Everywhere It's You

by C. B. Salem

  She pressed on toward the guard house, staying low and putting distance between herself and the people behind her.

  Something whistled past her left ear. She broke into a run with her bag at her chest.

  “Freeze where you are!” a voice called out from behind her.

  She didn’t dare to turn back again. Her only thought was to run. Dead sprint, as fast as she could. On a whim she weaved to her right, thinking from somewhere in the far recesses of her mind that someone might be shooting at her.

  If she could get to the guard house that would at least ruin their line of sight. But then what?

  Ten yards. Another ten. Dimly, she heard yelling behind her. Her lungs burned but she was closing in on her goal. Another fifty yards to cross the road, and then she was there. There were cars approaching. A car, actually. Silver and sleek, like a Mercedes maybe.

  She needed to get back amongst traffic.

  Twenty yards. Even now, she could tell she was going to intersect with this car. Needed to go right or left.

  Fifteen yards. A man was driving, of course looking like Tatum. Damn this hallucination. His eyes opened wide and the window rolled down. Must be surprised to see her being chased.

  “Kristina!”

  That was her name. It hadn’t come from behind her. She took another couple steps. The car had come to a stop in her way. The driver locked eyes with her.

  Dark irises like nearly black holes. But they were panicked, this time.

  Wait.

  “Kristina, get in!” he shouted.

  She came to a stop and a sting caught her left shoulder. Awareness tugged across her mind. It was him.

  “Mr. Tatum?” she asked. Her vision was blurring.

  She’d been shot. Shot? There wasn’t much pain. Something was hanging from her shoulder. Not a bullet.

  “Yes, Kristina, get in now!”

  The back door of the silver car opened. She was fading fast. It was really him. She knew it. She stepped into the car. A strong hand pushed her second leg in finally and then door was shut and they were moving.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Landon hit the gas, jolting the car forward. He turned the wheel to one side until the car was on the grass and then spun it hard the other way, leaning into a U-turn with tires squealing. Two men in cheap black suits ran toward him across the grass, one of them waving his arms over his head. Landon couldn’t tell if they had real guns or just the darts they’d shot Kristina with, but he wasn’t going to stay and find out.

  He completed the U-turn and pounded on the gas pedal again, racing out of Montrose Beach’s parking lot. Looked in his rear-view mirror. Nothing.

  At the on-ramp to Lakeshore, he decided to go straight and stay on surface streets. Easier to get lost that way. No idea if those guys had backup. He’d have to ditch the car and get a new one, now that this one could be recognized. Get something cheaper that blended into the neighborhood, probably.

  As he drove his mind churned through what had happened.

  How the hell had they found out about Kristina? And this quickly? He’d counted on her being mostly free to work when he’d set this contingency in motion.

  As he drove he continued to check his mirror. Kristina’s eyes were closed, but her chest was rising and falling normally. Almost certainly just a tranquilizer. He’d be furious if it was anything more. A dull rage bubbled up in his chest.

  After a few minutes he pulled into a neighborhood off Foster and began taking side roads to get to the apartment he’d set up last month in case he needed it. Maybe they’d been identified. He couldn’t be too cautious at this point.

  A few tense moments later he arrived at the apartment. He would have to find a place to ditch the car after taking her up. It would be a while before someone reported the car as abandoned. Hopefully by then his situation would be different.

  And Kristina’s situation. At least until they figured out who had shot her with a dart. If they had tracked her car they likely knew where she lived. He’d been able to track her comm without too much trouble, and he wasn’t even a professional at this. Surely whoever was after her could do better.

  Whether she liked it not, she was probably stuck with him for a while.

  It wasn’t a prospect he found unappetizing. He’d only just set his eyes upon her in the flesh and yet there was something about her. As if he had seen her before, somehow. Something...individually fascinating.

  He parked the car just down the street from the apartment. Turned back to check on Kristina. Her face was relaxed in what appeared to be a peaceful sleep, her blonde hair partially covering her eyes. Should be fine in a few hours. If not, he might need to find a lab to figure out what they had hit her with.

  After a quick visual sweep to make sure he wasn’t forgetting anything, he opened the door and stepped out of the car. Sirens sounded in the distance. Kristina sat slumped in the back seat.

  He opened the door and removed the dart from her shoulder, pocketing it in case analysis proved necessary later. That done, he shook her by her other shoulder to see if she would wake on her own.

  She continued sleeping as if nothing had happened, her long lashes still. He looked around quickly to make sure no one was watching, then hoisted her up out of the car and put her over his shoulder, holding her by the backs of her legs.

  Walked up the stairs, unlocked the door with an old-fashioned key, then up again. Came into the apartment, into the dark living room with the hideous blue carpet, then over to the high-end, genuine leather couch he’d bought to make the place semi-palatable. Combined with the huge vid screen and the oak coffee table, someone who stumbled into this apartment would be forgiven for thinking it belonged to a pharm dealer.

  Which, to be fair, it sort of did.

  He thought better of it at the last moment and brought her into the single bedroom. He could sleep on the couch. Set her down gently on the bed, pulled back the covers, picked her back up again to put her under.

  She was still wearing the gray pantsuit she’d worn to work. He’d need to get her something else to wear when she woke up. Went to the kitchen to get her a glass of water and some painkillers in case she woke up while he was gone. He set those down by her side on the nightstand.

  Once she looked completely settled, he left to go ditch the car and get some new clothes for Kristina. Her tastes seemed to trend toward classic even though she had the figure for a more fitted cut. Shouldn’t be too hard to get her something she would like.

  He walked out the door feeling energized. Even if it hadn’t gone to plan, they’d gotten away. So long as they weren’t traced.

  He could take care of that, he hoped. Now it was time to set some pieces in motion.

  ***

  She was standing by herself in a lounge.

  Tatum sat in a tufted leather VIP booth in the corner of the room. Alone with a clear drink that looked like a gin martini. He wore a light gray wool jacket with thin lapels and a crisp white shirt. Classic. His brown hair looked recently cut, very neat and a clean. Like a soldier home for R and R.

  She walked toward him.

  He turned to her and their eyes connected on a singed line. A warm glow fluttered through her stomach and she stopped in her tracks. She was wearing heels. Tall heels. She broke the connection with Tatum and looked down at them. They were the black ankle strap Ferragamo pumps she’d had her eye on for months. When had she decided to splurge? Had she gotten a bonus?

  She looked back up to where he was seated. He’d stood up while she was admiring her shoes. Now he walked toward her. A shiver went down her spine and spread out around her skin. She was here to ask him questions, she reminded herself. Where had he been? Why had he set her up with this? Had he?

  He came to a stop in front of her, so close she could feel the heat from his body against her bare arms. She licked her lips, waiting for him to speak, but he held his silence.

  “Where have you been?” she asked at last.

  He brought a l
arge hand up and rested it casually on the back of her arm. Her body leaned instinctively into the warmth before she pulled back, slightly. When had she become this attracted to him? Every inch of her skin felt on edge.

  “I could say the same to you,” he replied. “I’ve been looking everywhere.”

  “You’ve been looking for me? But that’s impossible. I’m pretty easy to find.”

  He cracked a sly smile. “Are you?”

  She looked away from his searing gaze. Where had this dress come from? It was a midnight blue cocktail dress she’d seen in a boutique by the train station she got off at to go to work. But it was way out of her budget. Practically a whole month’s pay.

  She turned back up, back into his deep chocolate eyes. “I’m not the one who disappeared without a trace,” she breathed.

  “Not yet.” He pulled closer, so that their feet were locked like two dancers. “You never know what the right circumstances can bring out of a person.”

  “Why did you run?”

  He bit his lip, his white top teeth tugging, digging at the skin until the final release snapped it back. “Did I?” he murmured.

  Dimly, a crowd around her. The buzz of the bar. It had been absent before.

  She leaned forward, into his space so that her face was inches from his chest. He smelled like a combination of musk and juniper. She breathed his scent in deeply, feeling his body’s heat. His lips parted and hers matched reactively. He closed in and her fists clenched at her sides as she felt the heat from his breath.

  They moved together until the space between their lips was a third skin, not there before. Suddenly his hands were on each of her arms, firmly, but he was not kissing her, he was lifting her and his breath smelled minty and fresh but she was off her feet and not wearing heels and there was a surprising dull ache.

  ***

  She woke suddenly and grabbed at her left shoulder. It throbbed beneath her touch, still tender. Wincing, she sat up in bed. The room was nearly completely dark. She held the sheets between her fingers. These weren’t her sheets. Too smooth and fine. Like a high-end hotel. Egyptian cotton, probably. She had no idea how to figure a thread count just by feel. Or any other way, other than looking at the package.

  Wait. What had happened? Where was she?

  Her memories rushed back, messy and polluted. She’d been running at Montrose Beach. From someone. Two men. She wasn’t quite sure who, but they had tried to run her off the road before. Two men chasing her in her car and then across the grass. She’d been shot in the shoulder but she didn’t think it was a bullet.

  With her mind still chugging through gummed up gears, she swung her legs around and got out of bed. She’d seen Tatum at the last minute. The real Tatum. She’d been sure of it. Maybe he’d brought her here. Maybe he was here now. Her eyes began to adjust to the darkness. He probably was here, right? Or else he’d just dropped her off and gone away to do billionaire stuff somewhere else. Make her a concubine or something. Seemed unlikely.

  Flickering light came from the doorway, maybe from a vid screen in the next room. She followed it tentatively.

  She was in a living room, and there was a huge vid screen on the far wall. Screen was displaying financial news from Asia. Two commentators worried about a weakening yen, each dressed way too flamboyantly to ever step foot in a Wall Street firm. She turned away.

  To her right, Landon Tatum had fallen asleep on what looked to be a brand new leather couch. The screen’s uneven glow danced on his face. He wore a thin navy t-shirt that showed off a surprisingly muscular chest and gray worsted wool slacks draped snugly around his long legs. She’d checked out his arms earlier in the day, walking back from her experience at Tom’s office, but the real thing was somehow even better. She loved a strong pair of arms on a man.

  He was here. He’d found her or she’d found him. Maybe both. He must have set this place up around the same time he’d set up the protocol that sent her on this wild chase. Maybe even more recently than that. Decided he needed a safe house way out of the way in the city. That was what she would have done, anyway.

  What was his plan from here, though? He wasn’t kidnapping her, unless she’d misjudged him and he was in fact a total idiot. He needed her help. She wasn’t sure for what, but she was going to find out soon.

  Then it hit her. Kevin would be worried sick after what had happened. Probably combing the city for her. She patted her pocket for her comm. Empty. Of course, she’d left it in the car on Kevin’s orders. She scanned around the room for Tatum’s comm. It sat on the table in front of him, next to his keys and wallet.

  She picked it up and tried to swipe it on. Locked. An old-fashioned number code. No idea what it might be. No way to contact Kevin through that. She eyed his keys and wallet. Snatched both up, relieved him of two-hundred dollars.

  She would pay him back, but she needed to buy a comm device to contact Kevin. If she could find a 7-11 around here, she could buy one. At the very least, she ought to figure out where in the city she was. If she couldn’t find a comm, maybe at least she could send a message via a tablet or something. If she could find one of those.

  Moving quietly to avoid stirring Tatum from his sleep, she eased open the front door of the apartment and let herself out.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Outside, humidity hung in the still night-time air. The street was eerily quiet. She turned as she exited the building and looked up at the street number, committed it to memory. 5723. Wow. She was a long way from downtown. Tatum had chosen to hide himself deep in the city. What was he running from?

  She took off walking, hoping to hit a major road soon so she could figure out where she was and find a place to buy a comm device. Neither car nor pedestrian were out on the street she was walking on, and she didn’t see a street sign until she got to a four-lane road.

  She was at Foster and Washtenaw. To her left, across Foster, she saw a 7-11. A lone car was parked in front of it, but the store looked open. She smiled. Perfect.

  After looking both ways, she hurried across the road, but came to a dead stop when she got to the sidewalk.

  Seated in front of a big vid screen advertisement on the brick wall of the building was a trio of homeless men. All of them, of course, with Tatum’s face, bathed in electric blue light from the ad. On the screen, a looped vid advertising mascara. Those long, dark lashes curled over and over, the three of them watching enraptured.

  They looked up, legs crossed, like they were listening to a sermon. Faces placid, they appeared to be nearly dreaming. Part of her wanted to enter the cloud of aero pharms that were obviously surrounding the ad just to see what these men were experiencing. It looked like a numb contentment, if not bliss. Like another world.

  She tore her eyes away and walked into the store. A quick turn to the right took her to the rack of pre-paid comm devices. She chose quickly and went to the register to pay, ignoring the pangs of hunger in her stomach when she glanced at the hotdogs that had been rotating under a heating lamp for who knows how long. The last thing she needed was food poisoning.

  Behind the checkout counter an older Indian woman watched her sleepily, her lids half-drooped over her chestnut eyes. Unsafe, Kristina thought, for a woman to be working by herself late like this. Store must have a great security system.

  Kristina put the comm device on the counter. “Do they always come here?” she asked, motioning outside with her chin as her item was scanned. “They look so peaceful.”

  The woman’s round eyes opened wide. She looked nervously around Kristina, then at the door.

  “Sorry,” Kristina said hurriedly, seeing the woman’s distress. “I was just asking.”

  The woman scanned the store again, then pressed her blood-red lips together. Finally, she leaned forward conspiratorially.

  “I turn up the degree of the aeros,” she said, a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “So they come to be soothed.” She leaned back. “The poor souls need relief, I think. In this life, nobody thinks o
f them but trouble.”

  “Won’t the police give you trouble?” Kristina asked.

  The woman shrugged and went back to her duty at the register. “The police don’t care here.” She looked at Kristina cynically. “Only in the rich areas do they worry about the aero levels. Here they are happy if there is no killing and everyone is quiet. It is only the city inspectors that are a problem.”

  She handed Kristina her comm device along with her change. Kristina took the device and gave the woman a small smile. “I guess that makes sense. It’s very kind that you do that.”

  She shrugged and her face fell. “It is mercy,” she said quietly. “There is too much need for it here.”

  Kristina gave her another nod and left without a word. The warm summer air enveloped her and warmed up her skin, which she only now realized had gotten cold in the air-conditioned store. She clutched her new device to her chest.

  Maybe she could find a place still open to grab a bite to eat before she went back to Tatum’s hideaway. She turned to the trio of men watching the ad on the building’s wall, but they hadn’t moved. Nor would they the whole night, she figured. Probably best not to ask them what was open.

  Footsteps rushed behind her, approaching rapidly. Her heart raced and she froze, torn whether to bolt back into the store or run down the street. Instead, she dropped the box containing her newly purchased comm device on the ground and spun to face her attacker, fists clenched.

  Tatum came to a stop just two feet in front of her, eyes opened wide. He still wore the fitted navy t-shirt she’d seen when he was on the couch, his hard chest rising and falling with each breath. In the light now she saw his five o’clock shadow had come in thick, and his hair had pressed up to one side of his head as evidence of sleeping.