“Thanks! Bye!”
“Wait—”
She rushed up to the counter, peeled a hundred and a twenty from the small wad in her pocket, and slapped them on the counter. “Can you hurry?”
The checker nodded. “Jordie’s a nice—”
“I’m too old for him. Don’t want to hurt his feelings.”
That’s all it took. She had her change inside twenty seconds and was out the door and in her car before another minute passed. A look through the giant windows showed the checker talking to the kid, him shaking his head, her nodding. Slumped shoulders.
Bet you just ask anyone who’s nice to you—on the off chance. I remember… Wait, kid. Going out with someone just to be going out is, like, the dumbest thing you can do. Flynne sighed. Life isn’t over when you haven’t had a date by sixteen. It just feels like it.
Nothing could have made her feel more like a philosopher than that thought right then. She pondered wisdom she hadn’t possessed at fifteen and sixteen all the way back to Rosewood Court. Up the drive. Back to the house.
And just as she reached for the door, a car drove past—slowly. Not uncommon during the day on Rosewood, but after ten o’clock? She shrank into the shadows and watched. If it slows or stops, we’re outta here.
But it didn’t. It drove to the corner and turned right. Even then, it crept along as if the car only had one speed—school zone.
Must be some insomnie grandpa or something.
Seven
Three hundred miles—that’s how many he’d put on his Packard in less than twenty-four hours, and it didn’t include the back and forth to Rockland. No, Keith had burned three hundred miles on it just going back and forth to Dolman to check the coffee shop. And all for nothing.
Hour after hour, he sat there feeling more conspicuous each time than the last. This time, he called for a replacement. Tyler apologized. “I don’t have anyone who can bring you a rental. Would Erika let you use hers, do you think?”
Hers… she’d not had it long—less than a year. Still, it was to find her… “I’ll figure out something. Guess that means the Langat case just escalated. I’ll be praying.”
Why he said it, Keith never knew. It wasn’t as if most agents cared, but he did. Every time. “Lord, any foreign political target is a huge risk, but Kenyan? Please give me wisdom to know how to help them if I can. I ask that You keep Claire safe if she’s on this one. Clarity, discernment, instinct—I pray that You will keep these in perfect balance with courage and grit.”
Prayer covering complete, Keith raced back to HearthLand, almost forgetting the speed trap five miles outside of Dolman, and pulled into Ralph’s drive. Annie met him at the door. “Whatever you want, get someone else to deal with it. Ralph’s finally asleep. He stayed up all night praying for whatever’s going on.”
“Can you drive me to Dolman and drop me off at the mechanic’s?”
As she reached for something, presumably her purse, Annie asked, “Is something up with your car?”
“Nope. Just need to rent one, and I saw they offer cheap rentals for customers.”
“Oh… why don’t you take yours in for an oil change. You’ve been—”
“I do those myself, but thanks. It’s kind of important that I hurry, Annie.”
She stared at him. A grim line formed around her lips, and the effect made her look twenty years older. “I see. Let’s go.”
If Ralph was praying, you had to have guessed….
“—knew, deep down, I did, but I hoped I was being paranoid.”
A miserable, awkward silence hung heavy in Ralph’s truck until Annie pulled up in front of Mid-State Towing and Repair. Keith leaped from the cab, but she called out to him. “Keith, wait.”
He paused, gripping the door frame with more force than necessary. “Yeah?”
“If this is like me… and Erika is—” He didn’t even try to hide his expression. “Yes, well,” she continued, “get her safe. We want her back in one piece.”
“She would be if she was with me, but—”
Annie cut in. “I don’t care who is ‘protecting’ her at some undisclosed location. Find the threat. Neutralize, or whatever you call it. She’s safe as long as whoever he is can’t get to her. Make that happen and come home.”
“Don’t get dead?”
She grinned. “That’s right. Don’t get dead.”
Her not-so-peppy talk spurred him on anyway. Keith convinced the owner of the repair shop to rent him the plum-painted Civic for half what a new car would have cost and with more camouflage properties. The crunched rear quarter panel added a nice touch. Easy to find in a crowded parking lot, too.
Set with new wheels and certain he hadn’t been followed anywhere, Keith parked himself in sight of the space and waited. Again.
Two weeks earlier, Mark had almost considered bringing in a partner—again. Who are you kidding? You wanted to promote Claire so she wouldn’t have to go out. This latest issue proved why that wasn’t a good idea.
Still, he’d added three more monitors to his desk—five in all—and watched, listened, or read the details of three separate cases, all while taking notes in three separate notebooks. Weariness built upon weariness until he couldn’t remember if A team had secured a location for Langat or if they were still on the move. “Tyler!”
The door flung open a pair of seconds later. “Yeah?”
“Update on Langat.”
“Sent them to the Oregon place. They’ll leave soon. Paris and Henry are close if we need them to take over.”
The words were normal enough, but something about the way Tyler spoke them—or perhaps it was the obvious absence of what he didn’t say—painted the air in ominous colors. “What is it, Tyler?”
“I’m not sure it’s real. I didn’t—”
Tyler didn’t deserve the blast, but Mark delivered it anyway. “Just tell me. I can determine credibility on my own.”
“I found an account—in the Caymans.”
His gut soured to vinegar. “What name?”
“It’s probably just—”
“Name!” Why he bothered, Mark didn’t know. Tyler would never be able to spit it out, and that answered the question. “Flynne Dortmann?”
Only the faintest of nods followed.
One carefully chosen curse dropped in the room and wreaked the verbal carnage it deserved. Tyler stepped back. Mark dropped another. And another. With each choice epithet, Mark’s voice grew louder, and Tyler withdrew altogether.
The catharsis lasted only until Mark had exhausted his supply of swearing—both foreign and domestic. With excess calm and precision, he returned to his desk, pulled out a drawer, reached up above it, and withdrew the handset to a line Flynne didn’t know existed. He called Keith’s phone.
“Hey… did you know that Java the Hut sells approximately half what Erika’s old place did? It’s better coffee, too. I think that’s because Erika—”
“She’s got a Cayman account.” Tyler entered the room and dropped a slip of paper on the desk. The top number was obviously an account number, but the bottom… Mark swallowed hard. “Are you sitting down, Keith?”
“Yeah… why?”
He swallowed the bile that tickled the back of his throat and balled his hands into tight fists to stop the tremble. “We’ve been had, Keith. Flynne has a two-point-six-million-dollar Cayman account—as of…” Mark’s fingers flew over his keyboard, and a minute later, he puked in his wastepaper basket. “Sorry—the pills I take…” A lame excuse, but his pride clung to it with all the ferocity of a toddler with a teddy bear.
“Mark?” The tone said it all. Fear, rage, and disbelief mingled in that one-word question. “Mark?”
“The account was opened the day she started with us. This was a set up, but I don’t know by whom or why.”
Pacing, ranting, stomping, sagging into the chair—none of it clarified anything for him. What had he missed, and how had he missed it?
“I’ve got to thi
nk adversary now…”
“Now?”
Peeling tires hinted that Keith was on the move—back to HearthLand or to Rockland? Mark didn’t even ask. “Yes,” Keith insisted. “I was trying to anticipate the moves of a scared but determined, inept techno-geek who thinks her job is ‘totes amaze’ and agrees to everything with, ‘awesomesauce.’ Now…”
“Right… of course, right… Sorry. Get back here.”
“Already on my way.” Silence hung there, waiting for Keith to say whatever it was that he hadn’t yet. Thirty seconds… a minute—possibly two. “Mark?”
“Yeah?”
“Erika trusts Flynne. She’s going to be ticked, but she’s going to trust that Flynne believes whatever story she tells.”
He could only say one thing, so Mark said it. “We’ll find her. I promise.”
It was the first time he’d ever made a promise to any of his agents, much less one he wasn’t confident he could keep.
She paced. Nervous energy erupted in random wall scrubs, a window job that left streaks to rival mascara after a sob fest, and a freezer defrost. That’s when Erika put a stop to it. “You don’t have to defrost new fridges—haven’t needed to for decades.”
Flynne scanned the piled-up hunks of frozen foodstuffs that probably had long outlived their freezer life. “Now you tell me.”
“I thought it was a joke!”
The car passed again, and Flynne almost didn’t wait for the delivery of her Amazon order. She began throwing things back in the freezer, repacking everything she could fit into bags, and taped Erika to a chair when she couldn’t keep an eye on the “client” anymore. I so need to remember she’s a client. Gotta take care of her like a client, not a coworker’s girlfriend.
Coworker. Not anymore. The cushy job with Burberry bonuses was probably gone. No excuses would make any difference—not now.
Those thoughts would have sent her into despairing depths, but Flynne shook her head. I just have to talk to Mark—make him understand. When Erika gets back safe… yeah… A glance Erika’s way prompted another thought. I can’t let anyone get to her—even if it costs me. Then maybe I can earn his trust again.
The doorbell rang, and Flynne nearly jumped out of her skin. “Who—?”
“You ordered something. One day. It’s supposed to be here by three. Remember?”
Flynne bolted for the door. The delivery guy was strolling down the walkway again by the time she jerked it open. She started to call out, but a champagne sedan rolling past and then parking right in front of the house did her in. She bolted inside and slammed the door shut. Overly dramatic? Maybe. But who cared? A peek through the side of the front window showed the car sitting there. Waiting.
Action became imperative. Flynne gathered every bit of their stuff and set it outside the back door. One step… two… five. At eight, she knew he’d see her if she went even one more step. Go anyway? Try to lose him on the streets of Rockland? Pretend to leave and come back? Call the police and turn themselves in for safety? Call the FBI?
She’d go to jail with the last two. No way.
Erika met her at the door. “What’s going on?”
At the sight of the package she’d dropped on the floor, Flynne picked it up, ripped it open, and fumbled with the interior packaging, too. She pulled out a few police-grade zip ties and threw them at Erika. “Cuff yourself.”
“Wha—? You ordered zip ties?”
“I need to be able to function without worrying about you trying to take over. So, get your ankles cuffed.”
“There’s a frozen ice cream bowl in there. I so could whack you with it.” At Erika’s scoff, Flynne added, “It’s, like, the most awesomest saucy weapon. You hit, it gives you a goose egg, but it’s cold, so that takes down the swelling. All in one thump on the noggers. Supes effish.” When Erika just glared, Flynne threw out her second-to-last threat. “Now put on the zip ties, or I’ll do it and drag you out by your hair.”
To herself she added, Please, just do it. I so don’t want to have to go get the guns.
“I’m not going to—”
Flynne stormed out the back door, grabbed the tranq gun, and marched back in. “Do it.”
“You’re not going to—”
Flynne aimed, fired, and missed—likely due to her hands shaking with barely repressed anger. It did, however, accomplish her purpose.
Erika created a chain of links and tied her ankles together. At first, Flynne nearly made her scale back, but the very real likelihood of them needing to run at some point prompted a change of mind. I’ll just hook her hands behind her. That’ll work.
A glance out the window turned into a stare as Flynne watched the car. “It’s just sitting there!”
“Then tell him to leave!”
She started to protest—to insist that was the stupidest thing she could do, but something she’d read about human nature prodded her out the front door and onto the lawn. She stood there, arms folded over her chest, glaring. Whoever was in the car didn’t look her way at first, but the moment he did—and it was a he—the car shot off down the street and around the corner.
If she’d had pompoms, she’d have waved them. Instead, Flynne bolted through the house and carted everything to the trunk. In less than a minute, she had Erika as comfortable as possible in the back seat—and complaining the whole way.
“You’re seriously going to tie my hands behind my back?”
“I have to. It’s not safe to have you able to use your hands to resist. I remember that much, at least. Now let’s go!”
Erika pulled her feet out of the way so Flynne could close the door. “Where are we going?”
Without even the slightest pause for breath or consideration, Flynne shot back, “No idea!”
Eight
“Obama Langat arrived in Rockland yesterday. Cheers arose as he and the rest of the Kenyan delegation strode into the Harbinger Building for talks on the Kenyan refugee crisis. Much of the world is unaware of the flood of refugees that pour into Kenya every year, sometimes returning after being sent home…”
With one flick, the tiny “wheel of fortune” spun on the desk. Fffttthhhtttthhhttttzzz…
“Today, Langat is said to be resting from his long flights and two back-to-back meetings. The summit begins tomorrow morning at nine o’clock and is expected to last the week. Two former presidents and first ladies are expected to attend as well. Local law enforcement has been brought in…”
Zzzzttth…
A tap to the keyboard silenced that screen, while a few more taps turned on another. “… in other news, a semi overturned just off the Rockland loop this morning. Witnesses at the scene said it was one of the most invigorating crashes they’d ever seen.” Zz zzt tth…
“—smelled like you got trapped inside a coffee grinder or something. I’ve been hyper ever since I stopped.” A woman with short, frowzy, strawberry hair giggled into the mic.
A smile formed as the wheel slowed and the story of the coffee crash played out on the screen. Ffftht… ftht… ftht…
One more screen popped up after a few clacks. Between the ftht… ftht… ftht… of the ever-slowing wheel, the senate minority leader stood before Congress and decried the move toward helping Kenya by bringing more of the Somali refugees to America.
That smile grew and the wheel of fortune slowed. Ffftht… … ftht… … … ftht…
No matter how many times he tromped through muddy fields and meadows to get to the “treeler,” Keith always found it empty. The boys of HearthLand who used it as their combination clubhouse-tree house asked every other hour if they could return. Twice, he’d caught them sneaking that way. This time, he’d let them make it inside.
Keith made a show of walking back to town after checking on it, but instead of staying in his trailer, he crept out and made a beeline for the trees along the creek to the west of town. It took three times longer to make it back. A few times, he had to scramble to stay hidden from Rory and Andre, who also attempte
d stealth-like, evasive movements.
He nearly broke his neck jumping from a tree to the one that cradled the old travel trailer in its branches, but once inside, all was well. With arms behind his head, Keith lay on the bed and waited for them to arrive. It didn’t take long. They could have alerted enemy fire with their constant admonitions to “shhh.”
Rory spied him first—the big, black geek glasses framed wide eyes. If he’d had an Adam’s apple, it would have bobbed worse than apples at a harvest party. “Um…”
Andre stopped mid-sentence, bragging about how they’d done it and gaped. “How’d you get up here?”
“It’s my job. If I was a bad guy, I’d have a gun on you. Do you get that?”
“There’s no bangers in HearthLand.” Andre’s scoff did little to return color to Rory’s pale face. “That’s why Mom moved us here.”
You think you’re so worldly wise. Poor, foolish kid. Keith sat up and leaned forward. “I agree. HearthLand doesn’t have a single…” He tried not to cough or smile over the word, “—banger. But that doesn’t keep people we don’t want here from coming.”
This time, comprehension brightened Rory’s face. “Okay. We’re going. You’ll tell us when we can come back?”
“Wha—?”
Rory elbowed Andre and growled his opinion. “Shut up. It’s like Annie. We’re going.”
Keith rose and walked back to town with them. Andre may not have understood, but Rory’s willingness to stand up to him said all it needed to. They’d stay away until given the green light.
So, bring her here, Flynne. This is safe ground. Just bring her here.
While the boys went off to check out the creek, Keith kept walking… back to the new settlement. Back to Erika’s house. Back to where he’d failed her.
In a slow arc, Keith walked every inch of her property—property she hadn’t even made a dent in owning yet, because Ralph was too much of a softie to stick to his own plans. Only a footprint that had to be Flynne’s looked out of place.
Sweeping the house—much faster. He started at the front door and scanned every inch of wall, surface, floor. The lack of dust hinted that Erika really had ducked out of their tentative date to clean and decompress after the workday from the nether regions. It wasn’t that he hadn’t believed her, but… well, he hadn’t believed her.
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