by Lane Hart
Agent Rhodes nodded as he pulled out his wallet. “Well, if you change your mind, here’s my card with my cell phone number on it. But you should know from experience Mrs. Hunter, the federal government never gives up their pursuit, and I personally will not stop until I get my hands on who and what I want,” he said with an evil smile.
Cocky-assed bastard. I really didn’t like the way his remark held suggestive undertones either.
“Good afternoon gentlemen,” I said as they finally walked out and I closed the door behind them.
Chapter Twelve
I was shaking so bad I couldn’t stand anymore. I crumpled down to the welcome mat in front of the door, and heard my mom start sobbing. She walked around in circles before she came and sat beside me, handing me my phone.
I looked at it and wanted to call Ben, but I knew the feds. They could’ve had our phones and emails monitored for who knows how long. I’d either have to wait for Ben to get home from work, or go to his clinic. I couldn’t wait for him.
“Mom, can you stay and watch Lucas while I go out for a little while,” I asked her, trying to remain calm.
“Sure, go. Go!” she said.
I pulled myself up, and then threw my phone in my purse as I dug around for my keys. I didn’t even care that I was wearing my sweats and hadn’t had a shower all day. There were more important things to worry about.
I paused to consider packing a few bags and taking Lucas with me, but decided against it. If the agents were going to do something they would have done it while they were here. That must mean that they haven’t asked for, or can’t get a judge to give them a search warrant or arrest warrants.
That was really good news for us. Those jackasses coming to talk to me before getting warrants was going to be a mistake they were going to regret. I wondered for a second if they’d been to talk to Ben at work, but figured he would have called or come home if they had.
I went down the steps of the garage and hopped in my car for the first time in what felt like forever. I buckled my seat belt, and even tried to stay within the speed limit as I made my way to the clinic. I was feeling paranoid now, and couldn’t stop myself from continually glancing in my rear-view mirror.
Soon I was pulling up to the Summerwood Veterinary Clinic and parking my car near Ben's SUV. I turned off the engine and decided to go in through the back entrance.
As I walked down the back halls I looked for Ben but couldn’t find him. When I made it all the way to the front desk without seeing him, I asked the receptionist, Kelly, if she knew where he was.
She did a double take at my unusually messy appearance, then told me he was in exam room and should be finishing up soon. I asked her if he had any other appointments this afternoon and when she said no, I told her I'd wait for him in his office.
About five minutes later I was pacing and chewing my fingernails off when Ben ran in and slammed the door.
“What’s wrong?” he asked as he reached for me. “Is Lucas okay?”
His sudden surprise meant the agents hadn’t paid him a visit yet, which made me feel a little better.
I nodded my head yes, that Lucas was fine, and then mimed a zipper across my lips, pointing to the phone on his desk. He looked at me and then back to the phone, before his eyes widened in understanding and then worry.
“Do you want to take a walk and get some fresh air?” he asked.
“Yes! I could really use some fresh air."
On the way out the front door Ben told Kelly he was leaving for the day, and for her to call John with any after-hours emergencies.
Chapter Thirteen
Once we were outside, we walked down a path through the woods that surrounded the clinic. When the clinic and parking lot were no longer in sight I couldn’t hold it in any longer. I grabbed onto Ben and sobbed as he held me and asked me over and over to tell him what was wrong.
When I could finally say more than two words without getting choked up I told him about the agents' visit, and what they had said. I told him our phones may not be safe to use anymore, and I wouldn't be surprised if they had been following him and our parents.
Ben took a step back and clenched his fists in anger.
"What do they want with you?" I asked Ben in frustration.
His jaw clenched and his eyes narrowed. "I don't know. They must think I’m dangerous and they're afraid I could hurt someone," he said as he blew out his breath and ran his hand through his hair. "But this is fucking ridiculous. I haven't done anything wrong, but that doesn't seem to matter to them," he said as his voice became louder and angrier.
"So, what are we going to do? Should I call Jack?"
"No!" he quickly responded. "We don't need anyone else finding out about this, it will only make things worse."
"But we can trust him, and he knows how to deal with the feds better than anyone," I tried my best to convince him.
Ben grabbed my shoulders. "Emily, you know they are not going to play fair. What they're doing isn’t legal, but they know that there is nothing we can do about it without telling the world what I am."
I knew that, but I didn't want it to believe it. I hated the terrifying fear and helplessness that was starting to smother me.
"So what are we going to do?" I asked again, wrapping my arms around myself. I hoped he had some answers because I was all out of them. "Just wait until they make up charges and try to arrest you, or worse?" I swallowed at the thought of the worst case scenario - take Ben out. He was right, who would we tell and what could we do about it.
"We need to leave," he whispered. This time I knew he was right, and I agreed that there was probably no other option.
"Okay, but how? When? What about our parents?" I asked as my crying started into hiccups again.
"Now, we can't wait. I’ll head straight to my parents' house and tell them to get everything they can packed up and ready. Is your mom with Lucas?"
I nodded.
"Okay good. Take her outside and tell her to go home and get your dad and everything they want to bring with them. Then I want you to pack up as much as you can fit in our luggage and a few boxes. We'll fill up the SUV and leave your car behind."
I nodded again and sniffled as he hugged me to him.
"I'm sorry," Ben said. "Tell your mom and dad I'm sorry, but this is all I know to do. They don't have to come with us, but I know they’ll want to."
"Where are we going? Should they follow us?" I was so overwhelmed but I didn’t have time to freak out.
Ben thought about it for a minute. "Before I go to my parents I'll go to the store and buy three of those throwaway phones. I'll take one to my parents’ house and then take one over to your parents, and write down the numbers for them. How about we tell them to leave around eight-thirty tonight and drive all night until they get to the Georgia line. We'll call everyone in the morning and decide on a place to meet up."
"Okay," I agreed. He seemed to pull this plan together pretty quickly, and it made me wonder if he’d thought about this possibility before. I still had a ton of questions to ask about what we were going to do from there, mainly what were we going to do for money.
Ben's quick mind was already ahead of me. "My parents taught me a long time ago to keep a lot of cash handy in case of an emergency like this, where we might have to up and leave. They’ll have plenty too. When you get home, look in the red toolbox in the basement and grab all the money out of each of the drawers.”
I was somewhat surprised that he’d been putting away money without telling me about it, but I was glad he had been working on this contingency plan before now.
“Tomorrow morning before we leave Georgia we can all go to the bank, close our accounts, and get as much cash as we can to live on. Right now we just need to get out of here, and do it before they know we've left. I doubt they would expect us all to up and leave or they wouldn't have just come by to ask questions."
That was exactly my thinking as well. This was the best plan we had and I shoo
k myself to try to start thinking clearly and rationally again.
"Okay," I said again. "We'll probably need to get some hair color for all of us along the way," and then I added, "and probably trade in all our cars." I was starting to think more like the criminal clients I'd seen over the years in our law office, although I was angry at the fact that we, unlike most of those guys, hadn't done anything wrong or illegal. Ben was just born being what he was, and now they wanted to ruin our lives for something he couldn't help.
"Yes! Those are great ideas, Em," he was looking a little more confident now, maybe thinking we might actually be able to pull off disappearing.
"I can call the office in the morning and ask Kathy to give me the phone number for Johnny Fisher. He's been caught making fake IDs so many times I’ve lost count, but he might be able to get us some driver licenses and social security cards with new names." Now I felt like a criminal. I knew it was illegal, but we weren't going to use someone's identity to steal from them.
"Do you think we can trust him not to tell anyone the names he gives us?" Ben asked doubtfully.
"Oh yeah. Johnny hates cops for always busting up his business. He's a decent guy, just in a bad profession." It wasn't the best plan, but we were going to need some sort of IDs to get by and fit in.
"Then I guess that's what we have to do, otherwise they’ll easily be able to track us down if we use our real names," Ben conceded. "This is all going to work out."
"I know," I told him. I didn't add that from now on we'd be looking over our shoulders, in our rear-view mirrors and hiding for probably the rest of our lives. Our friends and relatives would never know where we went or why. But it beat the other options we had.
"Are you okay to drive?" Ben asked.
"I'm better," I said as I wiped my wet face with the back of my sleeve. "I can do this. We can do this."
"Good," he said as he kissed me. "Be careful and call me as soon as you get in the car. We don't have to talk or say anything someone else could overhear. I just want you to keep me on the phone until I get back to the house, just in case."
I'd feel a little better knowing he was keeping tabs on me and Lucas for the next few hours in case the agents came back.
"I love you," I told him as I kissed him again and hugged him bye.
"I love you too."
Chapter Fourteen
I pulled my phone from my purse as soon as I closed my car door and hit send. Ben had his phone out and answered right away.
"Hey baby," he said, "How's your day been? I'm just now leaving the clinic."
I watched him as he climbed into his SUV and looked around. I turned my head to look behind me and around the parking lot, but didn't see any suspicious cars.
"Hey, my mom just brought over a huge pan of lasagna, so I hope you're hungry."
"Oh, that sounds good, but I'll probably be home a little later tonight. Dad's got some kind of water leak he wants me to help him work on, so I'm going to stop by the store and head over there before I come home."
"Alright, that's fine. We can just heat you up some leftovers later."
The casual conversation about nothing was helping me calm down even more. We continued to talk until I pulled into the garage and pressed the button to shut the door behind me. It was so loud I was sure Ben could hear it over the phone line.
“Well, I'll let you spend some time with your mom, and I'll be home as soon as I can," he said. I knew he didn't want me to hang up and I wasn't going anywhere without my phone the rest of the night.
"Okay, be careful. I love you."
"I love you too, Em."
I gently put the phone in my purse so it wouldn't hang up on Ben as I walked up the basement steps.
My mom was bouncing around the living with Lucas on her shoulder when I came in. He was awake and seemed happy to be getting a tour of the house.
"Hi, my sweet boy," I said as I reached out for him. I swear he smiled when he saw me.
"So, is everything okay?" my mom asked.
I rubbed Lucas’s back and over his soft blonde hair as I kissed his cheek. "Let's put Lucas down for a second and go sit on the porch," I said. "It's so nice outside." She nodded in quick understanding.
I put Lucas in his crib, and as we went by the kitchen on our way out the back door, I grabbed my phone out of my purse. The screen showed that Ben was still on the line.
When we got to the edge of our mowed yard I finally stopped and turned to my mom. She probably already knew what this meant for all of us.
"We've got to leave," I told her.
She nodded. "I figured so. Are we going with you?" Her chin trembled as she tried not to cry.
“Yes, but only if you want to. You know we'd understand if you and dad decided you don’t want to do this. I'm sorry you've both been dragged into this mess."
"Emily, you, Lucas and Ben are not going on the run without us. I know your father would agree with me on this. We’ll do whatever we have to do."
I sighed in relief. I didn't want to leave them behind and not see them for God only knew how long.
"Good," I told her, and even though he had probably heard the conversation, I let Ben they were on board as we started walking back toward the house. I had a million things to do in about two and a half hours.
I gave my mom a quick version of our plan. "Go home, pack up and leave your house around eight-thirty. We’re all going to head to Georgia. When you get to the South Carolina/Georgia line find a place to stay and we'll meet up in the morning."
She nodded and I could tell by her faraway look that she was already mentally packing.
"Ben's going to bring you a new cell phone and give you our new number and the Hunters’ new number, but let's wait until tomorrow to talk or meet, just in case."
"Okay. We'll see you tomorrow. Let me give Lucas a kiss goodbye and I'll get home and pack," she said as we walked more urgently into the house.
Chapter Fifteen
After my mom left I put Lucas in his swing while I ran around throwing clothes, shoes, heirlooms, jewelry, pictures, and anything else I passed and thought we'd soon need or want with us. Leaving all of our things, Ben’s clinic and our house for good felt so wrong and depressing, but I was willing to do whatever it took to keep us all safe.
I grabbed the cash Ben had been stashing away in his tool box and threw it in a bag with some of our clothes on top of it. He had been serious about the whole up and leaving possibility. With his cash stash we’d be good to go for at least a few months.
I was also trying to gather up all the baby accessories we’d need for Lucas. He had a pack-and-play that he could sleep in while we traveled, until we settled down somewhere more permanent and bought another crib. I needed to get his stroller out of my car, and repack the diaper bag. Oh, there was a never ending list of things to do and not enough time to get it all done.
Ben made it home around seven-thirty and started loading everything up as I ran from room to room grabbing more of our things. I fed Lucas and changed him before we started out on our car trip to who knew where.
After we got through the busy city, the highways emptied out with only a few cars still on the road this late on a Wednesday night. We stopped a few times during the three hour drive before we finally pulled over at a Holiday Inn right past the Georgia border. I worried about our parents and hoped they had all made the trip okay, and wondered if we were all safe for the night. I figured they would have called our new cell phone if there had been an emergency.
After we brought in everything we’d need for the night, Ben locked and chained the hotel room door.
“How determined did they seem when you talked to them?” he asked for the first time.
I thought about Agent Rhodes's remarks and attitude. With his ego, he was probably going to go all out in an effort to save face for us disappearing. I didn’t see him letting that sort of embarrassment go without a fight. I went cold thinking about how angry he was going to be if he ever found us.
>
Ben was watching me as I thought it over, waiting for my response. “We’re going to have to be really careful."
Ben shook his head. “My family and I have always worried that this day would come, I just never thought it would be this bad. But I’m not worried about myself. I'm just worried about you and Lucas,” he whispered as he looked over to the corner when Lucas was sound asleep in his pack-and-play.
“At least they didn’t mention anything about the blood tests they had done on him.”
“That good, that’s really good to hear,” Ben said as he laid down and reached for me.
I crawled up on the bed beside him, just wanting him to hold me so I could pretend like everything was okay. As I wrapped my arms around him I prayed that our family would stay safe, and that nothing and no one would ever take them away from me.
To be continued …
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Wild & Free
Part Three of the Wild Series
By Lane Hart
Chapter One
The past year of my life has been exciting to say the least. Last March I found out I was pregnant and that my husband was a shapeshifter. A few months later we were told we were having a son and knew he would be born a shapeshifter, just like his father. During our son's delivery in October my husband inadvertently outed his unusual ability, and now the government was in the process of trying to hunt us down. Whew! I needed a really strong anti-anxiety medication.
Despite how bad things seemed, at least our family was safe and together. The last few weeks had been a hectic whirlwind of getting new identities from a criminal associate, and trying to blend into the community as best we could.
We’d all relocated from North Carolina to Florida, hoping to lose ourselves in the constant crowd surrounding one of the country’s largest and most visited amusement parks. Ben had quickly been hired as a zookeeper for the animal park, even though he couldn’t practice as a veterinarian. Forging degrees in our new names would really make us criminals.