by Lisa Hughey
Ka-thunk.
“Who is after you?” Zeke needed more information if was going to be able to help her. The old truck was just that. Old. Nothing special. He needed to find out why she was so terrified of the guy. He didn’t look threatening. He’d been mid to late fifties. Balding, with mostly gray hair and a paunch at the waist. He had the look of a man who’d played football in his youth but the muscle had gone to fat.
Her silver eyes were shadowed with fear. “Where is he?”
Zeke stopped at the exit of the parking lot and searched the crowded street, looking for the man who’d induced a blank terror in this amazingly strong woman.
“Don’t see him.”
“Turn the opposite way from the path he took.”
Zeke turned right out of the parking lot and headed away from the campus. He kept glancing in his rearview mirror. And, surprise, the man was peering into the driver’s window of the old Volvo.
The man straightened and his gaze zoomed in on the Rover. Zeke cursed silently, unsure, but hoping the guy hadn’t made him. Zeke quickly turned right, noting in his peripheral vision that the man was headed leisurely toward the truck. However his gaze was pinned on the rear of the Range Rover. Dammit.
If he hadn’t caught Zeke’s plate, then he’d likely be running. But the guy was taking his time. Zeke didn’t know if that meant he’d already mentally noted his number or if he didn’t think that Zeke had anything to do with his search.
Zeke thought about keeping the information from Sunshine but then decided to be up front with her.
“He may have made the Rover.”
Zeke rubbed the cap forward and back over his head and repressed the urge to put a comforting hand on Sunshine’s shoulder.
Her face whitened but otherwise she showed no outward emotion.
Zeke had actually rubbed some dirt on the plate to obscure the numbers but the guy’s attitude made him think the ruse hadn’t worked.
Depending on what kind of skills he had it wouldn’t take him more than a day to track down Zeke’s name. Then he’d be able to trace his credit card purchases. So they had time before they would need to ditch this car. In the meantime, maybe he could find out why Sunshine was so afraid of the guy.
“What kind of skills does he have?” Zeke asked.
“Since he found me?” Sunshine rested her forehead on the leather seat next to her. “Pretty damn good ones.”
That’s what he thought. “Who is he?”
“Who was the woman in the café?” she asked, deliberately ignoring him. As if she were trying to distract herself from her own problems. Or she was trying to distract Zeke.
He tried to shove Susan Chen out of his mind. But as he held his breath, the roar in his ears grew louder. He didn’t want Susan and Sunshine on the same radar. When Sunshine had rushed out of the bistro, Susan hadn’t seemed to recognize her but another look could tip her over the edge. He didn’t know how much information Susan had about the names of the people she’d used in her unauthorized science experiment but every one of those unwilling subjects had one thing in common. They were members of a very small list of people whose family was killed on either October 19th or 20th, 1995. And Sunshine, while not part of the experiment, was definitely on the infamous, at least among a select few agents, 5491 list.
Did Susan know that? She’d had access to so much. And they still had yet to figure out how. Although, oddly, no one seemed to be pursuing that part of the investigation. Everyone seemed fixated on getting Susan Chen back.
“She’s part of a...situation I was involved in a few weeks ago.”
“A situation?”
“She’s wanted by the U.S. Government.”
“Why haven’t I seen her picture on the news?”
Zeke snorted. “Her situation is the kind that never makes the news.”
“Right.” Sunshine laughed harshly. “So now you’re part of some shadowy government organization?”
She flicked a hand at him.
“The NSA is a recognized and established intelligence agency.” And the more he thought about it the more he really didn’t want Sunshine and Susan inhabiting the same space. “And I’m worried she could be dangerous...to you.”
He could take care of himself.
“I’ve got much bigger problems, but I’ll bite. Why me?”
“It’s a long story.”
“The NSA, dangerous women, convenient appearances.” She mocked. “You really expect me to believe all this?”
That’s when he realized that he hadn’t so much as convinced her to come with him as she’d chosen him as her last viable alternative.
He knew he should be more polished, more persuasive. In theory, he knew enough about the MICE recruitment incentives when covert operatives tried to recruit foreign assets. Money, Ideology, Compromise, Ego. He’d had training in how to convince someone to become an asset. Convincing her to believe him could be achieved, but this was different. This was personal. Way too personal. And he couldn’t seem to find the words to finesse her.
She was too important.
He’d just given his card to Susan Chen. If she was caught, if they found the identifier on her person, if, if, if—he was done.
He refused to look away from Sunshine. Refused to back down. “I want don’t want you to get hurt.” Then he reiterated, “I want to help you with your problems.”
She stared at him for another loaded moment, her gaze searching his. Zeke felt as if she were staring into his soul, and all his uncertainties and longings were exposed to her laser perception.
“I think my problem is too big and unsolvable,” she admitted in what must be a moment of total insecurity.
“Nothing is unsolvable. It just hasn’t been deciphered yet,” he replied, wanting her to believe him.
Moisture shimmered in her eyes. “Okay,” she whispered.
Relief and satisfaction flooded him. One problem down. She’d agreed to let him help her. Now he had to take care of his other problem.
“I have to make a phone call about that woman,” Zeke said glumly.
Zeke punched Jamie’s cell into his phone. He’d only talked to her a few hours ago. And he could imagine her response when she picked up the phone. “Did you find her already?” Jamie would tease. “You stud.”
He dreaded having to tell her he’d found Susan Chen and lost her almost immediately.
So it was petty of him but Zeke was more than happy when instead of Jamie he got her voice mail.
“Hey.” Zeke confessed, “She was here. But I lost her.”
He knew he needed to give Jamie as much information as he could. He rubbed a damp hand on his board shorts. “It seems almost impossible, but she was in San Luis.” He thought about how Susan Chen’s gaze had skipped right over Sunshine. “I don’t think she’s after our target.”
Zeke swallowed. He hated to admit defeat. But he couldn’t even promise to go after Chen again until he figured out what was going on with Sunshine.
“Let’s touch base again later.” Zeke tightened his mouth and pressed the end button.
“You didn’t really lose her, did you?”
Sunshine’s subdued voice from the other side of the car startled him out of the beginnings of another self-pity party.
“Nope.”
“You came after me instead.”
“Yep.”
“And we got away.”
But from who and why? Zeke couldn’t wait to find out.
“Yep. So now that you’ve agreed to let me help you, tell me who that guy was.”
Sixteen
What had I just agreed to?
I had to stop thinking about my stepfather or I was going to hyperventilate. I was desperately hoping Zeke Thorn was wrong about the monster catching his license plate. And yeah, I’d agreed to let Zeke help me but I still wanted some sort of confirmation that he was who he said he was.
“Do you have some sort of government I.D.?”
Wasn’t that wha
t they always did in the movies? Ask to see identification? Except, I was in a position to know that identification could be falsified.
He flushed. A huge red wash over his entire face. “Not on me.”
But his mouth had turned down and the look on his face made me wonder.
“I do have a business card. Of course, you can go anywhere and get fake cards made but....”
“But?” I prompted when he stopped and didn’t continue. I thought of something else. Why did this guy keep turning up? “Did you engineer the meet on the beach?”
He laughed sharply and turned right again. “Uh, no. Pretty much the story of my life though.”
“Why?”
“Zeke the Geek strikes again.” The bitterness in his tone was unmistakable.
“What does that mean? What’s wrong?”
“What isn’t?” He avoided explaining. Instead he headed up the ramp to Highway One, trying to put distance between us and the monster. And that woman?
His problems had to do with the woman. “Why did she look so surprised?”
“She’s wanted by the federal government, and she knows that my bosses are after her. She escaped from a federal prison. My guess is she didn’t think anyone would find her in a bistro in a tiny California town. Especially not me.” Of course, he’d been one of the people to find her the last time.
“Then why’d you let her go?”
He glanced in the rearview mirror, then shifted his attention firmly back to the road, and shrugged. “You.”
“Me?” What the hell? Was that supposed to convince me of something? If that woman really was wanted by the government, and he really did work for the NSA, why didn’t he grab her? That made no sense whatsoever. I was just a victim of an obsessive stalker. One of thousands. No one special. “Why?”
“Can I take you to my hotel room so we can talk?” he asked tightly. His hands gripped the steering wheel so fiercely I thought it might break apart in his fingers. “I’ve tried to think of a more neutral place but I don’t want you in public and at this point I don’t know where else you would be safe.”
I hesitated a moment longer. But the reality was my stepfather had found me. Right now, no one except myself and Zeke knew where I would be. And he hadn’t exactly abducted me.
I didn’t get any kind of ‘I’m going to hurt you’ vibe from Zeke Thorn. Which meant for the near future I would be safe with him. Unless, of course, he worked for, or with, the monster. But I just couldn’t bring myself to believe that. “Fine.”
He could be playing me but somehow I didn’t think so. He was far too self-deprecating and disgusted with himself over letting that woman go. The tone in his voice when he’d left the message struck a chord with me.
He kept rambling even though I’d already agreed.
“I’d take you somewhere more public but based on your reaction to that guy,” he paused, as if waiting for me to fill him in on who the monster was. “I don’t think hanging out in public is a smart move right now.”
He’d be damn right about that.
Because the monster had found me in SLO after being in Cambria this morning asking about my mother, and I wouldn’t have thought we could be traced that quickly.
So I was going to use Zeke from the NSA to find out how my stepfather had found us again after all this time. I hated the idea of having to move again. We had a decent life in Cambria. If Mama wanted to be with Blue, it was time to fight back. Even if I did want to throw up at the thought of confronting him, and getting him to back off once and for all.
“Why me?” I pressed, one more time. I really needed to understand what was happening here. Everything seemed upside down or backwards or discombobulated. And I couldn’t discern any sense of it all. Entropy, the second law of thermodynamics, disorder into order was what I needed.
“You needed my help,” Zeke said softly.
“You don’t even know me.” So why would he want to help me?
“I know enough.” Zeke pulled off Highway One and headed to the outskirts of San Luis. “And you saved me.”
I couldn’t wrap my head around his response so I kept quiet.
“You’re terrified of water and yet you dragged me out of the surf,” Zeke replied seriously. “That takes a depth of courage that few possess. Frankly, I owe you.”
His praise gave me a warm glowy feeling. I never felt brave. Most of the time I felt like a big fat coward, hiding away from the world, hiding my true self, so that my stepfather couldn’t find us. With just a few words, Zeke had managed to bolster my confidence.
“You probably would have been fine.” But my heart skipped a beat as I remembered the encroaching waves pulling at his unconscious body.
“Lucky for me you were on the beach.” Zeke said, “Lucky for me that we met at all.”
“But our meeting wasn’t by chance,” I countered. “You admitted that you were here for me.”
“Yeah. Except we weren’t supposed to meet at all.” Zeke took another turn. “I was only supposed to keep an eye on you.”
“So....”
“I fucked up,” he said harshly. “I wasn’t supposed to make contact.”
“With me?”
“Yeah.”
“But you did and....”
“And you’re in trouble. I’m not just going to walk away.”
He seemed to have an unrealistic sense of obligation that I just didn’t understand. No one took care of me; I took care of myself.
“Let me help you,” he said it again.
“How?”
“Who’s after you?”
“You really think you can help?” I calculated odds and his sense of responsibility. Maybe, just maybe, I could find out about my stepfather and we could come up with a way to save me and my mother.
If I used Zeke Thorn’s resources, I could find out where the monster was staying, maybe even his permanent address, maybe somehow I could end this need to hide, this need to constantly be vigilant, and end his reign of terror. Once and for all.
Dammit, between our mini-date this morning and my mother’s sudden surprising relationship with Blue, I was lonely, and sick of running. I wanted to live.
Zeke interrupted my musings. “I’ll do my best.”
I knew he meant it. Why did I have the inexplicable urge to trust this man? Truthfully he’d done nothing to inspire that trust. My suspicious nature, cultivated from years of being on the run, was oddly dormant.
Zeke pressed his lips together. “I won’t promise any more than I can deliver.”
He pulled in to the parking lot of the nondescript motel behind a strip mall and a grocery store. His room was around back, hidden away from the street. Our comings and goings would be obscured by the traffic from the stores.
He parked at the end of the lot, the car nearly hidden by the dumpster. Room card in hand, he hustled toward a service door. He swiped the key card and pulled open the door. “Let’s talk when we have privacy.”
His gaze was constantly moving, and he had put his body between me and the outside. Protecting me or herding me toward captivity? He looked left, right, then headed down the hall. He stopped in front of a door with a Do Not Disturb sign on the handle. He swiped the key card once, twice, three times. Then tightened his mouth. As soon as the lock clicked, Zeke nudged me inside.
The room was lit with the glow of light from an open laptop and the desk lamp. The blackout curtains were drawn so that no one could see in the room.
One last thing. “Show me your card.” I wasn’t about to reveal anything until I’d seen some sort of proof.
Although he was right. Anyone could have fake cards printed.
Trepidation and, oddly, a budding sense of hope swirled through me.
I sat in the chair at the desk. The room was decorated in a generic beach theme, blues and greens with peach accents and lots of seashells. The design was background noise without any flash. Nothing notable about it. Most people would likely stay here and after they left, t
hey would have no remembrance what the room looked like.
Kind of like me. I faded into the background, bland, pastel, unremarkable. I didn’t make waves. I didn’t show my intellect. I didn’t ever show the hunger that existed inside me. That black hole that craved new knowledge like a heroin addict craved a needle. But I didn’t just yearn for knowledge. I wanted new experiences.
And I was tired of hiding. I wanted to be me. I wanted to be visible. I wanted to have choices.
He pulled a card from his wallet and extended it to me held between his pointer and middle finger. I tried not to notice the curve of his bicep straining at the cuff of the short sleeve t-shirt and the smooth tan skin of his forearm, his veins prominent in the rippling muscles. His eyes were an intense, ocean blue as I reached out slowly to take the white linen rectangle.
“Uh, wait.” He jerked the card back and cocked his elbow up. “There’s one thing.”
Right. Here it comes. I tensed, getting ready to make a break for it. I was closer to the door, although with his physique he could probably overtake me. But I had to try.
“What?”
“My name isn’t Zeke Thorn.”
“Oh.” Somehow Zeke had really seemed to fit him.
“It’s Zeke Hawthorne.”
“Oh.” Boy, did I sound intelligent.
He handed me his card. The white card was simple, a government seal with a bald eagle, key clutched in it’s talons and crest across his chest, Zeke’s name in navy blue, and National Security Agency printed in the gold band that surrounded the eagle.
“What do you do?”
“I’m a programmer.”
“So that part was true.”
“Uh, yeah.”
He sat, trying I was sure, to project an air of trustworthiness. He didn’t know that I’d never in my life trusted anyone. Not since I was seven years old. But the temptation to believe in him was strong. “You going to trust me?”
Finally, I blurted out, “I need to find that man.”
He didn’t make jokes, he didn’t smirk. It was almost as if he understood that this was a huge leap of faith for me.
