Exit strategy, p.7
Exit Strategy, page 7
part #1 of EXIT Inc. Series
He cut the engine and she unclicked her seat belt, still half in shock that he was letting her go.
“Wait. I’ll lift you out.” Mason hopped out of the driver’s side and headed around the back of the car.
Sabrina hated to accept his help again, but her sore ribs had already protested the simple movement of unfastening her seat belt. Climbing out of the Jeep on her own would probably be excruciating.
When he reached her side, instead of scooping her up out of her seat like he’d done before, he grabbed a folded-up white cloth out of the back of the Jeep and unrolled it.
Moonlight glinted and Sabrina blinked in surprise at what he was now holding.
“You had my glasses all this time and didn’t give them to me?”
She reached for them, but he pulled them back.
“Put them on after I leave. I kept them, hoping you wouldn’t get a good look at any of us.” He rolled them in the cloth and handed it to her.
She clutched the cloth, deciding it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to mention that she could see perfectly well at short distances, or to mention her photographic memory. Every fascinating angle of his face, every bulge of muscle in his sculpted arms, was imprinted in her mind. But even without her special memory skills, she wasn’t likely to forget his smoky, deep voice and that sexy Southern drawl.
Perhaps it was the proximity to the police station that had her fear burning away like fog in the morning sun and allowed her to see him, really see him, for the first time. And she liked what she saw. He had a rugged, wild, bad-boy charm that could melt away a woman’s defenses with one well-aimed grin. And while Sabrina certainly wasn’t immune to his particular twist on tall, dark and handsome, it was his quiet strength, his confidence, and the way he’d risked his own life to protect her that had her so confused.
He cocked a brow. “Sabrina? Are you okay?”
She slowly nodded.
He gave her a quizzical look and reached in to pick her up. But she grabbed his hands in hers, stopping him.
He froze, his face just inches from hers, his chocolaty eyes searching hers in question as he cleared his throat.
“Sabrina? What—”
“I can’t figure you out. Are you really a bad guy, or a good guy?” She entwined her fingers with his.
His eyes widened and she could feel his pulse speed up. He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat, then gave a short, awkward laugh and gently disengaged his hands from hers. Gesturing toward the police station, he said, “I imagine once you tell the boys in blue what happened tonight they can answer that question for you. Now, I’m just going to pick you up and set you—”
“I don’t pretend to understand you. I can’t fathom how someone who would work so hard to help someone would have accepted a contract to kill them in the first place. But I do know one thing. It’s because of you that I’m alive. You saved me. Several times tonight. I’ve been so scared and worried that I hadn’t really thought it through. But looking at everything in black and white, evaluating exactly what happened without emotion clouding the facts, it boils down to one thing—if it weren’t for you, I’d be dead.” She held her hand out toward him. “Thank you.”
He looked stunned as he stared at her outstretched hand, making no move to take it. “Are you . . . thanking me, for not killing you?”
“I guess I am. And for not letting Ace kill me. I mean it, Mason. Thank you.”
With obvious reluctance, he shook her hand. But when she would have pulled her hand back, he held it tight, lacing his fingers with hers as the expression on his face turned deadly serious.
“You need to get this police business out of the way. Tell them whatever you want to tell them, but don’t count on them to protect you. They can’t. They don’t have the manpower or the knowledge to go up against the kind of people I work for. I wasn’t kidding earlier about you needing to hire a bodyguard. Don’t leave the police station without contacting a personal security service. Hire them to send someone to escort you back to your house. Hire two, or three. Just don’t go anywhere alone. Promise me.”
The urgency in his voice, in the way his eyes bored into hers, sparked an answering fear inside her again, chilling her from the inside out and making goose bumps pop up on her skin. “What am I supposed to do? Live the rest of my life in hiding? Can’t you at least tell me who hired you so I know who my enemies are?”
He shook his head and tugged his hand out of hers. Before she could stop him, he’d scooped her up and lifted her out of the Jeep. She clutched the cloth with her glasses so they wouldn’t fall out while he turned with her in his arms. He crouched down, gently lowering her feet to the ground before helping her straighten, his hands on her waist to steady her.
The tug on her sore ribs had her drawing several slow breaths until the pain eased.
“Better?” he asked.
She let her breath out slowly. “Better.”
“I should have taken you to a hospital instead of the police,” he said. “Promise me you’ll see a doctor.”
“I promise. Trust me. I want some good drugs for the pain.”
He raised a brow as if to remind her that he’d offered some to her earlier. “I’m still waiting on that promise that you’ll hire some bodyguards.”
“I’m not an idiot. I’ll hire someone to protect me. But how will I know when it’s safe again? Will I ever be safe, Mason?”
His face softened with sympathy and he gently swept her bangs out of her eyes before fisting his hands at his sides.
“I honestly don’t know. But I’m going to do everything in my power to straighten this out. The people who hired me never should have targeted you. I’m going to find out exactly what happened, and make sure it doesn’t happen again.” He gently turned her in the direction of the station. “Now, go. I’ll watch over you to make sure you get inside safely.”
Frustrated that he wouldn’t give her the information she wanted, she turned to ask him again. But the gentle, caring man of just seconds ago was now the stone-faced stranger who’d abducted her from her house. His longs legs were braced apart and his left hand flexed near his hip, and near the pistol holstered at his waist. He was through talking and in full protector mode, his dark eyes scanning every potential hiding place between the parking lot and the police station. His jaw was tight and he was once again the predator she knew he could be. The shiver that ran down her spine this time had nothing to do with attraction.
She turned around and hurried toward the station.
MASON PULLED INTO a parking garage not far from the police station and cut the engine. The Jeep was registered under one of his many aliases, so even if the cops went searching for a Jeep to corroborate Sabrina’s story and found this one, there’d be no reason to match it against his real name, Mason Hunt.
He grabbed his go-bag and the bag with his crossbow, strapped them on his back, and headed out. A short hike later he entered another parking garage. Halfway down the first aisle sat his pride and joy—the dark blue F150 pickup he’d been driving for the past six years. It might’ve been dinged and scraped and not much to look at, but the powertrain purred like a well-fed cat and had never let him down. It was also the perfect getaway vehicle since cops never looked twice at a good ole boy driving a beat-up truck. He snagged the Carolina Panthers ball cap out of the glove box and put it on—good ole boy transformation complete.
He couldn’t help remembering how adorable Sabrina had looked in her Carolina Panthers shirt last night. At the same time, he couldn’t understand anyone adopting a new team after living somewhere for just a month. Based on what he’d read of her background in the files on Buchanan’s tablet, she’d lived in Boulder, Colorado, her whole life. Maybe she wasn’t a football fan at all, or just didn’t like her home team, the Denver Broncos.
Mason had been a staunch supporter of his hometown team since he was a kid and the NFL expansion had created the Panthers. His dad loved football too and had treated the entire family—minus sister Darlene who was in Germany with her navy husband at the time—to a trip to Houston, Texas, to watch the Panthers battle it out in their Super Bowl XXXVIII appearance. Damn the Patriots for winning that one.
His thoughts turned back to Sabrina as he drove out of the parking garage. A few minutes later he merged onto I–240, all the while reminding himself that he’d done his duty—protected an innocent woman and made sure she was aware of the dangers. Sabrina was intelligent, and in spite of how petite and delicate she looked, she was far from helpless, as evidenced by her escape from Ace. There was no reason for him to worry about her. She’d take the necessary precautions to keep herself safe.
Now that she was gone, he could focus on helping Buchanan figure out who was behind the chicanery at EXIT so they could bring them down. It would be much easier to concentrate without staring into those ridiculously blue eyes that had him hardening every time she looked at him beneath those sexy bangs.
She was tiny, barely five feet tall, if that, and far too thin. He preferred chestier women with more curves, and certainly taller ones to make it easier to kiss them without getting a crick in his neck. But there was something about her—probably her fire and sass more than anything else—that had him constantly wanting to pick her up and carry her to the nearest bedroom. He’d bet she was a real firecracker in bed, and he’d like to be the one to make her fireworks go off.
What was she doing now? Were the police treating her like the victim she was, or were they swayed by her felony record and treating her like a scam artist and a liar? His hands tightened on the steering wheel. It didn’t matter. She was safe. That’s what mattered. And if she didn’t follow through on his bodyguard advice and got herself killed, well, that wasn’t his fault either. She was a grown woman. She’d been warned. He’d given her a second chance. If she blew it, that was all on her.
Just three more exits to his turnoff. Like many other enforcers, he used a maze of aliases and paper-only corporations to hide his assets in various places around the country, ensuring he always had somewhere safe to retreat to if things went bad. The house he considered his true home was over an hour away, in a rural part of the state, surrounded by acres of pristine hunting land. But the one he was going to now was much closer, just a few minutes past the suburbs. It was more a base of operations than a home, but met his most urgent current requirement. It was close by.
If Ace believed Sabrina was dead, he might not have even told Cyprian everything that had happened so he could cover up his own rather questionable decisions. But it would eventually come out, one way or another, that she was still alive. And then EXIT would come looking for him. Which was why he was heading to one of the most secure homes he owned.
He could wind down, knowing his cutting-edge security system would alert him if trouble came calling. All he wanted to do right now was lie down and get some much-needed sleep. The rendezvous with Buchanan and Ramsey wasn’t until this evening. He had plenty of time. He’d been up all night, on full alert, never letting down his guard. Constant vigilance could be exhausting, and he was ready to give in to the lure of a soft bed and a hot shower, not necessarily in that order.
He passed a green road sign announcing the last downtown exit was coming up in less than a mile. He’d have to take that exit and do some backtracking if he wanted to return to the police station to watch over Sabrina when she left. He could keep to parallel streets, watching whatever vehicle her hired guards drove. Tracking them without them noticing wouldn’t be much of a challenge. How to tail a vehicle was one of the first skills he’d learned when training to be an enforcer. He could make it work, if he needed to. If he wanted to. Which he did not.
The off-ramp loomed on his right, fifty yards away.
She’s not my responsibility.
Forty yards.
She’s an adult. She’s been warned and she has plenty of money. She can afford to hire the best security around.
Thirty yards.
Two more exits and a few turns after that and I’ll be home. I’m not a babysitter. Why should I even care?
Her almond-shaped eyes swam in his vision, her delicate face pale with fright as she stared up at him in the parking lot.
Will I ever be safe, Mason?
Ten, nine, eight . . .
Damn. He jerked the wheel and barreled down the exit.
Chapter Six
Day Two—6:30 a.m.
Sabrina figured Mason would probably have liked Detective Harry Donovan. Because as soon as she’d gotten to the part of her story about getting shot and showed him the angry red circles on her ribs, Donovan had stopped the interview and insisted on driving her straight to the hospital.
But that was two hours ago. Even though she’d had a policeman with her, Sabrina hadn’t been given priority over the others in the ER waiting room. And Donovan didn’t want to question her where anyone could overhear. So they’d both sat for over an hour before she’d been taken to one of the tiny rooms to wait yet again—this time for someone to take her to radiology.
While a young nurse helped Sabrina change out of her shirt into a gown, the detective waited outside the door.
“There now, you’re all covered up again,” the nurse assured her. “Radiology should be up here with a wheelchair in a few minutes to take pictures of those ribs.”
“I’m happy to walk. It will probably be faster. I’m not in much pain anymore.”
“No, no. Sorry. Hospital policy, for your safety. You have to wait for a wheelchair.” She tapped a buzzer hanging off the bed where Sabrina was sitting. “Just press that button if you need anything.”
She rushed out the door and Detective Donovan stepped back in, his old-fashioned pencil and spiral notebook looking fragile and tiny in his large, calloused hands as he resumed his seat in the orange plastic chair across from the bed.
At the police station he’d been the epitome of kindness and empathy as Sabrina had recited her tale about her abduction. And in the ER waiting room he’d seen to her every need, keeping others from sitting too close to her, guarding the bathroom door as she freshened up, getting her a bottle of water and some crackers from a vending machine when her stomach started growling.
He’d made her feel safe, like he really wanted to help her. Now she didn’t even need to wait for the words to come out of his mouth to know that something had changed. His expression had turned hard, suspicious. The same expression she’d seen on the faces of other police officers back in Colorado.
“You found out about the felony,” she said.
“Yes. I did. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I knew it would change everything. That you’d be more inclined not to want to help me, and not to believe me once you knew. I’m right, aren’t I?”
His faded blue eyes regarded her beneath his bushy, gray eyebrows. “Knowing you’re a convicted felon makes me more . . . cautious . . . about trusting you, yes. But it won’t change the way I handle your case. I’m doing everything I can to corroborate your story. In fact, I just got off a call with one of the officers who went to your house. He confirmed a glass pane had been busted out of a French door. But so far we’re coming up empty confirming anything else.” He gestured toward her arm. “How did you say you cut your arm again?”
She absently rubbed the fresh white bandage the nurse had applied earlier after cleaning her wound and putting some antibiotic ointment on it.
“A lamp, in my bedroom.”
“Right.” He consulted his notes. “When you heard an intruder and you knocked the lamp over. Have you ever been known to sleepwalk?”
“No, why would you ask that?”
He tapped the notebook with his pencil. “The officer who went to your house found a garbage bag in the trash can in your garage. It contained glass shards, probably from the broken pane in your French door. But nothing else of note. No ceramic shards to prove you’d broken anything in your bedroom to explain the cut on your arm. The floors were clean, no extra glass anywhere. Everything was neat and tidy.” He shrugged. “I’ve been doing this job for a long time, probably before you were born. Can’t say I remember ever coming across an intruder who cleans up after himself and doesn’t take any valuables.”
She clasped her hands together, more unnerved that someone had gone back into her house and cleaned up the evidence than she was about the detective questioning her story. Would Mason have gone back there? Maybe, if he wanted to make sure there wasn’t anything that could implicate him.
She shivered and rubbed her hands together. “I understand your skepticism, Detective. All I can tell you is that, as far as I know, I’ve never sleepwalked. And if I did, I can’t imagine cleaning my house in my sleep. Besides, I was too busy being abducted and shot to do any cleaning. I haven’t even been home since I was taken. Have your men looked for the cabin I told you about? There has to be something in that bedroom to prove that I was there.”
“Some uniforms are looking for it, but I have to say, without an address or some kind of landmark, it’s a nearly impossible task. There are all kinds of cabins in the foothills off the Blue Ridge Parkway. Do you remember anything that might narrow the search?”
She shook her head. “Nothing more than what I already said. I wasn’t wearing my glasses, so I didn’t get a clear view of any road signs until we got closer into town and the signs were much bigger.” She clutched the mattress as another thought occurred to her. “I told you that Ace pretended to be an undercover cop. He called himself Jennings. He had a badge—”
He held his hand up to stop her. “I see where you’re going. Don’t worry. There is a Jennings in our department, but he’s present and accounted for. He wasn’t anywhere near your side of town when all of this went down. So this Ace character didn’t hurt the real Jennings or even steal his badge. It’s just a coincidence that he chose that alias.”
