Operation: Midnight Rendezvous Read Free Page B

sleeve of her sweatshirt.
    “Damn it,” he muttered.
    She was like a rag doll against him. Her skin was hot to the touch and slick with sweat. She was burning up with fever. The scent of sandalwood and sweet vanilla titillated his nostrils as he swept her into his arms. He was aware of the brush of her hair against his face and the soft curves of a very female body. Details he shouldn’t be noticing about a woman who’d shot and killed a fellow agent.
    Cursing, he looked around the dim interior of the cottage. The small kitchen opened to a living room, where a leather sofa was piled high with Navajo-print pillows. He carried her to the sofa, shoved the pillows aside and laid her down. At some point her sweatshirt had ridden up. As if of its own accord, his gaze flickedto an exposed midriff that was curvy and flat. He saw the silhouette of smallish breasts. Lower, the denim hugged shapely hips and slender thighs. She didn’t look like a killer, but he knew from experience that looks could be deceiving.
    Dragging his gaze away from details he was a fool to notice at a time like this, he tugged the sweatshirt down and tried to ascertain where the blood was coming from. Turning on the lamp beside the sofa, he knelt, located another stain on her sleeve the size of a saucer. Definitely blood.
    Madrid had seen enough shootings in the course of his career to know when someone had been shot. He wondered why Mummert hadn’t mentioned it. In most police departments the firing of a weapon called for at least a ream of paperwork. Had he known there was a possibility she’d been shot, Madrid would have checked area hospitals. Had one of Norm Mummert’s men shot her? Or had Angela done it while trying to protect herself?
    Madrid tugged the sleeve up. The knotted gauze on her left biceps was blood soaked. From the look of it, she’d tried to bandage it herself, but hadn’t been able to manage with one hand. Quickly he untied the haphazard bandage and removed it.
    The bullet had grazed her, digging a trench through flesh and muscle. The wound wasn’t dangerously deep, but it had bled plenty. If he wasn’t mistaken, infection was setting in.
    Considering what this woman had done, there was a part of him that thought she deserved whatever badluck fate could dole out. But the human part of him hated seeing a pretty woman hurt.
    She thrashed about and a moment later her eyes fluttered open, though they remained unfocused. “Didn’t…do…it.”
    “Take it easy,” Madrid said roughly.
    “No.” She lashed out with her fists. “Cops…tried to…kill me.”
    “Stay still.”
    “Please…don’t let them…hurt Nicolas.”
    The reference to the boy gave him pause, but only for a second. “Where’s the boy?” he asked.
    “Angela asked me to…keep him safe…from the cops.”
    Madrid felt himself go still, wondering if she’d just said what it sounded like. “What did you say?”
    She mumbled something unintelligible that ended with the only words he could understand. “She gave me…photo.”
    “What photo?” he pressed. “What the hell are you talking about?”
    But her eyes rolled back. She groaned and her body went slack. Frustration more than concern washed over him when she lapsed into unconsciousness.
    He stared down at her, hating the fact that he wasn’t going to be able to cuff her and drag her to jail by the scruff of her pretty neck. That maybe this wasn’t as simple as he’d thought.
    Cops…tried to…kill me.
    Her words rang in his ears as he sat back on his heels and tried to decide what to do next. He told himself heshouldn’t believe a word of what she’d said. The woman had shot a federal agent, assaulted a police officer, kidnapped a minor and gone on the run. She was desperate and would do anything to save herself.
    But there was one thing missing: motive. Because of that he couldn’t quiet the niggling little voice in the back of his mind warning him that things might not be as they