Outlaw Derek (2 page)

“Well, it’s better than ‘Smith,’ I suppose.”

“It’s my name, Mr. Ross.”

He let it go. “And how do you happen to know mine?”

“I—someone gave me your name.”

“Who?”

She worried her lower lip with small white
teeth for a long moment. “I was told not to mention his name if I could help it.”

“There’s the door,” Derek told her politely.

Her eyes seemed to grow larger. “He said you were hard,” she murmured. “Tough without having to act like it. But he said you’d help me if I ever needed help. I need help.”

“Who?” Derek repeated.

She sighed. “William Franklin.”

“Governor
Franklin?”

“Yes. He—over a year ago, he gave me your name. He said you could be trusted, no matter what the problem. And he said you were very good at what you do.”

“Did he happen to mention what I do?” Derek asked, no expression at all in his deep voice.

Her eyes flickered, then steadied on his face. “He said you were sort of a troubleshooter. For different government agencies sometimes and freelance sometimes. He said that you take care of problems, any kind of problems. He said …”

“What?” Derek asked when her voice trailed into silence.

Very softly, she said, “He told me you could be a—a bastard when you wanted to, but you were honest. And that you weren’t afraid of anything.”

Derek shook his head. “That sounds like him.” He remembered several years back when a blackmail threat had almost cost Franklin his political career. Looking intently at Shannon “Brown,” he said slowly, “The governor’s happily married, or was the last time I saw him. What are you to him?”

“He’s a friend.”

“Uh-huh.”

Her chin lifted and the big eyes flashed gold. “He was right,” she said in a shaking voice. “You can be a bastard!”

Very dryly, Derek said, “Look, Miss
Brown
, mine isn’t a name that people like governors hand out to casual acquaintances. If Franklin gave you my name a year ago, it was either because
you and he are very, very close, or else because he knew you were in some kind of trouble, or likely to be, and it was the kind that required my brand of problem solving. Which is it?”

She bit her lip. “All right, then. We are close, but not the way you obviously think. He’s my uncle.”

Derek sat down in a chair, relaxing in a boneless manner that was totally deceptive. “Blood uncle?” His face indicated nothing, neither belief nor disbelief.

“Yes.”

“You just wrote a new chapter in science.”

She blinked. “What—what do you mean?”

“Franklin’s an only child. So’s his wife. Try again.”

Shannon slumped, and her lips twisted in a painful little grimace. “I don’t want to lie. But you won’t believe it was innocent—”

“Try me.”

After a moment, she nodded. “All right. I worked on his campaign, that’s how we met.
I was just another campaign worker at first. But then I—I got hurt. Anyway, he’s a kind man, and he felt sorry for me. After the campaign, he got me a job with Civatech. Do you—?”

“I know of Civatech. High-security firm. They have an in-house think tank and an unsurpassed record at designing and manufacturing electronic toys for the military to play with. And your job?”

“Secretary, receptionist. I have a low-level security clearance: I don’t work with highly classified information. I just type correspondence, answer the phone. That sort of thing.”

Derek was frowning. “So you’ve been with Civatech about eighteen months?” He waited for her nod. “I gather Governor Franklin keeps in touch with you?”

She nodded again. “A call now and then. And he invites me to private parties he and Annie have.”

“Does he ask about your work?”

Her chin lifted. “He didn’t put me at Civatech
to spy for him, if that’s what you’re implying. There’s no reason he should have: Civatech usually contracts with the military, not state government. William wouldn’t—”

“I didn’t say he would,” Derek Ross interrupted mildly. “In fact, I’m reasonably sure he wouldn’t. I’m just trying to put this together. Why did he give you my name?”

She hesitated, staring at him, then appeared to make up her mind. “About a year ago, while I was having dinner with William and Annie, I mentioned that some of the letters I’d been typing seemed odd. I’m a good typist, and I read what I type instead of just scanning the words. If you know what I mean?”

“Yes.”

“Two or three of the letters bothered me, because they didn’t seem to make sense to me. It was nothing definite, just a sentence here and there that seemed out of place. I mentioned it to William.”

“What was his reaction?”

It was impossible to tell whether Derek believed her or not, but she didn’t let doubt throw her off balance. “He seemed a little puzzled at first. Then he was more bothered by it. A couple of weeks later, he asked me if there had been any more letters like that. I said no. That was when he told me about you. He made it—conversational. We were alone in the room, and he was offhand about it, even laughing. He said you’d helped him out of some trouble once, and that you were very good at what you did. He said if I was ever in trouble, I should tell you all about it.”

“It didn’t surprise you that he should talk that way?”

“Yes. Oh, yes. But he was so casual. And I could tell he didn’t want me to ask questions, so I didn’t.” She hesitated, then added, “Several times these last months if no one could overhear, he’d ask kind of teasingly if I remembered who to go to if I needed help. I’d say your name, and he’d say, ‘Don’t forget it.’ So I didn’t forget.”

After a moment, Derek rose abruptly and left
the room. He returned seconds later with a light blanket, which he dropped around Shannon’s bare shoulders. “You look frozen,” he said somewhat gruffly. “Coffee?”

“Please,” she said gratefully, drawing the blanket around her. She got up and followed him into the kitchen, beginning to feel less cold in more ways than physically. There was something comforting, she thought, in the mere presence of this man. He was hard and blunt and suspicious, but there was something infinitely understanding in his eyes, tolerant, as if nothing she or anyone could ever say would surprise him, and she felt safe for the first time in hours.

He didn’t seem to find it surprising that she followed him, merely gesturing for her to sit on one of the low stools at the breakfast bar. “How did you find my apartment—the phone directory?”

“Yes. William said you kept a listed phone number, even though you shouldn’t.”

Derek got the coffee started, then leaned back
against the counter and studied her silently and quite openly. There was a package of cigarettes and a lighter on the counter, and he reached for them without looking, lighting a cigarette while continuing to look intently at her.

“You … you do believe me?” she asked.

Without answering that, he said, “No purse, no coat or wrap of any kind. A dress that would get you arrested if you stood on the right corner—and especially if you stood on the wrong one. And you’ve done a hell of a lot of walking in shoes not designed for that. So tell me what happened in the last ten hours or so that brought you to my door at four
A.M.
”

Shannon hugged the blanket tighter around her body and took a deep breath. “Today—yesterday—just before five, I took one of those odd letters to my supervisor. It was odd in a different way from the others; it was referring to a design that was scrapped months ago, and discussed the shipment of the finished product, which was a prototype, to a foreign company I
couldn’t find listed in our computer, or in the city where it was supposedly based.”

“Two suspicious items,” Derek mused. “A supposedly nonexistent product shipped to a nonexistent company. What did your supervisor say about it?”

“That he’d look into it. He seemed impatient, and I was afraid he’d dismiss it without checking, so I mentioned the other odd letters.”

Derek half closed his eyes and nodded. “Uh-huh. So you very honestly told him about things you should never have noticed. And I suppose all these odd letters came from the same source?”

Shannon nodded. “From Civatech’s director of design, Adam Moreton.”

“Do you always take care of his correspondence?”

“No. Only when his private secretary is sick.”

He nodded. “Okay. So what happened then?”

“I went home to my apartment.” Her face
went completely white then, and her eyes looked enormous. “There was a party I was supposed to go to, and I went by a friend’s house first to change into this dress; it’s hers and she wanted me to wear it. I walked to my apartment from her place to finish getting ready, and unlocked the door. I had just pushed it open when my landlady called me from the first floor to tell me she’d signed for a package. I went to get the package. It was from my mother,” she added inconsequentially.

After a moment, Derek said quietly, “What happened after you went downstairs?”

She looked at him blindly. “The explosion … knocked me down as I was coming back up the stairs … everything was bright … when I got up … and hot … and the apartment—my apartment—was just gone.…”

Derek turned to jab his cigarette into an ashtray on the counter before reaching into a cabinet and pulling out a bottle of whiskey. He
poured a small amount into a glass, then stepped to her side. “Drink this.”

She was still gazing blindly at where he had stood a moment before, and tears spilled from her huge eyes to trail down her ashen cheeks. “Why did they do that?” she whispered. “Why did they blow up my apartment?”

Derek slid one big hand around her neck under her hair and then used the other to guide the glass to her lips, forcing her to take a healthy swallow of the whiskey. She choked and began coughing, but her eyes cleared of the dazed look. He put the glass in her hand. “Drink the rest,” he ordered quietly.

Looking up at him, she obediently finished the whiskey, her faint grimace of distaste automatic. “I don’t drink much,” she told him softly.

He took the empty glass, a little startled to realize that his hand had remained on her neck beneath the warm curtain of her hair, that his fingers lightly stroked her satiny skin. He removed his hand slowly, very conscious of that
soft skin, then stepped back and half turned away, fixing his attention on the coffee that was nearly ready.

“It was meant to kill me,” she whispered.

He poured the coffee into two cups, adding whiskey to both. In a calm tone intended to keep her on balance, he asked, “You take cream and sugar, don’t you?”

Shannon blinked. “Yes.”

He fixed her coffee silently and handed her the cup: he picked up the cup he poured for himself, sipping it black. Watching her, he saw her wrinkle her nose at the taste of whiskey in her sweet coffee, but she sipped it slowly. He waited a few moments, until he was sure she was as calm as she could be under the circumstances, until the tears dried on her cheeks and a bit of color returned to her pale skin. “All right, Shannon. What happened next?”

She put her cup carefully on the counter beside her, then drew the blanket tighter around her body, looking steadily at him. “It all seemed so
unreal. The apartment was on fire and the alarms were going off. People were rushing out of the building. I went too. Outside. And I knew it wasn’t an accident.
I knew
. They’d put a bomb in the apartment. Then I heard someone running, and I saw a man coming toward me from across the street. He—I thought he had a gun. It looked like a gun. And he was looking at
me
, like he wanted to—his face was all twisted and furious. So I started running.”

“He chased you?”

“Yes. I couldn’t think. I wanted to call the police, but—”

“But what?”

Shannon bit her lip, then raised her chin and met his eyes steadily. “A few years ago, I worked for a company in another city. Some money disappeared from the office cash box, and I was accused of taking it.” Her lips quivered slightly. “Nobody believed me. The police were sure I’d taken it, and my boss was sure. It was awful.”

“What happened?” he asked softly.

“I was arrested. I couldn’t afford bail. A few days before I would have gone to trial, another girl in the office was caught stealing money. They let me go.”

But not, Derek realized, before a great deal of damage had been done to an innocent woman. He took a deep breath. “I see. So you were afraid that somehow this whole thing could have been blamed on you?”

“I don’t know. I just couldn’t call the police. I thought I’d gotten away from the man following me, but I wasn’t sure. So I kept moving. For hours. I’d lost my purse and didn’t have any money. I didn’t dare go back to the apartment. And I was terrified to go to anyone I knew.”

“Afraid they’d be in danger?”

“Yes.”

“So you just kept moving until you thought of me?”

She nodded. “I was across town when I remembered what William had told me. It took a long time to find where you lived.”

“I’m surprised you weren’t arrested roaming the streets in that dress.”

Shannon flushed vividly and drew the blanket tighter. “I hid every time I saw a patrol car. This—I don’t usually dress like this, but my friend … this dress has a jacket, but I was carrying it when the apartment—”

“All right,” he said gently, a little puzzled by her obvious discomfort with what was, definitely, a beautiful dress and one she wore extremely well. “I understand, Shannon. And you were smart not to go back to your apartment, or to anyone you knew. Considering how fast they moved to get you out of the way, I’d say we’re up against pros.”

“We?” Relief came into her expression. “You’ll help me?”

In a light tone, he said, “I could never resist a lady in distress.”

“I don’t know how to thank you.”

“Thanks may not be in order. We’d better wait and see if I can help. But first things first. You
need to take a long, hot bath and then get some sleep.”

“But—”

“It won’t do either of us a bit of good if you wind up with pneumonia. You’ve been out in the cold for hours, you’re exhausted, and you’re in shock from what happened.” He set his cup aside and moved to take her arm, easing her from the stool. “Come on, and don’t argue with me. I know what I’m doing. Were you hurt?” he asked abruptly.