Chapter Sixteen
“We need to go to my apartment,” Bree said from inside the SUV as they watched Ryan pull back onto the road. “This SUV is too conspicuous, not to mention they probably have some sort of means of tracking it.”
Tanner looked a little like he was in shock. She knew he wasn’t one hundred percent on board with this decision to run. But if they didn’t get moving right now, the option was going to be taken out of their hands.
Running, keeping away from people who were looking for you, was definitely in Bree’s wheelhouse. God knew she had enough experience at it.
Tanner was still staring out the windshield into the rain.
She reached over and squeezed his hand. “Dempsey, let’s go. Get safe first, fall apart later.”
Yep, she’d just quoted her mother.
Tanner gave a brief nod then pulled onto the road and drove toward Risk Peak. Thank goodness they’d dropped her car off here yesterday on the way to the prison. They were going to need it and what she had in her apartment.
“I’m not even sure where we should go.” Tanner’s knuckles were white as he gripped the steering wheel.
“We’re going to my apartment first. I have some things that will help us.”
And at least they still had her computer with them. They were going to need that most of all.
She put a call in to Cheryl and Dan at the Sunrise Diner to let them know she wouldn’t be in for a couple more days. She told them that Tanner had kidnapped her and taken her somewhere secluded and romantic, and she wasn’t even exactly sure where she was.
She felt a little bit guilty at how excited they seemed at the thought. But Ryan was probably right. The best thing she and Tanner could do right now was make it seem like they had a reason to be out of pocket. And not look like they were on the run from the law.
She half expected Tanner to change his mind and decide to turn himself over to the sheriff, and fight this head-on. If he did, she wouldn’t try to stop him or discourage him in any way.
Head-on was Tanner’s way. And it was one of the things she loved most about him.
But he didn’t. As a matter of fact, the closer they got to Risk Peak, the faster he drove, like he realized that they needed to get the hell out of Dodge quick.
“We won’t have very long before they have an APB out on me. We’ve got to be out of town by then. They’re going to be able to trace things like credit cards and ATMs, and I don’t have that much cash on me.”
“I’ve got everything we need in my apartment. Get me there, give me five minutes, maybe even less, and we can be on the road.”
She’d struggled with the fact that she still had a bug-out bag packed and waiting in the corner of her closet, even though the Organization wasn’t hunting her anymore.
She told herself it made her a coward to keep it around, that it encouraged the bad habit of running when she got scared.
But she hadn’t been able to force herself to get rid of it.
And now she was glad.
Ten minutes later they were pulling up in front of her apartment.
She handed him the key to her car. “Grab anything useful from in here, and definitely my computer. I’ll meet you at my car in five minutes.”
He looked at her, expression tight. He was still white-knuckling the steering wheel. “You’re running again. I never wanted you to be forced to do that. And now I’m dragging you into breaking the law with me.”
He was about to be arrested for murder, and he was worried about her.
“We haven’t actually seen the warrant out for your arrest, so technically we’re not breaking any laws yet. Let’s run away for a romantic getaway, just the two of us.” She smiled. This was so much harder for him than it was for her.
He hit his palm against the steering wheel. “Fine. Three days, that’s it. If we haven’t figured out who’s behind it by then, I’m turning myself in, back from our romantic getaway.”
“Deal.” If they didn’t have any further info in three days, they were in a lot of trouble anyway.
“And when this is over, I’m taking you for a real romantic getaway, off grid, just the two of us.”
She grinned. “Making an honest woman out of me—I like that.”
“Trust me, if I’m not starting a thirty-year prison sentence in the next few months, I plan to make an honest woman out of you in every possible way.”
She only got a second to gape at him before his fingers twisted in her hair at the nape of her neck—the way he seemed to like to do so much—and he pulled her in for a quick kiss. “Go get your magic bag of tricks. We don’t have a lot of time.”
“Three and a half minutes at my car.” She was out the door without another word.
The bug-out bag was exactly where she’d left it.
Thankful for the preparation and evasion skills her mother had instilled in her, even though they’d been so painful at the time, Bree grabbed it.
It wasn’t meant for two people, but it would give them a much better head start than law enforcement would be expecting.
Her phone buzzed in her purse. She took it out and looked at it.
Ronnie Kitchens. The deputy who worked with Tanner every day in Risk Peak.
Bree knew better than to answer it. She left the phone on her kitchen table and hefted the large backpack onto her shoulder. They’d be coming here soon looking for her and Tanner. Accidentally leaving her phone would give credence to their claim that they were on a romantic getaway.
And she would not, under any circumstances, think about Tanner’s comment about making an honest woman out of her. She needed to focus on getting them through this situation and keeping Tanner out of jail.
Not focusing on what it would be like to become Mrs. Bree Dempsey.
She was back out of her car with a few seconds to spare on her three and a half minutes. Tanner was already there, looking more grim. “Ronnie just called me.”
She got in and he started the car. “You didn’t answer, did you?”
“No. I’m sure he wants to know why there’s an arrest warrant with my name on it coming across his desk.”
“He called me, too. I left my phone on the table, so it will just look like I forgot it.”
Tanner handed her his phone. “Do whatever you need to make sure they can’t track me with this.”
She ran her fingers along his old-fashioned flip phone.
The fact that he didn’t have a smartphone was what had saved her life a few months ago.
She opened the back panel and removed the battery and the SIM card.
It was doubtful they could’ve traced it, even as a whole unit, but keeping these pieces separate would definitely stop them.
She dropped the separate pieces into the cup holder in the console of her late-model gray Honda. It was one of the most popular cars in the United States, which was precisely why she owned it. This vehicle would blend in with every other car on the highway.
“Got any particular direction you think we should head?” he asked.
“Just out of Risk Peak, definitely not in the direction of the ranch, and probably not toward any of your family’s houses, either.”
He nodded. “Yes, those will be the first places they’ll look.”
They drove toward Denver, deciding that the more vehicles around, the less conspicuous they would be. As they approached Aurora, a suburb just outside Denver, they started running low on gas.
“We’re going to have to stop,” Tanner said. “But we can’t run any credit cards. I have eighty-seven dollars in my wallet. That’s not going to get us far.”
“That’s okay. I have about two thousand in my backpack.”
He nearly gave himself whiplash as he spun to look at her before returning his eyes to the road. “Why the hell do you have two thousand dollars in your backpack?”
She shrugged. “It’s my bug-out bag. Do you know what that is?”
“I was raised in Colorado and have a brother who’s always one step away from disappearing. So yeah, I know what a bug-out bag is. But most people have camping supplies and waterproof matches. Not two grand.”
The term bug-out bag had been coined by survivalists to mean a bag that contained whatever emergency gear someone kept available and ready to go at a moment’s notice—in case they needed to bug out. Most people thought of it in terms of wilderness survival.
Bree’s bag was completely different. It did have some traditional supplies—a Mylar blanket, changes of clothes and a small first-aid kit. But Bree had never planned to be heading to the wilderness if she had to survive on the run. Her kit was for urban survival.
“Actually, I have something we should probably use now that we’ve cleared Risk Peak. Can you pull over at that rest stop ahead?”
Tanner nodded tightly and did as she asked. He definitely didn’t look any more relaxed as she took a license plate out of her backpack.
“The first thing any police officer will do if they’re looking for a car like mine is run the license plates. These will come up clean.”
“Why do you even have those?”
She gnawed on the side of her lip. “Actually, six months ago I had five different clean license plates, to use if I had to run from the Organization. I got rid of all but one.”
He scrubbed a hand across his face. “Well, I’m glad you only have one illegal set.”
“In the interest of full disclosure, I also have a credit card and ID under another name.” She flinched at his thunderous look. “I—I...I’m trying, Tanner, I promise. But running and disappearing was my whole life for so long.”
She didn’t want him to be disappointed in her, and she’d tried to force herself to get rid of the bag multiple times, but she just couldn’t.
His face relaxed, and his hand reached for hers. “I know. And who am I to judge, considering you’re using all this stuff to help me? But let’s try to keep the illegal activities as much to a minimum as possible. And when we get all this cleared up, how about getting rid of all the illegal stuff.”
She nodded. Maybe by then the thought wouldn’t send her into a panic.
He took the license plate from her and changed it out. Then they got back on the road.
“We need to come up with a plan,” she said after a few more minutes.
“Driving around puts us at unnecessary risk. I know you don’t want me to use the fake ID or credit card, but that will allow us to get a hotel room.
All we need is somewhere with good internet and I can start to look into the situation. ”
Which would involve more illegal activity, but she didn’t want to bring that up.
But she wasn’t fooling him. His lips tightened. “What systems are you going to hack?”
She sighed. “I was going to start with the sheriff’s office. I should be able to find all the details of the latest murder there. Then cross-reference them with Darin Carrico and see if there’s an association. I also want to see if he sent out another email before Owen Duquette was killed.”
Tanner nodded, not giving her a hard time about the hacking she would need to do. At this point, there was no way around it. They needed info and they needed it fast. The best she could do was promise to only access the info they needed.
She was capable of so much more.
“Will Grand County be able to trace where the hack is coming from? Find you?”
Bree actually laughed out loud at the absurdity of that statement.
A half smile lit his face. “I guess that’s a no.”
“Believe me, there’s very few people outside of the ones from the Organization we put in prison a few months ago who would be able to do a back trace on me.”
“Okay, because if we’ve got to bend some laws, I want to make sure none of it comes back on you.”
“Believe me, it won’t.”
“Then I’ve got the perfect place for us to go. We’ll actually have to circle back toward Risk Peak, but it’s far enough away that we won’t run into anyone. A cabin, but with security and Wi-Fi. I’ll have to make a call first to some of Noah’s former Special Forces teammates.”
She nodded. “Okay, we can get a burner phone when we stop for gas. Any truck rest stop off the interstate will have them.”
A few minutes later, they were pulling up to a gas station. Bree grabbed two baseball caps from her bag.
She handed one to him. “Stay in the car and keep this as low over your eyes as possible. Don’t look around, just look down at your hands like you’re messing with a phone. I’ll get the gas.”
She could tell right away he didn’t like that. “No.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m much less conspicuous than you are, Tanner. I’ve got more experience blending in, plus I’m not half a foot taller than everybody else around me.”
His lips pressed together in a mutinous line, but he finally gave her a brief nod.
Bree got out of the car, pumping the gas then going inside to pay and find a burner phone. She kept her head down and eyes averted—not a problem for her.
She was going to have to work quickly once Tanner got them to the cabin. He said he’d give it three days, but she was betting after two he’d be ready to turn himself in.
Tanner Dempsey was never going to be good at hiding. It went against his nature. Even when he had worked undercover, she was sure they hadn’t used him as someone who blended in.
But she would find out what was going on. Because there was no way she was letting him go to jail.