she was going to do the stupid thing and get out of this car to help Melissa.
Even if she knew the smart thing would’ve been to already be two hundred miles outside Kansas City. That’s why she’d chosen the city right smack in the middle of America—she could travel in any direction if she needed to get out quick.
But the fact of the matter, and the reason Bree was sitting here right now, was that if Melissa had intended to turn over Bree to the Organization, her best bet would’ve been to do it earlier today when she had the element of surprise. Melissa had known her apartment number, so all she’d really needed to do was have someone guarding the fire escape and ready to catch Bree when she ran.
But Mel hadn’t.
Crisscross, applesauce.
Shaking her head, Bree got out of the car and headed toward the designated parking lot to meet Melissa.
The choice of locations was a good one. Trains were accessible, of course, and the bus depot was only two blocks away. In a personal vehicle someone could be on three different major interstates in less than five minutes.
Bree kept to the shadows, circling the area and waiting for Melissa. When by fifteen minutes past their scheduled meeting time Melissa hadn’t arrived, Bree began to get worried. She gave her ten more minutes after that, then knew it wasn’t safe to stay in one place any longer.
Something had changed—planned or unplanned. Either way, Bree couldn’t stay here. All she could do was pray her mother’s voice screaming in her head hadn’t been right and this was all a setup.
She had her answer a few moments later as she approached her car and felt the cold metal of a gun muzzle against the back of her neck.
Sorry, Mom, I guess you were right.
“Would’ve probably been less conspicuous to take me out at my apartment. Nobody knew me there anyway,” she said, raising her hands to shoulder level, as if she had no plans to fight.
There weren’t too many self-defense moves she could do if the shooter was going to assassinate her with a slug to the back of the head. But if he or she had instructions to bring Bree back alive, Bree would have opportunities to make her own attack. Better to make the person think she was compliant.
Bree very definitely wasn’t compliant, and there was no way in hell someone was taking her back to the Organization alive.
“Melissa sent me.” A man’s voice.
“Well, tell her I said she played me just right. I honestly believed she needed my help right up until the second I felt your gun at my neck.”
“She does need your help. I’m not here to hurt you. Melissa was being watched, so she couldn’t come herself.” And then, amazingly, the cold metal eased back from her skin.
Bree turned around slowly, then blanched as she found herself looking into cold eyes she hadn’t seen in over ten years.
It took every ounce of self control she had not to scurry away or whimper.
Everyone had called him Smith, although that certainly wasn’t his real name. He’d been in charge of discipline. He’d been old even then. He looked ancient now.
“You know who I am?” he asked.
“Yes.” How could she possibly forget the man who had broken more than one of her bones? “What I don’t know is why I’m alive and still conscious.”
Smith shook his head. “As I said, I’m not here to harm you. Melissa needed me to deliver important...items that are required in order for her to escape the Organization.”
“You’re helping her?”
“They’ve gone too far, even for me.” He gave the smallest shrug with his shoulder. “And maybe what I’m doing here today will help make up for the sins of my past. But we don’t have much time. I’ll lead them away from your direction, but that’s all I can do.”
He pushed an old flip phone into her hand. “You hold the future now. Melissa will be in touch as soon as she can. I placed the items in the back seat of your car. Be careful. They are everything.”
Bree turned toward her car. They were everything? She turned back toward the caretaker. “What are you talking about—”
He was gone, disappeared into the darkness.
She shook her head and turned back toward her car—a nondescript late-model Honda most people wouldn’t pay attention to—cautiously, even knowing she could’ve been killed multiple times over by now if that was someone’s intent.
She heard yelling on the other side of the parking lot and picked up her pace. Maybe it was just the normal type of trouble that could be found in an empty downtown parking lot in the middle of the night, but maybe it was trouble coming specifically for her. She paused again as she came up on her car, seeing two large, odd-shaped boxes in the back seat.
She’d been expecting some files, but electronic ones on a hard drive. Definitely not anything that size.
After another couple steps, Bree realized those weren’t file boxes at all. She ran the last few feet to her car, pushing her face up against the window.
“Oh, my God, Mel, what have you done?”
Bree stared, rubbed her eyes just to make sure she hadn’t been affected by some sort of airborne hallucinogen, then stared some more.
Not file boxes at all. Strapped into the back seat of her car were two separate baby carriers. Inside each of them was a tiny sleeping infant. Bree didn’t know anything about babies, but those were definitely fresh ones. New. Couldn’t be more than five minutes old, right?
A note was taped to the top of one of the carriers, so she carefully opened the door and grabbed it.
I couldn’t get out. But you see now why I have to. Their names are Christian and Beth, and they’re two months old. The Organization doesn’t know about them. I will keep it that way and hope you will keep them safe until I can escape.
Crisscross, applesauce, Bree. You hold my heart in your hands every time you pull the twins close. I never knew what true family was until I had them.
Bree removed the small hard drive attached to the paper then crumpled it, bringing her fist down softly on the roof of the car. She didn’t know the first thing about babies. Had never held one in her life. What was she going to do now?
She quietly shut the back door—heaven forbid she wake one of them up—and got into the driver’s side. Staying here wasn’t safe. Her fingers wrapped around the steering wheel in a death grip as she pulled the car out of the parking lot.
She’d known it was going to be hard. But this was so much worse than she thought.
There were babies in the back seat.
Not
