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She closed her eyes. “Just shut up, will you? Whatever’s in that date book is none of your damn business, so drop it.”
“Fine.”
She leaned against the headrest and struggled not to just let it all out and cry her fool head off. At one time she would’ve bet her life that Tommy would always have her back. The man was integrity personified. Yet, here she was feeling betrayed by the very same man. Cassi twisted so that she could look out the window instead of at the man who was destroying any chance of getting her life back and—ironically—finding justice for her mother.
WHY DID HE FEEL AS IF HE was the one doing something wrong here? Thomas tightened his hands on the steering wheel and wondered if he hadn’t made a mistake in driving. Suddenly, that five-hour ride didn’t seem like a good idea. And what had he expected? It was unlikely Cassi was going to ignore the handcuffs and chatter away like old times. He wasn’t an idiot, even though his actions might indicate otherwise. He’d known all this…but he couldn’t resist the possibility of seeing her again…maybe even helping her through this mess she’d made for herself.
And now he felt like an idiot for even entertaining such thoughts. She wasn’t a damsel in distress. The woman was a far cry from the girl he’d known so long ago. This woman was a criminal…with a nasty punch. His head was still ringing.
So knowing all this…why was he feeling bad for her? He cast a quick glance her way then looked away again. Was that remorse in her expression? Her face, tilted away from him was in profile as she leaned against the glass. A tendril of something long lost kindled to life and reminded him of how he’d thought he was in love with her once.
“Tell me what you think it feels like to be in love,” a thirteen-year-old Cassi whispered from his memory of a day in late May. She’d been wearing a white sundress that dusted her knees and they’d stolen away to a meadow behind Mama Jo’s house on one of the occasions Cassi and her mother had had an argument. During those times, Cassi had often found her way to Thomas’s house, even though their homes weren’t exactly close. The warm breeze had lifted the honey-hued hair away from her face while her blue eyes had sparked with genuine curiosity. They’d tumbled to the tall grass and lay side by side on their stomachs, watching through the swaying green stalks as squirrels chased each other through the white ash trees and birds dipped and wheeled in the flawless cerulean sky.
He’d known the answer because he felt it every time he looked at her. “I think it makes your stomach all tight like someone’s squeezing it real hard, so much so that it hurts, but you don’t mind because it makes you want to be around that person, even when you’re not really doing anything special.”
She wrinkled her nose, not at all pleased with his theory. “That sounds like the stomach flu. Why would anyone want to fall in love if it made them want to throw up? No, I don’t think that’s how it is at all,” she announced firmly. “I think that when you’re in love you feel a tickle in your heart and you want to kiss that person all the time.”
Thomas’s young heart had stuttered at the thought of kissing Cassi. Cassi hadn’t noticed though and had simply sighed dreamily, saying, “I can’t wait to fall in love. I think I would like to kiss someone who wants to kiss me back.” Then an alarming thought had come to her and she sat a little straighter, turning to Thomas. “What if I never find someone who loves me? What if I go my entire life and no one wants to kiss me like that? Oh, Tommy, that’s an awful thought. I would die.”
And he’d wanted to reassure her that that would never happen because at that very moment he wanted to kiss her so bad his brain had simply stopped functioning. Then as he thought to lean forward to press his lips against hers in what would’ve been their first kiss, she’d leaned over and whispered conspiratorially, “Can you keep a secret?” He’d been dumbfounded as she giggled, admitting, “I think I’m going to fall in love with Billy Barton and I’m going to kiss him.”
His world had plummeted.
And Cassi’s first kiss had been with a boy who could burp the alphabet…not with Thomas. Their kiss wouldn’t happen for another four years.
Jerked back to the moment, he suffered the pang of that bittersweet childhood memory and was happy to push it away and focus on the here and now, not the been and gone.
“You hungry?” he asked gruffly.
She didn’t bother to answer.
He withheld a sigh. “Fine. Just asking.”
“Why you?” she asked him abruptly. He gave her a quick look and saw the glitter in her eyes. “Isn’t there some kind of conflict of interest, seeing as we have a history?” He could’ve lied but he couldn’t bring himself to utter a word. His silence was telling. She barked a short laugh. “You didn’t offer that information. Interesting,” she said, returning her gaze to the darkened landscape outside the window. “So, it seems Thomas Bristol isn’t always Dudley Do-Right when it suits his purposes to bend the rules.” She shrugged. “I’m the last person to judge for what you may consider obvious reasons but if there’s one thing I never pegged you for, it’s a hypocrite.”
“I’m not a hypocrite,” he bit out, his hackles rising at the mockery.
“Oh? I didn’t manage to finish college but I’m pretty sure I have a full grasp of the word’s meaning. Please explain to me how you are not indeed a hypocrite, judging by your actions? Is it not required for you to disclose any personal history or relationship with a suspect or prisoner?” He didn’t answer, which was good because she continued. “Ah, well. Like I said, if you’re Thomas Bristol, rules are simply guidelines but for everyone else, the law is black-and-white.”
It wasn’t like that but when she put it that way it sounded pretty damn bad. “You’re right. I didn’t tell my superior. I wanted—” to see you again “—to make sure that you were treated as fairly as possible given the situation. You know if you’d pulled that stunt back there with anyone else you might’ve gotten yourself killed. Did you think about that at all when you were going all kung fu on my ass?” She refused to look at him. He swore under his breath, wondering why he was wasting his time. “Forget it. You know, you’re right. I should’ve walked away the first time your file crossed my desk. I should’ve done an about-face and left you to whoever had the misfortune to get your case, but I didn’t because at first I thought there had to be a mistake. There’s no way the girl I used to know had turned into a criminal. But when I couldn’t deny it any longer I wanted to make sure that at the very least, you had someone who would treat you kindly.”
At that she gave him a brief look, derision twisting her mouth. “Kindly? This is your version of ‘kind’? Pardon me if I don’t subscribe to your brand of kindness,” she retorted and rubbed gingerly at her jaw with her bound hands.
“You seem to forget you cleaned my clock the first go-round.”
The corner of her lips twitched. “Of course I haven’t forgotten. I’m just wishing I hadn’t pulled my punch. Maybe the situation might have played out differently.”
She’d pulled her punch? He nearly did a double take. It’d felt as if she’d beaned him with a hammer. Gone was the girl who’d shied away from anything physical for fear of breaking a nail. “Where’d you learn to be such a bruiser?” he asked.
She didn’t look inclined to answer but after a drawn-out pause, she answered coolly. “You’d be surprised what I know.”
“At this point no, I wouldn’t,” he muttered.
CHAPTER FOUR
“I HAVE TO PEE,” SHE announced, looking to him to see if he cared. To be honest, she didn’t really need to go but it was a plausible excuse to get him to stop the car. They’d been traveling for about an hour and a half, and each mile away from New York and her precious date book made her panic level climb but she kept it under control. It wouldn’t do to have him know just how desperate she was feeling about this whole situation. She didn’t need to give him yet another piece of leverage to use against her. So, the excuse of bodily function seemed the best bet.
“How bad?” he asked.
“I’m about to soak your leather interior. Is that bad enough?”
“Can you hold it another few minutes? I think there’s an off-ramp coming up. Might as well gas up while we’re at it. If we’re lucky there might be a McDonald’s or something.”
“Yum. Mystery meat. I’m a vegan, by the way,” she sniffed.
“Since when?”
“Since now,” she snapped. It wasn’t true. Trinity Moon had been a vegan but Cassi Nolan loved meat. Still, she didn’t like him thinking that he knew her that well and she was willing to continue the farce if it threw Tommy off. “I don’t eat anything with a face.”
“Well, I’m pretty sure they remove the face before they throw the animal on the grill,” he said, eliciting a scowl on her part.
“Now you’re just being crude. Typical.”
“Listen, you can order a salad. How’s that?”
She’d really rather sink her teeth into a cheese-burger but she nodded stiffly. It burned like acid but she offered a terse thank-you. Best to make it look genuine. They were somewhere outside Philadelphia and she had no cash on her. That posed a significant problem. If she didn’t have any cash, she couldn’t pay for a bus ride back to New York, which meant she’d have to hitchhike. The fact that the idea of thumbing a ride with a stranger didn’t scare her as much as it should was a sign that she was, indeed, desperate to get back to the city. Hitchhiking, under normal circumstances, was just plain stupid.
An alternate thought came to her. She slid her gaze over to Tommy and took in the details of the car. It was your basic government-issue sedan, which also meant it was an automatic. Score one for her, since she’d never learned how to drive a manual. When they pulled over, he’d gas up, which would take care of that issue and she could make it back to the city and dump the car before they could catch her on GPS. She bit back the smile but allowed herself the first real breath since being captured. She had a plan.
THOMAS TOOK THE FIRST off-ramp that indicated there was food and gas, but before he parked the car, he made a slow sweep of the area.
“What are you doing?” she asked, squirming a little in her seat. “Remember me? The woman with an immediate and personal issue? I have to go.”
“Just getting my bearings,” he said, finally selecting a spot right under a bright streetlamp. He offered her a short smile. “This isn’t my first apprehension. History or not, I’m not taking any chances.”
There was something of a dark expression that flitted across her face and he almost got back on the freeway. She was up to something. It’d been a while but he recognized the cunning look in her eyes that she was doing her best to blanket. He turned and tried to level with her. “Listen, I know you’re probably thinking of a dozen different ways to get away from me but don’t waste your time. I’ve done this more times than you know. I don’t want to hurt you but I will disable you if need be in order to get the job done. You got it?”
She had no reason to doubt his words. She could see that Tommy wasn’t the same person but she had to believe that deep down he still felt something for her, even if it was buried and nearly suffocated beneath the layers of time. Still, she wasn’t willing to bet her life on it so she had to think of Tommy as nothing more than an obstacle. It should be easy, seeing as she could feel the bruise forming under her skin from his knuckles. Her gaze hardened but her mouth trembled as she said, “I have to pee.”
“All right, all right. I heard you. Just making sure we’re on the same page before you go and do something stupid. I’ve seen that look on your face. It’s the one that signals trouble.”
“You don’t know me any longer. You shouldn’t presume to know any look of mine, Tommy. Trouble or otherwise,” she retorted. “Now can we stop with the chatter and get on with the need at hand?” She lifted her bound wrists and he laughed. She actually thought he was going to take off those manacles? She frowned at his soft chuckle. “What’s so funny? Surely you don’t expect me to manage the bathroom without the use of my hands.”
“I’m sure you’ll manage. Get creative,” he said, getting out of the car. He had a feeling Cassi could manage just about anything she put her mind to in her present occupation. According to her file, she was a chameleon. She melted into her surroundings and took on a persona flawlessly. One thing that bothered him the minute he picked up her file was something that he had no business wanting to know but he did anyway…why did she stick to the East Coast? She would’ve stood a better chance at evasion if she’d skipped to the West, but she’d stayed within a certain area, almost as if she were following a pattern. Didn’t make sense for someone who was just looking to rip people off. That’s the part that bothered him. Or maybe he was just loath to believe that the girl of his memory had truly turned out bad.
He walked her to the restroom and she gave him a scowl for not accommodating her desire to free her hands but he didn’t trust her. Besides, he wouldn’t trust anyone in this position. She was in his custody, not a date.
“I’ll be waiting,” he said.
“Fabulous,” she muttered and kicked the door shut. He had no doubt she was imagining that it’d been his head.
CASSI PACED THE GRIMY FLOOR of the rest stop bathroom, her bottom lip scraping against her teeth as she wondered how to get out of this situation. She found it vaguely disturbing that Tommy had seen right through her. She’d have to be more careful—that is if she couldn’t manage to ditch him. There was a sharp knock at the door and his muffled voice told her to hurry up.
She narrowed her stare at the warped and ugly door then dropped her gaze to the floor, looking for something to pick the lock on the cuffs. She found a broken pen in the corner, nearly covered by a sopping paper towel. She tried not to think too hard about where that pen had been in a previous life. By the looks of the floor, it was nowhere pretty. She broke off the metal clip and worked it into the small hole for the cuff key.
Another sharp rap caused sweat to bead her forehead even though it was freezing in the cramped bathroom. “Gimme a minute,” she yelled. “A little privacy please!”
He grumbled something on the other side but didn’t try to come in. She thanked her stars for the smallest blessings and worked harder at freeing the lock. She’d practiced this before using a bobby pin but this was a bit trickier. Just as she was about to give up, the lock sprang and the cuffs slid open. She exhaled softly. She had to make it look as if she hadn’t messed with them so she clicked the manacles back on loosely, checking to make sure she could easily slide out of them. She risked a tremulous smile for her accomplishment but smothered it before walking out of the bathroom.
Tommy’s nose had reddened from the cold. He gave her a once-over and she held her breath as his gaze fastened briefly on her cuffs. When she lifted her chin and met his stare head-on he seemed satisfied that everything was as it should be. He took hold of her arm and walked her back to the car.
“Such a gentleman,” she quipped as he opened the door for her.
“Do you ever give that acid tongue of yours a rest? I see time hasn’t done much for your disposition.”
She glared. “Excuse me for not being a chipper little companion for your road trip.”
“Cassi, I’m just doing my job. Would you really rather have had someone else hauling your butt back? Because that can be arranged. All I have to do is make a call and someone else can be here and I can guarantee you they won’t give a rat’s ass if you have to pee or if you’re hungry. I’m just trying to make this as painless as possible but if you’re not interested in the kindness I’m showing you…just say the word.”
She swallowed and blinked back a sudden wash of tears. For a moment he was the Tommy she remembered. He’d always had a way of grounding her when she went a little crazy. He was that solid, calming influence that had kept her from losing herself in the ridiculous circles she often traveled. And what he was saying right now…well, she could see the logic of it. She supposed she was glad it was Tommy. Especially since someone else likely would’ve double-checked her cuffs after she exited the bathroom.
A twinge of regret filtered through her. But if he knew the whole story, she could almost bet that he’d understand.
The only problem? He wasn’t willing to listen to her side of the story. So was it really her fault that she was about to do what she had to do?
A part of her wished she could just sit down and show him the evidence she’d collected so far. He might even have valuable insights, maybe even dig out some leads she might’ve missed. A small ache spread across her chest and a pinprick of nostalgia, sharp and deadly, pierced her mind, dredging up memories that almost made her cry. She risked a look at Tommy, wondering if she should take the chance and tell him what she knew. But even as she searched his face for a clue as to which way to go, she knew she couldn’t tell him. He was an agent. His world was black-and-white. That was the world he knew and understood. And she’d be a fool to try to drag him into the chaotic mess that had become her life.
Once she took her seat, he said, “I’m going to go pay for the gas. Don’t touch anything.”
“I’ll try to restrain myself,” she said, but adrenaline had already started to flow through her veins. He’d taken the keys but there was another skill she’d picked up on her travels…
Keys were unnecessary.
THOMAS PUSHED OPEN THE scratched and dull glass door of the convenience store and it took him a full second to realize what he was seeing—or more specifically—not seeing.
His car.
And his prisoner.
Somehow, cuffed and without keys, she’d stolen his car.
He muttered a stream of swear words that would’ve earned him a bar of soap back in the day and shoved the packaged salad and three different choices of dressing he’d purchased for her into the trash.
If it were possible, he could almost see the steam rising from his ears into the chill air. In glaring detail he knew where he’d screwed up. He hadn’t checked her cuffs after she’d emerged from the bathroom. Somehow she’d gotten them loose. He’d made sure they were tight when he put them on, which meant she’d sprung the lock when she was out of sight and banked on the fact that he would be distracted by her in general. And she’d banked right.
The weight of his keys resting in his pocket told him that she’d hot-wired the car. Shit. His cell phone was in the car but he had his wallet, badge and gun. He had two choices: Call it in and have an APB put out on her but risk the ridicule of every one of his peers as well as the ire of his superior. Or he could just go after her.
Like there was a choice.
He spied a pay phone and strode to it. He lifted the receiver, swiped his ATM card and punched in his cell number. He doubted she’d answer but if she did, he had an earful for the runaway, former society girl. The phone rang four times before transferring to his voice mail. He hung up and stared at the road where she’d disappeared. Whatever tender nostalgic feelings he’d had for her withered and died.
This time when he caught her—he’d show no mercy.
CHAPTER FIVE
CASSI KNEW SHE DIDN’T HAVE much of a head start on Tommy, maybe an hour at best, as he probably wasted little time in finding a rental car to chase after her. She also couldn’t afford to get pulled over driving a government vehicle so while it grated on her nerves to drive so slowly, she kept her speed at the limit and obeyed all traffic rules.
Tommy’s cell phone buzzed to life at her hip in the console but she ignored it. No good would come from answering that phone, even if she were tempted to apologize for putting him in a bad spot. She bit her lip and wondered if this was something he could get fired for. He was probably a very good agent. He’d always held such a rigid concept of morality that she’d half wondered how he was ever going to survive high school—particularly theirs—but those smoking good looks of his hadn’t hurt and he’d done just fine, even if he never paid much attention to the politics of his peers.
Unlike her. She settled into the seat and set the cruise control. She’d been such an idiot. All the things she’d thought were important had turned out to be as insubstantial as shadows on the wall. No one really cared that she’d been voted Biggest Flirt their senior year or that she’d been named Prom Queen over Tiffani Jenkins in what had been the biggest coup de grâce Winston High School had ever seen. If only high school cred had extended to something that really mattered, such as getting someone to listen to you when you told them your stepfather had killed your mother but made it look like an accident so no one believed you.
She hadn’t realized how much she’d taken her family’s money and connections for granted until it’d all been yanked away. Two years was a lifetime to wander in exile.
Some days she couldn’t quite believe the life she was living.
But if she could put together the scattered puzzle pieces of Lionel Vissher then the whole picture of deception would become clear. At least that’s what she hoped would happen.
Her biggest fear, though, was that, even if she managed to prove that Lionel wasn’t who he said he was, no one would care and nothing would change. Lionel would continue blowing through her family’s fortune and she’d end up in prison.
A chill puckered her skin and she rubbed at her forearm. Just thinking it made her sick to her stomach.
She may have been born a spoiled princess but she’d become a soldier and she wasn’t about to let Lionel win this war.
“Sorry, Tommy,” she whispered and then pushed the thought of her childhood friend far away. She didn’t have the luxury of nostalgia.
THOMAS HURTLED DOWN the freeway, back to the city, his mind working quickly to assess the situation. He had to regroup, get his head on straight and apprehend the target. It was likely she was returning to her apartment to get whatever she’d left behind—probably the date book she’d asked about—and then she’d take off again. He wasn’t going to waste time going back to her apartment. By the time he reached the city, she’d have cleaned out her essentials and moved on, and he could expect to find his vehicle dumped somewhere. He’d already called in the theft, leaving out the part that it was his target who had stolen it. She would need transportation. The closest bus station to her apartment or her place of employment was the best bet as she’d need someplace quick and easily accessible if things got hot.
He grabbed the disposable phone he’d purchased and quickly dialed someone he trusted. Owen, his foster brother and someone he knew would keep things between them, picked up the line.
“Who is this?” Owen asked. It was nearing midnight in California but Owen was still awake, no doubt crunching numbers on some project or deal for his logging company.
“It’s me. I need a favor.”
“Tommy? What number are you calling from? You okay? You sound funny.”
“I’m fine but I have a bit of a situation I’m dealing with and lost my phone. I’m on one of those disposable things.”
“Like the ones drug dealers and pimps use so it can’t be traced back to them? Must be one helluva situation you’re in. So what’s the favor?” Owen asked, getting straight to the point. “I’ll help if I can.”
“You near a computer?”
“Yeah.”
“I need you to text me the addresses of the bus stations nearest to Gorkey and Landon Streets in New York City.”
“Going on a trip?”
“Not recreationally.”
