Protecting his Witness (HERO Force Book 9) Page 6

  “Uh, sir? They’re still in the parking lot.” The boy was so red now he looked like a cranberry about to explode. “I can see them on the security monitor.”

  Luke walked behind the desk, a small screen showing a sedan parked near a streetlamp in the corner of the snow-covered lot. “Jesus Christ.” There was no question now.

  How the hell did they find us?

  The kid shifted his weight. “Is everything okay? Should I call the police?”

  “Not yet.” The last thing on earth they needed was the police taking control of the situation. The stairwell door burst open, Mac and Razorback rushing out.

  “She’s in a car with a man in the parking lot,” snapped Luke, already in motion. “We need to corner him so they can’t escape.”

  Mac jogged next to him as they pushed out the door. “How the hell did she get away from you?”

  A frigid blast hit Luke in the face, the record-low temps reminding him he hadn’t brought a jacket. “Take it easy. Don’t spook the guy,” said Luke, forcing himself to walk. “I don’t know what happened. She left her room without telling me.”

  It was still snowing, the parking lot and vehicles covered in white. Razorback moved in front of them and turned toward the HERO Force van he’d driven to the hotel. “I’ll get behind his car. You two block the front.”

  Luke reached the second van and handed his keys to Mac, wiping the snow off the windshield with his bare arm. “Get in the car. You drive.”

  Mac started the engine and pulled out just after Razorback did, heading the opposite way around the parking lot toward the sedan. Luke grabbed a second gun from the backseat.

  “It’s empty,” said Mac.

  “Thanks.” He sunk low in his seat, drawing his loaded weapon and holding the nose of the gun just over the edge of the door so it couldn’t easily be seen.

  Two people were in the front seat of the sedan, one of them definitely Summer. He could feel her fear and he hoped she could feel him, shoring her up. This was the worst possible situation to be in from a tactical perspective, all but begging the man in the car to take her hostage, but there was no alternative—the wide-open spaces in and around the parking lot making a surprise attack impossible.

  There was only one way to do this. The hard way.

  Mac pulled the van in front of the sedan, the vehicles making a T-shape, just as Razorback did the same on its back side. Luke stayed low, sliding across the seat and following Mac outside the driver’s side of the vehicle, using the van as a shield. Mac went to the hood of the van, Luke to the rear.

  The sedan driver put the window down. “Don’t come any closer or I’ll shoot!” he yelled.

  “We’ve got you surrounded,” called Luke. “Let the girl go.”

  “Put the guns down or I’ll kill her. I mean it. I will!”

  Luke slowly bent and put the empty weapon on the asphalt, the loaded one in his hidden left hand. “It’s down. I put it down. Let her go.”

  “Move that van!”

  Luke kept his voice calm. “Even if we do that, you’re never going to get out of here. There are three of us and only one of you. Let her go before this gets any worse.”

  Time hung suspended, fat snowflakes falling from the sky. Luke’s eyes were trained on the gun. In one swift movement, the other man aimed it at Luke through the window. Luke jumped behind the van and trained the loaded gun at the sedan. He was desperate to keep his shots away from Summer, and he hesitated.

  A small flash of light exploded inside the car—the ignition of gunpowder that could only be seen if you were looking straight down the barrel. A bullet was coming right toward him.

  I’m a dead man.

  Regret washed over him, not for a life half-lived, but for a life lived badly. It was his job to keep Summer safe. He wanted to be here, wanted to live more than he could remember ever wanting to be alive before.

  The bullet whizzed past his head with a screeching whine, narrowly missing him, relief and determination flowing through him. Letting Luke live would be the last mistake this asshole ever made. He aimed and fired, a single shot to keep Summer safe.

  The windshield shattered. Luke couldn’t see the driver and approached the vehicle with Mac, weapons drawn. Summer was screaming. Was she hurt? He opened the door. The driver’s head hung forward, blood on the seat back, splatter on Summer’s face and clothes.

  She launched herself into his arms, squeezing him like an animal clinging to its mother’s fur. He didn’t care about the blood, didn’t care about anything as long as she was all right. He shushed her. “It’s okay now. You’re safe.” His fingers moved into her hair, gripping the back of her head. “I’ve got you.”

  Mac met his stare several feet away, a knowing look in his eye, but Luke ignored him. Summer was okay, out of harm’s way. She was in his arms, and nothing else mattered—not Mac and whatever the hell he thought, not what Luke had said to her at the cabin. Nothing.

  She released him, the cold air rushing in where her warm body had been. Sirens sounded in the distance. She hugged herself tightly, her eyes wide with worry. “Who is that guy?”

  Luke’s blood ran cold. “It isn’t Walsh?”

  She shook her head. He looked in the car. The dead man had longer hair than Walsh, darker skin. Luke straightened slowly, his mind spinning as his eyes met hers once more. More than one person was after her, which meant they had an unknown number of enemies.

  Double fuck.

  How many were there? Were they watching them right now?

  “We’ll find out who he is. We’ll find the connection to Walsh. We’ll keep you safe, Summer, I promise. But you have to help us. You can’t leave a room without me no matter the reason. You have to help me protect you.”

  She nodded. “I’m sorry. I’ll do whatever you say.”

  He put his hand behind her neck and kissed her forehead. He could feel Mac’s disapproving stare and refused to engage in that particular war. He whispered in her ear. “I’m going to hold you to that.”

  12

  Luke sat down on the edge of Summer’s bed. He was finally warming up after being chilled to the bone.

  They’d spent more than an hour talking to police, first in the freezing cold and later in the lobby. The dead man was Jose Hernandez, a line worker at a cardboard box plant, and Mac was still down there with the cops. How Hernandez related to the cutting edge of aerospace design, Luke had no freaking clue. He’d put a call into Trace to see what he could find out.

  It felt like he and Summer had been through a war, in addition to the one that was already raging within him. She was leaning against the headboard, her hair wrapped in a towel from her shower, her legs beneath the blanket, and Zeke curled against her side. If it had been hard before to push her away, now it was downright impossible.

  She lifted weary eyes to his. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was going.”

  “You didn’t want to eat with me because I was a jerk.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You didn’t have to.” He knew it and he damn sure blamed himself. “Tell me what happened.”

  She sighed. “I was hungry. I couldn’t sleep, so I went looking for a vending machine. I saw that man down the hall when I left my room, but I didn’t think anything of it. I walked right to him.”

  “You didn’t know who he was.”

  “No, but I knew my life was in danger. How dumb can I be?”

  “You knew your life was in danger from Walsh. Not from this guy.”

  “I feel so stupid.”

  He lifted his hand and deliberately placed it on her shin, the covers soft and warm from her body heat below. It was his fault she’d been avoiding him. He’d alienated the woman he needed to protect, thereby putting her in danger, when all he really wanted was to be close to her.

  Just not too close.

  But there was no line, and he didn’t know how to be there for her without crossing into the danger zone again. “It’s not your fault.”r />
  “I was tired.” She shook her head. “I didn’t want to be around you. I was like the chick who gets killed in the horror movie because she argues with her boyfriend and storms off into the woods.”

  He smirked. “With chainsaw noises in the background.”

  “And one of her friends already dead.”

  God, she was funny. But he knew she was truly hurting, fear and exhaustion a noxious mix. He worked to keep himself in check, this need to touch her, to verify she was all right. To pull her against his body.

  Stop it.

  “You were out there a long time,” he said. “What happened in that car?”

  “He wanted to know how to make Alloy 531. Somehow, he had the original formula, but I’d made changes to it that I didn’t write down. I even had to update the patent application, once the testing looked promising.”

  “Could he have gotten it from there?”

  “I don’t think so. Not yet, anyway.”

  “What was the difference between the two formulas?”

  “I adjusted the ratio of the metals based on some theoretical work I was reading. It was a lark, really, but it made a huge difference. Once I realized what I’d made, I started writing everything up on my home computer for publication in a scientific journal. I never even went back and amended the original files on the work server.”

  Her mouth dropped open.

  “Bingo,” said Luke. “Someone has access to your work computer. Any idea who?”

  “Actually, yes. I fired the IT director about six weeks ago after I found out she’d given herself access to the user accounts of all the top executives without permission.”

  “How’d you discover that?”

  “Dumb luck. I got a virus on my laptop over the weekend and took it to Geeks R Us to fix it. They found the duplicate administrator logins in my history.”

  “I’m willing to bet she’s working for AGL now.”

  She shook her head. “Unbelievable.”

  “So AGL needs you, or they have no hope of replicating this material.”

  “That’s right.” Her shoulders shook and she wrapped her arms around herself. “How did he find us?”

  “Razorback found a tracking device beneath the bumper of one of the vans. Someone must have attached it when they took you to your place for your things.”

  His fingers pressed into the fabric, feeling her limb beneath. They’d been so close to her, watching her, and the reality was unnerving. He longed to stroke her, to touch her skin and tell her everything would be okay, that he would never push her away again.

  He couldn’t do those things, couldn’t offer her any assurances. He shouldn’t even be sitting here with her now, about to make the same mistake he’d made last night all over again.

  “Luke?”

  He lifted his head to look at her.

  “You’re touching me,” she said.

  “I know. I can’t stop.”

  Her lips fell into a Cupid’s bow, the moment stretching out between them. “But you said—”

  “I know. I didn’t want to complicate things.”

  “What’s different now?”

  “Nothing. This is a bad idea. A mistake. But I can’t help myself. You almost got hurt, and it’s my fault. You didn’t want to be near me because I was pushing you away, when all I really wanted to do was pull you closer.”

  She stared at his hand on her leg. “I like it when you touch me.”

  He brought his other hand up, both hands now stroking her legs. She drew one leg up close to her body and leaned toward him, their mouths coming together in a kiss that had him reeling. Those full lips, so soft beneath his own, the eager way she touched him. He leaned into her, his hand cupping her jaw.

  Her hands went to his shoulders, her fingers sliding up to caress his neck. He was aware she was only half-dressed, aware of the privacy they shared and the bed beneath their bodies. It would be so easy to get carried away, but he didn’t give a damn. She tasted so good, her mouth so desperate on his and her hands lighting a fire that begged to be stoked.

  He grabbed hold of the towel and pulled it gently from her head, threading his fingers into her damp hair. He didn’t want to hide his feelings anymore, he wanted to act on them, wanted her against his body, her softness cradling his weight. This was the price of the truth, the reality that he wanted her no longer able to be denied.

  This isn’t the truth. If you told her the truth, she wouldn’t let you near her.

  She touched his chest, his sensitive stomach. “Oh my God, your body…” she whispered, leaning in to kiss his neck.

  He gently shoved the dog out of the way. “Down, boy.” Zeke jumped to the floor, Luke moving beside her before the dog’s paws hit the floor. He was half on top of her, kissing that sweet mouth and savoring her small sounds of pleasure.

  There was a knock at the door and they broke apart, her eyes locked with his. “I’ll kill whoever it is. Be right back.” He hopped off the bed and answered it, Razorback and Mac standing in the hallway.

  Fuck.

  He could only hope he didn’t look like they’d been necking.

  “Can we come in?” asked Mac.

  “Summer’s resting. What did you find out?”

  Mac narrowed his eyes, tilting his head to see around Luke. “I’m surprised she was able to sleep.”

  Luke met Mac’s curious stare with a challenging one of his own. “Anything in the sedan?”

  “Negative,” said Mac. “It was a rental registered to Hernandez yesterday in Jersey City.”

  “That’s where Summer lives.”

  Mac nodded. “Then it’s a good thing she’s with us. Is she doing all right?”

  “She’s hanging in there.”

  “Good.” He shifted his weight, his eyes darting to the room behind Luke and back again. “There’s something else. Trace dug up some information on Daniels Aerospace that sheds some light on their rivalry with AGL. Twenty-eight years ago a lawsuit was filed against Summer’s father, claiming he’d stolen another scientist’s ideas and patented them as his own.”

  “Pretty serious allegation for a researcher.”

  “Yep. And the scientist making the allegations was John Walsh, Steven’s father.”

  Luke whistled. “There’s our motive.”

  “The case was dismissed. Walsh was a patient in a mental hospital at the time and acting as his own lawyer. It got a little coverage in the national newspaper, probably because Walsh was committed and legally considered insane. Made for an interesting story.”

  “Is it true, or was the guy off his rocker?”

  “Trace thinks he had a pretty good case, but no one believed him because of his mental state.”

  Summer spoke from close behind him. “John Walsh is a schizophrenic known to suffer from paranoid delusions.”

  Luke cocked his head. “You knew about this?”

  “The lawsuit? Yes. I was young at the time, but I remember it. However, I didn’t make the connection between John Walsh who accused my father and Steven Walsh, my disgruntled employee. The name is too common.”

  “It explains a lot of what’s going on.”

  “Only if the allegations were true, which they most certainly are not,” she said.

  Mac held up one hand. “It doesn’t matter if they’re true or not. It only matters that he believes it. Trace is going to keep digging.”

  She shook her head. “He doesn’t need to do that. This is a waste of time.”

  “Take a breath, Miss Daniels,” said Mac. “Let us do the hard work for a while. We’ll talk more in the morning.”

  “Good night.” Luke closed the door.

  “Tell me you don’t really believe that,” she said.

  “I don’t know what to believe. I find it’s best to keep an open mind. You have to admit, it’s one hell of a coincidence. It makes sense as a motive, too.”

  She turned and stormed back to the room. “So me telling you my father wouldn’t do such a thi
ng is irrelevant.”

  He cocked his head. “That’s not what I said.”

  “No, but it’s what you meant.”

  “Summer—”

  “I think you should go back to your room now. It’s been a very long day and I’d like to be alone.” She opened the door adjoining their rooms and held it.

  He furrowed his brow. “You’re kicking me out? Just like that?”

  “I prefer to think of it as leaving my options open. Good night, Luke.”

  She slammed it shut behind him.

  13

  Summer was angry she’d put so much stock in the men of HERO Force, only to have them go off on an irrelevant tangent without listening to her. But more than anything it was Luke’s betrayal that hurt, siding with Trace and Mac without knowing the facts of the story.

  She sat in the passenger seat of Luke's SUV and stared out the window as he drove. The wind was worse now than it had been, moving the car with every gust and blowing snow as it fell, reducing visibility. It was like they were in a snow globe with too much snow, obscuring the little village or landmark in the glass. After what she’d been through, that was the least of her problems. “It’s getting bad out here,” she said.

  “I checked the weather before we left the hotel. Wind gusts up to fifty miles per hour, sustained winds of twenty-five. We might be looking at a blizzard before all this is through.”

  Just listening to him talk made something go off-center inside her, a lingering lust she no longer wanted to feel. She was ninety-nine percent sure Mac and Razorback knew what she and Luke had been up to, but even if they didn't, she wouldn't soon be able to forget.

  What a stupid mistake.

  The way he’d condemned her father, acting as judge and jury without even knowing the man, spoke volumes about Luke’s character and highlighted how little she really knew him.

  She sighed. The accusations against her father were her family’s Achilles’ heel. While she’d been too young at the time to know what was going on, she still remembered the stress in her house between her mother and father, the talk of lawyers and the hushed whispers of ruin.