Perilous Christmas Reunion Page 12

  She lowered her hands and looked at him. “But the people in the SUV with the trailer. They couldn’t have been in on it. And the person in the van couldn’t possibly have known I would decide to walk around the trailer and behind him.”

  “He couldn’t have known, no, but he could take advantage of the situation.” Chris’s eyes, normally bluer than the sun-washed sky, were so somber they were nearly gray.

  “Which means he has been looking out for us and I walked right into a trap.” Her stomach rebelled again. She swallowed and closed her eyes. “You knew they were around.”

  “I suspected. It’s my job to be suspicious under these sorts of circumstances. But you’re smart and quick thinking, which saved you.”

  “And the fast reactions of the guy in the SUV.”

  “It was a lady.” Chris smiled.

  “The person in the van was definitely a man.”

  Chris’s gaze sharpened. “You got a good look at him?”

  “I wouldn’t say ‘good.’ The windows were tinted, so I didn’t notice hair or eye color, but I’d recognize his profile anywhere. He has a rather prominent nose.” She glanced around, fearing she would see the van.

  “He’s gone for now, but I doubt he’s gone far. They’re following us.”

  “How? I didn’t notice anyone tailing us to or from Donna’s.”

  “I didn’t either, but we used credit cards at the store and restaurant. They obviously have the ability to track the usage of those.”

  Lauren’s head spun. “Then how can we get away? How can we be safe anywhere?”

  “I’m going to go to the nearest ATM and withdraw as much cash as I can, then we will find the nearest sheriff or deputy and tell them the whole story.”

  Lauren’s eyes widened. “You’re giving up on looking for my brother?”

  “You know I can’t do that, Lauren. It’s part of my job to apprehend escaped federal prisoners.”

  “I thought it was also part of your job to protect witnesses. In this case, me.”

  “I was protecting you until you went out on your own. Lauren—” He looked at the now-cloudless sky, then the cars pulling out of the parking lot, then the slush they stood in, anything other than her. “Lauren, this incident with the van so soon after my Jeep exploded, convinces me they are desperate to see us dead.”

  “Me?” Lauren pressed her hands to her stomach, willing herself not to be sick again. “But why? I mean, you’re the law. I’m just an innocent civilian.”

  “Are you? Innocent, that is?” Chris looked at her this time, his gaze boring into hers. “Or do you know something about your brother and his activities you’re not telling me?”

  Lauren’s immediate instinct was to lash out at Chris for questioning her honesty yet again. His words hurt. He still didn’t trust her. But before she formed the words to defend herself, her thoughts snagged on the idea that maybe Chris was right. Maybe she knew something and wasn’t allowing herself to see it.

  TEN

  One of the most difficult moments in Chris’s career thus far had been turning back to the table, seeing Lauren gone and wondering why she felt the need to run away from him. The conclusion had been immediate and devastating.

  She either wanted to go to her brother or get information to someone.

  She had taken the cell phone. She had kept his credit card. He could have tracked her usage of the card in moments, and by the time he reached anywhere she might have used it, like a car rental service, she could have been long gone, lost on a number of back roads just moments from this heavily populated oasis of commerce near the Great Lakes.

  He hadn’t expected to find her headed toward the flashing lights of the sheriff’s vehicles. Then again, the superstore’s parking lot was the best sort of place to hide. It was crowded, and someone might have been willing to give a ride to a woman who could claim her car had been blocked by the explosion investigation. Or, worse, someone could have picked her up there without anyone noticing her, the form of transport or the driver. Her brother himself could have met her there with no one the wiser. Who would expect a fugitive from the law to enter a zone crawling with law enforcement?

  The attempt on her life had left him shaken, his blood boiling. If he had had his weapon, he thought he might have shot out the van’s tires so the criminal couldn’t have escaped.

  But he didn’t have his weapon. It had disappeared from Lauren’s deck. He thought then that she had it. He wondered now if she did. He wasn’t sure how she would have concealed it, but she had worn loose clothes—jeans that were far from skintight, a large flannel shirt over a T-shirt, socks. Yes, he had his arms around her more than once. But only around her waist.

  He wondered again now, staring at her bulky sweater and bulkier coat. Easy places to conceal a weapon. And he hated his suspicions, was angry with himself for having them. Yet he was unable to push them aside.

  “Lauren, will you be honest with me—”

  “I have always been honest with you. You are the one who chooses not to believe me.” She pressed the palm of her hand against his chest and pushed past him toward the driveway. “Which is one of the reasons why I knew we could never marry. You have always believed I am more loyal to my brother than to you.”

  Chris followed her to the back of the cars they had been standing between. “Where are you going?”

  “To the police or sheriff deputies or whoever is looking into the explosion of your SUV.”

  “I’ll come with you.” Chris fell into step beside her.

  “So you can tell them to apprehend me?”

  “So I can ask them to help.”

  “By apprehending me.”

  “You would be safer in custody.”

  She shot him a glare. “I hope you’re trying to be funny.” She hesitated a moment, then said in a voice nearly too soft for him to hear, “You used to be funny.”

  So he had been. They had laughed a great deal in those two years before his father’s murder.

  “I don’t have much to laugh about these days,” he said.

  “No lady who makes you laugh? I mean—” She pressed her gloved hand to her lips. “I’m sorry. That’s none of my business.”

  “It’s not, but I have no problem answering. I don’t.”

  An young, up-and-coming lawyer had been a catch. A deputy US marshal, not so much.

  “When I’m not traveling,” he elaborated, “I am trying to find information about my father’s death.”

  “Have you had any kind of a break in that?” The glance she shot him held compassion.

  He shook his head. “Details are so scarce and witnesses so hard to find, I suspect someone has tampered with both.”

  “Someone from inside the Marshals Service?”

  “Don’t sound so shocked.” He didn’t mean to sound disdainful, but the tone slipped out before he could stop it. “You know as well as anyone that some people are corruptible regardless of their position. Wasn’t one of the charges against your father for bribing a law officer?”

  She bit her lip and nodded. “But that one didn’t stick.”

  Which didn’t mean it hadn’t happened—often. It meant her father was clever enough to cover his tracks well.

  “I don’t think it’s an endemic problem, but it happens.” Chris managed to temper his manner this time.

  “I’m sorry.” She sighed. “For a lot of things.”

  “Me too.” He ached with regrets. “Closure would be nice for my mom and sister and me.”

  “And catching who did it would bring closure?”

  Chris nodded.

  “And until that happens everyone is a suspect?”

  He flinched as though she’d punched him. “Of course not.”

  But that sensation of being struck kind of made him feel like a hypocrite for his denial. Ridiculo
us. Of course he didn’t think everyone was guilty of his father’s murder, or any other crime. He knew the law. Everyone deserved a fair shake, a presenting of the evidence and questioning of witnesses and all the proper channels of judges and juries before guilt was proclaimed.

  Yet he called Ryan Delaney guilty of the crimes of which he had been accused when his only undeniable crime was escaping the courtroom and eluding federal custody.

  “Innocent men don’t need to flee,” he said.

  “And neither do innocent women. Enough said.”

  One of the things he loved—had loved—about Lauren was her outspokenness in their relationship. If he said or did something to hurt her, she called him on it and she expected the same in kind.

  There’s too much subterfuge in my family for me to continue it in my other relationships, she had explained to him not long after their relationship became serious.

  He’d believed her when she said she loved him forever. Then she’d broken off their engagement and said she changed her mind. He didn’t know when she spoke the truth after that.

  Chris tucked one hand beneath Lauren’s elbow to give her balance as they clambered over a snowbank at the end of the fence surrounding one parking lot. “Where were you headed? I know you said the sheriff, but where did you intend to go after that?”

  “A motel.”

  “Using my credit card.”

  “I can afford to pay you back.”

  “But they’re tracing our credit cards.”

  “Of course they are.” She sounded weary. “I don’t have enough of a criminal mind to have thought of that until you mentioned it. All I could think about was a hot shower and real bed.” She rubbed her eyes with the back of her wrist. “Without cash, I guess I can be traced anywhere I go.”

  “Which is especially dangerous since we don’t know why these people want to harm us.”

  He reached into his pocket to withdraw his credentials. “Let’s talk to the sheriff’s people now that the media seems to have packed up and gone.”

  They crossed the access road and stopped where crime scene tape had been strung around the area of the blast. For the first time, Chris saw what was left of his beloved Jeep. Not much identifiable of his SUV or what had been another vehicle beside his, something large that must have protected the next cars along the row. They had broken windows and scarring from flying debris, but were repairable on first glance.

  “Were your Christmas presents inside?” Lauren asked.

  “They were. And my clothes.”

  “I’m sorry. I know how it feels to lose your possessions.” Lauren rubbed her arms as though she were cold.

  She might be. Though the sun was bright enough to melt the top layer of snow—an ice hazard after the sun set—the breeze held an arctic edge. But Chris didn’t think that was what made her shiver. He knew the marrow-deep chill spreading throughout his body had nothing to do with the air temperature and everything to do with horror.

  They could have been inside when he pressed the starter. They would be dead. Someone else would capture Ryan and no one would continue the pursuit of his father’s killer.

  The look a young deputy shot them nearly knocked them flat with its hostility. “Move along,” he commanded.

  Chris held up his credentials. “Deputy US Marshal Christopher Blackwell.”

  “You got here fast, though we weren’t expecting feds.” The deputy stalked their way and held out his hand for Chris’s wallet. He examined the credentials, then left to talk to a man with white hair and an impressive physique for someone in his fifties at the youngest.

  He took the wallet and approached Chris and Lauren. “What are you doing here?”

  Not particularly friendly.

  “That was my Jeep,” Chris said.

  And so the questioning began. After ten minutes, Chris suggested they either go to the nearest station or at least into one of the sheriff’s SUVs to get out of the cold. They were given the latter option—separate ones. He was glad to see one of the deputies give Lauren a bottle of water. He would have liked one himself, but asking would have lessened him in the eyes of these men who weren’t thrilled with his presence anyway.

  “I could charge you with leaving the scene,” the sheriff said.

  “We weren’t at the scene.” Chris spoke the technical truth, if not the spirit of the truth. “We’d be dead if we had been. Do you happen to have a charger I could borrow for my phone? I need to make some phone calls.”

  At least he was in the front seat and not the back like a prisoner.

  “Depends on what kind of phone you got.” The sheriff offered his car charger.

  Fortunately, it was compatible and Chris plugged in his phone.

  “Now, may I make those calls?”

  “To whom?”

  “My boss. My mother. And someplace to rent a car.”

  “You won’t find a car rental on Christmas Eve around here, not that’ll deliver.” The sheriff smirked.

  “Then I need someone to take me to one.” Chris arched one brow.

  “Blessings with that.”

  Chris suppressed a sigh and looked out the window to where Lauren now sat alone in the other SUV, slumped against the passenger-side window. He hoped she was sleeping. He wished he were sleeping. He had been awake too long to think straight.

  “May I make my calls?” he asked.

  He hoped the sheriff would leave him alone.

  “Go ahead.” The man didn’t move other than taking his own phone out of his pocket and setting his thumbs flying over the screen.

  Resigned to making his calls with an audience, with his half of the conversation being recorded he suspected, Chris called his boss first. “Serious trouble,” he began. He concluded with, “What action should I take now?”

  “Protect the witness.”

  “But Delaney—” Chris stopped, knowing the answer.

  Others were on it. Others would catch Ryan Delaney.

  “And how do you suggest I do that without a vehicle?” Chris asked with an edge he couldn’t keep from his voice.

  His boss cleared his throat. “We’ll get you one. Sit tight.” The call ended.

  Sit tight within a hundred yards of where someone had tried to crush Lauren between two steel objects. Not an idea that made Chris happy.

  Leaving Delaney to others didn’t make him happy either.

  He glanced at Lauren again. He was unhappy with babysitting duty. Being with her hurt. For five years, he had thought of her and imagined maybe they could eventually be friends or at least break the cycle of anger and resentment toward one another, emotions unhealthy for both of them in mind and spirit. The past day told him neither outcome was likely. Proximity to Lauren had shown Chris the wound she’d dealt him when she broke their engagement wasn’t yet healed. It was still raw beneath a far-too-thin layer of scar tissue.

  His gaze on Lauren where she was still slumped against the SUV window, Chris called his mother’s number.

  She answered on the first ring. “Where are you? Are you all right? Do you get to come home soon?”

  “I’d rather not say. I’m just fine. And no, I don’t think I’ll be home before tomorrow at the earliest.”

  Mom sighed. “We miss you.”

  “Same here.”

  He missed her hugs, the way she ruffled his hair like he was nine, not twenty-nine, the way the house would smell like pine boughs and sugar cookies.

  His mouth watered at the thought of his mother’s Christmas cookies cut into the shapes of stars and trees and animals. He wanted to tell her how much being around Lauren hurt.

  He told her nothing of that personal a nature. Over the phone was not a place for that kind of revelation. In front of the sheriff made the idea of confessing his feelings worse. No one needed to know of his past with Lauren.
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  So he said goodbye and disconnected the call.

  The sheriff opened his door. “Wait here.”

  He exited the SUV, slamming the door behind him. The deputy met him at the front of the deputy’s vehicle and began to talk. Comparing notes on Chris’s story with Lauren’s.

  In the middle of their dialogue, several state vehicles showed up, experts to examine the wreckage of the Jeep to find out what sort of bomb it had been and where it had been planted. Chris wanted to join them, learn what he could, but figured he would merely get in the way. He might as well do as he was told—sit tight, let his phone charge, wait for orders.

  And keep an eye on Lauren.

  She still appeared to be sleeping. He texted her rather than called in the hope of not waking her up.

  Are you all right?

  No response.

  We’ll be out of here soon.

  Chris had been assured of transportation and further instructions as to what he should do with Lauren. Probably take her to a motel somewhere remote and guard her. Pay cash so they couldn’t be traced. And wait. And wait. And wait.

  The idea seemed more like creating a target for whoever wanted to harm her than protecting her. He hadn’t done a good job of keeping her safe thus far. Nor had he got anywhere in finding her brother when he had been so close on the lake.

  The lake, where Lauren had suggested her brother might go to see his mother.

  Chris straightened. She had denied knowing anything about where Ryan would be, and then had come up with his mother’s house. Ryan had indeed been there. Would she now come up with another location?

  “Your nap is over, my girl.” He started to open his door.

  His phone rang. Expecting someone from his office, he answered with a curt “Yes?”

  “Were you serious when you said some dangerous men might try to get in my house?” The voice spoke in a raspy whisper.

  “Mrs. Delaney?” Chris glanced at the caller ID.

  “Were you?” How someone could snap in a murmur Chris didn’t know, but Donna Delaney managed the feat.