With Extreme Pleasure (16 page)

“S
o what you’re saying is that you had nothing to do with the accidents or the smoke bomb. That the trooper who stopped yesterday was the real deal. That this was all directed by Tuzzi and executed by Malling, who did a really piss poor job hiring a competent driver.”

Fitz nodded at Cady’s rambling and inquisitive statement while pouring cream from a tiny stoneware pitcher into his coffee, adding sugar from a matching bowl.

He continued to stir long after the mixture was a creamy tan. “The troopers today were the real deal, too. The only thing I’ve done was call the garage after getting word of where the Hummer had been taken.”

“That’s some network you’re running there,” King said, pulling his cell from his waistband, and tapping the touch screen. “Jarrell barely had the Hummer unhooked when he got the call. Strange that I didn’t get one. This thing seems to be working okay.”

The three of them were camped around a table in the far corner of McCluskey’s dining room. It was, Cady mused, much like a reenactment of the morning they’d huddled over tea and coffee in the hospital cafeteria after King had lost his first Hummer in the explosion.

His new one wasn’t lost, only out of commission, and the restaurant, opened for breakfast, was much more inviting than the cafeteria had been. But none of that made Cady feel any better now than she had then.

If anything was lost, it was her faith in McKie. He hadn’t contacted them following the accident. Yes, he’d called the mechanic to make sure King’s vehicle was put to the front of the repair line, but that didn’t do diddly-squat to soothe the two human beings involved.

All she’d wanted was some small reassurance, a word, a quick phone call to let her and King know that Fitz was aware of what they were going through.

Was that too much to ask from the man who’d asked her to risk her life? The fact that he hadn’t shown an inkling of human compassion made it harder to trust him now.

It also made continuing to put her life in his hands next to impossible. “That’s all we wanted, Fitz. A word, you know? We can’t do this for you if you’re not willing to understand what it’s like in our shoes.”

Fitz set his fists on either side of his coffee mug, clenched and unclenched them, and stared down between them instead of looking up. His words, when they came, were glacial, and almost cruel. “I thought you were here because you were tired of being hunted like a dog.”

Cady swore King was going to come out of his chair. He was sitting beside her, and the blocky legs scraped as he scooted back on the hardwood floor. She laid a hand on his wrist to keep him in place. Or at least to ask him to stay. She wasn’t strong enough to keep him anywhere.

Then she leaned across the table toward Fitz, forcing his gaze up to hers with nothing but her will. “I can handle being hunted like a dog as long as I know you’re just as aggressively dogging the heels of these creeps. If I die, they die. That I can accept.”

This time, King wouldn’t stay put. He jerked away from where she held him, and with what sounded to Cady like a feral growl, surged from his seat and headed for the restaurant’s front door. She watched him go, felt a knot of sadness grow in her chest, her heartache choking off her words.

She returned to her own coffee and cinnamon roll, digging her fork into the latter and not looking up until there was nothing left but crumbs and ribbons of sugary cinnamon glaze on the plate. Then she set the fork beside it, and finished off her coffee.

Once there was nothing left for her to eat or drink and no reason to avoid the man she was sitting with, she folded her hands in her lap, sniffed, and looked up. “This wasn’t what was supposed to happen, McKie.”

“I know that—” was all he got out before she cut him off.

“Malling was supposed to scare me or haunt me or whatever, and report back to Tuzzi on whether or not I was sufficiently freaked. You were supposed to follow that information, follow Malling, listen in on his calls with your satellite or whatever, and find out how he’s getting his information into prison without making a personal visit.”

“I know that, Cady,” he said, though he still hadn’t moved his fists.

“Well then, Fitzwilliam. In case you didn’t notice, the guy dead behind the wheel of that car? He was not Jason Malling.”

Fitz finally moved, sat back in his chair. “But he was someone Malling knows. Someone you know.”

Had he been using his satellite to listen in on her conversations with King, too? “I don’t know him. I know of him. Or
knew
of him. But just his name, that was all. And that was a long time ago.”

“You may have known him then, but he came after you twice in two days,” he said, as if she needed the reminder. “He came after you now, not a long time ago. Don’t you want to know why?”

“I know why. Don’t I?” Deshon had been connected to Malling. What else was there to know? And then it occurred to her…“Wait. You have no idea who Deshon Coral is, do you?”

Fitz’s gaze returned to his coffee mug. “He wasn’t on our radar, no.”

Oh, this was perfect. Just perfect. She wasn’t just bait, she was a guinea pig, a lab rat whose cage had no walls, but a lab rat all the same. Next thing she knew, he’d be injecting her with some sort of transmitting virus….

Crap. He’d been at the hospital. He’d been in their hotel room. What if he’d bugged her, the bastard? What if he wasn’t using a satellite at all, but a transmitter?

There could easily be more than the onboard GPS in the Hummer he’d provided, and then there were all those supplies, so many places to plant bugs…

“If you’ve got such a flaky
radar
, maybe you should stick to your satellite,” she said, and shoved out of her chair. She was going after King. “If you don’t even know who Malling has doing his dirty work, then you and I obviously have a different concept of what aggressively dogging means.”

K
ing was still leaning against the front of McCluskey’s building when Cady flew out the front door. He’d meant to be a lot farther away than he’d made it by the time she came after him. He hadn’t intended to be there for her to find.

He’d thought about hitching a ride toward New York and having Simon meet him halfway. Then he’d considered ponying up the bucks for a low slung sports car with a herd of wild horses under the hood and making his wild west way to Louisiana pronto.

He’d be just peachy keen happy for the rest of his life if he never laid eyes on another Hummer.

It was the idea of never seeing Cady again that had stopped him outside the restaurant’s door. And it was knowing that she could accept dying over this fucked-up shit that had kept him there.

Her relief at finding him was palpable. Not only was her sigh loud and heavy, the tension draining from her body visible in the way her shoulders drooped, she seemed, too, to shed the skin she’d been wearing, the protective shell shielding her from the prospect of finding him gone.

She came to him, leaned into him. He wrapped his arms around her, backpack and all, and pretended his heart wasn’t aching. Pretended, too, that his life today was the same as it had been yesterday. Pretended, finally, that he wasn’t a changed man.

“I thought you’d left me.”

“I’m not going to leave you, chère.” He kissed the top of her head. “But I don’t want you talking about dying. Nothing here is worth you dying for. McKie can find another way to get what he needs without you giving up your life.”

“But Kevin—”

He cut her off. He wasn’t going to let her guilt over her brother’s death claim another minute. “You dying won’t bring your brother back. You staying alive means you can make sure no one forgets him.”

She hugged him tightly, her cheek damp against his shirt, her hands skating up and down the muscles of his back. She played his spine like piano keys; he was so tense, she had to feel it. But she didn’t say anything, just melted into him as if she never wanted to let go.

If the group still huddled around the accident two blocks away hadn’t begun to stir, he would’ve gladly stood there as long as it took her to finish her song. But they were stirring, looking, turning, waiting. Things were going to get itchy if he and Cady didn’t move.

Just then, Fitz exited the restaurant. “We need to go. Now.”

Now was cutting it close to too late. “Whisking us out of here, are you?”

He hadn’t waited for them to follow, but kept walking. “I am. Unless you’d rather deal with all the questions local law enforcement is going to have. And by now I imagine Homeland Security’s been alerted to the ticking package, so they’ll have some things to say, too.”

The Pennsylvania Staties King wasn’t so worried about. But the threat of
Federales
with official badges? That spurred him into motion, and he spurred Cady in turn.

Once Fitz had herded them past the cluster of law enforcement vehicles clogging Cushing Township’s main drag and opened the back door of his car for Cady, King asked, “What about the Hummer in Jarrell’s shop? You planning to leave that here?”

Fitz nodded.

“With my name on the title and registration? And my insurance company footing the bill?”

“Your name’s no longer connected to either that vehicle or the first. And your insurance company has never been involved,” he said, closing the door behind Cady and circling to the driver’s side. “Get in. Now.”

King glanced over his shoulder just long enough to see two state troopers walking toward them. Fitz started the car and hit the gas the minute King’s butt was in his seat, leaving nothing but rooster tails of gravel and King’s toothbrush behind.

Five miles later, he was still mulling over the issue of vehicle ownership when Fitz pulled into the parking lot of an abandoned gas station and stopped his sedan next to an H3 identical to the two that had come before.

King didn’t even look at Fitz. He stared instead at the man in black with the sunglasses and jarhead haircut climbing down from the SUV. “And this one? Am I connected to it? Or does it belong to Mr. Ray-Ban there?”

“This one’s yours.” Fitz pushed open his door, got out and headed around to Cady’s.

King beat him to it. “Now what? Since you’re the man with the plan?”

Fitz ignored him and turned to Cady. “Do you know how to get to your grandmother Josephine’s farm from here?”

She nodded, her frown one of concentration rather than the confusion King felt. “I think so.”

“If you have any trouble, it’s programmed into the Hummer’s GPS.”

“Wait a minute.” Forget Cady having a relative nearby who she hadn’t bothered to mention and didn’t seem set on avoiding. “You want us to be sitting ducks on some farm?”

“You’ll be safe there.”

“Can I take that to mean that we weren’t safe on the road.” When Fitz lifted a brow, King realized the absurdity of what he’d said. “Scratch that.”

As if they needed reminding, Fitz told them, “For some reason, Tuzzi has escalated his attacks.”

King blew out a snort. “Yeah. Attempted murder’s a lot higher up the scale than psychological terror.”

“This is all happening in real time, King,” Fitz said, waving one arm expansively. “While we stand here? The clock is ticking. Malling will be on the way to report to Tuzzi. I need to be there to follow that. But I need to know you and Cady are safe before I do anything.”

“I can get us to the farm,” Cady said.

King broached the subject of family no one had mentioned. “What will your grandmother say about us barging in? Is she on your side, or your parents’?”

“She passed away years ago, before Kevin died. My parents take two weeks of vacation every summer and spend it there fishing. They keep water and canned foods stocked. We should be fine for a few days.” She turned to Fitz. “That’s all you need, right? A few days?”

Fitz nodded. “If we can get Tuzzi on the accidents and the bomb, then it’s over and you can get back to living your life.”

King didn’t say anything. He just headed for the driver’s seat, started the SUV, and put it into gear, waiting for Cady to ditch the government man and join him.

C
ady and King had been on the road in his newest Hummer for nearly an hour when she was poleaxed by a paralyzing hunger pang and a sudden idea. She glanced at his profile and asked, “Do you think we can find a spot for breakfast where we can pick up free WiFi?”

King frowned, whether at the idea of her eating more food or her question about WiFi, she couldn’t know, but he answered quickly enough. “If you don’t mind a side trip out of the boonies and into civilization, I’ll see what I can do. Why the WiFi? More banking to do?”

“I want to look up the courier service. See if it’s a legitimate company. And the insurance agency’s office, too.” She turned her attention back to the road. “If I use a free network, the search can’t be traced. And, yeah, I know what McKie said, but a lot of things are still bothering me.”

“You’re not the only one who’s bothered. This whole thing stinks worse than that smoke bomb.”

“I don’t get that either.” Though she wouldn’t doubt King having suspected as much, she kept her suspicion that she’d been bugged to herself. Fitz was probably helping himself to the Hummer’s GPS broadcast even now, so whether he’d been tracking her individually was moot.

“The smoke bomb doesn’t make sense,” she said, continuing her thoughts aloud. “If I’m being watched, it would be easy to come after me the second I step onto the street. Are they on some kind of schedule? And they knew the ticking package would get us out of the room at a certain time?”

King reached for the sunglasses he found tucked in the visor. “Best guess? This Coral kid didn’t want to hang out all day waiting to finish what he started. He wanted you out of the way ASAP.”

And if not for Jarrell Bradley…

Cady shuddered, pushed free from that thought and the others she didn’t have time to deal with. No doubt everything that had happened the last few days would rush in and devour her the moment she let her guard down.

But she couldn’t do that now. She had to keep her mind clear to think. “Since Fitz didn’t know anything about the package, it had to be Coral or Malling who sent it. It just seems way too sophisticated a plan for those bozos to put together. Especially on such short notice.”

“It wasn’t so short. Think about it,” he said, adjusting the rearview and side mirrors. “We were out of commission before noon yesterday. That gave them a good twenty hours to rig the bomb, fake a delivery receipt and uniform, and hire some guy with a van to drop off the package.”

She supposed he was right. “You don’t think the courier service was real?”

“The service, maybe. The driver, maybe not.” He inclined his head toward a parking lot packed with tractor trailer rigs. “You want to give this place a try?”

It was a truck stop, but it advertised free WiFi and blueberry waffles. It was enough to make her heart—and her stomach—go pitter patter. “Works for me.”

“You remember enough of the details for your search?” he asked, as they parked and headed inside.

She’d handed the delivery receipt to the first Statie on the scene, but she remembered enough.

“I want to call the courier before the cops do,” she said once they’d settled into a booth and King had signaled for two coffees. “As soon as law enforcement’s involved, the service will clam up. But as the consignees, they should give us some details, yes? If they really did send it?”

“Find me a number. I’ll call them.”

When the coffee arrived, King ordered waffles and bacon for both of them, then waited patiently while she booted the computer and reconfigured the wireless permissions per the instructions they’d been given.

“Yay, I’m in,” she said two minutes later, bringing up a browser window and typing her search terms into Google.

King rolled his eyes. “You and that machine.”

“Trust me. If I had the money, I’d have a cell with a data plan. I’m lucky to have this. Even luckier that a lot of people don’t password protect their networks,” she said seconds later, adding with a wink, “Got a pen?”

She found the courier’s Web site, gave him the phone number, went searching for information on the insurance company while he doodled with the numbers he’d jotted on his napkin. Once she came up with the second set of contact details, he went to use the pay phone outside the truck stop’s front door.

The call to the delivery service and insurance agency’s office netted him the same information. Both were legitimate outfits—but neither one had any record of a package being sent to Cushing Township, Pennsylvania.

It was clear that someone out there had contacts they could tap at a moment’s notice—or at least within twenty hours’ time. That description fit Tuzzi and McKie both. Did they trust McKie that he’d had nothing to do with the bomb? That he would never send them a package?

“Well, that sucks the big one,” King said, shredding the napkin he’d carried with him.

“Does it mean that McKie was telling the truth? That he didn’t send the package? Or does it mean he buried his lie in all sorts of red tape and bribes?”

King stacked the strips of torn paper one on top of the other around the rim of his plate. “I’m going to go with the package being Coral’s way of getting you out of the house.”

“Okay. Now explain how he pulled it off.”

“He found the shirt at Goodwill, printed up the delivery receipt and manifest at Kinko’s, bought the clipboard at Office Max, and paid the guy with the van by the hour. He told him what time to drop off the box, and here’s a hundred bucks not to worry about what might sound like a clock. It’s just a joke between friends.”

It made too much sense to blow off. “And that means we do what?”

“The only thing we can. Pack up the laptop and hit the road. There’s a farm out there with your name on it.”

She laughed. “You have no idea how true that is.”

“Let me guess. Cady Jo?”

“Cady Josephine,” she corrected him, sliding the laptop into its padded compartment and securing the backpack’s buckles and straps. “Don’t forget either, because there
will
be a quiz.”

He dropped several bills on the table to cover their check and the tip, gave her a wink. “You mean you’re the answer to a test as well as the answer to my prayers?”

She wanted to grin, to think he meant it, to hold close the feeling that he did. But she’d been stupid enough for this lifetime already, so she said, “If I’ve been sent down as an answer, you’ve been praying to the wrong gods.”