Do You Trust Me? (10 page)

When McCall walked
out of the room, Rina gathered up the spilled papers and computer disks and
piled them on her desk. Her work, her personal papers, everything was damaged
or destroyed. The thought that these people, the ones who’d possibly killed
John, had been pawing through her things made her nauseous.

Suddenly, the locket
felt like a living thing against her skin. McCall hadn’t paid attention to it,
and she didn’t think anyone else would either, but she had to keep herself from
constantly touching it. She was dying for another look inside, but not where
anyone could walk in on her and see what she was doing. Her head was starting
to ache again. She was just about to go find some aspirin when McCall reappeared
in the doorway. “How are you coming along?”

“Okay, I guess.” She
waved her hand distractedly at the clutter on her desk. “I like to think I’m a
little smarter than the average bear.”

“What do you mean?”

She opened a section
of the bookcase, pressed a spot in the backing and a panel slid sideways to
reveal a small wall safe. Dialing in the combination, she opened the door and took
out a small file box.

“I mean this.” She
took off the lid to show him a pile of tiny instruments that looked like
harmonicas. “My flash drives. I back everything up to both disk and memory
sticks. I lock the sticks in the safe, just so I don’t have to worry about
recreating any of my manuscripts. They got the CDs, but I still have all my
documents.”

He almost grinned. “Smart
lady.”

“Thank you.” She gave
him a shaky smile. “Also, my laptop’s in my car, so they didn’t get that. Do
you really think they’ll come back?”

“They might when they
discover the things they took give them nothing.”

The thought pierced
her mind like a spear of ice. “Oh, God.” She couldn’t seem to find anything
else to say.

“I’m through taking
pictures.” Gage joined them in the den. He saw the look on Rina’s face and
glanced at McCall. “Do you think...”

McCall shook his
head. “Sully’s department.”

Gage shrugged. “Whatever.
Les and I need to do some cleanup before we get started on the electronics.”

“Okay.” He guided
Rina into the kitchen, the only room still with some semblance of order. “We
need to make arrangements for tonight.”

“What about tonight?”

“Rina, you can’t stay
here. The place is a mess and the security isn’t in place yet. Please, for God’s
sake, don’t give me a hard time about this.”

“I won’t be chased
out of my home.” She folded her arms across her chest, jaw jutting defiantly.

Gage had come into
the kitchen, and he and McCall exchanged a glance.

“Your call,” Gage
said.

McCall shrugged and
opened his phone again.

“We’ve reached the ‘need
to know’ stage,” he said cryptically. Then, after a minute, “Fine. I’ll call
you when I have a destination.”

He looked at Rina,
assessing her condition. “All right. Here’s what we’ll do. Sully’s the only one
who’s authorized to answer your questions. He’ll come here to speak to you
himself, but only if you agree to get out of here for the night. You know you
can trust him, right?”

I’ve been betrayed.
Trust no one.

“We’ll see.” She
couldn’t hide her skepticism.

“I just have to call
him back and tell him where we’ll be. Is that a fair enough deal?”

Rina nodded
grudgingly. She’d do it to get her answers.

“Good. Go pack,
enough for a few days just in case. I’ll check us in someplace with room
service so we can have dinner before he gets here.”

She just nodded her
head, her spurt of energy waning, leaving her weary and deflated.

“Good girl. Go on upstairs
and get ready. I’ll take care of the reservations. Oh, and Gage has the
envelope with all your new identification and credit cards. I’ll bring it to
the hotel with us.”

“I have my book
signing tomorrow,” she reminded him. “And another one three days later.”

“Jesus, Rina.” McCall
raked his fingers through his hair. It was the first time she’d seen a break in
his stoic image.

“I have to do this,”
she insisted. “I’m not stupid. I know this will put a strain on things. But if
I pass on it, you’ll have questions thrown at you that you won’t want to
answer.”

“All right, all
right.” He pulled out the notes she’d given him and glanced over them. “Give me
a few minutes to go over this with Les and Gage.”

“I’ll check my den
and see if there’s anything I need to take with me.”

It took her less than
fifteen minutes to gather any disks and notes that might be usable and stuff
them in a tote bag. She found McCall in the living room talking on his cell
while Gage and Les dumped debris in a large trash bag.

“We have a cleanup
crew coming in an hour,” Gage told her. “We just thought we’d pick up some of
the worst of it.”

She looked around at
the wreckage. “I need to call my insurance agent. And file a police report.”

“No. You won’t be
doing that. We’ll take care of everything.”

She stared at him. “Like
what?”

Les walked over to
her, a small wastebasket in one hand. “Miss Devargas, this is what we do. Go
with McCall and let us handle everything here.”

She just stared at
him helplessly until he winked at her and the knot in the center of her body
eased.

McCall closed his
phone with an abrupt snap and turned to look at her. “You need to get packed.”

She nodded. “You’ve
got the address for tomorrow’s event, right? At the Books Galore in northwest San Antonio?”

“We’ll get it checked
out and see how to best set up security.”

Her eyes widened. “I
still can’t believe someone would really try something in a book store?”

His hand closed over
her arm. “I have to expect things to happen any place, no matter what. It’s how
I do my job. They didn’t find what they wanted here. The next best thing is
grabbing you.”

He had a look on his
face she couldn’t read, but the intensity of it made butterflies tap dance in
her stomach. She slid her arm away from him, her skin tingling and burning
where his fingers had touched her.

“We can make it work,”
Gage said in his low voice. “We’ll get Sully to give us a couple more men.”

“We’re already
stretched thin,” McCall reminded him.

“Not that thin. And
this is a priority. You know that, or you wouldn’t be here in the first place.”
He gave Rina a reassuring smile, then looked at his partner. “Trust us to take
care of her, McCall. Let’s try not to upset her life more than it already is.”

Why don’t I fall for
men like him? No. I always get the alpha males who act like they have a stick
up their ass.

“I know you’re right,”
McCall agreed at last. “Okay, get your clothes. I’m lucky I didn’t have a
chance to unpack.”

When Rina came back
downstairs with her suitcase, McCall was standing in the hall with his,
waiting. Two more men were talking to Gage and Les, one of them cutting a small
hole in the foyer wall. They just nodded to her and went about their business.

McCall picked up her
suitcase and took her arm, but she stopped in mid-stride, snapping her fingers.

“Wait. I can’t
believe I forgot about my phone messages. People will think it’s strange if
they can’t reach me.”

“Don’t you have a
code where you can call in and retrieve them?” McCall asked.

She nodded.

“Then that’s what you’ll
do. And you can return calls on your cell phone.”

“Damn.” She bit her
lip. “Cell phone. I have to get a new one. Mine was in my purse.”

“We’ll take care of
it. Meanwhile, we need to get out of here. I found a motel for us.” He gave her
the location. “That work for you?”

“Yes, anything.”

“Let’s go then.”

It was already six o’clock
by the time McCall had made a few more calls and they finally left the house.
McCall drove through the last of the rush hour traffic, constantly checking the
rear and side view mirrors.

“Do you really think
someone’s following us?” Rina turned to glance through the rear window.

“Don’t do that,”
McCall snapped. “And yes, it’s entirely possible.”

He exited the
Interstate twice, drove through parking lots, then slid into the lanes of
traffic again. At the motel, he parked the car behind the building close to a
side door and lifted out their suitcases. In what seemed only seconds, he hustled
her into the lobby, registered, had two plastic key cards in his possession and
was motioning for Rina to follow him.

She raised her
eyebrows when he handed her one of the cards, remembering what he’d said
earlier.

“Let’s not give Sully
any more to chew on than he already has. But make no mistake. You and I will be
in the same room tonight.”

Even in the stress of
the situation, desire flared in his eyes and she felt the answering heat in her
body. Oh, she was in
such
trouble here. She wanted to trust him so
badly, but that invisible wall kept stopping her.

How do I do this to
myself?

“This place has three
floors,” he went on. “And we’re on the top. Less accessible. But we’re close to
the stairway if we need it.”

“But you made sure no
one followed us,” she pointed out. Her head was pounding again, and she
realized she hadn’t taken any aspirin in a long time.

“Nothing is fail-safe,
and to tell you the truth, Rina, at this point, anything is possible. I think
you’ll understand better when Sully explains things.”

The reservations
turned out to be a suite like the one in Tampa. McCall stashed their suitcases
in his room and picked up the phone. “I’m ordering dinner from room service.
Steak and salad, okay? You need protein in your system.”

“I’d rather just have
a club sandwich. I don’t think I could handle a steak right now.”

“Whatever you want.”

At the last minute, he
added a bottle of wine to the room service order.

Rina quirked an
eyebrow at him at the last item.

“Strictly medicinal,”
he told her. “I figured your nerves could use some soothing.”

“Thank you.”

He took a large
manila envelope out of his briefcase and handed it to her. “Gage brought this
with him. Replacements for your personal stuff.”

Rina dumped the
contents of the envelope out on the round table. Sully had done an incredible
job, even gotten a new driver’s license issued. Shoving it all back into the envelope,
she carried it into the room that would be hers. She put everything away in the
wallet she’d grabbed from her dresser, then took out her clothes for the next
day and hung them up to get out any wrinkles.

Through the open door
she heard McCall speaking to someone on his cell phone, probably Sully who was
already en route. By the time he was finished the food was delivered.

Rina eyed the tray
skeptically. “McCall, I don’t know how much I can eat.”

“Just work your way
through what you can. Get something into your system.”

Surprisingly, she
found she was hungry enough to polish off almost everything on her plate. She
sipped a glass of wine while she ate and realized McCall was right. It relaxed
her a little. She was stirring her coffee when his cell phone rang.

“Yeah? Okay. We’re
ready.” He looked at Rina. “He’s here and on his way up.”

Even as he spoke, a
code knock sounded at the door. McCall opened it with the chain still in place
while he checked out the visitors, then, satisfied, let them in.

Sully entered the
room, followed by two men in dark suits. He extended his hand to Rina. “We seem
to be making a habit of this.” He turned to the others in the room. “How about
giving Miss Devargas and me a few minutes of privacy? I think it’s safe to say
she won’t shoot me.” He smiled, trying to lighten the atmosphere.

McCall looked at the
other two, then nodded. “I have a quick errand to run and didn’t want to leave
Rina alone. I won’t be gone long. These guys can wait next door in my room.”

They left, closing
the connecting door behind them.

Sully reached into
his pocket and placed a cell phone on the table, pushing it toward Rina.

“A replacement.
McCall said yours was stolen with your purse. This one is secure and also has a
GPS chip just in case.”

Just in case someone
kidnaps me and you have to find me.

She shivered but
thanked Sully.

“Also, if you tell me
where the spare key to your car is, I’ll get someone to deliver it to your
house. I told McCall I’d take care of it. One less thing for either of you to
worry about.”

“I appreciate it.”