She glanced around him to Kyle, who had rubber cuffs in his hands. “I know when I’m beat. And I don’t need to be cuffed. I’ll stay.” Kara leaned in and kissed Blake. “And you stay alive, damn it.”

He molded her closer and kissed her deeply, passionately, and she tasted the bitterness of his guilt and his fear. “I will,” he promised. “For you, I will.” He turned and left and Kara stared after him.

“I guess that leaves you and me, darlin’,” Kyle teased.

“I guess it does, bubba,” she said thinking how bad she was going to feel in a couple of minutes. She liked Kyle and he was a good friend to Blake.

He grinned and sauntered into the room, sinking down into the desk chair and grabbing a room service menu. “I’m starving. You hungry?”

“Yes. I am.” Kara sat down on the bed and kicked off one shoe and then carefully removed the second where she’d hidden the secret weapon she’d gotten from an FBI lab. The same weapon she’d used to put Blake to sleep in Denver. “Anything good on the menu, or should we order pizza?”

He glanced down and she pulled off the sticker that exposed the sleeping drug, careful not to touch her own skin. “Looks good to me,” he said. “You want to take a look?”

“Sure, I…” She started to get up and feigned a cramp. She needed to get him to the bed so he didn’t fall over and hit his head when she knocked him out. “Oh, ah. Stupid Charley horse.” She rubbed her foot several seconds, making a pained face. “Okay. Ouch. That hurt. I can’t walk. Can you bring me the menu?”

“You must be dehydrated,” Kyle said, pushing to his feet. “I used to get those when I played football.” He handed her the menu.

Kara looked up at him. “I’m sorry, Kyle. I really am.” She grabbed his arm and pressed the drug against his skin.

His brows furrowed. “Sorry for what?” And then his eyes rolled back in his head.

Kara jumped to her feet and somehow turned his big body so that it fell back on the mattress. She didn’t give herself time for guilt. She quickly put her shoes back on, grabbed her purse, and headed for the door.

Chapter Twenty-Three

CHAPTER

TWENTY-THREE

Where’s your innocent little secretary who isn’t a secretary at all—or she wouldn’t handle a gun so well?” Ignacio demanded.

Standing on the dock, the cold night wind whipping around him, Blake wanted to do some whipping of his own. On Ignacio. But since the asshole was his ticket to Alvarez right now, he’d refrain until a later date. “That’s like saying a lawyer can’t bake a cake,” Blake observed. “But then your brain seems to operate like a mud pie.”