Saving Liberty (Kissing #6) (32 page)

And that made me feel as if, if we could get out of this thing alive, maybe I could offer Emily the sort of relationship she deserved.

She reached down and rubbed my cheek. “This is the latest I’ve ever been out with you,” she murmured. She rasped her thumb slowly across my stubble. “I think I prefer you like this, not clean-shaven. This is more...
you.”

I grinned and kissed her. Then I sighed. “We should turn on the TV,” I said. “See what they’re saying.”

When I turned it on, though, I wished I hadn’t. A different news anchor had taken over and a photo of a man’s face filled half the screen next to her.

“—and
extremely
dangerous,” the news anchor was saying. “If seen, do
not
approach him. Dial 911 immediately.”

It’s deeply disconcerting, seeing your face on national TV, like they’ve stolen a piece of you that you’ll never get back. The creeping horror of knowing that tens of millions of people are suddenly aware of you
.

“Once again,” said the news anchor, “Kian O’Harra, wanted in the kidnapping of Emily Matthews, the President’s daughter—”

I stabbed at the remote and the screen went black.

When I looked at Emily, she’d gone white. “But you didn’t—Why would they think—”

I ran a hand through my hair, suddenly feeling every single hour I’d been awake. “I was the last one to be seen with you. I’m the only Secret Service guy not accounted for.”

“But you warned my dad! You saved those agents at the museum when they were cornered!”

“No one knows that. No one else made it out of the museum alive except your dad and we don’t know what shape he’s in.”
Or if he died before he got to the hospital and they just haven’t announced it yet,
but I wasn’t going to even entertain that thought. “Kerrigan’s in control, now. If the new President tells everyone to hunt me down, who’s going to argue with him?” I sighed. Now we had the entire country looking for us. And if the police didn’t shoot me on sight, as soon as I was in custody, Kerrigan’s Rexortech guys would get to me.
What the hell are we going to do?
Lie low, then try to get to the media and get the story out? But we had no hard evidence, and the man we were accusing was now the goddamn President....

I heard the helicopter again, coming closer and closer. Right overhead. It was loud enough to make the windows rattle.
They must be flying low.

I looked at Emily and my eyes suddenly went wide. “Shit!” I said. “Get dressed!”

“What?” She darted naked from the bed and grabbed for her clothes. “What’s going on?”

I was pulling on my pants. They hadn’t had enough time to dry and clung damply to my skin. “I’m a moron,” I growled. “That’s what.” I pulled on my shirt, trying to stretch the wet fabric across my back. I had to grit my teeth as my wounded arm flexed.

Emily had managed to pull on her panties and drag the dress over her head. If anything, the dress looked even wetter than my clothes. She sat on the bed to fasten up her shoes. By now, the helicopter was so low we had to shout to hear each other. “What do you mean?”

I grabbed her arm. “The tracking chip in your arm. Miller said they could locate it if they swept the city with helicopters.” I pointed to the sky. “They found us!”

Emily

Our feet hammered down the metal staircase, throwing up freezing water that chilled our legs. The motel’s parking lot was being systematically swept by a searchlight beam that looked like the finger of God. Along the street, the stores were being lit up in red and blue as Secret Service SUVs screamed towards us. Exactly the sight I’d wanted to see, since I heard the first shot at the museum. I had to fight the urge to run towards them. Kian was right: they’d take me back to the White House, where Kerrigan’s Rexortech thugs would be waiting for me. And if I tried to tell anyone the truth, it was my word against the new President’s.

Kian grabbed my hand and pulled me around the edge of the parking lot, skirting the searchlight, then into an alley. The far end was almost blocked by dumpsters and we had to slow down to squeeze through. Behind us, I could hear running footsteps and then the clang of boots on the metal staircase. We were barely out of the alley when I heard the crunch of wood as the motel room door was kicked down. They were seconds
behind us.

We ran, splashing through alleys awash with rainwater, cutting left and right to try to throw them off our trail. But the helicopter kept buzzing overhead, homing in on me and alerting the men on foot. We’d run for half a block but, as soon as we hid and stopped to get our breath, the footsteps behind us would return, closer than ever.

Kian was always there to drag me on and catch me when I stumbled. But after a solid twenty minutes of running and hiding I was freezing, exhausted, and almost hysterical. I’d started crying at some point, the tears invisible in the rain. They weren’t going to stop. They were never going to stop, not until Kian was in custody and I was back in the White House... and there we’d be easy prey for Kerrigan’s Rexortech guys. “I can’t go on,” I panted, shaking my head.

Kian nodded grimly and pointed to an all-night convenience store. “Come on.”

He marched right inside. The clerk working the store had the TV on, tuned to a 24-hour news channel, which wasn’t good. “Foil,” Kian asked him immediately. “Aluminum foil. Got any?”

The clerk gaped at the man in the torn, bloody shirt and the woman in the evening gown who’d just walked into his life. “
...what?
”

Kian glanced at the door and the noise of the helicopter outside, then pulled his gun. “
Foil,”
he said again. “Like for wrapping a turkey.
Do you have any?”

The clerk raised his hands and pointed. I ran to the aisle he pointed at and grabbed a roll. Kian dug in his pocket, pulled out a sodden five dollar bill and slapped it on the counter.

Outside, we could see the glare of flashlights approaching. We had to run all over again to regain our lead, our lungs burning and muscles screaming. Then Kian slowed and grabbed the roll of foil from me. “Which arm did they put the chip in?” he asked.

I looked down at my arms. I started to say
left
but, as soon as I thought it, I started to doubt myself. They’d put the chip in me as soon as my dad had taken office: it had been
years.
Had it been left, or right? “I’m not sure,” I said, cursing myself.

He nodded quickly and started wrapping my left arm in aluminum foil, all the way from shoulder to wrist. He used half the roll and then did my right arm.

“Will this work?” I asked.

“No idea. It might buy us some time.”

We ran on down the alley. After a minute or two, the footsteps chasing us seemed to drop back. The helicopter returned, louder than ever, making passes above us. It was so low it was almost brushing the rooftops. But it didn’t seem to be zeroing in on me quite so confidently.

Kian seemed to be searching for something, checking the front of each darkened building. Finally, he found the one he wanted and led me around back, then used a brick to smash a window.

He climbed in first, then me, taking care on the broken glass. I blinked in the gloom, then looked around in confusion. “A bar? How does this help?

He ran behind the bar and collected a few things, then searched the floor until he found a trapdoor leading to the cellar. He heaved it up and ushered me down. When he found the light switch, I saw that we were in a plain breezeblock room filled with broken chairs and crates of beer. Kian closed the trapdoor behind us and looked around. “This might block the signal when we take the foil off,” he said.

“I don’t get it,” I told him. “What are we—”

Then I looked down at his hands and saw what he was holding: a bottle of vodka and the little knife the bartender used to cut lemons. When I looked up again, I could see the pain in his eyes—pain at the idea of hurting me.

“Oh, shit,” I said.

“We don’t have a choice,” he told me, his voice tortured. “I don’t know if the foil’s working and, even if it is, they’ll come back with stronger tracking equipment. They’ll zero in on us while we’re asleep and not moving. We have to cut the chip out.”

I stared at the knife... and nodded. I sat down on a chair, my eyes glued to the blade. I watched as Kian poured vodka over it to sterilize it. It still felt unreal:
he’s not really going to... he can’t actually….

Kian looked at me. “There’s no anesthetic,” he said. “Take a slug of this.” He passed me the bottle and that’s when it became real. I took a big slug of the liquor, then coughed and choked as it burned my throat. I thought about what was about to happen and took another.

Kian unwound the foil from my arms, looking up towards the ceiling and the faint noise of the helicopter outside. When my arms were bare again, he started to work his way down my left arm from my shoulder, his big, warm fingers probing at my muscles. “I got it,” he said, pressing a point halfway down my upper arm. “It’s not deep.”

“Just do it,” I said, my voice tight. I looked away, focusing on a huge cardboard carton of peanuts. When I felt him come close with the knife, I started to suck in air through my nostrils, my breathing loud in the silent room. Then the tip of the blade touched my skin and I tensed. “Talk to me,” I blurted. “Talk to me while you’re doing it.”

Silence for a second. Then, “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

A burning pain as the knife cut into me. My toes tried to dig through my shoes and into the floor, but I focused on that deep, growling voice with its hint of Irish silver. “When I saw you at the park,” he said, “I knew I had to have you. Didn’t matter how ridiculous it was for a guy like me to get someone like you.” The knife felt like it had been dipped in red-hot lava but his words vibrated through me, lifting me to another place. “I.
Had to.
Have you. And now I’ve got you, I’ll do whatever it takes to protect you.”

Just as the tears welled up, the pain stopped. “I got it,” he said, his voice hoarse.

I turned to see him holding a thing the size and shape of a grain of rice. Before I knew it, he’d grabbed the front of my dress and hauled me forward for a kiss. He kissed me with all the heat and burning hunger I’d come to know, but with something else, too. A warmth that was about more than just protecting me.

He moved back, my eyes opened and we stared at each other, both relieved it was over. Then his hand suddenly dived down the front of my dress, palming my naked breast and squeezing, his thumb rubbing. I jerked and my mouth fell open in shock... but my body needed him just as much as always and I felt the heat slam down my body towards my groin, my thighs pressing together—

I cried out and jerked away from him, my arm burning and stinging. I smelled vodka and, when I looked around, he had the bottle upended over my arm: he’d just poured it over the wound. “Sorry,” he said. “Figured it’d be better if you were distracted.”

I panted through the pain and then whacked him hard in the arm. As he tore another strip off his shirt and used it to bandage my arm, I looked at the tracking chip. “What now?” I asked. “We destroy it?”

He shook his head and looked up. I could still hear the helicopter outside. “If the signal stops, they’ll just surround the area and go house-to-house until they find you. I have to lead them away.”

It took me a few seconds to realize what he was planning. “No!
NO!”

“It’s the only way. You’ll be able to slip away while they’re chasing me. I’ll give you as long as I can. Get out of the city. Go far away.”

“
No!”
I threw my arms around him. “They think you kidnapped me! They’ll put you in jail... or worse! Or Kerrigan’s men will get to you!”

“It’s the only way, Emily. If I don’t do this, you won’t survive the night.”

I was sobbing, now. “You said you’d never leave me again!”

“And I said I’d always protect you. This is what I have to do to do that.” He closed his fist around the tracking chip and stood up.

I jumped to my feet and wrapped my arms around him, my hot tears falling to soak his shirt. “Please,” I said, “Please don’t do this!”