A Little Too Hot

Chapter Twenty-Six

AT THE S OUND of my desire, he comes undone, an agonized groan ripping out of him. We tear at each other’s clothes, getting nowhere in our frenzy. I claw at his back, and that’s when I feel the straps under his flannel shirt. My hand slips around his ribs and I feel the bulge of the holster under his left arm.

My hand closing around his gun seems to shake him back to reality. He pulls away and looks down at me, a little stunned.

The night is dead silent as we lay here, staring at each other, deciding what comes next—how far we’re willing to take this.

But in the silence I hear a pop, and it makes all the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. Because I know that sound.

I flash back to the night on the side of the highway, the van in a ditch and the pop of the gun as someone shot at Jonathan and me. I try to convince myself what I heard was just a twig snapping, but in the next heartbeat Blake has me off the ground and pinned behind the closest tree.

“Don’t move,” he hisses.

“What—” I start, but his hand is over my mouth, stopping my words. And that’s when I see the dark splotch growing on the left sleeve of his shirt.

He takes his hand off my mouth and presses a finger to his lips, urging me to be quiet. Slowly, he draws his gun out from under his shirt. “Federal agent! Drop your weapon!” he yells, spinning out from behind the tree.

The quick burst of pops that follow tell me that Blake didn’t get his wish. Tree bark explodes in splinters around us as Blake ducks back behind it.

Adrenaline floods my veins and it’s everything I can do not to scream. In the faint starlight I see his eyes flash to me. “You’re going to be okay,” he reassures me, his voice smooth and soothing. “Just stay here. No matter what happens, don’t move.”

He springs from behind the tree and returns fire. His shots aren’t muzzled, and they sound like fireworks ripping through the dead calm.

There’s a crash as something big lumbers through the brush in front of the cabin, and Blake disappears into the night in that direction.

I do as I’m told. Except for the shake I can’t control, I don’t move.

Izzy appears at the top of the stairs. “Sam!”

“Get inside!” I tell her, as I hear Blake shout, “Freeze!” from up front.

There’s more rustling in the brush and a barrage of fire. She ducks in the door.

“Drop your weapon!” Blake yells again, farther away, his voice strangely muffled in the cool night air. The response is another volley of gunfire. In the distance, an engine revs and tires spin on gravel. Then everything goes still again.

I wait another minute, my shaking breath loud in the silence.

“Sam,” Izzy hisses, and when I look up at the door, she, Jonathan, and Ginger are huddled there, wide-eyed.

As I dart toward them, my eyes sweep the darkness near the road. Out of the shadows, Blake strides toward me, holding his left arm.

“Oh my God!” I say, changing direction.

He grunts as I slam into him. I try to pull away, afraid I’ve hurt him, but he doesn’t let me, holding me tight to him with his right arm. “Please tell me you’re not hurt,” he says into my hair.

“I’m fine, but—”

“Get in the car,” he barks over my head to my friends. “Now!”

“What about our stuff?” Jonathan asks.

“Leave it.” Blake lets me go and prods me toward the Escalade, putting me in the passenger seat. Everyone else scrambles into the back.

“Blake! You’re going to bleed to death,” I say, looking at his darkening sleeve.

He rips off his flannel shirt, revealing the gun in his chest holster over his black T-shirt. He tears the sleeves off the shirt and hands me the bloody one. “Tie that tight over this,” he says, wadding up the dry sleeve and laying it over his upper arm.

I can’t really see anything through all the blood in the dark, but I take the sleeve he handed me and wrap it around his arm, then tie it in a tight knot over the makeshift bandage. As soon as I’m done, he jogs to the driver’s seat and peals out.

We’re winding down the mountain, all of us shocked silent, when I look down and see the bloody handprint on my shirtsleeve. In the glow of the dash lights all I can see is blood. On my clothes and hands, and on Blake’s, where he’s gripping the steering wheel.

“You need a hospital,” I tell him.

He shakes his head. “It just nicked me.”

“This is fucked up,” Jonathan says from the back. When I look at him, his face is drawn and he’s shaking his head. “Fuck.”

Blake’s jaw tightens and he flicks a glance in the rearview. “What did you tell them?” he demands.

Jonathan’s eyes widen and his hands go up. “Nothing, man! Just to leave Red alone . . . that she didn’t know anything. Marcus said it wasn’t them.”

Blake’s eyes narrow and he breathes deep and blows it out, rubbing the back of his neck with a bloody hand. “How was I so stupid?” he mutters to himself.

“Shouldn’t we call the police or something?” Izzy asks from behind me, her voice shaking.

“I’ll call it in to the office as soon as we’re in cell range,” Blake answers, glancing down at his phone.

“So, what do we do now?” I ask.

“That depends on how Arroyo found us,” Blake answers wearily, flicking a glance in the rearview at Jonathan, “and how much he knows.”

A shooting star streaks across the sky in front of us, reminding me that the heavens are crashing down on us tonight. I lean my forehead on the window and watch mindlessly through the shadows of the trees as the universe puts on one hell of a show . . . and wonder how it is that my universe just went supernova.

I glance across at Blake as he picks up his phone and presses it to his ear. “Cooper?” he says. “Get your ass out of bed. We have a situation.”

THE SHOUTING STARTS as soon as we step out of the SUV in the Federal Building parking garage. Cooper, Nichols, and Jenkins are on us immediately, shuttling us toward the elevators and grilling Blake. It’s not until we pass through the doors into the brightly lit DEA corridor that I see how pale Blake is. His face is splotchy white and blood has soaked through his bandage and drips down his arm.

Blake gives them the short version, then Jenkins takes Izzy and Ginger one way, while Blake herds Jonathan and me into an interrogation room.

“What I want to know is how he got a shot off on you,” Cooper says.

“I let my guard down,” Blake answers.

“Did you get a look at the guy?” Cooper asks. “A license plate on the car he was driving? Anything?”

“It was dark,” Blake says with a shake of his head. “Sweep him,” he barks at Nichols, planting Jonathan in a chair at the table.

“What’s going on, man?” Jonathan asks as she disappears out the door.

Blake levels Jonathan in a death-beam gaze. “They found us where they never should have had any clue we were.”

Jonathan’s eyes narrow. “If you’re thinking that has anything to do with me . . . that I’d do anything to hurt Red, you don’t know me very well.”

Nichols comes back through the door with a flat, black paddle looking thing.

“Stand up,” Cooper says, dragging Jonathan out of his chair by the arm and taking the paddle from Nichols.

“What the fuck, man!” Jonathan says, shaking him off and getting his balance. He spins on Blake and glares.

“He wouldn’t have—” I start, but then the paddle in Cooper’s hand emanates a high-pitched whine. I look over to see he’s holding it near Jonathan’s shoulder.

“Take off your shirt,” Cooper commands.

Jonathan complies, eyes wide, and tosses it onto the table.

Cooper waves the paddle over the shirt and it stays silent, but then he holds it over Jonathan’s naked shoulder and the whine starts again. He runs it over the skin near Jonathan’s shoulder blade, and the whine gets louder.

“Here,” Cooper says, pressing on Jonathan’s shoulder with his fingertips.

He spins Jonathan so Blake and I can see his back. There’s a small scab just visible through the black ink of the crossbones tattoo where his neck meets his shoulder. “How did you get this?” he asks Jonathan.

“Get what?” Jonathan answers, reaching over his shoulder to feel. “I don’t know,” he says when his fingers find the scab. “I guess I cut it on something.”

Blake moves toward him and feels the scab. “Take him down to the lab and have them pull whatever this is out of him,” he says to Cooper.

“What the fuck!” Jonathan says. “What do you mean, ‘whatever this is’?”

“It’s a tracking chip,” Blake answers flatly.

I know my shock must be plastered all over my face when Jonathan spins to face me, because he immediately holds up his hand, his eyes widening. “I didn’t know, Red! I swear it!”

I can’t even move, trying to wrap my mind around this. Blake took a bullet because Jonathan was tracked . . . after he was with Marcus for four days.

Did he know?

He’s the only one who knew I’d been released the night we were run off the road. I told him the DEA wanted me to testify against Ben.

My heart clamps tight in my chest.

“You need to get that looked at,” Cooper says, gesturing to Blake’s bloody arm.

“It can wait,” he answers, his face unreadable. “Have you looked at the surveillance at the safe house? Is there any reason to believe we’ve been compromised?”

“No. Everything’s clear up there. And it can’t wait,” he says with a nod at Blake’s arm. “You’re about to bleed to death. Get your ass to the hospital. Now.” He grabs Jonathan’s arm and yanks him toward the door. “Come on, lover boy.”

“No! Wait!” Jonathan says, struggling against Cooper.

But I still can’t move, even just to assure him that I know he didn’t know. Because I don’t know what to think. I just stare as Cooper drags him away.

I hear him in the hall, calling after me, and the desperation in his voice rattles me out of my daze. “Get the fuck off me!” he shouts just before the elevator doors close and the hall goes quiet.

I start to move to the door, but Blake stops me with a hand on my arm. “Just let him go. We’ll sort it all out, and if he’s clear . . . if he didn’t know, then I’ll let you talk to him.”

My heart screams. This is Jonathan. I hate myself for doubting him. But he’s the one who got me the job at Benny’s in the first place. He’s known Ben a lot longer than he’s known me. Could he be working with Ben? Would he really be willing to give me up to him, knowing what it would mean?

I sink into a chair “Where are Ginger and Izzy?”

Blake leans heavily on the table next to me. “Jenkins is taking them home, and I’ve got to get you back up the hill.”

As he pushes off the table, he staggers a step and grabs my chair for balance. I’m out of it like a shot, grabbing him as he starts to topple. All I succeed in doing is slowing his fall a little, and we both hit the ground hard.

“Blake!” I yell. I pull myself out from under him as he struggles to haul himself to a sitting position.

He props his back on a table leg, and he’s sheet white, a thin sheen of sweat covering his face. “I’m okay.”

I gain my feet and crouch near him. “You’re not okay, Blake. You’ve lost a ton of blood.” I say, glancing at the bandage. “You need to go to the hospital.” I reach for his arm and apply pressure over his wound.

He sucks in a sharp breath as his face twists with pain.

“You need help,” I tell him, keeping the pressure on his arm.

He tugs his phone out of his pocket and pokes at a button then props his head in his hand. “Coop,” he says weakly a second later. “I need some help.”

I hear Jonathan yelling, and Cooper’s raised voice over him. “I’ve sort of got situation down here. What do you need?”

“Forget it. Nothing—” Blake starts, but I rip the phone out of his hand.

“He’s bleeding to death. He needs an ambulance!”

“Nichols!” Cooper barks on the other end. “Get your ass back to Interrogation 3!”

“Red!” Jonathan shouts, very close to the phone.

“Can I talk to him?” I ask Cooper.

“He’s a little out of control at the moment.”

“Get these fucking things off me!” Jonathan yells.

“Please,” I beg.

He blows a sigh through the phone. “Sit your ass down and shut up and I’ll let you talk to her,” I hear him say away from the phone.

Through the phone there’s the screech of chair legs scraping on the floor, then everything goes quiet.

“Red?” Jonathan says a second later.

“Hey, Jonathan. You’ve got to calm down.”

“This guy wants to cut me,” he says, his tone somewhere between panicked and indignant.

“There’s something in you they need to get out, Jon. You’ve got to let them do it.”

Nichols bursts through the door into the interrogation room, and when she sees Blake on the floor, crouches on his other side.

“He needs an ambulance,” I tell her.

“I’m not going anywhere in an ambulance!” Jonathan shouts in my ear.

Nichols pulls out her phone and speaks in rushed tones.

“Not you, Jon,” I say, trying to split my attention between what’s happening here and with Jonathan. “Just let them get that thing out of you, okay? Then we’ll talk.” I hang up and focus on Blake. “We should have gone to the hospital first.”

He shakes his head weakly and looks just on the edge of passing out. “Just a scratch.”

“You are so full of shit.”

Nichols hangs up. “Security is bringing them up.”

I sit with him for the next few minutes until they arrive. Just as they start to load him onto the stretcher, he digs in his pocket. He flips Nichols his car keys. “Take the Escalade and bring Sam back up the hill.” He grabs the newspaper crossword puzzle sitting on the table and tears off a corner of the page, scribbling something on it, then presses it into her hand with the elevator key. “For your eyes only. Flush the paper when you get in.”

Nichols looks at the paper in her hand. “I don’t know the address.”

Blake looks at me. “Can you get her there, Sam?”

I nod, hoping I remember all the turns.

He must see all the fear I’m barely containing in my eyes, because his gaze softens and he touches my shoulder. “It’ll be okay. I’ll be right behind you.”

The paramedics strap Blake down and rush his gurney down the hall, and I can’t explain the hole in my chest as he vanishes into the elevator.