Liquid Lies (11 page)

“Get in,” he repeated. “Or I’ll put you in.”

She gave him that little chin lift, then stood on tiptoe to seat her ass on the bumper. She held his gaze as she leaned into one elbow and used it to haul herself in. Awkwardly, determinedly, she shimmied all the way in like a worm.

The van bounced under his added weight. Gwen looked supremely uncomfortable and he reached for her.

“Don’t you dare come near me.” Her voice twisted into a nightmare of hopelessness, fear, and determination.

He exhaled audibly through his nose and sat back, hands raised. “Was just going to try to help you sit up.”

She blew errant strands of hair from her face. “I can do it myself.” And she did, struggling and flopping until she’d propped herself against the van wall, legs curled to one side. She refused to look at him.

He flicked on the small flashlight again and pulled shut the van doors. After a pound on the cab wall, the van lurched into motion.

He settled opposite Gwen and set the flashlight at his feet so it speared the dark between them.

“If you want,” he said, his voice barely audible over the engine, “I can take the ropes off your wrists. At least until we get there.”

Her eyes flipped up to his, and if they’d have been guns, he’d be dead. “Trying to tell me you’re not afraid of me?”

“It hurts to have your arms tied for so long. I thought I’d give you a rest.”

“How thoughtful of you. I want to go home. Can you do that for me instead?”

“No, Gwen.”

The sound of her name made his tongue feel full and his cheeks weird, as though someone else had been moving his mouth. Then he knew. It was Reed again, knocking on the interior wall, reminding the Retriever of what he’d done. Who this woman was to him.

The drone of the highway passing underneath filled the space between them for a long while, until she asked, her voice hollow, “Do you know where they’re taking me?”

“No. Not my business to know. It’s my job to see you get there in one piece, without any hitches.”

“I’m a job,” she whispered.

A few hours ago you might have been more than that
, Reed thought.

But now that’s gone
, the Retriever countered.

“Were you paid to hurt me?”

“No. I’m not a killer. Retrieve and deliver. Then I’m out.”

She rolled her eyes. “That’s not what I meant. I’m talking about before. In the bar.”

Oh
. So this thing between them hadn’t been just physical for her, too. She thought they’d paid him to mess with her emotions as well. Why did that sting more than it should?

She restored the challenge to her voice. “So you ‘deliver’ me. Then what? You’re not supposed to kill me, but what if they do it anyway?”

“They won’t. It’s in the contract.”

She laughed. Actually laughed. “But will you wonder what’s become of me after you fly back to Washington, or wherever the hell it is you come from? Will you feel sorry for what you’ve done?”

Usually he gagged his targets. It helped keep the wall strong and erect. He had a clean handkerchief in his back pocket, but couldn’t bring himself to reach for it.

“I’m not your first, am I?” She stared at him down her nose, and he got the feeling she was used to going toe to toe with people who were technically more powerful than she was. He admired her for that.

“No,” he replied, but that wasn’t necessarily true. She was the first in one big way.

She smiled but there was zero joy behind it. “You’re good.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because you got around Griffin.”

The guy in her apartment, the one she thought he’d killed. The one grinning and holding her in that photo on her bookcase.

God, her bookcases. Stacked with giant tomes of art, just like she’d told him about in Manny’s, in perfectly aligned configurations. The sight had definitely chipped at his wall. He’d almost walked out right then and there.

Change the subject. “He your boyfriend?”

“Something like that.” Her face paled and she looked away. She wasn’t very good at lying.

He couldn’t resist. “If you have a boyfriend, why were you going to sleep with me?”

“You know, at this point, I can’t really recall.” But when her eyes trailed back to him, they rested for a moment on his mouth. Then they skittered away again.

He stretched out one leg and propped an elbow up on the opposite knee. “They don’t know about us. I mean, about what almost happened. They don’t know about the alley and they don’t even know you and I were talking in the bar before they got there.”

“Why on earth would that matter to them?”

He didn’t know. But it mattered to him. Maybe, after she thought about it, it would matter to her, too.

The sandwiches sat at his hip. He unwrapped one—peanut butter—and offered it to her. She narrowed her eyes at him and he thought she’d continue to be stubborn—it wouldn’t be the first hunger strike he’d faced—but then her lips parted and she nodded. He scooted forward, one leg arching over her baby-soft leather boots, and placed the sandwich at her lips. Her first bite was tentative; the subsequent ones were those of a ravenous beast.

“You’ll take food from me but not Xavier?” he asked. “You trust me over him?”

She paused mid-chew. “You aren’t…one of them. And I never said I trusted you.”

When she was done, he cracked open a water bottle and held it as she drank until she turned her face away.

A smudge of peanut butter sat on her cheek. “You have some…right there,” he said. Her tongue poked out, swiping around her mouth. “No. Wait. Let me.”

As he lifted a hand, she darted away, her head snapping back so fast she smacked it against the van wall.

“You okay?” he asked. When she just stared, he reached out and ran a thumb over the peanut butter smudge. Her eyes dropped to his mouth again as he put his thumb between his lips and sucked the peanut butter off.

She stopped breathing altogether.

He sighed, lowering his hand to the outside of her thigh, and leaned in close. Fuck it. There wasn’t anything to lose at this point. She wouldn’t believe him, but at least he could say he tried.

“I didn’t know it was you they wanted me to take.”

Her chest sputtered into breathing again. “Bullshit,” she snarled.

They were so close he could smell the sandwich on her breath. It mingled with the scent of her hair, which he’d practically inhaled back at Manny’s. Nothing about that encounter had been false. “It’s the truth.”

“You were scouting me when you found me in that alley. You saved me so you could kidnap me later, make sure you got your paycheck.”

He slowly shook his head. “Nope.”

She kept going. “And then you followed me to the bar. You expect me to believe that was all coincidence? That you just happened to meet me in the alley and then in the bar? The very same bar the…Xavier walked into?”

“My flight in landed long before dawn, but I was too wired so I wandered the streets. Never been to San Francisco and wanted to see the sunrise over the city. Instead I found a woman being attacked by a crazy Japanese guy with an agenda I still don’t understand. I did what I thought was right.”

“You’re a goddamn kidnapper.”

He didn’t refute that. “Then I got a good look at you. I had this asshole in my hands and I could barely take my eyes off you. Couldn’t stop thinking about you the whole day, wondered who you were, if you were okay. That night I went to the bar where my clients told me to meet them and, bam, there you were. I don’t believe in fate, but I thought you’d be a nice…distraction until I had to do my job.” He licked his dry lips. “I just didn’t know you
were
the job.”

She took two deep breaths before biting out, “You’re such a liar.”

“I know how it looks, so I don’t expect you to believe me. But I’m asking you to.”

She raised her face to the dark roof, exposing her neck. “Why do you even care at this point?”

She didn’t wear a necklace or earrings, so this long column of golden skin captured his attention. “Because I really was interested in you, Gwen.”

When her head tilted back down, he found he’d moved in even closer, enough that his knee brushed hers. “I liked our connection. I liked our conversation,” he murmured. “I wanted you. And I’m pretty sure you wanted me, too.”

“Stop confusing me. I hate you.”

What the fuck was he saying? The wall had caved in without him knowing. That had never, ever happened before. With terrific force, he evicted Reed from his mind.
Slam. Lock.
Up went the wall.

He pushed himself away and resumed his seat on the opposite side of the van. It was colder over there, but his head was clearer.

Suddenly Adine, the driver, let up on the gas. The van slowed then swerved gently to the right, onto the highway shoulder. He’d told Gwen the truth; he had no idea where they were taking her. But he doubted pulling over on the side of the road was part of it, considering he hadn’t given another warning knock. The van stopped, the engine idling. No one got out.

Red and blue flashing lights leaked through the cracks outlining the back doors.

Oh shit
.

When he turned to Gwen, she was already watching him. Man, her eyes were wide. Life boiled inside her, fueled by adrenaline and determination. He recognized it; he’d seen it in the alley. She was no weak-willed onlooker and she was dying to challenge him. She’d move, and when she did, it would be fast.

Slow footsteps came around the roadside edge of the van.

The moment Reed edged toward her, aiming to subdue, she went for it. She threw herself on the nasty carpet and drummed those sky-high heels on the metal van wall behind her. Thrashing like a fish, she screamed at the top of her lungs.

In his head it went on for minutes. In reality, it was more like a second or two.

She didn’t know how to fight, but she knew how to kick. He fell on top of her, slamming her against the van wall. He clamped a hand around her mouth, the heel of his palm under her chin to keep her from opening up and going for the bite. The other hand slid around her waist, keeping her pinned between himself and metal. He threw one leg over both of hers and locked his ankles together.

The hard, sharp breaths through her nose heated his fingers. Though her muscles slackened, there was no resignation in those huge, dark eyes. She stopped fighting because she knew she’d won.

Fuck fuck fuck.
Reed couldn’t get control of his pulse. Fifteen years and he’d never come up against anything like this. Fifteen years and he’d never once been busted. For
anything
.

The cop’s muffled voice filtered into the back. He seemed calm, casual. Reed heard Xavier’s voice, too, but mostly Adine did the talking. He couldn’t make out any words.

Any second now
.
Any second, those doors will open and I’m a dead man.

The cop patted the van’s driver’s side door. The footsteps retreated. Toward the back.

Beneath him, Gwen’s body shook and the dim flashlight beam caught the mirth in her eyes. She was laughing at him. At his demise.

But didn’t he deserve it? After all this time, all this tempting of fate and giving in to his vice, this was what it would come down to. He’d known it for years and thought himself untouchable. Smart enough to be above it.

No longer.

In his panic, Reed lost track of the footsteps. Was the cop standing just outside? Was he calling in the vehicle?

Gwen’s head, with that mass of thick, gold hair, lolled against his forearm, her face turned up to his. Never, not once, did he consider releasing her.

The van doors never opened. The footsteps walked away. The police car’s door slammed shut, and the cruiser pulled back out onto the highway, taking the slow circle of the flashing lights with it.

The van jerked as Adine threw it back into drive. Slowly—clearly waiting for the cruiser to get a good head start—they rolled back onto the road.

Reed’s face dropped into the warm slope of Gwen’s neck. “Holy shit. Oh, my God. They must’ve paid the cop off.” He sagged into her, every contracted muscle losing its tension at once.

She bit his loosened hand. It didn’t have the effect she wanted. He growled and tightened his hold around her body.

Her eyes were wild—beyond tears, beyond sorrow, beyond hopelessness. “Get. Off. Me.”

“No.” He changed the position of his ankles, dragging her even closer. “Didn’t work out quite the way you expected it to, did it?”

For once, she was silent, and it disturbed him more than he wanted to admit.

“Look,” he went on. “My job is to deliver you to them safely. They’ve paid me some serious cash and they’ve promised not to harm you. I’m going to make sure they uphold their end of the bargain. But
that
”—he released his viselike hold on her and pushed back, coming to his knees over her body—“
that
little stunt won’t happen again.”

He expected a fight, a smart remark. In a way, it was what he wanted.

What he got were her first tears.

ELEVEN

Daylight outlined the van’s double doors. Gwen had fallen
asleep; her body rocked with the swerving van. Reed wouldn’t shut his eyes until the job was done.

After the cop incident, they’d climbed steadily up a mountainside and now they were descending, the vehicle making wide, gentle curves. It stopped every now and again—streetlights and stop signs. Could be anywhere in California.

The van made a sudden sharp turn and plunged down a steep incline, so steep Reed thrust out a boot heel to keep himself steady. Gwen’s body slid toward the doors, but he grabbed her shoulders before she could hit the metal. The jolt woke her up. She looked blearily up at him as the van flattened out and came to a complete stop. Adine cut the engine.

Reed took his hands off Gwen and popped into a crouch. Showtime.

“Where are we?” Red streaked across her eyes. Makeup smeared all over her face.

The Retriever shrugged. “Not my business to know.”

“Retrieve and deliver, right?” she snapped. “And then you’re out? Must be payday.”