Cold in the Shadows 5 (8 page)

Gold star for Killion.

He grabbed his bag and gathered up his clothes, walked into the bedroom next-door, taking the key out of the lock. He jumped in the shower and scrubbed himself with soap. He rinsed and dried off just as fast. Wrapping a towel around his hips, he stuck his head back into Audrey’s room.

“Call me if she wakes.”

“Gotcha.”

“As soon as. I mean it,” he said sternly.

Noah eyed him narrowly. “I heard you the first time. You look like shit, mate. Get some sleep before you fall over. I’ll look after your date.”

Killion fought the urge to stay and watch over her, and that told him he was already too invested. But he could get the information he wanted by being charming as easily as by being a prick. The knowledge left him a little hollow, but he put that down to being too world-weary to whore himself out for his country.

The memory of holding a dead child in his arms flashed through his brain but he pushed it away. No more guilt for fulfilling the oath he’d made to his country. He went next-door and crashed. Wishing he was too tired to give a damn.

Chapter Five

N
EXT TIME
A
UDREY
surfaced she was lying on a bed with a strange man leaning over her.

“How you feeling?” The stranger had the prettiest gray eyes, surrounded by thick black lashes and spoke with a sexy British accent. A shard of memory drifted through her mind. He’d been in the hangar when they’d landed.

“Like someone stabbed me.” She tried to lift her hand but even that was too much effort.

The Brit pressed a straw against her lips and cupped the back of her head so she could drink. “Just a sip until your stomach gets used to it.”

At least that sounded vaguely optimistic that she might live. The pain in her side had eased, but she still felt like she was burning up from the inside out and was incredibly weak.

“Where am I?” Her voice was a dull rasp.

“Somewhere safe.”

“How long have I been here?”

“Not long.” Those pretty gray eyes were smiling, but she didn’t miss the fact he wasn’t answering her questions. “How you feeling? Headache? Nausea?”

“Both.” She nodded, and then winced as the motion set off a gyroscope inside her skull.

His hand touched her arm as he adjusted her IV. She wasn’t used to being so utterly dependent on anyone, especially not a stranger. “Are you a doctor?”

“Medic.”

She shifted in bed and realized that under an unfamiliar white T-shirt she was naked. Embarrassment crept into her cheeks. Someone had stripped her and changed her clothes. A feeling of vulnerability and helplessness swept over her.

“I didn’t see anything. Promise.” His gray eyes twinkled. “Your guard dog protected your modesty. I’m Noah, by the way. My mum always said that she should never have called me that because all I ever said when I was little was ‘no.’”

“I can think of a few things she should have called you,” came a familiar voice from the open doorway. Her eyes darted to her rescuer who leaned a shoulder against the frame. “But I probably shouldn’t use them in polite company.”

She was polite company? A confused half-naked, half-dead frog biologist?

The blue eyes were bright and piercing, but there were shadows in their depths. His blond hair could do with more than a trim and there was a light scruff on his jaw. He wore a dark T-shirt with black canvas pants, but his feet were bare. Whereas the Brit, Noah, was tall, dark and charming, this guy was lean, blond, and exuded confidence like a pheromone.

When he’d been at the visitor center yesterday she’d assumed he was part of a family and hadn’t paid too much attention, as she didn’t make a habit of ogling other women’s husbands or boyfriends. But at some point he’d told her he didn’t have a girlfriend so she must have been mistaken in her assumption.

Intelligence gleamed in the blue eyes that scanned her face. Enough intelligence to make her nervous.

She forced some moisture onto her tongue. “And what did your mother call
you
?” she asked pointedly.

His eyes narrowed for a moment before the smile returned. “On a good day she called me Patrick.”

Noah’s expression was flat, but even that was telling her something. These men were being careful with the information they shared with her. Were they some kind of criminals? But they hadn’t hurt her and would criminals really go to this much effort to help a woman they didn’t know? If Patrick was correct about the man who’d stabbed her being part of the
Mano de Dios
cartel, he’d saved her life at great risk to his own.

She owed him.

Another wave of pain hit and she lay back on the pillow and stared at the ceiling. She wished she could wind the clock back twenty-four hours and start the day over. “Where are we?” she asked. “Have you contacted the embassy for me? I need to talk to my parents. My mom is going to freak.”

Noah pushed to his feet. “I’ll make you both a cuppa.”

Patrick moved farther into the room as Noah left. Her injury was neatly bandaged, but she was well aware her midriff was on display. She inched the T-shirt down and his gaze rose guiltily to meet hers. Was that interest in his eyes?

“Feeling any better?” he asked.

“Compared to yesterday when someone tried to kill me? I feel better. Compared to the day before that? Not so much.”

He nodded. Those eyes of his watched her with some kind of an agenda but she had no idea what that might be.

“I don’t understand,” she said, finally.

One brow rose. “Which part?”

“Any of it. Why I was attacked?” Her voice rose in agitation. “Why you brought me here?” A man like him didn’t need to kidnap a woman to have sex. Even some sort of perverted serial killer would have easier ways of finding his victims than stealing planes from drug lords and flying across the South American continent. His actions didn’t make sense. “I don’t understand why you haven’t taken me to the hospital. It’s almost like you’re holding me captive but there’s no reason for you to do that.”

Patrick continued to search her face, as if looking for an answer to some unspoken question. He shook his head. “I can’t take you to the hospital.”

“But why not? Surely the cartel doesn’t have spies everywhere? Surely when they figure out they made a mistake attacking me they’ll just leave me alone?”

He sat on a chair beside the bed, leaning forward, legs spread, elbows resting on his knees. Even though she felt like crap she was uncomfortably aware of him as an attractive male, sitting close beside her, as she lay half-naked in bed.

“Why would the cartel leave you alone?” he asked quietly. “They have billions of dollars and fingers in every imaginable pie. If they want you dead why would they
ever
leave you alone?” His anger echoed softly off the plain white walls.

She swallowed. “But I haven’t done anything wrong.”

His lip curled as if he thought she was lying.

“Honestly.” Why didn’t he believe her? How insulting was that? “Look, they’ve made a mistake. That man who stabbed me also attacked me the night before. Told me ‘The Gateway Project was over’ and I was to tell my boss. But my boss didn’t have a clue what they were talking about, either.”

“Were you hurt the first night?” The expression in his eyes was guarded, like he didn’t trust she was telling the truth, which was crazy. If she had the energy she’d roll her eyes. Why would she lie about any of this?

“He tied me up, scared me to death, but didn’t hurt me—not then anyway. He obviously came back to finish the job.” Her energy started to lag. Her eyes felt heavy. “I reported it to the cops who were probably scarier than the perp.”

Her brain grew fuzzy. She had a suspicion there was some sort of painkiller and sedative in her IV because she wasn’t hurting anymore but couldn’t keep her eyelids open.

“Patrick?” she asked drowsily.

“Yeah?” His voice sounded close, as if his lips were next to her ear.

She turned her head toward the sound, opened her eyes to find him an inch away, staring at her with an expression she couldn’t read. “Thank you for saving my life.”

*     *     *

T
RACEY
W
ILLIAMS SAUNTERED
into the Colombian police station and smiled at the bored young officer who sat behind the front desk. He wasn’t wearing a wedding band and he had that amped up male vibe about him, all testosterone-driven virility. One of the easily manipulated. She was older than he was, but she kept in perfect shape. She crossed her arms under her breasts, drawing attention to her impressive cleavage displayed by the deep vee of her tight white blouse. Then she bent just a little to smooth her hand down her just-above-the-knee dove-gray skirt. His eyes flickered. Good. Now she had his proper attention. She smiled straight into his dark chocolate eyes and watched his pupils heat.

“
Hola, mi nombre es Meredith Childs. Trabajo con la compañía de seguros
.”
My name is Meredith Childs. I’m from the insurance company.
Another false identity. In truth, she had so many she’d almost forgotten her real name—it was better that way. “
Necesito ver el carro de alquiler que se quemó anoche para evaluar sus daños
.”
I need to see the burned out rental car from last night to assess it for damages.
Her Spanish held just the barest trace of an American accent but, to her annoyance, he replied in perfect English.

“Trust me,
Señorita
, the car is a write off.”

“I understand, Officer, but if I don’t personally set eyes on the vehicle, I can’t process the claim for the rental company, and then they can’t press criminal charges for destruction of property against the renter.”

A look of amused disbelief crossed the young man’s face.

She pushed. “My firm will send somebody else until one of us actually lays eyes on the car. You know how insurance companies are.” The same the world over.

The young man gave a heavy sigh and shouted through an open door to some cops in the back room. The place was hopping after a murder—Dr. Lockhart’s student to be exact. Apparently
Mano de Dios
had thought the kid might have an idea where his supervisor had gone and had tried to beat it out of him. They’d discovered absolutely nothing. The cartel operated on violence and intimidation, but not smarts. They also operated on bribes.

She’d bet her new BMW Z4 Roadster that the investigation into the student’s death was already written up and the cops had concluded that Dr. Audrey Lockhart was the prime suspect. Poor Audrey, all she’d ever tried to do was beat back the disappointments and tragedies of her life by burying herself in her work. The biologist’s future looked increasingly bleak. So sad. Too bad. Life happened and you adapted. Or died.

The uniform led her out through the front door and around the side of the low squat building. She maneuvered carefully over the hot, cracked, pitted concrete in her four-inch, black, patent leather pumps.

He pulled keys from the belt at his side and said something about the weather. She smiled with just the right amount of sparkle. His expression was more relaxed now. Attentive. Interested. All because his Tab A might fit into her Slot B. It was the only form of biology that had ever interested her.

They approached a large lot filled with cars and boats, surrounded by a ten-foot high chain link fence. The acrid stench of smoke and gasoline tainted the air. A burned-out SUV sat on the back of a flatbed tow truck. The cop swung up inside the cab and started to slowly lower the SUV to the dusty ground. She peered closer as the vehicle dropped to her level. Gas cap was missing. Small pieces of what looked like incinerated paper were stuck inside the pipe. Definitely a torch job. All the interior upholstery had melted away and the inside was a twisted mess of carbonized plastic and steel. Just the skeletal frame of the seats remained. Whoever lit it up had done a good job.

The car came to rest on the ground with a bump and a groan.

“Did they find any prints?” she asked when the cop turned off the winch.

“
Nada
. We sent a knife and samples of material covered in what looked like blood to the crime lab but it might not be possible to get DNA.” He shrugged in that sexy arrogant way some Latino men had.

The blood probably belonged to Lockhart. From the information she’d received Lockhart had miraculously killed one of the cartel’s trained monkeys, but had been stabbed in the process. What Tracey needed to know was the identity of the mysterious white knight who’d ridden to the biologist’s rescue.

Despite the public cover up, someone was actively investigating Ted Burger’s death—probably someone in the US government. Tracey would be more concerned if it were The Gateway Project, but that shadowy vigilante organization had unexpectedly shut down in December, and the secretive cabal had disbanded without her or her boss learning their true identities. Burger had been pissed by the decision, but he’d also been afraid. She’d enjoyed the look in his eyes when she’d told him The Gateway Project had sent her to exact revenge, but she had no real desire to come to their attention.

Tracey was smart enough to tread lightly. Once she figured out who was involved, then she’d know where to start looking for Little Miss Lockhart.

A dead “assassin” suited everyone. Especially her. Tracey had wanted to kill Audrey before this, but her lover hadn’t let her. A mistake. Tracey didn’t like mistakes.

She eyed the cop up and down. If she couldn’t get what she needed out of this guy she’d have to risk going to the car rental company and try to bluff her way into seeing their records. She took photographs of the vehicle from all angles, and wrote notes on her iPad as he eyed the outline of her flat stomach and full breasts under her business attire.

She bit her lip and frowned. “I need the vehicle identification number to confirm this is the right car and then I can close the case from my end.” She gestured to her clothes, which were not suited for exploring a burnt out vehicle, and pouted. “I don’t really want to get too close.”