Cover Me (15 page)

As she headed down the hall to her bedroom, she noticed that the door to the guest bedroom,
which also served as her office, was open. Hadn’t she closed it last night? Automatically, she reached around, turning on the lights.

While she did, somebody grabbed her arm. With a small shriek, she recoiled, but the hand was too strong. It jerked her forward so hard and fast that she lost her footing and fell. Her head glanced off the corner of the brass bed, stunning her. With fireworks
going off behind her eyes, she collapsed in a heap on the floor.

Chapter Four

The next thing Molly knew, a cold piece of steel was pressed against her temple and a voice was talking to her in a raspy whisper. “Where are the papers?”

She tried to push herself up to her hands and knees so she could sit up, but a heavy hand shoved her down again.

“The papers,” he said.

“What?” she croaked as the cold circle of steel pressed harder
against her temple.

“The papers, bitch. And we know you’ve got ’em. Sad day when a brother can’t trust his own little sister to keep his secrets, ain’t it?”

“Who—are you?” she groaned. “Did Martin send you?”

“Shut up!” the voice growled. “Where are they,
Molly?
”

The way he said her name made her shiver.

She struggled to move. “I don’t know,” she cried, then sucked in air,
prepared to scream.

“Don’t be stupid, bitch.” This time he grabbed the back of her head. “I can break your nose,” he threatened.

She froze.

He moved the gun’s barrel from her temple to her cheek. “Or—I can shoot this so it doesn’t kill you,” he said. “Think about it. The bullet’ll go through your cheeks, probably shoot your tongue off, maybe even your nose.”

She felt sick.
She tried to swallow but her mouth was too dry. “No,” she whispered hoarsely. “The safe—in the closet. Th-the combination is—” For a terrifying second, she couldn’t remember. Tears welled in her eyes. “It’s ninety—no, wait. It’s fifteen, ninety-two, el-eleven.”

He let go of her and took two steps over to her closet.

“Just take everything and go, please,” she begged, hating herself for
crouching there, too frightened to run, but knowing she was helpless against a man with a gun.

After a few fumbles, punctuated with colorful curses, he finally got the door open. Papers rustled, then he groaned as he stood. “Is this everything?”

“Wh-what?” she stammered stupidly.

“Answer me!” he yelled and kicked her halfheartedly in the ribs.

“Oof,” she groaned. “Yes—” She
knew he hadn’t kicked hard, but his shoes were heavy and they hurt.

He grabbed her hair and lifted her head, not enough that she could see his face, but enough to make tears spring to her eyes. He leaned in close and she felt his sweat drip onto her cheek and neck. “Now, are you going to lie still like a good little girl, or do I need to knock you out?”

She tried to shake her head, but
his grip on her hair was too tight. He lifted her head a little higher. She did her best to blink away tears and try to see something from the corner of her eye at least. More of his sweat dripped onto her face. “I’ll lie st-still,” she whispered. “I swear. Just please don’t hurt me.”

He laughed, a surprisingly squeaky, high-pitched sound. “No problem if these are all of ’em. They
are
all
of ’em, right?”

“Y-yes.” The angle of her head put a lot of pressure on her throat, and she had the urge to cough. She gave in to it, gasping and hacking. He let go of her hair and she collapsed to the floor, still hacking.

Then he was gone. His heavy footsteps reverberated on the hardwood floors. Then the front door banged against the wall. Molly didn’t move for a long time. She just
lay there, breathing shallowly through her mouth as she listened, terrified that he would come back.

Finally, feeling like a coward, she curled up into a little ball and cried.

* * *

R
AY
FOUND
THE
MESSAGE
SERVICE
on Tchoupitoulas Avenue, but as he’d predicted, he got very little from the Asian man who sat behind an old wooden desk. All he got was that the box hadn’t been used since
Hurricane Katrina. He mentally filed that information away, although he had little hope that it would be useful.

Then he drove over to Molly’s. He’d promised himself he’d check on her every day. He turned onto her street in time to see a junker car peeling away from the curb at the corner. Some kid hoping to impress his girlfriend, he figured.

Ray parked across the street from Molly’s
house, idly wondering why she had so many lights on. Maybe he’d spooked her by telling her about Acles. He wasn’t going to worry her even more by letting her know he was watching her house. He’d stick around for an hour or so just to make sure everything was all right. If some hypervigilant husband and father came out to see why he was parked on a quiet street after dark, he’d just drive off.

He watched the house for a few minutes, but despite the lights, he saw no signs of life. He shifted in the driver’s seat and looked up and down the street. Everything seemed prefectly normal. And yet, every instinct told him something was wrong.

He argued with himself. She could be reading or watching TV. It was almost nine-thirty. She could be in the shower. But even while he tried to
convince himself there was nothing wrong, he got out of his car, walked across the street and up onto her porch. When he raised his hand to knock on her door, he saw that it was slightly ajar. He pushed against it with his knuckles and it swung open.

He froze, not breathing as he glanced around Molly’s living room. Everything looked just as it had earlier, except that Molly wasn’t there.
He drew his weapon and stepped into the living room and shut the door behind him.

“Mols?” he called softly. “It’s Ray. Are you here?”

No answer. He moved forward, leading with his weapon, until he could see into the kitchen. “Molly?” he called a little louder. Her purse was on the counter along with her car keys, but again there was no sign of her.

“Molly! It’s Ray,” he said, raising
his voice again. He turned toward the hall that led to the bedrooms. There was a piece of paper lying on the floor near the wall. He stepped over to pick it up. And that was when he heard the sound.

Small, barely audible. It sounded like crying. His hand reflexively tightened around his gun’s handle. His finger hovered over the trigger. He shifted to the balls of his feet, ready for anything.
Carefully, silently, he crept down the hall.

He glanced into Molly’s empty bedroom, then turned toward the other room. The door was half-shut. He reached around the facing and turned on the bedroom light. In the first bright split second, he took in the ransacked room, the tossed drawers and closet, and Molly lying on the floor in a crumpled heap. As soon as the light came on, she jerked
and tried to scream, but the only sound that escaped her throat was a rasping, wordless cry.

“Molly!”

“No!” she croaked. “There’s nothing else!”

“Molly. It’s Ray!” He touched her shoulder.

“No!” she cried again, then froze. Her head came up slowly. “R-Ray?” she whispered. “Oh, my God, Ray.” She tried to sit up.

Immediately he pulled back. What the hell was he thinking?
“Molly, don’t move. Are you okay?”

She shook her head, and when she looked up at him, he saw abject fear in her red, teary eyes and pain in her compressed lips. He bent down. “What happened? Who did this?”

She blinked and tears cascaded down her face, streaking her mascara and making her eyes look even bigger. “He—he was here.” She sat up with a grimace.

“Don’t move. You’re hurt.”

“He kicked me,” she said, pressing a hand against her left side. “It hurt.” More tears.

It was killing Ray that he couldn’t pull her into his arms and comfort her. But he was FBI. She’d been assaulted, and his first obligation was as a law-enforcement official. He had to follow procedure. “I’ve got to call 911,” he said, reaching for his phone.

Beside him, she pushed herself to her
knees, then tried to stand, but she couldn’t. She collapsed back to the floor.

“Molly, stay still. You might have a broken rib— Yes.” He interrupted himself when the 911 operator answered. “This is Ray Storm, with the FBI.” He quickly rattled off Molly’s address, described what had happened and requested police and EMTs.

“I want to get up,” Molly said, trying again to push herself to
her feet.

“No.” Ray bent down beside her again, forcing himself into the professional, detached yet concerned mode he used when dealing with crime victims. “Let’s just stay until the police get here. They’ve got EMTs coming, too. We’ll see how you are before you start running any marathons, okay?”

“I don’t want to run a marathon,” she said drily. “I just want to make sure my skirt is
covering me decently. Oh—” she gasped as she tried to move. Her hand went to her left side again.

He clenched his fists. “Tell me what happened.”

She relaxed into a seated position on the floor with her back against the bed. “Okay, fine. Although, I’ll just have to repeat it again when the police get here.” She went to take a deep breath and gasped again. “Oh, boy,” she whispered.

“Breathe shallowly,” he said. “Did you get a look at the man? You did say it was a man, right?”

She nodded. “He was—” She looked at him. “He was doughy.”

Ray gaped at her. “What?” he asked. “Are you saying it was Acles?”

She gave a short laugh that turned into a wince. Breathing carefully, she said, “I wouldn’t testify in court, but I’d say the man who attacked me fit your description
to a T.”

“Son of a bitch,” Ray muttered. “That slimy snake.”

“Oh—” Molly cried out, her hand flying to her mouth. “Oh, no.”

“What? What is it?”

“He got—” her voice broke into a sob “—got into—the safe. He got the papers.”

Ray stared at her.
Papers.
At that moment he heard sirens, suddenly loud and close. “Hang on a second,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

“Ray—don’t—don’t
leave me.”

“I’m not, hon,” he said gently. “I’m just grabbing something.” He picked up the piece of paper from the floor in the hall and glanced at it. It was a memo, signed by Martin Hennessey, with handwritten notes in the margin. He heard the patrol car’s siren right outside. Then they cut off.

Quickly, ignoring the guilt engulfing him, he folded the sheet and stuck it into his pocket.
Then he went back to Molly.

Within seconds, two uniformed officers were on the scene, along with two EMTs. The EMTs examined Molly and bandaged her ribs while Ray talked to the officers. Then, once the EMTs were done, the officers questioned Molly.

After Molly gave them all the information she had, Ray told them about the car he’d seen peeling away from the curb. He gave the officers
Acles’s name and his office address and described the decade-old domestic hatchback to them. “I’d be happy to view a vehicle lineup if you need me to,” he told them.

It was over an hour before the police left. They promised Ray they’d do what they could, but Ray didn’t hold out much hope.

“Looks like a simple B&E to me,” the senior officer said, surveying the chaos in Molly’s guest room.
“Ms. Hennessey just happened to interrupt him.”

“Really?” Ray said. “Did I mention that Ms. Hennessey is Martin Hennessey’s sister? The candidate for governor? You don’t think that might be relevant?”

The officer just shrugged, and Ray got the message. This report would go into a file and never be seen again. Unless something else happened to Molly.

* * *

O
NCE
THE
EMT
S
HAD
declared that Molly’s ribs were slightly bruised, and the police were gone, Ray stood watch in the living room while Molly showered. She came out wrapped in the pink silk kimono he’d admired the day before. But this time she wore a pink-and-white floral nightgown under it. She no longer had mascara streaked around her eyes and down her face, but he could tell that she was still on the verge of tears.

He smiled at her. “How’re you feeling?”

She nodded and shrugged. “Okay,” she murmured, but then she shivered. “I was so scared,” she said, wrapping her arms around herself. “Silly—” she started, but the word got swallowed up in a little sob.

“Come here,” Ray said, holding out his arms. To his surprise, she glided into his embrace as if she’d done it dozens of times. He pulled her
close, resting his cheek against her hair. “It’s okay, you know,” he whispered. “You’re okay.”

Molly felt tears building at the back of her throat in response to Ray’s sweet words. She gave a little shrug, because if she said anything, she knew she’d start crying.

“Hey,” Ray said. “I’m here, if you want me to be. Just tell me.”

He was rubbing a palm up and down her back. It was
the most soothing, comforting gesture she’d ever felt, and yet at the same time it stirred erotic memories of them making love. It had been eight years and she had never forgotten the feel of his hands on her. A small shiver ran through her.

“I’ll tell you what,” he said. “The EMTs left me a couple of mild tranquilizers, in case you have trouble falling asleep. Why don’t you take one and
lie down?”

She clutched at his shirt and closed her eyes. “Who did this? Who would— Do you still think it was Martin?” she muttered.

“What I think is that you shouldn’t think tonight. Tonight is for you to calm down, to rest and to try to forget everything except that you’re safe. There’s time enough to think about what happened tomorrow.” He pulled away and looked down at her. “I’m
going to get a glass of water for you and you’re going to take a tranquilizer.”

She nodded, suddenly too tired to argue.

“Good,” he said. “Now, you get in bed.” He let go of her and directed her toward her bed.

She obediently followed his lead. When he reached over her shoulders to pull off the kimono, she let him, and when he turned back her bedspread and sheets, she got into the
bed, moving carefully. As she relaxed back against the pillows, her bruised ribs protested.

“Be right back,” Ray said. He turned on a small lamp on the nightstand, then turned out the overhead lights as he went out of the room.

Molly closed her eyes, but all she could see behind her lids was the faceless man, hitting and kicking her, so she kept them open. She shuddered, which sent a
stabbing pain through her side.

“Here you go,” Ray said, bringing a glass of water over to her bedside table. “Take this.”