Crossing Lines by Adrienne Giordano
8
The woman was makinghim nuts.
Shane had no problem admitting that to himself as he lay sprawled against the back of his crappy pullout mattress with the busted spring that, no matter how many times he flip-flopped, he couldn't get away from. As soon as they settled this deal with Brutus, he’d fix that damn spring.
Or buy a new couch.
In the beginning, the first few months he’d lived here, he’d bought as little furniture as possible until he got a feel for whether he’d be staying. Six months of sleeping on the pullout — and the busted spring — convinced him he should buy a bed. And dressers to put his shit in.
He shifted and the spring poked him in the lower back. No wonder he couldn’t sleep. Yeah, the spring was his problem. He’d keep telling himself it had nothing to do with the brunette currently snoozing away in his bed.
Alone.
And wasn’t that a damned shame.
With her crazy mix of toughness and vulnerability, Liz-now-Faith crawled into his bed and under his skin. Throw in the fact that she was cute as hell and had that petite body he wanted to tuck next to him and he was screwed. Totally hosed.
Worse, it felt good — comfortable — to talk to someone. Really talk. About his family and the brownies he'd become obsessed with for no other reason than they gave him hope that maybe, someday, he'd go back to being Bobby MacGregor.
That was the dream.
The squeak of his bedroom door sounded and he bolted upright. What the hell? If someone had gotten in the back door, the alarm would have sounded.
Had to be Faith. He turned to where the nightlight illuminated the hall. Faith, looking adorable in her yoga pants and T-shirt and rumpled hair, stood there and nothing about her being in his space in the middle of the night felt wrong.
That? Problem.
She looked straight at him. “You’re awake.”
Sure am.
He cleared his throat. “Yeah. Winding down.”
She headed straight for him and — shit. He’d taken his damned shirt off, as he did every damned night before going to bed. And somehow, the idea of him being shirtless in a bed sparked a supremely excellent vision of Faith flat on her back, bare-assed naked and under him. Call him lonely. Call him horny. Call him whatever, but he liked that vision.
He shook his head, half-laughing to himself. He'd be up all night after this.
“I can't sleep.” She waved one hand around her head. “Too much going on.”
Despite his own warnings, Shane scooted over, reached for the T-shirt he tossed on the opposite arm of the couch and grabbed the remote. What the hell was he doing?
Putting clothes on. Good first step. He shoved his arms into his shirt, moving way faster than he probably needed to, but hells bells, half naked in front of Faith combined with the way her eyes were on him? Not good.
T-shirt on, he glanced over at her, found her with a wicked half-smile. She waggled her eyebrows. “You didn’t need to do that on my account.”
“Believe me,” he said. “I did. Now — ” He flipped the sheet open. At least he'd been smart enough to leave basketball shorts on. “I can’t sleep either. Climb in and we'll find a movie.”
She slipped under the covers, tucking the sheet around her. “Do I need to put pillows between us to make sure there's no funny stuff?”
At this, he let out a full-on laugh. Growing up, when he and his brothers had girls over, his mother would make them stay in the living room where she'd shove throw pillows in the middle of the couch between them. Good luck with that trick keeping hormonal teenagers at bay.
“God,” he said. “My mother would love you.”
“From what you said about your mom that's a great compliment. Maybe, when this is over, I can meet her.”
He doubted that. Considering he hadn’t seen her in two years.
“Faith, if that could happen I'd be the luckiest guy alive.” He gestured to the television. “What do you like to watch?”
“This time of night? I Love Lucy reruns.”
Of all the things he expected her to say, that wasn't it. He snorted and she drove her elbow into his arm. “Don’t judge. They relax me.”
“I’m not judging. My folks grew up watching that show and if they had it on when one of us came home, they’d they make us sit through it. Quality television, they’d say, as compared to the crap we liked to watch.”
“If that's the worst thing your parents did, you were living large.”
“For sure. But we were kids. What did we know?”
How things changed. Back then, watching television with his folks had been torture. He’d had better things to do. Hang with his friends, play football or basketball. Watch the cheerleaders practice.
Now, at thirty-three, he’d like to hit rewind. Just jump back to sitting with his parents in that living room he’d never realized he’d miss. Rather than brood over the injustice his folks were inflicting on him, he’d say thank you. He’d appreciate parents who loved their kids even when they were pricks.
Too late.
He hit the power button on the remote. “After the day we had, we could use a laugh.”
The soundof a cell phone ringing clawed Faith from a dream. A weird one to boot. Something about mountain climbing in freezing temperatures while wearing flip-flops. What that meant she had no idea, but a dream. She'd actually had one.
More than that, she’d achieved REM sleep. A solid miracle.
And someone dared to wake her. If she wasn’t so happy about sleeping, she might tear the offender a new one.
She forced her eyes open. Stared straight up at a white ceiling. White ceiling? A second later, the fog of that miracle REM sleep lifted and her brain engaged. Shane's ceiling.
The phone rang again and her body suddenly dipped left. Whoa. She whipped her head around, found Shane slapping his hand over the arm of the sofa in search of his ringing phone and…
Ohmygod.
Lucyreruns. Pullout bed. She was still in the pullout bed.
With Shane.
He picked up the phone and stabbed at the screen. “What's up?”
His morning voice — oh, wow — had that gravelly, rough edge and . . . nope. Not going there. She scooted sideways, putting at least another three inches between them. She could do this. Just play it casual. After all, nothing had happened. For confirmation, she looked down at her yoga top, still in place. Good.
She sat up, gathered her hair and tucked it into a loose knot high on her head. Beside her, Shane kept his gaze straight ahead as he listened to the caller.
The TV was off. That had to have been Shane’s doing because the last thing she remembered was snorting at Lucy and Ethel shoving candy in their mouths.
Shane swung to her, his sleepy blue eyes suddenly sharp. “Her phone must be off. Or the battery died. I'll have her check…Yeah…Thanks.” He disconnected, tossed the phone on the bed between them.
“That was Dusty,” he said. “Sully can’t reach you.”
Her burner phone. She patted the mattress in search of it. Nothing. She checked under the sheet. Nope. The pillow. Zip. Where the hell was it? Maybe it fell under the pullout bed? Still, she'd have heard it.
“I didn't see you bring it out with you last night,” Shane said.
No way. Nuh-uh.
That phone, or any phone for that matter, had been glued to her hand for years. Shower, potty break, you name it, a phone was within reach. She never knew when it might mean survival. Or the lack thereof.
She flipped the sheet off and scrambled to her feet. “I left it in the bedroom. I can't believe it. I take a phone everywhere.”
Something about Shane Quinn had her totally off her game. Could be any number of things, including the jacked body, the crystal blue eyes and movie-star handsome face or that all-important trait that Faith had been missing since her grandmother died.
Shane, at the core of all that hotness, was a protector. Someone willing to sacrifice himself for the greater good. For a stranger.
It might be the biggest, baddest weapon this man carried. Most women, she imagined, probably dropped at his feet.
She marched into Shane's bedroom, where the sheets on the massive king-size bed lay rumpled from the night before. Beside the bed, her phones — the burner and the one Shane had given her when she’d become Faith Burgess — sat on the nightstand. Right where she’d left them.
She picked up the burner and the screen alerted her to a voice mail. Private number. She tapped the button and lifted the phone to her ear. “It's me.” Sully's voice. “Call me back. Got info for you.”
She tapped the callback icon.
“Hey,” Sully said. “I’ve got thirty seconds so listen up. I’m sending you an address in Alabama.”
Yes!Whoa. Wait. He said an address. Did that mean…? “What about a phone number?”
“No. The one we have isn’t valid.”
“Meaning she didn’t answer? Or it belongs to someone else?”
“I called it and got some guy. She probably got rid of the phone.”
Her initial excitement sunk like lead. “Crap.”
“Yeah. Sorry. I’ll keep working it, but for now, all you have is an address. I’ll text it to you. Gotta go.”
The line went dead.
She tipped her head back, stared up at the ceiling and said a silent thanks for even the smallest lead. Sully had found an address for Leslie Larshot. It might not get them to Brutus — the woman would be crazy to even talk to them — but it was a morsel and sometimes that was all Faith needed. Morsels gave her hope.
“Everything okay?” She spun back to where Shane stood in the hallway. She held the phone up. “He has an address for Leslie. And, before you ask, no phone number.”
“Well, that sucks.”
“Sure does. Sully called her old number and it belongs to a man.”
Shane leaned against the doorframe, his gaze on Faith, but his eyes clouded over. As if he was looking at her, but not focused.
“You’re thinking. What is it?”
“We should get you out of the city. Take some heat off.”
“No.”
He lifted one hand. “Just listen a sec. Please. Leslie, if we can locate her, can help us.”
“Unless we’re driving to freaking Alabama, we can’t reach her.”
When Shane didn’t respond, Faith gawked at him. “You’re not serious.”
“About a road trip? Yeah, I am.”
Oh, now the man had completely lost it. It would take them all day to get to Alabama and it might be a bust. They’d spend two days on the road and for what? Failure.
“Believe me,” Shane said. “I know it’s not the best option. However, it gets you out of the city and we might find her. Otherwise, we’re calling hotels asking for Luis Gustavo.”
Faith waved that off. “Talk about a waste of time. He’d never use his real name. And there are a million hotels in this city. We need to narrow it down. Can Darla help us?”
His eyebrows hitched. “Coffee shop Darla?”
“He told her to get that special coffee. Maybe he’s coming in regularly.”
Considering it for a few seconds, Shane rolled his bottom lip out, then nodded. “I’ll call her. See if she has any intel on him. Jesus, I hate bringing her into this. I still think Leslie is our best option. She traveled with him. Can help us with the types of places he likes to stay. His aliases too. She can give us intel it’d take us days, maybe even a week, to gather.”
She couldn’t argue it. But a day to drive south and then a day to get back? Was it worth it? If Leslie got them to Brutus, most definitely. And randomly calling hotels didn’t seem like a great option.
She moved to the shopping bags she’d thrown on the floor and pulled out her newly acquired clothes. She’d have preferred to wash them first, but…whatever. “I guess if Darla can’t help, we’re heading to Alabama.”
By 7:30,after ascertaining that Darla knew zippo about the Spanish guy who’d suggested that special blend of coffee, Faith sat in the passenger seat of Shane’s no-nonsense Chevy as they cruised West Madison Street. In the weeks she’d been in Chicago, she’d memorized various routes to the expressways, Union Station and El train stops. All to help her leave the city in a hurry.
If her memory served, they’d hop on I-94 east to I-90 and then make their way south through Indiana.
Except…Shane just blew by the I-94 entrance.
Faith pointed. “Uh, you missed it.”
“What?”
“I-94. You went right by the ramp.”
“We’re not going that way. I need to make a stop.”
A stop? What stop?
He’dbeen the one telling her to hustle up so they could get on the road. Now he wanted to run an errand?
“Care to fill me in? Considering I’m on this trip too.”
He shrugged. “We’re switching cars. I have one I keep in storage.”
Un-huh.A car in storage typically meant no way of it being traced back to him. “It’s not registered to you?”
“Correct. Casey Irvine owns it.”
“And he is?”
“No clue. Been dead since 2007.”
Shane kept his eyes on the road while Faith studied his profile. How many backup identities did the man have? “He’s your backup identity in case you have to run again.”
He didn’t respond. Really, he didn’t need to. She herself had at least a dozen identities she’d used throughout her career. Some were simply names she had fake credentials for while others had a complete personal and work history that could easily be checked online if someone wanted to dig.
Shane hooked a left onto S. Halstead and Faith finally gave up on waiting for an answer. Another few turns on streets she didn’t recognize led them to the gate of a seven-story storage facility.
After punching in the gate code, he drove through, passing two long rows of outdoor garages before making a right. At the fourth unit he parked.
“Stay here a sec.”
She waited, watching as he moved around the front of the car, unlocked the storage unit door and rolled it up. A few seconds later, the sound of an engine roared and — hello, baby — out came what Faith recognized as a black Dodge Challenger that gleamed under bright morning sun. One of her coworkers at the agency had a Challenger and droned on endlessly about it.
She supposed she couldn’t blame the guy because this car? Total beast.
Shane parked beside the Chevy and they both hopped out, ready to switch vehicles so he could store the one she’d just exited.
Being nosy, she checked the Challenger’s rear tag. Wisconsin plate. Once inside, she popped the glove box finding an insurance card and registration for Casey Irvine. Milwaukee address.
The driver’s side door opened and Shane slid in, spotting the documents in her hand.
She held them up. “I was curious.”
“No prob. I’d have done the same. I found him in a cemetery in Milwaukee. The age was close enough, so I went with it.”
“I assume you have creds for him?”
He gave her a rueful smile. “I keep them under a loose floorboard in my bedroom. I grabbed them before we left.”
Not a shock since she’d grabbed her own set of backup credentials before leaving her apartment the night before.
At the time, she hadn’t known why Shane summoned her to a meeting, but assumed it wasn’t for happy hour. If she had to run again, she’d need identification in a hurry, so she’d brought along a passport and driver’s license from one of her old CIA cover names.
It wouldn’t have worked permanently, but the alias would have bought her time until she’d been able to set up another identity.
Faith buckled her seatbelt and settled back into the soft leather of the seat. “I’m fascinated that you keep this baby locked in storage while you drive the Dad-mobile every day.”
“Dad-mobile? Ouch.”
“Sorry,” she said, “but it’s true.”
“And exactly the point. The Chevy blends better.” He tapped the steering wheel. “I took a chance on this one. Crazy-assed risk, but I figured if I had to run again, I might as well do it in style. It was a screaming good deal. A guy Dusty knows has a gambling problem and needed cash fast.”
He went through the usual routine of checking his mirrors and plugging his phone cord into the jack.
“When’s the last time you drove it?”
“When I bought it.”
Oh, man. The guy was killing her. “Seriously?”
“Faith, it’s my emergency vehicle. I come by every week and start it. Other than that, I have the Chevy.”
“I get that you don’t want your neighbors oohing and aahing over it, but you could drive it outside the city.”
“Trust me, I’ve been tempted. It’s not worth the risk.”
“It’s worth it now?”
He shifted the car into gear, but before taking his foot off the brake, met her eye. “We don’t have a choice. If we’re followed, no one can tie this car back to me. Or Dusty or Trevor.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“All of it. The car, risking your identity, this damned road trip. It sucks.”
She shook her head, stared out the windshield to a blue sky too perfect for what they were doing. They should be walking along the lakefront, grabbing a coffee, chatting with strangers and possibly making friends. That’s what people did. People unlike them anyway.
“What’s your point?”
If she only knew. Actually, no. She did know. She peeled her gaze from the beautiful spring morning. “I don’t think I can do this. What you, Dusty and Trevor do. Constantly on edge, thinking ahead, working on escape plans. Storing a stunning car because I’m too afraid of being discovered. In the field it’s different. That’s temporary. I eventually get to come home and decompress.”
“Beats dying.”
Did it?
He released the brake and hit the gas. “You’re thinking too much. Sit back and relax. It’s a long drive.”
Nine hoursinto a nearly twelve-hour drive, Shane followed Faith from a quiet roadside restaurant she’d found a few miles off I-65 near Huntsville.
All he wanted was to get to Montgomery, find Leslie Larshot and get the hell back to Chicago, where they’d hunt down Brutus and eliminate him.
Except Faith had needed to pee. And eat. Of course she did. One would think, given her experience with fieldwork, she could control her bladder and stomach better.
So…dinner. Which, he had to admit, turned out to be a good idea. An abundant and hot meal of meatloaf and mashed potatoes — ultimate comfort food — and good conversation did a man good. Playing the role of attentive significant other wasn’t exactly taxing. For a minute or two his mind had actually given him a break and let him relax. As Daffy Duck would say, woo-hoo!
Even if he’d been on high alert the entire meal, it got them out of the car and geared up for the last leg of the drive.
As he left the restaurant, Shane scanned the rear lot where the Challenger sat hidden from the road. He opened the passenger door and waited for her to climb in.
She buckled in and peered up at him. “Don’t you feel better now?”
With all the bitching he’d done about making this extended stop, there’d be no way — no way — he’d respond to that loaded question.
“Ha!” she said, “Of course you do. We’ve eaten, stretched our legs and our minds are sharp again. Now we can make a plan for finding Larshot. I’m thinking we check out the address tonight. The darkness will be good cover for us. Then we’ll get some rest and sit on the place in the morning. Would you recognize her?”
Hell yeah he would. What man wouldn’t? He glanced around for any busybodies. No one. Good. Still, he didn’t want to stand around having this conversation.
“She’s tall. Really tall. Even if she changed her hair color, not a lot of women are six-foot.”
Leaving it at that, he shut Faith’s door and walked around to the driver’s seat. A minute later, he pulled onto the rural route that led back to I-65 and hit the gas. The speed limit sign said thirty-five. Jeez-a-lou. Pushing his speed on the interstate was one thing, but he wasn’t interested in messing with local cops.
He checked the speedometer. Twenty-five.
At the traffic light, he hooked a U-turn in the intersection and checked the rearview mirror for a tail. Faith peered over her shoulder.
“We’re good,” Faith said, facing front again.
He pressed the gas. The speedometer leaped, then immediately dropped. “What the hell?”
“What?”
He eased off on the gas and checked the dashboard where the speedometer continued to fluctuate. This car was fucked. And it had happened suddenly.
While they were chowing.
A burst of adrenaline poured into his body. Focus.
All day, the Challenger had been a rock star. Not one issue. As each mile passed, the car responded to his demands and he’d fallen so in love he’d considered switching the Dad-mobile out. Risky as it might be.
The speedometer leaped again.
Before they’d gone into the restaurant, everything was good. None of this quirky shit. Which meant . . .
He inhaled, breathing in the fading scent of leather cleaner from the car’s last detailing. Adrenaline did this to him. Sharpened his senses. Brought him to a heightened alertness that later exhausted him.
He could be wrong. They hadn’t been in the restaurant that long. Long enough. Shit. His mind raced, offering visions of the two of them being blown sky-high, limbs flying off.
Not worth the risk. If wrong, the worst that would happen is he’d look like an idiot. Definitely not the first time that happened.
“Faith,” he said calmly, his gaze ping-ponging from the road to the mirror while he kept his foot on the gas. Steady speed. Steady. Steady. Steady.
A half mile ahead a car turned right. Other than that, no other cars on the road.
“What is it?”
“Don’t freak. Just do what I say. Grab our backpacks from the backseat.”
“Shane — ”
Dammit.
He gripped the steering wheel, all his contained energy shooting into his fingertips. “Faith! Do it. This fucking car might blow up and we need to jump out. Grab our shit.”
Quickly — thank you, God — she unbuckled and reached behind her for their packs, placing his on his lap. “Use it when you jump. It’ll cushion the fall.”
This woman. Not only did she trust him when he told her she’d have to jump from a moving vehicle, she’d slipped right into operative mode, offering suggestions. Not one argument or a slew of questions. Total buy-in.
Road sign dead ahead. He’d have to clear that so Faith could jump without hitting it on her way to the ground.
“When I pass this sign, we go.”
Once past it, he eased closer to the shoulder where the soft grass might keep Faith from serious injury.
Jesus. She could whack her head on the pavement. But blowing up wasn’t a great alternative. He squeezed the steering wheel again, kept his foot on the gas. If he went any faster, they might turn into fireworks. Clearly, he hadn’t reached the speed where the bomb would detonate. Sweat ran down the back of his neck and his pulse thumped.
“On three,” he said. “We jump.”
In unison, they opened the doors and a blast of air and wind noise filled the car. Jump, don’t jump, jump. He shook his head, concentrated on keeping his foot steady on the gas. It’d be a miracle if they got out of this without breaking bones.
“Jump at an angle,” he said. “Away from the car.”
“We practiced this during my training. I’m pretty good at it.”
“Good. On three. One, two, three.”
He set his left hand on the door, lifted his right from the steering wheel and gripped his backpack. Easing his foot from the gas, he dipped his chin and . . . rolled.
Air whooshed, smacking at his ears as he fell from the vehicle and tucked himself into a ball, readying for impact.
Ooff!His shoulder hit the ground. Pain shot straight down his arm and he rolled. And rolled and rolled, coming to a stop in the street under a stream of waning sunlight. A breath shot from his mouth. Made it.
Move.
Scrambling to his knees, he scanned the area for Faith.
“Faith!”
“I’m okay,” she called.
Ahead of him, the car — still intact — had veered to the right and down a slope on the shoulder where it picked up speed as it rolled toward a clump of trees.
What the fuck? Had his paranoia sent him completely over the edge, making him imagine the car had a bomb on it? The speedometer thing though. He’d seen it. Talked extensively with a teammate about electronic detonation devices being attached to speedometers and at a certain speed — boom. Bye-bye car.
Except, nothing. Maybe he’d imagined this whole thing? Risked getting them hurt over nothing?
Ten yards to his right, Faith got to her feet, holding up a hand and waving.
Boom!
The force of the explosion blew him straight back, knocking him on his ass. He rolled to his feet, charging straight for Faith. On the ground and flat on her back.