Pursuit

by ROBARDS, KAREN

The look she gave him was answer enough.

  “Then just hang tight. I’ve got people looking into it. If we get some proof, then you can think about going public. But not until then.”

  “Fine.”

  He studied her. His expression softened fractionally. “Look, I’m handling this, okay? Everything’s going to be all right.”

  “Are you going to pat me on the top of my head now?”

  For a moment he looked surprised. Then he grinned. “I would, but you look like you might break my arm if I tried.”

  “Just so we ’re clear.”

  “Clear as glass. Go to bed, Jess.” He walked past her, opened the door, and paused, looking back at her. “By the way, you look damned good in a towel.”

  Before she could react, he closed the door and was gone, leaving her heart to flutter like the poor foolish thing it was.

  By the time she put on the fuzzy pink pajamas and crawled into bed, she was so tired her head was spinning, so tired she couldn’t think straight.

  Which was good. Because she didn’t want to think at all.

  Because if Ryan wasn’t filling her head, worse things were: images of Davenport pointing the gun at her and firing, of the big window wall suddenly shattering so that the office was open to the night, of Davenport lying lifeless in the street below, of Marian flying up into the air.

  Followed by memories of the crash itself.

  Ryan wouldn’t tell anyone that she had remembered. He ’d promised, and anyway, he was on her side, and . . .

  Annette Cooper was buried today.

  Okay, enough. Jess started counting sheep, picturing the woolly little things leaping a fence in a spring-green meadow.

  One little sheepie, two little sheepies . . .

  The next thing she knew, she was waking up. Which meant, of course, that she had been asleep. So deeply asleep that it took her a minute to get reoriented, to recall whose bed she was sleeping in and where she was.

  The room was so dark that she knew where the door was only because of the thin line of light seeping beneath it. There was a clock beside the bed, the kind that glowed if you touched it, so she did. The glow happened, but the numbers were blurry. Putting on her glasses, she saw that it was four-forty-nine a.m. She’d been asleep for about five and a half hours.

  She had to go to the bathroom.

  Jess remembered the bottle of water she ’d chugged before going to sleep and grimaced. She should have known better.

  Getting up reluctantly, she headed for the bathroom without bothering to turn on the light.

  The house was quiet. The upstairs was dark, while a glance down the stairs told her that below some lights were still on. The good Secret Service agents below were acting as her bodyguards, and thus had stayed awake all night to protect her. Or maybe they were sleeping in shifts.

  Coming back out of the bathroom, she found herself looking toward the master bedroom at the far, dark end of the hall and wondering if Ryan was in there, asleep.

  The picture that conjured up awoke a little pulse of heat deep inside her body.

  You look damned good in a towel.

  Just remembering him saying that made the flicker of heat get a whole lot hotter.

  He . . .

  Voices from below distracted her.

  “. . . feel like breakfast?” The voice was muffled so that she couldn’t really identify the speaker, except that it wasn’t Ryan. It was obvious that whoever it was had just walked into the living room, which was why she had heard only the last part of what was said.

  “Kind of early for that, isn’t it?” Jess thought that might be Wendell talking. It kind of sounded like a woman, but without seeing the speaker it was hard to be sure.

  “It ’s never too early for breakfast, sugar.”

  Jess stopped walking, like she’d been poleaxed. She stood in the middle of the hall, with the pool of light from below ending just in front of her bare feet. Unable to help herself, she looked down the stairway toward the living room. She could see nothing but the newel post and a rectangle of wood floor at the bottom. The sudden tightness in her chest was accompanied by an awful sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach.

  The roaring in her ears was so loud that if they were still talking, she couldn’t hear it.

  But she’d heard enough: that one word, sugar.

  With a certainty so intense it was sickening, she knew where she had heard it before.

  19

  This will help you go back to sleep, sugar.

  That’s what the person in the too-small scrubs with the suit pants and shiny black shoes showing below them had said just moments before he tried to kill her.

  She’d just heard the same endearment again, in the same voice with the same intonation.

  As Jess faced the truth of that, her heart pounded so hard it felt like it was trying to beat its way out of her chest.

  The person who wanted to kill her was here. He was, as she had suspected from the beginning, a Secret Service agent, one of Ryan’s supposedly “good” Secret Service agents who were downstairs right now with a mandate to protect her.

  The ringing in her ears subsided enough so that her hearing came back.

  “. . . two scrambled eggs, then. With sausage.”

  “If you’re cooking, I’m eating. I’ll have the same thing.”

  “ ’ Fraid I’m all out of sausage.” That voice was Ryan’s. She would recognize it anywhere. He was down there, too. With them.

  One of them. He ’d lied about the results of the testing on her IV bag. At least, until she had called him on it.

  “You got bacon, then?”

  “Should have.” Ryan again. “Check the fridge and see.”

  There was a reply, but it was muffled so that she couldn’t quite make out the words. Probably the speaker was heading for the kitchen.

  Jess didn’t wait to hear anything more. Moving very, very quietly, she headed back to the bedroom and shut the door. Curse the luck, it didn’t have a lock.

  For a long moment, she simply stood in the pitch dark with her back pressed to the door, trying to slow her breathing, trying to calm her pounding heart, processing what she’d heard while panic surged icy cold through her veins.

  What do I do?

  Going running to Ryan was obviously out. First, the scale had again dipped drastically in favor of not trusting him. And second, he was down there with the others.

  Every instinct she possessed shrieked that she needed to get out of that house as soon as possible. Before Shiny Shoes, as she was going to call him, got a chance to try to kill her again.

  Maybe they were all in on it. Even Ryan.

  At the thought, she broke out in a cold sweat and her breathing grew ragged.

  She didn’t know. She had no way of knowing. All she knew was that she recognized that “sugar”—and that was enough.

  I have to get out of here.

  The thought brought another surge of panic with it.

  The good news was, they all thought she was asleep. It would be an hour, maybe an hour and a half, until dawn, so she’d have darkness to cover her escape. Probably no one would even consider checking in on her before eight at the earliest. At the minimum, she had about three hours to put as much distance between herself and them as possible.

  Where do I go?

  Her mouth went dry as she realized she had no idea. She couldn’t go back to her apartment: Even if Grace wasn’t there, it was the first place anyone would look. She couldn’t go to her mother’s and put her family in danger. Friends and coworkers were out, too, and for the same reason: How awful would it be to visit on them the fate that seemed to befall everyone who got caught up in this?

  I’ve got to find a place to hide out.

  But where? Given everything that had happened, she had to assume that whoever this was could track her anywhere. That they would track her anywhere. That they would be relentless in trying to find her, and ruthless when they did.

  The bo
ttom line was that she needed to disappear. But how?

  The window of darkness she would need to get away from the house unseen was rapidly shrinking. She was going to have to work out on the fly the details of what she was going to do once she was out of there.

  Jess took a deep breath. First things first: She had to get dressed. She had to collect the belongings she meant to take with her. Then she had to get out of the house.

  If I could get to my car . . .

  She owned a gray Acura TL. It should still be in the parking garage next to her apartment. The keys were in her purse.

  The car’s in D.C.

  Turning on a light was a bad idea. Probably everyone was inside the house. Probably they wouldn’t notice. But she wasn’t willing to take that chance, because the only advantages she had was that, one, they imagined she was sound asleep, and, two, they had no idea she had discovered that the person who had previously tried to kill her was in their midst.

  Probably they’ll be able to put some kind of all-points bulletin out on my car. Once they realize I’ve taken it.

  There was a tiny flat flashlight attached to her key chain, the kind that’s supposed to last forever. Jess remembered it, crossed to the night table where her purse rested, extracted her keys by feel, and pushed the flashlight’s button.

  Presto, a narrow beam of white light.

  I should be able to get at least a few hundred miles away before they even know I’m missing. Then I can ditch the car, switch the license plates, something. Trade it in, maybe.

  Her underwear hung from the windowsill weighted by a book. The silky nylon wasn’t quite dry, but she gathered it up. Her suit was damp, too, and so was her shirt. And her shoes—she groaned when she remembered them.

  Why did I have to wear heels?

  There were possibly items she could use in Mark’s daughter’s closet, but there was no way to be sure, and she was afraid someone might hear her in there and come up to investigate. It wasn’t worth the risk.

  How to get to the car?

  A quick check inside the closet in the room she was in came up empty. Not so much as a hanger.

  Okay, then.

  She got dressed as quickly as she could in her damp clothes, threw her purse over her shoulder, and, picking up her shoes so that the heels wouldn’t clatter on the hardwood floor, padded barefoot over to the window. The curtains were some kind of thick slubby material lined in white, she saw as she shoved them aside. Immediately, pale moonlight flooded in through the multipaned, double-hung window. The rain had passed, which was both good and bad. Once outside, she would be able to see what she was doing without the flashlight. On the other hand, she would be easier to spot, too, if anyone happened to be looking.

  Jess saw the lock, shined her flashlight on it. Surprisingly, it was bright brass and looked brand-new. Unlocking it was easy. The window itself, however, was old. The only encouraging sign was that the handles set into the bottom of the frame were, like the lock, bright new brass. Somebody had replaced the hardware in the recent past, which meant they had probably opened the window, too.

  Stowing the flashlight in her purse, grasping the handles in the window frame, she pulled upward.

  Please let the window open.

  It did, with the most ear-splitting screech imaginable.

  Her heart going wild, Jess froze with the thing only partway up, looking over her shoulder as if she expected a bad guy to pop up behind her instantly.

  Did they hear?

  Nothing happened. No shouts. No footsteps as someone came upstairs to check out the screech. Just the same hushed house sounds as before, plus the soft moaning of the wind outside. Through the open window, cold, damp air poured in around her, causing the curtains to billow, making her think about needing a coat. Which there was no way in hell she was going to take the time to look for.

  Go. Now.

  There was a screen in the window blocking her exit. Putting a cautious hand through the opening, Jess felt rather than saw it. She was afraid to use the flashlight now unless she absolutely had to. The bright beam could give her away. So she ran her fingers over the cold roughness of the screen, feeling it, testing it out. It was thin wire mesh, designed to foil insects while letting air into the house. She tried to raise it. It was stuck fast.

  Cut it.

  Pulling her keys from her purse, she did just that, using her apartment key (she was afraid of damaging her car key, because she needed it so desperately) as a blade and sawing through the screen from bottom corner to bottom corner, then up on both sides. The sound reminded her of ripping cloth. Only if someone was right outside would they hear.

  By the time she finished, her nerves were so on edge she felt ready to jump right out of her skin.

  Go.

  The path was now clear. She had about two feet of space between the sill and the window frame. Given the sound it had made the first time, she didn’t dare try to raise the window further. Taking a deep breath, Jess stuck her head out and looked carefully all around. It was a straight drop down, with nothing beneath the window but grass. The earthy scent in the aftermath of the rain was strong. The wind blew past the house with a soft whooshing sound, making the tops of the nearby trees sway back and forth as if they were doing the wave. It was cold, maybe mid-forties. The bedroom was located at the back near the middle of the house, and the window looked out over a small, neat yard with some kind of patio to her right and woods encroaching on the unfenced lawn just a few feet beyond the patio’s end. Her immediate goal was to make it to those woods.

  I can see light from the kitchen.

  Panic surged through her all over again as she spotted the square of yellowish light spilling out over the grass and realized what it was. It wasn’t bright, which meant it was probably filtered through a thin curtain or something—she remembered the kitchen’s unfortunate gold-and-red-checked curtains and nodded to herself—but it was definitely there.

  All anybody in the kitchen would have to do is look out into the backyard . . .

  They’re probably in the kitchen right now. Cooking. Eating.

  Jess visualized the kitchen, the placement of the table, the stove, the refrigerator. None of it was situated in such a way as to give anyone sitting, cooking, or opening the refrigerator a view of the backyard. She didn’t think.

  If she dropped straight down, she wouldn’t land in the light. She would land right in the dense bank of shadows directly below. Even if they heard something and looked out, they shouldn’t be able to see her. The bottom of the window was, perhaps, ten feet up. The ground beneath looked clear. If she held onto the windowsill with both hands, she would fall less than five feet. She hoped she wouldn’t hurt herself, or make much noise.

  Then she could run like hell.

  Experimentally, Jess dropped her shoes, aiming them a little to the side so that she wouldn’t land on them, and heard nothing as they hit. Good. Obviously the ground was soft from the rain. She had one final thought, and lightly touched the bottom of the screen’s frame. It was, as she had feared, sharp and ragged enough to scratch her up pretty badly as she squeezed out.

  The towel.

  The orange one she had been wrapped in earlier. It now hung from the closet doorknob. Retracing her steps, she grabbed it, folded it over the ruined screen, pressed down to flatten the sharp edges as much as possible, then left it in place as a barrier between her skin and the wires.

  This is as good as it’s going to get.

  Luckily, she was small. Hiking her skirt, throwing one leg over the windowsill and feeling the cold breath of the wind on her bare skin, she slithered out, then hung awkwardly from her hands before letting go. The towel fell with her—good thing; it was bright orange and to anyone looking at the rear of the house, it would have given her away as soon as dawn broke. She landed on her bare feet in smushy wet grass, the jolt of it shuddering through her, the towel fluttering down beside her. Her glasses were knocked askew. Shoving them back into place, she immediat
ely went into a crouch, looking all around like a hunted small animal, heart pounding.

  There were no shouts of discovery, no sounds other than the normal ones of a rural predawn. A quick glance at the lighted square on the grass, then up at the kitchen window itself, showed no change: The lights were still on in the kitchen, and as far as she could tell no one was looking out.

  She reached for her shoes, picked them up, then grabbed the towel so its brightness wouldn’t give her away.

  Run.

  Throwing herself forward, she made a dismal discovery: She couldn’t. Running was beyond her.

  But still she moved, lurching toward the questionable protection of the woods with an unsteady gait that sent needles of pain shooting up her spine. Maybe I’m doing myself damage, maybe my injury’s not healed enough for this. . . . The thought brought a surge of panic with it. But what was the alternative? There was none, so she forced herself on, glancing wildly over her shoulder and all around as her bare feet sank into the icy wet grass and she clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering for fear someone might hear.

  It was still night, still dark with thick, shifting shadows dancing across the ground from the clouds that played hide-and-seek with the pale sickle moon overhead. To her right she could see the parking area, Ryan’s RAV4, and the outbuilding, which she could clearly tell now was a detached two-car garage. With a bicycle leaning against the side of it and another car—presumably having been used by the other agents—parked in another small paved area behind it.

  Jess practically leaped into the blacker darkness at the base of the woods even as the presence of that bicycle imbedded itself in her mind. Already, her feet were so wet and cold that they were next to numb, which was probably a good thing because of the slippery leaves and sharp twigs and other debris piled beneath the trees. Small, prickly branches from the heavy undergrowth scratched at her legs, and in the near distance a pair of round, golden eyes stared unblinkingly down from what had to be the lower limbs of a tree. She could hear rustling as if the owl—she hoped it was an owl—was ruffling its wings. The insect chorus was louder now that she was away from the house. The scent of wet earth was stronger. The air felt colder.