Searching for Cate (24 page)

“Sometimes things actually do go right,” Cate said.
She grinned at Sullivan. “You just have to have a little faith.”

Sullivan gingerly separated the two sides of the manila envelope, then withdrew the book. He looked at a few pages, then returned the book to the envelope again. He raised his eyes to look at Cate. “Did you read the entries?”

Maybe she was getting paranoid, but Cate thought she heard something in Sullivan's voice. Something not quite right. “No,” she finally answered.

There was enough hesitation in her voice to trigger a reaction.

Disbelief filtered through her as she saw the glint of steel. A second later, she realized that she was looking down at a weapon in Sullivan's hands. His coat was draped over it to hide his gun from public view, but it was definitely there.

The expression on the man's face never changed. “I think you have, Special Agent Kowalski. Which means that the four of us are all going to have to go for a little drive.”

P
arking at LAX was hell. Despite all the expansion the airport had undergone in the past few decades, that was more or less a given.

But there was nothing out of the ordinary about that. Anticipation of cruising up and down the rows, searching for a spot hadn't been the reason for the turmoil Christian had endured for the last forty-five miles. Anticipation of another sort was the cause of his unrest.

Christian had tried to talk himself out of what he was doing even before he'd gotten into his car at Blair Memorial. He'd tried over and over to tell himself that it was too soon, that he was being rash and that, damn it all to hell, he didn't
want
to be involved with anyone. He'd made himself that promise, sworn it over and over again over the course of the past three years.

So what was he doing here, parking his vehicle in what amounted to the north forty?

The electronic doors leading into the terminal opened as he approached them. He walked through, a man who very well might be on his way to his own funeral.

What else could it be but a funeral? There was too much going against his getting involved with anyone, not the least of which was that he didn't want to leave himself exposed to the possibility of feeling like one of the walking dead again. It had taken him too long to get back to functioning properly.

And then there was the guilt to grapple with. Guilt that he could have feelings for someone else when he'd been so firmly convinced that his heart and soul would always belong to Alma.

Funny, her face wasn't as vivid as it used to be when it materialized in his mind. There was guilt about that, too. Guilt that his thoughts kept drifting over to Cate. Guilt that the lovemaking they'd enjoyed had made him feel so alive, so vital.

He wanted to be with her again.

And set himself up for a fall, an annoying voice whispered in his head. The annoying voice was right. There were a hundred arguments against coming here to meet Cate's plane. A hundred arguments, large and small. But in the final analysis, they all seemed to bounce off him like hail falling on concrete. He hadn't even been able to mount enough of an argument to keep himself from starting up his car and taking the 405 on-ramp that would eventually lead him to the airport.

And for once, traffic seemed to be light. It was as if someone was paving the way for him.

Or was he reading too much into this?

Leave, damn it. Save yourself now before it's too late.

It was already too late, he thought. Too late because he
did
have feelings for Cate. If he didn't, what was he doing here?

The answer was simple, he thought cynically. Driving himself crazy.

Striding up to the arrival-departure board, he looked up and scanned the flight numbers. He didn't have to refer to the piece of paper in his pocket, the one containing the information Lydia had given him. The flight number was embossed in his brain.

That had been his final hurdle. Asking Lydia. He'd almost balked, then forced himself at the last minute to talk to her. To her credit, his sister-in-law had made no comment when he asked when Cate's flight was arriving. Which made the largest comment of all. That she'd expected this.

Well, Lydia might have expected this, but he sure as hell hadn't.

Cate wasn't even his type.

Cate was nothing like Alma. Oh, granted, there was this small part of her that might have been thought as needy because she wanted to connect to her birth mother, but he had a feeling that wasn't the way she was normally. Cate could just take life's pitches all in stride. He'd seen enough of the independent, take-charge woman she was to know that she was not a clinging vine who only fixated on the wrong that had been done her rather than the opportunities coming her way.

That had been Alma's problem, he thought. Alma just couldn't seem to pull herself up, no matter how hard everyone tried to help her. No matter how much he loved her. The only thing she had succeeded in doing, especially in death, was to pull him down.

Until Cate had happened in his life.

After scanning the board, he finally found the right flight. Cate's plane had arrived early. It had already landed a full fifteen minutes ahead of schedule.

Cate could be anywhere in the terminal by now.

Christian muttered a curse under his breath as he hurried to the gate where she was to have deplaned. It was a long shot and in all likelihood, she might have already hooked up with Lydia and left. Lydia was very efficient that way. No, wait, Lydia had mentioned a body that was being transported from the embassy. That meant that she and Cate had to wait for the cargo to be taken off the plane.

He breathed a sigh of relief. With any luck, that gave him some time to find her.

He thought of calling her cell, but given the din in the terminal, he doubted if she could hear it unless she was listening for it. Or it was set to vibrate. He supposed it was worth a try. Taking out his cell phone, he began to dial her number.

And then he saw her. All the way across the terminal. Astonished, he flipped his phone closed and returned it to his pocket. In the middle of a crowded terminal, he could pick her out as if there was something inside of him that was tuned in only to her.

Weaving his way through the crowd, he began to move in her direction.

She wasn't by herself. She wasn't even with just Lydia. There was a man of about thirty-five, forty, with hunched shoulders standing beside her. Both he and Cate were looking at another man who was apparently with Lydia.

He'd been so intent on coming here, on seeing her, that he hadn't thought she'd be traveling with anyone. He didn't like audiences. For a second, he wavered, toying with the idea of retreat after all. It wasn't as if this was the last time he'd ever see her.

It might be, given half a chance. Once you begin retreating…

Damn it, he hadn't come all this way on the 405 freeway just to go back with his tail between his legs. He remembered life before Alma's suicide had ripped him apart. A life he'd just begun to glimpse again.

Because of Cate.

Christian made up his mind and pushed forward again. Striding across the crowded floor, working his way around and through groups of people, he never took his eyes away from the prize.

Look at me, Cate. Look at me.

As he cut the distance between them, Christian became aware that there was a very strange expression on Cate's face, one he'd never seen before.

She looked wary as she regarded the man in front of her.

He'd seen that same look on a child, regarding a needle, anticipating the pain that was to come. Trying to brazen it out.

Something was wrong.

Christian lengthened his stride, a gut feeling urging him on.

“Cate,” he called out. She gave no indication that she'd heard him and he tried again, raising his voice this time. “Cate!”

He saw her head jerk up as she searched the area for him. Saw, too, that the man she'd been regarding so oddly half turned, startled, before he swung back around toward her again.

This was it, Cate thought. Now or never. She knew that if she didn't make use of this opportunity, there wouldn't be another one. Having been in the dark only a few minutes ago, she now knew too much. They all did. And Sullivan would have them eliminated.

She thought of Lydia and the baby she was carrying. Of Walter and the basketball game he'd lamented missing. She thought of Christian. Everything raced through her brain in less than an instant.

As did the desire to live.

There wasn't time to draw her weapon. She lunged at Sullivan, grabbing the hand with the gun in it. Sullivan's coat fell, exposing the gun.

Christian's heart rose in his throat. The man was going to kill Cate.

“Get out of the way!” he shouted, sprinting across the last little bit of distance.

The warning was intended for both Cate and Lydia, as well as for anyone else who might be in the line of fire. The words were hardly out of his mouth as Christian made a flying tackle, bringing down the man with the gun. The latter was a good six inches taller than he was, but the element of surprise was definitely on his side.

The gun, no longer raised overhead, went off just as
a gaggle of LAX security personnel converged around them out of nowhere, all running to the center of the disturbance. Screams came from the crowd and panic descended over the area.

And nowhere was its effect felt more than in Cate's chest. Christian had come flying out of nowhere a second before the gun had gone off.

Where had the bullet gone? The question throbbed in her head.

Oh please, don't let it have hit Christian, she prayed.

All Christian knew was that he had to disarm the other man. He made a grab for Sullivan's elbow, then his wrist, determined to get the gun away from him.

In an instant, both Cate and Lydia had drawn their weapons, even as guns were bring drawn on them.

Cate never took her eyes off the two men on the ground. It took everything she had not to give in to the urge to shoot Sullivan. It wasn't so much an act of self-control as it was fear that she might hit Christian instead.

“It's over,” Cate cried, loathing clawing at her throat. “You're surrounded, Sullivan. Give up now and they might take that into consideration.” Although, given the nature of his offenses, she sincerely doubted it. Too bad that having someone drawn and quartered was against the law, she thought, because if anyone ever deserved to be, it was Sullivan. He'd used his position not only to line his pockets, but to betray them at every turn.

“Hey, you, drop your weapons,” the man who was very clearly the head of airport security ordered. He worked his way to the center of his people, both hands on his service revolver.

“FBI,” Lydia countered, holding up her badge. She looked around for the man who had initially cleared both her and Sullivan for entry when they'd arrived at the terminal less than ten minutes ago. “Sergeant Bigelow here?”

When the man stepped forward the next moment, he stared at the scene, especially at Sullivan. “I thought you were all on the same side.”

Lydia shook her head, still unable to fully process what had just gone down. She'd worked beside Sullivan for more than two years. Trusted him. What the hell had happened? “I thought so, too,” she said quietly.

Getting to his feet, Christian jerked Sullivan to his, as well. The very action cost him. He could feel pain searing across his rib cage as if someone was dragging the sharp end of a spear against his skin.

Relieved that he was all right, Cate threw her arms around Christian's waist. She caught her breath when he winced. Stepping back, she looked at him quizzically. The next moment, fear replaced joy. From beneath the opening of his jacket, she could see that blood had begun to discolor Christian's shirt.

The bullet
hadn't
missed him, after all. “Oh, God, you're hit.”

Dazed, confused, Christian looked down and saw the growing splotch of dark red that was spreading out on the left side of his shirt.

That would definitely explain the light-headed feeling that was swirling around him, he thought. “I guess I am.”

A
fraid that he might pass out on her, Cate wanted to prop him up. But she was afraid of touching Christian. Of making the pain worse for him. He wasn't even supposed to be here.

She could only stare at him, at the wound, in accelerating disbelief as she fought back tears. “What are you doing here?”

“Bleeding,” Christian replied succinctly. He'd never seen his own blood before and he stared down at the stain in complete, almost detached fascination. It seemed to border on the surreal.

His head kept whimsically winking in and out.

Coming to life, Walter elbowed Cate aside and quickly tore open Christian's shirt.

“Looks like the bullet went clean through,” he announced as if he was still talking into the tape recorder
he always employed during the autopsies he conducted. He looked first at the man who had come to their rescue, then at Cate. “But this needs to be cleansed and bandaged immediately.” He saw the incredulous look on Cate's face. “What? I didn't always just cut up corpses. I had to go through medical school first, just like every other doctor.” He looked back at the ring of security people. “You got anything like a first aid kit available?”

“Sawyer, go get the doctor a first-aid kit,” Bennett, the head of security, ordered. He had the voice of a retired cop and the bearing of a tired bloodhound.

Moving to the center, Bennett kept his service revolver trained on Sullivan. Sawyer returned with the kit almost immediately and handed it off to Walter, who quickly got started.

As the crowd of rubberneckers around them grew, Lydia took the opportunity to place a call to the regional office to report this latest strange twist of events. She still kept out her own gun, ready to use in case things turned ugly again.

She nodded at Cate, then held out the cell phone to her as the phone on the other end rang. “You want to do the honors?”

Cate barely glanced toward her partner. Her eyes were fixed on Walter's hands as the M.E. swiftly cleaned up Christian's wound.

“Not interested in honors,” she told Lydia. The next moment, Lydia was on the line with the regional director. Cate tuned her out. “You sure you know what you're doing?” she asked Walter. After all, if he made
a mistake in his regular line of work, it didn't really matter. The subject was already dead.

It mattered a lot here.

Walter raised his eyes from his work long enough to give her an offended look. “This isn't exactly a triple bypass I'm performing. I'm just cleaning up his wound.” He snorted dismissively as he applied a liberal dose of peroxide to the wound in Christian's side. “Even you could do this.”

Cate drew in her breath as she watched Christian's skin momentarily pucker in response to the pain. “Because you're helping him, I'll let that go.”

In her mind's eye, the scenario replayed itself. It could have gone at least a dozen different ways. And she could envision Christian getting killed almost each and every time.

Fear and horror pushed words out of her mouth. “What the hell were you thinking?” she demanded heatedly. “Don't you know better than to aim yourself like a baseball at a man with a gun?”

“Okay, break it up, nothing to see here,” the security personnel were saying to the crowd, dispersing them.

Cate was vaguely aware of flashes going off. Had the media been called in? She didn't know. She didn't care. She just wanted Christian to be all right.

“Usually, yes,” Christian replied. He measured out each word carefully as he bit back the desire to groan.

The hole left by the bullet hurt like a son of a gun, he thought. He'd never had so much as a hangnail before and heretofore had been unacquainted with physical pain beyond having the wind knocked out of him
on several occasions when he boxed in Uncle Henry's gym. He didn't much like it.

“But the gun was aimed at you,” he pointed out. Christian left it at that, feeling he had no further need to explain.

He thought wrong.

“Having Sullivan shoot you wouldn't have helped me any,” she cried. She threw her hands up, knowing she was just going to have to find a way to cope with this and block out the thought that he could have been killed. “Oh, damn it all, you're the heroic type on top of everything else.”

“Wait until Lukas hears,” Lydia said to him fondly, covering the cell microphone opening with her hand. “He'll really skin you.”

“He'll have to catch me first.” The joke fell a little flat as another shaft of pain skewered its way through him. “He was never very fast on his feet.” He looked at Cate and told her, “As a boy, I used to beat him every time.”

“And I should be beating you.” Cate doubled her fists at her sides, struggling with the urge to swing at him at least once and drain the stress from her.
He could have been killed, and it would have been your fault.
“Never, ever do that again.”

She was serious, he thought. As if he'd had any other choice once he realized that she and Lydia were in danger. But he humored her. “I promise the next time I see someone hiding a gun under their coat and aiming it at you in the airport terminal, I won't tackle him.”

Cate shook her head. Tears had come out of no
where, stinging her eyes. She blinked several times to keep them from falling. Success was only minimal. She used the back of her hand to get the rest. “Your mother's right. You should have been a lawyer.”

“That's not what she said,” he reminded her. He'd pointed that out the last time.

“I'm done here,” Walter announced, lumbering back up to his feet. He left the first aid kit open on the bench, confident Security would see to it.

“Thanks,” Christian muttered, rebuttoning his shirt.

Walter looked at his only living patient in the past five years with not a little pride. To his surprise he realized that he missed the satisfaction this part of the job provided. Dead people never said thank you.

“But you need to go to a hospital to have that x-rayed—” Walter indicated his handiwork “—to make sure there's no internal damage. I'd make that my next stop if I were you.”

“There's no internal damage,” Christian told him evenly.

Cate laughed shortly. “So now he has X-ray vision, as well.” Her mind working rapidly, she turned to her partner. The latter slipped her cell phone back in her pocket after she concluded her conversation with the regional head of the bureau. “Lydia, if I give you Dr. Doolittle here, can you take Sullivan to the field office?”

The smile on her lips said that nothing would give her greater pleasure. “Even without Dr. Doolittle.”

Walter's chest rose indignantly. “Who are you calling Dr. Doolittle?”

Cate flashed a wide grin at him. “It's a term of affec
tion, Walter. An endearment. Thanks for bandaging up the hero.” She nodded at Christian.

“You're welcome,” Walter mumbled.

“You need anything from us?” Bennett asked once Lydia had her weapon trained again on the handcuffed Sullivan.

How the mighty have fallen, Lydia thought. And it didn't have to be. Sullivan had been a good man once, or so she'd heard. Thirty years with the bureau. All of it down the drain now. And for what? Money? Vicarious excitement? Or was there something even more base at the bottom of all this?

She wasn't sure if she even wanted to know.

Lydia smiled at Bennett. “An escort to my car wouldn't be out of order.”

Walter moved over beside her as Bennett pointed to three of his people, selecting them to do the honors.

“See you at the field office later,” Lydia said to Cate before leaving. “Much later,” she underscored in a lower voice that just carried between the two of them.

“What about you?” Bennett asked Cate once the others had gone. “You need anything?”

She looked at Christian. His complexion was paler than she'd ever seen it. “Where's your car?” It took him a moment to remember the lot number.

Cate looked at Bennett for clarification. “All the way in the back,” he told her.

In that case, it was much too far for Christian to walk in his present condition. But there was no way he'd consent to being taken to the hospital by ambulance. Besides, she knew he would undoubtedly prefer going somewhere he was familiar with. Which meant Blair,
and that was more than forty-five miles from here. No ambulance would go that distance. They reported to the hospital closest to the point of pickup.

She thought of a solution. “One of those cute little transport cars to drive us over to his vehicle.”

Christian bristled. “I can walk,” he protested. He rose from the chair, gaining his legs unsteadily.

If someone blew on him, he'd fall over, she thought. Cate quickly positioned herself beside him and slung his arm over her shoulder for leverage. She wrapped her free arm around his waist. “Of course you can.”

Christian did his best to glare at her. “You're humoring me.”

She turned up her face to his and pasted a wide smile on her lips. “Yes, I am.”

He would have pulled away from her. If he could. “I don't like being humored.”

Cate turned as the cart came into view. “I'll keep that in mind.”

 

“It's true what they say,” Cate decided after having been a silent witness for the past two hours. “Doctors do make the worst patients.”

With no small sense of relief, Christian pulled the zipper up on his pants. It was nice to have them back on again after having endured being wrapped up in a smock for the past couple of hours. Stiffly, he reached for his bloodied shirt. Cate beat him to it and held it out to him.

He moved very carefully as he gingerly slipped first one arm and then the other into the sleeves. Taking possession of his shirt, he slowly began buttoning it. Over
his protest, they'd given him something for the pain and he now felt as if he was moving in slow motion.

“You try sitting around in that abbreviated tablecloth and see how you like it.” He balled it up and tossed it into a container for dirty linens. “Don't see why I couldn't keep my clothes on.”

He knew the rules as well as anyone, had stood on the other side of them every time but now. She knew he was just blowing off steam. Maybe discovering his mortality had made him angry.

“Maybe because all the nurses wanted a thrill,” she cracked. He gave her a dark look. “Well, that bullet might have missed all your vital organs, but it certainly made a direct hit on your sense of humor.” She picked up his jacket for him and slung her purse strap over her shoulder. She gamely took hold of his arm. “C'mon, hero, I'll take you home.”

They made their way out through the back entrance to the E.R. More than a few people called out to him as they went.

He acknowledged each one with a nod, then looked at Cate. He wasn't sure if he was up to her continued ministering. It conflicted with his invulnerable self-image. “Don't you have to go to work and make a report or something?”

“It'll keep.” There was no hurry now. Especially since she'd heard from Lydia that she and the team had found the other girls and they were being taken care of. She kept her arm tucked through his until they reached his car. Cate made a point of opening up the passenger side, then waiting until he got in. “In light of the fact that we now have at least one of the key
behind-the-scenes people, I think the powers that be can wait a little while for me to make my report.”

He fumbled with his seat belt, unaccustomed to having it at his right. “So, it was Sullivan all along?”

“Looks that way.” Cate started up his car and it purred to life. “That would explain how they were almost always one jump ahead of us. He was warning them.” She backed up slowly, knowing he was scrutinizing how she was handling his baby. “The funny thing was, he did some jumping of his own because he leaped to the conclusion that I'd discovered he was in on it. The truth was, I never had a chance to take a look at that disk. I was in too much of a hurry to get it out of the country. Since he was the one I was turning it over to, he could have just waited it out and dubbed a copy, leaving himself out of it.”

Everyone was fallible, he thought. It was all just a matter of time. “I guess when it's your neck on the line, you don't always stay clearheaded.”

She eased the car onto the main thoroughfare. “Speaking of clearheaded—” she spared him a look “—you never answered my question.”

He pointed to the road. Dutifully she looked back at it. “Which one? You've been firing questions all afternoon.”

“The original one. What were you doing at the airport?”

Cate flew through a light that was on its way to red. He wouldn't have done that, he thought. That was the difference between them. He was more cautious than she was. Maybe that was one of the elements that made her so appealing. “I distinctly remember answering you. I said ‘bleeding.'”

She frowned. He was stalling again. Was that a good sign? “What were you doing there before then?”

“Saving your life,” he said simply.

Yeah, she thought.
He had been. And maybe in more ways than one.