Chapter 6
Angela woke up feeling better than she had in a long time. When she saw the two men, instead of being startled or scared, she smiled with relief. “Thank you for that,” she said quietly. “I haven’t slept so well in a long time.”
“A neighbor and friend of your aunt’s stopped by,” Corey said. He told her about Bill.
She chuckled. “Yes. My aunt and he were friends for a lot of years. I’m not surprised she called him. I haven’t called to let her know I got here. I was so tired last night, I never thought of it. And, when you guys arrived this morning, I have to admit I didn’t think of it either.” That was not good. She pulled out her phone and sent her aunt a text. “That should make her feel better.”
She turned to the two men, but they weren’t smiling or joking. “What’s the problem?”
“There was a second knock on the door,” Corey said slowly. “But when I opened it, no one was there.”
She frowned. “No one?”
“No one,” Corey said. “At least no one prepared to let me know he was there.”
She slowly sank back down onto the chair she’d been sleeping in. “So do you think it’s someone after me?”
“I can’t imagine playing this game except to let you know they are watching you.” He held out his hand. “Let me see the phone.”
She handed it over. “It’s brand new. Never out of my reach.” She watched as Warrick opened up the back and studied it carefully. Then he closed it up and handed it back. “It’s fine.”
“Great. So what? You said no one was out there. So they’re watching me? What does that mean?”
“It means they’re watching, and now they know I’m here too.”
She stared at him for a long moment. “I don’t get it. Is that good or bad?”
“There’s a good chance he left because he didn’t want to take us on alone. But it also means he knows I’m here and potentially you are too.”
“So what do we do now?” Her voice was starting to crack. She stamped down the panic, but it was hard. As far as she could see, there was just no option; she was trapped yet again.
Warrick walked toward her. Somehow he’d already managed to pack up his bag with his laptop and the rest of his gear. He simply said, “Pack.”
Corey grabbed her arm and gently led her back to the bedroom. “I don’t know how much you’ve unpacked, but you need to consider repacking everything, because we’ll be gone in thirty minutes.”
She shook her head. “How are we going to do that? What about my car?”
He nodded. “I’ll drive your car. Warrick’ll drive my truck.”
She stared at him.
He smiled, reached out and tucked her into his arms. “This will be fine. But we have to go. You’ve been found, and now we need to make sure you get unfound.”
She let out a garbled laugh. “It’s not that easy. I don’t have any place to go.”
“That’s not the problem right now. Right now the problem is to get gone.” He marched her into the bedroom, saw her bags on the floor, lifted them, put them on the bed and said, “What did you bring?”
Five minutes later, she walked out of the room. “I hardly unpacked.”
“Good,” he said abruptly. “Very good actually.”
He walked into living room with both bags and took a glance around the kitchen. “Did you bring food?”
She rushed over to the fridge. “I did but not too much.” She quickly packed the apples, milk and cheese. “I was planning on doing some more shopping.”
“Bring everything you brought, so we can leave the cabin without power. Leave it all as if you hadn’t been here.”
“Well, that’s not going to happen. There’s garbage and God only knows what else.”
But as she stood and looked around the kitchen, she realized Warrick had already washed up and had the garbage bag ready to take out. She glanced over at him. “Are you always this efficient?”
He gave her a grim smile. “When I have to be, yes.”
Four minutes later she buckled the seat belt on the passenger side of her car. She shook her head. “Why? Why can’t we just stay here? If someone’s watching, they’ll see us leaving. They could follow us.”
Corey turned to look at her. “We can come back later, but right now we have to make sure you stay safe.” He turned on the engine and reversed the car all the way around the house and back up the hill, a feat she didn’t think she could have done. He turned around at the top and followed Warrick out onto the main road.
Warrick’s voice suddenly filled the car. “Bogey on the left.”
Corey yelled out, “Get your head down.”
He dropped his seat back and hit the gas. He roared onto the main road. She heard some weird ping hit the side of her car, and then suddenly they were long gone.
When he sat up, she asked, “Can I sit up now?”
He glanced around. “You can.” He popped the back of his seat up, so it was in its normal position.
She followed suit. “What the hell was that?” she asked, her voice shaky.
“Somebody shot at the vehicle and probably would have got in a decent hit if I hadn’t hit the gas when I did,” he admitted. He pointed out Warrick ahead of them.
Warrick’s voice once again filled the vehicle. “You two okay?”
Corey responded, “Yes, Angela’s a little shook up, but she’s good.”
“Did you see a vehicle?” she asked.
“Not enough to help. And we’re not going back to check either.”
That’s when she saw a cell phone sitting on the dash where the coffee would normally sit and knew the guys had set up the phone call earlier. She stared down at that simple thing and realized just how much she didn’t think the way they did. “Where do we go from here?” she asked, trying for a calm and reasonable tone of voice.
“No idea,” Corey said cheerfully. “Warrick, you got any suggestions?”
“I’m all for taking her back to the base and stashing her with someone there.”
“Hell no,” she said emphatically. “Just because I’m surrounded by military, doesn’t mean I’ll be any safer there.”
“Well, it does because there are checkpoints everybody has to go through,” Corey said. “The thing is, what we have to do is find a safe place for you to go to ground. At least then the detectives can do their job without having to worry about your safety.”
She was horrified at the concept. “Why not just go to your sister’s house?”
“Hell no. We’re not putting her in danger. Somebody actually shot at you. You do realize that means they’re dead serious about killing you now?”
She sat back and asked in a small voice, “So where can I go?”
Warrick, his voice tinny sounding over the phone, said, “We can talk to the police. I’m sure they’ll have a safe house, if you prefer that.”
“And how safe will that be?” she asked.
“No safer than anywhere else. Honestly, the safest place is with us.”
“We do have a few safe houses available to us,” Corey said slowly. “I can always get the locations from Mason.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Warrick said. “We don’t use them often, but they are available. Only they are supposed to be used officially of course.”
“What?” She turned to look at him. “What are you talking about?”
“Sometimes we have to have places to disappear to,” Corey said quietly. “Places for people who need to be safe while plans are made and carried out. For that reason we have a couple houses available.”
She stared at him. “You’re talking about your job, right?”
“Yeah. At least mostly.” He gave her a grin. “Warrick, I’ll give him a call and get back to you.”
“Sounds good. I vote for one in the sun.” And, laughing, he hung up.
“He’s not talking about Mexico, is he?”
“That wouldn’t be ideal, given the circumstances,” Corey said. “Let me talk to Mason, and we’ll see what we can do.” He shut off the call to Warrick and then dialed somebody else.
She settled back, wondering about an organization that actually had houses available, but then law enforcement all across the country had places like it. She’d much rather grab Joshua and take him with her too. But, if that wasn’t an option yet, she’d do whatever she could to put an end to this nightmare.
*
He recognized when Angela slowly succumbed to the stress and anxiety of the day and fell asleep again. Mason had given him a couple ideas, and, between them, they’d settled on a house in the San Diego suburbs. It was one he hadn’t been in before, so he was looking forward to checking it out.
Someone was heading there now to turn on the fridge and make sure all was well. Angela was exhausted and needed to sleep in a real bed as soon as possible, but they’d be hours getting there.
Mason had also warned him about how quickly this could go south. They’d discussed strategies for several moments, then Mason had gone to his computer to keep digging into the soon-to-be-ex-husband’s activities. There was enough for several of them to work on for hours, if not days.
Corey wasn’t sure how he felt about Angela having been married for seven years. He’d tried so hard to convince her to marry him twelve years ago. It was a cold realization that he hadn’t been enough, but this criminal had been. Maybe the tables had turned, giving him a second chance—if he wanted to try for it.
But it felt like taking advantage of her and this nightmare situation. If it was down the road a few months, he might take several steps in that direction. But right now, she was a mess.
And he didn’t want to add to her confusion. That was what their past relationship had been. He wanted something very different this time around.
His phone rang again. Corey quickly brought Warrick up to speed. “It’s a perfect three-bedroom family home. We’ll need to stop at a grocery store and stock up first. When Angela wakes up, I’ll ask her about a menu.”
“She’s sleeping?” Warrick asked in surprise. “Good. I wasn’t sure she would.”
“She’s exhausted.” He glanced over at her, hating to see the dark circles under her eyes. “She needs to have this nightmare over with.”
“We’re working on it. We work miracles, but even miracles need a day or two.”
With a laugh, Corey rang off and settled in for the long drive.
He hadn’t had such a pleasant afternoon in a long time.