Dare Me, page 10
"I don't have any money to take. My ex already did that."
He turned back at that. She seemed to be a contradiction of beauty and stubbornness, and a sexiness he couldn't explain, but he saw no subterfuge. No hint of any lie.
Mario had already done her in.
Will squelched the urge to throw something and settled for stalking the length of the small room. All he'd wanted was to get the son of a bitch to a jail cell to rot. He'd been so sighted on that goal, he hadn't thought of who might get in the way.
He turned back. She'd sunk to her knees in front of the pile from the dresser, fingering through the pieces of porcelain like she'd lost her puppy. The thought of her getting hurt because of this, possibly because of him, coiled his gut.
She picked up a single shard and let out an anguished sigh. More remorse sneaked in like a thrifty little bastard, but then he remembered Wendy, and the wave of sorrow and the need for biting revenge beat back any remorse. "You help me and I'll pay you five hundred."
She lifted her head. "Dollars?"
He very nearly smiled, but not with amusement. "Five hundred thousand dollars." Half the society's reward, if that's what it took.
"Five hundred thousand." She went even paler, and then right before his eyes, hers rolled in her head.
"Shit." In two strides he was at her side, crouching down, shoving her head to her knees. "Breathe. Breathe." "I'm . . . trying." "Try harder."
At her sides her fists clenched as she panted for air through the panic attack. She wore a short denim skirt that had risen high on her thighs when she'd dropped to the floor, and an eye-popping yellow halter top that matched her high-heeled sandals. The whole getup should have been silly to his practical mind, but instead was sexy as hell. So was the bared, tanned soft skin of her back, the row of delicate bones lining her spine reminding him how long it'd been since he'd kissed his way down a woman's back.
"I told you, this has been a very bad day." Her breath shuddered in and out. "I couldn't find my keys. I should have known to just pack it in right there and call it a day, but no." She squeezed her eyes shut. "Tomas in bed with Jody. A speeding ticket. And I think I broke my toe when I kicked that rat bastard's tire. And then he stole all my money, and I can't get into my shop, and now my house has been ransacked—" She straightened and leveled him with a tearful, hopeful expression. "I'm dreaming, aren't I? Tell me this whole thing is just a bad dream."
When he slowly shook his head, all hope drained out of her face. She swiped her arm beneath her nose and looked around at the utter destruction of her bedroom. Her short hair danced around her cheeks. "I don't understand."
No, he could see that she didn't, but he was beginning to. "What's your name?"
"Jade."
"You know your boyfriend as Tomas Manning, right?"
"He's not my boyfriend. He's a rat bastard."
"Yeah, well, he's an internationally known rat bastard with more aliases than you have years on you, who has personally fenced close to ten million dollars' worth of antiquities across the country and is now wanted in about twenty states for those crimes, as well as for murder one."
She sat there, and her wide unpainted mouth trembled open, her drenched eyes lifting to his, confused and hurting. "Murder?" she whispered.
"Yeah, murder."
"I don't want to see anyone die. I can't see anyone else die."
He had no idea if she was crazy, or just in shock. "Count your lucky stars that you didn't get in his way, or that you weren't here when the goons after him couldn't find what they wanted." He wrapped his fingers around her slim, surprisingly toned arm. "Now get it together. We have to move before they come back here to shake some information out of you." "Oh my God." "Where's Mario, Jade?" "I don't know."
"If those guys find him first . . ." He let that hang in the air.
Her eyes flickered with fear. "There's a woman with him. An ex-employee of mine. She stole from me, but I don't want her to lose her life."
"Then let's hope she's smart."
"She is." Jade put her head to her knees and gulped air. Her short hair fell forward in a shiny curtain, exposing the back of her neck in a way that made her look even more vulnerable. Her small trim body trembled, and when she turned her head to stare at him, she nibbled on her full lower lip, which looked to be made for nibbling, and he couldn't look away. "What is it you want from Tomas—Mario?" she corrected.
He wanted to see him in hell. "He's holding on to a pile of gems that don't belong to him. My guess is that he's looking for a fence."
"Fence?" She looked confused, and adorable in that confusion. "You mean someone to sell the gems to?"
"That's right. Where would he go, Jade?"
"I don't know." She looked around at the mess. She'd had shelves along one wall, which had been flipped. Her closet had been dumped, the chair in the corner slashed. The room had been seriously trashed, with a violence that still shimmered in the air. "I need to call the police."
The cops would only slow the whole process down. If Will didn't get to Mario now, he'd slip under again, using a different alias on his next con, and it might be three more months before Will caught wind of him again.
There'd be another murder, he knew it. Time mattered. Every second mattered. But she reached for her phone.
Will wrestled it out of her hand and held it high above her head. "We can do this better without them."
"There's no 'we.' " Her voice trembled nearly as badly as her body. "I don't know you." "Will Malone." "That doesn't tell me much." "I'm one of the good guys."
She eyed him with fear and suspicion. "How do I know?"
He sighed. Considered. Then flashed his ID. She looked at his picture, then cut her eyes to his. "You're an agent of the federal government?" "See? Good guy. Let's go." "Go where?" "To find your boyfriend."
"Ex," she spat between her teeth, ignoring the hand he held out to help her up. With her chin thrust high enough in the air to give her a nosebleed, she
rose by herself and came barely to his shoulder, looking young, a little ravaged, and a lot shaken. She crossed her arms over her chest and gave him a stubborn look. "How does an agent of the government come up with half a million dollars to hand out?"
Not about to answer that right now, or any time for that matter, he just lifted a brow.
"Fine." She snatched the phone out of his hand. "Then I'll just call the police."
He waited while she fumbled the phone on. Then he said agreeably, "Fine. Let the cops come and interview you, then leave you alone to this mess, which is when you'll most likely be visited by whoever did this in the first place."
She swallowed audibly, and he ruthlessly pushed his advantage. "They'll ask you for information, Jade. Using unsavory means to get it." That much was likely true, and he looked her over. She wouldn't handle it well. She was small and untrained, and in a way he still didn't understand, sexy as hell. Oh yeah, they'd lap her up and spit her out, and maybe, maybe, let her live to remember it for the rest of her life. "Do you have a baseball bat?"
"Why?"
"You're going to need it to try to protect yourself."
A small sound of terror escaped her lips, but he ruthlessly kept his voice hard. "Take me where I need to go, Jade, and it won't be an issue. I'm going to pay you, not hurt you. Five hundred grand."
Her soft, dewy eyes met his. "This isn't happening."
"It is and you can't stay here." He grabbed a small denim backpack off the floor and opened it. A tube of lip gloss rolled around the bottom. "Throw a few things in here and let's go. Get ID, too."
She glanced around uneasily. "You really think they'll come back?"
He looked her right in those milk-chocolate eyes and tipped the scales in his favor, without a drop of guilt—something he'd gotten good at. For a DEA agent, nothing was ever black and white, but various shades of gray, which had worn on his conscience, his morals, his very soul. "Oh yeah," he said silkily. "They'll come back for you. You're going to be a tasty morsel for them, too."
She glanced uneasily at her bed.
"Where will Mario go, Jade? Back to your shop maybe?"
"How do you know so much about me?"
"Because I've been tailing Mario for two days." Infuriate her. A woman infuriated would stop at nothing to exact revenge. "I heard him coming on to Jody. That's who is with him, right?"
Her eyes clouded. Bingo.
"Where would he go?" He toed some of the mess on the floor at their feet. There was glass everywhere. Also some personal effects: her keys, her wallet, her passport.
"I told you! I don't know where he'd go! Maybe Baja. He told me once his parents retired there, but he was probably lying." She scooped her wallet off the floor.
"Mexico," he muttered, and nabbed her passport as well, tossing it into the backpack.
Jade just stood there, looking a little lost. Will knew she was working on autopilot, locked into her fear. He took the bag from her. "A pair of pants. A shirt or two."
She pulled the items from her closet, and he shoved them in the pack. He moved to the dresser. He pulled open the first drawer, got lucky, and grabbed some underwear, ignoring her shocked choke. "Real shoes," he told her, and moved into her bathroom to grab her toothbrush, toothpaste, and a brush off the counter, dropping them all into the now-bulging small backpack.
When he came back to her, she was wearing flats instead of the heels, and had what looked like a porcelain rattle in her hands. And because he was watching her so carefully, he saw it all over her face when she remembered something. He opened his mouth to push her, to get her to open up and tell him, but another sound shuddered through the house.
A door creaking.
Jade gasped and straightened. Will moved quickly, stepping close, covering her mouth with his hand before she could make a sound and give them away.
Once again he pulled out his gun, and her eyes widened. "Stay," he mouthed, and slipped out of the bedroom.
Jade backed up until the wall was at her back. Her heart thundered in her chest. There was a roaring of sheer terror in her ears.
You're going to be a tasty morsel for them.
No. She stuck her grandma's rattle, the only one left now, back in her pocket and dove to the floor, sticking her hand beneath her bed, frantically reach `ing for the only weapon she could think of.
There, but just as her fingers closed around it, she heard a whisper of a sound behind her.
Craning her neck, she caught sight of a pair of scuffed athletic shoes, which came to a stop only a foot from her. Oh God. Moving as fast as she could, she scooted back out and came to her knees, face to crotch with her intruder as she wound up to swing at him with her umbrella.
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Will easily deflected the blow, tossed the umbrella aside, and hauled her up to her feet. Eyes glittering with temper, he wrapped an arm of steel around her body and yanked her against him, putting a finger to her lips, following through with an expression that had any words jamming in her throat as he gestured with a jerk of his head that they weren't alone. Oh God, oh God.
She nodded to show him she understood.
He thrust her backpack in her hands and without a word dragged her to her window, letting go of her to reach for the latch. He was taller than Tomas had been, more leanly muscled, too. She doubted he carried an ounce of fat, and yet there was a solidness to him that Tomas had lacked. That most other men lacked. His movements were fluid yet utterly economical as he slipped on her backpack while gesturing
that she should get on the ledge. The outside ledge.
The outside ledge that was two stories above the ground.
Stomach in her throat, she turned back to her tossed bedroom, her heart racing at the thought of running from some unknown danger, of running headfirst into another, bigger one.
With Will's eyes hard on her, fathomless and direct in a way that shook her to the core, she stuck her hand in her pocket and fingered her grandma's rattle. The height from the second story had never bothered her before, but then again, she'd never considered crawling out on the ledge and climbing down the oak that grew right outside.
It was crazy. She was crazy. This guy, smooth and confident, and quite frankly the most attractive man she'd ever seen, could be no different than Tomas for all she knew.
She should have called the police when she had the chance.
As if he'd read her mind, Will leaned in, and put his mouth to her ear. "One full million if you hurry your sweet ass up, and don't get us killed right now. One million, Jade, to help me find Mario. See justice served."
Justice. She believed in justice, and Tomas should pay for his crimes.
And one million dollars . . . She could buy a place.
Get her shop opened again. Be comfortable without counting pennies as she'd done all her life. All these silly, frivolous thoughts bounced through her head so that she couldn't dwell on the other, more pressing thought.
She might not live to spend it.
She swung her legs over, balancing on the ledge, then made the fatal mistake of looking down. At the sight of the narrow planter with flowers and the tree base, lined on both sides with hard concrete, all of which looked very far down, her stomach pitched.
"Stop." Will hooked an arm around her waist. "Keep your eyes straight ahead," he commanded in that barely there whisper as he joined her on the ledge. "Reach out for the branch."
He had one arm braced behind her now, and the other still around her. Her eyes locked on his forearm, tanned and corded with hard strength. He smelled good, came the inane thought. He smelled really good.
"Do it."
His silky demand was underlaid with warning, reminding her that while he might smell good and look even better, he was a perfect stranger forcing her out a second-story window.
Her vision wavered as the dizzying height danced spots in her eyes. "I hope Tomas rots in hell."
"We're going to make him pay right here on earth, Jade. Go."
"Going." Holding her breath, she reached out for the branch.
"Swing down. Hand over hand until you get closer to the trunk, then set your feet on the branch beneath you. Grab on to it, and drop. Don't scream, don't make a sound."
Bark dug into her palms as she followed the directions to the letter. Tree climbing hadn't been something she'd done as a child, and now she knew why. It was a dirty business, and hurt as the bark bit into the tender flesh on the insides of her legs and her arms as she crawled, holding her breath. But she kept moving, flattening herself back against the trunk when Will shimmied down after her onto that last branch. Then she fell to the ground in a graceless heap.
Above her, Will swung down with confident ease, arms and legs outstretched before he dropped without a sound and straightened.
"Who's up there?" she whispered.
"Well, it wasn't the Girl Scouts, trying to sell cookies."
Right. Okay, then.
One million dollars.
More than she'd ever dreamed of, and a chance for justice. She wouldn't be a victim, not ever again, but in order to get to that point, she had to help Mr. Tall, Gorgeous, and Surly here find Tomas.
Then a funny popping noise interrupted her thoughts, and the bark exploded above her head.
Will grabbed her, and protecting her with his body, shoved her in front of him and around the corner of the building. "Move," he said, but he didn't need to shove her again because there came a series of popping noises now.
Gunshots, she thought slightly hysterically.
They were being shot at.
And she was running for her life.
Another pop, and this one whizzed by her ear. She tripped over the sidewalk and would have fallen on her face, but Will slid an arm around her and yanked her upright. "Go. Go, go, go."
"I am," she panted.
"Faster," he suggested, not panting even a little. "Way faster."
Will could have moved more quickly on his own, but he was towing Jade, whose legs were far shorter than his. Spurred on by the thought of a bullet tearing through their flesh, he tugged her hand, propelling her down the row of condos.
Unfortunately, they were moving in the opposite direction of his truck.
"Where to?" Jade gasped.
At the end of the row now, he glanced back. No more chunky man in black hanging out Jade's window with his Glock and silencer.
Which meant he was tearing through the condo and down the stairs to get out here.
That gave them only a few seconds at most.
They needed to get to his truck, but that was out of the question for the moment because it meant backtracking, and possibly running into another trigger-happy intruder. "Here," he said, and pulled her around the corner.
There was a garden, thankfully lush from spring rains. Against the building grew a long line of some sort of tall bush, perfect for camouflage. Flattening Jade against the wall, he looked into her eyes. Glassy and dilated, and she was breathing like a misused racehorse. "Are you hurt?"
"S-someone was shooting at us."
Cupping her face, he tilted it up. "Are you hurt?" he repeated.
"Not as much as I'd be, if any of those bullets had hit their target."
His lips twitched into a rare smile, or at least half of one. It'd been a long time since he'd felt like smiling at all. "We have to keep moving."
"We passed my car."
"Yes, with the four slashed tires."
She gulped hard. "Slashed?"
"When the coast is clear, we make a run for my truck."
"And then what?"
Her body was trembling, and he pressed just a little closer to try to help. "You know what then." "We find Tomas." "Bingo."
