if he squealed his tires in his haste to escape. But his eyes were on the rearview mirror, watching to see if anyone exited the stairwell he and Caterina had used. So far so good.
He paid the attendant with a twenty, refusing to let himself display the slightest hint of impatience as he waited for his change. He didn’t bother with a receipt. He’d just rolled up the window when he saw two men in his rearview mirror. Running in his direction. He couldn’t be positive, but they sure looked like the same men who’d chased after them upstairs.
Liam floored the accelerator. Then he was on the streets of DC. He turned left, and left again, then gunned the engine as the light turned yellow, watching sharply to see if anyone ran a red light to follow them. It wasn’t likely—the men pursuing them had been on foot, so he didn’t really expect a chase car that quickly—but he wasn’t taking any chances. No one ran the red light, so Liam drove five blocks, turned right, left and right again, then pulled his SUV onto the freeway heading toward Virginia. Virginia, and anonymity. Anonymity equaled safety. At least for now.
Traffic was light on the freeway out of the city in the middle of the morning, and Liam made good time. He only needed part of his attention to drive, and he returned to ponder the question he’d asked himself earlier. Who to trust? His fellow DSS agents at the Bureau of Diplomatic Security? His boss? The State Department? The FBI?
Though he knew better than to text while behind the wheel, Liam suddenly pulled his cell phone out and hit speed dial two for Alec—his SUV’s Bluetooth capability would allow him to talk hands-free.
“It’s me,” he said when Alec answered. “Just wanted you to know we had two pursuers on foot.” He quickly described what the two men looked like and how they were dressed. “Could have been Fibbies, but I doubt it. They just didn’t have the look, if you know what I mean. Didn’t see any guns, but that doesn’t mean anything. If they were bad guys they’re probably long gone by now, but just in case...”
“We’ll check it out. You got clean away?”
“Yeah. Heading out of the city as we speak.”
“You got a destination?”
Liam laughed a little. “Anywhere but here, bro.”
“Caterina okay?” The concern in Alec’s voice was obvious. And just as obviously, his concern wasn’t all professional.
“Not a mark on her.”
“Keep her safe.”
“You know I will.”
There was silence on the other end. Then, “Call Cody when you get the chance,” Alec said.
“You read my mind. What’s the situation there?”
“Both shooters are dead, but you already knew that. No ID, nothing to say who they are. The serial numbers on the Uzis were filed off, but the FBI thinks they might be able to raise them—we might get lucky there.”
“What about the people they shot?”
“The lead prosecutor’s in the morgue, the other one’s critical. I think the marshals are going to make it. Hey, gotta go. The FBI’s bearing down on me again, and I don’t want them to hear this conversation.”
After Alec hung up, Liam’s thoughts kept circling back to the events as they had unfolded. Uzis in the courthouse, he reminded himself. He knew they were Uzis—the sound was unmistakable. This hadn’t just happened. Someone had plotted and planned very carefully. How did they get Uzis past the metal detectors and the guards? he asked again, still without an answer. At least not a palatable answer. Because the answer was—they couldn’t. That meant a conspiracy. A conspiracy that included someone with enough authority, enough clout, to smuggle the submachine guns in. Someone with a lot at risk. Someone who would do anything to keep Caterina from testifying.
Liam dismissed the idea that the prosecutors had been the targets. They were collateral damage, nothing more. Caterina was the one they wanted dead. He only knew the bare bones of the case she was testifying in, the few bits and pieces Alec had shared with him, but he knew one thing for sure—she was lucky to be alive. Damned lucky. And even luckier she’d fallen in with someone who could protect her now that her US Marshals bodyguards were out of the picture.
Liam had been driving in silence for fifteen minutes when he suddenly realized something and cursed softly. Despite the fact that Caterina had to be smothering underneath the blanket on the floor even with the SUV’s A/C blasting on max power, she hadn’t moved, hadn’t complained, hadn’t asked if she could come out from beneath the blanket yet.
In fact, Caterina hadn’t spoken one word since this whole thing began. Not a single word.
Cate had escaped into a self-induced fugue state. She’d learned how nine years ago, how to disassociate her mind from her body so that what was happening to her body was as remote as if it was happening to someone else. It was the only way she’d been able to survive those two years with Aleksandrov Vishenko. The only way she’d been able to bear the pain—mental and physical. The only way she’d been able to stay sane in a world that had gone sickeningly insane.
But she hadn’t had to escape this way for years. Not since she’d physically escaped Vishenko’s clutches, not since she’d regained possession of her own body...her own soul. But she hadn’t forgotten how. Just as she would never forget what Vishenko had done to her, she would never forget the coping mechanism that had allowed her to survive those two hellish years.
She floated in darkness beneath the blanket, remembering the rosebushes in the garden at her cousin’s house. How she’d envied her cousin living among all that beauty! Angelina’s mother’s prized rosebushes, which she’d nurtured as if they were all the other babies she could never have after Angelina was born. Red roses, yellow roses, roses with fancy blended colors and even more fanciful names, like Fire and Ice and Dream Come True. But Cate had always preferred the white roses. Plain. White. Pure. Like a young girl in her First Communion dress. Untouched. Cleansed of mortal sin.
She’d been that girl a long time ago. A lifetime ago. But she’d never be that girl again. She could never undo what had been done to her. Could never undo what she’d done to survive.
Suddenly she wasn’t floating anymore. Suddenly she was remembering what she’d long-ago sworn she would not remember, waking or sleeping. The memories her brain had successfully blanked out for years, until Alec Jones had erupted into her life and forced her to remember. Alec, who’d convinced her to testify against Vishenko and the others about what she knew, about the evidence she’d secreted away. Alec, who was married to Angelina now.
He hadn’t judged her. Not the harsh way she judged herself. Neither had Angelina. They’d treated Cate tenderly, lovingly, but with a matter-of-factness that allowed her to retain that mental disassociation from her past. As if those things had happened to someone else. Not to her.
Now that she was aware of her surroundings, Cate realized she could barely breathe beneath the blanket. It was hot, stuffy, smothering. She was also aware of the steady rumble and vibration caused by the engine and the SUV’s wheels as they ate up the miles. Putting distance between themselves and the men who’d tried to kill her. Vishenko’s men. She had no doubt about that.
The
