Final Exit

by LENA DIAZ,

  He sucked in a pained breath at her words.

  And suddenly Abby’s terrified eyes filled his vision.

  Her screams of terror from the passenger seat, turning into shouts of warning. The century-old oak tree rushing to meet them. Kade, desperately turning the wheel. Too late. Too late. Metal crunching, popping, crushing.

  Killing.

  The horrific images faded, only to be replaced with a more recent memory, Henry Sanchez’s dark eyes staring up at him from the autopsy drawer. But instead of looking cloudy and unfocused, this time his eyes were open and staring at Kade in silent accusation.

  You did this to me. This is your fault.

  Kade swallowed the bile in his throat and slowly shook his head.

  “No, Bailey. I haven’t been one of the good guys in a long, long time.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Saturday, 5:57 p.m.

  Guilt was something that Bailey wasn’t too familiar with, because she made it her life’s mission to do what she believed was right, to never shrink away from doing something just because the path was difficult. But as she walked with Kade through the back hallways of the hospital to avoid running into Lieutenant Russell again, guilt crushed down on her like a boulder.

  She couldn’t quit picturing the bottomless well of pain that had flashed in his eyes when he’d told her that he wasn’t a good man. Her use of him as her emotional punching bag was inexcusable. But she didn’t know how to fix what she’d done.

  Or even if she wanted to.

  Maybe it was better, safer, for both of them to leave things the way they were now. All of this emotional stuff flowing between them was unsettling. She couldn’t afford to let her guard down, and neither could he. This truce, or whatever it was, was temporary. As soon as they were out of the hospital she’d be looking for a way to ditch him so she could escape the government’s net. And even if Kade was having a change of heart and wanted to help her avoid being caught, she was much better alone. Because alone meant she didn’t have to worry about anyone else.

  And if she wasn’t with Kade, she couldn’t hurt him anymore.

  Kade stopped just short of the exit doors and pulled Bailey back against the wall. “I have a bad feeling about this. First Hawke, then Sanchez. I don’t know which of my men I can trust anymore. We need to make damn sure no one’s out there gunning for us before we step out those doors.”

  “Who’s Sanchez?”

  Her frown reminded him that he hadn’t told her about the other murdered Enforcer yet. Wonderful. If she didn’t hate him already, once she heard what had happened it would tip the scales the rest of the way.

  He sighed and faced her. “Henry Sanchez is an Enforcer. I saw his name on the monitor outside of Hawke’s room. He was brought in for an allergic reaction and died. That didn’t feel right, so I verified the cause of death and that it was the same Sanchez I’ve had an agent following.”

  “You verified cause of death? How?”

  “I went to the morgue.”

  Her brows rose. “I see.”

  He’d expected anger or condemnation. Surprisingly, he saw neither. She seemed to be thinking hard, as if trying to put the puzzle pieces together.

  He glanced toward the doors that led to a parking garage.

  “I must have taken a wrong turn,” he said. “I don’t think the lot where we left the Mustang is near the parking garage. But I can’t risk going back into the main part of the hospital if Porter, and potentially others, are inside looking for me. I’ll have to go outside and work my way around the building. But first I have to figure out what to do about you.”

  “Come again?” she asked. “What are you talking about?”

  He let out an impatient breath. “Porter is coming after me, because I found out about Sanchez. But no one knows that you’re here except for the police. I think you should hide down here in one of the storage rooms until it’s safe to leave.”

  She put her hands on her hips. “If you think I’m going to cower somewhere while you’re running for your life, then you’re just as much of a jerk as I was when I said those hateful things to you upstairs. I didn’t mean any of them, by the way. Okay, maybe I did, in the heat of the moment. But I don’t now. I’m sorry, Kade. Really sorry. And I’m not letting you face this mess on your own. We do this together or not at all.”

  “Don’t be stubborn, Bailey.”

  “You haven’t begun to see stubborn. Trust me. You can’t win this argument. You’re just wasting time.”

  “I could tie you up.”

  “Promises, promises.”

  He choked out a laugh. “You’re really something, you know that?”

  She grinned. “And I’m nowhere near my best today. Imagine how awesome I would be if I’d actually had some sleep in the past forty-five hours or whatever the count is up to now.”

  “If we manage to get out of here without getting killed, I’ll pull guard duty and you can sleep as long as you want.”

  “Deal.”

  They headed toward the doors again.

  “I sure wish I had a gun,” she complained.

  “You and me both.”

  They’d left their weapons in the trunk, not wanting to risk that the hospital might have a metal detector. Or that the police might show up and catch them with any weapons inside.

  He shoved open the door and they hurried outside.

  They wound their way through the garage, around the outside of the hospital to the lot where they’d left their car. The strain of all the walking up and down stairs earlier, plus weaving through the garage and around the building, was starting to turn a good-leg day into a bad one. Sharp pain shot up the back of his thigh every time he took a step. And from the way Bailey kept glancing at him, her brow furrowed with worry, he must be limping. He focused on trying to walk without favoring his bad leg.

  “I can see the car,” she said as they hurried into the parking lot and started up an aisle. “A few aisles away, on the far side.”

  A few moments later, the hospital doors slid open. Kade looked back and saw a tall man in a suit step outside. In this heat, that alone made him seem suspicious. Kade often wore suit jackets when he needed to cover his gun. There was one in the back of the Mustang right now for just that purpose.

  He pulled Bailey down behind an SUV a third of the way up the aisle and peered over the top.

  A pale woman with blond hair stepped out through the same doors, also wearing a suit jacket over her white blouse and dress pants. She stopped to talk to the man, then they both looked toward the parking lot.

  Kade ducked down beside Bailey. “There’s a man and a woman in suits near the entrance and I’m pretty damn sure they’re looking for us.”

  She eased her way to the end of the vehicle and poked her head out, then ducked back. “No question. I can smell a Fed a mile away. And those two reek.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  She grinned. “No offense.”

  He rolled his eyes.

  She peeked out again, then jerked back. “They’re heading straight toward us. Did they see us?”

  “I don’t think so.” A cold feeling settled in his gut. Had the agents tracked him here? He reached down to his leg brace and felt inside the top.

  “What are you doing? Does your leg hurt?”

  “Pretty much all the time,” he muttered. “I’m fine,” he said, in answer to her worried look. “But I came prepared to turn you over to one of my teams today, after I proved you were wrong about there being some kind of conspiracy to kill Enforcers. There’s a GPS tracker in the top of the brace. Before I left the house in Boulder, I gave Faegan the frequency and told him I’d put the tracker on you once I found you. Then I was supposed to call him so he could send a team to pick you up.”

  She nodded matter-of-factly. “So whoever this Faegan is, he’s tracking you without you calling him first. I think we know who’s leading the conspiracy now.”

  He stared at her. “Aren’t you mad at me?�
�

  “Because you were doing your job and planned on turning me over? You didn’t know me when you planned that. But you know me now. At least, you know me well enough not to turn me over now, right? At least, not while we’re still figuring out what’s going on?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then why would I be mad? What’s the plan? Please tell me you have a plan because, honestly, I’m too tired to think one up at the moment.”

  He yanked her to him and planted a quick, hard kiss against her lips. When he pulled back she blinked at him, looking stunned.

  “What was that for?” she asked.

  “Hell if I know. I couldn’t resist.”

  The grin that spread across her lips reached all the way to her eyes. “Told you I’m good.”

  He laughed, then sobered. “Focus. Okay, give me a second.”

  He pulled the lining open on the leg brace and pulled out the tiny disc he’d put there earlier. There was a second disc, a backup, farther down. But he hadn’t activated it, so he didn’t bother digging it out.

  “I doubt those two agents are the only ones after us.” He tossed the disc under the SUV. “Come on.”

  He led her in between the cars to the second row of vehicles, then paused near a bumper. Behind them was another open aisle for cars to drive down. It was tempting to race across the empty space to the next row of cars, but they couldn’t risk it just yet. They couldn’t outrun a bullet, so not being seen was their best defense.

  This time Bailey took a turn bending down to look under the car they were behind. She looked right, then left, then straightened. The worry lines on her brow told him things had just gone from bad to worse.

  “Two more agents,” she whispered, “coming from the other direction.”

  Kade carefully raised up just enough to see for himself. One of the new agents was Porter. Soon the two pairs of agents would meet up in the middle, with only the length of two cars separating them from where Bailey and Kade were hiding.

  Bailey pointed across the open space. She wanted them to run for it.

  Kade shook his head. Too dangerous.

  She frowned and pointed again. He followed the direction where she was pointing and realized they were closer to the Mustang than he’d realized. But it was still too far away, two aisles over plus a good distance down the line of cars. He’d never make it before an agent saw him. His damn leg would slow him down too much.

  He pulled his keys out of his pocket, careful not to let them hit each other and make any noise. Then he held them out to her and motioned toward the Mustang.

  She pointed at him and motioned for him to come with her.

  He shook his head no and indicated his leg.

  She pushed the keys back toward him, refusing to take them. Then she crossed her arms. The message was clear. She wasn’t going anywhere without him.

  He gave her his best frown.

  Her shrug told him she was unimpressed.

  He shook his head again then peeked over the top of the car to locate the agents. All four had met in the middle of the aisle a few cars down and appeared to be discussing what to do next. Had he been wrong about the tracker? Maybe Faegan wasn’t in on this after all. Maybe it was all Porter all along and he was the one with ties to someone higher up.

  The agents he was directing might not even know the real reason they were there. Porter could have given them any number of stories to get them to go to the hospital with him. Even now they could just be following orders. None of them had met Kade before. They had no reason to suspect he was one of them.

  Three of the agents turned their backs to him and Bailey while the fourth pointed diagonally across another aisle. Maybe they’d spotted someone and thought it was Kade?

  “This is our best chance, while they’re distracted,” he whispered to Bailey. “Let’s go.”

  They both took off, crouching low as they ran across the open space to the next row of cars. No sounds of pursuit echoed behind them so they kept going, not stopping until they reached the Mustang.

  Kade’s leg was throbbing so hard that the muscle was starting to spasm. He shoved the keys into Bailey’s hand while gritting his teeth against the pain.

  “You have to drive,” he told her.

  She glanced at his leg before dashing to the driver’s side while Kade got in on the passenger side.

  They were careful to pull the doors shut as softly as possible. But they must have made more noise than they’d realized. A shout sounded from one of the agents, and they took off running toward the Mustang.

  Bailey started the engine and shoved the car into reverse, then swore and slammed the brake.

  “Go, go,” Kade urged.

  “Can’t unless you want grandma grandpa splatter all over the back of the car.”

  He looked over his shoulder. An elderly couple was slowly working their way behind the Mustang toward the hospital, one with a cane, the other with a walker. The front of the Mustang was blocked by another vehicle. They were trapped.

  He whirled back around, facing the front. One of the agents was heading straight toward them. But he must have seen the couple, too, and at least had enough character not to involve them. His gun was out, but down by his thigh.

  Kade turned again, watching the couple’s painfully slow progress.

  As soon as they cleared the bumper, he yelled, “Now.”

  Bailey punched the gas, tires squealing as she did a sharp turn, then slammed the gear into drive.

  The windshield cracked as a gunshot rang out.

  The couple screamed.

  “Are they hurt?” Bailey yelled. She floored the accelerator and the car took off like a rocket toward the exit.

  “No, just scared. Ah, hell.” He shoved Bailey down into the seat and threw himself on top of her as more shots rang out, shattering the back window into thousands of little pieces that rained down inside the car.

  He jerked upright, grabbing the wheel just in time to avoid hitting another car.

  Bailey straightened and shoved his hand off the steering wheel, then took a corner far too fast, the car lifting onto two wheels for a stomach-churning second before slamming back to earth.

  More shots rang out, but none of them hit their mark. The Mustang screeched around the corner of the building, blocking the view of the parking lot and finally giving them some cover.

  “There, turn there.” Kade pointed to the turnoff that led to the main road.

  “Got it.” Bailey drove like a NASCAR driver on steroids, shifting gears and taking turns so fast that Kade was certain the car was going to roll. But through it all she maintained control, more or less.

  Five minutes later they were barreling down the interstate. Kade pulled his cell phone out.

  “What are you doing?”

  Bailey’s voice was tight with alarm, which frustrated Kade to no end. Would she ever really trust him? Then again, Hawke was dead. She’d just found out that Sanchez, another Enforcer, was dead. And four agents, one of whom had been working for him for weeks, had just tried to kill them.

  Yeah, maybe expecting her to trust him was stupid after all. He didn’t even trust himself. He hadn’t trusted himself in a long time.

  “Maybe those agents found us because of Sanchez,” he said. “In fact, I’m betting they probably did and Porter’s our bad apple. But I’m not taking any chances. This is a company-issued phone.”

  He slammed the phone against the gearshift over and over until it was a mangled mess and the computer components were hanging out in pieces. He rolled down the window and tossed the ruined phone like a Frisbee onto the highway. A semi traveling behind them finished the job of reducing it to roadkill.

  “Remind me not to ever let you borrow my phone,” she teased. “Anyone following us?” She wove around a slow-moving car before accelerating again.

  Kade watched the road behind them for a minute. “I don’t think so. But they don’t have to be tracking us to know we would have headed to the hig
hway. It was the fastest way to put some distance between us and the hospital.”

  He motioned toward her pocket. “If you can trust me with your phone, in spite of my destructive tendencies, I’ll use your maps app to plot an alternate course.”

  “Don’t bother.” She downshifted, then squealed around another car amidst a flurry of honking horns, barely making the next exit without rolling the car. “I know where we are. I’ve got this.”

  It took a full minute before he could breathe normally again and force his fingers to uncurl from the armrest.

  “I hope you’re right,” he finally said. “Because to me it just seems like you’re going to get us killed.”

  She smiled and pressed the gas pedal all the way to the floor. “If I do, we’ll die happy. This is fun.”

  Kade stared at her incredulously. Who knew she was Thelma and Louise all rolled up into one person? Hopefully there wasn’t a cliff nearby for her to drive off.

  Chapter Twelve

  Saturday, 7:03 p.m.

  Bailey punched the security code into the keypad, then hopped back into the Mustang. As soon as the garage door was high enough to clear the roof of the car, she zipped inside. By the time Kade had even opened his car door, she’d already gotten out and pressed the button on the wall to close the garage.

  Was he limping worse than before? He was definitely moving slower. She was about to ask him about his leg when he looked toward the driver’s side.

  “You’re hell on a paint job,” he said.

  She leaned over, wincing when she saw the damage. “I guess I scraped it worse than I realized.”

  “Scraped?” He laughed. “We’re lucky that guardrail held. You took that last turn way too fast.”

  “I’ve driven ’Stangs before. I knew what I could get away with. What matters is that we’re alive and no one knows where we are.”