“Do you have a car?” Carter didn’t wait for his mystery woman to answer before linking his arm with hers and steering her toward the parking lot.
There usually weren’t too many people out on the streets of downtown Sacramento this far past five o’clock, but Carter still spied a couple of stragglers staring at them as they hurried down the sidewalk and away from the pile of broken glass. It didn’t matter that they’d had a small audience for their descent from the second story. Carter had a feeling that someone had already called the police. Which meant he had only minutes to get this woman to safety.
“Yeah,” she said, as they rounded the corner of the office building and stepped into the parking lot. She pointed him in the direction of a battered white Toyota Camry. She went over to the driver’s side door and pulled the key out of her running shoe.
“You shouldn’t go home tonight,” he said.
She opened the door but didn’t get inside. She looked at him as her face fell. “Crap. I guess that wouldn’t be a very good idea, would it?”
Carter slowly shook his head. He didn’t like being the one to shatter her illusion that her troubles were somehow over. The truth was, they were probably just beginning. By the looks of it, she was totally unprepared for the storm that was headed her way.
And it would be totally irresponsible for him to throw her headlong into it unprotected, especially now that he knew what Buck Fuller was capable of.
“Do you have someplace to go?” he asked.
She thought for a second then nodded. “Yeah, I think so.”
“Good. Give me a minute, I’m going to get one of my men to keep watch over you tonight.”
Carter wished that he could be the one to look after her, but he needed to stay and face the police. That didn’t mean she’d be leaving alone.
He knew she’d fight him on going anywhere with Rhys or Jake, but he could always call in another one of his men. Mason Wright would work just fine. The ladies loved Mason.
Then again, maybe Mason wouldn’t be so perfect after all. But he’d have to do. Carter would just give him strict instructions about how important—and professional—this protection detail was.
“Looks like we don’t need a minute,” she said, her eyes focusing on a spot behind Carter. “Here comes one now.”
Carter turned around. This time she wasn’t lying. Jake strode across the parking lot. He took a few steps closer to meet him, and heard a car door slam shut behind him, then an engine sputtering to life. He turned around just in time to see the old Toyota lurching forward, the tires spinning faster and faster as she headed for the street.
Carter watched her go, committing her license plate to memory as she peeled around the corner and into traffic.
“Let me guess, that was our mystery girl,” Jake asked, coming to a stop at Carter’s side.
“It was.”
“The one you said wasn’t a problem?” There was a note of laughter in Jake’s voice. He always did enjoy pressing his luck.
Carter cocked his head to the side. He knew her face, had her license plate number, and knew her profession. She wouldn’t be difficult to track down.
And that’s what had him worried. If he could track her down then so could Fuller.
“How are we inside?” Carter changed the subject.
“Not as bad as you might imagine. No casualties. No injuries,” Jake reported. “We fired several warning shots. The targets returned fire but, the second you two were out of the room, they stopped. Right now they’re insisting it was all just a big misunderstanding.”
“Is that right?” Carter finally turned around and started walking back toward Fuller’s building. “Have we had contact with the congressman?”
“Negative. Rhys is concentrating on the two men from the hallway.”
Carter nodded. Rhys was the best damn interrogator he’d ever seen in his life. The man could convince an angel to rat out God, but there would be limits to the methods he could use on the men that had shot at them, not to mention a serious lack of time. Even now, the faint wail of sirens sounded in the distance.
Carter was interested to see how the rest of the evening’s drama played out. It seemed the first act hadn’t gone the way Fuller had hoped, and Carter couldn’t wait to see how he tried to talk his way out of it. He had a feeling he was in for a long night.
But that didn’t mean he couldn’t multi-task. He pulled out his phone and went through the contacts until he came to Charlie Keswick.
She answered on the third ring. Carter could barely make out her voice over the blare of music. At least that meant she wasn’t spending another night burning the midnight oil back at the office.
“Hey, Captain.” Her voice sounded cheery. Carter felt a momentary stab of guilt that he was going to shatter all that good will in a heartbeat. “What’cha need?”
All of his employees worked hard for him, but nobody put their heart into it quite like Charlie. She deserved a fun night out. And he was about to wrench that away from her.
“I need you to dig into someone for me.”
There was a long pause on the other end. Only the constant, pulsing beat in the background let Carter know that the call hadn’t been dropped.
“Of course, you do,” she finally said.
“Is it going to be a problem?”
“No problem at all.” Her voice had dropped an octave, but the music behind her was getting fainter. She was already leaving the club.
Carter rattled off everything he knew about the disappearing reporter. “You got all that?”
“Yep,” Charlie said.
“Thanks,” Carter said, pushing open the front door of the office building as half a dozen cop cars—lights flashing and sirens blazing—pulled up to the front curb. “I owe you one.”
“Yeah, you do.”
Chapter Three