Twisted Shadows (33 page)

But it was obvious that she didn't trust him. She'd slept with him. She obviously felt something for him. But she didn't trust him.

That was something that needed to be remedied. Now.

His fingers interlocked with hers. “I'm sorry I wasn't there.”

She gave him a wry grin. “That was my doing. Not yours.”

“I'm a cop. I should have anticipated—”

“I wanted to see my friend alone. I thought I had taken precautions.”

“You took some damn good ones, but don't do it again. Okay?”

“How could they have found me?”

“Research. Who works for your gallery. Who your friends are. Wouldn't take a professional long. A question at the diner, a friendly observation. A global positioning unit on the car.”

“But I changed cars.”

“Did you take anything from one car to another?”

“My purse.”

He was silent.

“There was no way to get something inside my purse. It was in the house, then I left it in the trunk when I met Terri.”

“Someone might have been following Terri,” he said.

She closed her eyes. How many more people were going to be hurt?

“Where is my purse now?”

“Dan called. He took the car back to the garage. He's bringing your purse and gun here, once he's sure no one's tracking him.”

“What do I do now?”

“What do
we
do now,” he corrected.

“Because it's your job?”

“I doubt I'll have it long,” he said, surprised suddenly at how little he cared. He had made the FBI the focus of his life for years, had taken night courses while working in a law office as a paralegal to meet FBI qualifications. He'd gone into it for the wrong reasons, but nonetheless it had taken over his life. He was FBI to the core. Or had been.

But now he'd found something more important.

“Why?”

“I've been ordered off the case. And away from you.”

“Why?”

“I'm too personally involved, I was told,” he said.

“Are you?” she asked bluntly.

“It's too convenient,” he said. “Gray and I have been working on the Merrittas for four years. There have been other cases, but we were the most knowledgeable. It doesn't make sense that all of a sudden, we're taken off it.”

“Are you saying someone in the FBI …?”

“I don't know, Samantha. I don't like to think that. But I do know that they've had an informer inside the family for years. I'm not sure that it doesn't go two ways.”

“Sam,” she corrected.

His lips cracked into a smile. He was finally being admitted into her world. “You don't look like a Sam.”

“I hope not,” she said with the smallest shadow of a smile.

“Still, I like it.”

The door opened and Dr. McIntyre entered. “Ah, you're awake.”

She nodded, moved and winced with pain.

The doctor leaned over, checked the bloody bandage, then unwrapped it and inspected the wound. “It's draining well.” He busied himself replacing the bandage.

“Can she leave?” Nate said.

“If she takes the antibiotics and you keep the wound clean.”

Nate nodded.

“Where are you going?”

“South,” he said shortly.

“Which probably means north,” McIntyre said.

“You could get in trouble for this.”

“I've always been in trouble,” the doctor said.

“Thank you,” Sam said.

“I liked your father,” McIntyre said.

Nate saw tears gathered in the corners of her eyes. She hadn't cried when he knew she was in great pain. She hadn't wrung her hands over what had happened or complained, as she had every right to do, about his competence as an agent.

But she had shed tears over a father who had died two years ago.

Not Paul Merritta.

His hand tightened on hers. She must feel that everything she knew, thought, believed was being ripped away from her.

His mind raced. He had to get them the hell away from here and keep them moving until he and Gray could figure out who in the hell had put out a contract and why.

It obviously had something to do with her mother and the “insurance” he and Gray had speculated about.

But her mother was spooked now, too—spooked enough to disappear but not spooked enough to leave her daughter unprotected.

So bad guys were following them. And a good guy was not far behind.

McIntyre finished wrapping the bandage.

Nate squeezed her hand. “We need to go.”

She nodded. No questions this time. Not even any arguments.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I shouldn't have flattened your tire.”

“Nope,” he agreed. “You shouldn't have. I haven't changed a tire in years. Besides,” he added, “it was embarrassing, particularly driving down the road on that little tire. Thank God the flat only needed a plug.”

She gave him a faint grin. “I planned it that way. I could have ripped—”

He gave her a wry look. “I didn't know you had destructive tendencies.”

Her eyes brightened. “I won't do it again. I don't think.”

“Damn right, you won't.”

Her hair was mussed, her face devoid of makeup, but he didn't know when he'd been so attracted to a woman. To what she was, and to who she was.

It was all he could do to make himself behave. He wanted to lean down and kiss her, but now was not the time. The bad guys would know by now that she'd not gone to the hospital and would be looking for someone like McIntyre.

He glanced at the doctor. “Can you take a little vacation yourself?”

McIntyre seemed surprised, then nodded. “I have a little fishing shack.”

“Anyone know about it?”

“A few people, but they don't talk much to strangers.”

“Have a gun?”

“Yep. And I know how to use it. I was in Korea. That's why I liked Dave Carroll so much. He understood.”

Nate smiled. “How much do you know about him?”

“Only that he was in some kind of special services. Seals, Rangers. He never said. But I knew he had special training.”

“He never said where he served?”

McIntyre looked at Sam, who nodded. “Vietnam for sure,” he said. “Not that he talked much about it. Just a few things slipped now and then.”

Nate knew he was wasting too much time, but David Carroll was one of the keys to this puzzle. He came from nowhere. He settled in a small town as a struggling owner of a small art gallery. It might make sense if he had a past.

Had Carroll given up everything for Sam's mother? If her mother was anything like Sam, Nate understood.

Satisfied with McIntyre's answers, he helped Sam sit up. She wore the shirt she'd worn riding. McIntyre had washed what was left of her slacks. They were stained and cut.

She looked down at them.

“We'll buy some new clothes,” Nate said. “Let's get going.”

Dr. Mac gave her a cane. Sam hadn't thought she would need one, but when she tried to stand, pain ripped through her. She accepted the cane gratefully.

She thanked him and hoped with all her heart she hadn't put him in danger as she had Terri.

She took the purse that Dan had brought from her car, making sure the gun was inside. Then she left with Nathan.

He had his rental car. While she watched, he examined every part of it. He crawled underneath, checked the trunk and the engine area.

She only hoped that their unexpected savior had thrown whoever the killer was off stride. There was no question, Nate said, that the stalker had been injured. Was he the only one? Would someone else come after them?

“Gray is trying to find out who's behind the contract,” Nate said.

A contract
.

Such a cold, objective word to describe a violent act. A legal word used to commission an illegal act.

Who? Why?

“Do you think it's someone in the family?” she asked.

“I don't know. But if I had to guess, no.”

“Why?”

“The suspicion would go straight to them. They can't afford that. Not now.”

“Why?”

“The other families would sense a weakness. While the Merrittas were tied up in an investigation, their rivals could take over the protection part of the business. City contracts are another big part of their activity. If they're under a microscope, they will likely lose them all.”

He drove onto a secondary road, and she saw the alertness in him, the way his gaze never stopped moving from the road in front to the rearview mirror. “The only thing I can figure is that whatever your mother knows, or has, involves a third party. That's why we need to get to her.”

“And Nick?”

She watched him hesitate, then carefully chose his words. “I've been convinced for years that he was involved in his father's business. But I saw his face in the hospital. He didn't like what happened. He hadn't expected it.”

“I should … call him. Maybe he's in danger, too.”

“Believe me, Nicholas Merritt can take care of himself.”

She looked over at him. His jaw was set.

“Why do you distrust him so?”

He turned his gaze from the road. “Because he says one thing and does something else. He keeps saying he wants out, but he used his father's money to start the business. He claims he has nothing to do with the family, but he's met with his father several times a week in the past year.”

“Maybe because he knew his father was ill.”

“Merritta himself didn't know until two months ago.”

She stared at him.

“We tapped his phones,” he said unapologetically. “We had court orders.”

“Then he knew about them.”

“I'm sure he did. He kept changing cell phones, though. He may not have realized we found most—if not all—of them.”

“How much can you track?”

“If we have your number, we can get the number you're calling almost immediately. The location takes more time. We tapped Tommy's calls to your father when he found you.”

“So if I called my mother …”

“If she stayed on long enough, sophisticated equipment could find her, right down to the street address.”

“How many people have that kind of equipment?”

“More than you would like to know.”

“Do you think Nick knows what my mother … might have?”

“I don't know.”

“I want to talk to him.”

“I'll arrange it so it will be safe.”

She nodded. She was going to do it whether he helped her or not. A public telephone someplace. It didn't matter. She had to let him know that violence had followed her. She wanted to hear his response. She wanted to believe him.

“Nick seems to think your … diligence goes deeper than your job,” she probed.

He was quiet for several moments, but the watchfulness never lessened. She felt wariness in him. Tension. “Your grandfather killed my mother,” he said.

The words were another body blow, more painful than the gunshot wound.

She looked at his hands. The knuckles were white where he clutched the steering wheel.

“But why?”

“She was a waitress in a restaurant he and some of his people frequented. He was in a private room when she brought some food. They were talking about assassinating a public official. She dropped a dish and fled.”

His voice was emotionless, as if it was a story he'd recited too many times. “She came to the school to pick me up. She was going to take me to a friend's home in Pennsylvania. They found us just as we were exiting the school, and a gunman in a car sprayed bullets at us. She covered me with her body. I watched her bleed to death.”

“How did you know who …?” She wanted to believe there was some mistake, that he hadn't really known.

“She told me as we left the school. She said Mr. Merritta was very angry. I knew who he was. I sometimes met her at the restaurant. He was there most days.”

“And then?”

“I was sent to foster homes.”

“How old were you?”

“Eight,” he replied, a muscle flexing in his cheek.

“She had no family?”

“No. My father was killed in Vietnam. At least she said he was. I'm not sure if he was or not, or whether he was just someone who left when she got pregnant. But she didn't give me away. She tried her best to care for me.”

Sam had had her own horrors in the past few days, but nothing like this. An eight-year-old boy watching his mother get shot? An eight-year-old boy lying in his mother's blood as she died? She swallowed back the cry rising in her throat, blinked away the tears. “Does Nick know?”

“I don't know,” he said.

“Did Paul Merritta?”

He shook his head. “I don't know whether they ever associated an inconvenient waitress with me. She probably wasn't important enough to remember.” His words were tinged with bitterness.

“Does your partner know?”

“No. Neither does the Bureau, or I would never have been allowed near the Merrittas.”

She turned her gaze away from him, from his striking face, his clear green eyes that probably too often saw the bloody scene repeated over and over. Still, she cherished the trust he'd just handed her.

“I'm sorry.”

“Don't be. You had nothing to do with it.”

“I'm sorry for that boy.”

“That boy grew up.”

“But he still feels the pain.”

“It faded.”

“But the outrage never has.”

“No,” he said.

“You said you could lose your job.”

“Possibly. I'm disobeying orders in a big way.”

She angled herself in the seat so she could see him. “Because of me?”

“Because of you,” he agreed. “For the first time since I was eight, something else is more important.”

She saw a muscle move in his neck, the bunching of muscles in his jaw. She believed him.