Pursuit

by ROBARDS, KAREN

  If she pulled the trigger, she might hit Mark. Clearly, clobbering the bad guy over the head with the handle was the way to go.

  She had her back to the front door, the gun reversed (but carefully not pointed at herself ) and her eyes on her target, still circling them, when the front door opened.

  Just like that, no warning at all. There was a click, the sensation of air swooshing in behind her, a wedge of yellow light spilling over her.

  Then somebody grabbed her from behind.

  A man. In a dark suit. With a gun.

  Jess squealed. She would have screamed, but the choke hold he instantly put on her was too tight. She dropped Mark’s gun.

  “Give it up, Ryan,” the man holding her ordered. Writhing, fighting, Jess clawed at his arm—his jacket-protected arm—with her nails. Smacking her in the side of the head with his gun—she saw stars and her knees went wobbly—he pointed the gun at Mark.

  Who shot him in the head.

  Of course, it took a few seconds for Jess to realize exactly what had happened. One moment she was on her tiptoes seeing stars while a thug choked the life out of her and threatened Mark. The next there was a sharp smack—kind of like the sound of a hand slapping flesh—and then the man crumpled. Just crumpled like a discarded towel.

  He didn’t even make much of a thud.

  Jess would have crumpled right along with him except, finding herself suddenly freed, she was too desperate to get away. She leaped out of reach, whirling to look at her attacker, who was lying on his side with a dime-size black hole in the left side of his forehead from which a trickle of black liquid—blood, she realized with growing comprehension—meandered toward his eye. She recognized him with a sense of shock: He was the man who’d chased them outside the library. Then she remembered the other bad guy, and leaped around to get a visual on him, too.

  He was lying flat on his back on the carpet with his arms splayed out beside him. Unmoving. His eyes were wide open and staring at the ceiling. She was pretty sure he wasn’t breathing.

  Mark was getting to his feet beside him, the gun in his hand.

  “You okay?” He sounded slightly winded.

  “Yes. You?”

  “Never better.” His tone was grim.

  “Is he dead?” She was referring to the man Mark had been fighting with, because there was no doubt in her mind about the guy with the hole in his forehead. Her eyes were still on Mark, running over him, checking to make sure he was in one piece. Now that it was past, she realized that as much as she had been terrified for herself, she had been equally terrified for him.

  “Yeah.” He sounded disgusted. “I was hoping to keep him alive. It would have been helpful if we could’ve asked him who he was taking his orders from. But when his partner showed up and grabbed you, I had to act fast. We would have been dead in another five seconds.”

  He had moved around her and was in the process of shutting the door as he spoke. The wedge of light vanished. The lock clicked shut.

  They were left alone in the TV-lit living room with two freshly killed corpses. The smell of death hung in the air, thick and horrible.

  She suddenly felt woozy. Her heart was slowing down, but her leg muscles were acting up. Or rather, giving up. She sank down abruptly in the nearest chair.

  “That guy—he was at the library—knew your name. Do you know who he is?”

  “Never saw either one of them before in my life.”

  “So what do we do now?” She meant about the bodies. Actually, the gore, too. On the wall by the door, a circle of black dots had appeared, the result of the gunshot that had killed the man holding her. The back of his head must have—she couldn’t go further without wanting to gag.

  “Get dressed. We ’re out of here. We ’ve bought ourselves a little time, but when whoever sent these guys realizes they’ve gone offline, they’ll come looking.” Mark was bent over the dead men, going through their pockets.

  “Oh, God.” Forget being woozy. Forget spaghetti legs. Jess got up and stumbled toward the bedroom, grabbing her glasses off the table and putting them on as she went. Snatching up her clothes, she headed for the bathroom. She absolutely had to splash cold water on her face or pass out. Shedding Mark’s shirt, she ended up giving herself what amounted to a quick, icy sponge bath, which helped a lot in banishing the wooziness, before dressing and snagging her purse from the shelf where she had left it. Mark was in the bedroom fastening his holster on over his pants as she emerged. Silently noting in passing how powerful his chest and arms were, she handed his shirt to him.

  “Thanks.” He pulled it on, buttoning it, then picked up the gun that lay beside him on the bed and thrust it into the back waistband of his pants. His other gun—Jess realized that he had taken one from their attackers—was in his hand.

  Feeling the need for two guns was not a good sign.

  “Find anything in their pockets?” She was gathering up their belongings and cramming them into the plastic bag that held their discarded clothes.

  “Cash. ID—supposedly they’re employees of Countrywide Exterminating—pretty funny, when you think about it.” He was on the move, grabbing her hand as he went past, pulling her after him. “Car keys. Nothing useful.”

  They skirted the bodies, which, now that Jess could actually see them in focus, were really kind of pitiful-looking, in a terrifying way.

  “Are we going to just . . . leave them?” She cast a haunted look back as he opened the door.

  His voice dropped as they stepped into the hall. “Whoever sent them will send along a cleanup crew as soon as they find out what happened. By the time the good congressman gets back, I guarantee you the bodies will be gone and there won’t be a trace of this left.” Dropping her hand, he closed the door quietly and they moved toward the far end of the hall, where the elevator and fire stairs were located. The light from the overhead fixture in the hall unnerved Jess. It made her feel horribly exposed. She glanced around anxiously. “His apartment will be good as new.”

  “You’re kidding,” Jess whispered, appalled. The elevator was on their floor, so they decided to, in Mark’s words, “chance it,” riding it down and exiting the building without incident. Mark kept his gun in his hand, which was both nerve-racking and comforting, and they both cast wary glances around the alley as the cold night air hit their faces.

  Remembering the whole eye-in-the-sky thing, Jess drew her head into her shoulders like a turtle as they hurried through the alley. Fortunately, it was a dark night, with only a few stars and the smallest sliver of a moon. All she could do was pray that satellites didn’t come equipped with night-vision goggles.

  That spirit of optimism was dashed as soon as they were back on the street. Dupont Circle was hopping, so busy Mark immediately holstered his gun to avoid attracting attention. The restaurants were full, and the bars and social clubs were overflowing. Pedestrians crowded the sidewalks. Parked cars lined the streets. Music, talk, and laughter, plus the occasional honk from a car horn, filled the air.

  “Oh my God, it’s Friday night,” Jess said under her breath. Weekend nights were big with tourists and college students alike.

  “Saturday morning, technically. It’s seventeen minutes past midnight.”

  They reached Massachusetts Avenue, which was even busier and more crowded. Jess cast anxious glances all around. The horror of the scene they had left behind stayed with her. The prospect of being dropped by a bullet where she stood had suddenly become horribly real. Mark was moving fast, but the massive doses of adrenaline that had to be pumping through her veins had given her legs new strength, and she was able to keep up.

  “You see a cab, you let me know,” he said.

  “A cab? Not the metro?”

  “We need to get out of here as quickly as possible. Time is what we don’t have.”

  Jess felt her stomach plummet as she once again came face-to-face with the hideous truth that the hunters were closing in. Her heart picked up the pace. She rolled an eye at him
. “Plan?”

  He smiled. “Oh, yeah. We . . .” A yellow cab coming toward them caught both their eyes at the same time, interrupting. “Taxi!”

  Once they were inside, Mark said, “The Hay-Adams,” and the driver nodded and took off, swerving out into traffic. The bright lights and picturesque buildings of the area rolled past.

  Jess turned to him. “We’re going to a hotel?” she mouthed incredulously. Not that she didn’t have faith in Mark’s judgment, but taking a cab to the very public Hay-Adams, where one had to register and produce a credit card and jump through all kinds of hoops to rent a room, did not sound like a plan. At least, not a good one.

  He shook his head at her. Clearly, carrying on any kind of substantive discussion with the driver listening in was impossible, so she let it drop, at least until they got out of the cab.

  Mark picked up her hand and held it. He held her hand a lot, because dragging her from place to place required a lot of hand-holding, but this had a different feel to it. A little of her tension eased as her eyes met his. There was a warmth for her in his eyes that made her feel almost shy.

  “Just for the record, that blew me away back there.” His voice was low. She could tell from the way he said it that he wasn’t talking about the epic battle with the dead men.

  “Me, too.” Okay, maybe as a response that was feeble. And maybe this wasn’t exactly the best time and place for romance. But now was the only time and this was the only place they could be sure of, and that changed everything. Her eyes clung to his and her heart beat faster. The memory of how they had been together sizzled in the air between them, unspoken but as tangible as steam. He carried her hand to his mouth, kissed the back of it—jeez, just the touch of his lips on her skin was now enough to make her dizzy—then lifted his head again to look at her.

  “That last thing you said—was it for real?”

  Asking “What last thing?” was clearly not going to work. She knew exactly what he was talking about, and she could tell from the way he watched her that he was perfectly aware she knew.

  She took a deep breath. “Kind of. Maybe.”

  His eyebrows lifted. His mouth curved with sudden amusement. “Way to lay it all on the line.”

  Still holding her hand, he leaned over and kissed her. A lush, deep, hot kiss that was nevertheless quick. Jess’s head was still spinning and she was just getting enough of her senses back to glance away before he could read the embarrassing naked truth about how she felt about him in her bedazzled eyes, when her gaze hit on an advertisement pasted to the back of the seat.

  Under a picture of a Learjet lifting off from a runway and the tagline Remember when the skies were friendly? was the advertiser’s name, YourJets of Virginia. Under the name was a phone number. It was the phone number that caught Jess’s eye and caused her jaw to drop, but she recognized the company name, too.

  “Mark.” Her attention refocused just like that, she gave his hand an urgent tug and pointed to the ad, and never mind that he was still looking at her with heat in his eyes. “Do you still have those printouts?”

  He followed her gaze. Frowning, he stuck a hand in his pants pocket and came up with the folded papers from the library. Jess scooted closer as he unfolded them, then took them out of his hands altogether, flipped through to the Aztec Limo sheets, and pointed wordlessly.

  The three calls to the limo company immediately after Davenport ’s had been made from the YourJets number.

  “Jesus,” Mark said.

  Mindful of the driver, Jess tried to keep her response cryptic. “That’s where she was going. They operate out of a private airport in Richmond. Mr. Davenport used them all the time.”

  The cab pulled to the curb. A bright glow lit the inside of the vehicle, and Jess realized that they had reached the Hay-Adams.

  Mark tucked the pages back into his pocket, handed over money, and they got out.

  The doorman at the hotel eyed them with disfavor, and Jess realized that both she and Mark must be starting to look pretty seamy. A well-dressed couple walked past them into the hotel and a limo pulled slowly away from the front as Mark slipped a hand beneath her elbow and steered her away, into the safer shadows farther along the block.

  “She really was running away. That explains the credit cards, too.” Mark’s tone was thoughtful.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  He was looking across the street, toward the dark acres of Lafayette Park. It was much quieter here than in Dupont Circle. During the day, the area teemed with tourists. After dark, the homeless, druggies, hookers, thugs, and those locals attracted to such things, as well as the occasional too-brave or too-clueless tourist, mixed and mingled in the park. On the streets around it, at this time of night, a few pedestrians walked, a few cars glided by, and the hotels and a few bars were open. During the day, it was safe. At night it was one of those places Jess wouldn’t want to visit by herself.

  “Back to the plan,” Jess said firmly, looking up at him. “Want to let me in on what it is now?”

  “You don’t think I have one, do you?”

  “I’m hoping.”

  “Oh, ye of little faith.” Mark stopped walking, turned her to face him, cupped her face in his hands, and kissed her again. A brief, hard kiss that nonetheless made her breath catch and her heart beat faster.

  “Mark . . .” She curled her hands around his wrists.

  “That conversation about whether you meant it about being in love with me? We ’re going to finish it. Later.”

  Then, taking her hand, looking both ways, he hurried her across the street and into the dark environs of the park.

  30

  So what are we doing here?” Jess’s voice was low.

  It was stupid, she knew, considering that she had an armed federal agent by her side who had just proved himself lethal in the extreme when conditions warranted, and ordinary criminals were the least of her problems anyway, but the dimly lit paths and shadowy areas beyond them gave her the shivers. They weren’t alone by any means, but only a few others—a trio of goths with black everything, a hulking teenager with a blue mohawk and a chain hanging from his jeans, a man in tattered clothing who was shuffling out of the light toward the tent city for the homeless that sprang up each night at the far end of the park—were visible. The rest lurked in the shadows, conducting their business under the trees, behind the bushes, in the lee of almost forgotten statues and monuments. Drunks sprawled on the grass, swigging from open bottles. A few teenagers made out. The heavy, sweet scent of pot wafted past in occasional drifts. The fact that the White House could be seen glowing like the proverbial beacon on a hill in the near distance didn’t seem to discourage anybody from anything. It was there, a fact of D.C. life, and it was ignored.

  “I thought of somebody who might’ve seen the First Lady after she snuck out of the White House and before you picked her up at the hotel. Somebody she might have talked to.”

  “Who?”

  “A woman she met when she was touring a halfway house. Her name is Dawn Turney. A real sad case, was an accountant before she got addicted to crack and crystal meth. She got arrested, lost everything, went to jail, then went into the halfway house, supposedly cured. She and Mrs. Cooper used to meet privately sometimes to talk about the woman’s progress—one of her charity cases. Only we found out a few months ago that Dawn was also supplying her with drugs. We put a stop to the meetings—we thought—and then we found out that Dawn was hanging out here in the park, dealing and doing drugs. The First Lady found out, too, before we did. She would ‘accidentally’ run into her sometimes while she was out jogging at night and they’d do a drug deal with her detail looking on. Of course, they didn’t know what the hell they were seeing. They just thought it was a harmless chat with some fringe person she somehow knew.”

  “You think she met this woman before going on to the hotel?”

  Mark shrugged. “It’s possible. She had drugs in her purse that night. I checked. We �
��d been weaning her off oxy, but when I looked inside the bottle she hid her pills in I saw she had some. Where’d she get them? My gut says here.”

  Jess felt like a thousand unseen eyes were watching them through the dark. Her skin crawled at the thought. Two members of the hit-man contingent were dead. That didn’t mean there weren’t more. In fact, the hard truth was that of course there were more. She tightened her grip on his hand.

  “Mark. I think we need to get out of D.C. I think we need to run away from here as hard and fast and far as we can.”

  “Yeah, I think so, too.” The fact that he agreed with her scared her almost more than anything else had done. It told her that he thought the net was closing in, the situation was getting out of control, the odds of them being caught were ratcheting ever higher. “I want to talk to this woman first, see if she saw the First Lady that night and if she can shed any light on what was going on with her before somebody else tumbles to the fact that she might know something and gets rid of her. Then we ’ll get the hell out of Dodge while we try to figure out what to do.” He hesitated, but from the expression on his face Jess didn’t have any trouble divining the rest.

  “I know that doesn’t mean they’ll quit coming after us.” Her voice was flat. A deep tiredness that she recognized as the forerunner of despair was creeping over her, making her suddenly conscious of the renewed ache in her legs and back, her growing headache, her need for sleep. “They’ll never quit, will they?”

  “Not as long as they think we ’re a threat. The good news is, we’re doing a helluva job outrunning them.”

  Jess shivered. “For now.”

  “Now’s all we ’ve got. It ’s really all anybody’s got.”

  They had reached the statue of Andrew Jackson on horseback that dominated this section of the park. It was set in a concrete circle that was barely visible as a pale ring around the monument. The lights surrounding it were out, either from lack of maintenance or, more likely, from deliberate vandalism. Benches leading up to it were mostly occupied. People milled around the circle, moving in and out of the nearby bushes and trees. Jess couldn’t see anyone clearly. They were dark wraiths weaving through darker shadows.