Escape with Me

by Janice Sims

  “Nice Lab,” said the stranger.

  “There’s an old blues song that says ‘Don’t pat my dog and don’t hug my woman,’” Aaron told the guy. “I don’t have a woman around for you to get familiar with, so would you mind introducing yourself?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” said the man with an easy smile. “My name is Tennison Isles, and I’m with the FBI.”

  “FBI, IRS,” mumbled Aaron. “Had to be one or the other.”

  “Excuse me?” Ten said, having not heard Aaron clearly.

  “Nothing,” said Aaron. “May I see some ID?”

  Ten showed him his badge and picture ID.

  After making a careful perusal of the items, Aaron met Ten’s eyes. “What does the FBI want with me?”

  “Hopefully, your cooperation,” said Ten.

  “Come on up,” Aaron told him.

  Fifteen minutes later, Aaron was in dry clothes, Bowser was fairly dry having been rubbed down with a warm towel and the two men were sitting across from each other in the spacious living room drinking strong coffee.

  “I’m listening,” Aaron said.

  Ten told him what the Bureau wanted to do, with his help. Aaron listened intently. After he’d finished, Ten waited for Aaron’s reaction to his proposal.

  To his surprise Aaron said, “My doctor has been trying to get me to go into the hospital for a series of stress tests on my heart. Now is as good a time as any, I guess.”

  * * *

  The next day, Lana received a phone call from Gladys Easterbrook, her father’s closest neighbor. Gladys and Henry Easterbrook ran a bed-and-breakfast out of their huge beach house. “Aaron’s in the hospital. It’s his heart. That old reprobate told me not to call you, but I think a daughter has the right to know when her daddy’s sick.”

  It had been a genius move on Aaron’s part to have Gladys do the phoning. Everyone in Dare County knew Gladys had a talent for melodrama. She was the first person to start crying at every wedding and she hadn’t missed a funeral, whether she knew the person or not, in the last thirty years. Just the sound of her angst-ridden Southern drawl got Lana moving in the direction of her hometown.

  Gladys told her that her father was in the hospital in Kitty Hawk, the nearest hospital with full diagnostic services.

  Lana had known Gladys Easterbrook nearly all her life and there was no reason to distrust her. However, she tried her father’s cell phone anyway. There was no answer.

  This heightened her fear and she immediately called the airport to book a flight home.

  Chapter 3

  Lana arrived at Norfolk International Airport at noon the following day. Once she departed the plane she looked everywhere for Gladys Easterbrook. She had tried to talk the older woman out of driving all the way to the airport when she could just rent a car and drive directly to the hospital. But Gladys had insisted.

  “Mrs. Lana Braithwaite-Corday?” said a masculine voice behind her.

  Lana spun around and peered up into the face of a gorgeous giant. He had burnt-caramel skin and eyes that were so dark brown they looked black. High cheekbones, a strong, masculine chin and a clean-shaven jaw added to his appeal. The neatly shorn hair on his well-shaped head was dark brown and its texture was wavy. She had this inane thought that when he was a boy, and his mother had let him grow it out, it must have fallen to his shoulders in thick spirals. He was wearing jeans, athletic shoes and a T-shirt with the University of Virginia emblem on the front. Her first thought after being confronted by all that hotness was, Oh, God, not a reporter way down here! True, he wasn’t wearing a suit or shoving a microphone at her, but he was definitely TV-ready.

  She brushed past him, clutching her shoulder bag and a small carry-on bag close to her side, as she headed for the exit. “Bug off. I’ve said all I’m going to say to the media.”

  “Your dad sent me to pick you up,” the stranger called. “Miss Gladys’s back is acting up today.”

  Lana stopped in her tracks and turned to regard him with a surprised expression on her face. She knew Miss Gladys often had back problems. “Who are you?” she asked tightly.

  “Tennison West,” Ten said, holding out a big hand for her to shake. “I’m a filmmaker working on a documentary about your father.”

  Lana briefly shook his hand, her eyes still locked with his as if she were trying to discern whether or not she could trust him by the intensity of her gaze.

  “You got a driver’s license?” she asked cautiously.

  Ten showed her his driver’s license which stated he was Tennison West and he lived in Washington, D.C. The bureau had established a whole new identity for him. They had even set up a website for him replete with samples of the past documentaries he’d produced.

  They hadn’t prepared him for Lana, though. Ten felt a bit vulnerable under her scrutiny. He had seen her only in photographs and in videos. He had read about her life in reports given to him by agents he’d assigned to observe her. To be this near, smelling her perfume, a light, enticing floral scent, was entirely different. He could feel the warmth emanating from her denim-clad body and it ignited his senses.

  He attempted to turn them off, though. He was here only because he had a hunch that as soon as Lana arrived in the Outer Banks, she would be followed. The only way to find the person potentially trailing her was to be with her as much as possible. He had to be extremely observant, which meant he couldn’t allow emotions to cloud his mind or judgment.

  “That’s odd,” Lana commented as she handed him back his driver’s license. “Dad didn’t mention you the last time we talked. How long have you been working with him on this documentary?”

  Ten smiled warmly. “Actually, he hasn’t signed on the dotted line yet. I went to see your father, explained what I wanted to do, he then passed out and I took him directly to the emergency room.”

  Lana stared up at him, startled. “We’re wasting time. There’s still a two-hour drive to Kitty Hawk!”

  She sprinted from the terminal with Ten close behind, shouting, “He told me to tell you not to worry. Wait, don’t you have any luggage?”

  Lana didn’t slow down in her headlong rush. “No, no luggage. I was in a hurry. Where’s your car?” She didn’t have time to explain to this stranger that she had a closet full of clothes in her old bedroom at her dad’s house. It saved her from having to pack for her frequent trips home.

  Ten got in front, and then reached back for her hand. “If you’ll allow me?”

  They jogged hand in hand to the black SUV that was waiting in visitor parking. Ten helped her inside, then went around to the driver’s side and got in.

  He turned to her as he started the engine. “There’s no need to panic. I overheard the doctor telling him he has a little arrhythmia. Nothing he can’t live with for a very long time.”

  That was news to Lana. Her father didn’t have any health problems that she knew of. He was sixty-two and he still ran practically every day. He’d never smoked and he drank in moderation. The only vice he had was too much shellfish, which could be high in cholesterol. The man loved shrimp and lobster; he could devour steamed soft-shell crabs by the bucketful.

  * * *

  As he drove out of the parking lot, Ten noticed a short dark-skinned man with thick dreadlocks surreptitiously snap a photo of them with his cell phone. He smiled with satisfaction. Earlier, while he was waiting for Lana to arrive, he had seen the same man rubbernecking when the passengers from Lana’s flight were disembarking. The guy had obviously been waiting for someone and, when his gaze had fallen on Lana, he’d taken a couple of photos of her. Ten had then immediately taken photos of him.

  “Did you see that?” Lana asked.

  “See what?” Ten casually said.

  “That guy just took our picture. Why would he do that?” The picture-snapper
was dressed shabbily in dirty jeans, stained white athletic shoes and a faded long-sleeved shirt. Not the basic attire of a reporter. And Lana didn’t believe she was gossip-worthy enough for grungy paparazzi to have any interest in her. Besides, wouldn’t they use professional-quality cameras instead of a cell-phone camera?

  “Have you ever seen him before?” Ten wanted to know. He watched as the guy got into a late-model Toyota Corolla. He made a mental note of the car’s tag number.

  “No,” Lana responded tiredly.

  * * *

  “Are you a celebrity or something?” she asked, looking sideways at him.

  Ten laughed. “In no way, shape or form,” he said. “I work behind the camera. Are you?”

  Lana gave him a suspicious look. If he’d done his homework on her father before approaching him about doing a documentary on him, wouldn’t he have found out that Aaron Braithwaite’s only child was married to one of the most notorious frauds of the century? Or maybe she was giving Jeremy too much credit. Yes, he was public enemy number one in San Francisco but how many people had ever heard of him on a global scale?

  “I would have to say no to that,” she said dryly.

  “Maybe he just likes taking photos of beautiful women,” Ten said, smiling at her.

  Lana laughed. “Now you’re being ridiculous.”

  “Beautiful and modest, too,” Ten said admiringly.

  “Just keep your eyes on the road, buster,” Lana jokingly told him. But his compliment had relaxed her and made her laugh. God knew she could use a good laugh.

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Ten good-naturedly, focusing on his driving.

  The traffic from the airport was congested but once they got on the interstate, driving was a cinch. They made small talk all the way to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, where Aaron had been admitted into the hospital.

  “Nice little town,” Ten said. “There’s no traffic to speak of.”

  “Your first time here?” asked Lana, peering at him with a small smile on her lips.

  “Your dad and I have had many conversations over the phone but this is my first visit to the Outer Banks,” Ten told her.

  “Oh, then I should at least give you a little background on Kitty Hawk,” Lana offered pleasantly. “The town’s best known for being the site of the Wright brothers’ test ground for their first controlled airplane flights. Although that was misinformation because the actual site’s about four miles from Kitty Hawk in sand dunes the locals refer to as Kill Devil Hills. Kitty Hawk today is a pleasant town with a population of about 3300 residents. It gets its fair share of visitors, though, especially in the warmer months. The beaches here are very pristine.”

  “You could probably say that about all of the beaches in the Outer Banks,” Ten ventured. “This area looks like it’s washed clean by Mother Nature on a regular basis.”

  Lana laughed softly. “That’s a nice way to put it. A lot of people out here have very strong feelings about keeping the Outer Banks as close to the way nature made it as possible. So when developers start making noise about building huge resorts to attract more tourists, and so forth, you can bet you’re going to get some opposition. Then, too, nature has a way of keeping the Outer Banks pure. We build roads, nature floods them. We build bridges and the ocean erodes them. Sometimes it can be a hard life, but like Dad says, you’ve got to be tough to be an Outer Banker.”

  Ten noted the fond tone in her voice. How her smile never wavered as she talked of her beloved home. If she loved it so much, what had kept her away for so long?

  Why had it taken scheming from the FBI and her father to get her back here?

  “Your father said you live in San Francisco,” he said, instead of asking her what he really wanted to ask her.

  “Yeah, my hus... I mean, I’ve lived there for about a decade now.” She suddenly focused on something outside of the window.

  They rode in silence. Ten let the husband comment slip. It wasn’t his place to pry any further into her private life than he had to in order to get the job done. He felt acutely sympathetic toward her. Now that he’d met her, he believed more than ever that she had not been privy to Jeremy Corday’s illegal business dealings.

  Once they were in the city of Kitty Hawk, the trip through town and out to North Croatan Highway where Albemarle Health’s Regional Medical Center was located took only fifteen minutes. Ten pulled up to the entrance.

  “Go on in,” he said. “I’ll find a parking space and meet you inside.”

  She looked at him with those beautiful brown eyes and he fairly melted. “Thank you, Mr. West, but if you have someplace else to be I can get home from here.”

  “On the contrary, Mrs. Corday,” he told her calmly, “it would be my pleasure to wait and drive you home. I promised your father I’d look after you and I always keep my promises.”

  Lana didn’t know what to say to that. A helpful man who always kept his promises?

  She didn’t have time to argue the point with him. Her father needed her.

  “Okay then,” she relented with a smile. She got out, closed the door and hurried inside. Ten watched her for a moment as she gracefully walked toward the steel-framed glass wall that encased the automatic doors. His heart was still thudding from the impact of her smile.

  He blew air between full lips as he drove away to locate a parking spot. “Lord, this is not going to be an easy assignment.”

  * * *

  “Keep running,” Dr. Sanjay Khan said to Aaron, his lilting voice kind. “Just don’t overdo it. At your age a couple of miles a day is enough. I’m not even going to prescribe any medication because your arrhythmia doesn’t call for it. I do want you on the aspirin regimen and you need to watch your cholesterol more closely.”

  Aaron, lying in bed, one arm behind his head as he sat propped up on pillows, laughed softly. “Doc, you’re not going to take my butter away, are you? What am I going to dip my lobster in?”

  Dr. Khan laughed, too. “Butter and lobster, no wonder your cholesterol’s high. I want you on olive oil and good omega-3 seafood like salmon.”

  “I hate the taste of both,” Aaron complained.

  “You’ll just have to get used to them,” Lana spoke up as she entered the room.

  She walked straight over to her father, and kissed him on the cheek, then greeted Dr. Khan with a warm smile and a hearty hello.

  Dr. Khan, in his late forties, was about her height and looked fit in his white physician’s coat with a white shirt and black tie underneath, black slacks and sturdy black oxfords. His dark liquid eyes lit up at her hello. “You must be Lana,” he said. “Your father has been expecting you.”

  “Yes,” said Lana, smiling warmly. She lovingly gazed at Aaron. “How is he, Doctor?”

  Aaron started to say something, and Lana shushed him. He fell quiet, his face a mass of grins. He was so delighted to have her home, he didn’t care that she was being bossy, as usual.

  Dr. Khan patiently went over Aaron’s condition with Lana. She asked questions and he answered them to her satisfaction. When she felt there was no more to learn on the subject, she thanked Dr. Khan who told them he had to go but he would be back in the morning at which time he would let Aaron know if he could go home. The doctor advised that there were still test results that hadn’t come in yet.

  Alone with her father, Lana fell on him and hugged him tightly. Then she rose and peered into his beloved face, a face that was a pleasant reminder of their shared genetics. He also had a dash of freckles across the bridge of his nose. And if not for his sixty-two years his hair would have been the same red-brown. Today, it was pure white. His skin was a deep golden-brown due to the sun, wind and salt air that he lived in every day. She loved the crinkles around his brown eyes and the bushy white eyebrows above them.

  “I’ve missed you,” she said. T
ears came to her eyes in spite of her attempt to keep them at bay.

  Aaron squeezed her hand. “I’m fine, sweetheart. You know nothing gets me down for long.”

  “I do,” she said, trying to sound upbeat. “But the older I get the more I realize that you’re not getting any younger, either. That’s a scary thought. What would I do if anything ever happened to you? It’s not like I have a huge family to fall back on.”

  Her mother, Mariette, had a sister, Dorothy—Aunt Dottie to Lana—who lived in Florida. However her father was the last of the Braithwaites in North Carolina. There were some distant cousins in Massachusetts whom he never heard from. He and Mariette had wanted to have more children but they’d only been blessed with Lana.

  Lana wanted to have children with Jeremy but he had convinced her to wait a few more years. He said he wanted to enjoy their time as a couple for the first five years of their marriage. Then he said they could have a child or two. If given the choice of having Jeremy’s child with her now or him, Lana would have chosen the child. Just because Jeremy had proven unreliable and less than honest didn’t mean his child would have been tainted. The child would have been loved by her beyond measure.

  “You’re only thirty-two. There’s still time to have children and make me a granddaddy,” Aaron reminded her, his eyes twinkling with merriment.

  Lana laughed. “In case you haven’t heard, my husband’s a fugitive and I’m in the process of divorcing him.”

  “A wise decision, as I told you over the phone,” her father said. He patted the side of the bed and Lana sat down. He hugged her close. “Lana, there’s only one way to get on with your life when something as devastating as what happened to you occurs. You have to keep moving forward. You had plans before you met Jeremy. Some of them you put on hold for him. Becoming a mother was one of them. Jeremy’s not in the picture anymore. You have the reins. Don’t allow his behavior to define the rest of your life. We can’t control other people’s behavior. All we can do is control how we react to it.”