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In the distance she heard sirens, or so she thought. She couldn’t be certain, because she heard ringing bells, too. What difference did it make, anyway? She hadn’t called the cops.
Drawing a deep breath as silently as she could, battling the urge to sneeze as she inhaled whatever dust her vacuum had left in the rug, she rolled over swiftly and swung her fist and keys at the man who knelt beside her.
Moving with the speed of a striking snake, he caught her wrist. “It’s okay,” he said. “FBI. You’re safe now.”
Still holding her wrist, he reached toward his belt and pulled his badge clip free, holding it up. “Can you see?” he asked.
She swallowed. “Yeah.”
“Are you going to try to hit me again?”
“No.”
He let go of her wrist. “Don’t move,” he said. “The paramedics are on the way. I don’t know how bad you’re hurt. You have a scalp wound, and you were out for a while.”
“There were two of them,” she said. “I saw one and went after him, but another one got behind me and hit me.” Just the memory of it made her mad, and the adrenaline kicked in again. “Damn it!”
Ignoring the painful drumbeat in her head, she started to sit, but he caught her shoulders as she was halfway up. “Which part of ‘don’t move’ did you not understand?”
As the room began to spin around her, she realized he was right. It was worse than being at sea during a storm. Her stomach lurched, and she turned her head, fighting back the urge to vomit.
“Cancel the ambulance,” she said, slowly rolling onto her hands and knees, then crawling to her overturned couch and resting her cheek against the satiny fabric. If she could just make the world stop spinning, she would be fine. Really.
“I’m not going to do that,” he said.
“Are you going to pay the bill?” she asked, hearing herself almost mumble. “I don’t have insurance anymore.”
“Why not?”
“I got fired today.”
She closed her eyes for a few moments, letting the world settle down. When she opened them again, he was still kneeling where he’d been, making no attempt to approach her. Late thirties, she guessed, with a carved, hardened look you didn’t often see on FBI agents, who spent most of their lives at desks. This one had spent some time in the elements. His expression was kind, though, his mossy-green eyes concerned.
“Who are you?” she asked. “And what is the FBI doing in my living room?”
“Special Agent Jerrod Westlake. I worked on the Mercator case. You’re going to testify on Monday.”
Subject. Plus. Verb. Equals. Sentence. Except there was something missing. “That doesn’t explain you being here.”
“I just heard that Mercator bought your newspaper. I figured it might be wise to make sure no one prevented you from testifying.”
She leaned her head back. “Too late. I testified this morning. Then I was fired. Then I was robbed. If you’re supposed to be my knight in shining armor, you’re a little late. The joust is over, and I got skewered.”
He shifted, sitting cross-legged. “So it would seem. Unless there’s something I don’t know.”
Damned if she was going to tell him or anyone else. Right now, lying low and acting dumb seemed the smartest strategy, much as it flew in the face of her nature.
The paramedics arrived, complete with backboard, neck collar and that horrendously big case of stuff they used on people. At least it silenced the FBI guy’s questions.
They examined her, questioned her, took her blood pressure and tested her pupil reflexes, all the while asking her what day it was, who was president, and all kinds of other things to make sure her brain was still present and accounted for.
“You need stitches,” the female half of the team said to her. “Maybe six or so, and you should get a skull X-ray. Otherwise, you’re stable.”
They stuck a piece of gauze over the wound and secured it to her head with more gauze wrapping.
“I must look like the mummy,” Erin muttered.
The woman laughed. “You’re definitely okay.”
The police arrived just as the paramedics were leaving. The medics answered questions about Erin’s injury, then disappeared down the stairs.
“The whole damn world is lumbering through my life,” she remarked, seated against the couch. Nothing had gone according to plan since she’d left court that morning. Not one damn thing.
She might as well have been talking to herself. She couldn’t see another victim in the room, but the cops seemed more interested in her FBI rescuer. It took a minute or so, but she realized that they considered Agent Westlake’s presence to be an indicator that Erin must be up to her neck in something unsavory. She considered arguing with them, but her head chose that moment to remind her that it wasn’t happy. She winced and closed her eyes.
It didn’t matter anyway, because Westlake straightened them out.
“Ms. McKenna is a journalist. She’s also a witness in a federal criminal case. I received information that she might be in danger, so I came to check on her. I only wish I’d gotten here sooner.”
Go Agent Westlake, she thought. She was getting sleepy, and she didn’t like that, so she forced her eyes open. “The only thing I did wrong,” she announced, forcing them all to pay attention to her again, “was investigate fraud on a government contract. I guess that’s a mistake I shouldn’t make again.”
Not that she meant it. Hell, no.
Unfortunately, her bid not to be ignored in the catastrophe of her own life brought the detective over to her with his notebook.
“There were two,” she said in answer to his question. “I saw one of them as he came out of my bedroom. The other one hit me from behind, and that’s all I know.”
“What did he look like?”
“Who? The guy who came out of my bedroom? Average height. Average build. Average ski mask.”
Detective Flannery lifted one eyebrow. “Cute,” he said.
Erin managed to shrug one shoulder. “I wish I could tell you more, but they came ready for me, I guess. He was wearing gloves. I couldn’t pick him out of a lineup.”
Flannery almost smirked. Behind him, Jerrod emitted a small laugh.
“Is anything missing?”
“Good question. I have no idea. Might have something to do with being knocked unconscious.”
“Do you give everyone a hard time, even when they’re trying to help you?”
“Probably. I haven’t asked around.” She squeezed her eyes closed, then opened them again. “You’ll have to help me up if you want to know what’s gone. I seem to be on a slow-moving carousel.”
Flannery and Westlake obliged, helping her gently to her feet. In one scan she saw the crucial missing items. Or rather, the editor in her brain corrected, she didn’t see some crucial items. “My computer is gone. All my DVDs and CDs,” she said.
“But not the TV,” Flannery remarked. “Did you have a stereo?”
“Who, me? With what they paid me, I was lucky to afford that DVD player on sale. And that’s still here.”
A creeping sense of danger was beginning to run up and down her spine. Discs and computer gone? But not TV and DVD player? “This is weird,” she announced.
“Maybe you interrupted them before they could finish.”
“Maybe.” But she didn’t believe it. She looked at Westlake and saw that his eyes were narrowed, as if he wasn’t buying that, either.
“She needs to go to the hospital,” Jerrod reminded the detective. “I doubt, given the masks and gloves, that you’ll ever know who they were.”
“Not likely,” Flannery agreed, but in a way that suggested he didn’t want to cede an inch to the Feds. “Take her to the hospital, then. We’ll get the crime unit in, and she can give us a list of missing items later.”
“I can’t afford the hospital,” she reminded Jerrod.
“Sure you can. You’re the victim of a crime. The state will reimburse your expenses.”
“The hospital won’t let me through the door. I did a story on the health-care system recently. You wouldn’t believe how many Samaritans aren’t good.”
“They’ll let you in. Under COBRA, you still have insurance, but if it comes to that, I have plastic.”
“Witness protection?”
He half smiled. “Whatever it takes.”
She didn’t argue. She didn’t want to stay amidst the ruins of her life. And since thieves had already been through every inch of her apartment, she could hardly feel any more violated by the police following them.
She had to lean heavily on Jerrod to make it down the two flights of stairs. Her knees had begun to wobble as the adrenaline rush wore off. “I hate this,” she announced as they reached the street.
“Few people enjoy being robbed and battered.”
“I didn’t mean that. I hate not being able to take care of myself.”
He fell silent as he opened the door of what was apparently his vehicle. Flex Fuel, the dashboard announced with a fancy plate. Under other circumstances she would have asked about it, but right now she lacked the reporter’s energy to ask a bazillion questions.
He helped her buckle in, then closed the door. The heavy thud of the black SUV’s door was solid, sounding like safety.
He climbed in behind the wheel, and a few seconds later, pulled out into Houston’s late-afternoon traffic. He seemed to know his way around.
“How did you get on the Mercator case?” she asked, trying to distract herself from her mega discomfort.
“I was stationed here in Houston when your story came out in Fortune. I was part of the investigation.”
“Ah.” She closed her eyes, since the traffic seemed to want to spin around her. “I was pretty surprised that the FBI paid any attention to that article.”
“Why wouldn’t we?”
“Mercator is powerful, with powerful friends.”
“Thanks a lot.”
She tried to look at him, then decided the effort wasn’t worth it. “I didn’t mean it as a criticism of you.”
“Sure you did. The thing is, at my level, politics don’t matter. The law does.”
“I wish there were more of you. But right now I can only see two in the seat beside me.”
That got his attention. “You’re seeing double?”
“Not really. Well, only once or twice.”
“Christ.”
“You aren’t supposed to use that word around reporters and other persons not on the inside of your club.”
He surprised her with a short laugh. “I know some other words I shouldn’t use, too.”
“Who doesn’t? Well, don’t guard your tongue with me. I have a few favorites you might be hearing.”
“Curse away.”
She sighed and carefully lowered her chin to her chest. “Agent Westlake?”
“Jerrod, please.”
“Jerrod. I don’t think the break-in was a coincidence.”
He looked at her. “Duh. The question is why it happened after you testified.”
His comment was almost a question, but not quite. She chose to equivocate. “The question indeed.”
But she had a pretty damn good idea.
3
Four hours and five staples later, Erin was back in the car with Jerrod. In her lap were a bottle of pain meds and standard discharge instructions for wound care and dealing with a concussion. The doctor had wanted to keep her overnight for observation. Jerrod, too, had argued for the stay. Yet here she was, on the way back to her apartment.
“You’re stubborn,” Jerrod remarked.
“You don’t survive in my business if you aren’t.”
“Same here.”
“How cool is that? We have something in common besides Mercator.”
He chuckled. “Amazing, isn’t it?”
She half smiled. At least her lips were remembering that it was possible.
“But you’re not staying at your place.”
