Getaway Girl

by Michele Hauf

  “So tell me why, if he wasn’t shot, Max would be driving a car—not his own? And, obviously, the following morning, since I did speak to him the next day on the phone.”

  When he put it that way, it did make me wonder. Add to that the mysterious phone call between the two men that morning and their brief exchange the night before at DV8. That would mean Max had to have hung up with Sacha, gone outside, gotten in a strange car…

  “If Max was shot…” Sacha tossed out another idea.

  “Of which there is no proof.”

  “Save the sound of gunfire I heard over the phone. I know what it sounds like when a body drops, Jamie. And Max didn’t answer after that.”

  “So you then just casually returned home after hearing a man get murdered?”

  “I wasn’t sure. I…you were there waiting for me. I wanted to get back to you, and—hell, I didn’t know what to think. And I didn’t know where Max lived, so it wasn’t like I could call the police and tell them to check it out.”

  “So you just forgot about it?”

  “What could I do?”

  “You could have called the police and had them trace the phone call.”

  “Yeah, and become an accessory to a crime.”

  “You are so self-centered!”

  “Call me what you want. I know it’s just your anger speaking, not any particular frustration toward me.”

  What sort of psycho-babble…?

  “What I want to know is, why would the killer make it look like a car accident?” Sacha asked. “Especially if he knew the guy was a professional driver and that anyone else who knew him might question that death?”

  “Don’t know. I didn’t question.” I shoved my fingers back through my hair and tugged. “Damn it! So your theory is, the Faction shot Max, then transported his body to another vehicle and made it look like a crash?”

  “Answer me this. Why did you believe it was murder if you knew it was a car accident?”

  Finally an easy question. “Because Max is the best driver there is. He wouldn’t be so foolish.” And at the time, I’d thought the Network quite clever for trying to make it look as if Max had died doing something he loved.

  Sacha nodded. “You can be the world’s best driver, but that won’t necessarily protect you from the idiot drunk driving in the lane opposite yours who swerves at the last minute.”

  “Defensive driving.”

  “A long shot.”

  “Max was a professional.”

  “Again. Drunk drivers are loose cannons.”

  “All right! So you’ve proven your point. Max couldn’t have possibly been in the car…alive.”

  I scrubbed my palms over my face. A dark chill had begun to ride my spine. It trickled up my neck and tightened my scalp. This was the exact state I’d been in upon seeing Max lying dead upon a gleaming stainless steel table. I didn’t like it, and I knew the queasiness was fast on its way.

  I turned my head and drew in the cool summer air through my nose.

  The Faction had killed Max? Had I trusted the enemy all along? Kevin, the infamous number Eight, was he playing me?

  One way to find out. I paused as I reached for my duffel bag. I knew the phone Kevin gave me was in there. Did I want to blow my cover by revealing my contact? Hmm…

  And yet, Sacha’s cold-blooded ignoring that he’d heard a murder struck me even harder.

  “How do you know so much?” I speared Sacha with a severe look, but I wasn’t in the mood to stand good on any implied threat. Curling up into a ball and weeping sounded much more satisfying. “I have no proof you were on the phone with Max. You left me alone in that empty apartment. Which makes me wonder now why it was so empty. You said you were moving. Was that another lie?”

  “I did move.”

  I still glared. “Where do you live now?”

  He shrugged. “There’s one place in Paris, but I’ve got new digs outside the city, just beyond the suburbs.”

  “You could have went to Max’s house in the early morning, shot him, and—”

  “Max lived on the Right Bank; I used to be on the Left. A good trick on foot, wouldn’t you say? I wasn’t gone for more than forty-five minutes.”

  “What?”

  “That morning.” Sacha ran a hand through his hair, and then tapped the passenger window with his knuckles. Tap tap, tap. “I got dressed and walked four blocks to buy pastries and orange juice for us. When I returned I was surprised you were gone. The bed was still warm.”

  “You…came back?”

  I pressed my forehead to the steering wheel. This was too much to take in. And if I didn’t process it correctly, it was going to be muddled beyond recognition.

  “I left right after waking.” All right, after snooping through his things—minimal—so the moving claim I could buy. “I didn’t check your side of the bed. It could have still been warm. You brought…breakfast?”

  “I tossed the pastries.”

  “Pastries?”

  “There’s a pâtisserie down the road from me. The creamiest pains au chocolat in the world. Like eating heaven.”

  The man had bought the one food that could make me do anything just for a bite. Oh, baby. How could he have known?

  “But I didn’t want to eat them after what I thought I’d heard on the phone. And besides, you were gone,” Sacha said. “I couldn’t believe the best thing that had happened to me in years had disappeared from my life.”

  “Please, don’t even try—”

  “But—”

  “You didn’t even know my name!”

  The fist he held before his nose, eyes closed, jaw clenched, didn’t do anything to soften his image in my book. No flaky butter pastry with two bars of chocolate wrapped inside—yes, two bars—was going to win my heart over the horror of losing my best friend.

  Releasing his fist, Sacha turned those frustrating eyes to me. “I’ve never told you a lie, Jamie.”

  I thought about that as I studied Sacha’s blue-green eyes. They were half and half right now, so clear and boldly defiant of any one color.

  He’d answered all my questions quickly and within reason, whether or not I liked the answers. I didn’t know whether to be sick over his listening to a murder and then just letting it go without investigation, or to just chalk it up to being a part of the trade. A man like Sacha would never invite the police over for a chat, most especially about a murder.

  Oh yeah, he was master of the verbal spar. Had he really been truthful with me?

  Why did I not want to trust this guy? As far as I knew, he hadn’t lied. He’d confessed to kidnapping the princess and then losing her, and to wanting to get her back. And he knew things about Max’s death that made sense. As twisted as his morals might be, it had all been truth.

  Who would lie about kidnapping?

  “So when was Max killed? I went home after your place, took a shower, then went right to Max’s. It was an hour, hour and a half, tops.”

  “He rang me about fifteen minutes after I left my house. That was when I heard the gunshot.”

  “My God, he was…When I got to his house…he may have just been there, alive.”

  That evidence frightened me. Had I just missed saving my mentor’s life? Or having my life extinguished, as well? Had I been watched? Followed? How else would the Faction know I was connected to Max?

  I’d never asked myself that question. How had Kevin known I was connected to Max? To be watching me, following me. Fitch had been the one to put out feelers to the Faction a few weeks earlier. It was entirely possible the group knew me only because of her.

  Maybe?

  I pounded the soft leather steering wheel. “Why have I been so stupid about this?” I clenched my fists tightly in frustration to either side of the wheel. I wanted to plant my foot on the accelerator and not let up. But I was aimed at the McDonald’s—not keen.

  “You’ve been emotional,” Sacha offered in a voice too tender, too understanding for my aggravated state.
>
  I shook my head fiercely, trying to separate the facts from the false reality I’d wanted to believe. And yet, there was still a chance the Network could have sneaked in, shot Max and tried to make it look like an accident.

  “You lost someone who meant a lot to you,” Sacha said. “Of course, you weren’t thinking properly. And if the coroner said it was a car accident, what reason would you have to question him?”

  “Why are you so—” I didn’t know what to think of the man anymore “—not the kind of guy you should be?”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning, you’re…nice, and kind and you’re touching my arm.”

  “Sorry.” He took his hand from my forearm.

  When he’d placed it there, I didn’t know. But the absence of his touch suddenly felt so…empty. Put it back, I wanted to say, but at the same time, a weird shiver skittered through my system. Wanting a confessed kidnapper to touch me wasn’t betraying any morals. I didn’t have morals. Yes, I did. I just—cripes, they were so new to me. And I wasn’t sure what to believe anymore.

  “It’s tough losing someone you care about. Or not knowing where they are and if they are safe.”

  He was speaking of his sister, the one he suspected had been recruited into the Network.

  I’d always put the Network at the top of the suspect list. Though I knew every pickup Max had made could have garnered him another enemy, the Network held that sort of unknown evil influence.

  So we had the Network, which I knew was a criminal operation, and then there was the Faction, a covert ops I was beginning to have serious doubts about. Good guys or not-so-good guys?

  I turned and sat staring out the windshield, the bright colors of the restaurant playground blurring as I unfocused my eyes.

  We’ve been keeping an eye on you.

  If Kevin had been tailing me since Max’s death, why wouldn’t he take me out? He must know I was in the Network? And if Sacha’s suspicions were correct, the Faction wanted to take out the Network. I should be valuable to the Faction; they should suspect I would have information to lead them to the Network.

  Or was this all a clever ruse by Sacha to throw me off his bloody trail of deception?

  “We should be on the move,” Sacha said suddenly. “Can’t risk sitting for too long. I’m going to the men’s room.” He grabbed the brief case sitting on the floor near his feet. “Can I trust—”

  “Pee fast,” I said. “I’ll be revving the engine.”

  The moment the passenger door closed, I clicked on my phone and speed dialed Fitch.

  “Jamie! I’ve been worried and wondering if you’d ever speak to me again. Where on God’s green earth are you?”

  “McDonald’s.”

  “A relation?”

  “No.” I smirked. I hadn’t realized just how tense my muscles had become, and the sudden mirth relaxed me a bit. “The restaurant. Somewhere in the suburbs. Fitch, I need a favor.”

  “You asking someone who sold your hide to the enemy?”

  “I know you weren’t given a choice. It would be a difficult decision for anyone facing the threat of losing his or her fingers. And the enemy, well, I’m not sure about him anymore.”

  A dozen children about waist height were lined up at the entrance to the restaurant. Sacha waited patiently at the rear end for admittance. He even smiled and smacked a high-five to the little boy in front of him.

  “I need everything you can find on Sacha Vital. And…the Faction.”

  “You okay, Jamie?”

  “I’m not sure. I’m with Vital right now.”

  “Hell, you want I should track you? I’m dialing into your GPS right now and if I can get a good satellite shot—”

  “That’s keen, Fitch, but don’t freak about it. I’m here because I want to be. I thought I was helping the Faction. But, well…I need that info from you. Stat.”

  “Will do.”

  “Oh, and Fitch? See what you can dig up on the Network, as well.”

  I hung up, and after a moment of hesitation, dialed another number. It rang twice. “Dove?”

  “Bunny rabbit!”

  “Just one question, Dove, and I promise you whatever you wish.”

  “Ooh, tempt me, darling.”

  “This is for Max.”

  “All right.” His voice changed, all serious. The man had been much closer to Max than I could ever guess. I could sense it in his calm breath.

  “Just answer me this: Sacha Vital, the Network or the Faction.”

  “Darling—”

  “Dove.”

  “Okay. I’ll answer.”

  Chapter 17

  The phone rang and I activated the voice control on the steering wheel. This BMW came equipped with Bluetooth, and wirelessly connected to my cell without my even having to work out wires or software or tech stuff.

  “Found some interesting morsels for you, sweetie,” Fitch said. “You want the Faction, Vital or the princess first?”

  “The princess.”

  “Right. Alleria el Sangreito. The Spanish TV network, Antena 3, reported that an attempt against her life was made a week ago. She was able to fight off the assassin and had planned to give a press conference with details so the assassin could be caught, but never did. She was kidnapped two days ago from her father’s villa. She’s still missing. Her family is frantic. They hired an underground covert ops to rescue her—”

  “The Faction.”

  “That’s my guess—of course there’s no mention of any name—but the unnamed rescue source claims they haven’t gotten the princess away from the kidnapper yet.”

  “Vital?”

  “There’s no reference to suspects. But it’s my guess.”

  “Christ, OCD Boy has been telling me the truth all along.”

  “OCD Boy?”

  I smoothed a hand over the empty passenger seat, flicking my fingers across the soft leather. “Vital has…a few quirks.”

  “Ah. Cute, too.”

  “Fitch.”

  “I’m just sayin’.”

  “When did you see him to know that he’s cute?”

  “So you think he’s cute?”

  “I didn’t say that. I just—I thought you said you didn’t talk to him face-to-face?”

  “Hold your horses, sweetie—and that desperate libido. I just ran a check on him, remember? I’m staring at his sexy mug right now.”

  “Fine.” How dare she bring up my pitiful, unfulfilled libido? I was not desperate! “What can you tell me about Sacha Vital?”

  “Nothing. As in, nothing on him. He’s clean, Jamie. Just had the very bad luck of having a professional bad-guy father precede him. He’s done small-time stuff. Public records reveal he’s been busted for running betting scams and once stole a car, but otherwise…”

  Yikes, the man sounded like a saint compared to me. “He stole a car?”

  “Sounds like your kind of man.”

  “Seriously, that’s all there is on Vital?”

  “That’s it. And this picture I’m drooling over? It was taken last year at a charity function in the States to save Alaskan seals. He’s got his arm around a beauty, but he’s petting the cute little white seal in the foreground. Ain’t that the sweetest thing?”

  I wondered who the beauty was, and in the next instant, slammed my fist into the center console. I did not care who Sacha put his arm around. I just…did not care!

  “You want me to read through his daddy’s list?”

  “No. I…no.” Some sighs are unpreventable. “Seals?”

  “He’s listed as a top contributor.”

  Well, that threw me for a wild and crazy loop. “And the Faction?”

  “Ah yes, the illustrious Faction, formed by former Sergeant Cyril Cooper six years ago in an attempt to flush out the criminals who kidnapped and murdered his daughter. All sorts are recruited, including policemen, Special Forces and even a criminal or three. Your Number Eight is one Kevin Grant.”

  “He did tell me that
.”

  “Right, but they’re not all honorable and decorated military men. It’s rumored they buy some of their operatives from prison. They officially “kill’ their new member, then they become numbers, and work for the Faction.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Yep, and scanning Kevin Grant’s rap sheet pins a white slavery conviction on him three years ago. Funny, he never made it to the New York State penitentiary where he was supposed to be incarcerated. A freak bus accident took him out. His remains were burned to a char, impossible to identify the body. I wonder what poor soul they got to play the dead guy?”

  “Damn!”

  “Oh, yeah, and Grant may have worked with Sacha’s father a while back. But I can’t tell what his connections are to the Network. You know how clean the Network’s trail is.”

  “No, I don’t. I don’t know anything about the Network. According to Vital, it sounds like the Faction wants to take them out.”

  “You switchin’ sides, Jamie?”

  After hearing what Dove had had to say, and now this?

  “I don’t know. I just…don’t know. Just because Kevin Grant has a criminal background doesn’t mean he’s not on the up-and-up now. The Faction are the good guys, right?”

  “Best I can tell. But you keep an eye over your shoulder at all times, you hear me? I’ll be watching you.”

  “Thanks. Here comes Vital. Can you tap into the Faction and locate them? They should be tailing me.”

  “Will do.”

  Sacha Vital had a sexy walk. Unassuming, yet with shoulders pulled back straight and confidence lifting his chin. He wore the silly striped shirt with élan and those velvet trousers positively screamed sex. So he was a fashion nightmare, but I wasn’t one to throw stones. The dark sunglasses he wore only increased his sensuality. Stubble had begun to darken his square jaw and, along with the sideburns, gave him a rugged, scruffy appearance. Like a bad boy—my favorite kind of male.

  As he neared the Bimmer, I tapped the hex nut on my finger against the steering wheel, and vacillated about unlocking the door, but hit the unlock button before he got to the car. He slid in and offered me a bottle of water for the road. I took it and stowed it in the glove box.