a Touch of Revenge (Romantic Mystery - book 6): The Everly Gray Adventures (9 page)

The woman huffed. “Right, then. I’ll deliver them to estate on my break. Miz Connor will be—

“Best not to second guess her, Nolla. Deliver the photos posthaste, if you will.”

It sounded like Nolla rustled around, getting ready to go, and then I caught her mumble. “Oh, no. Mobile’s dead. They’ll shoot me, they will.”

I sucked in another shaky breath, held it until the sound of her footsteps faded to nothing, and then I peeked into the hall. Empty. I jogged to our table, met Pierce’s frown with one of my own, slapped a £20 note on the table, grabbed his hand, and yanked. “Time to go. Now.”

He’d just swallowed the last bite of his sandwich, so I didn’t bother dredging up any guilt. To his credit, he didn’t ask me a single question, but I sensed they were building up in the back of his mind. Yep. I’d be in the interrogation hot seat as soon as we got out of the tea room.

We made it outside without incident, and I ducked behind the nearest hedge that was large enough to hide us. Pierce hunkered down next to me, and shook free from my death grip on his hand. “Talk.”

“Bad news—”

“Got that part.” His lips were tight and his skin had only lost a hint of the gray tinge.

The guilt I’d been ignoring erupted, spread through me like wildfire, and then the shakes started. This was big-time bad. There were no photographs of Tynan Pierce anywhere. None. Until a few minutes ago. It was far too dangerous because of his covert, and this was my fault. No point trying to break it to him gently. “The woman who served me scones earlier today, Nolla is her name. She’s the one I asked about Connor…”

He nodded.

“She snapped a picture of you and is taking it to Fion Connor.”

His eyes dilated. “Fuck. He pointed through a break in the leaves. “That her?”

Anticipation surged through me. “Yes. Let’s go. We can’t afford to lose her.”

Pierce ignored me, his attention on Nolla. “She take the photo with her phone?”

Why was he stalling? “Yes. Now let’s
go
.” Impatience made me itch, so I yanked his arm. His muscles bunched under my hand, but he didn’t move. Not a millimeter.

“Hang on, Hot Shot. We need a make on her transportation.”

I jumped up and peered over the top of the hedge. “White car, a titch too small for her.”

Pierce had his cell out and had snapped a picture. “Let’s move.”

I stalled in place. “Nolla’s in a car. I took the bus. There’s no way we can follow her on foot.”

His palm flattened on my back and he pushed. “Parking lot. Go.”

Pierce moved at a brisk jog, and I was doing a triple-time run to keep up. It must have bumped my brain cells into gear, because I finally realized that we were on a direct path toward an adorable bright blue Citroën. Pierce would never fit.

He beeped the doors unlocked, and maneuvered into the impossibly small space behind the steering wheel. I missed most of the action because he’d have left me behind if I wasn’t buckled in by the time he started the engine. But still, the contortions I saw were worth a video. Not that I’d ever…well, maybe I would. It’d be okay as long as I left his face out of the shots. Maybe it would be okay. He had a distinctive behind—tight and…well, enough about that. He was damned careful to stay out of any and all photographs since too many people wanted him dead. A shiver of dread crawled over my skin.

We were on our way out of the parking lot before I got my breath back from the mad dash. “So, ah, the rental place didn’t have any normal-sized cars?”

He shot me a sideways glance. And was that a splotch of red staining his cheek? “Belongs to my mother.”

His mother? Pierce had a mother? The idea jumbled my thoughts, and it took me a minute to build a sentence. “You drove here from Ireland?” It was all I could do to keep from touching every surface I could reach to gather images. I laced my fingers together and held on tight. I’d worked so hard to stop touching things since Mitch was killed, and prying into Pierce’s private life was beneath me. Well, it was beneath my rational mind. My curiosity was another story altogether. But I wouldn’t touch anything. I wouldn’t. Even if my chest exploded with the effort of behaving.

“Keep your eyes on that white car, Belisama.” It was an order that shut down all superfluous topics of conversation and extraneous curiosity issues. Not that his command voice would squelch my innate inquisitiveness for long, but he had a point about keeping Nolla’s car at the top of my priority list, at least until we got that picture back. “How’re you planning to get her phone?”

Pierce sighed, and it unnerved me. He usually only did that when I’d driven him to the brink of insanity.

“We wouldn’t even know about this situation if I hadn’t made a detour on my way to the loo.”

Another sigh. “Without finesse.”

“What?” He’d lost me.

“Getting the phone. It’s going to be quick and dirty. Not the way I like to work.” His hands clenched the steering wheel.

My insides did a free fall. “Surely you’re not going to kill her.”

Pierce wrinkled his forehead. “You’ve been watching too much television.”

The road narrowed, and that was saying something, because there had barely been enough space for two cars to begin with. The traffic had thinned, there were no vehicles between us and Nolla, and although Pierce was hanging back, there was a good possibility she’d spot us.

The road turned hilly and we lost sight of her for a few seconds when the white car topped the crest of a hill and disappeared down the other side. Pushing all rational thought aside, I lunged for the dashboard, but the seatbelt jerked me back. “There. She just turned right. No left. This wrong side of the road driving screws with my spatial orientation.”

Pierce’s mouth kicked up at the corner. “Just point.”

And then he drove right past the turnoff.

I twisted, speechless, pointing out the window on his side of the car.

“Hang on.” He executed a three-point turn in the middle of the road and circled around. “Turning onto an unknown, mostly hidden road would be stupid.” He’d used his teaching voice, and I let the words sink in, filing them away for future reference.

Pierce had been doing the lecture thing with me lately, but I’d been too busy to wrap my mind around it—other than to secretly hope that I’d graduated from being cute and in need of protection to being his apprentice.

The car bumped along the side of the road until he brought it to a stop, shut off the engine, and flipped the keys into his hand. “Wait here.”

I beat him out of the car and glared. “Like that’s gonna happen.”

Pierce pocketed the keys. “Don’t know how long the walk will be. You up for it?” he asked with a glance at my sneaker-shod feet.

It was an absurd question that didn’t deserve a response.

Pierce nodded, then motioned me behind him. “Stay close, Belisama.”

It was an asphalt road, more like a trail really, that was barely wide enough to accommodate a car, and it was heavily lined with trees, shrubs and all kinds of other green stuff. The scent of country, diesel from the white car, and some kind of sweet flowers filled the air, making it almost peaceful. Except for the No Trespassing signs that Pierce totally ignored. He hustled me along the road, keeping us mostly out of sight, but not letting the car get too far ahead. His tension was palpable.

Pierce came to an abrupt stop about thirty feet from Nolla’s car when she parked just outside a wrought iron fence. There was a huge building looming beyond an expansive garden, but trees obscured the architectural details, so I couldn’t see much. Pierce rested his hand on a leather case attached to his belt, then flicked the snap open and palmed a Taser. “Stay.”

I bristled, but he was gone before I had a chance to respond. When the driver’s door opened and Nolla got out, her back was to us.

Pierce had covered the remaining space before I caught my breath, and then Nolla fell face down on the ground with a horrible, high-pitched grunt of agony. Her limbs spasmed, stiffened, and she sprawled there, unnaturally still.

A chill rippled down my spine. It was just a Taser. They weren’t lethal.

It took less than ten seconds for Pierce to locate her phone, stuff it and the charger in his pocket, gather the Taser cartridge, and yank me out of the bushes and into a full-out run back to the Citroën.

We were in the car, and Pierce had pulled onto the road before I gathered my wits, probably because I’d left most of them scattered all over the ground at the scene of the Tasering.

A bright red car passed us and turned onto the road leading to the Connor estate. “That was close,” I mumbled. Damn, but I hated when my voice shook.

Pierce grinned.

Not thinking, I casually glanced at the red car and caught sight of the driver.

Shock punched me in the gut. “That’s Cait!”

NINE

PIERCE TOOK HIS EYES OFF
the road long enough to slant me a sideways look. “Cait? Do I know her?”

“Not yet. You’ll meet her at dinner tonight. How do you feel about fish and chips?”

His face wrinkled.

“What? You don’t like fish and chips?” My adrenaline high from the Taser scene had started to fade, and my muscles were taking a break to recuperate. I closed my eyes and rolled my neck back and forth against the headrest, barely recognizing the tension until it started to release.

“I like them if they’re done right.” There was a question in his voice.

I blew out a heavy sigh, and ignored the implied question. He’d find out how good they were first-hand. Besides, my eyes kept drifting shut and my need for sleep was right up there with taking my next breath. “Does jet lag take this long to set in?” I barely mumbled question. Meant it to be rhetorical.

Pierce missed the rhetorical implication. “Don’t know. Never had it.”

I startled awake and stared at him. “That’s impossible. All the flying around you do.”

“Learned to deep-sleep in short bullets of time. Talk to me. What’s with the address? Did you check a phone book?”

Pierce’s demand screwed with my pseudo-serenity, and I didn’t bother to suppress another sigh. It was loud with a touch of grumpy—a well-articulated sigh that I was quite proud of. I rubbed the sore muscles in my neck, and tried to get my brain on topic. I held up my hand, ticking off the answers to his questions. “Of course. I checked the local listings as soon as I got here. No go.” I flipped up my index finger. “I found the address in Mitch’s study, written by my mother, hidden in the gun safe, which means Connor might have been connected to her at one time.” Middle finger went up. “And…I went to a pub for supper last night. Cait waited on me. We hit it off, and she’s the one who suggested I visit Cockington Village today.” Another finger shot up.

A grunt. He ought to patent them.

“Anyway,” I wiggled my fingers. “It’s odd she’s visiting Fion Connor’s estate, don’t you think?”

“Hard to say.” There was something off about Pierce, and I couldn’t place it. Made me twitchy.

Traffic had picked up, and Pierce slowed to merge with the flow before he turned onto the street where Mrs. Brumley’s bed and breakfast was located. And parked. Right in front of it.

“How’d you know I was staying here?” I recognized it as a stupid question before all the words were out of my mouth. “I must be
really
tired to have asked
you
that.”

We got out of the car and he beeped the locks. “Got that. We’ll take a break. Power nap.”

We? My adrenaline rush that had faded to blissful fatigue cranked up. “Where are you staying?”

Laughter sparkled behind his eyes. “With you, Belisama.”

Flippy…no, this was an absolutely shit situation. Small room. One bed. One bathroom. “Ummm.” It was the most coherent statement I could make. Seriously, I had to do better. Pierce was a friend. A colleague of sorts. We were adults. I’d been married, for heaven’s sake. Surely I could share a room with a man. Then again, Tynan Pierce wasn’t just any man. “You take up a lot of space.”

He quirked an eyebrow.

I waved my hands around him. “All that barely contained power and energy. It sucks the air out of rooms. Big rooms. Mine is…small.” Well, damn it all to smithereens. No way would I let anything about me or my surroundings seem small around Pierce. I might just as well quit right now if I couldn’t believe in myself. I sucked it up. “But there’s plenty of space for both of us. Just make sure you don’t leave the seat up on the commode.”

Brushing past him, I opened the front door with a flourish. “After you. My…
our
room, is the last one on the left.”

Pierce dipped his chin in an abrupt nod, strolled down the hall, and then stood aside while I unlocked the door. That he didn’t insist on going in first to clear the area set my nerves on edge. I scanned him, head to toe and back. The man was dead on his feet. “I get the right side of the bed.” Might as well stake my claim before he got the energy to argue.

I slipped my hand in my pocket, grasped my Boker, and eased the door open. I went in low, giving the empty room a thorough once-over, checked the bathroom, and exhaled in relief. I didn’t have it in me to fight with an intruder right now. Sharing a bed with Pierce was… Well, there were no words. “All clear. Help yourself to the facilities.” I pocketed my blade and gestured toward the loo.