Mine's to Kill (8 page)

Autumn conducted business from Colt’s home. She thought it would be difficult, but it wasn’t as hard as she mentally made it out to be. She was able to do the morning meetings by phone conference using her cell phone, and Huck had called her three times that morning already. She had told him some of the things he was calling on didn’t need her approval but he insisted on calling. Every time he called he asked if she were okay, if she needed anything, if anything suspicious had happened and eventually she figured it out—he was worried something might happen to her—the same thing that had happened to him. York had told her Huck had become paranoid since the attack, since he lost his witness, his partner and nearly his own life.

When York called her and told her he needed to see her she knew she couldn’t leave and the only other option was to have him come here. She told Colt a colleague would be coming to discuss something with her and that he should keep on working, but instead of staying in his studio painting he decided to take that time to come sit in her sleeping area and be nosey.

She had introduced York to Colt, but Colt, instead of the smile he had been giving her all week just extended his hand with a stern expression on his face that was anything but friendly.

“You can work,” she had told him, but instead he took a seat and York actually grinned devilishly as if he knew something she didn’t.

“So how is the assignment going?”

“Not too badly,” she said. “So what do you have for me?”

York cut a look over to Colt who seemed to be staring at them instead of the closed captioning on the news program he was watching.

“He can’t hear us.”

“I know. Can he read lips?”

Of that she wasn’t sure so she just changed her position enough to obscure her mouth. “So what do you have for me?”

“I think I know who our traitor is, but I can’t prove it. I’m going to have to do something under the radar to get that proof.”

“Who do you think it is?”

“I think I should hold it in until I’m sure. I wouldn’t want to ruin a career.”

“I’ll tell you the two people I have been wondering about and you tell me if I’m close. Dustin, of which I hope I’m wrong since I just had to give him one of your assignments, and Betsy. Something about her, the timing, everything. I can’t put my finger on it, but I think she’s involved somehow.”

“Me too,” he said. “Dustin is in the clear, at least from what I can make out, but Betsy, now she has roused my interest and not in a good way.”

“I suspect she’s part of the reason your friend died too. I think somebody figured out who the traitor was long before we did. Proof was probably the only thing missing, but not suspicion.”

York growled angrily.

“Be careful, York. We don’t know how far this goes or who else is involved, so be careful.”

“Do I have your permission to push the boundaries on surveillance?”

“You do whatever you need to do—I already have that clearance from the Director so just do it.” She leaned forward and hushed her tone, although she wasn’t sure why. “And I mean the word whatever in every sense of the word.” She knew he would understand what she meant. Her orders had been to find the traitor and bring him, or her, in dead or alive. If York had to take a life to save his own she wouldn’t waste the paper or the time on an inquiry. A lot of good people had already died, children, pregnant women, agents, and good men who stepped up to the plate to do the right thing. Their deaths would not go without justice.

The noise from the television finally caught her attention when the reporter mentioned the serial killings and a witness. She shot to her feet so fast and went to stare at the screen. York was on her heels and for the first time since he had arrived, Colt finally put his attention back on the television.

“My source, speaking on anonymity because he isn’t free to divulge the information,” the reporter said as he stood outside the precinct, “says the witness is an artist from the local art community. He would not confirm or deny the identity of this witness, but in that area there are only a few well known enough to live nearby. Unless the artist came from the lower district and parked I would say it’s one of the local artists who had been out for an evening run. We’ll bring you more information as we have it.”

Autumn livid because of loose mouth cops her witness was now in deeper danger. “Crap,” she huffed.

“Looks like your job is going to get hotter,” York said.

“Yeah, it is. Get out of here before some snot nosed reporter starts staking out the place. I need to keep your cover as is.”

He nodded. “If you need me or Huck here you call me. We’ll get here to you.”

“I know,” she said. “But you keep doing what you’re doing and I’ll handle this. Thanks, York.”

She saw him out before returning to the upper level where Colt looked more stricken with fear than before. She got his attention. “I’ll protect you. I promise.”

“I know,” he signed back. “I just worry I’ll get you killed.”

She smiled at him. “Don’t worry about me. That’s my job; okay?” She patted his arm. She was worried too because in all honesty it wouldn’t be hard to figure out which artist was the witness. Colt liked to jog to that park because it was five miles away, and then he would jog around the one and a half mile loop before jogging back home. Since the attack, he had to change his methods. He started jogging around his property instead of his normal pass. He had told her the shop owners would miss him because on his typical jogs they would wave to him if they caught his attention. “Friendly area,” he had assured her. Unfortunately in
 
this case the friendliness could cause trouble if one of those shop owners put the news feature with Colt’s sudden lack of appearance together and found a solution to the mystery witness.

They hadn’t caught this killer yet and he had killed again two nights ago so she knew he was still in the area. She would have thought he would have ran or gone into hiding, but if he were still local it was because he wasn’t finished—or he had a heart on for this area and refused to leave. His picture was now all over the news so she didn’t know exactly what he planned to get by staying—other than getting caught. But then again, he had killed again and the cops still hadn’t caught him.

Colt garnered her attention again. She really wished he would use his voice again. She liked his voice, and maybe that was the problem—she liked his voice too much. She liked him too much. A week and already she was dreaming about him in her sleep.

“So this York guy,” he observed her closely; “who is he to you? Are you two…dating?”

She rolled her eyes. The man’s life was in danger and he was worried about her personal life. “York is my colleague. I’m his boss and he’s working something for me that requires check-in.” That’s all he needed to know.

“He paid a lot of attention to you.”

No he hadn’t. He paid the same amount of attention as anybody in their profession paid to another person. They watched people because watching their surrounding kept them alive. “Hazard of the profession,” she looked back to the television screen. The reporter had switched stories from the witness to a new restaurant opening on Main Street. She shook her head as the screen went black. It wasn’t as if she were actually paying attention to that portion of the news, but it did mean she could focus on something other than Colt and the way he was looking at her—as if he were trying to undress her with his eyes.

Whether she wanted to or not she was going to have to look at him. Clearly he wasn’t ready to let the conversation sleep. “I have to make a few calls.” That wasn’t a lie because she needed to call Candice and update her—although she was sure Candice already knew the situation had changed.

Instead of letting her escape the conversation, Colt reached out, grabbed her arm and pulled her down onto the sofa before positioning his body over hers and pinning her wrist in one big hand above her head. She knew she could get out of this, but she would have to hurt him to do it and she didn’t want to do that. Of course unless he could read lips she was incapable of communicating with him.

“Let me up,” she said. The grin on his face told her he could read lips; he was just choosing to ignore her. He placed his free hand over her throat, gently and not threatening at all.

“Say it again,” he said and his voice was the perfect tone—not too loud and not so soft where she couldn’t hear him.

“Let me up,” she said and he smiled.

“Don’t stop talking,” he said and then he closed his eyes. She figured out what he wanted. He wanted to feel her words just as he had said he could feel the music. Her heart went out to him. She knew he had adapted to life without being able to hear. He was doing darn good at it too, despite the prejudice in the world he wasn’t letting it knock him down. But at the same time he missed the very things that hearing people took for granted every day. He missed the sounds of birds chirping, water rushing, car horns honking, symphonies, and the common day verbal communication—hearing the soft spoken voice, or the deep melodious tune of the people they encountered daily. He missed all of that.

She smiled. “Well since you can’t hear me anyway I guess it will be okay if I tell you I think you’re hot.” She watched him to make sure his eyes remained closed so that he wouldn’t be reading her lips while she had this impromptu confessional. “I love that crooked smile of yours; it makes you look sexier than midnight to me, Colt. I love that your body is so hard in all the right places. I love that I can go running with you, even if I am working and not out for fun on my time off. It’s been a long time since I have been able to be…” she sighed; “to just be me. I know that doesn’t make sense because I’m working, but with you I don’t have to…I don’t have to be one of the guys. You make me feel,” she closed her eyes; “feminine on every level. You remind me what I want, what I need, and that scares me.” It scared her because she knew she shouldn’t want it, and couldn’t want it. Getting distracted could get this guy killed and she wouldn’t let that happen.

“You’re smart,” she smiled. “I so love your addiction to the crossword puzzle; I could never do those. Word search puzzles are my specialty because I’m really good at finding things, but crossword puzzles always drove me nuts. What takes me two hours to complete takes you twenty minutes tops and I love that. I love your passion for your art. Not many people have that…or maybe they do and I just haven’t met that many of them. I mean, the guys I have worked with are very passionate about their jobs, for the most part, but stepping outside the work world…well, passion seems to be in short supply…boy is it ever.” She thought about her last relationship with a guy who was so dull it was painful. Passion is what she craved, somebody who challenged her and pushed her beyond the limits she placed on herself. She wanted somebody who could make her feel what she sometimes denied feeling, somebody who could meet her own level of passion and exceeded it. But mostly, what she wanted was somebody who wasn’t afraid of who she was, what she did and the skills she had, but who wouldn’t balk at the moments when she just wanted to step back and be a woman, wear the evening gown without the gun strapped to the holster around her thigh or the knives expertly hidden in hairpins and belts. She just wanted a day where she wasn’t always surrounded by threats of terror, death, and murder.

“You’re a woman’s dream, Colt. You’re my dream. But I can’t have you. I have to work and you…you need to let me do that. I can’t protect you if I’m distracted, and I won’t lose you.” She exhaled slowly. “I just found you,” she spoke softly. “So, hot or not, we need to keep our mind on business.”

“Why?”