Authors: Lena Diaz
He grabbed his go-bag and the bag with his crossbow, strapped them on his back, and headed out. A short hike later he entered another parking garage. Halfway down the first aisle sat his pride and joy—the dark blue F150 pickup he’d been driving for the past six years. It might’ve been dinged and scraped and not much to look at, but the powertrain purred like a well-fed cat and had never let him down. It was also the perfect getaway vehicle since cops never looked twice at a good ole boy driving a beat-up truck. He snagged the Carolina Panthers ball cap out of the glove box and put it on—good ole boy transformation complete.
He couldn’t help remembering how adorable Sabrina had looked in her Carolina Panthers shirt last night. At the same time, he couldn’t understand anyone adopting a new team after living somewhere for just a month. Based on what he’d read of her background in the files on Buchanan’s tablet, she’d lived in Boulder, Colorado, her whole life. Maybe she wasn’t a football fan at all, or just didn’t like her home team, the Denver Broncos.
Mason had been a staunch supporter of
his
hometown team since he was a kid and the NFL expansion had created the Panthers. His dad loved football too and had treated the entire family—minus sister Darlene who was in Germany with her navy husband at the time—to a trip to Houston, Texas, to watch the Panthers battle it out in their Super Bowl XXXVIII appearance. Damn the Patriots for winning that one.
His thoughts turned back to Sabrina as he drove out of the parking garage. A few minutes later he merged onto I–240, all the while reminding himself that he’d done his duty—protected an innocent woman and made sure she was aware of the dangers. Sabrina was intelligent, and in spite of how petite and delicate she looked, she was far from helpless, as evidenced by her escape from Ace. There was no reason for him to worry about her. She’d take the necessary precautions to keep herself safe.
Now that she was gone, he could focus on helping Buchanan figure out who was behind the chicanery at EXIT so they could bring them down. It would be much easier to concentrate without staring into those ridiculously blue eyes that had him hardening every time she looked at him beneath those sexy bangs.
She was tiny, barely five feet tall, if that, and far too thin. He preferred chestier women with more curves, and certainly taller ones to make it easier to kiss them without getting a crick in his neck. But there was something about her—probably her fire and sass more than anything else—that had him constantly wanting to pick her up and carry her to the nearest bedroom. He’d bet she was a real firecracker in bed, and he’d like to be the one to make her fireworks go off.
What was she doing now? Were the police treating her like the victim she was, or were they swayed by her felony record and treating her like a scam artist and a liar? His hands tightened on the steering wheel. It didn’t matter. She was safe. That’s what mattered. And if she didn’t follow through on his bodyguard advice and got herself killed, well, that wasn’t his fault either. She was a grown woman. She’d been warned. He’d given her a second chance. If she blew it, that was all on her.
Just three more exits to his turnoff. Like many other enforcers, he used a maze of aliases and paper-only corporations to hide his assets in various places around the country, ensuring he always had somewhere safe to retreat to if things went bad. The house he considered his true home was over an hour away, in a rural part of the state, surrounded by acres of pristine hunting land. But the one he was going to now was much closer, just a few minutes past the suburbs. It was more a base of operations than a home, but met his most urgent current requirement. It was close by.
If Ace believed Sabrina was dead, he might not have even told Cyprian everything that had happened so he could cover up his own rather questionable decisions. But it would eventually come out, one way or another, that she was still alive. And then EXIT would come looking for him. Which was why he was heading to one of the most secure homes he owned.
He could wind down, knowing his cutting-edge security system would alert him if trouble came calling. All he wanted to do right now was lie down and get some much-needed sleep. The rendezvous with Buchanan and Ramsey wasn’t until this evening. He had plenty of time. He’d been up all night, on full alert, never letting down his guard. Constant vigilance could be exhausting, and he was ready to give in to the lure of a soft bed and a hot shower, not necessarily in that order.
He passed a green road sign announcing the last downtown exit was coming up in less than a mile. He’d have to take that exit and do some backtracking if he wanted to return to the police station to watch over Sabrina when she left. He could keep to parallel streets, watching whatever vehicle her hired guards drove. Tracking them without them noticing wouldn’t be much of a challenge. How to tail a vehicle was one of the first skills he’d learned when training to be an enforcer. He could make it work, if he needed to. If he wanted to. Which he did
not
.
The off-ramp loomed on his right, fifty yards away.
She’s not my responsibility.
Forty yards.
She’s an adult. She’s been warned and she has plenty of money. She can afford to hire the best security around.
Thirty yards.
Two more exits and a few turns after that and I’ll be home. I’m not a babysitter. Why should I even care?
Her almond-shaped eyes swam in his vision, her delicate face pale with fright as she stared up at him in the parking lot.
Will I ever be safe, Mason?
Ten, nine, eight . . .
Damn.
He jerked the wheel and barreled down the exit.
Day Two—6:30 a.m.
S
abrina figured Mason would probably have liked Detective Harry Donovan. Because as soon as she’d gotten to the part of her story about getting shot and showed him the angry red circles on her ribs, Donovan had stopped the interview and insisted on driving her straight to the hospital.
But that was two hours ago. Even though she’d had a policeman with her, Sabrina hadn’t been given priority over the others in the ER waiting room. And Donovan didn’t want to question her where anyone could overhear. So they’d both sat for over an hour before she’d been taken to one of the tiny rooms to wait yet again—this time for someone to take her to radiology.
While a young nurse helped Sabrina change out of her shirt into a gown, the detective waited outside the door.
“There now, you’re all covered up again,” the nurse assured her. “Radiology should be up here with a wheelchair in a few minutes to take pictures of those ribs.”
“I’m happy to walk. It will probably be faster. I’m not in much pain anymore.”
“No, no. Sorry. Hospital policy, for your safety. You have to wait for a wheelchair.” She tapped a buzzer hanging off the bed where Sabrina was sitting. “Just press that button if you need anything.”
She rushed out the door and Detective Donovan stepped back in, his old-fashioned pencil and spiral notebook looking fragile and tiny in his large, calloused hands as he resumed his seat in the orange plastic chair across from the bed.
At the police station he’d been the epitome of kindness and empathy as Sabrina had recited her tale about her abduction. And in the ER waiting room he’d seen to her every need, keeping others from sitting too close to her, guarding the bathroom door as she freshened up, getting her a bottle of water and some crackers from a vending machine when her stomach started growling.
He’d made her feel safe, like he really wanted to help her. Now she didn’t even need to wait for the words to come out of his mouth to know that something had changed. His expression had turned hard, suspicious. The same expression she’d seen on the faces of other police officers back in Colorado.
“You found out about the felony,” she said.
“Yes. I did. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I knew it would change everything. That you’d be more inclined
not
to want to help me, and not to believe me once you knew. I’m right, aren’t I?”
His faded blue eyes regarded her beneath his bushy, gray eyebrows. “Knowing you’re a convicted felon makes me more . . . cautious . . . about trusting you, yes. But it won’t change the way I handle your case. I’m doing everything I can to corroborate your story. In fact, I just got off a call with one of the officers who went to your house. He confirmed a glass pane had been busted out of a French door. But so far we’re coming up empty confirming anything else.” He gestured toward her arm. “How did you say you cut your arm again?”
She absently rubbed the fresh white bandage the nurse had applied earlier after cleaning her wound and putting some antibiotic ointment on it.
“A lamp, in my bedroom.”
“Right.” He consulted his notes. “When you heard an intruder and you knocked the lamp over. Have you ever been known to sleepwalk?”
“No, why would you ask that?”
He tapped the notebook with his pencil. “The officer who went to your house found a garbage bag in the trash can in your garage. It contained glass shards, probably from the broken pane in your French door. But nothing else of note. No ceramic shards to prove you’d broken anything in your bedroom to explain the cut on your arm. The floors were clean, no extra glass anywhere. Everything was neat and tidy.” He shrugged. “I’ve been doing this job for a long time, probably before you were born. Can’t say I remember ever coming across an intruder who cleans up after himself and doesn’t take any valuables.”
She clasped her hands together, more unnerved that someone had gone back into her house and cleaned up the evidence than she was about the detective questioning her story. Would Mason have gone back there? Maybe, if he wanted to make sure there wasn’t anything that could implicate him.
She shivered and rubbed her hands together. “I understand your skepticism, Detective. All I can tell you is that, as far as I know, I’ve never sleepwalked. And if I did, I can’t imagine cleaning my house in my sleep. Besides, I was too busy being abducted and shot to do any cleaning. I haven’t even been home since I was taken. Have your men looked for the cabin I told you about? There has to be something in that bedroom to prove that I was there.”
“Some uniforms are looking for it, but I have to say, without an address or some kind of landmark, it’s a nearly impossible task. There are all kinds of cabins in the foothills off the Blue Ridge Parkway. Do you remember anything that might narrow the search?”
She shook her head. “Nothing more than what I already said. I wasn’t wearing my glasses, so I didn’t get a clear view of any road signs until we got closer into town and the signs were much bigger.” She clutched the mattress as another thought occurred to her. “I told you that Ace pretended to be an undercover cop. He called himself Jennings. He had a badge—”
He held his hand up to stop her. “I see where you’re going. Don’t worry. There is a Jennings in our department, but he’s present and accounted for. He wasn’t anywhere near your side of town when all of this went down. So this Ace character didn’t hurt the real Jennings or even steal his badge. It’s just a coincidence that he chose that alias.”
A coincidence? Or had he planned that Jennings alias long ago in case he ever needed it, basing the alias on the fact that there really was a Jennings in the police force here? Regardless, at least the real policeman hadn’t been hurt, which had been her fear. She relaxed her death grip on the mattress. “That’s a relief. Thank you.”
He nodded and tapped his notebook again. “We ran a DMV search for the type of Jeep you described, which sounds like an old Wrangler to me. Tried using Mason as a first name and then as a last name.”
“Let me guess. No hits.”
“No hits. I’m sorry, Miss Hightower. I’m sure this is very frustrating for you.”
She stilled. “You sound like you might believe my story.”
“ ‘Believe’ is too strong a word. I believe in things I can see and touch, facts. And so far there aren’t too many of those to support what you’ve told me. But I also trust my gut instincts, and how to spot someone in a lie. My gut says you’re telling the truth, or what you
think
is the truth. And there’s one key piece of evidence that I can’t figure out how to explain away.” He waved his hand toward her gown. “I’ve seen the marks that a bullet leaves when someone’s shot wearing Kevlar. They look exactly like those marks on your ribs.”
Her breath caught and then she let it out. “I never thought I’d be grateful for getting shot tonight. But if it means you’ll keep looking into who’s trying to kill me, it was worth the pain.”
“Oh, I’ll definitely keep trying to figure all of this out. Don’t you worry about that. You said the man who allegedly abducted you was named Mason. You’re sure he never mentioned his last name? The others with him didn’t either?”
She tried not to let his “allegedly” bother her. At least he wasn’t discounting her story completely like the police in Colorado had.
“No, he didn’t tell me his last name. The only other name I heard was Ace.”
He wrote a note down. “The one you stabbed with the scissors?”
She winced. “Yes.”
“Think carefully, did you ever hear anyone refer by name to the couple that you saw?”
“No. I’ve played it over and over in my head. I never heard their names.”
A knock sounded behind him. A police officer stood in the open doorway holding Sabrina’s purse.
Donovan thanked him and handed the purse to Sabrina. “It was in your bedroom, like you said it would be.”
“Thank you so much.” She smiled at the officer, who nodded and ducked back down the hallway. “Now I can fill out all of those insurance forms the administrator was pestering me about earlier.”
“Once we’re finished here I’d like to take you back to the station to work with a sketch artist. With any luck we can get a good enough description of the people you saw tonight to identify them, if they’re in the system already.”
She set her purse aside. “You don’t have to wait. I can draw them for you.”
One of his bushy brows rose as he handed her his notebook. “You’re an artist?”
“I sold my drawings to pay my way through college, so, yeah, I guess so.”
“Why would you have to work your way through college? I thought you were a millionaire. That’s what the police in Boulder said when they told me about your police record.”
“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t say the Boulder police have ever worried all that much about accuracy. At least not where I’m concerned.” At his admonishing look, she cleared her throat and continued. “My grandfather is the one who controls the Hightower fortune. He set up fairly complicated trusts for his grandchildren. I couldn’t get a penny out until I turned twenty-one. Now I receive a monthly allowance, which increases every year. Once I turn thirty, I’ll have access to all of it. But until then, I have to stick to a budget like anyone else.”
“I bet that makes you resent him, or at least, until he disappeared not too long ago.”
She bristled at the implied accusation. “Let me guess. The cops in Boulder told you they suspect me for my grandfather’s disappearance too.”
“Actually, no. They said you had an ironclad alibi for when he went missing. I was just asking a question, more out of curiosity I suppose. Comes with the territory.”
Her face heated with embarrassment. “Sorry. I’m touchy when it comes to Grampy Hightower. I don’t begrudge his decision to dole out his money the way he does. He wants his grandchildren to value hard work and understand how hard it is to earn a living, so we don’t take it for granted. He learned that giving someone millions of dollars from day one creates self-centered people who care more about their next jaunt through Europe than the family they left behind.”
She bit her lip, belatedly regretting her outburst.
“You’re talking about your parents I assume?”
She picked the pencil up. “I’m finished talking for the moment. I’ll work on the sketches now if you don’t mind.”
Another knock sounded. She looked up to see a man in lime-green scrubs pushing a wheelchair.
“I’m here to take you to radiology, Miss Hightower.”
S
ABRINA CHECKED THE
security alarm panel by the front door, again. Was this the sixth time she’d done that since getting home? The seventh? After last night, she definitely didn’t trust the alarm—even though her new bodyguards had tested it and confirmed it was working. How could she trust it when she knew she’d set it last night but it hadn’t gone off when Mason had broken in? And yet, when Detective Donovan had spoken to the alarm company to verify her story, they’d insisted that she
hadn’t
set it. Once it was a decent hour, she fully intended to call them back and insist that they send someone to inspect the system. But first she needed to get some sleep. If she
could
sleep.
It didn’t matter that she had three bodyguards to watch over her. She didn’t think she’d ever feel safe here again, not until she could figure out who wanted her dead. But at least she had one person on her side: Detective Donovan. He might not buy her whole story yet, but he was intrigued enough to keep digging. It was refreshing to have a police officer not assume the worst about her for a change.
But just like Mason had warned her, the police couldn’t offer protection—thus the security guards. And since she was on unpaid administrative leave until her year of exile from Colorado was over, she couldn’t really afford the guards. She couldn’t have even afforded the nice home she was renting if it weren’t for the bad economy. The desperate homeowner had slashed the price in order to get someone into the long-vacant house. But even with a cheap lease, she still struggled with too much month at the end of her money.
When it came time for another payment to the private detectives who were trying to find clues in her grandfather’s disappearance, and to the lawyers who were pressing the lawsuit over her parents’ deaths, she might be forced to let the guards go. It all depended on how quickly she could sell more of the expensive antique furniture her grandfather had gifted to her over the years, and how much money she could get for it. The furniture had sentimental value worth far more than its cost, but she’d give everything she had if it meant she could see Grampy’s smiling face even one more time.
That was a bridge she’d have to cross later. For now, she was grateful to be home, even if she didn’t feel nearly as safe as when Mason had been the one watching over her. Mason. Every time she thought about him she got more and more confused. So confused, in fact, that after giving Donovan sketches of Ace and the couple from the Hummer, she’d made dozens of starts and stops trying to draw Mason. She’d finally told the detective that she’d been so scared of Mason that she’d never really looked him full-on in the face and couldn’t remember exactly what he looked like.
Donovan had readily accepted her lies, patting her shoulder to console her, and assuring her that he’d do his best to get the local TV news station to broadcast the other sketches. Maybe someone would recognize Ace and the couple and would come forward.
Of course she hadn’t forgotten what Mason looked like. She’d drawn him in a matter of minutes, while the detective was out of the room taking a smoke break. But she’d felt like a traitor at the thought of turning the picture over to the police. Her mind told her that was silly, crazy. But her heart kept telling her there was more to Mason than she knew, that he’d proven he was really a good guy over and over, that she owed him for saving her life. In the end, she’d folded the paper with his likeness and had shoved it into her jeans pocket.
She thunked her forehead against the wall beside the security panel.