Blind Instinct Page 14

  She climbed a stile and stepped into a mown hay field. The grass was short and spiky and browned off where the sun had burned the delicate lower stems. In a neighboring field, restrained by a taut wire fence, a few of Vance Pettigrew’s prize Black Angus breeding cows grazed, their coats impossibly sleek and glossy. The pungent smell of the animals drifted on the warm air, blending with the herbaceous top note of grass and the cooler, underlying scents of the river.

  A fine film of sweat broke out on her skin as she walked, the heat and the easy rhythm of the exercise leaching away the tension that had strung her tight ever since she had seen Delgado in her apartment. When the heat became too intense, she scrambled down the riverbank and walked in the dappled shade of acacias and willows.

  The peaked rooftop of the Fischer house appeared through the trees. She continued to follow the line of the river, which curved around the house. A pair of swallows dipped and darted through the air. Automatically, her eye followed the movement and fixed on the attic window of the house.

  It was open.

  Chills chased across her skin. She distinctly remembered closing the window when she’d left the other night, and she hadn’t been back since. Someone was in the house.

  She reached for her phone, and searched for Bayard’s number. Before she could short dial, it buzzed. She picked up the call on the first ring.

  “Where are you?”

  Bayard. Her stomach tightened in automatic response to his voice. She kept her voice low. “I’m on the riverbank, on the bend directly below Dad’s place. Someone’s in the house.”

  “Stay where you are. Get under cover and don’t go near the house. I’m on my way.”

  When Bayard hung up she deleted the ring tone and switched the phone to vibrate. Slipping the phone back into her pocket, she retreated farther into the deep shade of the trees lining the bank. Bayard had told her to stay where she was and she understood his reasoning, but if she walked a few yards upriver she would still be under cover, and she would have a better view of the house.

  She walked soundlessly between trees shrouded with rampant morning glory creeper, and scrambled around rearing slabs of basalt until she found the vantage point she wanted.

  The breeze lifted, sifting through the trees and blocking out sound. A dark-haired man moved through the trees at the edge of the lawn, his step swift. He emerged into a small sun-dappled clearing, his head up and alert.

  An image flashed into her mind. A Nazi SS officer, striding across an open field with that same predatory glide, his head moving as if he was scenting the air.

  For a split second, the heat and the scents of the river dissolved and she was plunged into icy cold and darkness, pines towering over her.

  Stein.

  A small sound squeezed through the sudden constriction in her throat. A second later the clearing was empty, as if the man had vanished into thin air.

  He must have heard her and reacted. Sara froze in place. She probed the shadows where he had been just seconds ago. He had to be nearby, probably concealed behind a tree.

  Long seconds ticked by. The heat and the humidity increased as the cloud cover thickened, making the grove of trees even gloomier. Sweat trickled between her breasts and cooled on her skin as she strained to hear, but the breeze was gusting now, muffling sound.

  A faint movement made her stiffen, and suddenly she could see him. Not behind a tree, but in front of one. He must have heard the small sound she had made, but he had probably thought it had come from a bird or a small animal.

  His head turned. Light glanced off cheekbones, the sprinkling of gray at his temples, the line of his jaw.

  Relief loosened some of her tension. He was dark, definitely Latino, and not tall enough to be Delgado.

  Movement from the attic sent another spurt of adrenaline through her. The window had just been closed. Whoever was in there had probably finished what they were doing and was on the point of leaving.

  When she checked on the dark stranger, the place he had been standing was empty. He must have moved while she’d been distracted by the window closing, and she didn’t know in which direction he had gone. The only certainty she had was that he hadn’t retraced his steps, because if he had he would have crossed her line of sight.

  The two men were probably together, one searching the house for the items she had already removed and who knew what else, the other prowling the grounds keeping watch. She had gotten a good look at the Latino, enough that she could describe him to the police. If she could work her way closer, she would be able to see the second guy as he came out the front door.

  Moving as quietly as she could, she retreated a few more feet so that a thick clump of vegetation screened her from the place the Latino guy had been, then she worked her way back down to the rocks, which would hide her completely. When she was certain she was out of sight, she walked around the bend of the river, far enough that she could safely cross without being seen. Then she walked into the water until it lapped at her thighs. Taking off her watch, she tossed it along with her cell phone onto the far side of the bank.

  She took her sunglasses off and held them in one hand. Taking a deep breath, she crouched down and pushed off, sliding silently under and through the deep, green water to cut down on noise. In contrast to the steamy heat, the water was icy. One breaststroke and scissors kick with her legs and she was across and pulling herself up the bank. Seconds later, after pulling the pins out of her soaking hair and letting it fan over her shoulders and back so it would dry and also provide her bare shoulders and arms with some makeshift camouflage, she slipped her dripping sunglasses on top of her head. The sound of a helicopter registered. Retrieving her watch and the phone, she paused at the edge of the lawn in time to see a thickset, balding older man folding himself behind the wheel of a rented Lexus. The car was beige and she was abruptly certain that it had been the same vehicle that had followed her to her apartment the previous day. Her spine tightened when she noted that he had driven away without a passenger.

  A faint sound jerked her head around.

  Black metal gleamed. Adrenaline pumped when she identified the shape of a handgun.

  Dennison pressed his foot on the accelerator, the Lexus fishtailing as he arrowed down the drive. The feds were circling. He had seen the chopper crest the horizon from the attic window, which was why he had cut short his search.

  He couldn’t believe that Bayard had managed to track him from Grand Cayman. In an effort to avoid detection, he had flown to Mexico, then driven across the border in a rental, changed his identity three times and paid for everything in cash. He should have been invisible.

  A flicker of movement in the trees caught his attention. A familiar, cold, dark gaze locked with his, and Dennison’s heart seized in his chest. Then he was past, the rooster tail of dust behind him obscuring the view from his rearview mirror.

  Moments later the rear window exploded and blood blossomed on the back of his hands as tiny shards of glass peppered his skin. A second shot whined past his ear, vaporizing the front windshield.

  Blood trickled down his dark glasses and adrenaline pounded through his veins as he stomped on the accelerator, his gaze glued to the ribbon of road ahead as the car slid around a corner. A second helicopter appeared in the distance, much larger than the first. A Blackhawk, probably with a SWAT team on board.

  Now the big-budget bust made sense. The feds weren’t after him; it was Lopez they wanted.

  He braked for the turn onto the highway. Back in the direction of the house the smaller chopper lifted off near the spot he had glimpsed Lopez and comprehension dawned. That chopper belonged to Lopez, not Bayard.

  Dennison jerked the smeared dark glasses off his face and tossed them on the passenger seat. The smaller helicopter had already disappeared from sight. Lopez had escaped by the skin of his teeth.

  But that wasn’t the biggest tragedy.

  His retirement plans had just developed a fatal flaw.

  Lopez k
new he was alive.

  * * *

  Dark eyes locked with Sara’s as the heavy beat of a second helicopter filled the air. Bayard.

  She let out a breath. He lifted a finger to his lips and signaled that she stay where she was. Then he was gone, moving soundlessly past her. She noted that he was wet to his thighs, which meant he must have forded the river downstream where it was shallower. He was also wearing a shoulder holster, the webbing almost invisible against his black T-shirt.

  Time passed. She remembered her watch, and refastened it to her wrist. Water from her wet hair trickled down her spine, and her clothes clung stickily to her skin, making her feel even hotter. The brightness of the day dimmed as clouds rolled in. Thunder rumbled and fat droplets of rain began to patter on the leaves. The rain thickened, then just as abruptly, stopped and the sun reappeared, turning the landscape into a steam bath.

  In the distance the heavy pulse of the second, much larger helicopter deepened as it lifted off. Minutes later a whisper of sound was all the warning she had before Bayard materialized out of inky purple shadows.

  He was wet, his hair dripping, his T-shirt clinging to his shoulders and chest. He still had the gun in his hand. “Did you see him?”

  “Not clearly. He got picked up by a chopper. My team missed him by seconds. The other two had a four-wheel drive parked down by the barn.”

  The tension that had gripped her when she had seen the man in the shadows coiled even tighter. That made four, including the guy who had been searching the house.

  Bayard’s phone vibrated. While he took the call, setting up surveillance detail for the four-wheel drive which they had let get away, she studied the thick shrubs that enclosed the house gardens. As the crow flies, the barn wasn’t far from the house, but it was situated on a small farm road that forked off about halfway down the drive—a condition that her mother had imposed when she’d agreed to move this far out of town. She might live on a farm, but she hadn’t wanted to stare at sheds and have farm vehicles and equipment clogging her driveway. Her father had good-naturedly put in the separate road and planted a line of trees to conceal the barn from the house.

  Bayard hung up.

  She watched as he holstered the gun. “I saw two of them. One was in the house.” Briefly she described the first man she’d seen, then the older balding guy who had left in the Lexus. “Sorry, I didn’t get a number for the Lexus.”

  Bayard’s expression was curiously resigned. “Dennison.” He used his phone to call in the description, with instructions to check the rental car companies.

  Sara frowned. She knew the name, but she couldn’t put her finger on who he was. “Who’s Dennison?”

  He slipped the phone in his pocket. “He’s ex-FBI. He was also Lopez’s right-hand man for about twenty years, until he turned on Lopez and became an informant. We’ve been watching him for months now, but he gave us the slip a few days ago.”

  Sara remembered a newspaper article she’d read to her father while he’d been ill in hospital. Ben Fischer had been fanatical about keeping up with every aspect of the investigation, and Dennison had had a significant role. He had been responsible for retrieving the original copy of Reichmann’s Ledger and had been taken into custody shortly afterward. “I thought he died.”

  “Only on paper.” Bayard leaned back against a tree trunk, his gaze skimming the shadows.

  “So he didn’t die.”

  “Someone who looked like Dennison did. We used the opportunity.”

  The flat series of statements didn’t shock her as much as they should have. Bayard had a job to do. It wasn’t pretty and she wouldn’t want to do it, but she understood the necessity. “The Latino guy. It wasn’t Delgado.”

  “Delgado’s dead. They fished his body out of the river this morning.”

  The sense of cold deepened. “So who was it then?” And what did he want in Shreveport, at her house?

  “How old would you say the Latino guy was?”

  “Not young. He had gray at his temples, although he moved like a young man.” Her stomach tightened as she relived the few moments when she had seen him gliding through the trees. “Maybe forty-five. Fifty at the most.” She nodded toward the house and the front door, which was still flapping in the breeze. “When it’s clear, I need to check out the house. I won’t touch anything.”

  Bayard’s expression was remote. “Not yet. Rousseau’s sending a team over.”

  Long seconds ticked by. Her clothes were drying against her skin, although her underwear was still uncomfortably damp—and the insects were biting. She slapped at a mosquito. She was beginning to itch and burn, signaling that she had been bitten in a whole lot of places she hadn’t noticed. Bayard didn’t seem to be affected.

  She checked her watch. Foot to the floor, it would take Rousseau and his men a good twenty minutes to drive out here.

  Less than a minute later, an unmarked car and a police cruiser crunched to a halt on the graveled drive, which meant Bayard must have called for backup before he had gotten here.

  Bayard’s palm landed in the small of her back, sending a small shock of awareness through her as he urged her out from beneath the concealing shadows of the trees. Sliding her dark glasses down onto the bridge of her nose, she tried to shrug off the feeling of exposure that stepping out of the shelter of the trees elicited. Whoever had been here, they were gone.

  As they crossed the open grassy space, she lengthened her stride, but instead of taking the cue and letting his hand drop, Bayard easily matched his pace with hers, maintaining the contact.

  Maybe it was the humidity, or the fact that she’d just had another scare and was still high on adrenaline, but her body’s response to Bayard’s proximity was intense and unsettling. A sharp ache flared in her loins and her nipples contracted into hard points, painfully erect against the fabric of her damp shirt.

  Rousseau lifted a hand as he climbed out of the unmarked car. He shrugged out of his suit jacket and tossed it in the backseat of the car, revealing the fact that he was armed, and walked across the lawn to meet them.

  Rousseau nodded at Sara and shook hands with Bayard. When she attempted to politely step away from Bayard’s touch, his arm curved around her waist, keeping her close. When she stiffened, he sent her an impatient glance, the message clear; he wanted her close.

  Already hot, with his palm spread across her rib cage, within a bare inch of her breast, she felt even hotter. She could sense Rousseau’s curiosity, see it in the darting glances he sent her way as he caught Bayard up on the smoothly coordinated surveillance of the two vehicles.

  Thorpe arrived, grimacing as he stepped out into the heat, and instantly shucking his jacket and loosening the collar of his shirt. He acknowledged her with a quick nod, then they moved into the house, which had already been checked out by two uniformed officers. As she stepped into the cool dimness of the hallway, Sara was uncomfortably aware that Rousseau was staring at her.

  When she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the glass doors that opened into the sitting room she understood why. The only times he had seen her she had been dressed for work in quiet, low-key clothing, her hair pulled back in a knot. Other than a cursory glance that acknowledged that she was female and the courteous manners he would extend to any woman, neither he, nor Thorpe, had paid her any attention. Now, with her hair tumbling in damp coiling tendrils over her shoulders and down her back, she barely recognized herself. Added to that, she wasn’t wearing a bra and the cotton tank she was wearing was still clinging to her skin.

  Bayard’s gaze caught hers, narrowed and glittering. She felt her cheeks heat. If she’d thought he hadn’t noticed, she was wrong.

  An hour later, after Rousseau’s team had been through the house, taking prints off door handles and window fastenings, she did her own checking.

  It was clear from the mess that Dennison had spent his time in the attic, which made sense since, apart from the sitting room which contained the piano, the rest of the hou
se was empty of possessions. When she had finished checking the window fastenings, she walked downstairs. Bayard followed her into the kitchen.

  She felt shaky and more than a little emotional. Part of the reason was that she hadn’t eaten. Even worse, she hadn’t had anything to drink and in this weather that was fatal. She found the glass she had left in one of the cupboards for just that reason, filled it with tap water, drained it and refilled it, drank, then left the empty glass on the counter.

  A cloud of dust moving down the drive signaled that the last of Rousseau’s men had departed. She leaned against the kitchen counter while Bayard drank a glass of water. She watched as he rinsed the glass. “Ready to go?”

  His hands landed on either side of her on the bench. “Not yet.”

  His hips pinned her against the kitchen counter, and suddenly, there was no air. His mouth when it touched hers was soft, giving her the opportunity to pull back if she wanted. Instead, she cupped his jaw and angled her head to deepen the kiss. The pressure of his mouth increased. His tongue in her mouth sent a shaft of heat through her.

  Her arms coiled around his neck as she fitted herself more tightly against him. The hard bulge of his erection burned against her stomach. His hands cupped and molded her breasts through the fabric of her T-shirt, his forefingers and thumbs squeezing her nipples into tight, hard points, the hold possessive and flagrantly sensual. His mouth lifted then sank back down on hers.

  The message was clear. He wanted her and he was going to have her. She could lie all she liked about wanting him, but they were going to have sex. It was just a matter of when and where.

  When he ended the kiss and stepped back, her mouth was swollen and damp, her body as tight as a bow.

  Somehow, in the space of a few hours “not ever” had changed to “not yet.”