Stars of Mithra Box Set: Captive Star\Hidden Star\Secret Star (8 page)

“I could leave her a note, in case she comes back. Stop dragging me.”

“She may not be the only one who comes back.” He yanked her through the door and kept tugging until they were heading down the stairs.

“I've got to see about Grace.”

“One friend at a time, M.J. We're getting out of Dodge for a while.”

“I could call her, on my phone, or your cellular. Jack, if Bailey and I are in the middle of this, Grace is, too.”

“Travel as a pack, do you?”

“So?” She hurried toward the side door with him, fueled by fresh worry. “I have to contact her. She has a place in Potomac. I don't think she's there. I think she's up at her country place, but—”

“Quiet.” He eased open the door, scanned the quiet side lot, the sleeping neighborhood. It had been smooth and easy so far. Smooth and easy made him edgy. “Keep it down until we're clear, will you? God, you've got a mouth.”

She snarled with it as he pulled her outside and started eating up the ground. “I don't see what the problem is. Whoever was looking for Bailey and the diamond have been and gone.”

“Doesn't mean they won't come back.” He caught the glint of moonlight off the chrome of the van just as it squealed into the lot. “Sometimes I hate being right. Go!” he shouted, shoving her ahead of him.

He whirled to protect her back, tried a quick prayer that they hadn't been spotted. And decided God was busy at the moment, when the van doors burst open. The gun was in his hand, the first shot fired, before he spun around and sprinted after her.

He hoped the single shot would give his pur
suers something to consider. “I said go!” he snapped out when he all but mowed her down.

“I heard a shot. I thought—”

“Don't think. Run.” He grabbed her hand to be certain she did, and was grateful she had no problem keeping pace.

They stormed between the yards, and this time the dog took a keener interest, sending up a wild din that carried for blocks. Moonlight flowed in front of them. Though he heard no footsteps pounding in pursuit, Jack didn't break stride as they whipped around the side of a building, turned the corner.

He took time to scan the street, then hit the ground running. “In” was all he said as he sprinted to the driver's side.

He needn't have bothered with the order. M.J. was already wrenching open the door and diving onto the seat. “They didn't come after us,” she panted. “That's bad. They should have come after us.”

“You catch on.” He flicked the key, hit the gas and shot out from the curb just as the van screamed around the corner. “Grab on to something.”

Though she wouldn't have believed it possible, he spun the big car into a fast U-turn, riding two
wheels over the opposing curb. His bumper kissed lightly off the fender of a sedan, and then he was screaming down the quiet suburban street at sixty.

He took the first turn with the van three lengths behind. “You know how to use a gun?”

M.J. picked it up off the seat. “Yeah.”

“Let's hope you don't have to. Get your seatbelt on, if you can manage it,” he suggested as he jerked the Olds around another corner. M.J.'s elbow rapped against the dash. “And don't point that thing in this direction.”

“I know how to handle a gun.” Teeth set, she braced herself and watched through the rear window. “Just drive. They're closing in.”

Jack flicked his gaze into the rear view, measured the distance from the oncoming headlights. “Not this time,” he promised.

He wound through the streets like a snake, tapping the brake, flooring the gas, whipping the wheel so that his tires whined. The challenge of it, the speed, the insanity, had him grinning.

“I like to do this to music.” And he switched the radio up to blare.

“You're crazy.” But she found herself grinning madly back at him. “They want to kill us.”

“People in hell want snow cones.” He hit a
four-lane and pushed the car to eighty. “This tank might not look like much, but she moves.”

“So does that van. You're not shaking them.”

“I haven't gotten started.” He skimmed his gaze fast, left, right, then plowed recklessly through a red light. Traffic was sparse, even as they zipped toward downtown. “That's the trouble with D.C.,” he commented. “No nightlife. Politicians and ambassadors.”

“It has dignity.”

“Yeah, right.” He wrestled the car around a curve at fifty, and began to travel the rabbit warren of narrow back streets and circles. He heard the ping of metal against metal as a bullet hit his rear fender.

“Now they're getting nasty.”

“I think they're trying to shoot out the tires.”

“I just bought these babies.”

Old or new, she thought, if a bullet hit rubber, the game was over. M.J. took a deep breath, held it, then popped out the window to her waist and fired.

“Are you crazy?” His heart jumped into his throat and nearly had him crashing into a lamp-post. “Get your head back in here before you get it blown off.”

Grim-eyed, too wired to be afraid, she fired
again. “Two can play.” With the third shot, she hit a headlight. The shattering glass pumped her adrenaline. It hardly mattered that she'd been aiming at the windshield. “I hit them.”

With a mindless snarl, Jack grabbed the seat of her jeans and dragged her in. For the first time in his life, his hands trembled on the wheel of his car. “Who do you think you are, Bonnie Parker?”

“They backed off.”

“No, they didn't. I'm outrunning them. Just let me handle this, will you?”

He twisted his way back to the four-lane, careened straight across, shooting over the median with a bone-rattling series of bumps. Sparks spewed out like stars as steel skidded on concrete. With a skill M.J. admired, he wrestled the car into a wide arc, then headed north.

“They're trying it.” She twisted in the seat, poked her head out the window again, despite Jack's steady swearing. “I don't think they're gonna—” She hooted at the sound of crunching metal. “They're backing up, heading north on the southbound.”

“I can see. I don't need a damn play-by-play. Get back in here. Strap in this time.”

He hit the on-ramp for the Beltway at sixty. And had gained just enough time, he calculated,
to make it work. He barreled off at the first exit and headed into Maryland.

“You lost them.” She crawled over and gave him an enthusiastic smack on the cheek. “You're good, Dakota.”

“Damn right.” He was also shaky. The moment he felt he could afford it, he pulled to the shoulder and wiped her grin away by grabbing her shoulders and giving her a hard, teeth-rattling shake. “Don't you ever do anything so stupid again. You're lucky you didn't fall out of the window, or get your head shot off.”

“Cut it out, Jack.” Her hand was already fisting. “I mean it.” Then she went limp as he hauled her against him and held tight. His face was buried in her hair, his heart was pounding. “Hey.” Baffled, moved, she patted his back. “I was just pulling my weight.”

“Don't.” His mouth found hers in a desperate kiss. “Just don't.” And as abruptly as he'd grabbed her, he shoved her away. “You've gotten to me,” he muttered, furious at the emotions storming through him. “Just shut up.” His head whipped around when she opened her mouth. “Just shut up. I don't want to talk about it.”

“Fine.” Her own stomach was trembling. As if the fate of the world depended on it, she me
ticulously buckled her seat belt as he pulled back onto the road. “I'd really like to call my friend Grace.”

His hands were tensed on the wheel, but he kept his voice even. “We can't risk it now. We don't know what kind of equipment they've got in that van, and they're too close yet. We'll see what we can manage tomorrow.”

Knowing she'd have to settle for that, she rubbed her restless hands on her knees. “Jack, I know what you risked going to Bailey's to try to ease my mind. I appreciate it.”

“Just part of the service.”

“Is it?”

He glanced over, met her eyes. “Hell, no. I said I don't want to talk about it.”

“I'm not talking about it.” She wasn't sure she knew how, or what to do about these unexpected feelings swimming through her. “I'm thanking you.”

“Then you're welcome. Look, I'm heading back to the Bates Motel. Which are you more—hungry or tired?”

That, at least, didn't take any thought. “Hungry.”

“Good, so am I.”

She had a lot of considering to do, M.J. de
cided. Her friend was missing, she had a priceless blue diamond in her possession—or in Jack's pocket—and she'd been chased, shot at and handcuffed.

Added to that, she was very much afraid she was falling for some tough-eyed, swaggering bounty hunter who drove like a maniac and kissed like a dream.

A hot, sweaty dream.

And she knew barely more of him than his name.

It made no sense, and though she enjoyed being reckless in some areas, her heart wasn't one of them. She'd always kept a firm hand there, and it was frightening to feel that grip slipping over a man she'd literally rammed into only the day before.

She wasn't a romantic woman, or a fanciful one. But she was an honest woman. Honest enough to admit that whatever danger she was facing from the outside, she was facing danger just as great, just as real, from her own heart.

 

He was trembling with fury. Incompetence. It was unacceptable to find himself surrounded by utter incompetence. It was true he'd had to hire the men quickly, and with only the thinnest of
recommendations, but their failure to execute one small task, to deal with one woman, was simply outrageous.

He had no doubt he could have dealt with her handily himself, if he could have risked the exposure.

Now, with the moon set and the stars fading, he stood on the terrace, calming his soul with a glass of wine the color of new blood.

It was partly his fault, he conceded. Certainly, he should have checked more carefully into the matter of Jack Dakota. But time had been of the essence, and he had assumed the fool of a bail bondsman was capable of following the orders to assign someone just competent enough to take her, and wise enough to turn her over.

Apparently, Jack Dakota wasn't a wise man, but a stubborn one. And the woman was infuriatingly lucky. M. J. O'Leary. Well, perhaps she had the luck of the Irish, but luck could change.

He would see to that.

Just as he would see to Bailey James. She would have to surface eventually. He'd be ready. And Grace Fontaine… Pity.

Well, he would find the third stone, as well.

He would have all of them. And a heavy price would be paid by all who had tried to stop him.

His fingers snapped the fragile stem. Glass tinkled on the stone. Wine splattered and pooled. Grimly he smiled down, watched the red liquid seek the cracks.

More than blood would be spilled, he promised himself.

And soon.

T
hey settled in the little all-night diner just down from the motel. Coffee, strong enough to walk on, came first, served by a sleepy-eyed waitress wearing a cotton-candy-pink uniform and a plastic name tag that declared her Midge.

M.J. shifted in the booth, catching her jeans on the torn vinyl of the seat, perused the hand-typed menu under its plastic coating, then propped an elbow on the scarred surface of the coffee-stained linoleum that covered their table.

A very ancient country-and-western tune was twanging away on the juke, and the air was redolent of the thick odor of frying grease.

Aesthetics weren't served there, but breakfast was. Twenty-four hours a day.

“That's almost too perfect,” M.J. commented after she ordered a whopping breakfast, including a short stack, eggs over and a rasher of bacon. “She even looks like a Midge—hardworking, competent and friendly. I always wondered if people grew into their names or vice versa. Like Bailey—cool, studious, smart. Or Grace, elegant, feminine and generous.”

Jack rubbed a hand over the stubble on his chin. “So what's M.J. stand for?”

“Nothing.”

He cocked a brow. “Sure it does. Mary Jo, Melissa Jane, Margaret Joan, what?”

She sipped her coffee. “It's just initials. And that's been made legal, too.”

His lips curved. “I'll get you drunk and you'll spill it.”

“Dakota, I come from a long line of Irish pub owners. Getting me drunk is beyond your capabilities.”

“We'll have to check that out—maybe in your place. Dark wood?” he asked with a half smile. “Lots of brass. Irish music, live on weekends?”

“Yep. And not a fern in sight.”

“Now we're talking. And seeing as you own
it, you can buy the first round as soon as we're clear.”

“It's a date.” She picked up her cup again. “And, boy, am I looking forward to it.”

“What, we're not having fun yet?”

She eased back as the waitress set their heaping plates on the table. “Thanks.” Then picked up a fork and dug in. “It's had its moments,” she told him. “Can I see Ralph's book?”

“What for?”

“So I can admire its handsome plastic binding,” she said sweetly.

“Sure, why not?” He lifted his hips, drew it out and tossed it on the table. As she flipped through the pages, he sampled his eggs. “See anyone you know?”

It was the cocky tone of his voice that made her delighted to be able to glance up at him, smile and say, “Actually, I do.”

“What?” He would have snatched the book back if she hadn't held it out of reach. “Who?”

“T. Salvini. That's got to be one of Bailey's stepbrothers.”

“No kidding?”

“No kidding. There's a five and three zeros after his name. Just think. Tim or Tom did business with Ralph. You did business with Ralph,
now I'm—in a loose manner of speaking—doing business with you.” Those dark-river-green eyes shifted up, met his. “Small world, right, Jack?”

“From where I'm sitting,” he agreed.

“Here's another payment, about five K. Looks like the bill came in on the eighteenth of the month—goes four, no, five months back.” Thoughtfully she tapped the book on the edge of the table. “Now I wonder what one, or both, of the creeps did that was worth twenty-five thousand to keep Ralph quiet about it.”

“People do things all the time they want kept quiet—and they pay for it, one way or another.”

She angled her head. “You're a real student of human nature, aren't you, Dakota? And a cynic, as well.”

“Life's a cynical journey. Well, we've got one solid connection back to Ralph. Maybe we'll pay the creeps a visit soon.”

“They're businessmen,” she pointed out. “Slimy, from my viewpoint, but murder's a big jump. I can't see it.”

“Sometimes it's a much smaller step than you'd think.” He took the book back, pocketed it again. “On that cynical journey.”

“I can see them cooking the books,” she said
speculatively. “Timothy has a gambling problem—meaning he likes to play and tends to lose.”

“Is that so? Well, Ralph had a lot of connections when it came to, let's say, games of chance. That's a link that slides neat onto the chain.”

“So Ralph finds out the creep's playing deep, maybe skimming the till to keep from getting his legs broken, and he puts the pressure on.”

“It might work. And Salvini whines to somebody who's got more muscle—somebody who wants the Stars.” He moved his shoulders and decided to give it a chance to brew. “In any case, that wasn't bad work, sugar.”

“It was great work,” she corrected.

“I'll cop to good. And you looked pretty natural with your hips hanging out the car window, shooting at a speeding van.” He drowned his pancakes in syrup. “Even if it did stop my heart. If you ever decide to change careers, you'd make a passable skip tracer.”

“Really?” She wasn't sure if she should be complimented or worried by the assessment. She decided to be flattered. “I don't think I could spend my life on the hunt—or being hunted.” She shook enough salt on her eggs to make Jack—a sodium fan—wince. “How do you? Why do you?”

“How's your blood pressure?”

“Hmm?”

“Never mind. I figure you go with your strengths. I'm good at tracking, backtracking, then figuring out the steps people are planning to take. And I like the hunt.” He grinned wolfishly. “I love the hunt. Doesn't matter what size the prey is, as long as you bring them down.”

“Crime's crime?”

“Not exactly. That's a cop attitude. But if you've got the right point of view, it's just as satisfying to snag some deadbeat father running from back child support as it is to bag a guy who shot his business partner. You can bring down both if you get to know your quarry. Mostly they're stupid—they've got habits they don't break.”

“Such as?”

“A guy dips into the till where he works. He gets caught, charged, then he jumps bail. Odds are he's got friends, relatives, a lover. It won't take long before he asks somebody for help. Most people aren't loners. They think they are, but they're not. Something always pulls them back. They'll make a call, a visit. Leave a paper trail. Take you.”

Surprised, she frowned. “I hadn't done anything.”

“That's not the issue. You're a smart woman, a self-starter, but you wouldn't have gone far, you wouldn't have gone long without calling your friends.” He scooped up eggs, smiled at her. “In fact, that's just what you did.”

“And what about you? Who would you call?”

“Nobody.” His smile faded. He continued to eat as the waitress topped off their coffee.

“No family?”

“No.” He picked up a slice of bacon, snapped it in two. “My father took off when I was twelve. My mother handled it by hating the world. I had an older brother, signed with the army the day he hit eighteen. He decided not to come back. I haven't heard from him in ten, twelve years. Once I got into college, my mother figured her job was done and hit the road. You could say we don't keep in touch.”

“I'm sorry.”

He jerked his shoulder against the sympathy, irritated with himself for telling her. He didn't talk family. Ever. With anyone.

“You haven't seen your family in all these years,” she continued, unable to prevent herself
from probing just a bit. “You don't know where they are—they don't know where you are?”

“We weren't what you'd call close, and we didn't spend enough time together to be considered dysfunctional.”

“But still—”

“I always figured it was in the blood,” he said, cutting her off. “Some people just don't stay put.”

All right, she thought, his family was out of the conversation. It was a tender spot, even if he didn't realize it. “What about you, Jack? How long have you stayed put?”

“That's part of the appeal of the job. You never know where it's going to take you.”

“That's not what I meant.” She searched his face. “But you knew that.”

“I never had any reason to stay.” Her hand rested on the table, an inch from his. He was tempted to take it, just hold it. That worried him. “I know people, a lot of people. But I don't have friends—not the way you do with Bailey and Grace. A lot of us go through life without that, M.J.”

“I know. But do you want to?”

“I never gave it a hell of a lot of thought.” He rubbed both hands over his face. “God, I must be
tired. Philosophizing over breakfast in the Twilight Diner at five in the morning.”

She glanced out the window at the lightening sky to the east, the all-but-empty road. “‘And down the long and silent street, the dawn—'”

“‘With silver-sandaled feet, crept like a frightened girl.'” Finishing the quote, he shrugged. She was goggling at him.

“How do you know that? Just what did you take in college?”

“Whatever appealed to me.”

Now she grinned, propped her elbows on the table. “Me too. I drove my counselors crazy. I can't tell you how many times I was told I had no focus.”

“But you can quote Oscar Wilde at 5:00 a.m. You can shoot a .38, drop-kick your average man, you eat like a trucker, understand ancient Roman gods, and I bet you mix a hell of a boilermaker.”

“The best in town. So here we are, Jack, a couple of people most would say are overeducated for their career choices, drinking coffee at an ungodly hour of the morning, while a couple of guys in a van with one headlight hunt for us and the pretty rock you've got in your pocket. It's the Fourth of July, we've known each other less than twenty-four hours under very possibly the
worst of circumstances, and the person who brought us together is dead as Moses.”

She pushed her plate aside. “What do we do now?”

He took bills out of his pocket, tossed them on the table. “We go to bed.”

 

The motel room was still tacky, cramped and dim. The thin flowered spread was still mussed where they had stretched out on it hours before.

Only hours, she thought. It felt like days. A lifetime. More than a lifetime. It felt as if she'd known him forever, she realized as she watched him empty his pocket onto the dresser, that he'd been a vital part of her forever.

If that wasn't enough, maybe the wanting was. Maybe wanting like this was the best thing to hold on to when your world had gone insane. There was nothing and no one left to trust but him.

Why should she say no? Why should she turn away from comfort, from passion? From life?

Why should she turn away from him, when every instinct told her he needed those things as much as she did?

He turned, and waited. He could have seduced her. He had no doubt of it. She was running on
sheer nerves now, whether she knew it or not. So she was vulnerable, and needy, and he was there.

Sometimes that alone was enough.

He could have seduced her, would have, if it hadn't been important. If she hadn't been so inexplicably and vitally important. Sex would have been a relief, a release, a basic physical act between two free-willed adults.

And that should have been all he wanted.

But he wanted more.

He stayed where he was, beside the dresser, as she stood at the foot of the bed.

“I've got something to say,” he began.

“Okay.”

“I'm in this with you until it's over because that's the way I want it. I finish what I start. So I don't want anything that comes from gratitude or obligation.”

If her heart hadn't been jumping, she might have smiled. “I see. So if I suggested you sleep in the bathtub, that wouldn't be a problem?”

He eased a hip onto the dresser. “It'd be your problem. If that's what you want, you can sleep in the bathtub.”

“Well, you never claimed to be a gentleman.”

“No, but I'll keep my hands off you.”

She angled her head, studied him. He looked
dangerous, plenty dangerous, she decided as her pulse quickened. The dark stubble, the wild mane of hair, those hard gray eyes so intense in that tough, rawboned face.

He thought he was giving her a choice.

She wondered if either of them was fool enough to believe she had one.

So her smile was slow, arrogant. She kept her eyes on his as she reached down, tugged her T-shirt out of her jeans. She watched his gaze flick down to her hands, follow them up as she pulled the shirt over her head, tossed it aside.

“I'd like to see you try,” she murmured, and unsnapped her jeans. He straightened on legs gone watery when she began to lower the zipper.

“I want to do that.”

With heat already tingling in her fingertips, she let her hands fall to her sides. “Help yourself.”

Her shoulders were long, fascinating curves. Her breasts were pale and small and would cup easily in a man's palm. But for now, he looked only at her face.

He took his time, tried to, crossing to her, catching the metal tab between his thumb and finger, drawing it slowly down. And his eyes were on hers when he slid his hand past the parted denim and cupped her.

Felt her, hot, naked. Felt her tremble, quick, deep.

“I had a feeling.”

She let out a careful breath, drew in another through lungs that had become stuffed with cotton. “I didn't get to my laundry this week.”

“Good.” He eased the denim down another inch, slid his hands around her bottom. “You're built for speed, M.J. That's good, because this isn't going to be slow. I don't think I could manage slow right now.” He yanked her against him, arousal to arousal. “You're just going to have to keep up.”

Her eyes glinted into his, her chin angled in a dare. “I haven't had any trouble keeping up with you so far.”

“So far,” he agreed, and ripped a gasp from her when he lifted her off her feet and clamped his hungry mouth to her breast.