Calculated Risk

by Janie Crouch

  He pushed an old flip phone into her hand. “You hold the future now. Melissa will be in touch as soon as she can. I placed the items in the back seat of your car. Be careful. They are everything.”

  Bree turned toward her car. They were everything? She turned back toward the caretaker. “What are you talking about—”

  He was gone, disappeared into the darkness.

  She shook her head and turned back toward her car—a nondescript late-model Honda most people wouldn’t pay attention to—cautiously, even knowing she could’ve been killed multiple times over by now if that was someone’s intent.

  She heard yelling on the other side of the parking lot and picked up her pace. Maybe it was just the normal type of trouble that could be found in an empty downtown parking lot in the middle of the night, but maybe it was trouble coming specifically for her. She paused again as she came up on her car, seeing two large, odd-shaped boxes in the back seat.

  She’d been expecting some files, but electronic ones on a hard drive. Definitely not anything that size.

  After another couple steps, Bree realized those weren’t file boxes at all. She ran the last few feet to her car, pushing her face up against the window.

  “Oh, my God, Mel, what have you done?”

  Chapter Two

  Bree stared, rubbed her eyes just to make sure she hadn’t been affected by some sort of airborne hallucinogen, then stared some more.

  Not file boxes at all. Strapped into the back seat of her car were two separate baby carriers. Inside each of them was a tiny sleeping infant. Bree didn’t know anything about babies, but those were definitely fresh ones. New. Couldn’t be more than five minutes old, right?

  A note was taped to the top of one of the carriers, so she carefully opened the door and grabbed it.

  I couldn’t get out. But you see now why I have to. Their names are Christian and Beth, and they’re two months old. The Organization doesn’t know about them. I will keep it that way and hope you will keep them safe until I can escape.

  Crisscross, applesauce, Bree. You hold my heart in your hands every time you pull the twins close. I never knew what true family was until I had them.

  Bree removed the small hard drive attached to the paper then crumpled it, bringing her fist down softly on the roof of the car. She didn’t know the first thing about babies. Had never held one in her life. What was she going to do now?

  She quietly shut the back door—heaven forbid she wake one of them up—and got into the driver’s side. Staying here wasn’t safe. Her fingers wrapped around the steering wheel in a death grip as she pulled the car out of the parking lot.

  She’d known it was going to be hard. But this was so much worse than she thought.

  There were babies in the back seat.

  Not just one. Two. Babies. One of them even named after her. Oh, Mellie.

  This changed every possible plan that had been stirring around in Bree’s head since Melissa showed up this afternoon. All the routes she and Melissa could choose, modes of transportation they could take. She’d had multiple possible plans.

  Prepare for the unexpected and you’re much more likely to get out of a situation alive. She could almost hear her mother’s voice.

  But of all the scenarios Bree had run in her head, none of them had involved the particular variables she was dealing with right now. All her options were now defunct.

  Because babies.

  She glanced down at the phone Smith had given her. It wasn’t a high-tech smartphone; it was a low-tech flip phone that could barely be used to make a call.

  A safe phone, so low-tech that it would be difficult for the Organization to use it to find someone.

  She quickly scrolled through the call history to see if she could find any information, a way to get in touch with Melissa, let her know what a terrible plan this was, but there was nothing. Until Melissa called Bree, the phone was basically useless.

  How long before Melissa could get away from the Organization? Hours? Days?

  Years?

  When one of the babies let out a soft gurgle from the back seat, Bree put the phone down and focused on figuring out where to go. Maybe the best plan was to go back to her apartment. Obviously, Melissa didn’t intend her any harm, so Bree’s home was probably safe.

  At least it would allow her a chance to regroup. Figure out what she was going to do.

  She knew something was wrong as soon as she drove up to her block. Her apartment was in a busy, but not dangerous, part of the city, something she’d been specifically looking for when she’d chosen the place. She’d wanted to be able to slip in and out, day or night, without people paying much attention to her. To be able to blend into a crowd instantly if needed.

  There were enough units in the building that people were constantly coming and going, and it was urban enough that nobody thought much of it if you didn’t stop and talk to them.

  But right now it looked like every single person in the building was out on the street surrounding it. At one o’clock in the morning.

  Bree parked the car on a side street. She left the twins sleeping inside, tucked most of her long brown hair up into a ball cap so it looked much shorter and then jogged over to the people at the edge of the crowd. She kept an eye on the car as she spoke to an older couple she’d seen around but had never talked to.

  “Hi, I live in 4A. I just got home. What’s going on? Is it a fire?”

  The old man kept his arm around his wife while he shook his head at Bree. “Gas leak. They came door to door about an hour ago. Told us it would be at least five or six hours before we could get back in.”

  “Where’s the fire department?”

  The older woman shrugged. “I guess the rest of them are on their way. We only saw one. It was the gas company employees knocking on doors and checking people off their list.”

  Bree knew if it was dangerous enough to be taking people out of their homes in the middle of the night, it was dangerous enough to have a full firefighting crew here. This definitely wasn’t right.

  “So everyone just has to stand out here for five or six more hours?”

  “No,” the man said. “They said they’d provide rooms at a local hotel down the block for free. All you needed to do was show them your ID and let them run a credit card for any incidentals.”

  Bree grimaced. More likely a convenient place to herd everyone from the building and double-check their identification.

  She glanced over at the car. Nobody was near it, but she needed to get the twins out of here. This had the Organization written all over it.

  The older woman gave out a weary sigh. “Harold just walked down to use the ATM and couldn’t get it to work. It said our account was temporarily on hold. I don’t want to go to some strange hotel in my pajamas with no money.”

  A younger woman turned to them from a few yards away. “Did you guys say your bank account is on hold? Mine told me the same thing a few minutes ago when I went to grab some cash.”

  Harold let out another frustrated sigh. “Unbelievable. At First National Trust?”

  The woman shook her head. “No, Bank United. Everybody’s system must be down.”

  Or somebody was making sure that everybody in the building ended up where they were subtly being directed.

  The Organization was casting a net. They didn’t know what their fish looked like, so they were going to dredge everything, then sort it out.

  Bree pulled her hat farther down on her head. Everything happening on the street right now—all the people gathered here—was being recorded, she was sure of it.

  After all, hadn’t the Organization started teaching her how to use her computer skills for surveillance when she was only ten years old? They’d taught her how to target, how to track, how to incapacitate an enemy virtually. Then used her natural abilities to further develop m
ethods of spying and tracking.

  Until her mother had realized the prestigious computer school that was supposed to be providing a young Bethany a leg up in coding and systems was actually using her abilities to further their own nefarious purposes. And had no plan to ever let her leave.

  Bree spoke to Harold and the others for just a few more moments before easing herself away and walking nonchalantly back to her car and slipping inside. She started the car and pulled away slowly despite every instinct that screamed to drive as fast as she could. That would do nothing but draw attention to her. Attention she desperately could not afford.

  As she passed Harold and his wife, she noticed that a man wearing a Central Gas jacket was now talking to the older couple, clipboard in hand. When Harold pointed in her direction, she dipped lower in her seat, gritting her teeth, forcing herself to hold her speed consistent.

  She could feel computerized eyes on her everywhere. Every phone in this vicinity was recording—whether the owners knew it or not—and sending information back to the Organization.

  If Bree made one wrong move, did anything that drew unwanted attention to herself, they would be on her in a heartbeat.

  She could feel the phantom pain of her leg being broken by the Organization. Hear her own screams. Her mother’s sobs.

  She couldn’t let them take her again. So she forced herself to remain calm, to keep her car steady and slow, even though her eyes were almost glued to the rearview mirror expecting vehicles to be chasing her any moment.

  But none came.

  The gas man would be asking who she was. Hopefully the couple would remember Bree said 4A. The real person from 4A was the one in the building who looked most similar to Bree. Caucasian female. Brown hair. Average height and weight. Mid-to late-twenties.

  Side by side it would be obvious Bree and 4A’s occupant weren’t the same person, but in general description they were similar enough to buy Bree some time as they searched for the wrong person.

  She was going to need every extra minute she could get. She had no doubt her accounts, like everyone else’s, had been frozen. They would be unfrozen as soon as she stepped foot in a bank and showed ID. But then the Organization would have a record of her, photographs.

  They would figure out she was alive, and the hunt would truly begin.

  So she was trapped with just the cash she had on her. Alone, that would’ve lasted her six months or more. More than enough time to get established somewhere and get a new job.

  As if on cue one baby began crying in the back. It wasn’t long before the other was joining its sibling.

  Bree definitely wasn’t alone anymore.

  Chapter Three

  Tanner Dempsey didn’t spend a lot of his time in the baby aisle of Risk Peak’s lone drugstore. His sister had made him an uncle three times over in the last decade, but when he was shopping for his niece and nephews, it was in the toy department.

  He didn’t spend a lot of time at the drugstore at all. He was only here now at 7:00 p.m., after working a twelve-hour shift, because if he showed up at his mother’s house tomorrow without shaving, he’d never hear the end of it from his siblings.

  Since Tanner tended to have a five o’clock shadow about two hours after he shaved, Gary, the manager here, kept a couple packages of the special razor refill brand Tanner liked. Gary stuffed them in the back aisle so no one else would buy them.

  Tanner meant to just grab the pack and run, but his attention was caught by a young mother—one crying baby in her arms, another in a car seat carrier on the ground—moving in odd, jerky movements in the baby aisle.

  Tanner immediately knew the woman wasn’t from around here. He’d lived in Risk Peak, Colorado, his entire life, except for the four years he’d gone to college about an hour east in Denver. Risk Peak definitely wasn’t so large that he wouldn’t know an attractive brunette in her twenties who’d recently had twins.

  And man, that one kid had a set of lungs on him. The fact that the mother was moving so awkwardly wasn’t helping calm the baby.

  Tiredness pushed aside, Tanner stayed at the end of the aisle out of the woman’s sight, picking up a random package and pretending to read the back of it in case she looked at him. His subterfuge probably wasn’t even necessary. She was so busy with her odd movements and the crying baby, she definitely wasn’t looking his way.

  It didn’t take him long to figure out what was going on. The woman was taking individual packets of formula out of a larger box and stuffing them wherever she could manage. In her own pockets, in the diaper bag and even inside the onesie of the crying child.

  No wonder the kid was bawling.

  Tanner had seen a lot in his thirty-three years, but a mother stealing formula by stuffing it in the baby’s clothes? That was a first. Now he’d seen it all.

  Then she opened a package of diapers and started stuffing those in with the second baby in the carrier, hidden under the blanket.

  Correction. Now he’d seen it all.

  She was watching the other end of the aisle, toward the front of the store, to make sure no one caught her. But evidently she thought the back of the store was empty, which it normally would be.

  He watched her for a few more moments to make sure he understood what was going on. When she dropped the half-empty pack of diapers and was struggling to pick them up, Tanner decided he had seen enough.

  “Let me get those for you.” He moved quickly toward her, ignoring her startled little shriek, and grabbed the half-open package of diapers from the floor and offered them to her.

  And was met by the most brilliant green eyes he’d ever seen.

  It took him a second to recover enough to even take in the rest of her features. Long brown hair pulled back in a low ponytail, pert nose covered in freckles that also covered her cheeks and full sensual lips.

  Kissable lips.

  This was definitely a woman he would know if she lived here, whether she’d just had twins or not. Not that anyone in Risk Peak would allow a young mother to become so desperate that she had to shoplift formula and diapers.

  She didn’t show any sign of drug use or intoxication, as he’d half feared she would. Her eyes were clear, not at all bloodshot, and her skin, although pale since he’d just startled her, lacked the sunken pallor that so often accompanied substance abuse.

  She was beautiful.

  But surrounding her beauty was an air of desperation and weariness—much more than just a new mother’s exhaustion. This was almost like a tangible fear.

  But maybe it was because she’d just gotten busted shoplifting.

  “Thank you,” she muttered in a husky voice, taking the diaper package. “I was just about to pay for them, and then the package ripped open.”

  Tanner gave her a nod, ignoring the lie. “I’m sure handling everything with two little ones is a hardship. Is their dad around? Your husband? Someone who can help you?”

  “No. No, it’s just me. I don’t have a husband.” She looked so overwhelmed and breakable, all big eyes and crying baby. It made Tanner want to forget everything that he was, the vows he had made, and help her.

  More than just help her—fight against whatever it was that was putting such fear in those green eyes. Even if that was her own bad choices.

  Which was absurd, considering he’d met her thirty seconds ago and didn’t even know her name.

  “Maybe I can help you.” He took a step forward but paused when she jerked back.

  She began looking around frantically. “I just realized I don’t have my purse. I—I better go get that. I’ll leave the diapers here and come back for them.”

  She shifted the crying baby, a boy by the look of the blue outfit, into her other arm, shushing him softly and kissing his forehead. Then hefted up the baby in the carrier with her free arm. Without another word to him, she turned and walked toward the door.<
br />
  Tanner was only a step behind her as she walked toward the front of the store. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do. He should’ve made his official position known from the beginning. Mentioning it now was going to throw her into an even bigger panic.

  But he wanted to help. Every instinct screamed that this was a woman at the end of her rope. He might have just caught her in the act of breaking the law, but that didn’t necessarily mean she was the villain in this story.

  Sometimes justice and the law weren’t the same thing. Even a lawman sometimes had to break the rules if it was the right thing to do. His father had taught him that.

  Of course, his father had also been killed in the line of duty.

  Tanner would follow her out and make sure she made it to her car all right and wasn’t in so much a hurry that she got in an accident. Then he could come back and pay for what she’d taken, and nobody had to be wiser about any of it. Gary would understand.

  They were walking past the front counter, the woman throwing a worried glance at him over her shoulder every few seconds, when Gary decided to be friendly. The way he always was.

  “Officer Dempsey,” Gary called out. “Did you find your razor refill?”

  Tanner could see every muscle in the small woman’s body tense as she spun around and looked at him. “Officer?”

  The baby finally stopped crying. The woman looked like she wanted to bolt but knew she wouldn’t make it very far with her cargo in tow.

  Tanner tilted his head toward Gary but kept his eyes on the woman. “Technically, it’s captain of the southeast department of the Grand County Sheriff’s Office. And yeah, Gary, I did find what I was looking for, but this lovely young mother—what’s your name again?”

  “Bree,” she murmured.

  He turned back to Gary. “Bree seems to have forgotten her wallet, and I thought I would show her a little Risk Peak hospitality and pay for the diapers and formula she needs.”

  She didn’t say anything, just looked at him like she expected him to start reading her her rights any second.