Obsession (18 page)

Shrugging, he polished off his sandwich with one last enormous bite. “I didn’t have to give you a ride. If it comes to that, I didn’t have to go to the hospital last night. Or pick you up in the parking lot this morning. So I’m at least as responsible as you.” He washed the sandwich down with a swig of orange juice, then cocked an eyebrow at her. “You going to eat or not?”

The unconcern in his voice made her frown. She cast another nervous glance around. The parking lot was busy, with a lot of vehicles circling the drive-thru and pulling in and out of the parking spaces, and a lot of people entering and leaving the restaurant. Traffic on the street in front of them was steady and constant.

If someone was going to attack them here, there would be lots of witnesses.

“Whoever these people are, they mean business,” she warned. “Last night they murdered my friend. If you’re with me and they catch up with us, I’m pretty sure they won’t hesitate to kill you, too.”

“You let me worry about me, okay?” he said. “Eat.”

There didn’t seem to be much else to say, and since she was pretty sure that dozens of witnesses were the last thing that any bad guys worth their salt wanted, she gave up and took a bite of her sandwich.

After all, there would be plenty of time after he dropped her off at the airport when the bad guys could catch her all alone.

The thought almost gave her indigestion. Swallowing, she wrapped what was left of the biscuit back up again and stuffed it down in the sack. No matter how much she needed protein for energy, she had eaten all she could.

“Is that all you’re going to eat?” he asked. His disapproval was plain in his tone.

“Yes.” The narrow-eyed look she shot him dared him to comment further. He didn’t. She took another swallow of the tasteless coffee, hoping for an invigorating shot of energy that didn’t come. “Could we go, please?”

The idea of being on her own didn’t appeal to her any more now than it had earlier, she discovered. But neither did the idea of sitting in a McDonald’s parking lot, where anyone could spot them. Besides, what was the alternative? The answer was simple: There wasn’t one. She was being hunted. She might not know much, but she knew that as well as she knew the sun rose in the east. She had to run while the chance was there.

If they caught her . . .

Her heart started to accelerate at the thought.

“Sure thing.”

She could feel the tension building in her neck and shoulders as he reversed out of the parking space, then drove toward the exit with only a single stop to deposit the remains of their meal in the trash. Her headache was back, a dull throbbing behind her eyes, and she was so tired she felt boneless. Though she’d been hungry, the sausage biscuit now felt like a rock lodged in her stomach. The coffee had left a bitter taste in her mouth.

“Can I make a suggestion?” Dan pulled out into traffic as he spoke.

Looking carefully around, she saw nothing that appeared out of the ordinary. Still, she felt her stomach twist a little tighter around the rock. They would reach the airport access road in just a matter of minutes. She breathed deeply, trying to summon up every last iota of strength, determination, and clear thinking that remained to her.

Her eyes swung toward him. “What?”

“Forget flying anywhere today. I have a cabin a couple of hours out of D.C. A fishing cabin. We could go there. You could take a shower, change your clothes, get some sleep. Maybe we could even try to figure this thing out. Then, if you still want to get out of Dodge, I could take you to the airport first thing tomorrow.”

She stared at him. The prospect of a shower and sleep and some time to think was tempting. The thought of not being left on her own until she’d had the shower and sleep and some time to think was nothing short of dazzling.

“You’re putting yourself in terrible danger for me,” she said slowly, trying to put all the puzzle pieces together before she made a decision. Her eyes never left his face. “Why?”

He glanced her way, met her gaze.

“I’m a nice guy?” he offered with a flicker of a smile.

Her lips compressed. The twinkling blue eyes, the wry curve of his lips—she knew them. She
knew
them.

What she didn’t remember was in what context, exactly.

“How do I know I can trust you?” Her tone was wary.

This time, when he met her gaze, he wasn’t smiling at all.

“You don’t, I guess,” he said. “But you can.”

Maybe she wasn’t
entirely
convinced. But she was persuaded. Her gut trusted him. And Dan was all she had.

“So, airport or not?” His eyes were on the road again. Traffic was heavy, stop-and-go, with lots of people entering and exiting the highway. Up ahead, a sign announced the turnoff to National. “Your call.”

Tomorrow, after she’d showered and slept and thought, she would be in a much better place, much stronger physically and, hopefully, mentally, too. If she carried through with her plan now, there was the possibility that she would make a mistake from sheer exhaustion. It was even possible—and she felt a thrill of horror at the idea—that Ed might have seen through her lie about the hotel. He—or someone else, the someone who was behind one or both attacks, if it wasn’t Ed—might be one jump ahead of her and already have people watching the airport. Airports. Metro stations. Amtrak stations. Bus stations. All public transportation facilities. With her car missing—and maybe Ed or whoever had had something to do with that, too—public transportation was her only way out of town, and he would know that.

In that case, though, the best way out of the city was by private car.

Which she was in.

“Not,” she said. “The cabin sounds good. Thanks.”

“Not a problem.”

He didn’t smile, but he did seem to relax slightly. Some of the tension left his shoulders. His grip on the wheel eased. His expression seemed lighter somehow. Katharine, too, felt a lessening of stress now that the decision was made. Taking a deep breath, she allowed her head to drop back against the seat—the warm leather supporting her tense neck felt amazing—closed her eyes, and tried to relax, too.

Unfortunately, her mind refused to get with the program. It raced hither and yon, trying to make sense out of everything that had happened, then, when that proved impossible, trying to make sense out of something, anything.

But she couldn’t.

The thought formed out of nowhere, solidified, then twisted through her mind like a particularly nasty little worm: Was good-neighbor Dan just a little too good to be true?

Her eyes popped open, and without lifting her head, she turned her gaze toward him. They were back on the expressway now, heading west on I-66, and traffic was humming along, heavy as usual. A semi went flying past, and she could feel the vibration of it shaking the SUV. Through the windows she could see blue sky bisected by the vapor trail of an airliner. Arlington National Cemetery went by on the left, and she realized that she recognized the grassy acres of trees and monuments instantly, even at speed and from a distance, even before the sign identifying it flashed into view. Funny that she should know things like where Arlington was, and that it was possible to hop on the Metro at Reagan National Airport and disappear, and even that this degree of traffic was normal for Saturday on this expressway, and yet know practically nothing else.

Not about herself. Not about him.

He’d said she could trust him. Of course, once upon a time Ted Bundy had probably told women the same thing.

But nevertheless—sort of, kind of—she did.

She thought.

Maybe.

“Okay, I’ll bite.” He glanced over at her, met her gaze—until that moment, she hadn’t known that she’d been staring at him, apparently like a frog at a fly—and frowned. “Want to tell me why you’re looking at me like I’ve suddenly grown two heads?”

11

"You’re not wearing your glasses.”

The fact had just occurred to her. They were, she saw at a glance, folded into his shirt pocket. Without them, his slightly professorial air was lost. He looked less abstracted, and more like a man who could handle a little physical action.

Which, under the circumstances, was probably a good thing, even if it was slightly disconcerting.

“Oh.” Looking self-conscious, he patted his shirt pocket. “They’re here. I took them off when I was trying to slam my way into your house. Don’t worry, I don’t need them to drive. They’re mostly for close work.” He threw her a quick look, then pulled the glasses from his pocket and dropped them down into the pocket of the driver’s-side door. “Is that why you were staring at me?”

“Actually,” she said in dulcet tones, “I didn’t realize I was. It must have been because I was just remembering the first time we met.”

His brows went up. As he glanced her way again, she saw that he was now expressionless.

“Were you, now?”

She waited. His attention returned to the road. He didn’t say anything else. She frowned.

“I was trying to think how long ago that was,” she prompted. She thought her casual tone was nicely done.

He shrugged.

Great. Now
he turned into a man of few words.

“How long ago was it?” she probed a little more pointedly.

“A while.”

“So tell me about it.” If there was a slight edge to her voice now, she couldn’t help it. She was tired and scared and hurting, and being subtle required a lot of effort. Plus, it didn’t appear to be working particularly well.

He glanced her way again. This time he looked wary. “What? The first time we met? Why?”

“It’s like telephone, you know, the game where one person whispers something to another person, and then it goes on down the line, and by the end the story’s usually totally different?” Good one. She almost believed herself. “I want to see how well our memories match.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No, I’m not kidding.” Okay, now she was sounding downright grim.
Lighten up, girlfriend.

“To tell you the truth, I have no idea.”

She tried not to sound as outraged as she felt. “You don’t remember?”

He looked a little guilty. “Hey, it’s been hectic all over lately. What, did I say or do something that’s etched into your consciousness for all time? If so, I apologize. ”

“Never mind,” she said sulkily, and subsided into silence again.

So much for plumbing the depths of his mind for clues about her past. Clearly it was going to be more complicated than she felt able to deal with just yet.

“You know,” he said after a minute or two, “I’ve been thinking: Are you sure the man who jumped you today couldn’t have been just a garden-variety burglar? Maybe he heard what happened last night on, say, a police scanner or something, and thought your house would be empty in the aftermath and decided to seize an opportunity.”

“I’m sure.” Her tone was sour.

He glanced at her. “How? How can you be sure?”

“I just am.” She sighed. “He was wearing a suit, for one thing. An expensive suit, black or navy blue—it was kind of gloomy in there, and everything happened so fast, it’s hard to be sure of the exact color, but dark—with a white shirt and a dark tie. Not your typical burglar gear.”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe dressing like that makes it easier to break into a house in a nice neighborhood without anyone suspecting what you’re up to. You’ve got to have another reason for thinking he was something besides a burglar. A nice suit by itself doesn ’t cut it. So, what else you got?”

“He had a big silver gun just like those guys last night. He knew who I was. He was looking for something specific. Believe me, he was
not
a burglar.” Okay, she sounded testy. So sue her.

“All right, he wasn’t a burglar.” Dan now seemed ready to accept her judgment on that. “Do you remember anything about him that would help you to identify him? Any identifying marks or scars, for example?”

She shook her head. “None that I saw.”

“You get a look at his eyes? What did they look like?”

“They were dark. Really dark. Almost black. And kind of small.”

“Race?”

“I think he was white. Dark-complected but white. Or maybe Hispanic. Not black.”

“Hair?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t see it. It was hidden by the ski mask.”

“Size? How tall was he?”

“Six feet, probably. And muscular. He was in good shape. Like the kind of guy who might work for Ed.”

“You think he was CIA, huh? That’s reassuring.” Dan’s voice was dry. “Good to know we’ve got the Feds on our tail.”

Hearing him say “we” and “our” didn’t really make her feel any safer, but it was vaguely comforting to see that as far as he was concerned, they were in whatever they were in together. At least, if they got caught, she wouldn’t have to die alone.

Then something else occurred to her.

“Wait a minute. How do you know Ed’s with the CIA?”

He looked at her. “The
Post
photo, remember? The caption said he was, like, Director of Operations or something.”

“Oh.”

A beat passed.

“You see anything else?” Dan asked. “What about his hands?”

A vision of thick, dead, white fingers flashed into her mind. She barely kept herself from shuddering.

“He was wearing gloves. Surgical gloves. Look, what does it matter? It’s over. He’s gone. And as far as I know, there’s no Facebook for spooks.”

He shot her a glance. “Spooks?”

She huffed out an impatient breath. “That’s what they call the covert-operations guys.”

“You think this guy was one of them?” He paused, seeming to have a little trouble getting his tongue around what was coming next. “A spook?”