Seduction Game

by Pamela Clare

  Chapter Thirteen

  Holly followed the SUV’s tire tracks uphill through a glade of aspen to a dirt access road, then followed the road downhill. Adrenaline quickly gave way to exhaustion as she walked on, her body aching, her emotions raw, every ugly thing The Bastard had said to her like a laceration.

  You just seduce men for money. I guess that makes you a whore. Why do you do it? To hurt your father?

  She had to give him credit. He’d certainly done his homework.

  Daddy never gave you the attention you needed. Or maybe he gave you too much attention. That’s it, isn’t it? After you sprouted tits, your relationship changed.

  She felt tears on her cheeks, dashed them away with the back of her hand. She couldn’t let herself go there—not now.

  Right now, she needed to survive.

  She was lucky to be alive, and she knew it. Nick had slipped in under her radar, under everyone’s radar. If he had followed orders, she’d be dead now. As it was, she was likely compromised and out of a job, given that he knew she was a CIA officer. In the end, she supposed it didn’t matter. Somehow Nick had figured it out.

  Maybe nothing mattered anymore. The life she’d known was probably over. Even if the Agency didn’t fire her, they’d most likely relocate her, and she’d have to pack up and say good-bye to everyone and everything she knew like she’d done so many times before, moving wherever her dad’s job had taken them, never being able to keep friends. Only this time it would be so much worse. This time she’d be leaving behind a city she called home and friends that had become her family.

  And her friends—how would they react if they learned the truth?

  Would they stand by her? Would they hate her?

  No, they wouldn’t hate her. They cared about her. They might not understand, but they would forgive her.

  They were surely terrified for her. And poor Javier! He would blame himself. Her disappearance would be a big blow to the reputation of his company. She would call him from a pay phone, tell him where she was, let him be the one to bring her back. She would ask him to hide her, pay him to help her disappear. It didn’t matter where she went, as long as it was secret and safe.

  A beach wouldn’t hurt, either. A beach with little umbrella drinks. And maybe a spa where she could get a good massage and a mani/pedi. A Jacuzzi would be nice, too. And a big, soft bed with fluffy pillows.

  It was almost dark by the time she came to a paved highway, the hard press of the SIG P229 against her back reassuring as the last rays of the sun disappeared behind the mountains. She looked at the sign—“CO HWY 72.”

  She must be just outside Nederland.

  She stopped to put on the jacket so that the firearm and the bruises and sores on her wrists wouldn’t show. Feeling a kind of weariness she’d never known, she followed the road until she came to a gas station.

  Stepping through the door was like stepping into another world, a world of normal everyday things far from murder and rogue officers and chaos. A little boy was trying to talk his mother into buying potato chips. A teenager was paying for gas at the counter. An older couple in matching Colorado T-shirts—tourists—were looking at post cards.

  Suddenly aware of how dirty and battered she looked, Holly glanced around for a pay phone or restroom. She found both in the back corner off to the right. She lowered her head and made straight for them.

  She picked up the receiver, dialed Javier’s cell, reversing the charges and speaking her name at the prompt. “Holly Bradshaw.”

  He answered almost immediately. “Holly? Are you okay? Where are you?”

  “I’m . . . fine.” The sound of his voice brought tears to her eyes, but she blinked them back. She could fall apart later. “I’m at a gas station off Highway 72 just north of Nederland. I tricked him and got away. I need someone to come get me before he catches up with me, and I need a place to hide.”

  “We’re tracing the call. I’ll send the Nederland police to get you as soon as we get your location, and I’ll meet you up there with a team. Do you need an ambulance? Did he hurt you?”

  God, yes, he’d hurt her, and in ways she hadn’t imagined a man could hurt her, manipulating her, using her, humiliating her.

  “I’m kind of dehydrated and bruised up, but . . . it’s not bad.”

  “We’ll take care of that, too. Where is he?”

  Holly felt herself hesitate. “He’s . . . he’s in a cabin above Ned somewhere. I’ve been walking for a couple of hours and—”

  From behind her, Holly heard two men talking. The language wasn’t English. She strained to listen, the cadence of it somehow familiar. With a sinking feeling, she glanced over her shoulder and saw two big men in gray sports jackets walking toward her. She recognized one of them from the gallery opening.

  Oh, no way!

  They were Dudaev’s men.

  You are so screwed!

  She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Javi, they’re here! Sasha’s men.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. I recognize one of them. They’re walking this way. I have to go.”

  “Holly—”

  She hung up the phone and took the first way out that didn’t involve walking past them. She stepped into the restroom and locked the door behind her, realizing too late that it was the only restroom.

  Damn it!

  The two men stood just on the other side of the door, probably waiting for their turn. Even bad guys had to pee.

  Now what?

  Holly took care of her own needs, flushed the toilet, and washed her hands and face, using the time to think. She couldn’t climb out the window because there wasn’t one. She could open the door and shoot both of them before they had time to recognize her, but that would put the lives of everyone in the gas station at risk and lead to lots of thorny questions. Or she could wait right where she was until Javier and the Nederland police arrived.

  That seemed like the best choice—until about five minutes later when they started pounding on the door.

  “Hurry up in there!”

  This wasn’t good.

  After another few minutes, and more pounding, she heard the attendant’s voice. “Are you sure someone’s in there? Maybe the door accidentally locked itself. It does that sometimes. Let me get the key.”

  Unless she wanted to be cornered in here and start a firefight that might cost civilian lives, there was only one thing Holly could do.

  She tucked her hair under the baseball cap, zipped the jacket up to her chin, and took a deep breath. Then she opened the door and stepped out, turning her back to them as she passed them in the narrow hallway. She headed directly for the door, hoping she could find a place outside to hide until Dudaev’s men left and the cavalry arrived.

  Careful to keep her head down, she stepped outside and glanced around the parking lot, then turned to her left, making her way toward the rear of the building. A man with a big belly stood nearby, cleaning the windows of a black Cadillac. She’d almost reached the corner of the building when he started shouting—in Georgian.

  Stay cool. He’s probably not shouting about you.

  She looked over her shoulder, saw that he was pointing right at her.

  Okay, so he’s totally shouting about you.

  Holly ran, heading for the highway and the shelter of the forest.

  A familiar gray SUV cut her off in a spray of gravel, the passenger door opening to reveal Nick. “Looks like it’s them or me.”

  What kind of choice was that?

  Holly jumped into the front seat, slammed the door. “What are you waiting for? Drive!”

  “Hang on.” He drove up behind the black Cadillac, lowered his window, and shot out its rear tires with the Ruger, just as the other two came running out the door, weapons drawn. “Get down!”

  BAM! BAM! BAM!

  A bullet shattered the passenger-side mirror.

  Another put a hole in the windshield.

  “Shit!” Holly bent low and closed her
eyes, the SUV’s engine roaring as Nick tore out of the parking lot and bounced through a ditch and up onto the highway.

  “Are you okay?” he asked a moment later.

  Holly looked over her shoulder to see whether the Cadillac had followed them. “Have you changed your mind about killing me?”

  “No.”

  “Then, yes, I’m okay.” She sat back in the seat and drew in a breath, thinking aloud. “How did they find me?”

  “I have an idea about that, but you’re not going to like it.”

  “Really? And the day was going so well otherwise.”

  “I think they were sent after us by the only person who knew where we were.”

  Holly thought for a moment, tried to remember what he’d told her. “Your boss— you think he sent them?”

  “He’s the person who gave me the location of the cabin.”

  “Why would your boss collude with Dudaev’s men?”

  “I have a few ideas about that, too. We need to find a safe place to hole up until we can figure out what’s really going on here.”

  “Oh, no! No, I’m not going with you.” No way was she getting caught up in his mess. The longer she stayed with Nick, the greater the chance that she’d be compromised and considered a rogue officer, too. “Stop! Stop the vehicle! I want out!”

  “Are you nuts, woman?”

  “Javier is on his way to pick me up. I am not getting mixed up in your disaster.”

  He jerked the SUV to the side of the road and slammed on the brakes. “You’re mixed up in this already. They want you dead, Holly. When they figure out Dudaev’s men missed, they’ll only send someone else. Don’t you want to know why?”

  “Of course I do, but I trust Javier to keep me safe. I trust my CO. I don’t trust you. I can’t even stand the sight of you.” Holly reached for the handle, opened the door, started to climb out.

  “I wonder what your friends would say if they knew the truth about you. You can’t even be honest with them. What if one of them dies trying to protect you?”

  She stopped, her foot inches from the ground, Nick’s words giving shape to that terrible possibility. She would rather die ten times over in really painful ways than get Julian, Marc, Javier, or any of the others killed.

  A sense of hopelessness washed over her. “I just want my life back.”

  “Too late for that. Our paths crossed for a reason. Someone put us together, pitted us against each other, set me up. If we work together, maybe we can figure out why and increase our chances of staying alive.”

  “The CIS team will protect me.”

  “Yeah? Well, they didn’t protect you from me.”

  * * *

  Nick drove the minivan slowly down the streets of the town—“Los Ríos, Colorado, population 2,374,” the sign said. He was willing to bet that about two thousand of those residents had moved away since the last time the sign was painted. Main Street was deserted, most of its shops boarded up or showing “Out of Business” signs. The high school was boarded up, too. Entire residential streets were abandoned, houses dark and empty.

  Los Ríos was a modern ghost town.

  They’d driven out of the mountains, careful to avoid the main highways, and had stopped in Boulder, where Nick had bought a blue 2009 Honda Odyssey with cash and one of his fake IDs. They’d ditched the SUV on a forest service access road after Nick had transferred all of the computers and other gear into the back of the minivan. Then he’d driven southeast, away from the mountains, where everyone from Dudaev’s men to the local police were searching for them.

  Nick knew Holly didn’t trust him and didn’t want to come with him. It was her concern for her friends that had made up her mind. He’d tried to win her confidence by answering her questions. It was only fair that she know as much about him as he knew about her. He’d told her about his background and where he’d been assigned, but she’d stopped him when he’d started to tell her about the Batumi op. She didn’t want to know about it or the internal investigation or the files he’d cloned, certain that knowledge would put her career and life at greater risk.

  In the end, it seemed to him they’d reached a truce. She’d made it clear she’d kill him if he so much as touched her again, and he’d promised to do all he could not to compromise her or get her tangled in his conflict with the Agency. Not that she wasn’t tangled already, but she was in denial on that point.

  He glanced over at her, felt a pang of regret. She’d been asleep since Castle Rock, her head resting against the window, one of her hands tucked beneath her chin. Proof of what he’d done was written all over her—the bruise on her forehead, her swollen lower lip, the deep purple bruises and torn skin that ringed her wrists, the dark circles beneath her eyes.

  Way to go, Andris. Beat up on women often?

  Fighting a gnawing sense of guilt, he shifted his gaze back to the road. He’d had a lot of time since they’d left Denver to think about what had happened, and no matter how many times he ran the details through his mind, he couldn’t see how he could have figured out Holly was CIA sooner. She’d kept the secret well, and with Bauer misleading him at every turn, Nick hadn’t even considered it.

  Nick might have seriously hurt her. He might even have killed her.

  Not that he’d never killed a woman. He’d once come face-to-face in a firefight with a Chechen terrorist, a woman, who’d been responsible for the deaths of a half dozen Russian and Georgian civilians. She’d drawn on him, and Nick had dropped her without hesitation. It hadn’t bothered him—not the way this did.

  Holly had only been doing her job, and she’d paid for it. Nick couldn’t undo it. He couldn’t make it better. He couldn’t even be certain that he could get her out of this situation alive. Hell, he didn’t even fully understand what the situation was—not yet. He needed to get settled somewhere and crack that damned password before this mess came crashing down around the two of them.

  He made his way to the edge of town, turned down a dirt road, driving until he saw what looked like an abandoned farmhouse. There were no lights on in the house, and one of the upstairs windows was broken. Weeds grew in the fields instead of crops, the grass in the yard knee-high. A hand-painted sign that read “Fresh Eggs” hung upside down from a battered wooden fence at the corner of the driveway.

  “We’re here.” He needed Holly to be awake in case an angry farmer suddenly appeared with a shotgun to protect the old homestead.

  But Holly didn’t budge.

  He nudged her. “Holly, honey, wake up.”

  She jolted upright, her wide eyes narrowing when she saw him. “What?”

  “I’m going to clear the place.”

  She glanced out the windows. “Where are we—the Bates Motel?”

  “We’re just outside Los Ríos.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “Yeah, well, there’s a reason for that. The town is mostly deserted. I just want to make sure no one’s home before we move in.”

  “Move in?” She stared out at the house. “I’m not staying there.”

  “Sorry, honey, but the Marriott is full. You’re going to have to survive without room service for a while.” He retrieved the Ruger from the center console, checked it. “Have you still got the flashlight and my SIG?”

  “Don’t call me honey. And it’s my SIG now. I took it from you in a fair fight.” She dug the flashlight out of the daypack and handed it to him. “Do you want me to come with you?”

  He shook his head. “Get behind the wheel in case we need to leave in a hurry, and stay alert. I don’t want to be shot because you fell asleep and were startled.”

  She fired him a scathing look, climbing into the driver’s seat as he opened the door and stepped to the ground.

  Outside the air-conditioned vehicle, the night was warm and alive with the buzzing of cicadas and the chirping of crickets, the sky full of stars. Nick walked around the exterior of the house first, pushing his way through overgrown rosebushes to shine the flashlight th
rough grimy windows. He found the ground floor deserted—no people, no furniture, just empty rooms.

  A propane-fueled generator sat near the back porch, and from the amount of wear on the exterior he could tell it was only a few years old. If it still worked, they’d have electricity, which they needed for the computers if nothing else.

  He forced entry through the back door and checked upstairs, but found it deserted as well. A set of stairs off the kitchen led down to a basement. He descended into the darkness, the air hot and stuffy.

  Something hissed.

  Nick froze, pointed the flashlight at the floor ahead of him.

  Snakes—at least a dozen of them. They twisted and writhed, dark shapes slithering across the pale concrete floor. Two of them coiled up into striking position, shook the tips of their tails. But there was no rattle on their tails, and their heads didn’t have that telltale pit-viper shape.

  Bull snakes.

  “Nice try, guys.” Careful not to step on them, he searched the basement.

  He located the control panels for the pump and water filtration systems that operated the farm’s well, memorized the make and model of each. With any luck, the system still worked. The pipes seemed to be well insulated, so that was a good sign. There were also a couple of wooden workbenches that were well supplied with electrical outlets—a good place to set up the computers.

  Apart from the snakes, the place had everything they needed.

  Home, sweet home.

  He’d bet his ass Holly wouldn’t feel that way.

  * * *

  All Holly had to do was hit the gas. She could drive off and leave Nick here, stopping at the first truck stop or gas station she came across to call Javier again. She’d be back in Denver by dawn, and the computers, with whatever classified files he was trying to decrypt, would be back in Agency hands.

  So why didn’t she do it? Why was she sitting here in this freaking minivan like some kind of soccer-mom getaway driver?

  She didn’t owe Nick anything. The bastard! He’d lied to her, manipulated her, kidnapped her, hurt her, humiliated her. He’d put everything she loved about her life at risk—her job at the paper, her job at the Agency, her friendships, her life in Denver. She ought to toss his gear onto the grass and leave him to make his own way. Or, better yet, turn him in to the Agency and let justice take its course. Technically, that was her duty, her job as an officer. Anything less brought her perilously close to aiding and abetting a fugitive. And yet she couldn’t bring herself to do it.