Secrets and Seduction: 5 Romance Novels (83 page)

Charlie jerked awake, his heart pounding. He stilled, listening for whatever had woken him. Juliana slept tucked against his body. Her soft breaths weren’t the sound he’d heard.

There. A soft thud. He covered Juliana’s mouth with his hand and placed his lips against her ear. “Jules, wake up.” He shook her with his other hand. “Jules.”

She made a muffled sound against his hand. “Jules, someone’s downstairs.”

Her eyes snapped open. In the faint moonlight they were wide with fear.

“I’m going downstairs.” He let go of her.

Juliana grabbed his arm. “No! It’s too dangerous.” Her whisper throbbed with fear.

“I have to. If anything happens, climb out the window. You can slide down close to the ground and jump. Take the sculpture. Run. Get on the next plane home to your father.”

“No. Not without you.”

“Jules, I have to do this.”

He snatched his blue jeans from the floor and tugged them on. Juliana slid out of bed. Grabbing the baseball bat he kept stashed next to the bedroom door, he slipped out into the short hallway. His heart pounded hard as he crept down the stairs, avoiding the places that creaked. His palms felt sweaty on the bat. Whoever was downstairs wasn’t getting to Juliana. He’d meant it when he said he’d die to protect her. But he hoped he wouldn’t have to do that.

A dark silhouette appeared at the bottom of the stairs. Charlie’s heart jumped into his throat. The figure raised something that gleamed. A gun! Charlie’s launched himself toward the man. He heard a whooshing sound and felt a hot brand slice his side.

He hit the man with all his weight. They tumbled on the ground together, and bumped into something that grunted. A second man! Charlie scrambled off the first man and came up swinging toward the second intruder. The bat connected with a satisfying thud. The man yowled in pain and stumbled back.

The shooter grabbed Charlie from behind, pinning his arms to his sides. Charlie twisted, trying to throw him off. They careened into a bookshelf. Plastic DVD cases made a clattering ruckus as they flew in all directions. Books thumped to the floor.

Charlie and the shooter flung each other one way and then another, running into the wall. But the man clung like a burr. Suddenly, a dark shadow rose in front of Charlie. The second intruder. Charlie rammed the intruder in the abdomen with the bat. The man made a strangled inhalation and dropped to the floor.

Pain tore through Charlie’s wounded arm. The son of a bitch shooter had ripped the stitches open. Charlie felt wetness as the wound bled. If he didn’t break free soon this bastard would wear him down. Had Juliana escaped yet? He couldn’t hear anything from upstairs. He slammed the shooter into the kitchen counter. The man’s hold slipped on the blood. Charlie spun free, swinging the bat with all his might. There was a sickening crack and the shooter crumpled.

The other intruder was rising from the floor. There was the glint of metal in his hand. Charlie swung the bat and connected with his arm and a metal clack told Charlie he’d knocked the gun away.

The intruder stumbled away toward the front door. Charlie chased him, but slipped on a DVD and slid into the wall with a thud. Pain slammed into his wounded arm, and he saw stars.

When his head cleared, the front door stood open and empty. Juliana! He rushed for the stairs only to be blinded by the lights in the stairwell. Juliana stood there with his pocketknife extended threateningly, wearing only his T-shirt.

“Juliana.” Relief crashed over him.

“Charlie, you’re hurt!”

“Grab my bag, my wallet, and the sculpture. We’ve got to get out of here.”

She looked like she wanted to ask questions. But she spun around and ran for the bedroom.

Charlie collected the intruders’ guns and a set of car keys from his kitchen cabinet. His apartment was a mess. The bookshelf leaned drunkenly. Books and DVDs were scattered over the floor. Blood stained the walls and carpet.

The shooter lay sprawled on the kitchen floor. A dark stain pooled by his head. When Charlie crouched beside him, sharp pain stabbed his side. He looked down to find the bullet had grazed him, but not penetrated. There was no time to tend to his wound. He rifled the man’s pockets and found a wallet, which he opened and held up to the light.

Miami, Florida. Son of a bitch. Montgomery’s men.

They could only have gotten his address from Hessler. Charlie was going to pay that bastard a visit and wring the truth out of him. It was . . . he looked at the clock on the kitchen stove and saw it was four-twenty in the morning. They’d drag Hessler out of bed. Charlie gripped the bat. Maybe they’d use a little persuasion.

“Oh, my God!” Juliana exclaimed beside him, nearly scaring the crap out of him. She pulled the wallet toward her. “Montgomery.”

“Yeah.”

“Is he dead?”

“I was afraid to check, and I don’t really want to know. We have to go. The other one got away but he might come back.”

She’d changed into her own clothes. Both their bags stood behind her.

“Got everything?” he asked.

“Yes and I brought you clothes and shoes.”

“Let’s go. Turn off the light.”

Juliana retreated to the stairwell and did as he asked. Then she rejoined him. “What about your wounds?”

Charlie grabbed some kitchen towels, pressed them against his side, and herded her out the front door.

When she turned toward his car, he whispered, “This way.”

She followed him to his neighbor’s old Ford Taurus. He opened the trunk and Juliana piled in her bag.

But when he headed for the driver’s side, she stopped him. “I’ll drive.”

She placed his bag in the back seat and slid behind the wheel. With a grateful sigh he sank into the passenger’s seat.

The Taurus started with a sputter. “Whose car?”

“My neighbor. He’s on location in Canada for six weeks.”

“Where to?” Her voice quavered a bit.

“To Hessler’s house. We’re gonna get answers from that bastard.”

• • •

They weren’t going to get any answers from Jordan Hessler. He lay in a pool of blood on his living room carpet. Juliana stared at the small hole that punctured his forehead. His khaki slacks were scarlet at the knees and ankles. His drug dealing days were over.

“They tortured him for the information.” Charlie’s face was pale.

“How do you know?” Her stomach turned at the sight of all that blood.

He pointed to Hessler’s slacks. “Shooting somebody there is painful but not fatal. Pain’s a great motivator.” Charlie swallowed. “I wonder if he told them about Gutierrez?”

“I don’t care. Let’s call the police and get out of here.” She turned to go.

“Wait.”

She stopped.

“Hessler was supposed to meet with Gutierrez’s man. Now Hessler’s dead but Gutierrez doesn’t know it yet. I’ve got a small window of opportunity.”

“For what?” She felt confused.

“For me to play Hessler and meet with Gutierrez.”

“He’s not meeting with Gutierrez.”

“He is now.” Charlie held a finger to his lips.

Juliana followed him into Hessler’s office. Charlie quietly rifled the desk drawers until he held up a piece of paper with a triumphant smile. He grabbed Hessler’s cell phone off the desk, then urged her out the door. When they were far enough from the bug, he showed her the phone number with the initials “M.G.” beside it.

After wiping their fingerprints from the door, they retreated to the car.

Juliana didn’t start the ignition. “Do we call the DEA?”

“No. I have everything I need to catch Gutierrez. They’d only stop me.”

Juliana set her chin.

Charlie pleaded, “Juliana, it’s five-thirty. We’re going to get caught if we sit here. Let’s move.”

She started the car and turned onto the road. “You’re hurt. You need law enforcement’s help.”

“This is something the cops can’t do. Remember what I said, that a P.I. can go where cops can’t, do what they can’t do. Their hands are tied. Mine aren’t.”

“You’re a lamb going to the slaughter against Gutierrez. He’s the head of a drug cartel.”

“I know it’s dangerous, but I have to do this. He has to be stopped, and the statue gives me an opportunity no one else will ever have. He’s vulnerable because of it, and he probably never will be again. I need to do this for me, and for Billy. Someone like Gutierrez, or maybe even Gutierrez, pumped drugs into New Orleans and into the addict who killed Billy. Nobody ever paid for killing a good man. And I think somebody should.

“But I can’t risk you. Head for the airport. I want you on the next plane to Miami. You’ll be safe with your father.” His voice sounded strained. “You can’t know what it means to have somebody in your corner believing in you. You’ve been there for me. I’ve missed that.”

Juliana’s heart felt too big for her chest. She didn’t want him risking his life and she sure didn’t want him to go on alone. What if he didn’t come back? What if he disappeared and she never knew what happened to him or if he’d been killed? She’d regret it for the rest of her life.

“I’ll call my father. He can help.”

“No. No one knows where we are. Montgomery’s thug knows I’m alive. I have to assume Hessler told him the sculpture is coming today, so he’ll stick around to try to steal it from me. If we’re lucky, the DEA will catch him. Everyone will expect us to remain in town to receive the shipment.

“But if you call your father, he’ll call the DEA, and some action of theirs might alert Montgomery’s men I’m on the run. And, Jules, I don’t know for a fact we can trust the DEA.”

She couldn’t let Charlie go into danger injured and without backup. Did she really want to make a difference fighting crime? Or was that all talk, like the way she talked about wanting her father to stop smothering her. Here was her chance to really show she didn’t want his protection.

She sighed. A cop’s daughter on the run. She’d never imagined that scenario. “Where are we running to? I’m coming with you, and nothing you can say will stop me.”

There was a long pause before he said, “Mexico. Gutierrez won’t come near the States, but he might come to Mexico. The border’s not far.”

“I’ve got relatives there.” She glanced at him in the luminescence from the dashboard. He looked hopeful. “My father’s family is still there—his cousins, aunts, uncles. We travel there every few years for huge get-togethers at a cousin’s house just south of the border. I keep my passport up-to-date because of that.”

“I wondered. So we’re going to your family.”

“My second cousin, Felipe Sanchez, lives in Ensenada, ninety minutes from the border. I’ve never been there. He and his wife, Rosita, have good jobs. They attend every family reunion and have invited my family to stay with them if we’re ever in town. They have a spare room now that their son is married.”

“Will they let us sleep together? Because if they won’t, I don’t want to stay there.”

Her breath hitched, then her heart galloped. “Don’t worry. It’s Mexico, not the dark ages. I don’t intend to sneak around to make love with you. It will smooth things if I tell them you’re my fiancé. Although I have to warn you, Rosita will campaign hard for a wedding.”

She concentrated on the road. The sun was rising, the sky lightening. Her body ached with tiredness, but she had to stay alert because with every passing minute more cars filled the road.

“I’m crazy about you, Juliana, you must know that. You make my life worth living. But I don’t deserve you. I don’t deserve to be happy like that.”

Because of Billy. She could fight nearly anything but the ghost of his dead brother. “What about what I want, what I deserve?”

“You deserve better. I have nothing to show for the past dozen years.”

“I think you do. You didn’t sink into despair or drug addiction. You rebuilt your life into one you can be proud of. You’re employed, you pay taxes, and you valued your body enough to hold out for someone you cared about.”

“I didn’t know that the first night we made love,” he said.

“Didn’t you?”

Charlie was silent for a few minutes. When he spoke his words were soft. “You were always mine. Even when we were apart and you were letting some other guy take what was mine, you still belonged to me. I wasn’t holding out for someone; I was holding out for you.”

The road blurred in front of Juliana. “I’d like to spend the rest of my life with you.”

“I’d like that, too.”

“Then it’s settled,” she said. “We’re engaged.”

“Okay.” He took several audible breaths. “Listen, we have to stop before we reach the border. I need to get cleaned up and bandaged, and we have some things to hide in case they stop us. I’d better call Gutierrez now. The car noise will help disguise my voice. Don’t say anything while I’m on the phone with him.”

Charlie dug out Hessler’s cell phone and Gutierrez’s phone number and dropped into Spanish. “I need to speak to Mr. Gutierrez. It’s Jordan Hessler. I know it’s early. No, I can’t call back. Tell him somebody just tried to kill me for the item he wants.”

The whooshing sound of the tires on blacktop filled the car. Tension crept into Juliana’s back, neck, and shoulders.

“Miguel, thanks for taking my call. Yes, the item is safe. I have it with me in the car. I’m bloody but alive. I don’t know who they were and frankly I’m pretty paranoid right now. I’m changing the plan. I’m on my way to Mexico. I’ll be at the border in two hours. I won’t be in Los Angeles to meet your man.”

Juliana’s hands hurt from gripping the wheel tight while praying that Gutierrez believed.

“No, Tijuana is too close to the U.S. I’m driving down to Ensenada. Miguel, last night I had a psychic touch the item.” Charlie paused. “Because I wanted to know why you wanted it so badly. She said it was a very powerful object, and that its history was filled with death and betrayal.”

Charlie listened for several moments. “This psychic is reliable, although last night I wasn’t sure I believed her. But then someone tried to kill me. What she said was true; it is powerful. Maybe the item is even cursed. I’m not taking any more risks. From now on it’s you and me, man to man. If you still want the item, you come get it yourself.”