Asher slept fitfully that night, despite the release of sexual tension that had been building up inside him since the moment he’d snatched Ellie from the alleyway—the tension he’d refused to acknowledge until now. He needed to call Jackson, fill him in on what had happened, but he also needed some guidance from his boss. What the hell was he supposed to do with Ellie? Bring her in? Stay on the road? Find a place to hunker down and hide? Right now, he didn’t trust his heart not to do something stupid.

As dawn lightened the eastern sky, he rose from the bed, quickly dressed, and stepped toward the window, gently pulling the curtain aside to peer out. Nothing. The fact that he didn’t see anything moving out there didn’t make him feel much better. He hadn’t felt anything yesterday, either, and those two assholes had still snuck up on him.

He glanced toward the office just as the lights went on. Behind him, Ellie’s deep breathing was the only sound in the room. He regretted having to wake her, but couldn’t leave her in the room alone without telling her where he was going. She’d emerged from the bathroom the night before only moments before he was about to go back in and start apologizing. Asher had been about to invite her to his bed, but she’d walked to the other without a word and climbed in, turning her face to the wall. Not wanting to do anything even more stupid than he already had, he’d let her be, but he’d spent more of the night gazing at her still form that he had sleeping himself.

He moved toward her bed and jostled it. She grumbled in her sleep.

“Ellie, wake up.” He tapped her hip through the blankets. “Wake up.”

She jolted upright so suddenly that he took a step back.

“What?” she snapped, gazing wildly around, then looking up at him. “What is it?”

“It’s almost dawn. I’m going to go to the lobby. I need to use the payphone to make a phone call. Get dressed, get your things, and be ready to go when I get back.”

She said nothing but merely nodded, throwing the covers back. Unlike him, she’d gotten dressed after the sex in the shower, forgoing his T-shirt offer, and slept in her clothes. A warning? Asher wasn’t sure, but he couldn’t deal with that right now. Not while their lives were in danger. He’d made enough of a mess of things the night before.

Ellie swung her legs over the side and lifted a hand to her head, brushing mussed hair away from her face. With bed head, and rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she looked like a little girl. A lost little girl. He fought the urge to sit down on the bed next to her, to offer a comforting hug. He doubted she’d appreciate that right then. She sat silently, shoulders slumped, but whether that slump was caused by leftover sleep or growing despair over her situation, he didn’t know.

“I’ll be right back. Lock the door behind me.”

She nodded again, and he walked to the door, opened it, then stepped out, closing the door softly behind him. He paused in front of the door until he heard it lock behind him. Only then did he walk across the cracked asphalt toward the office. Weeds growing up in the cracks reaffirmed his low opinion of the place. His eyes continually scanned the parking lot, the elongated shadows along its western edges, and into the trees across the road. No way in hell was somebody going to sneak up on him again.

He stepped into the motel lobby, reached into his wallet, and pulled out a five-dollar bill, placing it on the counter as the manager watched. “Can I get some quarters?”

The manager brushed the back of his hand across his stubbled chin, glancing at the five-dollar bill, and then up at Asher. “What, I look like a bank to you?”

Asher pulled a ten-dollar bill from his wallet and placed it on the counter. “That’s for your trouble, thank you.”

The owner shrugged, snatched the ten, tucked it into his pocket, then opened his cash register. In a matter of moments, Asher walked out, his pocket filled with twenty quarters. He’d need every one, as he’d be using solely cellphones for the next while.

He rounded the corner of the office payphone booth nearby. Fortunately for him, it looked to be in working order. Damn, he should’ve checked it first. His brain clearly wasn’t working. He would’ve like to blame that on Ellie, but he couldn’t. It was his job to remain alert, focused, and detail-oriented. No matter what was going on around him, that was his responsibility. Asher shook his head. He wasn’t doing such a good job of keeping Ellie out of harm’s way. Those goons, whoever they were, had been a step ahead of them for every move he made.

He stepped into the booth, slid a quarter into the slot, dialed the number, and then added a few more quarters, leaving the door open, facing the exterior, his eyes constantly roaming.

The ring on the other end stopped as the phone was answered, but no voice responded. “Jackson, it’s Asher.”

“What the hell?”

“I’m at a pay phone.” He quickly filled Jackson in on what had happened since his last update. Jackson cursed under his breath.

“My sentiments exactly,” Asher said dryly. “Suggestions?”

“Until we figure out who’s behind all this, let’s not transport her down here. Do you have enough money to stay off the grid for a few days?”

Asher nodded, and then, realizing that Jackson couldn’t see it, mumbled an affirmative. “I still have my laptop. I’ll find us a secluded spot, maybe a couple of counties over, maybe even head up into New York—”

“No, not New York, not even if it is away from New York City,” Jackson interrupted. “Head up further north, New Hampshire or Vermont. We’re trying to get a fix on these people, but they’ve hidden their tracks well. Tansy is close to pulling his hair out with this one.”

“But wouldn’t it be better for him and Ellie to work on this together? Could he meet us somewhere?”

“I’m hesitant to do even that,” Jackson admitted. “We’ve got to stay under the radar as well. He’s making a little headway, it’s just taking some time. You’ll have to be patient. And careful.”

“Doing my best,” Asher said, then sighed. “We’ll hit the road, head north. I’ll touch base with you tonight or sooner if necessary. I’ll be calling from landlines and pay phones for the time being.”

“Got it,” Jackson said, then hung up.

Asher hung up the receiver and stepped out of the phone booth. Ellie emerged from the motel room. Even from the distance, he saw the pinched, annoyed expression she wore. He almost smiled as he walked across the parking lot. She hadn’t looked like that in the shower . . . 

The sun shone in his face as he walked around the back of the truck, still grinning. She glared at him, standing with his backpack slung over one shoulder, the laptop tucked in the other. He unlocked the door, and she tossed the backpack in, placed the laptop on the seat, pushed it over, and climbed in after it. He closed the door and stepped around the hood of the truck, then climbed in, glancing at her.

“Got everything?” She nodded. “You’re sure?” She gave him another look.

“Of course, I’m sure. All we have is your backpack and the laptop. I don’t even have a change of clothes.” She paused. “I have bad breath. I need to brush my teeth, but I don’t have a toothbrush, do I?” She eyed him. “I don’t have anything. No deodorant, no toothbrush, no underwear . . .”

He nodded. “Got it. We’ll stop someplace and get you a change of clothes and some . . . whatever you need to hold us for a couple of days,” he said.

She sighed, staring out the windshield at the side of the motel as she mumbled an apology over her foul mood. “Where are we going?”

“North.”

She said nothing, and he didn’t either. He slid the key into the ignition and started the truck, giving it about thirty seconds to warm up before he slipped it out of the park and into reverse. The engine hitched, only a slight cough, but not normal. He frowned. It almost sounded like one of the pistons was misfiring. He swore, muttering under his breath. He backed out of the parking space, then turned the nose of the vehicle toward the road. The truck coughed again, belched exhaust, and jerked. “Now what?” He put the truck in park, left the engine running, and glanced at Ellie. “Wait here. I’ll check it out.”

She nodded, idly staring out the passenger side window into the semidarkness. He glanced around as well, but saw no movement from the other side of the road, nothing in the trees or shrubs nearby. In the distance to the east, he glimpsed the crests of giant sand dunes, but on the other side of the road, trees, shrubs, nothing exciting. No industrial complexes, no neighborhoods, not much of anything. A few widely spread lights from houses.

Still muttering under his breath, Asher opened the hood. It took him only a few seconds to note the source of the problem. Heart racing, he ran to the passenger side door. Locked. Fuck!

“Get out!” he shouted. She stared at him with wide-eyed alarm. “Get out! Now!”

For a second, she froze, and then quickly unlocked her door and slid out. She turned to reach for the backpack and his laptop but he cursed, grabbed her wrist, and began to run away from the truck.

“Asher! Wait! The laptop—”

Damn it! She wasn’t fast enough! He paused, and with another curse, bent down, lifted her upward, and threw her over his shoulder. He ran away from the truck, her shouts of anger the only sound in the otherwise still morning.

He heard her grunt with every step he took. She tried to adjust her position, tried to grab at the waistline of his pants.

“Asher—”

A loud whooshing sound erupted from behind him. A split second later, a blast of hot air pushed him forward, causing him to topple, Ellie falling with him. She cried out as they fell, but he managed to twist and fall on his side, doing his best to cushion her fall. She landed on top of him, his hand clutching the back of her head. His hand struck the asphalt. Her skull bounced against it and then slammed upward, her forehead making contact with his jaw. Asher ignored the pain, clutching her close to him, rolling as an explosion rocked the ground beneath them.

The explosion was violent. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched his truck bulge and then separate into pieces. A flash of orange and red momentarily blinded him. He shouted and hunched over Ellie as a tire flew past, so close he smelled the burning rubber. Pieces of metal and plastic rained down around them. Asher looked down into Ellie’s startled face, eyes wide, mouth open in a silent scream. He glanced over his shoulder to find his truck now on its rims, tilted toward them due to the crunched front axle, the flames shooting from the engine and into the cab—

“The computer!”

Asher stared. Anger replaced shock and he cursed, long and loud to the accompaniment of popping and shattering glass, the whoosh and crackle of flames. The smell of burning oil, melting rubber, and the acrid stench of melting plastic wafted toward them on the breeze. Ellie’s harsh breathing filled his senses. He slowly sat up, arms still wrapped around her, upper torso still protecting her from any potential flying shrapnel or other debris. He pressed her head into the crook of his shoulder. The warmth of her skin plus her ragged breath against his cheek reassured him she was still alive as they huddled close together. His heart pounded hard, as Ellie trembled wildly in his arms. She clutched at him. Her breasts pressed against his chest. Despite the danger, despite the fact that the two of them had almost been blown to bits, he couldn’t help a surge of desire that erupted deep in his groin.

Only when he realized that the heat carried toward them on the breeze had singed the hair on his arms did he move. Tightening his grasp around Ellie’s waist, he stood, pulling her up beside him. She wobbled for a moment, hand clutched around his forearm.

“You okay?”

She didn’t reply. He gazed down at her, her features illuminated by the orange glow of the fire devouring his truck. He cursed again and turned to gaze at the landscape around them. He saw no one. A fucking bomb. Someone had planted a fucking bomb in his truck while he’d been busy fu—while he’d been with Ellie in the shower and then watching her sleep most of the night. He hadn’t heard a thing. Not the distinctive pop of his hood, nothing. Whoever had planted the bomb had done so from underneath . . . damn it! Who were these people?

The wail of a fire engine sounded in the distance. The office manager rushed out of his office, shouting. Fortunately, Asher had turned the truck around, preparing to head out on the highway. The explosion had pointed away from the motel rooms. Only two of the rooms had shattered windows.

He continued to hold Ellie close, her body still trembling as she stared at the flames that filled the cab, his custom seats providing ample fuel. His own knees trembled a bit, every muscle in his body tight with tension. He straightened, his jaw tight as he watched the fire engulf his truck, the siren of the fire truck growing closer. Other sirens followed, and in another few seconds, the street was alive with red and blue undulating lights; the fire truck, paramedics, a state patrol car, a county sheriff’s vehicle, and an ambulance. They brought with them a cacophony of sounds.

Everyone, with the exception of the firefighters dragging a hose toward his ruined truck, rushed toward them: the deputy, the state patrol officer, the two paramedics . . . He assured the paramedics that they were both okay, but they insisted on checking them out, taking their vitals, looking in their eyes, making sure neither of them had been injured by the blast or their sudden impact as he’d dove to the asphalt. He watched from close by as Ellie sat on the bumper of the ambulance, its door opened behind her. Its bright interior dulling softly in the rising light of day, he spied the gurney, the metal cabinets, the equipment inside. One of the medics took her pulse and blood pressure. The other blotted at the blood on the back of his hand from scraping it on the asphalt. She continually insisted that she was all right, that neither of them had any broken bones nor required stitches.

He was incredibly grateful for that much. They could have both been charred beyond recognition in the cab of his truck if they hadn’t gotten out when they did. Ellie looked at him, and he knew that the same truth had struck her as well. Other than being frightened, she was all right.

After the paramedics left the scene, assured that health-wise, they were okay, the police wanted to talk to them. The state patrol officer gestured him over to his vehicle, away from the ambulance. As that vehicle prepared to leave the scene as well, the county sheriff’s deputy walked Ellie in the opposite direction.

“Want to tell me what happened here?”

Asher frowned and gestured toward his truck. “Pretty obvious. My truck exploded.”

The trooper eyed him. “Got any idea why?”

Asher did, but he had no evidence, so he shook his head, watching as the firefighters doused the last of the flames. What remained of his truck was now a charred mess of metal, peeled paint, melted plastic, and dripping white fire-retardant foam.

He glanced toward Ellie, watched as she pulled something from her pocket and gave it to the officer. Requesting identification. At the same moment, the trooper asked him the same question.

“Got some ID?”

Asher nodded, reached into his pocket, and retrieved his wallet. He removed his driver’s license and handed it over to the trooper.

“Wait here,” he said. The two officers moved toward the state patrol vehicle, where Asher knew they would check their IDs. Ellie approached, wide-eyed, gazing from the truck to Asher.

“What the hell is going on?” she asked, voice trembling with dismay. “That’s the second time in two—”

“We’ve got a problem,” the state patrol officer said as he approached, handing Asher’s identification back to him, but holding on to Ellie’s.

“What?” Asher asked. Any worry about his truck fled at the look on the officer’s face.

The officer didn’t look to Asher, but at Ellie. “Ma’am, you have two warrants out for your arrest—”

“What? My arrest?” She stared at the officer in disbelief, her breath catching in her chest. “Wait . . . I don’t . . . what do you mean? What for?”

Asher stiffened, glanced down at Ellie and then at the officer, a frown and a headache forming at the same time.

“One is a failure to appear following a DUI, the other for grand larceny from an ATM.”

Ellie had been pale before, but now her face took on a pasty white hue as her eyes widened even more and her mouth dropped open. She shook her head as she tried to speak. All she managed was a squeak.

“Look, you’ve got something wrong,” Asher said. Just who were these bastards? “When did these occur?” He glanced at Ellie, staring back at him in shock.

“I don’t drink,” she protested. “And I certainly didn’t steal any money from an ATM. Grand larceny?” She shook her head. “How could I commit grand larceny on an ATM? They have like what, a three-hundred-dollar limit a day for withdrawals?” She turned to Asher. “I didn’t—”

“You can explain it all down at the station,” the trooper said. He pulled a pair of cuffs from his belt and reached for Ellie’s arm.

“Wait . . . wait!” she exclaimed. “This isn’t right. I’m a victim of identity theft! Just yesterday, all the funds in my bank account disappeared—”

“Like I said, Miss, we can discuss this down at the station.”

They didn’t believe her. What the hell could he do? He wouldn’t have believed it, either. Not until a few days ago. He knew little about Ellie’s personal life, but he could tell by her expression, her fear, and her dismay that she was completely innocent. Whoever had tried to blow them up, whoever had attacked him yesterday, whoever had swiped her money from her bank account the first time, was responsible for this, too.

“I’ll read you your rights, and if you want to talk, you can.” The deputy clinched the handcuffs around both her wrists. “You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to—”

“No!” she exclaimed, turning to look over her shoulder at the deputy, tears brimming in her eyes. She blinked them back and turned to Asher. “Help me . . . ”

He was fucking helpless.

“Ma’am, you have to let me finish reading your rights. Then you can protest or say anything you want. But I have to do this, all right?”

Shoulders slumped, Ellie bent her head, shaking it slowly back and forth as the officer finished quoting her Miranda rights.

Silence, until Ellie heaved a sigh.

“Do you understand each of these rights as I’ve explained them to you?” the deputy asked.

Ellie nodded. “Yes.”

“You want to talk to us?”

She turned to him, her look of defeat causing Asher’s heart to clench. She then turned to the officer.

“I told you, I didn’t do these things. I don’t drink, and I don’t steal from ATMs.”

“Did you want to explain how that information got into our database? A secured database?”

Ellie cast a quick glance toward Asher, likely struggling with how much to say or not to say. She turned back to the deputy. “Like I said, I think I’m a victim of identity theft.” She took a breath. “Did the ATM have a video?”

“I can’t answer that, Miss,” the officer said. “That’s something you’d need to discuss with your lawyer.”

“But—”

“What we’re going to do now is take you down to the station. We’ll book you, and you can bail out if you have that option.”

“And if I don’t?” Her voice trembled.

“Then you’ll be scheduled to see the judge, probably later today, but maybe not until tomorrow morning, depending on his caseloads.”

Again, she glanced at Asher. “And how much will bail be?”

“Not up to me, Miss,” the deputy said. “Come on.” With one hand grasping the handcuffs, he led her toward his cruiser. She glanced desperately over her shoulder at Asher.

“I’m right behind you,” he said, turning to the state patrol officer. “Any way I can get a ride down with her?”

“Sure,” the trooper shrugged. “See that payphone over there?” He pointed to the phone booth that Asher had left seemingly moments ago. “Call a taxi.”

Asher said nothing as the deputy turned away to talk to the firefighters. His partner strung crime scene tape around the devastated remains of his vehicle.

Shit. How much worse could it get?

* * *

Within minutes, Asher had once again reported in with Jackson and brought him up to date for the second time in one morning. “I don’t know what the hell she found online, but this is the biggest pile of shit I’ve stepped into in a long time. I’m going to need another set of wheels, probably more money, and a Klingon cloaking device if you’ve got one.”

Jackson said nothing for a moment, then offered a low chuckle. “The wheels, we can arrange. The same goes for access to cash, but you’ll have to pick it up at a Western Union. The cloaking device, no can do.” He paused. “By the way, where the hell are you, and who are you dealing with?”

Asher glanced at the state patrol vehicle just pulling out of the parking lot, followed by the sheriff’s department cruiser. “Suffolk County. Dorchester PD.”

“Gimme a second,” Jackson said.

Asher heard rapid tapping on a keyboard, and then Jackson spoke. “There’s an auto rental place just off Dorchester, heading north out of town, just before Lyndon cross street. Have a taxi take you from the police station there, and there’ll be a vehicle ready for you to pick up there. Then hit the ninety-three north and get the hell out of town, out of the state, and don’t stop until you get into New Hampshire. Hole up someplace and keep your head down.”

Asher still had no idea how they’d been followed to this second motel. And then he realized and cursed.

“What?”

“There’s only one way they could’ve traced us to this crap hole of a motel. That would’ve been a device on my truck. But they just blew it up, so . . .”

“Don’t be so sure,” Jackson cautioned. “Whoever these clowns are, they’re good. They could still have eyes on you and the girl. You watch your back, Asher.”

“Will do,” Asher said, and then hung up.

Within an hour, he’d bailed Ellie out of jail, plunking down one grand for bond. She had to be back in court in ten days. If she didn’t show up or they hadn’t cleared her with documentation by then, Asher would be on the hook for the full ten grand. He would make sure that didn’t happen. He’d prove her innocence. The look on her face when the cop had taken her away had torn at his heart. He couldn’t ever let her feel like that again.

The auto rental place was only half a mile from the station, and so they walked. Asher kept his head on a swivel the entire time. He tried to offer her a few comforting words, but she was locked up tight, keeping her emotions to herself, not saying a word. To add insult to injury, as they’d left the station, Ellie had been told that the records showed that her passport had been revoked and she was on the no-fly list for both domestic and international flights.

“What the hell am I supposed to do now?” she finally said as they climbed into a rented sedan.

Asher had been about to grumble at being given a sedan instead of an all-terrain SUV, or something a bit more capable of offering off-road clout in case they needed it, but wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth too much. He glanced at Ellie.

“The first thing is to try to stay calm. We’ll figure this thing out.”

“And if we don’t? What’s going to happen to me? I have nothing left. No home to go to, no way to prove my innocence, I can’t get to my money at the moment . . . and even if I could, it’s not more than a few hundred dollars, and to top it off, your truck got blown up because of me, I now owe you one thousand dollars and a new truck, which I don’t have, and—”

“It could always be worse,” he broke in.

“How?” She turned to him with an angry frown. “Exactly how could it be worse?”

“We could be dead.”

She said nothing after that. She simply fastened her seatbelt, folded her hands in her lap, and stared out the windshield. Asher could only imagine where her head was at. More questions than answers. In shock. It was easy for him to tell her to try to remain calm. It wasn’t his life was being wiped out with a few keystrokes. As he pulled out of the parking lot and made his way toward the interstate, she glanced into her side mirror every few seconds. When she wasn’t looking behind them, her gaze scanned the road, the cars passing, everything.

“You see something?”

“No.”

Yet she continued to continually scan. On edge, just like he was. He hoped that they could get ahead of whoever was pursuing them. While he had no doubt that they would eventually find out who those bastards were, and preferably sooner rather than later, it didn’t help at the moment.

“What the hell have I done?” she suddenly spoke, her voice tremulous. “What kind of Pandora’s box did I open?”

“That’s a good question, and one that we’ll find an answer to. Guaranteed.”

“How can you be so sure? I’m good at what I do. But I couldn’t even get too deep before they shut me down and slammed the digital door in my face.”

“It’s what we do,” Asher said quietly. “And we’re damned good at it, too.”

They drove silently, taking the interstate into more rural landscape as they continued north. Asher got off the interstate several times, meandering around streets and around neighborhood blocks, looking for a tail, but he didn’t spot one. That didn’t mean they weren’t there.

Ellie sat quietly, shoulders slumped forward, looking exhausted, defeated, and . . . broken. He hated seeing her this way. Like all the fight had left her. She couldn’t give up. She couldn’t let—

Who the hell was he to think that he had the right to even suggest how she should feel, what she should do, how she should confront this danger facing her? She wasn’t a soldier. She wasn’t trained for this. She was a hacker, a computer geek, one who had probably never faced anything so frightening, so threatening, in her life. How the hell should she feel?

He’d experienced this kind of fear before. This kind of uncertainty. He’d been shot at, more than once. He’d been in some situations that he’d seriously thought he’d never get out of, but he had.

They stopped a couple of times for gas, and once at a convenience store for grazing food, which is what he called the trail mix, a package of beef jerky, a package of Slim Jim Stix and a six-pack of bottled ice tea. Then they get on the highway again, heading north as the sun dipped westward toward the horizon. Ellie hadn’t said anything in the last couple of hours, and he didn’t push. He tried not to relive the moment when his truck had exploded, the anger he felt, and even harder, to tamp down feelings of blame for the shit they were in.

None of this was her fault, or his. Yes, she’d stuck her nose where it didn’t belong, but everything that had happened since, it was not on her. It was on the bastards that were apparently bound and determined to remain anonymous.

It was his job to expose them, and with Ellie’s help, whether she wanted to give it or not, he had no doubt that they would succeed. It was just a matter of when and how.