by Jamie Denton
“I will, Peyton. I promise you.”
The sincerity in his words did zilch to return her to her own comfort zone. Jared had let her down once before, when she’d needed him the most. One of these days maybe she’d have the opportunity to tell him about it. Now wasn’t the time…not when they were both trying to stay alive.
JARED ROLLED THE VEHICLE to a stop at the corner of the Baltimore residential street and shot Peyton a glance he hoped conveyed how crazy he thought her suggestion. “Are you looking to get caught? Ever hear of a paper trail?”
“Grand theft auto isn’t exactly playing it safe,” she reminded him with a hefty dose of sarcasm.
He couldn’t deny her point, but how else were they supposed to make it out of the city? On foot? Hardly. Helping themselves to a barely used Ford Expedition from the car lot next to the motel didn’t exactly qualify as his most brilliant move, but if they could find another black SUV, he’d swap the plates, buying them a little extra time. The number of people who actually looked at their own license plates each morning were few and far between.
Still, hitting the ATM machines for cash would mean a huge risk. It could take as little as thirty minutes before someone was alerted, if they were monitoring, which he was bloody sure they would be.
He turned left at the corner and headed down another residential street in search of a matching vehicle.
“And I am thinking about a paper trail,” she said. “I only have something like a hundred and ten bucks in my wallet. What about you?”
“A little over two hundred.”
“We can’t use my credit cards to support us until we’re out of danger because they’re traceable. But if we go back into D.C., then no one will know which direction we’ve gone,” she argued. “Unless we intentionally lead them in the wrong direction.”
Damned if she didn’t have a good idea. Provided they were able to even make a withdrawal. “It’ll only work if they haven’t frozen your assets yet,” he told her. “Considering how quickly they had the cops looking for your car, it’s entirely possible. Either way, they’re going to know you tried to access cash.”
She reached over to turn the heater up a notch. “Someone is already trying to make me look guilty. What’s the difference? We have nothing to lose by at least trying.”
Well, for one thing, their lives, but he didn’t feel it necessary to remind her. She’d had more than her fair share of shocking revelations for one night, and there were more to come.
Frankly, he had to give her credit. After everything he’d told her thus far, she appeared to be handling it well. Of course, he’d only touched the tip of the iceberg they were heading for at warp speed. By the time he told her everything, he expected a meltdown on her part, albeit a temporary one. No one could keep Peyton Douglas down for long. Never a weepy type of female, she had an innate sense of survival that would go a hell of a long way in keeping them alive. But only if he could regain her complete trust, because without it, they were as good as dead.
The interior of the vehicle warmed up considerably. A quick glance in her direction told him she was finally starting to relax, if only marginally. The color had come back into her cheeks, and the wild-eyed fright in her gaze had shifted to alert caution. After their close scrape back at the motel, he’d been worried about her, until she’d threatened him.
He made a right at the next corner. “We need somewhere to hole up until we can put everything together. A place as far away from the city as we can get, but still close enough for us to make it back within a day or so.”
“Jared,” she said with a hint of melancholy in her voice. “I know a place.”
He immediately knew where she was referring to, as well. They’d taken their first vacation together there, spending two glorious weeks filled with long walks along the shore, visiting the shops in the village and searching out antiques. They’d made love every chance they’d gotten. He’d known then that she was the one for him. It’d been the first time he’d told her he loved her.
He looked over at her and couldn’t help the grin that tugged his mouth. “Maine,” he said.
A soft answering smile curved her mouth. She remembered, too.
“I don’t think anyone knows about the cottage, so I doubt there’s any way I can be connected, since I don’t own it. It could give us time to figure out what we’ve got to do to make all this ugliness go away.”
“It might work,” he agreed. The cottage belonged to Harry Shanks, who had probably retired by now from the Biddeford Home. He’d been in charge of maintenance at Biddeford, and the only father figure Peyton had ever known, or rather, come to trust.
“At the very least it might buy us a couple of extra days,” she said.
Okay, so she was right. If they could manage to lead the bastards astray, it just might give them a few extra days to come up with a solid plan to get their lives back. If they made the drive down to Richmond, used one of her credit cards to gas up the vehicle, then shot over to Petersburg to rent a motel room they wouldn’t use, it’d look as though they were heading south, down toward Norfolk. Instead, they’d cross Virginia to Roanoke before taking the interior highways north into Maine.
“There!” she said, pointing toward a redbrick home on the right. “A black Expedition.”
Jared slowed. Sure enough, parked in the driveway was a matching vehicle. “You’re getting good at this.”
“Yeah. Too good,” she said with a self-deprecating shake of her head. “And that’s only one of the things about all this that’s scaring me.”
Jared circled the block and parked four doors away from the other Expedition. “Climb over into the driver’s seat,” he told her as he killed the engine. “If anything happens, I want you to drive as fast as you can to get the hell out of here.”
Even in the shadows of the interior of the vehicle, he could make out the slight widening of her eyes.
“Shouldn’t we keep the motor running?”
He unfastened his seat belt. “No. It’s after midnight. An idling vehicle this late could draw attention we don’t need.”
He got out and waited for her to negotiate the console and slide into the driver’s seat. Her skirt inched up, revealing slim thighs. The denim of his jeans felt tighter than a wet suit all of a sudden. He pulled in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Now was not the time to be lusting after a woman—especially one who didn’t trust him.
He opened the rear passenger door and pulled a screwdriver out of his duffel. “No matter what happens, don’t try to be a hero, Peyton. Just drive and get the hell out of here.”
“I will,” she said, her tone somber.
“Do you understand?”
She sighed impatiently. “Yes, Jared. I understand.”
“I want you to go to Cole Harbor, South Carolina. Dee is there. And Chase. He’ll know what to do.” Jared caught her reflection in the rearview mirror and gave her a stern look. “Promise me, Peyton.”
After a moment, she finally nodded, then quickly shifted her attention to the quiet residential area around them. They weren’t in a position to hedge bets or tiptoe around the truth, and while he suspected she’d had more reality dumped on her than any sane person should be forced to handle in a matter of a few hours, she was holding up damned well.
He closed the door as quietly as possible, then surveyed the neighborhood before making his way up the street to the matching Expedition. In a matter of minutes he had the plates switched without incident, and was heading back toward Peyton.
After securing the new plates on their stolen vehicle, he drove back toward the city. Relatively light traffic had them making good time, and soon he was heading for the financial district of the D.C. area. He parked around the corner from one of the city’s largest financial institutions, which housed a dozen ATMs. The area was relatively well lit, and thankfully deserted.
He parked and scanned the street. Satisfied they were alone, he shut down the engine and turned to Peyton.
“Where’s my purse?” she asked.
“In my duffel bag.”
He moved to unfasten his seat belt, but she beat him to it and climbed onto the seat to reach into the back. While she unzipped his bag and searched for her purse, he couldn’t help enjoying the view of her curvy backside pressing enticingly against the navy blue fabric of her skirt. His gaze dipped, following the line down to the exposed skin between her knees and mid-thigh. Damn if a surge of desire didn’t go shooting straight through his body to settle with pinpoint accuracy in his cock.
He looked away in a vain attempt to cool the sudden heat of his body. The kiss they’d shared in the motel room had made him hot and achy. He was suffering from residual effects. That was the only logical explanation for his reaction to the delectable view of her very feminine posterior.
They were running for their lives. This was not the time, nor the place, for him to be conjuring fantasies starring the tempting delights of Peyton’s sweet body. He was playing with fire, because he was damned sure it wouldn’t take much for him to erupt.
She turned and sat down to riffle through her purse. He expected her to slip her wallet out and retrieve her credit cards, but instead she produced a half-eaten candy bar.
She tore away the wrapper and bit down, closing her eyes and issuing a soft moan that had his body stirring once again. He knew that moan, the one that always indicated to him he’d taken the right path that would lead to her ultimate satisfaction.
“Hungry?” he asked, unbuckling his seat belt, hoping to derail the path his own thoughts had taken.
She nodded and took another bite. “Starved,” she said, after she swallowed. “I haven’t eaten since lunch.” She glanced at her watch. “Over fourteen hours ago.”
“Once we’re safely out of the city, we’ll make a quick stop for a bite to eat, okay?”
She gave him a grateful smile and polished off the remainder of the chocolate bar.
“How many credit cards can we use?”
“Six that have a higher cash-advance limit.” She dug in her purse again and found her wallet. “I don’t know what the limit is on these ATMs, though. We might only be able to withdraw three or four hundred dollars on each one, and that’d be it for twenty-four hours.”
He held out his hand as she started slipping cards from their protective slots. “Give me half. It could save us valuable time.”
She stared at him as if he’d grown two heads. “You’re coming with me?” she asked, a note of incredulity in her voice. “But you can’t. Whoever is looking for me will know we’re together.”
“That’s the point, Peyton. I want them to know we’re together.”
She shook her head. “No! It’s bad enough they’re looking for me already. You said they’re implicating me to draw you out. Those video cameras take pictures every three seconds. If you show your face in front of an ATM, it’s game over. You’ll be playing right into their hands.”
He gave her a grin that held no warmth. “That’s what I’m hoping for.”
She reached out and laid her hand on his forearm. Her fingers were still chilled, but soft and smooth against his roughened skin. “Jared.”
“Listen, Peyton.” He slipped his hand over her trembling fingers and squeezed gently. “I figure in about two to three hours at the very most, they’re going to know you’re with me. That’s going to tell whoever is pulling the strings that I’m onto them. It’s going to make them extremely nervous when they realize it, too.”
“Which means they just might start making mistakes.”
“Right you are, sweetheart. Now give me half of those cards and your PIN numbers.”
She handed him three cards, then looked away. “They’re all the same. Numbers have never been my forte. Five, two, seven, three.”
Realization dawned and he understood her need not to look at him. She still had the same number as when they’d been together. If she’d needed cash during the night, he’d been the one to go, because it wasn’t safe for a woman alone around an ATM machine after dark. She’d wanted a number she could easily remember. He’d talked her out of using their address or the last four digits of their phone number, so she’d insisted on a variation of his name to correspond with the telephone keypad. Something she’d said she would never forget because he was permanently etched on her heart.
He reached for the door handle, trying not to read too much into that knowledge. “We’ll know on the first try if they’ve managed to freeze your assets already. Try for a grand on each, then work down in two-hundred-dollar increments until the machine starts spitting out money.”
“Got it.”
“Are you ready?”
She glanced in his direction. “No one is ever ready for something like this.”
“We need to work fast. If a transaction takes longer than thirty seconds to clear, cancel it and get back in the truck.”
They left the vehicle and headed around the corner to the ATMs. He’d wanted to keep the truck out of the way of the cameras so their adversaries would have no idea how they were traveling. “It’ll be all right, Peyton,” he said when they reached the machines. “We’re going to get out of this.”
“I hope you’re right,” she said, then walked up to the machine and inserted her card.
He took the ATM next to her and slipped the card into the slot. After punching her PIN number on the keypad, he started counting. Within three seconds the transaction screen popped into view. He entered the amount of one thousand dollars, hit Enter and waited again.
Ten seconds.
Fifteen seconds.
Twenty seconds.
A message flashed on the screen, telling him the amount exceeded the ATM transaction limit. Two more attempts and finally the machine began spitting out twenty-dollar bills. In less than five minutes, he’d extracted eighteen hundred dollars. With the couple hundred in his own wallet, that’d give them close to two grand. He’d lived on a whole lot less in recent months. Four grand was going to feel like a luxury.
He tucked the cash, cards and receipts into his hip pocket and turned from the machine. After one step, he stopped. His blood ran cold as he faced down the wrong end of a gun pointed directly at his chest.
6
“SON OF A BITCH!”
At Jared’s harshly spoken words, Peyton grabbed the last of the cash withdrawals from the machine and stuffed everything into the pocket of her blazer. She hadn’t known what to expect when she turned around. Anything was possible, from a rejected or, worse, frozen credit card, to whoever was after them. The sight of a tall, gangly youth pointing a small caliber pistol at Jared didn’t even come close to her expectations.
“Gimme the money,” the punk ordered. Despite his cocky, gang-land stance, his hand shook and the gun wobbled dangerously in his scrawny grip.
God, what else can go wrong? She knew better than anyone that life had a tendency to deal her some pretty hard blows, but never had she had to cope with one frightening episode right after the other. Usually her disasters were spaced a respectable distance apart. Her coping skills were definitely getting a major workout tonight.
A cosmic force somewhere in the universe had her number and must be getting its jollies out of pressing the button, over and over again. In less than six hours she’d managed to get herself kidnapped by a fugitive, escape the cops, steal a thirty-plus-thousand-dollar vehicle and now, the crème de la crème—a holdup by a misguided youth, who figured it was easier to flash a weapon than get a job to pay for whatever it was he wanted. Dressed in a ski cap pulled down past his eyebrows, and the requisite oversize, professional-football-team jacket, he looked like some twisted comic’s idea of the Smurfs go ghetto.
She had no idea whether the boy knew if she and Jared were together, or if he thought he’d hit pay dirt and was in for a two-for-one bargain robbery.
Fight or flight. She’d had about as much fight for one day as she could handle. Flight suddenly sounded damned reassuring and extrem
ely logical. Especially since there was no way she’d allow some punk kid to get his hands on the only money she and Jared had to see them through their own horrid nightmare.
A short gust of cold autumn wind whipped around her, tossing her hair into her face. She pushed it aside, then spun around to get the hell out of there, hoping to make it around the corner to the truck. She’d figure what to do to rescue Jared once she had some distance between herself and that gun.
No such luck. The kid turned and aimed his weapon directly at her. “Where do you think you’re going?” he sneered.
Let the bastard take a shot at her. It’d be the fitting end to a rotten day.
He looked her up and down with a dispassionate gaze that belied the nervous glance he tossed over his shoulder. She had the sudden urge to charge the little creep and knock him on his bony ass.
“Hand it over, lady.”
She chanced a quick glance in Jared’s direction. He shook his head in warning. A reasonable person would heed that warning. But she was feeling beyond reasonable at the moment. In fact, she was downright angry. It was bad enough she was running for her life; now she had to deal with a twerp with a gun.
“Now,” the kid ordered her. His hand shook, the weapon wavering in his grip.
Well, he could forget it. Fight or flight. Fight suddenly sounded a whole lot better, no matter how foolhardy.
“Sorry,” she said to the boy with a helpless shrug. “My credit card’s maxed out. I didn’t get a thing.”
“Bullshit,” the punk said, still waving the gun at her. “I saw you pull it from the machine.”
She shook her head and reached into her pocket. Her fingers skimmed past the cash and landed on a receipt. “This is all I got. You want to see it?” she asked, holding it between her fingers. “Transaction cancelled.”
The kid looked at Jared, then back at her, moving the weapon with each shift. Jared kept his eyes on the kid. She prayed he was paying attention, because she was about to hand him a golden opportunity on a silver platter.