Carol Ericson - Locked, Loaded And Sealed

She gasped and covered her mouth with one hand.

A twinge of guilt needled his belly. He’d gone too far. Just because she hadn’t screamed and hit the horn or fainted didn’t mean she had a hard shell impervious to pain.

“I’m sorry, and you’re right. Dr. Fazal was not suicidal, but I would like a better idea of what was going on with him. Can you help me out?”

“I knew it.” She smacked the steering wheel. “Those idiots were trying to tell me he killed himself when the office had obviously been searched.”

“Searched?” His pulse sped up. “Was anything taken?”

“Just his computer as far as I could tell. The cops had me look around, but I was too rattled to see straight.” She put the car in Reverse and backed out of the space. “I know a place in Cambridge, not too far from here—dark, not too crowded, but crowded enough so that we won’t be noticed.”

“Sounds good.” He ducked down and lay across the backseat. “I’m going to stay down. I want you to check your mirrors when you drive out of the parking structure to make sure you’re not being followed. Keep an eye out. Slow down and let cars pass you, take a few turns if you think someone’s tailing you.”

“You’re not making me feel any better.”

“You’ll be safe—with me.” The same couldn’t be said for Dr. Fazal, and Austin felt the failure of showing up too late to protect him gnaw at his gut.

The tires squealed and the car bounced as she pulled out of the parking structure. Austin’s forehead hit the back of the driver’s seat. “Did you see someone?”

“All clear so far. Why?”

“You stepped on that gas like you had the devil himself on your tail.”

“To get out of that parking structure, you gotta move or you’ll be waiting there all night.”

Apparently, every intersection she blew through had the same problem as the car sped up, lurched around corners and jerked to a stop every once in a while. If Fazal’s killers didn’t end him, Sophia’s driving would.

“No headlights behind you?”

“Not for any length of time. Don’t worry. I got this. I’m no stranger to losing a tail.”

“Should that concern me?”

“It should make you happy. We’re almost there.”

Rubbing his forehead, Austin sat up and peered out the window. They’d already crossed Longfellow Bridge and were speeding into Cambridge.

A few minutes later, the car crawled along a street lined with bars and restaurants as Sophia searched for a parking space.

He tapped on the window. “There’s a public lot with space.”

“Are you kidding? I’m not paying twenty-four bucks to park my car.”

“I’ll spring for the parking. We could be driving around here all night looking for a place.”

“Your call, but it’s a rip-off.” She made an illegal U-turn in the middle of the street and swung into the lot, buzzing down her window.

He pulled a crumpled twenty and a five from his pocket and handed them to her.

The attendant met the car. “That’s twenty-four dollars, please.”

She gave him the money, and then pinched the one dollar bill he gave her between two fingers and held it over her shoulder. “Here you go.”

When they got out of the car, Sophia crossed her arms, gripping her biceps and hunching her shoulders.

“You don’t have a jacket? It’s cold out here for just a long-sleeved shirt.”

“I had a sweater.” She slammed the car door and locked it. “It has Dr. Fazal’s blood all over it.”

“I’m sorry. Take my jacket.” He shrugged out of his blue peacoat and draped it over her shoulders, his hands lingering for a few seconds.

She hugged the coat around her body and sniffed. “Thanks.”

They joined the Friday night crowd on the sidewalk—students, professors, young professionals, a few tourists. They could fit in with this bunch, even though Sophia still wore a dazed expression on her pale face.

She led him to one of the many bars, crowded but not jammed, a duo at one end singing a folk song.

“We can probably still get a booth, but we’ll have to order some bar food.”

“That’s okay.” He tipped his chin toward a booth in the back of the long room that three people had just left. “There’s one.”

He followed her as she wended her way through the tables scattered along the perimeter of the bar. Her black hair gleamed under the low lights, and he had a sudden urge to reach out and smooth his fingers along the silky strands. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans instead.

A waitress swooped in just as they reached the table. “I’ll clear this up for you.”

When the waitress finished clearing the glasses from the previous customers, Sophia slid onto the bench seat and he sat down across from her.

Hunching forward, she buried her chin in her hand and the small diamond on the side of her nose sparkled. “Tell me who you are and what the hell is going on.”

“My name’s Austin Foley, and I’m in the US Navy.”

She blinked her lashes, still long and dark even though her mascara had run down her face. “How do you know Dr. Fazal?”

He massaged his temple. How could he explain things to her without compromising classified information?

Of course, the rescue of Dr. Fazal was no longer classified, and if anyone had a right to know about Dr. Fazal’s past, Sophia did. Maybe she already knew. All their intel on Fazal and Sophia indicated that the two had grown close.

“What did Fazal tell you about his past before coming to the US?”

Sophia bit her bottom lip as the waitress approached the table. “Now, what can I get you?”

“I’ll have a beer—whatever you have on tap.”

“Club soda with lime for me.”

The waitress left, and Sophia leaned toward him over the table. “I only know that his wife and two daughters died in a terrorist bombing in Islamabad. The US government resettled him here for safety, but then you know that already. You claim to know more than I do, so you’d better start spilling or I’m calling my new best friends at the Boston PD.”

Austin squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose. If he’d thought handling Sophia Grant would be easy, he’d been completely mistaken. She’d probably catch him out in a lie in about two seconds, too. Were there any girls back home like this? If so, he’d never run into one, and given the size of White Bluff, Wyoming, he’d run into all of the women.

“Okay.” He ran a hand across the top of his head, his hair still short from active duty. “Dr. Fazal helped out the US military, helped us nail a wanted terrorist hiding in the area. His life wasn’t worth much in Islamabad after that, so we hustled him out of Pakistan.”

She nodded. “That doesn’t surprise me. I figured there was more to his story.”

Nothing seemed to surprise this surprising woman. “We settled him in Boston. You know he went to medical school here?”

“Yes.” She drummed her fingers on the table. “Were you one of the guys who helped rescue him?”

“Uh-huh.”

The waitress delivered their drinks and Austin held his up. “To Dr. Fazal.”

Sophia clinked her glass with his. “To Dr. Fazal.”

She took a sip of her drink and laced her fingers around the glass mug. “What were you doing here at the precise moment he got murdered?”

Austin ground his back teeth together and took a bigger swig of beer than he’d intended. He gulped it down. “He’d contacted us a few weeks back, said he was being watched, followed.”

“So that’s why he’d been agitated.”

“Was he?”

“For the past several days—distracted, even curt with me, which was unusual.”

“After his initial contact, we didn’t hear from him again. I guess he thought we could help him, but I was too late.” His hand curled into a fist on the table.