The front door was flung open. Sunlight flooded the room, illuminating Burke as he ran toward her.
“Eve!”
Her throat had closed and she couldn’t answer him.
Burke dropped to his knees beside her. “Are you hurt?”
His gaze and his hands traveled up and down her body, concern and fear in his eyes as he checked her for injury. She was unhurt and as he realized that for himself, he wrapped his arm around her waist and hauled her to her feet. Her legs wobbled and he swung her up into his arms. Eve wrapped her arms around his neck and holding her tight against his chest, Burke carried her out of the cottage. He lowered her onto the lawn, then ran back inside.
The fire had not yet spread to the front of the small accommodation, still, it was dangerous to go back inside. What was the man thinking?
“Burke,” Eve tried to call out to him, but his name came out as a croak.
He was back quickly. Her purse was gripped in his fist. He’d gone back inside for her purse? Eve shook her head, unable to discern his logic.
His arm went around her again, and again he brought her to her feet. She thought he was looking to put additional distance between them and the cottage. Instead, he began to rub her arms gently.
“You’re shivering.” He removed his suit jacket. “We need to get you warm.”
Her arms didn’t seem to want to cooperate with her. He lifted them himself and slid them through the sleeves. He buttoned the jacket for her. He was a tall man. The sleeves covered her finger tips and the hem fell almost to her knees.
Eve cleared her throat. “Burke, we need to call 911. The fire will spread--”
Her teeth chattered which got her another worried look from Burke. He steered her to the car, opened the passenger side door and eased her down onto the seat. He swung her legs in himself and slammed the door.
“What are you doing?” Eve asked then repeated when he slid behind the steering wheel.
“Getting you out of here.”
“Can’t Washington wait until we’ve called for help?”
He didn’t respond to her question and asked instead. “Do you need an insulin injection?”
“What?”
“Insulin. Do you need a shot now?”
She shook her head. He tossed her purse onto the console and she realized why he’d gone back into the cottage to retrieve it.
“Thank you,” she said quietly.
He gave her a long look then nodded. He started the car. The engine roared to life. He switched from air conditioning to heat and aimed the vents at her. Eve huddled in his jacket and moved as close to the vents as the seat belt allowed.
Smoke rose from the cottage. Flames licked the roof. The fire was spreading fast.
“Burke, make the call. Alert Emergency Services of a gas leak.”
“That explosion wasn’t caused by a gas leak.”
“What then?”
“A bomb.”
“A bomb? What?”
“I found this in the hall.” Burke took out a square of black plastic from his pocket and held it for her to see.
“It looks like it came from my hair dryer. What’s that attached to it?”
“Part of a bomb casing. Someone wants you dead, Doctor.”
Chapter Seven
Burke sped away from the cottage. He glanced at Eve, seated next to him. Her face was pale, her eyes huge with disbelief and fear. Her hands, tightly clasped together trembled. If he looked at his own hands, he’d likely find them in the same condition. When the bomb went off with her inside, he ran into the cottage like a mad man. He’d been crazed to get to her, fearing he’d find her dead. A tremor went through him at the memory. When he’d finally reached her, and had her in his arms, he’d wanted to hold her there where he knew she’d be safe.
What the hell was wrong with him? His grip on the steering wheel tightened in self-directed anger. Despite her claims of innocence, everything he knew about her told him she was a traitor to her country. Richard Patterson had named her in the terrorist plot. She was a woman who would murder innocents for her own gain without a qualm.
She was everything Burke loathed and risked his life to take down. She wasn’t deserving of any tender feelings. If given the chance, he had no doubt she would take him out. There was the plain truth. He wouldn’t lose sight of it again.
* * *
“My cell phone is in the inside pocket in my jacket. Hand it to me, would you?” Burke said.
They’d been quiet for a few moments, each lost in their own thoughts as Richard’s car took them to Burke’s destination and his voice startled her.
“What?”
“My phone. Inside pocket of my jacket.”
Eve retrieved the phone and held it out. While he called emergency services about the fire, Eve took in what had just happened. Her hair dryer had been rigged with a bomb.
Burke completed the call, then made another. “I need a car.” He leaned across Eve and withdrew a map from the glove box. “I’ll be on Quarry Edge Road in fifteen minutes.” He ended the call then set the phone on the console where he’d tossed her purse.
“Someone just tried to kill me,” Eve said in a whisper.
A muscle in Burke’s jaw pulsed.
The heat blasting from the vents had warmed her, but Eve shivered at the notion that someone wanted her dead.
Burke turned off Main Street onto an unpaved road. They were the only travelers on this road at the moment. He drove a short distance then came to a stop beside another vehicle, a white sedan that looked to be several years old.
Eve turned off the heat. “Why did you stop here?”
“Our new wheels, Doctor.”
Burke left the vehicle, went around to the trunk of the Porsche and retrieved their luggage. Another man, lanky, and balding, exited the sedan. He and Burke exchanged a few words then the man who’d delivered the sedan, popped the trunk and removed a bicycle. As Eve got out of the Porsche, the man hopped on and rode away.
Eve wasn’t wearing shoes and took careful steps over the gravel to the sedan. Burke turned to her. “Your suitcase is on the back seat. Take a minute and put something on.”
He walked away from the car and stood facing the road. Eve climbed onto the back seat. The previous occupant of the car had left the engine idling. The radio was tuned to a rhythm and blues station. At the moment, Aretha belted out “Natural Woman” to the accompaniment of the hum from the sedan’s air conditioning system set to low.
Eve removed Burke’s jacket and the towel beneath. They were in the middle of nowhere. Another car could drive up this dirt road and see her in the nude. She shook her head. Her modesty was certainly misplaced, given everything else she had to be concerned about. Still, she dressed quickly in underthings, a pair of linen walking shorts in a salmon color, and a matching blouse. A pair of sling-back sandals completed her outfit.
“Ready,” she called out to Burke when she left the car, though, at the slam of the door, marking her departure from the back seat, he’d already turned and begun to walk back to the car.
Burke got in the driver’s side and Eve joined him up front.
He bent and looked under the steering column.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“This car is equipped with a tracking device. I’m disabling it.”
“You don’t want anyone to be able to find us,” she said softly.
“No.”
Her thoughts started to spin. “Who don’t you trust?” At his steady gaze, Eve pushed. “My life is on the line. I have a right to know what’s going on.”
“I’m just being cautious.”
Eve wasn’t buying that. “The bomb was the second attempt. I repeat, I did not make an error in my insulin injection last night. I know you don’t believe me but someone switched the insulin in my pen injectors.”
“I believe you.” His gaze locked with hers before returning his attention to the drive. “I’d say the bomb was an attempt to correct the botched insulin attempt. I have to hand it to whoever did that. The plan was an excellent one. If you hadn’t gotten help when you did, you would have slipped into a diabetic coma. By the time I went looking for you in the morning, you would have been dead.”
A thin layer of sweat broke out on Eve’s skin.
“We would have concluded as Malhi had,” Burke went on. “that you’d simply made a mistake and taken the wrong insulin last night. Your death would have been ruled accidental. Though if that mattered to your assassin, it no longer does since he used a bomb this time.”
Eve’s throat tightened and she swallowed to clear it. “Apparently not.”
“Your hair dryer must have been rigged while we were at the hospital.” Burke’s mouth tightened into a thin line that bespoke his anger.
“Who would want me dead? And who would have had the opportunity to switch the insulin? We need to find out who had access to my insulin since yesterday? The only people I’ve been in contact with since then have been the chemist’s at the conference, and you Burke.” Eve arched her brows. “Have you decided to execute me?”
Burke gave her another level look. “We can start by asking your friend Alasdair McHampton.”
“Allie?”
“He was in possession of your purse.”
A fierce protectiveness for her friend surged through her. “Allie would never hurt me!”
“That remains to be seen.”
“You can’t think if Allie were the one who wanted me dead, he would be stupid enough to reveal that he had my purse? That makes no sense.”
“We’ve already concluded that had you gone into a diabetic coma and died, it would have appeared an accident. McHampton had no reason to hide the fact that he had your purse.”
Eve chewed her lower lip then said softly, “You can’t harass him. He has a heart condition and the stress of being questioned might bring on an attack.” Her voice softened further. “It can’t be Allie.”
Burke watched her for a time then surprised her by conceding.
“It maybe just a coincidence that McHampton happened to pick up your purse,” Burke said. We need to look into that. But someone tipped our guy off, or knew that Patterson was dead and that I took his place.” Burke eyed her. “Got any other ideas who that might be, Doctor?”
“You aren’t going back to suggesting that I tipped Richard’s buyer off because--”
Burke looked like that was exactly what he was thinking.
“You’re unbelievable,” she said. “Someone tired to kill me and you’re blaming me.”
“You could have let the buyer know about Richard Patterson so he wouldn’t show up for the meeting. You weren’t expecting him to turn on you. It’s possible your buyer got nervous about you being discovered by law enforcement and wants you out of the way.”
“And what about getting the formula from me?”
“He may think you pose enough of a threat that taking you out is worth forfeiting the formula. I don’t know at this point.”
“So you think Richard’s buyer is the one who switched my insulin?”
“It wouldn’t take long to make the switch. Could have been made at the conference when your purse was unattended. It’s possible that he may be looking to cover his tracks completely and stymie the investigation by eliminating our one lead - you.”
It seemed pointless to tell Burke again that she wasn’t a lead to Richard’s buyer. “By making my death appear accidental, he would not have exposed himself. But a bomb.” Eve shook her head slowly. “As we already said, whoever this is, he isn’t concerned about making my death look like an accident.”
“We already connected you to Richard and this deal. No way to try to hide that link. Looks like the buyer’s only concern now is breaking the link by taking you out.”
Eve frowned as Burke made a change to the route they’d been driving. “I hate to point this out but Washington is in another direction.”
“We’re not going to Washington.”
“Oh?”
“I’m taking you to a safe house.”
“Why?”
Burke raised an eyebrow. “I would have thought you’d be glad.”
“That’s not the point. Why the change in plan?”
He glanced at her. “We need you to disappear for a short while. Since the meeting with the buyer didn’t happen, and you’re under suspicion of treason, our next step is for me to transport you to Washington for questioning. Your assassin would be expecting that and may take the opportunity to make another attempt on your life. I don’t plan to give him that opportunity.”
Eve released a shaky breath. “Good thinking. So, where are we going? The CIA must have places set up for this kind of thing.”
“We’re not going to an Agency house. I want a place that can’t be linked to the agency.”
“Where then?”
“I have just the place.”
* * *
The “place” turned out to be Burke’s own cabin deep in the woods of West Virginia. After driving for hours with only brief rest stops, and a quick dash into a convenience store for supplies, they arrived as the first streaks of dawn tinted the sky pink.
The cabin was well appointed with a generator that provided creature comforts like electricity for appliances and for heating water that was provided by a well.
“There’s just the one bedroom,” Burke said. “Go ahead and take it. I’ll bunk on the couch.”
Eve didn’t protest his offer of the bedroom. She was so tired, she could have slept standing up. Still, inside, she glanced around and then over her shoulder at the closed front door. It was a frightening thing to know that someone wanted you dead. Until two days earlier, her biggest problem was how to satisfy the occasional difficult client.
Burke’s gaze softened on her. “You’re safe here.” He spoke the words gently. “No one knows about this place. You could say it’s my haven.”
He shrugged, as if embarrassed to admit to the weakness of needing a refuge from what had to be a job where he met the worst of humanity and saw all manner of atrocities mankind could perpetuate on each other.
When she’d been on the police force, she’d been detached from the crimes and the victims. She didn’t have a lot of field experience because her application to work in forensics had been accepted shortly after she joined the LAPD. She hadn’t seen human suffering up close, but from the distance of a microscope.
Burke’s admission of vulnerability softened her opinion of him a little, which was the last thing she wanted. He still didn’t believe her claim of innocence. He was only protecting her now because it served his own purpose since she was his only lead to the buyer. His concern for her was professional. The bottom line: She was a job to him and a means to apprehending a criminal. She couldn’t forget that she couldn’t trust him and they were on opposite sides.