The Enforcer (23 page)

“
You almost done here?” Tobias asked Hooper’s forensic expert.

The man shot Dylan a funny look, closed up his kit, and walked away. Tobias guided her over to the passenger seat and helped her in with diligent care, as if conscious of her internal fragility. Then he rounded the front of the vehicle and climbed behind the wheel. Using the keys, which lay on the dashboard, he started up the vehicle and studied the display.

“Check the gas gauge and the mileage,” he requested. “Have they changed since yesterday?”

Dylan leaned closer and saw that her tank was nearly empty where yesterday it had been closer to full.
“I don’t remember my mileage, but I had much more gas than that.” A shiver shook her frame. “What’s going on?” she demanded a second time. “Who drove my car?”

He swept a reluctant eye over the busy parking lot.
“Let’s go somewhere more private.” Backing them out of her reserved spot, he sped them toward the highway.

Dylan sat frozen in her seat, sick to her stomach. As she closed her eyes, her thoughts went back to the previous night. Remnants of memories floated in her mind like bits of confetti, too scattered to form any kind of coherent picture.

Tobias laid a warm hand over her fisted one. “Did you eat anything yet?” His concerned tone, which was meant to be consoling, had the opposite effect.  

“
I had orange juice and a donut when I got my blood drawn. I need to know what’s going on,” she demanded, a quaver in her voice. “Obviously, while I was drugged someone helped themselves to my car, and that’s why the police went through it, but there’s more to it than that, isn’t there?”

“
I’m going to pull off up ahead, and then we’ll talk about it.” His assuring tone ratcheted her adrenaline higher.

Ten minutes from the hospital, they neared a vacant scenic stop designated as an overlook for its stunning view. Toby swerved into the empty lot and parked the vehicle. Turning off the motor, he twisted in his seat and looked at her. The lines of concern carved into his face made him look like a different person, entirely. Where was the easygoing drifter who
’d charmed his way into her heart? Only his navy blue eyes, filled with tenderness, struck a familiar chord.

“
Dylan, do you remember those anti-war essays I asked you about?”

She thought back and nodded.
“Yes, but I told you I never wrote anything like that,” she insisted.

“
I know.” He reached for her hand and squeezed it, offering her the comfort she craved. “Sweetheart, someone is trying to frame you. Something happened last night, and right now it looks like you’re the one responsible.”

His words fueled her heart into a painful trot.
“What happened?”

“
Last night, a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Treyburn, was shot to death leaving a Halloween party.”

She reeled at the awful news. Sorrow for the man
’s anguished loved ones competed with sudden, clawing anxiety. “Oh, my God, it’s happening again, isn’t it?” Her kindling panic brought on a cold sweat that bathed every pore.

“
Yes.” His lips thinned with equal parts regret and determination. “Did you notice something different about your gun when you handed it over?” he asked her.

She had put it reluctantly into Sheriff Hooper
’s hands, loath to let it go. “I don’t think so.”

“
What about the box of ammo?”

She thought back, and it came to her with a stab of horror. The sticker on the once tightly sealed pack of Speer bullets had been pulled off. At the time, she
’d been too dazed to wonder why.

The look on her face must have betrayed her thoughts, for Tobias nodded.
“Someone used your gun last night, Dylan, and some of your bullets.”

A metallic taste filled Dylan
’s mouth. Adrenaline released an onslaught of fight-or-flight hormones that stirred visions of her vaulting over the railing at the edge of the mountain.

“
Easy,” Tobias crooned, as if privy to her thoughts. “Just stay calm.” He held a warm palm against the side of her face, anchoring her for the time being next to him. “I’m right here. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

“
Someone is trying to frame me.”

“
Yes.”

She remained rigid in her seat fighting to stay calm, to
think
. What if she’d done it and she just couldn’t remember? With a gasp, she looked at Toby. “You don’t think
I
shot General Treyburn?” she demanded.

“
I know you didn’t.” His certainty, radiating through the timber of his voice, quieted the fear that she’d finally lost her grip on reality.

I
’m not crazy
, she assured herself. “I need an alibi,” she said out loud. “The urine and blood tests might prove toxicity, but everyone responds differently. Some people pass out on benzos; others remain conscious but can’t remember what they did.” Closing her eyes, she covered them with her fingers, searching in the darkness for clues about what had happened to her. The barest scraps of a memory floated through her mind. She tried grasping at them only to have them melt away like snowflakes under a baking sun. “I can’t remember last night at all!”

“
Shhh, stay calm.” He leaned in until his forehead touched hers, grounding her in his strength. “Hopefully, the results of the blood test will cast more light on the situation than the urine tests.” 

As he stroked the back of her head until her runaway heart slowed. Dylan groped for his other hand and held it tightly.
“Thank God for you.” What would she do right now without him? She would surely lose her grasp on reality, that’s what. Her PTSD would get the better of her. “I love you,” she blurted, too afraid of her circumstances to care about the risk her words carried. Tears welled in her aching eyes. Without Tobias, her life would scarcely be worth living, especially now, with this going on.

Yes, admitting her feelings for him stripped away the last layer of her protective shell, but she wanted him to know what a blessing he
’d been to her, should the worst happen. She searched his stunned expression, wondering what his reaction would be.

Toby drew a startled breath. Dylan’s confession spread through his consciousness to his extremities, warming him like a swig of brandy. Ah, Christ, she’d picked a hell of a time to admit to her feelings for him! And in a matter of days, after she learned who he really was, she was going to regret those unguarded words of love. All the same, he savored them for the momentary bliss they brought him.

“
I love you, too, babe,” he whispered, astonishing himself. The irony of his circumstances curled his upper lip. It had taken a feisty revolutionary, whose questionable stability made her an enemy of the state to win his heart. “And I’m not going to let you take the rap for this,” he swore.

Determination roughened his voice and elevated his pulse. He squeezed her hand harder. Before she could react to his declaration, he prompted,
“Try to remember what happened last night. Start with the last thing you recall.”

Her brow furrowed, and her eyes slid off to the left.
“I remember meeting with my last patient and grabbing crackers from the machine so I wouldn’t be hungry working so late. Then I stopped by the nurses’ station, and I checked in with Leigh. After visiting the restroom, I walked into my office and saw a cup of coffee on my desk with a note from the nursing staff.”

Toby groaned as the source of her debilitation became apparent.
“You drank a beverage you didn’t get yourself?” he asked, marveling at her naiveté.

“
The nurses bring me a mocha latte every morning,” she explained. “It never occurred to me to hold it in suspicion.”

“
Then either one of the nurses laced it,” he reasoned, “or whoever brought it to you knows about the nurses’ habit. What happened after that?”

“
I started reviewing my patients’ records and looking for trends when my eyesight gave out.” She fell quiet.

“
And then what?” he prompted.

She struggled to remember.
“I think I tried to stand up, and I couldn’t. I remember reaching for the phone to call for help and…I knocked over my cup. That’s it.” She shook her head. “That’s the last thing I remember.”

“
That’s good, though,” he said, encouraged that she remembered at least that little bit.

“
Next thing I knew, I woke up at my desk all confused. And that’s when I called you.”

Toby scrubbed a hand over his face. God, if she could only remember more.

“Wait.” A haunted look entered her eyes. “I think I remember dreaming that same dream…” Her voice faded off on a note of horror.

“
What dream, beautiful? Did you dream about your boys?”

“
No.” Her pupils shrank to pinheads, as if a bright light of fear suddenly shone on them. “I dream that I’m in an insane asylum,” she whispered, and a shiver ascended Toby’s spine. “I’m in a straight jacket and people are poking me with needles.”

Christ
. “How many times have you dreamt that?”

“
A lot.”

“
And you had that dream last night?”

Awareness entered her eyes, as if she
’d just put together the first two pieces of a scattered puzzle. “Yes, but—then it was real.”

His scalp prickled.
“What do you mean it was real?”

She looked down at her fingers, curling the tips of them as if recalling some action.
“I could feel carpet under my hands and something that felt like a candy wrapper. I was curled up in an enclosure of some kind. And I thought I could hear your voice in the distance,” she added, cutting him a startled look.

Toby squeezed her hand.
“That’s good,” he encouraged, both horrified and elated that she was remembering. “What else?”

She went perfectly still, but after a moment, the corners of her mouth drooped, and she shook her head hopelessly.
“That’s it. I can’t remember any more. My next memory is waking up with my head on my desk and the sun in the window.” Her face crumpled with sudden misery. “You believe me, don’t you, Tobias?”

The depth of his own helplessness made him want to howl.
“I believe you, Dylan,” he assured her gruffly. Wrapping his arms around her, he held her tightly to him and rocked her from side to side. “I’m sure the blood test is going to corroborate your story. You’ll be fine.”

Providing the FBI couldn
’t find some clever way to dismiss the evidence she presented; after all, they were bound and determined to bring a perpetrator to justice, and she was already a suspect for a similar crime.

But for now, the best and only thing he could do for Dylan was to get her home so she could rest. Considering her mental-emotional fragility, not to mention the shock to her body, she
’d suffered as much punishment as she could handle for one day.

As for himself, he wanted to savor her confession of love for as long as possible. All too soon she would learn the truth about him. Kissing her cheek, he worked his lips closer to hers. Her clenched jaw slowly relaxed. At last, she turned her head and trustingly touched her mouth to his.

“It’s going to be okay,” he reassured her.

She lifted tear-stained eyes to him.
“You love me?” she asked, as if doubting his earlier confession.

Illogical joy buoyed his heavy heart.
“Yeah.” He laughed aloud at how ludicrous it was that he’d fallen in love with the FBI’s top suspect. They were like two sappy kids so overwhelmed with their feelings for each other that the daunting odds against them could scarcely darken their joy. In all likelihood, Dylan would be charged with a crime she hadn’t committed. Her life was going to hell in a hand basket, but—right here, right now—what they’d found in each other made them happy beyond measure.

Determined to make her smile, he started to sing his confession to the tune of the Happy Birthday Song.
“I love you, I do. I love you, I do. I love you, dear Dylan. I love you, I do.”

By the time he finished, she was laughing and sobbing at the same time. 

Toby’s eyes stung as he regarded her. Framed by an autumn sea of undulating mountains and touched by a sun that turned her hair into a flame, she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever met. If there were any way to keep her smiling through the hours and days to come, he would do it, but it wouldn’t be easy.

***

“Wake up, beautiful.”

A feather-light kiss on Dylan
’s cheek roused her from a deep, dreamless sleep. Snapping her eyes open, she lifted her head to find herself stretched out on her own bed—not in Terrence’s room where she remembered being last. Tobias stood over her, cloaked in the mellow tones of dusk that shone in her three narrow windows. Even in the muted light, she could read his concern.