by L. T. Ryan
“Who is they?”
“Beck and his partner.”
“Dammit, Sinclair. Who is his partner?”
Sinclair said nothing. He reached under the table. Clarissa’s right hand inched backward. He retrieved his bag off the floor. She felt a cold sweat form on her neck. She knew what he kept in the bag. Her gaze flicked to the man standing fifteen feet away from her. He showed no inclination of moving. When she looked back at Sinclair, he held a piece of paper in his hand.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Take a look,” he said, placing the paper on the table and sliding it toward her.
Clarissa took a step forward and glanced down. A picture of Beck’s face was positioned in the upper right hand corner of the paper. Next to it, printed in all-caps, was the word WANTED. She didn’t need to read the rest to know the reason.
Sinclair reached into his bag again. Clarissa jumped back, checking to her right. The man still hand’t moved. Sinclair glanced up at her, smiling.
“No need to worry. If I was going to do something, it’d already be done.”
He pulled out another sheet of paper and placed it next to Beck’s wanted poster. This time she didn’t step forward. She didn’t have to in order to recognize her own face.
“You said I wasn’t wanted.”
“I lied.”
The gun in her waistband felt cold against her sweat-lined back. The reassurance it provided kept her pushing forward.
“Why?”
Sinclair clasped his hands together. “How else would I have gotten you here in order to help you?”
“You could have come to me.”
“I tried. You killed my man.”
She struggled to keep from smiling. There was no remorse over killing Randy.
“Men,” she said.
“The rest meant nothing to me. He chose them. Probably criminals from around here or somewhere else. Although, if their bosses knew what they were up to, you might have other problems coming your way.”
“I can handle those guys.”
“Apparently.”
She said nothing.
“You want to walk out that door?” He gestured toward the front of the restaurant. “Then go ahead. But don’t ask me for help after you’re caught.” He paused, presumably waiting to see if she’d leave. “In a few minutes we can all leave together. I’m going to take you someplace safe, somewhere you’ve been before, until this is all over.”
She couldn’t tell by his stare or the look on his face if his intentions were nefarious.
His cell phone, which he’d placed on the table when he went for his bag, began to ring. He glanced down on it before answering.
“Yes, Julie,” he said. “Right. Right.” A long pause ensued. Clarissa could hear nothing of the other end of the conversation. “Well done. I’ll let you know what comes of Clarissa if we find her. Everything I’ve heard tells me that she had nothing to do with this, though. I’m sure once you break him down, he’ll confirm this.”
Clarissa knew what would follow.
Sinclair placed his phone on the table, face down. He smiled for a moment. “They caught Beck. Actually, he went to them. They took him down before he managed to shoot anyone. They think he was going for Banner and Polanski. They fear he was aiming higher than that, which leaves major concerns because they still don’t have his partner. They don’t know the identity of his partner. As you could see, I’m doing everything I can to assure them it is not you. In the end, I know it’ll be Jordan.”
She was unable to hold back the tears. They slipped from the corner of her eyes and fell down her cheeks. The tracks left in the wake felt cold in the steady stream of air conditioning blowing from the vent overhead.
Sinclair said, “Don’t feel bad, Clarissa. He fooled everyone, including me. I could have never guessed he’d be behind something like this. Granted, I don’t know him that well, but Banner vouches for him, and that’s enough for me. Was, I suppose.”
This can’t be happening. Why didn’t he kill me when he had the chance?
“You’re lucky you made it this far. I guess he knew that if he didn’t return with you, that’d make him look guilty, since they knew he left with you.”
She refused to wipe away the remnants of her tears. “They did know, didn’t they? And so did you. How, Sinclair? How is it you knew we took that Jeep?”
He shrugged. “What Jeep?”
“We found the anti-theft tracking system that had been installed.”
“Pity you didn’t locate that sooner. You might still be at the cabin, and he’d still be your hero.”
“I don’t need any damn heroes in my life.”
Sinclair flashed a smile and quickly stifled it. “Anyway, even if you did, it wouldn’t be a vice president killing one.” He slid toward her. “We should get going.”
She resigned herself to leaving with Sinclair and seeing where things went.
Then the phone in her pocket buzzed twice.
Chapter 36
At once it felt as though her throat had closed and her lungs swelled up to twice their size. Her heart pounded against her chest. Her brain felt light, and her vision darkened around the edges.
Beck wasn’t guilty and they did not have him in custody. How else could he call her?
And Sinclair had no idea she knew. Clarissa couldn’t give any sign that she did.
Sinclair reached the end of the bench seat and placed one hand on the table and the other on the back of the booth. Rising, he told her he’d be back in a moment.
His cologne hovered in the air for several seconds after he passed. She didn’t turn around to watch him. Instead, she kept an eye on the other man to see if he gave anything away. If there was someone else inside, he’d look in their direction.
His stare never wavered from her.
Her throat loosened. Air rushed in through her mouth, steadying her body. She counted the seconds, which seemed to stretch on for minutes.
“I’ll let it ring twice,” Beck had said, “And then hang up and call back thirty seconds later.”
Her initial shock had clouded her judgment. How much longer until the next call was to come in? It didn’t matter whether she reached a count of fifteen, twenty, or thirty. Anything in close proximity would be good enough.
A door behind her banged open.
The man in front of her looked toward the other corner of the restaurant.
She heard Sinclair’s footsteps from the hallway leading to the restrooms.
The phone vibrated against her leg once again.
Slowly, she stuck her hand inside her pocket. She felt along the phone and pressed the first button she found. The vibrations stopped. Had she only managed to silence the phone? Or had she accomplished her goal and answered it, allowing Beck to hear everything that happened. He’d told her that he could find her with the phone. If he knew something was wrong, he’d come for her.
“We should be going,” Sinclair said, still out of her view.
She pulled her hand out of her pocket, leaving the phone inside, and reached behind her back. A few seconds later she gripped the pistol.
She turned and saw Sinclair heading toward the front door. He stopped next to the other man, looked back at her.
“Going?”
She shook her head.
Sinclair smiled and forced a breath that sounded something like a laugh. “Now is not the time to mess around, Clarissa. We need to leave.”
She brought her hand around and aimed the gun in his direction. His smile faded.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Veering from the plan.”
His voice rose with anger. “This is not the time to go rogue on me, girl.”
“On the floor.”
He reached for his bag with his free hand.
Clarissa extended her arm. “I wouldn’t do that.”
He held her gaze for a few moments, presumably to gauge how serious she was about
shooting him. His eyes relaxed, indicating he didn’t deem her a threat. He took a step toward her.
“Stop.” She locked in on him.
He kept moving toward her.
She adjusted her aim and fired, hitting the other man just below his right knee. The guy screamed as he fell to the floor. Sinclair halted and spun around. He looked back at Clarissa, eyes wide, and reached his free hand into his bag.
She fired again. The shot went wide, but it caused Sinclair to dive into an empty booth.
The man on the floor had stopped flopping around like a fish and had retrieved his weapon. He fired wildly. She felt plaster coat the back of her neck after his shot slammed into the wall.
Clarissa spun and lunged toward the kitchen door. Hoping it wasn’t locked, she drove her shoulder into it and allowed her momentum to carry her into the kitchen. She angled her body so that she landed on her left side. The impact knocked the wind from her and she lost her grip on the pistol. It slid across the floor. A cook with a thick black mustache stopped it with the insole of his shoe.
Sinclair yelled something from the dining room. As the door flapped between open and shut, the sound of his voice rose and fell. She glanced back. He was out of view. She clawed her way up to her hands and knees. The cook leaned over and reached for the pistol.
“Don’t,” she said.
The guy’s forehead crinkled into a dozen jagged lines as his eyebrows bunched up. He lifted his gaze toward hers. With his hands inches from the pistol’s grip, he froze.
Clarissa dove forward, grabbing the gun and knocking the cook off his feet. The other cooks in the kitchen howled their disapproval. A scan of the kitchen with the pistol shut them up.
“How do I get out of here?” she asked, rising to her feet.
No one said anything.
She glanced toward the door that separated the kitchen from the dining room. Two feet blocked the light at the inch-wide gap between the door and floor. For whatever reason, Sinclair remained there. She thought of the man on the roof. Was he on his way down to seal off the rear entrance, trapping her?
Raising the pistol, she said, “How do I get out?”
A tall and wide black man standing in front of a boiling fryer pointed to the far end of the kitchen. She saw nothing but a wall there.
“Behind the wall,” the guy said. “There’s a door that leads to the alley. “If you go right, it dead ends. You gotta go left, then either way at the brick wall.”
Before turning to leave, she said, “Can you guys block that door?” The man nodded. That was enough for her. She sprinted toward the rear of the room and saw the hallway leading around the back wall.
A splinter of light filtered in through the cracked rear door. She slowed down, studying the narrow opening for signs of someone waiting there. There were no shadows. The only thing she smelled on the draft coming through was trash, presumably from the dumpster next to the back landing.
Clarissa positioned herself in front of the door. She held her pistol with both hands, extending her arms straight out. She lifted her right leg and drove her foot forward, connecting with the door and whipping it outward. Metal clanked against metal. The door returned toward her, slowing to a crawl on rusted hinges. She stepped forward, nudged it open again. The area behind the restaurant was clear. At least at ground level. There could be a man lurking on the roof.
Recalling the cook’s instructions, she ran to the left, staying close enough to the building that her shoulder scraped the rough brick. Glancing up, she spotted awnings and overhangs. They provided enough cover that the man on the roof would have to extend his body out and over to get a shot. Which meant she could return fire. His weapon likely provided more accuracy than hers. He’d be forced to take cover, though.
She approached what looked to be a dead end. On three sides, brick and concrete rose into the sky fifty feet or more. Twenty feet away, she saw alleys leading left and right. Left would bring her back to the street the restaurant was located on. She angled to the right and hit the alley’s pavement at top speed. Small dumpsters and metal trashcans lined the narrow pathway. She dodged them and trash on the ground. Two sparring cats took off in different directions as she approached them. Clarissa fought every urge to look back. The street was close. She had no idea what she’d do when she reached it.
Chapter 37
The black sedan that screeched to a halt in front of her looked like any of the other hundreds of government vehicles she’d seen in her lifetime. Facing the passenger side, she lifted her pistol as the driver’s door swung open. Nearby, a woman screamed, resulting in dozens of stares zeroing in on her. How many had thought to aim their phones in her direction and snap pictures or record what happened next?
The car’s windows were tinted black. Though the sun shined through the front windshield, she couldn’t make out the outlines of anyone inside the car. Whether it contained only the driver, she didn’t know.
Enough time had passed that it could be Sinclair inside the vehicle. But leaving his position and searching for her in a random spot seemed unlikely. Of course, she’d taken another of his men out and escaped. His thinking might’ve been anything but rational.
Time seemed to stand still as she waited for the driver to emerge from the car. A split second would be all the time she would have to make a decision. The odds were heavily in favor of her firing. She aimed the pistol over the roof of the car, in the area where the person’s head would emerge from cover.
At once, the world sped up. She became aware of the people diving into stores and office buildings. Cars sped away or braked before coming too close. The busy area turned into the middle of nowhere.
A man yelled her name. His voice came from her right. She didn’t have to turn to know that Sinclair had left the restaurant and tracked her down. He did it on foot, though, which left few options as to the identity of the car’s driver.
The man on the other side of the car emerged and rose to face her. Her first instinct was to shoot. But she forced her finger away from the trigger.
“Get in,” Beck said.
Thunder cracked from the other end of the street. The bullet slammed into a meter ten feet away from her. Glass shattered and sprayed through the air.
She looked toward the source of the sound. Sinclair lowered his weapon and ran toward her. Had he missed on purpose in order to gain her attention? His gait was off. It seemed as though he favored his right leg. There was no visible injury.
“Clarissa, get in now.” Beck lowered himself and ducked inside the car.
She took one last look at Sinclair, who had halted and raised his arm in the air. She reached out and pulled the front door open. She paused at the sight of Jordan sitting in the passenger seat. He unlatched his seatbelt and turned away from her.
Another shot rang out. The passenger door’s window exploded into thousands of tiny fragments. They reflected the sun’s light as they fell to the road.
Jordan climbed between the front seats toward the rear of the vehicle. Clarissa didn’t wait for him to make it all the way back. She lunged into the car, knocking into the man and sending his lower half into Beck. It seemed to have no effect on Beck, though. He shifted into drive and pulled away before Clarissa had a chance to close her door.
“Get down,” Beck said.
Clarissa wasn’t sure if his comments were directed at her, Jordan, or both of them. She leaned forward. A second later, a third shot was fired. Beck flinched forward. The bullet missed the car. Rising up, she had no idea where it had landed.
Beck jerked the wheel hard to the right at the first intersection they came to. With no seatbelt to restrain her, Clarissa lurched to the left into him. He remained unfazed as he held the wheel steady and forced the car around the corner.. Crowds gathered behind the safety of the buildings. Several people pointed at the careening vehicle. Beck straightened out the screaming tires and gunned the engine, blowing through a red light. Clarissa clamped her eyelids shut, flinching at the s
ound of a horn fast approaching her side of the car. The impact never came.
Halfway down the next block, she forced her eyes open. They continued on another mile, then Beck changed course, heading west, away from the city and toward I-495. When they reached River Road, he eased back in his seat. She followed his lead.
“What happened back there?” Beck asked.
Clarissa shook her head. “How did you know? How did you find me?”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a cell phone. It matched the one he’d given her. “When you didn’t answer my call I knew something was wrong. Like I said, I can track you through this.”
His mentioning that reminded her of something that happened inside the restaurant. “He knew I was out there.”
“Who? Sinclair?”
“Yes.”
“Outside the building?”
“I was on the other side of the street. With the hat and short, dark hair, there’s no way he could have spotted me from a hundred feet away through windows and foot traffic.”
Beck shrugged. She couldn’t tell by the look on his face if he was following her or not.
“Beck, he can track me. Like you with the cell phone, he has a way of tracking me.”
“What?”
“The RFID chip. When I asked how he knew I was out there, he didn’t answer, but his stare shot to my wrist. I know you said that the technology for GPS isn’t there, but—”
Beck interrupted. “But RF technology could pinpoint your location to a couple miles.” He stared into the rear view mirror for a few seconds too long. “Which means he might still have you on his radar.”
She looked down at the raised lump of skin on her left wrist. Beck’s hand blocked her view. He extended a pocket knife to her.
“Are you serious?” she asked.
He said nothing. Didn’t need to. The look in his eyes was enough.
She took the knife from him. “Is it sterile?”
Jordan leaned forward and produced a lighter. “I’ll sterilize it for you.”