The Marshal's Witness (6 page)

“She trusted WitSec to keep her identity and location a secret,” Ryan said. “She was almost roasted alive. You tell me. How do
you
think she is?”

Jessica’s face paled, making her eyes stand out in stark contrast. She moved to one of the crates a few feet away and sat very still, watching him.

A loud sigh sounded over the phone. “I understand your frustration. And I guess I can understand your suspicions, even though I don’t appreciate it. But you can trust me, Ryan. I’m in D.C. at FBI headquarters right now. We’ve got everybody
who’s anybody looking into this. In the meantime, there could be men in the mountains already searching for you two. You’ve got to come in. Tell me where you are and I’ll send someone to pick you up.”

“Tell me who the mole is and I’ll bring the witness in,” Ryan said, glancing at his watch again. He needed to end the call. He and Alex were careful not to use Jessica’s name, but if someone
was listening to this call, they wouldn’t have to be a genius to figure out who “the witness” was.

“
You
don’t get to make demands,” Alex fumed. “I want her back in protective custody in twenty-four hours or you’ll face charges, starting with obstruction of justice.”

Ryan hung up and snapped the battery pack off the back of the phone.

“Who was that?” Jessica asked, as Ryan shoved
the pieces of the phone into his pocket.

“My boss, Alex Trask. I called to see if he knows who leaked your location.”

“Does he?”

“Not that he’s admitting, no.”

“You don’t believe him?”

He shrugged. “I haven’t decided yet.”

Jessica rubbed her hands up and down her arms, hugging her jacket tighter. “I don’t understand any of this. How did DeGaullo figure out where I
was?” Her skin stretched taut across her cheekbones. The strain of the past few hours was beginning to show.

“Someone inside WitSec leaked your information. If DeGaullo isn’t the one who’s after you, then whoever is behind this is framing DeGaullo. Does anyone else have a reason to want you dead?”

Her pink lips parted in surprise. “Are you saying someone
else
is trying to kill me?”

“That depends on whether you’re hiding something from me.”

Jessica fisted her hands beside her on the crate. “I’m not hiding anything.”

Ryan wanted to trust her, but everything he knew about her told him he couldn’t. “I wouldn’t have thought DeGaullo had enough influence to get someone inside the Justice Department to help him. He’d have to have some pretty bad dirt on someone to
make them do that. Or offer an equally incredible favor in return.”

He crouched down in front of her again and put his hands on her shoulders, anchoring her in place. “Give me one reason to trust you. Tell me why DeGaullo would risk everything for revenge against a former accountant he barely knew. Why does he really want to kill you?”

Chapter Seven

Jessica’s lips flattened and she shoved his arms off her shoulders. “Maybe he just doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life in prison.” She fairly spit the words at him. “If you’ll remember, he wasn’t found not guilty. The trial ended in a hung jury. The Justice Department can retry him at any time. If they do, they’ll need me to testify again.”

Her face was
alarmingly pale. And in spite of her fiercely uttered words, it was all bravado. She was shaking, and she looked so lost, so vulnerable, that Ryan had the sudden urge to pull her close, to wrap his arms around her and hold her until the color returned to her cheeks and the fear left her eyes.

He doubted she’d appreciate that gesture, since he’d just accused her of sleeping with a scumbag
like DeGaullo. The fact that he even
wanted
to hold her didn’t make sense. His lack of sleep must be clouding his judgment.

He clasped his hands together to keep from reaching for her, and reminded himself of what she’d done. She’d helped a crime lord launder money. She’d covered his tracks so he could spew drugs and violence into the streets of New York. That knowledge helped ease Ryan’s
insane urge to comfort her, if only a little.

“Are you sure there’s a leak in WitSec?” she asked, squeezing her arms around her middle. “Maybe that jogger recognized me from the papers. Maybe he called a reporter, and—”

“That jogger was a contract killer. You couldn’t see his face because it was turned away, but he was one of the men lying on the floor of my bathroom.” He hated the way
her eyes widened in fear, but he didn’t have time to coddle her. If he’d misjudged the length of time it would take for a phone trace, Alex could have men zeroing in on his location right now. And the men who’d shot at him and Jessica could be following their trail, too.

“Higgins knew I was a marshal,” Ryan continued. “And he knew who you were. You haven’t been into town since you moved in.
So unless you called someone—”

“I didn’t.”

“Then the only way anyone could know where you were was if they got that information from inside WitSec.”

She took a minute to process that, her throat working as she swallowed. All her earlier bravado was gone. “What are we going to do?”

The desolation in her words had him gritting his teeth. He glanced at his watch again and stood.
“You have to make a choice.”

Jessica shoved herself up from the crate and stared up at him, her doe eyes big and round. “What choice?” she whispered.

Ryan shoved his hands in his pockets. It was either that or grab her and try to wipe that frightened look off her face. He didn’t see how the jury had let DeGaullo go when they’d seen Jessica on the stand. She had
him
half believing her
and he was the last person to trust someone like her.

“First option,” he said, forcing a coldness into his voice that he was, unfortunately, far from feeling, “you go back into protective custody and hope the marshals assigned to you aren’t on DeGaullo’s payroll.”

She winced. “What’s the second option?”

“Stay in the mountains with me. Let me protect you.”

She swallowed and
blinked several times. “Why would you do that?”

Because, for some inexplicable reason, he couldn’t quite reconcile her notorious past with the forlorn woman in front of him. Right now, she seemed so innocent, so fragile. She needed him, and he couldn’t stomach the thought of turning her over to someone else without knowing if he could trust them to keep her safe.

Not that he’d admit
that to her. She wouldn’t believe him, anyway, not after enduring all his
city girl
comments. He chose a half-truth instead. “It’s my job.”

Her quick nod of acceptance, acknowledging that he would only protect her because it was his job, had him clenching his jaw.

“How would you protect me?” she asked.

“We’d head deeper into the mountains and hide for a few days. Stuart, the guy
I mentioned earlier, opened a private investigation and security firm after he got out of the army. He’s been investigating something for me already. He won’t mind looking into this as well. He has a lot of powerful contacts he groomed while still in the service, plenty of strings to pull, favors to call in. He might not be able to figure out who the mole is, but he can help us figure out who we
can trust to help us.”

What Ryan didn’t tell her was that their only chance to elude any trackers on their trail was to go into some rough terrain, where even the motorcycle couldn’t go. They’d have to hoof it from there. He hoped
city girl
could handle it. She looked like she was in good physical condition, but she wasn’t used to hiking for hours on end. She also couldn’t hike with clothes
so big they were falling off her, and floppy shoes that tripped her up. He’d have to do something about that if she agreed to his plan.

“Where would we stay?” she asked. “How would we survive?”

The uncertainty in her voice was palpable, but she seemed to be seriously considering going on the run with him. Maybe she was tougher than he thought. Then again, maybe she just didn’t realize
exactly how hard the next few days could be if they stayed in the mountains. He decided to lay it all out, so she couldn’t say later that he hadn’t warned her.

“It won’t be easy,” he said. “The nights are bitterly cold in these elevations this time of year. I brought some energy bars and water, but not enough to sustain us for long. We’ll have to live off the land.”

A look of doubt crossed
her face. “Live off the land? What does that mean?”

“No grocery stores, no electricity, no soft bed to sleep in...no bathroom.” He waited for that to sink in. From the disgruntled look on her face, he guessed the
no bathroom
comment had made her decision for her.

The disappointment that flashed through him surprised him. Not that he wanted to tough it out in the mountains any more than
she did, but he’d thought, for a few minutes, anyway, that Jessica was stronger than she looked. He’d thought she was more of a fighter than she’d shown so far.

She kicked the crate on the floor in front of her. “Why are you trying to talk me out of going with you? Do you think I should surrender to the marshals?”

“Do I think...wait, you still want to go with me? Even without a bathroom?”

Her face flushed an adorable shade of pink. “Surviving in the wilderness without any luxuries isn’t at the top of my list of fun things to do. But it’s still
surviving.
If it weren’t for you, I would have died at the courthouse. And I doubt too many people would rescue me from a burning house the way you did. I’ll take my chances with you.”

Her little speech surprised him...again. She
wasn’t conforming to that neat little check box he’d marked off in his mind when he’d first met her.

“Ryan, will you get in trouble for helping me? Your boss—”

“Let me worry about him. Keeping you safe is more important.”

“Why?”

He frowned. “Why what?”

She took a step closer, so close he could smell the smoke still clinging to her hair. But instead of making him want to
step back, it made him want to hold her close and protect her.

“You risked your life for me last night,” Jessica said. “You saved my life.”

He shook his head, ready to argue with her that anyone would have done what he did, but she reached up and cupped his face with her hands.

“If protecting me means losing your job, why would you do it? Why would you continue to risk your life
for me?”

The shock of her soft, warm hands on his face had his pulse picking up. His gut tightened, and his gaze seemed to drop against his will to her oh-so-tempting mouth, just inches away. All he had to do was lean down and he could capture her lips with his.

Maybe he should.

If he kissed her now, would that get this insane desire out of his system? He could satisfy his curiosity,
slake this desperate need. Then maybe he wouldn’t want her so badly. He wouldn’t be in an almost constant state of arousal around her, as he had been all night while riding the motorcycle, her breasts burning a hole in his back every time the bike bounced over the trail. The only thing holding him back right now was the way her brown eyes stared up at him, so trusting, waiting for his answer.

He ruthlessly reined in his desires, tightening his hands into fists to keep from reaching for her and crushing her against him. She shouldn’t look at him that way, as if maybe
she
wanted him to kiss her just as badly as
he
wanted to kiss her. He needed her to want him to keep his distance. He needed her to hate him. It would make everything much simpler that way.

“Ryan?” she prodded,
placing her hand on his chest and frowning up at him. “Why are you helping me?”

He took a step back, forcing her to drop her hand. “I told you at the hospital that I’m honor bound to keep you safe,” he said, reminding both of them why he was with her in the first place. “Now that I know that the marshals who died protecting you were double-crossed by someone inside WitSec, I’ve got even more
reasons to keep my vow to protect you. I’m not going to let whoever leaked your identity win. I want justice.”

Jessica’s gaze dropped from his and he immediately regretted his harsh answer.

“I want justice, too, for the marshals, for my friend, Natalie,” she said, her voice a bitter whisper in the stillness of the cabin. “And if DeGaullo wants to kill me, I’m not going to make it easy
for him. I’m staying with you.”

The first tiny stirrings of respect welled up inside Ryan at Jessica’s brave echo of the same words he’d told her the first time he’d seen her.

Don’t make it easy for him.

He unzipped his jacket and pulled his Glock out of the inside pocket.

She made no attempt to take the gun when he offered it to her. Instead, she narrowed her eyes at him.
“Why are you trying to give me your gun?”

“I’m going to backtrack, disguise our trail, and see if anyone is following us. This place is isolated. It’s unlikely anyone would stumble across it. But if the worst happens, you’ll have to protect yourself.” He held out the gun again. “There’s no safety. All you do is aim and squeeze.”

Jessica eyed the gun with obvious distaste. “Perhaps you
didn’t hear me. I said I was staying with you. You’re not leaving me behind.”

Irritation flashed through Ryan when he noted the stubborn set of her jaw. He’d make much faster progress without her clinging to him, and him worrying about her falling off the bike. The woman had obviously never been on a motorcycle before. She didn’t even know to lean into the curves.

“I’m not leaving you
behind,” he tried to reassure her. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours, three tops.”

“Why do you have to backtrack at all? Why can’t we just keep going deeper into the mountains?”

Ryan lowered the gun, his frustration level rising as he glanced at his watch. If the gunmen were following them, how close were they now? What if others had been positioned in the mountains before the fire,
ready to cut off any avenues of escape? They could be closing in right now.

“Heading into the mountains on a motorcycle wasn’t the smartest thing to do,” he said. “But we didn’t have much of a choice last night. Even an average tracker will be able to follow our tire tracks. Plus, the bike is loud. We’re okay using it a little while longer, if our pursuers aren’t far enough into the mountains
to hear it yet. But without knowing how many people are following us, and what directions they’re coming from, I don’t know what strategy to take to elude them. I need to do some scouting. If you’re with me, you’ll just slow me down.”

“It doesn’t make sense for you to have to ride all the way back here to get me once you do whatever you need to do,” she countered, her words rushing together
as she took a step forward. “I promise I won’t interfere. Just take me with you. I’ll have your back, keep an eye out so no one sneaks up on you while you do whatever you need to do.”

The fear stamped on her taut face, and the way her gaze had darted toward the door and window, told him far more than the words she’d spoken. Jessica was afraid that if he left, he’d never come back. She was
afraid he would abandon her.

Ah, hell. He was going to have to take her with him.