Hold Me (3 page)

The black sedan steadily gained ground until their pursuers had forced their way between the Nova and the lip of the pit. They were on Katie’s side of the car. She glanced over and saw to her horror that one of the men held a gun. It was glinting in the afternoon sunshine.

And it was pointing at her head.

“Shit! Duck!”

Instead of listening, Katie reacted instinctively, pulling the steering wheel and sending the Nova crashing into the side of the sedan. There were a couple of wild gunshots and a horrible metallic scraping noise as the two cars rubbed against each other. Katie had a clear view of the other driver struggling to maintain control, but he was driving in softer ground. For one breathless moment nothing happened. Then the black sedan simply dropped off the face of the earth.

“Go! Go! Go! Get out of here!” her passenger shouted, but before she could even hope to obey, she heard shrill sirens as police cars swarmed into the quarry.

“Oh freaking wonderful,” Katie whispered. A few seconds later, the Nova was surrounded by blue uniforms and unfriendly faces.

The man, her unwanted passenger, the bane of her existence, sighed and turned to face her. “I’m really, really sorry about this,” he said.

Somehow, that didn’t seem to help.

Nobody wanted to listen to Katie. Which was, she admitted, pretty much the story of her life.

“You’ve got to believe me.” She grabbed a policeman’s arm after he’d cut her seatbelt strap, hauled her out of the Nova and patted her down for weapons. He stared at her, his face earnest and young and not exactly intelligent. Great. “I don’t know what’s going on. I was just sitting there and this…this guy jumps into my car…he said he was with the FBI…they shot at us…they chased us. Would you say something?” she yelled at her passenger. “Tell him I don’t know anything!”

The man was flattened across the hood of the car being handcuffed, but he glanced up and shrugged as best he could.

“She doesn’t know anything.”

“There! There! See? This is all a mistake!” Katie gestured wildly. The police officer jumped back to avoid her purse.

“With all due respect, ma’am, I’ve heard that one before.”

“Tell him you’re with the FBI.” Katie snapped at the man.

“I’m with the FBI,” he repeated.

“I don’t believe him,” the police officer said.

“He doesn’t believe me,” her passenger reported. His voice was muffled because one of the other cops had pushed him down on the car again.

“Oh, be quiet.” Katie was thoroughly disgusted.

“Make up your mind.”

Katie took a deep breath to tell the man that she knew exactly what she wanted him to do, but was interrupted when the young policeman’s significantly older partner walked up to the car.

“Now, now,” he chided. “None of that. And may I say what a pleasure it is to see you again, ma’am.”

Katie looked at him more closely and bit back a groan. Oh, no. No, no, no. It wasn’t possible. It was the same guy who had questioned her after the Tom incident. How had they ended up in his jurisdiction? She thought about denying that she knew him, but realized it would probably be a waste of effort. The young cop might be more than a little dull, but this man definitely was not.

“Officer Jenkins,” she muttered, excruciatingly aware of the so-called FBI agent’s interest as Jenkins took her purse and rummaged through it before handing it back.

“It looks like we have a lot to talk about. Again.” He seized her arm. “So why don’t we go to the station and have ourselves a nice little chat?”

Katie had enough brains left not to say what she really thought about that idea and let him pull her over to another patrol car while he recited her rights. He tried to open the door, but it was locked.

“Oh, for the love of…” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly before giving her a crooked half-smile. “Rookies. Gotta love ‘em. I’ll be right back. Don’t move.” He pinned her with a glare until she nodded, then strode off.

Katie hugged her purse to her chest. Oh, God. Oh, man. What a day. What a horrible, horrible day.

The sound of voices nearby caught her attention. She saw that the two men from the black sedan had been handcuffed and were being dragged out of the quarry pit by several policemen.

The man who’d been driving the car didn’t look too threatening, she decided as she watched him stagger along between his escorts. He was stuffed into an ill-fitting suit and had a heavy, almost stupid face. But the other one, the one who’d been holding the gun…

He stared at her with a fixated expression, hatred in his eyes, in every line of his body. He was a little man. Short. Not too much taller than she was, but he had an almost kinetic energy, the illusion of both strength and madness. Not really aware of what she was doing, she took one step back and then another, stopping only when she came up against the police car. The man saw her retreat and laughed, an eerie, high-pitched sound.

Suddenly, one of the two officers restraining the little man stumbled in the soft dirt and fell, losing his grip. With an abrupt, violent move, the man twisted free from the other cop and shoved him into the group behind them. Then he turned and ran right at Katie.

The policemen scrambled to regain their footing, but the little man was quick. They’d handcuffed his hands behind him, but that didn’t seem to matter. He leapt at her, mouth open, teeth gleaming as if he would bite her. As if he wanted to rip her apart. Katie stared until she realized that he was only a few steps away. She panicked.

Grabbing the handle of her purse with both hands, she swung it at his head. It missed his temple but caught him on his cheekbone and knocked him off balance. He launched himself at her again, and she kicked him as hard as she could. She aimed for his groin, but got his thigh instead.

He went down on his knees, teeth bared. He would have gone for her a third time, but the policemen finally reached them and tackled him back to the ground.

Then Officer Jenkins was there. He unlocked the car, grabbed her purse and pushed her into the back seat, slamming the door shut behind her.

Katie sat, stunned. What had just happened? What was happening here?

Through the window, she saw the police officers subdue the little man, but it was hard because he seemed to be very strong. Like a wild animal. He was spitting, his eyes were rolling, and all the while he was shouting obscenities. Obscenities directed at her.

Katie stared at him, watching his mouth move. She heard his curses through the closed window. So many words. Such foul words. She wanted to put her fingers in her ears, but wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

He strained backwards as the policemen pulled him away. “I’ll find you, you fucking little bitch!” he yelled. “I’ll find out where you live. You’ll pay for this!”

She wrapped her arms tightly around herself and tried not to shake.

It was almost a relief that Officer Jenkins and his young associate immediately slid into the front seat of the car and drove her to a small, local police station where she was fingerprinted and photographed. When Jenkins finally led her into the squad room and seated her at his battered desk, the two men from the black sedan weren’t around. But her passenger, the jerk, the cause of all of her problems, was.

He was slumped in a chair across the room being questioned by another policeman, his long legs sticking out in front of him, his dark hair rumpled. He saw her looking at him and scowled, which drew his face into even fiercer lines. He appeared to be so thoroughly annoyed that Katie couldn’t suppress a small smile of satisfaction. Good, she thought. Good. You suffer too.

“What’s so funny?” Officer Jenkins asked, looking up from some paperwork he’d been busy perusing.

“Nothing.” She sat straighter and quickly brought her attention back to him. “Um, where are the other two men?” Because, God, what if they brought that little man into the squad room too?

“Hmm? Oh. Don’t worry. They’re in the holding cell. The one guy seems to be kind of…agitated.”

“Yeah.” That was one way of putting it.

Jenkins put down the papers and took off his reading glasses, folding them carefully before he spoke.

“You’re in a heck of a lot of trouble, ma’am.”

Katie stared at him. She tried to hold on to her composure, but she suspected it was a losing battle.

“More than before? With the broom…?” Her voice cracked.

“More than with the broom.” She thought he might have been hiding a smile, but it was hard to tell.

Her temples throbbed and she rubbed them. “But I didn’t do anything wrong. What kind of a person do you think I am, anyway?”

Officer Jenkins just looked at her for a moment, then showed her a stack of reports detailing a variety of traffic accidents caused by a crazy woman driving a dark green Chevy Nova.

“Frankly,” he said, “after seeing the amount of damage you can do with a broom, I’m not at all surprised that you can cause this much of a mess with a car.”

Katie tried to summon up the old McCabe bravado. “Those guys in the black sedan were shooting at us. What did you expect me to do?”

“The question is why were they shooting at you? And how did you end up in that quarry?”

She swallowed. “Don’t I get to call a lawyer or something?”

“Sure, sure. But maybe we can talk a little first. Besides, I need you to tell me what really happened in your own words.”

Katie looked at him, looked into those astute cop’s eyes, and sighed. “Okay. My car stalled at a traffic light…”

A long time later, Officer Jenkins shepherded her into a small office where he gave her a cup of coffee, a box of tissues, and the chance to make her phone call. She’d told him what had really happened about a thousand times, but he obviously didn’t believe her. He knew her past record, after all. Heck, she’d be lucky if she didn’t end up in a psycho ward with anger management issues.

After he left her alone, closing the office door with a solid “thunk” behind him, she sat down at the cheap metal desk, blew her nose and tried to pull herself together. She’d probably talked too much and should have insisted on being able to call someone first. But at least he hadn’t put her in the holding cell with the men from the quarry pit.

No, he’d just locked her up in an office. Sure hope he’d checked it for brooms first. Maybe she’d lose it and run wild. You won’t get me, you lousy copper!

Katie shook her head and blew her nose again.

What the heck was she supposed to do now? Calling a lawyer would probably be good. If she knew any other than Harry, that friend of her mother’s who’d represented her for the Tom incident. Harry didn’t want anything more to do with her because he thought she was nuts.

And the way the day was going, choosing a lawyer out of the phone book would definitely be a mistake. It was a little late now anyway after the way she’d spilled her guts to Officer Jenkins. She should call her mother, who knew everything. After this mess was over, the calls to check up on her would be coming hourly instead of daily.

Katie bit back the tears she’d been fighting for hours.

Reckless driving. Reckless endangerment. Maybe worse. Maybe assault with a deadly weapon after the way she’d whacked that little man with her purse. Of course, he was a bad guy and it had been pure self-defense, so maybe she’d be able to beat that rap.

She slid lower in her chair.

Against her will, her thoughts drifted back to her passenger. She wondered if he’d been telling her the truth. She should have pushed him out of the car when she’d had the chance. On the other hand, he’d obviously needed her help. Whoever he was, no matter what the police believed or didn’t believe, those men had definitely been after him. Maybe he’d be dead right now if he hadn’t jumped into her car. Somehow that thought wasn’t as appealing as it should have been.

Katie shook her head at her own pathetic state of mind. She was scared. She was angry. She’d bloody well kill him herself the next time she saw him.

She’d call someone after she found out what was going to happen to her.

Luc Vasco swirled the dregs of his coffee around in the bottom of the paper cup. They’d left him to wait in the police station’s tiny conference room, but he knew they weren’t done with him yet.

He drained the last of the coffee, then crumpled the little cup into a ball with a sudden, angry gesture and lobbed it at the trashcan.

He missed.

The door opened and a tall, well-dressed African-American man of an indeterminate age stepped inside. About damn time.

Luc leaned back in his chair and looked up at him. “David.”

“Lucas.”

David Allen, his long-time friend and FBI squad supervisor, walked farther into the room and pulled the door shut behind him. He was carrying a purse under his arm like a football.

“That’s new.” Luc gestured at the handbag. “Clashes with the suit.”

“Don’t get any ideas. I got this back for the young lady you manhandled. I do believe she carries rocks in this thing.” David slid into a chair on the opposite side of the conference table and dropped the purse to the floor with a thud.

“Did you talk to the police chief?” Luc rubbed the back of his neck. God, he was tired.

“Yes. I hit construction in Philadelphia, so you’re lucky I got here in time. They were just about to bundle you off to another police station.”

“Well, now, wouldn’t that have been lovely? What did the chief say?”

“I gave him an idea of the situation. He understands now.”

“Swell. They didn’t believe me.”

“They wouldn’t. You did cause quite a stir. And the chief wasn’t exactly thrilled to hear that the FBI has been in his territory for weeks and he hadn’t known about it.”

“Yeah? Who’s fault was that?”

“Glitch in the paperwork.”

Luc laughed because he couldn’t help himself. “Perfect.”

“I calmed everyone down.” David put his elbows on the table and steepled his long fingers together, gazing at Luc with a calm, watchful expression. “Tell me what happened.”

Luc groaned. He wished his ankle didn’t hurt so much because he would have liked to have gotten up and paced around the room.

“You could say things didn’t go as planned.”

“They caught you.”

“Might as well have.” Luc told David about the botched office break-in and his escape from Joey Silvano’s mansion.

When he finished, the other man was silent for several minutes. “I’m surprised you got away.”

“Don’t worry, there wasn’t another Marie on this job. Nobody died for me this time.” Luc pushed back the memories with an effort. “As far as this op goes, we’re done. My cover’s blown, and they sure as hell won’t let me back in there again.”

“Yes.” David nodded and considered. “The powers that be are going to be royally pissed off when they find out what happened.”

“Tell me about it.”

David smiled briefly, then sobered. “Okay, so let’s talk about the lady down the hall.”

“My chauffer? With this ankle, I couldn’t run very far. It seemed like a good idea at the time.” Luc drew a hand through his hair and tried not to think about what he had done to her. About how he’d felt when he’d seen that gun aimed at her head and its halo of wild red curls.

He frowned. Why did she look so familiar? It had been nagging at him since the time he’d jumped into her car. With an effort, he forced his mind back to the matter at hand. “You know who’s in the holding cell, right?”