Hot Pursuit Page 22

  But he wasn’t driving. And he didn’t think he could talk her through it. It wasn’t safe, and it wasn’t something to attempt for the first time. They could end up in the creek, sitting ducks for the guy behind them. The impact would stun them, stun him even worse, and he didn’t think he needed a new concussion on top of another one.

  “Don’t slack off,” he said automatically when the car slowed even more.

  “What the hell do you expect me to do? Jump it?”

  “No.” His mushy brain drew up every ounce of strength he had and channeled it into thought. “We’re going to turn, Evie. A one-eighty. You with me?”

  “Tell me what to do.”

  “You’ve done power slides, right?” Every kid in the parish had locked up the brakes and slid to a sideways stop on gravel roads. It was considered fun when he was growing up.

  “Not since high school.”

  “It works similar, okay.” A pain stabbed him behind the right eye. “But we’re not going to use the emergency brake. Instead, when I tell you, I want you to brake enough to shift down to second and turn the wheel hard left. It’s important to shift and turn at the same time. No brake at that point, okay?”

  “Matt—”

  “You can do it, Evie. The car will slide around until we’re going the opposite direction. Don’t hit the brake, or we’ll stop somewhere short of the turn. We’ll lose valuable time trying to get going again. Soon as we stop, shift down and hammer it.”

  “Okay.”

  “First, we gotta let him catch up a bit. But don’t let him get too close to the rear bumper. He’ll try to pit you.”

  “Pit?”

  “He’ll tap the bumper and send you out of control. Don’t let it happen.”

  Her chin dipped down in a firm nod. “Got it.”

  Matt focused on the road, on the signs indicating the bridge was out. Five hundred feet to go. He glanced around and saw the car behind them gaining. He watched the road ahead, making the calculations, not sure if his brain was functioning right or if he was off. But he didn’t have the luxury of double-checking himself.

  He was a member of HOT for God’s sake. He’d had enough training he could make this turn with his eyes closed. Now he just had to trust that he could count it off right for Evie.

  Another glance behind them revealed a truck, not a car. Two people inside, it looked like, except the headlights were high enough as they got closer that the beam shot into his eyes, intensifying the pain in his head so that he wasn’t really sure what he’d seen.

  “Ten, nine, eight,” he said, counting it out, giving her warning. “Brake and shift,” he said, finishing the count. She hit it hard, the engine roaring with the sudden change. “Turn it now!”

  The back end of the car swung hard right, pivoting beneath them even as the entire car slid through the turn. Tires squealed against asphalt, rubber smoking through the vents and grabbing him by the throat. His head felt like cotton candy, fluffy and ungrounded, and he was grateful for the belt wedging him into the seat as the bile rose in his throat.

  The BMW snapped to a stop as the taillights of the truck flew past the driver’s side.

  He meant to tell her to go, but he couldn’t get the words out. He’d used every bit of energy he had dredging up the last few minutes of conversation from his psyche. He could only stare at her face, seemingly paler in the dash lights. She lifted a shaking hand and choked out something that sounded like holy shit. And then she was springing into action, her hand falling to the gearshift as the wheels squealed and the car sprang forward.

  “I think they went into the ditch,” she finally said, shoving the hair from her face with a hand that still shook. “But I don’t know.”

  “Marina.” He forced the word out, past the thickness settling once more in his head.

  “What about the police? Maybe we should get them involved now. Maybe they have Sarah in that truck and we can get her back if they’re in the ditch—”

  “Marina. Go.”

  He thought for sure she was about to argue, and he dreaded it since he couldn’t imagine holding out against the verbal onslaught that would very persuasively convince him they needed to go to the police or the hospital. He’d find himself saying yes even though he knew he shouldn’t agree. Sarah’s life—and Evie’s—depended on him figuring this out, and he couldn’t do that if he was explaining to Chief Laurent how he happened to be near the house when it exploded. Because that’s all the cops would be interested in right now, guaran-damn-tee it.

  Evie gave him a look that tore his heart from his chest and turned him inside out at the same time. It was a look of anger, concern, and more tenderness than he’d ever remembered seeing in any one person in his life. It struck him at that moment how very like him she was in some ways. And how very much he liked that about her.

  “I’m trusting you,” she said. “Don’t make me regret it.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  THE ADRENALINE RUSH WAS SEEPING away, leaving Evie tired, shaky, and yet oddly awake at the same time. Matt didn’t say anything more as she navigated the car across town. She didn’t want to go to the marina. It seemed contrary to all common sense, yet Matt had talked her through the kind of daredevil driving that only an hour ago she’d have sworn she couldn’t do without a whole lot of practice and nerves of steel. For that alone, she’d give him the benefit of the doubt.

  But only for so long.

  She kept a wary check on the rearview mirror, but no headlights seemed to be following. There was a car here and there, but nothing consistent, and nothing gaining fast. She still couldn’t believe what had happened. One minute she was waiting, jumpy as a cat, and the next there was an explosion. She hadn’t even thought twice about what to do. She’d gunned the car up the drive, panicked that Matt was in the middle of the blast. When she saw the house with one side of it blown away, her insides melted. She hadn’t thought Matt would answer her, but she’d gotten out of the car and called for him anyway.

  When he’d spoken, she’d never been so relieved in her life. She glanced over at him, her heart twisting at the sight of his head lying back against the seat, his eyes closed, his brows drawn low in pain. She’d give him time to explain, but if she didn’t like the plan, she comforted herself with the idea she could summon an ambulance with a quick phone call.

  The marina entrance was up ahead on the right. She took the turn and slowly drove through the lot, winding back toward the dock where the Girards kept their boat. She drove past a row of whitewashed buildings. The lake stretched out dark as spilled paint to the right before another set of buildings sprang up to block the view.

  “Inside there.” Matt pointed to a low building with a large double door that faced the road.

  “I remember.” She pulled the car in front of the white clapboard structure, the headlights focusing on a rusted chain stretching from one handle to the other. A shiny padlock dangled in the middle of the entrance. “It’s locked.”

  The passenger door slipped open. She turned as Matt stuck a leg out. Gravel crunched beneath his boot. He folded back against the seat like a popped balloon.

  “Matt—”

  “I’m fine.”

  “I don’t think—”

  He pulled himself from the car, surprisingly agile compared to a moment ago, and her speech died in her throat. He took something from the knife case on his belt and bent down to fiddle with the lock. A minute later, it popped free. Then he threw the doors wide and Evie drove inside.

  She brought the car to a halt and let out a breath before turning off the engine and getting out to join Matt. He’d closed the entry behind them and was hunkered down in front of a long table that sat against one wall. Evie stumbled forward, calling herself ten kinds of a fool for listening to him in the first place. She should have taken him to the hospital, no matter what he said.

  When she would have dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms around him, she ground to a heart-pounding halt. Matt glanced at
her over his shoulder. He had one long arm stretched beneath the table. Slowly, he ran his hand back and forth beneath the surface.

  And then he stopped and smiled. “Found it.”

  “Found what?”

  He levered himself upward. In his left hand was a key.

  “I put this here when I was sixteen. Figured the old man would have found it by now.”

  “You hid a key to your dad’s boat?” She felt slightly hurt that she hadn’t known that, but by the time he was sixteen, they hadn’t been hanging out together anymore. He’d had a jealous girlfriend and they’d grown apart.

  He gave her a grin. “Party boy, remember?”

  “So we’re hiding on the boat for a while?” Because she really didn’t want to consider the alternative—that he intended to take the Girard yacht out into the pitch-dark night.

  “We’re going out.”

  Evie swallowed a bubble of panic. After everything else, she couldn’t just jump on his daddy’s yacht and sail off into the lake like her childhood home hadn’t recently exploded. What the hell were they doing here? They should be at the hospital making sure Matt wasn’t injured worse than he thought.

  “Come on.” He turned away from her and headed toward a door at the back of the garage.

  “I’m not comfortable with this, Matt.”

  He threw a look over his shoulder.

  Evie’s resolve strengthened. “I’ve pretty much done everything so far without complaint, but I want to know what you think we’re going to accomplish out there.”

  He turned around, hands on hips. “Without complaint?”

  “Without much complaint,” she amended, ignoring his smirk. She gestured toward the water, praying he didn’t read anything more into it than a determination to know what was going on. And her concern really was about the best choice for the situation and not her fear of being on the water.

  “Why is this better than going to the police with all we know? Or to the hospital? My God, Matt, someone blew up my mother’s house! What more can we do? I’m scared to death for Sarah, and I know they told us not to contact the police, but no one’s called us back and someone just tried to kill us.”

  “Listen.” He came to stand in front of her. She had to tilt her head up to look at him and realized for the first time that soot darkened his cheekbones and forehead. That his pupils were dilated. “We can’t stop now.”

  Her heart ached with the need to touch him, to draw him to her and hold him until the world faded away. He touched her cheek, and she turned into his hand, feeling his fingers skim along her jawbone and behind her ear. Sensation streaked to her fingertips, then down into her toes. Desire tugged at her.

  “You’re hurt,” she said softly.

  “It’s a concussion. A mild one. This isn’t my first time.” He let out a sigh when she gave in to the urge to touch him in return. “Evie, I don’t trust anyone right now. And I don’t know what’s going on or how many of them there are, so I want us out on that lake, maybe even hidden in the bayou. I want time to take some Tylenol, rest, and think. I also want to talk to Kev. If Brianna calls you, we’ll decide what’s next. But for now, this is best. Trust me.”

  Unshed tears clogged her throat. She hated that he was hurting. Hated that he was probably right. “This is all so new to me, Matt. I’m a chef, not a secret agent. I don’t want to go out there and have something happen to you because I should have taken you to the hospital instead of blindly following orders.”

  He dipped his lips to hers, a brief caress that sent a shiver through her. “Trust me. All I need is Tylenol. Unless you’ve got some in your pocket, Candyland has a whole medicine chest full. And you have yet to blindly follow orders, believe me.”

  Evie clutched him. “Promise that if you feel worse, you’ll tell me. That you’ll agree to come back in and go to the doctor.”

  “I don’t have a death wish. I promise we’ll come back if I don’t feel better.”

  She swallowed. “Let’s go then.”

  God, he was about to take her out on the lake. In the dark. But at least it’d be on board a thirty-six-foot Carver and not in a tiny pirogue. She could handle that.

  Right.

  No, dammit, she would handle it. She’d just spun an über-expensive sports car into a one-eighty at sixty miles an hour, so what was a little night boating compared to that? She’d been fine with boats until she and Julie had turned theirs over and nearly drowned. This boat was not going to turn over.

  “I hope you don’t expect me to drive,” she grumbled to his back. The thought of ramming a several-hundred-thousand-dollar yacht—give or take a few bucks—into a cypress tree somewhere was just a little too much to contemplate.

  “I can manage.” He stopped and unlocked a door that spilled them onto the dock. A few steps away, the gleaming white Carver rocked gently against the pylons.

  Matt climbed on board first, then turned and held out his hand for her. It was an easy step from the dock to the boat, but he must have sensed something of her hesitation. She stared at the small gap between the boat and the solid pier she stood on before raising her gaze to Matt’s face. He smiled.

  “I won’t let anything happen to you, Evie. You’re safe with me.”

  She put her hand in his and stepped lightly onto the deck. Matt squeezed her to him for a quick second, and then turned toward the narrow steps that led up to the command bridge.

  “You can go inside if you want. I’ll get us out a ways before coming below.”

  “No, I’m coming up.” No way was she letting him out of her sight just yet. He seemed better, steadier on his feet, and he was talking in more complete sentences than before. She climbed up the steps behind him. He started the yacht while she took the seat beside his.

  The boat eased backward from the slip as she gazed toward the shore. The marina was hopping tonight, as was usual for a Friday. Folks partied on a houseboat a few slips away, strains of rock music and laughter drifting onto the night air. In spite of the drama of last night—my God, was it really only last night?—a group of people were up at the pavilion, sitting at the tables, hovering by the grills, and generally doing what folks always did at Rochambeau Lake.

  “We’re going to be noticed. You can’t take a boat this big out, even in the dark, and not be,” she said, gazing at Matt’s profile, the strong lines of his chin and nose. He was so stubborn and so determined. Very much the Matt she’d always known.

  He glanced at her. “It’s a chance we have to take. We’re still better off if we’re somewhere hard to track, and unless these guys are local, they can’t know this water like I do. We’ll be fine once we’re away from here.”

  They rode in silence as the lights of the marina receded into the background. A cool breeze ruffled her hair. It wasn’t so bad out here after all. The yacht was big enough she didn’t feel confined or like she was mere inches from being plunged into the water. She refused to think about sinking. Boats didn’t sink without good reason.

  Senator Girard’s yacht was not going to sink, dammit.

  “Did you get into the house?” she asked, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. She figured there hadn’t been enough time, but anything was possible with him.

  “No. It blew before I got there.”

  “So you didn’t see anyone who could have been using David’s phone.”

  “No.”

  “None of this makes any sense to me. Why would they blow up the house?”

  “To hide evidence.”

  Evie turned sideways to stare at him. A horrible thought began to take shape in her head. “To hide a body, you mean.”

  “It’s possible, but it’s not a terribly good way to go about it. Hell, far better to take a body out in the bayou and feed it to the gators.”

  “What then?”

  “I wish I knew. But it was a stupid thing to do. It could also be competitors.”

  “Someone else after the files?”

  “It’s possible.”


  She didn’t want to contemplate the possibility of another person, or persons, after David’s files. Brianna had Sarah and that’s what Evie cared most about. She had to get Sarah back, but every minute that went by without a call leached a little more hope away.

  She’d brought death and destruction to Rochambeau when she’d come back home. She might have her issues with this town, but the plain fact was that she loved it anyway. And she was pissed that someone was defiling it.

  They glided through the water for about half an hour before Matt cut the engine and dropped anchor. She couldn’t tell where he’d taken them, but she followed him down the ladder and into the interior of the yacht. She’d never been on this yacht before.

  She stopped in the doorway, her foot on the first stair. “Wow. Impressive.”

  Cherry surfaces gleamed everywhere she looked—the cabinets, the table, the shelves, a built-in area with a flat-panel television, and all the trim throughout. Granite counters, a small wine refrigerator, stainless sink, microwave, fridge, and a small electric cooktop filled the kitchen area. The floors were cherry too, and the banquette running along one wall was leather. So was the booth with table opposite. There was a window above the banquette and puck lights inset into the ceiling. At the end of the room, a door led into a bedroom containing what looked like a queen-sized bed.

  Evie took the steps down to join Matt. He stood in the kitchen, opened a cabinet, and pulled out a First Aid kit. “You’ve never been on board before?”

  Evie crossed her arms. “No. I think you were dating Belle Landry when your dad bought this, and we both know how she felt about me.”

  He flashed her a pained smile. “Yeah, sorry about that.”

  He opened a bottle he’d found in the kit and shook four tablets into his hand. After he popped them into his mouth, he opened the gleaming fridge and grabbed a bottle of water. He chased the pills with a swig, then came over and flopped onto the banquette. He leaned back, his eyes closing briefly.

  She sat at the table, sighing as she sank into the cushion. It’d been a long couple of days. And they weren’t done yet.