Saving Grace (Serve and Protect Series) (20 page)

Ah, there
. She rolled her shoulders to relax them. Things weren’t that bad.

Yeah, not bad.
You screwed around on Ray, dumped him, crashed the car. Now, because of that suitcase full of money you were heading out of town with, the source of which you’ve forgotten‌—‌forgotten!‌—‌Ray is now under suspicion for God knows what.

Had she left anything out? Oh, yeah, someone had tapped their phone, probably the same person who’d shot at them. The whole house was likely bugged, by some mob types, no less.

So, to recap, despite the fact that someone out there wanted to kill them, they couldn’t turn to the cops for fear they’d get whacked while the business of the mystery money was sorted out.

Neither could they go home....

Home
. In her mind, she saw her house, door hanging off its hinges, vinyl siding blackened and melted. She opened her eyes, focusing fiercely on the blue tiles of the tub surround.

Come on, Grace
, she scolded herself.
You’re a natural optimist. You can do better than that.
Taking a deep breath, she tried again to look on the bright side.

Things really
could
be worse. They weren’t in any immediate peril. Nobody had shot at them or tried to blow them up for ... well,
days
.

Of course, I’m pregnant and can’t say for sure who the father is....

“Arrgh!”

Grace heard the volume on the television dip. A second later, she heard Ray from the other side of the door.

“You okay in there?”

Ray looking out for her, as always.

“I’m fine.” She heard him move away from the door.

He’d protect her and the baby she carried, no matter whose child it was. But dammit, the baby was
his
. Ray’s. The certainty moved through her now just as it had done earlier at the hospital. If only he had the same faith....

She let her breath out. That was never going to happen. She’d given him no reason to trust her. Come to that, she didn’t even trust herself. How could she, with that big chunk of memory missing?

Sitting up, she flipped the toggle to open the drain. Heedless of the water sloshing everywhere, she clambered out of the tub and grabbed a towel. Enough was enough.

As a therapeutic, the soak in the tub had bombed, but it did seem to revive her appetite. Ten minutes later, dressed in boxers and t-shirt, she sat on the bed polishing off a piece of pizza. Ray reclined on the other bed, watching a ball game. She’d even been able to eat the Caesar salad without fear of food poisoning because Ray had thought to stick it in the mini-bar fridge.

“That was good. Thanks.”

A grunt from the other bed was her only acknowledgment.

“I think I’ll turn in now.”

He glanced up at her. “Want me turn the TV off?”

“No, it’s fine.”

She felt his gaze on her as she prepared for bed, but when she settled on her side under the covers, he turned back toward the baseball game. She studied his face for a moment. In the flickering light cast by the muted television, the grooves bracketing his mouth looked deeper than ever. Lord, she’d loved that face at first sight. Still loved it.

How could she have betrayed him?

“I’ll get them to do a paternity test when the baby comes.”

Her words fell into the silence.

For a moment, she wondered if he’d heard her. Then he turned toward her, the glitter of his eyes unreadable in the darkened room. “Okay.”

Grace rolled away, pulling the covers up to her chin.
Don’t think, don’t think. Just sleep.

Ray came awake, suddenly and completely, to the sound of harsh breathing, but he didn’t move a muscle. These few days on the run had taught him as much about stealth as all his years on the force. Eyes still closed so their glitter couldn’t give him away, he reached slowly over the edge of the bed. Unerringly, his hand found the gun, which he’d left jutting out of his hightop runners. Only then did he open his eyes a sliver.

The darkness inside the room was almost total, but he didn’t need to see to know where the sound was coming from. The far end of the room, near the chair in the corner. Slowly, he curled up until he could reach the lamp on the night table. Leveling his weapon in the direction of the heavy breather, he hit the switch.

In the instant of illumination, he saw it was Grace in the chair, her knees drawn up to her chin, the picture of misery.

Grace
. Not an intruder.

Whether from the unexpected flood of light or from the gun he was brandishing, she shrank deeper into the chair. He lowered the gun.

“Sorry. I thought we had ourselves a visitor.”

He saw a shudder pass through her at his words and cursed himself.
Atta boy, Einstein. Terrify her a little more, why don’t you? That oughta help speed the old memory back.

“Sorry, it was just reflex. I must be wound a little too tight. We’re safe in here. Really.”

Which they were. Probably. But she didn’t look especially convinced. In fact, she looked pretty scared still, her gaze wide and frozen on him.

Of course. He still held the damned gun, though he no longer pointed it in her direction. He leaned over the edge of the bed and shoved the weapon back into his shoe. Rolling back, he pulled himself to a sitting position, propped against the headboard.

“So, what are you doing up?” he asked, as the ferocious
jerk, jerking
of his heart finally subsided to a mere pounding.

She bit her lip, then released it. He watched the color flood back into the delicate tissue.

“The money....”

His slowing pulse leapt again. “What about it?”

“It came out of our account.”

Holy hell
. “You remembered about the money?”

“A little bit. Not enough.”

She looked so miserable, his initial excitement ebbed. What had she remembered to make her look so unhappy?

“Tell me what you
do
remember.”

She’d shifted forward in the chair, perched now on the edge, her upper body hunching forward. He noted her posture, elbows on her thighs, hands clenched between her knees, head down.

“I don’t know where it came from, but it was in our account. I remember standing there in the bank, smiling at the teller. I asked her how much I could take out and felt the sweat running down between my breasts while I waited for her to check.”

“What’d she say?”

Grace continued to look down at her hands. He could see how tightly they were clenched from the whites of her knuckles.

“She told me there are no holds on cash deposits and I could have as much of it as I wanted.”

Cash deposit. Cripes. “Which account?”

“Savings.”

That explained why he hadn’t seen the deposit. He looked in on their modest savings account infrequently.

“Nothing about where the deposit came from?”

She swiped moisture from her cheek with the back of her hand, then looked up at him. “Nothing.”

Damn
. “What about how you felt? You said you were sweating. Hot sweating or nervous sweating?”

“Nervous sweating. My hands were shaking.” She unclasped her hands at last and extended one. “Like this.”

Aw, Grace.
He wanted to go to her, hold her until the shaking stopped, tell her not to torture herself anymore. Instead, he forced himself to sit there and wait for her to continue.

“I kept them clamped on my purse so Patty‌—‌that’s the teller’s name who waited on me‌—‌wouldn’t notice how bad they were shaking.” She paused to inhale a calming breath. “I was scared that if I showed how twitchy I was, I wouldn’t be able to get the money.”

That surprised him, but he kept his face carefully blank. It was a joint account. Had she imagined the teller would refuse to give her the money out of some sort of morality judgment? Protecting the matrimonial assets? “You thought she might change her mind about letting you have the money?”

“Yeah, I guess I did.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.” She shook her head. “I don’t know that it was a totally rational reaction. I just remember thinking I needed it right then. If she wouldn’t give it to me....” She swallowed. “I just had to have it that minute, to get away.”

Get away
. Interesting choice of words. “Anything else?”

“I remember Patty counting the cash out. She put it in a big envelope for me. I folded it and stuffed if in my purse.”

“You must have been relieved.” He swung his legs over the edge of the bed to face her more fully.

“Relieved?” She blew out a breath. “I thought my knees were going to buckle right there.”

Relieved to get away from him.

Easy, Morgan. Leave your emotions out of this.

He hunched forward, resting his arms on his knees, purposely mirroring Grace’s posture.

She straightened, folding her hands in her lap. He waited a beat and did the same. She didn’t notice. Nobody ever did, unless it was another cop. Or maybe a car salesman. The good ones knew how to use mirroring to silently say,
I like you; you should like me. You should
trust
me.
Just as he was doing.

“So, now you’ve got the cash in your bag. What then?”

“I left.” She stared straight ahead, but he knew she was looking inward, remembering. “You wouldn’t believe it, Ray, the way I felt.... The twenty steps to the door felt like a mile. I felt like all eyes were on me. Like alarms would go off when I walked out the door.”

Ray’s stomach lurched. Her words, her intensity, pointed to a guilty mind. Guilty of more than just planning to jettison a husband? Where had the damned money come from?

“And from the bank you went where?”

She met his gaze. “I don’t know. The car, I guess. It’s blank after that. The next thing I remember is the hospital room. I don’t recall the confrontation you say I had with you, the accident, the paramedics, the emergency room ... nothing.”

Damn
. He’d hoped for more.

“That’s okay. You did good. It’s starting to come back. That’s progress.”

“I guess,” she said dully.

He turned his hands over and let them rest together in his lap, palms up in a receptive gesture and leaned forward a little. “You were crying just now. Was it because you were reliving the anxiety of being in the bank, thinking about whether or not they’d make a fuss about the money?”

“Partly, maybe.”

“What was the other part?”

“I don’t know. I guess I hoped I was acting as some kind of courier. You know, taking the money from point A to point B for someone else, in which case it would really be nothing to do with me. Until I remembered actually taking it out of our account, I just assumed someone had given it to me to....”

She broke off suddenly, sat back in the chair and crossed her legs, but his mind was busy dissecting her words.

What did she mean by
courier?
When they talked on the beach, his random questions had teased a memory out of her about planning to go to Mexico. Could she be acting as a mule?

Casually, he leaned back on the bed and crossed his ankles in a subtle echo of her new posture. “Courier as in doing a favor for someone? Or courier as in‌—”

“You bastard!”

Her vehemence caught him by surprise. “Huh?”

“You’re
working
me.”

“What are you talking about?”

She leapt up. “Do you think you’re the only one who’s ever conducted an interview? I can’t believe you’re
working
me!”

He felt a guilty flush climb his neck. “Grace....”

“Don’t
Grace
me, Raymond Morgan. I know what you’re doing. You’re
mirroring
me.”

Dammit. No one ever caught on. Let alone got in his face about it. He scowled. “Was I? I didn’t notice.”

She snorted. “My foot, you didn’t notice. It
had
to be deliberate; you never pay that much attention to me. What do you think tipped me off?”

“Hey, wait a minute. That’s not true. I’m always conscious of you when you’re in the room.”

“Yeah, so you can take the appropriate tactical defense posture.”

That did it. He surged to his feet. “That’s a load of crap!”

“Is it? Then why are you presenting your weak side to me right now?”

He looked down at himself. Jesus, she was right. He
was
standing in such a way as to protect his sidearm from being captured, if he’d been wearing one.... Wait a minute. How’d she know ‘weak side’? And why the hell was she so mad at him? He was just trying to help her extract the memories.

She stepped closer and he automatically moved sideways. “See?” she accused. “Protecting your personal space. And look at your stance. Feet apart, one in front of the other....”

“All right, all right, dammit, I get your point. “But there’s a reason for that. It’s a little thing we like to call
officer safety
. It has to be automatic, ingrained. Dammit, Grace, it’s what keeps a cop alive.”

“And in control of your environment.
All the time
.”

He narrowed his eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean.”