The tickets and identification papers from her brother hadn’t shown up. She and Archer had sat down. He had wrapped his strong arm around her. She had felt comfortable and safe. And then she had given into her exhaustion.
Kate had fallen sleep. And now her unsecured prisoner was gone.
She was going to get fired for sure now. If she lived that long.
Kate looked at Archer’s empty seat again. Maybe there was a note or some sort of clue. But there was nothing.
She looked around the terminal again. It was still empty, save for the female attendant behind the service counter.
Kate glanced at the large digital clock behind the counter. It was four in the morning. She had been asleep for almost two hours.
She was definitely going to get fired.
“Excuse me?”
The eighties attendant looked up from her computer as Kate approached the counter. She raised a questionable eyebrow at Kate’s bedraggled state. “Yes?”
Kate paused before beginning. This was going to sound awkward. “The man I came in with, did you see where he went?”
The attendant gave Kate a narrow look. She didn’t like Kate. She was more than a little familiar with women like Kate. There was, of course, only one type of woman who went around with men like that in the middle of the night. Prostitute. Yes, the attendant had called it as soon as they had stepped into the terminal. Of course, the lady didn’t have enough money to buy a ticket. She was disgusted. Women like Kate had no business being out in the world, they made the rest of her sex look bad.
The attendant sniffed a little, letting her nose drift upwards a bit and said, “Yes, as a matter of fact, he left about twenty minutes ago.”
Twenty minutes ago?
Kate was confused.
“Did he leave a message for me?” she asked.
The attended gave her a disapproving look. Men don’t leave messages for women like her. “I am not an answering machine,” she said.
Kate took another deep breath. She was not going to beat this woman; she kept repeating that singular thought over and over again in her head. “Well, did you happen to see how he left? Did he call for a cab? Did someone pick him up?”
“I am not a private detective either,” the attendant replied, frowning. “If you want to know where your man is, maybe you should have asked him yourself before you fell asleep and started drooling on his shoulder.”
That was it. Kate’s hands balled up into fists. She was going to teach this woman a thing or two about proper behavior and good customer service. She was going to start the lesson by dragging her across the counter by her ridiculous eighties hair.
A hand fell her on shoulder, causing her to stop short. It was a strong, clearly masculine hand.
Kate watched the expression on the attendant’s face and immediately felt relieved. Archer hadn’t left her.
She turned around but didn’t find Kyle Archer standing behind her.
Instead it was her brother, Jack Sharpe.
“Hey, sis.”
Chapter 21
“What are you doing here?” Kate was equal parts surprised, shocked, and confused, all wrapped up in a blanket of bewilderment. For a second, she thought was still asleep and dreaming.
It had been almost three years since she had last seen her older brother and he hadn’t changed much. He was about a head and half taller than her. His hair was a dark shade of brown and that usually had a just-out-of-bed look to it but was now flattened and plastered to his head from the rainstorm. His body, fit and trim, was hidden under an absurdly long dark coat. There was a twinkle in his eyes that belayed a man with a sense of humor, despite what else his body language might be saying.
The attendant felt herself go weak in the knees when Jack looked at her and smiled. “Will you excuse us?”
Not waiting for an answer, he took Kate by the arm and guided her back to the chairs.
“I thought you were out of the country?” Kate asked, keeping her voice low. “And why are you wearing that ridiculous coat.”
“It’s called a disguise,” he said.
“It’s not much of a disguise,” Kate replied. “This is Florida. The only people who wear coats like that are crazy people.”
He gave her a narrow look. “Which one of us is supposed to be the spy?”
“You.”
“Then stop trying to tell me how to do my job,” he looked around, as if confirming that the terminal was still empty. “And I was out of the country. Actually, I still am.”
“I’m confused.”
“Officially, I’m not here,” Jack said. “That’s about all I can say,” he looked around again, a thought occurring him. “Aren’t you missing something? A certain prisoner perhaps?”
Kate folded her arms. “Yeah. I’m trying to figure that one out.”
Jack raised an eyebrow.
“It’s complicated,” Kate said.
“Well, it’s about to get more complicated,” he said.
“What happened? None of the stuff was here.”
“Well, why didn’t you answer your cellphone?” he asked.
“Because I didn’t grab it before I jumped off the plane that was being highjacked in an attempt to kill my prisoner,” she said.
Jack took the answer in stride. “Well, there you go, I was limited in ways of contacting you. I knew where you were going to be, so I had to make sure I kept you there. I did some extra digging and found some very interesting things about your prisoner.”
Kate was worried. For her brother to have come rushing back to the States, whatever he found out wasn’t just ‘interesting.’
“Your prisoner has an FBI file.”
“So?” she shrugged. “I have an FBI file.”
“You’re in law enforcement and yours isn’t internal-use-only and marked Code Red.”
She shook her head. “I don’t get it. What’s a Code Red file?”
“Near as I can tell? It’s something linked to FBI internal operations,” Jack said.
“This makes no sense,” she said. “Are you saying he’s working with the FBI?”
Jack didn’t answer her. “What other agencies had been involved with this operation?” he asked.
“As far as I know, only the US Marshals,” she said.
“Are you sure about that?” he asked. “In the last twelve hours your boss, Bullings, has had four separate meetings with four separate top ranking FBI officials.”
“Wait, what?” Kate rubbed her forehead. “This doesn’t make any sense.”
Jack didn’t say anything.
Kate let her gaze wander around the empty terminal. An FBI file? It suddenly occurred to her that she really didn’t know Kyle Archer.
“Katie, where is he?” Jack finally asked.
Kate looked him, snapping out of her gaze. “Hmm?”
“Where’s Archer?” he repeated.
She sighed. “Honestly? I don’t know.”
Jack didn’t know what to say.
“We got here almost two hours ago,” she continued, “none of your stuff was here and we didn’t know what to do. I fell asleep and when I woke, Archer was gone.”
“You fell asleep?” Jack repeated, not believing what he was hearing.
She rubbed her eyes. “Jack, it’s not that simple.”
“You don’t have to convince me, sis,” he said.
She looked up at him in surprise. “I don’t?”
“I was never even here,” he pulled out a small manila envelope and handed it to her. “These are your tickets and identification papers,” he paused. “There’s something going on between you and Archer. That’s fine. I completely understand.”
Now Kate was really surprised. “You do?”
“I’m not your superior, Katie, just your older brother,” something passed over his face that Kate couldn’t quite identify, but it looked a lot like regret. “I’ve been in a situation where things weren’t so black and white. I wasn’t careful and I lost so
meone very important to me.”
“You never-” Kate started.
He cut her off with a wave of his hand. “There’s some things I can’t talk about. You know that.”
She nodded, backing off. “Right.”
“Anyway, it was a long time ago,” Jack said. “What’s going on with you is happening here and now. Where would he have gone?”
“Who knows?” she ran a hand through hair. “We didn’t have any money. The SUV we came in barely had enough gas to get us here. I don’t know. Unless he called Bragan and turned himself in, I don’t know.”
Jack caught the look on his sister’s face. It was fleeting, she pushed it aside almost as quickly as it had appeared. “Would he do that?” Jack asked, already knowing the answer, knowing what he would have done in the same situation. “Would he have turned himself back over to Bragan?”
Kate looked at her brother, no longer bothering to mask her emotions. “If he thought it would keep me alive, yes. Yes, he would.”
Chapter 22
“Briggs, you idiot, listen to me!” Archer shouted into the payphone. Thunder boomed overhead and the rain pounded against him. “People are dying!”
Archer listened to the voice on the other end, gripping the phone so tightly he threatened to crack it in half.
He pounded his fist into the side of the payphone. “No, I can’t wait! We need a new plan. Don’t you understand?” The voice on the other end cut him off and Archer’s eyes widened as he listened in horror. “You’ve done what? Are you insane? How do you think they found me in the first place? There’s a leak!”
The voice replied.
“The hell it is!” Archer snapped and the thunder boomed as if to punctuate his point.
He slammed the phone back on the hook and the payphone shook, almost falling off the wall. Lighting flashed across the sky.
Damn bureaucrats, Archer thought. This wasn’t going to work. He leaned against the wall, turning his face upwards into the rain. This was out of control.
It had seemed a logical train of thought. If he could get a hold of them, let them know what was happening, maybe they could get it under control. There had to have been a back-up plan, an emergency plan. He just never imagined that it would be this insane. They had their heads so far up their own butts they didn’t understand what was going on out here.
Another dead end. He was running into too many of them these days.
Archer cried out suddenly, shouting into the sky like some kind of wild animal. The sky responded with thunder and lightning. But Archer did not back down.
He had agreed to this. He knew what he was going to have to deal with going in. And now everything that could go wrong had gone wrong.
He turned around and slammed his fist against the wall. It wasn’t just his life on the line anymore. And that’s what made his decision. The only thing he cared about now was keeping Kate safe. To hell with everything else.
_____
Jack and Kate sat in the empty terminal going over possible plans when the front glass doors slid open. For a brief second the storm outside seemed to try to force its way in but then the doors slid closed, cutting them off from the outside world.
Archer stood there, dripping wet.
Kate got to her feet. “Archer?”
“We need to leave,” he said.
“Where have you been?” she asked. “You just disappeared.”
“It doesn’t matter. We have to leave. And I mean leave. Completely disappear.”
She slapped him across the face. “I asked you a question! You’re still my prisoner. Where have you been?”
He grabbed her by the arms hard and pulled her close. His eyes were wide and wild. “Your prisoner? Have you been paying attention? Bragan isn’t going to stop until he kills me. We need to disappear. Completely disappear.”
“Buddy, I don’t take kindly to people manhandling my sister,” Jack said, speaking up for the first time since Archer had returned.
Archer looked past Kate, finally taking notice of Jack. “Your sister?” He repeated, letting go of Kate. He stepped back, calming down.
“Jack had some extra information that he thought I should have. That’s why the tickets weren’t here. He had no other way of contacting me.”
Archer was confused. “Information?” He looked from Kate to Jack.
“Why do you have a Code Red FBI file, Kyle?” Kate asked. “And what is a Code Red file?”
Archer felt like he had been sucker punched. His world was spinning around him, out of control. What should he do?
He saw the pleading in her eyes. He saw the suspicion in her brother’s. He wanted to tell them both. He wanted to tell Kate everything. But until he knew for sure, it couldn’t be risked.
He turned away, unable to look her in the eye. “I told you, it’s complicated.”
She put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m a big girl. I can handle a lot of things. Whatever’s going on, I can take it.”
Archer looked at her. “I know you can. And I promise, I will tell you everything. But not now. Now, I need you to trust me, Kate. Can you do that? Can you trust me?”
Could she trust him? Hadn’t she done that already?
“Yes,” she said.
He looked at Jack. “Is this going to be a problem?”
Jack held up his hands. “Like she said, my sister’s a big girl. If she thinks she can trust you, then that’s good enough for me.”
“Good,” Archer said. “We need to disappear.”
“So you’ve said,” Jack nodded at his sister. “Go to Miami.”
Archer frowned. “That’s not what I had in mind.”
Jack looked at him, matching his steely gaze. “I know. But I’m on a time limit here. Go to Miami. I’ll talk to my guy, Jose, we’ll get you into a safe house. You can stay there until we can set up new identities for you,” he looked at his watch. “If I don’t start back now I’m going to be missed and that could lead to a government falling.”
Kate and Archer looked at him but didn’t say anything.
Jack kissed his sister on the cheek. “Be careful,” to Archer he said, “You know the drill.”
“I hurt her and you kill me,” Archer said.
“Exactly,” pulling his coat tight against him Jack stepped outside and disappeared into the storm.
Archer turned back to Kate. His hand caressed her check. “You do trust me, don’t you?” he asked again. Deep down, though, he already knew the answer. He had known it for awhile.
“You had a chance to leave,” she replied. “You came back instead. That’s all I need to know.”
Chapter 23
The train cut through the rain like a silent blade. Raindrops splattered against the windows.
A cold shiver ran through Kate despite the relative warmth of the cabin. Archer sat at the window, Kate next to him. The rest of the cabin was empty save for the two college students at the front who had had too much to drink.
Kate’s mind was a whirlwind of activity. She felt herself being pulled several directions all at once. She found herself faced with options she never thought she would be faced with. And she found herself seriously considering taking the path that she knew she couldn’t take. She thought she should be surprised but realized that she was beyond that now. Her circumstances had changed and she was okay with that.
But she couldn’t go down that path.
“Archer,” she said after half an hour of silence, “I can’t go with you.”
He turned away from the racing landscape and looked at her.
“What?”
“I have a life,” she said. “I have a family. I have a career. I can’t just disappear with you,” she paused, looking away. “I’m sorry.”
Archer ground his teeth together. “Kate, Bragan will go after you.”
“Not if I say you managed to escape custody,” she replied. “And let’s face it, it wouldn’t be stretching the truth much.”
Archer shook his head.
“It doesn’t matter. He’ll think you can lead him to me. Your life will still be in danger.”
She rested her hand on his, their fingers interlocking. “I’m a US Marshal. My life is always in danger. I can handle this.”
“Kate,” he started.
“No,” she cut him off. “I’ll take you to Jack’s man in Miami. I’ll make sure you’re secure, but then we have to part ways. It’s the right thing to do.”
“To hell with the right thing,” he snapped. “What gives you the right to decide what’s right and what’s wrong?”
“If I disappear with you it’ll just make things worse,” she said. “I will be missed.”
“And you don’t think I have people who miss me?” he asked. “I’m not just some loner, cast off adrift in a sea of crime, Kate. I’m a man. I’m a person. I’ve got family, too. And every time I have to make a decision that keeps me from them another day, that moves me another mile away from them, it hurts me in ways I could never describe.”
Kate didn’t know what to say. She saw the pain in his eyes. She knew he was telling the truth.
She reached up and caressed his hardened face tenderly. “Oh, Archer,” was all she could say.
“Right now, Kate,” his voice had grown hoarse, “you mean even more to me than that family. I can’t bear the thought of Bragan killing you. Please, come with me.”
Her heart ached. She wanted so badly to say yes. Every bone in her body screamed to say yes. In that moment of naked vulnerability Kate felt a sudden longing for him. A longing that could be filled only one-way and she could think of saying or nothing else.
“Kyle,” she said, speaking the only other words she dared to right then. They escaped from her mouth in a throaty, husky whisper, “stop talking and kiss me,” she locked eyes with him, making sure he could see passion and desire burning in them. “I want you to finish what you started back at the hotel room.”
_____
They moved back a car. The cabin was empty. They found one of the travel blankets and made their way to the most secluded seats. All the while, their lips never parted.
Outlawed Love Page 11
