chapter twenty-seven

Ben jerked the steering wheel and whipped the car around the corner, barely missing the truck.

He glanced through the rearview mirror. The van was just behind him. He watched the driver frantically swerve to avoid hitting the truck and ram into a parked car, effectively blocking the street. The horn blared. Whoever drove the dark sedan, the one that had been waiting in the parking lot, was completely blocked.

Ben turned another corner at full speed, then drove south.

“Do you have a phone with you?” he asked Robin as he made yet another turn and slowed.

She didn’t answer for a moment and he glanced at her. Her fingers clutched the handle of her purse with a death grip. Her face was frozen. So it wasn’t only the purse. He remembered her telling him about the automobile accident. The terror, a kind of acceptance. The crash. Was she reliving that during his wild dash to safety?

He wanted to hold her, but neither of them could afford that at the moment. Instead, he had to snap her out of it. “Call 911 and report the accident,” he said. “Say you heard gunfire, that people in the car and the van might have been shooting at each other. Then hang up. Sound hysterical.”

“That won’t be hard.” The voice was weak but a spunky humor was in it.

He threw her another glance. Hardly. He’d discovered she was not the hysterical type.

Her hands shook slightly as she said exactly what he told her, then turned the phone off.

“Quick thinking, deflecting his shot. But foolish. He could have turned the gun on you.”

“Better you than me?” she asked dryly.

“True,” he said, trying to contain a smile. “I can take care of myself.” Her face relaxed slightly. Her grip on the purse didn’t seem quite as tight.

He drove two more blocks, then turned again on a side street and traveled another three blocks before he heard wailing sirens. He had to get rid of the rental car. No question that the perps had taken the license plate number.

He turned into the parking lot of an abandoned convenience store and drove to the back, where they were completely hidden. He put the car in park, but didn’t turn off the ignition.

He turned to her. Her face was pale.

“Why did you run away without an explanation?” He tried to temper his words, but he realized his voice was cold. Hard.

“I didn’t know I had to give you one,” she shot back.

“You step from one disaster to another. That’s your business,” he continued caustically. “Problem is, you leave chaos for everyone else in your wake.”

She looked stricken, and he wanted to take her in his arms. God, he’d wanted to do that since he watched her throwing herself into her assailant to deflect his shot. She came too damn close to being killed.

“I’m grateful for your help today,” she said stiffly. “Very grateful, in fact. But I had my reasons.”

“You always have your reasons. They’re not always good ones.” He had to give that to her.

Her eyes met his. “Maybe you’re right,” she admitted.

God, but she got to him. The vulnerability in her eyes just then drained his anger.

He itched to touch her face. He started to reach out to her, then hesitated. Bad idea. She hadn’t wanted him around. She didn’t trust him.

Still, something in him responded to the fear that still lingered in her eyes. Even now he wanted to ease it.

He touched her face, pushed back some errant curls. Attraction rippled between them again. Fueled, he knew, by the adrenaline they both felt.

The air was thick with emotion. His fingers stroked her cheek, then curled around her neck, easing the tension. Her arms went around him, her breath whispering against his lips.

Then his lips met hers, lightly at first, then hungrily with all the anger and frustration he’d experienced in the last two days. Her lips moved against his, responding with an intensity that shook him. She opened her mouth, and he plundered it, ravishing and taking and giving.

Somewhere in his consciousness, he heard another siren. And another.

He moved away.

Robin looked stunned, as stunned as he felt. All the feelings between them, all that distrust and anger had exploded into something that went beyond reason.

Somehow he forced himself to put the car in gear. This was not a good place to be.

His hands shook slightly as he turned the car out of the parking lot and toward the interstate.

Robin felt as though lightning had flashed through her body. Yearning and wanting filled her.

She moved closer to him as he carefully drove just under the speed limit, his gaze keeping to the road. She looked at his face.

His jaw was set, a muscle knotted in his cheek.

He was silent, and so was she, until he asked directions to where she was staying.

She was stunned by the impact of that kiss, the feelings it had aroused in her.

Only hours earlier she hadn’t trusted him.

Now he’d saved her life.

But she’d also heard the anger in his voice and it went beyond the words.

He knew she hadn’t trusted him. And she feared she had damaged something fine that had been building between them. They were almost to the motel when he spoke again.

“You didn’t answer me when I asked why you felt you had to run away without telling anyone.”

“I met my source Sunday night. He told me Hydra had someone in the FBI. Then I received a call at the hospital after Mrs. Jeffers was admitted. Someone who knew you were with me. He told me if I spoke to the grand jury my family would die. He also said he would know, that someone close to me was working for them. Someone who also had access to grand jury deliberations.”

“And you believed it? Did you think that someone was trying to get you to doubt me?”

“Yes,” she said in a small voice. “I also thought that maybe one of your superiors could be involved. You have to report to them and …”

“And you couldn’t tell me that?”

She reached for his hand and she laid hers on it. “I should have told you. Everything was happening so fast. I didn’t know who or what to believe.”

“You trust me now?”

“Yes.”

“I could have staged that whole thing, you know. Just to get you to confide in me.”

Robin heard the deep irony in his voice and felt the bitterness behind it. Saying she was sorry wasn’t going to help anything, and she knew it. She just wished his tone wasn’t so cool, so controlled, when she still tingled all over from the kiss.

“And you thought … exactly what, when you came down here?” he continued.

“I thought if … I could get some more information, then the name of the source wouldn’t be so important.”

“That damn source is going to get you killed as well as God knows how many others. God save me from amateurs.”

“I’m not an amateur. I’m a reporter,” she protested. “How did you know where to find me?”

“I found a photo of a boat jammed in your printer.”

“You searched my home?” There was some indignation in her voice but it didn’t sound that convincing, rather as if she thought she should protest.

“We didn’t know whether you’d been kidnapped,” he said. “You disappeared from an agent.” He paused, then added caustically, “You might well have ruined his career in the doing.”

“Why? I wasn’t under arrest. It was voluntary.”

“I suspect it was voluntary because you thought we would watch you if it wasn’t.”

“Wouldn’t you?” she challenged.

“Most likely,” he admitted wryly.

“How did that photo lead you here? Why Brunswick?”

“Trust goes two ways, Robin,” he said in a flat voice. “So far I’ve gotten damn little. From now on, you want information, you give information. Where did you get the photo?”

“My source,” she finally said.

“A deputy with the sheriff’s department.” It was a question as much as a statement.

“Yes,” she admitted. “Now how did you know it was taken in Brunswick?”

“The widow of a Meredith County deputy. Her husband was killed in the line of duty several months ago. A lot of deaths around that department. I asked about fishing trips. She remembered her husband had been on several in south Georgia.

Her gaze riveted on him. “Something to do with the murders?”

“I’m thinking there’s a lot of coincidences.”

“So you were sent here?”

He hesitated, then replied, “No. I took personal leave.”

“Why?”

“I knew you were afraid of something. From your actions, you had to think there was a leak inside the bureau.”

“My source said he’d been told …”

“That could have been an excuse to keep you from coming to us.”

“No. He was scared. Not just scared. Terrified. For his family as well as himself. He said there was someone else who talked too much, and his family was killed. That’s why he came to me. He thought I could make enough noise that no one could cover it up.”

“Who in the bureau? Did he have any clue?”

She shook her head.

He thought about his office. He would bet his life that it wasn’t Mahoney. Hell, he’d already done that more times than he wanted to remember. Holland? He doubted it. Just as he couldn’t see any other agent he knew being involved. He didn’t mix much. He couldn’t return invitations. But he’d worked with them all for years. None lived beyond their means.

“What now?” Robin asked.

“Getting a new car is a priority.”

“What about the one I was driving?”

“I don’t think you want to go back and get it.” He turned and studied her. “Did you leave anything in it?”

“No. Just a map.”

“Did it have a hotel name on it?”

She shook her head. “I bought it at a minimart.”

“Nothing else?”

“Everything is in my purse.”

“The photos?”

She nodded.

“That’s why you grabbed it,” he said. “You know you could have gotten us both killed.”

“Instinct,” she whispered. “The original photo … my notes were in there.”

“What about clothes? Other personal items?”

“At the motel,” she said.

“I notice you’re aren’t wearing the brace.”

“Too easy to identify me.”

“Is that wise?”

“It was supposed to come off next week, anyway,” she said.

He digested that. He knew how careful she had been about it. “Anything else in the car that would give them a clue? A receipt? A parking ticket?”

“No.”

“Sure?”

“I’ve been careful.”

“You’ve been talking to marina operators. Did you use your name?”

“No.”

“The motel?”

“A different one there, too.”

He was grudgingly impressed. She was good, better than he would have thought.

“Where did you learn all this?”

“Books. Movies.” She thought for a moment, then added, “Logic.” She paused, then added quickly, “I hope.”

He had to smile at that. “Sometimes illogic helps. The unexpected.”

“What about my car?” she asked. “I know I can’t get it now, but I can’t leave it there, either. It belongs to a friend of mine.”

“Where are the keys?”

“My purse.”

“I have a few friends down here. I’ll ask one of them to pick it up.”

She stared at him for a long time. “Is this going to get you in trouble?”

He shrugged. “Probably.”

“Why are you doing this?” she asked.

“Damned if I know,” he said and turned all his attention to the road ahead. Ben pulled in at her motel, drove slowly around the parking lot, then backed into a parking place, concealing the license plate from the rest of the lot.

“Move over to the driver’s side,” he told her. “Stay here until I signal you to come inside.” He paused while she handed him her room key.

“I have a gun with me,” she said, her fingers tightening around her purse.

“Where did you get that?”

“Yesterday. In Savannah.”

“You said you know how to use it?”

“On targets.”

“It’s different with a breathing target.”

“Have you ever killed anyone?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he stepped outside the car, mashed down the lock on the door, and waited until she slid over to the driver’s side. Then he went inside her motel room. Almost instantly he appeared back at the door and gestured for her to come inside.

The room looked even smaller to Robin than it had before. And dingier.

Ben locked the door and turned to her. His granite eyes pinioned her with a long, silent scrutiny. Sparks of longing shot through her as she remembered the way his lips felt against hers.

She needed it now. The adrenaline rush had faded, and she realized how close she’d come today to being killed.

But he was grim-faced. Probably regretting that kiss.

Her heart thumped against her rib cage. She’d made so many mistakes. Suspecting him. Being careless enough to leave the jammed paper in her printer. And yet if she hadn’t, then …

He would not have found her. She would not be here. Maybe she would have simply disappeared.

What she hadn’t counted on was how glad she was to be with him, to see him. She was too aware of his presence, close enough to feel the heat from his body.

The connection was still there. Even when she’d had her doubts, it had been there in her, an intense physical awareness, but something even stronger. Something she’d fought. Was that why she hadn’t let herself believe, even for the smallest second, that he could be part of a conspiracy?

She resisted the tangible impulse to reach out and touch him. His body’s stiffness, the chill in his eyes warned her away.

He broke off the eye contact. “Have you been using your cell phone?” he asked.

“I have a throwaway phone,” she admitted.

He shook his head. “Let me have it.”

She was committed now. She handed it to him.

He punched in several numbers. “Carl,” she heard him say. “I need a favor. A car drop and a credit card.”

He listened for a moment, then said, “Where?”

Another pause, then, “Okay. Two hours.”

He turned the phone off and handed it to her. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

“You think they can find us?”

“They’re resourceful,” he said. “If it’s true they have a mole in the bureau, they know I could be with you. I’ll be getting some cell phone messages. Who calls and with what urgency may tell us something. Pack what you have. They’ve probably checked your credit cards. Now they’ll be checking motels for a woman who paid cash.”

“I have a prepaid credit card I’ve used since arriving.”

“Should have known,” he muttered more to himself than to her.

“Where are we going?”

“To long-term airport parking. Exchange a license plate.”

“Isn’t that illegal?” she said, stunned by the pronouncement.

“They’ll get it back. We’re merely borrowing.”

But he would be doing far more than that, and she knew it. He was jeopardizing his career. Who he was.

For her.

For someone who hadn’t trusted him. Lead settled in her stomach. She glanced at him. His jaw was set and his lips thinned. The silence was deafening.

Robin settled back into the passenger’s seat. Now, she sensed, was not the time to ask more. It was enough he was with her.

Two hours later they drove to a well-known restaurant.

The car sported the new license plate, taken from a car at the back of the airport lot. It had taken Ben about one minute to change the two. She acted as lookout. He wondered whether it was the first time she had purposely committed a crime.

Before going into the restaurant, he checked his cell phone. Five calls. Two from Mahoney—one from the office and one from his private cell phone. Two from Holland. The fifth was not a number he recognized.

He couldn’t call Mahoney. This was a career breaker, and Ben knew it. He could find work in private security. He wasn’t worried about that. He was worried about keeping up payments for Dani’s treatment.

By God, he wanted Hydra. And he damn well didn’t want anything to happen to Robin Stuart.

They went inside, Ben holding the door open for her. He requested a table for three with as much privacy as possible and they were escorted to a table in back. He took a seat where he could see the entrance, glanced quickly at the menu, and put it on the table.

She made her selection just as quickly and placed the menu on his.

“Did you discover anything in Brunswick?” he said.

She didn’t hesitate this time. “The name of the boat. The marina where it was moored. The fact that the marina was covering for whoever leased the slip.”

He waited.

“I’m pretty sure the name of the boat is the Phantom.”

“Registered where?”

“I don’t know. I just discovered where it had been moored when those thugs showed up. I don’t know where it is registered or who owns it. It apparently left yesterday.”

He didn’t like that. Obviously someone was right behind her. Or ahead.

“What do you know about the boat?” he asked.

“That members of the sheriff’s department were treated to fishing trips several times a year. Part of a grand plan, I think.”

“What grand plan?”

“Systematic conditioning to corrupt them. Small stuff at first. An extra twenty dollars for tipping off a gambler or bootlegger about a raid, the protection of certain people in the county against DUI and gaming charges. Then the corruption grows until they’re so deeply involved they can’t go to the authorities. The fishing trips add to the peer pressure.”

“And who’s the main person involved? The sheriff?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “He must know about the petty stuff. I’m not sure he knows about the murders.”

“Why give him a pass?” he asked harshly.

“Because of the way … some deputies talk about him. There’s not the anger toward him as there is about—” She stopped suddenly.

“You’re not going to tell me who your source is,” he said wearily.

“I can’t,” she said.

“Do you know how quickly we might be able to wrap this up if I know?” he snapped.

“What would you do with the information?” she argued. “What if there is an inside person at the FBI? My source … his family could die.”

“I have people I can go to.”

“I can’t depend on that.”

The door of the restaurant opened, and Carl Andrews walked in. Carl had been at Quantico with him and Dani, had even competed with Ben for Dani. They hadn’t been friends, but two years ago when Ben had been sent to Brunswick on a joint task force with the DEA, Ben had saved Carl’s life, although the latter’s arm had been shattered. He’d left the FBI on a disability and started a private high-tech protection firm.

He’d told Ben then that if he ever needed a favor …

Ben had never intended on taking him up on it. He didn’t owe anyone and didn’t want anyone to owe him. But then, he’d been breaking a lot of rules lately.

Carl slid into the booth next to Robin. He nodded to her as Ben introduced her as Mary Murphy, then turned his attention to Ben.

“How’s Dani?” Carl asked.

“In rehab again.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“So am I,” Ben said.

“What’s going down?”

“I need a car picked up, buried for a few days. Some people might be watching.”

“Is it hot?”

Ben glanced at Robin.

She shook her head. “No. The owner is a friend of mine. He loaned it to me.”

“You said you needed a credit card,” Carl said. “You can have one of mine.”

“I’ll repay all the charges,” Ben said.

“You in trouble with the bureau?” Carl asked.

“If I’m not now, I will be. Does that change anything?”

“Not with me. The bastards pushed me out.”

Carl took the keys to the car and written directions to the marina.

“I’ll be in touch,” Ben said.

“Please do,” Carl said dryly, then he rose and left without ordering.

“Who was that?” Robin asked. “He didn’t sound like a friend.”

“He’s not. But he thought he owed me.”

“You didn’t like collecting,” she observed.

“No.”

“Who’s Dani?”

For a moment, he almost told her it was none of her business. But seeing Carl had brought back memories. And not good ones.

“My wife,” he said curtly.