Taste Me Deadly (Sensory Ops) (11 page)

Wiping her mouth with a cleaning rag, hating herself as much as she feared Jessup, she looked through the window again. Jessup was on the phone ordering someone to get their ass in gear. Then he hung up and began pulling bags of drugs out of large bags of powdered sugar that sat nearby.

He’d blackmailed and killed. Now he was cleaning up the evidence. She needed to call the police, but her phone was out front and there was no way she’d try to sneak past Jessup. She would stay hidden and wait him out. That seemed safer.

Then he looked toward the door she hid behind. She ducked and looked for cover in case he’d seen her. There was no cover, but there were several more bags of the powdered sugar.

Her heart sprinted when her legs couldn’t.

The knob turned. The door opened. Light glinted off the blade of a kitchen knife.

She should have made a run for it.

A firm hand came down on her shoulder. She screamed, grabbed at her offender and rolled, flipping him over her head. She’d scrambled several feet and stood before his voice registered. Her name.

“Grey. It’s me. Liam.” He stood but instead of approaching her he remained still and raised his hands. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Her breaths came in sawing gasps that burned, though each one returned a little more normalcy.

The storeroom and kitchen made way for grass and trees. The cool air in the closet became a humid breeze that failed to warm her skin or blood.

“I’m here, Grey.” Liam’s Scottish brogue deepened as he moved close and rubbed soothing circles between her shoulder blades. The gliding rhythm of his hand against her shirt was warm, and its warmth reached into her heart and eased the frenetic pace. Breathing easier, she leaned into his touch.

“I’m not going to let anyone hurt you.” Guiding her with the lightest pressure of his fingertips, he turned her in his arms and held her close. “I’d rather you not come out here alone again.”

She felt safe with him touching her. She wanted to feel safe alone. “I can’t do this, Liam.”

She pushed away from him and stiffened her resolve along with her spine. “I can’t stay in your house and meet your family and pretend to be happily married and rely on you to keep the nightmare away at night and act like everything’s going to be okay.”

Her voice pinched at the higher octave, but she couldn’t stop. “Your sister is barely an adult, and I can’t be anywhere near her. It’s too dangerous. I’m not fit. I won’t find out what Jessup’s people might do to her if they thought it would get to me. She’s not going to be victimized because of me.”

“She’s in her mid-twenties and she isn’t staying here, so there’s no danger to her. Her cab should be here any minute.”

“You said it earlier, Liam.” Grey went on without stopping or caring that Gara was leaving. “I intend to leave. I was going to wait, play this out, but I’ve changed my mind.” She walked backward toward the house, shaking her head as she went. “I appreciate your efforts to help, but I’m leaving. Now. Don’t try to stop me.”

“Grey.”

“No, Liam. Your logic’s not going to work this time. I’ll be careful, but I’m going to suffocate if I stay in your house and hear the word ‘wife’ out of your mouth one more time.”

“Then I won’t say it.”

“You’ll be thinking it and that’s just as bad.” He could catch her easily, but she still turned and ran for the house. In the kitchen, she slammed the back door and kept going until she’d reached the bedroom closet where her bag was. After throwing the few things inside she’d pulled out, she zipped the lid closed and headed downstairs.

She made it to the garage and then to her car without seeing Liam or Gara. Her key was in the ignition and the garage door was open. Grateful not to have to fight him, she tossed the bag in the passenger seat and got behind the wheel.

Twisting the key, listening to the weak engine cough to life, she looked toward the kitchen door. He was letting her go. The freedom should thrill her, but, instead, she felt like the too-stupid-to-live horror-movie heroine who’d just run outside to check a sound.

The nightmare was coming. She may as well find her Elm Street.

Chapter Nine

Liam had changed a lot about the home Madame X had used to house her call girls. One thing he’d kept was her security system, well, except that he’d pulled the cameras out of the bathrooms and redirected the ones in the bedrooms so they were on the windows and doors only.

Standing in the control room inside the safe room, he watched Grey head through the house and braced himself against the agony of loneliness. He’d sent his baby sister to Aidan’s, fairly certain she’d call their parents with the news that should come from him, and had gone to be with Grey, to deal with whatever had scared her away. Instead of staying, she’d called it quits.

Waking alone in Vegas hurt less than watching her walk away. Hell, she hadn’t walked. She’d run. The house had never seemed so empty and he’d have sworn it creaked with sadness the farther away she pulled.

Unwilling to mourn the absence of his bride—a state of life he should view as normal—Liam flipped off the monitors he’d watched her on. Grabbing his tablet, Bluetooth and determination, he headed for the door. She’d wanted freedom, and as far as she knew he’d given it to her.

Tyler wasn’t the only one capable of using tech, and Aidan wasn’t the only one of them who had trust issues when it came to a woman. Certain Grey would make a break for it sooner or later, Liam had bugged her car and phone with a tracker. Taking it a step further, he’d bugged her with a little device Ian, the NSA’s expert listener and Kieralyn’s husband, had created a few years earlier.

The hair-thin tracker with listening capabilities could be stuck to a person’s skin or clothes with an adhesive spray. For up to a week the tagged person could be surveilled without knowing, and if the bug came off they would simply think they’d found a gray hair.

Liam had meant it when he said Grey wasn’t getting away again. A few thumb swipes and taps on his tablet proved his point as the green dot that was now Grey blipped to life on the map. His phone connected automatically to the Bluetooth in his car when he pushed the power button. He snapped the tablet into a dash dock.

His phone rang as he was backing out of the garage. “This is Burgess,” he answered.

“Mr. Burgess, sorry to bother you, but your wife is saying she’s leaving.”

Liam smiled at the idea of what must be going through Grey’s head when Mr. Lambert wouldn’t allow her to automatically pass. She had to know that a word from Liam would stop her, giving her no recourse. She didn’t know that while Liam wanted to stop her, he would listen to the advice his mother had given him many times as a teen.

If you want a girl to be yours, give her freedom. If it’s meant to be she’ll be back.

Letting Grey go, didn’t mean losing sight of her. He was curious what she would do on her own. “She’s safe. Let her go.”

“Yes, sir. Have a good evening.”

“Thank you.” Liam disconnected the call and watched the dot on his display move onto the main road as he neared the division’s entrance.

Mr. Lambert shook his head as Liam drove past with a wave. He’d had enough chats with the man to know he’d expected to see a pursuit. Fortunately, Grey didn’t know him so well.

Liam called Tyler as he drove.

“You so bored with married life you need to call me?” Tyler joked.

“I could go for some boredom right now.”

“Me too. Someone’s trying to hack my firewalls. What’s up?” Tyler brushed it aside that his system was being messed with, but the brush off was only verbal. He’d take the attack personally and work around the clock until he found the hacker.

A few miles ahead of him, Grey took an exit and made some immediate maneuvers, looping back, before getting back onto the highway. She did the same thing every few exits, each time giving Liam time to catch up. He wasn’t sure if she thought she was being followed or if she was being cautious, though he hoped it was the latter.

“Has there been any movement toward Ruby?” Liam asked.

“None that Simon has reported.”

“Can we use any of your cameras?”

“You want to clear the path?”

“I don’t love the idea, but I want to see them safe.”

“You run it by Breck?”

For Tyler, the man who’d joined the FBI after hacking them, to have an issue with pushing the limits they were getting close to a big line. “I’d rather him have deniability.”

“Aidan too?”

“Yes.” Especially Aidan. Director Quinn would expect perfection from his son-in-law-to-be.

Tyler held his thoughts for several minutes. He couldn’t be pushed into breaking the rules, at least not before he considered the consequences. Finally he asked, “Why are you asking for this?”

“I want Grey safe.”

Her green marker on his tablet made a few more back tracks. She was doing more than even he did for precaution’s sake. His heart sped. He accelerated.

“Some reason she’s not safe with you?”

Truth tasted oddly like crow. “She’s not with me.”

“Shit! How the hell did that happen?”

“Gara showed up. Grey freaked and said she was putting too many people at risk.”

“She’s worried about your family. That’s nice.”

“Except she’s family too.”

“She’s not seeing it that way.”

“Well she needs to, damn it!”

“You’re not going to win that argument with demands.” Tyler applied a data-like logic to the moment. “Or by changing the plan. For now all we need to do is keep things calm and watch the sisters closely.”

“When did you become the logical one?”

“When you fell in love,” Tyler rebutted, but they both knew Tyler had always been the logical one. “Are you tracking Grey?”

“Yes. She’s heading toward the beach.”

“Call her. Ask if she’s found a place to stay and remind her not to use plastic. And Liam?”

“Yeah?”

“If you want her to completely trust you, back off a little. Call in Kami or Lana if you need to, but give Grey some space.”

The side of Liam’s nose was twitching as he hung up and called Grey. She didn’t answer so he left a voicemail with Tyler’s advice. And though he doubted it would do any good, he ended with, “Come back to the house. Gara left. You’ll be safe.”

The same pain that had stabbed him when she’d walked away returned. Dread drove him closer to recklessness. Grey’s green marker stopped at a motel near the beach.

When he caught up and parked in a lot across the street, he activated the wire on her neck. She mumbled each room number she passed, which told him which ground floor room she was in. Beach access on the back gave her two exits. Smart. He just hoped she’d listened to him about the credit card. If not, Jessup’s men, if they were around, and he had to believe they were, could easily find her.

His phone rang. “Aidan.”

“You have that huge house and are on record saying family would never be in the way there.” Not Aidan. Lana. Worse, it was Lana launching into a tirade before he could explain. “So why is your baby sister here instead of somewhere in that massive home of yours?”

“Grey left because of Gara.”

“Then she’s not the right woman for you.”

“She doesn’t want the danger following her to blow back on the wrong people. On my family.”

“Awwww. She sounds sweet.”

So sweet she kept leaving him. “So now you know why Gara is there. Share Aidan’s rare turn to host or go to your own apartment, but I have more pressing problems.”

“Your wife is throwing you off your game, Liam. You’re normally the more easygoing one.”

“And Aidan has issues with reporters. We all have our buttons.”

“And you’re Grey’s. She’s just not ready to admit it.”

He laughed at how quickly Lana changed her opinion of the woman she had yet to meet. This was one case when Lana was wrong. Grey’s only weakness was Ruby.

“Are you finished yelling at me?”

“I never yell, and yes. But before you hang up…”

He waited.

“I did some digging and I’m pretty sure Grey was more than a witness to Jessup’s crimes. I think she was also a victim.”

“Me too.” And she was in the motel alone where he couldn’t hold her if the dream came again.

“There’s also a rumor Jessup’s hired a hitter. Aidan’s checking known possibilities to see if anyone’s moving in the area.”

“Son of a bitch.”

“Stay safe,” Lana said before hanging up.

Unable to sit while anxiety built and built, Liam got the duffel out of his trunk and used the backseat to change into running clothes. Changed, he pulled the custom backpack he’d had made for runs from the bag. A traditional zipper pouch allowed him to stow his tablet and keys, but outside access pockets with Velcro fasteners held his weapon, cuffs, cell and badge.

With his Bluetooth headset activated so he could hear Grey through the listening app on his tablet, he scanned what he could see of the front of the motel between the trees. Everything looked normal, if having a state’s witness hiding in one of the rooms was normal. He headed toward the beach where he used the practice of stretching to scan the area.