Flash of Death

Trent spun toward Chloe. She was slowly sliding down the wall toward the ground. He reached out, grabbed her shoulders and dragged her upright. She let out a squeak of terror.

“Chloe. It’s me, Trent. You’re safe now. I’ve got you.”

She sagged against him, taking huge, sobbing breaths. He held her for a moment, registering for the first time the stench of the alley.

“Honey, I need you to stand up on your own for a minute, okay?”

She nodded against his chest but made no move to step away from him. He pushed her gently back against the wall and knelt down to check on the status of the attacker. The guy was out cold. He looked about thirty and was dark-haired and scruffy. Might be Hispanic, maybe Mediterranean. Hard to tell in the dark.

Trent reached into the guy’s back pocket and whipped out the attacker’s wallet. He pulled out his own cell phone and took a quick picture of the guy’s driver’s license. Trent put the I.D. back and stuffed the wallet back in the man’s pants. He searched the guy’s pockets for anything else that might be informative and found nothing. He did pick up the attacker’s .38 pistol, which had skidded a half-dozen feet away, and tucked it in his sweatshirt’s front pocket. If they got lucky, the gun might tell the guys at Winston Ops who this yahoo worked for.

“Is that really you?” Chloe asked tentatively. “You’re not a hallucination?”

“Yup, I’m me. In the flesh.” She looked like hell warmed over. “C’mon, Chloe. Let’s get you home.”

“The police … arrest him … report …”

“I’ll take care of it,” Trent answered smoothly. He pitched his voice to calm and reassure her. The last thing he needed was police snooping around and asking too many questions. Besides, the beating he’d administered to her would-be assailant was a more effective deterrent than anything the cops could do. However, it also opened Trent up to some questions by the police that he’d really rather not answer. Like how he was so fast, and had disarmed the assailant so easily, and why he didn’t have a scratch on him.

“I didn’t recognize you in those clothes,” Chloe commented randomly.

He glanced down at his jeans riding low on his hips and his University of Hawaii hoodie sweatshirt. This was what he usually wore. “What’s wrong with my clothes?” he asked.

“Nothing. I’ve only seen you in a tux or—” She broke off.

Or naked. He grinned down at her. If she could think about sex after having just been assaulted, she was going to be just fine once she got over the initial shock.

They walked the rest of the way to her place in silence. He watched without comment as she let herself into her apartment. But when she reached for a light switch, he forestalled her. “Stay here,” he murmured.

She nodded as he slipped into the darkness and took a quick look around her place. It was as tidy as her hotel room had been. Its spare, modern furnishings left little or no room for someone to hide, and his search was complete in under a minute.

“Okay, Chloe. It’s safe. You can turn on the lights.”

A row of recessed halogen lights went on in the snug kitchen that was open to the living room. He watched cautiously as she dumped her coat on a bar stool and unceremoniously started stripping off her outer clothes in front of him.

“Whoa, there. What are you doing?” he asked in alarm. She wasn’t going to jump his bones here and now, was she?

“I stink. I can smell him on me,” she muttered.

And then he noticed her hands were shaking and she was unnaturally pale. In fact, her entire body was trembling. He moved to her swiftly and wrapped her in his arms. She went stiff against him.

“It’s okay, honey. I’ve got you. You’re safe. I swear. You can let it go, now.”

She might have been close to tears in the alley, but she didn’t break down like he expected. Instead, she pushed against his chest and he turned her loose, surprised. Where was the funny, relaxed, adventurous woman from two nights ago? Surely she was locked inside Chloe somewhere.

“Turn your back,” she ordered tightly.

He did so, frowning. He felt her move past him and head for the single bedroom that opened off the living room. The door closed with a thud and a lock snicked into place. She thought a lock would work against him, huh? He didn’t disabuse her of the notion. All the guys at Code X learned how to pick nastier locks than her little bedroom door’s as part of their extensive military-style training.

He sat down on her sofa to wait her out. He didn’t buy for a minute that this tense, uptight woman was the real Chloe Jordan. She’d emerge eventually, and then they’d have that conversation about who might want to kill her.

Chloe scrubbed furiously at her skin under a scalding hot shower until it was red and felt raw. Whether she was trying to get rid of the feel of her attacker’s arms or the feel of her rescuer’s she couldn’t say. Where in the heck had Trent Hollings come from, materializing out of nowhere to save her? He must have been following her. But why? Obviously, he was some kind of stalking creep. She couldn’t believe he’d followed her from Denver all the way to San Francisco. Apparently his notion of playing for a living included terrorizing single women. Was he some kind of pervert?

An insidious thrill that he might have flown halfway across the country to see her again insinuated itself into the back of her brain. She tried to scrub it away, too, but failed.

After rinsing shampoo out of her hair for the third time, she gave up on getting any cleaner and stepped out of her shower. She felt horribly vulnerable being naked with Trent in the next room, and forewent her usual, meticulous drying and moisturizing ritual to hurry into clothes. She pulled on jeans and a bulky sweater that was the most concealing article of clothing she owned. She even put on socks and shoes. Anything to cover herself from him. The humiliation of waking up stark naked in that hotel room and knowing he’d seen her—all of her—and done all those things to her, and that she had let him, was far too fresh in her mind.

She dried her hair and pushed it back from her face with a simple headband. In her efforts to delay facing him even further, she even applied a little makeup. Finally, when even her watch was strapped to her wrist and she couldn’t think of a single thing more to do, she gathered the rest of her filthy clothing in her arms.

Oh, God. The flash drive. The mugger had groped her coat pockets—no doubt looking for her wallet. She didn’t remember if the guy had reached into her pants pockets, though. She’d been too panicked to register such details.

Chloe reached frantically into the pocket of her jeans and felt a hard rectangle of plastic. Exhaling in relief, she tucked the drive into her underwear drawer. It wasn’t the most original hiding place ever, but it would do until she could get rid of Trent Hollings and make a bunch of copies of the data files. And she wasn’t giving him permission to go fishing through her lingerie anytime soon.

Steeling herself to face the devil, she opened her bedroom door and stepped into the living room. As she’d expected, he was still sprawled on her sofa, waiting. In that baggy sweatshirt and tennis shoes with his hair all tousled, he looked like an overgrown kid. She could barely believe he’d been the dark, dangerous lover of two nights ago.

“Feel better?” he asked neutrally.

“Yes, thank you,” she answered equally neutrally. Lord, she barely recognized him like this with that tousled hair, sloppy clothes and dark stubble on his jaw. He looked nothing like the wealthy trust-fund playboy he apparently was. He reminded her of some surfer-dude, hippie throwback of her parents’ days. Ugh. She much preferred him in an Italian designer tuxedo.