The Hunted

“Spoken like a former contractor,” Georgie said with a playful grin.

“Hey,” he said. “I was just a grunt for hire. Don’t go lumping me in with those people.”

“Whatever,” she said. Lightning flared so bright that it washed out the room, followed by a sky-rending crack. Jerrod looked out the window again, noting that heavy rain appeared to be sweeping closer. Rush hour was going to be a mess.

“So…what? You came in here just to cheer me up?” he asked, swiveling his chair to face her again. “Or did you actually have something in mind?”

“Just to tell you this is probably our one chance,” she said. She handed him a printout. “Apparently the good folks there like Houston.”

He scanned the page. It was a blurb from one of her many online newsfeeds. “MMG buys Houston Examiner. This matters to me…how?”

“MMG,” Georgie said. “Mercator Media Group. Say goodbye to one of the last independently owned newspapers in Texas.”

“Interesting,” Jerrod said. “But again, how does that matter to me?”

“Erin McKenna broke the Mercator story when she was a freelancer for Fortune.”

He nodded. Georgie’s other vice was drawing out a story just to the point where he wanted to strangle her. She knew he knew Erin McKenna. They’d never met, but her story in Fortune had been so thorough as to be a blueprint for his investigation. “And?”

“She’s not a freelancer anymore. The Houston Examiner hired her as an investigative reporter.”

“And now Mercator owns the Examiner,” he said. The pieces came together. He let out a long sigh. “Oh shit.”

“Maybe you need to go to Houston,” Georgie said. “It would be bad to come this far and lose a key witness.”

Jerrod looked at the file on his desk, the paltry window onto a life too short. Or a life that had been turned into a living hell of slavery.

“More than the Mercator case seems to have followed you from Houston. Cold case?” Georgie asked, following his gaze.

“Not quite.” He hated to leave it. But he couldn’t allow anyone to tamper with witness testimony. Reluctantly, he reached for the phone.

He was going to Houston. Maybe he could nose around on the missing-child case some more while he was there. Two birds with one stone.

Regardless, he needed to find out what was going on with Erin McKenna.

2

Erin McKenna climbed the stairs to her third floor apartment, a small box of personal belongings under her arm. As her feet hit each tread, a curse escaped under her breath.

Fired. Just like that. Oh, they called it a staff reduction, but she was too much of a reporter to believe it. Since word of Mercator Media Group’s purchase of the paper had begun to filter down, she’d known she was in the crosshairs. She’d expected pressure not to testify in the trial. The pressure had never come, and she’d gone off to Federal Court this morning and testified without one whisper of a suggestion that she reconsider.

Then she had come back to the office to find the news editor and her managing editor standing over her desk, her belongings already in a box, with the happy news that she had just become part of a staff reduction.

Hah!

Something in Bill Maddox’s face had communicated the truth. She’d been investigating Mercator again, and only Bill, her news editor, had known. In theory, anyway. And his face said as plain as day that this was no simple staff reduction.

Damn! She slammed her foot down hard on the next riser, so angry that she was grinding her teeth.

Effing giant corporations. Damn money men. Damn the whole corporate plutocracy that America was becoming. They figured money and power meant they were above the law.

She stomped down even harder on the next step. They’d taken all her files, of course, because anything she did on the job belonged to her paper. They’d taken her business laptop from her car and demanded to know if she’d kept any business-related information anywhere else.

To do so would have been a violation of the paper’s strict policy. So of course she had lied through her teeth and said she hadn’t.

Damned if she was going to tell them about the anonymous online file storage she’d started when she learned about the MMG purchase. She’d even gone so far as to go to a cybercafé to upload the info so there would be no record on any computer she used.

So the bomb was still out there, despite their best efforts. At the moment, that was the only satisfaction she had, and it was a grim one. She could still nail Mercator to the wall once she finished her research.

Reaching the landing outside her door, she leaned against the wall to hold the box in place while she fished through her vest pocket for her keys. Cell phone, extra pens, package of gum and, as always, way at the bottom, keys.

She pulled them out, sorted through them and then pushed the proper one into the lock. Or tried to. The door swung inward even as she slid the key into the hole.

Her heart froze. Someone had broken into her place. She stepped through the doorway and saw her things tossed about as if a raging tornado had blown through.

She stood stunned, barely able to believe her eyes. At that moment, a man, his face hidden behind a ski mask, burst out of her bedroom. She dropped the box, one part of her mind questioning the utter absurdity of wearing a ski mask in Houston, and charged toward him, ready to head-butt him or knock his legs out or…well, something…but before she finished her first step, she knew she’d made a mistake.

She’d exposed her back.

A rustle behind her was all the warning she had. An instant later, stars burst before her eyes; then everything went black.

She came to slowly, aware first of the excruciating pounding in her head, then, slowly, that she wasn’t alone. Hands felt gently around her head. She could feel warm goo on the back of her skull, and somewhere in her befuddled mind, the word blood registered.

But in the instant between the dim recognition that she was bleeding and full consciousness, awareness of those hands sparked a surge of fear. Someone was touching her. With her sore nose pressed painfully to a rug that had never offered much of a cushion, she tried to gather her scattered thoughts.

Break-in. Someone had hit her from behind. The fact that she could remember that much was a good sign. The concussion couldn’t be too bad.

As she lay frozen, she tried to decide what to do about the person who was with her. If he was the one who had attacked her…

Could she roll over fast enough? She realized she was still gripping her keys in the hand trapped beneath her body. Trying to keep her movements invisible, she slowly worked the keys between her fingers, turning them into a weapon.

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.”

“No?”

“No. We’re going to collect some clothes and things, and then we’re going to a hotel.”

“Why?”

He looked at her. It was dark now, and flashes of headlights from oncoming traffic chiseled his face even more. “You were attacked at home. Wanna try again?”

She decided he was okay, because he’d asked her instead of telling her. “Honestly? I’m not so sure.”

“Me, either. I don’t know what’s behind this, but my instincts are telling me they’re not done with you.”

“You have good instincts,” she remarked, then wished she hadn’t, because he was no idiot and caught the subtext as if it had been a headline.

“What don’t I know?”

She hesitated. “Plenty,” she said finally. “And I can’t talk about it. Reporter privilege.” That usually shut people up. Not him.

“We’re going to have to talk about it, Erin. Later. When you feel better.”

Not likely, she thought, but at least for now he was letting her off the hook. She would take what she could get until she was back in shape.

The stairs were easier this time, and the crime-scene unit was still picking over the bones of her life like carrion birds. As promised, she noted what was missing, which hadn’t expanded much from what she had already noticed. Whoever had broken in had been looking for information, of that she had no doubt. Her grandmother’s engagement ring, a nice piece of ice, had been totally ignored. Mutely she held it up to Jerrod, and he nodded understanding. Then she slipped it on the ring finger of her right hand to keep it safe.

He helped her pack a suitcase, and she didn’t object. Not even when he scooped underwear up off the floor. It wouldn’t make any sense to object, since even the thought of bending over left her dizzy and nauseous.

Besides, he seemed as interested in it as if it had been cardboard. He was very…clinical, professional. He avoided her few good dresses and instead packed slacks, jeans, Ts and sweatshirts. Her favorite stuff, to be sure, but it began to seem he had some kind of plan. It was more than she needed for overnight.

Abducted by an FBI agent, she thought. Could the world get any crazier?

When she asked him where they were going, he shook his head and indicated the next room with a movement of his eyes. He didn’t trust the local police? Erin began to wonder what he knew that she didn’t.

“Anything else you don’t want to leave here?” he asked finally, as he prepared to latch her suitcase.

“All I have that mattered is gone.” Except for the ring on her hand.

“Let’s move out, then.”

Huh, she thought. Military background, or too many movies?

They drove off again in his car, this time headed for Loop 410. “Where are we going?” she asked again. “Or do I need to jump out of a moving vehicle?”

“That would hurt considerably more than being hit on the head. I told you, I’m taking you to a hotel.”

“I’m not in the set that can afford hotels.”

“I am. And I’m not going to leave you hanging in the breeze. Not at your place. Not even in a hotel under your own name.”

She squirmed on her seat and managed to look at him. “You’re creeping me out.”

“Good. You should have been creeped out before.”

“I was, but not like this. What are you thinking?”

“You’ve pissed someone off enough to commit felony burglary and battery. That’s very pissed off. You know something, or they think you do. You’re still alive, which can’t make them happy. Two plus two equals four.”

Gingerly, she reached up and touched the staples on the back of her head. “You have a point. Why didn’t you want to say anything in the apartment?”

He glanced her way. “Cops talk. Sometimes idly, and sometimes not.”

He was right, she realized. “So I can’t trust the cops but I can trust you? There’s a disconnect there.”

He reached in his breast pocket and tossed her a flip-phone. She barely managed to catch it, considering the world was still trying to bob on invisible waves.

“Call information. Get the number for the Austin field office of the FBI. Ask about me. Check my creds. Get my description.”

She looked at the phone. Part of her said she didn’t need to do that if he was so willing to let her; part of her suspicious reporter’s mind suggested that he might be expecting that reaction.

So she flipped open his phone, got the number and made the call. A recording answered her.

“Cool,” she said. “A recording can’t identify you.”

“Keep listening. Toward the end we finally admit that you can reach an agent right now.”

“I should hope so. The country could collapse while you guys sleep.”

“We never sleep.”

“Yeah, right.” She pressed eight when the menu promised it would put her directly in touch with an agent. After a couple of rings, a silky woman’s voice answered.

“Agent Dickson. May I help you?”

“Uh, yes. I’m with a guy claiming to be Special Agent Jerrod Westlake. Is he for real?”

The woman chuckled. “We often wonder that ourselves. Yes, he’s a real agent. Do you want his description?”

“Please.”

“Tall, green-eyed, dark and handsome. Well, not really handsome. He looks more like somebody carved his face out of wood. Nice smile, though, when you can get it out of him.”

Erin almost laughed. “That sounds like him.”

“Put him on the phone for a sec, would you?”

“Sure.” Erin passed the phone back to Jerrod.

“Westlake,” he said. “Oh, hi, Georgie. Yeah, with what she’s been through today, I don’t blame her for being suspicious. We’re going to ground overnight. I’ll get in touch tomorrow. Yeah. You got it.”