“You’re doing what’s right, Summer. It’s the only thing you can do, considering the circumstances. Sometimes, it’s best to retreat and wait for what comes next. Staying here where you’re exposed and a target is dangerous.”
She wiped away some tears, blew her nose, and gave Cyrus and Joanne Westmoreland a watery half-smile.
It hadn’t taken her long to realize she needed help to disappear for a little while until the baby came, and she was in a stronger position to protect her little family of two.
She still didn’t fully comprehend what was happening, but the baby came first. Understanding would have to wait. The threat of unlimited resources poured into a potential court battle left her no choice. She needed to call in reinforcements, and nobody did off-radar protection like the former military. With Reed’s blessing and assistance, she reached out to Cy. He figured out what she needed to do and helped devise a plan without a lot of fuss.
“Sign here, here, and here,” Cy’s lovely wife, Joanne, murmured to Summer. “This gives us a paper trail leading nowhere.”
In short order, she’d signed over the title for her car to a nameless, faceless buyer from out of state. The money from the sale would help her relocate. Cy arranged for a dependable vehicle, an alias, and a place to live in Sherman Oaks where she could disappear into the ten million people living in Los Angeles County.
“Summer Leigh,” she groaned with a snort. “I didn’t even know I had a middle name.”
Cy laughed. “Reed was quite forthcoming. Said it wasn’t officially recorded when you were born because Mom and Dad couldn’t agree on the spelling. Leigh was your paternal great-grandmother’s name.”
“I like it,” she murmured and gestured at the driver’s license. “Should I ask how you procured all these identification documents, or am I better off not knowing?”
Joanne Westmoreland let out a heavy sigh and squeezed her husband’s shoulder. “Sadly, there’s a real need for an underground network of helpful folks who look out for women and children in difficult circumstances.”
Summer grimaced. She took no pleasure in counting herself with women running from abuse or unscrupulous individuals looking to cause harm.
“Our dear friends, Bud and Lynda Gerry, have offered you their guest house. It’s private and behind a fence. You’ll like them. They’re good people. There’s a clinic nearby for your prenatal and birthing care. Insurance is something you can’t fake, so you’re signed in as a patient with a prepaid plan. Cy is right. If you keep your head down and act normal, you’ll blend right in.”
“It all sounds so reasonable.” She threw her hands up, and the tears started again. “I can’t believe this. Why is this happening?”
Her world was falling apart, and she didn’t know how much more she could take. Only devotion to her baby and a fierce determination to remain positive or lose her sanity kept Summer going.
“No crying,” the Vietnam War veteran from the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment barked. He handed her a tissue. “There’s no crying. Understand, girl?”
She blew her nose and saluted. “Yes, sir.”
He nodded and made a fist that he clenched in front of her face. “This is your moment, Summer. Be a goddamn she-wolf, and don’t take anybody’s shit. You are not powerless. An alpha female leads. She’s industrious, hardworking, and fiercely tenacious. There’s nothing wrong with knowing your purpose, little mama. That baby needs you.”
Her spine stiffened. Yes, he was right. She wasn’t a victim. She wasn’t anyone else’s punching bag. In her mind, she drew a line in the sand.
“What do I need to do?”
“We have to move swiftly. Delay is deadly. Things are going to move fast now that the plan is in place. You go home and pack up your shit. Take only what you personally need. We’ll handle everything else after you’re gone. If they’re watching, giving up the apartment is a red flag, so we’re going to have someone pose as your cousin Stacey to stay there to water your plants while you take a long-planned cruise to the Mexican Riviera with some girlfriends. The neighbors won’t blink, and a cruise ship is impossible to surveil. Win-win.”
“That’s quite a cover story.”
“Yeah, but what the hell do they know?” Cy grunted. He looked at his wife. “Give us a minute, would you, darlin’?”
“I’ll make tea,” Mrs. Westmoreland offered with her usual cheery smile.
When Summer was alone with the gruff Vietnam War veteran, he lost no time speaking his mind.
“I want the lad’s name and whatever else you have on him.”
“No.”
“Reed said you’d be a real pain in the ass about this, so I’m just going to give it to you straight.”
“Okay.” What choice did she have but to listen?
“Unlike your brother, I met this man. Shook his hand and looked him in the eye. I have no idea why he fell off the face of the earth.”
She felt those damn tears prickling her nose again.
“But I’m not gonna judge him because Summer, darlin’, I’m sure there’s more to this than what you get at first glance. Now give me his goddamn name and whatever else you know so I can check this guy out. Don’t you want to know what’s really going on? My money is on your friend, honey, and not some bitchy twat with a big checkbook.”
Bitchy twat. She liked that phrase. It suited the dreadful woman.
Until this moment, she’d refused to name names. What difference did it make if she suspected he was using an alias? Wasn’t that exactly what she was now doing? People had reasons for things like aliases and prepaid maternity plans. She wasn’t in the position to cast stones.
But. Yep, there was a but. When she pressed Arnie for details about what he did for a living, he responded with a benign overview of things she suspected were way more serious than anything a regular person imagined. There was a stirring in her soul, and a warning voice urging caution. Cy wasn’t a threat, but loose lips could put Arnie in danger.
Danger. Shit. There it was again. She didn’t like the way peril seemed to have dug its claws into whatever this situation was.
Summer reached into her purse and dug through a zippered pocket. She handed Cy the dark blue calling card and watched his fingers move over the name embossed in gold.
“NIGHTWIND,” he murmured. First, he turned the card over, and she watched as his brows shot up. Then he held it up to the light although Summer had no idea why. “Jesus,” he grated. “Who the fuck is this guy?”
Deliberately paraphrasing the details, she gave her trusted friend a shortened version of what she knew.
“He said his name was Arnie. He told me this NIGHTWIND place is a posse of do-gooders who right wrongs. It’s based in New York City. One night, he got a call on his cell, and I heard him say Templeton when he answered. I assumed his name was Arnie Templeton. When I asked at the hotel, no one by that name was registered. He stayed in a private bungalow. It turns out, the hotel has several.” She wrung her hands. “That’s it. That’s what I know.”
“Why was he in Santa Barbara?”
“Um, oh, yeah. Well, it was some sort of family retreat. This has to stay between us, Cy. I don’t want anyone else to know.”
“You have my word, missy.”
Summer felt dreadful. She was queasy and experiencing wild temperature swings. One minute, she was sweating, and the next, she was chilled.
Pulling out her phone, she searched pregnancy issues related to her symptoms and learned nothing new.
Morning sickness didn’t only clock in for the early shift—something she discovered one evening after heaving her guts into a toilet while attending a night lecture series for school.
She covered her tummy with both hands and tried to imagine the new life growing inside her. It didn’t matter how it happened. What mattered was how she faced the sudden detour a baby represented. It wasn’t only about her anymore. She had a child to consider. Eating healthier, whether she wanted to or not, was key. So was doi
ng everything in her power to stay in the present. Healthy babies didn’t happen by chance.
Her eyes moved slowly around the quiet, dimly lit apartment. The apartment she was about to walk away from for good. It wasn’t fancy or special, but it was her home, and she’d been happy in the modest one-bedroom.
It was impossible not to be emotional about the sudden changes sweeping through every corner of her life.
A jumbo rolling suitcase and her stuffed overnight bag sat by the front door. It was critical to the pretense Cy and Joanne helped her create that she not attract attention and stick to the story. She was going on a cruise. More than one bag would be stretching things.
When the alarm she programmed into her phone sounded, she quickly silenced it, and with a deep sigh, followed the next step in the detailed ruse.
With her Nissan a thing of the past, she opened a car service app and ordered a ride to the bus station where she had a reservation for the bus to Long Beach. Once there, she’d head to the waterfront, check in for the cruise and then quietly slip away. Her first task once she was officially on the run was to ditch her cell phone and activate an unregistered burner phone. A car and driver would be waiting to take her to Los Angeles and her new life as Summer Leigh.
It didn’t take long before the tracking data for the car service indicated the imminent arrival of her ride.
Tears stung her eyes and nose as she slipped the long strap of a crossbody purse over her head and hung the overnight bag from her arm. She quietly opened the front door and looked back at the pad of paper on the coffee table where she’d scribbled pages of notes for her fake cousin Stacey. She’d done what packing she could, but the rest was on the person who agreed to play a part in Summer’s escape scenario.
She swung her rolling suitcase to the small patio outside and locked the door. Separating the plastic covering on her patio greenhouse, she stashed the key in the prearranged spot and grabbed two ripe cherry tomatoes that promptly went into her mouth.
For a thousand unknown reasons, she turned and put her hand on the closed door. Farewell and thanks filled her emotions.
Then resolute and unwavering, she rolled her suitcase off the little terrace where she’d spent so many hours and started along the walkway. After less than half a dozen steps, she was momentarily shocked to find Mrs. Hayashi and her little dog coming out of their apartment. It was four o’clock in the morning. Not a time when people were wandering around outside.
Worried that her little plan was falling apart right at the start, Summer did what she thought best and took a huge chance. She put her finger to her lips and gave the old woman a meaningful stare.
Her neighbor went totally still. She looked at Summer’s suitcase and frowned. Then she nodded to indicate she got it and made a small hand gesture, waving Summer on.
She let go of the suitcase’s handle and used the fingers of both hands to make a heart sign. The light of a car pulling along the sidewalk at the end of the apartment building walkway was her signal to move.
Without looking back, she grabbed the suitcase handle, took a deep breath, and walked into an uncertain future.
15
New York City – thirteen days later
If Arnie ate any more pizza, he was sure a buttload of Tums were in his future. The thing was, though, his pizza guy had the best meat lover’s toppings around, so stopping the unseemly gorge was going to take control, and if there was one thing he lacked right now, it was control.
“Dude, slow down,” Milo admonished with a crooked grin. “Maybe somebody else wants a slice.”
Looking around the room, he found two more pairs of eyes watching him inhale an entire sixteen-inch pie practically by himself.
“Fuck all y’all,” he said, his voice deep and raspy.
Dottie shook her head and made tsk’ing noises.
“He thinks his shit doesn’t stink.” Izzy sniggered. “What you see before you is the result of a man or a woman,” she added with brows arching so high they disappeared under her bangs, “earning the undying thanks of a president, the vice president and his wife, the secretary of state, a foreign head of state, and the heads of at least two international security agencies.”
Folding another slice in half, he shoved a good portion of the thinner end into his mouth and ended up biting off almost half. Nothing else on earth came close to New York-style pizza.
He mumbled something despite the mouthful of food and managed a half-shrug when Dottie gave him shit for having lousy manners.
“What I said,” he drawled with a snark-filled glance in Dottie’s direction, “is never have kids. Fuck that shit. They start off all cute and everything, but goddammit if they don’t grow up to be privileged snotbags without a lick of real-world common sense. We almost ended up with an ugly international incident—the kind where people die—and why? Because a dumbass coed who spent too much time on YouTube couldn’t manage a case of the hots for a guy who was so obviously manipulating her. That’s why. Shit. She actually bought in to some wild tin foil hat stuff.”
“She sounds like a twat, yet you rescued her and averted a major shitstorm.” Dottie’s tone was her way of bringing him off the ledge. It wasn’t about him or what he thought.
For a nanosecond, he narrowed his eyes and glared at her before shrugging the whole fucked-up misadventure off.
“Just doing my job, ma’am.”
She chuckled but didn’t have a comeback.
For shits and grins, he added, “Did the check clear? That’s all I care about.”
“I have a question,” Izzy stated with a laugh. “What the hell happened to your hair? You left here looking like a recruiting official for the Hitler Youth and return as a shaggy dog.”
“My hair grows fast,” he replied. “The awkward phase where it stuck out straight was a bitch though. As for why, the group was easier to worm into than expected. But having a deadly intent isn’t the same as having smart leaders. They were distracted by dumb shit. The skinhead look made them too visible to local police, so they decided to grow their hair out.”
Izzy honked with laughter. “All at once? Everyone?”
Arnie had to laugh too. Some of the biggest idiots on the planet ended up being the most dangerous terrorists.
She thumped him on the back. “Don’t worry, big guy. I’ve got you. We’ll trim the mess and bam! It’ll be like the horror never happened.”
Uncomfortable tingles danced along his shoulders when she called him big guy. He took it as a sign from the universe to get his act together quickly, sit through whatever ass-numbingly boring debrief he had to, and then get his butt to California immediately after.
He had some serious groveling to do.
“I need my phone, Dottie. Did they return it?”
“It’s in the safe. I pawned your watch, though.”
It was crazy, but for a second, he wasn’t sure if she was serious or just messing with him.
“Got it,” Milo announced. He showed off the paper-thin piece of foil removed from Arnie’s thigh. “Slap some ointment on that, will you, Izzy?”
“Thanks.” He eyed the scary-smart tech wizard, and said, “Your alien-looking little extraction gizmo gives off a Tony Stark vibe.”
Holding up the thing in his hand, Milo grinned. “The fruit of a wild imagination, half a bottle of rum, an impressive development budget, and the latest in 3D printing.”
“Well, whatever and however,” Arnie drawled. “The Brits wanted to cut it out of me,” he said half-jokingly. “Had a hankering to take a look at the technology.”
Milo honked with sarcastic-sounding laughter. “Fuckers. Would’ve been funny if they tried. Not for you,” he admitted. “And you know why? Because the second you were clear, I terminated the signal. They’d have to shred your leg searching for it.”
“Has anyone told you that you’re a sick fuck?”
“No,” Milo replied dryly. “You’re the first.”
Everyone laughed. Milo had a T-shi
rt he wore frequently. In big block letters on the back, it read SICK FUCK.
Arnie finished off one last slice of pizza, suggested Izzy hurry the fuck up with her nursing duties, and pinned Dottie with a look.
“What happens next?”
She appeared to anticipate the question and gave him a short answer.
“Debrief downtown. Nobody wants your ugly mug on their security cameras.” She laughed. “And you’re no longer welcome at the Federal Plaza in Manhattan. The FBI has a bone they want to pick with you.”
He snorted. “Yeah, I know which bone they wanna pick. Sexism is a two-way street.”
“True,” Izzy cut in. “But in your case, Arnie, spurning the advances of an agent on her way up the ranks just got you blackballed sooner. It took King years to earn the same distinction.”
“Yeah,” Milo said, “but he also shot one of their undercover guys.”
“Collateral damage,” Dottie reminded Izzy and Milo. “And he didn’t shoot him, for Christ’s sake. He got nicked. Band-Aids don’t count.”
Arnie smiled his first real smile in months. He knew all about King’s adventure in FBI-land. The subject came up whenever they got drunk together. The guy had a perverse sense of humor. He was also a top contender for badass of the year and hands down winner of the international scary motherfucker award. His tattoos didn’t help. Kingsley Maddison’s penchant for tribal tats gave a lot of people the creeps.
But body ink and nicked FBI agents aside, he respected the co-founders of NIGHTWIND. King and Jon Weston were good men and solid scoundrels—just the sort of guys he felt most comfortable with. He was lucky they took him on and even luckier that they gave him a free hand to use his unusual skill set as he deemed fit and without interference.
Dottie snarled. “Those cheap bastards tried to steer the debrief to a no-name motel in Hoboken. Can you believe that shit? You save everyone’s ass, and they say thanks with a bag over your head. I know what their expense accounts look like. Bunch of jerks. But I digress. After wearing them down, they settled on the Sheraton in Times Square. I expect it’ll take a couple of hours, tops.”
Finding Summer (Nightwind Book 3) Page 30