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Her phone pinged several times and she pulled it out of her purse. She gasped when she saw ten text messages from Tim. And five from Brock? That was strange.
Then she remembered the strange note from the weirdo who thought she’d been tracking him. “This is odd,” she whispered to herself.
Stepping out of the flow of pedestrian traffic, Raven ignored the thousands of passengers hurrying to their connecting flight or the luggage carousels – or the parking lot. Everyone was eager to get home or to their next location.
Raven understood, but the number of messages, especially the texts from Brock, were concerning.
She unlocked her cell phone and started reading, her heart speeding up with every message.
“Don’t go home!” was the last one from Tim. Brock had sent equally urgent messages, but none explained what was happening.
Dialing Tim’s phone, she waited, looking around.
“Raven!” Tim’s voice came over the phone. “Where the hell are you?”
She took a long, slow, deep breath, then said, “I’m sorry for running out on you last week.” She looked around, then down at the patterned carpeting. “I was scared.”
“Don’t worry about that. We’ll talk it over later. Just tell me where you are.”
“I’m at the airport. I just got back from a client meeting in San Antonio.”
“Thank goodness!” she heard him sigh, then there was some muttering in the background, as if he were covering the receiver and talking to someone else. When he came back, he said, “Stay where you are. An airport police officer is going to escort you to a secure area.”
An officer? An escort? “Why?” she demanded, nightmares of her years as a behavioral analyst for the FBI coming to the forefront of her mind.
Another pause, then Tim said, “There’s a guy sitting outside of your apartment complex that we think is waiting to…hurt you.”
“Why don’t you pick him up then?” she asked, her whole body trembling. This was the reason she’d had to leave the FBI, Raven thought. She couldn’t handle the stress. She couldn’t handle the risk of becoming the hunted instead of the hunter. And yet, that was her reality right now.
A new voice came over the line and Raven realized that Tim had her on speaker. This time, it was Brock who spoke. “Raven, we need you to stay where you are. We can’t pick up this suspect yet because we don’t have any evidence to arrest him. So far, all he’s done is hang out in your parking lot. We have fingerprints on the letter he sent to you that match the fingerprints at several crime scenes, but that’s not enough,” he explained with his rough voice. “I have an embedded agent. But so far, we don’t have enough evidence to keep him. The fingerprints are only circumstantial.”
She looked up and, sure enough, a police officer was walking directly towards her. Obviously, Brock had gotten into the homeland security system and discovered her flight information. “I think one of the airport officers is here, Tim.”
“Good!” he replied, breathing a sigh of relief. “I’m on my way. Don’t leave until I get there.”
“Are you Ms. Markley?” the officer asked, his hand resting on his weapon.
“Yes,” she replied. “Can you show me some identification?”
The man pulled out his badge, another officer standing behind him. She scanned the badge, then nodded. The small clues that were embedded into the badge were there, indicating that the officer was legitimate.
“Okay, where should I go?”
“This way,” the officer replied, then led the way to a small office within the same gate.
Thirty minutes later, Tim stepped into the secured room. Several other large, imposing men followed, but Raven didn’t have a chance to look at them because Tim pulled her into his arms, his tall body and broad shoulders blocked her view of everyone.
Plus, he felt amazingly good as his arms closed tightly around her.
“Damn it, woman!” he muttered. “You had me so worried!”
She breathed in his masculine scent, burying her face against his chest as he held her close. “I’m sorry I ran,” she whispered to him, wrapping her arms around his neck. “I’m so sorry! I got scared!”
Tim pulled back, but kept his arms around her waist. “We’ll talk about that later,” he promised. “Right now, I need to look at you and feel you, make sure that you’re okay.”
A subtle coughing behind them interrupted this reunion. For a brief moment, Raven wanted to ignore the interruption. But she knew that reality couldn’t be ignored. So instead of snuggling against Tim’s strong, powerful chest, she peered around Tim’s shoulders. Tim turned as well, but he kept his arm around her, keeping her against his side.
“Brock?” she gasped, staring at her former boss. “Dean? What are you guys doing here?”
