* * *
We left the house a few hours later. The window repairman Kellan had hired hadn’t been able to finish fixing the French doors today like we’d originally hoped. As we weren’t replacing the windows in the French doors, but getting new, ordinary doors fitted in, it meant that custom-fit doors with the same measurements as the French doors would need to be ordered in.
The window repairman had estimated that it would take at least five working days to get the doors, and then he’d call to arrange a time and day to come fit them in. It looked like I would be staying at Kellan’s for at least a week.
We called Uncle Luke in the car on the way back to Kellan’s apartment.
“I’ve been here for about eleven hours now, and I haven’t seen a glimpse of Chambers,” he said through the loudspeaker. Bounty hunters had to be sure, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the fugitive was staying in a place before they could legally enter it. He’d have to wait until he saw Chambers with his own two eyes.
“Any news on the fingerprints they lifted last night?” I asked him.
“I just called the team a little while ago. The fingerprints didn’t match anything on our databases. It looks like they’ll be closing the case since nothing was actually taken. I’m sorry, April.”
I’d expected as much, but couldn’t help feeling a little discouraged. And a lot worried. Those guys hadn’t acquired the flash drive after all. Would they try to break in again?
“I understand,” I told him quietly.
“I’ll keep you posted on Chambers,” he promised.
My eyes met Kellan’s, both of us wondering if we could trust the man on the other side of the line.
* * *
Later that evening, I sat cross-legged on Kellan’s couch, strumming my guitar. I’d packed some more clothes to bring back with me, but hadn’t given my guitar a second thought. It was Kellan who’d found it and put it in the trunk of his car while I was unaware. I was incredibly grateful for it now; my idle hands very much needing something to do.
“Thank you,” I’d told him when he’d appeared with it a little while ago, feeling touched by his thoughtfulness.
He’d shrugged. “Just stop rearranging my furniture.”
And that was that.
He’d been listening to me play for over an hour, though he tried to look engrossed in the laptop in front of him. He’d spent most of the afternoon combing through the flash drive.
I glanced up, my fingers relaxing against the string, as I finished the song. It was only then that I noticed how still Kellan was. He stared pensively out of the window overlooking the front of the apartment complex.
Just as I opened my mouth to ask him what was wrong, he moved, so quickly, I might have missed the movement if I’d blinked, and pulled a gun out from seemingly thin air. I sucked in a breath at the sight of it. “What the–“
“Shh,” he whispered, pocketing the flash drive. He moved stealthily towards the window, keeping the gun low.
Careful not to move the blinds, he peered outside. I tried to look over his shoulder, but he waved me away, batting at me like I was a pesky fly.
I stepped back, but not before I caught sight of a dark figure dashing across the street, headed for the apartment complex.
“We need to move,” he said urgently. Spinning around, he ushered me down the hall and into his room, locking the door behind us.
“What are you doing?” I asked in alarm.
“Listening to my instincts.” There was a storm brewing in his eyes, a tenseness to his tightly coiled frame. He moved swiftly, lethally, and for the first time that night, I felt genuine fear. Something had caused this drastic change in him.
The doorbell rang, and Kellan kicked at a space on the wall beside the window. To my surprise, the plaster gave away easily to reveal a hole in the wall that I’d assumed would be filled with bricks.
Kellan’s arm disappeared into the hole and he pulled out a hefty looking backpack, more plaster crumbling to the floor as he tugged it out. I stared at him open-mouthed.
“C’mon, we need to climb down the water pipe.” He moved towards his window.
“Don’t you think you’re being a little paranoid? It could be anyone!” Did he really have such a shortage of visitors that he assumed the worst when someone came over? It could be the sultry unnamed married woman from last night back to try her luck again.
The doorbell rang again, and this time, I heard a rattling sound coming from Kellan’s front door. Kellan looked at me, his eyes saying, ‘trust me’.
I moved without hesitation, climbing out of the window. I placed one foot out onto a ledge that protruded out only a few inches from the wall beneath the window. Kellan helped me get my other leg out, and once both feet were on the ledge, I began to shuffle my way towards the pipe.
The ratting of the door stopped for a second, before it sounded like someone had bulldozed into it. The sound ringing in my ears, I kept a tight hold on the water pipe and began slithering down it as fast as I could.
It sure sounded like Kellan had been right. In the future, I wouldn’t question his instincts again. Ever.
Kellan was fast behind me, moving as though he climbed out of his bedroom window on a regular basis. The pipe creaked ominously, and I worried that it wouldn’t withhold our combined weight.
I pushed myself even faster, shimmering down the pipe, so glad that Kellan lived on the third floor of the apartment complex and not right at the top.
There was silence in the apartment, and I could only assume that someone had managed to break down the door. It had been mere moments since the doorbell first rang, but it felt like forever. My heart was pounding in my chest, sweat dampening my upper lip.
A gunshot went off. Startled, I dropped the final few feet, landing painfully on the balls of my feet. Fear shot straight to my heart. They were shooting at us.
“Don’t shoot, you stupid fucker. The neighbors will call the cops,” a gruff voice said from inside the apartment. I recognized it from the break-in last night. It was that guy. Slade.
“My car,” Kellan panted, grabbing my hand. His black Camaro was parked towards the side of the building, and we ran towards it.
It was dark out, the only light coming from the streetlamps. I heard a heavy thump, and guessed that one of the guys had jumped out of the window. I didn’t look back, but kept running towards the car. The heavy sound of footsteps appearing behind us let me know that the two guys that had been in the apartment were giving chase.
Another man suddenly appeared several feet in front of us, and I realized that he must have been waiting by the back exit. Kellan cursed under his breath, but I didn’t have enough air in my lungs to say anything.
Thankfully, we were a few feet closer to the car than the guy in front of us. We dove into it. My hand feeling cold and the rest of me completely vulnerable as Kellan’s hand left mine, and he shot to the opposite side of the car to get into the driver’s seat.
I shivered at the coolness of the black leather seats on my bare legs. I yanked the door shut, ducking as a bullet hit the car. “Oh my god,” I gasped in fright, my breath exiting me in short pants.
Kellan didn’t even cringe at the fact that a bullet had hit his very sleek, very expensive car. He gunned the engine, tires screeching across the road as the car shot forward.
My heart continued to beat erratically even after we put some distance between us and the apartment, adrenaline still cursing through me. I’d never in my life been shot at before.
Those guys back there could have killed us.
If it wasn’t for Kellan’s quick thinking, I had no idea where we’d be right now.
Kellan made a sharp turn at the end of the road, the momentum throwing me against the car door. I put my seatbelt on hastily, terrified that we’d end up wrapped around a tree. Kellan was a good driver, but he was driving well beyond the speed limit.
“What are we going to do?” I asked him, panic bubbling close to the surface. “We can’t go back to my house. We can’t go back to yours. We should go to the police.”
Kellan didn’t comment for a minute, his face dark and forbidding as he stared out of the windshield. He exhaled heavily, glancing at me sideways.
“I think it’s safe to assume that your break-in last night, and the men at the apartment tonight, are all part of the same crime ring. You saw yourself that cops are involved – that they’re on this Tony person’s payroll. It’s likely that those men came here looking for the flash drive. They would have found out that you were in the house during the break-in due to the police report. They would have deduced that you have the flash drive, even though you didn’t mention it to the cops that interviewed you.”
“There must be good cops out there. There has to be someone we can trust,” I said, not willing to completely let the idea go.
“For now, we need to find a place to comb through every word that’s on the flash drive.” He pulled up on the side of the road. “Wait here.”
“Where are you going?” I asked, looking at him like he was crazy. It was pitch black outside, the only thing to be seen for miles trees. I climbed out after him and found him crouched down by the front of the car. “What are you doing?”
“Looking for a tracking device. I don’t think they counted on us escaping, but they may have planted something on the car, just in case, before they entered the building.”
I stared uneasily around the street, imagining those men tonight tracking us here. It was a frightening thought.
Kellan stood up suddenly, causing me to stumble back a few steps as I’d been standing directly behind him. He moved towards the side of the car, his hand disappearing to pat around underneath it.
I rubbed at my arms, trying to generate some warmth. Not only was it dark, but there was a tangible chill in the air, and in our hurry tonight, I hadn’t spared a thought for my outfit. Leggings and a sleeveless top did not retain much heat.
I couldn’t see what Kellan was doing, but he pulled his hand back after a moment, a small, black box in his hand. It looked tiny and harmless, but Kellan dropped it to the ground grimly. “Come on, let’s go.”
“Wait,” I said, picking it up and noticing a small green dot flashing on and off on the back of it. “If we see a truck or something, we can drop it onto the truck bed. If those guys are following, they’ll end up chasing it instead of us.”
He stared at me, an amused smile appearing on his face despite our situation. “What movie did you see that in?”
I rolled my eyes at him. “What does it matter? It’s a good idea.”
He nodded, taking his cell phone out of his pocket. “Where’s your cell?” I pulled it out of my back pocket, and he turned both of them off. “We should keep them off just in case they can trace them. C’mon. We need to hurry.”
We saw a truck a few blocks away. Kellan slowed the car down, staying close behind the truck, while I rolled down my window and aimed the tracking device onto the truck bed.
Kellan sped up one I’d rolled the window back up, overtaking the truck.
“You don’t think they’ll hurt the guy driving it, do you?” I asked, concerned.
He shook his head. “They’re not stupid… well, not all of them. They’ll see we’re not inside the truck and realize we ditched the tracking device. In the meantime, it’ll buy us some much needed time.”
We drove for several more miles, merging on to the highway. It was about thirty minutes later, after we’d exited the highway, that Kellan rolled the car to an unexpected stop again. The street looked similar to the one we’d stopped at before. There were trees – lots of trees – and little else to be seen. It looked like we were next to a forest.
“We’re going on foot from here,” he said, pulling his keys out of the ignition. He grabbed the backpack he’d brought with him, and opened the door, a waft of chilly air entering the car interior.
“On foot?” I said, getting out after him. “Are you crazy? We’re in the middle of freaking nowhere!”
“I hadn’t noticed,” he said, rolling his eyes. “The only way to get there is by foot.”
“Where are we going?” I asked wearily.
“A friend’s place.” He shot me an impatient look, but frowned as his eyes slid down my frame. He opened the trunk of his car and rummaged through it, pulling out a blanket.
“Why do you have a blanket in your car?” I asked him before shaking my head. “Never mind. I don’t want to know.”
“Here.” He handed it to me.
I stared at him. “I’m not touching that. Who knows what’s on it.”
“I assure you, princess, the blanket has yet to be used. Now, unless you want to freeze that delectable ass of yours out here, you might want to wrap it around you. It’s a long walk.”
“Who lives out in the middle of nowhere, anyway?” I muttered under my breath, ignoring the jolt that went through me at the comment about my ass. He loved to unnerve me.
Locking the car, Kellan stepped into a small clearing that led deeper into the forest. He didn’t look back to see if I was following. My scowl deepening, I trudged after him.
We walked for ten minutes in relative silence; his was alert and watchful, mine more stubborn than anything. It was dark, and cold, and there were so many branches that had grown out onto the pathway that scraped my arms as we walked by.
“How much longer?” I finally asked after I felt like an appropriate amount of time had passed that I wouldn’t appear like I was whining.
Being in the woods, at night, was freaky as hell. A part of me kept waiting for the guys from earlier to jump out at us. Though how they would have tracked us without a tracking device I didn’t know.
“Not much,” he said, pushing a branch out of the way. He didn’t have a jacket either, but had only given me a blank stare when I offered him the blanket. “You are terrible at this.”
“I’ve never been all that outdoorsy!” I protested, knowing that I looked as miserable as I felt.
“I know.” A small smile played on his lips, his dimple flashing. “Remember that weekend your dad took us all camping?”
Despite myself, I couldn’t help but smile too. I’d thought about it just this morning after seeing the photograph of us in Kellan’s room. It was strange. I hadn’t thought about that weekend in years, and yet I’d thought about it twice in the space of one day. At the time, I hadn’t enjoyed myself very much, but it was a comforting memory now.
Life had been so much simpler back then.