Hunted, A Romantic Suspence Novel (21 page)

Katie turned as Matt called her name.

In that split second she saw the blonde man leaning over the white van, the morning light glinting off the long black gun barrel he aimed at her.

A moving blur of deep blue filled her vision.

A gasp escaped her when Matt’s body careened into hers. His hands covered her head, just before they smacked into the concrete sidewalk. The wind was knocked out of her and she stared in a daze at the sky.

Women around them screamed. People scattered and crouched.

“Get down,” Castello yelled to her left.

“Matt?” she finally whispered.

He lifted his head, his beautiful blue eyes searching hers. “You okay, sweetheart?”

She nodded. “I think so. You?”

“Yeah.” He eased up just a little, looking to his left, but still covering her body with his.

Damn him. He’s acting like a human shield.

Well, she wouldn’t let him sacrifice himself for her.

She wiggled beneath him, pushing on his shoulders with her hands. “Let me up.”

“Stop it, Katie.” He pressed his body harder against hers. “Stay down.”

“I won’t let you die for me.” She tried to grip his coat in her hands. Her right hand felt wetness beneath it. “Oh God, Matt, you’ve been hit.”

“Sh, I know. Now hold still.”

He laid his head into the crook of her neck. His breathing rasped in her ear. She stopped trying to get out from beneath him, and held him as tight as she could.

Tears stung her eyes, and her chest ached. “Don’t die on me, Matt. Please don’t die on me.”

He kissed her ear. “I’m tougher than that, sweetheart.”

Castello’s face came into view. “He’s gone. You two can get up now.”

Slowly Matt pushed his body off of Katie’s and struggled to his feet. He grabbed his shoulder, cursing at the same time.

“Let me look at it.” Scrambling to stand beside him, she worked to open his coat.

“Wait, Katie. We have to get out of here.” Matt grabbed her hand to still her efforts.

“I need to see the wound.” She stared into his eyes, reading both pain and desire there.

“You can look at it, once we’re safe somewhere.” With a glance over his shoulder, he pulled her against him then jogged to the parking garage. “You coming, Castello?”

“Right behind you, Edgars.”

Behind them, the sound of sirens blared. In front of them, the black SUV screeched toward them. Castello tried to jump in front of them, but Matt stopped him with a hand. “He’s with us.”

Luke stopped beside them. “Where we heading? And what the hell happened up there?” he asked as Katie opened the rear door, and helped Matt inside. Castello climbed in front.

“We’ll tell you later. Go out the State Street entrance and drive slow.” Matt leaned back against the seats.

“Do you three have a place close by?” Castello asked from the front seat.

“Nowhere safe,” Matt replied.

“What about the cabin?” Luke asked as he pulled onto the street.

“It’s too far away.” Katie said, looking at Matt’s wound.

“Then head into German Village. We’ll go to a safe house I have there,” Castello said.

“Pardon me, but I don’t trust any safe house of the Marshals right now,” Matt ground out as Katie probed his wound.

“This one isn’t on the books. I use it for the rare time I want to hide a witness from danger. This qualifies.” Castello gave directions to Luke, who’d maneuvered them away from the area that was beginning to fill with police vehicles and curious pedestrians.

Katie unfastened Matt’s coat and gently shoved it off his left shoulder. She sucked in her breath. The front of his shirt was covered with blood.

“We’ve got to get you to a doctor.” She dug through her backpack and pulled out a white t-shirt. Pressing the material against his shoulder, she worked to stem the flow of blood.

“No, doctors,” he whispered between clenched teeth. “We don’t want this reported.”

His gaze met hers and she understood. If they went to a doctor, it would be reported and their faces would be all over the news. She’d have to fix him.

“You can do this, Katie.”

His eyes told her he had complete trust in her. Heat filled her face and she lowered her gaze, focusing on applying pressure to the wound.

Leaning his head against the seat, he closed his eyes. For a moment her breath caught in her throat. Had he lost too much blood already? Then he lifted his hand and stroked her hair.

She trembled.

“I saw that gun, and I had to protect you.” Gently, his fingers slid between the strands, and he pulled her closer, so her head rested on his uninjured shoulder. “Did I hurt you when I landed on you?”

“Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

“That’s my girl. Tough to the end.” A chuckle rumbled through his chest.

“You’re injured. There’s nothing funny about this,” she scolded him, but smiled anyway. If he could tease her, he must be okay.

Luke, following Castello’s directions, drove them through the downtown area into the renovated historic district of German Village. They stopped in front of one of the restored brick townhouses originally built around the turn of the century by German immigrants.

Katie stuffed the t-shirt into Matt’s coat and closed it to hold the makeshift compress in place. Then she scrambled out of the car behind him. Luke already had one arm around Matt and Matt slung his good arm over his brother’s shoulder.

Once they had Matt inside, she helped him out of his coat. He flopped onto a kitchen chair in the almost austere kitchen and started issuing orders. “Luke, park the truck in the alley. We don’t know if anyone saw us and can identify it as ours.”

Castello entered the room with a large plastic toolbox. He set it on the table by Katie. “This is a first aid kit.”

“Thank you,” she replied. Opening it, she found gauze, tape, disinfectant, even some sealed packets of sutures and steri-strips for sealing wounds.

Matt unbuttoned his shirt for her to see his injury. “This guy has been one step ahead of us all the way.”

“What did you see before you were shot?” Castello pulled out a chair, turned it around and straddled it, leaning his arms on the back.

“I saw a white van with Pennsylvania plates.” Matt hissed as Katie pulled the shirt away from his shoulder.

“Couldn’t this wait until later?” she asked. “We need to get this wound closed.”

“Katie,” Matt’s hand closed over hers, and he waited for her to lift her eyes to look at him. “The distraction will keep it from hurting too much.”

“Fine.” Great. Wonderful. If he didn’t mind hurting while they talked, why should she try to be gentle? Still, she worked the shirt carefully away from his shoulder, then dabbed his wound with a clean gauze. It looked like a furrow in freshly tilled ground across the top of his shoulder. “The bullet just grazed your shoulder. I think you’ll live.”

He smiled at her.

A warm heat filled her cheeks. They both remembered him lying on top of her, and her plea for him not to die. Quickly, she broke the visual connection and concentrated on cleaning his wound.

“Geez.” He hissed as she dabbed the astringent on the open wound. He sucked in air then panted a few breaths.

Mr. Big and Tough wasn’t so big and tough.

Katie bit the inside of her mouth and retrieved the tube of antibiotic cream Matt’s sister had sent her for her injuries, smearing it on the wound. The smoothness of his warm skin beneath her fingers sent shivers through her body. She wanted to caress even more of it.

“Why did the Pennsylvania plates tip you off?” Castello asked.

“I saw it the day before Katie’s car exploded. The same day her tire was shot out.”

“You didn’t tell me your tire had been blown out,” Castello stared at her.

She shrugged and taped gauze on Matt’s shoulder. “In the craziness, it slipped my mind. But that’s how I figured out my cover was blown.”

“So you figure this was the same hit man?” Castello asked Matt.

Matt nodded. “I saw him step out of the van and take aim at Katie. The rest you know.”

“What did he look like?” Luke asked from the rear door as he entered.

“Tall. Blond. Older, maybe in his late fifties.” Matt nodded at Castello. “Did you get a look at him after I hit the ground?”

An image flashed in Katie’s brain. Just before Matt drove her to payment she’d seen
him
. Her breath froze in her chest. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears. She squatted on her heels.

Castello shook his head. “No. It was pandemonium.”

“Damn. I was hoping you got a better description for Katie to ID him.”

“I don’t need it,” she whispered.

All three men looked at her.

“Katie? What’s wrong?” Matt gripped her by the shoulders and helped her into a chair.

“I know who it was.”

“Who?” the men asked in unison.

She stared at Matt, barely seeing him through her own pain, her own sense of another betrayal. “But it can’t be him. He died ten years ago.”

“Katie, tell me who you think it was,” Matt asked with quiet tenderness.

“Gideon. Strict’s second in command, the one he called the Angel of Retribution.”

“I thought you said Gideon died in the Federal Building blast.” Matt took her hands in his. They felt like two blocks of ice. She stared at him with huge, unseeing eyes. The color had completely drained from her face. Fine tremors shook her body.

He glanced at Castello. “Do you have any whiskey here?”

“I think we do somewhere,” the marshal replied already searching the cabinet. “It’s been a while since we placed anyone in this house.”

“Luke, find me a heavy blanket or quilt.” Matt instructed his brother, as he unbuttoned Katie’s coat and worked it off her body. He rubbed his hands over her arms and shoulders. Wincing with the effort he ignored the pain in his own shoulder and his rising panic. He needed to get her warm. He went to the kitchen and brought back a warm wet dishtowel. First he wiped her brow then cleaned his blood from her hands, rubbing briskly to get them warm.

Somehow he had to get the spirit back in her and pull her out of this. Right now, he’d be glad if she’d try to kick him or even point a gun at him again. Anything was better than seeing this quiet corpselike figure frozen in the chair.

“Katie, look at me. You can survive this. You’ve survived so much. Don’t let the bastards win now.”

Luke returned with a blanket and draped it around her stiff, quiet body. Worry etched his features as he looked to his brother for reassurance. Matt nodded that he was just as concerned.

“Here.” Castello handed him a tumbler containing two fingers of whiskey.

Matt held the glass to her lips. “Drink this, sweetheart.”

She took a sip then gasped as it burnt its way down her throat.
“That’s nasty,” she whispered in a hoarse voice. She blinked a few times, finally raising focused eyes to Matt’s.

He exhaled in relief.

Then she started shaking. Hard. Body-wracking. She nearly shook right off the chair.

Grasping her by the shoulders, he tried to steady her. “Easy, Katie. It’s over now. You’re safe again.”

“He’s evil.” Anger and betrayal filled her beautiful eyes.

“Gideon?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Strict. He allowed Gideon to tend me after every beating.” She gulped in air. “He hoped I’d give in, and he could control me, if Gideon gave me some measure of compassion, some hope that I mattered.”

Matt’s gut twisted. He hated asking, but had to know. “Did you love him?”

“Gideon?” She covered his hand with hers. “No. I felt grateful to him, and I thought of him as a father figure, but I did trust him. When they told me he’d died, well, that was when I knew I had to get away from the bunker and the Family. Without Gideon there to restrain him, Strict would’ve killed me with the next beating.”

“He beat you?” Luke asked.

Katie nodded.

Matt glanced at him. His brother looked incredulous. Matt’s gaze shifted to Castello, who remained nonplussed by her revelation.

Understanding slammed into Matt. Castello knew about Katie’s beatings, and he’d still forced her to face Strict in court, day after day.

“You bastard. You knew what that scum did to her. Still you used her, just like everyone else.”

“She was our only witness.” Castello’s gaze didn’t waver. “You know she had to testify as well as I did, no matter how badly Strict beat her.”

Matt saw red. He wanted someone to blame for everything Katie had suffered. Right now he didn’t really care who.

“Ease up, Matt.” Luke crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. “He’s no more responsible for what happened to Katie than you or I. If you quit thinking like a guy protecting his woman and more like a cop, you’ll see he’s right.”

Matt eyed his brother. “He may not have been responsible for what Strict and his Family did to her years ago, but he’s damn well been responsible for her safety since then.”

“Please let it go. The Marshal isn’t the leak.” Katie laid her hand on his face. “I need you to focus on the problem at hand. If we’re ever going to solve this mess, we’re going to need Frank’s help, too.”

Matt stared at her, the rage in him subsiding with the plea in her voice.

“Please, for me?”

For a moment he hesitated, then nodded. He shoved himself away from the table, grabbed his shirt and headed out the back door. If he didn’t get out of the house, he might explode.

“Matt?” Katie called, heading out after him.

“Let him go.” Luke stepped between her and the door.

“It’s freezing out there.”

“And Matt’s a big boy.” Luke took her arm, steering her into the living room. “Besides, all he’s going to do is slam his fists into the side of a tree or two.”

Memories of Matt kick-boxing the other night warmed Katie more than the whiskey and blanket combined. “Does he do that often?” she asked, curling into the sofa’s corner.

“Hit things?” Luke flopped onto an oversized chair across from her. “Not since he was fifteen. Before that he was pretty much a loose cannon, headed straight for the bad side—disobeying rules, getting into fights.”