She narrowed her gaze. “Try me.” She didn’t bother explaining she’d been training in martial arts since her senior year in high school—specifically, since the night of the assault that had changed her life forever. She had absolutely no intention of explaining the private horror of her past to Jonah.
Besides, her past was old news. She’d moved beyond the assault, and she’d get herself out of this mess, as well. If necessary, she’d figure out something on her own. But she wasn’t going to allow any man to hold her helpless ever again. That included all of the thugs
Caruso sent out after her.
And Jonah Stewart, who was perhaps the most dangerous of all.
* * *
Jonah tried to mask his surprise. First, he found it hard to believe a state senator could actually be calling the shots in the Jefferson Project. And then of course there was the rest of Mallory’s story. Including the part where she claimed to have a black belt in Tae Kwon Do. But she didn’t hedge the way people sometimes did when they were lying, and he found himself believing her.
“That’s a very serious allegation, Mallory. You’d better be sure about this. Anthony Caruso carries a lot of weight on Capitol Hill. There’s been talk about him being a candidate for vice president, or even for the presidency itself in a few years. I don’t think many people are going to believe your word over his.”
“I know.” She twisted her hands together in a nervous gesture. “That’s the reason I ran. But I promise you, I’m not lying about this. I know what I heard.”
“I believe you. But we need proof, Mallory. If we’re accusing a state senator of being involved, we need hard-core proof.”
“I know,” she murmured. Her face was grim and she sighed heavily. “Up until that point, I had no idea Anthony was involved in anything shady. I’d been dating him for almost a month and I never heard so much as an inkling of anything dangerous. It was a total fluke that I heard that snippet of his conversation at all. But I knew Councilman Schaefer had been stabbed so it didn’t take much to put two and two together.”
Jonah nodded, discovering he didn’t particularly care to hear about how she’d dated the guy.
Not that Mallory’s personal life was any of his concern.
He told himself to get a grip. “Okay, so you left
Alyssa’s town house after being attacked by Wasserman and escaped to Crystal Lake. Then what?”
She lifted one shoulder in a helpless shrug. “Then nothing. I left Alyssa a message to meet me and hunkered down to wait.”
“Anything out of the ordinary happen before tonight?” he persisted. “Anything at all to indicate Caruso had found you?”
“No. Not until I heard the guy sneaking through the cabin.”
If nothing else, the guy in the ski mask helped reinforce her story about overhearing Caruso’s conversation. There was no other reason for Caruso to try to kill her.
Unless there was far more to the story than she was telling him.
He didn’t want to think Mallory may have been a part of the crime, but he couldn’t totally discount the idea, either.
“Why didn’t you go to the police with your story?”
In the darkness he saw her scowl. “Because Anthony referred to our guy on the inside, making it difficult to know who to trust. Besides, I was waiting for Alyssa to meet me at the cabin. I guess I hoped we’d work together to figure out the next step.”
Grudgingly, he had to admit her instincts were right. It was actually a good thing that Mallory hadn’t gone to the police or Crane might have tried to silence her, too, the way he’d gone after Alyssa. “Do you remember anything else?”
“No. I wish I did. I wish I had proof I could simply hand over to you.” She looked totally dejected. He found himself wanting to reassure her, to make her feel better.
Which was totally ridiculous.
Getting too close to someone in the case was unacceptable. Hadn’t he learned that the hard way? It only took a fraction of a second to bring the image of his partner’s widow to mind.
He’d failed his partner, Drew Massey, when he’d lowered his guard with a young drug runner. And when Drew’s wife, Elaine, had accused him of causing Drew’s death, he couldn’t defend himself. Because she’d been right. Thanks to the eyewitness’s cell-phone video, the whole world had been able to see how he’d failed his partner. Including his fiancée. Cheryl had wasted no time in leaving him.
“I’m sorry, Jonah,” she said, interrupting his tumultuous thoughts. “I wish now that I had paid more attention.”
“Don’t worry about it. Why don’t you try to get some sleep? I’m not planning to stop for a while yet.”
“I’ll try,” she murmured.
She didn’t sleep, but she didn’t talk, either. He was oddly relieved to discover Mallory wasn’t the type to fill a silence with small talk.
No matter how much he told himself to keep an open mind, deep down, he believed Mallory’s story. For the past twenty-four hours, he’d been hoping that finding her would be the key to blowing his case wide open. But overhearing a snippet of a conversation wouldn’t get him anywhere close to pressing charges. If they couldn’t corroborate Mallory’s story, they had nothing.
Which meant not only was Mallory’s life still in danger, but he was right back to square one.
* * *
Mallory yawned so wide her jaw popped. She scrubbed at her gritty eyes, trying to force herself to stay awake. Finally, just as dawn was breaking over the horizon, Jonah pulled into a motel with a flashing vacancy sign out front.
“Where are we?” she asked, realizing she hadn’t even noticed the name of the town.
“Glen Hollow,” Jonah replied as he shut off the car and opened his door. “Population less than nine hundred.”
She slid out of the passenger seat. “Honestly, as long as there’s running water and a shower, I don’t care how many people live here.”
He flashed a tired grin, and she was struck by how handsome Jonah was. He wasn’t overly tall, just barely six feet in her estimation, but he was muscular. And she liked the way he wore his dark hair short. He opened the back door and rummaged around in a duffel bag. Before she could ask what he was doing, he stripped off his old shirt, revealing the blood-stained dressing covering the right side of his chest, before he pulled a black T-shirt over his head.
She turned away, feeling light-headed but unsure whether it was the blood or Jonah causing the sensation.
Must be the blood because she was immune to handsome men. She only dated men on her terms, determined to be the one in control. Never again would she let her guard down.
“Wait for me in the car,” he said in a low voice. “I don’t want the clerk to be able to identify you.”
Unable to argue with his logic, she nodded and slid back into the passenger seat. It was only a few minutes before he returned.
“Here.” He handed her a key. “We have adjoining rooms, numbers ten and twelve.”
“Ah, okay.” She was surprised he cared enough to respect her need for privacy. She couldn’t remember the last guy who’d put her needs before his own.
She told herself not to place too much emphasis on Jonah’s kindness. For all she knew, he was simply biding his time before he slipped handcuffs on her and hauled her off to jail.
If he tried that, he’d learn firsthand what it meant to be a black belt in Tae Kwon Do.
* * *
Jonah