Warrior Without A Cause. Nancy Gideon
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hadn’t tried very hard to barter his way out of prison. He’d accepted the sentence and still named the district attorney as his accomplice. If saving his own worthless hide hadn’t been the motive, something else had triggered his sudden desire to name names.
The wrong names.
But for what price and who had paid the bill?
“I’ll look in on your mom, too.”
“Oh. Thanks, Stan. I’m sure Dad would want you to.” Her lack of enthusiasm implied that it wasn’t her priority. Stan simply nodded. He never intruded on their family dynamics even though Tessa could tell by the pursing of his lips that he wanted to.
A knock at the door had Tessa taking a quick, involuntary breath as Stan reached for the knob. A silly reaction. Did she really expect one of Martinez’s hired hit men to knock?
“Hey, Jack,” Stan greeted jovially. “How’s your dad?”
“Wondering when you’re going to stop over for a little five-card.” Jack Chaney stood in the hall looking dark and sleek and dangerous. Just the man she needed to see. Tessa released her breath in a relieved gust. She hadn’t been sure he’d go through with it. Take nothing for granted, her father had always told her.
Stan laughed. “I haven’t recovered from the last fleecing he gave me.”
“It’s your face, Stan. Your secrets are written all over it.”
Pleasantries exchanged, Chaney looked down at Tessa’s three-piece set of matched Gucci luggage without a blink. But he frowned at the sight of the cat carrier and the pair of glittering yellow eyes glaring out at him through the mesh door. Noting his disapproval, Tessa hoisted up the carrier, giving a defiant lift of one brow.
“Tinker goes with me. Love me, love my cat.”
A dark brow arched. “An interesting but unlikely suggestion.”
Wondering which part he found the most distasteful, Tessa stated, “I’m ready, Mr. Chaney.” She picked up the medium-size suitcase. “Can you get the other two?”
“Yes, ma’am. Your chariot is out front. It’s the Dodge Ram. Just toss your stuff in the back.”
Frowning to think he meant Tinker, as well, she was distracted by Stan’s quick hug and peck on her cheek.
“Behave,” he warned in a whisper.
“I will if he will.”
After Tessa started toward the stairwell, Stan confronted the younger man candidly.
“She’s tougher than she looks.”
“I hope so, for her sake.”
“You behave, too.”
Jack offered a lopsided smile. “Don’t I always.”
Stan rolled his eyes. Then the merriment was gone. “Watch over her, Jack. Keep her under wraps until I can find out if there’s any truth to what she’s saying.”
Jack gave a snort. “Or to what she wants to believe.”
“Somebody beat the hell out of her. I’m not willing to take any chances that it wasn’t just a coincidence.”
“You think her father is innocent, Stan?”
The P.I. frowned a minute then answered. “Right now, I don’t care. Rob D’Angelo is beyond their reach, but she isn’t. I don’t want anything else to hurt her, Jack.”
“What about the truth?”
“By the time I find it, she’ll be ready to hear it. Like I said, she’s tougher than she looks.”
Jack shrugged noncommittally. “If you say so.”
“What shall I tell anyone who asks about her?”
“Tell them she’s going to camp.”
“Saying your goodbyes to the old homestead?”
Tessa, who’d been staring up at the curtain-covered windows of her apartment, gave a start then a rueful smile. Saying goodbye to the sleepless nights, to the insidious terror that had her checking behind doors and under the bed in a manic cycle of fear? Good riddance was more like it. Whatever she was heading toward had to be better than that.
She suddenly realized that she didn’t want to return to the rooms with the upscale address she’d so proudly decorated with trendy furnishings that toted her independence. She now saw the shadowed corners of the second-floor rooms as a prison when they’d once represented her freedom. She couldn’t open the front door without seeing the glass glittering on the floor, without hearing the sinister whisper of her attacker’s voice.
No, she would never put her belongings back in that place where she no longer belonged.
For now, she was making her home with Jack Chaney. And after that…Well, she’d just have to improvise.
“Let’s go, Mr. Chaney.”
“Before you change your mind?”
She met his smug assertion with a cool glance. “Or you change yours.”
He opened the door for her to climb up into the four-wheel-drive vehicle, then scowled at the sight of the cat carrier on the floor of the passenger side.
“Not an animal lover, I take it.”
“Sure. I love them with gravy and potatoes on the side.” He shut her inside the truck before she could manage a curt reply.
Sticking her fingers through the wire grid, Tessa murmured, “Don’t mind him, Tinker. He’s just being…difficult.” A wet nose touched her fingertips in seeming agreement.
Chaney dropped behind the wheel and started the vehicle, provoking the engine into a series of coughs and grumbles. The smell of something scorching filled the cab.
“We could have taken my car,” she posed diplomatically.
“Your car is easily traced to you. Just swallow your pride and enjoy the ride.” He shifted and the beater shuddered away from the curb with a roar. “From now on, you’re officially undercover.”
And off the face of the known world, she mused, staring out the window as familiar scenery whizzed by. She let it go without regret.
“You never asked where we were headed,” her driver observed as he checked the crooked rearview before blending into freeway traffic.
“It doesn’t matter,” was her philosophical reply. Then, after a pause, she asked, “Where are we headed?”
“No place you could ever find on your own, even if a map existed. No man’s land.”
No woman’s land, she’d be willing to bet as she studied his profile. A nice profile. Clean, strong, good bones, firm chin. Handsome in a dark, effortless way. Like a pirate.
He was the kind of guy who would have had girls lining the street in front of his house when he was a teen. With his easy confidence and dark, melting eyes, he could have been anything from class president to class clown, star quarterback to under-the-bleachers bad boy. But studying him more closely, she figured him for the cool, sardonic loner who could have had anything he wanted and shunned all of it. She’d hated guys like that, the ones who never lived up to their potential. Had Jack Chaney grown up knowing he wanted to be a government hit man? Had he planned from an early age to skirt the fringe of acceptability with a wry, indifferent scorn?
She could see ex-military in him. In the way he carried himself, erect, alert, even when he seemed relaxed behind the wheel. She saw it in the crisp cut of his glossy black hair and squared-away look of his clothing. Efficient, without an extra inch or ounce on him. His dark eyes were always on the move, cutting between the mirrors in a precise circuit that allowed for no surprises.
And it disturbed her to find