WINDOW OF TIME (10 page)

“She called me last night looking for you. She said you wouldn’t answer your phone.” Dusty set the weight on the floor between his feet. “What did you do after you left work? Did you go home and rest like you said you would?”

“Oh, crap.” Johnny got up and walked over to the water fountain. While he drank, he thought about what to say and what he swore he wouldn’t. Johnny was certain Dusty knew he didn’t go straight home yesterday. If he told him that he did, Dusty would know instantly it was a lie. Lucy’s secret—Johnny wouldn’t tell to anyone, unless she told him he could.

“Is there anything you want to share?”

Wiping his mouth with his towel, he turned to find Dusty standing behind him. He’d known the firefighter since first coming on the department, and he’d never met a more honest and trustworthy man. He was a true Boy Scout in every sense. Dusty had earned his Eagle Scout rank when he was barely fifteen years old. If Johnny couldn’t trust him, then he couldn’t trust anyone.

“I found the woman from the staircase.”

“I thought you might have. Well, I hope you had fun, but you could have taken a few minutes out of your hot night to at least ring Monica back.”

Johnny shook his head. “No, I couldn’t.” He went over to the bench and sat down, and he looked around the room to double check they were alone. The station’s occupants were still asleep in their rooms, and they had the small gym to themselves. Dusty leaned again the wall and waited for an answer. “You might not believe this, but Lucy is with the CIA.”

“Aw, come on. How gullible are you?”

“I went through her bag to find an address, and I found her identification. Believe me, she’s the real thing.” Dusty didn’t look convinced. His brows were pinched together. “Do you remember being bumped by that guy almost as big as you running down the stairs? He was dressed in a stupid-looking gray suit with dark sunglasses?” He saw recognition flash across his friend’s face with a lift of his brows.

“Yeah, I remember him. He had a twin coming up the stairs.”

“They were foreign agents, and they were after Lucy. She jumped off the staircase to get away from them.”

Dusty ambled over and sat down on the other bench. “Okay. I can see that. They were kind of intimidating looking.”

Johnny leaned closer to his friend. “I was taking her to dinner last night, and they chased us on the freeway. Lucy had to destroy the assignment she was carrying to get away from them, and she got hurt.”

“What happened?” Dusty asked with a low voice.

“Lucy’s assignment was to transport a 35-mm film someplace. It was exposed, but undeveloped. That was what they wanted, so she over-exposed the film in the dome light, and then leaned out her side of the truck and tossed it out at them. They slammed on their brakes to find it, and we got away.”

“35 millimeter? Who uses that anymore?”

“Her contact, evidently.”

“You said they were chasing you?”

“Yeah.”

“How fast were you going?”

“I’m not sure. I stopped looking after we reached 110.”

“Are you serious?”

“Deadly serious. Lucy hit the back of her head when I had to swerve to miss a car. She has a concussion.” Dusty kept staring at him with his intense blue eyes, like he was trying to figure something out.

“She stayed with you overnight, didn’t she?”

Johnny slowly nodded.

“And that’s something you couldn’t explain to Monica.”

Johnny sighed. “I’ve got to talk with her, but not today.”

“Why not?”

“Lucy’s buying a house, and it’s closing today. I plan on spending the day with her. And if things work out the way I’d like, the rest of my days off, too.”

“You stuck on this girl?”

Johnny blew out a deep breath. “Like you can’t imagine.”

“You only met her yesterday. Do you know anything about her?”

“Practically everything.” Johnny rubbed his neck with the towel.

“But she doesn’t know about Monica?”

“No. Not yet.”

“What does this mean for you two?”

He shook his head. “I haven’t thought that far ahead. I really like this woman—”

“I meant you and Monica.”

“We haven’t dated exclusively, Dusty. You know that.” Johnny got up and grabbed his gym bag. “Our relationship hasn’t gone any further than casual dating, and that wasn’t what I wanted.” He slung the bag over his shoulder. “I want more. I want a wife and children, a real house with a yard and maybe a dog that will drive me nuts with its barking.” Johnny stopped and remembered where he heard a similar diatribe before. Lucy said practically the same thing last night. He smiled. “I need to get home. Lucy’s waiting for me.”

Monica’s Honda parked in front of his apartment sent a tremor through Johnny’s chest. The garage door stood open, and he suspected she was inside talking to Lucy. Johnny sped into the garage while trying to figure out a way to explain to one woman why he didn’t answer his phone while apologizing to the other woman for an uninvited intrusion.

Or not.

He found only one woman inside his home. When he saw Monica under the covers in his bed with only her bare shoulders showing, he lost his patience and snapped.

“What are you doing here?”

Monica pushed back the covers. “Waiting for you.” She patted the bed. “And I think I’ve waited long enough.”

“Where’s Lucy?” Johnny asked in a rush.

Monica ran her fingers through her blonde hair. “If you’re referring to your, um, date, I sent her home so we can be alone.”

“How did she go? Did she call a cab?” Johnny dug his phone from his jeans pocket, but remembered he didn’t have her phone number. He didn’t even know if her phone worked.

“I don’t know. Who cares?” Monica slapped the bed.

“I care,” Johnny shouted. “Lucy’s sick. She has a concussion.” He turned and started for the living room, but before he left his bedroom, he glared at Monica, and with a steely voice, he said, “It’s over between us; for good this time. Don’t be here when I get back.”

~*~

There were times when Johnny thought he was an idiot and other times that he knew it for a fact. Not answering his phone had been a mistake. Leaving Lucy alone had been a total blunder. As Johnny drove through his neighborhood looking for her, he mentally kicked everything in sight, including his own butt. How stupid could he have been not to think that Monica might come over to see why he didn’t answer his cell phone?

After looping through the peripheral streets around his condo, Johnny expanded his search until he reached the closest shopping center. Unless she decided to grab a fast food sandwich for breakfast, the only other thing that Lucy might have done was call for a taxi, in which case he needed to head for her hotel and explain how he was an absolute idiot and apologize until his voice gave out.

Rehearsing in his head what he might say to her, Johnny sped his way across the few miles between his home and her hotel. He hadn’t known just how deep his feelings were for Lucy until he’d found Monica in his bed. Seeing her lying there had repulsed him. And why she thought she could seduce him was beyond reason. They’d never reached that kind of relationship in the past, why she thought it would begin that morning—unless she’d found Lucy in his pajamas and assumed the rest.

When he pulled into the hotel’s parking lot, Johnny saw her getting out of a yellow taxi parked under the valet’s awning. She didn’t look over when he honked his truck’s horn. He pulled into the closest parking space, but she’d disappeared by the time he reached the front doors. He saw her from across the lobby floor.

“Lu, please wait!” She turned and looked at him, her eyes quickly squinting, her lips flattened. She took a step toward him with her head lowered and her hands balled into fists. In the next instant, a man dressed in a gray suit and sunglasses stepped out from behind a pillar and wrapped his arm around Lucy’s chest, clamping a white cloth over her nose and mouth. Before Johnny could shout, the other gray-clad foreign agent stepped in front of her.

As Johnny ran forward, Lucy lifted up her foot and kicked the man in front of her in the chest, propelling him down onto the carpet. She wrenched one arm free and pinched the hand holding the cloth against her face, forcing him to drop it away. Two solid thrusts into his gut with her elbow loosened his hold around her body.

Johnny saw the other guy get up. Lucy turned around and kneed her assailant in the groin. Before the second agent could grab her, Johnny tackled him away from the fight. The guy didn’t appreciate Johnny’s interference with whatever objective they had in mind with her, but Johnny didn’t think two men against one woman was necessarily fair.

Johnny took a few hits, but he held his own, until the agent knocked him to the carpet and reached under his polyester jacket and pulled out a gun. Johnny lifted his arm in a futile effort to deflect the expected bullet.

The shot that rang out didn’t hit Johnny. The man-in-gray dropped the gun and yelped in pain. Blood gushed from the wound in the agent’s hand as he bolted out the lobby doors.

Johnny sat up and looked over at Lucy holding the gun she just fired, while her opponent lay on the floor in front of her in a heap of gray, moaning and holding his privates. A moment later, she stumbled backward, fell to her knees, and passed out.

“Lucy!” Johnny yelled.

“I called the cops,” Ken said from behind a long leather sofa. The desk clerk held the phone against his ear. “They’re on their way.”

Johnny scrambled to his feet and ran around the bad guy. He grabbed her shoulders and turned her over onto her back. When he pushed enough of her hair from her face, he found her eyes closed. He felt her warm skin. She didn’t have a window. Lucy told him she couldn’t see herself in her windows. “Lucy!” he called with his face next to hers. He touched her throat and felt a slow pulse. Her labored breathing scared him. He touched the wet cloth lying next to her, and then sniffed his fingers. They smelled of chemical. “Chloroform.” Johnny cursed. “They knocked her out with chloroform.” He yelled at Ken holding the phone, “She needs an ambulance!” He shouted louder, “She needs the paramedics!”

~*~

“I got here as soon as I could.” Dusty landed his big hand on Johnny’s shoulder. “Want to tell me what happened?”

The first rescue unit showed up within three minutes of Johnny’s urgent call for help. The police got there and took the foreign agent into custody, telling Johnny they’d get his statement at the hospital. His guys supplied Lucy with oxygen and an IV and wrapped her up before transporting her to Pacific Hospital. He stood outside the exam room they’d taken her to. They wouldn’t let him go in. He wasn’t her husband.

“What happened to your face?” Dusty lifted Johnny’s chin. “You look like you’ve been in a fight.”

Johnny touched his swollen check. “I have. They came back.”

“Who came back?”

Johnny glanced around at the busy hospital hallway and lowered his voice. “Those two guys who chased us on the freeway last night jumped Lucy in her hotel lobby. They used chloroform on her. I think they were trying to abduct her.”

“Who tried to abduct her?”

The question came from behind him. Johnny swung around and saw a tall woman dressed in a white doctor’s jacket, her blonde hair pulled into a ponytail. Standing behind her were two men dressed in dark blue hospital scrubs, and each of their faces were trained on Johnny. He shrugged his shoulders, not wanting to talk to another stranger about Lucy, but he felt like he’d fallen into thick, sticky mud up to his hips and couldn’t get out.

“I asked you a question, Mr. Cartwright, and I need an answer.”

He shook his head. “I’ve already talked to the doctor.”

The woman pulled out a small wallet from her pants’ front pocket and discretely opened it to show Johnny her CIA identification.

“I’m Dr. Penelope Pettigrew. I’m Agent James’ physician. And I need you to tell me everything you know.”

“Her doctor is inside with her now.” Johnny motioned toward the closed door.

Dr. Pettigrew huffed. “Really? Well, we’ll see about that.” She turned on her heel and disappeared behind the exam room door.

Dusty asked quietly, “Where can I join up?”

Johnny glanced over his shoulder at his large friend with the lopsided smile. “Remember where we are.”

“She’s beautiful.”

“Dusty—”

The door burst open and a nurse came rushing out, followed by a ticked off older male doctor, who passed a clipboard to Dr. Pettigrew before he went into another exam room.

Pettigrew curled a finger at Johnny. “Come in.”

Johnny and Dusty followed the two nurses inside the room where Lucy lay on a narrow exam bed dressed in a thin blue gown. The oxygen mask covered her nose and mouth, and her IV solution hung on an electronically monitored pump.

“She’s still not conscious, Sunny,” one of the guys in blue scrubs said.

“Sunny?” Johnny looked from the nurse holding Lucy’s chart, to the doctor. “I thought you said your name was Penelope Pettigrew?”