Hunted (11 page)

On the way to the cash register, she made a detour into the electronics section. She picked up an eight-gigabyte flash drive. It was about the size of Ethan’s thumbnail. Then, the next aisle over, she scooped up a cell phone with a prepaid calling card that would last six hours.

When they got to the cash register, both clerks had customers in line. Chandler stood behind a woman who appeared to be preparing for a paper shortage. She was buying multiples of paper towels, toilet paper, napkins and brown lunch bags.

It took a minute for the clerk to get it all bagged up. Then Chandler stepped forward. It took just a minute to complete the transaction. As they walked out of the store, Chandler handed him the change.

“Keep it,” he said.

She didn’t say anything. Just stuffed the bills into her jeans pocket.

Should he apologize for making her uncomfortable? Should he make a joke about it?

He didn’t do either. Just got in his truck, petted Molly, who had been patiently waiting for them, and waited for Chandler to get her seat belt buckled.

She immediately got busy taking the phone out of its plastic case. “Do you want to carry the phone or do you want me to?” she asked.

“Keep it,” he repeated. He wanted her to have all the protection she could get. “Are you going to call Mack?”

She shook her head. “Not yet. I hate that he’ll be worried but we’re so close now. When I have the proof, one way or the other, then I’ll call him. In an hour or two, we should know. I’ll have the evidence.”

He pulled out of the lot and Chandler pointed toward the road that they’d come in on. “If you follow this road and turn left at the third light, we’ll be headed toward Linder Automation.”

He did as instructed. Traffic was still light although there was a set of lights behind him. They drove in silence. The first light was red and he stopped. The only sound in the truck was Molly’s breathing.

The second light was green and he breezed through. At the third light, he prepared to turn left. And noted that the car behind him made the same turn.

“In about a mile, you’ll have to make another left-hand turn. The street is Chillicothe.”

The street would have been a bustling business area during the day, but at one o’clock in the morning, there was very little activity. So where the hell was the driver behind him headed?

It could have been a million places, but Ethan couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. And his gut had saved his life more than once in combat. He’d known just when to pull up or pull out of a flight pattern.

“Hang on,” he said. He accelerated just slightly, putting some distance between his truck and the vehicle behind them. Then he made a quick right-hand turn onto a side street.

“What?” Chandler squealed.

The side street had been plowed but not as well as the main road. The pavement was still snow-covered. The back end of the truck slid and his tires grabbed.

He wasn’t worried about that. He was watching the rearview mirror.

The car behind him made the same turn.

Out of a million possible places, what were the chances it was on this street?

Not many.

“I think we’ve got company.” He continued to drive. “Do you know where this street leads to?”

“I’m not sure. Some of these side streets connect the two main roads that head north. I don’t know if this is one of them or if it’s a dead end somewhere up here.”

He hoped not.

She turned in her seat to look at the vehicle behind them. “Who is that? Is it the men who came to Dot’s?”

Not unless they’d changed vehicles. This was a light-colored midsize car. He could tell that from the position of its lights and the glimpse he’d caught in the mirror as it had rounded the corner. He hadn’t been able to see who was driving or how many were in the car.

He remembered what the woman from the gas station had said about the men buying oil. Had they known that their vehicle was in bad shape? Had they somehow switched it? “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s not an SUV.” The car had dropped back just a little. “I think we picked them up when we were leaving the store. Did you see anybody in there that you recognized?”

“No. I would have said something.”

Yeah, but they’d both been distracted because he’d decided to awkwardly profess his love in the shoe aisle. “I’m going to try to lose them,” he said. “I’d rather do that than force a confrontation right now.”

“Good plan,” she said, her voice tight. She wrapped an arm around Molly, anchoring the dog next to her side.

He picked up his speed. It was a residential street and there were cars parked on one side and snow piled up on the other, making the path through a narrow one. Five blocks in, there was a stop sign. He approached, looked both directions to make sure that there was nobody coming and blew through the intersection without stopping. When the vehicle behind him did the same and started to edge closer, he pressed the accelerator.

They were traveling much too fast on the snow-covered street. Up ahead, he saw a traffic signal and assumed that was the main road. The light was green.

He intended to make that light. “Hang on.”

He made the turn just as the light went from yellow to red.

And let out a breath when the car behind him got stopped by cross traffic. But since there were only a couple of cars, Ethan knew it was a brief reprieve.

He pressed down on the accelerator, wanting to put distance between the two vehicles.

Then he took a quick right, drove one block, turned left, left again, then right, doing a haphazard zigzag. He saw what he thought might work and turned into a parking lot. It was some type of industrial building and there were lots of fresh tracks in and out of the parking lot. There was a road that led behind the building. It was plowed. Ethan took it.

And suddenly they were behind the brick building, effectively hidden from any traffic that might wander by.

He turned off the engine. Once again, the only sound in the truck was Molly’s breathing.

After a minute, Chandler turned to him. “Well, that was fun,” she said, her voice cracking at the end.

More than ever, he appreciated her spirit.

“I’m sure I didn’t recognize anybody in the store,” she said. “And the only person in the store who seemed to pay any attention to us was looking at you, not at me.”

Chapter Eleven

“What?”

Molly whined, not used to hearing that tone of voice. He made a deliberate effort to modify it. “What did you say?” he asked.

“When we were standing in line, waiting to pay, there was a man getting checked out in the other lane. For just a second, I thought he was looking at you oddly. As if he was very angry about something. Then I figured he was mad because the cashier at his register was making a big deal about folding the one customer’s clothes just right before putting them in the bag.”

Her words made him cold. Had it been someone he’d served with? Someone who thought the rumors about him were true? Someone who really thought that he’d have sold out his fellow soldiers?

Impossible. He’d have recognized the person.

But people changed. Grew their hair out. Got contacts. Gained or lost weight.

Had Chandler been in danger because of him? Had she been in danger since the beginning because of him? Had the incident at the cabin been a violent attack against him?

Had she almost died because of him?

He’d considered the possibility, but she’d been so confident that it was because of her, he’d willingly gone down that path and kept his own demons hidden.

He should tell her the truth. Now. Tell her all the reasons why it was a mistake to get involved with him.

But he kept his mouth shut.

How could he risk losing her when he’d just found her? And he surely wouldn’t risk her executing her plan to break into Linder Automation on her own, which she’d certainly do after she sent him away. She needed backup. Someone to protect her.

He couldn’t bear it if she thought the ugly rumors were true. Ethan Moore, a traitor.

There was adrenaline pumping through his veins—maybe it was the car chase, maybe it was the suspense of not knowing who it might have been, maybe it was the look in her striking green eyes. Whatever, he felt on fire. A little reckless.

And he had a blinding need to hold Chandler tight, to claim her as his. To cement the relationship so that it couldn’t be undone by ugly accusations and vicious lies.

But he held himself in check. He thought they were safe but he wasn’t going to take a chance on the car doubling back and somehow finding them behind the building.

“Chandler?”

“Yes?”

He could hear the question in her response. The tension in the truck was palpable.

“You should probably change into your new clothes here,” he said.

* * *

C
HANDLER
REACHED
FOR
the bag that had her new clothes and her boots. She put on the new underwear, the black yoga pants and the black T-shirt. When she finished putting on her new black boots, she realized that Ethan was watching her.

“What?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Nothing.”

She could see the want in his eyes. It made her feel good. She wished she didn’t have this ugliness to deal with. Wished she and Ethan could find a nice hotel room and spend about a week there, getting to know one another. She wanted to make love to him, again and again.

But she could not turn back now. She had to finish what she’d started, what someone else had really started.

“We should go,” she said. “At Linder Automation, we work forty-five hours a week. That’s five nine-hour days with a half-hour lunch. And there are two shifts. The first shift works from eight in the morning until five-thirty at night. To allow for some crossover between shifts, the second shift starts at five in the afternoon and goes until two-thirty. Everybody has to be out of the building by three at the latest. The night cleaning crew begins work at three-thirty in the morning and is out of the building by six-thirty.”

She looked at her watch. “I thought of a way to get in. Don’t know if it will work but it’s the best I can come up with.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“From what I recall, there are usually six to eight people on the cleaning crew. More women than men. A van brings a group of them to work. A few others drive their own cars and park in a lot close to the building. Sometimes I see a few of them hanging out in the parking lot. They’re either sitting in their cars smoking or, on nice days, standing near their vehicles. There is absolutely no smoking on our property. The landlord is crazy about that.”

Ethan listened patiently, running his hand lightly across Molly’s tummy. The dog lay squarely between the two of them.

“I remembered that there is a woman about my age and my size with dark hair. I’m not sure how long it is because she always wears it on top of her head under a baseball cap. I’ve talked to her a couple times. Small talk. ‘Hi, how are you.’ That kind of thing. Her name is Lauren.”

“You must know her pretty well if you know her name.”

“Not well, but I introduced myself once. And then she introduced herself.”

“She probably appreciated you doing that. Most people simply ignore the cleaning crew.”

“You’re right. Anyway, I think she’s a smoker. I hope she remembers that I’m a nice person because I’m going to ask her if I can use her badge and her baseball hat for a half hour.”

“Really? And you think she’ll be willing to do that?”

“I don’t know. But what I do know is that I need a badge to get into the building. I have to have something to show the guard at the front desk. I’m counting on the fact that he’ll see the baseball hat and won’t look twice.”

“Then what?”

“Once I’m in, I’m going to have to avoid the other workers. The guard and probably the supervisors can be fooled, but the coworkers who work with this woman every day are certainly going to know.”

“So the plan is to somehow get this woman to let you use her identification, get past the guard and then make yourself scarce so that nobody sees you jump on a computer.”

“Exactly.”

He lightly sucked on the corner of his bottom lip, as if he were figuring out a way to tell her that her plan was so full of holes she should call it Swiss cheese.

“I know that you’ve talked to this woman before and I’m sure she thinks you’re very nice but do you really think she’s going to hand over her identification to you? No questions asked? And risk her job?”

“No. I think she’ll be very reluctant. May tell me to go to hell.”

“Isn’t she going to want to know why you’re not using your own badge?”

“I’m sure she will. I’m going to tell her I misplaced mine and that I’m afraid to tell my boss because I might get fired.”

“That might get you some sympathy,” Ethan said. “Especially from somebody who works for jerks.”

“I’m also going to offer her an incentive. But I need you for that.”

He raised an eyebrow.

She smiled. “Nothing indecent. I was just hoping that you’d let me borrow some more cash. I will pay you back, I promise.”

“I’m not worried about that. How much are you thinking?”

“I’ll start at five hundred.”

He nodded. “It might work. She probably doesn’t earn five hundred a week. Now all she has to do is hand over her ID for a half hour to someone she sort of knows, probably likes.” He paused. “It’s still a long shot.”

“I know. But I don’t think there’s any other way inside. I have to have a badge. There’s no way around it.”

“What about a uniform? Does the cleaning crew wear them?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Once they are inside, everybody puts on a button-up blue smock.”

“It sounds as if you’ve got your bases covered but I still don’t like the fact that you’ll be going in there by yourself. Whether it’s Marcus White or your stepmother, they may be watching for you to try to access the property again. Because they haven’t heard from the authorities, they have to assume that you haven’t gone to them yet. If either one was responsible for the accident, he or she knows that your body wasn’t found with the car. I suspect they are watching your condo and the office.”

“Well, then I’m just going to have to get in and out fast, before they see me.”

He shook his head. “Keep thinking. We need to find a way for me to get inside, too.”

“I’m going to have to think fast. We’re ten minutes away and the cleaning crew will start arriving soon after that. I only saw her vehicle once. It was a small SUV, white.”

“Great. We’ll be on the lookout for it, while at the same time keeping our eyes open for our friends in the light-colored car to resurface or our buddies in the black Suburban to show up again.”

“This is getting complicated.” Her brother was the one who liked to play cat-and-mouse games to outsmart the enemy. Mack had been into that since he’d been a little kid.

She, on the other hand, had liked to play math games on the computer when she was a young girl and now, as an adult, she felt pretty daring when she chose the intermediate slope on her ski trips.

She didn’t court danger.

Yet in the past thirty hours, her car had been run off the side of a mountain, her cabin had been blown up, she was being pursued by at least one set of bad guys and now she was about to sneak into her place of employment so that she could get proof that somebody had committed treason.

It was unbelievable.

Almost as unbelievable as having sex with Ethan Moore. Maybe she didn’t court danger, but she wasn’t running from it, either.

* * *

W
HEN
E
THAN
PULLED
into the industrial park that housed Linder Automation, he realized that Chandler had omitted an interesting tidbit of information. The industrial park was built around a small private airport that had two nice runways, big enough for small planes to take off and land. “You never said anything about the airport.”

She shrugged. “I’m sorry. I guess I don’t even think about it anymore. Actually, this airport is how my dad met Claudia Linder.”

“Sounds like an interesting story.”

“I guess. Not one with a terribly happy ending.” She gave him a soft smile. “At least from my perspective.” She pointed her hand toward the rear of the park. “The airport was here first and then the industrial park came thirty years later. It’s attractive to those business owners who have planes. That’s how Claudia Linder ended up here. Her first husband had a plane and when he died, she decided to take flying lessons and keep his plane.”

“How does that involve your dad?”

“My dad is still tinkering with his helicopters. He found this airport many years ago. He really likes it. There’s no tower on-site, so it’s mostly small planes and some helicopters that use it. What’s really cool is that the hangars that they rent for helicopters have retractable roofs. Push a button and the roof folds up like an accordion. You can take off from inside the building. My dad loves that.”

“I’ve seen a few of those over the years. They’re handy.”

“Yes. Dad had kept a helicopter here for several years when he got a good buy on a second helicopter. He needed another hangar. That’s when he met Claudia Linder. She had a little Cessna in the one next door.”

“I guess I always assumed that you had introduced them.”

“Oh, no. Unfortunately, I didn’t know about it right away. Maybe I could have prevented conversations over the wings from ending up being coffee in the cockpit and afternoon rides over the city.”

“Romance bloomed on the tarmac?”

“I guess. Mack said something once about them starting their own mile-high club but I told him to shut up, that I really didn’t need to carry that image around with me.”

“Does your dad still keep his helicopters out here?”

“Just one now. Hangar 28. You can’t see it from here. It’s about a half mile to the north, near the edge of the industrial park.” She turned her head to look at him. “Now that you’re back, I’m sure he’d love to take you up. He’s got an old Kiowa, one like he used to fly in Vietnam.”

Ethan had known Baker flew Kiowas in the war. When it had come time to choose what he would fly, he could have chosen a Black Hawk or a Chinook or even been a hotdogger in one of the Apaches. He’d chosen the Kiowa and had loved every minute of it. Flying fast and low, sometimes barely above the tree line, he had gathered vitally important surveillance information and provided air support for ground troops.

There were many nights flying into enemy territory when he’d thought of Baker McCann and how the man had made similar missions over Vietnam. “That would be cool to go up with your dad,” he said. “I’m sure he’s busy, though.”

“Not too busy for you, Ethan. You were like another son to him.”

If only.
He hadn’t wasted much time thinking about how his life might have been different if he’d been the one born into the McCann family rather than Mack. But every once in a while, when he’d been in high school, and he’d gone to school all day and worked all evening at the grocery store so that he’d have some money to contribute to the household and a little of his own, he had wondered.

When he’d enlisted, he’d worked harder than almost anybody. And his efforts had been recognized. He’d gotten to do the type of work that he’d loved.

Until somebody had ripped the joy away.

He turned his head to look at her. “He already has a son. And a gorgeous daughter.”

Chandler frowned at him, as though she sensed that something was wrong. “I’d be happy to show his helicopter to you sometime.”

“I imagine your dad has the hangar locked up tight. It sounds as if this helicopter holds some real sentimental value to him.”

“Of course, but there’s a keypad. I know the combination.” Chandler raised her arm and pointed at a six-story building toward the middle of the block. “That’s Linder Automation,” she said.

It was a rather nondescript office building. Redbrick. Glass front. Windows that didn’t open. Flat roof with what was probably an air-conditioning unit on top. Right now it was just a big glob of snow.

There was a large parking lot directly to the north. There were only two vehicles in the lot. Both were empty. Neither was a black Suburban, a light-colored sedan or a small white SUV. “Recognize either of them?” he asked.

Chandler shook her head. “No. Occasionally people have to travel for work. They leave their vehicles here and take the train to the airport.”