LITMIR.BIZ

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reached for the phone to call the police. Then stopped. He looked at her. Really looked at her. It was easier to do now, since she no longer had the gun pointed at him. He’d taken that from her as soon as she fainted. He had also moved her to the sofa. Why, he didn’t know. He should have gotten her out of there as quickly as possible. He should have turned this over already to the police.

      He should have.

      But for some reason, he hadn’t.

      She wore an ill-fitting maid’s uniform that was several sizes too big for her rail-thin body. Obviously, the garment was something she’d stolen. Jake pushed her badly cut, midnight-colored hair away from her face and tried to remember if he’d seen her before.

      Nothing about her seemed familiar. Absolutely nothing.

      He’d never had sex with her—that was for sure. Since his wife’s death, there had been only a few women. Rare encounters that he could definitely count on one hand. She wasn’t one of those encounters.

      Despite the clothes and the bad haircut, she was pretty. Well, she would have been if she hadn’t looked so ill. Her skin was pale, like skim milk. It emphasized the sprinkling of freckles on her slim nose. Maybe she wasn’t just strung-out, but sick. The bruise-colored smudges under her eyes and her parched lips said loads about her health. Or, if she hadn’t lied about her condition, then maybe the pregnancy had taken its toll.

      Still, it was no skin off his hide. So what if the woman was pregnant?

      It’s your baby.

      No way was that humanly possible. Boy, had she picked the wrong guy to try to pin this on.

      She stirred, moaning softly, and touched her fingertips to her forehead. Slowly, her eyelids fluttered open. She squinted. Then, groaned. “No. Please not this. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.”

      Jake frowned. She had to be talking about herself. Not him. He hadn’t decided if she was actually stupid. Or maybe she was just crazy. He intended to find out soon enough.

      “How long before the cops get here?” she asked.

      “I haven’t called them yet.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and stared down at her. “Let me tell you how this is going to work. I’ll ask the questions, and you’ll answer them. If the answers please me, I won’t call the cops at all.”

      Wincing and mumbling, she sat up and scrubbed her hands over her face. “You’ll just kill me, then.”

      Well, she was definitely crazy. “Right. Lady, I’m a congressional candidate, not a hired gun. No, I won’t kill you.”

      “Then, what else could you possibly do to me that you haven’t done already?”

      There was some fight left in her last question, making Jake rethink the sick theory. She was down but not out. Somehow, it made it easier for him to confront her. He hated to kick someone when they were down.

      “I can have you arrested—that’s what I can do,” he informed her. “I think a breaking and entering charge and possession of a firearm will put you away for a while, don’t you?”

      She ran her fingers through her hair. “Like I care about those piddly charges, when you want me dead. Why? Why did you have them do this and then order a hit on me?”

      “Oh, no. We’re not going down that road again. I haven’t done anything to you—especially get you pregnant and order a hit on you. Now let’s go back to the part about me asking the questions and you answering them. For starters, exactly who the heck are you?”

      “Jessie—”

      She boldly met his gaze. Her eyes were the color of a gun barrel. Steely gray and just as hard.

      “But you already know that.”

      “Uh-uh. Don’t start that again. If I knew, I wouldn’t have asked. What’s your full name?”

      “Jessie…Smith.”

      He made an annoying sound like the buzzer on a game show. “Wrong answer. Try again.”

      A muscle flickered in her sleek jaw. “Briggs.”

      He didn’t believe her, but at least he had something to work with. It was certainly better than calling her lady. She was anything but a lady. “All right, Jessie Briggs, tell me why you think I’m trying to kill you.”

      “I don’t know why, but you ordered those people to kidnap me.”

      “People,” Jake flatly repeated. “The three men and the woman you mentioned? The ones who held you for three months?”

      She nodded. “But you’re the one who hired them to take me to that warehouse. You had them use me, and—”

      “Hold it right there. That’s the part I want to talk about now. Exactly how did they use you?”

      She made a sound of outrage and bolted to her feet as if ready to tear out of the room. But she didn’t go anywhere. She pressed both hands to the sides of her head and sagged back down to the sofa.

      “Dizzy?” he asked.

      She tossed him a you think? look. “I guess it’s just one of the little joys of my condition.”

      “Well, I suppose it’s time we broached that subject. Would you like to explain exactly how you think I got you pregnant? Afterward, I can blow anything you say right out of the water.”

      “They inseminated me.” She didn’t even hesitate. “On your orders, I’m sure.”

      Jake froze. That wasn’t the answer he wanted to hear. All right, so he couldn’t blow anything out of the water just yet. He had to think about that for a moment. Then he discounted it. “That’s impossible.”

      “No, it’s not. I’ll spare you the exact details of how they did it, but I know what happened to me. And so do you.”

      He paused, reconsidered it. But discounted it again just as fast. There were holes a mile wide in her story. “Let’s suppose for a minute that someone did inseminate you. What makes you think I was involved in any way?”

      Again, she didn’t hesitate. “Your name was on the vial they took out of that weird bucket. I saw it. I don’t think they meant for me to, but I did. They’d given me a drug, and I guess they thought I was unconscious. I wasn’t. Plus, I heard them mention your name.”

      Yes, in her dreams she’d probably heard someone mention his name. “This is a real cartload of bull you’re telling me, Miss Briggs. What I can’t believe is that you had the nerve to come here with it.”

      “Are you saying you don’t have semen stored somewhere?”

      “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

      “At Cryogen Labs right here in San Antonio,” she clarified. “That’s what it said on the vial, along with your name and the numbers 6837. I’m not an idiot, Mr. McClendon. I’ve read about your Hodgkin’s disease. I know you stored semen before you went into therapy. Do you deny that?”

      So, she did know about his illness six years ago. It didn’t make him believe her story. It just meant she’d done her homework. “I don’t deny it, but what you couldn’t have read in the newspaper was that my vials were accidentally destroyed nearly four months ago. Only a handful of people know that.” He paused so she could grasp that. “Would you like to leave on your own, or do I need to toss you out of here myself?”

      Her eyes widened for a second, and then narrowed just as quickly. “The number on the vial was 6837. Call Cryogen Labs and see if that matches what they say was destroyed.”

      Oh, she was good. Really good. Coming up with the number of the vial was a nice touch, but it wouldn’t make him believe her. “I’ll call them in a minute—but first I have another question. Hypothetically speaking, let’s say someone did inseminate you. You’re sure you became

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