The Getaway

by Hope Anika

  Tony hit the mute button, and in the silence that followed, thunder boomed far off, in the distance. He turned to look at Isabel, who was staring at the TV.

  “Several minors,” he repeated. “But we only downloaded one file.”

  Isabel’s ink-dark gaze lifted to meet his. “Yes.”

  “Then where did the other videos come from?”

  Her cheeks flushed. “I emailed the video using the wireless connection at Cruz’s cabin and forwarded it from there.”

  “You made a trail to follow.”

  Her chin lifted, her eyes daring him. “Yes.”

  “Out-fucking-standing,” he said. Before she could move, he thrust his hand into her hair, leaned down and kissed her, hard.

  When he moved to straighten, her hands curled into his shirt and held him to her. “I wasn’t sure Aequitas would use it.”

  Tony only arched a brow. “Yes, you were.”

  “I hoped,” she admitted, and her gaze flickered to his mouth, and that quickly he was hard as stone. “But I didn’t know for sure.”

  “You are a brilliant, wonderful soul.” Tony kissed her again, a thorough, lush kiss he wanted to fall headlong into. Isabel made a soft, hungry sound and tugged him closer.

  He resisted. Barely. “We need to go.”

  “I know,” she said against his mouth. “In a minute.”

  Then she licked his upper lip, and Tony groaned and let her have her way. The woman was going to fucking end him. What she’d disclosed the night before had incensed and horrified and infuriated him. But it hadn’t repelled him. If anything, it only made him more determined to show her her worth. To win her. And part of him knew she’d never shared the gruesome truth of her childhood with anyone else. That she’d chosen him was shocking. Humbling. Because she’d taken a huge chance; she’d trusted. And he was going to cherish and protect and guard that trust with his life.

  Quack. Quack.

  Isabel pulled away, and, to Tony’s surprise, gave a small laugh.

  “What?” he demanded.

  She only shook her head. “Quack, quack.”

  “It lightens a crime scene,” he told her seriously.

  “I’m sure.” Her head tilted, and her gaze swept him, and the heat he saw made his skin tighten. “You’re pretty wonderful, yourself.”

  He really wanted to respond to that, but—

  Quack. Quack.

  “Malone,” he snarled into his phone.

  “You get a look?” Bob Peabody asked.

  “In technicolor. What’s happening?”

  “They’re searching the house in the city, the place in Dead Mountains, and his office building downtown. Can’t find him, though. No one’s see him since yesterday, and his bird is gone. Took off last night. Flight plan said he was headed to Boise, but he never showed. With any luck, he crashed. But more likely, he ran.”

  “No,” Tony said, remembering the video, the look on Cruz’s face. He is mine as you are mine. “He won’t go without those boys. Arrogant fuck doesn’t think the law applies to him. Is Gill still covering for him?”

  “Funny that. As soon as those videos hit the web, the Special Agent in Charge flew himself off to Virginia. Left Kent in charge. We’re in Mountain Home, Idaho. Freeway east and west is demolished; we had to take farm roads to get this far. Figure we’ll head north. No one’s seen Sanchez or the kids, and with the roads out, it’s the only direction left to go. Where are you?”

  “Just south of Pocatello. The storm stopped us.”

  “‘Us’?” Bob repeated. “How’d you talk her into that?”

  “I’m charming.”

  “She’s out, you know. Kent said she told Gill to go fuck himself.”

  “That’s my girl.”

  “Forks is looking for you.” Bob paused, and Tony realized he was chewing. “He’s real curious how that hacker laid hands on that video.”

  “The world works in mysterious ways.”

  Bob snorted. “Doesn’t it though. Thought you should know the spooks showed up right after the videos posted, squealing like stuck pigs. NSA bastards, might a well be a bunch of nosy, eavesdropping old women. They want the hacker.”

  “It’s good to want things.” Tony looked at Isabel, who was bent over her tablet.

  “Yeah, they’ve got it bad. Don’t think they’re smart enough to catch him, though. I did some digging. That Aequitas, he’s some kind of special. Smarter than most the rest of the world.” Respect echoed in Bob’s laconic tones. “We didn’t have criminals like that in my day. Kind of wish we did.”

  “I didn’t realize you were such a fan of vigilante justice, Peabody.”

  “Nah, Malone, I’m a fan of justice, period.”

  Bob hung up, and Tony turned to Isabel. “The NSA are looking for your boy.”

  She only shook her head, her fingers moving over her tablet. “I told you, I don’t know if Aequitas is male or female.”

  “But the fact that the NSA is looking doesn’t worry you?”

  She smiled, that cool, composed curve that made his fingers twitch. “Let them look. Aequitas was a force long before we made contact.”

  “And if they connect you?”

  “They won’t.”

  Tony’s gaze narrowed on her. “You sound very sure. You wiped your phone and computer before you turned them in?”

  She sent him a look. “I never used them. My personal devices are heavily encrypted, and any text or email I receive from Aequitas is self-deleting. My firewalls are nearly flawless and far more reliable than the Bureau’s experimental toys.”

  “Nearly flawless?”

  “Tech changes too quickly to ever be fool-proof.” She shrugged. “But I have a very…capable IT person.”

  Tony smiled, aware that he shouldn’t encourage her, but unable to help himself. That happened a lot with her. “Think you could hook me up?”

  One sleek brow rose. “What’s in it for me?”

  Heat slammed into him, but it was the sudden, expected tightening in his chest that made him go still. She was playing with him. And he knew then, no matter what—her past, the present, the uncertain future—everything was going to be okay.

  They were going to be okay. More than okay.

  He opened his mouth to respond, but her tablet dinged, and she stared at it, and tension shot through him. “What?”

  Her gaze met his. “The Cruz boys’ GPS signals just went back online.”

  “You have them?”

  She turned the tablet and showed him.

  “Fuck,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Need wheels. ASAP.

  Sam sent the text and glanced at Lucia, who slept fitfully, curled against the thin plastic window of the ATV. In the backseat, Alexander snored softly, and Ben’s breathing grew more labored. The rain hadn’t ebbed; in point of fact, it was so thick they were moving at a snail’s pace, and the rising of the sun had only lightened the world around them by a fraction. Lightning split the sky in delicate veins, revealing the churning black mass above them; there was so much standing water, Sam was afraid the foothills behind them were going to give way and bury them in rock and earth.

  His phone beeped, and relief shot through him. They’d returned to the land of constant surveillance half an hour earlier, and while that boded ill for them staying under the radar, it did have some significant advantages.

  Blue Jeep Cherokee, Plate No. 1T34790.

  A moment later a notification from the GPS app on his phone appeared. Coordinates received. Sam stared at the notice for a long moment before responding.

  TY.

  He sent the message and sighed. If the path to hell was paved with good intentions, he was halfway to the abyss. But desperate times called for desperate measures, and he knew the young woman he’d reached out to would help.

  Honor always did.

  He told himself it would be the last time, but he knew better. Even if their connection wasn’t simple, or safe,
or smart, it existed, and neither of them would abandon what tied them together. She was his first—and only—professional mistake (excluding his current predicament), but he didn’t regret her, even if the legendary status she’d built for herself both gratified and scared the hell out of him, even if—when they caught her, and they would, because no one got away with what she was doing forever—she’d never see the light of day again.

  Honor had made her bed; nothing he could do about that. He’d accepted that when she’d first reached out to him three years ago, when he’d realized the kid he’d willingly let slip through his fingers on his first witness protection assignment—the one he’d killed and then resurrected— had become a force unto herself, one who hunted the world’s worst, and who was equally hunted in return. She was the smartest person he’d ever met, then or since, even at fifteen, but he would’ve never predicted the role she would carve for herself, nor the odd pride he took in her, even knowing her way would eventually get her locked up in a place no one returned from. He’d tried to warn her, a waste, because she already knew and didn’t give a damn.

  This is my path, Sam.

  Stubborn shit. And that was the problem: like Tony, Honor was part of the small collection of people Sam considered family. When she called, he would come. Always. No matter what that meant. As she would for him—and had, whenever he needed her, for the last three years.

  She’d been his first and last lesson in the tenets of being a Deputy U.S. Marshal; he’d done everything wrong with her. Gotten involved—because she was just a kid, fucked up and too smart for her own good, traumatized by what she’d experienced, what she’d lost—broken the law—orchestrating his own witness protection program in the form of her staged death—and risked everything—his badge, his reputation, his life—to set her free. In the end, he hadn’t regretted it, because he knew she was safer dead than alive, because he understood the limits of the system he worked within, because he knew they would get to her no matter what that system did to protect her, but she was the only one of his witnesses he’d ever put his professional ass on the line for.

  No, Sam had learned that lesson. But like him, Honor had no one, and when she needed someone, he was the one she turned to. The one she trusted. And because he thought of her as the kid sister he’d never had—no matter her shenanigans or the price on her head—he would be there.

  No matter how often he told himself different.

  In his hand, his phone beeped again.

  YW. Keep the faith. Help is on the way.

  Sam stared down at the tiny letters, frowning.

  Just needed the wheels, he texted. Thx.

  Because he didn’t need her involved in this mess, too. Christ. Enough was enough. That she monitored his phone was something he accepted—tech was her lifeline, the one thing she felt she could control, so he allowed it, and hell, she made him pretty much hack-proof, so he wasn’t complaining—but he didn’t want her meddling.

  He had enough to worry about.

  His belly growled, the handful of trout he’d eaten earlier long gone. His leg hurt; several of his stitches had torn open during his battle with Misha and Enrique, but he hadn’t let Lucia get near him, even though she’d tried. She was in no condition to patch him up, no matter how stoically she dealt with her own pain. Just looking at her made him want to carve Donavon Cruz into tiny, bloody pieces. And no matter whether or not she held him responsible for her current condition, Sam sure as shit blamed himself.

  He’d known better than to leave her. He’d done it anyway. Why he’d done it didn’t mean a damn thing. He’d failed her—quite fucking spectacularly. And there was no erasing that, no pretending it hadn’t happened. All he had to do was look at her, and he remembered.

  Fucking asshole.

  He wished she blamed him; he wanted her anger. That white-hot fury. Something other than the empathy and exasperation with which she faced him. The passion she’d given so freely. He could still feel her rising against him, licking at his tongue, her belly soft against the thrust of his cock. Her fingers clenched in his hair.

  You are a distraction I cannot afford.

  No shit. Because all Sam had begun to think about was getting inside her—and that was a long way off. He wasn’t sure when he’d determined that giving her up was no longer an option, when he’d succumbed to the crazy idea of keeping her. When he’d decided there would be a future, even if he had to raise it from the ashes of the fire waiting to consume them.

  I do not believe in faith. But he did.

  Faith in himself. In her. In Tony. Let someone try and stop it. Lucia wasn’t the only one with a mile-wide streak of stubborn.

  His phone beeped again, and another message appeared.

  Got your back, Super Sam. Always.

  He stared down at it. Goddamn kid.

  Not ur business, he responded. Stay out.

  A winking emoticon was the only response.

  “Son of a bitch,” he muttered.

  “Is everything okay?” Alexander suddenly asked, and Sam looked into the mirror to find the boy awake, those pale green eyes staring at him.

  “As good as it’s going to get,” Sam told him.

  “We’re not going to make it, are we?”

  Sam only handed his phone back to the kid, along with the map. “Pull up those GPS coordinates and check the map. I can’t do that and drive, too.”

  Alexander scowled, but he accepted the phone and the map and focused on them. “That’s not an answer.”

  “Can’t give you something I don’t have,” Sam replied. “There’s a main trail ahead. Sign says Crystal Canyon. Which way?”

  “Right.” Alexander looked up, fear flickering in his gaze. “We’re only a few miles from Blue Ridge. The coordinates are in town. Where are we going?”

  “To get wheels.” Sam turned right. The trail widened out, more rock than dirt, and led steadily downward, into the narrow valley where the town of Blue Ridge nestled, tucked tight against the eastern mountains, surrounded by forest.

  “How are we going to do that?” Alexander demanded.

  “Very carefully,” Sam replied.

  The boy glowered at him. “That’s not an answer, either.”

  “Sure it is.” They halted when Sam hit another fork in the trail. “Which way?”

  “Left.” Alexander folded the map. “It’s another mile to the GPS coordinates. Where do they lead?”

  “To a blue Jeep.”

  “How do you know that?”

  The suspicion Sam heard made him look at the boy in the mirror. “Still don’t trust me?”

  Alexander held his gaze. “I don’t trust anyone.”

  But he wanted to; Sam could see the hunger in the kid, the need to believe in someone. Anyone. The hope hidden beneath the cynicism, persistent and resilient. He remembered the feeling, being surrounded by strangers and looking around, wondering if any of them could be trusted. If anyone in the world was worth a damn. Praying they were, no matter the evidence to the contrary. Magnus had answered that question for him, and Sam realized then that part of him had hoped to be the one to answer it for Alexander. But trust took time, and the sands in the hourglass were running out.

  Because Ben was sick and getting sicker, the kids were being tracked by GPS, he and Lucia were both wounded, and they were headed into civilization.

  Shit was going to start rolling downhill. Fast.

  And the heavy, cold dread he’d felt yesterday hadn’t dissipated with the deaths of Cruz’s men; if anything, something within Sam was readying, a portent born of experience and inevitability that escalated with every mile they traveled until certainty beat at him like a vicious hammer. And Sam knew he should trust that certainty. That certainty had saved him time and again—even in Baja.

  Which made him think of Fieldstone, and he wished he could call and check on his colleague. But that wasn’t a good idea. No matter how guilty he felt. And he did feel guilty. He hadn’t been lying when he told Lucia h
is mistakes had killed a man. Only one—and that man had made his own mistakes, plenty of which had contributed to his death—but Fieldstone was Sam’s fault. For being cocky and making assumptions he knew better than to make.

  For taking his eye off the ball.

  He couldn’t afford to do that again, here, now. Because Lucia, for all her fierceness, wasn’t a soldier. And the kids were just kids. All they had was him.

  And Donavon Cruz had an army.

  “Maybe someday you will,” Sam said finally and met Alexander’s pale gaze in the mirror. “Trust takes time. Knowing you’re safe. And deciding. Took me a long time to believe Magnus wasn’t going to take me back. That he wasn’t like my pop. I didn’t know what love was until him. I wish I’d understood earlier; we lost a lot of time. I was too busy being defensive and scared, and by the time I realized what kind of man Magnus was, he was dying.”

  “Dying?”

  “Prostate cancer. After he was gone, I realized I had to decide for myself what kind of man I was going to be.” The trail they were following ended abruptly in a wide expanse of gravel. A narrow strip of heavily-patched, paved road curved past the parking area, and a faded green sign stabbed into the earth at a sharp angle on the right-hand side.