Material Witness (11 page)

With a shake of his head, Jake said,
“I don't understand how you do it. How can you write about crime and not relive
that horror every single day?”

“It's because of that incident that I
write about crime. My character, CJ Carmen, is a strong woman. I wrote her that
way so she wouldn't feel all the fear that I've felt since that happened.

“A month after that creep was
convicted for killing Emilio—over a wink, mind you. Emilio's mortal sin was
winking at this guy’s girlfriend on the beach. Anyway, I started writing
Fire
in the Night
, my first crime novel. All that anger and fear just came
pouring out of me. It was very cathartic. I learned a lot, too. Most of all, I
learned my father was wrong. About some things anyway. There are things about
our culture that may not be wonderful. But it's not all bad. There's good
there. People find themselves in situations they have no control over. Like
this. But it doesn't make it all bad.”

Jake pulled his hand from Cassie's,
cursing himself inwardly for lingering there and for feelings just holding her
hand stirred inside him.

“You can hardly keep your eyes open.”

“I told you, I'm fine.”

“Don't give me that.”

She dragged her seatbelt off and
grabbed her overnight bag from the floor. She pulled out a little pillow that
had flowers embroidered on it.

“What’s this?”

She shrugged shyly. “Whenever I
travel I always bring this along. It makes sleeping in a strange bed less
weird.”

Cassie reached over and undid his
seatbelt, then tucked the pillow into her lap.

“What are you doing?”

“I'm making you a comfortable bed. At
least, as comfortable as I can make you in this car. You can’t sleep sitting
up. This way you can stretch out a little. Come here, lay your head down on the
pillow.”

He did as he was told. The heat of her
body against his shoulder seeped into him with the contact. The sweet scent of
perfume drifted to him. No, it wasn't perfume, it was soap. The warm scent of
lavender was what had been filling his head all afternoon in these cramped
quarters, driving him insane.

“We're going to be traveling on the
Blue Ridge Parkway for a while, right?” Cassie asked the driver.

“Yes, ma’am. You have about an hour.”

Cassie looked down at Jake. “An hour
is good. I’ll wake you up when we get there. Oh, wait, I have a blanket, too.”

Reaching forward, she wrestled with
her overnight bag. Her breast brushed against his cheek.

Good Lord!
“Let me get up,” he said.

“No, I have it.” Gripping the edge of
the blanket, which was half out of the bag, Cassie began pulling and then bouncing
the bag up and down until it made a racket on the floor.

Abruptly, she stopped pulling at the
blanket and was silent. He glanced up at her as she leaned over the seat, her
shoulders moving up and down slightly, and her hair swinging to and fro with the
movement. The soft noise bubbling up from her throat sounded like…soft sobs.

A smoldering fire burned the center
of his chest and slowly spread outward, making it hard for him to breathe. Was
she…crying?

“Cassie?”

She tilted her head then, just enough
for her hair to swing away from her cheeks, and he saw the soft features of her
face. She wasn't crying at all. She was laughing. Tears streamed down her
cheeks, but she was definitely laughing.

“What's wrong?” he asked, completely
dumbfounded and on the brink of hysteria himself.

“The blanket is stuck,” she said,
still laughing. He held on to the bag and she gave a quick yank. The light
blanket pulled free.

Throwing the blanket over him, she
said, “This is so absurd.”

“What is?”

“This. Everything. You and me on the
run like Bonnie and Clyde. Well, not quite like Bonnie and Clyde. We're on the
run from bad guys instead of being the bad guys.”

Her laughter faded and her face grew
serious as she sighed. “I need to keep my head clear. I know how all this works.
I've researched it. Written about it. But when I get frustrated about all that
is happening, I forget. I just hate this sense of my world being out of
control.”

“Me, too.”

 She heaved another heavy sigh, her
breast stretching the fabric of her shirt just a little to draw his gaze in
that direction.

“Starting now, I'm back on track. I
promise.” She put her hand up as if she were taking an oath. “Now that you’re
comfy, get some sleep.”

“Are you always this bossy?” he
asked, not able to keep the smile from stretching across his tired face. He was
amazed at how good it felt to smile. He wasn't sure he had at all that day. If
he had, he most surely was with Cassie when he did it.

“I do my best, detective,” she said,
giving him the most irresistible grin.

He closed his eyes, but Jake found no
release in sleep. Visions of the dead, shattered glass and screams invaded his
mind, startling him awake just as he drifted off. He didn’t know if it was
memories of the sweet smell of Cassie that made sleep impossible.

# # #

Chapter Six

The mountain road leading to the safe
house was ominously dark. Enough drizzle clung to the windshield to need the
wipers, but not enough to keep the wipers from sticking to the windshield for
lack of moisture. Instead, they made a crying sound that seemed to warn them of
danger. Of what kind, Jake wasn't exactly sure.

Now that they were almost at the safe
house, Jake was thankful he’d had a little sleep behind him. He was equally
thankful for his full belly due to Cassie's insistence a bunch of teenagers
weren't going to recognize her and call the local papers if they went through
the drive-through window of a fast food restaurant.

He was glad for Cassie's
impulsiveness.

Agent Hogan pulled onto a dirt road
just off the driveway leading to the safe house.

“We’re almost there,” he said,
looking at the two of them from the rear view mirror. “I need to stretch these
legs.”

An ancient mobile home set back from
the road, almost hidden by a stand of trees at the bottom of the hill, came
into view. At first glance, the unkempt trailer appeared to be deserted. But
Jake knew that was just a diversion for the locals. From this vantage point,
about a quarter mile from the safe house, the only road leading to and from the
safe house could be monitored by state-of-the-art surveillance equipment
located inside the trailer.

“Is this it?” Cassie said, her face
contorting into a grimace.

Agent Hogan chuckled wryly. “This is
the guard's station. Very inconspicuous. You’re going to be staying up on the top
of the mountain.”

“You mean, people actually live in
this place?”

She was studying the tattered shell
of the mobile home just as she had been scoping the crowded bar. Jake knew in
an instant, Cassie was storing the information away for later use in one of her
crime books.

“I assure you, as bad as it looks on
the outside, it's state of the art inside,” Agent Hogan said. “And very
comfortable for anyone who has to spend any amount of time in there.”

She chuckled nervously. “I'm glad it
won't be me.”

Hogan jammed the car into park. He
left the engine running and opened the door. “You’ll be staying up on the hill.
It’s much bigger. Just sit tight for a minute. I need to check in with the
guard on duty.”

“Not to worry,” she murmured as he
closed the door.

Agent Hogan met another man halfway
to the door. The man looked at the car and then walked over to them. Jake
rolled down the window and introduced himself.

“Agent Bellows,” the man said,
shaking Jake’s hand. “I thought you'd never get here.”

Hogan arched his back and grimaced.
“We hit traffic through the city.”

Agent Bellows got in the car and shifted
it into gear. He turned to Jake and Cassie. “I’m going to bring you two up to
the house. I’ve already done a check and it’s well stocked for you. You should
be comfortable.”

“What about Agent Hogan?” Cassie
asked. “He didn’t eat anything while he was driving.”

“It was a long drive. I thought I’d
let him use the bathroom and grab a bite down here while I take you two up.”

“I appreciate that,” Cassie said.

They drove up the narrow road toward
the house. When they arrived, they got out of the car.

Bellows handed Jake the keys to the
house. “Give me a call when you're secure.”

Jake just stared at him. “You aren't
going in with us?”

Bellows shook his head. “The lady is
the one who said she didn't want agents hovering over her, and Agent Tate wants
to keep her happy. Besides, we already did a sweep of the house less than
fifteen minutes ago, and we've been watching ever since. You got a fully
stocked kitchen that should last you a week. The guards down the hill will be
checking in with you and doing a check of the grounds at least twice a day.
Agents Tate and Radcowski will be here tomorrow to do a more formal briefing
once they’re finished in Providence. I want to do a quick walk around the
perimeter. I’ll wait to make sure you’re both inside before I head back down.”

When Bellows disappeared into the
darkness behind the house, Jake said, “You okay?” One glance at her, and Jake
realized she was anything but. Her hands were bunched up in front of her if she
were clenching her fists and her dark brown eyes suddenly looked like a cat
caught by a pack of wild dogs.

“Hey?”

“Yeah. I’m fine.”

“Agent Bellows said they’d be
checking in with us periodically so make sure you have a robe on if you’re
walking through the house. You don’t want any strange men catching you in your
pajamas.”

“Except you.”

She peered up at him, about to say
something, but didn't. She had the strangest look on her face that made him
want to reach out and touch her. Her dark lashes dipped, hiding the fatigue in
her eyes. He didn't have to see her face in the light to know she was blushing.
The image of her cheeks turning crimson last night at the bar was still
imprinted in his brain, causing havoc with his peace of mind in cataclysmic
proportion.

“You were the one who insisted on
having me here,” he said in a low voice.

“I didn't mean it that way. I just
meant that there was going to be at least one man seeing me in my…” She drew in
a shallow breath and shook her head slightly. “Never mind. I don't know what I
meant.”

She started laughing, and Jake
couldn't help but feel lightheaded by the sound of her voice.

“You've had the privilege of catching
me first thing in the morning in my pj's, but this is going to be a first for
me. Seeing you, I mean.”

He cocked his head to one side,
silently questioning whether he should confess. “I don't want to disappoint
you, but I'm not the pajama type.”

Her reaction was exactly as he'd
anticipated. She sucked in a deep breath and held it. When she finally let it
out, she tugged on her bottom lip with her teeth and averted her gaze. But not
before he saw the flames of desire burst to life in her dark eyes.

He'd been thinking the same. The
thought of sleeping with Cassie's naked body pressed against his was torture.
What made it more tortuous was the fact it would never be reality.

“Well, are we going to go inside
where it's warm, or are we going to continue to stand outside in the rain?” she
asked.

Jake lifted his face to the black sky
and felt cold moisture misting his face. Yes, it was still drizzling lightly.
Not enough to cool him down though, which is probably why he hadn't bothered to
notice.

 Cassie followed behind him to the
back of the sedan. After popping the trunk, he pulled out her laptop computer
and a suitcase, handing them to her.

“I'll get the rest and meet you in
front of the house. Drop the bags on the porch and wait for me.”

Jake dug into the trunk for his
overnight bag and the bigger suitcase Cassie had packed. When she didn’t move,
he turned to her.

“If it’s all the same, I’ll wait for
you,” she said.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of,
Cassie. They told us, this place was checked less than half an hour ago. My
walk through will just be more out of curiosity than anything. Once I check the
rooms over and get all the bags inside, I'll lock up tight and call in to Agent
Bellows at the station.”

She nodded nervously. “Okay, but I'm
going to be your shadow. So don't get jumpy.”

Nerves were getting the best of her,
he decided. It had been a long twenty-four hours and he guessed that neither
one of them would fully relax until they were settled. Better to get that done
sooner rather than later.

“Are you getting bossy with me
again?” he said, hoping she'd take his teasing good-naturedly and finally begin
to calm down.