Chapter 10
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“I don’t have a clue when they hid that bug in me,” Tricia wailed, tears in her eyes. “I feel awful.” She grimaced at Hayden.
He replied, his voice soft, “All of us have had something similar happen. It feels as if you’ve been violated in ways that you don’t even want to think about.”
“It makes me wonder what else they did,” she muttered. “I know it’s not something that was even brought up, but I really don’t know jack shit about what happened to my own body.”
“I don’t think that would have been on their mind.”
She swore at that, not convinced.
Hayden added, ignoring her swearing, “It would have been something they did as a punishment or out of a sense of power, so they would have made sure you were conscious.”
She groaned, then shrugged. “Thank heavens for that.” She closed her eyes and nodded in relief. “It would be good if I could remember though,” she muttered.
“But of course you can’t because you were drugged,” he noted, with a sigh.
“Not knowing is just hard. How does any of this make any sense?” she grumbled. “They put a tracking device in my body, and we didn’t even know.” Then she glared at them both and asked, “How is it you didn’t know?”
Hayden smiled. “Because it was turned off each time we scanned for it? Or just because we’re human. Maybe our scanner technology wasn’t good enough.”
She groaned. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be so difficult. I’ve just been thrown for a loop.”
“You’re fine,” he replied.
When she glanced at Rubin, who was currently driving at top speed, she whispered, “I haven’t been very good to him.”
Hayden grinned. “It’s okay if you give him a run for his money.”
“Why?” she asked, turning to face Hayden. “Why would you even say that?”
He gave her a big smile. “It’s about keeping him guessing. Obviously, he really likes you.”
“Then why play the game if he likes me?” she asked, with a frown.
“Because, if you make it too easy for him, that’s not good either.”
She stared at him and muttered, “He doesn’t really like me. I can promise you that.”
“Oh, yes, he does.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“Yes, he does.”
They kept their voices low, getting lower as the fight, as stupid as it was, continued in the back seat.
Finally Rubin twisted slightly, adjusted his rearview mirror, and asked, “What are you guys fighting about?”
“Nothing.” But she knew right away he wouldn’t believe her. Her answer had been too quick.
Hayden jumped in. “You.”
Rubin gave him a hard glance. “You two definitely don’t need to be fighting about me … at all.”
“We aren’t,” she snapped, glaring at him. “You can just go back to being mean.”
“Mean?” he repeated, astonished.
“Yes, mean,” she confirmed.
“When was I mean?”
“While we were running.”
“Oh.” He nodded. “Okay, I’ll give you that. I was mean.”
“You weren’t that mean though,” she recanted.
He rolled his eyes. “I thought you just said I was mean.”
“You were mean,” she confirmed, “but I guess maybe, … maybe you had a good reason for being mean.” He sighed, and she groaned. “You’re making me crazy.”
“No, you’re making me crazy,” he muttered.
“Am not.”
“Are too.”
And, beside her, Hayden was howling with laughter.
“Apparently we’re just giving Hayden entertainment at our expense,” she muttered. “So, you should be quiet now, so he won’t laugh at us quite so much.”
Rubin shook his head. “I’m not so certain about that. I’m pretty sure he’s got this whole laughing thing down pat, and, if he doesn’t have anything to laugh at, he starts something,” he muttered.
“You should get him to stop then. It’s not nice.”
He snorted. “You’re right. It’s not nice, but my getting him to stop isn’t easy.”
“Why not? He’s your friend, isn’t he? He should do it just because he’s your friend.”
“He won’t. You’ve given him way too much ammunition to stop now. Besides, he’s only doing it because he’s my friend.”
“But that doesn’t make him a very good friend,” she snapped.
“Oh, for crying out loud,” Rubin muttered.
“And now you’re swearing at me,” she cried out. “You better not do that because I might just cry.”
*
Rubin studied Tricia through the rearview mirror, his expression concerned. And, indeed, she did seem close to crying, based on the expression on her face. “I’m not trying to make you cry.”
“I know,” she muttered. “I don’t know why I feel like this, but suddenly I just can’t get my thoughts straight, and you guys are just making me nuts.”
“Hey, I’m not making you nuts,” Hayden stated. “It’s all on him.” When she glared at Hayden, he laughed. “Why don’t you just relax?”
“Relax?” she repeated. “Are you kidding? The last time I even tried, the next thing I knew, I was dragged out of the car and sent into the bush, running on feet that are already killing me.” She shook her head. “Do you know that, at one point, he threw me over his shoulder and carried me?”
“Oh, did he now?” Hayden asked in a quiet tone.
“Anybody back there familiar with the word oversharing?” Rubin muttered.
“We’ll come back to that,” Hayden said, his tone serious, with no trace of humor. “Tricia, he carried you, without complaining I’ll bet, and never once mentioned it. I guess it’s a good thing he could do that and could keep you out of trouble.”
“Yeah, but I am not out of trouble yet. So how did he get me out of trouble? It makes no sense.”
“You’re right,” Hayden agreed. “It makes no sense.”
She glared at him and snapped, “Now you’re patronizing me.”
Hayden burst out laughing. “I am not sure how to react to you right now. So I will just stay quiet.”
“That’s probably a good choice,” she murmured, as she slumped back in her seat and yawned. “God, I’m tired.”
“Just try to sleep,” Rubin suggested and watched as she closed her eyes, curled up in the back seat, and seemingly slept.
*
“Is she asleep?” Rubin asked Hayden, as he kept driving in the night.
“She is, and a pretty exhausted sleep at that.”
“Yeah, I had to push her hard to get her through the woods,” Rubin shared. “We heard them all around us, which was almost enough to keep her going, but then she got really tired and just couldn’t move. So, I ended up carrying her on my shoulder.”
“Yeah, she seems more affronted about that than anything.”
“I’m not surprised,” he replied, with a sigh. “She’s got grit, and she’s also got a sense of humor. Yet I have no idea what that weird conversation was just about.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Hayden teased, with a snort.
“Yet she’s holding up, which is all we really need to be concerned about.”
“Yeah, plus you’re also falling for her,” Hayden pointed out. “And so is she for you.”
“It would be a whole lot smarter not to,” Rubin muttered.
“Yeah, well, when you figure out how to make that stop, let me know. In the meantime, you’ve got quite a mess on your hands.”
“Thanks for that.”
“But the good news is that we’re back on the road, that you found the subcutaneous GPS tracker on her, and that the bad guys are now running all over the place, looking for us.”
“When I found that tracker,” he whispered, “I was livid.” He really liked Tricia. Just the thought of her was enough to send his heart racing. The fact she was a job first was the issue for him.
“So, you just cut it out of her arm?”
“Yes, … didn’t really have much choice. I had to act fast, and it was the only option.”
“I can imagine that didn’t go down that well.”
“Are you kidding? Why do you think she’s still so angry at me?”
“That would do it.”
“I didn’t have a choice. We were in the woods, and their tracker was a beacon to find us. No doubt that’s how they’ve been tracking us this whole time, ever since we rescued her. Their tech is smarter than ours. Our wand found no GPS when we scanned her body.”
“Which is also why they implanted it in her, just in case they lost her. Yet how funny it is that simple aluminum foil works as well as a Faraday cage.” He chuckled softly.
“We’ve gotten rid of the kidnappers for the moment, but you also know that they’re still out there.”
“Since we are now in one of their vehicles,” Hayden noted, “with any luck, they’ll be short one vehicle for a little bit, and that’ll slow them down as well.”
“Are you sure they don’t have a tracker on this vehicle?”
“I did a quick search before, and I found nothing,” he shared, “but it wouldn’t be a bad idea to do a little more in-depth one.”
“Great,” Rubin muttered. “Not exactly the easiest thing to do right now.”
“Plus, we should swap out license plates too. Or just change vehicles again.”
“Right.” Rubin sighed. “She needs sleep. The minute we stop, she’ll jerk wide awake.”
“Yes, but she also needs this nightmare to be over. Can we still make the airport rendezvous? The team was supposed to meet us there.”
“I don’t think we’ll make our originally scheduled time,” Rubin replied. “However, the airfield itself might yield us some options.”
“Unless the bad guys know about it, in which case they’ll be waiting for us to show.”
“Somebody will likely be there waiting for us, but that doesn’t mean everybody will be. Still, we might get a heads-up of any strangers showing up too. Yet we need to keep in mind that not everybody out there is out to get us.”
“No, but you and I both know that the only reason we stayed alive so many times is because we treated the world as if it were the enemy.”
Really no arguing with that. Following the directions they got from Google, which were a little bit dubious already, Rubin pulled into a pitch-black airfield. He glanced around and whispered, “You stay here with her.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’ll take a look and see if we can find anybody.”
“Okay, stay alert.”
Rubin shrugged.
Hayden added, “If anybody is here, they are already prepped and ready.”
“I know, and I’ll be careful.”
“I’m dialing your phone now. Keep the line open the whole time,” Hayden said.
Rubin nodded as he exited the car, searching the surrounding area closely. As careful as he was at all times, he remained hopeful but a bit unnerved to see a completely closed airfield, with a few planes parked off to the side. “Perfect.”
“It would be, as long as you’re free to do the flying, with one that’s gassed up and ready.”
“I’ll take a look and see what I can find.”
“Hurry up. We don’t have much time.”
“I’ll check the office first.” It was locked up, but he quickly jimmied the lock, went inside, and checked out the logbooks for what was on for the next day.
When he read it, he smiled and spoke softly to Hayden.
“Bring her in. A plane is here, all fueled up and ready to go, slated for an early morning flight.”
“Everything in order?”
“Flight logs have already been filed. Everything’s here, just waiting for the check-in come morning. We can be out of here in thirty minutes, … easy peas.” He headed for the door. “Meet me at hangar 2, and we’ll take off from here.”
“She’s going to flip when she sees this,” Hayden said, then went on to imitate her. “What? So we’ll steal a plane now?”
Amusement filled Hayden’s tone, which made Rubin smile. Not that he minded. “You got a better idea?” Rubin asked Hayden.
“No, not right now,” he admitted, his tone dry, “especially when I’m getting the distinct feeling that they’re about to find us.”
“I know, and I’m damn well done with this hide-and-seek that never seems to work, so move her into the plane,” he added.
“It’s a Cessna Citation CJ4, off to the side.
Look for hangar 2.” And, with that, he raced outside, then opened the side door for Hayden and Tricia.
His partner was alert, and Tricia was mute, wide-eyed, and not quite all awake.
Or so he thought.