An Unexpected Clue

If he wasn’t so intent on saving her sorry butt, he’d laugh at the comical picture she made. Pregnant and angry, she was still the most beautiful, sexy, frustrating woman he’d ever met. Ben had his job cut out for him. He ran after her, and tried to grab the keys from her fingers. “You’re not driving.”

“Oh, yes I am.” As if to prove him wrong, she eased behind the wheel of her Honda Civic and plunged the key into the ignition.

Ben hit the unlock button on her door before she could close it and jerked the back door open.

Ava had the car in gear and was rolling backward out of the driveway when Ben flung himself into the backseat.

She slammed on the brakes, dumping Ben onto the floorboard, his legs hanging out of the compact car.

“Get out,” she said, her voice tight and angry.

Why did she have to be so stubborn? “I’m going with you. You need protection.”

“The only person I need protection from is you, Ben Parrish.”

Chapter Three (#ud6166373-dabb-5c69-a9ad-11cefdf4ac20)

Still seething, Ava hit the accelerator and shot down the quiet residential street. She didn’t know where she was going. Originally, all she’d wanted was to get away from Ben. With him in the backseat, that wasn’t likely to happen.

She could abandon the car, but then she’d be on foot. After having walked two miles earlier that day, she wasn’t sure she was up to another hike. The muscles across her abdomen tightened, reminding her that she needed to be calm. Under no circumstances was she to stress herself or her baby. The fetus needed another good month of gestation to ensure a healthy delivery.

Calm? Who was she kidding? Her disappearing-act husband, who’d rather lie than tell her the truth, was picking himself up off the back floorboard. Combine that with the fact that she might be the target of a deranged mobster and the minor detail that she really didn’t know where the hell she was going, pretty much summed up the stink-hole her life had become. Which reminded her—next step, she’d call Emily and give her a heads-up, just in case Ben was telling the truth and they really were in danger. Calm? Ava stopped short of laughing out loud. She took a corner too fast just as Ben sat up. Centrifugal force did what Ava had hoped, throwing the man across the backseat.

Served him right. After all this time, who did he think he was, waltzing in demanding she just get up and leave with him? How many times had she asked him to trust her and tell her the truth? How many lies had he shoved down her throat? Why should she trust him now? She’d become much more independent and had been without him for this long, she could go the rest of her life without Ben Parrish.

In the back of her mind, she couldn’t help the small niggle of joy chinking away at her resolve. Ben was alive. She squelched that joy before it took root and made her forget all the times he’d looked her in the eyes and chosen not to confide in her or tell her the truth about what he was doing. She didn’t even know this man who’d been her husband. All the weeks she’d stood up for him while he’d been gone, she’d wondered if she was just one big fool. All the nights she’d cried herself to sleep, worrying about his sorry carcass.

“Where are we going?” Ben pushed himself upright on the backseat and strapped on his seat belt.

“Since you weren’t invited, we aren’t going anywhere. I on the other hand, am going wherever the hell I please.” To prove it, she stomped on the accelerator, shooting through a yellow light.

Ben leaned forward, his breath stirring the hairs on the back of Ava’s neck. “Do you think it wise to drive like a maniac in your condition?”

“Do you think it wise to disappear for weeks and then show up unannounced, demanding that I leave with you immediately?” Ava skidded around another corner, just to get Ben and his warm breath off the back of her neck. It was doing crazy things to her libido, something she thought impossible at this late stage of pregnancy. Oh, but that heat she felt had nothing to do with outside temps. Damn the man! He’d always had that effect on her. One look, one breath and he had her body tied in exquisite knots.

Ben gripped the back of her seat with both hands. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry, but I was in kind of a rush. What with gunmen chasing me and escaping from the prison from hell, I must have lost all my manners.” Ben inhaled and let out a slow steady breath. “If you’ll head back to Kenner City, I’d like to check in with Tom and the KCCU and straighten out this mess.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you, Ben Parrish. As far as I’m concerned, you’re one of the bad guys, and I’ve had enough stress, enough lies…enough!” Ava slammed on the brakes, skidding to a stop in front of a sixteen-show movie theater. She didn’t want to drive around town with him breathing down the back of her neck for the rest of the night. All her sleepiness had vanished, she might as well stay up and watch a movie. What the heck! Ava shifted into park and turned back to her husband. “Got any money?”

“Not a dime. I told you, I just escaped from Wayne’s organization. I have nothing.”

“Good.” She grabbed her purse and eased out from behind the wheel. Finally, she had a way of ditching the bastard. With putting distance between her and Ben her main goal, Ava stalked toward the theater, her version of stalking being more akin to an angry shuffle. How foolish she must look, and fat and pregnant. Not that she cared what Ben Parrish thought of her now. He’d run out on her and left her holding the bag, answering the questions, living the lie, facing raising a child alone.

A tear slipped from the corner of her eye as she slapped money on the counter in front of a ticket agent.

“Which movie?”

“I don’t care. Surprise me.” What was one more surprise in this crazy night?

The kid behind the counter gave her a strange look and pushed a ticket and her change through the window. “Enjoy the movie, ma’am. Theater number seven.”

Ben had followed her to the ticket window, but Ava didn’t dare look around. If she did, she might fall into his deep dark eyes and cave right there in front of the pimple-faced ticket clerk. She needed time away from him to think. To collect her thoughts and figure out what she should do about her marriage to a man she’d thought she loved. A man she wasn’t sure she could trust anymore. The hurt of the past few weeks was too fresh, too deep to forget in a moment. Not that she wanted to forget.

“Ava, don’t go in. You know I can’t follow you.”

“That’s your problem. You’re so resourceful, you figure it out.” Not that she wanted him to, not yet. She really needed time out of his overwhelming presence. When he didn’t move out of her way, she ducked around him and headed for the ticket taker.

“At least lend me your phone. I have no way of contacting the unit to let them know where I am.”

She hesitated. Should she do anything to make his life easier? If she granted this one request, would she cave altogether and fall back into his arms like the naïve child she’d been? Ava fished in her purse for her cell phone and tossed it to him. She made the mistake of looking at him then.

Ben gave her a sad smile as he deftly caught the cell phone in one hand. He did look tired and thin, his face haggard and long overdue for a shave.

Ava fought the urge to throw herself into his arms. She’d missed him so much. “I want it back.” Was she talking about the cell phone or their relationship? She didn’t even know.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart. You can trust me.”

Her shoulders stiffened. “I’m not so sure.” She’d heard her father ask her mother to trust him so many times. All lip service. Ava turned and handed her ticket to the teenager wearing a theater uniform and she made her way to theater seven. Not until she settled in her seat did she remember she hadn’t called Emily. Ava would wait fifteen minutes and make her way back to the lobby and a pay phone.

FATIGUE DRAGGED AT BEN and the smell of popcorn nearly brought him to his knees. With nothing to eat and no money to enter the theater, Ben leaned against the wall inside the lobby, half hidden by a giant pot filled with a ten-foot tall, fake ficus tree, feeling completely exhausted and thoroughly sucker punched. Yet he kept a vigilant eye on the door, waiting for signs of any of Nicky Wayne’s goons. Not that he’d know all of them. They could be as thick as rats in a sewer on the streets of Vegas as far as Ben knew. That man walking in now, with the black polo shirt and black trousers could be one of Nicky’s men.

Ben straightened, automatically reaching for the Sig Sauer in his waistband before he remembered he’d left it in Ava’s car in case the theater had metal detectors at the entrance. It hadn’t, making Ben more certain he should have carried the gun with him.

A trim young woman joined the man, hooking her arm through his elbow and smiling up at him.

Okay, so maybe he was just being paranoid. Ben rolled his head around, attempting to loosen the stiff muscles in his neck.

Damn the woman! If she’d just come with him when he asked, he wouldn’t be standing in the lobby of this theater worrying about every person walking through the door. Ava didn’t know what was good for herself or their baby. And Ben did? He laughed out loud, the sound more a hoarse croak. His wife had managed just fine without him, a sobering thought.

He stared down at the phone, his vision blurring. Now what was Tom’s number? Lack of food made his brain slower than normal as he punched in the number and hit Send.

“Ava?” Tom’s voice came across the speaker.

“No, it’s Ben.”

“Oh, thank goodness. I have a man on the way over to Emily’s with a rental car and some cash.”

“Can you call him and tell him to meet me at…” Ben looked up at the theater and gave Tom the address.

“Hold on just a moment while I pass the information.” The line went completely silent for a minute. During which time, the aroma of popcorn had Ben in a near-faint. He couldn’t give up now. Hunger, plus the added anxiety of Ava being in the theater, in a public place where any one of Nicky Wayne’s people could get to her, had his stomach knotting painfully. He stepped out of the theater lobby into the warm, Las Vegas night air.

“Ben?” Tom’s voice broke through his gloom and doom thoughts.

Ben couldn’t answer right away as he struggled to stand upright.

“You doing okay, buddy?” Tom’s tone sharpened.

“I’m okay.” Ben didn’t feel okay.