Back across James Street, she headed up toward Plum Street and the corporate buildings. It was a long walk, but she wanted a safe place to park the stolen Chevy Impala. She was already soaked, so it didn’t matter.
Once in the shelter of the car she slipped off the blue windbreaker she’d stolen from Jordan and slid the shoulder holster on. One Glock in the rig under her left armpit and under her right, two extra clips of 9mm ammo. She left the other Glock in the pack with the extra ammo and placed it on the seat.
A deep sigh of relief hit her. It had been years since she’d walked around unarmed. From the day she flunked out of the police academy and into the NSA, Kayci had been armed and dangerous.
She looked in the rearview mirror and gasped. She looked like shit. Her normally perky aqua eyes were dark and sullen, her lips looked dry, her face puffy. Although she didn’t care about her looks to the extent of many women she knew, she still always liked her young face. In this light, she looked as if her twenty-ninth birthday was ten years ago and not five months ago. She wondered how the girl at the house thought she was pretty. At least the swelling in her split lip had gone down, and the eye was just a red mark and no longer black.
She took her hair out of the ponytail and tore her fingers through her thick honey-blonde mane smoothing it into place. But the reflection in the mirror did not get much better. She switched off the overhead lights of the car and let the streetlamps take over.
She was stalling, and she knew it. Kayci looked down at the keys in the ignition and noticed some small family pictures on the keychain. She was not at all shocked when the old women walked into the convenience store and left her dark blue Chevy Impala running. This was not Kayci’s first day at the rodeo. It was amazing how easy it was to steal a car without force. Just wait in front of any convenience store or gas station and soon enough, someone leaves their keys and goes inside. If you act swiftly and confidently, no one looks twice at you.
She undid the button on her jeans. They were cutting into her skin because they were too tight. She’d managed to find a pair of stonewashed jeans and a pink T-shirt in an old trunk in the attic of the house Jordan was renting. They were probably ten years out of style and they fit too tightly, but they worked.
It was time to pay a visit to the one man she could trust. Her brother Josh had the digital keys she would need to get into the SORC money before anyone else did. If she could get some of it, that would buy her freedom and perhaps enough leverage to wriggle her way out of this mess.
Chapter Twelve
Jordan wanted to sleep. He was tired and not feeling well. He looked at his watch. It was still moving, although it was hard to believe. It felt like he’d been sitting in this room for the better part of a week. No one had come in to say anything in at least an hour, and before that, was only to ask if he wanted a drink or needed to use the bathroom.
He wondered where Stormy was. He was not an outdoor cat. He would run away if left without food and water. Ironically, Stormy was the one creature that did not run away from him, probably because a cat couldn’t understand the threat of death or the fear of it. People didn’t want to be around a jinx constantly stalked by death. Not that he could blame them.
Being alone with his thoughts led him to Tiffany. He missed her. For two years, she’d said she loved him, but after the third random death, he told her about the others. At first, she wanted to understand andbelieve she was safe. But things were never the same, and she never really came back to him after that moment. Fear took her away until she packed her bags and walked.
The door to the stuffy interrogation room sprang open. Doe-eyed Detective Holly Prince entered the room alone with a knowing smile.
“I’ve got some bad news for you, Jordan.” She sat down and tossed some pictures in front of him.
Jordan frowned at the sight. “What is this?” He felt sickened by the images of a dead body.
“That’s your handiwork.”
Jordan shook his head and pushed the pictures back across the desk. He said nothing, took a deep breath, opened his mouth to speak, and still said nothing, because no words came to him.
“That’s your ticket to prison. What do you think about that?” The detective spun the pictures back under Jordan’s chin. “That’s the body we plucked from the woods a quarter mile from your house. What do you say about that?” She moved in closer to him, edging up on her elbows. “We don’t care about your FBI file. We don’t care about your connections or what you might be mixed up in. You’re going down for murder.”
Jordan shot her a look. She smiled cunningly and leaned back in the chair as if his look was an admission of guilt. Jordan looked at the pictures again, studied them. He knew right away. It was not Kayci.
He laughed. “You’re kidding me, right?”
The detective frowned and crossed her arms confidently. “I don’t kid about murder, Mr. Callahan. And when the blood from this body matches the blood in your house, I’m booking you for murder. So you might as well stop the games and tell me everything I need to know.”
Jordan shook his head. “Good luck with that. Because this…” he tapped his finger on the pictures of the dead woman, “is not the woman I let in my house last night.”
“Kayci Dewitt.”
“Right. That is not her body. In case you forgot, I told you she was nearly naked. I know what she looks like. Did you think I would confess to something I didn’t do because you showed me a random dead body from your morgue?”
“I assure you Mr. Callahan, this body was not in our morgue. K-9 units found it near your home. And right now my medial examiner is performing tests to see how she died.”
“Well then I’ll be going home soon.” Jordan slid the pictures forcefully back at her. The detective backed away. “You have nothing on me and you know it. So you’re stalling. I’m sure that lawyer I asked for will be held up for any variety of reasons.”
“I assure you, Mr. Callahan. We put in the request for your lawyer. But you’re welcome to call one yourself. You still haven’t used your one call.”
Jordan looked away. He could call his mother, but she was five hours away. She was still sore at him for leaving home. But he had no choice, he had to get out of that town and find some answers to his affliction. Maybe he hadn’t found all the answers, but knew he’d never find them there.
“I can play this game, detective. But you’re going to see in the end that you were wrong about me.”
She showed a false smirk, then stood and walked out the door.
Chapter Thirteen
Kayci turned off the highway at the Allentown exit. The drive used up too much of her precious time, but there was no way around it. She’d burned her airport window. Now the only way out was by private boat. That was going to cost a big chunk of cash she didn’t have.
She hated to involve her brother. It was dangerous enough just going to visit him, but she needed his help. Josh’s house was way off the grid. Not even his best friends knew where he was at a given time.
Nathan Pratt would know the truth, and he wouldn’t believe she was dead. If the SORC team had already triangulated her location, they would know she was no longer in Syracuse. Part of her job was learning how to disappear, and she was good at it, but the team would find her.
The bank account required three encrypted digital keys. The keys were each on their own USB stick. She had one. Avery and Nathan each had one. But she could have her brother siphon off some of the interest revolving around the account with a crypto-smash and only a single key. That would probably be a couple hundred thousand dollars. She could get to Aruba, close the dummy account, and head for Costa Rica. It was a solid plan that was simple enough to execute and within reach.
Just before midnight, she pulled into the end of the long single-lane dirt trail that would eventually become her brother’s driveway. The trail was lined with thick pine trees on the left side and short, choppy hills along the right.
Up the hill and past the
perfectly round pond, the trail became much more rough. It was not groomed. Large rocks and cross ruts from water erosion slashed across every ten or twenty feet of the path. It was a workout for her stolen Chevy. Josh kept the driveway in this condition for a purpose: to dissuade visitors.
As she turned the last corner slowly, the car bottomed out, scraping the undercarriage over a high spot in the road. Her brother’s cabin came into full view. It was the perfect place for a hacker for hire to fight the good fight.
The NSA never even knew about her brother. In fact, she only learned about him when she got the boot out of the police academy. Her mother had given Josh up for adoption when he was born because she could not afford to keep a baby while still in college. The fact her mother later married the same man who impregnated her in college was probably more rare than Kayci cared to know, but that’s the way it happened. Her parents did their best to let Josh be and live his life, but his adoptive parents were always open with him. They told him about his parents and his baby sister. He came looking for her.
As she pulled up to the house, the lights in the main room were on, but they quickly shut off. She switched off the car lights and killed the engine. A trickle of fear fingered her spine. Something was wrong. With practiced silence, she pulled her gun and slinked out of the car to the gravel surface.
She pushed closed the car door as silently as possible and started towards the house, using the vehicle as cover. Staying low, up the four tall steps, and to the lip of the porch, she stopped. Over the edge, she looked into the dark windows and heard no movement. She hoped Josh had just gone to sleep. But she knew.
With trepidation, she walked in a crouch to the door and then rose up on one side, keeping her profile small. Using a closed fist, she knocked. “Josh, you there?” she said it loud enough for someone inside the log cabin style house to hear.
Kayci listened intently but heard nothing. Something was wrong, very wrong. She felt it, knew it. She pulled out the high-powered tactical flashlight, pointed it at the window, and clicked it on.
Movement. A figure darted out of the light. Gunshots exploded from inside the house out the window, blowing glass and wood frame onto the porch just past her face.
With a well-placed strike, she kicked the front door open and dropped to one knee. Her light slashed the darkness, and the beam caught the tail end of movement again. The figure headed down the hallway into the kitchen, towards the backdoor.
Kayci rose and chased in one motion. She got to the kitchen just in time to see the backdoor fly open and the screen explode outward. A male body dressed all in black twisted through the metal screen door, ripping it off the frame.
The carcass of the cheap door tangled with the man, and he went rolling off the small landing and down the steps that lead to the small backyard.
Gunshots exploded from the base of the steps, up at the back door. Kayci hit the floor, but did not return fire. There was no angle. She knew these were space shots. The man had no angle on her, either. She knew the tactic. It was what they’d called in her training gap fire. You fire shots to create space and distance between yourself and the threat. Even if your shots are wild, it does create time and space.
It was a battle tactic, which amateurs did not employ. Not even your average hit man or mobster would use it. They would just stand off in the gunfight, taking cover until the superior shooter won out.
The tactic worked. When she got to her feet and down the steps, she had no idea where the shooter had gone. He might have gone back around the house to the east, back to the street, or went south into the deep woods. Either way, he was too far ahead of her now to chase down without risk. She was not going to play this cat-and-mouse game in unfamiliar territory.
Her thoughts went back to the house, her brother. Back inside, she flipped on the kitchen light. “Josh?” she yelled, but no one answered.
Gun out in front, she clicked the overhead lights as she went until she reached the living room and her brother.
Her heart sank. Josh sat in a wooden chair, dead.
“Oh, God” Her voice cracked and she looked away. Kayci did not cry often, in fact, almost never, but she cried now. Silent, angry tears that escaped in spite of the tight ducts that held them quickly fueled a fire. This was her fault.
This was the work of Fletcher’s hired mercenaries. How they’d found her brother did not matter. She’d spooked them, which meant they weren’t expecting anyone, especially not a dead girl. If they knew she was coming they would have been waiting. Judging by the blood, Josh had been dead for a couple hours.
No doubt, the running man was heading back to his base to let them know she was not dead. In a burst of realization, she knew the running man wasn’t alone. She hadn’t properly cleared the house. The bedroom loft upstairs loomed over her head with uncertainty.
With her back to the wall, she slinked up the steps. The higher up she went, the thicker the darkness grew. She paused before the heavy wood door and listened for any giveaway that someone was in there. Each movement was controlled and deliberate.
In a smooth motion, her fingers wrapped around the knob. As quickly as possible, she rotated and pushed the door open hard. No gunfire erupted. The house remained dead silent.
She rose fully and cut the darkness of the bedroom with her flashlight. With her Glock hand and flashlight hand back-to-back, she sliced into the room and cleared the corners.
With a quick swipe, she snapped the light switch and saw the dead man on the floor. This must have been running man’s partner, shot in the chest. On the bed was her brother’s .45 caliber chrome 1911 Colt.
She went through the man’s pockets and found no ID whatsoever. On his left hand, there were three dark blue dots at the area just above the thumb. She had seen them before. It was Majestic Security’s triangle tattoo mark.
She began going through the house inch-by-inch. Her brother had money here somewhere, and now she needed it more than ever. She closed her eyes and let her mind clear.
At once, it came to her. She pushed her brother’s bed aside and saw the loose board after a few seconds of inspecting them. Underneath one of the floorboards, she found a key. Under her brother’s bed, strapped to the box-frame, was a metal briefcase style safe-box.
In that box, she found several thousand dollars, about twenty USB memory sticks, a few SATA hard drives, and another brass key, which looked to be to a safety deposit box.
Kayci closed the briefcase and took it. She also took the small netbook computer on the desk and another USB stick that was on the floor near the wall, halfway under the radiator.
With that, she said goodbye to her brother. She took the keys for his Ford Explorer from the counter and left the house. With an anonymous call, she would alert the police in the morning. Josh’s adoptive parents would want to bury him with their family.
She threw everything into the backseat of the black Ford and jumped into the driver seat.
The Explorer handled the lumped out road better than the car did. She drove in the darkness with no lights, only snapping on the beams as the dirt road smoothed and she saw the freshly disturbed soil in a pull-off to the left, likely back where the killers had stashed their vehicle.
Once onto the asphalt, she sped the borrowed SUV toward the highway. If they found her brother, they were even more formidable than she thought. They were already ahead of her, and now they would know for certain she wasn’t dead.
That also meantJordan Callahan was in grave danger. She had overplayed her hand and now it might cost him his life too. Kayci took a deep breath, held it, and blew it out with force.
This would cut her plan short. She never planned to let Jordan take the fall for her murder, she just needed some time. Now that they knew she was alive hey would think he was complicit in faking her death. He was not even safe in the jail at this moment, especially if Nathan figured out what he was.
Chapter Fourteen
They were taking their sweet time getting a lawy
er. Jordan got sick of their games and finally just refused to talk to them. But, of course, public defenders were busy, and they could take a very long time.
He should probably just suck it up and call his mother. She didn’t have the money to shell out for a lawyer, but at least he would get to use his one phone call. Of course, she would be pissed at him for getting himself arrested, even if it was a sham. She would understand in the end. Truth was, he didn’t want to bother her with it all. He had burdened her enough over the years with his problems, and she did not need the stress.
He had no other family he could call. His father had died when he was still in the womb and his mother had never remarried. She didn’t even date until Jordan was fifteen. She wasn’t happy when he decided to leave New Jersey, but she understood. After all, she ran out of Brooklyn at sixteen to get away from a bad situation too.
The heavy door clacked open, and the female detective came back into the room.
“Hi, Holly, missed you,” Jordan smirked and twisted his head. He had been having fun with her the last visits. He was trying to maintain his sense of humor in all this stupidity. “Did you miss me too? You just don’t visit me like you did in the early hours of our relationship. I miss our intimacy. Although, I do appreciate the wardrobe change. That orange shirt goes well with the black pantsuit.”
Finally, the detective let out a breath. “Are you having fun?”
“Fun?” Jordan replied. “Yeah, this is a blast. I love having my character questioned and my intelligence insulted…no, really, this is what I do almost every weekend.”
Holly Prince, detective extraordinaire, had nothing to say.
Savior Frequency (Frequency Series Book 1) Page 5
