Deadly Desire (Carrington-Hill Investigations Book 2) (11 page)

Kicking off the wall, Sara started her laps
, working her arms and legs until exhaustion set in. She grabbed the edge of the pool, trying to catch her breath. She felt the pair of eyes on her before she saw him. Standing just in view at the French doors, Collin leaned against the counter sipping out of a coffee mug, and he still looked angry.

Sara lifted herself out of the pool, grabbed the towel she’d laid nearby
, and moved back into the pool house to change. Exhausted, she still had one last thing she needed to do before calling it a night. Hanging her wet bathing suit over the rod in the shower, she threw on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and ran a brush through her soaked hair. She tried Marco’s cell one more time and finally reached him.

He answered on the first ring. “Hill.”

Sara shoved her foot into her shoe. “I had to leave the SUV in the parking garage at the mall. All four tires were slashed and the perp left me a warning about slitting my throat.”

Marco grunted. “Damn
, Sara, two vehicles in less than two weeks. You’re really going to screw up my insurance premiums.”

Sara laughed. “It comes with the job, Marco. I’m surprised you could get insurance at all.”

He grunted again. “I’ll take care of it. After the last hit and run, we outfitted the SUV you’re driving with GPS and surveillance cameras. Maybe we’ll get lucky and get a face this time.”

“Huh… well
, I’m glad I refrained from the make-out session in the back seat. You would have gotten an eyeful.”

“Damn it
, Sara…”

She giggled. “Just teasing, boss. But next time you might want to warn me because I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be able to hold off the
bachelor’s advances.”

“Sara…”

She grinned at the warning in Marco’s tone. “Well, it’s true.”

“Consider yourself warned. Your next one will have the same gear.”

She shoved the comm in her other ear. “Testing…Testing.”

Dennison answered. “Go ahead Johnson.”

“Just testing the equipment.” She clicked the comm off.

“Are you done playing with the toys?” Marco asked with an irritated tone.

“Just seeing who you sent for security.” She shoved her gun in the back of her jeans. “I want to do a sweep of the property before I hit the sack and see who else is on my team.”

“What
? You don’t trust the new crew I sent you?”

She chuckled, “I know Dennison is capable and he can keep the others in line. Did you brief them?”

“No doll, I sent them in blind….” He sounded annoyed. “Of course, I briefed them; I’m not stupid. I needed to warn them that they’d be working with you…didn’t I?”

“
You’re just a laugh a minute, Marco. Go get some sleep. I’ve got work to do.” She flicked her phone closed and emerged from the pool house under the night sky.  The wind rustled the leaves in the nearby trees, giving it an eerie feel. She could predict the weather from the ache in her knee. Her bones were never wrong. Rain was coming. The sound of bullfrogs croaked nearby. She inhaled a deep breath and almost choked when the heady scent of smoke drifted to her nose. She clicked her earpiece. “Who’s smoking? I can smell it all the way down at the pool house.”

“Negative
,” Five voices all responded one right after the other. Dennison was the last to chime in.

Her heart dipped into her stomach as she started jogging toward the main house. Her gaze searched the building for any sign of a fire, any sign that there was trouble. “Who’s got the 20 on Collin’s location?”

They all replied with their locations strategically around the property, but not one of them was inside the house. She burst through the French doors and didn’t have to look far for Collin. He was sitting back at the same kitchen table where she’d left him. His gaze shot up to meet hers as he pushed out of his chair. “Sara, what’s wrong?”

“I smelled smoke.” Sara turned in circles
, sniffing the kitchen air. “It’s not in the house.”

Collin waved his hand and returned to his seat
as if it was normal for someone to think that his house was on fire. “It’s probably just Drew. He’s one of those closet smokers that sneak out in the middle of the night on occasion to light up. He tries to hide it from me, but I’ve caught him on more than one occasion. He likes to go on the other side of the garden, out of sight, near the trees.”

Sara relayed the message to her team and told them to check it out. She wasn’t leaving Collin’s side until she knew for sure there wasn’t a threat in the area. Five minutes later
, they confirmed Collin’s guess. They indeed had found Drew with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth at the edge of the woods. Sara released a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. “They found Drew.”

He nodded. “Sara…”

Her heart hammered in her chest and didn’t show signs of slowing. The thought of something happening to Collin wasn’t something she was prepared to deal with and that just pissed her off more. These unfamiliar feelings needed to go back to wherever they came from. She didn’t have time to deal with them, not here, not now, and she was definitely not discussing them with him. Her determination not to cave to his demands held steadfast. She didn’t know what was running through his mind, but she knew where hers was headed and there was no time for that crap. An agent that falls for a client is a dead agent. Time to put some much needed distance back between them so she can do her job and not get Collin or herself killed. Sara pursed her lips together. She held up her hand. “Forget it, Collin. I’m sorry you don’t agree with how I do my job, but it is the only way I know to keep us both alive. It is what it is. Good night.”

  With the perimeter secure to her liking and the night shift on duty, Sara dragged her exhausted body into the pool house, crawled into bed and la
y awake. Her restless mind worked overtime as she tried to figure out how she was going to keep the senator’s mess at bay while she dealt with Collin’s stalker.

An hour later
, she was still wide-awake. The shrill of her phone pulled her from her thoughts. She glanced at the caller ID and didn’t recognize the number. She answered it and wished she hadn’t.

A muffled voice spoke so low she couldn’t tell if it was male or female. “I want what’s mine.”

Sara sprang up in the bed and was pulling on her jeans as she spoke. “Why don’t you come get it?”

“You think you’re safe behind that
iron gate?” The caller’s words sent a shiver down her spine, and her heart thundered in her chest. “You’re not, and I left you proof.”

The caller hung up. Sara hopped out of bed, slid into her sneakers
, grabbed her gun and hit the front door running.

She
ran through the yard, into the house, leaving the door wide open. She skidded around the banister and took the steps two at a time and skidded to a stop outside of Collin’s room. She slid the door open a crack and peered into the darkness of the room before she stepped inside with her gun tight in her hand. She went to the side of the bed where Collin was fast asleep. She breathed easier watching the rise and fall of his chest. She checked the rest of the room and came up empty.

She hurried back down the stairs and out the front door to find two guards sitting on the steps outside. She marched over to them. “I want a check of the entire grounds, now!”

They jumped to their feet. One hit the comm in his ear and relayed her demands while the other charged for the front gate.

She went back inside and checked every room
, looking for a possible intruder, and double-checked the windows and doors. When she was satisfied the house was clear, she moved into the kitchen and started a pot of coffee. There was no mistaking the hate she’d heard in the muffled voice. It was only a matter of time before someone made a move and, by God, she would be ready, even if it meant she had to sleep outside of Collin’s door.

She’d just sat down when one of the guards entered through the French doors. “Sara, you need to come take a look at what we found.”

She grabbed her gun from the table and followed the guard outside. He led her to the back of the house, where they’d originally found Drew smoking hours ago. He pointed down at the ground, and she lowered to her knees. Lying on the green grass was a bird, not just any bird, but a dead bird with his head and neck torn from his body. “Shit.”

She glanced up through the forest while rising to her feet. She pointed into the greenery.
“I want a schematic of this damn place. The entire place should be surrounded by a twelve foot brick wall. I want to know what the hell is back there and how the intruder got onto the property…” She turned to the guard. “And I want it done tonight.”

Good thing she wasn’t sleeping anyway
. Her plans had just changed from lying awake in the comfort of her bed to a long night of planning. By the time morning came and she had to go shopping, she was going to be running on pure adrenaline and coffee.

Chapter 1
2

Sara glanced down at her watch as Garrett, Lexi, Catherine
, and the same blonde that had been with Marco when they raided Collin’s ex-girlfriend’s house, pulled up in the drive at seven-thirty on the dot. She still didn’t know the blonde’s name.

“Damn
, girl, you look awful,” Lexi exclaimed as she walked in.

“Did the
hottie keep you up all night?” Catherine asked as she followed Lexi.

Sara groaned. “No
, but slashed tires and intruders on the property will tend to do that to you.”

They turned around with concern
s in their eyes as the blonde followed Garrett in. He pushed the door closed and slung his arm over her shoulder. “Damn, you did have a busy night.”

Sara agreed but turned toward the unknown
woman. “Who are you?”

The blonde
glanced up at Garrett before meeting Sara’s gaze. She held out her hand. “Megan Hill.”

Sara’s eyes widened when she spun around to find Lexi nodding. “Yep, Megan is Marco’s little sister.”

Sara held out her hand. “I’m so sorry. I swear, I don’t know how you do it.”

Megan laughed
; she reached for Sara’s hand and shook it. “He isn’t that bad. A little over-protective growing up, but he means well.”

Sara walked them into the kitchen. After a round a coffee, friendly banter
, and discussions about the plans for the day, she grabbed her purse, leaving Megan and Garrett on Collin’s detail. Collin walked her to the door. His hand caressed her arm. “Sara, call Sanchez and call this off. I can’t let you go through with this.”

Even though Collin asked her not to go through with it, there wasn’t any stopping the plans she had set in motion. The picture would go live in forty
-five minutes and, if she wasn’t at the mall, then she might miss her opportunity. “Don’t you want your life back?”

Collin rubbed the stubble on his chin. “Not at your expense. We can find another way.”

She shook her head and placed her palm on his arm. She wanted to give him some peace in his life; she needed to. “There isn’t another way. She’s after me, so we’re going to use it to our advantage on our own terms. Haven’t you ever heard that the best defense is a good offense? Well, that’s what this is. Marco has another team that will be watching us, and I’ve got two of the best agents a girl could ask for watching my back. I’ll be fine.”

Unable to resist, she
stretched up on her toes and pressed a quick kiss on his cheek. “Garrett and Megan have the lead while I’m gone. If you need anything, just ask them.” She turned to walk out but stopped and spun around. “Try not to give them trouble. They’re just doing their job.”

She left him standing at the door
, and he watched them leave until they reached the security gate. Every fiber in her being told her that he’d be fine without her. It was now Sara that the stalker wanted; she would need to get Sara out of the way for the stalker to truly have Collin. Yes, her plan was for the best, or at least she hoped so.

Lexi glanced up in the rearview mirror. “I have to admit your plan is kind of ballsy.”

“Then hand me a bat because I’m going down swinging.”

Sara walked into the lingerie store as she simultaneously pulled up Sanchez’s website on her phone and verified that the picture had made the home page. Pictures of Collin and her from the fundraiser and the one Sara had planted with herself posing in the lingerie filled the screen. The
ir scorching kiss from the fundraiser was front and center on the page and made her lips tingle just thinking about it. Heat rose to her cheeks as she felt like a voyeur, even though she was looking at her own pictures. A huge diamond ring had been Photoshopped onto her finger in the picture of them kissing. Sanchez had gone all out on creating just the right atmosphere to piss off the stalker she was trying to taunt. The title on the page made her chuckle.
“This just in….Collin Martin, the World’s Most Eligible Bachelor, appears to be off the market. Sara Johnson was seen moments ago at the local mall shopping for lingerie…Could it be for an upcoming honeymoon?”

Lexi glanced over her shoulder and whistled. “Damn, if I had legs like that, I’d be parading around in skirts all day.”

Catherine nudged Lexi’s arm. “I bet Trip wouldn’t complain.”

They both watched as Sara scrolled up and down the screen. “
Time to put your game faces on, ladies.” They walked farther into the lingerie shop. “It’s time to even the score.”

Sara tried to
pretend to be enjoying herself when, really, her mind was everywhere but on the shopping or enjoying time with her friends. It was just another undercover operation. She was with the best, so why was her gaze darting everywhere. She hadn’t heard a thing Catherine or Lexi had said in the last five minutes. No matter which store they entered, her gaze was drawn to the front entrance and everyone around her. Women pushing toddlers in strollers walked nearby. Teenagers and young women laughed and talked in groups as they went about their shopping. No one suspected a criminal probably lurked nearby.

Sara’s feet were killing
her, her stomach was grumbling, and her mood deteriorated. Maybe this hadn’t been such a good plan. Maybe the stalker hadn’t even been on the website.

“Well
, that was a colossal waste of time,” Sara grumbled.

Catherine lifted the bags in her hands. “Shopping is never a waste of time.” Her grin grew bigger as she nudged Sara with her arm. “Collin won’t be able to keep his hands off you when
he gets a peek of the lingerie you bought.”

Sara’s cheeks reddened as they walked back to the SUV. “You know how this works
, Catherine. We aren’t sleeping together. He’s my assignment.” Sara pulled the door open and paused before climbing in. “Oh wait…you two wouldn’t understand, would you?”

It wasn’t long ago that Lexi married her assignment, or even when Catherine had fallen hard for the client’s brother. Shit like that only happened in movies and books or to her extremely lucky best friends, not to someone like Sara.

They all chuckled as they climbed in the vehicle. Only minutes into driving, Lexi announced that they had a tail, and it wasn’t one of Marco’s team. The tinted windows of the two-door sports car blocked their view of getting an identification on the driver.

“Stalker or
senator?” Lexi questioned.

Sara glanced out the back window. “I have no idea.”

“What do you want me to do?” Lexi asked as she glanced up in the rearview mirror.

“We need to get her out in the open. Why don’t you
pull into that park over there?”

Catherine nudged Lexi. “Isn’t this the same park
where Marco and you cornered Constanza’s goons?”

Lexi shrugged. “It’s not like it was difficult. They weren’t the sharpest crayons in the box.”

The park was pretty secluded, but unlike Lexi’s encounter, she might not have had Marco hiding in the nearby trees, but she did have her best friends if anything went wrong.

Lexi pulled into the park,
and each of them checked their guns before exiting the SUV. The silver sports car drove by once, and just when they thought that maybe Lexi might have been wrong, the car turned back into the lot. To Sara’s surprise, Maureen jumped out of the car with a gun in her hand, and it was pointed directly at Sara. “Not so smug now, are you, Sara?”

Maureen’s hand trembled as she stepped closer
. Her gaze went from Sara’s to Lexi’s to Catherine’s and back again. Maureen waved the gun around. “You two back in the SUV. This is between me and the slut.”

Lexi kept her gun trained on Maureen. “Afraid we can’t do that. Why don’t you drop your weapon
, and we can discuss this like adults.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Sara spotted the secondary team in the
tree line moving into position, and another SUV parking across the road, although no one moved to get out of the car.

This ended here and now. There was no way that Maureen was going to escape. Sara crossed her arms over her chest. “He doesn’t love you
. Are you that desperate that you have to stalk him?”

Fire flashed in Maureen’s eyes as she narrowed them. Her grip on the gun tightened.

Catherine nudged her and spoke under her breath. “Are you sure it’s wise to piss off the psycho?”   

Sara inched f
arther away from her friends, trying to keep Maureen’s focus solely on her. There was no way she was going to let her friends get hurt. Not today.
Yeah, keep your eyes on me. Just another step…
Maureen glanced over to Lexi, who still had her gun out. Catherine had pulled hers too.

Maureen smirked. “You don’t deserve him.”

“But I have him,” Sara taunted, and Maureen turned her attention back to Sara. “I made him want me all right and, tonight, I’m going to give him what he’s been begging me for, and he
has
been begging like a dog wanting a bone.”

Sara noticed Maureen’s jaw clench before she pulled the trigger. The loud sound of
a gunfire shot ricocheted though the air as Sara dodged to the side. The bullet grazed her arm, right where the middle of her chest had been seconds before.

Sara landed with a thud against the asphalt
, knocking the breath from her lungs. She’d wanted to talk some sense into the woman without violence. Even though Sara hadn’t pulled her gun out, her best friends had her covered. She hadn’t expected the woman to fire the gun. Honestly, she didn’t think Maureen had the balls to pull the trigger. She’d almost underestimated the woman into an early grave. She whipped her own gun out of the band of her jeans just as another shot rang out in the early evening air.

Lexi
was standing over Maureen. She kicked Maureen’s gun out of her reach. Sara rolled to her back, trying to catch her breath and whispered her thanks to the main man upstairs or the guardian angel that had watched over them while a member from the other team was on the phone with the police.

Lexi was applying pressure to the wound in Maureen’s arm, the same arm she’d been using to hold the gun.  

Maureen was wailing like a baby, as if she’d been shot through the chest.

“Oh
, shut it, you’ll survive.” Lexi balked.

Catherine extended her hand and pulled Sara up. Her friend examined Sara’s arm even as they heard the sirens in the distance. The second Carrington
-Hill team emerged from the cover of the trees.

Police cars screeched
to a halt with their sirens blaring. The sheriff stepped out of his cruiser. His gaze traveled over the chaos around him. His deputies had their guns drawn and pointed at the Carrington-Hill team. He held up his arms. “Sara, tell your men to put their weapons away.”

Sara nodded and the armed team holstered their weapons. The
sheriff stepped over to Sara.

“She tried to kill me
, and I want to press charges.”

He gestured his men toward Maureen. “Get her some medical attention
, and then I want her cuffed and hauled in.”

“Why don’t you let the paramedics bandage you up
? I’ll meet you down at the station for your statement while my forensic team processes the site.”

Sara glanced up across the road
. The other SUV that had been witness to the shootout was no longer in sight. She turned in a circle, looking to see if she could spot the SUV, but it was nowhere to be found.

****

Sara walked into the buzzing police station, filled with deputies processing reports and cuffed criminals sitting in chairs on opposite sides of the desk. The sheriff’s daughter sat behind the counter with the phone pressed to her ear. She took one look at Sara and raised a brow before dismissing the person on the other end of the phone.

“
Oh my god, are you okay?” Katrina asked as her gaze went down the cuts and scrapes on Sara’s body.

Sara took a deep breath. The last thing she wanted to do was explain what happened.
“I’m here to give my statement. Your dad is expecting me.”

The doors to the station burst open
, and Collin stomped in with Garrett and Megan right behind him. Collin ran a hand through his already disheveled hair. His gaze scanned the room until it landed on her. He moved through the room and pulled her into his arms. She winced from the pressure on the bandaged cut.

He eased his hold and turned her arm to get a better look. “Are you al
l right? Do I need to take you to the hospital?”

His genuine concern was endearing and reminded her of what she was missing, not being in a relationship for so long. The smoldering blue
of his eyes deepened as he assessed the rest of her body, as if checking to make sure she wasn’t hurt any place else.

“The paramedics already checked me out. I’m just here to give my statement and press charges.” She placed a reassuring hand on his arm, not sure how he was going to take the news that his publicist would be transferred to the jail after her little stint at the hospital.
She dropped her arm. “Wait, how did you know?”