Getaway Girl

by Michele Hauf

  “What reason does the Faction have for keeping her?” I countered. “And for that matter, why do you need her so badly? Isn’t one woman the same as the next in your line of work? As long as she’s gorgeous and young, you can sell her—”

  “I’ve had enough of your insinuations that I am a slave trader.”

  I gave him a silent duh shrug, imploring with an incredulous gaze.

  The action set him off. Fist clenched upon his knee, Sacha gritted his jaw. I thought his eyes became a vivid green, but it had to be a trick of the afternoon light beaming through the colored windows that decorated the nearby play area.

  “Do you always jump to conclusions, Miss MacAlister?”

  I flashed a look of surprise at him. A burn of warning heated the back of my throat. “I never told you my last name.”

  “I make it a point to know the people I work with. And to never make assumptions.”

  So he’d had me checked out? Then he should know I couldn’t tell him anything about the Faction.

  Enough already with this princess who was no longer a part of the picture. I wanted to get out with it and ask him why he killed Max. And had I been part of the setup? But that might scare him off. The fact he knew so much more about me than I did about him—we hadn’t exchanged names the night of my birthday—pissed me off.

  Fitch had to have filled him in.

  “Fine. No assumptions.”

  But that didn’t mean I couldn’t jump to conclusions. Big difference between an assumption and a conclusion. An assumption was just a guess; a conclusion took more thought and considered the facts. I had few facts on Vital, beyond those that the double-crossing Fitch had given me.

  “Maybe you’re not what you so blatantly appear to be,” I said. “But give me one good reason why the Faction would keep the princess.”

  “For the information she can give them.”

  I folded the crunchy yellow paper that had wrapped my sandwich, avoiding the grease that stained half. “Which is?”

  Sacha rubbed a palm over his face and adjusted his position on the hard yellow seat, pressing his spine to the plastic in an attempt to distance us, though the small table would not grant such an escape.

  “Time to put everything on the table, Vital. You want this ride, you’ve gotta help me here.”

  “All right, but prepare to be open-minded.”

  “I’m—” Hell. Truth? Not as open-minded as I liked to believe I was.

  But I wasn’t answering to this man, so it didn’t matter, right?

  Smoothing a hand over the duffel on my lap, I again felt for the gun and drew a finger along the hard outline of both cell phones. Was the Faction close? Surely, they would not swoop in and take Vital in hand here, with all these witnesses and children.

  “The princess was attacked a week ago,” Sacha explained. He swept a gaze about the restaurant, ensuring our conversation was as private as one could get with a massive glass-enclosed playground teeming with kiddies but ten strides away. “She was almost assassinated—strangled—but at the last moment the assassin pulled back and ran off. Days later, the princess announced to the press the assassin had been a woman.”

  “What has that got to do with anything? Why would the Faction want her?”

  “Because the princess is the only one who can identity the assassin. If it’s true, it’s very possible this female assassin was a part of the Network.”

  Stop the train, and let me get off. The Network? Now there was a name I recognized.

  I coached my expression to remain glum. This wasn’t information I was willing to give Sacha. “Still means nothing to me. Why the Faction wants this Network, I don’t care. And you. I don’t get you, Vital. Why do you want this woman?”

  “Because if the princess can identify the assassin, I may very well have found my sister.”

  “Your sister?” First he brings the grandma into the picture, and now we’re chatting about a sister? What was the man’s game?

  “That is the only reason I kidnapped the princess. I read the paper and learned what she knew. I simply want to question her. If I show her a picture of my sister, maybe she can identify her.”

  “How? For what reason?”

  “As the assassin.”

  That took the breath from me. Sacha’s sister was an assassin? With the Network?

  I lowered my head but looked up at him through my lashes.

  “I’ve been searching for her for a while now,” he said. “She disappeared a year ago, and I’d initially thought she was traveling through Europe. That was, until Ma told me she hadn’t heard from my sister for months. I’ve come close to finding her, but never sighting her. I believe she was recruited by the Network.”

  So much about the Network I did not know. And yet, wherever I went, it followed. Why hadn’t Max introduced me into the fold?

  The Network was an elite rogue operation of criminals that, while independent of one another, worked exclusively through leads and intel provided by the members. Not at all like the Faction, because that group worked as a unit. The Network joined independent operators.

  I’d once been a part of it, or so Max had told me. I’d never learned anything more than that, except all its members were young women, trained by men. Oh, I had suspected the Network was behind Max’s murder, which is why I’d lain low for a few months.

  Now I knew otherwise, but that still didn’t make me want to sleep with both eyes closed.

  Would the Network come after me?

  Sacha thought his sister was an assassin for the group?

  Interesting. But I wasn’t willing to spill any more right now. Did he know I was once part of the Network? The man could be playing me. He’d had me checked out—I wasn’t sure how deep my trail led, or to whom, now that I thought about it—but I shouldn’t think he could get so far as the Network.

  This had something to do with Max’s murder; it had to. So much connected. Maybe the Network had hired Sacha to take out Max? But then, surely Sacha would have better connections to the Network, and locating his sister would be a breeze. If there really was a sister.

  “She’s all I think about,” Sacha said. “I would have never kidnapped the princess if I didn’t believe she is my only hope of finding my sister.”

  “Why not just stop by for coffee and a chat? Something a little less…illegal?”

  He shrugged. “It’s all I know, Jamie. When you’ve been around it all your life…”

  Somehow, him calling me by my name lessened my anger. However, I know it’s a method used by terrorists and the like to get on your good side, so I decided to stick to the facts.

  “That explains your motive. Maybe. But the Faction shouldn’t care one way or another.”

  “Oh, yes they do. Who do you think killed Max?”

  I gripped the folded sandwich wrapper and squeezed it into a ball, if only to keep myself from delivering another punch to his chiseled jaw. He wanted to play it out in the open like this? I could play. “You arsehole!”

  Sacha blinked.

  “Kevin told me you—”

  “Kevin? Who the hell is Kevin?”

  Merde. Well, he wouldn’t place him to the Faction; they used numbers. “A cohort.”

  “Another driver?”

  “Not your concern.”

  Sacha’s jaw pulsed, and his eyes really did darken to rich emerald this time. “And this Kevin, he told you I killed Max?”

  “Who else would have motive?”

  “Motive? Try the Faction.”

  I gaped. “And for what reason?”

  “For the information Max had on them. Which is the same information I have, thanks to Max telling it to me the night we met at DV8.”

  “Was that the first time you met Max? How do you know Max?”

  “Do you want to hear this or not?”

  “Go on.”

  “The very reason the Faction wants me dead is the same reason they took out Max. And if they can determine that the princess was
indeed approached by a member of the Network, then they’ve got a connection. I suspect the Faction wants to take out the rest of the Network for fear Max told the members, as well.”

  “Told them what?”

  “That the Faction is dirty,” he said, lowering is voice to a harsh whisper.

  “Bullshit. They rescued the princess from you.”

  “Yet, you still haven’t given me proof you know she is safe.”

  “Because I…”

  Didn’t have actual proof, beyond what Kevin had told me. Had I been blinded by the power of the man’s dimples? That was idiotic. Of course I hadn’t, nor would I allow the handsome face sitting across from me to alter my thinking.

  “The night of your birthday I met Max in the parking lot. Just before I entered DV8 and then met you. I knew Max. He was wired and nervous, but I ignored it because I wanted to call in a favor and hadn’t seen him in a while.”

  “What sort of favor?”

  “I wanted to know what he knew about my sister—which was nothing—but he promised to check into it. He owed me one.”

  I lifted a brow. This man—he couldn’t be telling the truth. But the information spilled out from him so easily. He had promised only truth. But had he given me any reason to believe that?

  On the other hand, he hadn’t given me any reason not to believe him.

  “I saved Max’s life a while back. He was driving me to a pickup and a tail attached itself like a leech. A leech with a machine gun. I took them out before they could take out Max.”

  “How do you know they weren’t after you?”

  “Because Max named them all and told me they were after him.”

  “So you guys are chums?”

  “No. I hadn’t seen him since that pickup. As a gesture of good faith, that night, Max offered me information that would serve until he could look up my sister. He told me about a job he had done for the Faction. How he witnessed them take a kidnapped teenager and, instead of returning her to her family, packing her off on a ship to the far east. They’re dirty, Jamie. And if your Kevin is working for the Faction, he’s playing you right now.”

  The yellow wad of paper was too small and compact for me to do it any more damage. I tossed it onto the scuffed brown tray.

  Kevin playing me? That would mean the Faction was controlling—no. Max had trusted the Faction. Hadn’t he?

  “I wonder why Max never…” I stopped.

  Max wouldn’t have told me about his conversation with Sacha because that was the night of my birthday. No night to make such a dire announcement; he’d wanted me to have fun. Besides, it sounded as if Max had talked to Sacha after he left me in the club.

  I shouldn’t have let him leave alone.

  “So you’re saying…”

  Sacha took the ball of yellow paper and tossed it toward the nearby garbage can—missing by a leap. “The Faction killed Max for the information he had on them.”

  “Now you’re making assumptions. You can’t prove it. Why shouldn’t I believe you’re just making up an elaborate story to protect your own hide? Maybe Max wouldn’t give you the information he had on the Network so you decided to retaliate.”

  Sacha sighed. “You forget I was a little busy that night after leaving Max.”

  “Yes, fucking Max’s girl!”

  We both jerked glances to the side. A woman at the far wall snapped her newspaper and, with an admonishing eye, went back to reading. Half a dozen kiddies partied behind the glass wall, each lobbing colorful plastic balls at each other’s heads, well out of hearing range.

  “Let’s go back to the car,” I suggested.

  Without waiting for the man, I cleared out of the restaurant and strode across the parking lot. Then I turned around and stomped back toward the restaurant. I wasn’t going anywhere without a change of clothes.

  “Back for ice cream?” Sacha asked as he held the door for me.

  “Costume change. I’ll be right out.”

  Inside the restroom, I changed quickly, tossing my skirt and blouse into the garbage. I was too tired to care about toting them with me. The white T-shirt fit snugly, as did the blue jeans. Slapping some cold water across my face, I took a moment to study my reflection. Had I aged ten years in two days? It wasn’t my appearance, but my insides that felt older.

  Never in my entire career of getaway driving had I gotten involved beyond driving. I didn’t chat with clients. Most especially, I didn’t stop and have a bite to eat with them. Uncharted ground put me off my game.

  And the man was just so…

  “Don’t fall for it, Jamie. He’s dangerous.”

  I swiped a few droplets of water from my cheeks, nodded in agreement, and then ventured back outside.

  I slid behind the wheel and rolled down both windows to feel a cross-breeze over my face. Vital stood outside the passenger door, waiting for me to unlock it. An unsure heaviness settled upon me. Part of the feeling due to the greasy dinner, no doubt, but I couldn’t discount the misgivings Sacha had unearthed. Who was lying to me?

  I contemplated locking Sacha out, but I was too eager to hear it all.

  He leaned in and began to swipe a hand across the spotless leather seat.

  “Oh, just get in, will you?”

  He paused, palm lingering over the seat. Was it so difficult for him to just sit down? A few more swipes cleared away any minutia I wasn’t capable of seeing but obviously his zoom-vision could. Finally, he got in, but kept the door open and one leg out on the tarmac.

  “I had no clue who you were that night at DV8,” Sacha said. “I can’t believe I didn’t pick up on it right away.”

  “How could you have known?”

  “A gorgeous young woman driving the Audi you had tricked out to the nines?”

  Max’s car.

  “I could have been a spoiled heiress.”

  “Not the way you drove me, baby. A spoiled heiress wouldn’t know a thing about real sex.”

  I smirked, and a flash of our night together made my neck burn. I instantly occupied myself with brushing dust off the steering wheel. My goodness, the nonexistent dust fairy had dusted the whole damned vehicle!

  Images of that night were unavoidable…

  “That one,” my nameless lover said with a nod toward my right breast.

  I crawled over his bare legs and delivered the requested morsel to his lips. And within minutes he’d succeeded in giving me another orgasm, merely by using his mouth and not moving any lower than my waist. The man was remarkable. I sat upon him and curled my fingers firmly.

  “What are you doing?”

  I realized I had a grip on his cock and was…“Shifting? I…like to drive.”

  “I guess so. Well, drive on, sweetie. Drive it hard.”

  And I had. All night long and into the morning. I could only have slept a couple hours.

  “According to the coroner’s report, Max was killed in the morning,” I said. “You were nowhere to be found when I woke up.”

  “I awoke around 7:15 a.m. I didn’t have time to get to his place before he was killed.”

  “You don’t know what time he was murdered.”

  “7:45 a.m.”

  I swung him a gape-mouthed stare. “How could you possibly…”

  “I was on the phone with him when it happened. I was walking back from the grocer. I had thought of a few things I’d neglected to tell Max the night before. One minute we were discussing my sister, the next…silence.”

  He had heard…? Impossible. Because I knew otherwise. “Liar.”

  “What will it take to convince you?”

  “The truth. Your story is remarkable, but there’s one problem.”

  “And that is?”

  “Max was killed in a car accident.”

  Chapter 16

  “And why do you believe that? Turn the music down,” Sacha announced. “Let’s get to the bottom of this.”

  I touched the volume control on the steering wheel and turned my body toward Sacha
.

  I was open to this getting to the bottom of things. Because now that some of the pieces had been presented to me—albeit from the villain’s perspective—doubts were forming in my mind. And I didn’t like seeing only half the picture. It wasn’t fair to me, or to Max’s memory.

  “I went to the morgue to identify the body later that day after I…left your house,” I said. “The coroner made a horrible joke about not having to examine the remains because it was so obviously a crash.”

  “So they didn’t look for the bullet hole?”

  I gaped. “I don’t know what you think you heard—”

  “Sounded like a gunshot when I was talking to him on the phone.”

  That’s right, Sacha had said he’d been on the phone with Max. As he’d been walking back from the grocer. Could be a lie. I had no reason to trust this guy.

  Filling the passenger side with more than just his body—his presence gave off an eerie vibe—Sacha leaned forward. “So tell me, what kind of car was it?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I didn’t see the scene. I spoke briefly to the coroner. I didn’t ask. Just wanted to get out of there.”

  “Fair enough. But answer me this: A professional driver shows little concern for the kind of car that killed her mentor?”

  “I was distraught!”

  But, man, did he have a point there.

  Max had been brought to Casualty hours after his death. Fitch and I had identified him in the morgue two hours later. Now that I think of it, shouldn’t his face have been cut up from the windshield? I only remember how peaceful he’d looked in death. Eyes closed, bald head still shiny. Sweet Max.

  “It wasn’t Max’s car?” Sacha asked. “You mentioned the Audi.”

  “That your thugs stole.”

  “If you say so. But verify, the Audi was Max’s car? The one you were driving the other day when you, er, landed in the trunk?”

  “Yes. I’d taken it the night of my birthday.”

  “Do you always borrow his car? Don’t you have your own?”

  “I do have my own, yet I do—did—often borrow Max’s car. He’d picked me up to take me out for my birthday. Later, he said he had some business and wanted to walk, so he gave me his keys and, even later, I drove it to your place.”