Agent to the Rescue. Lisa Childs

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СКАЧАТЬ drawn from beneath his tuxedo jacket, he slowly approached the vintage Mercedes.

      Its engine was still running, smoke trailing up from beneath its crumpled hood. The water in the gully sizzled from the heat of it. The Mercedes wasn’t going anywhere now. But the driver was gone—probably out the open passenger’s window.

      Dalton lifted his gun toward the woods on that side of the road. The driver had disappeared into them. But he could be close, just hiding behind a tree. Or he could be following a trail through those woods to that chop shop Dalton was determined to find. Since he was a city kid, he would probably get lost. But he started down toward the ditch, anyway, to follow the driver into those woods.

      Then the smooth soles of his once-shiny black dress shoes slipped on the loose gravel and the muddy bank. He started sliding toward the water—which he wouldn’t have minded falling into if the damn tux wasn’t an expensive rental. To steady himself, he grabbed at the Mercedes and braced his hand on the trunk. But then his hand slid the way his shoes had. He glanced down and figured out why when he saw the blood on his palm. It was also smeared beneath the dust across the trunk lid.

      Dread tightened his stomach into a tight knot. Growing up where he had and working in the division he worked, he had already found more than his share of bodies in car trunks. But he suspected he was about to find another.

      He had nothing on him to pry open the lid or to break the lock. So he took the easy way and kicked in the driver’s window, which started an alarm blaring. Then he reached inside for the trunk-lid release button. Fortunately the car wasn’t so vintage that it hadn’t come equipped with some more up-to-date features. The button clicked, and the trunk lid flew up, waving like a flag in the woods.

      It wasn’t a surrender flag, though, because the driver had fled into the woods and apparently for a damn good reason, too. Even if the car wasn’t stolen, he would have had some trouble explaining the body in the trunk.

      Sun shone through the trees of the thick woods and glinted off that trunk lid. It was such a beautiful day for a wedding. Dalton should have stayed at the stuffy little church and celebrated with his deservedly happy friends. Instead, he had nearly wiped out on some back roads and probably stumbled upon a murder victim.

      He drew in a deep breath of fresh air to brace himself for what he would find in the trunk. Then he walked around to the rear of the Mercedes.

      White lace, stained with blood, spilled over the bumper. He forced himself to look inside the trunk. The woman’s face was so pale but for the blood smeared on it. And her long hair, tangled around her head, was nearly as red as her blood.

      He recognized the dress, since he had just seen a gown eerily similar to it. But that bride had been alive and happy. This bride was dead. He reached into the trunk to confirm it, his fingers sliding over her throat where her pulse would have been—had she had one any longer.

      Something moved beneath his fingertips—in a faint and weak rhythm. He looked down again just as her eyelids fluttered open. Her eyes were a pale, almost silvery, gray, and they were wide with confusion and then fear.

      She screamed and struck out, hitting and kicking at him, as she fought him for her life.

      * * *

      THE SCREAM STOPPED him cold, abruptly halting his headlong escape through the forest. He had heard that scream before—seconds before he’d thought he had killed the woman. Hell, he’d been certain he’d killed her.

      How could she be alive?

      It wasn’t possible...

      More important, it wasn’t acceptable.

      He had let the state trooper distract him. With his heart pounding in his chest with fear and nerves, he hadn’t known how to react to that police car behind him. At first he’d driven normally, hoping that the trooper wouldn’t notice the missing plate—hoping that he would give up following him for some more interesting radio call.

      But the trooper must have called in someone else—some other agency—because then he’d noticed the black SUV. And his every instinct had screamed at him to drive as fast as he could—to outrun that vehicle.

      Instead, he had let it run him off the road—into that damn ditch. He’d barely escaped the vehicle before the guy had run up to it.

      In a tux...

      What kind of government agent wore a tuxedo?

      The kind that had happened into the wrong situation at the wrong time.

      He had to go back. He couldn’t leave the woman alive. And if he had to, he would kill the man along with her. And this time, he would make damn certain that she was really dead.

       Chapter Two

      “It’s okay...” The man uttered the claim in a deep voice. “You’re safe.” But he held a gun in one hand while he grasped her wrists with the other.

      His hands were so big that he easily clasped both her wrists in one, restraining her. So she kicked. Or at least she tried. But heavy fabric tangled around her legs, holding her down...inside the trunk of a car.

      Fear overwhelmed her as she realized that she had been locked inside that trunk—until this man had opened the lid. She needed to get out; she needed to run. But her head throbbed. A blaring alarm intensified the pain, and her vision blurred as unconsciousness threatened to overwhelm her again. She could barely focus on the man.

      He was so big and muscular that he towered over her. Thick dark hair framed a tanned face. And dark eyes stared down at her. He looked as shocked as she felt.

      She struggled again, tugging on her wrists to free them from his grasp. But his hand held her. She fought to move her legs, but they were trapped under the weight of whatever she was wearing.

      She glanced down, and all the white nearly blinded her. White lace. White silk. Except for the red spots, which dropped onto the fabric like rain. She was bleeding. Not only had she been locked inside the trunk of a car, she had been wounded.

      How badly?

      Panic pressed on her, constricting her lungs. But she gathered her strength, opened her mouth and screamed again. Her voice was weak, too, though, and only a soft cry emerged from her throat this time.

      “You have no reason to be afraid anymore,” the man told her. “You’re safe now. You’re safe.”

      Her vision cleared enough that she could see him more clearly. He wore a black jacket with a dark red rose pinned to one of the shiny silk lapels. His shirt was whiter than the dress she was wearing. A black bow tie hung loose around the collar of that shirt.

      He was wearing a tuxedo and she was dressed in what had to be a wedding gown. What sick scenario did he have planned for her? Or had it already taken place?

      She couldn’t remember what had happened and how she had ended up in the trunk of a car. Since she couldn’t change what had already happened, she concentrated instead on the present—on what was happening now and where she was. She peered around him—to the forest surrounding the vehicle that was upended in a ditch. He had brought her to the middle of nowhere.

      And СКАЧАТЬ