Jack Kilborn & Ann Voss Peterson & J. A. Konrath

by Flee - a Thriller

  As my body recovered from fight or flight mode and the adrenaline ebbed, the pain started becoming a problem, interrupting my focus. I took three aspirin, and three decongestants. The latter contained a stimulant, pseudoephedrine, and would keep me alert even though I felt like crashing. I tucked four more of each pill into my sports bra, then ditched the bottles.

  I was nauseous—a side effect of adrenalin and pain. I waited in line and bought two double cheeseburgers and two bottles of water, not hungry but uncertain when I’d have a chance to eat again. I forced everything down while walking north and figuring out my priorities.

  My disguise was fine for the moment, but it wouldn’t hold up to close scrutiny. In order of importance I needed a weapon, a safe house, a new disguise, and intel. Then I could start dealing with my problems, which were evading the police and FBI, figuring out who set me up and was trying to kill me and rescuing Kaufmann. That meant confronting Cory.

  Much as I wanted to, I couldn’t forget I would have to deal with Cory.

  I doubted Cory had anything to do with the hit out on me. First off, he didn’t play well with anyone, other than malleable young girls he’d trained to do whatever he asked. But even if Cory and I didn’t have a history, I’d come to the same conclusion. If he’d been working with the people who wanted to kill me, he would have tried to keep me in my apartment. But he got off the phone too fast and didn’t even seem to know I was being shot at. I’d believed Cory couldn’t find me, but I’d forgotten how smart and observant he was. And although it had been almost twenty years since his trial, he obviously remembered seeing Kaufmann there the day I’d testified.

  There wasn’t a chance I would let Kaufmann’s act of support and kindness lead to a horrible death at Cory’s hands.

  But first things first. A weapon, and a safe house.

  The gun would be relatively straightforward. The safe house would be tougher. Both the cops and the assassins had found my apartment, when only Jacob was supposed to know where I lived. My name wasn’t on the lease, my bills were paid through various dummy corporations, and if anyone traced the phone they’d get a fake address in Mundelein. That I’d been found meant a serious breach in security, and I had no idea how far it went.

  The Carmen Sawyer ID was blown, and so were the bank account and credit cards associated with it. If the counter-intel went deep enough, my back-up persona might also be compromised. Most hotels required a driver’s license and credit card for incidentals, and both the good guys and the bad guys had systems in place to track check-ins.

  I crossed the street and waited for the bus, the burgers dead weight in my stomach, the aspirin doing shit. My focus cracked and splintered, leaving me aching, tired, and not thinking about my objectives as I should have been. Instead images of Kaufmann assaulted me, bleeding and scared with arguably only two hours and thirty-three minutes left to live.

  “Pain means you’re alive,” The Instructor said. “It’s your body informing you of damage. Attend to the damage when you’re able to. Then, forget the pain. It isn’t helpful to you anymore. You’re going to learn some techniques to work through pain, but I’d be lying if I said you’ll become immune. We can teach you to cope with a lot of things. But we can’t teach you to stop hurting. Hurt stops on its own, when you’re either healed, or dead.”

  The bus dropped me off a block from the Stretchers on Laramie. It was the nearest in a chain of women-only fitness clubs. I rented lockers at ten of their locations, four in the city, three in the suburbs, and three in other states. The padlocks I used were all a distinctive red color, making them easy to spot. I didn’t have the key, but sewn into every pair of pants, skirt, and dress I owned was a lock pick and a tension wrench. I didn’t invent this system, and never had to use it before, but now that I was on the run all of this prep work made me understand how smart it was.

  I cased the place first, watching for three full minutes from across the street before approaching. Then I walked past, getting a good look inside the storefront window. The actual gym was deeper in the building, so I couldn’t check it out. But the lobby was clear except for an employee I recognized as the one who signed me up. I doubled-back, checking for tails. Finding none, I went in.

  The interior was cool, the air conditioning humming. I heard faint rock music coming from the workout area. The Stones, Paint it Black. I smelled lavender air freshener, and cinnamon gum from the woman behind the desk.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, twisting my mouth into a smile I wasn’t close to feeling. “I just realized I left my pass at home.”

  I’d cut up and thrown away the laminated member pass four minutes after receiving it.

  “Your name and the last four digits of your social,” the woman said without looking up from her magazine. No doubt half the membership regularly left their passes at home.

  “Darla Thompson. Seven seven eight eight.”

  Darla Thompson wasn’t my real name either. It was an unestablished ID used only for Stretchers. Darla didn’t have any credit cards, no real address, and since I got the driver’s license out-of-state from a private dealer it lacked the realism of my Carmen Sawyer and my Betty Richards identities. I paid for the membership and the rental lockers by money order every six months.

  The woman punched my data into her computer, then checked my face against the archived photo that appeared on her monitor. I didn’t bother taking off my hat or sunglasses, and she didn’t bother to ask. It made me wonder how much money this place lost from sisters or similar-looking friends sharing memberships.

  “Welcome back, Darla,” she smiled, her mouth crooked. “It’s been a while.”

  I recognized her because I was trained to memorize faces. But for her to have remembered me out of thousands of members when I hadn’t been there for months, that was impressive.

  Then I realized my onscreen data probably listed the last time I’d been there, and I wasn’t impressed anymore.

  She pushed a button under the desk, buzzing me through the frosted glass doors. When I opened them the music tripled in volume, pumping through speakers embedded in the ceiling. I walked past a Pilates class in progress, the free weight room, and the circuit training section, and stopped in front of the locker room.

  It had no door—no men allowed, so one wasn’t needed. For the sake of modesty the entrance turned at a right angle after you walked in, so no one could see inside. I inhaled, smelling citrus shampoo, sweat, and hairspray. Heard one of the showers running, but no other sounds.

  I went in with heightened awareness. It was a longshot anyone knew about my locker here. Supposedly Jacob didn’t even know. But it’s impossible to be surprised if you’re expecting something to happen.

  When I walked around the privacy wall I stopped again, letting my senses report. Warmer. Steamier. Bleach and disinfectant mingling with the previous odors. Other than the woman in shower, it didn’t feel like anyone else was around. A quick look confirmed my guess. No people. No open lockers. No unattended bags or clothes.

  I circled twice to make sure, then discreetly peeked into the bathroom. Someone was in the shower stall, her feet visible beneath the plastic curtain. The shampoo scent was stronger and there were suds swirling down the drain between her toes.

  I quietly found my locker and was taking the picks off my neck when the obvious hit me.

  Where were the showering woman’s clothes?

  Some women arrive in their workout gear, so they don’t have to change. But those ladies don’t shower here, because it would mean putting on their sweaty clothes when they finished. Those who changed here usually stripped out of their gear, showered, then dressed. But they didn’t lock up their soiled clothes before showering. No one was going to steal a stinky tee and pair of yoga pants, and they were usually left in a heap on the bench or on the sink.

  Maybe this woman was an exception, unlocking her locker, locking up her gear, showering, then unlocking her locker again.

  But why bother locking up your
gear in an empty locker room?

  Movement to my right.

  I dove left just as three shots punched into the wall behind me, catching a faint glimpse of a wet woman in a black swimsuit holding a suppressed semi-auto.

  Silencers are a myth. Gunpowder explodes, and explosions are loud; too loud for a metal tube to contain them. What laypeople call silencers are actually suppressors, which are able to reduce the sound considerably, but it’s still louder than a person clapping their hands together. The rock music, however, coupled with the shower noise, effectively covered the shots.

  Since I’d acted on instinct and not forethought, I rolled onto my bad shoulder. Agony stormed through my body, snatching away my breath. My vision blurred. Bright firefly motes darted and swirled in front of my eyes. I pushed myself onto all fours. Not able to hold weight, my arm gave way, leaving me to scurry on three limbs. Sight compromised, I used the shower sound as a compass, imagining the layout of the room in my head.

  The hitwoman was between me and the exit. An aisle of lockers were to my left. I guessed I was three yards away from them, and I crossed the distance in less than three seconds, scooting onto my butt with my back pressed against the cool metal, a handle jamming into my shoulder and bringing out fresh stars. I shook my head, willing my sight to return, and noticed peripheral movement on my right.

  I pushed myself to my feet, half-staggering/half-sprinting into the shower, hearing two suppressed shots clang into lockers behind me. The temperature went up a few degrees, water vapor coating my face. My throat was closing up from fear, but I forced air through it, filling my lungs with steam. My heart rate was off the charts. I had nowhere else to go, and in a moment the assassin would corner and kill me.

  Bathrooms don’t offer much in the way of weapons. If this had been a private residence, I could have grabbed the porcelain toilet tank cover to use as a bludgeon, or smash a mirror and attack with a shard. But public toilets had no tank covers, and the mirrors were safety glass. The doors to the stall hung on heavy-duty hinges, impossible for me to remove. Going hand-to-hand against someone with a gun was a last resort, and even then I only had a five percent chance of success. With my injured arm, and my spotty vision, I cut those odds to two percent.

  That left one alternative. And a weak one at that.

  I sensed movement behind me but didn’t bother to check. The tile floor was wet with soapy footprints, and I dove forward onto my belly, momentum taking me past the towel bin and into the shower stall. I snatched a fallen towel as I slid by, going under the shower curtain, the spurting nozzle drenching my head and back and compromising my hearing even further.

  I flipped over, onto my butt, onto my knees, the towel getting soaked. Then I was back on my feet, swirling the towel in my good hand, bursting through the curtain and raising the dripping cloth like a whip.

  I struck where I assumed the hitwoman would be, at face-level as she was coming around the corner. It was my best and only chance.

  The towel snapped, cracking like a gunshot… on empty air. She had anticipated my attack and was already backing out of range, her gun up, the head shot inevitable.

  But she hesitated.

  Just what I needed. I whipped the towel around again, tossing it at her face and going in low. I jammed her in the chest with my good shoulder and drove with my legs.

  Her shot went off over my head, the sound cracking loud in my ears despite the suppressor.

  I kept moving, forcing her backward two steps—three—four—half on her feet, half falling. Blood rushed to my ears. I pushed harder, fighting not to slip on the tile floor.

  Her backward movement shuddered to an abrupt stop. Her body went limp, sagging in my grasp. We hit the floor.

  I wound up on top of her, my face pressed to her chest, my arm around her back. I shifted my arm, snaking her neck under my armpit, ready lean back and snap her neck, but her head was surprisingly limp. I disengaged, staring at the wet towel still on her face, a towel that was quickly turning pink. Glancing up, I realized why—I’d bashed her head into the corner of the sink.

  I kneeled, prying the gun out of her fingers, feeling her wrist as her pulse weakened and ceased. For a few seconds, I simply panted, waiting for my breathing to catch up, my heartbeat to slow down. The bright motes swimming in my vision faded, and I was able to study her body. She was about my height, my size. Her black bathing suit was a simple one piece, worn for function not flattery. Not that she needed fashion tricks to look thin and fit. Her body was as honed as mine.

  I frisked her, locating a bulge that contained an extra clip for her weapon. I also found something else. Something both intriguing and disturbing. In her right shoulder strap, sewn into the seam, was a fifty dollar bill. In her left strap, two pieces of wire that felt like lock picks.

  Questions bombarded my mind. Questions I didn’t have time to address. I removed the towel to look at her face, intending to memorize it.

  I wouldn’t have to.

  Staring at her was like staring at my own reflection. The jaw, the haircut, the cheekbones, the nose, even the eyes were mine.

  This woman looked so much like me she could have been my clone.

  “After a lethal encounter, clean up is your first priority,” The Instructor said. “If the area is still hot, leave immediately. But if you can take a few seconds to hide the body, that will buy you a few minutes or hours down the line. If there’s time to search the body, do so. However, distinguish between gathering intel and processing it. You can think about what you found after you’re safe. Dwelling on things while you’re still in danger will slow you down and get you killed.”

  My breath caught, and I spent five useless seconds just gaping at her. At me. This was impossible.

  Wasn’t it?

  I touched her hairline, looking for plastic surgery scars. Found none. No contact lenses either. I tugged down her suit, exposed her left breast. There, below the nipple, was a small round mole.

  My mole.

  I felt dizzy, as if my thoughts were whirling around me. I was looking at myself, staring at my own face, my own body, dead. This couldn’t be happening. I wasted three more seconds attempting to process what I was seeing, and then a bell went off in my head reminding me I had to get out of here.

  Tugging out my phone, I took a quick, full body picture of the dead woman. Then I pressed her thumb to the phone’s screen and took a second pic of her fingerprint.

  After placing the bloody towel back over her face, I dragged her into the closest toilet. Hoisting her onto the seat brought the stars back, but I managed to get her balanced. Then I tore off the top portion of her bathing suit and tied it to the water pipe behind her so she’d stay in the sitting position. I locked the stall door, shimmied underneath it, and grabbed a fresh towel.

  A quick walk around revealed the locker room was empty. I located locker 352. My fingers were shaking, my whole body was shaking, and it took me twice as long as my normal eight seconds to pick the padlock. After grabbing the duffle bag inside, I toweled off, stuck the suppressed .22 into my khakis against the small of my back, and forced myself to focus on my next move. The hitwoman must have a locker, but there were hundreds here. I had no time to break into them all. Whoever was after me could send someone else, or someone might already be in place.

  I needed to get to a safe house. Someplace I could absorb this, recover, plan my next move. I checked the clock on my encrypted cell. Only an hour and thirty-six minutes until my meeting with Cory.

  It was also ten minutes past the time Jacob said he’d call.

  The tremor that had claimed my muscles delved deeper, centering in my chest. Jacob never missed a call. For the first time in almost a decade, I was on my own. With everything that had happened in the past hour, that made me feel the most off-balance.

  I relocked my locker, shouldered my duffle, and left the locker room, getting my breathing under control. The Pilates class was still going on. The woman at the front desk still had her nose i
n her magazine, and didn’t bother glancing up when I approached.

  “It’s me again, Darla Thompson. Can you tell me when I first came in this morning?”

  Her sigh was slight but intended to be heard.

  “Last four digits of your Social.”

  “Seven seven eight eight.”

  Another sigh. “You checked in at nine thirty, and again at ten twenty-six.”

  She looked at me now, raising an eyebrow at my wet shirt and pants.

  “Thanks,” I said, turning on my heels.

  At least now I understood her earlier “It’s been a while” comment. She was being sarcastic. The hitwoman—my double—had checked in as me, fifty-six minutes before I checked in myself. So she must have been on her way here before Jacob called me at the apartment. As a back-up, in case the op failed? And how had she even known about this place?

  I stepped out onto the street. The wind was still up, raising gooseflesh all over my body, the wet clothes intensifying the chill. I headed west. Normally, after being ordered to go to ground, I would be on a bus out of town after picking up my duffle bag. But I had to meet with Cory and rescue Kaufmann, which meant I had to stay local.

  In the bag I had ID and credit cards for Carmen Sawyer, and for Betty Richards. But if the people after me knew about Darla Thompson, Betty might also be compromised. Betty was surely compromised if the people chasing me had gotten to Jacob.

  I needed someplace private, with Internet access, a bathroom, a kitchen, and a bed. Someplace that didn’t require any sort of identification, or interaction with strangers. And I thought I knew a place.

  I hailed a cab, gave the driver the address. He was white, overweight, and his hack smelled like BO and onion breath. I dug through the duffle bag, made sure he wasn’t looking, and opened the med kit. I filled a syringe with Demerol and discreetly injected my bad shoulder. Blessed numbness seeped into the area, and I had the urge to slump back in the seat and heave a long sigh. But I couldn’t let my guard down, not yet. Instead I slipped on a silver Casio diver’s watch from my bag, and synced it to the time on my phone. Then I put two zip ties and my lock picks into my front pocket and stared out the rear window, checking for tails.