Official Escort

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“And what do you think that’s going to accomplish, except to make you a target?”

“I’ll take my chances on their protecting me, even if one or more of them is in Griff’s pay.”

She was offering to free him of any responsibility for her, giving him the chance to focus all of his energy on clearing himself. So tempting. Only, he couldn’t accept her offer, not when it meant he would be failing Neil. Because whatever else Mitch had either lost or intentionally abandoned after Julie’s death, he was still a man of his word. That much he’d been unable to shed.

“Yeah, why not? It’s your life if you want to risk it. Except a lot of people are counting on you to stay healthy long enough to put Griff Matisse away where he belongs. Neil was one of those people.”

His tactic worked. She was immediately apologetic. “Yes, you’re right. I wasn’t thinking. Then, what do we do? Go back to your farm?”

Mitch knew that neither of them was happy about that prospect. In any case, returning to the farm was out of the question. Although Neil wouldn’t have shared the existence of the place with any of his colleagues—not when he had chosen it as a sanctuary for Madeline—his daughter knew about the farm. So, perhaps, did his neighbor. And under the circumstances, neither would hesitate to reveal their knowledge.

“No good,” he said. “It’s the first place the cops will look.”

“Then, where or who do we turn to?”

Under other circumstances, that would have been an easy question for Mitch to answer. A single phone call would have provided them with immediate assistance from his family. But Mitch’s family wasn’t available. Every member of the Hawke clan was out of the country on a holiday cruise. He was supposed to have joined them, but he couldn’t bring himself to celebrate anything this year.

“There is no one. Neil was the only contact we could trust, and now that he’s gone, Milwaukee is no longer safe for you.”

She was quiet as she gazed out at the lagoon. Then she said, “There’s something I’ve learned since leaving San Francisco. I’m not really safe anywhere as long as Griff Matisse is free and so powerful that he has connections everywhere. So I might as well return now to San Francisco. At least there the DA’s office wants so badly to put him behind bars that they’ll go to extra lengths to protect me until the trial. Maybe their safe house is ready for me by now.”

Mitch wasn’t happy about that safe house. Neil had explained it as the reason for the delay in San Francisco’s sending an escort to return Madeline to California. But Mitch had sensed all along that something wasn’t right about this explanation. For the moment, though, he was prepared to put that argument aside.

He could see Madeline was determined, that it would be a wasted effort to challenge her decision. He had a better method for handling this situation.

“All right,” he said, “what do you want me to do?”

If she was surprised by his easy compliance, she didn’t say so. “Drive me to the airport and put me on a flight. That’s all I ask.”

“Sounds simple enough. Then, once you’re in the air, I can start clearing myself of Neil’s death.”

“Exactly.”

Mitch made no objection. There would be time enough once they were under way to make her understand that her plan wasn’t going to work. That he had no intention of simply dumping her in Matisse’s backyard and forgetting about her. Oh, she would be flying to San Francisco, all right, providing this weather hadn’t already canceled all flights, but it would be under his terms.

He started the engine. “One thing, though,” he said. “You can’t just land in San Francisco without security of some sort waiting there to meet you. We have to let the DA’s office know you’re coming.”

She thought about that and then nodded. She was being calm about the whole thing, but he knew she had to be scared. What she intended involved considerable risk.

“Look,” he suggested, “I noticed a public phone back there near the picnic shelter.” They would have to use a public phone because, in his hurry to deliver Madeline to Neil, he’d left his cell phone at the farm. “Let me make the call for you. I know the assistant DA, Gloria Rodriguez. She’s a woman I trust, and right now you need someone like that in your corner. Besides, you’ll need to know if that safe house is ready and, if it isn’t, what alternative she has to guarantee that you’re fully protected.”

She considered his offer and apparently saw the advantages of it. “All right.”

Mitch drove them back through the park to the rustic picnic shelter at the side of the lane. When he pulled over and started to slide out of the pickup, she opened her door with the intention of accompanying him.

“What are you doing?”

“I said you could make the call for me. I didn’t say I wouldn’t be listening in on it.”

Damn it, he had counted on her staying in the truck. There were things he hadn’t wanted her to hear until the arrangements were settled, after which it would be too late for her to object. But she wasn’t giving him any choice. Okay, so she’d learn the program now, and whatever her reaction, he would deal with it.

There had been a lull in the snowfall, but now the stuff was coming down again at a furious rate. The phone was located in a glass-walled stall that was open at the front, offering little protection from the weather. Coat collars turned up, shoulders hunched, they were squeezed side by side against the instrument.

But it wasn’t the wet snow in his hair and down his neck that made Mitch miserable as they waited for the assistant DA to come on the line. In that tight place he was aware of Madeline’s closeness, her warmth breath steaming on the air and mingling with his, the provocative scent of her hair near his face, the creamy smoothness of her cheek almost touching his. These were the sensations that made him uncomfortable. Never mind that this was the wrong place, the wrong time, the wrong woman. He was still aroused.

And relieved when Gloria Rodriguez’s sane, familiar voice finally reached his ear. “Mitchell Hawke, is that you? What on earth—”

He interrupted her by asking if she was alone in her office and if the line she was speaking on was secure. Once assured of that, he described the situation for the assistant DA as succinctly as possible, holding the phone so that Madeline could hear the conversation.

There was a pause after Mitch explained Madeline’s wish to return immediately to San Francisco. Madeline’s questioning gaze met his, and he knew she could sense it, too—the unmistakable anxiety in the silence on the other end. It was more than Gloria’s shock over learning that Neil was dead. Something was wrong.

“Mitch,” the woman finally said, her tone decidedly reluctant, “this isn’t wise.”

“It’s necessary. Hell, Gloria, she isn’t safe here in Wisconsin.”

“The thing is…”

“What?”

“We may not be able to guarantee her safety in San Francisco, either.”

And that’s when she told them. How her office wasn’t sure where the leak had originated. How it might be either in Milwaukee or in San Francisco. Because it was only after all the particulars, along with Madeline’s deposition, had been sent to San Francisco by Neil that the attempt had been made on her life in the Milwaukee safe house. Which meant that the information on her could have been relayed from California to one of Matisse’s connections in Milwaukee. They didn’t know. They were trying to discover the source, but they just didn’t know.

So that, Mitch thought grimly, had been the reason for the delay in returning Madeline to San Francisco. Preparing a safe house for her had either been an excuse or not the important issue, which was to try to plug that leak. He’d been right in not trusting Neil’s explanation.

And why hadn’t Neil trusted him with the truth? Because he hadn’t known it himself? Or had he not wanted Mitch to know just how complicated the situation was?

“Gloria, Neil’s killer is somewhere on the loose in this town. He’s not going to rest until he finds Madeline Raeburn. And if this guy is hiding behind a badge, she doesn’t stand a chance, not with the whole Milwaukee police department behind him. So you tell me, just who do we trust at this point?”

“I see what you mean. Under the circumstances, it would be better if she’s here in San Francisco where my office can directly control the situation. Also, the DA has changed his mind and isn’t comfortable about sanctioning Matisse’s arrest until the witness is back in California.”

California maybe, Mitch thought, but not San Francisco. Not with Griff Matisse sitting right there waiting for her. Mitch had his own ideas on the subject of a safe house, but he didn’t think this was a smart time to share them with either the DA’s office or Madeline. His plan could wait.

“Mitch,” Gloria went on, “can you hole up with Ms. Raeburn somewhere long enough for me to send a reliable officer to escort her back? I want her fully protected on that flight.”

“She will be,” he said, his gaze on Madeline’s face. “I’m escorting her myself.”

Her eyes registered astonishment and then anger. She tried to snatch the phone out of his hand, but he’d anticipated her reaction and held it out of her reach.

Hearing their scuffle, Gloria sounded alarmed. “What’s going on there? Is something wrong?”

Mitch managed to get his mouth against the phone. “Ms. Raeburn is just expressing her happiness over my being her personal bodyguard on the flight, that’s all.”