UnLoved Forever

by Lexy Timms

  The Dodge roared a challenge through the smashed hood and tore out after Marcus, burning its tires on the asphalt as it ran.

  From her view in the back seat, Dani watched the car tear through the traffic and grab the freeway. It began to gain, proving that, while the driver might not have been the best where tailing was concerned, he made up for lack of finesse in aggression.

  Marcus drove on the shoulder, switching lanes, and letting the speedometer hit 80. When they came into an area where the traffic was heavy he barely slowed, switching to the shoulder in the fast lane at a speed that set Dani’s teeth on edge. Door handles screamed as they rubbed against the concrete barriers between lanes. Dani could feel the pull of friction on the car, but Marcus kept it straight, and when there was an open pocket again he jerked the wheel around and took them to the shoulder on the other side.

  The Dodge’s driver wasn’t quite so skilled. They, too, drove down along the wall of concrete, but they were slowed down as the entire length of the car screamed against the barrier. The torque on the vehicle twice drove it into the wall where the already smashed front was torn off.

  The fender and front bumper rolled under its own tires; the hood was damaged beyond repair and hung limply from the remaining hinge. They didn’t wait until they had cleared traffic, but insinuated themselves into an area where a small red Datsun already existed.

  The Datsun spun and collided with the traffic beside it, opening a hole the Dodge exploited. Crashing steel and horns erupted behind it, but the Dodge was making up time. They had effectively opened their own unobstructed path to Marcus.

  For his part, Marcus whipped around a semi and was hanging in its shadow. He cut in front of the semi, causing it to lock its airbrakes. The trailer spun, shutting off the freeway behind it, and Marcus raced to the next exit, an on-ramp that connected to another freeway.

  This road was less traveled, and he was able to gun the engine.

  Dani watched as they outpaced the exit where they’d left such a mess. Sirens screamed in the distance. She breathed a sigh of relief, but it was short-lived.

  “INCOMING!” she cried, and the Dodge leapt over a bump in the road, actually airborne for a moment before crashing down hard, yet somehow still locked in relentless pursuit. It looked like it was half-crazed from the damage done, or at least the driver was, and they closed the gap fast. Really fast.

  The back window shattered just before the sound of the gun could be heard. A bullet hole appeared in the front seat between Marcus and Elaina.

  “Well, that is not playing by the rules!” Elaina remarked as the sound of the gun indicated another shot. It sounded like they’d hit the trunk. Elaina looked in the side-view mirror. Dani looked with her, the rear window being too shattered to see through.

  A man was leaning out of the passenger side, pistol in hand and taking aim.

  “Excuse me, dear,” Elaina said, smiling to Maria. “May I?” She took the gun from her and flipped off the safety. “Marcus, have you ever seen The Rockford Files? Remember that move he was famous for?”

  Marcus looked at her, and lifted an eyebrow. He took a deep breath and jammed the steering wheel to one side, causing the car to spin. As he did so, he jammed the gear into reverse and hit the gas. They spun around, facing the Dodge and driving backwards at 70 miles an hour.

  “Thank you, dear,” Elaina said and popped her seatbelt. She pulled open her door and dropped out of the car.

  “NO!” Dani and Maria called at once, but Marcus was holding the woman’s leg. Elaina leaned under the door, her head and arm inches from the tarmac, and fired. Once.

  Dani looked up to see the Dodge drop on the driver’s side and catch. It flipped on the dead tire and rolled once, arcing into the air and hanging majestically for a moment, until it landed on the hood and screamed its death cry, sliding down the freeway on its hood.

  Elaina sat up, closed the door and held on as Marcus slammed the brake, tore the wheel, protesting and groaning, till he was facing the right way, and threw the gear back into drive again.

  “Thank you, dear,” Elaina said, putting the safety back on and handing the pistol to Maria, who stared at her, jaw dropped, eyes wide.

  In the stunned silence Maria asked, “What color do you want that purse?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Mr. McConnell,” the man in the back seat said with a smile, “...and Mr. McConnell, Jr., perhaps I can just call you Luke? And greetings to you as well, Mr. Rhinehart.”

  “You have me at a disadvantage,” Edwin said stiffly as he settled into the seat of the car and fastened his seatbelt with an uneasy glance to the driver.

  William’s expression was somewhat sullen, someone having stolen his thunder. “Edwin, this is Thomas Howard. American controller, British Intelligence.”

  “Controller?”

  Thomas waved that off. “I’m afraid it’s an awfully grotesque title signifying only that I’m the point of blame for whatever goes wrong. But only in this country.”

  “That doesn’t narrow the possibilities by much,” Luke muttered, glancing around the car and wondering what the odds were for escape.

  “No, it does not. More goes belly up in this country than any other posting.” Not that Thomas seemed bothered by that. Job security, Luke supposed.

  “Larger landmass,” William said as the car sped off down the surface streets.

  “Quite,” Thomas said dryly. “May I?” He tugged the flyer from William’s hand and looked at it and nodded. “I should have realized. To the convention center, Driver.”

  “Odd,” William said. “I was under the impression that you were based in New York, and yet here you are in Houston. You couldn’t have arrived in less than... what... eight hours?”

  “Six, actually, but the plane will need some extra maintenance.”

  “Maria is one of yours, isn’t she?”

  Edwin looked up from the window. “What?”

  Thomas said nothing at all for the longest time. When he glanced back at the passengers in back, he smiled a little. “She is. She used to be one of yours, but Americans seem to be such consumers. Use something a short time and throw it out for something newer. Shame, really; I do think she’s a better operative now than she was twenty years ago.”

  “Sixteen,” Edwin said, his expression hard.

  “My mistake. At any rate, she was still collecting. That’s quite remarkable really. The fact that she’d woven a network of informants so vast and complete and did the entire thing after she was considered a liability and sacrificed, her daughter, too... You really must admire the iron in someone like that.”

  “How did you know about Houston?” William pressed, leaning forward, angry now.

  “My man inside, of course.”

  “Marcus,” Luke said as the puzzle pieces came together in his mind. “It could only have been Marcus.” Damn, this game is complex.

  “The same. Very loyal; unfortunately, not to me. On the other hand, he still reported in regularly and, despite his refusal to abandon his charge, he continued to provide good intel. We don’t dispose of our people as readily as you do.”

  “Knock off the holier than thou act, Thomas.” William rolled his eyes. “I had nothing to do with that decision, and you know it.”

  “Marcus was that loyal?” Edwin said, a hint of wonder in his voice. “To me?”

  Luke shot him a glance. Seriously, the guy teared up over a loyal henchman and ignored the fact that his own daughter needed him. And I thought my family was dysfunctional.

  Thomas laughed, and seemed to surprise himself by it. He stopped mid-chuckle and held up his hand dismissively. “No. I am sorry if I was unclear, Mr. Rhinehart; I meant that Marcus’ loyalty to Danielle was complete. Not to you.”

  “Dani?” Edwin raised his eyebrows until they threatened to roll over the top of his head. “But he’s my age! And... aren’t you marrying her?” He rounded on Luke, shades of Mafia coming out in the glare, and the sudden way he drew him
self up.

  He chooses NOW to remember who he is?

  “Get your head out of the gutter!” Luke snapped. “He means that Marcus felt protective of her—he was the father she never had.”

  “I resent that,” Edwin snapped, the very hair on the top of his head seeming to bristle, the way a dog’s hackles would rise when it spotted a threat.

  “Tough,” Luke snapped right back, tired of holding back for the sake of politics or discretion or whatever the hell reason you were supposed to have to not deck a guy. “I saw it, that day at the party. I saw how you doted on that psychopath son of yours, Dani’s half-brother. And I heard you slap her down. You told her she wasn’t even considered for Markland. How the hell do you think that made her feel? It’s no wonder she despises you.”

  “Like your relationship with your father is so stellar,” Edwin sneered.

  “Gentlemen! Enough!”

  Both men snapped their heads around to stare at Thomas. Luke was about ready to stuff that gun in his hand down his throat if he started waving it around one more time. His temple throbbed with built-up frustration and rage.

  He hated them in that moment. Every last man in that fucking car. Thomas’ scheming only added to the fire started by William’s blatant use of Dani as bait, and Edwin’s complete and utter lack of caring in regard to his daughter. Maybe Edwin had had a point—he hadn’t exactly been a devoted son, but then William sure as hell was never going to earn a Father of the Year award. They were all screwed up in their priorities, caring only for whatever got them ahead in this idiotic, crazy game of international politics and intrigue.

  But Luke cared nothing for any of it. Let empires topple. What did it matter to him if another politician exploded like a fireworks display—all flash and bang and then the inevitable fade into darkness. The world was full of people who’d brought ruin upon themselves. There was always another politician to take their place. Would the world truly end if it became public knowledge who had a mistress or who played what faction against the other? Was he unpatriotic to not want to protect the imagined integrity of his country against the slings and arrows of public opinion?

  The only thing Luke knew in this moment was that his world would end if anything happened to Dani. It was impossible to understand how in such a short time she’d become the most important thing in his world. He pictured her face, the range of expressions from laughter to tears. They’d seen each other at their worst, they’d fought alongside each other, and still somehow came out on top. They would again, because they had to. The alternative was just too terrible for words.

  He kept picturing her, lying in a pool of her own blood, a victim of his father’s schemes. The car was moving too slowly; they’d never get there in time. And the whole thing would be his fault. No, not his father’s, though he wanted to blame him for it, but his own for pulling her into this whole mess in the first place. It would have been better for the thumb drive to have been destroyed after all. But he’d been so intent on the mission that he’d given little thought to the woman he should have been thinking about all along. Hadn’t he realized then that he loved her?

  He had... but he’d loved duty more.

  Now, as he looked from William to Thomas, he had an unpleasant view of where that kind of commitment would lead you. Maybe both men had believed in something noble and more worth fighting for at one point in time for another. But to him, they looked too much like squabbling children to take seriously.

  Though, as he was finding out, he had plenty of room for the absolute loathing that had led them to this place.

  He’d seen a movie once where terrorists had collected a group of hostages. One of the agents had remarked to a member of the S.W.A.T. team that they could go in and stage a rescue with only a 25% projected loss rate. The second man had laughed and said, “I can live with those odds.” At the time Luke had been enraged that the death of any individual at all could be ‘acceptable.’

  Now he was seeing it in action.

  He stared at his hands balled in his lap. If I ever get out of this, I need to take an anger management class. How many times have I wanted to punch someone today?

  Luke shot a look at William. “Tell me what’s so all-fired important on that thumb drive that you’d risk the life of not only my fiancée and mother, but the lives of how many innocent people in that expo just to get your hands on that thumb drive?”

  For once William didn’t come right back with a glib comment. He stared out the windshield, jaw set.

  “And Maria? You don’t even have an ounce of loyalty to someone who was one of your own? All her hard work? You make that the only thing that matters, and hang her life in the balance the same as everyone else’s.”

  “He has a point,” Thomas said into the silence.

  William turned his head slightly. “What point?”

  “It occurs to me that you have let go the woman whose data this is, ostracized her as a ‘liability’, and abandoned her. Then, a decade and a half later, finding out that she’d borne fruit, you swept in and demanded the lot, even after having refused to support the woman. This is not very polite, William.”

  “Again, that was my predecessor’s call, not mine.” William’s words were sharp. Clipped.

  “No? You did send them to the...” Thomas waved the flyer, “Convention Center, did you not? To use them as ‘bait’, as your son so helpfully pointed out?”

  “He shouldn’t have said that!” William shot Luke a look.

  “Are you kidding me? Like I give a rat’s ass about protocols and secrets. You have endangered the WOMAN I LOVE—”

  “WHO CAN TAKE CARE OF HERSELF JUST FINE!”

  Luke could feel the vein pounding in his temple. “I know that. Don’t you think I know that?” He slumped against the seat, feeling only the aching loneliness that clawed at him whenever she wasn’t there. “But that doesn’t mean I like when she’s in harm’s way. And I should think if you have any heart left in that withered old chest of yours, you’d understand that.”

  They stared at each other, clearly at an impasse.

  “I don’t know if this will help or not, but I need to inform you that the bait was nibbled,” Thomas said with a heavy sigh, “if you will please excuse the analogy. Person or persons unknown fired on the passengers of a car rented to you, Mr. Rhinehart. Marcus, Danielle, Maria, and...” he turned to William, “your ex-wife, were in the car at the time.”

  “Attempted?” William said coldly. His face was white as a sheet.

  Luke stopped breathing.

  “Attempted, William. According to my sources... well, perhaps it’s best if I show you.” He pulled a tablet from the seat beside him and pressed PLAY. The angle was from high above. “We had a man in a helicopter in surveillance. He would have provided assistance but, as you will see, it was unnecessary.”

  The three of them watched in horror and awe as the scene on the highway played out. At the end, Edwin said, “Wait, why did the car flip over?”

  “According to our man, when the passenger door popped open, the former Mrs. McConnell leaned out of the door and fired a single shot into the oncoming car’s tire. Apparently, they are finding bits of her hair on the freeway.”

  “She was hurt?” Luke demanded.

  “Not that we can tell. She just... lost some hair. We’re on our way to them now.”

  “Thomas,” William said, “how did you know? You and Maria and these...” He gestured to the blackened tablet. “How did you all know to be in Houston?”

  “As for our foes, I can only assume that there is a leak somewhere in the communications cycle. You have no idea the extent to which Maria’s network spreads. I have never seen anything like it. Apparently, having found no statue at the church matching the vague description provided by your son, our man traced the donation to Mrs. Pinal and did some... exploration of his own. As the statue was not in her possession, but a receipt from Federal Express was...”

  “Wait,” Luke said, “while we
all slept in our underwear, Marcus slipped out, broke into the church and Mrs. Pinal’s house? Without any of us noticing?”

  “Impossible.” William shook his head. “I would have known. I was right there...”

  “Oh, I do have a message for you from our Marcus, William. I’m to tell you that he actually loathes the smell of kimchi. I hope that makes sense.”

  Luke felt worlds better. Sometimes a good belly laugh at someone else’s expense was just the tension- breaker you need. And for once, he didn’t mind in the least when Edwin butted in, and joined him in his laughter.

  William fumed, arms crossed, staring so hard out the window it was a wonder the glass didn’t break. “I can’t wait for the bachelor party,” he muttered half under his breath.

  “WE NEED TO DITCH THIS car!” Dani said as they limped past an exit. The next one should be the convention center if they held together in one piece long enough. She slid down in the seat, noticing the looks they were getting from people in the cars around them. “It stands out too much.” Something clattered on the pavement behind them.

  “Nothing important,” Elaina sang out. “Just another hubcap.”

  “I don’t think that’s an issue,” Marcus said over his shoulder. “The police are working for your future father-in-law. Everyone else seems to know where we are anyway. I suggest that since the convention center is within reach, changing cars now would be a delay.”

  Dani looked at her mother and, hopefully, future mother-in-law. She suddenly realized they were waiting for her decision. Somehow she had been elected to be in charge. She sighed. She’d never liked the responsibility that went along with command. Hated it in fact. She’d been more comfortable either working alone, or in just being one of the men.

  You have no choice. Get it together. They’re counting on you.

  “All right, you’re right. But when we get there, try to find a place to bury the thing so it doesn’t stand out too much!”