Chapter 13
LAUREL
I should have been happy Jason had taken off and let me have a moment to breathe without him around. I’d spent only a minute in the gas station bathroom trying to get a grip. Some more time wouldn’t hurt.
I hadn’t meant to kiss him.
But on those freezing stairs, in the dark, he’d given me the same look from the mirror, and I’d been completely powerless to stop myself.
Not him. He swore I was a job and nothing else, and although he was so clearly lying, it hurt all the same. Denying he felt this thing between us was like being gaslit. A strange fog of lust had haunted me from the second we’d shaken hands in the FBI office.
If anyone was confused about feelings, it was him.
But the guilt over putting his job at risk was eating at me, even when I tried not to think about it. There were other things to worry about.
“What’s happening?” I asked. “What was on his phone?”
Derrick stared out the windshield, and I wondered if he hadn’t heard me. Then, he pulled out his own phone, tapped it a few times, and turned the screen toward me.
“This is what was inside the envelope Kowalski was supposed to deliver.”
He didn’t give me a lot of time to look at it, but it made no difference. I recognized the bloody costume instantly. The word scribbled beneath the photo made my heart race and my breath short.
No. I’d never be Frey’s.
If I ever saw him again, hopefully from a witness stand, I’d be sure to tell him so.
I wanted Jason to come back. I needed to know why seeing this picture had made him upset enough to bolt, especially when Derrick hadn’t.
My wish was granted when the back door opened, flooding the space with cold air. Jason’s face was dark and unreadable as he stood beside the car.
“Did he show it to you already?” he asked. When I nodded, his gaze narrowed on his partner. “I wish you hadn’t done that.”
“No,” I said. “I need to know what’s going—”
His shoulders tensed, and he pushed his jacket back off his hip so he could unhook the gun holstered there.
Breath halted in my lungs. This gas station was busy and public, so he wouldn’t bring his gun out unless he had no other choice.
“What’s up?” Derrick’s voice was hurried and alert.
“That sedan at the next pump over,” Jason said. “The passenger is pumping the gas, and he’s been doing it since we got here.”
He could look downright lethal when he wanted to, but I only got a glimpse of it before he closed my door, turned, and headed to the next pump.
Through my window, I watched as he made his approach.
He announced loudly he was a Deputy U.S.
Marshal, drawing the attention of the man who had one hand on the nozzle.
The guy was short with red cheeks, and I wondered if it was the cold, or if his skin was always flushed.
His posture was relaxed, which was . . . odd.
The man casually withdrew the nozzle from the tank, and when Jason was close enough, he squeezed the handle and shot a stream of gasoline in Jason’s direction.
He turned away only a second before impact, and it splashed all over the back of his head and down his coat.
“Fucking hell,” Derrick groaned. He slammed a foot on the brake at the same moment he hit the ignition switch, and our SUV’s engine fired up.
The flush-cheeked man dropped the nozzle, ripped open the passenger-side door, and darted inside the car while Jason wiped furiously at his eyes. He struggled to bring his gun up, but the dark sedan peeled out of its spot before he could aim.
Wheels screeched as the sedan turned, and my heart plummeted into my stomach as it barreled straight at us. Derrick threw the SUV into gear, and we lurched forward . . . but not fast enough.
The sedan careened into us, its front end colliding with the back bumper in a sickening crunch of metal and plastic. The force knocked us sideways, but the sedan didn’t stop coming until it had us pinned against a pump.
“Get down!” Derrick yelled.
I threw myself on the floor.
The hail of gunfire was deafening, and I couldn’t even hear my screams over it.
A million pebbles of glass rained down as the side and back windows shattered. There was an awful groan of metal and rubber squealing against pavement as the SUV abruptly lunged backward. Derrick must have put it in reverse, but he was driving blind since his head lay across the passenger seat.
Tires screeched and smoke poured through the now non-existent windows, making me cough.
The SUV jerked to a sudden stop, but only long enough for him to change gears.
He stomped on the accelerator, launching the vehicle forward like it was on a winch.
The strength of it flung me against the footwells of the back seat.
Everything was happening too fast, and it was too chaotic for me to even breathe.
Derrick sat up and pulled a turn hard enough I was sure we were going to tip over.
But we didn’t.
“Laurel?” His voice was surprisingly calm.
Could he hear me over the protesting tires? “I’m here.”
“We’ve got to get to Jason. Can you reach a door handle?”
“Yeah. Yes.” I didn’t dare lift my head, but in my confusion, I had no idea where we—or Jason—were. The way the shards of glass rolled around on the carpet made it feel like we were driving in circles.
“Passenger side?” he asked.
“Yes,” I gasped.
Derrick yanked his gun free from his holster, keeping one hand on the wheel. “Open it when I say so.”
It was mere seconds and yet a lifetime as I waited for his command. The SUV slid to a stop, fishtailing, which would have made me nauseated if I weren’t already.
“Now!” Derrick raised his gun and fired repeatedly. I flinched at the retort of his shots and hurled the door open, only to be flattened by Jason as he dove in on top of me. He was heavy, dripping with gasoline, and . . .
Still alive.
The SUV peeled out, the force slamming the open door shut, and the vehicle took a tremendous bounce like it hopped a curb, smashing Jason’s body into mine painfully.
“Are they following?” he yelled.
“No. Their car’s too fucked up.”
I couldn’t breathe, but the two hundred pounds of man on top of me could have been the cause. I didn’t really want to breathe with the fumes, anyway.
“Are you injured?” he asked Derrick. “Can you keep driving?”
“Yes, I’m all right.”
He had one hand on the side of my neck, the other supporting himself as he took his weight off me. “What about you?” His expression betrayed him. It gave away just how concerned he was.
“I’m okay,” I said.
But he scanned for himself like he didn’t believe me. “There’s blood.”
There was? I looked down. “It’s yours.”
There were scratches across his hand that were red and angry but didn’t look deep. “You’re sure?”
I nodded. “I’m not hurt. Are you okay?”
It was cramped in the back seat, but he moved to fit his body on the floorboard. It had to be uncomfortable, but he didn’t seem to notice. He didn’t seem to notice anything other than me. His gaze didn’t waiver.
“I’m okay now.” He took in an enormous breath. “They put a lot of bullets in this car.”
Over the roar of the engine and the shot-out windows, it was unlikely Derrick could hear us. But Jason had said it in a hushed, worried tone like he’d thought one of those bullets had ended up in me.
He wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his coat, and when his hand came down, it fell right beside mine, letting the edges of our fingers touch. Up front, I could barely hear Derrick on his phone, calling in to report what had happened.
My hair fluttered in the cold wind, and I pushed it out of my eyes. “Why did you take off when you saw the picture?”
He gave me a dubious look. “That’s what you’re thinking about right now?”
“Tell me.” I stared into his dark eyes and demanded honesty.
His gaze dropped down to where our hands were just barely touching. “I needed a minute.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t like the thought of him taking you away from me.” His face contorted. Once again, this was something he hadn’t meant to reveal. “From us,” he amended.
My heart lurched forward with his slip, beating faster and making my face flush hot. “Are you going to tell me again that I’m just a job?”
“No.”
“Then promise me you’ll stay with me.”
He didn’t blink. “I will.”
His hand, resting on the seat bench, didn’t move when I took it in mine. He made no protest. Instead, he covered it with his other hand, as if making a commitment.
We ditched the mangled SUV in a parking garage and exchanged it for a vehicle in Orland Park.
The Tahoe was at least ten years old but had no bullet holes.
After the disaster at the gas station, I was informed that Bill was coordinating a joint task force with the FBI and would join us as soon as he could.
Two more marshals rode behind us as a convoy.
The twenty minutes in the Tahoe were tense and quiet. Everyone was on edge, and I spent the ride picking glass out of my hair. It was easier to focus on that. Plus, it had gone everywhere. Down my shirt, in my mouth. The tiniest bits sparkled on my eyelashes when I blinked.
I had to breathe through my mouth instead of my nose because I reeked of gasoline, almost as bad as Jason did from the front seat.
The Tahoe pulled into the parking lot of a two-story motel set back from the busy highway. It didn’t look overly sketchy or seedy, but not terribly new either. I wondered if the lit No Vacancy sign was because of me.
“Anyone who pulls into this parking lot has a badge,” Jason said as he carried my bag up the stairs and to a room, unlocking the door. “Your room’s been secured. Derrick’s on your left, I’m to the right.”
I followed him in. There were bulletproof vests in the open closet I assumed the marshal who had secured my room had hung there.
The carpet was stained in places, and the noise from the highway was constant, but it didn’t matter much.
The door had automatically swung shut behind us, which meant we were now alone.
Everything I’d felt on that staircase in the basement returned, but not for him.
He tossed my bag onto the bed then strode toward me.
I held utterly still as he lifted a hand and brushed glass dust off my eyebrow.
His touch was gentle, and familiar, and by no means sexual, but it sent an electrical current down my spine regardless.
“We need a shower,” he said.
The image of our naked bodies pressed against each other under a stream of hot water was instantaneous in my mind, and my breath caught. I pictured his hands sliding over my skin, slippery with soap, in perfect freaking detail, and it caused heat to pool inside me.
Was he thinking the same thing? His eyes filled with smoke and then went wide with shock.
“I didn’t mean together,” he said, embarrassed. Was he blushing?
Jason stepped back, putting space between us, and a scowl twisted his expression. It was the same one he’d had the moments after our kiss, and my heart thudded to a stop. I sensed what was coming.
“Look,” he said, “maybe you need to forget about what was said in that back seat.”
I kept my voice controlled, even as emotions jangled inside me. “Why’s that?”
“Seeing the car under attack with you and my partner in it . . . I wasn’t thinking. I said things I probably shouldn’t have.”
I took a breath in through my nose and pushed it out through my mouth, the same thing I did before auditions to calm myself. If he wanted to be like this, fine. If he wanted to claim I was a job and no more than that—fine.
Eventually, I’d have to believe him.
I forced myself to sound indifferent. “Okay.”
“Okay?” His expression was skeptical.
“Yeah, okay. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take my shower.”
Alone, the voice in my head added.