Intrusion (6 page)

A terrible ache thickened her throat. “Yes, your Honor.”

“You have the right to be represented by an attorney at all stages of the proceedings.”

Her attorney stood. “I will be representing Ms. McCain in this matter, your Honor.”

“Fine. I’ll note for the record, Ms. McCain, that Ms. Oberhaus of Sutter and James will be representing you. And I’ll enter a plea of—”

“Not guilty.” She dug the words up from deep in her gut and they took on a life of their own reverberating in the courtroom far louder than she’d intended.

Ms. Oberhaus shot her a raised brow, its arch clearly meant as a warning to zip her lip.

The judge pulled off his glasses and rubbed a hand down his face. “Based on the serious nature of these charges and the fact that the defendant’s alleged accomplice is still at large, it is in the best interest to both Ms. McCain and the court to deny bail at this time.”

The blood drained from Audra’s face. Her best interest? How could forcing her to return to jail ever be considered good for her? She sprung to her feet, gripping the table to keep from swaying.

“No, please.” She reached out her cuffed hands to the judge. “I can’t go back there. I’m not going to run, and I don’t have an accomplice. I didn’t do this.” The bailiff pushed away from the wall and took a step toward her. She knew she should shut up but she couldn’t stop the stream of words that fell from her mouth. “I just want to go home and cooperate with the police so they can find out who did this. I’ll sign whatever I have to sign. Put me under house arrest, I don’t care. Just don’t make me—”

Her attorney grabbed her arm and nudged her into the bailiff’s custody. “Thank you, your Honor.”

The same guards who’d escorted her to court returned and took over for the bailiff. Her knees buckled. They tightened their grip to steady her, but didn’t bother to slow down as they ushered her out of the Court and back down the hall.

***

Cam shifted the pickup into park at the curb and cut the ignition. The engine spluttered to a stop—much like his careful plans. After his hasty grab and go following the news broadcast the previous night, he’d fled his house and ditched his brand new SUV for a beater, driving it around Phoenix until dawn.

His mind had raced for a viable plan, and this morning he’d come to the courthouse armed with enough cash to bond Audra out of jail. Only to learn
he
was the very reason her bail was being denied.

He adjusted the black thick-framed glasses on the bridge of his nose and tugged his navy blue cap further down on his head to cover his exposed hair.

His stomach shifted, guilt and unease comingling there. What he was about to do went against every code of honor he had, but what choice did he have? He needed Audra. She, alone, knew the details of her prototype inside and out; she held the key to clearing both their names.

He jumped out of the vehicle then popped the truck’s hood.
Nothing to see here, just a bit of car trouble.
He allowed a grin to curl one corner of his mouth for a moment before smothering his lips back into a straight line. Damn, could he have scrounged up a fuglier get away car? Five hundred bucks sure didn’t buy much these days—except for a gold-green 1970s Chevy with badly chipped faux wood siding.

Scanning the empty sidewalk in front of him, he let his gaze travel past the low river-rock wall and over the short staircase to the single inconspicuous metal door at the rear of the courthouse. Any minute now Audra should come through that door on her way back to the county lockup. The slim window of opportunity didn’t give him the option of creating an elaborate diversion. A nice, juicy smoke bomb would have to do.

He shoved his hand in the pocket of his jacket and curved his fingers around the fat smoke candle. Once he lit it, he had two, maybe three minutes tops, to grab Audra and get the hell out. He strode over to the rock wall and leaned against it. The two large air-conditioning units on the other side of the wall hummed in appreciation of his plan.

Yes. The space between them was the perfect spot to drop his little surprise for Audra’s guards.

Cam adjusted his cap once more to shade the majority of his face and then palmed the smoker in one hand, a lighter in the other. The door to the court swung open and he caught a flash of red hair.

Audra. Escorted by two guards.

He quickly turned his shoulder to them, but still managed to catch a glimpse of Audra’s pale face and withdrawn posture. His heart turned over. No way was he letting her go back to that damn jail.

He flicked the lighter, sparking the small flame to life, and brought it into contact with the wick on the smoke candle. The fuse lit, he inched his arm behind him and dropped the bomb between the wall and the air-conditioners.

Before the wick had the chance to burn down, he sauntered back to the pickup. As the guards neared the wall, the smoke frothed to life. A thick plume rose from between the air-conditioners and polluted the air with a dark grey haze.

“Fire!” The bark from one of the guards bit through the dirty air.

A burst of static followed as the other guard grabbed for his radio. “Possible air-condition unit on fire. Madison Street prisoner exit.”

Cam shut the truck’s hood. The palpable dark smoke hung in the air like a cloak, masking his movements and creating critical seconds of chaos. He slipped up behind Audra and pressed his hand against her mouth.

***

Hand. Smothering her.

It happened so fast. One minute the guards had hold of Audra’s arms, the next, smoke had enveloped her and she’d lost sight of them. The stranger locked her in his grip, dragging her backwards. Her fingertips dug into tense muscle beneath the fabric of his sleeve.

She bucked. He held fast.

Audra opened her mouth to scream, but his palm pressed deeper, cutting any sound from her burning throat. Smoke obscured her vision and stung at her eyes. Where were her guards? She blinked, hoping to clear her vision enough to discern their movements amongst the viscous smoke, but their gray uniforms camouflaged them.

“Shh.” The man’s mouth hovered near her ear. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

I’m not going to hurt you.

She stiffened. Oh, God, she knew that voice. He’d said those same words to her. Back in Nanodyne’s lab. Her heart plummeted into her stomach and did a little shimmy. She hadn’t been able to get that smooth, deep timbre out of her head.

Using her shock to his advantage, he shoved her into a truck and pushed her to the floorboard. “Stay down.”

Doors slammed, the engine roared to life and rocketed away from the curb. She clutched at the bumpy floor mat. The dash poked at her back and the smell of musty leather clawed her dry throat. Dust tickled her nose. He took the next corner without braking and the force slammed her against the door. The handle jabbed her in the side and forced a gasp past her lips.

“Sorry.” A genuine apology colored his voice.

“Sorry?”

She lifted her head, her gaze snagging on his face for the first time since he’d broken into Nanodyne. Same lean jaw, same chiseled mouth that had made her heart race. Thick oversized glasses hid the unique shade of his gray eyes. But she remembered.

Her jaw tightened. “You just abducted me from the freaking sidewalk of the courthouse in front of two armed guards, and all you can say is ‘sorry’?”

He took another corner and she braced herself, but this time he gentled his speed in the turn. “I didn’t steal your prototype.”

She swallowed, shifting her position on the floor so she could draw her knees to her chest. “How am I supposed to believe that? How do I know you didn’t frame me for the theft?”

“And then proceeded to risk my own neck so you wouldn’t have to spend the months before your trial stuck in the pen?” His brows creased into a frown. “Yeah, I can see the logic in that.”

“You knew the court had denied my bail?”

He scowled. “I’d planned to get you out of there the legal way.”

“And when the legal way wasn’t an option?”

His shoulder lifted in a shrug, not of the devil-may-care variety, but more a stiff, conflicted movement. “Every fugitive needs a plan B, right?”

“Oh, God.” She buried her face in her hands. “I don’t even know you.”

“Cameron Scott.” He extended one hand, the other still clutched the steering wheel. “Head of F.U. Security Consultants.” One corner of his mouth tipped into a sardonic smirk. “The F.U. stands for—”

Audra narrowed her eyes at his outstretched palm. “Yeah, I know what it stands for—”

“Failsafe Unlimited.” He tugged her on the seat beside him, eyes wide in mock innocence. “What? You thought it meant something else?”

She pressed her back against the passenger door. For a moment, there, she’d tasted the mirage of freedom and it had felt so darn good, but reality had a way of creeping into even the best of delusions.

“You need to take me back.”

“Is that really what you want?” Cameron shoved the cap off his head and it tumbled into the expanse of seat between them. His brown hair stood on end. “To go back to jail, for God knows how long?” He braked at a stop sign and turned to look at her. The steel in his eyes softened. “I know you had nothing to do with the theft either.”

The panicked hum died replaced by a hope so weighty it felt as though Osmium slugged through her veins.

He believed in her innocence. Believed in
her
.

Her desire to be wary warred with the desperation to have someone on her side, and though she wanted to trust the conviction in his gaze, wariness won.

“Then you understand why I have to go back. You’ve just made me look even guiltier by pulling this—this stunt.”

He turned the corner and the truck surged onto the Black Canyon Freeway. “It’s not like the extra five years they’ll add to your sentence for this will make that much of a difference anyway. If you’re convicted, you’re looking at, what, twenty to life?”

“Oh, my God.” Horror bloomed in her chest. “Turn the truck around and take me back. Right now.”

His smile disappeared. “Not gonna happen. Sorry. We’re in this together and we’ll find a way out of it. Together.”

“In this together? You’re not the one who just jumped jail on a federal charge.”

“They’ll have to try you and convict you at the state level before it ever goes federal.”

She clenched her hands in her lap. “That does not make me feel any better.”

He swung the truck off the Camelback Road exit, turned down the first side street and pulled to a stop next to a fenced off dirt field. He jammed the truck into park, tossed the glasses from his face and leaned in until mere inches separated them. His hard eyes bore into hers, jaw cocking tight, and for the first time she noticed the darker gray around his irises.

“Would it make you feel better for both of us to be behind bars?”

“No.” The word chafed past her lips in little more than a whisper, just the reminder of the prison cell gave her the shakes.

His focus slid away from her eyes and came to rest on her mouth and held. Sudden heat pooled in her belly. Her breath hitched and started her heart hammering.

God, no, she did not want to feel even the slightest bit attracted to him.

She pressed against the door to put some extra distance between them. But her heart refused to slow. “How can I trust you?”

His gaze lingered on her for a moment longer and then he retreated behind the wheel. “I didn’t break into Nanodyne for a cheap ass thrill, you know. There’s a reason I was in your lab. Danvers hired me to evaluate the security. With the prototype nearing completion he feared it would become a target.”

“So Charlie said. He thinks it was all a set up. That you and I were in cahoots from the very beginning.”

“Why he’d think that rather than giving me a chance to explain—”

Her eyes widened. “The surveillance camera.”

“I disabled all the surveillance cameras.”

“Not the one built into the vault. I saw the images. They look…bad. Like we were embracing instead of fighting.”

“Son of a—” He slammed his hand against the steering wheel. “Now we have no choice. We’ve got to get the hell out of town.”

Audra chewed on her lip. She didn’t want to go anywhere with him. But what if she forced him to take her back to jail and succeeded in making things worse? Maybe Cameron was right. Maybe they could figure out who had framed them before going to the police. And there was no better place to start than back at the beginning—with her research.

“I have to make a stop at my house first.”

“No way. I’m looking to buy us some time before the cops figure out exactly what we’re driving. Your house is the first place they’ll go.”

“I have a copy of my research at the house. Three years of testing and design and correspondence. If we’re going to try and find out who wanted my prototype badly enough—it might come in handy.”

“Shit, yeah. Then we’d better get to it before it falls into the wrong hands.” He reached for the gearshift but stopped before his hand closed around it, grabbing for her wrists instead. “Hang on, before we go anywhere, let's get those cuffs off you.”

He angled off the truck’s bench seat and shoved his hand into the pocket of his pants to withdraw a small pouch. Within seconds he had it unzipped enough to extract a long, thin pick from inside.

His warm hands enveloped her icy ones, his fingers gentle as they slid along her wrist to hold the handcuffs in place. She held her breath, trying to stave off a tremble over his sure touch. He jabbed the pick into the lock of the cuffs and the metal jaws popped free.

He tossed them to the floorboard then came back to rub at her chafed wrists with his strong thumbs. Her pulse leapt, igniting her blood and driving fire into her cheeks.

She yanked her hands away.

His mouth hitched into a smile. “Better?”

“No.” Her quick denial plummeted into the cab of the truck.

Cameron chuckled and stepped on the gas.

She knew she should correct her insensitive response, but made no move to do so. She couldn’t. Not without revealing just how much the removal of the cuffs had meant to her.