Unlawful Contact (20 page)

Not wanting to make himself a target, he’d left the lights off, but sneaking through his own house in the dark gave him the creeps. He entered the kitchen, opened the door that led into the garage, and stepped into chilly pitch-black, nearly falling down the steps.

“Goddamn it!” Then he froze.

Above the odors of motor oil and gasoline, he smelled it.

Cigarette smoke.

He dropped the suitcase, stumbled back up the stairs, one hand reaching for the light, the other clutching for his weapon. “That you, boss?”

The only answer was the racking of a slide—cold steel gliding on steel.

Then he heard a familiar voice. “Leave your weapon in the holster and get your hands over your head.”

He raised his hands slowly, his heart slamming in his chest, his mouth bone dry.

Then the light came on, and he nearly shrieked.

Standing just beside him by the light switch was one of Denver’s more notorious drug dealers, Juan Diego Garza, a grin on his scarred face.

And he knew he was dead.

He swallowed hard, pried his tongue from the roof of his mouth. “Y-you’re going to kill me.”

The boss shook his head. “No, I’m not going to kill you. You’re my friend. Why would I do that? It would only make the cops and papers dig more, and I don’t want them digging. Besides, you and I go way back. No, I’m not going to kill you. You’re going to kill you.”

He felt dizzy, sick. “Wh-what?”

Garza pointed a .45 at his head and motioned him forward. “Get into the car.”

He shook his head. “If you think I’m swallowing a balloon of heroin—”

“Nothing like that. Just get in the car. That’s where you were headed, wasn’t it?”

That’s when he noticed that both men were wearing gloves.

The pieces slid together in his mind with a final click.

The car. Carbon monoxide poisoning.
Suicide.

The boss wanted him to die, and he wanted it to look like a suicide, just like they’d done with those two druggie bitches.

He shook his head, took a step backward, his heart about to blow. “I-I know I fucked up, boss. I was going to get her to shut up. I just didn’t get the chance to finish it.”

“She’s a journalist. They don’t shut up. We had her taken care of before you tried to get to her. It won’t take them long to figure out it was you. And when they do, they’re going to work you hard. They’ll put together whatever they get from you with whatever that bitch reporter has told them, and that might lead them to me. I’m not willing to take that chance, not even for our friendship. But I am willing to spare you pain, so get in the car. Or should I let Garza here pull out his knife and do what he does best?”

He turned to run, panic surging through him like ice.

But Garza was faster and stronger, probably wired on meth.

In a heartbeat, he found himself shoved headfirst into his own car, the door shut behind him, his escape blocked on both sides.

“Just let me drive away. I’ll even give you my money. Just let me go!” He knew he was bitching up, knew he was whining like a baby, but he didn’t want to die.

The boss leaned down, shouted through the driver’s side window. “Take out your keys and start it. We’ve got the hose from your wet vac rigged through the trunk. It won’t take long. And don’t try to pop it into gear. You won’t get anywhere.”

His bowels turned to liquid, his hands shaking almost uncontrollably as he fished the keys out of his pocket and worked them into the ignition. Then for some reason, his hand dropped from the keys and sought out his weapon. If he could convince them he’d rather die that way, maybe he could use the gun on—

“There are two of us and one of you. It won’t work, buddy. Start the car.”

He didn’t want to die, hadn’t planned to die. Not like this. Not for a long time. But they weren’t going to let him out of here alive. “W-will you get them for me? Megan and that bitch journalist?”

The boss nodded, pulling out a gas mask. “You bet we will.”

Sobbing, he pushed on the brake, reached up, and turned the key.

S
OPHIE AWOKE THE
next morning feeling languid and content, Hunt’s hard body spooning hers, his arm around her waist, his thighs pressed against her bottom. She smiled and stretched, still warm from last night’s incredible, unbelievable, earth-shaking sex. She turned until she was facing him, almost unable to believe it had been real.

He grinned down at her. “Sleep well, sprite?”

“Mmm-hmm.” She buried her face in his chest, ignoring the shadows that pressed in from the edges of her mind. She didn’t want to deal with reality just yet. “How about you?”

“I probably would have, but I couldn’t quit watching you.” He said the words lightly, but she could tell he was serious.

She tilted her head back, looked up at him, noticed the fatigue on his face. “Why in the world were you watching me?”

His hand traced lazy designs over the bare skin of her back. “What do you remember about that night up at the Monument?”

She remembered everything. “I remember thinking I was the luckiest girl in Grand Junction because Hunt What’s-His-Name—”

“You really didn’t know my name?”

She shook her head. “—because Hunt What’s-His-Name—”

“It’s Marc.” He nuzzled her hair. “Say it. Say my name.”

“Because
Marc Hunter
, the hottest guy in school, was willing to take my virginity.”

He laughed—or coughed. “
Willing?
You make it sound like a sacrifice. Yeah, I was willing, all right. Damned noble of me, wasn’t it?”

“I wasn’t pretty and popular like Dawn Harper or Kendra Willis. I figured a guy like you wouldn’t want—”

Now he did laugh, the fatigue disappearing from his face, the sound warming her like sunshine. “I haven’t thought of Dawn or Kendra since I drove you away from that damned party. But I sure as hell have thought of you. And what do you mean you’re not pretty? Hell, woman, compared to you Dawn and Kendra were just average. You had looks
and
brains.”

She pushed him onto his back, wriggling upward until her breasts rested on his chest. “Did you sleep with them?”

“With Dawn and Kendra? Um…”

She felt an absurd spark of jealousy. “You did, didn’t you?”

He slid his fingers into her hair and shook his head, grinning. “Nope. I did have one or two heavy makeout sessions with Dawn under the bleachers, but that’s it. As I recall, she had really big—”

Sophie narrowed her eyes, glared at him.

“Feet! I was going to say feet!”

“So who
did
you sleep with? After I went to college and started dating, it didn’t take me long to figure out that you were better in bed at eighteen than most men ever hope to be.”

He frowned. “I don’t think I want to hear about
how
you reached that conclusion.”

She smiled, some part of her thrilled to see that, he, too, could be provoked to jealousy. “Answer the question. Who?”

His lips curved in a slow smile that made her belly flutter. “Ms. Meadows.”

Stunned, Sophie gaped at him. “The
English
teacher?”

He nodded. “She offered to help me bring up my grades, and I took her up on it.”

Sophie tried to conjure an image of her former teacher, but remembered only that she’d been tall with long, dark hair. “She was
old
.”

“I was fifteen when she popped my cherry, and she was thirty and newly divorced. She gave me the kind of education every high school boy dreams about.”

But Sophie didn’t find it funny. She wouldn’t turn thirty for another two years, and the thought of having sex with a fifteen-year-old boy was revolting. “That’s statutory rape.”

He chuckled. “Don’t expect me to press charges anytime soon.”

“It was still wrong of her.”

For a moment, neither of them spoke.

Then Sophie asked the question she’d wanted to ask all night. “How did you do it? How did you get through six years of prison without losing your mind? I was in jail for one night, and it was terrible. I can’t imagine what it would be like to endure that every day, year after year, for the rest of your life.”

Marc watched the changing emotions on Sophie’s face, running his fingers through the silk of her hair, touched that she cared so much. “You get used to it. After a while, it becomes your world. It’s all you know, all you remember. It’s all you want to remember because remembering anything else, remembering the world outside, only makes it harder. There are good days, and there are bad days, and then there are days where you think you might go fucking insane because you think of all the things you’ll never see and do again. Even worse, you think of all the things you never took the time to do that you’ll never get the chance to do.”

Shut up, Hunter. You sound pathetic.

But sex must have short-circuited his brain because he kept talking.

“Then one day you realize that whatever life you’d been given you’ve pissed away, that
this
is your life—everyday the same shit, the same four walls. You wonder if you’d be happier on death row, waiting for that big shot to send you over. And that’s when you get the joke—a life sentence isn’t about life. It’s about death—
slow
death, the kind that starts inside and eats through you. But you hang on because you have no choice.”

She watched him, her blue eyes brimming with tears. “What did you miss most? What did you wish you’d done that you haven’t done?”

Regret cut into his gut, lacerating him, and he found himself struggling to form words, his voice breaking, his throat tight. “Well…I always wanted a cabin in the mountains. A wife…and kids. I always wanted…to be a father…to have a family.”

Because he’d never had one. He’d never really had a family. He’d never known his father. His mother had done her best, but she’d lost her battle with addiction and landed in prison. His sister had grown up a stranger, raised in a different family, while he’d endured one foster family after the next. No, he’d never had a family.

And you never will.

Sophie nodded, and he knew she understood at least some of what he felt.

The conversation lapsed into silence, Marc trying to stop the slow bleed inside him, fighting to tie off his emotions to staunch the flow.

Then she smiled. “Did you really think about me?”

He ran his knuckles over her cheek. “Every damned night. I never should have left you that morning. Did you hate me for it?”

She looked confused, then shook her head, absently threading her fingers through his chest hair, her breasts soft against him. “You had to leave for the army. You didn’t have a choice. I knew that.”

“Of course, I had a choice. I should have driven you to your grandmother’s house, confessed to deflowering you, and let her force me into a shotgun wedding.”

Sophie laughed, the sound as sweet as honey. “She’d have gone for her shotgun, all right, but there’d have been a funeral instead of a wedding. Besides, I might not have appreciated it very much at the time. I had big career plans. I wanted to—”

She gasped and her eyes flew wide. “Oh, God! Tessa and Julian!”

In an obvious panic, she wriggled across the bed and grabbed for the phone on the nightstand.

“Don’t!” Marc lunged for her, jerked the receiver out of her hand, and slammed it down. “If you call from this phone, they’ll be able to find us. Wait until—”

But she wasn’t hearing him. She hopped out of bed, started toward the door. “Where’s my briefcase? My cell phone?”

Marc leapt to his feet, caught her around the waist, and held her fast. “Breathe, Sophie. Breathe. Your briefcase is in the hallway by the door. I turned off your cell and took the battery. Now tell me what’s wrong.”

She took a deep breath. “I was supposed to catch a cab and go to Tessa and Julian’s house last night. I’m supposed to be staying with them until this is over. Oh, God, they must be so worried! Julian has probably called the marines! I need to call them and let them know I’m all right!”

“Fine, but you need to think through what you’re going to say before you call, and you need to get dressed because you’re going to have to call them from a pay phone. They’ll be able to use GPS to trace your cell.”

She nodded, drew away from him, and ran a hand through her long, tangled hair, still gloriously naked. “I’ll tell them I went home instead and that I fell asleep and that I’ll be over this afternoon.”

Marc shook his head, trying to focus on the problem and not the firm mounds of her breasts or the soft curve of her belly or extremely fine ass. “If he’s any good at all, Julian will already have put your apartment under surveillance, and he’s probably not the only one. You’re staying with me until this is over, for your sake and theirs.”

She stopped short. “What are you saying?”

“I’m the only one who has any real idea what you’re facing, Sophie. If you stay with your friends, you’ll bring this down on them. Do you think that whoever set you up is going to stay away from you because you’re living with a cop? Hell, he’ll probably use his connections to find out when this Julian guy is out of the house and make his move then.”

“But I can’t stay here! I don’t even know where ‘here’ is!”

“This is the home of Megan’s adoptive parents. They’re in Florida till April. They mistook me for a cop and asked me to watch over the place when they found out Megan’s killer brother had broken out of prison to look for his sister.”

She gaped at him, then glanced around her. “Oh, my God! I’m a criminal! Aiding and abetting a known fugitive. Breaking and entering. Illegal use of someone else’s bedroom.”

“You did break a vase, I think, but I did all the entering.” When she didn’t laugh at his stupid joke—and it really
was
stupid—he drew her back into his arms, kissed her hair. “This is the safest place for you. No one would ever look for either of us here. I can protect you, and we can work together to find Megan. And if the cops do catch up with us, I’ll convince them that I needed nookie and took you hostage again.”

She glared up at him. “What about my court dates? I can’t skip bail. You might think it’s fun to have your picture up in the post office, but I wouldn’t like it one bit. Besides, I need that money back for David’s tuition.”

She just didn’t get it, did she?

Marc tried to explain. “You can’t go. Everyone will be waiting for you there. And if the bad guys don’t get their hands on you, Darcangelo certainly will. He won’t let you out of his sight again. Then the bad guys will know exactly where to find you, and when they find you, they find your friends.”

She lifted her chin. “I won’t miss that hearing!”

Marc dropped it, not wanting to upset her anymore than he already had. There was no point in arguing about it anyway. Until they found Megan, she wasn’t going anywhere without him, and if that meant holding her against her will, then so be it.

He pretended to relent. “We have until Thursday then.”

Less than a week.

The fight seemed to drain from her. She sat on the edge of the bed. “Dear God, what am I going to do?”

He sat beside her, drew a blanket around her shoulders. “Let’s just take it one day at a time. Call your friends and tell them that you decided to stay in a nameless little hotel until this is over because you don’t want to endanger them and that you fell asleep the moment you walked into the room.”

She buried her face in her hands. “They’re going to be really angry.”

A
N HOUR LATER
, Sophie walked into a drugstore in Aurora, a shopping list clutched in one cold hand, a knot of dread in her chest. She felt like Bonnie—as in Bonnie and Clyde. Which was ridiculous because she hadn’t come here to rob the place. No, she’d come here to do something worse. She’d come here to lie to a friend.

Hunt, certain the place was equipped with electronic surveillance both inside and out, had parked a good block down the street to wait for her. “If this Julian guy is any good, he’ll trace the pay phone number and view the surveillance tape to make certain you weren’t being coerced. He’ll move fast, so after you make that call, get out.”

Sophie had thought that sounded extreme, even for Julian. “Would he really go that far?”

“I would.” Hunt had grinned at her from beneath his sunglasses, his lips curving in a killer smile. Lips that had kissed her senseless. Lips that had been all over her. Lips that had driven her out of her mind.

She’d found herself staring at his mouth, something fluttering in her abdomen besides the swarm of butterflies that had made it impossible for her to eat breakfast.

“He looked right at me in the courtroom,” Hunt had explained. “I don’t think he recognized me, but if he sees me with you, or if he makes the license plate on the Jag…”

He hadn’t needed to say more.

Sophie picked up a red plastic shopping basket on the way through the door, glanced over the list, and set off in search of toothpaste.

It would be so much easier—not to mention cheaper—if she could just go to her apartment and pack an overnight bag. Everything she needed was there—her toothbrush, her makeup bag, her shampoo. She was still wearing the clothes she’d had on when they’d arrested her, and she desperately wanted to change. But Hunt wouldn’t let her go near the place, certain it was under surveillance.

She made her way through the aisles in search of the needed items, her gaze inadvertently drawn to the ruby globes of the not-so-hidden cameras. They bulged out of the ceiling like big, red eyeballs, watching her, recording every move she made. It was more than a little unnerving to think that Julian and the DPD might be watching this in the next couple of days. Is this what it felt like to be a criminal—the adrenaline, the edginess, the uneasy feeling of being naked?

Toothpaste. Toothbrush. Dental floss. Mouthwash. She reached for one of each and dropped them into her shopping basket, mentally crossing them off her list before moving down the aisle toward the antiperspirant.