Perfect Stranger (4 page)

"Then how did you end up in a trunk and
looking like that?" she asked shakily.

If only he knew. Jericho
sighed, but maintained a hard and unreadable expression.
The less this woman knows, the better it will be
for her,
he reminded himself. At the same
time, he needed to gain her trust and quickly. If she would do as
he said, the safer they would both be, and the sooner he could
extract them from this mess and see her safely out of hostile
territory.

"I'm not exactly sure what happened," he
told her. Jericho turned down another street, then another, weaving
to lose a tail if they had one, though he was pretty certain the
sedan he'd been trapped inside wasn’t going anywhere soon.

He glanced to the rear-view mirror and
grimaced to see tears streaking a lovely face. "Don’t do that," he
told her quietly.

"I think I have every right to," she
mumbled, trying to lift her chin.

"You do."

"At least tell me where we are going. Are
you taking me hostage or … or what? Why are you keeping me with
you?" she asked through tears. "You can take the car if you want.
It’s a rental anyway. Just let me go," she said, leaning around the
seat.

Jericho held fast to his outward calm,
clenching his jaw, trying to ignore the silent tears spilling down
her cheeks. "We're going somewhere I know we will be safe, at least
for a little while. Long enough to make a plan. And, no, you're not
my hostage." He glanced to her again in the mirror. "I'm taking you
to protect you. Whether you like it or not, the man in that car saw
your face." Jericho sighed. "We'll have to ditch this car as soon
as we can. We're almost out of gas anyway."

Chloe groaned and threw
herself against the backseat. "I'm so glad I have insurance." She
gave a feigned little laugh. "So who is it that saw me
help
you?" she
asked.

"I have no idea." And he really didn’t,
though as details from the previous very long night began
resurfacing, his heart constricted with many emotions.

He didn’t know who was
behind this operation, didn’t even know where to begin suspecting,
but whoever it was had to have known of his team's presence.
Hostiles had converged on them from out of nowhere in the jungle,
as if they'd
known
his team was coming. And then again, on the roof of the
compound, there wasn’t just a handful of guards to happen upon
them. There had been a multitude watching for them to drop down,
all hidden in wait, armed and at the ready to take him and his
men.

Jericho was very aware he was only alive by
a slim miracle.

His gaze flicked back to
the woman in the backseat with her arms folded protectively over
her chest.
She
was his miracle, and he shouldn’t have brought her into this,
nor would he have had he any other choice in those last few seconds
while in the back of that trunk before he'd jumped.

Had Butler and Gunner
found such miracles,
he wondered.
And what of MacKall? Where were they? Had anyone
returned for Malony?

Jericho's heart weighed heavily.

His team had vanished, and he couldn’t
return to the safe house. What was worse now, he was out in the
open with nothing. No resources, no communication line. Nothing.
And his best ally was this innocent woman who had no idea what was
going on.

Jericho slowed and pulled the car over just
before a bridge. The tires slid, and dirt whirled in the hot air
outside. "Get out," he said, opening his door and slinging his feet
from the car.

Chloe shakily fumbled with the handle, and
Jericho reached to open the door for her, pulling her from the car
by her elbow.

He looked her over once, his brow pinching
together. "Do you always break out like that?" He indicated her
throat and below.

She quickly brought a hand
to cover the hives on her neck and upper chest where the beaded
neckline of her low-cut orange blouse revealed a hint of cleavage,
the sleeve made to droop over one shoulder. "I'm not
always
under these
intense circumstances. I own a bookstore for chrissake! Excuse me
for freaking out a little bit,
geez
. My heart feels like it might
beat right out of my chest—" She rattled on, and on.

Jericho turned to the drop-off to
investigate below.

Chloe continued on in the background. "—Good
Lord, how do I get myself into these situations anyway? This entire
trip has been a disaster. I should never have listened to my
sister." She shrieked and then growled as she kicked at a wispy
little plant in her smoldering fit.

Jericho shook his head and took her by the
shoulders. Her panic was escalating. "Calm down. I didn’t mean to
upset you." He patted her shoulder and turned to the car, opening
the back door to rummage around, pulling her bag across the seat
and ripping the zipper open.

"Hey!" she yelled, stomping around him,
pointing a finger accusingly. "What are you doing with that?"

"Where are your shoes?" he asked.

She narrowed her eyes on him. "What?"

He didn’t answer, instead dumped the bag
into the floorboard and pulled out her hiking boots, ignoring her
outrage. A pair of socks had been tucked into the top already.
Jericho poked the shoes into her chest and slammed the door, going
to the driver's door next. Chloe took the shoes, open-mouthed, and
blinked up at him.

"Start putting those on," he said as he
grabbed her purse, flipped the car into neutral, and slammed the
door.

"What are you doing?" Chloe asked, sidling
up to him to lean on the car as she tossed a sandal to the ground,
struggled into the left sock and boot, and then did the same with
the right.

Jericho scooped up her discarded sandals and
tossed them in the open window. "Erasing our tracks. You don’t have
any more personal information in there, do you?"

Chloe looked up from tying her laces,
blinked—confused—opening and closing her mouth again. She stood and
brought her fingers to pinch at her forehead. "N-no, I don't think
so." Her fingers fluttered as she held up her hand to stop him.
"Wait!" She jumped forward to the car and leaned in through the
window to grab the rental agreement from over the visor.
"There."

Jericho rounded the car and began pushing
from the back. He'd pulled close to the ledge, and the car was a
small make. His feet dug into the dirt road, and the vehicle
slipped over easily. He dusted his hands on his pants, unaffected
by the crashing below the cliff. When he turned to Chloe, he found
her cupping her mouth, wide-eyed.

"Oh-my-God," she breathed. "You just…" She
pointed over the ledge, taking a few shaky steps to look down. "You
just—" She began again. "Oh-my-God." The words whooshed out.

Jericho sighed hard and caught her by the
shoulder to pull her back before she fell and then started them in
the opposite direction. "Yes, I pushed your rental over a cliff.
Believe me, by the time we're out of this, you'll think the car a
minimal highlight if you remember it at all."

He turned her away from the scene below
them. A little under two miles and they would make the secondary
safe house he and his team had taken the precaution to set up off
the grid, where government wouldn’t know to look. He couldn’t risk
contacting them until he knew more. This rendezvous point existed
for emergencies only, and this was exactly where they would meet if
any of the others….

Jericho shook himself. He couldn’t allow
those thoughts right now.

"Were you here on vacat—" He was wholly
unprepared when Chloe stomped his foot, kicked him in the shin, and
elbowed him in the throat. She broke away in a sprint, leaving him
sputtering a curse. "Son of a … Wait!" he yelled hoarsely, taking
after her.

His longer, stronger strides quickly
overcame hers, and Jericho threw himself at her back.

"No!" she cried as they went down, toppling
to the ground in the brush on the side of the road. Chloe twisted
under him, a small cry escaping as she writhed under Jericho to
flip over and began to slap him in the chest.

He quickly and efficiently gathered her
wrists, pinning them at her sides. They both panted hard as Jericho
rose to look down on her.

"You have to trust me. I really need you to,
okay?" He pulled up to look around them, canvassing the area. There
was nothing. He looked back down on Chloe. She quivered, a look of
mistrust in her eyes.

A tear leaked from the corner of her eye,
and her chest racked with sobs, but she nodded.

"I promise, and I know you
have no reason to trust me, but I am
not
here to hurt you," Jericho said,
and quickly removed himself from the ground and offered his hand.
"Come," he told her.

Hesitantly, she slipped her palm into his,
and he hauled her to her feet.

****

1600 hours, Friday

The village of Pirai, Brazil

Dust and sunlight filtered into the safe
house as Jericho threw open the door. Chloe followed in behind him,
slightly bedraggled and highly rattled. Her clothing was dirtied
and dampened by sweat and the humidity of the jungle, as was
Jericho's.

He quickly reached behind and locked the
door, then pushed Chloe down behind a table. He laid a finger to
his lips as he went around a small desk and pulled open a drawer.
He took a sidearm from a hidden holster within, quietly charging
the weapon, then immediately began sweeping through the house. A
moment later he came back, placing his weapon in the holster around
his thigh.

"No one's here," he said.

"Should there be?" Chloe asked. "Is
something wrong?"

"No," he muttered, beginning to pace.
Jericho kicked a chair. "Son of a bitch," he swore.

"What is it?" she asked, rising against the
wall.

"Nothing." Jericho blew out a frustrated
breath.

Everything. But he couldn’t tell her
that.

Gunner and Butler should have been here by
now. They had set this place up never thinking they'd have reason
to use it.

That the others weren't here told him
something drastically wrong had happened.

He exhaled hard again, raking a hand through
his sandy-brown hair. Jericho turned to look Chloe over. She was a
mess of nerves. Poor girl.

"You okay?" he asked.

She snorted, casting her gaze around the
room and shifting her weight onto one hip. She looked perturbed all
of a sudden and lifted her eyes to his. "No. Not real—" She broke
off on a sob, wiping the back of her hand over her mouth and under
her nose. Chloe doubled over herself holding her stomach. When she
tossed her hair back, she ran her nails through the long, dark
locks, then put her hands on her hips as she began to pace. She
exhaled in a gush.

Jericho watched her silently.

"Where are we now? Will you tell me that?"
she asked hysterically.

Jericho's brow pinched, watching her. "We
are outside Rio, on the outskirts of Pirai. It’s a small village."
He lowered his stare to a scrape on her arm. "Will you let me clean
that up?"

Chloe followed his line of vision, pulling
her arm around to finger the minor wound from their earlier fall.
She tsked. "Yeah, why not?" She sounded utterly defeated.

Jericho pivoted and crooked a finger over
his shoulder. "Follow me," he said.

Down the hall to the left he opened a door
and flipped on a fluorescent light. The long bulbs buzzed and
flickered overhead as they lit the room in a wash of bright
white.

Chloe blinked rapidly at the change in
lighting as he held the door for her before entering.

Jericho heard her gasp behind his back as he
crossed the room.

"What is all this?" she asked.

"Medical room," Jericho told her, sliding a
wire-mesh glass panel to the medical cabinet open, picking up
gauze, peroxide wipes, and bandages from the metal shelf to pile
them onto the counter below. "Have a seat," he said, indicating the
metal table in the center of the room. This room was also prepped
for interrogation, and he hoped she wouldn’t notice the restraint
cuffs hanging below the table.

Chloe hesitated, but walked over and hoisted
herself up. "The cut isn't that bad, really," she said, looking
down at the abrasion.

"It's not, but no need to keep blood smeared
on you." Jericho walked over to the table. She'd actually taken a
pretty good scrape from a rock, and come tomorrow she would surely
feel it.

"What about you?" she asked.

Jericho glanced up from opening the peroxide
wipe, and then refocused his attention. "I'll be fine. I'll clean
myself up in a bit." He wiped the blood away from her arm and
tossed the wipe to open a fresh one, ignoring her wince as he
scraped the wound. "Sorry."

"Gosh!" She sucked in a hissed breath
through her teeth, looking away as he finished.

He leaned back and began to open a bandage.
"So what brought you to Rio?" he asked.

Chloe huffed. "Long story."

"Aren't they always." He gave her a
smile.

Though she tried to compress it, the corners
of her mouth twitched into a smile, too. "This one I don’t think
would interest you." She waved his question off, tucking a strand
of hair behind her ear. "What about yourself? Who are you?"

Jericho leveled a hard
gaze on her. She was young, attractive, obviously naive of the
dangerous world around her. There wasn’t much he
could
tell her. She was
already too involved, and only by happenstance. His mind briefly
flickered back over the last forty-eight hours, beginning with
prepping for their mission.