The Protected (Fbi Psychics) (10 page)

Vaughnne kept her distance from him. It had just occurred to her that her table was one of those vintage sorts of dinette sets . . . shiny top, chrome plating. It looked like something you’d find in a fifties diner. Too much metal, especially considering she didn’t know just what this guy could do with electricity. Electricity and metal were a
bad
mix.

Instead of sitting down, she tucked her gun back into place and adjusted the holster. The damn thing was rubbing her skin raw, but there were only so many places she could carry a weapon when she was out jogging unless she
wanted
somebody to know she was armed.

She studied him through her lashes. “You think I don’t see how much of a hazard that kid is?”

“Then why aren’t you doing something?”

“I am.” She angled her chin up. “I’m babysitting. That’s my job for now. That’s all.”

“That’s not—”

The shrill ring of her phone cut him off and she grabbed it, swearing. That ring tone would go off for only one reason. She took off running down the hall even as she checked the display.

Somebody had activated the motion sensor she’d set up in Gus . . .
stop. You’re here for the kid. Think about the kid.

“Time’s up,” she said quietly as she moved to crouch in front of her laptop, staring at the monitors.

“You bugged his house?”

She shot Tucker a dark look. “Unless I’m expected to never
sleep
? Yeah. I bugged his house.”

They watched for a moment as two men prowled through the back, lingering the longest outside the window to Gus’s bedroom.

“They’re looking for the kid.” Something sick spread through her.

“That’s why I’m here,” Tucker snapped.

“You knew they were coming?” She continued to watch them, eyeing the time. Keeping an eye on the monitor, she checked the location of the GPS tracker she’d planted on Gus’s truck. Crap. Leaving the store. A few minutes away at best.

“Yes.”

Tucker’s low, intense voice shattered her concentration and she glanced up at him, puzzled for a split second before she remembered. “You knew somebody would be here today.”

“Not today.” He shrugged and moved to the window, staring across the street. “One of them is psychic. I feel it. Not strong. But it’s enough. Used it to locate the kid.”

“They didn’t locate the kid. They located his house.”

Tucker shot her a dark look. “Same thing. They pull back, they wait until the kid shows up, and then they move in. That boy has no clue how to protect himself, does he?”

She rubbed her temple, thinking of how her head had felt, like somebody had reached inside and just helped themselves to her brain matter and sanity. “He might have a better handle on it than we think, but it would be purely instinctive.”

“If you’re supposed to be babysitting, why are you
here
?” he asked. “Isn’t part of bodyguard detail just that . . .
guarding the body
?”

“I’m listening to my instincts,” she said, curling her lip at him. “My gut said stay here today. If I’d followed, I wouldn’t have been here to see this happening.”

Ignoring the guilt tugging at her, she stared at the camera for another moment, debating.

Did she go over there?

If she did, her cover was blown.

Shit, it was about to get blown anyway. She shot another look at the phone and then started to swear viciously as she saw how very close that little dot was getting to the house. That dot—Gus’s truck was on the move.

“Can you sense the kid, Tucker?” she asked quietly.

He turned his head, stared at her.

After a long moment, he nodded.

She shoved upright and headed into her room. In under a minute, she emerged, wearing jeans and strapping her weapon into place where it belonged. “I need your help,” she said as she pulled her boots on. “The kid and his guardian are on their way here . . .
now
. And if I’m going to get them out of this place and on the road safely, I don’t have time for chatting up our boys over there, playing B and E.”

A muscle ticked in his jaw, and she pushed past him to grab her bag and shove the laptop and cords inside, pausing only long enough to check once more to make sure she had her Bureau ID, her wallet, and her keys. The other things she needed the most were tucked inside the cleverly disguised piece of shit car in her driveway. It looked like a piece of shit, but it would move and it would move fast.

She climbed inside, checking the location of Gus’s truck once more.

Couple streets away. They had a few minutes at best. She headed outside.

A hand came down on her roof.

She barely managed to resist jumping.

Turning her head, she stared into Tucker’s glittering eyes. “I can hold them up. But don’t be surprised if I show up to keep you company, darlin’. I said I’d take care of the kid. Didn’t say shit about putting him in the hands of the FBI.”

It was good enough.

It was going to have to be.

Gus’s truck had just turned down the street.

EIGHT

T
HE
absolute last thing he needed after the day he’d had was to see some big bastard bent over Vaughnne as she sat in her car. Alex had been sick all damn day and he had gotten worse as the day progressed. He’d hoped it would improve once he got him home, but halfway there, he’d remembered they were out of Tylenol, so he’d had to backtrack and go get the medicine.

Gus knew how to handle a sick boy. He’d been taking care of Alex for years now and had nursed him through strep throat and the flu several times. But this seemed worse. He was so hot and he had that look—that
sick
look. It gave Gus a terrible feeling, but he couldn’t let himself panic.

This was one of his fears, that the boy would take ill and he’d need medical care and they’d have to expose themselves at the hospital.

Shit
.

Gus didn’t fear much. He had no room for it in his life. But for Alex, he felt fear, and it was crowding through him now, churning in his gut. He slowed at the stop sign and glanced over at the boy for a minute and then looked back up, eyeing the big bastard hovering over Vaughnne.

Idly, he thought about ripping the man’s balls off. Strangling him with them, for daring to even be near her.

The man was big. Red hair, a deep, dark red, the kind of color that would be remembered. And as he straightened and smacked a fist on the roof, Gus caught the sight of black ink twining around his arms.

The man’s eyes cut his way.

Alex groaned.

“
Tío
 . . . I’m going to be sick . . .”

“It’s Gus, Alex, remember.” He reached over and touched the boy’s brow, and the fever-hot feel of it had him biting back another curse. The Tylenol wasn’t helping. “We’re almost home, okay?”

No time to worry about the man over there at Vaughnne’s.

Man. With Vaughnne.

No time to worry about how much that infuriated him. Or
why
 . . .

His truck sputtered just a block down from his house, and this time, he wasn’t able to keep the stream of curses inside as the car came to a stop right in the dead middle of the road.

“¿Qué carajo clase de mierda jodida es ésta?”
He glared at the engine, as though it might answer him back.

* * *

“FIGURED
it would be better if you had him a little stuck,” Tucker said as Vaughnne stared at the unmoving truck. “Away from the house and all.”

“This isn’t going to help his frame of mind any,” she said sourly as she threw the car into drive. “Deal with the others. Hold them. As long as you can.”

He canted his head to the side. “Well, that might be problematic. If I’m here, I can hold them forever and that won’t happen. I’ll give you a head start, though.”

As she gunned the engine, Tucker eased back into the shadows. For a big, red-haired bastard, he actually did a better job at avoiding notice than she would have expected.

She slammed on the brakes just as Gus had managed to shove up the hood of his truck, glaring at it like that would magically fix it.

She pulled out her ID and slammed it down next to him. “Now if I had to pick a movie to go with this moment, I’d go with
The Terminator
,” she said as his gaze flicked to the ID and then up to her face. She saw him bracing, preparing to move. “The line would be . . .
Come with me if you want to live
.”

He backed away and she saw the gun in his hands. Double-handed grip, braced and ready, like he could stand there forever. So fast. He was so damn fast. Yet again, she had to wonder, just who in the
hell
was he . . . and what in the
hell
had he done before he gave up that life to go on the run with that kid? A kid he’d die to protect. Always so ready to fight, she thought. To defend.

“I don’t care who you are,” he said quietly. “Get away. Give me your keys, or I’m going to shoot.”

“You can shoot me.” She held his gaze. “But it won’t stop the ones who are chasing you. You know that. And if you shoot me, instead of just running from
them
, you’re running from the FBI, too.”

“Unless I kill you, they won’t be too worried about me,” he said, shrugging. “I don’t need to kill you, just slow you down.”

She smiled at him. “Gus, unless you
kill
me, you won’t stop me. I’ll track you down again.”

Somebody shouted, and she slid a look past him, watched as the two men who’d broken into his house came boiling out on the porch. Gus swung around, shifting his attention between her and the house, his grip on that weapon all too competent, all too ready.

“They broke into your house ten minutes ago. I don’t think they are here to talk about baseball or discuss Alex’s homeschooling life.”

Tension slammed into the air as one of the men lifted a gun. It all but sucked the life out of her, although it didn’t look like it hit Gus very hard. His lashes flickered but that was it.

The men went down, though.

Hard
. Wow. Tucker really packed a punch.

As soon as they did, Gus shifted the gun back to her. Oh, lovely. She just loved being the center of attention. He thought
she
had done that?

“What in the fuck did you do to them?” he demanded.

Yep. That was exactly what he thought.

She lifted her hands. “I’m just here to make sure your kid stays okay,” she said quietly. “And I’m going to do whatever it takes to make sure that happens.”

Okay, so a little lie thrown in there . . . she accepted it and let it settle into place. Wasn’t her favorite thing to do, but if it helped get the job done, then she’d do it. And it wouldn’t hurt her cause for him to think she was capable of
that
, she figured.

He plowed his left fist down against his truck, still holding the weapon with his right. It was a Sig Sauer P250 and it remained pointed at her, steady and level. She had no doubt he could put a hole through her. Maybe he’d regret it, maybe he wouldn’t. But he could still do it and that wouldn’t help any of them.

“Get out of my way, Vaughnne,” he growled.

“I can’t,” she said quietly.

“I’ll shoot,” he warned.

Time to get him to focus on the one thing she knew he cared about. Glancing toward the car, she said softly, “And if you do, you condemn that boy to running even more.”

“He’s going to be doing that anyway,” Gus whispered.

“Is that what you
want
?”

His lashes flickered over his eyes. “No.”

“Then get in the car.”

Off in the distance, sirens wailed and she gestured to the car. “The cops are coming . . . you can’t get away from them without endangering him now. I can get you away. Trust me, Gus. I’m not going to let anybody hurt him. I promise you that.”

* * *

PLEASE . . . YOU
must promise . . .

Trust was painful, he realized. For so many years, he’d trusted no one. Trusted nothing but his instincts. The problem was that
now
those instincts screamed that he trust something else. Someone else. Staring into Vaughnne’s whiskey gold eyes, with the ghostly voice of a dead woman dancing through his mind, he made a decision.

“If you fuck me over, I’ll hunt you down. I’ll hurt you. I’ll make you pay so badly, you’ll wish you’d never been born.”

“Understood.”

Without wasting another second, he moved around and jerked open the passenger-side door. There were only three things he needed. His weapon, the bag he never went without, and Alex. Slinging the bag over his shoulder, he kept the weapon ready and then headed around the truck and jerked open the door. Alex moaned as he lifted him out.
“Tío—”

“Shhhh,” Gus murmured. “It’s time to move on, Alex. We have to go now.”

“I’m going to be sick,” Alex whispered, his eyes glazed, like he didn’t even hear what Gus had said.

The kid’s weight pulled at him. They’d found a few months of peace and quiet here, something that almost resembled
safety
. In those months, Alex had shot up several inches and gained some weight.

Shifting the boy in his arms, he turned to face Vaughnne, not bothering to shut the door to the truck or grab anything else. There were things back at the house that might have been useful—more money, their clothes, weapons. But he had everything that was vital with him. Alex, and the bag.

He was always ready for this—ready to run at a moment’s notice. Vaughnne had the back door open and was eyeing Alex narrowly. “He’s sick,” he said sourly.

She just nodded.

In just seconds, they were heading down the street. A nice, sedate speed and he was burning inside with the need to tear out of there.
They found him. They found him . . . I failed.
“Can’t you go any faster?”

“Sure. The best way to avoid the notice of the police,” she said drolly.

“You’re the FBI.” Warning flickered inside him.

She sighed and tossed her ID into his lap. “Yes, I am. But unless I want to get into a jurisdictional pissing contest, it’s better to
avoid
them noticing us. I don’t exactly know
what
you’re running from, so I figure it’s best to play this nice and quiet like.”

Picking up her ID, he rubbed his thumb over it, studying it for signs that it was a fake. He knew what to look for. But then again, he’d carried one of these himself, and had convinced more than one or two agents that
he
was a federal agent. They’d believed him, too. If he could get fake credentials that looked real, others could as well.

“Tío . . .”

He closed his eyes, both at the pitiful sound of Alex’s voice, and at the connection he’d tried to hide for the past few years. “Close your eyes, Alex,” he said, his voice gentle. “Try to rest.”

“I’m going to be sick,” he said again, and this time, the conviction in his voice was even stronger.

A collapsible blue bag was shoved into Gus’s hands, and he shot Vaughnne a look. She shrugged. “I believe in being prepared.”

He turned around in the seat and pushed the bag into Alex’s hands just as the boy lost control.

As the sour stench of vomit filled the air, Gus hooked a hand over the boy’s neck and rubbed. “I’m sorry,” Alex whispered. “I . . .”

Another spasm ripped through him.

“It’s okay, kid,” he said. “You’re sick. Nothing to be sorry for.”

A few seconds passed and then Alex slumped back against the back of the seat. Gus caught the bag and fisted his hand around it to close it. “Any better?”

Alex nodded, his head rolling over as he huddled against the seat cushions.

“There are plastic bags beneath the seat,” Vaughnne said softly. “Just tie it up in that. We’ll dump it when we stop. You can put the windows down.”

A few moments of strained silence passed while he did that, and not only did he discover bags, but he found a small pack of hand wipes and hand sanitizer. “You often expect people to vomit in your car?” he asked tightly.

“It’s happened a time or two.” Then she shot him a look and shrugged. “Sometimes with me. I used to get carsick a lot when I was younger. It’s better now, but for a while, even up until my twenties, I got sick almost every time I climbed into a car.”

He narrowed his eyes, not quite believing that, but even as he decided he’d call her on it, her phone rang.

Her nose wrinkled and the look caught him off guard. It was a look of disgust, but it was so damn . . . cute. That was it. It was cute, that look of aggravation on her face.

“Not now,” she grumbled. She didn’t ignore the call, though.

* * *

“YOU
pick the worst times to call,” she said without waiting for Jones to say anything.

“Are there police there looking for the kid?”

“No.” Vaughnne checked the mirror, eyeing the kid in the backseat. He was almost asleep, his dusky cheeks flushed with fever, his eyes closed.

“Agent MacMeans, do
not
bullshit me.”

She heard a snap of temper cut through his voice and she let herself smile a little. She so rarely had the pleasure of being one of the ones to irritate him. He rarely
got
irritated, so this made it a double pleasure. “I wouldn’t do that, boss. The cops aren’t here. Now they might be back at the house, but I’m currently headed up International, on my way out of Orlando. And the kid is with me.”

Five seconds passed.

“You had to blow your cover.”

“Afraid so.” She flicked a look at Gus, brutally aware of the fact that he was watching, and listening. Her skin prickled from the intensity of that look, and she prepared herself for whatever may be coming. “Listen, the kid is sick. I get the feeling we shouldn’t take him to the doctor . . .”

“No,” Gus barked out.

At the same time, Jones said, “I don’t know if that’s advisable.”

Rolling her eyes, she said, “Well, that’s sort of what I was just
saying
.” She raised her voice and shot a dark look at Gus before focusing her attention back on the road. It was a tricky situation driving, as it was, watching her tail, talking to her boss, dealing with the hotness that was Gus, even if he was glaring at her. Oh, and not wrecking.

“Look, the kid is sick. He just puked in the car and his . . . guardian would appear to be worried, although I don’t think he’d worry over a cold. He looks like he’s running a fever, although I can’t check while I’m driving.” She cut into the right lane and turned off International. This road wasn’t going to be much better but at least it wasn’t one of the busiest in town. Taking five minutes to breathe and get her bearings wouldn’t hurt, either. Pulling into the parking lot of a gas station, she put the car into park and swiveled around, eyeballing the kid. “He’s also half out of it, if I’m not mistaken. What does it matter if I’m keeping them safe if he ends up dog-sick with pneumonia or something?”

“We’re not taking him to the hospital,” Gus growled.

She ignored him. The hospital wasn’t her destination. Jones would have an alternative, she knew it.

“Jones?”

Five more seconds passed and then he asked, “Where do you plan on going?”

“I plan on getting the hell out of Orlando for starters, and then I need to get somebody to look at the boy. Preferably soon.” In the backseat, Alex groaned, a pitiful little sound that twisted her heart. “No. Not
preferably
soon. It has to be soon.”