Carter: The Sinner Saints #1 (4 page)

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

“I think I’m going to need an extra shot in that latte today, Peter,” Ally said, as she leaned against the counter at her local coffee shop, CafeNation. “Better make it two extra.”

Peter’s pierced brows arched as a smile pulled at his lips. “Long night?”

“You could say that.” Ally pushed herself away from the counter long enough to pull her wallet out of her purse. The place was always packed this time of morning, and there was quite a line forming behind her.

“Is that a good or a bad thing?”

It’s a ‘worst night of my life’ thing
.

Ally shrugged noncommittally. “It’s a quad latte kind of thing.”

“Gotcha.” Peter winked behind his thick-rimmed hipster glasses. “Do you want anything to eat with that?”

Ally shot a glance over at the pastry case. She should say yes. She hadn’t eaten anything since lunch yesterday. But the truth was, her stomach was still roiling with acid from the night before, and the thought of stuffing anything down there only made the bile rise further up into her throat.

“I’ll have a blueberry muffin,” a voice sounded by her side. Ally turned to find Carter Macmillan standing next to her. “And that Danish looks tasty.”

Peter raised his brows. “Is he with you?”

Ally’s stomach churned anew.

“He is now,” she settled on. It was easier than causing a scene.

She’d just have to get rid of him later…again.

“Let me guess,” Peter said with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. “This is Mr. Long Night.”

Ally flashed him a tight smile. “The pastries, Peter.”

“Sure thing,” he said with a wink, before grabbing the tongs and heading off.

“
Mr. Long Night
?” Carter didn’t bother hiding the amused grin that spread across his face.

“What are you doing here, Mr.
Macmillan
?”

“Getting some breakfast,” he said.

Ally pursed her lips and shot him a hard look. She was too damned tired for his attempts at humor.

“Well, in that case, the line starts back there,” she said, tilting her head toward the front door.

He gave a lazy shrug of his broad shoulders. “I figured that after last night the least you owed me was a muffin.”

Ally let out a long sigh. “Why do I get the feeling that’s not the only thing you think I owe you?”

The corners of his eyes lifted with his lips. “Well, I wasn’t going to bring up the seventy dollars you promised me, but—”

“Fifty,” Ally corrected him.

“That’s not how I remember it,” he said, slipping his hands into his pockets and rocking back slightly on his heels.

As much as she hated to admit it, he looked good. He was dressed very much like last night. The only real change was he’d swapped out one perfectly pressed black suit for a dark grey one. But other than that he was virtually the same. His short brown hair was still perfect. There were no dark circles under his eyes, no droop to his lids. He looked awake and alert, and more amazingly, in a good mood.

The man wasn’t human. That was the only explanation she could come up with.

“The extra twenty was for putting your arm around me…which you never did,” she said.

“Come on, I got rid of the men who were following you.”

“They were
your
men.”

“Still, it’s got to count for something.”

“Yeah,” she said, as Peter walked back and put down two small brown bags in front of them. “It counts for a muffin and Danish apparently.”

She started to hand Peter her bankcard, but Carter was faster. He pulled a bill out of his pocket and slid it across the counter.

“Keep the change,” he said to a very impressed Peter, who had just earned the biggest tip of the day.

Ally headed over to the crowd that surrounded the drink handoff platform as Carter swooped up the bags. A moment later, he joined her, standing maddeningly close to her side.

Ally thought for a moment about how badly she needed that quad latte this morning as she joined the jumbled throng waiting for their drinks. On any other day, she probably would have just left it behind and walked out the door, hopefully losing Mr. Macmillan in the process. But not today. Today she needed that coffee almost as badly as she needed oxygen.

Ally instinctively took a defensive stance, crossing her arms over her chest as she settled in to wait. There were lots of things to love about this little independent coffee shop in the heart of downtown Sacramento—good coffee, eclectic staff, a decidedly non-corporate ambiance—but their speed wasn’t one of them. Today, she would have appreciated a little less artisan foam art and a little more hustle.

“I take it you didn’t have a good rest of your night, Miss Weaver.”

Ally stiffened instantly. The sound of her name on his lips did more to wake her up than a dozen shots of espresso ever could.

“How do you know my name?” she asked, keeping her voice low.

Carter didn’t look over at her. He kept his eyes straight ahead. “Same way I found out that you work for the Sacramento Gazette, but you’ve been doing more and more freelance work to online journals. That you live off of 5
th
Street in West Sac. That every morning around eight-thirty, you have a charge on your debit card at CafeNation.”

Ally’s heart sped in her chest with every word that came out of his mouth. Cold tendrils of panic started to creep through her veins. Screw the coffee. She had to get out of here.

She spun on her heel and started for the door, but Carter put a hand on her shoulder. He didn’t grab her. His fingers didn’t twist into her sweatshirt. There was nothing about his touch that was physically restraining her, but she stopped all the same.

He bent down to whisper in her ear.

“You don’t want to run away from me again, Ally.” It didn’t sound like a threat. It sounded like friendly advice. “I’m not your enemy.”

She twisted around to look at him.

“Why don’t we go sit down while we wait for your coffee,” he suggested.

Ally nodded. It was a good idea. They hadn’t caused a scene, not exactly. But a few gazes were starting to turn their way, and the last thing that Ally wanted was any more attention.

She walked over to the closest empty table. She took in a shaky breath, trying to calm her racing heart. When that didn’t work, she turned her attention out the window, and away from the turmoil inside herself.

Pull yourself together, Weaver.

She repeated the mantra with every passing car. After half a dozen, she started coming back to herself.

“Let’s try this again,” Carter said as he sat down. “You didn’t sleep last night, did you?”

Ally shook her head. She was too tired to be offended. Besides, it was obvious. If her tired eyes didn’t give her away, then the massive dark circles under them sure did. It didn’t help that, since she’d stayed at her parent’s empty house last night, she didn’t have any of her makeup to try to cover it up.

It also explained her wardrobe for the day—an old UC Davis sweatshirt and a pair of jeans she hadn’t worn since her sophomore year of college.

“Work or fear?” he asked.

“Both.”

“Did you find out what was on the drive?”

Ally snapped her head away from the window. She narrowed her eyes. “Why do you care about what’s on Harvey’s drive?”

He relaxed into his chair and draped one bent arm over the rest. “I told you, Ally, I’m not your enemy.”

“That doesn’t answer my question,” she said, holding firm.

Carter met her stare for a long second before answering. “Because you were right. Fuller lied. His security detail said we shot first, and he backed them up. They said we were the ones that wouldn’t stand down, and, because the good congressman has a hell of a lot of pull in this town, the cops believed him.”

“I’m sorry,” Ally said, and she meant it. She’d tried to warn him how ruthless Buck Fuller could be. “So why aren’t you in jail right now?”

“I’m guessing Fuller’s team didn’t have enough time to manufacture proof before the police showed up last night, but it’s just a matter of time until they do. Fuller’s coming after my company. He’s trying to pin this on me personally,” Carter said, his voice falling as he leaned forward. He jabbed his finger into the tabletop as he spoke. “I’m not going to let that happen. And the only way I can do that is to discredit him, to expose him for what he really is.”

Ally leaned back in her chair. She believed him when he said he wasn’t going to let Fuller take him down. Suddenly, she was grateful for all of his assurances that he wasn’t her enemy. She’d seen what he could do, but she had a feeling it was just a fraction of what he was capable of.

“I understand,” Ally said, relaxing a bit. “But unfortunately, I’m not going to be much help to you yet. Whatever information is on that flash drive, it’s encrypted.”

“I can help you break it.”

“That’s okay,” she said, waving off the offer. “I know a guy. He’s good.”

“Not as good as my staff, I promise you,” he said with a twinkle of pride in his eye. “And definitely not half as fast.”

“I don’t know…” Ally said. She’d fought too hard for that flash drive to just hand it over to anyone. She’d jumped out a broken window and shimmied down a lamppost. She’d spent the night in her childhood bedroom, for God’s sake.

“What don’t you know?”

Ally drew in a deep breath. Honesty was the best policy. At least that was what her grandmother had always told her.

“I don’t know if I can trust you.”

“I don’t know if you can afford not to,” he shot back.

“Excuse me?”

Carter leaned across the table. His honey-colored eyes locked with hers. And suddenly, it was as though everyone else in the crowded cafe disappeared. It was just him and her.

Ally felt her heart start to pound again. This time it had nothing to do with fear. It looked like, even though her brain wasn’t quite ready to trust Carter Macmillan, the rest of her body was far from complacent about him.

“I found you, Ally. With very little information, I knew exactly where you’d be and when,” he said. There was no malice in his voice, but his words still chilled her down to the bone. “If I can do it, so can Fuller. I understand your hesitation, but you have to realize that you are a thousand times safer with me than on your own, and stop running away.”

Ally swallowed hard. Dammit if that didn’t sound like the truth.

She was saved from having to respond when her name was called out at the bar. Carter jumped up and grabbed her cup. He cocked a brow as he returned to the table.

“You ready to go?” he asked.

Together.

Ally drew in a deep breath. It didn’t look like she had much of a choice.

Besides, the man was currently holding her coffee hostage.

Ally nodded, and stood up. She grabbed her cup from Carter’s hand as they stepped out onto the sidewalk. She took a long sip of the coffee and let the fresh air clear her head.

Carter waited patiently by her side. He didn’t try to rush her. Apparently, he could be quite the gentleman when there wasn’t someone shooting at them.

“I don’t have the drive on me,” she said finally. “We’ll have to go and get it.”

“I take it you’ve hidden it?” he asked, pushing away from the wall of the building.

“Somewhere very safe.”

“Good.” He started off down the street opposite from her car.

“Hey, I’m parked over here,” she said, pointing behind her.

“I know,” he said, not breaking his stride. “We’ll be taking my car from now on.”

Ally hurried to catch up with him. “Because it’s safer?”

“That’s one reason. The other is I don’t trust you not to speed off and leave me behind.”

Now it was her turn to flash him a mischievous smile. “Come on. It’s a twelve-year-old Toyota. It doesn’t
speed off
anywhere.”

“Fair enough,” he conceded. “But still, I insist we take mine.”

Ally couldn’t contain the chuckle that rose up in her throat as he stepped over to the driver’s side of a new sports car, one far too fancy for Ally to know the name of. He pulled the keys from his pocket.

“Yeah, I can see why,” she said, looking down at the sleek, red machine in front of her. “
This
is your car?”

“You were expecting something else?” he asked.

She shouldn’t have been. It had just been so long since she’d ridden in a car that wasn’t held together with duct tape and prayers, she’d kind of forgotten there were other ways of getting around.

Ally opened the door and slid into the passenger side. The inside of the car was every bit as stylish and modern as the outside. She’d just settled into her seat when she heard the lock click into place.

She snapped her head toward Carter. He gave her an apologetic shrug of his shoulders.