Mac. The person she’d been talking to on the trail. Then he remembered the other job marshals had—witness protection.
As Mac whipped the car into the parking lot of an apartment complex and exited on the back end into a residential neighborhood, Luc turned to Priscilla, who gripped the grab bar with one hand while the other remained fisted on her lap. Her fear, the certainty with which she knew the shooting at the salon had been because of her, Priscilla’s reluctance to share anything with him, and her observation of his presence on the fringes of her life instantly made perfect sense to him. She was in the US Federal Witness Protection Program.
That knowledge didn’t alleviate his concern that she didn’t recognize him. Luc would puzzle that out later, but he could clarify what was happening right now. That knowledge brought a fierce need to protect her from whatever danger she was in, despite the fact that she had deserted him directly after marrying him. As Mac executed an illegal rolling stop at a deserted intersection, Luc quietly said to Priscilla, “You’re in witness protection, aren’t you?”
Priscilla gaped at Luc. “What did you say?”
Luc patiently repeated the question, relieved that the ibuprofen had indeed dulled the pain and given him back some of his mind.
Her expression shuttered, giving him no clue as to her thoughts. “Who are you, Mr. Long?”
Luc gave her a pass on not answering his question. Maybe hearing his name would jingle a bell in her memory. “For starters, my name isn’t Mr. Long. It’s Lucas Benedict Langsdale the third.” Saying his full name always sounded pompous to his ears. Blast his father for naming him after his paternal grandfather, who had been named for an ancestor who had died in the mid-1800s.
She raised her eyebrows, a slight smile playing across her lips. “The third, hmm? The second must be your father, then?”
“The second is my grandfather, still alive and kicking at the ripe old age of eighty-five. I go by Luc, while my grandfather’s Lucas.” He neatly steered the conversation back to Priscilla. “But my name is not important. Why are you hiding out in witness protection?”
Mac turned right onto Annandale Road as a newscaster on the radio read the top-of-the-hour news at 3:00 p.m. “Priscilla isn’t at liberty to discuss the matter.”
“Let me guess—that information is on a need-to-know basis, and I don’t need to know.” Luc would have to be content with having his suspicions nearly one hundred percent confirmed.
Mac frowned, his head swiveling to look over his left shoulder.
“What’s wrong?” Priscilla craned her neck to look in the same direction.
Luc started to look as well, but the movement jostled his arm, so he stayed put.
“I thought a truck was getting too close, but it eased back.” Mac shifted in his seat and directed his attention to the traffic in front of him.
Priscilla resettled in her seat, but kept her hand braced against the door. “Is it the Explorer again?”
“No, a beat-up Toyota pickup without a front license plate.” Mac made a right turn onto Arlington Boulevard, then accelerated into the left lane of the divided four-lane highway.
Priscilla gulped beside him as the vehicle wove in and out of traffic. “What’s happening?”
As they approached the Wilson Boulevard intersection, Mac whipped the SUV into the right-hand lane as the traffic light at the intersection flicked from green to yellow. Luc leaned slightly to see the view in the driver’s-side mirror. A dirt-caked truck mimicked their SUV’s every move, staying right on their bumper.
Luc shifted to see out the windshield as the traffic light turned red, sending up a prayer for safety as Mac hit the gas. Then the truck slammed into the rear of the car, sending it spinning into oncoming traffic.
* * *
Priscilla screamed as Mac wrenched the wheel to miss a collision with a minivan hurtling toward them from the right. Their SUV skidded as Mac fought to bring the vehicle under control.
“Watch out! He’s coming again!” Mac maneuvered the car onto Wilson Boulevard, a one-way thoroughfare, just as the SUV shook with another hit from behind. Metal screeched as the other vehicle seemed to push the SUV along. Mac struggled to keep the SUV moving forward in the left lane. A shopping center parking lot entrance loomed on the left, and Mac swerved into it.
Hands shaking, Priscilla looked behind her in time to take a mental snapshot of the battered pickup zooming away, its license plate smeared with mud. Mac eased the SUV into the parking lot of an Asian supermarket, picking a spot away from other cars.
“Everyone okay?” Mac put the SUV into Park.
“I’m all right.” Priscilla looked at Luc, who offered a tiny shrug. “Mr. Langsdale’s hanging in as well.”
“Good. We’d better get moving again.” Mac put his hand on the ignition as sirens wailed closer. “Looks like someone called the cops.”
Priscilla twisted around to see two police cruisers pull into the parking lot and head toward their SUV. Her stomach flip-flopped. Mac had told her that local law enforcement wasn’t always cooperative with marshals and their witnesses. She didn’t want to wait for the officers to question them and fill out paperwork—she wanted to get as far away from Fairfax, Virginia, as she could to a safer location.
The cruisers parked behind them. Mac disconnected his phone from the console and dialed a number, telling whoever answered, “We’re in a spot of trouble.” He detailed the incident, describing the truck and their location with precision.
Luc nudged her shoulder.
Priscilla jerked her head toward him, her hands wrapped tightly together.
“Are you okay?” He nodded toward her jiggling knee. “You seem very agitated. Surely that truck driver is long gone, and we have two police cruisers parked right behind us.”
How could she explain that none of that mattered, not if the person who was after her decided today was the day he would finally end her life? She stilled her leg. “You don’t understand. We need to get out of here, not stay like sitting ducks.”
Mac put down his phone. “The officer is coming up to the car. Let me do the talking.” Without waiting for confirmation from Luc or Priscilla, he powered down the driver’s-side window, then kept his hands visible on the steering wheel as a tall black policeman paused a foot from the car. Mac pasted a smile on his lips. “Officer, I’m a US marshal and I’m carrying a weapon. May I reach into my left breast pocket to show you my ID?”
“Please keep your hands where I can see them.” The officer peered over Mac’s shoulder into the interior, his eyes spotting Priscilla and Luc. With his hand on his gun at his right hip, the cop spoke something into his shoulder mic. Then the officer addressed Mac. “Who else is in this vehicle?”
Mac pushed his sunglasses up on the top of his head with his left hand, then placed it on the top of the door in full view of the cop. “Officer, there are two passengers in the back seat.”
The policeman moved a step back from the SUV. “Sir, I’m going to need you and your passengers to exit the vehicle.”
Another police officer had left his cruiser to stand a few feet from the passenger’s side of the SUV hood. As the air filled with tension, Priscilla’s heart began to pound. The taut stance of the cops radiated suspicion, but she couldn’t get out of the SUV without exposing herself to a potential assassin who might be lurking nearby. She didn’t want to find out if the shooter had improved his or her aim.
She focused her attention on Mac, who appeared unruffled, relaxed even, by the officer’s request.
Mac smiled. “I would be delighted to get out, but I’m afraid my passengers will have to stay put.” He kept his voice pleasant yet firm. “As I mentioned, I’m a US marshal. Someone with professional driving skills deliberately rammed into our vehicle, pushing us into oncoming traffic.”
The officer considered his words for a long moment. “Let me see your
credentials.”
“Of course, Officer. I’m going to reach into my left breast pocket with my right hand.” Mac put actions to his words, moving slowly to extract his badge folder.
The cop accepted the leather folder and flipped it open, his eyes moving from the creds to Mac’s face and back again. “I’ll be right back.”
The second officer stayed in position, his hand on the gun butt, while the other cop walked back to his cruiser.
“What happens now?” Priscilla didn’t want to sit here a moment longer than absolutely necessary.
“We wait while he calls it in.” Mac’s phone rang, and he tapped the screen to activate the hands-free app. “Mac here.” A short pause, then Mac succinctly brought the caller up to speed on their present situation.
Priscilla fidgeted in her seat, wanting to be doing something, anything, other than hanging tight. Eavesdropping on Mac’s call distracted her from her fear that the person after her might suddenly appear and start shooting again.
“As soon as we’re finished here, we’ll go to location five, zero, alpha, Charlie, eight,” Mac told the caller.
She twisted in her seat to see what the police officers were doing. The cop who had approached their vehicle got out of the police cruiser and headed back toward the SUV.
“Okay, will do.” Mac ended the call. “How are you doing, Mr. Langsdale?”
“Hanging in there.” Luc, with his eyes closed and his head leaning against the seat back, spoke in a voice that sounded thready. “That last maneuver slammed my hurt arm against the door.”
“Hopefully, we’ll be on our way soon and get that wound looked at.” Mac tapped his fingers against the steering wheel. “But it would delay us if Fairfax County’s finest saw a wounded man in my back seat.”
“I understand.” Luc winced.
“He’s coming back to the car. Stay quiet.” Mac replaced his hands on the steering wheel, his posture laid-back.
Priscilla held her breath as she saw in the driver’s-side mirror the approach of the officer, Mac’s badge folder in his hand.
“Here you go, Marshal.” The officer handed Mac his ID through the open window.
Fear gripped Priscilla hard as her stomach clenched. Please, let us go.
“It’ll be okay,” Luc reassured her in a quiet voice. “Remember, God is the one in control.”
She looked at Luc, whose steady gaze held a calmness she didn’t feel. He didn’t know it would be okay, but the reminder of God’s sovereignty and Luc’s composed expression relaxed her agitation.
The second officer suddenly moved back to his cruiser. Then he straightened to call to the officer still by Mac’s open window. “We’ve got a 401 in progress at the convenience store on Patrick Henry Drive.”
“Right behind you.” The cop turned back to Mac. “We’re finished here.” The officer walked back to his police cruiser and climbed in before turning on the siren and roaring away down Wilson Boulevard.
Mac started the SUV, then pulled onto the street. “We’re going to go to a safe house. It’s too dangerous to go back to your apartment. Someone will pack up your things later. Anything you can’t live without at the apartment?”
Priscilla thought about the sparsely furnished one-bedroom she’d called home for the past five years. While she had accumulated the usual detritus of life—books, DVDs, a few keepsakes from day-trip excursions around the area—there was nothing personal about those things, nothing that couldn’t be easily replaced. “No.”
Mac must have heard the sadness in that one syllable. “This will be over soon. We will catch the person responsible for this and you will get your life back.”
“I know.” Priscilla didn’t know what else to say. Mac was doing his job to keep her safe, and in turn she would do hers by obeying his instructions to the letter. The best way to stay alive was to do what the marshals said—she had had that drilled into her during the transition period. With Culvert on the loose again, she wasn’t about to jeopardize her own safety by doing something stupid like branching out on her own.
Priscilla closed her eyes as the last bit of adrenaline seeped out of her body and in its place a blanket of tiredness took up residence. As the SUV sped toward safety, she couldn’t help but wonder if she had been living an illusion of security that had come crashing down.
FOUR
Luc jolted awake when the SUV stopped. He couldn’t believe he had fallen asleep. The combination of the shooting, car accident and ibuprofen must have lulled him into catching a few winks. Stretching his back sent a stabbing pain in his arm, which receded to throbbing. Careful not to move his injured limb, he pulled out his phone to check the time. 6:38 p.m. They had been driving for around three hours.
Mac shifted in the driver’s seat to face the back and spotted Luc’s phone. “You’ll need to give me your phone, Mr. Langsdale.”
“My phone?” Luc wasn’t about to hand over his smartphone without an explanation. “Why do you need it?”
“Because you’re now in witness protection along with Priscilla. For security, you can’t contact anyone until we apprehend the man who’s after her. I’d have asked for it earlier, but you were sleeping.”
Luc shook the last of the cobwebs from his brain, his hand clutching the phone in a tighter grip. “What if I don’t want to go into witness protection? I have a choice, right?”
Mac exchanged a look with Priscilla, who stayed silent. “To enter the program permanently, you would have to agree to do so. However, this would be temporary. My top priority is keeping Priscilla safe, and right now, you’re along for the ride.”
“What does that mean?” Luc still kept his phone, not willing to hand over the device so easily.
“That you’ll need to stay in the safe house with Priscilla for a day or two while we get this sorted out,” Mac replied. “We’ll have marshals on guard around the clock while we figure out where to permanently relocate her. With your being a witness to the salon shooting, you might have noticed something that can help us catch whoever’s behind this.”
Luc had a hard time digesting that information. But the idea that he’d be able to talk more with Priscilla appealed to him. “Will I be able to at least let my family and employer know I’ll be gone for a couple of days?”
Mac shook his head. “Tell me who to text or email and what to say, and I’ll send it for you.”
Luc studied the marshal’s granite jawline. The other man wasn’t going to budge. Luc reluctantly reached over the seat to give Mac the phone. “I’m glad you take keeping Priscilla safe seriously, but I have to ask—do you trust anyone?”
“I wish I could trust people, but unfortunately, most of them think precautions like not using their smartphone for anything don’t apply to them.” Mac’s face settled into grim lines. “Witnesses can die because someone didn’t follow these rules. Now, who needs to know you’ll be taking a few days off?”
Luc gave Mac the name of his boss and a message about a family emergency that necessitated his immediate absence from his job with CS Enterprises, a cybersecurity company with government contracts. He also gave Mac a message to give his sister, with whom he was expected for dinner the next evening. He used a sudden trip to work for a client who insisted on no outside phones while working on the company’s highly sensitive computer network.
Priscilla raised her eyebrows. “Wow, those are really good excuses. Sounds like you’ve had practice in covering your real whereabouts.”
“Not at all. Just read too many spy thrillers, I guess.” He shrugged. “I just hope those excuses work. I’d hate for anyone to be worried about me or think I’m missing.”
Mac powered off Luc’s phone and pocketed it. “I’ll make sure you get it back.”
“Are we waiting for backup?” Priscilla’s left leg started jiggling again. She looked up to see Luc watching her leg and stopped the moveme
nt.
“Yes, should be here soon.” Mac continued to survey their surroundings.
Luc gazed at the small house tucked into a side street of what appeared to be a quiet neighborhood. Many of the houses had Christmas lights, the bright displays a welcome sight after their harrowing trip. The mild early-December day hadn’t brought anyone outside, although most driveways had cars parked in them.
Another vehicle pulled parallel with theirs in the gravel driveway and four clean-shaven men in nearly identical suits stepped out. Reinforcements had arrived. Two of the men fanned out to check the house perimeter, while the other pair disappeared inside. After a few minutes, one of the men who had entered the house gave a hand signal to Mac from the front stoop.
“Mac? Can we get out of the car?” Priscilla sounded tired and scared.
“Yes, let’s go into the house.” Mac exited the SUV, giving the area a sweep before opening Priscilla’s door. As she got out, Luc opened his own door and eased to a standing position. His whole body ached even though it was his upper arm that had been creased by a bullet.
He followed the pair into the small Cape Cod–style house with two dormer windows. The avocado-green shag carpet in the living room affirmed the home hadn’t been updated since it was built in the early seventies. A small kitchen with the same color appliances sat to the right and a short hallway led to what Mac said was a bedroom and adjoining bathroom.
One of the two men who had cleared the house stood in the kitchen doorway. “Mr. Langsdale? If you’ll come through to the kitchen, I’d like to take a closer look at your arm.”
Luc wasn’t surprised they knew his identity. Mac had likely relayed that information soon after Luc had told Priscilla his real name. What he didn’t know was how deep into his background the marshals would look at first glance. Luc needed to talk with Priscilla first about their wedding, but that would have to wait until he’d had something to eat and some rest. His brain in its current state was too muddled to think straight.
Dangerous Christmas Memories Page 3