Love Bats Last (The Heart of the Game) (32 page)

When her sobs eventually subsided, she drew a long shaky breath and focused on his face. He saw concern, but below that he saw what he’d never seen before, what she hadn’t said and what he wished he could have.

“I saw him fall,” she whispered, wiping at the wetness on her cheek.

Alex nodded. “The rope caught his ankle. I’ll have another look, before we go.”

“No, I
saw
him. Looking won’t do any good.”

She pulled away from him.

“Heroin, Alex.”

“Fresh out,” he said, not knowing what she was talking about.

“They’re smuggling heroin, Bennett and Volkov. He told me.”

Alex tried to fight back the rage building in him, fought to keep the terror of what could’ve happened out of his mind. She tipped her face to his.

“The vineyard’s just a cover. Bennett said—”

The sound of a chopper approaching, low and close along the cliff, cut her off.

Vince leaned out of the chopper and shot him a sign. Alex responded with raised thumb and forefinger and mouthed
okay
.

“You know him?” Jackie asked, her eyes wide.

“He works for me. On our way back to your place, when we get in cell range, I’ll have him call the FBI. They can deal with Volkov. I’m sure Vince has already radioed the Coast Guard.”

“I don’t want to go home. I need to go to the Center. I need to talk to Gage, to Michael. Who knows what Volkov might do?”

She looked into his eyes and shook her head. “I was wrong about everything.” She shuddered.

“Not everything.” He wriggled out of his jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders.

“I’m the one who should be apologizing,” Alex said. “I should’ve listened to you.” She put a hand to his lips, stopping him. He grasped her hand, lowered it. “Can you walk?”

She nodded.

She staggered as he helped her to stand.

“I can walk now,” she said, her voice froggy and hoarse.

“I’m liking the voice,” he said, trying to cut through her tension. “Might lead to a new career.”

She leaned on him and took a couple of steps, then stopped.

“My samples...” Her voice had taken on a strange, almost forlorn tone, as if she were speaking to him in a dream. “They have them.” 

He took her by the shoulders and examined her eyes. He’d seen pupils like that when a hitter got beaned by a ball. He’d been a fool to let her walk.

“You’re still in shock, Jackie. Try to clear your mind—you can think about all that later. Right now we need to get you to my car, get you some water.”

“I am
fine
,” she said, resisting his diagnosis. “Just get me to my truck. I can drive.”

She pulled her hand off his arm, then stumbled and nearly fell.

He reached one arm under her shoulders and the other under her legs and lifted her, clasping her against his chest. When she didn’t protest, he knew she was in worse shape than she let on. That she thought she could drive just confirmed his concern about her being in shock. He carried her through the bunker and to her truck. He balanced her in his arms and opened the passenger door. She wriggled into the seat and surprised him with a sly smirk as she tugged his jacket around her shoulders.

“Don’t like my driving?” She peered up at him from under her lashes. She had long, beautiful lashes that framed her hazel eyes. Right now those eyes were taunting him.

“No one likes your driving, Jackie.”

He wasn’t ready for her punch.

He caught her hand when she tried a second blow.

She giggled. Another bad sign. He imagined that Dr. Jackie Brandon hadn’t giggled in the past ten years. Perhaps best to go with it.

“By the way, nice throw back there,” he said, mustering a smile. “Maybe you should coach Scotty.”

She giggled again. “I never saw anyone move like you did, not that fast. Not up close,” she said.

“Let’s hope you never see it again.”

“And what you did with the ropes...throwing me that secure line... ” She tipped her head up to him. “Have you been practicing?”

“Not since that first night,” he said, ignoring his urge to kiss her.

“Lucky me that you’re a quick study.”

He didn’t like the shakiness in her voice. She sounded like she might crack any minute.

“Lucky me that you know how to hug a cliff.”

He leaned across her and buckled her into the seat. When he brushed against her, desire seared through him. Desire and love. He ignored the desire, savoring the love, and pulled away, but she wrapped her fingers in his shirt and tugged him back.

“Hey,” he said. He closed his hand around hers and tugged it from his shirt. He lifted her hand to his lips and brushed a kiss along the back of it. “We need to get you into some warm clothes. Get some food into
you
.”

“You’re always feeding me,” she said “I’m beginning to think it’s a ploy.”

He ignored his racing pulse and shoved down his urge to tell her that he loved her. She’d had enough drama for one day.

He backed up a step and eased the truck door closed.

Chapter Twenty-five

The park police and sheriff’s deputies were already at the Center when Alex and Jackie pulled into the lot. He helped her from the truck and tucked her close.

“Water,” she said. She was trembling. Hell, so was he.

“Yup.” He slipped his arm around her waist and walked her toward the hospital.

Gage ran up to them just as a van with a satellite dish roared into the parking lot. Great. The press. They must’ve been monitoring the police radios. Word of his involvement would spread fast. A dead body and a woman and a ballplayer—that was real ratings material.

“Let’s get her inside,” Alex said.

Two deputies met them at the door.

“Dr. Brandon needs a few minutes.” Alex signaled the deputies to join them inside the hospital, then closed and bolted the door.

While Gage took Jackie into the surgery suite to get her some water, Alex told the deputies what he knew.

Someone banged at the bolted door.

“I’ll take care of it,” the taller deputy said, motioning for Alex to stay seated. “Looks like you could use some tending yourself.”

Alex flexed his left wrist. It had already swollen to twice its normal size.

“Ice,” Alex said. “Ice would be good.”

The door to the surgery swung open. Jackie, already looking stronger and brandishing an ice compress, walked directly to him.

“I may be twaddle-minded with post-trauma shock, but I
am
a doctor.” She knelt beside him and took hold of his injured wrist. “I think it’s worse than you’re letting on.” She curved the ice pack around his wrist and then wound an elastic bandage around the ice pack. “Gage, we’ll need one for his elbow.”

“My elbow’s fine,” Alex said. But as she closed the Velcro on the bandage, the pressure made him wince with pain. “Okay, maybe some ice.”

She ran her hand up his arm and examined the swelling at his elbow. “Your game—”

“No worries,” the deputy said. “The Giants are winning, six to four.”

“I meant tomorrow,” Jackie said.

Alex flexed his fingers. “We’ll see about tomorrow when it comes. For now I think we have some explaining to do to these fine gentlemen.”

They told the deputies every detail either of them remembered.

“You’ll both have to talk to the FBI. They’ll investigate what the dead man told Dr. Brandon. If there’s sufficient evidence, they can bring Mr. Volkov in for questioning.”

“
Sufficient
evidence?” Jackie said, crossing her arms.

“Facts, ma’am. We want as many facts as possible before we drag the guy in.”

“And you’ll have to fill out some paperwork,” the other deputy said. He looked at Jackie, then glanced at Alex’s bandaged wrist. “Likely it can wait a day.”

“She’s exhausted,” Alex said. “I’d like to get her home.” He signaled to Gage. “Would you take someone out to pick up my car?”

“There’ll be a line of people wanting to drive it,” Gage said with a half-hearted attempt at a smile. “No problem.”

“We’ll be dusting her place for prints,” the officer said. “It’s probably not the best place to take her.”

“I need some clothes,” she said, tugging at her torn sweater.

Alex heard the catch in her voice. She needed more than clothes.

He nodded, then tilted his head toward the window. The press had gathered in a knot of buzzing energy just beyond it. “Maybe you could give us a hand getting through them?”

The officers escorted them out the door, but proved to be no match for the reporters. They surrounded Alex and Jackie on the steps of the hospital. Alex saw Jackie frown at one woman in particular, a pert blonde, who was intent on shoving a microphone in her face. Alex stretched out his arm, but the reporter ducked under.

“
Lady
Jacqueline,” the reporter said, making sure her cameraman had them framed in her shot, “why do you think the attacker chose you as a target?”

Jackie grimaced.

“
Doctor
Brandon,” Alex said as he took Jackie’s arm and attempted to maneuver around the reporters.

“Oh no, it’s most definitely
Lady
Jacqueline,” the reporter said, relishing the surprise on Alex’s face. “I did my research. She’s the late Lord Brandon’s only daughter.” She stepped aside so her cameraman could fully focus on Alex’s reaction.

“Just go blank and walk on,” Gage said from behind them. “I’ve got the rear.”

The pert reporter persisted, jutting her microphone closer to Jackie’s face with a smug smile. “When did your romance with Alex Tavonesi begin? What’s baseball’s most private guy like behind the scenes?”

A dead man, a would-be killer, floated in the sea and they wanted dirt on him?
Typical
.

A man with an even larger mike shoved toward Alex. “What’s your relationship to the dead guy?”

Not to be outdone, the perky blonde shoved him out of her way. “Are you engaged?” She tossed her hair and nailed Alex with her best smile. “Was that man some sort of competition? Was it a love triangle?”

Alex knew something about handling the press. He’d had plenty of practice swallowing down his anger and he knew better than to react. The press was necessary, but some of them overstepped decent boundaries. The eager young lady had just stepped across his.

He gave the offending reporter his coolest smile.

“Miss... ?” He peered at the press badge dangling from a clip at her waist, reached for it, then fingered it.

“Drakely,” she said, with the broad and practiced smile of the media. “Mara Drakely. KNRX News.” She edged to the side to allow her cameraman closer, ready for her scoop.

“
Miss
Drakely...” Alex dropped the press badge and took a breath to keep the edge of anger out of his voice. “Although we’d love to answer all your intelligent questions,
Doctor
Brandon is exhausted.” He smiled again, but shot out his hand and covered the lens of the camera. “That’s all for now.”

He wrapped his arm around Jackie and steered her away from the door.

Four of the volunteer crew members had come up behind them. They used herding boards to clear a path through the surprised reporters. The officers closed in the rear.

“Don’t look back,” Alex said as he ushered Jackie to her truck.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” she said with a relieved smile.

The trip to Jackie’s home was quick, and they discovered that the deputies had been right: two satellite news trucks and several police cars were parked in front of it.

“My building has security guards,” he said as he slowed the truck. “If you stay here, you’ll be hounded.”

“Tell me that you have a very big, very deep, bathtub.”

“Affirmative.”

“Then your place it is.”

She pointed to a side road leading up over the hills. “Turn here. We can avoid an ambush at the tunnel.”

“You might get good at this,” he said as he steered up and over the hills.

“I don’t plan to. I’ll take a quiet lab or fieldwork in a remote spot any day.”

Alex tossed her truck keys to the valet waiting in front of his building and held Jackie’s arm as they stepped into the foyer. He stopped and gave the guards a heads-up. By the way they snapped-to, she could tell they were fond of him.

“They like you,” she said, glancing back at the grinning guards.

“More likely they’re bored and relish the adventure of dealing with the press.”

“Deflecting a compliment. You’re mighty good at that.”

He ushered her into the elevator and pulled a magnetic key card from his wallet, then passed it in front of a sensor.

He captured her hand and lifted it to his lips.

“Okay, I accept,” he said. “Thank you.”

The look he gave her began to melt what little composure she’d mustered.

“It’s not the first time you’ve had to do this,” she said.

“You mean the press?”

She nodded.

“No.” He released her hand. “And with you around, it’s likely to not be the last.”

The elevator opened directly into Alex’s penthouse. She’d forgotten the incomparable view. A wall of glass was all that was between her and the sparkling waters of the bay and the soaring buildings of San Francisco.