He put his bag down, took her hand. “I don’t feel good about leaving
you.”
“It’s your daughter. We’ll be fine. You heard Danny. He’s got this
person over a barrel.”
Lee looked unconvinced. “The last thing you should do right now is let
down your guard. The car will be here at eight to take you and
Buchanan to the plane. You head back to
D.C.”
“And then what?”
“Go to a motel in the suburbs. Register under a false name and then
call me on my cell phone. AS soon as things are okay with Renee I’ll
head back. I already talked it over with Buchanan. He’s in
agreement.”
“And then?” Faith persisted.
“Let’s just take it a step at a time. I told you there are no
guarantees in this.”
“I was actually talking about us.”
Lee played with the strap on his bag. “Oh,” was all that came out, and
it sounded idiotic.
“I see.”
“You see what?” Lee demanded.
“Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am.”
“Where do you get off thinking like that? Don’t you know what kind of
a man I am by now?”
“Actually, I thought I did. But I guess I forgot. You’re in the loner
group: sex only for fun. Right?”
“Why are we doing this? Like we don’t have enough going on. We can
talk about it later. It’s not like I’m not coming back.”
Lee didn’t mean to put her off, but-hell, why couldn’t she see there
was no time for this right now?
Faith sat down on the bed.
“Like you said, no guarantees,” she said.
He put a hand on her shoulder. “I am coming back, Faith. I didn’t
come this far to desert you now.”
“Okay,” was all she said. She stood and gave him a quick hug. “Please,
please, be careful.”
Faith let him out the rear door. As she turned to go back in, Lee’s
gaze was riveted on her. He took in everything, from the bare feet to
the short dark hair and all points in between. For one troubling
moment, he wondered if this was the last time he would ever see her.
Lee climbed on the Honda and quickly started up the bike.
* * *
As Lee roared out of the driveway and hit the street, Brooke Reynolds
raced back to the Crown Vie and threw open the door. Breathless, she
looked inside.
“Shit, I knew the minute I left the car to get a closer look at the
house this would happen. He must have come out a rear door. He didn’t
even turn on the carport light. I never saw him until the bike cranked
up. So what do we do? House or the bike?”
Connie looked down the road. “Adams is already out of sight. And that
bike is a lot more agile than this tank.”
“I guess that leaves the house and Lockhart.”
Connie suddenly looked worried. “We’re presuming she’s still inside.
In fact, we don’t even know if she was ever inside.”
“Shit, I knew you were going to say that. She damn well better be. If
we just let Adams go and Lockhart isn’t in that house, I will swim to
England. And you’re going to have to be right beside me. Come on,
Connie, we have to go in the house.”
Connie climbed out of the car, pulled his gun and looked around
nervously. “Shit, I don’t like this. It could be a setup. We could
be walking right into an ambush. And we’ve got no backup.”
“We don’t have much choice, do we?”
“All right, but dammit, Stay behind me.”
They headed for the house.
CHAPTER 50
DRESSED IN BLACK SWEATS AND TENNIS SHOES, the three men raced along the
beach, keeping low to the sand. Although the dawn was fast
approaching, they were virtually invisible in their dark clothing
against the backdrop of the ocean, and the pounding surf covered all
sounds of their movements.
They had arrived in the area barely an hour ago and had just received
some very disturbing news. Lee Adams had left the house. Lockhart
wasn’t with him. She must still be in the house. Or at least they