Vanishing Act (12 page)

Chatter started around her, but she could barely focus, so she stayed seated and took several very long seconds to gather her purse and join the discussion.

“So what are you two doing for lunch? Would you like to join me at Oregano Pete's? My treat.”

Nate didn't say anything, so Danielle cleared her throat and offered a chipper, if distracted, “I love Oregano Pete's. They have the best cheesy garlic bread.”

Nate put his arm around her shoulders again and squeezed just enough to get her attention. “Thanks for the invitation, Ivey. Maybe another day. We already have other plans.”

“We do?” She barely kept her voice from sounding as
shocked as she felt. Since when was Nate making plans for them without telling her?

Nate nodded decisively. “Thanks again, though. See you in class on Tuesday.”

“Sure thing.” Ivey waved and strolled gracefully toward the foyer.

“What's going on?”

“We need to talk.” His eyes darted around the emptying sanctuary. “But not here.”

“Just tell me what's going on,” she insisted. The intensity in his eyes ramped up as he held her gaze. “There are three blue Explorers in the parking lot. I'm betting that one of them is the one that chased you down.”

N
ate was stumped. He had no idea where this case was going. More important, he had no idea who was involved.

He knew he and Danielle were at the center. But who was the third person? Was there a fourth that he wasn't even looking for?

He rolled onto his side on the air mattress he'd picked up after church the day before. On the tile floor of the waiting room at the shop, it wasn't the most comfortable bed he'd ever slept on. But it was certainly a step up from the shop's awful plastic chairs which he'd been using until now. At least he'd been able to sleep between his hourly trips around the building.

Again there had been nothing obvious to concern him. No cars. No tire tracks. No footprints.

He was still empty-handed and just about ready to chew nails, he was so angry with himself. He'd hoped that he and Danielle would get out of church fast enough to see who got into those three Explorers the day before. He'd even considered staying outside the entire service just to see who was driving them. But that would have left Danielle in the service by herself. He couldn't be sure that she was
safe anywhere. Not even in a sanctuary. So he hurried back inside, hoping to catch the drivers leaving the building.

Of course, when he got back to his seat and saw it occupied by Ridley, he was more than grateful he hadn't found a hiding place around the corner of building just to scout out the parking lot. A wave of protectiveness washed through him in a way that he'd never experienced. He belonged next to Danielle, and he recognized that. Ridley was a jerk and belonged as far away from her as possible.

Sitting next to her in church, his arm around her shoulders was exactly what it should have been. Perfect.

Except that he shouldn't care for her as more than an assignment.

He smashed the heels of his hands into his closed eyes and he sank a little deeper into the mattress. Remembering the way that she looked with her short, dark hair gleaming in the morning sun—and her ripe-strawberries smell—made his head spin.

“But she's not yours to think about like that!” he growled at himself. He had to get his thoughts under control.

“But at least she doesn't think of me as more…” He let out a frustrated breath, taking solace in the knowledge that Danielle wasn't as attached to him as he was quickly becoming to her. He couldn't pretend his own feelings weren't involved. But as long as his heart was the only one on the line, he couldn't hurt her. He just had to make sure it stayed that way.

Besides, he was really just upset that they'd missed the driver of one of the Explorers. Another belonged to a nice little family with three kids. Quite certainly not the Shadow. But the last SUV had sat in the back corner of the parking lot until every other car in the lot had cleared out. Its owner never claimed it. Never drove it home.

He had a sneaking suspicion that it was parked there to taunt them.

And he still had no clue who he was looking for.

Suddenly his entire leg started vibrating, and he almost jumped off of the mattress, tumbling onto the hard tiles. He squirmed and wrestled until he dug his phone out of the cargo pocket of his khakis.

“Andersen,” he croaked, his voice rusty from disuse.

“Boss. It's Heather.”

He rolled to a seated position, instantly alert. “What do you have for me?” He flicked a quick glance at his watch. It was barely 7:30 a.m., which meant it was only 6:30 in Portland. She had some good news. Well, at least some news.

“I ran those plates from the three Explorers that you asked me to yesterday. Let's see.” Papers rustled on the other end of the line, and he tried to collect every ounce of his patience. “Oh, here it is. The first is registered to James Dinofrio. No priors. His check is clean.” That was probably the family he had seen. “The second is registered to George McFarland, but it's been reported as stolen.”

“Of course it has.” He shook his head in frustration. He couldn't catch a break in this case.

“But get this. The third is registered to a Mr. Kirk Banner.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I called you as soon as I found out. I figured you'd want to know right away.”

A slow smile crept across his face. “Any chance Mr. Banner is our guy?”

“Doubtful.”

The smile disappeared, and with it the hope that had started to rise in his chest. When the line was quiet for several seconds, he prodded Heather. “Because?”

“Oh,” she replied. “Sorry, I was trying to multitask and read e-mails. Things are pretty crazy right now. There's just no way Banner is the Shadow. Or even an accomplice. Goodwill would never have someone like him on payroll with this much at stake.” She took a breath. “He has a couple priors. Small-time B and E, petty theft as a juvenile and one assault charge. That kind of thing. He's done a pretty poor job of covering his tracks. If he were on Goodwill's team—even if he wasn't the best man—his background wouldn't have been so easy to put together.”

Nate didn't try to cover his sigh of annoyance. “And you're sure the Kirk Banner that owns the Explorer is the same one in the class at the college?”

“He's changed his hair color, but his face is the same on his driver's license and in the pictures you sent over.”

“What about Ridley Grant? Anything on him yet?”

“Nope. I'm still looking, but so far nothing.”

“Thanks for letting me know. Anything else?”

She paused for a few seconds, and he knew she was trying to weigh her words carefully. “I ran a facial scan on the pictures that you sent just to see if it picked anything up. It didn't identify anyone. I'm sorry.”

“Me, too,” he muttered. It had been a long shot, but any little break might help their case.

He grunted as he pushed himself up from the floor. Well, it was good to know that Kirk wasn't their guy. But why his fascination with Danielle?

And if it wasn't Kirk, Nate was coming far too close to running out of suspects before he found his man.

Coffee. He needed coffee.

Running his hands over the stubble on his face, he stretched his neck, trying to relieve the kinks. Grabbing his keys from the floor next to the bed and his gun from
under the mattress, he headed out of the office, locking the door behind him.

He made one more circle of the property and was almost ready to head back to his apartment, when he noticed two sets of tire tracks in the dirt between a pair of shrubs near the east side of the gravel yard. Squatting down to take a closer look, he pulled out his phone and took a quick picture. One set of tracks was narrow and looked like it had come from a sedan or coupe of some sort. The other had a wide wheel base and wide tires. Definitely a truck or SUV. He'd bet it was from an Explorer.

His head snapped around, expecting to see the offending cars, but he was alone.

“God, this is not going well,” he lamented up at the empty morning. “I'm doing a terrible job of protecting Danielle, and I'm falling short in every area of this investigation. I hate failing. Please help me.”

He hung his head and rested his forearms on his knees, letting the silence envelop him. He waited, as if expecting an audible response from the heavens, but he heard nothing.

Okay, then. It was time to get the day started.

He couldn't keep Danielle safe for much longer without finding out who was in town determined to make her disappear for good.

 

Danielle rubbed her eyes with her fists, trying to clear the dancing spots from her line of vision. The pounding on her door continued as she tripped over the corner of her end table and fell heavily into the door.

“Danielle? Are you okay?” Nate's voice was filled with concern. When she rubbed the sore spot on her forehead instead of answering him, he jiggled the locked door handle and yelled louder. “Danielle! Answer the door now!”

“I'm here. I'm here,” she grumbled as she unlocked the door and squinted at him through the pain that radiated through her entire skull. She pulled the lapels of her fluffy robe closer together, even though they already met under her chin.

Relief flashed across his face, followed quickly by concern and something more than worry. Was it fear?

He blinked and shook his face clear of emotion before she could really tell what was on his mind. “You hurt?” he finally asked, reaching out his thumb to tenderly touch her forehead, right where she'd plowed into the door.

Great. It had definitely left a mark.

“No—I just tripped.” She took a half step back from him, trying to tear her gaze away from the overnight shadow that covered his face. His beard was a little darker than the rest of his hair, and when he grinned at her out of the corner of his mouth, he looked like every terrible rogue she'd ever read about and imagined in real life.

Except he wasn't a rogue.

He squinted his gray-blue eyes at her. “You sure?” Clearly, he didn't believe her.

Squaring her shoulders, she looked right into his eyes. “Yes. I'm fine. Now what on earth has you banging on my door at—” she spun to look at her clock “—seven thirty in the morning?”

“I need to go back to my apartment. I've got to get some coffee and get more than an hour of sleep at a time.”

“Okay. Sounds good. Call me when you wake up.” She moved to close the door, but something flashed through his eyes, making her stop. “What?”

He cleared his throat. “I found a couple sets of tire tracks in the dirt on the edge of the parking lot. They weren't there last night or anytime I walked around during the night. Someone was here between six-thirty and seven-thirty.”

“Two sets? Were they—was one from…?” She couldn't bring herself to ask the question she really needed to know.

And Nate knew it. “Yes. I'm pretty sure one was from an Explorer.”

She swallowed thickly, clinging to the door for support. Nate reached out and held her elbow gently until the strength in her legs returned. But her head didn't stop spinning. That blue Explorer had seemed so far away after her accident three days before. Even seeing the SUVs in the parking lot at church the day before hadn't seemed quite real. They could belong to anyone. She had nothing to fear from faceless car owners at her church. But faceless car owners in her own parking lot?

That was too close for comfort.

“What are you going to do?”

He dipped his head close to her ear, his breath tickling her neck. “I'm going to take care of you. You're safe. You're going to get ready for the day.” There was a reassuring note to his voice that drove her fear away. “You're going to work in the garage with the bay door closed as long as Gretchen is here. I'll be back before she leaves for lunch.”

His lips pressed softly against her cheek, and she leaned in to him, turning her head slightly, so that the corners of their mouths met for the briefest moment.

“Do me a favor,” he said when he quickly pulled back, a half smile playing on his face. “Don't leave your apartment until Gretchen is here.”

“I won't.” She managed a smile in return as he walked backward to his car.

“Lock the door,” he called just before closing his own door.

Danielle did as she was told, slumping back against the
hard wood, her chin pressed against her chest. Oh, this day had not started well. Not at all.

How on earth did Nate expect her to go about her normal day when someone had been in her parking lot that morning? When someone had been watching her home—while she was sleeping.

She sank to the floor, pressing her hands over her face.

Technically Nate knew how to keep her safe. But sometimes, when he kissed her, she worried that she was in more danger from losing her heart to him than she was from Goodwill's man. She couldn't deny her attraction to him, even if her head knew it couldn't be.

“Dear God, I'm so lost right now. I'm just so scared. I thought I'd be safe. I thought I'd come here and be free. I thought I'd be strong enough to do this on my own. I was supposed to be able to start a new life, to start over. But it's just not working out that way. Ahh!” Frustration flowed as she clenched her fists, her heart racing. “Lord, please. Please. Help me.”

When her pulse returned to normal, she pushed herself to her feet. Trudging to her bedroom, she did her best to make herself presentable for the day, masking the bags beneath her eyes and running a brush through her tangled hair.

Gretchen arrived early, so Danielle joined her in the office for several minutes before disappearing into the garage beneath the hood of an old Chevy. But the work that she usually lost herself in so easily wasn't doing anything to distract her from the blue Explorer, its mystery driver and the set of tire tracks on the outskirts of the property. Time and again her mind's eye replayed the SUV on the road as she biked home from the gym. She saw the crash and physically felt the breath leaving her body. She saw her
cell phone smashed, the contents of her gym bag sprawling the width of ditch.

And none of it compared to the terror she had felt fleeing from the man chasing her through the woods.

Her hands began shaking violently, and she rubbed them together in an attempt to still her nerves. Taking a deep breath, she picked up a screwdriver, clenching it tightly in her right hand. By a sheer force of will, she managed to control it enough to fit the Phillips-head into the slot of the screw she needed to loosen, but turning it was another story. Even with both hands, she couldn't muster the strength to turn it a complete rotation.

“Danielle.”

The voice was quiet, but so unexpected that she jumped, banging her head on the underside of the car's hood, the sound of vibrating metal engulfing her. She clasped a hand over the throbbing bump already forming before turning to look at her visitor.

Nate was already halfway to her, concern washing over his rested, shaven and very handsome face. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you.”