by Skye Turner
“Hello, Kris! Out for your morning run again, I see!” Mrs. Stanton always had such a friendly tone, never prying or nosey.
“Yes, ma’am! I think it may rain soon, and you’ve fussed at me enough for running in the rain!” No matter how long she lived here, she knew she could never get rid of her southern drawl and slang. Her accent was evident to everyone, but so far, none had really pushed her on why she had moved here. She genuinely liked Mrs. Stanton and often wished they had met under better circumstances.
“Glad someone listens to me,” still with the laughing tone she always used.
Kris bent over to pick up the morning paper lying in the driveway, as Mrs. Stanton continued talking to her about how she hoped the rain came soon to water her newly planted flowers and shrubs. She was naming the various newly planted flowers as Kris absently removed the rubber band from the newspaper and unrolled it. She was smiling and nodding at Mrs. Stanton when she looked down at the headline and pictures glaring back at her.
Oh. My. God. It’s him! It can’t be! Richard Hollingsworth.
Kris tried to quickly gain her composure, even as her heart beat so hard against her chest. She would have sworn Mrs. Stanton could hear it. She could barely hear over the swishing sound in her ears from her elevated blood pressure and pulse rate. She quickly glanced around, remembering the feeling pricking the back of her neck and thoughts of eyes watching her as she ran just mere minutes before.
Mrs. Stanton abruptly quit talking about her flowers and gasped. “Kris! Are you all right?”
Breathe! “Yes, yes. I just feel a little sick all of a sudden. I think I need to eat a little and lie down. Sorry to hurry off.”
With a worried look, Mrs. Stanton offered her food, but Kris politely refused and excused herself. Mrs. Stanton promised to check on her later.
Kris entered her townhouse and closed the door as quietly as possible, leaving the front door unlocked, in case she needed a quick getaway. Directly in front of the door were the stairs leading to the second level. With an open floor plan, the living room and kitchen actually looked like one big room with a bar and barstools acting as a room divider. To the right, just past the staircase, a short hallway led to the master bedroom and bath. Upstairs there were two more bedrooms and a hall bath.
She quietly moved through each room, silently checking off in her mind that everything was where it should be. She turned toward the short hallway that led under the stairs. It was always dark there, regardless of the time of day. She inwardly cursed the builder, who designed it this way. She reached in, flicked the light switch, and made her way to her bedroom.
Flipping on her bedroom light, she saw a piece of paper lying on her pillow. She quickly scanned the room to make sure she was alone. She looked in her closet and under her bed. She didn’t really know what she would have done had she actually found someone hiding there. Her nerves were on edge, as she slowly picked up the paper. There was only one word written on it – “Brianna.” Her heart skipped a beat, and her breath caught in the back of her throat. She thought she would hyperventilate.
She finished searching the rest of the house with a butcher knife in her hand. She realized if a man wanted to overpower her, he could do so, even though she had a knife. It still made her feel better to have it, though. Satisfied she was alone, she quickly locked the front door and grabbed her cell phone. Scrolling through her contacts, she found the name and hit send.
On the second ring, she heard a familiar voice. “Stevens.”
“What the fuck, Stevens?”
No introductions were needed. And after what was splashed across the front page of the newspaper, and the note in her bedroom, she decided no pleasantries were needed either.
“We’re still assessing the situation.”
“Assessing the situation? That’s government speak for ‘we fucked up and don’t know how to explain it!’ Do you have any idea what this means?” She knew that screaming and crying like – well, like a girl, would get her nowhere with a hardened U.S. Marshal, so she used her anger to keep her voice low and serious. She was practically growling at the man.
She stared at the pictures on the front page of the newspaper of the man, who was thought to be dead by everyone but her. This man was the reason she had entered into the WITSEC program and left her entire life behind three years ago. He was also a very bad man with a very good reputation and had worked hard to hide his sins. Sins she had uncovered as an investigative reporter, but never shared with the media. Very few people knew she had discovered his illegal dealings, and he was one of them. Here he was, alive and well, and home. Home….
“Look, I know how you must feel. He claims he was abducted just before getting to the airport that day. Says he’s been a prisoner for the last three years and finally escaped from his captors. Could be true, could be a lie. I’m looking into his story. Just sit tight until I figure out what is going on.”
Yeah, she had already read the same thing in the paper. He wasn’t telling her anything that any other person across the country couldn’t readily access. With her anger at the boiling point, she kept her voice controlled, but allowed the anger to flow freely. “You have no damn clue what is going on! Think about it, Stevens. Look at him! First of all, did his captors trim his beard and his hair for him? Don’t you think it should be a little longer, if he was a ‘prisoner’ for three years?”
“Second, does he look the least bit emaciated to you? What, did his captors run out of filet mignon and caviar, so he had to survive on ribeyes instead? And then there’s his appearance in general. Even Tom Hanks was dirtier in Castaway than he is, after supposedly spending three years as a prisoner in a third world country!”
Taking a deep breath, she continued. “Third,” she could hardly get these words out, “do you really believe he would suddenly show up, out of the blue, if he didn’t already know exactly where I am?”
“Just stay put until you hear from me.” His voice had no emotion in it—no concern, no surprise, and no intention of helping her.
“Stevens, there was a note on my bed when I got home. It has my real name on it.”
Stevens had tried to calm her fears, but he finally admitted the situation could be dangerous, and the way it all came about was very suspicious. He didn’t want her to make any rash moves that would draw attention. She knew the feelings of being watched earlier were no coincidence. She didn’t believe in coincidences, anyway. The note was left while she was out running. Whoever it was waited until she had left home, had been watching her, and broken into her house.
After hanging up with Stevens, she quickly showered and dressed. She packed a backpack with enough clothes and toiletries to last several days. She opened a small hidden area in the wood floor and retrieved a small fireproof safe she hid there three years before. It contained her alternate identification, complete with a driver’s license, birth certificate, passport, credit cards and cash. The stash was prepared ahead of time, in the event her identity was ever compromised and she needed to bolt quickly.
In the back of her walk-in closet, she found the small black duffel bag that contained the rest of her new identity: the hair cap, wig, adhesive, black brow pencil and colored contacts. She pulled her long blond hair into a pile on the top of her head, pulled the head cap over her hair, tucked in any loose strands, and then put the black wig on. After making sure it was straight and looked natural, she applied the adhesive to the underside of the edges to help keep it in place.
Using the brow pencil, she applied a small amount to each eyebrow to match her new, short hair. The brown-eyed contacts covered her cobalt blue eyes. She then applied eye makeup, using her eyeliner to reshape her eyes. She applied a dark burgundy eye shadow and thick fake eyelashes to complete her transformation. She looked in the mirror at her new image for several long minutes.
It was still mid-morning yet, on a Saturday, and most of her neighbors were working in their yards. She stood to the side of the window and looked at ea
ch person. Is anyone out of place? Anyone pretending to be someone they weren’t – besides me, that is? The woods behind the row of houses across the street from her townhouse were dense. She looked carefully along the line of trees, trying to spot any movement that would symbolize someone watching her.
She glanced around her townhouse and was suddenly more aware than ever that it held nothing personal that could be related to her or anyone she cared about. She left that all behind, three long years ago. Truth is, she still saw all the pictures, faces, and smiles in her mind. She heard the laughs and voices. She felt the warmth of the hugs and kisses. Everyone she ever loved believed she had been dead for the last three years from a plane crash, along with Richard Hollingsworth.
Only three people in the world knew she wasn’t on that plane three years ago. Kristina Miller, her current name. U.S. Marshal Stevens. And Richard Hollingsworth.
* * *
“Yeah. She went in a while ago and hasn’t left. No, she didn’t see me. OK.” The man, dressed all in black, gave short, clipped answers into the burn phone. He was accustomed to waiting out his targets and knew how to be invisible when he needed to be. He noticed she was already on edge when she returned from her run. When she opened the paper, he could visibly see the panic rising in her.
He had been watching her for a few days now and knew she ran in the same area, though never the exact same route. She varied her routine from day to day, so she could tell if someone was following her. Smart girl….Just not smart enough, evidently. She hadn’t noticed him watching from behind the trees in the park, or from his tree stand in the woods across the street from her townhouse.
He saw the curtains move ever so slightly in the upstairs window and knew she was looking along the tree line. Maybe if she had just looked higher, she would have spotted him. But for now, luck was on his side. She had no clue and he was prepared to stay here as long as needed. He’d been in worse conditions than this, even with the threat of rain. This job was a piece of cake. He straightened his legs to rest on a nearby tree branch, folded his arms behind his head, and waited.
In Miami, Richard Hollingsworth hung up the phone and smiled. Soon all the loose ends from the past would be taken care of. Three long years he looked for her – that nosey, investigative reporter bitch, that wouldn’t quit digging until she had discovered his secret life and made him hide out all this time. He figured it out just in time, too, before he was arrested and sent to prison for life, or worse, hung for treason.
Vengeance would soon be his.
A knock on his hotel door drew his attention. As he opened the door, he was drawn into a hug by a grizzly of a man, his best friend from years ago. “Noah Steele, so good to see you, brother!
Chapter 2
That feeling of being watched wouldn’t go away. So as her new identification said, Leslie Solomon made airline reservations for a flight leaving from Denver early that afternoon. In the beginning of her three years of WITSEC living, she had purchased an older car and had it parked in the garage that was just over a mile from her current house.
One thing about her townhouse she was grateful for was how the backyards were arranged. Around each yard stood an eight-foot tall wood privacy fence with a built-in gate that led to the next yard. Another gate was positioned along the back line of fencing that led to the neighborhood directly behind the townhouses.
Her neighbor to the right of her townhouse was close to her age and had small kids. They talked at least once a week. They had each left the gate unlocked, in case the kids’ toys ended up in her backyard. Feeling it wasn’t safe to leave through the front door, she eased out the back sliding glass door, through the gate to her neighbor’s yard, and then on to the back gate.
With her current disguise, no one watching would recognize she didn’t belong to that yard, as she walked through the back gate. It would appear as if she was just walking to another neighbor’s house for a nice chat. She continued walking through the bordering neighborhood and on to her hidden, second car.
In the Denver airport, she checked in for her flight and walked to security. She knew there were cameras all through the airport, especially at the security checkpoint, so she tried to keep her head down while waiting in line, without appearing suspicious. As she neared the TSA agent checking identification and boarding passes, a moment of panic hit her, as she realized it had been three years since the other license had been made.
Drastic changes in appearance raised too many questions in an airport. She handed her license and boarding pass to him and held her breath. He looked at the picture on the license, then at her, then back at the picture, then back at her. He finally made a few marks on her boarding pass and handed it, along with her license, back to her. He eyed her somewhat suspiciously, but when she spoke with her southern twang, “Thank you so much,” his look softened. He smiled and said, “Have a good flight,” before turning to the next person in line.
She made her way through the checkpoint and on to her gate to wait for her flight to Miami. She was certain that her Kristina Miller alias had been compromised, but wasn’t sure if Leslie Solomon had been or not. Until she knew for sure, she would be extra careful when she arrived in Miami. The paper said Richard Hollingsworth was in Miami, so she knew it wasn’t him watching her. But then he wouldn’t do it himself, would he? No, he would be in Miami….with Noah.
With that thought, she let out an exaggerated and exasperated sigh. She would have to think this through carefully. There were things she had to see herself and plans she had to carefully lay out, until this fiasco was over, one way or another. She had never felt completely safe in trusting Marshal Stevens. Something about the man just didn’t seem right from the beginning, and his lack of surprise over the recent turn of events solidified her resolve.
She heard the airline attendant announce over the intercom that her flight was beginning to board. Brianna collected her purse, stood with her boarding pass in hand, and waited for her zone to be called. As she walked down the jet way, she wasn’t sure if she was walking to or from hell, but she had a sneaking suspicion this would be the hardest trip to Miami she would ever make.
Brianna settled into her seat, buckled her seatbelt, and listened as the flight attendant reviewed the safety information on the TV screen in front of her. As the plane began to move, she leaned her head back against the seat, closed her eyes, and let her mind rest. She’d been running on an adrenalin-high for several hours now and was starting to crash. She knew she was safe, for at least the next four hours.
Even if the Leslie Solomon alias had been compromised, no one would try anything on a plane full of people. Once she landed in Miami, she would find a small hotel, pay with cash, and try to stay out of sight. If anyone recognized her, it wouldn’t matter what name she went by.
* * *
Noah Steele stood looking at his friend, Richard, whom he had thought was dead. He couldn’t believe the man was standing before him now. He’d attended Richard’s memorial service, had grieved his friend’s passing, and visited his grave once a year to pay his respects. And all this time, an anti-American terrorist group with a known affiliation with the Islamic Jihadist Union had held his friend hostage.
Smaller fractions of the union were located all through the Middle East and northern Africa. Noah knew Richard frequently traveled to those areas on business. Noah had never guessed that his friend was in trouble, needed his help, and was waiting for someone to rescue him.
When Noah received news of the plane crash, he wanted to travel to the site himself, but the U.S. government stopped all civilian travel to the area, because of the terrorist threat. He had been living in the comfort and safety of home while his friend fought for his life every day. The guilt of leaving a brother behind was overwhelming. Noah’s thoughts kept circling back to one question. What about her?
“Richard, I still can’t believe this. I should have pushed harder, I should have looked for you.”
“No way, there was no
way you could’ve known, and had you somehow made it out of the States, you would’ve been taken hostage, or even killed.” Richard was so convincing, he almost convinced himself it was true. Almost.
Richard still felt Noah’s dark piercing eyes on him, thinking through the scenarios and cover story he had concocted to explain his sudden return. He knew Noah was very intelligent. They had been Airborne Rangers and later part of the elite Delta Force together, so he was also very skilled in terrorism and counter-terrorism measures.
Richard knew that eventually Noah would find a hole in his story, but he planned to have obtained exactly what he needed and be gone again by then. And if Noah had to die, because he figured it all out too soon, so be it. He’s just another casualty of war – or of money. Take your pick, Richard thought to himself.
Noah’s face became hard as he said, “We never leave a man behind. De oppresso liber.”
What was that quick flicker in Richard’s eye? Guilt? It was gone as quickly as it came, so Noah didn’t push it. No telling what the man had been through.
Richard responded, “Liberate the oppressed. And I am liberated, so let’s celebrate.”
“I have to ask you something, Richard.” Noah hesitated for a moment, not sure if he wanted the answer or not, then pushed ahead. “Was Brianna taken hostage with you? Or was she on that plane?”
Richard knew this question would come sooner or later. Letting out a deep breath, he replied, “No, Noah, she wasn’t with me. I’m sorry, man.”
Noah nodded, never lowering his eyes from Richard’s. “At least you’re home safe.”
They continued to chat about the business. Richard peppered Noah with questions about how their joint venture was going. Noah had started a private security firm after leaving the military, with financial help from Richard. After Richard left the military, he went to work for the Department of Defense in Washington, DC.
With Noah’s extensive elite military training, he had built a successful private security firm over the past five years, providing close-contact security for visiting foreign dignitaries and world business leaders. He also worked with American politicians visiting foreign countries, and from time to time, America’s elite class would throw some extravagant party that needed extensive security to keep the paparazzi out.