Woman On the Run (32 page)

When Sydney Davidson finally sank into his tub of warmish water, the surge of current stopped his heart, brought the blood in his veins to a boil and fried one of the finest pharmacological brains of this century.

* * * * *

“Well,” Beth said an hour later, fisting her hands on her ample hips. “This is something else.” She looked around approvingly at the changes that the past forty-eight hours had brought to Carly’s Diner. Now, officially, the Out to Lunch.

Julia looked around, too, though most of the attention in her head was taken up with Cooper. Every time she turned around he seemed to be there, handing her a brush, mixing her paint for her, generally driving her crazy with desire. He’d managed to hold her hand, touch the back of her neck, run a hand along her back until she seemed to be sensitized, almost magnetized to his presence. She could feel his presence by the way the hairs stood up at the back of her neck.

“Hmm,” she answered dreamily. Cooper was standing slightly behind her and she could feel his body heat. Julia was trying to act nonchalant but she trembled with the effort it took not to lean into him.

Beth gently nudged Julia’s ribs with an elbow. “So, what do you think, Sally?”

“Who?” Her brain seemed to be mired in molasses. “What?”

“The diner—or rather the fern bar,” Beth said patiently. “What do you think?”

“I—” Julia looked around and tried to focus. Most of the work was done. The walls were painted, the counters sanded, the ferns planted. Everything looked and smelled fresh and new. It was easy to overlook the uneven rag rolling and the tables that were slightly askew. Alice had gone overboard with the ferns and Julia thought that prospective customers were going to have to come equipped with machetes.

Still, all in all, it had a sort of tacky charm.

“It’s great,” she said.

“Nice.” Cooper’s voice rumbled at her back and set up vibrations in her stomach that reverberated throughout her body. Julia took a deep breath to try to calm herself down.

“Do you think you could do something with our store?” Beth asked Julia.

“Your…store?” Julia asked, her senses quivering. Cooper had stepped even nearer. He put a large hand on her shoulder and her pulse went wild.

“Yeah. You know—make it modern or something.” Beth waved her hand. “This is so pretty.”

Julia could see in Beth’s eyes the same look Alice had had and despite the fact that Cooper was distracting her, she found herself interested. “Well…”

“Yes?” Beth said eagerly. “What do you think?”

“I’m not too sure you should go modern. Maybe you should turn your store into one of those pretty, old-fashioned emporiums, like you see in the movies. You could repaint that long counter and put glass panes in to show the merchandise. And you could have the goods in barrels and canisters. And then—”

“Hey, everyone!” Chuck clapped his hands loudly. “You can put down picks and shovels. It’s time to get out of the salt-mines. Maisie’s cooked us all a real spread.”

There was a scramble to see who could get to the trestle tables set up against the walls first. Julia found herself pushed towards one, then Glenn thrust a plate into her hands. She picked up a drumstick.

“Oh, God,” she said and closed her eyes. Pleasure just didn’t get any better.

“Good, huh?” Glenn asked proudly.

“Wonderful,” she said reverently, and bit into the cold curried chicken again. “If this is any example of Maisie’s cooking skills, then the fern bar’s going to be a success.”

“It’s already a success, as far as I’m concerned,” Glenn said, smiling. “It got Maisie out of bed and interested in something again. If the fern bar doesn’t have any customers, then I’ll buy forty meals a day just to keep them in business. It’s worth it to me to see her smiling again.”

“Yeah.” Julia watched Maisie as she happily ladled out food from the buffet.

“I’ve got you to thank for this,” Glenn said quietly.

“No, you don’t,” Julia said, surprised. “I didn’t cook anything. It was Maisie—”

“I don’t mean that.” Glenn waved his hand impatiently. “I mean you’re the one who gave Alice the idea of redecorating and calling in Maisie. Both Chuck and I are more grateful than we can say. If you ever need anything—anything at all, count on us.”

“Oh, no really.” She could feel herself turning red. “I didn’t do all that much…” Her voice trailed off.

Cooper filled the doorway. One of his workmen, a tall lanky man named Sandy, had called him out. There were problems in hanging up the sign and Cooper had disappeared. Now here he was again, larger than life, peeling off his big leather work gloves, his dark eyes scanning the room until he found her. Their eyes met. Julia felt a deep tingle of excitement set up inside herself and her body tightened with anticipation.

Cooper started crossing the diner and Glenn caught the glass that fell out of Julia’s nerveless fingers. Poker-faced, he set it on the table. “I—ah, have to go talk to someone,” Glenn said. “About something. See you.”

“What?” Julia turned to him blindly. “Oh, okay. Sure, that’s fine.”

He’s magnificent
, was all Julia could think as Cooper approached her slowly, broad shoulders blocking out the rest of the room. Moisture—condensation? rain?—clung to his inky hair and Julia’s hands itched to run her fingers through the thick dark pelt. His expression was stern as always. She wanted to touch his face, see if she could make the frown lines go away, trace that hard, beautiful mouth with her finger.

Cooper came up so close to her that she had to tilt her head. He looked down at her and his face had never seemed more harsh, more angular.

“Come with me,” he said. “Now.”

“Yes, Cooper,” Julia whispered, and put her curried drumstick down on the tablecloth, missing her plate by a good ten inches.

Cooper grabbed her hand and dragged her through the door and towards a black pickup.

“Where are we going?” Julia cried.

Cooper practically threw her into the cab, got in and pulled away with a squeal of tires. “To your house,” he said tightly. “This time we’re going to get it right. We’re going to fuck all night.”

Chapter Sixteen

“That’s another one down.” Aaron Barclay slammed down the phone and turned to his boss.

“Another what?” Davis took a hefty bite out of the stone-cold takeout pizza. The canteen was closed on Sundays, and anyway, it was past 11 p.m. Staffing reductions had cut hard and deep. He and Barclay had been forced into doing major overtime.

“Witness. In Idaho.”

“Jesus.” Davis swallowed the big bite he had in his mouth and felt the pepperoni slide down heavily and greasily. He absently rubbed his palm over his paunch. “That makes two.”

“In two days,” Barclay agreed.

“Who was it?”

“Dunno. Let’s see.” Barclay pulled up a file on his computer and quickly keyed in some data. “Here we go. Guy’s name was Sydney Davidson. Used to work for Sunshine Pharmaceuticals. We’d relocated him as Grant Patterson. In a place called Ellis. Ellis, Idaho.”

“A hit?”

“Accident.”

Davis snorted.

“Well…” Barclay grimaced. “That’s the thing. Our Boise people went over to—” He checked the screen again, “Ellis. The local police said it was an accident but our people were loaded for bear. Losing two in two is no joke. But apparently it really was an accident. Faulty wiring in the house. Short circuit drove the current straight into his bathtub. Killed him instantly. Locals and feds went over it again and again but they couldn’t find anything wrong with it. Neither could we.”

“Well, have our people go over everything again with a fine-tooth comb again. Losing two witnesses like that.” Davis angrily rubbed at a grease spot on his tie with a napkin. “We’re beginning to look like Fort Fumble around here. Say…” Davis looked up suddenly. “How far away is Ellis from where we put Julia Devaux?” Devaux was far and away WitSec’s most valuable protectee.

“Not far.”

“Same area code?”

“Yeah.” Barclay sounded resigned. Both of them had fought the decision to organize files according to area code. “Just goes to show.”

The hairs on Davis’ forearms rose. “Pull her out,” he said quietly. “Pull her out now.”

“But…boss.” Barclay shifted uncomfortably and pointed to the new regulation booklet. He tapped its green and gray cover. “Regulation 5. ‘No unnecessary expenditures’. It costs over fifty thousand dollars to relocate a witness and we have to justify that. If our own people testify there’s no danger to Devaux and we pull her out anyway, we’re in deep shit.”

“Damn it!” Davis pounded the regulation booklet in frustration. “Somehow someone got the file! They must have. When we were switching over to CD-ROM a couple weeks ago, maybe. Remember that? We had some kind of glitch. Well, someone must have hacked into our system. And he’s taking out everyone who was in that file! We’ve got to get Devaux out of there.”

“Boss, let me play devil’s advocate here. God knows she will.” Barclay’s eyes rolled to the ceiling and they both knew he was thinking of the 31st floor and the new director. He lifted a fist. Davis couldn’t help noticing how grubby it was. “One,” Barclay said, raising a dirty index finger. The nail was nibbled to the quick. “However improbable it seems, the police, the feds and our own people have ruled both deaths accidental.”

“Oh, puh-leeze—”

“Wait. Two.” Another finger. “There is a two million dollar bounty on Julia Devaux’s head. News of that kind of money has crossed the country three or four times. Who knows how many hit man wannabes and real deals are out beating the bushes? Do you honestly think that some guy who is smart enough to penetrate our firewalls and discover where we’ve got Devaux is out there right now, taking out the people in that file one by one in—what? Alphabetical order? Taking out Abt and Davidson might be worth a hundred thou, tops. Do you think he’d leave Julia Devaux and two mil for last? Does that make sense?”

Put like that it didn’t.

“And anyway,” Barclay continued persuasively, “all our files have been recoded with 240-bit encryption. Nobody’s getting in, boss.”

Davis pursed his lips, thinking furiously. He usually trusted Aaron Barclay’s instincts.

But Barclay wasn’t looking good these days. He had bags under his eyes so big they could be checked in at the airline counter. Davis watched as Barclay’s fingers drummed nervously on the booklet.

Barclay’s hands shook and there was a distinct whiff of the unwashed about him. He was in bad shape. “It’s your call, boss,” Barclay said.

“Yeah, it is.” Davis sighed, mentally saying goodbye to a peaceful Thanksgiving holiday. He was going to take a lot of flak on this one. He picked up the phone. “I’m going with my gut on this one. We’re pulling her out.”

* * * * *

She was trembling. Cooper could almost feel the air vibrate on the other side of the pickup’s cabin. Shit. He was behaving like an animal.

He’d left Sally for a week without even a phone call. Then he’d come back to grab her and drag her off to bed.

He had to be real careful, here. Attractive women had a long history of leaving Cooper men for much less than this. She was already a fucking miracle. He needed to hold on to her. No matter that he was burning up to be in her now, he had to behave better than this.

Cooper leaned over in the dark cab and kissed her, holding on tightly to the steering wheel so he wouldn’t be tempted to touch her. It was a light, gentle kiss. Sixteen-year-old-boy-out-on-first-date-with-school-cheerleader-kind-of-kiss. Her lips curved under his and her small hand cupped his cheek.

“Let’s go in,” he whispered against her mouth.

“Okay,” she sighed. He hadn’t had his tongue in her yet, his lips had just brushed hers, but he could smell the dark chocolate brownies Maisie had fed her on Sally’s breath. It was intoxicating.

Cooper’s jaw clenched when he helped her down and saw her shiver. She only had a shirt on in this subzero weather. He’d dragged her away so fast she hadn’t had time to grab her coat. He quickly unzipped his thick heavy parka and draped it over her shoulders.

She smiled up at him as if he’d showered her with rubies. “Thanks.”

Jesus. She was thanking him, instead of complaining about what an asshole he was. He cleared his throat as he put his arm around her. “No problem. Let’s get you inside; it’s freezing out here.”

Snow was falling, light flakes settling over the land like a gentle white blanket, muffling all sounds. Everyone in Simpson was in the diner. Her street was dark and silent. They could have been alone in the town, in the state, in the world.

Inside the door, Sally switched on the light and looked up at him. “Do you like it?” she asked as she shook the snow from his jacket.

Cooper was confused. Did he like her? What the hell did that mean? Hell, yes—then he followed her eyes and his own widened.

The sad, shabby little house was transformed. She’d painted the walls cream, made pretty cream and pink curtains and used the same material to make a tablecloth. The ugly cabbage rose sofa and armchairs were covered up with pale yellow lengths of cloth artistically knotted at the sides. A big glass bowl held quartz pebbles. Cooper recognized some of the stuff she’d bought at Schwab’s, but he never imagined they could make such a dramatic change to a room.