Crossing Lines by Adrienne Giordano
22
“Go!”
What the hell was Faith doing? She needed to get out. Get out and run because whoever set this fire had a reason. And that reason was, more than likely, Alfaro finding him.
Or Alfaro finding the person helping the woman who’d killed his son.
Either way, she shouldn’t be here, putting herself in danger.
A loud crack sounded and Shane spun, body blocking Faith as an exposed beam behind them gave way, one end slamming to the floor.
Holy shit.A second sooner and it would have landed on them, trapping them in this inferno. Forget the money.
And the ribbon.
He shifted his gaze from the beam to the walls and ceiling just beyond, now fully engulfed.
He couldn’t fight this bitch with a fire extinguisher. It was too big, too violent. He’d have to leave the money and the ribbon behind. Not worth dying over.
Flames devoured the side wall to his left. He shot at it but — whump — the flames doubled, spreading toward the door.
He peeked over his shoulder. Another ten feet and they’d be out. He slid in front of Faith and continued sweeping back and forth, clearing a path as they moved to the exit.
Orange licks retreated.
Now.He ditched the extinguisher. “Run!”
They cleared the back door just before another burst of flames lit it up. Outside, sirens wailed. A thick sheet of rain bulleted down and — thank you, sweet baby Jesus — no pain-in-the-ass onlookers gathered in the alley.
But the sidewalk. He’d bet even with the rain, that sucker was packed. The arsonist might be watching his work. Standing around. Enjoying the show.
He glanced at his car, parked right where he’d left it.
Keys.
Shit. He’d left them on his desk in their usual spot.
Shane pointed right. Away from the front of the building. “This way.”
They bolted to the end of the alley, slowing as they neared the corner. A crowd had gathered across the street, some of them tucked under umbrellas and all of them staring up at rising black smoke that meshed with the sea of gray above.
Faith, already soaked, slipped her long-sleeved shirt over her head and grabbed his hand. “Away from the crowd.”
From his pocket, his phone vibrated. Still moving, he checked the screen. Dusty. “Hey.”
“Where are you?”
“Just left the bar.”
“You’re okay? Neither of you were answering and I freaked the fuck out. I’m five minutes away.”
“We’re good. The bar is an inferno.” A few seconds of silence drifted between them. “Dusty?”
“Wait. The bar is on fire?”
“Yeah. Someone torched it.” He glanced behind them, checking their six and not seeing anyone who gave him the willies. “I was in the kitchen, heard glass shatter and the place went up.”
“Molotov cocktail?”
“Guessing. Someone is ballsy because they tossed it through the front door window.”
“Maybe your security camera caught them.”
“Maybe. But do you seriously think they’d make it that easy?”
His friend knew better. If this was one of Alfaro’s men, which Shane had every reason to believe, it would be someone whose photo wasn’t in a database. That’s how the man worked. Everything neat and tidy.
Call-waiting beeped. He checked the screen. Chicago number. He let it go. “Listen,” Shane said to Dusty, “we’re going back to the hotel. We’ve gotta get off the street. We’ll get our stuff and find another place.”
“I’ll pick you up.”
“No. You can’t.”
“Shane—”
“Dusty, no. I appreciate it. But you can’t be anywhere near us. Not right now. I have no idea what’s going on. And we’re not risking you. I’m out.”
He clicked off and tucked the phone in his front pocket, thankful he hadn’t told Dusty their hotel. Hopefully, his friend would get a hold of his good sense and not track Shane’s phone.
Thunder boomed and the wind and fat rain slapped his face.
Soaked to the skin, but alive.
He wouldn’t complain. He grabbed Faith’s hand and picked up his pace, nearly dragging her through the deluge. From his pocket, his phone chimed. Voice mail. Probably the cops telling him his business was burning.
Something in his shoulders locked up. Two years of hard work. Gone.
He’d deal with that later.
“He’s a good friend,” Faith said, using her arm to wipe rain from her eyes.
She’d been quiet since they’d left the bar. For a mouthy woman like her, quiet was never good. Quiet meant too much thinking and that scared the shit out of him. “Yeah, he is.”
“And so are you. For wanting to protect him. Especially now, when we could use the help.”
He glanced around again. Behind them, a few pedestrians hustled along. Businesspeople trying to control wind-blown umbrellas while carrying briefcases and backpacks. A guy in a baseball cap wearing jeans and a light jacket held his cap in place with one hand and ditched his coffee in a trash can with the other.
Him. Something was off.
Student?
Or some other random innocent person out for a cup of coffee. In the rain? Why didn’t he just stay inside the coffee shop, let the storm blow over?
“We’re turning right at this corner,” Shane told Faith.
“What? The hotel is straight.”
“Turn right. We might have a tail.”
Being the pro she was, she didn’t flinch. Didn’t look back, didn’t ask questions. She just hooked the turn and they hauled ass. Halfway down the block, Shane checked behind them where coffee-guy crossed the street. Completely ignoring them.
Goddammit. He hated this. The constant paranoia.
“Are we good?” Faith asked.
“I think so.”
“Okay. About the fire, the only thing I can think is maybe they don’t know who you are. Maybe Brutus has seen me with you and to put pressure on me, they torched your place.”
“They burn my business down as a warning to you that they’re coming after anyone who helps you?” He shook it off. “I can’t figure any of this. Even if they are playing with us, how the hell does Brutus or Alfaro constantly know where we are? This is coming from someone inside. Sully must be flapping his gums.”
“Oh, here we go again with Sully.”
Shane stopped at the corner, waited for the walk sign and turned left, crossing the street. “He’s our only loose end. If it’s not him, it’s someone he’s talking to.”
Trevor had just warned him about this. About Faith possibly taking them down.
Faith double-timed her steps to keep up. “Why does it have to be my friend?”
“Ha! You think it’s Dusty? Or Trevor? Please. They’d have nothing to gain. Besides, I know them.”
“Well, I know Sully.” She waved it away. “This isn’t helping. Let’s deal with what we know. I agree that if Alfaro knew who you were, you’d be dead already. I think this is psychological warfare. It’s about torturing me and I’m done with that.”
Ten minutes later,Shane slipped his room key from his back pocket, swiped and pushed the door open. He left Faith at the door and quickly cleared the room. All good. He waved Faith inside. She strode past him, her steps slow, almost cautious.
Disregarding the fact that water dripped from every spot on her body, she lowered herself to the bed, keeping her eyes on the carpet and propping her hands on her knees.
“I’m so sorry,” she said.
The door shut behind them and he flipped the safety lever before striding toward her.
“Did you set that fire?”
For a few seconds, she continued to stare at the floor, then finally peered up at him, her lips forming a perfect O. “No! Of course not. But I sure as hell brought it to you.”
His cell phone rang. Again. He pulled it from his pocket. Chicago number. Eventually, he’d have to answer.
“How’d you know?” he asked Faith. “That I was in trouble?”
“Reynaldo called me. He overheard Alfaro talking about a fire at the Corner Tap. When I couldn’t get in touch with you, I panicked. They found you. Because of me.”
Shane shrugged. “Maybe not me, but the guy helping you. You said it yourself. I’m not usually in the bar this early on Friday. I close on Thursday, so my staff gets the kitchen prepped. Brutus could have told Alfaro there was a man helping you. A man who owns a bar that they could torch as a warning. I still think we have a leak, but the warning idea is feasible.”
She let out a sarcastic snort. “I don’t get that lucky.”
He shrugged. “Let’s not assume anything. We have to get you out of the city. Then we’ll figure out if I’m blown.”
His phone rang again. He ripped it from his pocket. “This has to be the cops.”
“Answer it. They’ll keep calling. Talk to them and we’ll figure out what we need to do.”
In the insanityof the day, Shane had to go back to the bar. Well, what was left of it anyway. And from what Faith had seen on the news, it wasn’t much.
As much as she didn’t want him out of her sight, fire investigators had questions and he couldn’t not go. Doing so would only arouse suspicion.
Still, this was dangerous. Who knew if an assassin was hanging around outside the bar, hiding amongst the gossipmongers and onlookers, enjoying the show.
Waiting.
For Shane.
Or maybe not. Maybe Shane had it right and whoever set that fire didn’t even know he’d been in the building. Could she get that lucky?
To have Alfaro merely sending a warning to the stranger helping Faith?
Still, people could have died.
Freshly showered and dressed in dry clothes that didn’t stink of charred wood, she finished shoving toiletries, along with the new burner phone Shane had given her from his stash, into her backpack and tossed it on the bed beside Shane’s.
She’d assured him she’d find them another hotel, bring all their belongings and text him with the room number. They had to stay mobile, constantly on the move.
Once in the new hotel, she’d call Sully. See if they’d found anything on the laptop while she’d been running through a burning building.
She slumped to the bed, dropped her head in her hands. She’d done this. Wrecked Shane’s already tenuous existence.
No matter how much he argued it wasn’t her fault, they both knew it. She should have known better than to crash into his life, expecting help when it compromised him.
Even if Sully — or Dusty for that matter — hadn’t enlightened her about Shane’s history with Alfaro, once she knew, she should have walked away.
Desperation did that. Made smart women turn stupid.
And she’d never been stupid.
Ever.
This time? Her responsibility.
And running wasn’t an option. If Shane had been compromised, her leaving wouldn’t help him. She had to get him out of it. He deserved peace and she sure as hell didn’t intend on spending her life on the run.
She’d rather be dead than live in fear.
She bolted upright, clarity storming her system for the first time in days.
She glanced around the hotel room. No Shane. No partner. No teammate.
Just her.
And everyone knew she worked better on her own. Queen of the Pivot. That was her. And pivoting was a whole lot easier when working solo.
Clarity. A beautiful thing.
She scooped up her backpack, carried it to the small desk and slid the laptop out.
Sully hadn’t called. If they’d found anything of interest, he’d have alerted her. Or would he? Some of it could be classified and, well, she was no longer part of that club. Plus, as much as she wanted to trust Sully, who knew if he’d shared her whereabouts with someone?
Forget Sully. Not a viable option.
No Shane, no Dusty or Trevor. Just her. She could fix this. One call. That’s all it would take.
She tapped her password into the laptop and a few clicks later got into Brutus’s contacts.
“You want to play, asshole,” she muttered. “Let’s play.”
In the files she’d seen so far, whenever Brutus mentioned Alfaro, he’d referred to him as El Presidente. Nothing in a derogatory manner or involving anything criminal. All of it, she’d assumed, had been code for whatever operation Brutus had been tasked with.
Somewhere in here she’d find Alfaro’s contact information.
She scrolled the lists, clicking on the A’s, B’s and C’s. Some were names. Normal, everyday names. The others? Code. An odd mix of letters and numbers and symbols.
She’d start with those. Study them for patterns.
Wait. Whoa.
That day on the Ferris wheel. Talking with Shane. He’d told her about his relationship with Alfaro’s son and getting busted looking at the kid’s phone.
The code.
She closed her eyes, brought herself back to that day, sitting beside Shane, staring out over the glistening lake. His warm breath on her cheek. Snuggling. She’d been so content with the human contact she’d almost purred.
The code.
Pieces of conversation came together. Andres in the bathroom. A staff member busting Shane.
Words spelled backward.
Yes. That’s what he’d said. The names were spelled backward with symbols in between.
She opened her eyes, snatched a piece of notepaper and the pen from the holder on the desk and started writing.
Matias Alfaro.
Below that she copied the letters of his first name backward.
Saitam.
Next came his last name.
Orafla.
On the laptop, she typed an S into the search bar and was rewarded with a list of names beginning with S. She skimmed any containing letters and symbols. Nothing even close to Saitam.
Maybe this wasn’t the correct code. Which would suck on many levels. The first being she wasn’t a code cracker.
Before giving up, she typed an O into the search bar. Another list of names appeared, some with symbols and numbers mixed in. She scrolled, quietly whispering the alphabet — l, m, n, o, p, q, r — as she went.
There. The names beginning with O-R.
Orab.
Oracco.
OrC9ad&&d7*o
She opened her notes app and copy/pasted the word. After studying it for a few seconds, she deleted the numbers and symbols.
Orcaddo.
She typed it backward.
Oddacro. If that was Alfaro, it was damned good code. She moved on to the next name and repeated the same exercise.
Nothing.
She kept at it, her pulse pounding and her brain barking that this could be a giant waste of time when she should be finding another hotel.
Next name.
After six failures, she considered stopping. Maybe moving on to the S’s.
A few more. Her instincts buzzed and she’d never been one to ignore her inner guides.
She scrolled to the next name.
OrT$5afX9*la
What a mess. She did her copy/pasting routine and once again deleted the numbers and symbols.
OrTafXla
Whoa. Her pulse kicked up, her mind racing ahead, which never amounted to anything good. She drew a deep breath. Focused on the word in front of her. The letters were all there. The a and the l. The F. The X and T though? Wrong.
But if she eliminated those . . .
Delete. Delete.
Orafla.
And Orafla spelled backward . . .
Slowly, she typed the word, making sure to get each letter correct.
A-l-f-a-r-o.
Alfaro.
No way. Her slamming heart sent tiny shock waves to her limbs. She shook out her hands, fought the blood rush.
Before she got too far ahead of herself — more than one Alfaro in the world — she moved to the first name in the entry.
n*Sa4Bit30am.
Again, she removed the numbers and symbols.
nSaBitam.
Shoot. Just as with Alfaro, some of the letters were right. Some not. The capital S and B didn’t fit. She deleted those.
naitam.
She reversed the spelling.
Matian.
Matian? No, that wasn’t right. But the S?
She put it back in and removed the n.
Saitam.
And Saitam backward? M-a-t-i-a-s.
Matias Alfaro.
She’d found the son of a bitch.