Page 51 of Dirty Gambit

“Lena, why did you leave?” he asked again, stressing each word as if she were hard of hearing.

It struck her then that he hadn’t spent the better part of two hours searching for her because he’d been concerned for her. He wanted to make sure he had someone to hand over to the cops the first chance he got. He wanted to make sure she was behind bars so she never came after his family again. That was what she would have done had the roles been reversed. She would have searched the whole planet for him.

“Hey.” His waving hand in her face jerked her from her epiphany. She slapped it aside.

“What do you mean?” she shot back, finding her voice at last.

“What do you mean, what do I mean?” He spared her a quick glance before returning his furious attention to the road. “I was gone for a minute and when I got back, you were gone. Why?”

Outrage had her eyebrows furrowing and her face bunching into one of indignation. “What kind of question is that?” She gave him a split second to answer but beat him to it when he opened his mouth. “Do you think I’m stupid? Why on earth would I stay so you could haul me to prison?”

He recoiled as if she’d suggested something absolutely insane. “Prison?”

“Or what?” she prompted. “Were you just going to let me go out of the goodness of your heart?”

He was silent for a long moment. Long enough for them to leave behind the town and delve deep into the wooded areas of the highway. Jessie gibbered on in the backseat, oblivious to the thick wall of tension permeating the front seat. But maybe that was better. She hadn’t expected a response and anything he said would only be a lie.

“How did you get out anyway?” he said instead, shattering the hum of engines and grind of gravel. “I had the key.”

“You hadakey,” she corrected, stressing thea.

If she thought her cleverness would impress him, she’d been sadly mistaken when he cursed vehemently and shot her a deadly glower. It took all her resolve not to burst into a fit of giggles at the absolute outrage in the tightness of his jaw; it wasn’t her fault he hadn’t thought to ask for both keys, or that he hadn’t realized there were two. Didn’t most people know handcuffs came with a set? It was possible his sheltered life hadn’t been overshadowed by pesky little things like getting the cuffs slapped on. She certainly couldn’t see him doing anything that money couldn’t buy him out of. That thought was enough to kill any amusement she may have felt.

“Where are you taking me anyway?” she demanded instead, snapping her attention back in the direction of the trees swinging past them.

“Don’t worry about it,” was his response, a response much too similar to the one she’d given him every time he’d asked that very question. Being on the receiving end did not improve her annoyance.

“Listen,” she began, pivoting in her seat to stare him down with one of her lethal glares.

“No, you listen,” he cut in. “I have put up with you and your … bullshit,” he spat, “for the last three days and I’ve had enough. Either you’re going to explain yourself, or I hand you in and this ends here and now. What’s it going to be, Lena?”

With choices like that, she really had no other option.

“Hand me in,” she decided without missing a beat.

Jaxon gave a visible start. “What?”

“Hand me in,” she said again, stressing each word carefully so there was no mistaking them. “But don’t give the cops your names, or that I know Jessie. No, that wouldn’t work,” she mused quietly to herself. “Of course you have to tell them what happened. Unless you don’t…”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

It was all getting too complicated. Her plan to get Jessie out of the country had obviously failed. But as of that moment, Travis had no idea about Jessie. At the very least, she wasn’t his priority if he did; Lena and his money were. If Jaxon carted Lena to the cops, he would have to tell them that she’d kidnapped his adopted sister. That would go on the record, a record Travis could easily access. It would lead him straight to Jessie. But if she could talk Jaxon into taking her to the police shop and let her turn herself in, she could just confess to killing the cops, get locked up for life and no one would ever know about Jessie.

“I will turn myself in,” she decided, mind made up. “I will tell them I killed the three police officers. You will never see me again. I promise.”

Jaxon pulled over. It wasn’t violent or angry. He simply slipped along the shoulder and braked. His head turned to her once he had his caution lights on.

“You said you didn’t kill those officers.”

There was a quiet in the statement that made her stomach hurt.

“I didn’t, but that’s not the point.”

His calm study of her face never wavered. It was as if he were trying to read her soul. The steady deliberation made her shift uneasily in her seat.

“Why would you confess to something you didn’t do, something like that?”

Torn with the need to tell him everything and telling him nothing, she dared a glance over her shoulder at the chubby little fists waving into the air, and her heart broke.

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