Chapter 38
LAUREL
The dark, ominous sky was fitting when I emerged from the plane and shuffled down the retractable staircase.
There were two vehicles waiting. One looked much like a police SUV that had hastily parked on the tarmac, and the other was a glistening luxury car. It looked fast and expensive, and even though I didn’t know him well, I was one hundred percent certain it was Shawn’s.
An elegant man in a suit and thick trench coat stood beside it. It wasn’t clear if he was Shawn’s assistant, security, or driver. Maybe he was all three. He watched with skepticism as the immigration officers herded me toward their SUV, followed by Shawn, who began to spew German at his employee.
The back door to the police vehicle was pulled open for me, and I stared at the interior with dread. My mind filled with hesitation, but then another official got out of the car who was either military or police. A large, menacing gun rested casually in his hands.
Everyone else acted as if this were normal and commonplace.
I took a final look at Shawn, whose conflicted expression shifted to determination. It announced he’d do everything in his power to sort this out, and that was enough to get me to climb into the back seat.
As soon as I finished buckling my seatbelt, the men got in, and I was handed a pen and a clipboard with an immigration form on it. Thankfully, it was in English.
During the final hour of the flight, I’d awoken and discussed my new identity with Shawn. I filled in the spaces I could on the form now, and my unpracticed hand signed the fake name. My breath caught when my gaze slid over the part about not falsifying the information.
The large airport loomed ahead, and in no time the car came to a halt and the clipboard was taken from me. I was led through the side door of a building, down a hallway, and into a room where a female security agent patted me down, thorough and unapologetic.
When I’d passed that evaluation, I was placed in a small room with worn, dirty gray carpet and two unforgiving metal chairs. The bare walls were white, and the only window was a thin strip of glass in the solid-looking door.
I waited in the holding room for an unknown amount of time. Definitely longer than fifteen minutes.
Worry made me fidget. Something was wrong. This was taking too long.
It had to have been at least two hours when an official appeared through the glass and unlocked the door. I rose to my feet, but the man came in and shut the door behind him.
“Please state your name.” His English was good, but the accent was thick and much harsher than Shawn’s.
“Leslie Conner.”
The German opened the folder in his hands and peered down at it. I could see the U.S. passport inside, loose and on top of forms. Was that passport mine?
“You understand trying to enter our country illegally and carrying false documentation is a serious crime?”
My breath left me in a burst. What the hell was I going to do? Should I continue to lie to him when he seemed to know I wasn’t who I said I was?
“I will ask you again, tell me your name.” His tone was sharp.
Jason’s words flooded my mind, reminding me not to use my real name. So, when I repeated the fake one, I did my best to make it sound like the truth. The official’s eyes scrutinized me. He closed the folder and typed in the access code to the door, not uttering a word as he left.
Would they send me back to the States? To prison?
My concern swelled into panic as time dragged on. Occasionally, a shadow would pass by the door and draw my attention, letting me believe for a split second someone was about to come in.
Where was Shawn? Was he desperate outside the detainment area? Had he told Jason what had happened?
The endless questions made me pick at my nails and tangle my hands through my unwashed hair. The chair was so uncomfortable I considered sitting on the dirty floor.
After another hour or so, a female agent led me to the bathroom and then back to my holding room. It had been a short march down a hall of doors like mine, and the small bathroom didn’t have a mirror.
I bit my lip when I was closed back in the tiny holding room and fought back the urge to cry. I tried to ask her what was going on, but she either didn’t speak English or didn’t care to.
Was I going to have to spend the night here? I tried desperately to figure out what I could say that would make them set me free.
The same official who had questioned me earlier abruptly burst through the door, startling me as I had begun to nod off. “I’ve been briefed by the U.S. Embassy about your situation,” he announced. “You can come with me.”
“Great.” I stood on my tired legs, straightened my wrinkled clothes that I’d been in for two days, and put on my coat.
We went down the corridor and through the glass door that I’d come through when I’d arrived. It was night now, and a police car waited. The door was tugged open for me and I climbed in, eager to get back to Shawn.
There was already a driver seated behind the wheel, and the official got into the passenger seat. He nodded to the driver, we pulled away, and they had what sounded like a pleasant conversation while we circled the airport.
But unease needled up my spine when we rolled up to a security checkpoint and were waved through. Why were we exiting the airport?
And where was Shawn?
“Where are we going?”
The men ignored me. The airport was lined with a tall fence, and the road beside it was empty for a mile. Then, we came upon a dark SUV perched on the shoulder, the engine still running. Our police car pulled alongside and slowed to a stop.
Ice ran through my veins, freezing my feet to the floorboard. “I want to go back to the airport. I’ll get on Shawn Dunn’s plane and go back to America.”
The official who’d taken me from the holding room swiveled in his seat to look at me . . . and laughed. Like it was the most ridiculous request he’d ever heard. It dumped so much panic into my stomach, I worried I’d get sick.
But then the driver’s door of the SUV swung open.
No. No!
The monster I’d been running from stepped out, a grin blazing across his face and a silver gun hanging at his side.
For a single heartbeat, I couldn’t move. It was as if gravity had been multiplied by a thousand.
Run, Jason’s voice shouted in my head.
It was so loud it was deafening, but it was also like a starting pistol. I scrambled for the other side of the car, pulling at the door handle to no avail. Fucking safety locks. Cold air sliced at me when the back door was pulled open. Frey shoved his head inside, bringing us face-to-face.
“Let’s go,” he said.
“Get away from me!”
He climbed into the back seat and wrapped his arms around my waist. His gun was terrifying, but I didn’t let it slow me down. I slapped and kicked and tried to gouge out his eyes. But it was futile. He overpowered me easily.
“Stop fighting me,” he was pure menace, “or I’ll make you.”
I refused to listen to his threat.
He ripped me from the car, his arms banded around my waist, even as I screamed at the men in the front seat for help.
But they sat like uncaring statues. Frey’s rough hands clamped tighter, and I winced with discomfort. My muscles screamed in protest as I uselessly struggled against him.
“Enough,” he barked, squeezing my arm so hard it made me gasp in pain. The gun wedged into my side, the barrel pressing right in between two ribs. “I understand you’re upset, but I need you to calm down.”
Angry tears were blinked away, and I bit down hard on my tongue to keep from saying something that would get me killed. The bastard official who’d set me in this car turned to Frey and asked something in German.
The barrel was gone from my side, only so it could put two bullets through the windshield of the vehicle. The glass splintered on impact, spiderwebbing cracks across it and partially obscured the looks of surprise that splashed across the men’s faces.
I screamed when the car lurched forward and rolled across the road slowly as if unmanned.
It careened at an awkward angle into the brush at the edge of the pavement, snapping fallen tree branches under the tires as it went.
It was followed by a sickening crunch of metal when it drove into the wide trunk of a tree, the wheels spinning uselessly in the mud.
The gun was jammed back in the same spot, where I could feel it dig in with every breath. Only now the barrel was hot, even through the layers of my jacket.
Frey’s eyes were chaotic and terrifying. He’d killed them so easily, my body turned to solid ice. At least it made it more difficult for him to pull me along the gravel-covered shoulder toward the passenger seat of his car.
There were a million things I should be thinking about. How to disarm him. How to escape. But only one question came out. “How did you find me?”
He shoved me into the passenger seat, my backside slamming into the leather. “Give me your hands.”
So he could put handcuffs on me again. “No.”
“I fucking hate that word. Your hands, now.”
I glared at him so violently, my eyes burned. “No.”
His face hardened, and my mouth went dry. He leaned in so he was all I could see. “You wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for me. Do you understand that?”
What? What the hell was he talking about?
“The people I work for want that,” he muttered.
He dug into his jacket pocket with his free hand and moved with lightning speed, clasping something cold and metal against my left wrist. Not plastic handcuffs this time.
I squirmed, trying to resist because I didn’t want to give an inch, but his gun bit painfully into my side.
A sob died in my chest when he latched the other handcuff around my wrist, binding me.
“I’ll shoot you if I have to. Somewhere that won’t kill you but will be excruciatingly painful. Do you believe that?”
Yes, I did. I blinked back tears and nodded quickly, pressing my lips together.
His piercing gaze scanned my face, evaluating me as he grabbed the seatbelt and stretched it out for me. “Buckle, and don’t try anything,” he ordered. “Don’t make me do that.”
He said it like he didn’t want that any more than I did. Like he might actually care about me. The idea was horrible, and my hands shook as I fumbled to buckle myself in.
Satisfied, his gun and his focus stayed on me while he shut the passenger door, closing me in. He rounded the front of the SUV, opened his door, and slid into the driver’s seat in one smooth motion. As soon as he started the engine, his gun pressed into the meat of my thigh.
I swallowed my fear, not wanting anything I felt to show through.
He threw the vehicle into gear and sped away from the wreck, going too fast for me to jump out without risking major injury or death. I wouldn’t get the seatbelt off in time, anyway.
“I have a friend at the DOJ,” he bragged. “They tracked the vehicle to the airport.”
The pressure from the tip of his gun relaxed a degree, but he didn’t remove it from my leg as he drove. Every mile, he seemed to grow more comfortable and confident.
It made me scan my surroundings for a weapon.
“Once I had the flight manifest,” he continued, “I made sure the German authorities knew an American woman was inbound on Shawn Dunn’s plane with fake papers.” He glanced over and flashed an evil smile. “I had to make sure you couldn’t leave the airport before I landed.”
I thought of the car with the two dead immigration officials in it. And all of the people in Chicago. How many had he murdered to get what he wanted?
My primary goal shifted abruptly. It was no longer about escape—what I wanted most now was to return some of the damage he’d done to my life. Not just that, but for the slew of other people’s too.
I studied his lethal hand that was curled casually on the steering wheel, and my heart crawled into my throat as the terrible plan formed in my mind. I had to act quickly, while his guard was down and before I lost my nerve.
I launched toward him, and the steering wheel was cold in my hands as I yanked it violently.
My father had died in a car crash. We’d been told it was an instant death, and he probably felt no pain.
As the SUV tipped on its side and began its violent roll, I could only pray for the same thing.