Her Forgotten Betrayal(72)

“What are the chances that’s going to happen? I can’t remember, Cole. My mind’s trying to tell me something with my dreams, but I don’t know what it is. You’re there. The fire from the barn. The conference room. A bunch of men I’ve never met and some freak who’s enjoying scaring me. Lots of chatter that I can’t piece together. Something about scars and the past. It’s too weird. I have no idea what any of it means.”

“Then stop trying.” Cole hated that he hadn’t done enough to prevent this crazy scheme from being her only chance. “The answers will be there when you need them most. You trusted me when there was no earthly reason to. You’re trusting me now, even though I lied to you. You found the audio surveillance device back at the house with nothing but your intuition. You’re smart, and you’re a survivor, and you’ll fight your way through this, like you have everything else in your life. I’m not going to let anything happen to you. Trust me to help you nail this guy before he takes even more from you.”

“I do trust you,” she said. Anxiety had crept back into her features. But she gave him her brightest smile, proving all over again how much grit and courage his partner truly had.

They were out of time. Once he called Dawson, the team would floor it, sirens and lights to the max. Cole gave them an hour tops, not two, before they broke the county line. With a final soft kiss, he picked up his phone and speed-dialed, switching the call to speaker so Shaw could hear every word. He went through the clearance procedure.

“Dawson,” the chief inspector finally said.

“Shaw’s gotten away from me,” Cole said. “I’m tracking her on foot.”

“Gotten away how? You mean to tell me you can’t secure one injured female without fucking up? You said you had things under control. What’s going on, Marinos? This isn’t like you.”

“Unless you hear from me again, we’ll both be on the grounds when you arrive. Assume her stalker is armed and dangerous.”

“If I find out you’re running your own agenda, I’ll have your badge. Don’t go pissing on my task force. The team will be there in under an hour. If I get a chopper in the air, I’ll be there in thirty.”

“Roger,” Cole said. “Marinos out.”

He punched the call closed.

“Well.” Shaw’s smile was part admiration, part humor, with maybe a sprinkle of respect. “You don’t mess around when it comes to getting what you want.”

“I don’t mess around when it comes to taking care of what’s most important to me.”

“Your job?”

“Not anymore,” he said, wondering what the admission would cost him if she walked away after his assignment was over. He was risking everything, trusting that she’d still want him, once they’d freed her from her stalker. “Not even close.”

He pressed the remote in his pocket instead of elaborating, sending the signals to unlock the side door and raise the protective screens from the windows. He grabbed Shaw by the shoulders once the interior of the cabin could be seen from the outside, well-lit for any spectator lurking in the darkness. He shook her, his face contorting with a rage he could never in reality feel for this brave woman.

Ready? he mouthed silently.

She nodded almost imperceptibly.

“There’s only one way to find out,” she whispered back. “No more giving up, right?”

Then her arm swung back, and she slapped him. Cole shook her again, and she screamed, struggling to get away. He let her slip from his grasp. She sprinted for the side door, swinging it open.

“Leave me alone, you bastard!” she screamed. “I don’t want to hear another word. I don’t want anything from you, period. I don’t ever want to see you again. Just leave me alone.”

She took off through the forest, disappearing up the hill while Cole stayed behind, discreetly monitoring her progress on his handheld scanner, out of the windows’ sight line. He had talked Shaw into running toward more danger than ever before. And she was going in blind. It was a calculated risk, one alien to her scientific nature. But she was doing it, because she trusted him, as a federal agent if not as a friend and a lover.

For the first time since he’d joined the FBI, he was scared shitless that his instincts might be wrong. Still, none of her stalker’s shots had come close to hitting her either time he’d fired. The accidents he’d set in her path hadn’t been fatal. The faceless, scarred man from her dream was becoming increasingly careless, but he was still toying with her, and not yet out for real blood. Cole was certain of it, especially after seeing the state-of-the-art surveillance device Shaw had found. Anyone with the cash, connections, and motivation to obtain the kind of equipment that had tripped Cole up could have gotten to her anytime he’d wanted to.