Chapter Eleven

CHAPTER ELEVEN

"I'm kicking myself," Jason mumbled. Though his voice carried almost no sound, Lilly heard him loud and clear. She also felt the knotted muscles in his arm as they sat side by side on the seat of the unmarked car. "You know that, right?"

Lilly knew.

She was kicking herself, as well.

This meeting with Corinne could be important, critical even, but she hated leaving Megan for any reason. It didn't matter that her daughter was in safe hands with not just one cop, but two. It also didn't matter that one of the cops, Sgt. Garrett O'Malley, was someone that she knew and trusted.

Nope.

This didn't have to do with trust. It had to do with leaving her little girl while she tried to figure out who wanted Jason and her dead. High stakes. But with an equally high possibility of failure.

She glanced around the parking lot again and checked her watch. "No sign of Corinne," she pointed out.

Lilly didn't have to add that the woman was nearly a half hour late. Jason was well aware of that. He was probably also well aware that Corinne wasn't going to show with the evidence and this had perhaps been some sort of wild-goose chase.

But why would Corinne have done that?

Lilly couldn't come up with a good answer, but there were possibilities that made her uncomfortable. In addition to the wild-goose theory, maybe someone had blackmailed Corinne into arranging this meeting. And that led Lilly right back to Wayne Sandling and Raymond Klein.

"She's not going to show," Jason declared.

Even though it was dark, there were enough security lights in the parking lot for her to note his frustrated, impatient expression. Sighing and feeling equally impatient and frustrated, she leaned her head against the glass of the heavily tinted window.

"Maybe the officers you sent out to check the area will find her," Lilly answered. "Maybe she's out there, waiting to make sure it's safe before she comes into the open."

"Maybe," he said, not sounding as if he believed that. She didn't believe it, either. "Don't sit so close to the window."

She glanced at the window. Frowned. "I thought they were bulletproof."

"More like bullet resistant. If the shooter is using armor-piercing bullets, the shot could still get through."

He didn't have to say that twice. Lilly immediately slid across the seat toward him, until her arm was squashed against his again. He felt warm. Comforting. Something she desperately needed.

"There are too many things that could go wrong," Jason said under his breath. "That's obviously why I didn't want you to come."

"But if something goes right, and we get these memos from Corinne, you might have the evidence you need for an arrest. Then we won't be in danger anymore."

He stayed quiet a moment. "If this doesn't work, maybe you could try going about this from a different angle. During some investigations when the witness has been traumatized, sometimes we use a psychiatrist to hypnotize the person, to see if they recall anything."

Lilly considered that. "And it's been successful?" she asked.

"Sometimes."

"Well, sometimes is better than nothing. I'll do it. Just let me know when and where." In fact, she wished they'd already arranged it. Recalling the face of the person who'd tried to kill her might lead them to the person who was behind all these latest attempts on their lives.

"Let's get past this rendezvous first," Jason reminded her.

If there was a rendezvous. And if it would amount to anything. They could be back at square one, and that meant all of them were in danger.

Including Megan.

Only hours earlier Jason had asked her if she would consider a relationship of convenience. Ironic. Because with the danger staring them right in their faces, she should be considering just the opposite. To keep her child and Jason safe, she might have to consider doing the unthinkable.

She might have to leave.

In some ways that was unimaginable. And yet in other ways, it seemed irresponsible not to do it. If she left, maybe the person trying to kill her wouldn't go anywhere near Megan. It broke her heart just to consider it, but it would break her heart even more to lose her daughter.

The movement caught Lilly's eye, and she looked up to see two uniformed officers cut across the parking lot. They approached the car, and Jason lowered the window a fraction.

"We found something," one of the officers said to Jason.

"Is it Corinne Davies?" Jason asked.

The rookie shook his head and cast an uneasy glance at Lilly before bringing his gaze back to Jason. "Not exactly. But, trust me, you'll want to see this."

T HE ROOKIE'S You'll want to see this might have been vague, but it was more than enough to get Jason moving. Obviously, his fellow cop had something to say, and he didn't want to say it in front of Lilly. If that was the case, there wasn't much chance of this being good news.

"I want you to wait here with Lilly," Jason ordered the rookie. He glanced at the other uniformed officer. "You'll come with me."

Jason checked his weapon and opened the door. "Don't let her get out of the car, and don't let Corinne Davies or anyone other than me get anywhere near her, understand?"

The rookie nodded.

Lilly didn't agree quite so quickly. "Wait a minute," she said, grabbing Jason's arm to stop him from leaving. "What if I don't want you to go to check on this ‘thing you'll want to see'?"

"It's my job to go," Jason countered.

She pointed first at the rookie and then at the other officer. "It's their job, too. Why can't they go?"

"Because I'm a detective and they're not. Besides, this is personal for me. If Corinne is out there, I want to see her face-to-face, to see if I can figure out what's really going on here."

She frowned. "I don't suppose it'd do any good to ask if I can go with you?"

He didn't even have to think about that. "No good whatsoever. You're staying put."

Jason turned to leave, but she latched on to his arm again. "Don't do anything…stupid, okay?" And with that, she leaned forward and hurriedly brushed a kiss on his cheek.

It definitely wasn't one of those lusty foreplay kisses they'd shared in the foyer of his house. But in some ways, it packed an even greater wallop. Because it was the kind of kiss that people gave each other when they were more than just two people with a child in common.

How much more? Jason asked himself.

But he pushed the question aside. He was about to venture into what could essentially be a kill zone, and he needed a clear head for that. He didn't want the distraction of his feelings for Lilly to cloud his judgment.

"Stay put," he ordered Lilly one last time, and he got out of the car before she could stop him again.

Or before he felt compelled to return that kiss.

"So, did you find Corinne Davies or not?" Jason asked the officer once the door was closed and Lilly could no longer hear what they were saying. If it was bad news, he wanted a chance to process it first before he told her.

"No, but we found a car parked just up the street." They headed in that direction, and Jason looked over his shoulder to cast one last don't-get-out warning glance at Lilly and a watch-her warning glance at the rookie who was now guarding the car.

"The car we found is a rental," the officer continued. "We called the company, and it's Ms. Davies' name on the rental agreement."

Maybe she'd used a rental because she was concerned about being recognized. Or maybe because her other car had been stolen and she hadn't had a chance to replace it. Still, the situation made Jason uneasy. Of course, everything was making him uneasy at this point.

With his hand on his gun, Jason and the officer proceeded out of headquarters' parking lot and onto the sidewalk. He spotted the silver-gray car right away. It was parked in the center point between two streetlights. In others words, in the spot with the least visibility.

There was another uniformed officer waiting by the vehicle. "No sign of Ms. Davies yet," the officer volunteered. "She's not in the car, but we haven't made a thorough search of the area yet."

Jason looked around at the street jammed with buildings on each side. There were plenty of places to hide if Corinne had gone inside one of them. Maybe inside and on the roof with a high-powered rifle? He glanced up, half expecting to see her standing there, with a gun aimed right at him.

But Corinne wasn't anywhere in sight.

Temporarily satisfied that he wasn't about to be ambushed, Jason turned his attention back to the rental car. He borrowed a flashlight from one of the uniformed officers and checked the interior.

Nothing.

No purse, no jacket, no cell. No sign of a struggle.

That didn't mean there hadn't been one.

He put his hand over the hood of the car. He didn't touch the surface in case it became necessary for them to dust for prints. But he could feel no heat coming from the engine. The car had no doubt been parked there for a while. Perhaps even for several hours.

Jason swept the milky light over the exterior of the car, and when he didn't see anything out of the ordinary, he began to examine the street and the sidewalk. It didn't take him long to spot what he'd hoped he wouldn't see.

"Secure the area," Jason ordered the officers. "And get the CSI guys out here now."

Cursing under his breath, Jason angled the flashlight, moving it along the black asphalt. Despite the dark color, he had no trouble seeing the wet spots. Though he already knew what they were, he stooped and touched his index finger to one of the drops.

It was blood.