Teague shot her a look. “You can do it my way or his way, but you’re gonna do it. So choose and get busy.”
He didn’t wait to see if she did what she was told. He could bet she wouldn’t. And he didn’t relish the idea of undressing and then redressing her. Not at all.
They cleared downtown and merged onto Highway Eighty headed east. Traffic was still light, which was good. The faster they got out of the city, the better.
Teague leaned back in the seat and untied the waist of his CDC pants. Hannah had turned her attention out the window toward Treasure Island, her fingers stroking the skin of her neck again. He whipped off his flimsy boxers and pulled on the new boxer briefs, allowing himself a moment to enjoy the feel of solid support and soft fabric.
God, the little things he’d missed. Ordinary, everyday things people took for granted. He’d never do it again.
He shook out the Levi’s and pulled them on. “Perfect fit, man. Your woman does good work.”
Taz’s laugh was low and filled with double meaning. “You know it.”
“Come on,” Teague said to Hannah as he yanked a soft cotton tee over his head. “Get moving.”
Her eyes narrowed in a scowl. She held out her hands and muttered beneath the tape, something Teague interpreted as, “Hel-lo.”
“I know what you can do with those cuffs on, girl. Don’t try to pull that shit on me. Just do it.”
They’d traversed the Bay Bridge when a siren trilled behind them. A gush of adrenaline burned beneath Teague’s sternum and spread over his ribs. He twisted to look out the back window.
“You see ’em?” Taz asked, voice tight.
“No. Did I miss something on the radio?”
“I didn’t hear nothing.”
Teague reached into the front seat with one hand and pulled on a Giants baseball cap with the other. “Give me the map.”
“Traffic’s choking down, man.” Taz slowed and slapped the map into Teague’s hand. “What should I do?”
“Whose car is this?” Teague searched for alternative routes to their destination, but didn’t want to veer too far off course. This plan had been hashed out too hastily as it was. Adding twists to the path would only lead them into an even bigger mess.
“Cousin of a friend of a friend of a cousin,” Taz rattled. “But it’s registered to his stepfather. Different last names, different addresses. And he changed the plates with his brother’s stepsister’s Dodge Durango.”
Well, hell. Those convoluted strings would never get untangled. The only snag would be anyone who had seen them leaving the hospital and reported it to police. But that was the great thing about San Francisco. There were so many people everywhere, nobody paid any attention to anyone else.
The siren grew closer. Louder.
“Probably an accident up ahead,” Teague said. “Change lanes. Move to the right. It’ll look like you’re trying to let the emergency vehicles through.”
As soon as they’d settled in behind a purple spray-painted VW bus, Teague saw the cruiser’s lights flashing a half mile back. They were in the emergency lane, road dust swirling in their wake. He reached across the seat and wrapped a hand around the back of Hannah’s neck, pulling her down until she was out of view through the window.
Taz’s shoulders curled forward. The slower the traffic crawled, the more drastically he hunched over the steering wheel.
“Play it cool, Taz.” Teague tried for a reassuring tone, but had to work for it. He held his breath as the siren grew so loud it filled his head and scrambled his brain. The cop was directly behind them, then beside them, then in front of them. And kept going.
Teague let all his air out in one heavy
swoosh
. His eyes closed as he dropped his chin to his chest. That’s when he felt it—the soft, warm skin beneath his hand. He opened his eyes and found Hannah’s head on his thigh, where he’d, evidently, been holding it.
His hand splayed over the side of her face, his fingers caressing the shadowed bruises on her cheek from Taz’s backhand. The blood beneath her skin changed color as his fingers eased her body through the healing process—burgundy to purple to green to gold. And with every stroke, a zing of attraction traveled back toward him, squeezing his chest, drifting south and tightening his jeans.
Her eyes were closed, her head heavy on his leg. For an instant, he considered letting her stay there, using the opportunity to complete the mending process for the damage he’d caused. She was so pretty. So soothing to look at. Her dark lashes were a beautiful contrast to her skin. Her nose small and straight. Her lips full and pink. And for the first time, her scent registered—something soft, a mix of floral and spice.
As soon as the buzz of lust pulsed in his groin, Teague forced his hand back. Forced himself to shift away. No way could he do this—to himself or to her.
Hannah sat up with sluggish movements, eyes bleary. She sent him a confused look before turning her attention out the window again.
Teague reached over the front seat and clicked off the radio. Tense silence swamped the car, joining the white noise of the tires on asphalt. With his arms curved over the top of the bench seat, his gaze followed the cop’s lights. Just before the toll booth, where the freeway split to take traffic either north or south, a dozen police vehicles clustered. Uniforms stood out on the road, directing traffic.
“Sonofabitch.” Teague smacked the vinyl seat. “It’s a goddamned fucking roadblock.”
“What now, man? I got a full tank of gas. I say I put the pedal to the metal and blow by these cops, take a few out in the process. They won’t know what hit ’em.”
Teague’s stomach clenched as tight as his fists and rolled with nausea. He wasn’t about to mow down a bunch of cops. Then again, he wasn’t about to go back to prison, either. He’d die first.
“Stay to the right. It doesn’t look like they’ve got it completely blocked yet.” Teague knew from his years of responding to traffic accidents how slow the cops moved. “We’ll take the Eight-Eighty exit, back into Five-Eighty by way of Nine-Eighty.”
“I don’t do numbers, jackass. Just tell me where to go.”
Teague’s hand still tingled from where he’d been touching Hannah’s face. That was a switch for him—being on the receiving end of the heat. And the attraction, that was new, too. He’d never felt anything when healing in the past, granted that had been long ago, before prison.
He rubbed the warmth against the roughness of the new jeans. “Like I said, stay right. Way right. Squeak through before it’s blocked.”
Taz nosed the GTO mercilessly toward the right. Sirens closed in from every direction. Police units burrowed in along the shoulder, between lanes. Cops swarmed on foot over the quickly stagnating freeway.
“Almost there,” Teague reassured, struggling to keep his anxiety under control and his body heat level. “Just another few hundred feet and we’ll be clear.”
“Cop coming up on the left, Creek.”
Teague darted a look in that direction. An officer walked toward their lane, carrying a yellow-striped sawhorse adorned with red lights like Rudolph.
“Keep going,” Teague crooned. “Sit back in your seat, relax your shoulders.”
As they inched forward, movement beside him caught his eye. He turned. Found Hannah’s taped mouth pressed against the window. Her cuffed hands lifted. She thrust them toward the glass.
Teague caught one wrist on the downward swing inches from a solid
thwack
on the window just as they rolled past the cop. Teague locked an arm around her shoulders and pulled her into a hug. She squealed, squirmed. The cop hunched and peered into the car. Teague buried his face in the soft mass of her hair, put one hand against the back of her head and held her face to his shoulder.
And, he couldn’t help himself. He took one long deep inhalation of her gently floral, vaguely spicy, helluva sexy, one-hundred-and-fifty-percent female scent.
They said every agent had one case in their career that haunted them. One they dreamt of in the night. One they reflected on during the day. One they took to their grave. This was that case for Jason Vasser.
Jason leaned his elbows on the metal balcony railing outside DARPA Deputy Director Dargan’s office and squinted over the lights of downtown Arlington, Virginia. He took a deep drag on his Marlboro, pulling every last molecule of tobacco smoke into his lungs and holding it there. If he had to take this to the grave, that grave would damn well come sooner than later.
He’d secretly hoped Jocelyn had called him here for personal reasons. It had been months since they’d been together. But, inside her office, the hard smack of plastic signaling the end of her phone call also indicated alternate motives for this meeting. And considering the recent news of Creek’s escape, Jason didn’t have to guess it also signaled the beginning of his hellish last days as a federal employee.
She appeared beside him soundlessly, mirrored his stance and looked out over the darkened city. “Can I have one of those?”
Jason pulled the pack from his pocket and shook one forward. He lit it for her with the flick of his lighter. And waited.
“Schaffer is ballistic.” The quaver in her voice matched the tense vibration in her small body. Jason slid his barrier into place. Her stress was as contagious as H1N1, and far more lethal.
“Senator Schaffer wouldn’t have this problem if he’d taken care of the situation five years ago.” Jason shrugged and stared at the red-rimmed glow of his cigarette. “All seven of those firefighters should have been eliminated at that warehouse explosion. Compassion always bites you in the ass.”
“It wasn’t compassion.”
“Oh, right.” Jason chuckled, knowing very well Schaffer didn’t have a compassionate cell in his flabby body. “Election year. Those are big ass-chompers, too.”
She wrapped one arm around her waist and stared into the night. “Where would Creek go?”
“Why ask me?”
She turned those sharp, light eyes on him. “Because you interviewed him initially after the fire. You followed him after he was released from the hospital. You were the first to notice his ... abilities.”
“Long time ago, Jocelyn.” Jason winced at the slip of weariness in his voice. Definitely time to retire.
“He’s your responsibility, Jason.” She turned toward him, anger, frustration, fear shooting off her in laser beams. “You’ve just had it easy for the last three years while he was in prison.”
He blew out a long stream of smoke, looked down at the street fourteen stories below and watched the remainder of his cigarette plummet into the darkness. Wondered what would happen to his own body if he jumped. Wondered if it would be an easier way to go than what he suspected lay ahead.
“I’m tired, Joce. I’ve got a one-way ticket to Costa Rica in three weeks. A bungalow on the ocean. Fishing all morning. Siesta at two. Margaritas at five. Dancing at eight. I’m not the guy to send after Creek.”
She stiffened, tilted her head and stubbed out her barely smoked cigarette on the railing, then flicked it over the side. Both hands on slim hips, she shook her shoulder-length blond hair back. “In fact, you are. He wants Creek stopped. Schaffer’s ‘compassion’ has faded over the last five years.”
Jason’s dream bubble burst. “Schaffer’s the same fucking cocksucker now as he was then. Creek may have been the biggest problem child of the group five years ago, but he’s an escapee now. He’s looking toward the border, not the media. Give me a break.”
“I agree with you, Jason. Schaffer
should
have killed them all years ago. And I’m sure Creek
is
headed for the border. But you’re going to make sure he doesn’t reach it.”
Jason’s stomach hardened. Sometimes always being right was such shit. He turned his squint on Jocelyn. She was a handsome woman. Might even be beautiful if she let go of this bloodsucking career. Needed some meat on her bones, some sun on her face, but that could happen in Costa Rica. If he could get her to buy into his pipe dream of going there with him to retire.
“Effective now,” she broke into his thoughts, stuffing a sock in that hopeful pipe, “Creek has a priority kill order in place. Make sure you’re discreet, Jason, or you may never see that shack in Central America.”
T
HREE
A
lyssa rested her head against the car window, her mind wrangling thoughts for answers. Maybe she’d had some kind of chemical reaction to the metal in Creek’s cuffs. An allergy she hadn’t known about. Only they weren’t burning her wrists now. The thought brought her back to the pain in her face.
Even with the cool glass pressed against her cheek, her skin still felt like it was going to split. The pain had ratcheted down after Creek had touched her, which was another oddity logic couldn’t explain. Along with the way her libido skyrocketed in reverse proportion to her pain.
This whole situation was beyond bizarre. She was caught somewhere between scared-out-of-her-mind and ready-to-jump-him every time he touched her.
Snapped. She’d finally snapped. Just like her mother and brothers said she would if she didn’t slow down. Didn’t ease up. Didn’t stop working and start living. What they’d never understood was that her work
was
her life. But, maybe that’s where she’d gone wrong, because look where it had gotten her.
By the dashboard clock, they’d been driving an hour and a half. With every minute closer to nightfall, Alyssa’s anxiety amped. Her fatigue also dragged at her, not to mention the grind of her stomach reminding her she hadn’t eaten in nearly twenty hours. And the way her mind pinged around beneath her skull didn’t help with the developing stress headache.
Where were they going? Why did they keep her? What were they going to do to her? She found herself wondering about death, what it would be like to get to that final moment. Those questions led to thoughts of her patients, ones she’d lost, ones she’d saved, which then led back to her work and her future. And the cycle started all over again.
Taz had mellowed with time and blaring classic rock. He sang along with an endless lung capacity, his choruses almost more painful than her throbbing face, aching wrists or morbid thoughts.
“ ‘Take me down to the Paradise City where the grass is green and the girls are pretty,’ ” Taz belted, completely off-key. “ ‘Oh, won’t you please take me hooowooome... .’ ”
Creek hadn’t looked at her for over an hour. At least not directly at her. He sat as far on the other side of the bench seat as he could get without climbing out of the car. Every time she moved so much as her little finger, he cast a surreptitious side glance at her. Since the incident with the roadblock, he’d dropped the whole idea of her changing clothes, which was good. She was not getting naked, or even close to it, in this car with these guys. For any reason. Ever. Period.
Despite the sheer noise level and her mounting anxiety, Alyssa had to force her eyes to stay open, her mind to catalogue landmarks. She needed a plan. Several plans. One for every situation that held the possibility of escape. But right now her brain felt as numb as her butt, and if she didn’t get blood flowing, she’d definitely pass out—Guns and Roses at a hundred and thirty decibels, or not.
Alyssa straightened away from the window. That one movement gained her Creek’s complete attention. He stiffened and twisted toward her, fingers curled into fists resting on his thighs. And she had to admit, he looked more human in street clothes. A lot more like one of those intriguing bad boys. But she’d already seen the tattoos. She knew where he’d come from. He was not the typical good-looking, rough-around-the-edges man she liked. He had hurt her. Would hurt her again if he deemed it necessary. Had told her so himself. Yet ... something about him suggested that wasn’t entirely true. Maybe his attempts to ease her pain. Maybe his efforts to shield her from Taz. Of course, maybe it was just her own warped psyche bending reality.
She lifted her cuffed hands and gingerly peeled the tape off her lips, grimacing as it pulled at the tender skin. Creek made no move to stop her, only watched with a guarded expression.
She looked directly at him, meeting those very light, intense blue eyes. “I’m car sick, I’m hungry and I have to pee.”
One brow lifted. His mouth quirked. “You’re sick
and
hungry?”
With that one look, Creek turned into a regular guy off the street. But more. He was a guy who would stop traffic. A guy who would warrant double takes. A guy she would have tripped over herself to meet under normal circumstances. She had to glance down at her cuffed hands to get her head on straight. In less than a second her anger and fear swung back around full force.
“I always get sick in the backseat of a car,” she lied, “I haven’t eaten since midnight, and my bladder is going to burst if we don’t stop for a bathroom.”
Creek heaved a sigh and rubbed his eyes. “Stop somewhere, Taz. A quiet gas station with a bathroom in the back would be good.”
“Screw that,” Taz said. “Why should we give a shit about what she needs?”
“Because it was your decision to kidnap me, and it was your decision to keep me.” She’d had enough. The tension, the bizarre emotions, the uncertainty had turned her into someone she didn’t recognize. “Now you have to deal with the consequences. As opposed to you, I’m human. I have human bodily needs. If you don’t address them, we’ll
all
be very uncomfortable, very soon.”
“Put the tape back on that big mouth of hers, Creek, or I’ll stuff it with something that’s sure to shut her up.”
Alyssa’s back went up. Her mouth opened to spew something fierce and foolish, but someone touched her first. She jumped and turned toward Creek. His big, warm hand closed over her forearm with just enough force to send a message. The same message he delivered with that potent stare: Don’t antagonize him.
He didn’t look away from Alyssa as he talked to Taz. “You find me a private bathroom, and I’ll make sure I tire her out good.”
Alyssa jerked her arm back. Why she’d thought for a flicker of an instant they were on the same side she didn’t know, but his nasty retort put everything in perspective. When would she learn men were all the same? Crude. Selfish. Controlling. Competitive. Self-serving.
And these men were the worst of the worst.
“What’s wrong with what you got, Creek? If I’d known you were gonna waste all this time, I’d have made you drive. I know just how to fill a couple hours with a dink like that.”
Alyssa’s throat convulsed. The thought of rape pushed at the edges of her mind, but she shoved it right back out. Someone would die first. And it wouldn’t be her. She’d already catalogued every possible way she could use her own body to end another’s life, because her body was her only weapon.
“Just take the first exit with a gas station once you hit Highway Five,” Creek said. “Pick the lousiest dive you can find.”
“This is a shit hole, man, everything is a dive. Nothing but niggers and spics live here.”
“Just find something and stop.”
They slowed and traveled down the ramp. Taz hummed, low and troubled. “I don’t like it.”
Alyssa shifted in her seat to relieve the pressure on her bladder. She did have to pee—bad—but, more, she needed to develop a plan for the stop. “How long?”
“Couple minutes.” Creek surveyed her, mouth turned down in disapproval. “Take off your shirt.”
She scrunched one side of her face in contempt. “No.”
“That blue thing has the hospital logo on it.” He gestured at her with one careless hand. “Everyone’s going to be looking for you in those ...”
“Scrubs,” she finished for him. “And, let me rephrase so you understand—
hell,
no.”
He met her eyes with determination and a set jaw. “Take it off, or I’ll take it off for you.”
“Aw, yeah,” Taz piped up. “Now we’re gettin’ some action.”
Alyssa had to press her mouth tight to keep from telling the idiot to shut up. When she made no move toward taking her shirt off, Creek slid over the vinyl bench and snagged the hem that had come untucked hours ago.
Alyssa leaned away, her cuffed hands pushing at his. A sweep of panic heated her chest. “No. Don’t. Leave me alone.”
Taz laughed and chanted, “Go-go-go.”
Creek grabbed the back of her shirt and pulled it up and over her head. He yanked the fabric down her arms into a bundle at the cuffs. The cool air prickled her skin beneath the white tank top remaining. She curled in on herself to minimize exposure. That’s when she noticed the hole in her scrubs, irregular brown marks along the edge. She
wasn’t
imagining things. He
had
burned her.
Taz watched in the rearview mirror and hit a curb as he pulled alongside a closed gas station-slash-mini mart. He shoved the car into park, twisted and laid one arm over the seat.
“Look what the skinny bitch was hiding under those baggy clothes.” Taz’s excited, bright eyes raked over Alyssa and fastened on her breasts as if he could see through her clothes. “Thought I felt a melon in there. Keep going, Creek. I wanna see that rack.”
Stomach in her throat, Alyssa scanned the area, searching for an escape route. For someone who could help her. But the gas station wasn’t closed as she’d first thought—it was abandoned. Tendrils of panic coiled around her lungs.
Creek fisted the chain between her hands, shoved the door open and dragged her across the seat. Would he beat her? Burn her? Kill her? She forced her mind back to the vulnerable areas of the body she could target: a fist to the temple, flat of the hand to the nose, knuckles to the philtrum, side chop to the adam’s apple—
“Keep watch,” Creek said to Taz as he pulled Alyssa to her feet and grabbed the smaller bag of clothes from the floorboard. “Don’t do anything. No stroll, no smoke. Nothing, got it?”
Taz jerked his chin. “Am I gonna get a piece of her when you’re through?”
“We’ll see.” Creek slammed the door and towed Alyssa toward two doors, where painted blue circles identified men’s and women’s bathrooms.
No
. She couldn’t go in there with him. She’d be trapped. But running wasn’t much of an option either. The landscape around the deserted gas station was a barren sea of flat dirt and scraggly shrubs. Nobody within screaming distance. No haven within running distance. But the approaching darkness might actually be her friend.
Without any solid plan, Alyssa gathered all her strength, drove down with both hands, then jerked upward. To her utter shock, her hands wrenched free of his grip. A second seemed to float, suspended in time, before she could make her feet move.
As the surprise cleared from Creek’s face, he made a grab for her hands. Alyssa spun and pushed into a kick start. Gravel slipped beneath her feet. Creek’s big hand grabbed the back of her tank. Fabric ripped. Bra snapped. Creek whipped an arm around her waist. Twisted her body. Slung her over his shoulder. Just that quick, as if he’d done it countless times before.
“Fucking A,” he growled. “You are the biggest pain in the ass.”
“Let me go.” Alyssa beat on his back with the cuff edge, kicked her feet, and twisted. Nothing loosened his grip. Nothing broke his stride. And his body heat had ramped up again.
Creek was still muttering as he kicked in the bathroom door. The
bang
made Alyssa flinch. Taz’s full-bellied laugh followed them until Creek slammed the door shut.
Alyssa’s feet hit the cement floor so hard her teeth knocked together. Pain ricocheted through her jaw. Creek let her go with a partial shove. She stumbled backwards and hit a wall. The scent of stale urine swamped her lungs. She pressed her hands against the tile to gain her balance, and waited a beat to catch her breath. When she was steady, Alyssa used both hands to comb the hair out of her face and look around.
The fading evening light dribbled in from a single window over the door. The chipped tile floor was stained brown around the toilet. Graffiti painted the walls.
With his handsome face focused into a piercing glare, Creek tossed the brown bag at her. “Use the bathroom and change your clothes. And if you even
think
about arguing with me,
think again
.”
“You leave, and I’ll change.”
“No. You’ll change right here, right now.”
He pulled something from the pocket of his jeans and took two giant steps toward her. Alyssa scuttled backwards until her back was pressed up against the tile again. Creek flexed and curled his fingers, then rubbed both palms down his thighs, as if preparing himself for some drastic feat. Before she could find more words, Creek grabbed the chain binding her hands, pushed back the wadded scrubs and shoved a key into the cuff lock.
“And don’t worry,” he said without lifting his eyes from his work, “I’m not the least bit interested in looking at you, or ... anything else, either. Just take care of your business so we can get back on the road.”
So the fleeting attraction she felt when he touched her didn’t go both ways. Even a criminal who’d been incarcerated didn’t want to look at her. She was strangely offended, which only confirmed her earlier conclusion that she was also seriously screwed up.
When he retreated, Alyssa looked down at the one cuff still clasped around her arm, the other closed and dangling. “Can’t you take them off?”
“No.”