The Wharf (16 page)

He stomped on the brake pedal again, but the car surged forward. Aiming for the side of the road, he reached for the emergency brake. He yanked it up and the car lurched and growled.

It didn’t stop, but it did slow down.

Kacie gasped beside him. “Is it going to stop?”

“Not without a fight.” He pumped the brake, and his foot hit the floor.

He rushed up on a car stopped at a crosswalk. He careened around it, blowing by the shocked faces of the pedestrians startled to a halt in the street.

He couldn’t keep this up. The closer they got to the busy end of the wharf, the less space he’d have to maneuver in. He needed something to slow him down, some obstacle in his path.

“Make sure your seat belt’s snug.”

Kacie tugged on her belt. “What are you going to do?”

“Hang on.”

The curb, a couple of benches...and barriers. His tires bumped the curb, and he aimed the car between two groups of people. His vehicle jumped when he hit the curb and plowed toward the first bench.

Kacie yelled something unintelligible.

They ripped through the bench to the sound of screaming metal. The car limped forward.

His body tensed as he made a beeline for the orange barriers stationed along the walkway. The car smacked the barrier, and the air bags exploded.

He grunted as the bag hit his chest. Kacie gave a muffled cry.

The car lurched back, finally at rest.

Ryan struggled out of the smashed car and ran to the passenger side. He didn’t like the look of the black smoke curling up from the collapsed hood. He yanked open Kacie’s door and helped her from her position pinned between the air bag and the seat of the car.

They both staggered away from the wreckage as alternating sirens filled the air.

“Are you hurt?” He turned Kacie to face him and touched the abrasion on her cheek.

She held her hands in front of her. “I think I’m okay. You?”

“Tossed around, but nothing broken.”

“You have some glass in your hair. Close your eyes.” She flicked his hair with her fingers.

“Don’t cut yourself.”

She grabbed his T-shirt. “What just happened, Ryan?”

“Someone tampered with my brakes.”

Her eyes widened, and then the EMTs and the cops descended.

The men in white checked his vitals and bandaged a small cut on his hand. The police weren’t as solicitous. They’d gotten a few calls about his reckless driving before the crash and weren’t altogether convinced he wasn’t drunk or crazy.

“It was the brakes. They failed.”

He still had to blow into the cop’s face, but since he showed no outward signs of drinking and the cop couldn’t smell any alcohol on his breath, he didn’t have to take a Breathalyzer.

Once he showed the officers his own badge and they realized he was Sean Brody’s brother, he got the kid-glove treatment.

Kacie didn’t have any severe injuries, but that red spot on her face from the air bag was going to turn into a nasty bruise.

“Were you having problems with your brakes before, Chief Brody?”

“You can call me Ryan, and no. I drove down here from Crestview and didn’t have any issues with the brakes. Brakes were fine when we went to eat, and then it was sudden, like the lines were cut.”

The officer raised his brows, but he wrote Ryan’s suspicions in his notebook. “We’ll have the car towed and our mechanic will check that. Anyone we need to question?”

Yeah, the same guy who’d beat up Cookie Phelps.

“I can’t give you any names, but I’m almost positive this was no accident.”

The cop took more information from Ryan and then offered to give them a lift to their hotel.

They made it back to the hotel and he didn’t even have to ask Kacie to join him in his room. She collapsed on the bed, clutching the ice pack the EMTs had given her.

He pointed to the blue pack. “That’s supposed to go on your face.”

“When did he do it?”

He reached into his travel bag and pulled out a bottle, then popped a couple of ibuprofen in his mouth and chugged some water. “Must’ve done it while we were at the taco stand.”

“That means...”

“Someone’s been following us.” He shook the bottle of gel caps at her. “I think you need a couple of these.”

“No kidding.” She held out her hands and he tossed her the bottle. “Maybe that’s how he found out we met Cookie yesterday.”

“Somebody knows we’re working on Dad’s case, and they want us to stop. Do you still think it’s someone who wants us to preserve the commonly held belief that Dad was a serial killer?”

“I never said I believed that. I was just throwing out the possibility.”

“Okay, I get it.”

“Here’s another possibility.” She pressed the ice pack to her face and wrinkled her nose. “What if the brakes tonight don’t have anything to do with Cookie or your father?”

He stopped pacing. “Really?”

“Think about it. Duke Bannister warned me about Walker. Someone locked me in the sauna, sent that doll and then killed Bannister. Maybe that’s the person who tampered with your brakes. Maybe this is Walker’s work.”

“I think you’ve got it backward, Kacie.” He rested his forehead against the cool glass of the window and watched a homeless man navigate his cart around a bus stop.

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe all of those previous incidents are connected to my father and this book. Maybe Walker was telling the truth for once in his life—he had nothing to do with the sauna or the doll or Bannister. After that interview you did on TV, plenty of people knew this was your next project.”

She sat up and the ice pack fell to the floor. “You just rocked my reality. I never thought of that possibility before.”

“I’m surprised. You’re a good, insightful reporter. If you’re in the business of looking at all possibilities, I’m shocked this one never occurred to you.”

Hunching forward, she gathered the bedspread in her fists. “So, right from the beginning, before the two of us even met, someone was on my tail, harassing me, wanting me to believe Walker was after me. And all the time it was this book.”

“That’s what it’s beginning to look like to me. This was never about Walker.”

“Then Bannister was working for someone else.” She bounced on the mattress, clapping her hands.

“That’s what he wanted to tell you at the end. He was going to come clean about who sent him.”

“He was murdered before he could do it.”

“Just like Cookie was beaten before she could give us any more information.”

“This is big, Brody, if it’s true.” This time she couldn’t contain her excitement and she bounded from the bed. “We’re onto something and maybe it starts with your father’s suicide. Maybe he said something to Cookie before he jumped. Maybe he implicated someone else.”

“And that someone else is alive and well in the city of San Francisco.”

“Alive and well and targeting people who dare tell the truth or try to.”

“There’s just one problem.” He crossed his arms and leaned against the window. “This is just a theory. We have no hard evidence to back it up, and we have no line on any suspects. We might as well be at square one.”

“No, no.” She shook her head and winced. “This is so much better than square one, Ryan. This is clarity. This is truth.”

“This is supposition.” Her reaction puzzled him. The pithy facts they had before them didn’t warrant Kacie’s level of excitement. Maybe she had a concussion. “Are you feeling okay?”

“A little sore. But more than ever I’m ready to tackle this project.”

“I’m glad the car crash energized you, but you need to get some rest. We’re both going to be feeling it tomorrow.”

She folded her hands in front of her and dropped her lashes. “Can I stay with you tonight, Ryan? After everything that happened today, I’m feeling jittery. This person, whoever he is, must know we’re staying in this hotel.”

He crossed to the bed in two strides and gently enfolded her in his arms. He kissed the top of her head and the scrape on her face, which was already turning into a yellow bruise.

“Of course you’re staying here tonight.”

She held up one finger. “Give me a few minutes. I’m going to run to my room and brush my teeth and all that stuff.”

“Do you want me to come with you?”

“I’ll be okay. I promise not to get into the elevator with any strangers.”

“I’ll see you downstairs and wait outside your room just in case.”

She kissed his mouth. “I knew you would.”

Several minutes later back in her own room, Kacie changed into her pajamas. In the bathroom, she leaned toward the mirror and smoothed some night cream over the abrasion on her face.

She’d been so focused on her vendetta against the Brody family, she hadn’t even considered there may be more to the story. Someone knew she was writing this book about Joey Brody and was trying to stop her from uncovering the truth—that Brody had been innocent.

That truth would smooth over everything between her and Ryan, giving them a clear path to some kind of relationship.

She just had one small detail to take care of first.

She wrapped the hotel robe around her body, grabbed her purse and swung open the door to find Ryan propped up against the wall outside her room. “You didn’t have to wait out here.”

“No problem. Made me feel better to get a clear view of the hallway.”

“All quiet?”

“Except for a couple too drunk to walk straight? Yeah.”

She joined him in the hall and he escorted her back to his room. She hung her purse over the back of a chair and then stood in the center of the room, twisting her fingers in front of her.

Ryan turned on the radio and whipped the covers back from the bed. “My bed is yours.”

She liked the sound of that. She shed her robe, crawled under the covers and fluffed up a pillow against the headboard.

He pulled off his T-shirt, and wearing a pair of boxers low on his hips, he slid into bed next to her.

Was she expected to keep her hands to herself with this prime male specimen sprawled out next to her?

He rolled to his side and slid his hands beneath her pajama top. As he cupped her breasts, he nuzzled her ear and whispered, “Do you always overdress for bed?”

Her nipples peaked beneath the rough pads of his fingertips and her insides melted.

“Do you?” She slid her hand along the waistband of his boxers and rolled them down to expose his readiness. He was already hard, his erection filling her hand.

He sucked in a breath and nipped her earlobe. “You’ve been manhandled enough today. I promise to take it nice and easy.”

She sighed and yanked off her top. “You can take me any way you like.”

His grin widened as he rolled on top of her and slid both hands beneath her bottom, then moved down her body, taking her pajamas off along the way. “Let’s start by releasing some of this tension.”

He dipped his head between her legs, and she couldn’t remember her own name, let alone the events of the day.

True to his word, they made love nice and easy, but every time he took her over the precipice she felt as if she’d died a thousand deaths.

Spent, they lay in each other’s arms, their limbs tangled, their bodies joined with no beginning and no ending. The picture from the TV cast a flickering blue light across Ryan’s strong face. How had she fallen so hard and so fast for this man?

She’d started this project placing Ryan Brody, all the Brody boys, in the role of the enemy. She couldn’t help it. Even though the sons weren’t guilty for the sins of the father, she’d put a black mark next to every Brody. But Ryan had torpedoed that role the very first night they’d met when he’d carried her from the sauna.

They’d do this together. They’d prove his father’s innocence, perhaps find a measure of justice for her mother and write a kick-ass book in the process.

But first things first.

She picked up his heavy arm, which lay across her midsection, kissed the inside of his forearm and placed it across his chest.

He murmured and kicked one leg. She should wait until he was sound asleep, but then she’d be sound asleep, too.

She watched the reality show on TV for a few more minutes, listening to Ryan’s steady breathing. She rolled away from him, and he tossed his head to the side.

She reached out and stroked the ridges of muscle that formed his chest. What a beautiful man—and he wanted her, thought she was beautiful and desirable. Made her feel beautiful and desirable for the first time in her life.

Her adoptive mom had always told her most men liked a woman with healthy curves, but it took Ryan Brody’s unabashed lust for her body to finally make her believe it.

She kissed one of the brown nipples on his chest, her tongue flicking over the saltiness. He didn’t move.

Releasing a breath, she rolled to the edge of the bed and swung her legs over the side. The bruised spot on her hip thudded with pain.

The glow from the TV cast enough light in the room that she could make it to the box by the window without tripping over anything. She knelt beside the box and tipped off the lid.

Her pulse quickened. The victim file was no longer on top, where she’d left it. Had Ryan been going through the files?

She dug in the box and found the file halfway down the stack. Glancing over her shoulder at Ryan’s sleeping form, she pulled out the file and sat cross-legged on the floor with the folder in her lap.

She shuffled through the papers to get to each photo until she found the one she was looking for. She pulled the picture out of the stack and stuffed the file back into the box beneath the other folders.

With trembling fingers, she gripped the edges of the picture, her gaze sweeping the room. She couldn’t very well go back to her room right now. If Ryan woke up while she was gone, she’d have way too much explaining to do. She’d have to hide it in this room and take it with her when she returned to her own room in the morning.

She considered and then rejected several options before deciding on her purse. She’d have to fold the picture, but she planned to shred it anyway.

She tiptoed to her handbag, still hanging on the back of the chair, and creased the photo in half before stuffing it into the depths of her purse.