She studied the phone in her hands. “It says the car will be here in two minutes. It’s a black Nissan. Guy’s name is Carl.”
“What did you type in for a destination?”
“The mall. But we need to get off the grid as soon as we can.”
“What do you know about staying off the grid?” She was making him doubt her more every time she opened her mouth.
She rolled her eyes. “Haven’t you ever seen that show where people try to stay under the radar from ex-military officers, cops, and MI6 agents for like thirty days? They always get caught because they log on to a computer, use a cell or ATM, or by passing highway cameras checking license plates. Or do something as simple as going grocery shopping or getting gas. The ones who win camp in the woods. There are cameras everywhere the police can tap in to when they know who their target is.”
Was there really a show like that? He’d have to google that. “Can your mother send her plane?”
“No.” Sara worked her bottom lip with her teeth as she watched her phone’s screen. “She’s in London with her plane. I think we’re going to have to take back roads home. The interstate will have cameras.”
He glanced at her screen and confirmed the car was really on the way and she wasn’t texting with an accomplice. Was Sara leading him into a trap? He’d discovered from their few encounters that she was smart and able. “Why don’t you seem more surprised by all of this? It’s not every day I overhear someone plotting to kill me.”
“I’m freaking out on the inside, believe me. But we need to stay calm and clearheaded.” Then she narrowed her eyes at him. “But I think you already know that my mother called yesterday and said she had her suspicions about my dad and his new partners. She hired you to watch out for me, didn’t she?”
What the hell? Was her mother involved too? “I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. So how do we get to your mother’s house?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know yet. Driving might be the easiest. They probably have a tracker on my car too, though. And we’d need gas a few times to drive all the way home, so it’d only work if we look different for the cameras.”
The car Sara ordered drove up to the parking lot. “I hate not having a phone.” She dropped her cell onto the cement and kicked it next to his under the parked car. Then they both kept their heads down and climbed into the backseat.
The surfer-boy driver smiled and headed out. “Sorry about your breakup, Sara. Scott seemed like a cool dude, but that was just wrong, man.”
“Thanks, Carl.” She leaned close to Brent and whispered, “He’s going to post that I was in his car the minute we get out at the mall. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea?”
He’d already decided he was going to choose the place they got out long before they got to the mall. Just in case it was a trap.
When he spotted a Mexican fast food chain ahead, he called out, “Hey, Carl? Change of plans. Would you mind pulling over there instead? We’re starving.”
The driver shrugged. “Sure. You want to drive through?”
“No. We’re going inside. You don’t have to wait.” He glanced at Sara for confirmation. She’d probably never eaten a fast food taco in her life, but she nodded.
Carl replied, “I don’t mind waiting. You have to pay for all the way to the mall even if I let you out here.” He pulled up and found a parking spot on the side, luckily, off the street.
“That’s okay.” Brent leaned over the seat and handed him two twenties. “This enough so you won’t post Sara’s whereabouts for at least an hour? So we can enjoy our meal?”
The kid smiled. “Sure, dude. I’m cool. Have a good one.”
“You too.” They both got out and waited while Carl backed out. When he was gone, Brent said, “Stay right here so I can see you through the glass. I’ll go grab some food, and we’ll figure out our next move.” And so he could send a text to Rick without Sara seeing.
Sara nodded as she dug through her purse. She found a ten and handed it over. “Get the five-dollar meal box. It’s plenty for both of us if you don’t mind sharing the drink. We might need to conserve our cash.”
He took the ten, stifling a grin. “How would you even know about the five-dollar box?”
“Seriously? You’ve got me all wrong, Brent. I’m a college student, not Eloise who lives at the Plaza with Weenie and Skipperdee!”
“Who?”
“I’ll explain later. Please just go before Carl tattles.”
He hated to leave her unsupervised, but he had no choice. She was way too recognizable to go inside with him. She didn’t have a phone anymore to contact anyone, and he’d picked the stop, so it was probably safe to leave her for a few minutes. He hurried inside to get the food.
After he ordered, he slipped away to the bathroom to text Rick before they called his pickup number over the speaker. He sent the picture and the recording of the men after them too.
Going to her mother’s in Albuquerque. Track us. Eyes on Miller? ID the other guy?
He couldn’t wait around for a response. He tucked his phone away and went back to the counter to grab their food.
Sara rifled through her purse, hoping to find some loose coins. She only had thirty dollars plus the change they’d get back from their meal. Hardly enough to get them both to Albuquerque. If they could change their looks, a bus or a train might work, but not unless she hit an ATM. But that was a surefire way to alert anyone looking for them. They couldn’t know if there were other corrupt cops who might be tracking them too.
Her sister could rent a plane and come get them, but what if the men were watching her family’s electronics too, like they did on the show she’d watched? No, she couldn’t contact anyone. She needed to stay completely off the grid.
Her mom would know there was trouble when she didn’t get her twice-daily check-in. But she’d also know Brent was with her, so maybe she was depending on him to help get them home.
She gave up digging in her purse, glancing up to check on Brent’s progress in line. He was nowhere to be found.
All the air whooshed from her lungs.
What if they’d found him? Should she go inside to help? Or run for help? But her mom said she couldn’t trust anyone but Brent to help her.
“Hope you like iced tea. I don’t drink soda.” Brent grabbed her arm and tugged her toward a quiet residential street behind the restaurant.
She laid a hand over her chest to contain her pounding heart. “Can you please learn to walk louder? You scared the hell out of me!”
Brent’s forehead creased. “I’d think that’d be a desirable trait for your getaway partner to have.”
He wasn’t wrong. “Right. Anyway, I’ve been thinking. Those guys might be tracking our families. We’re pretty much on our own. And bus stations and train stations have cameras, so the first priority, after food, needs to be our disguises. There’s probably a drug store around here.”
They passed by a darkened house with tall weeds and a For Sale sign in front. Brent said, “Wonder if that’s empty? Let’s go on the side and look into the windows.”
She followed him up the driveway. They walked along the side, where Brent stopped and handed her the bag and drink. He cupped his hands on the window and leaned close. “Kitchen light is on. No furniture in the house. Let’s go.”
They opened the gate and circled around to an outdoor fire pit with wood benches surrounding it. They sat and opened up the bag. When she spotted her change, she asked, “How much cash do you have on you?” She put the money into her wallet while he dug out the box.
“About a hundred bucks.” Brent held out the opened box for her to choose first. “Dibs on the cinnamon twisty things.”
“Forget it. Those are the best part. We’ll share.” She grabbed a taco and unwrapped it. “Without a phone, we won’t be able to check train and bus fares, but I’m guessing we don’t have enough for two tickets.”
Brent unwrapped the burrito and then poured hot sauce in a neat
puddle on the paper. “So you’re going to ditch me?”
“No. My mother would kill me. We need to find a car. And hair dye. Clothes, tennis shoes, and hats wouldn’t hurt.” She finished off her taco, then went for the chalupa. “You want half of this?”
He shook his head. “Do you have any Malibu Barbie friends who live around here?”
In the middle of a deep draw from their shared tea, a thought struck her. “Scott! We can walk from here. I just asked for my things back while we were dancing, and he said he hadn’t changed his codes. Let’s hurry before they get back from the wedding.”
They both stuffed the rest of their food into their mouths and took the cinnamon twists with them. There was an empty trash can beside the house where they dumped the bag and wrappers inside. Her heels were just going to slow them down, so she laid a hand on Brent’s broad shoulder and slipped them off. Just as she was about to toss them in the bin, Brent’s hand covered hers.
He grabbed the shoes from her and turned them over. “They have red bottoms. That means expensive right?”
“Yeah. Are you thinking we can sell them for cash?”
“Maybe. Best to keep them for now. Especially because I don’t want to have to carry you if we have to cross a bunch of stickers.” He crammed her shoes in his suit coat pockets as they walked down the drive.
By the time they hit the sidewalk, she was still offended about the “have to carry you” remark. “I think a man who can bench press over two hundred pounds shouldn’t be a big baby about having to carry a person who weighs half that.”
Brent’s eyes cut her way as they walked uphill. “Half of two hundred?”
She lifted her chin. “Half and then a third again. Maybe a smidge more, but only because of the six drinks at the wedding. And then the chalupa.”
He patted his flat stomach. “You gotta learn to just say no to those chalupas. You’re not twenty-five anymore.”
“Very funny.” She took both hands and tried to playfully shove him off the curb, but it was like trying to move a brick wall.
“When you’re done trying to throw me into oncoming traffic, can you tell me why Scott is going to happily lend us a car?”
A car hadn’t passed by them yet on the dark, quiet street. “Scott wants to get back together with me—because apparently he doesn’t think I’m fat—so maybe we can use that. We’ll leave a note so he doesn’t call the cops. Cross fingers we don’t run into them.”
“If we do, you’ll have to lose the scowl to be convincing.”
She hadn’t realized she’d scowled at Scott earlier. “Or, maybe we could just shoot him in the foot with your gun and run?”
Brent’s lips twitched, and he almost smiled. “What makes you think I have a gun?”
“It’s why you always wear suits to work, isn’t it? To cover up the gun? Because you’re my bodyguard?”
“Maybe I just like to look professional at my job, Nancy Drew.”
She smiled at his evasion. And that he’d made another joke. “If you were aiming to look like a professional bodyguard, then you nailed it.”
“Whatever you say.” He tilted the bag of sweet fried dough toward her as they walked. “Would you like the last one? Or would that just be enabling you? There’s a lot of calories in these.”
“My mother isn’t paying you to abuse me.” She snatched the bag and then moaned with pleasure as she took a bite.
He was quiet for a few minutes before he asked, “Do you think they’d be monitoring Scott’s electronics too? Maybe we could use his computer to book and pay for train tickets?”
“Since we only broke up a few days ago, I’d say it’s possible they’re watching Scott’s online activity too. Or maybe I’m just being paranoid because of the TV show.” She chewed the last of the sweet treat as she pondered. It was uphill to Scott’s house, and she had a hard time keeping up with Brent’s long strides. “It sort of runs in my family. Being paranoid. I get it from your boss. We need to go this way for a bit and then up.”
“You mean your father?”
“It’s going to be a long few days if you don’t give up this act. My mom said she was going to be looking out for me. She has a history of hiring bodyguards for me and my sister that goes way back.”
“Because your sister was kidnapped as a kid?”
She nodded as they walked across the street. She’d enjoy the flat few sidewalks before they had to go uphill again. “I feel like this is all going to turn out fine if we just look for opportunities and keep moving.” But mostly because her mother would have kidnapped her for sure if she thought her daughter was going to die. But that didn’t mean they could be careless. They needed to look for the clues her sister had already given her.
The ring, and the tacos—that Brent picked, not her—already made sense. And Superman, but the blond hair still didn’t work, so maybe that had meant something else. It was good Brent had asked to stop for tacos, so they hadn’t gone too far from Scott’s house. Even if Carl told the world where he’d dropped them off, it wouldn’t necessarily tell anyone where to find them. And both their phones were still near the venue, so maybe they hadn’t figured out they’d left yet.
They just needed to look for the three cacti, a tent, a blue four-wheel drive, a pay phone, and the gun. But Brent probably had that.
After a few more minutes of Sara trying to get him to admit he was her bodyguard, they finally stood in front of the gates surrounding Scott’s massive Mediterranean-style house. There were a few lights on, so it was unclear if Scott and Brandi were back yet. “Does he have staff?”
“No. Not on the weekends.” Sara punched a series of numbers into the box by the large iron gate. “We’ll go to the garage and count the cars to see if they’re in there. Then we’ll decide what to do.”
“Count the cars? How many does he have?”
“Six.” The gates shook and then slowly started to part. Sara squeezed through as soon as she was able, but he was twice as wide and had to wait another few seconds to fit. He caught up with her on the long asphalt drive.
When they got to the garage doors, she punched in another code and one of the doors silently slid open. She grabbed his arm and pulled him inside with her, before she quickly punched in more numbers to close the door behind them. “His Jag is missing. Perfect.”
The light from the opener showed five cars standing in the humungous garage. A Mercedes SUV, a BMW sedan, a Porsche, a crossover Alpha Romeo, and a hulking black Hummer. He’d always wanted to drive a Hummer. But the BMW was probably a better choice.
But then he spotted the bikes. Scott had three. Not just one but three Ducati motorcycles. His dream rides. So sleek, powerful, and beautiful, it made him want to sigh as he ran his hand over one of the smooth gas tanks.
Sara moved beside him. “Don’t even think about it. Our butts would be numb after the first half hour. And it’s cold outside of California this time of year. He never uses the Beemer, it was a gift from a movie studio, so we’ll take that.”
Too bad. “That’s the one I had in mind anyway.”
Sara smiled. “Sure it was. I have some workout clothes here. You’re more muscle-bound than Scott, but maybe some of his sweats would work for you. He wears them loose.”
“Sounds good. Let’s hurry before they get home.”
He followed behind Sara into the house. It was hard not to stare at all the over-the-top opulence. The art on the walls, the shiny things embedded in the tile on the floor that couldn’t be real gold. That’d be such a waste of gold, wouldn’t it? But the indoor pool that led to an outdoor pool with a view all the way to the ocean was like nothing he’d ever seen.
When he stopped to figure out if the whole glass wall rose up, Sara grabbed his arm and tugged. She said, “I know that’s amazing, but I need to dye your hair red, so hurry up.”
“Red?” No way. “That’ll stand out too much.”
She led him into a room similar to the room she had in her house with makeup cha
irs and a beauty salon. They stopped in front of a shelf filled with little boxes of dye. They were all blond. “See? Scott wouldn’t be caught dead with red hair.”
Sara frowned. “He has no imagination, that’s all. And I was kidding. Looks like blond it is. I’ve never cut and dyed my own hair before, so maybe I should experiment on you first. Let me read these instructions on the box. It’ll just take me a few minutes. Or maybe I can just use these?” She picked up a pair of electric clippers. “It’d be faster. You might look like a badass totally bald.”
Hell no.
He ran his hands down his face, reminding himself that he’d wanted real fieldwork. But he hadn’t only gotten thrown into the deep end, he was going to be forced to reveal some of his secret skills to a woman who, for all he knew yet, planned to kill him in his sleep. Or shave his head. His gut said the shaved head was the more likely scenario if he didn’t intervene, but still.
They always said at the academy to keep the cover as close to the truth as possible. Easier to maintain the story that way. And time was of the essence, Scott and Brandi would be there soon, and the men at the wedding would figure out they left too if they hadn’t already, so Sara’s plan made sense.
Besides, he needed to know if Sara’s mother was in on the scam too. How else would she have been able to warn Sara? He had to make sure they got the car and changed their looks to have a fighting chance. But it was something he’d never live down with the guys after he filled out his detailed report admitting to the skills his mother had taught him.
“I can dye our hair, Sara. And cut it too. Have a seat.”
Chapter 6
Who would’ve ever guessed a built guy like Brent would know how to cut and dye hair? Sara blinked at her reflection in Scott’s makeup room’s mirror. She looked really different as a blonde. Better or worse, she wasn’t sure.
As much as she hated to lose her long locks, Brent had told her to trust him. Then he shortened her hair, layered it, and gave her sexy spiky bangs too. He was a handy guy to have around.
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