“Or maybe, it’s just connected to mine.”
He carried her to the bed where they stayed for most of the day.
When Gina finally got back to the hotel in London, she was ready to tell Jeremy her plans to resign. But Jeremy wasn’t there.
And Eva was dead.
FIFTEEN
Gina, present day
It took Gina an hour before she found a car she could steal, all while evading the men sent to kill her.
She felt horrible about stealing the car (what didn’t make her feel bad these days?) as she made a square of duct tape with a long strip down the middle on the driver side window. Gina promised herself she’d find out who the owner was, let them know where she left the car, then they’d find a healthy deposit in their bank account and an amaryllis delivered to them every Christmas after.
Gina pulled on the long strip until the window came down and she crawled inside. It was an old Buick Skylark from the early Seventies, bleached a light blue by the desert sun. Gina opened the door to let Fleur in, then rummaged in her backpack for a screwdriver to insert into the ignition. Two minutes later, she and Fleur were back in business.
They took backroads all the way to Denver. The Skylark was a gas guzzler and they had to stop more often than she wanted. It put them behind schedule, which meant that Gina would have to risk a flight from Denver to Newark. No way could she drive this car all the way to New Jersey, and she didn’t want to risk stealing another car. Or maybe she just didn’t want it on her conscience. She took the long back way through the Navajo Nation and the Ute Reservation, through dusty mountain towns west of Colorado Springs. She pulled off once to rest in what was probably someone’s mile-long driveway and had to convince Fleur that the bighorn sheep who came to investigate was not a predator. Though it did look like it could damage the car.
She was tempted—so tempted—to give up trying to leave the country and head for Lyons, Colorado instead, where she and Lachlan had set up Kyle “Pup” McGuire with his own security agency. Acres of forest on a foothill, safehouses, bodyguards who were more than they seemed, and sympathetic local law enforcement.
The problem was, The Repair Shop knew right where Watchdog Protectors was, how it was structured, its weak points and its strengths. It was their money that financed the operation designed to keep Capitoline out of the area. For all Gina knew, they had eyes on the place, though she was sure Lach would have warned Kyle by now.Sea-Prompthad exploded almost two days ago. Walker and Kyla were safely aboard another ship—complements of ‘the Swiss Navy’ a moniker which made Gina laugh as much as it gave her a pang of wistfulness—probably on their way to doing the Milk Run, and Fia was back in the wind. Lachlan was undoubtedly going against her wishes and looking for her, and he’d check with Kyle just in case.
No, she couldn’t go to Lyons. She didn’t want to risk Kyle and Arden’s safety or the safety of any other Watchdog employee. Furthermore, she didn’t want to use anything attached to The Repair Shop, and that meant anything Watchdog-related, including the agency in Las Angeles.
Her eyes closed on their own as she relaxed against the headrest. Flickering images, the beginnings of dreams flitted behind her eyes, memories of how she’d found Lach again after Jeremy’s death.
I’ll always find you, lass.
Lach’s voice made her sit bolt upright and look around wildly. Fleur whined and she remembered that she was on a backroad headed for Denver, far away from Lachlan. Far from anyone she loved.
Fleur whined again.
“Well, not far fromyou, sweet thing.”
She let Fleur out to pee then shared a quick meal of beef jerky. The second meal from the diner was long gone. Then they were back on their way.
* * *
Sorry to say, there were no aliens living under Denver International Airport. Blucifer, the giant statue of a blue horse rearing up as if to attack drivers by shooting laser beams from its glowing red eyes might make one believe otherwise. But no, there were no lizard people, no aliens (hunky or otherwise), no ghosts, no chupacabras or jackalopes living under DIA.
There was, however, an extensive network of tunnels and abandoned rooms. Not for housing strange creatures, but for offices, storage, transporting baggage, train maintenance, and escape routes in case of fire or terrorist attacks.
Gina was familiar with the layout, especially the escape routes. One led to a field about half a mile from the airport. Under cover of darkness, she parked the Skylark on the side of a nearby road, wiped down the interior and exterior as best she could, and led Fleur through the dry, brown field to the hidden escape hatch. A nearby abandoned shopping cart made her look around for an encampment but she saw no one. Gina knelt and hoped the code was the same as it was a month ago, the last time she’d checked DIA security through the backdoor Elissa had set up.
She breathed a sigh of relief when the hatch popped open. Now to get Fleur down the metal ladder. That problem was solved by emptying most of her backpack and dropping the unbreakable bits down the hatch and putting Fleur inside. Wouldn’t be the first time her pup had traveled that way, but she was a few pounds heavier this time around. Gina carefully climbed down with Fleur on her back. When she got to the bottom, she plugged her phone into a portable battery and turned on the flashlight function. She changed her clothes and re-packed her bag. She leashed Fleur and they headed for the main terminal and the underground baggage area.
Now came the hard part—relying on her luck as much as her skill.
The hallways became louder the closer they got to the terminal. Gina relied on her memory to guide them. She found one of the unused rooms, picked the lock, and stashed Fleur and her backpack inside.
“Wait,” she commanded, and Fleur curled up in a ball. She wouldn’t move or make a sound until Gina returned. Gina continued down the hallway. She was dressed in dark-blue slacks and a light blue shirt with a fake name tag and ID dangling on a lanyard. She walked into the baggage area like she owned the place and started moving luggage. She nodded to her fellow coworkers who at this time of night didn’t care who they worked beside as long as the job got done.
That wouldn’t last forever. She was racing against the clock until someone would inevitably challenge her. She paid special attention to the odd-sized baggage and packages until she found what she needed and smiled. Then as deftly as she’d sneaked in, she sneaked back out with a collapsible kennel under her arm. Now if her luck held, she and Fleur would soon be on their way to Newark.
* * *
Wearing a travel dress that said business class, Gina walked Fleur back and forth through the main terminal, searching the airport until she saw exactly what she needed. A woman was yelling at some poor attendant just trying to do his job, which made Gina feel marginally better about what she was about to do. She was roughly Gina’s size and age which was great, but the most important thing about this woman was not about her at all, but all about her dog, who just so happened to be a ginger like Fleur.
