasn’t. “And then?”
“I’ll decide that after I hear what you have to say.”
“How is that fair?”
“Do you have a choice?”
She didn’t.
Chapter Three
Four hours and two confusing explanations from Claire later, Luke was ready for a handful of painkillers and a bed. But thanks to his unwanted female sidekick, he didn’t have the option of the sweet oblivion of sleep.
They stood at the double doors to his office suite. He positioned his body in front of Claire to block her as much as possible from the security cameras he knew were shooting them from all angles.
Following her gaze, he looked at the words stamped on the door: Recovery Project. On the outside, the fifth-floor office on a side street in the Georgetown area of Washington, D.C., housed an antiques salvage operation. In reality it served as headquarters for an off-the-books agency tasked with finding missing people, both those who wanted to hide and those who prayed for rescue. That’s what he did for a living. He hunted people.
Since he didn’t directly work for the government, he didn’t have to obey its stringent rules. The Recovery Project was the place the guys with the real badges came when they needed the dirty work done. Luke and his team worked outside the law. They flashed fake credentials or whatever else it took to get in the door and never asked for credit when they succeeded in reaching their goals. To Luke’s way of thinking, they accomplished more in one day than most law-enforcement agencies could manage during a year-long sting operation.
Lights on the security panel flickered when he swiped his key card through the reader. The doors to the main reception area opened with a click. The place was in after-hours mode, dark except for one small lamp in the lobby area. Just as he expected—quiet and empty. It was about time something worked right today.
He had called seven times on the way over, trying the main number and then each private line to make sure they’d be alone. The idea was to protect Claire’s secret for a few more hours. The gun tucked into his sling protected him from her. If she made a move in any direction he didn’t like, he was ready.
Not that he could shoot her. Despite everything that happened between them before and everything bubbling under the surface now, physically hurting her was out of the question. But the desire for emotional revenge had not dulled since she’d left him holding a stack of bills for a wedding that never happened.
He had spent those first days dreaming of her coming back to him broken and despondent, begging his forgiveness for leaving. In his fantasy, he turned her away. He would listen, laugh in her face and walk off. That proved to be much harder in real life. Those chocolate-brown eyes and body born for the bedroom were enough to drive any sane man to do something really stupid. She had done it to him. Likely did it to most men unlucky enough to cross her path.
No, he couldn’t push her out of his head. But he could threaten. Oh, boy, could he threaten.
“What is this place?” She walked up to the receptionist’s desk and fingered the business cards piled there in individual holders.
He started to follow her and groaned when the swift shuffle to the side sent pain rippling down his injured arm. “My employer.”
“Ready to tell me what you really do for a living?” She glanced around at the stark white walls that gleamed despite the relative darkness. “Seems sort of modern for a place that supposedly deals in antiques.”
“We find them. We don’t collect them.”
“For some reason I doubt you do either of those things.”
When she leaned against the counter, her hair caught the light. Mahogany replaced the rich brown color he remembered. He guessed the longer, darker look was part of her disguise. Little did she know, all the dye in the world couldn’t cover her high cheekbones and smooth skin. Purple or green hair, he would know her anywhere.
“Let’s move on to a conversation I actually care about. Your missing husband,” Luke said.
“Former.”
Luke refused to let that distinction matter.
“The divorce is final, but the financial settlement wasn’t signed. That’s the point of the murder, wasn’t it?” When she ducked her head, he lowered his to meet her eyes. “Right? With Phil dead and the money issues not resolved, you would inherit. With Phil alive and the agreement signed, you got whatever the prenup and final paperwork said.”
“I see you’ve been reading the newspaper again.” She picked up a business card and tapped it end over end against the counter.
“You would have been a very rich widow.” He watched the card twirl faster between her fingers. “You know, if you hadn’t actually been caught in the act.”
“I was set up.”
“Tell me again why I’m supposed to believe that.”
“We’ve been through this. I told you the entire story twice on the way over here.”
He folded his hand over hers. The goal was to stop the annoying clicking of card against counter before his head exploded. At the touch, he felt a shot of a different kind. The feel of her soft hand beneath his brought back a flood of memories. Skin against skin, touching her, making love to her. He didn’t even have to close his eyes to picture her sprawled naked across his white sheets.
When the image refused to leave his mind, he shook his head to knock it out. He also pulled back his hand, because touching her skin was just plain stupid.
“Let’s go to my office,” he said.
“This should be interesting.”
That was just about the last word he’d use. But rather than debate, he slid his fingers under her elbow and steered her down the short hallway to his room. Letting her peek into an area so private made him nervous, but it was better to bring her here than drag her to his house. Here he would stay focused and he could make sure she only saw what he wanted her to see.
The conference rooms, computer rooms and most of the back half of the space were off-limits to visitors and anyone else who failed to get through the retinal scanner and other security measures in place there. That included Claire. Especially Claire.
He swiped his key card at the second door on the left and punched in his code. When the door unlocked, he gestured for her to move inside ahead of him.
The spare and minimalist look of the rest of the space continued in here. No dark heavy wood or oil paintings featuring somber sixteenth-century faces. He preferred clean lines, a comfortable leather chair and a desk sturdy enough to hold the stacks of documents piled on top of it.
Not that the papers contained anything of value. Everything on his desk was there for show. The actual work files sat secured in his hidden safe along with his removable computer hard drive and every other piece of confidential information from his cases. She would see what he wanted her to see and nothing else.
He waved at the black chair in front of his desk and took his seat behind it. With his computer switched on and his mind engaged, he was ready to hear her story one more time.
“Again,” he said.
“You’re going to type with one hand?”
Her reminder made his arm ache even more. Thanks to her presence, he had to skip the heavy-duty painkillers and go with antibiotics and aspirin for the injury. The combination wasn’t working. Every nerve ending throbbed.
“I’ll get by.” He stared across the desk right into her dark eyes. In that moment he wondered if he really would survive a second round with her. Last time she won, but he vowed to be the victor this time.
IF HE WANTED to be some sort of martyr and plow ahead with questions when he should be in a hospital, Claire wasn’t about to argue. She needed his help. If she tried to tell him how to provide it, his testosterone would kick in and she’d never get through this uneasy alliance.
“It was three weeks ago. Phil called and asked me to come to the house,” she explained.
“Is that normal?”
“I don’t understand the question.”
Luke leaned back in his chair. Held on to his injured arm while he did it. “According to everything I’ve read, the divorce wasn’t exactly amicable.”
She had known the accusations would come eventually. Still, the idea that Luke so readily believed the absolute worst of her stung. “You mean because Phil told everyone who would listen that I was a whore.”
“I was trying to be tactful.”
“Why start now?”
“Fine.” Luke tapped his fingers against the space bar on his keyboard. “He accused you of sleeping around.”
“I didn’t.”
Luke hesitated before tapping again. “Okay.”
“You believe me?” Something deep inside her chest tightened into a hard ball while waiting for the answer. It was as if every cell waited to see what he would say.
Instead, he waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. “It’s not important. Not my business.”
Yeah, well, it mattered to her. But she refused to justify or explain. If Luke was so determined to judge her guilty on that point, let him. She knew she had damaged his ego when she walked out. A man didn’t forgive that sort of thing easily. But no matter how much he hated her, the important thing was that he believe in her story enough to help her.
“Why did you go to the house?” he asked.
“It was stupid.” In hindsight, the dumbest move of her life, even less intelligent than her marriage. “Phil called and said he wanted to come to a reasonable financial resolution. Asked me to come over to talk. I should have questioned the change in him, but I was so relieved. And when I got there everything was wrong.”
The scene unfolded in her mind. The dark first floor. Music playing in the background. The strong odor of cleaner. She had called Phil’s name from the front door, but no one answered. When she heard a thump upstairs she figured he was moving stuff around and couldn’t hear her. She followed the curving stairway to the second floor. There was a light on the landing and more spilling out of the master bedroom down the hall.
“I walked into our old bedroom. Something seemed off. My jewelry was on the bed, the same items Phil insisted I stole when I left the first time. He must have had them all along.”
“Anything else? Was anyone there?”
The remembered smell filled her head. It was a mix of sickening sweetness and harsh cleanser. The same wave of dizziness that hit her that night flowed through her again.
She could hear the floor creak as Luke shifted around in his seat. She knew she was safe in his office, but she couldn’t pull her mind from the memory.
“Just relax and tell me what you saw.”
Luke moved his hand over hers. She didn’t even realize she had twisted a business card in her palm until Luke slipped it out from between her fingers and put it on the desk.
As soon as the warmth of his skin came, it left again. His hand was back at his keyboard, but the touch had returned her to the present. She could finish the story. She had to finish.
“There was blood splattered on the walls and on the floor. I remember kneeling, looking around trying to figure out what I was seeing. Then I heard the sirens.”
“The police.”
“Yeah, but it still didn’t sink in. Even seeing the cleaning bucket didn’t compute.”
“And that’s where the police found you.”
“On the floor by the bloodstain.”
“They say you killed Phil and hid the body.” Luke’s hand hovered over the keys. “That they caught you cleaning up the scene.”
“But they conveniently forget that Phil made a call from the house only a short time before that.” She scoffed. “I mean, did he turn into smoke or something?”
Luke nodded. “Admittedly, the timeline is going to be the prosecution’s weakness at trial.”
“Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence. Maybe you should be on my defense team.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“Phil set me up with a brilliance I didn’t know he had in him. He called his brother that night and claimed I broke in.” The prosecutor depended on the delay in calls from Phil to Steve to the police to explain the problem. “The theory is that I killed a 190-pound man and hid the body within a fifteen-minute window.”
The evidence didn’t fit. The fact that everyone refused to see that made her seethe in frustration.
“I’m assuming you deny killing him.” Luke said it more as a fact than a question.
“I can’t kill someone who’s not dead.”
Luke began typing. Even with one hand, he moved fast. Images flipped by on his screen. She could see him trying to log in passwords as fast as possible. Probably feared she would somehow break into his system.
A Web site she recognized popped up. “Wait, you’re with the FBI?”
He smiled. “Definitely not.”
“But you just entered a password to get on their system.”
“True.”
Lines of information filled his screen. She leaned in closer to see.
He eyed her for a second. “Sit back.”
“But that said something about Homeland Security.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“We’re talking about my life here, Luke.”
“This is confidential information.” He said the words but didn’t do anything to hide the monitor from her view.
“Then why do you have it, Mr. Antiques Expert?”
Another window opened. This one had the D.C.
Police logo on it. A few more strokes and Luke entered another password. The page that popped up looked like a bank statement.
“Other than violating about a thousand state and federal laws, what are you doing?” she asked.
“Checking for evidence that Phil is alive. Phone and bank records. Something that would support your theory about Phil setting this up to make it look like you killed him so he had cover to run.”
“That’s exactly what happened.”
Luke’s gaze did not leave the monitor. “So you keep saying.”
“You don’t work for the FBI.”
“I already said no.”
“Or the police.”
“Still no.”
Wariness spiraled through her. He had access to all sorts of information he shouldn’t have access to. “Exactly what side do you work for?”
Luke stopped typing long enough to stare at her. “Do you really care?”
“Yes.” She said the word but didn’t mean it. Her question wasn’t about following the rules. It was about trying to figure out who he was—the man he claimed to be or the one who carried a gun.
Luke hit a few more keys and then sat back in his chair. “There’s nothing on Phil. No sign of life at all. He hasn’t accessed any account or anything else in the three weeks since he disappeared.”
“The man is a multimillionaire.”
“I seem to remember you mentioning that when you left me for him.”
She dug her fingernails into the arms of the chair to keep from shaking him. “Phil has money hidden all over the place.
“None of it’s moving.”
Luke didn’t believe her. The fact hit her with enough force to push the breath out of her lungs on a whoosh. Desperation bubbled in her stomach. She had to move before it ran up her throat and she embarrassed herself.
She got up and paced the few feet between her chair and the open door to the office. A few steps and she could hit the hallway, run as fast as possible for the door and hope his injury slowed him down enough to let her get away.
“Don’t even think about it.” Luke issued the threat without moving an inch.
If he worried that she was about to make a break for it, he sure wasn’t showing it. Open hand, relaxed shoulders, even a small smile playing on this mouth. Yeah, he was sure he had her under control. She saw it in every line of his body.
He was hiding more than his real profession. Behind the passwords and key cards there might not be an easy way out of what looked like an otherwise normal office. Still, she had to try.
She moved her foot closer to the hallway to test her theory. If the door slammed shut and locked her in, she’d deal with his anger then. It wasn’t as if Luke trusted her, anyway. He probably expected her to bolt. Was waiting for it.
She inched the same foot outside the office. Her gaze stayed locked on Luke. He taunted her by leaning back further into his oversize leather chair. With one last deep breath she stepped out of the doorway. She turned her head to look down the hall.
A second later the barrel of a gun pressed hard against her forehead. She bit back a scream as she stared into the blue eyes of a stranger dressed all in black.
Adrenaline pumping, she raised her hands in surrender. “It’s okay. I’m here with Luke.”
The other man’s smile never reached his eyes. “Luke who?”
Chapter Four
Blood thundered in Claire’s ears. If her heart drummed any harder, it would come right out of her chest and land on the floor at her feet.
With Luke injured and her without a weapon, she tried to use reason to keep the big guy with the gun from firing straight into her forehead. “Listen to me. We can work this out.”
“I doubt it.” Black-haired and well over six feet, the guy radiated danger. His arm stayed straight and the gun never wavered. If ever there was a man ready to shoot first and talk later, it was him.
“You don’t want to do this,” she said, trying to stall for time as she mentally searched for a way out of this.
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”
At this range, there was no way the guy would miss unless he was cross-eyed, and she was just not that lucky. Not lately. If something didn’t change, she’d die with the presumption of guilt tied around her neck.
And Luke, injured and vulnerable. She didn’t want to think what would happen to him. Her only hope was for the meds to wear off and his brain to kick-start him into action. That even now he had his gun drawn and was working on a plan to free them.
“Phil’s just using you.” She didn’t have any money, her ex saw to that, but maybe this guy didn’t know the intricacies of her financial settlement. Only possible if he never watched the news or read a paper.
“Phil who?”
“I can beat his price. Whatever he’s giving you to do this, I’ll double it.” A total lie, but she was desperate to keep the conversation going and the gun’s trigger exactly where it was right now.
The guy pursed his lips as if considering the deal. “Interesting.”
“Problem out there?” Luke asked from inside the room.
Her heart dropped at the sound of his deep voice. She closed her eyes in defeat. Maybe Luke really was an antiques dealer. Seemed a guy with a badge would be smart enough to understand the benefit of sneaking up on a situation like this rather than announcing his presence.
“Are you going to answer him?” the guy asked.
She thought she heard a touch of amusement in his voice, which made about as much sense as everything else that had happened in the past hour. “No.”
“You should.”
She took that as an order. “We have company.” She shouted that obvious assessment to Luke. She wanted to tell him to bring his gun, but she was pretty sure that would tick off the guy who wanted to put a bullet through her brain.
After a bit of paper shuffling and chair squeaking, Luke appeared in the doorway. He stared down at the gun. Up at the guy. Didn’t show an ounce of surprise.
“Ahhh, I see you weren’t kidding.”
Her hands balled into fists. “That’s all you have to say?”
“No.” Luke stepped into the hall and leaned against the wall. If the other man’s presence worried him, he sure didn’t show it. “I saw you two on the monitor.”
“What monitor?” she asked.
Luke hitched his chin in the general vicinity of the gun. “Ease up. You’re scaring her.”
Oh, he was way past that point. “Lowering the weapon would help. I can’t go anywhere, anyway.”
The mystery man’s shoulders relaxed. “I wouldn’t let you.”
“Looks like we have an agreement, then.” Luke rubbed his shoulder. “Holden Price, this is the infamous Claire Samson.”
“Wait, you know him?” Her heart flip-flopped at the thought. When she tried to turn her head to let Luke see just how angry she was, the gun scratched her skin. “Uh, could you call your friend off?”
Holden looked her up and down. “When I’m ready.”
“Lower the weapon,” Luke ordered, his voice suddenly stronger and harsher. “Now.”
Holden hesitated before pulling the gun back closer to his side. “What’s going on?”
“So that’s a yes?” She looked back and forth between the men. What she really wanted to do was knock their heads together as payback for scaring the crap out of her. “You two do know each other.”
“We both work here,” Luke said.
“Now that we’ve cleared that up, why is she here?” Holden still held his gun at the ready. A fact that kept Claire on edge.
“We had an incident.”
It was as if the testosterone had rushed to Luke’s brain and swamped his common sense. She fought the urge to roll her eyes. “It’s a little more than that. You were shot.”
Luke shrugged on his good side. “Yeah, like I said, an incident.”
“I know about the alley. I’ve already been there to make sure Adam has everything under control.” Holden nodded in the direction of the sling. “You okay?”
Since Holden actually frowned, looking as if Luke’s health mattered, Claire decided to let the gun threat slide. Luke might not understand how serious his injuries were, but from the way Holden’s eyebrows snapped together she assumed he got it.
“Will be,” Luke said.
The color had returned to his cheeks, but the dark circles under his eyes just kept getting darker. She was convinced he’d drop over at some point. Probably right when she’d need him to show off those impressive shooting skills of his, because that was how her life worked at the moment.
“You should be at home resting,” she pointed out. “It’s not normal for most people to get shot. Not even for supposed art dealers.”
“Antiques,” Holden muttered.
“Only way I can take the night off is to turn you over to the police. That scenario interest you?” Luke actually smirked as he made the observation. The man knew when he had a conversation won. He knew and she knew.
But she wasn’t ready to give up. “Not really.”
“Why did you bring her to the office?” Holden asked.
When the barrel of Holden’s gun finally pointed toward the floor, instead of at any part of her, she coughed out the breath she’d been holding. “I have a bigger question. What’s with all the weapons?”
Luke’s hand inched toward his gun as if she had reminded him. “We like to be prepared.”
“In case you encounter a dangerous collectibles shop owner?”
Holden nodded. “Something like that.”
Only a man bathed in darkness who grumbled more than he spoke could throw out a line like that and make it sound menacing. Without thinking, she shifted closer to Luke. Yeah, he hated her, but he’d had the chance to shoot her in the alley and passed it up. She wasn’t convinced Holden would do the same.
“What are you doing here this late?” Luke asked.
“I was in the back when the phones started ringing. The way they went a desk at a time sounded suspicious to me. Thought I’d stick around to see if we had trouble.” Holden stared at her. “And we do.”
“I don’t want to be here, either, if that helps,” she said.
Luke talked right over her. “Was just trying to see who, if anyone, was here. I had to use the computer and couldn’t exactly leave her waiting in the car.”
“Makes sense.” Holden’s lips quirked in what Claire assumed was his version of a smile. “How’d you manage to trip the alarm?”
Luke went still. “What?”
“You forget to swipe the card or something?”
“No. Followed protocol exactly.”
With a suddenness that shocked her, Holden straightened. Both men morphed from relaxed interplay to an on-guard stance in an instant. Holden’s gun was raised as Luke started pushing buttons on his big square watch.
She knew enough to be worried. Wide-shouldered macho men didn’t spook that easily. “What is it?”
“Quiet,” Luke said in a voice that hovered just above a whisper.
With guns out, they surrounded her. She couldn’t move or run. The closeness suffocated her as they walked her backward into Luke’s office. “What’s happening?”
“You have someone with you?” Luke took a position on one side of the doorway.
With his good arm, he pushed her behind him. Since the idea of dying in a shoot-out didn’t exactly appeal to her, she stayed put. They’d talk about his tendency to shove her around another time. Right now, it worked for her. “No.”
Luke stared at her.
“No, really,” she said. “No partners. Nothing.”
His facial features took on a nasty sharpness. “We’re going to take this guy out, so tell me the truth.”
She knew she’d be blamed for what was happening now, whatever that was. “I just did.”
“Possible you were followed?” Holden asked from the other side of the doorway.
Luke’s concentration switched between his watch and the hallway. “I don’t see how.”
“Maybe you’re off your game.” Holden stood on the other side of the open door. “The injury, meeting up with your old—”
“No.”
Together they made up a wall of angry brooding male. Claire couldn’t hear or see anything. Except for their breathy whispers, a deadly quiet filled the office. But she knew from the way Holden and Luke held their bodies so still that something or someone very bad lingered out there waiting for them.
The reality hit her. Phil. Again. He had access to endless resources and a deep hatred for her. Throwing the blame on her for his mess was one thing. Having someone track her every move was another. Years before, she had seen Phil as a safe alternative to Luke. Everything about Luke was shrouded in mystery. Phil had nothing to hide. She never dreamed he would turn into her biggest nightmare.
Luke motioned for her to stand with her back against the wall behind him. “You do everything we say when we say. Got it?”
She nodded, afraid to utter even a syllable and risk having her voice carry back to whoever was out there.
Holden stared at his watch. It matched Luke’s perfectly. “He’s in conference room two.”
She grabbed the back of Luke’s shirt and tugged to get his attention. “He who?”
“Whoever is trying to kill you.”
“You believe me?”
“I believe someone wants you dead. The ‘why’ is a question for another time.”
She rested her forehead against his back for the briefest of moments. “If we live.”
Luke pressed a button on the side of his watch. From over his shoulder she could see the face. Instead of the time, a floor plan flashed in green lighting. She saw four red dots in the outlined rooms. Only one of them moved.
She pitched her voice as low as possible, which was hard given the way her head buzzed with fear. “Is that him?”
“Last chance.” Holden slid his gun along the door frame until the barrel was at eye level. “You know this guy or not?”
If either of them asked again, she might lunge for a gun. “No.”
“Then you stay in here while I kill him,” Holden said.
“Negative.” Luke gave one shake of his head to match his clipped tone. “She doesn’t move, but I want him alive. Need to know what’s happening here and who’s behind all this.”
She knew. “I told you. It’s Phil and he’s—”
Luke ignored her. “The dot is moving.”
And so were they. Holden and Luke slipped into the hallway. Back to back they moved, guns up and bodies snapped stiff with tension.
Claire glanced down the hall toward the reception area. Everything in her screamed to run down the dark path and out the front door. She’d figure out her next step once she hit the street. But she didn’t know the office building well enough to know where the mystery man could go and how he could get there. She couldn’t risk a bullet in the back.
Plus, the idea of leaving Luke while danger swirled around them made her stomach heave. She had dragged him into this mess. She would get them both out. She just needed access to information and a way to hunt Phil down. A weasel like him couldn’t hide for long. Sacrifice was not his style. She just hoped her last stand wouldn’t be in a fake office with her furious ex nearby.
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ХеленКей Даймон
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Under the Gun, электронная книга автора ХеленКей Даймон на английском языке, в жанре современная зарубежная литература