Midnight Run

  Surprising him, she tilted her head as if to give him better access to the sensitive area just behind her ear. She’d always liked to be kissed there, he remembered, and set his mouth against her flesh. The urge to devour was overpowering, but he knew better than to get carried away at a time like this. After all, he was only trying to keep her calm.

  The sound of paper towels being yanked from the dispenser reached him through the haze of pleasure. Her hair felt like silk against his cheek. He breathed in her scent. The sweetness of it intoxicated him, numbed him to the dangers of getting distracted at a time like this. But he was crazy for her, would have sold his soul for a kiss…

  She felt incredible against him. Temptation tormented him, tearing down the barriers of control. When she sighed, something inside him broke loose. Pulling her tightly against him, he set his mouth against her neck. The taste of her flesh hit his system like an addictive drug, and all he could think was he wanted more. That he wanted it now or he would die.

  He ran his tongue over her flesh, tasting, wanting, needing with an intensity that blinded him to the dangers of what he was doing. He trapped the tender flesh of her ear-lobe between his teeth and nibbled, letting her feel his teeth. She made a soft sound and he pressed against her, knowing she could feel the hard length of his arousal, a part of him not caring.

  The restroom door opened and closed. Jack waited, his body humming with tension, his sex heavy and uncomfortable within the confines of his jeans. He was trying to decide how to handle that when Landis elbowed him hard enough to knock the air from his lungs.

  “What the—” His left foot slipped off the seat. An instant later they went down in a tangle of arms and legs. Jack twisted in midair to keep himself from falling on top of her. The file flew from his grasp, papers scattering about like leaves in a gale. He landed hard on his back with Landis on top of him.

  “What the hell are you trying to pull?” she growled.

  Jack scrambled to his feet. “You’d better hope whomever was just in here didn’t hear the racket,” he snapped.

  Without looking at her, he strode to the door and eased it open an inch. Relief trembled through him when he found the hall empty.

  Landis stalked up behind him. “You were out of line.”

  “I was trying to keep you from losing it,” he said. But he was as furious with himself as he was with her.

  Noticing the papers from his file scattered on the floor, he stooped and began shoving them into the file. One more mistake like that and he could kiss his freedom goodbye for good.

  “I wasn’t losing it,” she said.

  “You were shaking and hyperventilating and if I hadn’t distracted you, you would have gotten us busted.”

  “I wasn’t the one who was breathing hard.”

  He shot her a killing look. “Oh, that’s real funny.”

  He wanted to ask her if she’d hurt herself in the fall, but his pride wouldn’t let him be nice. Damn her. And damn his attraction to her. He had no business acting like some irresponsible schoolboy with a bad case of hormones when both their necks were on the line. What the hell was he thinking allowing himself to get sidetracked when she’d made her feelings crystal clear?

  Stuffing the last of the papers into the file, Jack stalked to the door, pushed it open and peeked out. “Let’s get out of here.”

  He left the restroom without looking back. He heard her behind him, but he didn’t slow down. He was halfway to the freight elevator when she caught up with him. “You need to get some very important rules clear in your head, LaCroix.”

  Annoyance rippled through him that she felt the need to reprimand him. What did she expect? Didn’t she realize what she did to him?

  “Don’t push me, Red.” He punched the down button.

  “I’m talking about setting boundaries, Jack. I’m talking about your having a little respect.”

  The elevator doors rolled open. Ignoring her, he stepped inside, punched the down button. “Now isn’t the time to discuss this.”

  “If we’re going to work together on your case, we’ve got to talk about this. We can’t go back to the way we were. I don’t want that. And, damn it, I can’t handle it when you—” Landis poked his chest with her index finger, hard enough to make him wince. “Would you listen to me?”

  It didn’t hurt, but it made him mad. Closing his eyes, he rubbed his hand over his face and silently counted to ten. The last thing he wanted was a lecture on male decorum from the woman who was the object of his darkest fantasies. “I’m listening.”

  “These are the rules, Jack. No innuendo. No touching. No kissing. I won’t tolerate that kind of conduct.”

  “I guess that means you’re not going to sleep with me.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  He didn’t think so, either. “Tell me something, Red, do these rules work both ways? I mean, hell, you kissed me back last night. Wasn’t that breaking one or two of those rules?”

  She made a sound of exasperation. “What did you expect me to do when you had your tongue shoved down my throat?”

  “Push me away?”

  “You know, Jack, you’re making this a lot more difficult than it has to be.”

  “Consider yourself forewarned, Landis. The next time you kiss me like that I’m not going to be thinking about rules.”

  “Just because I’m helping you do this doesn’t mean the situation between us has changed.” Turning away from him, she punched the down button again.

  An angry, unsettled silence ensued. He knew it was childish, but it ticked him off that she’d gotten the last word. It ticked him off even more that she was right. He might be attracted to her. He might even have feelings for her that went a hell of a lot deeper than the flesh. But Jack had been around the block enough times to know when he was facing a losing proposition. A relationship was out of the question. Sex would have been nice—but he knew Landis would never open herself up like that. Where he was going, emotional baggage would do nothing but weigh him down. The only question that remained was how in the hell he was going to keep his hands off her in the interim.

  The delivery men were gone when they reached the ground level. Ignoring Landis as best he could, Jack made his way down the corridor and through the doors to the loading dock. He couldn’t believe they’d actually pulled off mission impossible. Something that felt vaguely like hope stirred in his chest, making him realize just how badly he’d needed a lucky break.

  Stepping into the frigid night air, he drew a deep breath, feeling better than he had in months. “What were you saying about the dangers of breaking and entering?” he asked Landis when they reached the bottom of the concrete ramp.

  “We’re lucky Chandler didn’t have security cam—”

  “You there! Halt!”

  The command hit him like a cattle prod. Jack glanced over his shoulder, saw a uniformed security officer jump off the loading dock and start toward them at a determined clip. “Put your hands where I can see them!” the officer shouted. “Now!”

  “What do we do?” Landis asked.

  “Run.” Clamping his hand around hers, Jack hurled himself into a dead run. They blew through deep snow and a shallow ditch, covering the ground at a dangerous speed. But twenty yards back, the security officer was closing in on them at an alarming speed.

  “Stop or I’ll shoot!”

  A gunshot split the air. Shock and a healthy jab of fear streaked through Jack. Praying the officer had only fired a warning shot, Jack forced Landis ahead of him, keeping himself squarely between her and the gun. “Faster!”

  An instant later her hand was ripped from his grasp. He looked back to see her plow headlong into the snow. His first thought was that she’d been shot.

  The world stopped. Horror and fear splintered inside him. “Landis!”

  “I’m…okay.”

  Relief shook him when she scrambled to her feet. But the terror clung to him when he took her hand and dragged her into a reckless sprint
. He looked back at the officer, caught a glimpse of blue uniform through the trees. The cop was so close Jack could hear the bark of his police radio.

  “Run, damn it!”

  Twenty feet from the Jeep, he let go of her hand. “The keys!” Behind them, the cop shouted another command. Landis tossed the keys. Catching them in one hand, Jack hit the button to unlock the doors and headed for the driver’s side door.

  Another shot rang out. Fear stabbed through him again when he heard the tinny thwack! of a bullet penetrating the Jeep. Damn stupid rookie. Yanking open the door, he lunged inside. Landis slid on to the seat next to him. “Get down!” he shouted, forcing her head down with his free hand.

  Through the windshield, he saw the security officer drop to one knee and raise the gun. Jack twisted the ignition key. The engine turned over. Slamming the shifter into gear, he floored the accelerator. The Jeep’s wheels spun, then jumped forward and hurled them into the night.

  Landis fought for breath as she huddled on the passenger side floor and listened to the gears slam into place. Her heart beat like a drum in her ears. Every muscle in her body trembled uncontrollably as she dragged herself onto the seat.

  “Oh my God.” For the first time in a long time, she felt like putting her face in her hands and weeping. With relief. With the sheer joy of being alive. With the unsettling knowledge that she had crossed a very dangerous line.

  Jack negotiated a turn, glanced in the rearview mirror, then tossed her a quick, concerned look. “Are you all right?”

  “You mean other than the fact that I probably just ruined my life? Hey, I’m just peachy.”

  “Were you hit, damn it?”

  She looked down at her snow-covered coat, half-expecting to see a bullet hole in the fabric. “No bullet holes. That’s a good sign, I suppose.”

  “I guess that means we won’t be able to compare scars.”

  What she and Jack had just survived was the kind of thing that happened in Arnold Schwarzenegger movies—not in real life, certainly not in her predictable, wonderfully dull life. Well, her former wonderfully dull life. All that had changed the night Jack LaCroix walked into her cabin and turned her world upside down.

  The laugh that escaped her contained an edge of hysteria. “I’ve finally wigged out. I knew it was going to happen sooner or later. I should have known it would involve you.”

  Jack grimaced. “I’m sorry I put you in that situation. I shouldn’t have let you come. I shouldn’t have dragged you into this.”

  Landis didn’t miss the lines of strain in his face or the tight set of his mouth. His eyes went repeatedly to the rearview mirror, to the road, to her. Always back to her. She watched as he raked a trembling hand through his hair, and she suddenly knew she wasn’t the only one who was scared.

  “You didn’t drag me into anything,” she said quietly. “I came of my own free will.”

  He cut her a hard look. “I manipulated you. I used you.”

  “Jack, we made it out. We’re okay.”

  Cursing, he rapped his palm against the steering wheel. “I nearly got you killed!”

  Jack wasn’t prone to emotional outbursts. He was distant and aloof and damn hard to read most of the time. Even during the dark days of his trial, when he was fighting for his life, he’d done it with a cool stoicism. She knew that stony facade had to do with his childhood. That he’d learned to deal with the pain of being shuffled from foster home to foster home by locking his emotions down tight. But she knew he felt things deeply, that he bled just like everyone else.

  Landis had seen a glimpse of his emotional side only once in all the time she’d known him. The night Evan died he’d opened up to her. They’d held each other and cried that night. They’d never discussed it since, but she’d never forgotten it. She knew there were plenty of emotions buried deep inside him. That he would show them now gave her pause.

  “Everything’s going to be all right,” she said firmly.

  He shot her a sideways glance, his jaw flexing. She wanted to know what was going on inside his head, but knew him well enough to know he wouldn’t say.

  “You don’t think he made out the license plates, do you?” she asked after a moment.

  He shook his head. “I switched your plates with the ones on Chandler’s truck before we left the cabin.”

  “You think like a criminal.”

  “Keeps you one step ahead of the bad guys. That’s what made me such a good cop.”

  The wistful tone of his voice struck a chord within her. And with sudden clarity, she realized the full scope of everything he’d lost. That he’d endured so much hardship, so much unfairness—and never lost hope—touched a place inside her that was battered and raw. A part of her ached for him because she was finally beginning to understand what the last year had done to him.

  Closing her eyes, she leaned against the seat and tried to shut off her mind. But her mind refused to obey. She wasn’t exactly sure when it happened, but she no longer believed Jack had murdered Evan. He might cross lines and push limits, but she knew deep down he wasn’t capable of murdering his partner. Maybe that was why she’d risked everything going into that office with him tonight. Maybe because a small part of her thought she’d owed it to him.

  Troubled by the repercussions of that, she looked out the window and watched the lights and mountain terrain fly past. She could no longer deny the connection between them. A connection that hadn’t been severed by time or circumstance. And she knew it was long past time for her and Jack to have a serious talk. Not about Evan or Cyrus Duke or the dangerous situation they were embroiled in. But about the bond between them.

  She found it ironic that of all the things they needed to discuss, their relationship was the one that frightened her the most. Jack had made it clear that he wanted her on a physical level. But a one-night stand with an escaped convict wasn’t an option. Even if he were able to prove his innocence, Landis refused to give her heart to a man who would hand it back to her in pieces.

  The only question that remained was how she was going to keep that from happening.

  It was 1:00 a.m. when Landis and Jack arrived at Chandler’s cabin. A full moon cast pearlescent light over crystalline snow, illuminating the mountains to the east. The temperature hovered around zero, and Landis felt the chill all the way to her bones.

  Anxious to get a look at the file, she sat at the table and opened the file while Jack built a fire. She spent ten minutes organizing police reports, court transcripts, witness statements and general correspondence. The appeal documents were stored neatly inside a smaller brown folder. Setting the other paperwork aside, she put the appeal file in front of her and began sifting through it.

  It was obvious Aaron Chandler and his army of paralegals, interns and junior attorneys had been working fervently on Jack’s case. Like her, Chandler had been a perfectionist. His work was thorough and succinct, trademarks of a good lawyer.

  Jack approached the table with two mugs. “Coffee?”

  Absently, Landis nodded, her attention focused on the documents in front of her. It felt good to be back on familiar ground. She was much more comfortable with legal documents and court exhibits than she was with breaking into buildings and dodging bullets.

  “What exactly do you hope to find in this file?” she asked.

  Putting his elbows on the table, Jack rubbed his hands over the dark stubble of his jaw. He looked worn out, she thought, and wondered how long he could keep this up. How long would he try before giving up on clearing his name and making a run for it?

  “The last time I met with Chandler,” he said, “he was working on getting copies of wires from a bank in Salt Lake City to an account in the Cayman Islands. The Cayman account was in Evan’s name. The checks were coming from Duke’s restaurant payroll account.”

  “Evan was too smart to put an account in his own name,” she said.

  “I’m just telling you what Chandler told me. I haven’t seen any of the statements or tr
ansaction docs myself.”

  “If they exist.”

  “Why would Chandler lie?”

  “I don’t know.” She sighed in frustration. “It’s not like this case makes a whole lot of sense to begin with.”

  “A lot of what happened in the last year doesn’t make sense.”

  “It seems like the more we dig, the more confusing this mess becomes.”

  The intensity of his gaze unnerved her. She told herself it was because she was tired. Because Jack was in deep trouble and she didn’t know how to help him. But she saw the question in his eyes. A question she had no desire to answer.

  “You know I didn’t murder Evan, don’t you?” he asked quietly.

  Not quite sure how to respond without venturing down a very dangerous path, Landis looked down at the document in front of her, hating that she couldn’t meet his gaze. “I’ve seen enough to know your case warrants looking into.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “It’s the only answer I’ve got.” She saw a flash of anger in his eyes an instant before she looked away. It bothered her that she couldn’t hold his gaze. But she didn’t want him to see the uncertainty she knew her eyes would reveal.

  She blew out a sigh. “When was your last meeting with Chandler?”

  “A couple of weeks ago. He came to the prison. We went into an interview room. He updated me on my case and stayed for about an hour.”

  “Did he actually show you any of the evidence he had on Evan?”

  Jack’s eyes hardened. “No. But he assured me he was close to proving Evan had taken money from Duke. That one of Duke’s men had pulled the trigger. Landis, for God’s sake, Jimmy Beck told me as much before he got stabbed to death in the shower.”

  Reaching into her bag, she extracted her glasses and shoved them onto her nose. “I want to go through everything. Every piece of paper. Notes. Documents. Billing hours. If there’s a grocery list in this file, I want to see it.” She felt his gaze on her, but she didn’t risk looking at him. He was watching her too closely, and she was still feeling the remnants of adrenaline. The combination was doing a number on her ability to concentrate.