by Wylder Stone
Lizzy wiped her tears and nodded in agreement. She looked at Keith. “She’s right. He did this to you too. It’s all because of him. Promise me you’ll do whatever you have to in order to put him away so my sister and nephew can be together again. Protect her with everything. He’s a bad man, I know he is…”
“I’ll protect her with my life, Lizzy. I’ll do everything I can to protect all of you and put him away where he can’t hurt anyone ever again. Just do your part and follow the protocols so we know you two are safe. I have people all along your journey and surrounding you once you arrive at your destination. You’re all protected as if you were my own family.” It wasn’t like Keith to give heart-felt monologues filled with promises he could keep but not guarantee. It was moments like this that reminded him why he didn’t get emotionally invested in any of his cases. It was a sign of weakness, a distraction, the shit that blew cases out of the water and left you vulnerable.
Keith gently took the carrier from Trista and whispered something to him before placing him in the back seat of the car the baby and Lizzy were to leave in. He nodded to Lizzy, holding the door for her so they could be on their way. Lizzy stopped just before climbing in, giving her sister one last encouraging smile before ducking down into the car next to Mason.
“It’s going to be okay. We’re going to get through this.”
Trista turned away, unable to watch them drive away. It was more painful than she thought. It wouldn’t have mattered if she had days, or even weeks, to ready herself for this. How do you prepare for your heart to be ripped from your chest? You don’t. Perhaps that was the point and exactly why Keith waited to deliver the blow when she had little to no time to prepare or react.
Keith swiftly led Trista to the car they would be leaving in, one much like the one that just left with her family in it. It was all a blur, watching the second car leave, following her sister. When her car pulled out of the parking garage and up to the street, Trista could see the two cars traveling down the eerily semi-vacant street until her car turned in the opposite direction, and they disappeared into the night’s traffic. Then she cried herself to sleep.
6
Parked outside of what looked like an abandoned gas station, Trista woke up alone in the car. Sleeping in a car for who knew how long wasn’t her best idea. It was damn painful. That was what pure exhaustion, emotional and physical, would do to a person. She tried to stretch and work out the knots that her odd sleeping position created, and that was when she saw him.
Keith was standing outside of the car, talking to the two men who had followed them. When Trista stepped out of the car, their conversation stopped, and all eyes were on her. As different as the other two men looked from one another, there was something oddly similar, too. Something familiar even, but she couldn’t put her finger on it, nor did she have the energy or desire to figure it out.
“You okay?” Keith asked, seeming genuinely concerned.
When Trista nodded, he handed her the duffel bag he had packed for her and pointed her in the direction of the bathroom. “You can change and clean up a bit while we finish up here.”
Being politely dismissed was new, but Trista didn’t feel much like protesting when she looked down and realized she was still wearing the dress from the night before. She suddenly felt a little too exposed and vulnerable, given it was daylight in the middle of nowhere alone with three men she didn’t really know. Slowly stalking toward the restroom sign Keith had pointed out, Trista took in her surroundings, looking for clues as to where they might be.
There was nowhere to go and no one to talk to. What would she say if there were? Hey, I voluntarily got in the car with muscles over there because my husband might want to kill me and feed me to the sharks, but I feel a bit trapped, kidnapped, and imprisoned…can you help me? Oh, and I’m not crazy at all, don’t mind the dress…it’s couture.
All three men were watching her. She could feel their deep, judging stares. They were still silent, too, waiting for Trista to get out of earshot before resuming their discussion. What in the hell did they have to say that she couldn’t hear? It was her rescue mission. She was the victim they were protecting as a witness, so Trista deserved to know. Tossing a dirty look over her shoulder, she made sure each saw her judging them right back before she walked into the restroom. Sure, it was immature, but that was where she was at the moment. No tact, no clarity, and clearly lacking maturity. She was dead inside, or it felt that way anyway. In the past twelve or so hours – she didn’t know what time it was – her life had gone from grand to hell.
The sad truth was that it was going there anyway. She just hadn’t known it. Two years under investigation? Multiple undercover agents in her midst? If they were no longer alive, as Keith had mentioned, that meant Cesar knew who they were and killed them himself. He knew he was a criminal and going down. It wasn’t a matter of if but when. And when the time came, Trista would have been in the very state she was in now, perhaps worse, because she would appear to be affiliated. How had she lived with a man and loved him and not seen the signs – not a single one?
Staring in the mirror at someone she hardly recognized, it became clear what they were looking at…a broken soul. Blind to reality as she’d lived in a fantasy. Money and privilege afforded such luxuries. Quick to get out of her expensive couture, Trista found a pair of black yoga leggings and a pullover jacket to change into. The dress she’d bought with hopes and dreams went into the trash where it belonged since becoming a nightmare full of bad memories. After splashing water on her face to remove the residual sludge-like makeup, she ran a brush through her hair, tossing it into a simple ponytail for the day.
She still didn’t recognize the fresh-faced girl staring back at her in the mirror. She looked tired, sad, worn, and maybe even frightened. It occurred to Trista that she probably wouldn’t recognize herself for a while, not until she discovered who she was supposed to be in this new life. Life was starting over, and Trista didn’t deal well with change. It had been less than twenty-four hours since her world tilted on its axis, but it felt like a lifetime ago.
Slipping on her sneakers so she could get back to the car before the cavalry came looking for her, Trista couldn’t help but laugh. Keith had said they were on the run, and here she was, tying up her running shoes. There was a little more of that irony crap that kept happening.
With her black duffel bag slung over her shoulder, she headed out the door. Trista remembered seeing a payphone attached to the wall when she was going in. For some odd reason, she felt the need to lift the receiver and see if it worked as she passed by. It was dead, of course, which was probably for the best. Who would she call anyway? Trista was trapped in her own little world, cut off from everyone and everything she knew. A victim of her own circumstance.
Catching Keith’s intense stare, she shifted where she stood, feeling equal parts uneasy and something Trista couldn’t quite identify. That look made her nervous – he made her nervous. She chalked it up to their current situation. Before, he was more a fixture who went nearly everywhere she did. Now, her life depended on him.
A rolling door, coming from her left, startled her from her thoughts and caught her attention. A man with spiked hair and an abundantly healthy physique, who rode in the car behind them, had put the car she exited in the stall and locked it up. Looking back at Keith, Trista noticed that they were now riding in an SUV. How had she missed that, and why were they using another car? Apparently, being on the run also meant swapping cars. Her life was suddenly a made-for-TV movie, and every detail was at play, starring her and…Keith.
The man with the spiked hair rejoined the others, and she noticed he looked much like his less edgy partner. Where the one had spiked hair with shaved sides, the other had a slightly longer style that was clean-cut and combed back. Spike – she didn’t know his name – wore a nearly too tight T-shirt that hugged his physique and low hanging jeans, where the guy who looked more like a Ken doll wore an appropriately fitting a
thletic shirt with matching shorts. Spike had tattoos, whereas Ken doll didn’t seem to have any visible. Both were easy on the eyes, but the obvious physical contradiction was like that of a dive bar versus the country club.
After a quick nod from yin and yang, the two men were back in their car, pulling back onto the highway to a destination unknown. Not very chatty, Trista thought. Perhaps all muscle and lacking in intellect. It was no matter. Keith had said it would be just the two of them on the road and on the run. There were those nerves again. Something about being alone with Keith was more frightening than being on the run.
Keith stood at the rear of the new vehicle, hatch up, waiting for her bag. He had a brown bakery box in one hand while eating something from the other.
“Donut?” he asked. “You’ve got to be hungry by now. You slept clear through the morning.”
“Slept through the morning?” Surprised by the statement, Trista was sure she’d heard him wrong. “What time is it?”
“It’s well after noon. Hungry?” He held the box out so she could see its contents.
“Um, I don’t know. Are they vegan?” Trista questioned with her nose turned slightly up and a judgy tone.
“Vegan? What the…sure, yeah, vegan. You need to eat something. We’ll stop later for actual food, so take a few of these for now. We won’t be at our destination until tomorrow night. You need to eat when you can.”
“If they’re not vegan…” The sight and smell went right to her senses, and they sounded the alarm in a loud belly growl. So much for playing it cool and waiting for something vegan. Her body was betraying her over some sugary donuts. “Fine, since they’re vegan…I guess I’ll have one. I’m not that hungry.”
“Uh-huh.” He chuckled at the sound of her rumbling stomach and handed her a second donut. “Why don’t you hold this one, too…for me. I might get hungry.”
“Okay, fine.” Trista reluctantly took the second donut and got into the passenger side of the vehicle without another word questioning why she was so hung up on the donuts being vegan or not. Perhaps it was control. She couldn’t control her situation, but she could control whether she ate a non-vegan donut. In the end, she was starving, so she ate the damn donut.
He closed the back and got behind the wheel as she climbed into the passenger side. They pulled back onto the highway but drove in the opposite direction of the men who had just left.
“Well, that answers that,” she said under her breath.
He gave her a strange side-eye glance. “What answers…what?”
Finishing the first donut and eyeing the second, Trista went on to ask what she really wanted to know. “Oh, I was just wondering if we were still being guarded by yin and yang or going on our merry way. They went left. We went right…question answered.”
“Yin and yang?” he chuckled at her deadpan response.
Raised eyebrows and an amused smirk looked good on him, she thought – better than his typical steely stare. “Yeah, yin and yang. The two guys who have been traveling with us? They look almost exactly alike other than the bad boy-good boy opposite thing they have going on. You know them? Personally, I mean.”
Nodding, he was impressed with her observation. That kind of attention to detail would benefit them while they ran and come trial time. “Yeah, I know them pretty well. Why?”
“You smiled at one of them – the one who looks like a Ken doll. You never smile, not like that.”
His smirk faded to bewilderment. “Yeah, he was telling me about his kid. She’s pretty…cute. Wait, Ken doll? Are you serious?”
With a mouth full of the second donut that she didn’t want, Trista replied, “Yeah, the pretty one. Looks like a Ken doll or something…especially next to the other one.”
A sound that startled her as much as it brought her joy escaped him…laughter. “So, if the pretty one is a Ken doll, what’s the other one? Please let this be good.”
“Oh, Spike? He needs bigger shirts. He doesn’t have to shop the children’s section. They have fitted T-shirts for adults, too.” Trista shrugged at the thought, surprised Keith hadn’t noticed.
“Yeah, his shirts are a little tight. He works out a lot.” Keith paused, his expression falling to one of serious emotion. “They are two of the only men we can trust right now. The other two are with your sister and Mason.”
When it was apparent Keith wasn’t going to elaborate, Trista dug a little deeper. It was interesting how her mention of them evoked emotions of any kind because he didn’t do emotions. The guy barely had a personality.
“So, I don’t get to know who they are? Why they’re important to you and the only people we can trust?”
“It’s better if you don’t know, the less you…” Trista’s disappointed sigh let him know that she already knew what he was going to say. Though he thought better of it, Keith decided to give her something more than just, you don’t need to know. “Look, they’re from my team, personal team. Not the…agency I work for. We’re in the wind and off the grid for now. My agency doesn’t even know where we are, and they’re ultimately the group taking Cesar down.”
“We can’t trust whatever government, military something, or other agency you were undercover for, but we can trust a couple no-name blonds with extra muscles?” A little unease crept in. “Is that even safe? Isn’t that going rogue or something?”
“I suppose it is going rogue, and yes, it’s safe. Cesar’s reach is massive, and his pockets deep. I don’t know who I can trust. The highest military and government clearance don’t make a person honest – it just makes them in the know about a lot of things. Money and blackmail can make people do things they never thought they would or could. We’ll stick with my personal team and worry about the agency later.”
“I suddenly don’t feel very…safe.” Trista pulled her legs up under her and took another bite out of that donut. “Can we call Liz and Mason, make sure they’re okay? You said they were parting ways with their team at some point, too, right? She’ll be alone.”
“No. We can’t call them. They are never entirely alone. They’re always being watched, and people are nearby. If something goes wrong, I’ll know.” He took one look at her and realized that his words offered little to no comfort. Telling her he would know probably didn’t offer much reassurance. “Look, I check in at my office, just like the others do. I use a burner phone, then dump it in the mail to a random address. If it’s traced by someone we don’t want on our trail…they’ll follow it to an undeliverable address far from where we will be. The whole team operates this way when we are this deep. I’ll know if something happens. They’re safe.”
With each sliver of information, Trista became more and more aware of the danger she was in. She should be grateful to have this level of protection, but truth be told, the more Trista learned about him, the more she feared him, too. He’s clearly the guy you want in your corner when all hell breaks loose and buy your side as you wander down dark alleys, but he’s also the guy you didn’t cross because you knew he was connected in ways you just couldn’t imagine. She didn’t find comfort in any of that, even if she should have…just anxiety and a lot of new questions she would never get answered. The guy was a vault full of secrets, lies, and dirty deeds – that was undeniable. If Cesar was half the man Keith said he was, then what did that say about Keith if he was the guy to protect her from all of it?
She turned to Keith and studied him. Something big was staring her right in the face, and she was finally putting it together. He was undercover with a fake identity working for a nonexistent branch of what was probably the government and had the means to disappear altogether, even from said agency because Keith had his own team who could do so. The more she learned about the stranger beside her, the more Trista realized she knew less and less about who Keith really was. He was exactly who he wanted her to believe he was, real or not, and that was it. That didn’t sit well with her at all, but it was also her only option, and the best option it seemed.
“Your name,” Trista started. “It isn’t Keith Carmichael, is it?”
His jaw tensed, and his grip on the steering wheel tightened when he shook his head. He wouldn’t look at her.
“What do you really do? Who are you really?”
Keith’s answer wasn’t immediate. A lot was on the line, and he had to be careful about how much he shared. Though he felt like he could trust her and wanted to tell her everything, he knew better. Less was more when it came to who he was and what he did for a living. He wanted to gain her complete trust, though, and tell her why he was really there. That he stayed undercover so long for her. Letting Trista in, however, would be breaking the cardinal rule in his line of work. It was too personal and too dangerous. A lot was at stake, with everything on the proverbial line – not just where this case was concerned but also his identity in general. He found himself conflicted. The professional in him was losing to personal desire and connection, and he caved.
“My name is Owen. Owen Force.”
7
Hours had passed before they finally rolled into a blink-and-you-miss-it town with one local drive-through on the corner of what appeared to be the city center of the single stoplight town. Owen went inside to order while Trista freshened up in the restroom that was accessed from the outside of the building. It was easier to keep an eye on her that way and their surroundings from the glass wall between him and their vehicle. The drive-through was risky with too many blind spots. Those were the small things you didn’t think about until you were in a situation such as theirs. The small things were the big things.
“Hey, what do you want to eat?” he hollered, just before going inside.
With a dismissive shrug, she replied, “Just, whatever is fine.”
Despite the hours of unbreaking silence, Trista was overwhelmed by him and needed space to clear her head. Owen’s presence and now known identity were overwhelming, and she didn’t know why. She needed a minute alone to reconcile the emotions evoked by sitting next to him in a tight space for hours on end. She needed time to sort those emotions. It wasn’t tension and certainly not desire or even fear – just something in the air between them. Maybe it had something to do with the secret ops, undercover, undisclosed military for hire, mercenary thing Owen had going on. Maybe it was a little bit of everything combined. Nonetheless, her senses were overwhelmed.