Hunt Me (Love Thieves #3) (14 page)

“And this was news to you?”

“Yes. Until then, I thought she died when I was born. But it turned out to be a lie my father told me to protect me.” She hesitated again. Only two people in the world knew the truth about what happened in those two weeks after her sixteenth birthday. Her father because he had to help her pick up the pieces.

“Why did he have to protect you?”

“Because she was—is—a drug addict. Cocaine, alcohol, and pills. An aspiring actress when my father met her, they had a whirlwind affair. He knew she indulged recreationally, but he didn’t realize the extent of the problem until she was pregnant. After she gave birth, she used to forget about me because she would be drinking or popping her pills. When I was a few months old, she apparently left to go on a bender and didn’t tell anyone I needed a babysitter. Daddy found me about twelve hours later, screaming my head off in an empty house because she’d given the staff the night off.”

She distanced herself from this part of the story. Her father’s nightmare—his face went gray when he told her about it, anger and revulsion evident. “He divorced her almost immediately and had her parental rights terminated. Well, actually, he told her she could go into rehab or she could get out. She chose to stick to her drugs. He didn’t tell me the last part, though.”

The silence stretched between them.

“Who told you then, Kit?”

“She did.” She blew out a breath. “And my grandfather—her father—confirmed it.” Her grandfather, the only other man who knew her secret, the retired jewel thief with a dying wish she would grant if it killed her.

And at the rate they were going, it might.

Chapter Eight

Very little emotional inflection echoed beneath the words as she spoke about her mother. Her relationship, tenuous at best, didn’t survive their first meeting. At sixteen, the pampered daughter of a wealthy diplomat and industrialist probably didn’t have the reserves to combat such profound disappointment. In the years since, she’d armored herself against the memory.

It was what survivors did.

He didn’t probe for more information about her mother. The memory, a defining moment for her to be sure, also proved a distraction. A truth hidden behind another truth, and he couldn’t fault her. He trusted few. That every instinct and shred of research he turned up on Lady Hardwicke added fuel to the trust his gut already held for the woman aside, she was right—he’d revealed his hand to get her to reveal hers.

By the time he pulled off at the first Pasadena exit and found a quiet side street to park on, she stared out the window. Slipping the car into park, he tapped her leg lightly. “Let’s see how your face is.”

She turned, and he could almost feel the weight of her gaze despite the sunglasses shrouding her eyes. Her right cheek looked burned, the skin bright pink, a circular stamp from where she’d rubbed the cream.

He didn’t like it, but the skin didn’t show any signs of rupture or break. Reddened and uncomfortable, he was sure, but not long-term threatening. He stroked the skin below it. “Hurt?”

“No. It’s sore and a little raw. But I’ve had worse sunburns while on holiday in the Mediterranean.” The small smile didn’t quite touch both corners of her mouth, but he let the little lie go.

“Eyes?”

She lifted the sunglasses. Her eyes were bloodshot, red rimmed, and swollen. He grimaced. “We should probably get you some cold cloths.”

“In a little while.” She put the glasses back on and glanced at her watch.

The tick-tock sensation returned. Jarod drummed his hands against the steering wheel. “Two hours.”

“I need twelve.”

“Three.”

Her lips pursed. “Nine.”

“Five.” He looked at her. “And we’re pushing it.”

“If you’re going to trust me with five, why not twelve?” Her hands clenched into white-knuckled fists.

“If you want me to trust you, why don’t you show a little trust of your own? duMonde is still out there. He doesn’t need one hour or twelve, he needs one second. One second you’re alone and unprotected to grab you, to shoot you….” He leaned back in the seat. He couldn’t force her to trust him. He couldn’t hold her captive, either, no matter how much he wanted to tuck her away somewhere safe while he dealt with duMonde.

Seventy-two hours to go from hunter to hunted. Seventy-two hours to turn a professional challenge into a personal vendetta. He’d left the field for a reason, and this current emotional investment clouded his judgment. Maybe he needed to back off, assign another agent. He dismissed the idea before it could fully form.

“Five twelve Brewer.”

“What?” The odd response dragged him away from the internal turmoil.

“We’re five and five now, so five twelve Brewer.” She didn’t look at him with the last, exhaling it on a hard breath as though saying it out loud proved far more difficult than she’d anticipated.

He stared at her. “We’re six and four. How are you figuring five and five?”

She pursed her lips. “You told me about Walter Curry. Point to me.”

“I found the radioactive isotope and got rid of it for you. Point to me.”

“I got us into the locked room and pulled the fire alarm to get out of the building. Point to me.”

A reluctant grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. He still wanted to know how she’d bypassed the electronic lock so quickly. “I got rid of the tracer and got us a new car. Point to me.”

She rubbed her chin. “Okay, seven and six.”

“Seven and six.” The tension in his shoulders eased. “Five twelve Brewer?”

“Yep.”

He reversed out of their parking spot and programmed the address into his GPS. “What’s at five twelve Brewer?”

“A place.” Amusement punctuated the answer.

“So, now we’re reduced to twenty questions. Should I ask if we’re there yet?” Another knot in his spine unlocked, and he leaned back in his seat and claimed her hand. She glanced at their interlocked fingers, and, when he tugged her hand over to rest against his leg, she squeezed once.

“Actually, you’re driving, so I should be the one asking if we’re there yet.”

“True.” He conceded the point. “So is it a public place?”

She laughed. “Yes.”

The address was seven blocks from where he pulled off the freeway and sat squarely in the middle of a tired strip mall. The wrinkles of time and a losing battle with the elements pitted the blacktop with potholes and crisscrossed the sidewalks with cracks. He parked right in front of the storefront boasting the number on its front door. A metal gate barricaded the inside of the glass, and no signs labeled the storefront sandwiched between a pizza joint advertising five dollar pies and a salon boasting ten dollar haircuts.

Putting the car in park, he paused.

“Come on.” She opened the car door then slid out.

He shut off the car and followed suit. Outside the vehicle, he scanned the empty parking lot, closed storefronts, and the intermittent passing traffic. Kit stood on the sidewalk, waiting.

He followed her to the entrance, while she tapped in a code. The lock hummed open, and the interior gate unlocked and parted wide enough to allow one person through at a time. Refraining from comment, he pulled the door open and waved her through. Inside, she walked to another keypad and punched in a second set of numbers. It locked, and the gate slid back together—sealing them in.

The oblong room included two copy machines, paper products, and a customer counter. Kit walked back to a number of private gold-faced boxes lining the far wall. Three cameras monitored the room, but none showed red or green lights indicating operation. Jarod followed her, splitting his attention between her destination and the entrance. A storefront like this likely had rear access, but it seemed to be hidden behind the customer counter and the shelves decorating the back wall.

At the series of boxes, she pressed her thumb to a fingerprint scanner and a small keypad slid out. She hit a combination of numbers and four boxes swung out, revealing they were a faux front for a safe door.

“Nice.” He admired clever craftsmanship. “Do you own this place?”

“A subdivision of a shell of a shell.” She slid out a thick envelope and a plain cardboard box.

“You mailed it….” Astonishment turned to pride. “Brilliant.”

“Thank you.” She shifted the weight of the box and stacked the envelope on top of it. Sealing the door shut, she led him around behind the customer counter to a small office tucked against the wall, out of sight of the main doors.

Addressed to the receiving shop, the box bore a return address of New York and an NYPD stamp on the postage paid. Pride at the absolute simplification of removing the Buddha from lockup grew in his chest. She hadn’t needed to sneak it out of the building—the post office did it for her.

She slit open the manila envelope first. Out came a wallet, a stack of cash, and a cell phone. She slid the cell phone into her purse, without turning it on, along with the cash and then flipped open the wallet. He counted four credit cards and a driver’s license, all in her name.

Satisfied, she snapped it shut and added it to her purse before zipping the whole thing shut. She dropped the envelope in a shredder then placed her hand on the box. “Okay, now what?”

“You still have another thirty hours or so.” His palms itched to open the box and confirm its contents, but he’d given her his word, and she’d let him come this far.

“If we take this out of here, you can be charged as an accessory after the fact.” The closest she’d come to a confession in this game.

“You let me worry about it. Where do you need to go now?” Trust required a leap of faith, one he’d already made.

“Bakersfield.”

He did some mental calculations. “Two hours from here. When do we need to be there?”

“I need to make a phone call before I can give you an answer. But I need privacy to make the call.”

He studied her; she didn’t look away and she didn’t flinch.

“Okay. If you’ll let me out, I’ll wait in the car.” He didn’t miss her blink of surprise or the ripple of relief easing the tension her expression. He ignored the box and turned to walk to the door. She followed him and pressed the code on the keypad. He didn’t look back at her until he slid behind the wheel of the car. The gates closed, and she disappeared behind the customer service desk.

She could run. Just because he hadn’t seen the rear entrance didn’t mean there wasn’t one. She could go out the back door, carrying her prize, slip into a car she’d stashed, and disappear. He slid the keys into the ignition but didn’t turn the car on.

The hardest part of a mission was not deciding when to act but when not to. At this stage of their game, she trusted him or she didn’t. Ten minutes later, she rewarded his patience by exiting the building, box in hand. She locked up, opened the back door of the SUV, and tucked the box behind her seat. He waited until she climbed into the passenger side and glanced back at the box.

The seal didn’t appear broken. It had the same address and stamp mark. But she could have replaced it, removed the Buddha and—

He cut the direction of those thoughts off. Trust meant believing she didn’t seek to deceive him.

“Thank you,” she murmured in an almost melancholy voice.

“You’re welcome.” He continued to practice patience, backing out of the parking spot and heading for the highway before asking, “When do we need to be in Bakersfield?”

“What?” She glanced at him. She’d left her sunglasses perched on her head, and the sadness in her green eyes tore at his heart.

“When do we need to be there, Kit Kat?”

“Tomorrow morning.” She swallowed and looked away from him again. It was midafternoon, and they still had a two-hour drive in front of them. “I didn’t realize how late in the day it had gotten.”

“We’ll get a hotel, some fresh clothes, and dinner—maybe not in that order. What time tomorrow morning?”

“Eight sharp.”

He looked at his watch. It gave them about sixteen hours. He accelerated onto the on ramp and kept his attention divided between her and their route. She folded her arms and leaned her head against the glass. The quiet loneliness dragged at his soul and worried him. Fifteen minutes later, he reached over to pull her limp hand into his. Flattening her palm against his bare leg, he stroked a path around her knuckles.

“Will you tell me why you pretend to be someone else for Pietr and Sophie?”

He barely heard her quiet question. “I don’t pretend to be someone else for them, specifically. It’s how they know me.”

“But why?” Real curiosity populated her question.

Answering her honestly was his only option. “Because some things are easier done when no one knows who you really are.”

“Yeah, I get it.” She roused from her pensive stupor. “I’ve had to do it more than once myself.”

“I would think you do it all the time—because you’re not some featherheaded dilettante or a cutthroat businesswoman—but you straddle the line brilliantly when dealing with your father’s business associates.” Another facet he admired about her, the ease with which she maintained control over a situation without ever appearing to exert her influence.

“True. But I grew up under a microscope of security, society, and scandal. Learning to cater to expectations creates a barrier.”

“Who is real and who is only a part of the cover?” He related to her dilemma. His assets wouldn’t recognize Jarod on the street—not as himself. He cultivated those relationships, though, burying his real identity beneath layer after layer of distraction and redirection.

She fell silent once more, but her fingers curled against his thigh. When he glanced at her again, her eyes were closed and her head tilted back. She’d fallen asleep. He held her hand and let her rest. His phone buzzed twice during the drive, but he ignored it. He didn’t want to disturb her by moving. He spotted a nice hotel off the freeway and followed the exit signs. They would swap cars before leaving, but he could take care of the trade after dark.

Parking, he let go of her hand reluctantly and checked the text messages. duMonde was in a rage and had returned to his hotel in Beverly Hills. Jarod’s heart bled for him. The second text came from the asset in Malibu. He’d tracked down the identity of her mother and her maternal grandfather. The mother resided in a rehab facility in Sonoma. A shell corporation of Hardwicke Industries paid her bills.