Free Annie on the Lam: A Christmas Caper by Jennifer Archer Page A

then settled on the ground, wrapping the city in a soft blanket of white. Holiday lights winked through the frosty haze of the wee morning hours, creating a peaceful scene worthy of a Christmas card.
    Joe felt anything put peaceful. Damn radio . All he got was static when he tried to get through to dispatch. On top of that, his cell phone was dead.
    The meandering route he’d chosen might take a while longer, but if it threw off the bruiser they’d managed to escape, he didn’t mind the lost time. He kept one eye on the road, the other on the rearview mirror, hoping they weren’t being followed.
    Wincing, he touched the tender spot beneath his left eye. Maybe it was Anne Macy he should be trying to escape. She was the one who’d given him the shiner, not that guy who’d broken in. “That fancy shoe of yours should be registered as a deadly weapon, Anne,” he muttered.
    â€œSorry. I was trying to help.”
    Anne . Hmph. The corner of Joe’s mouth twitched. The newspaper said Annabelle. Her daddy called her Annie. Each name conjured a different image; he wondered which one was the right fit. “Did you use the shoe to knock the guy out, too?”
    â€œNo, a lead crystal angel.”
    Joe chuckled. “There’s some kind of justice in that.”
    She sat low in the seat beside him, shivering so violently he heard her teeth chattering, both arms wrapped around that damn briefcase. He was through wondering what was inside. He wanted answers. He didn’t need any more convincing that whatever she’d pulled at Landau’s tonight had not been just some mischievous prank. Harry Landau was after her in a big way. The man meant business. And Landau’s business dealings usually included his uncle Frank. Which, for Joe, was both good news and bad. The good being that, if he could get his hands on the briefcase, he might get something on Reno, too. The bad being that, just as he had feared when he took this job, he had wound up in the role of protector.
    His stomach knotted as a memory flashed through his mind. Emma Billings curled up on her bed, trembling and bleeding, terrified to silence, refusing to tell him who had roughed her up. Joe had lived with that grim image every single day of the past year.
    He turned another corner, tapped the brake gingerly to avoid skidding sideways across the icy road. As soon as Anne Macy was safely at the police station, he’d call her father; he refused to be responsible for her safety a second longer than necessary. Then he’d get with the chief and his ex-partner, Steve O’Malley, and they would check out the contents of Landau’s briefcase and see just what the woman had taken to cause so much commotion.
    He glanced across at her. “Hold on. Almost there.”
    â€œWhere?”
    â€œThe police station.”
    She sat up. “I told you I don’t want to go to the police.”
    â€œWhy not?” He’d had just about enough of her stubborn attitude. “You might think this is some kind of amusing little game but those bullet casings on the floor back at your apartment say otherwise. You’re in some deep shit, and I’ve been dragged right smack in the stinkin’ middle of it with you.” He waited for a response. Nothing. “How about you tell me what’s going on? I think I deserve that much. Who was that guy?”
    â€œI don’t know, but I’m sure Harry Landau sent him.”
    â€œWhat did you do to piss your boss off, anyway?” He waited a beat. “What’s in that briefcase?”
    Frowning and nibbling her lip, she stared straight ahead out the windshield. “I’m sorry you got messed up in this.” Her face contorted as she turned and looked at his puffy eye. “I’m sorry you got hurt.”
    Joe stopped at an intersection and rotated his shoulders. Now, in addition to a headache, a cramp in his neck, a throbbing knee and a swollen