Secret Bodyguard Page 7

  “I told her I wouldn’t be able to visit for a while,” she said.

  “Oh?”

  She stopped at the door, turning unexpectedly. He saw the gun in her hand and swore. Carina must have slipped it to her when they’d hugged.

  “Give me the ledger,” she said quietly.

  He shook his head. “I can’t let you do this.”

  “You can’t stop me, Jesse. I need the ledger. Now.”

  Outside, he heard a sound like the creak of a porch floorboard.

  “You don’t want to go out there alone,” he said, every instinct telling him it was true.

  “I need the ledger to trade for my baby,” she said, her voice almost a whisper. “Don’t make me shoot you for it.”

  “You’re making a mistake,” he said, but he pulled the ledger from his pocket. For some reason he believed she was desperate enough to pull the trigger. He’d already witnessed the extremes she’d gone to to get the ledger.

  He held it out. When she reached for it, he jerked it back with one hand and grabbed the gun with the other, twisting the weapon from her fingers.

  “Now,” he said, his voice as low as hers had been, “we’re going out there together and face the kidnappers.”

  “You’re the one who’s making the mistake now,” she said angrily. “You don’t have any idea what you’re getting involved in.”

  “I appreciate your concern,” he said sarcastically. He could feel her gaze boring into him.

  “Who are you?” she asked. “You aren’t a chauffeur.”

  “Not anymore.” Holding the gun out of sight, he opened the door and listened. Silence answered him and for a moment, he thought he might have been wrong about a lot of things.

  Then he caught movement out of the corner of his eye at the edge of the porch railing.

  Instinctively, he grabbed Amanda as he raised the gun, already pulling her back.

  A set of headlights flashed on. “Police!”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Jesse swore as he pulled Amanda back into the house, slammed the door and locked it behind them.

  “You bastard,” Amanda spat and tried to squirm out of his grip. “I knew I couldn’t trust you.”

  So had this been some sort of test? “This sure as hell isn’t my doing, sweetheart,” he said as he snapped off the porch light and pulled her over against the wall beside the door. “Tell Carina to turn out the other lights, get the baby and stay down.”

  But the moment he said it, he realized the lights were already out and Carina and the baby were gone. In the distance he heard the sound of an engine dying away in the darkness. Out front one of the cops was calling for them to come out with their hands up. He tried to tell himself that the cops had made a mistake.

  But he knew better. Amanda had been set up. Or he had.

  “What are you trying to pull?” he demanded, tightening his hold on her. Her body felt hot to the touch. Soft, supple and full, yet strong. A body that held more secrets than he cared to contemplate.

  “What am I trying to pull? You don’t think I called the cops?” she snapped.

  “Well, you know I didn’t call them. What about your friend, how did she know to hightail so fast?” he demanded.

  “She’s an illegal. She’s always ready to take off at a moment’s notice. She must have heard the police and thought they were after her.”

  He considered that, wondering if Amanda might be telling the truth this time. He doubted it. At least not in its entirety. “That story about trading the ledger for Susannah—”

  “That wasn’t a story,” she snapped.

  “Look, someone called the cops.”

  “Or maybe you have some sort of tracking device on your bike.”

  “Yeah, right, just in case I’m ever hijacked at gunpoint.” He didn’t tell her that he rode a bike for that very reason. Easy to sweep and something he did regularly. He liked to know if he was being tracked.

  She swore. “Or the kidnapper set me up,” she said angrily.

  Now would probably be a good time to tell her he was an undercover cop. And tell the guys outside as well. A thought struck him. He groaned. “Any chance your father has someone on the force in his pocket?”

  In the light filtering in from the cop car’s headlights outside, she gave him a look that said even he couldn’t be that stupid. “My father’s never had so much as a parking ticket in the city of Dallas since he took over as the head of the Organization. Does that answer your question?”

  “Great.” He wasn’t sure what bothered him most—her nonchalant view of her father’s life of crime or the fact that some of Jesse’s brothers in blue were on J.B.’s payroll. “Do you know which cops are on your father’s payroll?”

  “Don’t you?” she asked.

  So now she thought he was a dirty cop. Things just kept getting better.

  He parted the curtains and looked out. He could see one of the officers outside on the porch. The same one he’d caught sight of moments before. Sergeant Brice Olsen. A cop from another division he knew and who knew him.

  There appeared to be just one other officer out front. Possibly another one or two out back. Not exactly a large raid and he couldn’t hear any backup on its way. At least not yet. Was it possible Brice was on J.B.’s payroll? Or did this raid have something to do with Diana Kincaid’s disappearance?

  Jesse figured he and Amanda could have been followed. After all, she’d almost been run down not far from here. But it seemed doubtful. More than likely someone had known exactly where Amanda was going to be.

  Not that it mattered now. If Brice was legit, then Jesse knew he could clear this up in a matter of minutes—if he wanted to blow his cover. But if Brice worked for J. B. Crowe, or worse, a competing mobster like Mickie Ferraro—

  Outside the cop hollered for them to come out on the count of ten or they were coming in.

  “They can’t get their hands on this ledger,” Amanda said, desperation in her voice.

  “The ledger. Yeah, forget the fact that they might kill us,” he said, unable to hold back the sarcasm.

  “If they get this ledger, my baby will die,” she snapped and jerked free of him. “There is only one thing to do. You’re going to have to take me hostage.”

  He stared down at her. “You have to be kidding. Do you realize how dangerous—”

  “At this point, getting shot by dirty cops is the least of my worries,” she snarled. “Put the gun to my head and you’d damned well better be convincing or we are both dead.”

  Outside the cop was nearing the number ten.

  Jesse swore. “No way.”

  “Or I could take you hostage,” she suggested.

  At least the woman had a sense of humor.

  Jesse swore again and called out, “We’re coming out! Don’t shoot!” He looked at Amanda.

  “And if this doesn’t work?”

  “Then you’ll just have to shoot me,” she said.

  “Don’t tempt me,” he growled into her ear as he pulled her to him.

  He pressed the end of the barrel snugly against her chin until she raised her head and was forced to look up at him as she leaned against him.

  “Ready?” he enquired. His traitorous body didn’t have the good sense not to react to the feel of her compact behind pressed against his thighs.

  “Not as ready as you, it seems,” she said lightly.

  Outside the cop yelled again for them to come out.

  “Look,” she said sounding dead serious again.

  “There’s a car hidden out in the pecan trees off to the left of the house.”

  His first instinct was not to believe her. “How do you know that?”

  “I hid it there.”

  He tried to imagine what she had to gain by lying, but he suspected lying came as naturally to her as breathing. “Where are the keys?”

  “On the top of the front right tire.”

  He hesitated, but only for a moment. Outside one of the cops yelled
for them to come out now. At this point, he had little choice.

  “We’re coming out!” He opened the door a crack, using Amanda as a shield. It had to be the riskiest, craziest thing he’d ever done. But she was right. There didn’t seem to be any other way. No cop, clean or dirty, was going to shoot a woman down in cold blood. Especially the daughter of mobster J. B. Crowe. At least he hoped not.

  He shoved Amanda through the door in front of him, hoping he was right about her being the key to getting them out of there alive.

  “Cut the lights!” he yelled once he was sure they’d seen his hostage.

  The headlights blinked off. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust. “Don’t shoot!” He moved them slowly out onto the porch as he looked for a sniper.

  The storm had passed, leaving the sky scrubbed clean. Stars glittered brightly. The moon lit the pecan trees ringing the house and the stretch of dried yard in front.

  He could see there were three cops; Brice was the only one he recognized. He could also see that this wasn’t a standard raid. “Drop your weapons and move back or I’ll kill her,” he ordered.

  Brice saw him and a look passed between them in the moonlight. The cop dropped his weapon first. “Do as he says,” he ordered the others. Reluctantly, they dropped their guns and moved back.

  Jesse worked his way with Amanda in front of him toward the pecan trees off to his left where she said the car would be waiting for them. He hoped she was telling the truth. His motorcycle lay on its side, obviously disabled. The only other option was taking the cop car he saw parked up the road—a little too conspicuous a ride.

  “Don’t follow us and no harm will come to the woman,” he said, realizing he sounded like a late-night B-movie villain.

  “Let him go!” Brice said, sounding dubious. It was obvious Brice wasn’t sure what Jesse was up to or which side he was on, but the cop was going to go along with it.

  The other two cops didn’t seem happy about the turn of events, but they didn’t move as Jesse dragged Amanda farther back into the trees.

  Just to make sure Brice and his buddies didn’t change their minds, Jesse fired a couple of shots into the two front tires of their police car.

  “Now!” he cried to Amanda and grabbing her hand, ran.

  Amazingly, the getaway car was just where she said it would be. A minivan, a nondescript tan, the keys on the right front tire. He took the keys, opened the passenger side door and pushed her over behind the wheel as he followed her inside.

  “Drive!” he ordered, handing her the keys.

  The van engine turned over on the first try. She swung the van around and headed in the opposite direction of the house as if she knew where she was going.

  He quickly glanced over his shoulder into the back, afraid he’d walked into another trap. The rear of the van was filled with a half dozen suitcases and an assortment of cardboard boxes.

  Out the rear window, he could see nothing but darkness. He didn’t think Brice would come after them. At least not until the cop checked with his superior. If that was J. B. Crowe, then it would be just a matter of time before Jesse saw the cop again.

  Amanda took off through the pecan trees along a dirt track, sans headlights, following the pale silver path of moonlight between the limbs.

  As soon as he was sure they weren’t being followed, he reached back and pulled a carry-on flight bag to him. What he found inside wasn’t much of a surprise. Baby clothes. And tucked in the side of the bag, plane tickets and a passport. He opened the passport in the light from the dash and saw that it was for Elizabeth Greenough.

  He glanced over at her, but she didn’t look at him as he put everything back where he’d found it and sat holding the weapon in his hand, trying to decide what to do now.

  “You can put the gun away,” she said as they bounced along beneath the dark branches of the pecan trees. “I don’t want to be caught by those men any more than you do. And you aren’t going to shoot me.”

  There were moments he might have argued that. This wasn’t one of them. He now had both of Amanda’s weapons. He checked the clip on each, then slipped one gun into the waist of his jeans and the other into the glove box.

  He glanced over at Amanda as she swung the van onto a narrow tree-lined dirt road. The limbs of the trees scraped the top of the van as she drove. Through the leaves he caught glimpses of the full moon.

  He studied her, trying to put all the pieces together, all the different Amandas he’d witnessed over the last two weeks. She was a mystery to him. One he desperately needed to solve if he hoped to keep them both alive.

  The problem was, he didn’t know what to believe. Back at the house she’d convinced him that her baby had been kidnapped. Now he couldn’t even be sure the hit-and-run hadn’t been staged for his benefit and maybe even the raid on the house back there. He couldn’t be sure of anything. Not with this woman. And yet he sensed he’d only run into the tip of the iceberg. Either way, his ship was sinking.

  He’d blown his assignment. He was no longer working undercover to try to bring down J. B. Crowe and his empire. Now he was on the run with Crowe’s daughter. If that didn’t get him killed he didn’t know what would.

  On top of that he didn’t know where Susannah was, who had her, if she’d really been kidnapped or not. And now his cover was blown with J.B. even if the mobster didn’t find out he was a cop. To make matters worse, both his life and Amanda’s were on the line and he didn’t even know for sure who they had to fear.

  He glanced back. No sign in the moonlight of another vehicle following. Nothing but the moonlit darkness.

  Amanda had driven down a series of narrow, dirt roads until even the distant sky no longer glowed with the lights of Dallas. She drove with more skill than he would have guessed, but no less self-assurance. The woman was gutsy, he’d give her that.

  He glanced over at her again as she wheeled the van down the dirt road, the moon flickering through the trees, the sweet hot Texas air blowing in through the vents.

  His heart picked up a beat as he realized how alone they were in this isolated place, how impossibly alluring she was even now, still wet from the rain, still as deceptive and devious as ever.

  Her T-shirt hugged her full curves, molding her breasts, the hard buds of her nipples pushing against the cloth. He could almost taste them. He breathed in her scent—a combination of wet and warm—and let out a tortured breath.

  “Pull over.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Amanda glanced at the empty stretch of dirt road ahead. No cars. No houses. Just the limbs of the trees etched black against the night sky, leaves dark and restless in the breeze. She felt a sliver of fear as she reminded herself that she didn’t really know this man or what he was capable of. She’d already misjudged him on several occasions. Misjudging him now could prove fatal.

  “Pull over,” he repeated, his voice deadly quiet.

  She slowed the van to a stop. He reached over, and for a moment, she thought he was going to touch her. He turned off the lights, the engine. Darkness and silence settled around them, wrapping them in its humid cloak.

  She had thought Jesse was nothing more than her father’s chauffeur. She had thought she could handle him. Neither, it seemed, was the case.

  She inched her left hand to the door handle. The metal felt cool to the touch.

  “We have a problem,” Jesse said in that same quiet voice.

  He didn’t know how much of a problem they had, she thought. She said nothing, waiting, heart hammering as she measured her chances of getting the door open and throwing herself out before he could grab her. Not good. Especially since she needed the ledger—and he had it.

  “I’m not a crooked cop,” he said softly. “I’m not on your father’s payroll. Not even as a chauffeur as of tonight.”

  “Why should I care?” she asked, trying to adopt a nonchalance she didn’t feel.

  “But I am a cop.”

  She dropped her gaze. She didn’t dare loo
k at him. He thought being a cop would relieve her mind? That that would make her trust him? Confide her deepest secrets to him?

  She wanted to laugh. And cry. A cop. She swallowed, feeling sick to her stomach. One of her earliest memories was of the police coming to the door late at night and dragging her father out while she and her mother cried and tried to fight them off. One cop called her names, meaningless words to her at that age and yet she had understood perfectly what the man had thought of her and her family. Cops had always been the enemy. Even the ones her father now could afford to buy.

  “I’ve been working—”

  “I don’t care who you are,” she interrupted quickly. She didn’t want to hear it.

  “I don’t want you thinking I’m one of your father’s dirty cops.”

  Something in his voice made her look over at him. The moonlight captured his features, giving her a jolt. Sometimes she forgot how dangerous he looked. Or how handsome, which made him all the more dangerous.

  “I told you, I don’t care,” she said.

  “Doesn’t it make any difference that I’m a cop?”

  She let out a groan. “Oh, yeah. I trust you even less than when you were just my father’s chauffeur.”

  He shook his head. “I can’t win for losing with you, can I?” His look was full of hunger. It made her skin warm from its heat. Made her body ache just seeing the desire in his eyes. He wanted her. Maybe more than he wanted the truth.

  But it would be a cold day in Texas before he’d have her. She knew that was her only weapon against him. His desire.

  And her greatest weakness. Her own.

  He was a cop. The enemy. And cop or not, as long as he had the ledger she would have to handle him very carefully. The problem was, now she also knew that he wasn’t going to just give her the ledger and let her go. And that was going to be a problem.

  * * *

  JESSE BLAMED the heat, his growing frustrations and the intimacy of the moonlight and pockets of darkness inside the van. “I need the truth.” He needed a lot more than that. He needed her and that shook him to his very foundation.