Nowhere To Run (To Protect And Serve) (18 page)

Riley laughed, thoroughly enjoying her embarrassment. He headed for the door then stopped as if suddenly realizing something. “Wait. You’re dressed.” He said more to himself than her. “Where are you going so early?” He turned from the doorway and pinned her with the question.

“To work, of course. I have the early shift.” She carefully placed the flour canister back on the counter, dreading what would follow. If the look in his eyes were any indication, it wouldn’t be good.

He abandoned the shower idea for the moment and took a step closer, instantly shrinking the kitchen space even more. “You can’t seriously be pretending everything is normal and business as usual. Things are far from normal. It was easy enough for me to find you. How long do you think it will be before Santiago’s goons show up at your job? I need to make arrangements to get you off the island. The only way I know to do that is to contact the U.S. Attorney’s office--”

“No! I don’t trust the police. I trust the attorney’s office even less.” Jordan glanced toward the door, fighting the urge to run again.

He stepped between her and the door, as if her reading her thoughts. His blue eyes narrowed in speculation. “We’ve been all through this. I thought you agreed to trust me
.”

Her gaze shifted from Riley to her dwindling escape route as she fought to keep from hyperventilating. What could she say? She trusted him. She just didn’t trust anyone else connected to his job
.

“Jordan?” His fingers circled her arms. Tension filled every molecule of space between them. Her lungs. Her body. His eyes.

“I trust you, Riley. I do.”

“But? What is it? Is this about that prick Thomas?”

“Agent Thomas seemed to think that someone close to the case might be dirty?” She told him and studied his reaction.

“In other words, he told you it was me.” The brittleness in his tone made it hard to believe she’d ever considered confiding in him.

She took her time answering. “Yes.” She answered at last.

He released her and stepped back. “I guess you’ll just have to take your chances, won’t you. If you want to stay alive long enough to consider having a life beyond this thing, then I’d suggest you don’t think about leaving here without me.”

Riley didn’t wait for her decision.

She stood staring after him while trying to listen to her gut instinct she’d relied on so many times in the past. It had never let her down before. It was telling her she needed to trust Riley.

Jordan went about making coffee while listening as the shower turned on then a short time later off again. She poured herself a cup and studied the blue green waters of the ocean. There were deep swells churning some distance out. The forewarning of storms to come.

“That smells good.” He stood behind her watching her watch him in the window arguing with her gut instinct.

“Want some?” Gut instinct won out. She turned and faced him once more.

“Yes. I’ll get it. Come sit down for a minute. I think we need to clear the air a bit.”

***

He took his time pouring the coffee. Riley needed a moment to gather his thoughts.

He wanted her to trust him, but he’d settle for her cooperation. She sat at the table fiddling with the rim of her cup.

Riley slipped into the seat across from hers. “I’m late for work.” She reminded him. She clearly didn’t want to talk.

“Tell me what’s bothering you.”

“Riley.” She shook her head.

She continued to toy with her coffee cup and he wondered if she would. After a moment, her eyes challenged his. “You. You’re bothering, Riley. Agent Thomas said you were off the case. He said it’s become a federal investigation. And yet, here you are. The only person who knows where I’m at is you. And you’re a cop.” She added.

“I’m not working for Santiago
--”

“
Agent Thomas said you were once with the FBI.” Slowly her clear hazel eyes met his, filled with uncertainties. “He said you couldn’t cut it.”

He should have known Thomas would tell her. “I bet he did.” He challenged while holding her gaze. He could only imagine the things Thomas had said to poison her against him. “What else did he say?”

She didn’t want to tell him. Riley did it for her. “He told you I’d become…involved with my colleague, didn’t he?”

Jordan untangled her gaze from his then lifted the cup to her lips. Her fingers shook just a little giving away her reaction to this.

“That part is true. But it was a mistake.” She didn’t want to hear it. She stumbled to her feet. He needed her to listen.

Riley stood as well. The tension between them filling the small space separating them. “Jordan, please listen.”

Slowly she sank back down to her chair.

“Thank you.” Riley took his seat and tried to explain one of his biggest regrets. “Deb and I were good friends all through our days at the university and the academy. I knew she wanted more from our relationship and I guess in a way, I was flattered. One night, we’d been out drinking.” He chanced a glance at her. He had her full attention even though he couldn’t even begin to figure out what she might be thinking.

“We slept together. I knew right away it was a mistake.” Riley shook his head. God, he hated telling her what an ass he’d been. “The next morning – well, we didn’t know what to say to each other. We’d always been able to talk about anything, but I just couldn’t seem to make things right between us. So I left. I just walked out on my friend when I should have made things right.” Riley blew out a breath. As hard as it was to tell Jordan about that time, in some strange way he felt relief.

“I take it she hasn’t forgiven you?” She inquired gently.

Riley forced himself to look at her. “No. She says she has, but I doubt she ever will.”

She nodded. “That’s too bad.” She sounded as if she meant it. “But everyone makes mistakes. Look at me.”

“You’re not responsible for Jeremy’s death. You can’t keep blaming yourself.” He could tell she didn’t believe him.

“No. But how do you forgive yourself for introducing your brother to someone as evil as Caesar Santiago?”

He didn’t know how to answer her, but she didn’t really expect one.

Something else was troubling her. “So how did you manage to get time off from the job to come here then? If you’ve been following me this whole time, you’ve been away from New York for more than a week already.”

“Yes. Since Agent Thomas took over the investigation, I’m only off the case. Given the choice between desk duty and vacation, I close vacation. No one with the exception of my father knows where I’m at. Not even my partner.”

“Why haven’t you told anyone
you’ve found me yet? That would be a huge achievement for you. Maybe even a promotion.”

She looked so fragile.

“I don’t give a damn about getting a promotion. I made a promise to you to solve your brother’s murder, and I don’t trust Agent Thomas and the FBI to do that. And as to why I haven’t told anyone I’ve found you, well, probably for the same reason you don’t trust me. Unfortunately, we may not have a choice very much longer. If I have to, I’ll bring in my partner. I trust him. For now, the less he knows, the less likely he is to get into a jackpot. And the less people involved the better.”

Jordan glanced at her watch. “So what do you suggest we do? If I don’t show up soon, Momma Lizbeth will be calling. Or worse yet, she’ll come over.”

“Let me call my father. He’s still friends with the U.S. Attorney. He’ll know what to do. For the time being, I think you should go into work. The more things appear to be normal the less likely you are to call attention to your situation. Don’t worry. I’ll hang around and keep an eye out for you.”

“Momma Lizbeth will know something’s up. I can’t explain you hanging around all day. She’ll call the constable--”

“Tell her I’m your boyfriend. Tell her whatever you want, but make sure she cooperates. Longboat Key isn’t that far from Columbia. Who knows how far Santiago’s reach extends.”

“You think the constable might be working for--“

“No, that’s not what I’m saying. I don’t know. But there’s no need to take unnecessary chances, is there? With any luck, we’ll be able to get off the island tonight. How long is your shift?”

“It depends. If it’s slow then I’m usually off around five.”

“How many traumas can you possibly have on an island of this size?”

“Not that many. Mostly colds and a few cuts and broken bones. But we are the only hospital for miles around. We get patients from all the surrounding islands.”

“Well, lets hope today is slow. Get your things. We should go before Momma Lizbeth sends out the cavalry.”

Riley could count on one hand the number of ‘emergency’ cases Jordan treated during her shift. A scraped knee. A case of the sniffles. A small boy who had what looked like a small marble crammed up his left nostril.

Mostly Jordan spent her time trying to fend off a deluge of questions from her head nurse, Momma Lizbeth. If Riley didn’t know any better he’d have sworn the robust woman ran the place. Everyone jumped at her command.

Riley tried to remain as inconspicuous as possible while keeping a careful eye on both Jordan and the foot traffic outside the hospital. The place was a nightmare and would be next to impossible to secure if Santiago or his goons showed up. He’d placed a call to his father at the first available opportunity.

Riley’d given as few details as he could get away with and still get his point across. Maybe he was just being paranoid, but he didn’t trust Santiago not to have tied his absence to Jordan’s disappearance by now. If that were the case, and if it were true that Santiago had someone on the force working for him, then his father would be a likely target for some bugging device.

Best to be overly cautious than to wind up dead.

Midways through the afternoon, Riley finally
heard back from his father.

“Son, I reached David Enfield.” There was no denying the urgency in his tone.

“Please tell me you have some good news?”

“Riley, David needs
some time to get you two out safely. Something’s up there, but he wouldn’t tell me what. He told me to tell you to hang tight. He’ll call you tomorrow at the latest. I had to give him your number.”

Riley closed his eyes. Dammit. “It’s okay, Dad.”

“I’m sorry, Son. I didn’t have a choice.”

“I know. It’s okay. You trust David, right?”

The lengthy pause before his father’s answer did little to reassure Riley. “I’ve known David for a long time. You can trust him. He’d never steer you wrong.”

***

By the end of the day, Jordan’s nerves had stretched to the breaking point. Every little noise sent her jumping. Every stranger that walked into the hospital had her wondering if this would be the day Caesar exacted his revenge. But what troubled her the most was the way she couldn’t get Riley Donovan out of her head.

And it didn’t help that Momma Lizbeth had been witness to them watching each other all day long. Her curious gaze bounced from Jordan and Riley. Momma Lizbeth raised eyebrow left Jordan with little doubt where her imagination had gone.

“Anything else before I leave?” Jordan asked as she watched Riley slouched in one of the uncomfortable chairs in the small waiting area and pick up an out-of-date magazine then toss it back onto the table.

“Nuh uh. No you don’t, child. You’re not getting off that easy.
You’ve been avoiding my questions all day long. You gonna tell me who’s that man with you or not?”

Jordan rehearsed
her answer a thousand times in her head, and yet faced now with the shrewd assessment in Momma Lizbeth’s eyes, all of her excuses flew out the window.

“He’s just a friend.”

“Nuh uh. That’s no friend. Men who look like that they aren’t just friends. Not if a woman has any life left in her body. And you, child definitely have life right there.” She pointed to Jordan’s heart. “No, that boy, the way he looks at you. The way you look at him. Mum uh. That’s no friend.”

“Momma, there’s nothing going on between—“

“Maybe not yet. But there will be. You mark my words. Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it because I can see it on your face. You’re as red as a beet. ”

Great.
Just as she was getting ready to walk out into a night that had to be tailor-made for seduction, with ‘that boy’ who she’d been trying to shut out of her head all day long, Momma Lizbeth had to go and remind her of what had kept her up half the night.

Chapter Thirteen

“You’re awfully quiet…” The husky sound of his voice slipped into her thoughts unwelcome.

They’d
walked in silence along the sandy beachfront since leaving the hospital.

Jordan
swallowed hard, determined to keep her voice steady. “Really? I guess I’m just tired.”

In the darkness, she felt hi
s nod. After a moment he said, “Tomorrow may be difficult. Once we hear from David, things will happen quickly. You should try and get some rest.”