Dangerous Curves Read online

  The rest room was no cleaner than she felt, but at least there were plenty of paper towels and a full soap dispenser. Sam scrubbed her face, hands and arms until her fingers puckered, but the blood was gone Reluctantly, she stared at herself in the mirror The fluorescent light made her look sickly. She looked better than she had, but she still didn’t feel clean. Dizziness blurred her image in the mirror and she had to grip the basin until it passed.

  The hand dryer was a luxury. She stood in front of it until the nurse’s uniform felt less damp. She still smelled like cau de swamp, but it was an improvement. Aware that time had passed, she left the bathroom with some reluctance and headed back to the booth.

  Jake was gone.

  Startled, she looked around the deserted diner and spotted him by the door. The small entryway was crowded with a phone booth, cigarette machine and newspaper stand. lake had his back to her and she couldn’t tell which convenience he’d been using. If he was making a phone call at this hour, he could only be calling the police. Panic clawed at her insides, holding her in place for a moment too long; he turned to her as she started to back away.

  He moved quickly down the aisle toward her. “Wondered what happened to you.” He had a newspaper tucked under his arm. “I’ve been up at the lake for a week and thought I’d catch up on what’s been going on in the world.”

  “I think it’s too soon to be seeing my picture in the papers.” Sam glanced back toward the rest room, trying to remember if there had been a window. She couldn’t recall. Her memory felt fuzzy around the edges.

  “You’re probably right,” Jake answered, sitting down at the booth and looking at her expectantly. She settled back in the booth and watched his face. Maybe he was telling the truth. Maybe he really did want to help her.

  “You look better.”

  “Yeah, a real beauty queen, I’m sure.” She pretended a keen interest in the saltshaker to avoid meeting his eyes.

  “So where do you go from here?”

  “I told you, Key Vest.”

  “Figure you need a vacation?”

  “That’s where the film is.”

  He didn’t respond, and for that she was grateful. He almost seemed to want to believe her. The silence dragged out and she watched the window, feeling his eyes on her. She wanted to say something, to thank him for his help. But this sort of thing wasn’t covered by Emily Post and the words stuck in her throat.

  The waitress squeaked over just then, weighed down with two large platters heaped with hamburgers and fries. The amount of grease alone could kill her, but Sam dug into her meal with gusto.

  “I guess you were hungry,” Jake said, his own burger disappearing at a more leisurely rate.

  “Starving.” Sam glanced up at him and saw him looking out the window. From his side of the booth he had a better view of the parking lot. Sam tensed. “What is it?”

  Jake tried to smile at her but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was a rat. He had nothing to feel bad about. She was a murderer and probably insane to boot. It was his duty to turn her in. “Nothing. Just another late-night diner.”

  “Oh,” Sam mumbled around another bite of burger. He watched her bent head and felt bad anyway. Then he turned his gaze back to the window.

  Two cars had pulled into the roped-off parking lot. One man got out of the light-colored Ford while two others exited a dark sedan. Jake recognized Greg Tilton as the first man. He’d called Greg while Sam was in the ladies’ room. He didn’t recognize the two guys in suits—and that didn’t sit well with him at all.

  They weren’t in uniform and they sure as hell didn’t look like feds. He’d warned Greg that Sam was likely to bolt and he didn’t want her to get hurt, no matter what she’d done. He glanced across the table, but Sam was busy mopping her fries in a puddle of catsup.

  When he turned back to the window, something was wrong— seriously wrong. Greg was struggling with one of the men. Jake’s hand automatically went to his side, but his holster wasn’t there. Before he could go to Greg’s aid, he watched his friend crumple to his knees. The man Greg had been struggling with stepped away, the dark silhouette of a gun in his hand. It must have been equipped with a silencer because Jake hadn’t heard a shot. Greg slumped to the ground and the two men turned toward the diner.

  Jake’s mind raced. A silencer on a police weapon? Not likely. Every instinct in him screamed to get the hell out of there, even as his mind told him he couldn’t leave Greg. Instinct won out.

  “Let’s go.” Jake stood and reached for Sam’s arm.

  “Now? Why?”

  “I said, let’s go.” Jake pulled her up and headed to the counter, pulling a crumpled ten-dollar bill out of his pocket “Is there a back door?” he asked the waitress.

  The sleepy-eyed waitress looked at him suspiciously. “Through the kitchen. But why—”

  Jake didn’t let her finish. He dragged his protesting companion behind him, his mind churning with questions. What the hell had he gotten himself into?

  The cook was dozing in a corner of the kitchen and jerked awake at the intrusion. “Don’t mind us,” Jake said, pushing open the wide metal door and slipping out into the darkened parking lot, Sam tripping on his heels.

  “What the hell was that all about?” she complained, putting some distance between the two of them.

  “Just get in.” He opened the passenger door and shoved her in. “And stay down.”

  Jake climbed behind the wheel and started the engine. The two goons in suits had to be in the restaurant by now and would realize any second that they’d lost their target.

  He eased out of the parking lot and onto the highway, checking his rearview mirror. The cars were still there and so was Greg’s body. Jake wished for a police radio. He floored the accelerator, adrenaline coursing through his veins as steadily as the hum of the engine. They were eating up the highway, heading for the interstate. Within moments, he saw headlights bearing down on them.

  “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

  “Someone just got killed back there,” Jake ground out, watching the rearview mirror. He pushed the accelerator to the floor, taking the on-ramp at a dangerous speed. The squeal of tires on the pavement filled the dead, humid air.

  “What? Are you sure?” Sam clung to the seat with one hand while hurriedly fastening her seat belt with the other.

  “I’m sure. A cop—a friend of mine—just took a bullet in the chest.”

  “This isn’t real,” she moaned.

  “Believe it. It’s real.”

  Fletcher hung his head over the seat and slurped at Jake’s ear. “Sorry, buddy, forgot to get you something,” Jake said. The car was gaining on them.

  Sam turned in her seat and looked out the back of the sport utility. “Who is that?”

  “Why don’t you tell me?”

  “You called the police.” Her voice was flat. Jake felt that rat feeling again and the gut-shot realization that he’d gotten Greg killed.

  “Yeah.”

  “I thought you wanted to help me.”

  He couldn’t take it. “Look, lady, what did you expect? You killed a fed and escaped from a mental institution! Did you think I’d just drop you off on the corner and tell you to have a nice day?” He glanced over at her, but she was staring straight ahead, her arms wrapped around her.

  “Now my friend is dead,” Jake finished, conscious of the car coming up fast behind them. They’d passed three exits on the interstate as they headed south. Only a couple more exits and he could lose them.

  Their wheels screeched as they careened around the curve of the off-ramp and for a moment he felt a weightless sensation as his stomach caught up with him. The four-lane divided highway didn’t give them the safety they needed. Jake had to get off the main roads if he bad any hope of losing their pursuers. Now the sedan was riding their bumper, a menacing shadow in the darkness. A noise ripped the air and the tinkling sound of glass made Jake slide down low in his seat.

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p; “What was that?” Sam yelled, sinking lower in her own seat. Fletcher whined and Jake took a corner on what felt like two wheels. They were in a neighborhood subdivision now—not one that Jake was very familiar with.

  “They’re shooting at us. Stay down!”

  Jake saw the next corner coming up and reflexively braced his body in the seat. Two cars parked on either side of the road narrowed the two-lane street to barely one, but he managed to squeeze past them. In the rearview mirror Jake watched the sedan overshoot the turn and slam into the front fender of one of the parked cars. Before Jake even had a chance to get his bearings, the sedan jerked into reverse, straightened and then was on them again. But at least they had nearly a block lead now.

  “Can’t you lose them?” Sam asked, her voice absurdly calm under the circumstances.

  “I’m trying!” Jake jerked the wheel to the left, flying around another corner. This time there were no parked cars to impede their pursuers and the sedan’s headlights appeared around the corner behind them.

  “Well, try harder!”

  “If you think you could do a better job, you’re welcome to it!” Jake turned the wheel at the last minute and flew around another corner. Sam slammed into the passenger door and Fletcher skittered across the back of the sport utility.

  “If they don’t get us killed, you will!”

  Three more corners later, the sedan didn’t reappear. “I think we lost them.” Jake looked over at Sam.

  “Great.” She rested her head against the back of the seat.

  “Only one problem.”

  “What now?”

  “We’re lost.”

  Sam groaned. “I thought cops didn’t get lost. I thought cops knew where everything was.”

  “I’m not lost-lost. I just don’t know how to get out of this neighborhood. Why don’t they number the streets anymore?” Jake peered out the windshield at the street signs. “Everything has to have a name. Oakview. Oak Place. Oak Root. I’ve lived in south Florida all my life and I’ve never seen an oak tree.”

  Shaking his head, Jake maneuvered through the darkened streets, past a community swimming pool and playground. There was no sign of the sedan and he relaxed a little. Finally, he found the road back to the main highway. All the lanes were empty.

  “Leave it to me to find a cop with a lousy sense of direction,” Sam grumbled as they sped down the highway going away from the interstate. She should just get out now. The only problem with that was she’d never been fond of jumping from a moving vehicle.

  “Ex-cop.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Hey, I saved your butt back there. The least you could do is thank me.”

  “Thanks, but no thanks You were going to turn my butt in, if you recall,” she reminded him. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d just as soon take my chances with the criminals on the street.”

  “Out here, you’re more likely to get adopted by a senior citizen than mugged by a criminal.” he said.

  “Are you going to let me out or not?”

  Jake turned into another subdivision, and she tensed. Where was he going now? “Yeah. In just a minute.”

  They drove down a couple of streets, then Jake turned into a cul-de-sac of similar-looking houses. As they pulled into the driveway of one of the houses, he turned off the headlights.

  “Where are we?”

  Pushing the button for the garage-door opener, Jake eased the sport utility inside next to a pale blue minivan. “Home.”

  Sam reached for the door. “No way. Uh-uh. If you think for one minute I’m going to—”

  He grabbed her arm in a vise-like grip. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  Fear had her heart trip-hammering in her chest. “Wh-what?” She’d been right the first time; the guy was some nut. As the garage door closed behind them, taking the last thin strands of light cast by the streetlamp, Sam trembled. When the door finally creaked shut and they were plunged into total darkness, she knew that the worst was not behind her. Not by a long shot.

  “Stay here. The light is burned out and I don’t want you to trip over something,” he ordered, leaving her alone. The dog whined from the back seat. She felt like doing the same, huddling in the oppressive darkness that left her helpless. He’d told her to stay, but she couldn’t have found her way out of the sport utility if she’d tried.

  A fluorescent light flickered on over a workbench, illuminating the garage. Shelves lined the walls, piled high with assorted tools and other guy stuff that Sam didn’t have the vaguest clue about. She did recognize a table saw in the corner and shivered What had she gotten herself into this time?

  Jake stood at a door leading into the house. “Come on in. I won’t call the cops again. Not until I figure out what the hell just happened.”

  It wasn’t the most comforting thing he could have said, but it didn’t sound like he intended to cut her up into little pieces—yet. She opened the door and stepped into the garage, inhaling the scent of wood and grease. She started to close the door behind her when the dog barked.

  “Sorry,” she mumbled as the large brown mutt squeezed out of the back seat and trotted to his master.

  Jake scratched his ears and then patted him on the rump. “Come on, Fletcher. Let’s get you some dinner.” He looked over his shoulder as he disappeared into the darkened house. “You coming, or would you rather sleep in the garage?”

  Sam wanted to answer but a black wave of dizziness and nausea swept over her again. This time, it won.

  Chapter 3

  Jake watched Sam with equal parts fascination and dread. His heart had nearly stopped when he saw her lying on the garage floor. Checking her pulse and determining she wasn’t dead, he’d earned her into the house. He cleaned up the scratches on her hands and knees. Tremors periodically racked her body and her skin had the pasty green look of someone who had been ill for a long time.

  She belonged in a hospital, most likely. He kept telling himself he needed to just wash his hands of this whole situation. But the image of Greg being gunned down in cold blood kept him from making any calls. Somebody wanted this woman badly and they didn’t care who died. Jake had to find out exactly what was at stake before he did anything.

  He applied another cool compress to her forehead and was rewarded with a groan from the unconscious woman.

  “What—?” Weak as a newborn kitten, she lifted a trembling hand to push him away.

  “You passed out.” He restrained her gently, reapplying the damp cloth.

  “Oh.” Her eyes focused on his face. “Where am I?” She gestured around the room with its pale lavender walls and four-poster bed draped in yards of white eyelet fabric.

  “You weren’t in any condition to walk and the garage floor isn’t the most comfortable place to spend the night.”

  “This is your bedroom?” she croaked, her eyes going wide at the lacy white curtains and the white wicker furniture.

  “Doesn’t it look like me?” He would have laughed if the situation hadn’t been so strange.

  Sam shook her head and winced in obvious pain. “No. But your wife did a nice job with the decorating Very feminine.”

  It bothered him that she thought he was married. He didn’t know why. Of course, if he’d been married he probably would have caught all kinds of hell for picking her up in the first place. “Sorry, no wife.”

  He watched her gaze travel from his eyes to his mouth. He grinned and she frowned. “So, you like lavender?” she asked finally.

  “Can’t stand it, actually. But this isn’t my room so it doesn’t matter.”

  “Then would you tell me whose bed I’m in?”

  The exasperated tone of her voice coaxed a full-fledged smile from him. She was one tough little cookie. “It’s my sister’s room—her house, for that matter.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Paris. Annie’s a French teacher at Coconut Springs High. She’s spending a year in France as part of an exchange program. I’m supposed to make sure
no unsavory characters get in. Looks like I failed.” His attempt at humor only brought another dark look to Sam’s face.

  “I didn’t ask you to. For that matter, I didn’t ask you to get involved.”

  “Funny, you seemed pretty intent on involving me when you asked me to hide you from that cop,” Jake said, all traces of humor gone.

  “Fine. Whatever. Just let me rest for a while and I’ll be on my way.”

  He watched the way her hands trembled as she pushed back her hair. Realization struck him like a blow. “What are you on?” His voice was harsher than he’d intended and she recoiled from him, fear in her eyes. He tried again. “What are you taking?”

  “I’m not ‘taking’ anything!”

  The sarcasm in her voice rankled on his nerves. He grabbed her wrists and held her hands at eye level, watching her fingers twitch uncontrollably. He could feel her whole body quake beneath his touch. “Don’t lie to me. You’ve got the shakes, sweetheart. What is it? Drugs or alcohol?” Not waiting for a reply, he pulled her hands toward him, looking at the pale blue veins running up her arms. No track marks.

  She jerked from his grasp, her eyes sparkling shards of emerald in her pale face. He didn’t know why he felt bad to have made her cry. God knew, he’d seen enough substance-abuse problems in his life to recognize a pitch for sympathy when he saw it But he was a sucker for a sweet face and big green eyes.

  “Drugs.”

  He’d wanted her to deny it, he wanted her to be different. He slammed the door on his feelings. “What kind?”

  She shook her head and met his gaze, her eyes steady even while her body trembled. “I—I don’t know,” her teeth chattered and he watched her fight for control. “Whatever they use at mental hospitals. Tranquillizers, I imagine. Strong stuff.”

  He took her at her word. For now. “When did you stop taking them?” If she’d been on heavy doses of tranks, the withdrawal would be hell.