So there was a good chance they’d come here for her, and they meant business.
Delaney looked around for an exit. The TSA agent watched raptly, like he might a good action flick. She spotted the old lady with the mountain of luggage standing at the ticket counter, deep in conversation with the agent. The man who’d been carting her luggage was nowhere to be seen. And her only means of escape was the glass double doors she’d entered through. She turned and darted for them.
The first of the suited-up guys looking stylish enough to star in a TV cop drama reached her quickly. He grabbed her arm. She felt something distinctly hard and metallic poke her ribs. “Not a peep, Ms. Catalano. Come with us quietly. We’d like to ask you a few questions.”
His dark eyes were hard and challenging, as if he knew she was going to be a problem. As if he’d been warned that she didn’t want to just die quietly. His partner’s strawberry blond hair should have given him an Opie Taylor, “aw shucks” appearance, but a pair of flinty eyes and the hard set of his mouth made him look entirely menacing.
Del’s instincts told her they had orders to kill her.
She resisted the tug on her arm, digging in her heels. “Who are you? What do you want? I need to see your identification.”
Neither offered up a badge. The dark one just tugged on her arm again.
“No! You have no right to do this. I won’t go with you. Anything you have to say to me can be said here.”
“Let’s not make a scene,” Opie said to her. “Come quietly.”
Oh, hell no.
Having been married to a cop and good friends with another, Del knew more than a bit of self-defense. Yes, the pretty bastard could shoot her, but she was guessing that he wanted her someplace private to kill her so that he didn’t have to make a scene and do a lot of explaining later.
She nodded meekly. When he began to lead her away, she elbowed him in the gut. He grunted and released her, then she kicked Opie in the balls. After a rousing chorus of moans, she turned and punched the dark one in the nose, satisfied when he began to bleed. Opie grabbed her by the hair viciously, making Del’s eyes water. But she stomped on his toes as hard as she possibly could. He released her instantly, muttering a foul curse.
Breathing hard, heart racing, she ran for the exit. For now, she pushed away the implications that she wasn’t going to make her flight, wouldn’t make it home to put Carlson away so she could get her life back. Instead, she focused on her deep suspicion that if pretty boy and Opie caught up to her again, she’d be hauled away—then silenced for good. Her only hope was to keep running.
As she hauled ass for the exit, dragging her duffel, Del prayed for a waiting taxi, but even if she could find one, the two thugs were hot on her heels. She could hear them over her pounding feet and pumping heart. She’d have no time to negotiate with the driver and store her luggage, much less make a clean getaway. Not that she had any money to pay her fare, either.
Now what?
A grunt and a splat behind her had Del glancing over her shoulder. Pretty boy was sprawled face down on the floor, gasping and flailing. Had he tripped? Opie was nowhere to be seen.
Del didn’t know what had happened and wasn’t about to the question her good fortune as she made her way back outside, bathed in the morning sunlight and New Orleans humidity. A taxi driver waited nearby, leaning against his cab, looking at her hopefully. It would be the most anonymous form of transportation—if she had cash. She was going to have to retrieve that ramshackle car from the garage and drive . . . where? To another airport? A bus station?
She’d figure it out later.
As she crossed to the parking garage, a man emerged seemingly from nowhere, peeling himself away from the shadows. She didn’t get a good look at him before he glued himself to her backside and gripped her arm. She had no time to shriek or scream for help. He clapped his free hand over her mouth.
“Not a sound, angel. Let’s make a nice, clean exit.”
Tyler?
Slowly, he lowered his hand from her mouth but kept a hold on her arm, guiding her left. Del risked a glance over her shoulder. She could see Tyler’s beefy chest and neck, his full mouth. Shadow concealed the rest under a familiar cap.
Relief flooded her. She shouldn’t be so thankful. She shouldn’t blindly put her trust in him to save her when he didn’t know the situation. But instinctively, she already had.
“You helped the old woman in with her luggage?”
He nodded curtly. “You would have noticed me if I’d come in alone.”
By blending in and giving himself a role, she hadn’t given him another thought.
Then a terrible thought occurred to her. “Where is Seth? Oh my God! You didn’t leave him—”
“I may have known I was a father for less than twenty-four hours, but I would never leave him home alone. Deke stayed the night with him when I took off after you. Kimber and Alyssa are watching him today, with a little help from Tara.”
“I don’t know them.” It killed her to think of her baby with strangers. They didn’t strike her as predatory or mean at all, but he was a defenseless child among many adults with seemingly interesting sexual proclivities . . .
“I do. I’ve trusted them with my life. They will treat Seth like one of their own. He’s far safer with them than with us.”