by Paula Graves
“He seems to be looking for a missing woman. I nearly had a heart attack when he stopped me to ask if I’d seen her.”
“Do you think he recognized you?”
“He didn’t seem to.” He looked at Tara. “Stop staring at him. He’ll think we’re up to something.”
“We are up to something. Sort of.” Tara forced her gaze away from the policeman, letting it settle on Owen’s vending-machine bounty. “Coffee. Thank goodness.”
“You need to eat something, too. I bought you some peanuts for protein.”
“Yes, Mom.” She tore open the packet of peanuts. “Want some?”
Owen’s appetite was gone. Even the coffee, which he’d been craving just a little while ago, seemed entirely unappetizing. “Go ahead. I’ll worry about getting us ready to get back on the road.”
They’d filled the gas tank back in Abingdon, so they were good for several more miles before they’d have to worry about stopping for fuel. The tires looked fine, and all of the SUV’s gauges were reading in the normal range. He settled in the driver’s seat, his nerves finally steady enough for him to sit still without fidgeting.
“I think enough time has passed now that we can leave without looking as if we’re running away,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at Tara.
She licked salt off her fingertips and looked back at him. “Even though that’s what we’re doing.”
“You have a better idea?”
She shook her head. “Let’s get out of here.”
“You can stay in the back and get a little more sleep if you want.”
“No, I’m wide awake. Hold on and I’ll come up front.” She exited the back door and climbed into the front, first putting Owen’s cooling cup of coffee in the console’s cup holder. “You should drink that before it gets cold.”
He looked at it and shook his head. “You can have it if you want.”
She climbed into the passenger seat and buckled in, then picked up the cup. “If you insist.”
They fell silent until they were well clear of the rest area and moving east on I-81. As they passed through the scenic town of Rural Retreat, Tara set down her empty coffee cup and turned in her seat to look at him.
“Maybe we should call your boss,” she suggested.
“I’m not sure it’s safe.”
“Is it that? Or is it that you don’t want to ask for help.”
He angled a quick look at her. She gazed back at him, a knowing look in her eyes that made him feel completely exposed.
“I know you don’t like asking for help,” she added, her tone gentler. “I know why.”
“I’m not afraid to call Quinn if we need him.”
“But you’re afraid if you call him now, he’ll see you as weak. Just like your father used to accuse you of being.”
He pressed his lips to a thin line, annoyed. “Not every decision I make in my life is influenced by what my father said to me when I was fifteen.”
“Then call Quinn. He told you to get in touch, right?”
“Yes, but—”
“No buts.” She pulled the cell phone from the caddy at the front of the console, where it had been charging all night. “Call him.”
“I’m driving.”
“I’ll dial. Just tell me the number.”
With a sigh, he gave her the number of Quinn’s business cell phone. “It’s still awfully early,” he warned.
“Didn’t you once tell me you think Quinn never sleeps?” She put the phone on speaker and dialed the number.
Quinn answered on the first ring, “Don’t tell me anything about where you are. Just tell me if you’re all right.”
“We’re fine,” Owen answered, surprised at the relief that flooded him at the sound of his boss’s voice. He wasn’t close to Quinn at all, having barely spoken to the man more than a dozen times since he took the job at Campbell Cove Security. But just knowing he had someone besides Tara out there, trying to watch his back, was enough to bolster his sagging spirits. “We’ve disguised ourselves and the vehicle, so we’re trying to find somewhere to hunker down until we can formulate a plan for our next steps.”
“I think your next steps should include trying to figure out who wants the information Tara has in her head that they can’t find anywhere else.”
“That’s where you could give us some help,” Tara interjected. “I know what information they’re looking for, but I’m not in the know about which groups might be looking for that information. Do you have a dossier on the groups most likely to be trying to make a big show of force at the symposium?”
“That’s going to be a lot of dossiers,” he warned.
“What about the deputy we saw? Maybe if we could get an ID on him, we could dig deeper and figure out who he associates with,” Owen suggested.
“On it. The Bagley County Sheriff’s Department inconveniently doesn’t have a website, but Archer Trask has cooperated with us on a previous case he was investigating, so I’m going to see if I can exploit that relationship to get information without raising his suspicions.”
“You’re going to try to outcop a cop?” Tara asked skeptically.
“We have our ways.” There was a hint of amusement in Quinn’s voice. “I’ll handle that end of things. Meanwhile, you need to stay off the grid as much as you can. You found the cash and all the supplies?”
“We did,” Owen answered.
“You’re a scary man, Alexander Quinn,” Tara added.
“I like to be prepared,” he said. “Call again in four hours. If everything is good, tell me that it’s not. If you’re in trouble, say everything is okay. Understood?”
Owen exchanged glances with Tara. Both her eyebrows were near her hairline, but she said, “Understood.”
Quinn ended the call without another word, and she put the phone back in the console holder.
“So,” she said, “where exactly do we plan to hunker down?”
“I think we need to find that campsite I was telling you about. And fast.”
The sooner they were off the road, the less likely it was that someone would spot their SUV and start wondering if it might be the missing vehicle from Kentucky with the two fugitives inside.
Chapter Ten
“I can’t believe you bought marshmallows.”
Tara looked up from the shopping bag she was unpacking to find Owen holding a bag of the puffy white sweets. “I don’t go camping without marshmallows. Or hot dogs,” she added, pulling a pack of wieners from the shopping bag.
Owen sighed, but she saw the hint of a smile cross his face. “I hope you got mustard, too.”
She waggled the mustard bottle at him. “And ketchup for me.”
He made a face. “I appreciate the fact that you’re trying to make this a fun experience—”
“I’m trying to get through this without losing my sanity,” she corrected, her voice rising with a rush of emotion. “If I treat this like one of our nights out camping at Kingdom Come State Park, maybe I can get through this thing without being institutionalized.”
Silence fell between them for a long, tense moment before Owen finally spoke. “I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. “You have nothing to be sorry for. You’re in this mess, too, and it’s all because of me.”
“No, I meant I’m sorry about Robert. I haven’t really said that to you. I know you loved him, even if you didn’t love him enough to go through with the wedding. And you haven’t really had a moment to yourself to just grieve.”
“I don’t have time to grieve. I have to figure out this whole mess. It’s about me and what I know. It’s my responsibility.”
He stood up from where he crouched by the fire pit he was building and crossed to where she stood by the SUV. He cupped h
er face between his hands, and emotion surged in her chest, making her feel as if she were about to explode. She tamped down the feelings roiling through her and forced herself to meet his soft-eyed gaze.
“You don’t have to do this alone. Any of it.”
Blinking back tears she didn’t want to spill, she managed a smile. “I know you’re on my side. You always are.”
Something flickered in his gaze, an emotion she couldn’t quite read, and he dropped his hands from her face and stepped a couple of feet away. “I’ll put the hot dogs in the cooler.” He picked up the pack of wieners and walked back to the campsite.
Even though he was only a few feet away from her, she suddenly felt as if she were alone, cut off from anything and anyone important to her. It was a hollow, terrible feeling.
She shook off the sensation. She wasn’t alone. She hadn’t been alone since the sixth grade, when Owen Stiles had literally stumbled into her life, dropping his lunch tray at her feet and soiling her favorite pair of Chuck Taylors. Once she got past the desire to strangle him, she’d found a friend who’d never, ever failed her.
He wouldn’t fail her now. If there was anything in her life that was constant and permanent, it was Owen Stiles. His friendship was everything to her, which was why she’d fight anyone and anything, including her own libido, to keep him in her life.
While she was picking up camping supplies at a store in the nearby town of Weatherly, Owen had been busy setting up camp. The tent he’d found stored in the SUV now stood next to the campfire. It was larger than she’d expected, but still cozy enough that they should be able to stay warm in the night.
“Did you find any nightcrawlers?” he asked as she crossed with the rest of the supplies to where he crouched by the fire pit.
“Of course. No grocery store this close to a campground would be caught dead without a bait shop section.” She sat cross-legged on the ground next to him and dug in her grocery bag until she retrieved two small plastic bowls full of dirt. There were little pinprick holes in the plastic lid of the containers. “Here. Have some worms.”
“There’s a curve of the river that runs near here, according to the online map.” He pulled the cell phone from his pocket and waggled it at her, a smile flirting with his lips. “I don’t know how Daniel Boone made it across the wilderness without Google.”
A gust of wind lifted Tara’s short locks and rustled the grocery bag. She looked up through the trees to discover that the sunny sky that had greeted them earlier that morning was gone, swallowed by slate-colored clouds scudding along with the wind.
“I don’t think we’re going to get to have marshmallows or hot dogs tonight,” she said with a heavy sigh. “I bought a few cans of soup, though. I think we could probably heat one up using the camp stove before the rain hits.”
“You’re being a good sport about this,” Owen commented as he gathered up the supplies he’d laid out on the ground by their would-be campfire. “I know how you like your creature comforts.”
“It’s not like this is your mess, Owen. You didn’t drag me into this. It’s the other way around.”
“I dragged myself into it.”
“Trying to help me.”
“You’d have done the same.” He finished stowing away the equipment in the waterproof duffel and stuffed it into the tent, leaving out only the portable camp stove and a small saucepan. He looked up at the sky. “We probably have another fifteen minutes before the bottom falls out of the sky, so what kind of soup do we have there?”
She pulled out three cans. “Chicken noodle, vegetable and beef, and chicken-corn chowder.”
“The chowder sounds good. Filling.”
She put the other two cans back in the shopping bag and pulled the tab ring on the can of chowder. It opened with a quiet snick. “Hope there aren’t any bears nearby.”
“Me, too.” Owen added the butane canister to the camp stove and turned the knob until it clicked and a flame appeared at the center of the burner. “Oh, look, it works.”
“You weren’t sure it would?” Tara asked.
“I hoped it would.” He set the saucepan on the burner and reached out for the can of soup.
Tara handed it to him and crouched beside him. “I didn’t think to buy any paper bowls.”
“There are plastic bowls and eating utensils in the duffel bag.”
She retrieved them and sat down beside Owen in front of the stove. “I still think your boss is some sort of madman, but at least he’s a madman who knows how to prepare for any eventuality.”
“I imagine he learned about being prepared the hard way. I’ve heard some stories—all told in hushed tones, of course—about some of his adventures during his time in the CIA.”
“Do you believe them?”
“Most of them, yeah. You don’t get the kind of reputation Quinn has if you spent your years in the CIA behind some cushy desk in an embassy.”
The advent of the clouds overhead had driven out most of the warmth of the day, and there was a definite damp chill in the increasing wind. Tara edged closer to Owen, glad for his body heat and the warmth drifting toward her from the camp stove. The soup was already starting to burble in the pan.
“Maybe we should eat inside the tent,” she suggested. “I think it’s going to rain any minute.”
He looked up at the sky. “Good idea. Here, hand me the bowls and I’ll spoon this up. Then you can take the food inside and I’ll clean up out here.”
Tara took the bowls of soup Owen handed to her and ducked inside the tent. Their sleeping bags covered most of the tent floor; as they had the night before, they’d zipped the bags together in order to take advantage of each other’s body heat. With the sudden dip in the temperature, Tara had a feeling it was going to be a damp, chilly night.
Owen appeared through the flap of the tent, carrying the extinguished stove and the cleaned-up cooking pot. He left the stove just inside the tent to cool but stowed away the cooking pot, then took his food from Tara. He nodded at her untouched bowl. “Eat up before it gets cold.”
She took a bite of the hearty chowder. It was pretty good for canned soup. “I don’t suppose Quinn has sent you the dossiers we asked for.”
Owen pulled the burner phone from his pocket. “To be honest, I haven’t checked. I was keeping the phone off to conserve the battery, since I don’t want to risk putting any sort of drain on the SUV’s engine until we’re on the road again.”
They had agreed not to camp too close to the campground amenities, wanting to avoid interaction with other campers. The restrooms were only a hundred yards away, hidden by the woods, but the office was another hundred yards away, which meant the charging stations available to campers were also that far away.
“I’m getting a Wi-Fi signal from the campground. It’s not the strongest, but it’s better than nothing.”
“Think it’ll be strong enough for a file to download?”
“There’s an email trying to download. It’s slow going, but I’ll bet it’s from Quinn. Nobody else would have the email for this phone.” He stuck the phone back in his pocket. “Let’s finish eating. I’ll check again when we’re finished. Maybe it’ll have downloaded by then.”
Tara suddenly felt anything but hungry, but she forced herself to eat. If they were going to be running for their lives over the next few days, she needed her strength. Food wasn’t a luxury. It was a necessity.
She managed to remain patient until her bowl was empty. She set it aside and looked up at Owen. “Can you check the email again?”
He gave her a sympathetic look and pulled out his phone. “Looks as if it’s finished. Let’s see what we’ve got.”
She scooted closer so she could see the phone screen. The file attached to the email appeared to be a portable document file. Owen clicked the pdf file and a summary pag
e appeared. Tara scanned the words, which informed them that the following files contained background details on the employees of Security Solutions. According to Quinn’s notes, he was also trying to come up with potential connections between the sheriff’s department and Security Solutions along with trying to connect members of the sheriff’s department to any of the known terror groups who had both the motive and the means to stage a significant terror event on American soil.
“What do you expect to find in these dossiers?” Owen asked.
“Connections,” she answered. “I’m thinking it would have to be someone who’s in a position to take any of the information I might have supplied to the kidnappers and do something with it.”
“Who might that be?”
“Well, obviously, my bosses, but since they already have the information I have, they wouldn’t need to bother with a kidnapping.”
“Do you have an assistant?”
“Yes, but Karen wouldn’t be next in line for the job if I suddenly disappear.”
“But could she use the information you have if she could get her hands on it?”
Tara thought about it. “Theoretically, anyone could. But it’s likely that by now, my bosses have already changed all the details of the event. Either postponed it or moved venues.”
“So maybe you’re not in danger anymore.”
The same thought had just occurred to her. “Maybe. But why do I still feel as if I’m in danger?”
“I think maybe because Alexander Quinn thinks you still are, and if he does, he must have a reason.” Owen set aside his empty soup bowl and pulled the burner phone out of his pocket. “Let’s find out why.”
“Will he answer?” she asked as he dialed the number.
“He’d better.”
Tara scooted closer so she could hear the other end of the call. The phone rang twice before a drawling voice answered, “Roy’s Auto Repair.”
“I’m calling about my green Cutlass GT,” Owen said, arching his eyebrows at Tara.
“I’ll check, sir.” After a brief pause, the voice on the other line continued. “Still checking, but Roy told me to ask how you’re doing today.”