Patience was something he'd been taught from a young age, but his was wearing thin. The urge to go inside and wring the truth out of Lewis was strong. Reason made him fight it. Lewis would never admit to knowing anything about Katrina's disappearance. And the earring wasn't proof enough to scare him. He could claim that Katrina had probably come by his place while he was gone and left it just to make Boyd suspicious. Even more importantly, if Boyd faced him now, Lewis would be put on his guard. He might even decide that keeping her alive was too dangerous and dispose of her.
“Come on, lead me to her,” he growled, when Lewis came out of the house.
Instead, Lewis went to work.
His patience now almost gone, Boyd was considering the possibility of getting hold of some sodium Pentothal drug and using it on Lewis when the man came out of the building at noon, climbed into his car and drove away.
Boyd followed him to a bank. From there, Lewis went to a travel office. His next stop was at a medical supply house. He came out with a wheelchair.
A rush of adrenaline surged through Boyd. Lewis had to be getting ready to move Katrina. “And she'd better be unharmed,” he growled, the promise of retribution if she had been etched into his face.
From the medical supply house, Lewis went home, unloaded his purchases and went back to work. The rest of the day was routine.
“Just keep cool,” Boyd told himself that evening as he again pulled into the drive of the empty house. But that wasn't easy as the night dragged on. By the time dawn broke he was ready to beat the truth out of Lewis.
The time for Lewis to leave for work came and went. The lights in the house had come on at the usual time, indicating that the man was up and moving about. Boyd took a couple of long calming breaths. Today had to be the day. Lewis had his supplies and he was obviously not going into work.
Â
In her concrete prison, Katrina was again shaken awake. “Time to go,” Lewis said, helping her to her feet.
“I need to use the toilet and I want to use a real one,” she pleaded. Through the fog that clouded her mind, her instinct for survival ordered her to fight for time to let her body shake off the effect of the sleeping pills.
“Sure, why not? We have to go upstairs anyway.” Lewis helped her to the pink bathroom.
As they went through the door, she looked for her earring. Her vision was slightly blurred but she thought it was gone. Had Lewis found it or had he unknowingly kicked it under the door? Or had Boyd understood her message, come looking for her and found it? She prayed it had been Boyd. But if it had been Boyd, why hadn't he rescued her? Her hopes sank. If she was going to survive, it would be up to her.
In the bathroom, she splashed cold water on her face before taking care of her bodily needs. Nothing helped. She got dizzy just sitting and rising. Splashing more cold water on her face, she fought a bout of threatened nausea.
“Come out of there,” Lewis ordered.
When she did, he nodded toward the bed. “Change into those.”
A fresh pair of her slacks along with a lightweight pullover top and underwear were lying on the bed. “I figured you wouldn't mind if I chose your wardrobe,” he said, backing out of the room. “I'll be outside the door and I'm leaving it partially open so I can hear you if you try anything stupid.”
Katrina was glad to have a change of clothes. The ones she had on were in pretty bad shape. Even more importantly, this would give her more time to work off the effects of the pills.
Sitting on the side of the bed, she took off her shoes and socks. Again bending over made her dizzy. Standing, she stripped out of the rest of her clothes. She felt sweaty and rank. If she was going to die, she'd die clean. Going back into the bathroom, she climbed into the shower and turned on the water. It felt incredibly good cascading over her.
“What the hell are you doing?” Lewis demanded, barging into the bathroom and throwing back the shower curtain. His face was a contortion of rage.
“I was dirty.” That he was seeing her naked didn't even embarrass Katrina. Survival was her only concern and overcoming the effects of the drugs was the only way she could save herself. “You wouldn't want me drawing attention to us because I smelled so badly.”
Lewis's rage faded into impatience. “You have five minutes.”
She turned the water on cold and stood under it. All it did was give her a chill and make her nauseous. Turning the temperature back to warm, she rubbed herself with soap, then rinsed. She was feeling better as she toweled herself dry, but her body continued to respond sluggishly. It was as if she was moving in slow motion.
“I've waited long enough.” Lewis threw the bathroom door open again. “You've got two more minutes to get dressed.”
She looked around for a weapon as she returned to the bedroom. There was nothing. Even if there had been something, she wouldn't have had a chance to pick it up. Lewis was standing glaring at her. “Could I have some privacy?” she requested.
“No. Now get dressed.”
She was more alert than she had been in the shower. This time the thought of discarding the towel and exposing herself in front of him caused an embarrassed flush to begin to creep over her body. Then she saw his expression and the embarrassment vanished. He was glaring at her with icy hatred as if she were some horrible creature whose company he was forced to endure.
She managed to get the panties on reasonably quickly but fastening the bra was difficult.
“I'll do it,” Lewis snapped after she'd fumbled with it several times. Completing the task quickly, he stepped back. “Now get finished.”
Clumsily, she slipped the slacks and shirt on. Again sitting on the bed, she pulled her sneakers on. She'd barely completed that task when Lewis grabbed her arm, jerked her to her feet and shoved her toward the hall.
“Time to go,” he said. There was a wheelchair just outside the bedroom door. He shoved her into it. “Sit.” Taking a bottle out of his pocket, he produced three pills. “Take these.”
They were different than the ones she'd been taking. “What are they?”
“Muscle relaxants. You're going to be my very ill sister whom I'm taking to a specialist in New Mexico. I want to get there ahead of your aunt so I'll have time to take a look around.”
Ordering her body to fight the effect of the pills, she downed them.
“They'll work fairly quickly.” Lewis smiled. “I used them when I had a back problem. One makes you comfortably relaxed. Three should make you limp.”
He pushed the chair to the living room and seated himself on the couch. “We'll give them a few minutes to work.”
The grogginess Katrina had been fighting began to creep over her mind once again, but worse was the sensation that her muscles were all turning to jelly.
“Lift your arm,” Lewis ordered.
She tried. It trembled from the effort and after only a couple of inches, sank back down. When she attempted to speak, the words came out in nonsense mumblings.
Lewis smiled and rose. All she could do was sit helplessly as he slipped a pair of sunglasses on her, tied a large scarf on her head so that it covered her hair and obscured her face, wrapped a light blanket around her, then pushed her out of the house.
Â
Boyd stiffened with surprise when he saw Lewis coming out of his house pushing an occupied wheelchair. The occupant's identity was hidden by a blanket, scarf and sunglasses, but he was certain it was Katrina. Lewis's accomplice must have brought her in through the backyard. He looked for the accomplice but saw no one.
Calling for backup, he pulled out of the driveway and blocked the exit to Lewis's. “Get away from her,” he ordered, his gun leveled at Lewis through the window. “You're under arrest for kidnapping.”
“I'm doing our job,” Lewis growled back.
Boyd glanced back at the house, then to each side of it, never letting Lewis out of his sight for more than a second. “Where's your accomplice?”
“I have no accomplice.”
Lewis maintained his grip on the handles of the wheelchair. “You let a pretty face fool you. She knows where her aunt is.”
Keeping his gun leveled on Lewis, Boyd got out of his car and moved toward him. “I never thought you'd sell out.”
“I don't give a damn about the money. It's Garduchi I want. He's responsible for my daughter's death. He turned her into a prostitute and drug addict. I'm going to get the evidence we need to put him behind bars.”
Tears of frustration welled in Katrina's eyes. It was important to her that Boyd know she hadn't lied to him. She shook her head in a lolling manner. “Doon't knoow wheere Leeeoona isss.” The words came out slurred as if she were drunk. “Doon't knoow wheere Leeeoona isss,” she repeated, trying to make herself understood.
“What did you give her?” Boyd demanded, her limpness scaring him.
“Just some muscle relaxant. She'll be fine.”
She didn't look fine. Knowing he needed to keep his mind clear, Boyd fought panic. “Get away from her,” he ordered again.
“Don't you get it?” Hatred glistened in Lewis's eyes. “She's not worth your concern. She's the spawn of one of Garduchi's top killers. Her blood is tainted.”
Her muscles trembling from the effort, Katrina lifted her arm and let it drop to the side of the wheelchair. Using every ounce of willpower she had, she moved her hand between the spokes and curled her fingers around them.
Boyd was studying Lewis. The man had clearly gone over the edge. “You were planning to kill her and her aunt once you had the evidence.”
“They deserve to die.”
“Katrina never worked for Garduchi. She's tried to do good with her life.”
“She lived among them. If she wanted to do good, she would have gotten evidence on Garduchi that would have put him out of business.”
“She was only seventeen. All she wanted was to get away from Garduchi with her life.”
“How do you know she wasn't lying about that? She told you she didn't know how to contact her aunt and she does.”
“Dooon't knoow. Wasss playing for time,” Katrina insisted.
“Step away,” Boyd ordered again.
Police sirens sounded in the distance.
“You're a fool!” Lewis screamed in frustration and gave the wheelchair a hard shove in Boyd's direction.
Katrina let out a cry of pain as the spokes cut into her hand. The chair spun, crashing into Lewis sending him to the ground. Before he had time to recover, Boyd had turned him over and handcuffed him. Then rolling Lewis onto his back, Boyd retrieved Lewis's gun from its holster.
A police car arrived at that moment.
“Agent Logan.” Boyd identified himself, holding up his badge as the officers left their car, guns drawn and approached. “I'm the one who called for backup. The man on the ground is Agent Lewis Hamond. I'm charging him with kidnapping.” He handed Lewis's gun to the nearest officer. “This is his weapon.”
“He's nuts. I was just keeping a witness undercover for her own protection,” Lewis said, struggling into a sitting position.
“Doesn't look like you were doing too good a job of protecting her,” one of the officers observed, as Katrina began to fall forward out of the wheelchair.
Boyd rushed to catch her. “She's unconscious. I've got to get her to the hospital.”
“We'll take care of Agent Hamond.” The officer who had taken Lewis's gun into his custody nodded toward a second patrol car that had just arrived. “Davis and O'Riley can take you to the hospital.”
Boyd scooped Katrina up in his arms. “Check Hamond's pockets. He's been drugging her. The doctors will need to know with what.”
“There's two bottles here,” the second of the first two officers said, hurriedly following Boyd's instructions, then rushing to hand the bottles to the driver of the car that was going to take Boyd and Katrina to the hospital.
Boyd had been acutely aware of the shallowness of her breathing as he got her into the patrol car and then climbed in with her. Holding on to her as the car whisked them through the streets, he looked down and saw her bloodied hand. Taking out his handkerchief, he wrapped it around the wounds. “You're going to be all right,” he said softly in her ear.
She remained limp, giving no indication she'd heard.
His hold on her tightened, and he prayed.
Chapter 12
B
oyd's gaze traveled from Katrina to the saline solution being administered by IV, then back to her pale features. The doctors had assured him that she was merely sleeping off the drugs. She was also dehydrated, but they didn't expect any residual complications from that either. Still, he refused to leave her.
“How's she doing?”
Boyd looked to the door to see Gerald Eldridge. “The doctors say she'll be fine.”
“Good.” Eldridge sat down. “I've just come from interviewing Lewis.”
“I searched that house. Where'd he have her?” Boyd asked.
“In a bomb shelter built onto the basement. He'd hidden the door behind a metal cabinet filled with paper products and laundry detergent, stuff like that.”
Boyd remembered that wall with the metal cabinet. Mentally he kicked himself for not having ripped everything away from all the walls in his search.
“How'd you know Lewis had her?” Eldridge asked.
“The note he made her write saying she was leaving. She managed to incorporate a message.”
Eldridge scowled. “Why didn't you come to me?”
Deciding it would be prudent not to admit he hadn't known who he could trust, Boyd said, “I wasn't certain I had interpreted it right. I don't like making accusations I can't prove.”
Eldridge nodded his acceptance of that explanation. “Lewis is insisting he was merely doing his job.”
“He planned to kill her.”
“We can't prove that. But he will be tried for kidnapping.” Gerald Eldridge's gaze turned to Katrina. “He says she contacted her aunt and arranged a meeting in Santa Fe on Sunday. I've alerted our men there and sent extra.”
“Leona won't be there. Katrina was merely playing for time. She doesn't know where her aunt is.” There was no doubt in Boyd's mind that he was speaking the truth. A tiny smile tilted one corner of his mouth as he realized how fully he trusted her.
“Better safe than sorry,” Eldridge said with calm nonchalance. “I'm going to fly out there tonight to oversee the investigation. If you're wrong, I don't want Leona slipping through our fingers again.”
Boyd knew Eldridge. The man was being polite. He believed Lewis's claim that Boyd had allowed his feelings for Katrina to make him less efficient, thus providing an easy opportunity for Leona to get away from him. But then, Gerald Eldridge had never dealt with Leona Serrenito. It was equally obvious Eldridge thought Boyd was allowing his feelings to blind him to the truth...that Katrina was in cahoots with her aunt. But Gerald Eldridge didn't know Katrina. And, right at this moment, Boyd didn't give a damn what his superior thought. “Enjoy the scenery because that's all you're going to find there.”
Eldridge rose and gave him a fatherly pat on the shoulder. “I'm sorry this happened.”
Boyd watched him leave, then eased back in the chair and closed his eyes.
Â
Katrina awoke groggily. It took a couple of minutes for her mind to clear enough for her to realize she was in a hospital room. Easing herself into a sitting position, she was forced to drop her head into her hands for a moment to let the dizziness subside. One hand hurt. Realizing it was bandaged, she remembered putting it between the spokes of the wheelchair.
The dizziness subsided and she straightened. Boyd was asleep in the lounge chair by the side of the bed. His clothes were rumpled and his hair mussed. Her gaze traveled over him. Comforting was the word that came to mind, quickly followed by breathtakingly handsome. Abruptly, memories of Lewis telling him that she knew where her aunt was flashed through her mind and she wondered if Boyd was there as a trusting friend or a distrustful guard.
As if he felt her watching him, he opened his eyes. “Morning.” Rising, he stood by the bed. “Thirsty?”
The concern she saw on his face eased her mind. Her mouth too dry to speak, she nodded.
He poured a glass of water, put a straw in it, then helped her get the straw in her lips.
“How do you feel?” he asked when she'd finished drinking.
“Better.” She smiled crookedly. “Thanks for finding me.”
“Got your message.”
She recalled her fear that he would assume the worst of her and pay no heed to what she'd written. “I guess I really should say thanks for believing in me.”
“With my life,” he vowed, easing a strand of her hair back behind her ear.
His touch spread fire through her while his words filled her with joy. “I owe you mine.”
“I'm sorry about Lewis.”
Feeling the need to make it clear that she had never lied to him, she said, “I invented that story about knowing where my aunt is for Lewis. I honestly don't know where she is or how to contact her.”
“I know.” Figuring she'd find out that Eldridge did think she knew, he said, “I told Eldridge he was going on a wild-goose chase.”
She breathed a frustrated sigh. “He sent men to Santa Fe?”
Boyd nodded.
“That's going to be a real waste of taxpayers' money.” Wanting to change the subject, she asked, “What day is this?”
“Friday.”
She saw the tired lines in his face. “You look like you could use a shower and a good night's sleep.”
“I hope you're not trying to get rid of me,” he teased.
She gently touched his cheek. “No. I'm just tired. I think I'll sleep some more and I'll rest better knowing you're someplace more comfortable than that chair.”
He kissed her gently. “That chair and I have become bonded together.”
Concern for him spread over her features. “Please, go home for a while. I'll be fine.”
Admitting that he could use a shower and a change of clothes, he placed another light kiss on her lips. “I'll be back soon.”
Lying back, she closed her eyes. When he lingered for a moment to brush wayward strands of hair from her face, every fiber of her being was aware of his touch. Feigning sleep, she waited until she heard him leave the room, then opened her eyes.
Like a hazy dream, she recalled seeing him drive up and order Lewis to get away from her. Boyd would always be her hero. Her mind returned to the present. Closing her eyes, she saw his face when he'd approached her bed. There had been a tenderness there that had warmed her to the core. The feel of his lips and the touch of his hand lingered on her skin.
She lifted her hand as if she could once again touch his cheek. A tear escaped, trickling down the side of her face, and she dropped her hand down to her side. She loved him and because of that, she had to walk away from him and never look back. And the sooner the better.
Sitting up, she noticed that there was no dizziness this time. Relieved, she buzzed for the nurse.
“Mr. Logan said you'd woken,” the nurse said cheerfully, entering the room and striding to the bed. “But he also said you'd gone back to sleep.”
“I woke up again.” Resolve glistened in Katrina's eyes. “And I want to get up and move around.”
“The doctor did say we could get you up when you were ready. But you can't try to move around without help.” The nurse put down the side of the bed as she spoke. “Now try to swing your legs over.”
Katrina's muscles were slow to respond but they did. The more she moved, the more in control she felt.
After they had walked the corridor a few times, she talked the nurse into letting her take a shower and by the time Boyd returned, she was seated in the lounge chair in a clean hospital gown combing her damp hair.
He entered carrying a huge arrangement of red roses. “Looks like you're feeling a lot better,” he observed with relief.
“You're looking better, too.” The sight of him caused her blood to race.
Stay cool!
she ordered herself. But when he grinned at her compliment, her heart skipped a beat.
“Thought this room could use some cheering up.” He set the vase on the bedside table, then pulled up a chair and sat down facing her.
“Thanks for the flowers. They're lovely.” She knew what she had to do but he wasn't making it easy.
“I stopped by the nurses' station. They told me that your doctor came by and he's signed a release saying you can go home tomorrow.” His voice took on a husky edge. “I'm not going to rush you into anything but I plan do some serious courting.”
Unable to face him, Katrina shifted her gaze to the window. “I'm not staying in Washington. As soon as I'm out of here, I'm catching the first plane to St. Louis.”
Boyd caught her chin in his hand and forced her to face him. “I know I haven't always been the most charming companion. But you didn't make my job easy. You were a constant distraction. All I want is a chance to redeem myself.”
Again the heat of his touch traveled through her igniting the fires of desire. She pulled back from his hold. “I don't think that's such a good idea.”
Boyd scowled. “I don't understand. I could have sworn you're as attracted to me as I am to you.” Cynicism spread over his features. “Is this where I learn that I have been a fool?”
“No.” She met his cold gaze. “I do care for you. That's why I'm leaving.”
“That doesn't make any sense.”
Impatience flashed in her eyes. “It makes a great deal of sense. I've lived with the taint of my family history all my life. Lewis isn't alone. There are others like him, others who have been harmed by Garduchi and his thugs...my brother, my father, my grandfather, etc. being among those thugs.”
“You can't hold yourself responsible for what they did.”
“But others can and will. And then there's the matter of trust. If your informants knew you had a connection to me, they'd suddenly become worried that I'd squeal on them. And your fellow agents would feet uncomfortable around me because they'd always be worried I'd pass on any information I got to the criminal element. Your career will be ruined.”
“They'll learn to trust you like I do.” He cupped her face in his hands. “We'll work through this together.”
“No.”
He nibbled on her lips then leisurely kissed her.
Reasoning that she should have some memories, she did not fight him.
He smiled triumphantly. “Can I assume you've changed your mind?”
Tears welled in her eyes. “No. Someday you'd find out I was right and you'd wish you'd never met me. I don't want to be there for that.”
“I don't let what others think bother me,” he growled.
She forced herself to push him away. “My mind is made up.”
For a long time he studied her in silence. Reading the resolve on her face, he said finally, “I'll drive you to the airport.”
It was taking every ounce of determination she had to remain firm in her decision. “If you'll just bring my things here, I'll take a taxi.”
He rose. “This isn't the end,” he declared, and strode out.
“For his sake it has to be,” she promised herself.
Â
Boyd cursed her hardheadedness. He couldn't blame her for how she felt, but he was determined to find a way to change her mind. For now he'd give her some space. But not a lot.