Get Blondie

by Cassidy, Carla

  When she was almost to her destination, she stopped to take a breather.

  She sank down on the back side of a storage shed in somebody’s yard. If anyone looked out the house window they wouldn’t be able to see her. Besides, she didn’t intend to be here long, only for a few minutes.

  A hand to her face let her know that her nose was crusty with dried blood and a simple touch to her jaw shot pain through the entire side of her face. Burt had been a worthy opponent.

  She had to warn Max. There was a strong possibility that some of Mercer’s men would try to get to him, use him as leverage to get at her.

  She grabbed the cell phone and punched in Max’s number, relief flooding through her when his strong, gruff voice answered.

  “There’s trouble,” she whispered into the phone.

  “Tell me,” Max’s voice was instantly alert.

  “My cover is blown, I’m on the run. I just wanted to let you know they might come after you.”

  “Let ’em come. I’ll be waiting for them. Me and Mr. Smith & Wesson.”

  “Max, you got a lady friend you could move in with for a couple of days?”

  “I’m not leaving my apartment for anyone,” he said with obvious exasperation.

  “For me, Max. Please. These are not nice people. It’s important that I know you’re safe. Just for a couple of days, Max. That’s all I’m asking.”

  There was a long pause. “I suppose I could arrange something with one of my lady friends. What about you? What are you going to do?”

  “I’ll think of something. You know me, Max. I’m a survivor.”

  “Cupcake…you know I love you.”

  Cassie squeezed her eyes tightly closed against a wave of unexpected emotion. “Back at you,” she said, then disconnected.

  She wasted no time, but instantly stood and took off again. She not only had to worry about one of Mercer’s men spotting her, but anyone else seeing her as well.

  Nobody would think twice about calling the authorities concerning a woman wandering through their neighborhood with a bloodied face.

  She had no watch, no way to tell what time it was, but it seemed as if it had been hours since she’d climbed over the stone wall at Adam’s place.

  The night shadows grew deeper, more profound as the night hours crept by. She finally came to the place where she would spend some time thinking about what next to do. She crawled up and sat beneath the concrete overpass where two Interstates met.

  She leaned her head back and closed her eyes, for a moment doing nothing more than listening to the traffic roaring by overhead and the beating of her heart.

  Exhaustion burned her muscles and threatened to muddy her thoughts, but she couldn’t rest, at least not mentally, until she figured out what she intended to do.

  A mouse in the house, that’s what Adam had told her about the agency. A rat was more like it. There was only one person she trusted implicitly and that was Kane.

  She didn’t trust him because they’d once been lovers, but rather because she’d been his partner and his friend. During those years they had shared together, she knew what made Kane tick, and it wasn’t money. Nobody would ever be able to buy him.

  Besides, she knew what kind of a man he was, knew how much he believed in the work he did, knew the integrity that flowed in his veins. Kane would never betray her.

  After all, he’d taken a bullet for her.

  Rubbing her jaw thoughtfully, she felt the first stir of emotion building inside her. She’d had no time to react emotionally to all that had happened and now fear battled with anger inside her.

  She was on the street alone, a marked woman because somebody had a big mouth. Somebody had sold her out and if she got through this and when it was all over, she hoped she had five minutes alone in a room with the person who had given her up.

  The concrete beneath her was warm, retaining the day’s heat and feeding the fevered anger that coursed through her. She had sworn years ago that she would never again spend the night on the streets. She had vowed when she bought her home that she would always have the security of her own bed, her own safe space.

  Yet here she was again, with the stench of the street in her nose and nowhere to feel safe or secure. She felt as if she’d come full-circle. She was once again alone, afraid and settling into the street life she’d thought she’d left behind.

  She couldn’t help but think of her mother. Where was she at the moment? Was she at the address Cassie had found in Mercer’s computer? Was she snuggled into a warm bed without thoughts of the daughter she’d dumped so many years before? Had she ever entertained a thought of what had happened to the child she’d abandoned in California?

  For months after she’d been left Cassie had remained near the place where her mother and Rick had dropped her off at the curb. She’d been certain that it was just a matter of time before her mother would return for her. She’d been afraid to get too far away from that particular place on the street in case her mother came back.

  Eventually Cassie had realized she wasn’t coming back and Cassie wasn’t going home. Her mother was gone from her life, as was her baby brother.

  A deep loneliness now swept over her and angrily she swiped at a tear that fell down her cheek. Self-pity served no purpose, she told herself. What’s done is done. That trauma of long ago was finished and she had a new drama to get through. She had to figure out how to stay alive and stop that shipment.

  With the rumble of cars and trucks passing overhead and with her switchblade ready in her hand, she closed her eyes and allowed herself to sleep.

  Mercer stood at the window in his study and stared out at the darkness of the night. It was almost two and he was awaiting a report from Burt.

  He couldn’t believe that Cassie had managed to escape, although he felt confident that any threat Cassandra Newton posed to his plans would be neutralized before dawn.

  The alarm had gone out on the street hours ago and there was no rock Newton could crawl beneath that wouldn’t be upturned and looked under. He’d told his contacts that she was trying to screw up the deal to get Blue back on the streets.

  He would know if she managed to get word to the agency about the details of his plan. He had no doubt that his source within the agency would contact him the moment Newton made contact.

  He turned away from the window, a deep frown creasing the center of his forehead. If she managed to escape them and get word to the agency then he’d have to change the location of the distribution and the timeline he’d developed so meticulously would be blown to bits.

  He slammed a hand down on his desk. If she screwed things up for him he’d personally hunt her down and extract his own form of revenge.

  She awoke in the throes of a nightmare, flailing her arms and legs against an attacker from her distant past. Within seconds she realized she was fighting phantoms and, with her heart racing, she waited for the last of the nightmare to pass.

  When it did she took stock of her surroundings. She had no idea how long she’d slept, but had a feeling it was longer than she had intended. Although it was still dark outside she thought she saw a hint of pale illumination crawling out of the eastern sky.

  Her eyes burned and she realized she still had in the color contacts that had been part of her disguise. She popped them out and threw them into the nearby grass.

  What she needed more than anything was a cleanup. She needed to find a gas station where she could use the ladies’ room to clean the blood off her face. There was a gas station not far and she took off in that direction.

  She finally reached the gas station, and was grateful to discover the ladies’ room unlocked. She went inside and stared at herself in the slightly distorted, dirty mirror above the sink.

  She looked like the loser in a prize fight. Her jaw was slightly swollen and discolored and her nose was crusty with dried blood. She grabbed a handful of paper towels and ran them under cold water, then applied the towels to her aching jaw.

/>   A sigh of pleasure escaped her as the cool compress eased the ache. At least she was relatively certain that nothing had been broken.

  She scrubbed her face, removing all the dried blood. A long hot shower would have been heaven-sent. Her muscles ached both from the fight with Burt and from the hours spent on the hard concrete beneath the overpass.

  When she left the ladies’ room, she felt more alert and, for the first time since she’d climbed over the wall at Adam’s place, she realized how deeply she was in trouble.

  She had the information the agency needed to stop Adam, but didn’t know who to share that information with. By now Adam would have summoned his forces to be looking for her. It wouldn’t be just street punks out to find her, it would be everyone who had any kind of connection to the drug deal who would be out trying to kill her.

  She had to lie low, she thought as she headed toward the downtown area where she knew she could get lost among the other lost souls.

  By noon she’d managed to snag a baseball cap and a pair of sunglasses from a parked vehicle. With her hair tucked up beneath it and with the blue T-shirt she’d gotten from the back seat of the first car, at least she felt she looked different enough that she wouldn’t immediately be recognized.

  She found an electronics shop nearby with televisions facing the front glass window. She stood and watched the news, the voices of the newscasters drifting out of the open front door.

  The heat wave would continue, there had been two robberies overnight and a body had washed up at Smithville Lake. As she watched the noon report, her mind whirled. She had to call Kane and tell him what she knew. She had to trust that he would know who to give the information to.

  A picture of herself in her police uniform yanked her attention to the televisions in the window. “Again, this report just in…a deadly fight for a Kansas City police-woman overnight.”

  Cassie moved closer to the open door to better hear the female newscaster. “Our sources indicate that Officer Cassandra Newton attempted to arrest a felon, Burt Weatherby, and witnesses say a fight ensued between the two. Weatherby was killed by a single gunshot wound but not before he shot Officer Newton, who died later from her injuries.”

  It was a surreal experience, to be standing on a street and watching a newscaster report your own death.

  Dead. Officially she was dead. Somehow, someway, somebody had arranged her death. She wondered if Burt was really dead or if somebody from the agency had managed to pick him up and get him out of the way.

  She hurried away from the store window and at the same time pulled her cell phone from her pocket. Kane was about to get a phone call from a dead woman.

  She walked until she found an alley between two boarded up buildings, then with a single punch of a number, she dialed Kane.

  He answered on the first ring.

  “Saw the news a few minutes ago.”

  “Cassie! Where the hell have you been?” His voice held an edge of panic in it. “I went all over the city looking for you last night. Where are you now?”

  “How did you manage it? Is Weatherby really dead?” She wanted her questions answered before she answered any of his.

  “We got to your apartment in time to see Weatherby heading upstairs. We had intended to get him into custody but we had to shoot him. He’s dead. Cassie, where are you?” he asked again.

  “That’s not important. What is important is that Mercer had planned to use one of his ex-wife’s warehouses as the distribution point, a warehouse in the north area. I’d say we have to assume that he’ll change the plans since he won’t know who I might have contacted after escaping his house. I screwed up, Kane.”

  “Don’t say that,” he replied, a trace of anger still in his voice. “You’ve got him scrambling, and that can only work to our benefit. Any ideas what a new location might be?

  “The shelter. He just closed down a shelter. I don’t know where it is, but he mentioned it being on the north side of town and that it was a large building.”

  “We’ll get men on those locations as soon as possible. If he thinks you talked, then he might move up the timeline.”

  “The shipment is coming by truck. I don’t think he can move the timeline up by more than a day or so,” she said.

  “That gives us two days.”

  “Kane, be careful who you’re talking to.”

  “I’m not talking to anyone in the agency except John Etheridge. I’ve filled him in on everything. He’s hunting down the source of our leak and at this point in time he’s the only one I trust,” Kane said. “I’ll pass this information along to him. Now, tell me where you are. I’ll come and get you.”

  “Kane, if they knew about me, there’s a strong possibility that they know about you. We shouldn’t be seen together. I’m better off on the streets for the next two days.”

  “It’s still dangerous,” he protested sternly. “Somebody could recognize you. Come in, Cassie. I’ll make sure you’re safe.”

  She closed her eyes against the promise of his words. She was never safe when she was with Kane. He was a menace to her mental health.

  She opened her eyes once again. “I know how to be invisible on the streets. I’ll be fine. But, Kane, I want to be there when Mercer is brought down.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  “You figure out the details and let’s set up a meet two nights from now.”

  “Just tell me when and where.”

  “There’s a soup kitchen run by a Catholic Church downtown. It’s in the basement of the Holy Family Church. They serve dinner to the homeless there every night from six to eight. I’ll be there in two nights at around six-thirty.”

  “Then I’ll be there. Cassie…” There was a long pause, as if he wanted to say something more but was afraid of how she might react.

  “Goodbye, Kane.” She disconnected.

  There had been something in the way he had said her name…a softness…a tenderness that had made her decide she didn’t want to hear what he might say.

  Two days. She had two days to live on the streets and stay alive. Right now the report of her death had been greatly exaggerated. She needed to keep it that way.

  Chapter 15

  The streets of Kansas City were just as unkind to her now as the streets of Los Angeles had been almost twenty years ago.

  Cassie spent her two days in the downtown area of the city, in the shadows of the tall old buildings that had once comprised a thriving shopping district boasting some of the finest stores in the country.

  Now the storefronts were mostly empty, business murdered by the birth of suburban malls. There were still companies conducting business from downtown offices and during the daylight hours those workers gave the place an aura of hustle-bustle.

  However, by seven in the evenings, the streets became deserted, traffic became sparse and the homeless claimed the area as their own.

  At twilight the homeless men and women drifted out from the shadows of the buildings and alleys, foraging in the public trash cans for food or anything that might come in handy. Whenever an occasional patrol car drove by they scattered like seeds to the wind.

  During her two days and nights on the street, Cassie had plenty of time to think. An alcove doorway of one of the abandoned stores became her ‘‘crib’’ and she spent those two days sitting against the boarded up doorway, her mind racing as her body rested.

  The heat and humidity made any kind of comfort impossible. Any kind of breeze felt as if it came from a blast furnace and only served to stir up a cloud of dust.

  It was impossible to be out on the streets once again and not think about those days so long ago when survival had depended on how smart, how fast and how strong she could be.

  Even though the first eleven years of her life with her mother had been difficult ones, nothing had prepared her for being thrown out into the streets to survive on her own.

  But Cassie had been a fast study. After the first initial days she’d learned survival of
the fittest. She’d fought for food and to protect herself. She’d beaten and got beaten more times than she could remember. She’d learned street scams and thievery, pickpocketing and shoplifting.

  She wasn’t proud of what she had done, but she’d survived in the only way she’d known. Until Max had entered her life and had taught her a way to live within the law, a way to live with pride and dignity.

  Now she was back on the streets and she guarded her space with the ferocity of a territorial junkyard dog. She slept with one eye open, as she had done all those years ago when she’d been prey to people bigger than her. She kept her switchblade in her hand, ready to use in self-defense, but thankfully didn’t need to use it.

  The address burned in her head: 1327 Paseo Drive. When this was all over she’d go there and confront the woman who had given her birth then had dumped her out of a car like a box full of unwanted puppies.

  These thoughts played in her head while she cooled her heels waiting for her meeting with Kane. She also wondered what was happening. Had SPACE covered all the bases? Had they managed to discover the definite location for the distribution? Had John Etheridge identified the mole in the secret organization?

  She felt so disconnected from everything that was happening, so isolated from everything she held dear. She not only missed her home and Max, she was surprised to realize she even missed her cantankerous neighbor.

  However, before she could go back to her real life, she needed to see this assignment through. She personally wanted to be there when Adam was arrested. She wanted to be there at the distribution site to see his face when he realized it had all fallen apart.

  She’d spent enough time around Adam to suspect that what had begun as some sort of twisted need to punish those responsible for his daughter’s death had become something less complicated, as in greed.

  Ironically, he was just like any other dope dealer looking for a big payday. By the time her meeting with Kane came, she was more than ready to get back into the game, to find out what was happening and how they were going to shut Adam down.