Agent to the Rescue

He recognized the dress, since he had just seen a gown eerily similar to it. But that bride had been alive and happy. This bride was dead. He reached into the trunk to confirm it, his fingers sliding over her throat where her pulse would have been—had she had one any longer.

Something moved beneath his fingertips—in a faint and weak rhythm. He looked down again just as her eyelids fluttered open. Her eyes were a pale, almost silvery, gray, and they were wide with confusion and then fear.

She screamed and struck out, hitting and kicking at him, as she fought him for her life.

* * *

THE SCREAM STOPPED him cold, abruptly halting his headlong escape through the forest. He had heard that scream before—seconds before he’d thought he had killed the woman. Hell, he’d been certain he’d killed her.

How could she be alive?

It wasn’t possible...

More important, it wasn’t acceptable.

He had let the state trooper distract him. With his heart pounding in his chest with fear and nerves, he hadn’t known how to react to that police car behind him. At first he’d driven normally, hoping that the trooper wouldn’t notice the missing plate—hoping that he would give up following him for some more interesting radio call.

But the trooper must have called in someone else—some other agency—because then he’d noticed the black SUV. And his every instinct had screamed at him to drive as fast as he could—to outrun that vehicle.

Instead, he had let it run him off the road—into that damn ditch. He’d barely escaped the vehicle before the guy had run up to it.

In a tux...

What kind of government agent wore a tuxedo?

The kind that had happened into the wrong situation at the wrong time.

He had to go back. He couldn’t leave the woman alive. And if he had to, he would kill the man along with her. And this time, he would make damn certain that she was really dead.

Chapter Two (#ulink_249def37-1397-5e00-aac1-874bfe1a215f)

“It’s okay...” The man uttered the claim in a deep voice. “You’re safe.” But he held a gun in one hand while he grasped her wrists with the other.

His hands were so big that he easily clasped both her wrists in one, restraining her. So she kicked. Or at least she tried. But heavy fabric tangled around her legs, holding her down...inside the trunk of a car.

Fear overwhelmed her as she realized that she had been locked inside that trunk—until this man had opened the lid. She needed to get out; she needed to run. But her head throbbed. A blaring alarm intensified the pain, and her vision blurred as unconsciousness threatened to overwhelm her again. She could barely focus on the man.

He was so big and muscular that he towered over her. Thick dark hair framed a tanned face. And dark eyes stared down at her. He looked as shocked as she felt.

She struggled again, tugging on her wrists to free them from his grasp. But his hand held her. She fought to move her legs, but they were trapped under the weight of whatever she was wearing.

She glanced down, and all the white nearly blinded her. White lace. White silk. Except for the red spots, which dropped onto the fabric like rain. She was bleeding. Not only had she been locked inside the trunk of a car, she had been wounded.

How badly?

Panic pressed on her, constricting her lungs. But she gathered her strength, opened her mouth and screamed again. Her voice was weak, too, though, and only a soft cry emerged from her throat this time.

“You have no reason to be afraid anymore,” the man told her. “You’re safe now. You’re safe.”

Her vision cleared enough that she could see him more clearly. He wore a black jacket with a dark red rose pinned to one of the shiny silk lapels. His shirt was whiter than the dress she was wearing. A black bow tie hung loose around the collar of that shirt.

He was wearing a tuxedo and she was dressed in what had to be a wedding gown. What sick scenario did he have planned for her? Or had it already taken place?

She couldn’t remember what had happened and how she had ended up in the trunk of a car. Since she couldn’t change what had already happened, she concentrated instead on the present—on what was happening now and where she was. She peered around him—to the forest surrounding the vehicle that was upended in a ditch. He had brought her to the middle of nowhere.

And she could think of only one reason for that. To dispose of her body...

Because no one would ever find her out here. She had no idea where she was. There were so many trees overhead that she could barely see the sky through the canopy of thick branches. She had no idea which direction was which—even if she was strong enough to escape him. She already knew he was strong from his grip on her wrists; he was so tall and broad shouldered, too.

“Please,” she murmured. “Please, don’t hurt me...”

She shouldn’t have wasted her breath. Uttering those words had cost her so much of what little was left of her strength, and she had no hope of appealing to his sense of humanity. She doubted he had one. He must have been the person who had put her in the trunk, who had hurt her.

He was standing over her, restraining her...and he had the gun. He had to be the one who’d...

But she couldn’t remember. She couldn’t remember what had happened. The pounding in her head increased as she struggled to summon memories.

But her mind was blank. Completely blank.

She didn’t even know who she was...

* * *

THE MAN WAS totally focused on the woman—so much so that he would be easily overpowered. And the blaring car alarm would drown out the sound of his approach. Ready to attack, he moved forward, but then sunlight seeped through the thick branches of the trees overhanging the road and glinted off the metal of the weapon the man held.

Just as he’d suspected, this guy wasn’t just some Good Samaritan who had happened along to rescue the woman. Despite the tuxedo he was wearing, he had to be some type of lawman. An armed lawman.

Frustration ate at him—joining the bitterness he had always felt for law enforcement. The gun would complicate things. But it wouldn’t stop him.

He would enjoy killing the man, too—now that he knew he was in law enforcement. But he would have to act quickly, before any reinforcements arrived.

He had to act now. He had to make sure that the woman really died and the lawman died along with her.

* * *

THE PANIC ON the young woman’s face struck Dalton like a blow. Those already enormous silvery-gray eyes had widened more with fear while her face had grown even paler.

Aware that he was scaring her, that he was intimidating her, he stepped back. But he was afraid that if he completely released her, she might injure herself as she tried to get away from him. So he continued to hold her wrists.

“Don’t move,” he cautioned her. As wounded as she was, she shouldn’t risk causing more damage to her battered body.

But she ignored his advice and struggled even harder, thrashing about inside the trunk. Maybe she couldn’t hear him over the blare of that damn car alarm. But like her, it was growing weaker—probably either as the battery ran down or was damaged from the water flooding the engine, which had already died.

Now he just had to make sure that the bride didn’t.

“You’re hurt,” he told her—in case she hadn’t noticed the blood that had stained her dress and made her long hair wet and sticky.

She had lost so much blood that some had even pooled in the trunk beneath her. She needed medical attention as soon as possible. Or he wasn’t sure that she would survive.