Dangerous To Love
Page 230
Chapter Twenty-One
Falls Church, VA
Thursday, 7:50 p.m.
Scott could hardly bear the shock, anger, and confusion on Valerie’s beautiful face. But he couldn’t think of another option to keep her safe. If Hollowell’s men were outside, especially a sniper, they didn’t stand a chance if they left the apartment.
But if the police showed up, Hollowell’s guys wouldn’t come anywhere near them. Scott hoped.
He relayed his address to the woman on the phone.
“Is Valerie Sanchez with you?” the operator asked, her tone as calm and bland as if asking about the weather. Despite the situation, he couldn’t help but admire her professionalism.
“No.” Scott cleared his throat. “No, we split up.”
Valerie reached for the doorknob, but he grabbed her arm through the thick jacket. “Wait,” he mouthed, not letting go.
“Do you have any weapons in the home?”
“Just a knife,” he told the operator. “I left it in the bedroom.”
“There are several units on their way to you now. When they arrive—”
He hung up. Sirens were already audible from several blocks away and he needed to talk to Valerie.
“Are you crazy?” she cried.
“Probably. This is the only way I could think of to keep Hollowell’s men from getting to us first.”
She stared at him.
“If they see the cops, they’ll stay back. Hollowell wants us dead, not caught, but they’re not stupid.”
Her expression might have softened a fraction, but she was still pissed. “Then I’ll turn myself in too.”
“No. We don’t have any evidence yet and you’re the only one of us with the skills to get it. You can’t do that from jail, baby.” Jail. Fuck.
She sobbed. “You promised you’d stay with me.”
He closed his eyes and let out a shuddering breath. God, he didn’t want to give her up. Not now, not ever. But he couldn’t let the cops—or Hollowell—have her. He slipped a hand behind her head and said, “You can do this.” He punctuated his words with a quick kiss. “I need you to do this. It’s the only way we both get out of this alive.”
“But what if he can get to you in jail?” she whispered.
“I can take care of myself,” he said, not denying her concern. Or alleviating it.
“You realize Dan’s going to get in trouble too.”
Dammit. Scott honestly hadn’t given his friend a thought, but what choice did he have now? “Once we’re acquitted, he should be fine.”
She bit her lip and hesitated, but she must have decided that his option was the best choice they had under the circumstances. Her gaze strayed to the floor and she nodded. “Okay.”
“Valerie,” he said, her name light and fragile and precious on his tongue, like a new snowflake. Leaning in, he kissed her hard and deep with a dizzying intensity that left them both panting. “No matter what happens,” he rested his forehead against hers, “I love you. Nothing changes that.”
“I love you, too,” she said, without hesitation. The look in her eyes was both fierce and full of anguish.
He wanted to cry.
Reaching under his jacket, he whipped the HOG’s tooth over his head. “Take this.” He looped it around her neck and tucked it inside her jacket. “For luck.”
“Scott, no.” She pushed at his hands.
He gripped her wrists gently, feeling her pulse race against his fingertips. “Keep it safe for me. They’ll just take it away during in-processing.” He liked knowing that his pendant was being warmed by her skin. That she would have a piece of him with her no matter what.
She took a deep breath and nodded as she stepped out of his embrace. “What’s your plan?”
Arms already aching with her absence, he gave her the three-second version.
Outside, the sirens stopped.
His lips brushed hers one last time. It wasn’t enough, would never be enough. “Ready?”
Without answering, she looped her bag over both shoulders like a makeshift backpack and dropped to her knees.
Red-and-blue lights flashed through the spaces around the living room blinds.
Scott gripped the doorknob. You can do this.
You need to do this.
He opened the front door and stepped into a blinding spotlight, hands held high.
At his feet, hidden from sight by the low brick safety wall that ringed the exterior walkway, Valerie crawled on all fours toward the inner corridor that bisected the building and housed the stairs.
It also housed the laundry room.
“Scott Kramer?” one of the cops said through a bullhorn. Three others stood behind their car doors and trained their rifles on his chest.
His throat turned dry. Maybe it was a mercy his victims had never seen him coming. “Yes.” He nodded in case his hoarse reply wasn’t loud enough and kept his hands up.
Valerie disappeared from his peripheral vision as she crawled around the corner. Hurry.
The cop with the bullhorn said, “Don’t move. I have—” She waved toward someone to Scott’s left. “Ma’am, get back inside and lock up behind you.”
A loud slam came from a couple doors down, followed by the thunk of a deadbolt sliding home.
“I have three rifles trained on you. Keep your arms up. There’s a team coming your way.”
The rest happened in a blur. Within seconds, cops swarmed him from both sides, yelling commands, grabbing him roughly as they pushed him to the ground with his hands at his back. Cold concrete skinned his cheekbone. A knee impaled his back. Cuffs were clamped on his wrists.
He didn’t resist, didn’t speak.
A broad-shouldered officer used Scott’s elbow to tug him to his feet and started reciting his rights as he marched him toward the staircase. In the parking lot, he was stuffed into the back of a squad car that smelled faintly of vomit, though the hard plastic seat appeared clean enough, and the interior was blessedly warm.
He leaned his head against the cool window. The cops stood in a huddle outside, their mouths emitting frozen puffs of air as they talked. The whole scene was too familiar. At fifteen he’d been scared out of his fucking mind.
Not much had changed.
Two weeks ago, he would have done anything to avoid going back to jail.
Now, he’d skip through the goddamned doors if it meant keeping Valerie safe. As safe as she could be out there on her own. He clenched his fists. Had he screwed up? What if he got himself arrested and Hollowell got to Valerie because Scott wasn’t there to protect her?
Calm. The fuck. Down. Valerie had done fine on her own for a couple of weeks. Sure, he’d been watching her, but that meant he knew how well she could take care of herself. She probably didn’t need him at all, and might even be better off without him around as a distraction.
She might be better off without him period.
A selfish part of him hoped she never realized it, even as he prepared for the worst.
His only crime was aiding and abetting a fugitive—which technically made him an accessory to any of her crimes—but if he were convicted for murdering the FBI agents, all the love in the world wouldn’t save him.
Four mind-numbing hours later, Scott had waited in a lobby chained to a chair, taken a piss in front of a sheriff’s deputy, visited the magistrate to have his charges reviewed and approved, suffered a humiliating in-processing complete with strip search, given up all his belongings, donned prison-issue scrubs and laceless shoes, and now lay on the top bunk of his assigned cell at the Arlington Detention Facility.
Midnight came and went.
He traced a thousand invisible designs on the painted brick ceiling as the strange, yet familiar, sounds of jail at night filtered into his cell like an awful serenade. Locked in.
He shivered and closed his eyes, trying to pretend he was on bivouac, resting in a sniper hide somewhere. Anywhere. Anywhere but here. His battered psyche knew better, though, and
little things repeatedly yanked him back to reality.
The adult detention center was different from juvie, but jail was jail.
Just like when he was fifteen, disinfectant didn’t cover the stink that reminded him of a high school locker room after a football game. Inmates postured and formed cliques, trying to build a rep and stay safe. Scott was still isolated despite the crowd. Up until now, he’d only returned to this place in his nightmares.
This time he wasn’t waking up. And he sure as hell couldn’t sleep.
He knew why the elephants and gorillas and tigers at the zoo paced in their enclosures. He understood why chimps beat the walls and beautiful birds squawked in frustration at their clipped wings.
The fact that he’d sacrificed his freedom for a woman he loved—both times—couldn’t dislodge the boulder sitting on his chest. Maybe he was a fucking coward, but he had no illusions about prison life, and this was no kiddie lockup. If he were convicted and sent to federal prison for life—or, God forbid, death—he’d wither on the vine.
His patience might be legendary, but that ability came from knowing there was something to be patient for. How did one calmly face every day if there was no future? No point?
Could he really live for postcards from his mother and Valerie, assuming either of them communicated at all?
Jesus. He sat up and rubbed his face. Where was his faith?
It could take months—maybe years—but Valerie would find a way to exonerate them both. He had to believe that. Being locked up again had brought him back to age fifteen so viscerally that he could hardly breathe.
And somehow, returning to jail now was worse. As a kid, he’d known he’d get out at eighteen. This time he had no timeline and no guarantees.
And he was fucking helpless to save himself or Valerie.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Falls Church, VA
Friday, 7:15 a.m.
Valerie hid in a dark cabinet at the end of the row of washing machines, clutching the HOG’s tooth against her chest until she was awoken by the sound of someone starting a load of laundry. Remarkably, she had dozed off sometime after midnight when she decided no one was going to find her hiding spot.
She had debated making a run for it in the middle of the night, but worried that Duncan’s men might still be around watching for her to sneak out. Morning made more sense. If she walked away from the building like a woman on her morning commute, she could easily escape notice.
Five minutes after the laundry room door closed, she eased from the cabinet and slid to the floor. Yellow morning light streamed through a wide window in the door, chasing away most of the shadows. The cold from the linoleum tile seeped through her jeans. Every angry muscle sent a protest in the form of pins and needles and cramps. So she sat against the wall and took long, slow breaths.
Her limbs hurt almost as much as her heart.
Scott had sacrificed himself for her. For us. She had to force herself not to speculate on what his night had been like. Her imagination was far too vivid.
Squeezing her eyes shut against useless tears, she gently worked her muscles until she could stand. Once stable on her feet, she tucked her hair up under her beanie and donned a pair of sunglasses she had stashed in the outer pocket of her bag. She had worn her jacket and gloves all night.
She slung her tote bag over one shoulder and walked out into the dawn. Orange and pink clouds painted the sky in an optimistic display that she couldn’t appreciate. It would make more sense if the sun never rose again.
Moving with purpose, but not haste, she walked about half a mile to the nearest drugstore and bought a bottle of medium brown hair dye, a birthday card—because a fugitive wouldn’t do that—a pack of gum, black eyeliner, berry red lipstick, and a bag of Skittles in holiday colors. Because sugar.
“Breakfast of champions,” the skinny twenty-something cashier said, holding up the candy with an amused grin before he stuffed it into a bag.
Valerie smiled. “Right?”
The cover of The Washington Post caught her eye. Both her and Scott’s photos were positioned above the fold, along with a picture of police cars outside the apartment building last night.
Her heart boomeranged in her chest. Stay calm. Their images might be plastered all over the news, but most people never expected to actually see a wanted criminal in person. No one would notice her. Plus, in her current state, she looked very little like the woman in print.
And yet, some people were more observant. They knew Scott had been arrested, knew she was on her own. What if one of the store’s customers was an off-duty cop?
Come on. Relax.
She paid for her purchases and forced herself to walk slowly out the door.
What she needed was a computer with Internet access. She couldn’t risk using hers within WiFi range again. For all she knew the malware on it would automatically connect and send information about her location, even if the WiFi appeared to be disconnected. She’d only kept her laptop to see if she could find the malicious code and decipher it. Offline.
But right now her priority was checking the forums. Duncan would be even more alert now that he knew she was in Virginia and had broken into Aggressor. And while she was pretty good at surveilling an unsuspecting target, her old boss would not be so easy.
Fifteen minutes—and a quick stop at another drugstore—later, she strolled through the front door of a three-star nationwide chain hotel and nodded at the thin, twenty-something black man behind the front desk as she headed for the elevators, just another guest returning to her room. She even took a minute to fill a paper cup with coffee on her way, not a care in the world.
On the third floor, she found the vending machine room and initially stood in front of the snacks as if trying to make a decision. No one passed by or came out of the room across from her. Thanksgiving must have made it a slow weekend for a hotel that likely got much of its business from visiting defense contractors.
Eventually, two housekeepers started working the floor. Surreptitiously studying them as they cleaned separate rooms, she noticed a pattern. Both of them were in and out of each room several times and ended by taking in the small toiletry bottles, and then spending about another thirty seconds in the room, presumably for a final check.
Valerie waited until both women were out of sight, one running the vacuum, before she took the stairwell down one floor. Here, there was only one housekeeping cart located two doors down from the vending room. The small space housed an ice machine and a trash can and provided a good vantage point from which to observe the housekeeper.
When the plump woman grabbed several tiny bottles, Valerie walked slowly past the open doorway. The housekeeper smiled and nodded at Valerie’s “Good morning” as she exited the bathroom, shutting off the light, and turned toward the beds.
Valerie’s heart triple-timed as she slid silently between the cart and the doorjamb and stepped into the darkened bathroom. She crouched and scooted as far under the wide counter as possible. Her pulse throbbed in her ears, but she took slow, shallow breaths through her nose and curled up tight, closing her eyes so she wouldn’t flinch or react when the other woman walked past.
An interminable number of heartbeats later, the door to the hallway shut with a loud clank that made her jump.
She sat in place for another five minutes before closing the bathroom door and turning on the light. After laying out a washcloth on the counter and setting a bath towel next to her on the other side, she removed the bottle of dye and a pair of scissors she’d purchased at the second store, setting them silently on the small white towel.
The housekeeper would hear the water if she ran the shower or flushed the toilet—which she badly needed to use before she left—but the sink should be quiet enough. With luck.
Forty-five minutes later, she checked her appearance in the mirror. Gone were the long, honey-blond strands, replaced by chin-length, mousy brown hair. She’d shortened her bangs to about an inch above her eyeb
rows and given them a slight U-shape, lined her upper eyelids with liquid black, extending the line out beyond the corners of her eyes to create “wings,” and added red lipstick. The retro look changed her appearance so much she barely recognized herself.
After adding square reading glasses, she wasn’t even sure Scott would know her on the street.
The hair dryer was too loud to risk, but someone might notice a woman stupid enough to go out in the cold with damp hair, so she sat at the room’s desk and spent the next two hours scanning her computer for malware and reviewing her notes on everything she’d done since she had turned fugitive.
The malicious code was well hidden, and she couldn’t be sure she’d removed all of it, but at least Scott hadn’t gone to jail based on an unfounded fear.
As if that were worth celebrating.
A deep ache set up camp in her chest. His sacrifice was for nothing, since that was exactly what she had. Without Jay or the emails, it was Duncan’s word against hers. A former black hat hacker and daughter of a convict versus a respected, successful businessman and former Air Force officer.
Valerie didn’t stand a chance without definitive proof of her boss’s duplicity.
A little after ten, her hair was dry. She could probably stay longer without detection, but with her luck the room would be given to someone with an early check-in. Better to leave now.
She tidied the bathroom the best she could, leaving the damp towel and washcloth tucked under the far corner of the counter, as if they had been overlooked by housekeeping.
In case the front desk attendant was unusually observant, she turned her tote bag inside out so it showed the powder-blue liner, and rolled the bottom of her jeans. She checked her reflection once more. Still startled by her appearance, she folded her parka over one arm, grabbed her bag, and looked through the peephole.
The housekeeping cart was no longer in visual range, so she waited with her ear against the door until the vacuum started running several doors down. Quickly, she exited the room and strode to the stairs—pausing only to stash a twenty between two towels—hoping like hell if the front desk attendant noticed her on the hallway cameras, he didn’t realize she had exited an unrented room.