Afterglow (18 page)

“I thought we weren’t trusting anyone?”

“We?”

He gritted his teeth, feeling as if he were making a deal with the devil, and gave a single nod.

“You know your men,” Dakota said, her voice tired. “Pick whomever you’d trust with your life.”

Rand pulled out his phone and speed-dialed a number with his thumb, keeping both hands on the wheel. He called Ligg, because Ham would already be on his way to Paris. Dakota gave him her secret GPS coordinates and the speed at which the target was moving. Ligg and a small team would fly to a likely destination, and Dakota would provide updated coordinates while en route. If they got lucky, the guy would stop and she’d be able to give Ligg the exact location. If not, Ligg would continue to tail him, with Dakota’s aid.

Rand disconnected. “We might as well use this time to text the drug information to the doctors in Monte Carlo so they can complete testing,” he mused. “The guests are scheduled to go home tomorrow, and the family insisted on sending the newlyweds on to their honeymoon a few hours ago.”

“What about Brett Sing?” Her tone was carefully neutral. Was it a trick of the light, or was her gaze eerily haunted?

“They’ll need to keep his body for testing,” Rand said grimly. “The least the newlyweds can do is take a few days away. Come to terms.”

She nodded. “Give me the phone. I’ll write the text.”

Rand waited the ten minutes it took Dakota to input the necessary information, then had her send the info to his team at the hotel to pass on to the doctors.

“You’re delusional, you know,” he told her flatly, his gaze going from the fuel gauge to the next exit. “These people murdered seventeen people in the bank today. The drug rep would take away your little popgun as easily as I did.” He cocked his finger and held it to her temple. “Bang. Lady, you’re dead.”

“I won’t be distracted.”

“You won’t have to be distracted. They’ll kill you anyway.”

“Believe me, once our guy contacts the head honcho and tells him I can fix the transportation issue, they won’t kill me.” She seemed very sure.

Then again, so was he.

“They will when you can’t deliver. This is an insanely risky idea, Dakota.”

She shrugged, as if losing her life meant nothing in the scheme of things. Maybe it didn’t. Maybe she was so far gone this time she had nothing left to lose. And a hell of a lot to gain if she fell in with the manufacturers of this drug, he reminded himself unnecessarily.

“But it’ll work. We keep working our way up the food chain until we reach the top.”

“I’ll make you a deal,” he said abruptly. “We’ll find him and keep a safe distance until I see exactly who and what we’re dealing with. But when we do”—he sent her a serious glare—“you let me do the talking, and let me take him to the authorities. If he’s willing to kill seventeen people to see how the drug works, and one more just to cover his tracks, he’s willing to kill
anyone
who gets in his way. Deal?”

She bit the corner of her lip. “Maybe it’s a she.”

Yeah
, he thought darkly.
Maybe it is a she.

PARIS.

They’d switched cars a hundred miles south of Paris, then again near dawn as they neared the outskirts of the city. They traveled all night at breakneck speeds, only stopping when absolutely necessary.

“I don’t know about you,” Dakota told him, barely glancing around as they passed under the illuminated Arc de Triomphe and drove along the Champs-Élysées, the black sky lightening to navy over the rooftops, “but I’m seven steps beyond exhausted. I don’t know how you can function on no sleep.”

“I took a power nap at the last rest stop.” And let her sleep for a full hour when he saw how pale and sleepy-eyed she was. He’d driven almost a hundred miles blind to give her that necessary rest.

He couldn’t give her much longer, since she was the only one who knew where the hell they were going. At first she’d tried talking to stay awake, but he’d told her several hundred miles back that he preferred not to chat while driving. Having to listen to her soft breathing was distraction enough.

“I need at least a couple more hours of sleep before I go on. If you even suggest another energy drink, I might throw up.” She grimaced. “In fact, I can guarantee it.”

“Look, we made good time,” he told her. “Closed the gap. But if we take more than a pit stop now, we risk being a step behind again.” Rand was reluctantly impressed with Dakota’s tracking ability. He didn’t understand how it worked, but it did. She might be full of crap about a lot of things, but he was beginning to trust her on the one thing that was important right now.

He didn’t want to stop, although exhaustion weighed down his eyelids, and his muscles felt shaky. He’d been awake for almost seventy-two hours. Not just awake but on high alert. The two long road trips, back to back, didn’t help. He was an active guy, and sitting in a car for hours on end was exhausting in itself.

“I think we’ll be okay.” She yawned. “But we’ll be better after a nap.”

“I’m wiped too,” he admitted, flexing his fingers on the wheel to get back some circulation. “I need some shut-eye to be on my A game when we catch up with this guy—or woman, for all we know. If we shut down for a few hours, our quarry could be in the wind while we’re napping. We can’t take the chance.”

“I think
he’s
sleeping; he hasn’t moved by more than a few feet in the last half hour.”

“Let’s get to his location, see what we’re dealing with, and then formulate a plan of action.” It was difficult making his exhausted brain think beyond that.

“Sounds good. Turn left, three hundred feet.” She cocked her head and looked puzzled. “Hmm. This is a new one for me. He’s below street level.”

“The catacombs?” Shit. A warren of tunnels and old mine shafts crisscrossed beneath the city. Finding anyone down there would be next to impossible. Unless the seeker had Dakota’s Spidey senses, of course. Rand had no intention of taking Dakota with him from this point forward. What was left now relied on good old-fashioned white-hat stuff. No need to put Dakota in danger unnecessarily.

Stark called his people “agents,” but Rand doubted if his friend hired people for their tracking skills expecting to send them into mortal danger. Dakota seemed almost relieved when he plucked the gun from her hand. He had no idea what her real agenda was, but he’d bet dying wasn’t on it. There was still a place inside him that cared for her … cared for her
safety
.

He’d protect
any
woman in exactly the same way. Just because he’d loved her once, just because he’d believed with everything in him that she was the one he’d been waiting for, didn’t mean he was motivated by any feelings other than his general need to protect.

Drugged sex notwithstanding.

Rand found a small, overpriced hotel nearby, circled the block, drove a mile, removed the plates, and abandoned the stolen car. They walked back to the hotel through the balmy Parisian streets in the blue light before dawn, while the city slept and the quiet seeped into his tired bones.

It would warm up later, but for now, the air was cool and smelled of baking bread and strong French coffee. He could use several gallons of the stuff. A few people made their way to work; the streets would fill in a few hours with tourists and commuters alike. With the brown wig covering her hair and his baseball cap pulled down an extra inch, he and Dakota passed everyone in silent anonymity.

They strode by an elderly man, tightly wrapped in a gray sweater that matched his uncombed hair, as he opened his newspaper kiosk for the day. The headlines on one newspaper read, in French:
INTERPOL CLOSES IN ON BARCELONA KILLER.

AN ENORMOUS VASE OF
pale pink roses in the elegantly understated—and expensive as hell—lobby of Hotel Édith filled the air with their perfume. She had always liked roses, but Dakota would never smell a rose again without thinking about what happened in Barcelona.

They checked in, using cash, and headed to the elevator. It wasn’t the boutique hotel where she’d booked them for the start of their honeymoon, but small and intimate and similar enough to remind her of all she’d lost. Weird, odd, and painful to be here with Rand now.

She shoved the memories aside. She’d never completed her French language classes, which in light of recent events was unfortunate. Especially if she wanted jam with her croissant, assuming she ever got a real breakfast.

The bag slipped off her shoulder and she hitched it higher.

It was heavy, stuffed with their original clothes and everything else she was hauling all over God’s creation like a turtle with its house on its back. There wasn’t anything unnecessary in it, just bare essentials. The new clothes she’d bought were in the rolling carry-on bag, along with a few nonessential items, such as two new pairs of shoes.

As soon as the elevator door closed, Rand gave her an inquiring glance. He made no mention of their aborted honeymoon plans, and neither did she. It wasn’t important now, and knowing him, he’d probably thrown off all those memories. No need for words; they were focused on the same endgame. “He’s still underground. Maybe he’s tired as well, and is taking a nap.”

“Maybe he’s dead,” he suggested, propping the small, wheeled case beside him.

“Not if I’m seeing his numbers.” It really wasn’t fair that Rand didn’t look as exhausted as she felt. They’d traveled together around the clock, making do with a few catnaps. She felt wrung out, limp, and grubby. He looked just as he always looked: tall and tanned, his eyes more hazel than brown in this light. And ridiculously sexy. He’d needed a shave twelve hours ago. As tired as she was, Dakota’s nipples peaked beneath her tank top as her body remembered the countless times she’d felt the rasp of that rough stubble stroking her skin. She remembered the smoothness of his lips in comparison, and the urgency of his hands.

She remembered the weight of his body, the feel of his skin against hers, and his breath against her neck as he’d plunged into her like nothing had changed.

Damn. She wished she
didn’t
remember all the textures and tastes of Rand Maguire in such a visceral way. Maybe she’d look into a frontal lobotomy when she got home.
If
she got home.

“I hate that damn wig,” he told her, apropos of absolutely nothing, as they got out of the elevator on their floor.

Her feet sank into the plush green-and-navy carpet as she stepped out. “You try wearing it a while. It itches worse than a too-tight hat.”

“Did you buy the wigs on your illicit shopping spree yesterday?”

No. She’d brought a selection of disguises with her on the Lodestone jet: the wigs, a reversible windbreaker, two pairs of light cotton pants, and the wrong color makeup. She had no idea
who’d
follow her, or what she’d need. She’d been a Girl Scout.

“My hair’s too recognizable,” was all she said as he unlocked the door to their room and ushered her in ahead of him. Her back brushed his chest as she passed him.

He hitched his stride, guaranteeing space between them before he followed.

She noticed. She tried not to care. Instead, she walked all the way into the room and looked around, taking her bag off her shoulder, where it left a red dent in her skin.

The slope-ceilinged room was small and overly ornate, and smelled strongly of French cigarettes. The bed was a queen, and there was little else in the room. Dakota stood, looking at nothing as she tried to gather her few remaining resources to do … something. Or, rather, to do nothing.

Was it wrong to want a man as much as she wanted Rand? God only knew he had no interest in her anymore; she got that. But her body, starved of his for twenty-five months, urged her to turn into his arms.

He had to remember. This time, there was no drug to lower their inhibitions, no excuse.

Just good old-fashioned human contact. And comfort.

As she walked over to the bed and flipped on the lights, she imagined doing just that. Imagined the feel of his strong arms wrapping around her, the brush of his lips on hers. Her heart ached, as if she’d only just lost him for the first time.

Distance—time and space—hadn’t helped. The lack of either wasn’t helping now.

“Want to shower first?” She gestured toward the bathroom.

“Sure.” He loosened the shoulder holster, but didn’t remove it. Unlike her gun, his didn’t look anything like a toy. It was black and lethal looking, and he handled it like he knew how to use it. “Order some room service and a big pot of coffee.” He hesitated. “Or maybe not. You should sleep, at least for a few hours.”

“Don’t tempt me. I don’t want to risk him moving again and sleeping through it, like you said earlier,” she said wearily. Rubbing at her eyes didn’t help wake her up, even a little. “Why don’t
you
get some sleep, and I’ll keep track. You need your wits about you more than I do at this point.” She dropped the bag on the chair by the window and flexed her fingers. “I can focus okay. I’ll have food. Coffee.”

“First, it’s the crack of dawn and barely light. The whole of Paris is sleeping, which, as you noted earlier, is probably why the bad guy isn’t moving,” Rand pointed out dryly, glancing anywhere but at her. Dakota’s chest ached even harder, and her eyes stung. It hurt like hell that he couldn’t even stand to look at her.

He went to the narrow window and held back the drapes to look out at the street below. “And what would you suggest we do with him if we got him right now?” He turned back. For all the emotional warmth he exuded, he could’ve been looking at a stranger. “Hold him hostage here in the room?”

“Well, no,” she admitted.

His expression softened. “It’s okay. I’ve contacted Ham. He’s on his way. He and I will go in together later this morning, and you’ll talk us to his location.” He paused. “After a nap.”