Seduced by the Enemy (Blaze, 41) (5 page)

“Do you think it's one person?”

Jared continued his contribution in wearing out the already worn carpet. “I don't know yet. And until I do know who is pulling the strings, your life, and mine, aren't worth shit.”

“But why me?” That hint of fear reappeared in her eyes. “We haven't seen each other since you left. It just doesn't make sense that they'd come after me instead of your sister.”

Peyton was light years away from dim-witted, but she sure as hell was stubborn on the issue of her own safety. “It makes perfect sense,” he argued. “They couldn't get to Dee. And now she has someone who'd give his life to protect her. Plus they already know there's nothing she can tell them. They've tried and they've never been able to get to her. They got to Beth
and now they're coming after you for the same reason.”

Peyton shook her head in denial. “You can't know that.”

He knelt on the floor beside the bed. “Yes, I can. And they've already started.” He lifted the mattress and pulled out the material Chase had given him. “They've been building a case against you from the very beginning.”

“Building a case? But I've done nothing wrong,” she railed. “There's nothing to build a case with.”

He emitted an abrupt bark of laughter as he stood and crossed the room. “Neither have I, and look where I've been the last three years.” He handed her the envelope. “I promised you an explanation and here it is. Everything I know so far.”

Peyton's insides trembled as she stared at the envelope, afraid to open it. Afraid to see the truth? Maybe. Or maybe her fear stemmed from something much more simple and a whole lot more complex. Such as once she reviewed the documents contained inside, she knew her life would be forever changed. And not necessarily for the better.

Jared leaned against the wall once more. “Take a look, and you'll see for yourself, Peyton. This is a whole lot bigger than even I imagined. It doesn't justify what they did to Beth, but I do understand why they went to such extreme measures.”

Each time he said the name of the woman he'd turned to, Peyton's heart ripped just a little more. She didn't think she could claim jealousy as the culprit. Certainly she had no right to feel anything in that re
gard, but even the knowledge did zilch to stop the ache squeezing her heart.

She was still reeling from the shock that Jared had actually married another woman. A woman he'd felt safe with, one who'd accepted him at face value and loved him despite his alleged criminal past. To Peyton, it only underscored her own lack of faith in him and added to the bitter taste of betrayal already on her tongue.

If she didn't stop thinking of Jared married to another woman, she'd go crazy, no matter how much of a hypocrite it made her. Forcing herself to concentrate on the envelope in her hands, she lifted the flap and pulled the documents from inside. She stared in shock at a bank statement for an account in her name that didn't even belong to her. The account had been opened two months after Jared left, right around the time the feds had finally left her alone. Her gaze skimmed to the balance and she nearly choked at the astronomical figure.

“This isn't mine,” she said. “Federal Union handles all of my financial needs. I don't even bank here.”

He leaned over her and pointed to the top of the bank statement, which indicated her name on the account, sent to the care of William Minor, a lawyer on Capitol Hill. “According to this, it sure as hell is.”

“No,” she said, with a shake of her head. “It's wrong. I don't know William Minor. This can't be mine.” She tapped the attached copy of the signature card. “This isn't my signature.”

“No, but it's close, isn't it?”

She examined the reproduction. “Yes, it's close,” she finally said. “Very close.”

He crouched beside her and pulled another document from the stack in her hands. “This isn't a coincidence, Peyton. Someone has gone to a lot of trouble to make sure you were linked to the money they claim I made off with when I ran. Someone with a lot of power.”

“I admit it doesn't look good, but it'd be easy to prove the money, and the account, for that matter, aren't mine.” She tapped the card again. “This is
not
my signature.”

He shrugged, as if the obvious was of no consequence whatsoever. “Maybe. A handwriting expert could corroborate your claim, but they'd have their own expert who says that it is, without a doubt,
yours,
and before you know it, you're just one more innocent person behind bars.”

She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the back of the chair.

“It gets worse. Look at this.”

She let out a sigh and took the documents from Jared, surprised to see the financial records of the Elaine Chandler Foundation and the Biddeford Home for Girls. Dread filled her. She'd been placed in Biddeford when she was twelve. When Peyton was five, her mother had died from complications of pneumonia. With no other living relatives, and no idea of the whereabouts of her father, who took off when she was only a toddler, she'd been shuffled from one bad foster home after another, until her social worker had pulled strings and had her placed in the privately run orphanage for girls. Biddeford had saved her life, and
from the day she started her first job, she'd sent a little something to the home every six months. As her salary grew, so did the amount of the donation. But according to the documents in front of her, two donations were recorded as received within a day or two of each other: one from Peyton for the fifteen hundred dollars she always donated semiannually, and the other from an anonymous donor in the sum of fifty thousand dollars, an amount she hadn't made and couldn't afford.

She compared the date of the donations to Biddeford to the bank statement in her name and her heart took a dive. Every six months one-hundred thousand dollars was deposited into “her” account. Within about ten days, a check for fifty grand cleared the account, and a donation of the same amount appeared on Biddeford's books.

The documentation for the Elaine Chandler Foundation, the charity that had provided Peyton with a complete scholarship to Georgetown, and where she now held a seat on the board of directors, wasn't quite as incriminating, but the connection was there just the same. At the same time the phony bank account was opened, an anonymous donation of a million bucks had been given to the foundation. The fact that she'd been given a seat on the board around that time would go a long way in building an even stronger case against her, circumstantial evidence or not.

“Who's doing this?” she asked.

“My guess is someone pretty high up is telling this lawyer, William Minor, to do the dirty work.”

She looked at Jared. The understanding in his gaze was nearly her undoing, and she fought back a sob.
“I wonder if Alan Dershowitz is taking on new clients,” she said miserably. “I'm gonna need the best criminal-defense attorney in the country to get out of this.”

A half smile turned up the corner of Jared's mouth. “This isn't the time to kid around, sweetheart.”

“You think I'm joking?” She rattled the papers in her hand. “If this information gets out, I'll be ruined, Jared. My career, my…everything. Ruined. All I've done, all I've gone through will mean nothing.”

She'd been working in the justice system long enough to have shed her naiveté long ago. Justice didn't always prevail, but for the most part, she still believed in the system. A system that could very well let her down when she needed it the most.

“What am I going to do?” she whispered around the lump clogging her throat. She'd been in rough spots before, some so horrifying she still occasionally woke up screaming from the nightmares. Never had she envisioned her entire life torn to shreds to the point that she could lose everything else important to her.

Jared took the documents from her and tossed them on the table before urging her out of the chair and into his arms. Without an ounce of hesitation she slipped into his warm and oddly comforting embrace. She knew on some level her willingness to be held was in reaction to the horrifying news she'd just learned. If everything Jared had shown her was true, then her life was literally hanging in the balance. What would happen next? When would they make their move? And most important, who the hell were
they?

His hands slid up and down her back, soothing her
to some small degree. She closed her eyes and breathed in his masculine scent, wishing this was just another in a long line of nightmares. A horrible dream she'd wake up from when the alarm went off in the early morning hours.

“I promise you, we're going to find out who's behind this and bring them down.”

His words brought her wishful thinking crashing to the ground.

She leaned back and looked into his sympathetic eyes. “I don't know how. In the three years you've been on the run, all you've been able to come up with are some bank statements for an account I don't even own.”

His lips tightened into a grim line, and her dread became downright despair. She'd seen that look before. Maybe not recently, but every part of him was still firmly imprinted on her memory. She knew in her heart he was going to say something that had the potential to send her into full-blown panic. “Oh, God. What else?”

He turned her toward the table. “Sit here and I'll show you. You're not—” He stiffened abruptly and pulled away from her.

Before she could ask him what was wrong, he lifted his hand and made a slashing motion against his throat, stopping her before she could utter a single word. She listened, but all she heard were the sounds of the city at night. That didn't mean Jared hadn't heard something to put him on alert. A quick glance at her wristwatch told her it was already past eleven o'clock.

Jared quietly moved to the window and used the tip
of his finger to carefully ease the curtain aside. If she hadn't been watching him, she would never have known he'd moved it. He stood so absolutely still she couldn't help wondering if he was even breathing.

As carefully as he'd eased the curtain aside, he shifted it back into place. When he turned to face her, her heart sank. The emotion banked in his expressive eyes told her everything she needed to know. Someone knew where they were.

She had a thousand questions, but he shook his head and placed his finger over his lips. Reminding herself she'd done nothing wrong, that Jared was the fugitive and not her, did nothing to still the rapid cadence of her heart. And for good reason. According to what he'd shown her thus far, she had reason to be afraid. Very afraid.

Without a sound, he picked up all the papers before lifting her briefcase and setting it on the bed. He opened the dual latches with equal silence. After placing the thick envelope and documents inside, he handed her the briefcase, then picked up her shoes, frowned, and motioned for her to put them on before he opened the closet to pull out a packed duffel bag.

Her insides started trembling again. She wished he'd say something and break the horrible silence.

After tucking her purse inside the duffel, he slung the heavy bag over his shoulder and made his way back to the window. The seconds ticked by until he finally slid the curtain into place again.

He walked to where she stood, slipped his hand beneath her hair and urged her forward. “Were you expected somewhere?” he asked in a hushed tone.

Afraid to speak, she shook her head. With Leland
out of town for the weekend and Kellie visiting her family, no one would be looking for her. Jared really couldn't have chosen a better time to kidnap her, at least from a kidnapper's perspective.

“A city cop's checking license plates in the parking lot.” Jared's warm breath fanned her ear. “It could be nothing, but I don't want to take that chance, do you?”

He waited until she shook her head before continuing. “We're getting out of here.”

Since her voice seemed to stop working, she nodded in understanding.

“I need you to trust me, Peyton. Can you do that?”

She hesitated, and his grip on her neck tightened.

“You have no choice if you want to stay alive.”

She had a flood of unanswered questions, not to mention all the hurt and betrayal between them, for them to coexist with unconditional trust.

Would he do his best to keep her alive? Of that she had little doubt.

But what would it cost her? Or him? She had a feeling the enormous amount of cash that supposedly belonged to her wouldn't even begin to cover the down payment.

With a slight inclination of her head, she managed a nod that seemed to satisfy him. He snagged her hand and hauled her toward the bathroom. Inside the tub and shower combination was a tiny window that looked barely large enough for a small eight-year-old child to fit through. With Jared's help, she might make it, but she couldn't see him crawling through with those wide shoulders of his.

Outside, she heard the crackle of a police radio.
Fear tripped through her and settled in the pit of her stomach.

Jared swore and walked back into the room, stopping at the door. She followed and waited beside him, holding her breath. The police radio flared to life again, and she was just able to make out the dispatcher's words: “Four David Nine, we have a positive on plate number Ocean Robert Lincoln six nine six nine. Suspect Peyton Madison Douglas should be considered armed and possibly dangerous.”

A
RMED AND DANGEROUS
?

Her?

About the only thing she considered dangerous about herself pertained to her state of mind, since she was having one hell of a time digesting all the ludicrous information she'd seen and heard in the last two and a half hours.

Jared squeezed her hand, but she could take no comfort from the gesture. In fact, as far as she was concerned, the blame for those horrifying words could be laid at his door. Armed and dangerous applied to him, not her. Wanted by the very system she'd sworn to uphold was not supposed to include her, only Jared.

Jared, dammit.
Not her!

With complete silence, he gave her hand a tug and hauled her behind him toward the bathroom. Once inside, he soundlessly closed the door. “I'll go through first and make sure it's clear. You wait for my signal before following me. We have to go into the alley. There's a used-car lot on the other side, but we'll have to circle around the building. It should give us plenty of places to hide until we can move out.”

Move out? Where?
she wondered.
How?
They certainly couldn't take her car, since apparently someone had put an APB out on her and her vehicle. If Jared
had other means of transportation, their chances of using it were probably equally slim, since the patrolman might have already checked plates on nearby cars, too.

“Ready?” he asked.

Her answer was a quick nod, because she didn't trust her voice not to sound off like that of a screaming banshee on Halloween night. If she started, she'd never stop.

A surreal sense of detachment fell over her as she watched him set the duffel on the commode, climb into the bathtub and tug open the window. After removing the screen, he tried to hand it to her, but she could only stare at him, unsure what she was supposed to do next. In all her life she'd never dreamed she'd literally be running from the law. She lived within a certain realm of reality, followed the rules no matter what it cost her. Fugitive from justice fell nowhere near the parameters of her life.

“Here.”

His harshly spoken whisper snapped her back to the immediacy of their situation. She took the screen and laid it against the outside of the bathtub.

Jared poked his head out the window for a better look into the alley. Apparently he deemed the coast clear, because he hoisted himself up, had his upper body through the window and was pulling his legs through before dropping silently on the other side.

Seconds ticked by like hours as she waited for him to give her
the signal.
She held her breath, listening, but the only sound she heard was the erratic beat of her own heart pounding in her ears like a frantic drum.

What if the cop outside learned she was in the motel
room? What was she supposed to do if he came bursting through the door? Make a dive for the window like the fugitive she wasn't? She had no experience being on the wrong side of the law, and hadn't a clue about proper criminal protocol.

A hysterical laugh bubbled up inside her, but she tamped it down. Proper criminal protocol? She was definitely losing her mind. The stress had just about shoved her over the edge. If she didn't hold on, she'd land with a fatal thud.

Finally, Jared's face appeared in the window. “Hand me the duffel.” She jumped at the sound of his whispered words, but hurried to do as he asked. After the bag, she passed him her briefcase, then the window screen, followed by her shoes. She needed to balance herself on the edge of the bathtub and she couldn't very well do that in a pair of high-heeled pumps.

She didn't know which would be worse, breaking her neck or getting caught.

With a deep breath and a desperate shot of courage she didn't even know she possessed, she balanced herself on the tub and reached for the window ledge. Sweat beaded on her upper lip as she concentrated on hoisting herself through the window as Jared had done. It took her three tries before she made it high enough to gain sufficient purchase to pull her upper body through the small opening.

A loud pounding on the door startled her and she nearly lost her balance.

Oh, God.
They'd been found.

“Come on,” Jared urged. “Twist your hips and I'll bring you down.”

The pounding on the door continued. It didn't even come close to competing with the pounding of her heart.

Her arms trembled from the pressure of holding herself in the window opening while she tried to twist her body as Jared had instructed. She'd never been a tomboy as a kid, never climbed a tree, never sneaked out a window to meet a boy and certainly never came in after curfew. She was out of her element and had no choice but to trust Jared.

The truth of her situation hit her hard and she fought down a surge of anger. Trust? Jared Romine was the last man on earth who deserved her trust. He had a history of letting her down. How was she supposed to put her life in his hands and believe that he'd fix everything that had gone so utterly and horribly wrong? Unfortunately, she had no other choice, unless she wanted to slide back inside the bathroom and open the door to the motel room, turning herself over as if she really were the criminal
they
made her out to be.

The pounding on the door stopped. Had they gone away? Or were they forcing the motel manager to let them into the room? Well, she wasn't about to wait around to find out.

Operating on pure adrenaline, she conjured up a burst of strength and did exactly what Jared had told her to do. His hands were on her waist before she completely turned, and he guided her out the window.

As soon as she was on the ground and steady, he had the window closed and the screen back in place while she stepped into her shoes. He bent to retrieve the duffel bag and her briefcase, then went completely still.

Peyton frowned as he reached for her hand and pulled her down beside him. She looked ahead, toward the entrance of the alley, and spotted the headlights of an approaching vehicle.

“Stay low, don't move, and for God's sake, don't make a sound,” he ordered quietly.

She wanted to ask him why they didn't try to find a place to hide. They were in an alley, and large trash receptacles and wooden crates were more than plentiful.

Crouched down and pressed against the wall, she felt exposed, even if they were hidden in the shadows. She struggled to keep her breathing even so as to make as little noise as possible. Panic gripped her the second the car turned on a spotlight, telling her without a doubt the cops were indeed looking for them. She had no idea if the officer pounding on the door had entered the motel room, or if the patrolman slowly coming toward them was the same guy. In her mind, what did it matter? Just the fact that she was a wanted woman was enough to have her scared witless.

The definite chill of the fall-night air nipped at her legs, hands and face. The warmth of the sultry Indian summer that had blanketed the area for the past few days had finally passed, leaving her cold and miserable. The patrolman continued to drive slowly in their direction. The spotlight shone somewhere above their heads, probably at waist or shoulder height, she guessed. Moonlight slashed through the alley, but thankfully, because of the angle, didn't reach the pavement or bottom half of the wall where they were crouched.

Another three feet and he'd be directly in front of them.

Two feet.

She tucked her head near Jared's shoulder and started a silent litany of every novena Sister Patricia had taught the girls of the Biddeford Home. The prayers ran together in her mind, one drifting into another at the speed of light.

Twelve inches!

The spotlight flashed above them. Peyton held her breath, waiting for them to be discovered. Her calves burned in pain and trembled from the added pressure caused by the angle of her feet, thanks to her shoes, not to mention the cold making her toes and fingers numb.

The patrolman drove past them without stopping.

The urge to expel a huge sigh of relief overwhelmed her, but she resisted with every ounce of willpower in her arsenal, lest she be heard.

The two of them remained crouched against the wall as the patrolman continued to drive farther down the alley. How long Jared planned for them to stay hidden in the shadows, she hadn't a clue, but she certainly hoped she could shift her feet and at least get the blood flowing through her limbs again soon. She didn't know how much longer she could remain in such an uncomfortable position.

A slash of light above them cut across the alley. Someone was in the bathroom they'd just left. Her grip on Jared's arm tightened. The patrolman searching the alley with his spotlight might not have seen them, thanks to the angle of the moonlight, but if the
cops inside opened the window and looked down, they were as sure as caught.

Jared shook his head with the least amount of movement possible, whether trying to convey that he believed everything was going to be all right or to keep her quiet for a little while longer, she couldn't guess. Taking the safest and most comforting route possible, she opted for a dual meaning.

The patrolman stopped in front of a stack of wooden crates, flashing his spotlight over the area and bringing the light down to shine upon the lower section of the wall. At least now she understood why Jared hadn't tried to dive behind the discarded crates.

Not only were her calves still screaming in protest, but the muscles in the back of her thighs began to cramp. She fought hard to ignore the pain, but she didn't know how much longer she could hold out like this. She tried to wiggle her toes in a vain attempt to relieve some pressure, but since they were already numb from the cold, it was of little use.

Who was she kidding? Her physical condition should be the least of her worries. Emotionally, she was a powder keg just waiting for the next spark to set her off.

The light from the bathroom window flicked off at the same time the patrol car resumed its slow crawl to the other end of the alley. After three more stops so the officer could perform another cursory search of a large trash receptacle and more discarded crates and boxes, the patrol car finally left the alley.

Peyton sagged against Jared as she drew large gulps of air into her deprived lungs. Her heart rate was eons away from resuming anything remotely close to nor
mal, and she didn't think for a second she'd ever feel completely safe again.

He shifted his position to slip his arms around her. “You're trembling,” he whispered against her ear.

“It sure as hell isn't all from the cold,” she replied quietly. “I have one thing to say to you, Jared. You got me into this mess, and you'd damned well better get me out of it.”

“I will, Peyton. I promise you.”

The sincerity in his words did zilch to return her to her own comfort zone. Jared had let her down once before, when she'd needed him the most. One of these days maybe she'd have the opportunity to tell him about it. Now wasn't the time…not when they were both trying to stay alive.

 

J
ARED ROLLED THE VEHICLE
to a stop at the corner of the Baltimore residential street and shot Peyton a glance he hoped conveyed how crazy he thought her suggestion. “Are you looking to get caught? Ever hear of a paper trail?”

“Grand theft auto isn't exactly playing it safe,” she reminded him with a hefty dose of sarcasm.

He couldn't deny her point, but how else were they supposed to make it out of the city? On foot? Hardly. Helping themselves to a barely used Ford Expedition from the car lot next to the motel didn't exactly qualify as his most brilliant move, but if they could find another black SUV, he'd swap the plates, buying them a little extra time. The number of people who actually looked at their own license plates each morning were few and far between.

Still, hitting the ATM machines for cash would
mean a huge risk. It could take as little as thirty minutes before someone was alerted, if they were monitoring, which he was bloody sure they would be.

He turned left at the corner and headed down another residential street in search of a matching vehicle.

“And I
am
thinking about a paper trail,” she said. “I only have something like a hundred and ten bucks in my wallet. What about you?”

“A little over two hundred.”

“We can't use my credit cards to support us until we're out of danger
because
they're traceable. But if we go back into D.C., then no one will know which direction we've gone,” she argued. “Unless we intentionally lead them in the wrong direction.”

Damned if she didn't have a good idea. Provided they were able to even make a withdrawal. “It'll only work if they haven't frozen your assets yet,” he told her. “Considering how quickly they had the cops looking for your car, it's entirely possible. Either way, they're going to know you tried to access cash.”

She reached over to turn the heater up a notch. “Someone is already trying to make me look guilty. What's the difference? We have nothing to lose by at least trying.”

Well, for one thing, their lives, but he didn't feel it necessary to remind her. She'd had more than her fair share of shocking revelations for one night, and there were more to come.

Frankly, he had to give her credit. After everything he'd told her thus far, she appeared to be handling it well. Of course, he'd only touched the tip of the iceberg they were heading for at warp speed. By the time he told her everything, he expected a meltdown on her
part, albeit a temporary one. No one could keep Peyton Douglas down for long. Never a weepy type of female, she had an innate sense of survival that would go a hell of a long way in keeping them alive. But only if he could regain her complete trust, because without it, they were as good as dead.

The interior of the vehicle warmed up considerably. A quick glance in her direction told him she was finally starting to relax, if only marginally. The color had come back into her cheeks, and the wild-eyed fright in her gaze had shifted to alert caution. After their close scrape back at the motel, he'd been worried about her, until she'd threatened him.