Strangers in the Night

The light slanted over his shoulders, falling on her face. She had delicate features, perfectly carved with high cheekbones and a pert little nose, but there was nothing soft about her face. Tension gave her jaw an obstinate jut and made her expression hard as stone.

She was no innocent, that was for sure. The rashness of her actions and the cool resolve in her eyes told him that. Everything about her screamed guilt. He didn’t have to know she was involved with Taylor to know she was in this up to her eyeballs. Which meant he had to proceed very carefully.

“Could you give me some air?” she said, shoving against his chest.

He relented, granting her a modicum of space by taking a step back. Enough to let her feel that he was no longer invading her space, not nearly enough for her to try to run.

“You want to tell me what that was about?” he asked.

The eyes that lifted to meet his were utterly blank, revealing nothing. “Just someone I didn’t want to run into, that’s all.”

“Someone who scares you to death?” She blinked, startled. “Yeah, I noticed. That guy had you terrified.”

She waved a hand. “Look, don’t worry about it. I appreciate your help, but you’re better off not getting involved. Trust me.”

“In case you didn’t notice, I’m already involved. You made sure I was.”

Annoyance twisted her mouth. “Then I apologize for taking up three valuable minutes of your time. I’ll let you get back to your life.”

“I’m not going anywhere until I get some answers.”

“What are you? A cop?” Though he couldn’t miss the sarcastic edge, he also heard the uneasy note in her voice.

“No, I’m not a cop. But that’s not a bad idea. If you don’t want to tell me, you can tell the police.”

Even in the dim light, he could see her go pale. Exactly as he expected.

He feigned surprise. “You were planning on reporting this, weren’t you?” He didn’t bother to keep the sarcastic edge from his words.

Not that she noticed. He could see her thinking quickly. Her tongue darted out to moisten parched lips, the motion betraying her tension.

It also captured his attention, drawing his gaze to her mouth. Her lips retained a sheen of wetness that made them shine.

Now those lips quivered. “Look, there’s no reason to bring the cops into this. It’s a personal matter. I can take care of it myself.”

“With a little help from strangers?”

One eyebrow shot up. “I don’t think I’ll make that mistake again.”

He might have been amused if the situation wasn’t so dire. He was losing her, and whatever he did, he couldn’t risk that. Two minutes ago he would have given anything to get his hands on Taylor. Now he had someone he suspected was more important, whoever she was. He’d haul her back to his truck if he wasn’t sure she’d make a scene and bring Taylor back. One woman he could handle. A woman and Taylor—that would be tricky.

Taylor could be out there now, about to double back and find them. They didn’t have time for this.

Twisting his features into something a little less forbidding, he said, “Look, at least let me walk you home. It’s not safe for a woman to walk alone at night in a neighborhood like this.”

She wanted to say no. He could read it in every inch of her expression and the rigid lines of her posture. But he doubted she could think of a good reason to say no that wouldn’t arouse his suspicions more. He was counting on it.

And still she hesitated.

He kept his expression neutral, even as he felt the seconds tick by as steadily as the pulse throbbing at his neck.

“You really want to stand here arguing? Your friend could still be out there,” he reminded her softly.

She searched his face again. He recognized the exact instant she made her decision. Her jaw tightened and the corners of her lips gave a violent twist as she pursed her mouth.

“Fine,” she said. “Let’s go.”

With that, she spun out of his grasp and hurried back down the alley she’d first emerged from.

Allowing himself one small, satisfied smile, Ross fell into step behind her and followed her into the darkness.

P RICE C HASTAIN rolled off of the woman beneath him and jerked their tangled limbs apart. She gave a little gasp of shock—either not finished herself or not finished faking it. The sound barely pierced his concentration. Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he checked the clock on the nightstand. It was well after midnight. He should have heard something by now.

She laid her hand on his bare back. “What’s the matter?” she murmured, running her hand across his shoulders. “You were barely with me there.”

He shrugged off her touch. The contact was making his skin crawl. “Get out. I have business to take care of.”

If she was annoyed by his tone, she didn’t show it. Smart girl. The mattress sagged as she climbed off the bed. He didn’t bother to look as she padded naked to the bathroom.

As soon as she was gone, Chastain rolled his shoulders to shake off the lingering sensation of her sweaty palms and twisted his neck until he felt that satisfying crack. Mariana was a great lay, but lately she was starting to ask questions, nothing dangerous, certainly nothing about what she had to be hearing in the news, but little things. She was starting to get clingy. He was going to have to get rid of her soon.

He hated women who asked questions. That was exactly how he’d found himself in his current situation.

He checked the clock again. Less than a minute had passed.

The phone remained silent.

Taylor had told him the woman got off work at eleven CST. He should have her by now.

Something had gone wrong.

He grabbed the phone and hit the speed dial for Taylor’s cell. Taylor picked up on the fourth ring. “Hello?”

“It’s me.”

Taylor’s silence buzzed across the line.

“Well? Do you have her?” Chastain couldn’t even bring himself to say her name.

A few more seconds of silence, followed by a reluctant “No.”

Chastain gripped the receiver so tightly his hand went numb. “No?”

“I lost her.”

He nearly hurled the phone across the room. “What do you mean, you lost her? You assured me the situation was under control.”

“She must have figured something was up. She bolted.”

“She can’t have gotten far. Find her.”

“I will. Don’t worry about it. She’s not getting away.”

“You’d damn well better hope she doesn’t. I want to hear back that you’ve got her within the hour.”

He slammed the phone down, cutting off the rest of Taylor’s useless assurances. He hated having to rely on the overgrown Neanderthal, but Taylor was the only person he could trust, the only one with as much on the line as Chastain himself.

Unable to sit still any longer, he climbed to his feet and crossed to the ceiling-to-floor windows with their flawless view of Central Park. The sight did little to calm him. He had people paying him millions for a view like this. He owned half the city, and he stood to lose it all. There were a lot of people who’d love to see it happen. The D.A. was looking to score political points. The cops would be lining up to see him go down. And every property owner and tenant he’d had to coax cooperation from in the past would be falling over themselves with glee.

He felt like throwing open the windows and screaming at every one of them that it wasn’t going to happen. He hadn’t worked for everything he’d built to lose it all now.

It wasn’t going to happen. His reflection stared back at him in the glass. His gaze was clear and determined, the sign of a man who knew his own path and always had. Price Chastain made his own destiny, just like he’d made his own name. His destiny was to always come out on top.

That wasn’t about to change.

R ETURNING HIS CELL PHONE to the clip on his belt, Roy Taylor scanned the empty street for any sign of the woman. He gritted his teeth, grinding his molars together so hard he felt a jolt of pain shoot along his jaw. The action was the only outlet he gave to the fury simmering in his veins.

It was bad enough the woman had managed to escape. He didn’t need Chastain riding him about it. As if he didn’t have as much to lose as Chastain did if they didn’t get their hands on her before anyone else did.

He shouldn’t have answered the phone. Except he knew Chastain would just keep calling back until he did.

The twenty calls a day he was fielding from the man told him everything he needed to know. Chastain didn’t trust him. He thought he was going to take off and leave him holding the bag. Well, Roy Taylor was no coward. He wasn’t about to spend the rest of his life running.

Eight years of picking up after the man, and Chastain acted like he’d never done a thing for him. Taylor sure wasn’t the one who’d screwed everything up. Chastain had done it all by himself and now they were all paying for it.

Taylor picked up his pace, heading back in the direction he was sure the woman had gone. He was going to find her, all right. It was what he always did. He got the job done, no matter what it took.

But not for Chastain this time. For himself.

Chastain could think whatever the hell he wanted. The only person Roy Taylor was looking out for was Roy Taylor.

It was every man for himself.

Chapter Three

She did her best to ignore him as they wound their way through the back alleys that led to her apartment. There was a faster, more direct route of course, but she wasn’t about to risk running into Taylor on one of those streets.

Already she was plotting her next move for when she reached her apartment and ditched her unwanted companion. She’d memorized the bus schedules out of Chicago her first day in the city. Her bag was packed. All she needed to do was pick it up, and she could catch the “EL” back to the bus station. She should be on her way to parts unknown before dawn. The destination would be wherever the first bus out of town took her. It was pretty straightforward.

She picked up the pace, ready to be on her way. The man behind her didn’t miss a step. She frowned in annoyance. Of all the times to pick up a Good Samaritan.

She didn’t even know what he looked like, she realized. His face had remained in shadow back on the corner. All she knew was that he was tall and strong. The man was muscular as hell, and she’d been pressed up against every one of those muscles.

She wondered idly what she was doing. It wasn’t like it mattered how built the guy was. After the next couple of minutes, she was never going to see him again.

He didn’t say a word to her until they reached the rundown five-story building she’d called home for the past four months. She plowed up the steps without looking back at him, but sensed him appraising the structure.

“Nice place,” he said in a tone dry as dust.

“It’s a dump. You can say it.” The observation wouldn’t offend her. She hadn’t exactly been focusing on the building’s aesthetic qualities when it had come to finding a place to live.

She pushed the front door open, and when she didn’t immediately sense him behind her, she thought for a second he was going to leave. The notion was crushed an instant later when he laid his hand on the door and held it open for her. Rather than chance Taylor coming across them on the front stoop, she plunged inside and let him follow. She’d have to save the goodbyes for her front door. Like it or not, he would be saying goodbye then.

“Aren’t you worried he’ll follow you here?” her Samaritan asked as he trailed her up the unlit stairs.

“No. He doesn’t know about the apartment.” If he had he would have waited to ambush her here. Instead, he’d come after her in a public place.

“So it wasn’t random.”

Had she revealed too much? Too late to worry about it now. “No. It wasn’t random.”

She finally reached the third floor. Her apartment was the first on the left, facing the front of the building. Key already in hand, she shoved it into the lock, threw the door open and whirled back to face him before he’d stepped onto the shadowy landing.

“See. I made it. Safe and sound.”

Looming over her, he looked past her into the apartment. She doubted he could see much. It was still probably enough to let him know it wasn’t any more hospitable than the rest of the structure. Or the woman who lived there. “Lady, I’m not sure I feel safe in this building.”

“Then you’re welcome to leave.”

He made no move to do so. He stared at her, long and hard, until her skin began to tingle in response. She shifted uneasily from one foot to the other, doing her best not to rub at the goose bumps.

“I don’t think you feel safe here, either.”

“I’ll be fine. I’ve been here for quite a while. Nothing’s happened to me yet.”

“Because Taylor didn’t know where you were until today.”

The words were so unexpected she couldn’t hide her reaction. He might as well have punched her. The air whooshed from her lungs, the blood from her face.

She knew immediately she’d made a mistake.

She hurried to cover for it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He moved closer, every bit as big and intimidating as he’d been on the street. She managed to hold her ground.

He planted a hand on the door to keep her from slamming it in his face. A thought that hadn’t even occurred to her, she realized. Damn it. She had to get her head together.

“Nice try, lady. But I’m well acquainted with Roy Taylor. I know the sound of his voice as well as my own, and I know he’s the man you were trying to get away from back there. Just like I know you’re a native New Yorker.”

Oh, God. He was with Taylor.

And she’d led him straight into her home.

The surprise passed quickly, replaced by the anger she knew so well.

She channeled every bit of it into a glare that should have had him stepping back. “I don’t know anybody named Trainer.”

“Taylor.”

“Whatever. And I’m from Chicago. Born and bred right here on the South Side. Go Sox.” She made sure every word dripped with the distinctive accent she’d learned to affect early on. There could be no doubt where she was from.

She couldn’t see it, but she could sense him smile. “You let your accent slip back there in the street. You’ve got it back now. Pretty good, I have to admit. I never would have guessed.”

Was he telling the truth? It was certainly possible. She’d been half out of her mind back there.

He took advantage of her momentary silence to step forward again, forcing her to retreat just enough for him to step inside and shut the door behind him. Not bothering with the lock, he reached over and flipped on the light.

The glow from the single yellow bulb wasn’t enough of a shock that her eyes needed time to adjust. The light flared and then there he was, exposed to her for the first time.

He was just as intimidating in the light as he’d been in the dark. His face matched his body. Shaggy black hair crowned a head composed of sharp features and hard angles. He was older than she’d imagined for some reason, maybe forty. Lines were carved into thick grooves around his eyes and mouth. He wasn’t a man anyone would describe as handsome. He was too hard. Too cold. Too purely masculine in a raw, elemental way. Unyielding. Dangerous.

She found her voice at last. “Who are you?”

“The name’s Ross. I’m a bounty hunter.”

“I hate to break it to you, Ross, but there’s no bounty out on me.”

“I’m not after you. I’m after Taylor.”

A bounty hunter. She almost laughed out loud. All the people who were after her, and the one who’d caught her was looking for someone else. He’d found a lot more than he’d bargained for and had no idea what he had.

“Your turn,” he said. “Who are you?”

“That’s none of your business.”

He grabbed her arm before she could move, his fingers digging through the layers of clothes. “Lady, anything and everything related to Roy Taylor is my business. That makes you my business.”

She didn’t even blink. He’d lost the ability to shock her after that last bombshell. “No,” she said quietly, forcefully, looking him straight in the eye with one arched brow. She jerked out of his grasp. “It doesn’t.”

She noted with some satisfaction the hint of frustration that entered those pale gray eyes. It was quickly replaced by a far less-encouraging hard determination.

One corner of his mouth curved in challenge. “Then you won’t mind if I call the police and report what happened tonight.”

The police. Her heart lurched in her chest at the notion. If there was anyone more dangerous to her than Taylor, it was them.

“I don’t have a phone.”

He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket. “I do.”

She kept her expression impassive. “Do what you want. I’m going to go change.”

Then she was moving again, quickly, before he had a chance to react. She dodged into the bedroom a few feet away—the benefit of living in an apartment roughly the size of a postage stamp—and slammed the door shut behind her. The lock on the door wouldn’t give him much trouble if he tried coming after her. She flipped it, anyway, willing to take what she could get.

She was across the room in a flash. Her backpack was sitting on the mattress where she’d left it. Thankfully she hadn’t set it by the front door like she’d originally planned. Grabbing it, she moved to the bedroom window. It slid up silently at her touch. She created enough of an opening to fit through, then tossed her backpack through it, following a second later.

She landed hard on her hands and knees on the cold metal of the fire escape. It swayed beneath her. She ignored the motion—there was no time to be afraid of anything but the man who’d be coming after her at any moment—slung the backpack over her shoulder and hurried down the fire escape. With each step, it felt like she was moving too slow. Her feet kept slipping on the framework, her hands struggled to find purchase every time she fell. There were only three flights down to the street. It might as well have been a hundred. She glanced down and all she saw was darkness.

Fear lodged in her throat. She swallowed it back with the same ruthlessness with which she’d done everything so far. She couldn’t give in to fear. There was no time for it.

She finally reached the end. She’d have to jump the rest of the way. She dropped her backpack over the ledge, using the sound of its landing to judge the distance to the ground. A few feet. She could make that. She had to.

The landing jarred every bone in her body. It hurt, but not enough to signal anything was broken. Even before her body stopped weaving in an attempt to steady itself, she grabbed for the backpack, threw it over her shoulder and plunged forward into the night.

Two steps later she ran into a wall. Again.

An iron hand clamped down on her forearm. She jerked her head up in shock to face the man who loomed over her. Her first thought was that it had to be Ross, but then she realized it wasn’t. This man wasn’t quite as tall or broad. The uneasy sensation that skittered along her nerve endings warned her he was infinitely more dangerous.

“Gotcha,” he sneered, and her alarm skyrocketed.

“I don’t think so.”

The familiar voice came from behind her, startling both her and her captor. Almost as the words were spoken, she was yanked out of his grasp. He barely had time to lift his head before a fist came out of the darkness and landed a blow to the chin that sent him crashing to the ground.

Her savior spun her around to face him. She looked up in shock to meet Ross’s steely glare.

“How—”

“Back door,” he said, his voice grave. “There’s something you need to understand. I’m not stupid.”

His tone revived her anger. “You have to be. A smarter man would take a hint.” She dropped her gaze to the hand fastened to her arm like a vise. “If you want to keep that hand, I suggest you remove it.”

“Fine.” She was so surprised by his capitulation she didn’t even realize what he was doing until he had the cuff fastened around her wrist.

Outraged, she jerked at the metal ring affixing her arm to his. “Get this off me!”

“Do you really want to argue about this now?”

As if on cue, the man at their feet let out a soft groan.

Ross arched a brow at her. “Another friend of yours?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know who he is.”

“Well, we can wait for your new friend here to wake up and see what he has to say about it. Or maybe we should wait for Taylor to show up.”

“I told you I don’t know any Taylor.”

“And I told you I don’t believe you. Take your pick, lady. Taylor or me.”

She scrambled for another option and came up empty. She just knew she didn’t want to stand there arguing with him. Like it or not, Taylor was out there. “Fine,” she said through gritted teeth. “Let’s get out of here.”

She moved first to take the lead. Ross didn’t give her the chance. He surged forward toward the rear of the building, pulling her with him.

He stopped at the back of the building to make sure it was clear. Once he’d ascertained it was, he started moving again without saying a word. There was nothing for her to do but follow.

For now.

T HE SEDAN had New York plates.

Taylor barely glimpsed the license plate out of the corner of his eye. He was halfway down the block when the fact sank in.

After a half hour of aimlessly wandering the streets, he’d doubled back to the main one where the bar and the drugstore where the woman worked were located. Being on foot was getting him nowhere. He could cover more ground in his car.

But he’d kept alert on his way back, searching for any sign of the woman, paying attention to everything that fell within his range of vision.

Like the sedan with New York plates.

Curious, he turned around and narrowed his eyes on the car parked along the curb. He’d passed a pickup truck with New York plates farther down the block. Then the sedan. And of course his own vehicle was waiting around the corner.

Now what were the chances that three vehicles from New York would all be here tonight without being connected?

It was possible. There had to be millions of cars registered with New York State, all with corresponding plates.

But Taylor didn’t believe in coincidences.

Before he had a chance to consider it further, a man appeared down the street pulling a woman with him. Both quickly looked around them, neither seeing him tucked away in the shadows down the block. They quickly made their way to a truck parked along the curb. The truck he’d noted with New York plates.

He had no trouble recognizing the woman, despite the change in her hair from a year ago. It was the sight of the man that blindsided him.

His mouth curling into a sneer, Taylor bit back a curse. Gideon Ross. The two-bit bounty hunter had been a pain in his ass for too long, ever since the death of that washed-up old man. Taylor had thought he’d been rid of the bastard when he finally left the city.

And now he had the woman.

Damn it. It was all he could do not to grab his weapon from his shoulder holster and take aim. He and Chastain had always known how bad it would be if anyone else got their hands on her before Taylor did. But for Ross to be the one might just be the worst-case scenario.

Taylor took an instinctive step forward, then quickly stepped back into the shadows and considered his options. He could hustle down the block and try to get to the truck before they left, but he probably wouldn’t be able to stop them. Or he could run back to his own vehicle and try to follow. They’d likely be long gone before he got back.

Almost absently, he dropped his hand into his pocket and pulled out the tracking device he’d been fooling around with for a while now. He’d thought it might come in handy if she managed to hop on a bus or grab a cab before he could stop her. The only problem was he was nowhere near close enough to get the transmitter on the truck, and there was little chance he could do so before they took off.