Cooper Security 06 - Secret Intentions (13 page)

Evie felt a little chill dart down her neck. Two bedrooms.
In other words, don’t expect a continuation of the kiss in the garden.

“Good idea.” She dropped her gaze.

“Very well. I’ll collect your things and bring them here in the morning. Do you have what you need for this evening?”

“I do,” Evie answered. She could sleep in her underwear and the T-shirt she’d changed out of when she put on the borrowed dress. “What should we do about the dresses and tux?”

“I’ll collect those from you when I bring you your things,” Darcy offered. “I have a way to get in touch with Quinn, and he’ll handle it from there. I’ll be in touch.”

Jesse laid his hand on the small of Evie’s back, guiding her toward the apartment building’s entrance as Darcy closed the limo door behind him and the long black car pulled away from the curb. “Long night, huh?”

“Yes,” she answered, wishing he wouldn’t touch her. Even though she knew the light brush of his hand on her back meant nothing to him, it was a visceral reminder of her own unattainable desires. Kissing him tonight had been a mistake of massive proportions, if for no other reason than how it had shown her exactly what she was missing.

A ten-year crush on her sister’s ex-fiancé had never been anything more than a pleasant dream, an idle what-if. She’d never really let those girlish feelings interfere with the other relationships she’d had since she was seventeen. She’d had a serious relationship in college, even considering marriage before the romance had fallen apart. Since college, she’d dated several men without letting Jesse Cooper’s memory get in the way.

But now that she knew what it was like to kiss him, knew how his touch made her blood sing, how could she ever pretend she wanted anyone else?

Chapter Ten

“Is that him?” Evie looked over the rim of her coffee cup toward the Department of Energy building. Her short hair was tucked up under a baseball cap she’d borrowed from Jesse, and a pair of sunglasses hid her bright blue eyes. She’d been spooked by what Tom Claiborne had said to her the night before about looking familiar, so she’d taken pains to disguise herself behind loose clothes and the cap and glasses. She seemed satisfied she looked nondescript.

What she really looked was damned adorable. Jesse was having trouble paying attention to the side exit, where Secretary Gamble should be appearing anytime now.

“No, not him,” he said, dragging his gaze from her pert profile long enough to check out the suit-clad man she pointed out.

“What if he takes a car?”

“Darcy said he leaves the building on foot every Wednesday around lunchtime.”

“And you trust Darcy now?” She turned her face toward him, but with her eyes hidden behind the glasses, he found he couldn’t read her expression.

He quelled the urge to remove the sunglasses. “I don’t trust anyone in this bloody town but you. But we can’t afford to ignore leads when they fall in our laps.”

“Unless this is a trap.”

“Darcy knows where we were last night. If he wanted to entrap us, he could have just made a phone call and had the FBI waiting on our doorstep.”

“So, not a trap. A wild-goose chase.”

“This whole trip has been a wild-goose chase.” He shrugged. “So what’s new?”

Evie’s lips tightened. She looked back toward the side exit and sat up straighter. “That’s definitely him.”

Following her gaze, Jesse felt a jolt of adrenaline rush through him as he recognized Morris Gamble’s silver hair and patrician profile. “He’s coming this way. Wait him out.”

There were no staffers with Gamble, Jesse noted as the secretary walked at an energetic clip toward the concrete bench where he and Evie sat. The secretary didn’t spare either of them a look as he passed and turned left, heading down Independence Avenue toward the Metro station.

“Wait,” Jesse reiterated as he felt Evie’s body twitch beside him.

“We’re going to lose him.”

“No, we’re not.” He stood and tossed the remains of his coffee in a nearby trash bin. Evie did the same, falling into step as they followed the secretary from a distance of thirty yards behind.

“He’s turning into the Metro station,” Evie murmured as Gamble headed for the train station a couple of blocks later. They caught up, walking into the station about ten yards behind him. They had already loaded fare cards with enough money to get them anywhere they wanted to go for the next couple of days, so they didn’t have to stop before they reached the turnstiles.

Gamble boarded a Blue Line train heading toward the L’Enfant Plaza transfer station, avoiding the mass of commuters huddling near the center of the train by boarding near the back. Jesse and Evie followed, taking seats a couple of rows behind the secretary.

If anyone else on the train recognized the secretary of energy, they showed no signs of it. He wasn’t the most recognizable of the president’s cabinet, Jesse supposed. Maybe that’s why Gamble chose this form of travel rather than a private car—nobody would even notice him amid the throng of federal workers who filled the trains every weekday.

“Any idea where he’s going?” Evie murmured.

Jesse shook his head, beginning to worry that she might be right. Maybe they
were
on a wild-goose chase. Darcy claimed to be on their side, but he worked for an offshoot of the State Department, the same government department that had produced a corrupt bastard like Barton Reid, who’d left a trail of dead bodies and ruined lives in his wake.

“He could be going to meet his girlfriend,” Evie suggested.

“I hope that’s not all it is.” Jesse fidgeted with his fare card. If they were simply following Gamble to a romantic rendezvous—

“I think we’re at the transfer station,” Evie said quietly. The train slowed as they pulled into the L’Enfant Plaza station. Gamble stood as the train stopped, and fell into the line of passengers preparing to disembark.

Jesse caught Evie’s hand, tugging her with him through the crowd. They had to move at a clip to keep from losing Gamble in the roiling sea of humanity filling the platform outside the train.

After a heart-stopping couple of seconds, he caught sight of the secretary again, walking briskly toward the Green Line train heading south. “There,” he told Evie, pulling her with him as he hurried to catch up.

Gamble boarded a train headed south toward the Navy Yard and the Anacostia River. Jesse didn’t know enough about the D.C. area to know if his choice of destinations was odd, but Evie gave a low murmur of surprise when she saw the train they were boarding.

“Something wrong?” he asked as they settled a few rows behind Gamble.

“We’re heading across the Anacostia River.”

“What does that mean?”

“That’s not the wealthiest part of D.C. Mostly residential and urban.”

“Not the usual hangout for a presidential cabinet member, you mean.”

“Not exactly where I’d choose to have a romantic assignation,” she said flatly. “Not when there are any number of luxury hotels not two miles from where he works.”

“But if he doesn’t want to be seen—”

“If he cared about being seen, why would he take the Metro instead of a private car?” she asked, echoing his earlier thought.

“Then maybe
she
doesn’t want to be seen.”

Evie slanted a look at him. He felt a rippling sensation shoot through his gut to land low in his belly, a potent reminder of just how vulnerable he was becoming where Evie was concerned.

Don’t think about the kiss,
a desperate voice whispered in his head.

Unfortunately, it seemed to be all he could think about. The memory of those stolen moments in the rose garden haunted him, making him wonder what might have happened if he hadn’t stopped her.

“What if his lover is someone well-known?” he asked quietly, struggling to put all thoughts of her soft, tempting lips out of his mind.

“Interesting question,” she murmured. “Talbot did say men in politics always cheat up.”

The train stopped twice before they pulled into the Anacostia station. Jesse watched Gamble carefully, in case he moved at the last moment and put them at a disadvantage. But he remained seated all the way, even after the train had swapped out passengers at the Anacostia station.

Next stop, Congress Heights.

“What’s in Congress Heights?” he asked Evie, keeping his voice low.

“Mostly apartments and homes. The Barry Farm neighborhood. A few shopping centers.” She peered out the window as lights on the track began to flash, warning that they were nearing the station. “There’s a psychiatric hospital there, too. St. Elizabeth’s.”

The name tugged lightly at the back of his mind, but he didn’t have time to ponder its meaning, for as the train pulled into the Congress Heights Metro station, Morris Gamble rose from his seat and moved briskly to the exit door.

Jesse rose as well, catching Evie’s hand and tugging her to her feet. Swept up in the throng crowding the central platform, they struggled to keep Gamble in view. Jesse lost sight of the secretary as they reached the escalators. “Damn it, I can’t see him.”

The escalators deposited them at street level and the tightly packed crowd spread out, exiting the pavilion-like shelter into the bright midday sun.

Evie shaded her eyes. “Do you see him?”

Jesse scanned the flat, concrete square. “There!” He nodded toward the bus shelter near the curb. Gamble was striding purposefully past the gathering crowd waiting for the next bus, heading for the crosswalk.

Jesse and Evie hurried to catch up before the light turned, putting them closer to the secretary than Jesse liked. “Hold back a little once we reach the other side,” he murmured to Evie as they stepped quickly to beat the light. “Don’t want to spook him.”

They slowed their pace once they reached the sidewalk, letting Gamble put some distance between them. “Where is he going?” Evie asked.

Not to St. Elizabeth’s hospital, Jesse thought, as the secretary walked past the wide entrance to the tree-lined campus and continued down Alabama Avenue into a residential neighborhood, slowing only when he neared a pair of men standing at the next corner.

Jesse caught Evie’s hand, instantly on alert as one of the men turned to greet the secretary.

They were the two men who’d kidnapped Evie from the wedding.

One of them spotted Jesse and Evie. He stared, his expression betraying surprise. It was a split second of warning, but Jesse took advantage of it, tightening his grip on Evie’s hand and darting across the nearest lawn.

Hand in hand, they raced down the cross street for half a block until Evie tugged him toward a narrow ally that cut behind the houses on that block. The pavement in the alley was uneven, the cracks sprouting weeds that caught their shoes as they ran, threatening to send them sprawling. Behind them, the pounding of footsteps on the pavement seemed to thunder down the narrow lane. Jesse didn’t waste time looking back, but apparently Evie did, for her grip on his hand tightened and she put on a new burst of speed.

They reached the next street and dashed across, dodging a car and nearly barreling into a trio of garbage cans that stood near the entrance of the next alley. Something exploded very close to Jesse’s right ear, splintering the wood of the shed they were passing. He knew that muted blatting sound, knew the effects of a bullet slamming into a wood frame.

“They’re shooting at us!” Evie rasped.

They needed to get out of the alley, but most of the yards along the lane were fenced in, blocking easy escape routes. The mouth of the alley loomed ever closer, and Jesse took a chance, zigzagging across the uneven pavement, his focus entirely on the cross street ahead.

They burst from the alley and paused only long enough to look left and right, seeking the closest route of escape. Jesse tugged Evie’s hand and turned right, ignoring the growing burn in his legs as he heard another flat bark of a sound-suppressed pistol in the alley behind them.

She kept up, her shorter legs churning that much harder to match his longer strides. Despite his desperation to get her to safety, Jesse spared a moment of admiration for her courage and pluck.

A large thoroughfare loomed ahead of them, the crossing light already blinking a warning. Jesse took a chance anyway, pounding relentlessly toward the other side of the road.

The traffic light turned red as they neared the sidewalk, car horns blaring at their folly. Jesse tugged Evie behind him the last few feet and hit the sidewalk running.

A squeal of tires behind them followed by a harsh thudding sound and shouts of horror broke through the haze of panic driving Jesse relentlessly forward. He faltered to a halt, slowed by the tug of Evie’s hand as she came to a stop, as well.

Behind them lay a horrific scene. A car sprawled almost sideways a few feet past the crosswalk, the young female driver emerging from her open door, shaking and crying. Traffic on both sides of the street had screeched to a halt, and both drivers and pedestrians were beginning to stream into the street, gathering around two bloody bodies sprawled in the street several feet beyond the crosswalk.

The men who had been chasing them had stepped into the crosswalk a few seconds too late, running straight into traffic.

Movement across the street caught Jesse’s attention. Morris Gamble walked slowly toward the edge of the crosswalk, staring first at the mangled bodies of his companions, then across the tangle of onlookers to lock gazes with Jesse.

He stared at Jesse for a moment, expressionless. Then he slowly turned and walked away from the scene, disappearing back up the street.

“We have to get out of here,” Jesse urged, tugging Evie’s hand. With the other people on the street concentrating on the aftermath of the accident, they had a chance to simply blend into the crowd and make their getaway.

“Wait. One of them is still alive.” Evie pulled her hand out of Jesse’s and stepped into the street before he could stop her.

He hurried after her, watching the crowd around them for any sign that the two men who’d come after them might have accomplices in the area, but all he saw was genuine concern for the wounded men, along with an unsurprising dose of grim curiosity.