Melissa tried to comfort Dylan, who was frightened and crying. Miles quelled a desire to tell her to quiet him. He knew how difficult that would be. Still, a crying child was a dead giveaway to their location. He could only hope Dylan would calm down on his own before the elevator doors opened again.
They had to get out of here now. If Shearer’s men had infiltrated the hotel, there might be more than one attacker coming after her.
The elevator reached the basement and Miles braced himself for a fight. He raised his gun, ready to fire if anyone was waiting for them. The doors opened and he breathed a sigh of relief that no one was there. Either the shooter was working alone, or his backup was staking out the lobby or some other exit. Still, Miles wouldn’t let down his guard. They needed to get out of this hotel before he came after them.
He hustled Melissa and Dylan toward his SUV and hurried them inside, glad to see that Griffin had had the forethought to install Dylan’s car seat before he’d left. Melissa crawled into the back seat with Dylan as Miles slid behind the wheel.
“Put your head down until I tell you it’s clear,” he ordered as he sped out of his parking space and toward the exit.
Their attacker emerged at the exit ramp. He raised a gun at them, but Miles wasn’t going to be deterred. He hit the accelerator and sped toward the man. The guy fired several shots that hit the windshield but the bullet-resistant glass didn’t break.
He rammed the accelerator and aimed the car right for the exit. If this guy wanted to get out of his way, fine. If not, he was going to get hit.
The guy jumped out of the path of the car just in time as Miles turned out of the garage and headed for the interstate.
“Are you both okay?” he asked as he merged into traffic and checked his mirrors to see the attacker running after them on foot. He wouldn’t catch up to them, but Miles kept an eye on him, anyway, to make sure he didn’t enter a vehicle of his own and give chase.
“We’re okay,” Melissa told him, but her voice sounded shaky with fear. That was to be expected.
“Stay low for now.” He pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed his boss’s number. “Griffin, they found us at the hotel.”
“What? Already? How?”
“I don’t know, but there was an attacker. He came in, pretending to be bringing room service. Get down to the hotel and see what you can find out. I’m taking them to a safer place. I’ll let you know when we land somewhere.”
He ended the call. He didn’t tell Griffin where he was going. He didn’t know himself yet. There were two other backup safe houses. One of them was only six blocks away, but when he checked his mirrors and spotted a car that looked suspicious, he questioned going there just yet. He made a left turn and the car followed him, so he tried more evasive measures. The car kept on their tail.
They were definitely being followed.
It seemed the attacker had an accomplice after all.
He hit the redial button on his phone. “I have a black SUV following us. I’m nixing the West Street safe house.”
“I’ll call the local cops and have the car stopped. Where are you?”
“Eighth and Main Avenue, turning right onto Riverside.”
“I’ve got cars headed to your location now.”
He turned and again the SUV kept up. He glanced into the back seat. Melissa was crouched on the floorboards, her body tucked around her son’s and her eyes wide with fear. He had to keep them safe. Dylan was still crying, but she was doing her best to comfort him and keep him quiet. At this point, it wouldn’t put them in any more danger whether he screamed or not, but it sure would help Miles’s concentration if he was quiet.
He turned again and screeched to a stop. Traffic was bumper-to-bumper. He grimaced. This wasn’t good. The black SUV pulled up behind him. He drove aggressively and managed to move up two spaces in the other lane, but they weren’t going forward anytime soon and the SUV had blocked their way backward.
Miles rammed the vehicle into Park and reached for his phone and his gun. “We have to move now.” He crawled across the front seat to the passenger side and pushed open the door. He raised his gun, then opened the back door for Melissa and Dylan. She emerged carrying the boy in her arms and he pushed her forward, through the mass of motionless cars, positioning his body between her and the SUV.
The men in the SUV saw them and got out, revealing their own weapons.
“Run,” Miles shouted as he raised his gun and fired, hitting the black SUV. The two men began returning fire and Miles turned and ran after Melissa.
People in their cars began to scream and jump out of their vehicles at the sound of gunfire, trying to get to safety. Miles stopped every few feet and fired off a few rounds, shooting high to keep from hitting anyone. He didn’t like putting innocent bystanders in danger, but he couldn’t do anything to stop the bad guys from firing their weapons into the crowd. Nothing except giving up, which he wasn’t prepared to do. The chaos was good for them, though. It helped give Melissa and Dylan cover as they ran. And he was sure to keep up with them.
He heard sirens, and moments later several police cars appeared. The men went in opposite directions, but stopped pursuing them. Miles saw one disappear into a store and the other into an alleyway. The police called for Miles to stop, too, but he didn’t. He couldn’t lose Melissa in the crowd. He had to remain with her. He turned and took off running, hoping the cops wouldn’t fire in a crowd of people like the bad guys had.
They didn’t, and soon their shouts to stop were nothing more than voices on the wind. Catching up with Melissa and Dylan, he pushed them into a crowded restaurant, through the kitchen and out the back door into an alleyway, ignoring the protests of the restaurant staff. He took out his phone and called Griffin again.
“Any news?”
“The shooters got away, but the local police department has their car. Maybe we can get some answers from that.”
He doubted it. It was probably stolen or had been rented under a false identification, and the men were almost certainly wearing gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints. These guys weren’t amateurs.
“Where are you?” Griffin asked.
“Still on the street, but I haven’t seen any signs of the shooters. They scattered after the cops arrived.” He ended the call, then motioned for Melissa to crouch behind the dumpster in the alley. “Let me check out the street.”
She nodded and ducked down, pulling Dylan with her.
He walked to the end of the alleyway. People were milling around, coming and going, oblivious to the commotion they’d caused, which had been several blocks away. He didn’t see any sign of the shooters or anyone who appeared to be looking for them. He spotted a cab turning from the opposite direction and silently sighed in relief. He walked into the street and hailed it, leaning into the driver’s window to check his identification against the driver’s face before he motioned for Melissa and Dylan to come out.
She hurried from the alley and climbed into the cab, seating Dylan on her lap. Miles slid in beside them and told the driver to head to the airport. The driver turned the cab around and headed back in the opposite direction.
“Are we taking a flight?” she asked Miles.
He shook his head but lowered his voice. “We’ll rent a car at the airport.”
Once the cab dropped them off, he headed toward the car-rental desk.
“I also need to rent a car seat,” he told the clerk. Dylan’s car seat was back in his SUV and they were not going back that way.
His mind was already ticking as he tried to figure out how Shearer’s men had found her at the hotel. Griffin had made those arrangements and Miles had double-checked everything to make certain they were secure. She should have been safe. Unless...
The clerk handed over the keys, along with the car seat, and Miles led Melissa and Dylan toward the vehicle, keeping a hand
on her back and his eyes on a constant scan, making sure no one was watching them. He helped install the car seat and stood guard as Melissa buckled Dylan in, then crawled in beside him. Miles slid into the driver’s seat of the rented SUV, but before he started the engine, he turned to Melissa. He needed to see her face as he asked these questions. “Have you made any calls? Phoned anyone? A friend, a relative, Dylan’s day care?”
She shook her head. “No one. Why?”
“I’m just trying to figure out how they found us at the hotel.”
Her brow creased and anger lit her eyes. “I didn’t call anyone. I haven’t broken any of the rules. Those other marshals tried to accuse me of making a mistake, too, but I wouldn’t do anything to put my son in danger. Trust me, I know the risks.”
He believed her. She’d witnessed her mother’s murder. She knew the risks all too well. But that didn’t explain how yet another safe house had been compromised, especially when such precautions had been taken. He didn’t like what that indicated. No witness assigned to his office’s detail who’d followed the rules had ever been killed, and he wasn’t ready to change that statistic. He was proud of it. But he was baffled by her case and understood why Griffin wanted this protection detail kept quiet from the rest of the office.
He hated even considering it, but he couldn’t ignore the facts. If Melissa had followed the rules—and he believed she had—then the only ones who could have known her location were the agents who had guarded her before Miles arrived.
And that meant Griffin was right—someone in WITSEC was a mole.
Copyright © 2020 by Virginia Vaughan
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ISBN-13: 9781488061424
Wilderness Sabotage
Copyright © 2020 by Heather Humrichouse
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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Wilderness Sabotage Page 19
