Shiver (21 page)

Shit.

A quick glance confirmed that Sam—and presumably Tyler, although he couldn’t see the kid—was still with him. That freed his mind enough to consciously not think about the pain.

By the time they’d transferred out of the plane into a waiting Chevy Suburban, tan instead of black as if to foil the suspicions of any observers that the ride might belong to federal agents, Danny had given up on the whole not-thinking-about-the-pain thing as a lost cause. He felt like he’d been run over by a Mack truck. One that had backed up an extra time over his leg. It was still early morning, not quite 9:00 a.m. according to the clock in the SUV’s dashboard, but the sun was bright in a near cloudless
blue sky and the day gave promise of being a hot one. Mountains in the distance rose with cool purple majesty that contrasted with the flat, arid land through which they were driving. From various landmarks, Danny was pretty sure they were in Nevada, heading north. The only thing Sanders and his little band of unmerry men had said about their ultimate destination was that they were driving, not flying, the rest of the way in because planes were easy to track, while cars were less so. Not that their destination really mattered; the operative principle was to hide, and where was immaterial.

Before getting him up and into a wheelchair, which was waiting for him upon landing along with a pair of crutches for later, when he was ready to forsake the wheelchair, and then leaving him to Sanders and company’s tender mercies, the medic had handed Danny a plastic bag full of medicine bottles with instructions for what he was to take, and when. The instructions had gone in one ear and out the other—taking pain meds was something that, since he needed his wits about him, he felt that it was probably better that he not do—but now that they were zooming along the expressway, traveling at a steady seven miles over the speed limit to stay with the flow of traffic without getting pulled over and keeping to the middle lane and doing everything else possible to blend with the other vehicles on the road, his leg was hurting worse than it had when he’d first been shot. Giving up—with four armed marshals for protection exactly how sharp did he need to be?—he fished out a bottle, checked the label just to make sure, popped the childproof lock, shook a couple of Lortab into his hand, and swallowed them
without water. Then, just to be on the safe side, he swallowed two more.

And choked. And coughed. And choked some more.

“Here.” Tyler, who’d woken up when they’d landed, offered Danny the battered orange juice box that Sam had procured from somewhere and that he’d been sipping on since they’d gotten into the SUV.

Ordinarily, he wouldn’t have taken the kid’s OJ. For one thing, the box had a picture of SpongeBob SquarePants on it, which made him think it was some kind of kid concoction that he wasn’t going to like. For another thing, it had kid germs all over it. For a third, the kid was kind of pasty and big-eyed and looked like he needed the OJ way more than Danny did. But the pills were stuck in his throat and he really, really needed the pills.

His leg felt like something was trying to chew it off.

“Thanks.” Accepting the juice box, he pulled out the straw and squirted some liquid into his mouth straight out of the little hole. Swallowing the stuff—it wasn’t half bad—then restoring the straw to its rightful place and handing the juice box back to Tyler, he encountered a grim look from Sam.

“He offered,” Danny replied to that look defensively.

He was in the very back seat, with his leg stretched out straight in front of him. Bandaged and splinted, it rested on a cooler that had been placed between the bucket seats one row up. He couldn’t see exactly how his leg was trussed, because while he had been unconscious his clothes had disappeared, to be replaced by a set of baggy blue scrubs, but the whole thing
felt way too tight. The bucket seats on either side of the cooler were occupied by Groves and O’Brien. Sam and Tyler, who like him had been relegated to the very back, bench seat—him, because of his need to stretch out his leg, and them, because of their relatively small size, and because they were the only other occupants of the vehicle who felt like getting that friendly with him—sat on either side of him, Tyler to his left and Sam to his right. In front, Sanders was driving and Abramowitz was once again riding shotgun. All of them looked like the morning after the night before. Danny guessed that he and Tyler were the only ones who’d gotten any appreciable sleep on the plane.

“Tyler needs breakfast,” Sam said, first to him and then, leaning forward and repeating it more loudly, to the other occupants of the vehicle at large, in a tone that told Danny that she wasn’t in the sunniest of humors. “We need to stop soon.”

“We’re not stopping until we get where we’re going,” Sanders replied. “Another few hours.”

“I got a Snickers in my pocket the kid can have,” Groves volunteered, looking around at them.

“Thank you, but it’s probably better if he doesn’t eat candy for breakfast. Or in the car. It might make him sick.”

“Ri-i-ight. Don’t want that,” Groves replied, and wasn’t alone in shooting Tyler a wary look.

“It’s okay, Mom,” Tyler intervened. “I’m not hungry.”

“What’s in the cooler?” Danny asked, hoping the answer was food, knowing that getting Sanders to stop before he felt safe in doing so was the closest thing to a lost cause there was. If the kid needed breakfast, the cooler was his best hope.

Sam’s eyes narrowed at him. “G-U-N-S,” she spelled, clearly not wanting Tyler to know the answer. “I already checked.”

“Guns,” Tyler repeated happily, perking up a little. “Can I see them?”

“No,” Sam said, looking so cross that Danny had to smile.

The sharp look she sent him in response wiped the smile from Danny’s face.

“Good job teaching him to spell,” Danny offered hastily. Sam didn’t look appeased.

“So where
are
we going?” Sam’s arms folded over her chest as she settled back against the seat. “Mr. Sanders, I’m talking to you.”

The vibes she was giving off were pure cranky. A couple of tendrils of sooty hair curled around her face, and Danny guessed that they were coming loose again because her ponytail, which she’d scraped back from her face and resecured once more before they’d left the plane, was already giving up the ghost. The ponytail, plus the fact that she was wearing no makeup—she’d washed her face in the plane’s restroom; he knew because she had emerged while still drying it with a paper towel—should have detracted from her prettiness. It didn’t. What it did was make her look like she was about fifteen years old. Unless, of course, he checked out her body, which he was happy to discover was absolutely 100 percent adult. Since he was taller and she was wearing a clingy, low-cut tank top and was sitting right beside him, the round firmness of her breasts, along with the shadowy cleavage between them, was difficult to miss every time he glanced her way, especially since the
Lortab was interfering with his internal control panel to what he suspected was a significant degree. Getting his mind off of the creamy curves that were just a sideways slide of his eyeballs away required discipline, which apparently he didn’t have a whole lot of at the moment. But Danny summoned enough willpower to look straight ahead, out through the windshield at the vehicles rushing by on either side, then kept his mind out of the tank top by focusing on Sam’s chutzpah in continuing to harangue Sanders, which was really quite considerable when he thought about the fact that the other man was a fortyish federal agent of the domineering type and Sam was—well, unintimidating was probably the best way to put it. Danny could have told her that asking the other man where they were going was a waste of time, but he was busy working on enjoying the effects of the Lortab without doing anything too stupid, like getting caught looking down her shirt.

“Somewhere,” Sanders answered repressively.

“This is crap.” Sam’s eyes snapped. They had dark shadows beneath them, from lack of sleep Danny was sure, but, seen by daylight, they looked even bluer than he had thought they were the previous night. Lapis lazuli, maybe, or sapphire. Her lashes were long and thick and unmistakably girly, and as inky black as her hair. Her eyebrows, black, too, and delicately arched, almost met above her nose as she scowled at Sanders. Her mouth, for all her irritation, which was causing it to tighten, was full and naturally pink and temptingly soft looking. Just like the upper slopes of her breasts, barely visible above the curve of her top, looked temptingly sof—

Hold it. No. Not going there.

“What, exactly, is crap?” Sanders countered.

“This whole freaking mess. From beginning to end.” Her eyes lifted, and collided with Danny’s. “When do we get to go home?”

There really wasn’t any truthful answer to that, so Danny gave her a semiapologetic grimace.

“Soon as possible?” he tried.

“More crap.”

“Best answer you’re going to get,” Sanders put in. Unwisely, in Danny’s opinion, but at least it got Sam’s attention off him.

The Lortab was really kicking in, he realized just then. Jerking his eyes up from where they had landed during their latest accidental downward slide, Danny focused on something, anything else—her eyes—instead. They now blazed at Sanders—thank Jesus—who, with his back turned, was oblivious. Danny was only glad that her ire was directed toward Sanders and not at him. From the way the other men subtly adjusted their positions so that none of them was looking in Sam’s direction any longer, Danny got the feeling that he was not the only one glad not to be in the line of fire.

“I want to know where you’re taking us.” Sam’s tone was even sharper than before. “I have a right to know.”

Through the rearview mirror Danny saw Sanders’s eyes narrow, and surmised a reply was in the offing that would piss its target royally off.

“We’re in Nevada,” he intervened, before Sanders could respond with something that would just make life more difficult
for all of them. “Going north.” Glancing toward the mountains in the distance, making a quick calculation, he added, “I’m guessing we’re heading toward Idaho.”

Sanders’s through-the-mirror frown told him that he was correct.

“Where in Idaho?” Those big blue eyes turned on Danny. They were not filled with sweetness and light. Damn, he should have stayed out of it.

“Don’t know,” he had to admit. She glared at him.

“Where in Idaho?” Sam addressed the back of Sanders’s head.

Sanders threw the reply over his shoulder. “That’s on a need-to-know basis.”

“So I need to know.”

“I was told to keep our destination a secret until we get there,” Sanders said grimly. “And that’s what I mean to do. It’s for your safety, Ms. Jones. All of our safety.”

Watching Sam’s lips tighten—and, as an adjunct, her chest swell—Danny forced his eyes forward again even as he braced himself for a blast of indignation.

“Are the bad men still looking for us?” Tyler piped up, his voice sounding small and strained. He sidled a little closer to Danny’s side as he spoke, prompting Danny to glance down at him. On Danny’s other side, Sam made an inarticulate but pained sound. Her eyes had darkened and she was giving Tyler a worried look.

Before she could say anything else, or Sanders could come out with something that might be even more kid-fear-inducing, Danny said lightly to Tyler: “Your mom scared all the bad men
off. Think about it: would
you
go anywhere near her if you thought she had a gun?”

That made Tyler chuckle. He shook his head. “No.”

“Me neither.” Danny grinned at him.

“We’re fine, baby. You don’t have to worry.” Sam’s voice had lost its edge as she sought to soothe her son.

“I know, Mom. We’re safe now that we’re with Trey.”

From Sam’s expression, Danny could tell she didn’t exactly buy into that. He also knew she wasn’t going to argue. Then Danny felt a small hand sliding into the crook of his elbow. Glancing down, he saw that Tyler was hugging his arm. Apparently feeling Danny’s gaze on him, the kid looked up and smiled at him. He had black-lashed blue eyes that were exactly like his mom’s—except Tyler’s shone with trust. In him. Bandaged finger or no, Danny shifted so that his arm was draped around the kid’s shoulders. Tyler snuggled closer against his side.

The small action touched something deep inside Danny that he hadn’t even known was there.

Whatever happens, I’m keeping this kid—and his mother—safe.

Sam gave him a look that he found impossible to read. He was pretty sure that it didn’t translate into
thanks for being nice to my son,
however.

He smiled at her. She scowled at him.

For a while they rode in silence except for the hum of the pavement beneath the wheels. The sun rose, and the day got hotter. Danny knew, because even inside the SUV it was starting to get warm. At least, it was getting warm in the backseat,
where the air-conditioning apparently didn’t altogether reach. With both Tyler and Sam leaning against him, drowsing, Danny felt himself starting to sweat. Plus, his leg was starting to hurt, which meant the Lortab must be wearing off. Now was the time to pop a couple more pills—before the pain set in again for real—but he hated to reach for the plastic bag in which they were tucked away in the seat back pocket in front of Sam because he didn’t want to wake up either Sam or Tyler.