Duplicity (23 page)

“It was silk scarves.”

“Whatever!” she shouted at him. “You tied me up.”

“I saved your life.”

“So you kidnapped me to save my life? You expect me to believe that?”

She stared at him, incredulous. “It’s the most absurd thing-”

“When you got back from the hospital meeting with Phelps, two men were in your house. I seriously doubt they dropped in for a friendly visit.”

Tracy thought back. She had heard two distinct thuds. Adam disarming the men? “How did you know about Phelps, or that I’d been to the hospital?”

“Someone turned off the power switch to that automatic door, counselor. Do you think that person wasn’t waiting inside, just in case you managed to get back in?”

“The bomb was a dummy.”

“The man waiting was real.”

“What man?”

“The one I knocked out and stuffed in a cabinet at the nurses’ station-Phelps’s boss.”

“So you’ve been following me.” Why that calmed her down, she had no idea. Burke was the worst possible kind of adversary. He had nothing left to lose.

The rain started again, and the interior of the car turned as dark as night. He flipped on the headlights, then glanced over at her. The lit-up dash cast an. eerie green shadow on his chin. “Yes, I’ve been following you. So in has Lieutenant Carver, and at times, Gus O’Dell.”

Hackett’s aide and O’Dell—and Adam? No wonder she’d had strong sensations of being followed. “Are you crazy? You’re supposed to be dead. How did you fake the dental records?”

“I didn’t fake anything.” He scowled at the road. “For a while, though, I wondered if I had slipped over the edge. Then they targeted you, and that convinced me I was still sane.”

Randall obviously had lied about the dental records. But on whose orders? “How did you get out of that fire?”

“The power went out in the cell block. My door opened. I heard this man’s voice in the dark. He told me, to get out of the cell block fast, or die. I got out.

“Who was he?”

“I didn’t ask. When you’re smelling gasoline and being offered a chance to survive, you don’t ask, you just take the chance.”

She braced a hand on the door’s armrest and turned in the seat to stare at him. “I’m not buying into this. I want the truth. All of it. Right damn now. Kidnapping is a federal offense-”

“You’d rather I had let those two kill you?”

She grimaced. “How do you know they intended to kill me?”

I “If they were coming for coffee, I would think they would ring the doorbell. I’m certain they wouldn’t break into your house, packing weapons. I’m no strategic expert, but even for me, the picture was clear enough.”

Could that be true? Bristling, she glared at him. “So why do you care about me?”

“Frankly, I need a witness.”

“To what?”

“The truth. I’m going to prove I’m innocent. You’re going to know it.”

“If you expect me to thank you for dragging me into this, you can forget it. You scared the hell out of me.”

“I don’t expect anything from you, counselor, or from anyone else. I just didn’t want to see you wake up dead.”

A cutting survivor remark, straight from the heart. Why did hearing it sting? “So you kidnapped me to save me?”

She couldn’t believe that. And yet, like his original disclosure, it held a ring of truth. She had heard those thuds.

“To save you and to prove the truth.” He swerved left onto another dirt road. “I’ve never lied to you, counselor. Now I mean to prove it to you. There is a conspiracy going on. How high up the chain of command it goes, I don’t know-yet. But I suspect it involves General Nestler, and I mean to find out.”

Tracy shook her head, closed her eyes. “Damn it, Burke. Faking your death and kidnapping your attorney isn’t a way to prove anything except that you’re insane.”

“I’m not insane, I’m determined. I will prove the truth.” His eyes shone intensely. “And you’re going to help me.”

Shock streaked up her back, tingled at the roof of her mouth. “I’m not your partner, for God’s sake. I’m your hostage. Why in the name of heaven would I help you?”

“Because you want the truth, too.” He drove to a blue sedan, parked on the side of the road, abruptly stopped, cut the engine, and then opened his door. “Come on.”

A glare streaked across its windshield, yet the sedan was obviously empty. “Where are we going?”

“To the other car.” Adam must have seen her worried look; he smiled. “It’s okay. I planted it here. They’ll come after us, and when they do, I’d rather not be in the same car.”

Tracy didn’t move. “Were you driving the sedan parked outside my house?”

“No, that was Carver.”

“What about when I had the accident?”

:“Would I leave you in a ditch?”

“I don’t know. Would you?”

His lips flattened to a slash. “No.”

“Then who did?”

“O’Dell.” Adam unsnapped his seat belt. “Let’s go.”

“I don’t think so.” She didn’t move an inch. “You stole that car, Adam.”

“I don’t steal.”

“Do you have a requisition for it?” Please. Did the man think she was stupid?

“I appropriated it,” he said defensively.

“You stole it.”

“I did not.” He raked a hand through his hair in frustration. “What the hell is the difference?” He shot her a glare that had her legs shaking again. “Look, I’m trying to be reasonable, counselor. You’re coming, one way or the other. I’ll leave the choice to you. Do you want to walk, or be dragged?”

He meant it. Only a fool would believe he didn’t. “I’ll walk.

When they were seated in the sedan, she strapped on her seat belt. “You’re going to be in Leavenworth a long time for this, Burke. A long time.”

“That’s a fluff comment, counselor,” He rolled his gaze. “I’m not guilty, and I did not fake my death.”

A frown knitted her brow. “Then who did?” If he said Randall, to hell with it. She’d just faint. She’d had all she could take, and Adam already considered her fluff and incompetent. A little faint certainly couldn’t worsen his opinion of her.

“I suspect Hackett. Maybe O’Dell.”

That intrigued her. “Why would they fake your death?

They want you dead and buried and your case closed.”

Jackson’s “wrath of God” ass-chewing attested to that.

“On paper,” Adam said. “But they don’t really want me dead. At least, not yet.”

“You’re not making a bit of sense.”

“I’m making perfect sense.” He slid her a “Think, woman” look. “If I were really dead, then I couldn’t be accused of committing more crimes. And if I had remained imprisoned, I wouldn’t be free to commit more crimes.

True on both counts. “So the man who burned-” ‘.“I’m not sure yet,” he said. “There’s a rumor at the hospital about a missing corpse. It doesn’t seem probable, but I’m checking it out.”

John Doe. Betrayal swam through her, leaving bitterness in its wake. “Randall identified your body by your dental records. He lied.”

“I’m sorry, counselor,” Adam said, sounding sincere. “But yes, he did.”

Tracy squeezed the door handle. “This doesn’t fit. He’s so image-conscious. So terrified of his board disapproving his every sneeze. Why Would he falsely identify you?”

“I suspect he was ordered to do it.”

“That’s no excuse. -A lie’s still a lie. He preaches ethics, but the sorry bastard lied.”

Adam cocked an eyebrow. “I thought you were having an affair with that sorry bastard.”

“We were once friends. That’s all.” If someone had issued Randall orders to falsely identify Adam, was it such a huge mental leap to suspect that someone also had ordered the substitution of John Doe’s corpse? It could have happened. But what about all the egos and powerful players in between? The hospital and the facility? “I don’t get emotionally involved.”

“Not since Matthew?”

She had no intention of answering that. None. Fear cracked open a new wound inside her. “Exactly what crimes do you expect O’Dell, and Hackett to commit and blame on you?”

“That, I don’t know,” Adam said, clearly irritated that he hadn’t figured it out. “But I’m betting there will be more of them, unless they’re stopped and exposed, which is why we-”

” We?” She cut in. “Oh, no, Burke.” She swiped her hand down the front of her robe, tugging it closed over her knees. “There’s no we in this.”

“I need your help.”

That admission mentally knocked her on her backside. “You kidnap me, and you actually expect me to help you?”

“Not only do I expect it, counselor.” The damn man smiled. “I demand it.”

chapter 17.

Light faded to darkness. With it went some of Tracy’s fear and indignation. Adam obviously hadn’t kidnapped her to kill her or she would be dead.

Actually, she thought, leaning against the car door, her face pressed against the cool glass, he’d taken the risk of exposing himself as still being alive to hell two distinct thuds she had heard from her bathroom explained the new scrapes on his knuckles.

Who were those men? Why were they in her house?

The thought of them being there and her not knowing it petrified her. from beneath her lashes.

She glanced over at Adam into the night and yet he He’d been driving all day and didn’t look tired. Dark stubble shadowed his jaw but he appeared alert, watchful. Dangerous … The dirt road narrowed. Tall weeds slapped against the car fenders, and a trickle of fear slid through her chest. She didn’t like fearing him-not after she’d risked her career and her life trying to unearth the truth for him. Not after she’d attended his funeral and had mourned him. Not after she’d read his Intel file and had learned of, his disastrous childhood and his short but equally disastrous marriage. And especially not after she’d identified with him as a survivor and had dreamed Of making love with him two nights in a row. Obviously , Adam had never known unconditional love.

If he had, they might not be in this situation now.

“You’re awake,” Adam said. “Feeling better?”

$he was. Maybe he had scared the flu right out of her. Whatever the reason, she would accept the blessing and be grateful for it. “Yes.”

“Your fever broke about an hour ago,” he said. “You slept through it.”

“I always sleep through fear.” She bristled at the lie.

“No you don’t. You drink Earl Grey tea, wear that flannel robe and your Winnie-the-Pooh slippers. And you pace the tioors a lot.”

A denial on her lips, she looked down and saw twin smiling Pooh faces sticking out from under the hems of her PJS. Heat rushed up her neck to her face. The man knew her better than she thought, more than she would Realize.

“I stopped and bought a cooler and some drinks.”

Looking down, she saw a small ice chest on the floorboard near her feet. She rubbed at her stomach. “I don’t think I’d better try a whole drink just yet.”

“I didn’t get juice. They had concentrate, and you only drink freshly squeezed.”

How had he learned so many intimate details about her?

The man’s Intel, dummy.

Uncomfortable, she turned the tables on him, twisting on the seat to face him. “Why did you risk exposing yourself to help me?”

His eyes shone approval. She hated liking that; she really did. He realized she had come full circle and now accepted he had kidnapped her to save her life.

“Maybe I didn’t want to be blamed for your murder.”

Tracy dismissed that fluff remark. “More likely, a dead man can’t commit murder. If they want you alive to commit more crimes, then they wouldn’t let it be known you’re alive until after the crimes are committed. Otherwise, you’d be hunted down and tossed back into the facility. You wouldn’t be available to blame for anything.”

“Very astute, counselor.” Adam drank from the can of Coke, then offered it to her.

Wanting a sip, she shook her head. “Better not. I’ll make you sick.”

“I’ll risk it.” He passed the can over.

She took it and drank a small swallow, careful not to touch the can with her lips. “You didn’t answer my question. Why did you help me?”

and his knuckles on the steering wheel went white. clenched. Conversely, his voice went whisper-soft. i “You attended my funeral.”

“Good God, you had the impudence to attend your own funeral?” She passed back the Coke. “Why would you take such a risk?”

His fingers brushed against hers on the can, and he held them there. “You don’t believe I’m innocent. I know it and you know it. Yet even after I was supposedly dead, you kept looking for the truth.” He pulled in a breath, as if savoring that knowledge. “No one has ever sacrificed for me before.”

Exactly how closely had he been monitoring her?

“Sacrificed?”

“I know what it’s cost you, counselor. Jackson’s holding you personally responsible. Still, being threatened with disciplinary proceedings hasn’t stopped you.” Adam Maybe that’s shifted on the seat, plainly uncomfortable.” just the way you are, and it’s common for you, but what you are doing isn’t common for me.”

“Life’s been hard on you.” Touched, Tracy’s heart softened toward him, awakening feelings she had never thought to feel again. Feelings she didn’t want to feel. Feelings she feared. She reached for her locket, found her neck bare, and then remembered it wasn’t there. She’d lost it, too, Beside the narrow road, a flock of doves lifted from the tall grass and took flight in the night sky. Adam watched them, a frown knitting his brow. “I don’t need your pity, counselor.”

“You don’t have it.” She let her hand slide over his face. His five-o’clock shadow rustled against her palm. She liked the sound. “I wasn’t making a commentary, just stating a fact.”

Adam glanced into the rearview mirror, stiffened at the wheel, then slammed his foot down on the accelerator.

Tracy’s head banged against the headrest. “Damn it. It was just a simple comment. You’re taking it kind of hard, aren’t you?”

He rolled her a “fluff’ look. “They’ve found us.” He nodded for her to look behind them.

A cloud of dust spewed out behind their sedan. Through it, she saw headlights, about three hundred yards behind them. Her heart seemed to stop, then tripped and shot straight up into her throat. “Who is it?”

“I don’t know. Probably the men from your house.”

Weeds beat at the sides of the car, at the windows Hating the noise, fear smothering her, Tracy darted her gaze back, then forward. “There’s a crossroad.” Was she really trying to help him get away from them? She was making herself an accessory, for God’s sake.