can’t go after him and leave you by yourself,” Max said. “We don’t know that he was alone.”
“No. You should go. You need to interrogate him.”
“It’s too risky. I’m sorry. My first priority is always going to be your personal protection. I can’t pursue him under the circumstances.”
She watched as her attacker disappeared from sight into the darkness.
“Are you all right?”
She shook out her right hand. “Yeah. My hand hurts a bit from punching him, but I’ll be fine.” She took in a breath of air, realizing that she was breathing hard. “But how did he find me? That’s the question we need to answer first.”
She walked back into her hotel room, and he was right behind her. She flipped on the light.
“I can tell you’re frustrated, and you have every right to be. You were just attacked in the middle of the night. And you’re right about how you were found. This location wasn’t even in the system. So an electronic system breach wouldn’t have provided this information.”
He paced back and forth. His dark hair was slightly disheveled from sleep. Then he turned back to face her with his eyes wide. “I need to look through your stuff. Your bag, your purse. Anything you’ve had on your person since yesterday.”
She got what he was saying. “You think someone put some type of tracking device in my stuff?”
He nodded. “It would make a lot of sense, and it would explain all of these breaches.”
“But that would also mean someone got close enough to me to put the device in my bag.”
“Let me see if I can find anything first.”
She handed him her shoulder bag that included her sketch pad. She also gave him her much smaller purse.
“That day at the courthouse. Did you have both of these on you?”
“Yes. My purse was actually in my shoulder bag. I take that bag pretty much everywhere I go, though.”
He started with her shoulder bag. It was full of junk. Pencils, pens, some makeup. He unceremoniously dumped out the contents on the hotel-room desk.
She watched as he ran his hands along the lining of her bag. Then he pulled something out.
“This—” he held up a small black chip that looked like a piece of plastic “—is a tracking device. Feels like they used a bit of an adhesive to stick it in the bottom of your bag. You wouldn’t notice it unless you were specifically looking for it.”
“Wow,” she said. “Someone had to have gotten a hold of my bag to get it in the bottom, though. That’s disturbing.”
“It’s actually much easier than you might think. All they had to do was get close enough to you to reach in your bag and quickly adhere the chip inside. More than likely they ran into you—acting like it was purely accidental. But it was all carefully orchestrated.”
“It sounds professional. Not just like some random thug could do it.”
He nodded. “And it has upper-level East River written all over it.” He took a step back. “You know Rick Ward. Do you think he has the ability to climb up the hierarchy of an organization like East River?”
She thought for a moment. “He’s definitely not the smartest man I’ve ever met, but he isn’t dumb. He knows how to get what he wants and can be very manipulative. He’s also persistent. He won’t stop until he has his way by whatever means necessary.”
He touched her shoulder. “I hate to do this, Sydney. I know it’s the middle of the night, but we need to get out of here.”
“What are we going to do with the chip?”
“Leave it here in the hotel room. And then we’ll go. We finally have a bit of an advantage. We found the chip, and they don’t know that. They’ll assume we’re here overnight. When the chip doesn’t move in the morning, then they’ll know we were on to them. But that still gives us a few hours’ head start.”
“They could be watching us now.”
“Yes, that’s why I’ll also use evasive maneuvers to ensure that we’re not being followed. Gather your things and do what you need to do. I want to be on the road in fifteen minutes.”
As she prepared to leave, the different scenarios played out in her mind. She was being hunted, but by whom? A professional hit man paid off by a murderer? Or a man she’d thought she loved? She didn’t know if she could handle coming face to face with Rick Ward again. A chill shot through her just thinking about those blue eyes. Sweet one minute and menacing the next.
But there was no time for fear right now. They had to hit the road. Her life depended on it.
* * *
Max sat behind the wheel fully alert. Even running on only a few hours of sleep, he could feel that his adrenaline had kicked in and he was moving full steam ahead. Sydney must have felt the same way because every time he glanced over at her, she looked wide-awake with her eyes firmly glued to the dark road in front of them.
He couldn’t stop the strong need deep within him to protect this woman. But that was all it was. A desire to do his job to the best of his ability. His career was everything to him. At thirty-three he really was in no rush for a serious relationship. He even considered never getting married and having a family. His own family had given him plenty of reasons to roll solo. Yeah, to all the neighbors they may have looked like the perfect family, but his childhood had been far from perfect.
He hadn’t met another women quite like Sydney, though. But he had to be realistic. She was definitely not the one for him—assuming someone out there was for him. They were polar opposites on pretty much every issue. Her entire approach to life was guided by emotion and instinct, while his was based on science and logic. She’d even called him hostile to faith. That had seemed a bit much to him at the time, but maybe she was right. His parents hadn’t exactly acted as good role models on that front. He preferred to rely on himself and live in a world where he occupied his time with his career. He didn’t lack a sense of self-awareness—he knew he had erected walls to make sure he wouldn’t get hurt. But that was fine with him.
“Where are we going?” she asked, cutting into his thoughts.
“Elena said to just start driving northwest, but I don’t want to stop until we have more distance between us and Pikeville.”
“I’ve been keeping watch out the back,” she said, turning around again to peer out the rear window. “I don’t think we’ve been followed.”
“Me, neither.”
“Guess that’s one positive.”
“Hey now. Don’t sound so down. That was a big break for us to find that tracker.”
“I do thank God for that. But...”
“But what?”
“I really can’t describe to you how
