CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Mylene waited in the kitchen for the men to leave her house. Today was different. Nothing different had happened since Pham was arrested more than a year ago. But this time, the men who delivered groceries and task lists remained in her living room.
Unless Pham had ordered Mylene to be taken somewhere as a punishment, her schedule followed a strict routine. Mondays and Wednesdays brought food and her weekly objectives. The Friday deliveries included newspapers and magazines for her to study over the weekend. She could see where her work had penetrated the public’s perception of an event or purpose. Alternative facts threaded into flame-throwing discussions. She could see how her work ripped families apart, tearing at the basic fabric of communities and trust. But she couldn’t stop.
Could she?
No. She didn’t know anything other than the instructions they gave her: study what didn’t work, avoid the same mistake twice, and find new places to fuel a public uproar. If not, Pham’s people would punish her.
How would they punish her now that Pham was behind bars and couldn’t watch? When he brought Mylene somewhere as a punishment, she always thought he hurt more than she did. He liked to bring her on family trips—with Angela Sorenson, the woman he used as a stand-in for his dead daughter. Pham made Mylene watch Angela, maybe hoping she would imagine what her life would have been like with Mark.
No matter Pham’s intention, the pseudo-family trips never hit her as they did him. Her house of horrors was much worse because it was real. Mark was dead. Tabby was dead. Their murders were her fault.
Sawyer had spent the night in Angela’s bed and woken with her naked body draped over him. He hadn’t been this content in years. That bothered him, but he refused to let dark thoughts creep into this moment.
Sun peeked from behind the curtains. They hadn’t done a great job of covering the sliding glass door because they’d had no thoughts of anything after dinner except for getting naked all over again.
Angela stirred. He kissed the top of her head. She curled into his side and then stretched. “What time is it?” she asked.
He didn’t care. “Did you sleep well?”
Her smile was answer enough. “Like the dead.”
“You snored like it too.”
“I did not.” She tickled his chest. “You know I didn’t—”
He rolled on top of her, muttering, “Kidding,” amongst his kisses.
And just like that, he wanted her all over again. Sawyer barely had enough thought to slide on protection before he nestled himself inside her body again. This woman needed him as much as he needed her.
Last night was couldn’t-get-enough sex. This was lazy-wake-up sex. He didn’t want to pull orgasm after orgasm from her. Sawyer simply needed to be in her, to feel her, to watch her face, and see her breathe. He wanted to feel her pussy quake with the slow roll of his hips.
Her soft kisses mixed with quiet, needy nuzzles. Instead of digging her nails into his back, she wrapped her arms and legs around him and let his strength drive her into heaven.
Angela came and came. Finally, he didn’t have it in him to hold back. With their lips and legs tangled, Sawyer buried himself deep and let himself fall into her like he’d never let go before.
Afterward, they lay together. Not even the need for coffee pulled them from each other’s arms. His lips rested against her temple. How had he known her for this long without realizing what they would be like together in bed?
Their phones buzzed. He pinched his eyes shut. The real world was calling, and he didn’t want to answer.
Angela tensed in his arms. She wasn’t bounding out of bed either.
“Guess we have to get out of bed sometime,” he muttered.
Their phones rang again.
“Who will it be? Jared, Brock, or Parker?” she asked.
“I’ll start the coffee.”
“God, you’re a good man.”
He kissed her cheek and left her bed. Ten minutes later, they had coffee and a quick breakfast at the kitchen table and called Parker back.
“We have a problem,” Parker said instead of saying hello.
Sawyer grumbled. “Do you always call with problems?”
“Yeah—mostly. Did you not realize that?”
Sawyer ran a hand through his hair. This trip had been too easy. Too good to be true. He should’ve known better. He looked at Angela, who sat straight as a board. Her breakfast spoon dangled in her hand over the ignored instant oatmeal. He tried to remember that problems were expected. Problems were what they fixed for a living. This conversation wasn’t Sawyer’s first encounter with Parker’s all-work grousing. It wouldn’t be the last. But this time, the unknown problem packed a hell of a sucker punch.
“Well, don’t kill us with anticipation.” Sawyer tossed an apple between his hands and tried to relax for Angela’s sake. “What’s up?”
“Intel analysts have picked up some chatter.”
Impatient, Sawyer set the apple down and frowned. “About?”
“Angela’s location.”
He exchanged looks with her. Not many people could announce her travel with this kind of speed. Sawyer assumed the Senator had told the ex-boyfriend. There was the FBI special agent. No one from inside Titan would have known enough to share, but even if they had, that wouldn’t have been a concern. They were trustworthy. “Her location as in ‘Angela is Stateside’? Or her location as in ‘camped in a safe house on Emerald Isle’?”
“Closer to the latter. Intel says North Carolina.”
“What the fuck?” His eyebrows arched. That kind of information was more than whispers from the FBI’s offices. “How does that happen? Her mother?”
“I don’t know. It could be a couple of things.”
Angela set down her spoon. “Like?”
Parker sighed. “Anything from someone you spoke with this past week to perhaps the Senator has a security breach in her communication network. The intel’s kind of fuzzy. Not to mention we’re a few hours behind. They have a tactical advantage. But we need to take it as a serious and immediate risk.”
Sawyer tossed the apple again. His mind raced to map the possibilities. “So we need to go?”
“Go where?” she asked. “We haven’t talked to everyone on our list.”
“There’s a silver lining,” Parker said. “If they’re talking about you, that’s something we can look and listen for. If Mylene Hathaway is alive and anywhere close to you and they put two and two together, they’re going to do two things.”
“What?” Angela asked.
Sawyer felt a churning in his gut. “Move Mylene and go after you.”
Tension washed over her expression. “Neither of those sound helpful.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I guess you’ve run the statistics on the likelihood either of those will happen?”
“Yup,” Parker confirmed.
“I’m not going to like it, am I?”
“Nope.”
“Wait a minute.” Angela perched on the edge of her chair. “This is great news. They’re changing their behavior. That opens us up to a chance for them to make a mistake. If they make a mistake, we can swoop in and find her.”
“I don’t know about swooping,” Sawyer grumbled.
“But I’m right, aren’t I?” she asked.
A shadow passed along the outside of the closed blinds. Sawyer’s stomach dropped. He turned off speakerphone and pressed the phone to his ear, holding a finger up to his mouth. “We might have company. Call you back.” He ended the call. His gaze swept the windows for the shadow. “I need you to sit still and be quiet.”
“But—”
“Ange—” He shook his head. “Quiet. Don’t move.” Carefully, he padded to the kitchen window and tried to peer out the edge of the drapes. He had no line of sight.
Sawyer’s ears burned to hear who was outside. Someone who’d accidentally stumbled up to the wrong beach house would have made his day. If it had been a property manager who had an incorrect beach house address, they would have tried to jam their keys into the door. Neither of those situations had been the quiet shadow that made the hairs on his arms stand at attention.
He opened a kitchen drawer and retrieved the handgun he’d spotted after they’d first arrived. A Titan Group safe house was well-armed if a person knew where to look. Another bonus feature of the safe house was the multiple ways in which they could see their surroundings. Nondescript mirrors hung on the walls. Windows overlooked the points of entry. There were several ways to exit each floor. The décor on the deck offered reflections to check angles.
Angela’s chair scratched the floor as she pushed from the table.
He lifted his hand. “No one has a shot on you if you stay put.”
Her lips parted, but she didn’t protest.
Sawyer quietly inspected their exterior surroundings while mentally kicking himself in the ass for dropping his guard. His primary responsibility in all of this was Angela. No matter what they’d agreed to work on, her safety was the priority.
He didn’t see anyone else, but he also didn’t see the person who had just skirted by the window. Even though he had a good look at the house’s exterior, he certainly didn’t have a thorough one.
When Sawyer made his way back to the kitchen, he saw Angela waiting in her chair, frozen in place.
“I think there’s only one of them,” he said.
Her eyes darted to the windows and door. “But there could be more?”
“Possibly.” He wished he had a better view of their surroundings. “They likely have several ideas that they’re following up on.”
“Maybe he thinks no one is home,” she offered.
“Doubtful.” Upon reading her body language, he added, “The grill’s been used recently. Depending on when they first pinged the house as a possibility, they’ve seen the car move.” He had always checked their surroundings when they left and when they arrived. Sawyer consistently scanned for tails when they were out. It wasn’t as if he’d been negligent. Just not on high alert.
“So is there someone out there or not?” she finally asked.
“Probably.”
“Are we just going to hide in here until they leave?” She tossed up her hands at his silent, incredulous expression. “I don’t want someone to shoot at us again.”
“Me neither. My best guess is they’re new on the scene and trying to ascertain if we’re home.”
“The car’s here. We’re obviously home.”
“We’re quiet with the windows covered,” he countered. “Either way, I want to get the hell out of here.”
Someone tried to twist the deck door’s knob. Another shadow hovered by the window. All right, Sawyer needed to contend with two people out there. At least they weren’t shooting their way inside. He decided it was time to roll. “Let’s go.”
Angela followed Sawyer, crouching when he did, hurrying toward the front door. They donned the flip-flops they’d left on this floor. It wasn’t the footwear he wanted at the moment, but it was better than none. He double-checked the nearby windows and inspected as much of the space as he could see of the front. Sawyer snagged the car keys from the hook but wasn’t sure if he and Angela could reach the vehicle without being spotted.
Theirs was a tricky situation. The people outside didn’t want to take Angela. They wanted her dead. He had to limit her exposure.
Sawyer turned the deadbolt open. The click sounded in his head as though he’d hit a gong to announce their position. His hand rested on the doorknob. “Stay close and behind me.”
“Where are we going?”
“I haven’t figured that out yet.”
“Good thing I trust you.”
He laughed. “Good thing.” Sawyer twisted the doorknob and allowed an inch of daylight to fall inside. Semi-blinded but mostly sure they were safe, his ears pricked at the sound of the opening door on the other side of the house. He grabbed her hand, and out they went.
A man yelled from the street that they’d slipped out the front door.
Sawyer jerked to his left then his right, dragging Angela. A bullet splintered into the side of the house. She screamed. Another one popped.
The man called for his partner.
Sawyer made it to a tiny plastic storage shed that would do nothing to slow a bullet. “You okay?”
“I lost a shoe.”
“Given the situation, I’ll take that as a yes.” A bullet thumped the storage shed. They didn’t have many options of where to go. One way would leave them wide open and in the middle of the street. The opposite way would head toward the beach. They’d be sitting ducks, as would anyone else who had the misfortune to start their beach day nearby. The last option was to go onto their neighbor’s property, where ideally someone would have left the keys in a car. Not likely, but they didn’t have any time for another plan. “Time to move boots.”
Sawyer lifted her over a nasty patchwork of thorns and cactus, cursing every flip-flopped step he took. The chasing voices stayed close—and fire exploded in his arm. His hold on her faltered.
“Sawyer!”
Son of a bitch. Angela dangled, half supported in his good arm, half running to keep up. He threw them behind the concrete foundation of the house.
Angela cried in pain. Blood coated her.
“Damn it—Angela?”
“Thorns,” she explained. “They’re everywhere.”
He hadn’t noticed and jerked her off the ground. The blood—was his. Good. But they still needed an escape vehicle fast.
Then he saw the dune buggy. It offered next to no protection. They’d be open targets, unable to zig and zag from a bullet’s trajectory. But, if Sawyer was able to drive toward the beach and use the dunes as a barrier, they could get distance from the shooters and figure out their next steps when no one was firing.
“See the dune buggy? We’re running over there.” He pointed. “Jump on and get down. Curl up as little as possible.”
That was as much time for instructions as they had.
“That?”
“Yeah. That’s the plan. Go.”
Sawyer hustled, half carrying Angela, and prayed the dune buggy would be functional. They jumped into the seats. “Get down. Get down.”
Angela’s knees were on the floorboard. She curled into a ball.
Sawyer inspected the dashboard. No keys required. All he needed was a little luck. He punched the Start button. The electric motor turned over. “Halle-fuckin’-lujah.”
The dune buggy beeped in reverse. A bullet lodged itself in a beer can abandoned in the center console’s cup holder.
Sawyer slammed the buggy into drive. They bumped and rolled from behind the beach house and zipped toward the steep sand dunes. “We’re gonna see how much this bad boy can handle. Hang on.”
Angela screeched. The buggy raced up the dune and crested. This vehicle was a beast. They were going to catch air on the downside.
He let off the gas and called again, “Hang on!”
“I am trying!”
Sawyer jerked the steering wheel. They banked right.
“ You are going to kill me.”
He laughed and threaded the buggy through a beach walkway and onto the wide expanse of sand where the routine patrol of lifeguard trucks had made it easy to navigate tracks.
Sawyer checked over his shoulder. “I think we’re in the clear.”
Angela pulled herself upright. “You’re bleeding all over the place.”
“Shit.” He glanced at his arm. “I’d forgotten about that.” He could wash the drying blood off in the ocean, but he didn’t relish the idea of cleaning his wound with salt water.
Not a lot of choices, though. They didn’t have supplies, much less a first aid kit. He’d lost the gun somewhere between the cactus garden and the dune buggy.
Maybe their attackers grabbed it as an early Christmas present. Free ammo. Either way, once Parker had been updated on the situation, Titan would send in a clean-up team to return the two houses to their original state sans bullet holes. The clean-up team would even return the dune buggy after Sawyer ditched it. When and how were his most significant concerns.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
They couldn’t return to their beach house. Neither of them had a cell phone or cash. Angela was missing a shoe—and a quick glance told him she was the worse for wear. “I don’t know yet. You okay?”
“I could use a cup of coffee and a pair of tweezers.” She grimaced. “There are a lot of cactus spines all over me.”
“Come to think of it, same,” he admitted.
He slowed down and drove along the beach. If there had been more people along the water, he could borrow someone’s cell phone while they were distracted by the waves. But not enough people were out for him to pull off that trick for at least an hour.
“What are we going to do?” she asked again.
Sawyer turned toward the waves. “I have to wash the blood off before someone notices.”
Angela stayed in the dune buggy, apparently inspecting her arms and legs for barbed prickles. He removed his blood-stained T-shirt and cleaned up the best he could. The pain increased as his adrenaline cooled.
When he returned to the dune buggy, a scowl creased Angela’s forehead. “You need to go to a doctor.”
He rotated his arm and tried not to tighten the muscle. “It’s mostly a flesh wound.”
“Sawyer—”
“I’ll get it checked out later.” He rolled his shirt into a bandage. “Will you tie this on?”
Her frown deepened.
“I promise I’ll get someone to look at it later.” Blood leaked down his arm.
“Someone with a medical background ?” she pressed.
“Yes,” he agreed.
“You might need stitches.”
He sat behind the wheel of the dune buggy. “I don’t need anything right now except for your help.” He offered the shirt again. “Can you tie my arm up?”
She relented and took the shirt.
Sawyer placed his arm on the dashboard and let her wrap the shirt around his bicep. “Tighter.” He sucked in some air. “Little tighter.”
“Oh, come on, Sawyer. I feel like I’m hurting you.”
He dropped his head back as the pain fired through his arm muscles. “Gotta do it, babe.” He caught himself. “Sorry,” he amended. “Ange.”
Angela tucked the end of the tight bandage into itself. “I don’t care if you call me that.” She checked her work while Sawyer studied her. “There isn’t anything pompous or pretentious in how you talk to me.” She raised her eyes to him. “I probably would have called you worse if the situation was reversed.”
His lips curled into a slow smile, and with his good arm, he pulled Angela in for a kiss. She was a balm to his wounded arm. Her presence erased the morning’s troubles and wiped away his worries. She soothed a lonely, unsettled part of him that he’d been ignoring for years. She made him happy. It was very simple. Scary. But simple.
Their kiss lingered. His racing mind calmed, and for a moment, it was almost as though they were on a day trip to the beach and not in need of a first aid kit while sitting in a stolen dune buggy.
He placed a soft kiss on her cheek and combed her wild hair back. “How are you doing? How many cactus spines are we talking about?”
She held out her arms and gestured to her legs. “About a thousand.”
Angela wasn’t exaggerating very much. “That’s going to take a while.”
“Yeah. Do you have a plan?”
“Find first aid and then loop headquarters in.”
“If Boss Man were here, he’d bark something about those being objectives, not action strategies.”
Sawyer grinned. “Good thing he’s not—” His eyes narrowed. “I need to ask you a very important question.”
She side-eyed him. “How important? Because I’m not letting you off the hook about seeing a doctor—”
“Someone with a medical background,” he corrected.
She rolled her eyes.
“But that’s not what I’m talking about.”
Looking wary, she waited. “What?”
“You’re the note bandit, aren’t you?” Over the course of years, someone had left jokes and poems for Jared to find. They usually made the veins in Boss Man’s neck stand out. The content was very in the weeds, sometimes hinting at inside jokes that only ACES would know, other times busting their balls. At one time or another, everyone had been their target, though the focus had been on Jared ninety-nine percent of the time.
“Of course not.”
The corners of her eyes tightened. Was she blinded by the sun, or had bullshit made her twitchy? Writing those jokes and poems would be out of character for her. Then again, Sawyer had learned more about her in the last few days than he had watching her back over the previous few years. “If you say so.”
“Can we go back to the beach house?” she asked. “I have a pair of sunglasses that I love. Not to mention all of the work we’ve accomplished.”
He would let the note-bandit question drop for now. “We don’t need any of that paperwork.” Pham’s people had probably swept through the house already and bagged the intel to pore over. “I’ll get you new sunglasses.”
“All that work’s gone,” she said, pouting.
“You know all of it without having it in front of you.”
After a moment, she seemed to agree. “Then are we off to find a first aid kit? Doctor? Something?”
He restarted the dune buggy. “We’ll find a store and figure everything out from there.”