But now he’d begun to get into her mind. She’d shown him a few glimpses into her life. Even masked as Kat Hall, she’d been telling him of Daryn McDermott’s life. The “wealthy, powerful” father, the mother cast aside, the father’s hypocrisy, the search that eventually led her to become an escort…both sensual and complex. A rare breed.
He kept the Jeep pointed north on Interstate 35, letting Daryn give the directions. He glanced at her again, then at her left hand, which extended behind her seat. Britt, in the back, was tugging on Daryn’s hand again.
Sean had been suspicious when Daryn told him they needed to pick up a friend. Then he’d had to struggle to keep his poker face when the friend turned out to be Britt. He said nothing, and neither did Britt, but their eyes had met for a short moment as she got into the Jeep and Daryn “introduced” them.
Britt looked at Daryn with absolute love and devotion. For all her time on the streets, for everything she’d done and seen, Britt still seemed like a child, easily led. Sean had known from the time he saw the photo of the Oklahoma City march that Britt had fallen in love with her, or at least into whatever form of infatuation Britt could view as love. She would do anything Daryn asked.
Daryn directed Sean to exit the interstate at the town of Guthrie, thirty miles or so north of Oklahoma City. Guthrie had in fact been the first capital of Oklahoma Territory after the famous land run of 1889 opened the previously “unassigned” lands. Now it was a pleasant town of Victorian homes and a beautifully restored downtown area, capitalizing on its history to draw in a healthy tourism industry.
Daryn showed Sean where to turn, and he headed north out of Guthrie on U.S. 77. A mile outside the city limits, he said, “We’re being followed.”
“What?” Britt said.
Daryn dropped Britt’s hand. “How do you know?”
“Big blue SUV back there, two guys in the front. It’s been with us since before we left the highway.” Sean thumped the steering wheel. “I’m not sure how long. I wasn’t looking for a tail.”
Daryn looked at him strangely, and Sean thought, Be careful! I’m a woodworker, not a law enforcement officer trained to spot surveillance.
“Just kind of spooked after the other night,” he added quickly.
“How could they have followed us?” Daryn said.
“They may have tracked us from the motel,” Sean said. “Hell, I don’t know. You seem to have pissed off some pretty persistent people.”
Daryn said nothing.
Sean let it go. This wasn’t the time to push it, not with a tail right behind them on a lonely stretch of rural highway.
He nudged the Jeep forward, the speedometer moving past seventy. He saw a bridge ahead.
“Shit,” he muttered.
A green-and-white sign took shape, announcing that the bridge crossed the Cimarron River. The Jeep rolled onto the bridge. The blue SUV moved to overtake them, swinging out into the opposite lane.
“What are they doing?” Britt said. Her voice rose. “What’s going on?”
Neither Sean nor Daryn spoke. Sean punched the accelerator and listened to the Jeep’s engine growl in overdrive. The SUV’s driver kept pace, the right front fender of the bigger vehicle moving toward the Jeep’s left rear.
“Oh no, you don’t,” Sean whispered. He wasn’t about to let the other driver tap him on a bridge at nearly eighty miles an hour. “Hold on,” he said to Daryn and Britt.
He floored the accelerator and jerked the wheel to the left, cutting in front of the other driver. Now they were both speeding north in the bridge’s southbound lane. Sean imagined the other driver’s surprise at the maneuver.
Just as quickly, he saw in the mirror that the other driver was starting to slide over into the northbound lane, and Sean thought: amateurs. Then: but I’m supposed to be an amateur, too. Nevertheless, he repeated the maneuver in reverse, cutting off the SUV’s angle of attack again and putting both vehicles back in the right lane.
Five seconds later, a car entered the bridge from the other direction, a white compact sedan. The SUV nudged into the other lane. The white sedan’s driver leaned on the horn. The SUV ducked backed behind Sean. Ahead, Sean saw the point where the bridge ended.
“Hold on,” he said again. “This is really going to piss them off.”
Beside him, Daryn’s eyes were wide. He couldn’t see Britt. As soon as the Jeep’s front wheels left the bridge and Sean saw the land to the side, he slammed on the brakes and spun the wheel hard to the right. The Jeep skidded into the gravel by the side of the road. The SUV’s driver, caught by surprise, slammed on his own brakes and turned hard the other direction. Sean heard tires squealing, whether his or the other vehicle’s he didn’t know.
The Jeep came to rest pointing east toward the river, in a loose gravel area beside the road. As soon as he’d stopped, Sean was out of the driver’s seat. Almost mirroring the Jeep, the SUV was in a similar position on the opposite side of the highway, its nose pointing west.
It was empty.
Sean turned back toward the Jeep, and for a moment his mind wavered. Who am I? What am I doing here?
He blinked. Daryn. Daryn McDermott. Kat Hall. He was trying to immerse himself in her world, and he’d been slowly descending into it, as Michael Sullivan. And now, twice since he’d met her, there had been an attack. Tobias Owens hadn’t told him this part, back in the Sasabe cantina.
Who was after her? Were they after Daryn, the senator’s daughter and radical? Or were they after Kat, the mysterious professional escort? The political princess or the call girl?
Sean took a step toward the highway, then stopped again. He couldn’t just leave Daryn and Britt here unprotected. What if the guys from the SUV circled back around? What if they had another team approaching from the other direction?
But there might be answers out there in the brush by the river.
Sean’s mind clouded again.
Dammit, I can’t think!
I need a drink. Just one, so I can…
He shook his head. He jogged back to the Jeep. Daryn and Britt were both staring at him, Daryn in terror, Britt with a strange curiosity on her face.
“Do you know how to use a gun?” Sean asked Daryn.
Daryn’s eyes grew impossibly wide. She shook her head slowly. “I never-”
“I do,” Britt said.
Sean looked at her slowly. Something passed between them, a subtle understanding, a knowing. “In my duffel bag,” Sean said. “If anyone comes near the car, shoot them.”
“Michael-” Daryn said.
“I’ll be back,” Sean said.
He ran across the road. The SUV was totally empty, both the driver’s and passenger’s doors standing open. He looked back toward the river. A barbed wire fence snaked away toward the west. The ground-green grass and red dirt-sloped downward to the south, toward the Cimarron River itself. Sean saw movement below, a flash of blue, underneath one of the bridge supports.
Every fiber of his training rebelled-he was going into an unknown situation, unarmed, with no real backup.
But this wasn’t about training anymore. He wasn’t an ICE agent now. He was a civilian, an ordinary woodworker, and this was about the woman he knew as both Kat and Daryn.
His head pounding, Sean took a step toward the river, then another. He stepped into the tall grass. The ground sloped sharply away ahead of him. He saw the movement again, an outline of a man moving behind the bridge support.
Sean took another step. His foot came down on loose red dirt, and the ground sloughed away under him. He went down, tumbling through grass and dirt and rocks before coming to rest on concrete, at least fifty feet below where he had been, lying on his side with his cheek scraping gravel.
At first he heard, saw, felt nothing, though he tasted grass in his mouth. Then there was sound-the river, birds, a car going by on the bridge above his head. Finally, his vision cleared. He saw graffiti scrawled on the bridge-I Love Tina, GHS Sr. ’05, Tony & Marie 4-ever, Rachel gives hot BJ.