Meredith Fletcher - Best Man for the Job

“I let them get away?” Eryn’s words came out harsh and angry as she leaned toward Callan. “You ass! I just saved your life!”

“I had everything under control.”

“What were you going to do? Tackle that van?” Eryn snorted sarcastically, her anger momentarily overriding her fear. “I’m sure that would have worked out really well for you. They’d have peeled you off the grill. But that would have made the car easier to identify. Maybe I should have let you go.”

The planes of his face hardened. “Who are those guys? Who took Daniel?”

“I don’t know!” Eryn sipped a deep breath and looked at the phone. She pulled up the shots she’d taken, then triggered the email function and sent them to her phone back in the hotel room and to her home computer.

“Are you calling them?” Callan reached for the phone.

Eryn turned sideways and threw her shoulder into the big man’s arms to block the grab. “No. I’m securing evidence. Back off.”

“What evidence?”

This time his grab was too quick for her and he snatched the phone from her hand while she’d been focused on sending the images. She resisted the impulse to try to get the phone back. Unless she had a baseball bat or a Taser, that wasn’t going to happen until he was ready to hand it over.

“What is this?” Callan peered at the phone screen.

“What does it look like?”

“You took pictures of the van?” He studied her with hard-edged curiosity.

“Yes. If we get lucky, maybe we can enlarge those images and read the plates.”

He flicked his gaze back to the image and stared hard at it, as if memorizing every detail. “They won’t have used their own vehicle. They were too professional.” He spoke more to himself than to her.

“What makes you so sure?” The thought that the kidnappers had stolen the van had crossed Eryn’s mind. But the pictures at least gave them something to work with. Then she caught herself and couldn’t believe how easily she’d transitioned to “them” instead of her.

“They were professionals.”

“And you know professionals.”

His voice turned cold and flat. “Yeah, I know professionals.”

Eryn folded her arms across her chest and stared at him. For the first time she noticed the scars on his hand and neck. They were hard and violent, some of them recent and not the result of childhood misadventure.

Callan looked at her. Even while he’d been studying the images on the phone screen, he’d never taken his attention wholly from her. “Is this the only picture?”

“Image. No, it’s not.”

“How many more?”

“Three altogether.”

“Show me the others.” He handed her the phone.

Taking the phone, Eryn flipped through the three images. She went one more image than expected and saw a picture of her stepping into the cake. It had been taken from behind. Evidently Toby had snapped her in the hallway.

Callan took back the phone and flipped through the images the way Eryn had. He was a quick learner. “Can you save these pictures?”

“Images. I already have.”

“How?”

“I sent them to my phone and home computer.”

“This isn’t your phone.”

“What gave it away? The fact that I couldn’t have taken that shot of myself? Or the fact that I wouldn’t have taken that particular shot?”

“The fact that the underwear you have on is too skimpy to have concealed this phone.”

The comment made Eryn immediately feel uncomfortable. But she was almost scandalized at the satisfaction she took in knowing that Callan had noticed how she’d been dressed. Or, rather, undressed. Self-consciously, she covered herself with an arm, clinging to her shoulder with her hand.

“It’s Toby’s phone. I took it on the way out of the room.” Eryn knew from the wary glint in his eyes that she had surprised him. He’d underestimated her, and now he knew that he had on several levels.

Callan studied her. “Why did you take these pictures?”

“To give to the police.”

He stared at her harder and she found it difficult to meet his gaze.

“I’m not working with them.” She was surprised at how much she cared that he believed her. Her reaction was foolish, and it was wasted. One thing she knew for sure about Callan was that he was pigheaded.

Stubbornly, he shook his head. “You were a last-minute substitution. No way that wouldn’t be suspect. The police are going to think the same thing.”

“Did you think maybe me being there was a surprise to those guys, too?” Still, she knew he had a valid point. The investigating detectives were going to be all over her.

Callan growled a little but appeared to consider the possibility. “Maybe the girl you replaced was in on the kidnapping. She could have set you up.”

Eryn cursed to herself. The last thing she wanted to do was get Renee involved in this. “No.”

“Maybe she got cold feet and left you hung out to dry.”

“No, that’s not what happened. I stepped in for a friend. Someone I’ve known for years. She got sick and needed someone to take her place for this job. She couldn’t afford to miss out on the money.” As she said that, Eryn felt bad. With the way things had gone down, Renee was still going to come up short. But that would be okay. Between them they would work things out. Renee just liked to be independent.

“Why did that guy want to take you with him?”

Thinking of how the man had eyed her, the hunger in his dark eyes, Eryn suddenly felt insecure about her near-nudity. The devil costume didn’t cover much and the parking garage was cold. She shuddered. “I’d rather not think about it.”

After a moment, Callan nodded. He slipped off his suit coat and draped it over her shoulders. The coat was scuffed and dirty from the scramble across the parking garage pavement, but it was warm and hung nearly down to her knees. “Thanks.”

Sirens screamed to life and thundered into the parking garage.

“The police are coming.” Eryn relaxed a little. She felt bad that Daniel Steadman wasn’t safe, but she was glad she was.

Callan gripped her elbow and yanked her into motion again. She pulled back against him. He tightened his grip and pulled harder. He growled irritably. “C’mon.”

“C’mon where?”

“I don’t want to get caught up with the police.”

“Why?” For the first time Eryn wondered if Callan might be dangerous. Not just physically dangerous, because she was certain he was that, but dangerous in a criminal sense. Toby had said that Callan was a soldier, but people thought mercenaries were soldiers, too. Many of them had been. Too many private armies were springing up around the globe, and not all of those people were nice. Maybe Callan had something to hide.

“Because I’m going to get Daniel back.”

“The police can help.” Eryn dug in her heels, but Callan pulled her toward the emergency exit all the same.

“Working with the police on this kidnapping would be like swimming in quicksand. They take too long to form up, think too much before they act. Since this is a kidnapping and Daniel is from out of state, and they killed that guy in the garage, the FBI is going to get called in. Especially because of who his family is. That’ll slow Daniel’s rescue down even more. He’ll be dead if they get too involved.”

Eryn knew that was true. She’d never been directly involved in a kidnapping before, but her company had. Usually those crimes ended tragically.

“You’re one man.”

He looked at her but smiled grimly. “Yeah, but I can do this. I’ve done it before.”

Looking at him, staring into those hard, slate-gray eyes, Eryn believed him—but only for a moment. The bottom line was that Daniel Steadman had been taken by professionals. Callan had acknowledged that himself. But she knew he was going to try to get Daniel back.