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“
Not like
I have much choice, do I?” He opened the car door and Al nearly
went with it. A few seconds later she was rubbing her arm where the
cuff had rested. She’d probably have a bruise in the morning. “Be
good, or I’ll cuff you again. It’s
you
I don’t trust with those
eyes.”

“
Yeah, mutual.”

Half an hour later and
after ordering yet another drive through meal—it was the only place
open in the snow—he finally pulled the Escape into a truck stop and
shut off the engine before passing out the bags. “We need to decide
what to do next.”

“
How do
you mean? We call
Sebastian
. He has agents meet us and
escort you back to PAVAD, where we can figure what the heck
happened to you. Probably before this time tomorrow night.” He’d
explained while driving in more detail what had happened to him,
and Al could see his dilemma. She didn’t think he’d reacted
appropriately—he should have asked for their help in the parking
garage. Al had worn her badge around her neck. Anyone could have
seen it. They could have gone right back inside the building, found
Sebastian, and figured out a solution to this guy’s
problem.

“
I don’t
want my brother—or his
wife—
involved. Period. That
means
I
need to
get my ass as far away from Red here as
possible.”

He meant it. But what if he
was right and someone on his team had murdered his colleague? Had
shoved him in that trunk that brought him to PAVAD in the first
place? Was that person gunning for Seth? Were they currently still
in the building
with
Seth’s brother? Why?

That was the big question,
wasn’t it? Had whomever hit this man in the head been there to
prevent him finding out who had killed his friend,
or
had the UNSUB been
after Seth to begin with? They needed to answer that question. And
why St. Louis, of all places?
Was
it something to do with Sebastian? A plot to
strike at this man through his family? The longer she thought about
it, the more convinced she was that it had to be some sort of a
grudge against the Lorcans. But which one?

“
I know what we can do,”
Carrie said quietly.

“
What is that?” His tone
changed when he talked to Carrie, now. It softened, gentled. Did he
realize that? Maybe he wasn’t a total jerk, after all. “I can’t let
you call Seb. I don’t want him involved.”

“
I
understand that. I don’t want my husband hit over the head and
shoved in a trunk, either. But why don’t you continue to take my
car? I doubt anyone even realizes that you’ve taken it. I wasn’t
even supposed to
be
in the building last night. I was on my off time, and other
than Cody knew about it. I was meeting her. And Al was
leaving.
It could have
been a few hours before Sebastian even realized I was gone. I
didn’t even know
he
was in the building until I saw Al.”

“
He was buried in paperwork
when I left.” Had she made him quit for the night and walk her to
her car, Sebastian would be with his wife right now—probably
knee-deep in helping this guy. Instead of hunting them all
down.

“
If I take your car what
will you and Blondie here do?”

“
Explore
the town. I’ve never been here. We’ll sight see for a few hours or
find a hotel and take a nap or two—that will get you some time to
get ahead of whomever your brother sends to get us. And it’s not
like we know where you are going or anything.” Carrie smiled with a
sly expression Al wasn’t used to seeing on her friend’s face. “But
we may be able to do a bit of digging ourselves back at PAVAD.
Someone put you in a trunk and drove you to
our
world. That makes you ours. And
we tend to not give up when it’s
ours
involved, do we
Al?”

Carrie had always called
things like she saw it, and that was one of the quirks that really
made Al appreciate the younger woman. “No. We don’t. And I think we
both have the scars to prove it.”

He was shaking his head.
“No. It’s too risky. I can’t leave the two of you here. What if
we
have
been
followed? I don’t know how deep this goes.”

“
I think we can more than
take care of ourselves.” Al would not have their competency as
agents questioned by this guy. She and Carrie weren’t the ones
who’d ended up in a trunk, after all. “We’re both well-trained and
the top of our field. Don’t forget that. You’ve been lucky. If you
weren’t Sebastian’s brother we would have already had you down and
arrested.”

“
Baby,
any time
you
want
to use cuffs on me in return, I am more than willing. I’m sure
we’ll meet again.”

“
I need to use the
restroom. We can figure out another plan when I get back.” Carrie
stood as she spoke.

Al waited until Carrie was
inside the restroom about fifty feet from where they sat before
turning back to the man who’d gotten them into this mess. She
shivered, pulled her coat tighter around her shoulders. It was
getting colder, and the snow was picking up again. “Here’s the
deal, and I’ll talk fast. You
need
help. Someone to watch your back and help you
figure out this mess. But neither of us wants
her
involved. I get that. So let’s
go. Now. Before she gets back. Carrie can call Sebastian and be
back in St. Louis with just a hop of the PAVAD
helicopter.”

“
You serious? Maybe I don’t
want you tagging along. You’ve been a bit of a pain in the ass
after all.”

“
Maybe
so, but I’m all the chance you got.” Al stood, grabbed the keys to
Carrie’s SUV off the table before Seth could react. She’d gotten a
good read on him earlier—rash decisions were a part of his
personality, where they
weren’t
a part of Sebastian’s. She’d just have to keep
surprising him to get him to do what she wanted. It was the only
way she’d be able to control him. “So…let’s go.
Now.
Because I know Carrie. She’s
fiercely loyal—especially to her friends and her husband. If she
thinks you
need
her, you won’t be able to shake her. Simply because of your
filial relationship to her husband, get it?”

**

What was he doing? He
hadn’t planned to take Blondie and
leave
Red. The idea of
leaving—
abandoning—
his brother’s wife
at a truck stop
along the interstate made him want to puke. Or break something. But
Blondie knew her friend better than he did.

And she had the keys to the
ride he needed, and those long legs of hers were carrying her
across the snowy parking lot fast. If he wanted to
not
be left behind, he
had to catch her. And it wasn’t as if Red wouldn’t be ok—there were
working phones right next to the restrooms and he’d seen no less
than two people make calls in the fifteen minutes they’d been at
the rest stop.

Not to mention the diner
behind the restrooms. Truckers were in and out of that place, the
door barely closing behind someone before it was opened again. Red
would be ok, safe and warm. She’d be back with her husband within a
few hours. Probably before sunrise. She could just wait for Seb
right there, enjoying coffee and pregnant-woman pickles. So why did
he feel so damned guilty?

Blondie was at the SUV,
unlocking the doors. She looked over her shoulder at him. “You
driving or am I?”

Seth had learned to go with
the flow a long time ago. How was this any different?
“
You are. I need to think. And plan what
I’m going to do to protect myself from my brother when he figures
out I left his
wife
at a truck stop. There are some things a good brother just
does not do.” And he needed to rethink his strategy.

Because now that she wasn’t
a
hostage
, Blondie
had just declared herself an accomplice. If things went to shit,
which he had a feeling they would, she could be just as screwed as
he was.

They drove, saying little
for a couple of hours. The clock read noon before he finally pulled
off the road again. “I need to stretch my legs and find someplace
to check my email. And I need a phone. A throwaway. I don’t like
not having access to the resources I do have. I want to check with
a friend.” If he could get a rundown of where his teammates on the
taskforce were—and had
been
, maybe he could start to figure
out the entire mess. Somehow.

If not, that at least was
more information he could start with.

Chapter
Fourteen

***

He’d always perspired more
than the average man. That had embarrassed him almost daily since
the early part of third grade. He was large, clammy-handed, florid
featured, and ugly. He had no illusions about that, about himself.
But he was a smart man, profoundly so, and he’d worked hard to get
where he currently was.

He had a nice home, a
pretty wife who was starting to soften around the middle just a
bit, and two reasonably bright, well-mannered daughters.

He had the American dream,
and he’d spent almost thirty years working for that
dream.

He would do anything to
preserve it. If his wife and daughters learned of his occasional
lapses in good judgment, they would look at him with
disgust.

He would lose
them.

He couldn’t lose them. He
couldn’t. He wasn’t aware of how much he loved—or appreciated—them
until this threat had arrived on his literal doorstep. If he lost
them, he would have no reason for what he was doing every
day.

He had no illusions about
that.

They were his life, and he
would kill to protect that life. Without thought. And with the
training he’d received from the FBI in his previous positions he
could do so with the ability to prevent anyone knowing it was him
responsible.

Maybe that would satisfy
whoever had led him to this point in the first place. He’d become
the very thing he’d always sought to stop. He took a handkerchief
out of his pocket and blotted his forehead. He carried two
handkerchiefs for that very purpose.

These audits were tedious,
and he had wondered what the purpose of this one was. The federal
government wasn’t financially stable lately, and they were
appropriating federal dollars to basically harass the director of
this PAVAD division. He didn’t agree with that, but it was his job
so he would follow orders. Even if those orders had had him driving
a car full of his colleagues to St. Louis tonight.

The man in front of him was
that director and his icy stare had
him
squirming like he hadn’t done
since he’d been the target of half the third grade. Edward Dennis
was Bureau personified. And one wrong move on
his
part and his ass would be
sweating behind bars.

But not for very long—he’d
be dead long before he’d ever made it to trial.

The person responsible for
his latest cluster would make sure of that. So either he somehow
found a way to neutralize Seth Lorcan or
someone
killed
him
.

Leaving his family without
him. His course of action would have to be clear—he’d do whatever
he had to do for his family.

No one could fault him for
that. No one.

Chapter
Fifteen

***

Al let him stew for a while
as she maneuvered Carrie’s Escape through the intersections leading
to the highway that ran almost parallel to the interstate. She had
no doubt that the interstate was most likely being watched by this
point. PAVAD agents covered all angles and since this man
originated in the Amarillo Field office, the route to Texas through
Oklahoma was their most logical choice.

And from the newscast—now
on the radio, they’d heard it repeatedly over the last four
hours—it was obvious PAVAD was looking for them. And Al knew Ed
Dennis—not to mention
her
brothers and Sebastian—would leave no stone
unturned when it came to finding them. The time that took depended
on how well she could avoid checkpoints.

Or police cruisers. “We
need to consider how we’re going to avoid being found. What is so
important that you have to get to Amarillo so quickly?”

“
Before I
was hit on the head, my partner and I were discussing Riaz and
brainstorming ideas of what he’d stumbled into. I sent all the hard
copies of what Riaz was working on to my p.o. box in Amarillo. I
was planning to spend this next week trying to find out what he’d
gotten himself into. See if I could find out who in our unit may
have been involved. I had a memory card with that information on
me, but—
surprise,
surprise
—it was gone when I woke up in my
temporary trunk bed.”