Body of Evidence (Evidence Series) (28 page)

M
ARA STOOD JUST
inside the diner, staring out the window, frozen in fear. One moment she’d been in a dreamy haze, and the next she glanced through the window and saw Evan. With a gun. Aimed at Curt.

She patted the coat pockets and found the gun they’d been given in Arizona. The bullets, sadly, were still in Curt’s pants pocket.

Could she pull off a bluff with a mercenary who knew her well?

She had to. Curt’s life depended on it. She eased open the door, wincing at the bell that jangled. But Evan was too focused on Curt to turn around, and Curt was too smart to give away her approach.

A semitruck pulled into the lot with an earsplitting screech of hydraulic brakes. Mara used the cover of noise to dart forward, charging Evan.

He spun at the last second, but his face showed no surprise at seeing her. He shifted, pointing the gun at her. He hesitated for one frozen instant, and Mara launched herself at him feetfirst.

A shot rang out, flying high as she slammed into the injured knee that had forced Evan’s medical discharge from the marines.

He howled in agony and dropped to the ground, his gun still clenched in his hand. His body collapsed on hers, a two-hundred pound heap that crushed her into the litter-strewn ground. She lashed out, kneeing, biting, and punching everything she could reach, ignoring a sharp pain in her thigh as they grappled on the jagged pavement.

He tried to get his arm around, to free the gun from the tangle of their bodies. She landed a blow to his groin, and he grunted.

Pinned beneath him, she heard him mutter something and stopped fighting. “What?”

“Jean—” Evan’s words cut off as Curt kicked Evan in the side. He tumbled to the right, off her.

Had Evan’s initial hesitation been real, or had she imagined it?

Curt lifted Evan by the throat. His grip on the two-hundred-pound mercenary appeared effortless in his rage, making Evan look like he had no more substance than a rag doll.

“Wait, he said something about Jeannie!” Mara yelled, scrambling to her feet.

Curt’s wild, angry eyes turned to her in the same moment he released Evan’s throat. Evan crumpled when the leg with the shattered knee touched pavement.

She scrambled for Evan’s gun and realized he landed on it when he fell. She lunged for it, too late. He was already bringing the gun around.

Curt grabbed her, shoved her behind him, and kicked Evan’s gun hand in the same moment. The gun swung inward and upward as it fired. Evan’s lower jaw exploded.

Her ex-fiancé’s glazed eyes met hers. He aimed the weapon at the remainder of his face and pulled the trigger.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-EIGHT

T
HE BRIGHT PARKING
lot was even brighter under the onslaught of ambulances, police cars, and eventually, news vans. Curt watched the scene from the inside of an FBI sedan, answering questions from a local agent. Mara was being interviewed separately in a nearby vehicle.

“You must be relieved Ms. Garrett is out of danger. Now you can return to DC and the trial without having to worry,” the agent said.

“She’s still in danger,” Curt said. “Evan Beck was operating on orders from Raptor.”

“I never took you for a conspiracy theorist, Mr. Dominick.”

Curt bristled at the derision in the man’s tone. “I’m not.”

“You sure sound like one. Raptor is after her?” The younger man laughed. “Word from the SAC investigating the murder at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base is Evan Beck was working alone. The evidence shows he was obsessed with Garrett. She dumped him, and he took it hard. He was jealous of Airman Fuller—had been since he caught them out on a date last year. When she got all sorts of attention for being detained in North Korea, he snapped. This isn’t an international incident; it’s domestic violence, pure and simple.”

Shit.
At some point in the last forty-eight hours, the tide had shifted in Raptor’s favor. The mercenary organization had deep pockets and important friends. He’d known from Palea the pressure had been on to put the kibosh on the investigation, and now it appeared someone high in the hierarchy had caved.

He glanced toward the vehicle where Mara was undergoing a similar interview and felt sick. She was a sitting target, and these baby agents had been ordered to decorate her in neon.

The prepaid cell phone vibrated against his hip. “I need to take this call.”

“We’re not done—”

“I’m the US attorney for the District of Columbia. I don’t answer to you.” He exited the vehicle and answered Palea’s call.

“Curt, you need to get Mara out of there.”

Dread crawled up his spine. “I was just thinking the same thing, but I want to know how
you
came to that conclusion.”

“The powers that be are putting pressure on me to attribute the crimes to Mara’s stalker ex and close the case. I’m having trouble fighting them, because Evan
did
commit all the crimes on Oahu.”

Curt swore. “Either someone took a payoff, or they’re returning a favor.”
This
was why he wanted to be attorney general.

“My thoughts exactly,” Palea said.

His gaze remained fixed on Mara. He could tell she argued with the agent questioning her from her flailing arms and the set of her chin. “If Evan acted alone, then there’s no reason to continue protecting her.”

“Bingo. She’ll be on Raptor’s home turf without a safe house or security detail.”

The vehicle holding Mara pulled forward. “Gotta go.” Curt jammed the phone into his pocket and ran in front of the car. The driver slammed on the brakes. The bumper stopped an inch shy of Curt’s knees.

The agent poked his head out of the window. “Out of the way, Mr. Dominick. I’m taking Ms. Garrett to DC. Your job is done.”

Anger surged through him. After everything he’d been through with her, this dipshit agent thought he could just drive off with Mara?
Hell no
.

He wanted to pummel the man. The violence he’d avoided for so long beckoned. With iron will, he held anger at bay and spoke through stiff lips. “She needs to go to the hospital. Now. She needs stitches for that cut on her thigh.”

“Amazing you can diagnose her from the front bumper, Mr. Dominick. I heard you were a good lawyer but didn’t realize you were a doctor too.”

Was it possible Raptor’s campaign to ruin him had succeeded where so many others had failed over the years? They’d managed to bring him low in the eyes of the FBI. He’d lost the status and respect he’d earned through years of work as a federal prosecutor.

Tomorrow he’d worry about what this meant for his career, but right now he had a bigger concern. He met Mara’s gaze through the windshield. “Get out of the car, Mara.”

She wrenched open the door. The agent at the wheel caught her arm. The man’s voice was muffled through the glass, but his menacing tone was clear. “You’re making a big mistake, Ms. Garrett.”

Mara nodded toward Curt. “I look forward to when he becomes attorney general, so I can watch him fire your ass.” She jerked her arm out of his grasp. “I
told
you I need to see a doctor.” She climbed out of the car and slammed the door. She straightened her shirt, which was coated in blood, some Evan’s, some her own. She had road rash on her arm, bruises on her face, and true to his word, a cut on her thigh, probably caused by a shard of glass as she rolled on the pavement with Evan. All her wounds lent credence to the claim she needed to see a doctor.

Curt remained planted in front of the vehicle until she reached his side. “Thanks,” she murmured.

He gripped her arms, his heart hammering at the knowledge she’d almost been taken from him. “You okay?”

“My thigh stings like a bitch, and these idiots seem to think Evan’s hunting us was nothing more than a lover’s spat. I’m pissed, in pain, and exhausted, but okay.”

He leaned forward and whispered in her ear, “Do you have the money envelope?”

She nodded, the motion of her head bumping his chin. Her soft hair tickled his nose as he breathed in her scent. He wanted to hold her against him and bury his face in her neck, but the FBI agent watching through the windshield would cause problems if he did.

Anxiety twisted his gut. He couldn’t believe it had come to this and was terrified of what would happen to her. But he didn’t have a choice. He slipped the prepaid cell phone and bullet magazine into her pocket and whispered, “When you get to the hospital, run. I can’t protect you anymore.”

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-NINE

“
U
NLESS
M
S.
G
ARRETT
is under arrest, you don’t have the right to ride in the ambulance.” The paramedic stood in the open ambulance doorway with her hands planted on her hips, blocking Mara’s view of the FBI agent standing outside the vehicle trying to finagle his way in.

Inside, Mara leaned back on the gurney, relieved the paramedic hadn’t budged.

The agent tried a new tactic. “Ms. Garrett claims she needs protection. I’m offering that.”

The medic glanced over her shoulder at Mara. The woman was young, early twenties, but she carried herself with an air of confidence Mara found comforting.

Evan was dead, Raptor was still after her, and she was on her own.

“Do you want protection, Ms. Garrett?” the woman asked.

She gripped the gurney, trying to still shaking fingers. “Not from him.”

“There’s your answer,” the medic said.

“What hospital are you—”

The door slammed closed on the question, and the medic smiled at her. “He was kind of a dick. I don’t blame you.”

“He wants to take me to DC. I don’t want to go to DC.”

“That’s kidnapping.” To the driver she said, “Let’s go.” The woman sat on a bench seat beside her as the ambulance started to move. “What hospital do you want to go to?”

“Depends. Is the agent following us?”

The woman stood and gazed out the rear window. “He’s talking with the US attorney. Damn, he’s even better looking in person.”

Mara smiled as the knot in her belly loosened a bit. “I take it he’s been on the news a lot.”

“You both have. The press is only capable of covering one story at a time, and the fact that you disappeared after your jet blew up on Oahu means this week’s story is you.” With a grin, she said to the driver, “Do you think we should tell Brian Williams or Wolf Blitzer our story of taking the notorious Mara Garrett to the hospital?”

“I’ve always had a thing for Elizabeth Vargas,” the man at the wheel answered.

The woman winked at Mara. “Don’t worry. We’re kidding. So which hospital?”

The knot returned with new intensity. She didn’t know the paramedic or driver, and what she was about to say would make her sound paranoid, but she had no choice if she wanted to live. “The man who died at the truck stop wasn’t the only person hunting me. He worked for Raptor—do you know who they are?”

The woman nodded.

“Raptor operatives are probably monitoring your radio. They’ll be waiting for me at whatever hospital you broadcast as our destination. I don’t care where you take me, so long as you don’t tell the world.”

“Why didn’t you want the fed to ride with us if you really need protection?”

“With Evan dead, he believes I’m out of danger. He wants to drag me back to DC—exactly where Raptor expects me to go—without providing protection.”

The medic cocked her head. “Does the FBI have the right to drag you to DC?”

Mara took hope from the fact she hadn’t declared her a nutjob—yet. “There was a subpoena for me to testify, but Curt Dominick won’t have it enforced.”

“He told you that?”

At this moment, Curt stood in the center of a ring of sharks. She couldn’t pour blood in the water by repeating his final instructions to a stranger. “He knows how much danger I’m in.”

The woman was silent for a long moment. Finally, she said to the driver, “I don’t believe in taking chances. Radio we’re going to Anthem.”

After the driver finished that task, he said, “Where
are
we going, Kaitlin?”