Inescapable (12 page)

They’d like Lily, his parents. She was warm and vivacious. He rubbed the back of his neck

101

with one hand, wondering at the way his thoughts had wandered. It was Lily; she got him so easily distracted. That was not a good thing.

She wrapped her arms close around herself, and he knew that she was cold. It was pretty obvious that she didn’t care. She was dressed so inappropriately for a winter morning, he noticed, with that short skirt and the high heels.

It’s because she is dressed for a date, a sexy date in London, with Adrian.

I just got lucky and got in on the act.

He cursed himself under his breath. It just wasn’t right, any of it. The most important rules of his job were to always remain vigilant, and never get emotionally involved. What was wrong with him? He was failing to concentrate. Perhaps he was too old for the job. It happened. Whatever it was, the niggling doubts he had faded as he watched Lily. She was coming back to the house.

“My minute is up, thank you.” A smile hovered around her mouth. Once he stood back, she stepped outside the door and looked at him. “I need to ask you for something.” That sounded heavy. “Go ahead.”

Her cheeks turned pink. “I need some underwear.” He frowned. “Underwear?”

“I only had the one pair of knickers, obviously.” She flashed him a glance that showed she really didn’t want to have to ask him about this. “I’ve been washing them and drying them on the radiator overnight, but you tore them, yesterday.”

“Right.” Staring at her, he felt stupid. He should have thought of it. Normally his witnesses in protection were prepared, at least with an overnight bag. Not this one. With Adrian it was easy; he’d passed on some of his own gear. He hadn’t even thought about Lily, except how good she looked in what she was wearing. Then again, when he was thinking about her underwear, he was mostly thinking about taking it off.

He shook his head. Yep, he was well and truly a lost cause over this woman. “Come on, I’m sure we can find you something, upstairs.”

Lily cocked her head on one side as she looked up at him, but didn’t comment. He locked the patio doors and took her hand, leading her into the hallway.

“Hold on.” He walked over to the control panel and flicked the alarms back on. Lily watched, and nodded. She followed him up the staircase, looking around with curiosity.

There were several more rooms on the first floor that she hadn’t seen before. Seth led her to

102

another staircase, at the top of which was the door he’d checked was locked at the outset. She stared at the ’private‘ sign on the door. Seth unlocked the door and ushered her in, watching as she walked into the private space.

“Oh, wow, what a fantastic view.” She walked across the sitting area to the picture window, which was directly above the patio she’d been on earlier. Gareth, his step dad, plotted and planed all his planting from up here. His aerial view, as he called it.

Seth shut the door and walked in, glancing around. He’d been here just a few weeks before, at Christmas, but he was seeing it through her eyes.

“Oh, my God, this is you.” She’d lifted a framed photo from the sideboard.

Shit
. He strode over and snatched it out of her hand, but she wrestled him for it, grasping it in both hands and holding it up next his face, chucking as she did so. “What were you, eighteen?”

Seth could have kicked himself, he hadn’t thought this through. “Thereabouts.” She looked at it from under her lashes, and that knowing look that women got appeared on her face. “I bet you had lots of female attention. I certainly would’ve been interested.”

Seth reached for the photograph when she was off guard, putting it back in its position on the sideboard.

Her expression grew more serious, and he knew the penny had dropped. “This isn’t a safe house at all, is it? This is your family home.” Seth gritted his teeth.

“But that’s not your name on the licence by the door. Your name is Jones, isn’t it?” She was good. “My mum remarried.”

She looked at him thoughtfully and then her eyes rounded and she stared at him as if horrified. “If this isn’t the safe house…and you brought us here.” She slowed, truly freaked.

“You’re not…you’re not working for this man, Carlisle, are you?” She didn’t exactly back away, but she looked as if she was about to.

Seth grasped her around the shoulders, hating to see the mistrust that had risen in her expression. “No. There was a reason why I couldn’t take Adrian to the designated safe house.”

“What reason?”

103

Shit.
He’d have to tell her, because she wouldn’t feel safe with him. If he didn’t tell her she would keep asking and then Adrian would find out. “I’ll explain why, if you promise to keep it to yourself. Adrian has got enough on his mind; I don’t want to add to his worries.

Promise me you won’t tell him what I’m about to tell you?”

“Yes, if you feel that’s the right thing to do.” Was she starting to accept his authority? He thought she’d just mellowed, but she really was playing along. He was glad of that. “That man you saw in the corridor, the one who took a shot at Adrian.”

“Yes?”

“I also saw him, from the fire escape. And I recognised him. He’s a fellow officer.” Her eyes rounded. “You mean…”

“My guess is he’s on Eric Carlisle’s payroll. Once I knew that, I couldn’t risk taking Adrian to the safe house. A policeman in the same department as me can access that information on the system. This seemed like the best alternative option. ” He glanced around the familiar room. “My parents run this place; it’s where I grew up. They have an eight-week break in Spain every year, January and February.”

“Right. So why don’t you report him to the police, to your guys?”

“It’s knowing who to trust.”

“I see.” She stared at him with a heavy expression. “I understand that, believe me. The reason I left nursing, it was partly to do with a senior member of staff who I didn’t think was acting appropriately with a patient’s care. I took it into my own hands. It was the right move, but my senior got annoyed and said I couldn’t accept authority, that I’d acted without her agreement. The hospital backed her up. I handled it the wrong way, and I left, but deep down I know I did the right thing for the patient.” For several moments, they stared into each other’s eyes, acknowledging the common ground. Then he found himself scooping her in against him to hold her. With her hands wrapped around his back, it felt natural, it felt good.

He didn’t want to have to tell her, tell either of them, but when he held her in his arms that sense of loneliness that he always nursed evaporated for a few moments. “I need to make contact with my boss, but I’m not going to use a phone or e-mail or anything that can pinpoint a location to anyone in the office.”

“It all makes sense now.” She looked up at him. “Any other ideas?”

104

“I’m working on it.”

“Can you send your boss an e-mail from an anonymous Hotmail account?”

“IP addresses can be traced.” As he said it he noticed his step dad’s computer on a small desk in the corner of the room, and an idea started to form. It was the mention of the Hotmail account. He had one that he rarely used. “Wait, hold that thought. You might have something there.”

The PC was old, and ran on a slow modem. His step dad only used it to run a simple web site advertising the hotel, and his mother occasionally sent Seth family photos to his Hotmail account. Seth walked over and switched the thing on.

“You’ve had an idea?” Lily was beside him as he took up the seat at the desk.

“Maybe.” He did, but by the time he’d got online and opened his account, doubt had slowed him up. He paused, thinking carefully through the idea. It was dangerous, everything was dangerous, but it was the least dangerous thing he’d thought of so far.

Scrolling through messages, he saw the one he was looking for, a party invitation from Colleen Ward. He opened it. A JPEG filled the screen, an image of a clown holding a bunch of balloons.

“Colleen Ward?” Lily had one hand on his back as she looked over his shoulder at the screen.

Seth briefly thought about sending her away, but she would be so curious that it was likely to cause more problems, because she already knew too much. He hit reply and began to type.

Colleen, thank you for inviting me to your birthday party last month. I had a great time, even
though I ate too much of your mummy’s lovely cake. Please tell your dad that Uncle Seth says
next time we have to play whack-a-mole, instead of musical chairs. Hugs and kisses from Uncle
Seth

“Uncle Seth?” she looked amused.

“Yes, she’s my chief’s daughter, so what?”

She shrugged. “Just learning. Very clever,” she added nodding at the screen. “Whack-a-mole.” She chuckled. “Do you think it will work? I mean, will she tell him?”

105

“She’s an extremely bright kid, and apparently she checks her email every day. Gets excited about receiving mail, so she will mention it. In fact she will bug him so much we’ll have to play the game next time I get to visit.” He chuckled.

Lily’s hand tightened on his shoulder.

“And, most importantly, her dad will know there’s a leak at work, because I’ve gone via an outside route.” He reread the message, thought through the implications, and hit send.

Before he could start brooding on his decision, he closed down the computer connection. She was still looking at him with a curious expression on her face and a half smile. “Hopefully our shooter will be behind bars, and soon.”

He stood up and slapped her playfully on the bottom. “Let’s see if we can find you some underwear.”

“Do you have a sister?”

“Unfortunately not,” Seth replied as he led her towards his parent’s bedroom.

Frowning, he wondered what the hell he was doing bringing her up here to his mother’s room looking for clothes.
Because I can’t have her knickers hanging off driving me insane, that’s
why.
He gestured into the bedroom and then at the chest of drawers is on the far side. “See if you can find something in there.”

Moments later he heard her giggle softly. “I don’t think your mum and I are the same size.” She turned to face him, holding up a rather large pair of pink knickers.

“This was a bad idea,” he mumbled vaguely. Size and colour were not the problem.

He’d realised that he had no inclination to see Lily in his mother’s underwear. Lily had returned her attention to the drawers, bending down as she did so. Her skirt rode up and he got a flash of her bare bottom.

She wasn’t wearing any underwear, torn or not.

His cock immediately hardened at the sight of her pussy and bottom, bent over like that, wiggling. “Forget it,” he said. “I’ll take you to a shop.”

“Are you sure it will be safe,” she queried, still bent over the drawers.

Staring at her exposed pussy, Seth shook his head. None of them were safe with her walking around like that. His barriers were dropping all over the place, but he had to get her arse covered up and soon, or he’d lose focus altogether.

106

When Adrian had brooded and sulked long enough to make him feel ashamed of himself, he emerged from his room and walked into the kitchen, which he found empty. In the hallway, he heard creaking floorboards that sounded as if it was on the stairs above, so he wandered to the residents’ lounge. His knee was feeling much stronger, which was a relief, but he didn’t want to undo that by tackling the stairs.

In the lounge, the curtains at the window where open a few inches, which was unusual.

Curious, he crossed the room and peered out. He looked out at the scene beyond, reflecting on how his world had shrunk from everything that it once was, to what was inside these walls. Just a few days before, he couldn’t even stand the thought of going into witness protection, being locked up and away from everything that he knew, and at times it now seemed as if the whole world had vanished off the face the earth and there was only three of them left. Three of them here in this isolated the old manor house with its quaint well-stocked bar, and its creaky floorboards.

Shoving his hands into the pockets of the rather baggy jeans that Seth had given him to wear, he wondered vaguely who they belonged to. He’d asked Seth if they were his, and he’d said something non-committal about finding them somewhere in the house. That seemed like a good enough answer, given the circumstances.

It was uncanny, the way he’d adapted to this strange life inside a couple of days. He was in a strange house in place he didn’t know, wearing another man’s clothing, and yet he was okay with it. It was Lily who’d made that happen, she’d made this time positive—

exceptional, even. He had no doubt it would have been a completely different story had she not been forced to join them. It was quite possible that he was simply burying his head in the sand about Carlisle and the trial—not to mention the fact that someone with a gun would rather he was dead and buried.

Which came first, the attachment to Lily, or the need to escape the oncoming trial? The trial was something he hadn’t allowed himself to dwell on too much, he knew that, but a voice in his head kept shouting that it was Lily; it was because she’d proved to be everything

107

he wanted and more. Second-guessing himself meant doubts were being thrown up all the time. He was still kicking himself about taking on the Carlisle account at all, and that messed with his head.

When he heard Lily’s voice and her laughter approaching outside the room, he turned away from the window and watched as she darted into the lounge. She threw a pink woollen item on to the sofa.

“Seth found me a couple of sweaters and he has kindly offered to do the honourable thing,” she rolled her eyes as she said that, “and take me to the shop to buy some necessities.”

Seth was taking her out of here? Why did that make him feel so unsettled?

“Necessities?”

She turned around and lifted the back of her skirt, exposing one naked buttock. Adrian was reminded of a poster he had on his wall as a teenager. It had a tennis player in exactly the same pose. He shook his head and laughed softly. Her cheeky pose made him want to hold her in his arms. Making his way to a nearby armchair, he grabbed her from behind as he did so, pulling her onto his lap.

“Hey, be careful, watch that leg of yours.” Her cheeky expression turned serious.

“Yes, nurse.” He rolled her close against him and moved one hand under her skirt to caress the bare buttock she had shown him.

“Ah, I see you’re recovering your physical abilities, Mr. Walsh.” Her expression softened to a smile again. She put one arm around his back, settling in.

“That I am, so you better beware.” He was about to say more when Seth entered the room carrying a scarf in one hand. “Here, you can use this to cover your hair. We have to be quick and discreet about this. It’s totally unorthodox, but I guess it has to be done.” Glancing in Adrian’s direction he added, “Are you okay with this? It won’t take much longer than an hour.” He looked towards the patio doors. “I’d be much happier if we kept those curtains closed.”

Crossing the room, he switched on an up-lighter and a lamp, and then drew the curtains closed.

Adrian noticed that Lily was sparkling. Was she happy, or was she happy to be getting out of here for a while? With Seth. He tightened his grip on her. “We can’t have the lady in need of underwear.”

108

She wriggled on his lap. He was getting hard. “So long as you promise you’re not going to run-off and leave me here,” he added

“Don’t be daft.” She prodded him in the chest. “It’s only ‘cos I need undies.”

“Yeah, that’s what you say now,” he teased, “while you are under the influence of Stockholm syndrome.”

“Stockholm syndrome?” She looked at him with curiosity. “What’s that?” Adrian immediately wished he hadn’t said it. He looked up at Seth, who gave him a concerned glance. “I’m just teasing you, it’s nothing.”

“No, tell me what it is. I want to know.” She wasn’t going to let him get away with it.

She chuckled, as if she thought it must be some sort of joke, which was his original intention, badly timed though it was.

It was Seth who answered. “It’s a term that refers to a state of sympathetic and emotional attachment, specifically where captives get involved with the person who is their captor.” His voice was gruff and although he spoke knowledgeably, it clearly made him uncomfortable to do so. “It’s traditionally used to talk about kidnappers and their victims,“ he added, hastily.

“Oh.” Her smile faded.

“It was just a joke,” Adrian whispered, but she didn’t respond.

Stockholm syndrome.
He mentally kicked himself for saying it. What was he thinking?

After a moment she turned and hid her face close against his neck, the arm she had draping around his shoulder tightening as she buried her face against him, clinging close.

“Don’t say that, and don’t even think it. That makes it sound as if this is wrong, or…as if it’s not real. ”

Her response shocked Adrian, and his arms instinctively closed around her upper body, holding her close and stroking her gently. “Hey now, I only meant it as a joke, really, please don’t get upset, love.”

When he said that she clung to him even tighter, as if to deny it.

He looked across the room at Seth, and shrugged his free shoulder. Seth nodded, indicating he was concerned too. He hung back though, and Adrian knew that this was his problem. He also remembered what Seth said about being an add-on, and that Lily was with him. Did Seth really believe that? Nobody in their right mind would deny the strength of the

109

attraction between Lily and Seth. The situation felt suddenly serious, because it went way beyond his mistimed joke.

Lily sighed against his neck, snuggled closer, still seeking comfort. He didn’t want her to be upset—she was usually so strong, bouncing back from everything that happened to her so unexpectedly of the last few days. And yet it also made him see that she didn’t want to think this was temporal any more than he did, she didn’t want to think their connection was anything to do with being locked up here, away from their normal lives.

That meant she cared.

Something that felt like joy—but was even bigger than that—took hold of him. He stroked her hair and kissed her forehead. “Hey,
Laidbacklady
, this is real. Don’t fret.” Eventually she pulled back and looked at him with searching eyes, her pretty mouth down-turned at the corners. God, she was beautiful. The misgiving in her expression only emphasised the open quality she had, that thing he loved about her.

“This time we have together is special, very special, and it’s also very real.” He moved his hand to her bottom again and waggled his eyebrows. “Would you like me to pinch you to prove it?”

He teased her skin with a gentle pinch. Her expression broke. She laughed and wriggled out of his lap. He let her go, reluctantly, and but held onto one hand, tethering her.

When she glanced back, smiling his way, he felt an immense sense of relief. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

She didn’t pull her hand free, and she nodded. “I’m sorry, that was a bit silly of me, reacting that way.”

”No, it wasn’t.” He squeezed her hand before letting it go. “Enjoy your shopping trip.

Take pity on me and buy something black and lacy to wear, I want to see you in something black and lacy.”

110