Tears trickled down Sara’s splotchy red cheeks as she closed her eyes, but a hint of a smile worked its way onto her lips. She sniffled and leaned into him. Her arms went around his waist as she buried her face in his neck. He inhaled the vanilla scent slowly, savoring the moment, knowing it would never come again. He worked his arm around her waist and pulled her close. She shifted and found his lips with hers.
He relaxed into the kiss and wished the weightless feeling in the pit of his stomach could last forever. Around them, the vibrations traveling through the floor changed. The trailer was slowing. He pulled away from her lips. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
She held him tight. “Zach,” she said. “This can’t possibly end well.”
He moved far enough away to see her face. “You know, the illusion that this could ever be a normal, traditional relationship is pretty much lying in a shattered heap in an alley somewhere in Clearwater. It is what it is, and wherever it goes…” He held out his hand.
“We go together,” she said and took his hand.
He frowned.
“What?” Sara asked.
“It’s just… I feel like I’ve done half of Hare’s list in the last three days. You sure you still trust me?”
She snorted. “If you still think that list means anything, you really are crazy.”
The trailer shifted left, then right, bouncing them around. Sara pushed him toward the closet door. “We’re pulling off the main road. We should think about getting out of here.”
“We have to get up and move around to work some of the stiffness out. We may have to leave in a hurry.” They crawled into the closet and Sara closed the door.
“Right. Give me a hand up,” Sara said.
“I was going to ask you for help,” he said, steadying himself with one hand braced against a wall.
“Shit. Lean on me.”
“Come on.” He shoved himself up, clasped her elbow with his hand, and pulled her to standing.
“God. My ass hurts,” she whispered, moving her hands behind her.
Zach said nothing as she limped around the closet.
They staggered as the trailer slowed again. It bounced up an incline and over a bump as it entered a parking lot. He opened the door a crack and peeked out.
“Where are we?” Sara asked.
“South side. Probably down around Fifty-fourth Avenue.”
“We’re stopping.”
“Yeah,” he said. “We should wait here for a few minutes, then try to work our way to the door and out.”
“My thought, exactly. If we get separated, we’ll need a place to meet.”
He thought for a quick moment. “Behind Carol’s Deli on Sixteenth. Up on the north side of town.”
Outside, shoes on concrete headed toward them.
“Shh.”
The door clicked. A voice rasped into the trailer, “I don’t know who you are, but your chance to come out before I call the police is right now. I suggest you take advantage of my generosity.”
“How the hell did he know?” Sara whispered into Zach’s ear.
He shrugged. “Move to the back, away from the door. I’ll go out and when I get the chance, I’ll take off headed south. If he comes inside to check, kick the plastic loose and run for it.”
“What if he chases you?”
“Go out the door with your bag and go north. Carol’s on Sixteenth.” He kissed her forehead.
Zach touched her hand before pushing the bifold doors open. Drawing a deep breath, he stepped into the bedroom. “I’m here. I’m coming out.”
Zach walked to the open door with his palms out in surrender. The truck driver stood on the concrete lot. He was a stocky, forty-something man in a dark blue coverall. His full beard was shot here and there with gray, and a cap with a cloth neck flap covered his head. Stepping back, he motioned behind Zach.
“You come on out, too, young lady.”
Zach rolled his eyes at Sara, who walked toward the door, hands raised, holding her overnight bag containing their supplies. “Hide?”
She shook her head. “Together.”
He turned his attention back to the man on the ground. “We’re coming out, sir. We don’t want any trouble.”
The middle-aged man narrowed an eye at Zach, and tipped his red cap back on his scalp. The hat’s cloth neck cover flicked in the breeze. “Got a funny way of avoidin’ it, dontcha, kid?”
“I can explain.” Zach descended the metal steps. They were in a deserted parking lot. To Zach’s left, an old, abandoned Mexican-turned-fried chicken fast food place stood mute testament to the economic state of the area. On his right, a gutted gas station loomed.
“Good. I can hardly wait. Meantime, sit your ass down right there.” The man pointed a two-foot long, black, metal stun baton at the trailer tires. “You, too, Missy.” The man gestured to Sara with the baton.
Zach did as instructed. Sara joined him on the ground, propped against the other wheel.
“Put your hands on your head.” The man pointed at their heads with the baton. “And stick your legs out and cross your ankles.” When they complied, he shifted his attention from Zach to Sara, then back to Zach. “Slow. Take them shades off, boy. I like to see who I’m talking to.”
Zach slowly slid the shades to the top of his head.
“Better.” The man held an old-style cellular phone in his other hand. “Now, convince me not to call the cops, and make it good, ’cause you got one chance.”
Sara inhaled to speak, but Zach cut her off. “My mother-in-law’s sick. We just got word this morning she’s in the hospital. My wife and I,” he said, nodding in Sara’s direction. “We were on our way up from Lauderdale, when our car broke down. Instead of spending the day fooling with it in Ft. Myers, we decided we needed to get up here as soon as possible. I’ll go back for the car tomorrow.” The ease with which the lie rolled off his tongue surprised Zach.
The man glanced from Zach to Sara, and back again. “Good story, kid. Total bullshit, but still, not bad for made up on the fly. Now, if nobody has a better line…” He shifted his attention to Sara, his thumb poised over the phone’s screen.
“If you call the police, sir, you’ll be causing this man’s death.”
Zach whipped his head to Sara. “Don’t.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Hey,” the man growled. “Fight on your own time. You.” He pointed the stun club at Zach. “Quiet. Let the lady talk.” He nodded at Sara. “Now, you was sayin’?”
“I’m a Secret Service Special Agent. I have my creds in my jacket pocket. This man is in my protective custody and I’m transporting him to Clearwater. He has information vital to an investigation regarding high-level illegalities in the government, and if you call the local police, we’ll both be dead before morning.”
The man chewed on his lower lip. “Zat so?”
Sara nodded. “Yes, sir, it is.”
“I look stupid to you, Missy?”
“No, sir, you look like someone who wants to know who’s in his trailer.”
“You got some ID, you say?”
Sara nodded again. “In my upper left inside jacket pocket. I will slowly unbutton my jacket with my left hand. When it opens, you will see a shoulder holster. My weapon is in it. I will reach into my jacket with my left hand and remove my credentials. If you like, I will remove my weapon and place it on the ground at my feet.”
The man stared at her for a long moment. “Okay. Really slow.” He stepped closer to Sara, turned the stun club’s power to full, and lowered the tip to within an inch of her leg. “No funny business.”
“No funny business,” Sara echoed. She moved her hand toward her jacket.
The man glanced at Zach. “What’s your name, boy?”
Zach swallowed. “Watson, James Watson, sir. I’m a computer programmer.”
The man’s gaze traveled up Zach’s wrinkled slacks and over the bright yellow Hawaiian print shirt Sara’s father had
given him, coming to rest on Zach’s coal black, spiked hair and mirrored, wrap-around shades. “Yeah, you look the type. You do anything wrong to get this important information, Mr. Watson?” He took the credentials Sara offered and examined them.
Zach shrugged. “Wrong place, wrong time. Other than that, no, sir.”
The man nodded, handed Sara her credentials. “Guess you two can stand up.” When they did, he continued, “Name’s Hank. Hank Brume.” He gestured to the Glock with his chin. “Pick up your gun, ma’am. How far you say you’re goin’?”
“Clearwater.” She bent over, plucked her gun from the ground, and wiped it with her jacket.
The three turned together at the sound of another vehicle crossing the concrete behind the trailer. A black SUV threw a cloud of dust into the air as it ground to a halt. Two men piled out. Zach recognized the driver as Newman, the one Sara stunned outside GenTest. White tape still crossed his nose. The passenger, who Zach identified as Murphy, sported a bandage above his left eye. They rushed around the doors and toward the front of the truck, their hands reaching under their jackets.
“Run, Zach!” Sara screamed as the men raised guns.
Zach sprinted for Newman. Shots exploded around them as he slammed his hunched shoulder into Newman’s gut, driving him into the front fender of the SUV. Zach stepped back. Newman crumpled to the ground, a red-rimmed hole in his chest. Zach spun. Murphy was gone. Brume lay face-down in the lot, his stun club a few feet from his outstretched arm. Beside the trailer, Sara sprawled, facing the sky, her Glock still in her hand. A patch of crimson stained her white blouse. Zach stepped toward her, his stomach in free-fall as the world collapsed around him.
“Freeze! Don’t move,” a voice rasped from behind and to his right. Zach stopped. Murphy stood and propped himself on the hood of the SUV, both hands holding his gun. An expanding circle of red, already the size of a fist, colored his shirt. “Far enough, Dr. Marshall.” Murphy winced from the effort of shouting. He coughed. “You drive. In.” He gestured the gun at the SUV.
“But…” Zach hesitated. He had to get to Sara.
“Get in the god-damned truck, Marshall, before I shoot you in the balls and leave you both for dead.” He coughed again. This time a spot of red touched a corner of his mouth. “I don’t have all god-damned day and I have a couple of questions to ask you.”
“What about Sara?”
Murphy inclined his head toward where Sara lay on the concrete. “Who? Gopher-girl? Fuck her. Now.” Murphy lowered his gun toward Zach’s crotch. “What’s it going to be?”
Zach climbed in through the open driver’s door.
“That’s what I thought, pussy. In.” He gestured with the gun for emphasis.
As soon as Zach was in the driver’s seat, Murphy opened the passenger door and climbed in. “Drive.”
He turned toward Murphy. “What about Brume and Newman?”
“Who?” Murphy’s facial expression mirrored his question.
“The old guy in the coveralls.”
“Fuck ’em.” Murphy coughed again. This time, a trickle of blood ran down his chin. “I said drive.” He shoved the gun barrel into Zach’s side. “Or, swear to God, Marshall, I’m going to blow a hole in you big enough I could step through, and drive this piece of shit myself.” Murphy pulled a white handkerchief from a jacket pocket, and with another wince of pain, pressed it against the hole in his chest. “Go south and take the first left.”
Zach backed the SUV from behind the trailer. In the distance, sirens grew louder. “You’re going to need that looked at, Special Agent Murphy.” Zach turned the wheel to the left and pulled into a break in traffic. The truck was straight manual drive with only a basic GPS system.
Murphy leaned against the door, still pointing his gun at Zach’s side. “I’ve had worse. Take the next left and get on the interstate headed north.”
“Where are we going, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“I’ll tell you when to turn. Just drive.”
When the light changed, he pressed the accelerator. The big machine powered up the ramp. “I have to say, Agent Murphy, I’m impressed. How’d you find us so fast?”
Murphy laughed. “That was easy. We found the car about twenty minutes after you bugged out of the motel. Good thinking, by the way, sticking it in a parking lot and popping the antenna. Stupid GPS signal kept registering the thing in a different lot a hundred yards away. Only two vehicles left the truck stop parking lot between the time you got there and when we showed up. We chased the other one down half way to Miami. Funny, really, picking the one headed north. Gotta say, your luck’s shit.” He laughed again, but this time, the sound was a little strained. “Speaking of lucky, I’ve been wondering, Doc, how is Gopher-girl in the sack?”
“Why do you call her that?” Zach merged the SUV into the left lane and pressed the accelerator. The speedometer climbed to eighty in a couple of heartbeats.
Murphy shrugged a shoulder. “Stiles came up with it. It stuck. She runs errands. You know, go for this, go for that, a go-fer.”
Zach nodded. “Sorry to disappoint you, but we haven’t… you know.”
“Too bad.” Murphy shifted in the seat, grunting in pain. “Well, enough chit fucking chat, Doc. Where’s the other flash drive?”
“What other flash drive?”
Murphy shifted the gun and pulled the trigger. The sound exploded in the closed SUV. Zach shrieked. The muffled sounds of blaring horns sent him swerving back into his lane. It took Zach two full seconds to realize blood was oozing out of the hole in his left thigh, soaking into his pants. The road swam in front of him until a cracking sound on his head brought him around again. He lifted his hand and felt wetness on his scalp. Blood stained his fingertips.
“I said, don’t you pass out on me, Doc, now drive, god-damn it.”
Zach pushed down on the accelerator with his good leg. The throbbing in his left leg intensified.
“Go ahead, fuck around, Doc. I got nine more shots, and you only need one leg and one hand to drive. Now, answer my question or we’re going to play kneecaps.” Tropicana Stadium passed by on the right, almost too quickly to notice.
“Sara took it.”
“Okay, fuck you.” Murphy pointed the gun at Zach’s injured leg.
He jumped. “Okay! Okay. I have it.” He nudged the accelerator again.
Murphy’s smile widened, revealing blood-accented teeth. “Good. Now we’re getting somewhere. I’m not such a bad guy, as long as you don’t screw with me.”
Zach seethed with fury. “Screw with you? You’ve killed everyone who means anything to me, ruined my career, burned my house down, kidnapped me, and shot me in the leg. You’re insane.” Zach’s foot pressed harder as he spoke. The SUV passed two other cars as the speedometer passed ninety.
“Hey, Doc. Nothing personal. It’s just business.” Murphy coughed again. Tiny drips of blood spattered onto the windshield. “Slow down. You’ll draw attention to us.”
Zach gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles white, as the speedometer crept over a hundred miles an hour. “You killed my best friend,” he said in a calm voice. “You killed Sara’s parents. You killed Sara and it’s nothing personal?”
“It was just orders.” The scenery rushing by grabbed Murphy’s attention for a second. “I said slow down.”
Ahead, I-275 lifted into a graceful, banked curve to the left that took it over a crossroad. Zach relaxed and smiled as he focused on the tip of Murphy’s nose. “When.”
Murphy lowered the gun and cocked his head. “What?”
“Not what. Then.” Zach’s right hand flicked toward Murphy’s nose, catching it dead-on with the flat of his fist, just the way he and Sara’s mother had practiced. There was a satisfying crunch as the blow crushed cartilage. Murphy’s head snapped into the bullet-resistant side window. He pulled his hands to his face, screaming in surprise and pain.
“Now it’s personal.” Zach faced forward and shoved his foot to the flo
or. Murphy’s response was barely audible over the whine of tires on pavement as the speedometer swept past a hundred and twenty. He aimed the SUV at the graceful, curving overpass. “Should’ve put your seat belt on, asshole.”
Brilliant azure sky filled the windshield as the SUV crashed through the metal guardrail and launched into the open space between the columns holding up the northbound ramp above them and the concrete wall to their left. Zach slipped his weightless foot off the accelerator when the screaming from the engine replaced the whine from the tires. He relaxed as the world tipped over on itself, rushing toward them at a sickening angle, and waited to die.
The steering wheel bent like putty in his hands as the front end impacted, throwing dirt and grass up in a curtain. The air bag exploded, throwing a wall of stinging white into his face. The smell of gunpowder and burnt rubber filled his nose. Alternating flashes of blue sky against dark green flickered through Zach’s peripheral vision. Safety glass shattered and filled the truck’s cabin as the world outside rolled over and over. Each turn brought more sounds of twisting metal mixed with new screams from beside Zach.
Then, everything was quiet.
CHAPTER 24
Zach opened his eyes to a flood of pain. He looked around, dazed, surprised that the world was right-side up. The barbed-wire sensation around his chest was joined by a deep ache in his left leg. The windshield was a mosaic of crazed fracture lines, impossible to see through. He was alone in the crumpled cab of the SUV. The steering wheel was bent into an odd shape, and the deflated airbag lay limp across his lap. Outside, tires screeched against pavement, and several people raced toward him. A young man’s face peered in through his missing side window.
“Hey, man! Are you all right? Can you hear me?”
Zach’s hand moved to the seatbelt release button and pressed it. “Help me out,” he said to the stranger who gripped the door. Zach pulled on the latch, even more surprised when the door creaked open. Shattered remnants of safety glass rained down from the edges of the window opening. He smiled at the thought of Sara climbing from Murphy’s Cadillac, but his smile turned to sorrow at the memory of her lying in the parking lot where he’d left her. He swung his legs out, feet contacting the grass at the edge of the road below the overpass. His rescuer, a boy of about seventeen, offered Zach a hand as he climbed out of the SUV.
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