Broken Wings

by Terri Schaefer

  He was right, as much as it galled her, so she nodded, entered with him, though they automatically staggered themselves, to make it appear that they were just two shoppers coming in at the same time.

  If someone scrutinized the outdoor footage, they’d see differently, but they’d have to figure out when to look first. She peeled right into the food area while he headed to the back of the store.

  She had no earthly idea what he liked, so she went with what she’d eat.

  She found herself lingering over the organics, glossed over the pang it brought.

  Her mother Hannah had passed her love of cooking to Natalie before she died of cancer almost two decades ago.

  Oh, the pie-in-the-sky dreams they’d made up. Of opening a farm-to-fork restaurant. A bistro with fresh soups and salads and casseroles that were locally sourced. And, of course, sweets. Glorious, handmade lemon bars and dolly madisons and cookies.

  She pushed the memories, the longing for both her mother and her childhood dream, back.

  There was no place for them in the here and now.

  Especially since once this was all said and done, she’d be taking over a big part of Arrow Security. Her future. Her legacy.

  So instead of dreaming, she filled the shopping cart.

  Eggs, sourdough bread, lunchmeat, condiments. Small fruit tray, large veggie tray. Assorted cheeses. German beer. American wine. Jerky and bagged nuts. Frozen chicken thighs that would take a while to defrost, so should be safe in the RV fridge or a cooler. Frozen burritos. Two bags of Cheetos. Because a girl had to live.

  She ran through the self-checkout because she didn’t feel like making conversation, much less eye contact, with anyone here. Pulled an additional two hundred in cash off the card, then hit the ATM at the front of the store for three hundred more.

  She rolled the cart out to the back of the parking lot, was unloading the groceries as Ethan strolled up with several big bags of his own.

  “Do you want to eat here, now, or grab something fresh before we hit the road?” she asked. She wasn’t altogether comfortable falling into the female role of chief cook and bottle washer, but she did have the makings in her hands.

  “I need to eat,” he said. “How does Mexican sound? I chatted up my salesclerk and he said there’s a great chain place on the way to the freeway, but to avoid the taqueria on the west side of town at all costs.” The overall disgust in his tone told her more than his words had.

  She smiled, made sure it was all teeth. “Let me guess… he was pissed off at the world in general, but Mexicans especially?”

  “Yup,” Ethan agreed. “Which means I’m all over the taqueria, if you’re game.”

  “Go ahead and get started while I put the rest of this stuff away,” she said. It was an RV, after all. No need for them to remain stationary while she finished unpacking.

  He settled into the dinette, started opening his own bags. “I want to switch out the phones first.”

  Her head popped up in alarm. “What do you mean, switch out the phones?”

  He hit her with that patient hazel gaze. “We need to disappear, truly. That means no ties to Mandy.”

  She opened her mouth, then closed it. Waited a second, then thought fuck it to herself and forged on. “I need to know my father can track us, in case it goes sideways. I don’t know you. Would have never met you. So how can you ask me to do this?”

  He sat back, weighing her words. “You don’t know me. And shouldn’t trust me. So how about we come to a compromise? Your father asked that you check in every four hours, correct?”

  She nodded. Wondered why she hadn’t scoped out where the knives were first.

  “If you call him with a burner, and we agree that’s sufficient until we’re in Vegas, would that be okay?”

  “And if I don’t check in, then how’s he supposed to find me?”

  He tilted his head, considering. Not her, he was looking past her, at the overhead storage compartments, as if all the answers could be found there. “When you check in, give him a safe word, so neither of you is worried I’ll coerce you. Call him at lunch, turn on the GPS for the call. It’ll give him a general direction, but not close enough to put a bullet between my eyes.”

  She jerked up at his words. “What are you talking about? He’d never do anything like that!”

  The smile he gifted her with this time was more of a grimace. “Whatever you say, sunshine. Just understand there are things about your father you don’t know. Now, are we agreed?”

  What if she said no? Just flat-out objected? What was he going to do? Tie her up and hold her hostage? Put her on the street?

  So she squared her shoulders, planted her feet. Got ready to challenge him.

  He looked at her, and his shoulders dropped, almost in defeat. “Please, Natalie? I’ve got… issues when it comes to your father, so having him monitoring my every move isn’t exactly on the top of my damned list.” He pulled a bottle of pepper spray out of the bag. “Here. You can spray the ever-loving shit out of me if you need to, but please let me have this.” He looked her straight in the eye. “I would never, ever hurt a woman, or voluntarily leave a woman behind.” The sincerity in his voice was total, and she could tell he meant each and every word.

  Well hell. How was she supposed to say no to that? Her internal compass was telling her he was totally on the level, that he wouldn’t hurt her, but she grabbed the bottle anyway. Because she was a woman alone, and not an idiot.

  Then she looked at the bed behind her and wondered how in the hell they were going to deal with that. But that was for later. After she’d checked in with her father. After they’d eaten and put a few hours between them and Midland. Maybe she’d come up with a brilliant idea. But she didn’t think so, because suddenly she was really damned tired.

  Chapter 6

  Ethan hadn’t imagined himself getting into a good-natured argument with Natalie Flynn over music, but there it was. The RV wasn’t new enough to have a Bluetooth interface, so they were stuck with the radio. The AM radio, which only seemed to play talk radio and country western music. Normally he wasn’t totally opposed to country, but in this case the tinny radio made the genre sound extra twangy. Not something he was in the mood for right now.

  So Natalie had found something on her phone, claiming that the navigator got to pick the music. Which he was pretty sure was one hundred percent wrong, but it was only for a few hours.

  Since he was out of choices as he maneuvered the RV down the two-lane road he found himself listening to K-pop of all things. Natalie seemed to have an affinity for BTS, and as much as he was loath to admit it, the beat kept his toes tapping. Not that he would ever say that aloud.

  So instead he did the dude thing and complained when the next song came on, asking for Zeppelin or the Stones instead. To which she rolled her eyes and turned up the volume.

  The three and a half hours to Roswell passed quickly, and it seemed a hell of a lot more like an enjoyable road trip than them being on the run from unnamed bad guys.

  Natalie called one of the RV parks, was lucky enough to snag their last site located in the back of the facility. From what she saw in the gallery photos on the park’s website, if they needed to leave the RV, they could easily flee in the Jeep after bumping over some low barriers meant to deter cars.

  They pulled in and paid the nightly fee. With summer in full swing, there were few open spots around them, and the campers who were out and about seemed to be festive, for some reason. And their clothes were weird. But whatever.

  They took care of the hookups first, following step-by-step instructions on YouTube, then settled into the dinette, the burner phone Ethan had purchased between them. Anything that would identify the number as theirs had been stripped, or at least as much as it could be.

  Ethan was one hundred percent sure Flynn could and would try to locate which tower their cell signal was pinging off of, but he’d also bet that it wouldn’t be fast. Not if they kept the call reasonably sh
ort and didn’t verbalize their location.

  He nodded to Natalie and she dialed the number from memory, turning on the speaker. “Hey Dad,” she said, when Flynn picked up the receiver.

  “Are you okay?”

  Ethan had to admit he sounded worried. Which might have made his reservations about dealing with the man lessen if he hadn’t already been at the shit end of Arrow Security dealings.

  “We’re fine,” she answered. “Laying low.”

  “Where?” Flynn demanded, his voice hard now.

  Ethan cocked his head at Natalie. They’d discussed how to do this, but he’d understand if she needed him to play the hardass. She shook her head. Answered.

  “Undisclosed location, at least for right now. Can’t be sure who’s monitoring the lines.”

  Flynn was silent for a long moment, then… “Are you safe?” There was a threat in his voice for Ethan.

  “I’m fine. In fact, we’re just getting ready to grab a bite to eat. Maybe have some chocolate ice cream after.”

  Ethan heard a barely audible sigh of relief over the speaker, realized that the ice cream flavor was a code of some kind. Likely a safe phrase. Which was standard procedure so didn’t exactly set Flynn up for father of the year. But the man had sounded worried.

  Ethan wished he’d had the inclination, earlier, to do a full background check on Flynn, but he’d spent his time trying to fix things, himself, instead.

  “All right, then,” Flynn said. “Here’s what we know. Petra disappeared with the chopper. No one’s seen it, and the transponder went dark about fifteen minutes after she took it. So either she had a team ready to fly to, or knew how to turn it off. I’m going with option two, since she obviously knows how to fly, and Ward was the type to put a kill switch on the transponder. Masters,” he directed his line of questioning to Ethan. “Did you see anything like that while you had it in the air?”

  Ethan ran through the panel in his mind. “Nothing that was visible. But Natalie said he was a braggart, liked to talk out of his ass. It’s entirely possible he told Petra where it was, if she asked. He’d never suspect why, or that she was capable of flying the aircraft.”

  Flynn grunted. “You two are still on the top of the list when it comes to persons of interest. Petra as well, obviously. As of right now, it’s just the local cops, but I expect the alphabet soup agencies are on their way. Someone’s going to figure out Petra was a potential foreign agent and bring in the feds. We’re not sure what’s going on with Ward’s men, but you can bet they’re looking for you as well. I should know more later tonight, so stay low and check in at twenty-one hundred.”

  It came out as an order, and everything in Ethan tensed.

  He didn’t work for Flynn, didn’t take orders from the man or his company.

  Natalie interrupted, smoothing the waters. “We’ll call, Dad. We’re fine. Well-equipped thanks to Mandy. If things don’t chill out in the next twenty-four hours, we’ll sit down and come up with a plan. But for now, we’re okay.”

  “You keep her safe, Masters.” His tone held the tiniest bit of vulnerability, then he disconnected before Ethan could reply.

  “I can keep myself safe, you know,” Natalie said, and her face had taken on that blank, bland look again. Like she was hiding from her father. From him.

  Ethan wanted to wipe the expression off her face. Wanted to see her with the silly smile she’d had while torturing him with South Korean pop. But that wasn’t his place.

  Never would be, because he was Ethan Masters, a recovering gambler still twenty-five grand in debt to his boss. A man who’d allowed two women to be almost certainly killed because he was following orders.

  She was Natalie Flynn. The daughter of the man who was complicit in the deaths Ethan had aided. Who worked for a company he abhorred.

  He slid out of the dinette, pushed open the door. “I need some air.” And distance from Natalie Flynn.

  Well, that had gone well. Not.

  Her father wasn’t exactly the warm and cuddly sort, and had shut down even more after her mother died. But Ethan didn’t know that, didn’t need to.

  Cord had known, of course, he’d been one of Greg Flynn’s original hires, as a Green Beret who’d mustered out for better money. And then Cord was gone as well, and it was just her and Dad.

  But Greg’s distance over the last few years, when he should have held her close, had put up barriers she wasn’t sure they could ever overcome. To hear him order Ethan to keep her safe had been bittersweet. It showed he still cared, deep down, but also said that he didn’t trust her to take care of herself. Didn’t see her as a true asset to a team, just an ornamental one who happened to be exceedingly well trained.

  She understood Ethan’s brusque departure.

  He didn’t owe her or her father one damned thing. Had, in fact, been doing them a favor before Petra screwed everything up. And he clearly stated he had problems with her father. Right now her curiosity was killing her, but given how perturbed he’d been, she’d wait to ask those questions. Because she was pretty sure he’d want information in return, and she wasn’t ready to go there yet.

  Not when he was starting to ring every one of her bells, which was the polar opposite of what she really needed.

  The next few days were going to be a minefield of her own making.

  She stood, looked in the cooler for something to snack on, found nothing of interest, then pulled out her phone. Food was always an excellent peace offering, and from what Dad said, they had a little bit of time before they truly needed to drop off the map and live on the cooler’s contents.

  Black Betty BBQ looked truly amazing and she had yet to meet a man who wasn’t swayed by excellent brisket or pulled pork. Plus, she seriously doubted they’d be identified at a local food truck.

  Mind made up, she grabbed the keys to the RV and Jeep and stepped out of the motorhome to find Ethan unhooking the Jeep. Maybe great minds thought alike. She sure hoped so.

  When he raised his head, she could almost see an apology in his expression, but then his expression went blank again. He stood and she tossed him the keys.

  “How does barbeque sound?”

  That small smile kicked up the corner of his mouth, set her heart beating faster. “Barbeque sounds fantastic. Show me the way.”

  It was hard to stay pissy around Natalie, Ethan thought as they settled down at a weathered picnic table, ready to dig into what looked to be ridiculously good barbeque. She smoothed things over so effortlessly he could tell she’d been doing it for a very long time.

  And she wasn’t her father. He needed to keep reminding himself of that. She and Greg Flynn were completely opposite when it came to how they dealt with people. And with their values.

  Natalie could have easily hunkered down with Mandy and waited for extraction and left him on his own. Or at least thought about it, verbalized it. But it had never crossed her mind. They were in this together, had each other’s backs. It was a feeling he hadn’t had in almost a decade, since he left the Air Force.

  He took the first bite of his Cowboy Bob sandwich, barely held back a groan as the brisket, fire roasted green chile and provolone hit his tongue. The side of ribbon fries looked just as good, as did the order of onion rings between them.

  Natalie had her arm curved around her own choice of a pulled pork sandwich like she was afraid he was going to steal some of her mac and cheese, which he actually might consider.

  He inhaled the first half of his sandwich, then slowed down to savor. With his attention no longer consumed by his sandwich, he could really take in their surroundings.

  The food truck was close to the center of town today, and from the chatter he’d heard when they were queuing up for food, the annual UFO conference, Alien Fest, kicked off in two days.

  Since the RV park was on the outskirts of town, they hadn’t seen the business signage welcoming all the little green—and grey—men to town, but now their fellow campers’ attire of elongated sunglasses, colo
rful outfits and fantastic headgear made a lot more sense. Hell, even the pooches were dressed up.

  He laughed almost silently, catching Natalie’s attention. When she raised an eyebrow he gestured around them, to the banner that was even now being raised over the main drag.

  “They completely embrace it,” he said, making sure his tone wasn’t derogatory. Sometimes with an accent like his it was easy to assume stones were being thrown.

  “Why wouldn’t they?” Natalie asked as she snagged an onion ring, popped it in her mouth and sighed just a little in appreciation.

  Ethan’s attention was completely centered on her mouth, so much so that it took him a moment to come back to reality when she finished her thought.

  “I mean, yeah, it’s ludicrous, but so is going to Disneyland. It’s entertainment, and nowadays, everyone needs the opportunity to let go, even if for just a little while.”

  He sat back, contemplated her across the picnic table.

  She was right, and her words struck something deep inside that he’d been holding at bay for a very long time. Three years, to be exact.

  Maybe it was because his debt was almost paid. Would be when he recovered the damn chopper from Petra. And he would do that, as soon as he got Natalie safely to Vegas and in the arms of Arrow Security.

  He wanted to have fun. Enjoy something. It’d been a long damn time since he’d done that.

  Yeah, repossessions could be a rush, but the buzz died as soon as the adrenalin faded.

  But being with her right now, eating great barbeque and watching a town come alive with alien nonsense? He was enjoying it, even though they were on the run. Enjoying it just a little too much.

  He forced himself to answer her observation, even though he was having an epiphany. “I guess you’re right. There’s not a bit of harm to it.” He polished off the last of his sandwich, grabbed an onion ring. “We need more of this for tomorrow, when we hit the road.”

  She nodded an enthusiastic agreement. “They sell by the pound, and the RV has a microwave. Dibs on the pulled pork.” Her tone suggested she’d be willing to do battle for the pork, if necessary.