He was fondling her left breast-the one with the justice tattoo-and was moving his head toward it, as if being guided by an unseen hand. Daryn’s head was back, her arms gripping the headboard of the bed, her legs parted ever so slightly. The tension was almost unbearable, cracking in the air like prairie thunder. The world of street hookers like Monica and Britt was light-years away from the sensuality of this moment, of this woman.
His lips were inches from her breast when Sean heard a faint sound. He couldn’t quite place it-he thought it came from downstairs. Something familiar, an ordinary sound, but somehow out of place right here, right now.
A second later, the apartment door exploded inward.
Daryn screamed, pulling her shirt closed around her breasts. Sean rolled off the bed and came up in a crouch.
“Where the fuck is she?” a male voice growled from downstairs.
“Search the back,” said a second voice.
So there were at least two of them. Sean crawled toward the chair at the foot of the bed. He’d carefully draped his windbreaker over it when they came upstairs. His Glock was in it-he hadn’t anticipated trouble, at least not this kind, but he knew better than to walk into any kind of volatile situation unarmed. Seven years on the border had taught him that.
He raised his eyebrows at Daryn. She shook her head violently. I don’t know!
Shit!
They’d certainly heard Daryn’s scream, and it wouldn’t take them long to figure out that the sound had come from upstairs. The apartment wasn’t that large.
“Upstairs,” said the first voice.
Sean mimed blowing out the candles, which Daryn did, and she also turned off the lamp. The room went black.
Sean silently took his Glock from the pocket of the windbreaker. He looked over his shoulder. He could barely see Daryn, just the outline of the white shirt she wore. She was beside the bed, squatting on the balls of her feet. At least she hadn’t screamed again.
A host of possibilities ran through Sean’s mind. Who were they?
Maybe Tobias Owens and Senator McDermott had covered their bases in a different way. Maybe they’d had Sean followed, and all the talk about gaining her trust and convincing her to come home of her own accord was just that-talk. Let Sean find the girl, then send in the commandos.
Maybe they were political enemies, someone else who had been searching for Daryn McDermott because of her radical ideas. Maybe Sean had led them to her.
Maybe they were psycho former customers of the escort they knew as Kat Hall. Maybe they were common thieves.
Maybe, maybe…
Sean heard a heavy step turn toward the stairs. The other set of footsteps was still farther back in the apartment, perhaps in the living room or kitchen.
“It’s fuckin’ dark,” said the voice at the foot of the stairs. Then, louder: “You up there, girl? Come on now, you can’t hide.”
Daryn expelled a breath. Sean saw her move slightly in the darkness, and willed her to be still. He very carefully angled his body around so that he was facing the place where the stairs reached the bedroom.
The heavy steps started up the stairs. One stair, two, three…
Who were they?
Sean tried to remember how many steps there were. He’d been so consumed by Daryn’s touch that he hadn’t really noticed. Were there eleven, was that right? Or was it twelve?
Four steps up, five…
Weren’t all stairways built with an odd number of steps? Hadn’t he read that somewhere? Maybe it was eleven. Eleven steps up to the bedroom.
Six, seven, eight.
He couldn’t shoot up here, not in the dark. No one in their right mind got into a gun battle in the dark. Did they even have guns? He couldn’t tell, but they sure as hell weren’t friendly.
He put the Glock down, looking wildly around the darkened room. On some level it registered with him that there was still music playing, that flowing, soft acoustic guitar, and that the source of it was very near. An arm’s length from him was a wooden stand, just like the one downstairs by the door. On it sat a small portable CD player. Its tiny digital readout, the only light in the room, told him it was playing track number ten.
The intruder on the stairs took two more steps.
Sean moved. He swiveled and grabbed the little stereo, the cord ripping out of the wall socket. He angled back around as the man hit the eleventh step. Holding the stereo in one hand, like a baseball pitcher going into his windup, Sean drew back with all his strength and flung it around the corner.
“What the-” muttered the man on the stairs.
Sean really didn’t think the little stereo would hurt the man, but if he was lucky, it would make him lose his balance. Sean leaped to his feet and rounded the corner. The man, who was shorter and older than Sean, though with a muscular build, had taken the blow right in his knee. A perfect shot. He was teetering on the top step. Sean reached out with his long arms. He could smell the man’s breath, stale with cigarettes. He shoved him in the chest and the man tumbled backward down the stairs.
He watched as the man’s head thumped against the wood floor. “Let’s go!” he yelled at Daryn.
She obeyed him with no hesitation. He grabbed the Glock and they ran down the stairs. Their attacker was still dazed and Sean stepped over him easily, but Daryn, with her shorter legs, had to actually go around him, and his hand reached out and closed over her bare ankle.
“Michael!” she screamed.
Even though the man’s eyes were still closed, he had a firm hold on Daryn’s leg, shaking her, trying to make her lose her own balance, just as Sean had done to him. Her arms flailed.
Sean had the Glock out in an instant, turning it around, butt first, bringing it down with all his force on the man’s wrist. Sean heard a sick cracking sound and the man’s hand went limp, releasing Daryn’s leg.
Sean reached out a hand to Daryn. She stepped past the groaning man and came toward him.
“Hey!” shouted the second man, from the entryway to the living room.
Sean half-turned. He saw the pistol in the man’s hand, saw it being raised, saw the barrel glint.
He whipped up the Glock and was thankful there was no safety on this gun. He hated guns with safeties-he would never have been able to learn to fire the damn things under stress if they had. He squeezed the trigger.
Marksmanship had never been Sean’s strong point, but the shot went right where he wanted it to go, into the shoulder of the second man’s gun arm. The gun flew out of the man’s hand and he stumbled backward, bouncing off the wood cabinet of the television set in the living room.
“Let’s go,” Sean said again.
He took Daryn’s hand and they ducked through what was left of the front door. For a moment Sean was confused when he stepped outside, looking for his Cherokee. Then he had it-Faith’s little Miata. He pointed to it. He and Daryn ran.
In less than five minutes Sean had the Miata on Interstate 44, driving south as it looped around the west side of Oklahoma City.
“Do you know who they were?” he asked.
Daryn sat in the passenger seat, trembling, hugging herself, each hand on the opposite shoulder. She shook her head.
“Do you have someplace you want me to take you?” He decided to do a little gentle probing, to see what, if anything, she might reveal. “Any family here in town?”
“No,” she whispered. “No family.”
“What about friends?” He thought of Britt, standing in the rain outside the Oasis Motel.
Another head shake. “I’m new here. I just got set up in town a little while ago. I haven’t…no, there’s no one. Help me. Please, Michael. Can you help me? You said you’re new here too.”