Blindsided (6 page)

SEVEN

E
than gripped his seat as the Aston Martin careened down the highway at an unbelievable speed. A look in the mirror showed they no longer had his team on their tail. Perhaps Roni Spencer would break away from Pace and his men after all. That would really irk the agent in charge. How would the man take out his vengeance? Most likely make sure Roni never saw the light of day again. No amount of convincing the man that Roni was set up would work, especially without Ramsey’s cooperation. And that man wasn’t giving it. He, too, had a vendetta now.

“I don’t think chasing your Porsche down is the best choice. It could be one of Ramsey’s men with orders to kill.”

“It’s not.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I recognized something.”

“You saw the driver’s face? How? You were going a buck fifty.”

“One sixty, and I didn’t see his face.”

“His?”

“Yes, his. Jared Finlay.”

“Your ex? How do you know it’s him and not one of Guerra’s muscle?”

“I recognized the way he cut me off. He drifted.”

“So?”

“So, it was perfect. Just like my turn back at the intersection. Just like the way I taught him.”

“You taught him?”

“Everything he knows, not that he’ll ever admit that to anyone. He wanted that little detail kept secret. He didn’t think he would be taken seriously as a driver if people knew a girl taught him to race.”

“You know what this means, right? The fact that he knew how to find you?”

“Yes, I know what this means. I’m not a ditz, contrary to what you might think.”

Ethan pressed his lips. He couldn’t really negate her words. He had believed her to be more bling than brains. “So then you must know chasing him down is dangerous. He wanted you dead, Roni. He didn’t care what Guerra did with you or where you ended up. You don’t know this, but Ramsey planned to export you like inventory. These aren’t people you can just walk up to to set things straight. If Finlay is working with them, then you’re putting your life in danger by tracking him down. Are you listening to me? Roni!”

A sound overhead vied for her attention.

“What is that?” Roni peered over her steering wheel and looked to the skies.

Ethan leaned forward and, at the sight of a helicopter swooping in over them, he hit the radio button and scanned the stations until he found a breaking newsflash.

...pursuit on US Route 3. We’re told Veronica Spencer is at the wheel and fleeing from the FBI. She’s kidnapped a maid from the house as well as a federal agent. Spencer is wanted for grand theft auto and car cloning. She is suspected to be involved in trafficking humans into and through the country.

Ethan hit the button to silence the radio. He banged the dashboard. “You’ve got to be kidding me. What is Pace thinking involving the media?”

“Media?” She squinted up. “That’s a news chopper?” Her hand flew to her neck, then patted around the front of the car until she connected with her scarf, lying in a silky heap. “Quick, tie this around my neck. Make sure nothing is showing.” She held the pink scarf in his direction, a little shake to urge him to follow her orders. Orders that made absolutely no sense.

“You really are crazy. Your scars are the least of your concerns right now. You are being hunted down by the FBI, and they are using every connection they have to apprehend you.”

She shook her scarf again. “Just put it on. Please.” She looked his way for a brief second, but it was long enough for him to see something he hadn’t seen in her eyes yet. Not even when she was kidnapped and stuffed into the back of a van.

Fear.

Ethan took the material and wrapped one end around her neck while she drove face forward. He brought the ends together into a knot, his hand brushing against her mutilated skin. He paused when his knuckles made contact. Slowly he extended his fingers to touch her with the more sensitive pads of his fingertips.

“Don’t.” She took her eyes off the road and gave him a warning glare. All glimpses of her fear vanished. Or maybe it wasn’t fear he saw in the first place, but something more defensive. Was her scarf some sort of shield to cover up more than her scars?

“No one touches my scars,” she warned.

“Ever?”

She looked ahead and bit her lips. The helicopter closed in over them. “Only Cora. She had to since she was the only one to take care of me.”

“What about your uncle?”

She huffed. “Never. Too squeamish.”

“And Jared? You were engaged to him. He had to have—”

“Nope. Only to make sure I was covered at all times.” She looked to the sky. “So hurry up before their cameras catch a glimpse of me.”

Ethan nodded. “You want to be covered up in case the cameras are on you? What’s wrong with people knowing you’re scarred?”

“And here I thought you were smart.”

“Just listen for a second. Perhaps a little glimpse could help you in your case. Paint you as the victim.”

“I am not a victim.”

He raised a hand to hold her off. “I’m not saying you are. In fact, just in the little time we’ve spent together, I can see you’re a take-charge kind of gal. You don’t roll over for anyone. Well, except for Jared.”

“Not except for Jared. I dumped him, remember?”

“Before or after he covered you up like some sort of circus spectacle too grotesque for the world to see?”

“Thanks a lot. I’m not some two-headed bear dressed in a tutu. He knew the public wouldn’t be able to handle my scars.”

“Your scars? Or perhaps the idea of him dating someone with your scars.”

“What do you want from me?”

“I want you to leave the scarf off. Not because it might help your cause, but because there’s nothing grotesque about you. You’re stunning and braver than any agent I’ve ever met. Hold that beautiful head of yours high and let them take all the pictures they want.”

Roni hit the brakes, downshifting to bring the car to the breakdown lane.

“Get out,” she instructed. “I don’t know what game you’re playing, but I’m not playing along.”

“I’m not playing a game. I just want to help you. I know you’ve been set up, but my word isn’t going to be enough against the mountain of evidence the FBI has on you. Let the public see you as the one taking the fall, not the one committing the crimes.”

“Then all the more reason for you to get out. They think I’ve kidnapped you. Letting you go will show them that’s not the case. You can tell them you got in the car willingly. In fact, you were being shot at by Ramsey’s men and I saved you.”

“Pace won’t care. He will still take you down, and I will be there when he does.”

“You enjoy watching ladies get cuffed and stuffed?”

“Only when they’re guilty. And you are not.” He looked out at the back window, catching a glimpse of Maddie also rubbernecking. “They’re coming. What’s your choice?”

She fixed her scarf, feeling her skin to find no scars breached the fabric.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that.”

“We do this my way, or not at all. Are you in or are you out?”

“I’m in. I don’t like it, but I’m in. Now drive.”

The car roared to life, screaming back out onto the highway in a blink of an eye.

“We need to find cover from the helicopter,” Ethan said.

She peered his way as she took the next exit. “It’s a good thing I know a lot about finding cover. To the trees.”

* * *

Roni chose roads with heavy overgrowth of pines in the hopes the pilot of the chopper would lose sight of them. The whomping sound of the blades told her she still had a tail, no matter what she did. As beautiful and fast as the Aston was, Roni didn’t know this car. Perhaps she couldn’t pull away from them because of a tracking device installed in the vehicle selling her out. But that would mean only the car’s owner could track her.

Unless Ramsey sold out to the FBI.

“How persuasive is this guy Pace you work for?” she asked.

“Very. Why, you hiding something?”

“No. Just wondering if he was able to capture Ramsey, would he convince him to offer up information, like how to track this car.”

“That I doubt. I think Pace has met his match with Ramsey. I did my best to convince him back there to offer up the truth about you. Not even the threat of death worked. He just laughed. I had to leave him behind when I heard Pace give orders to go after you.”

Roni nearly screeched the car to a halt. “Are you telling me you had that sick man in your clutches but chose to come after me, like
I
was the criminal?”

“Not
after
you. To
protect
you.” He reached up to hold on to the door frame in the next sharp turn she took. “You have to understand how relentless Pace is, but I think sometimes he’s too close to see the truth.”

She checked her mirrors, looking for the ambush at any second. “Go on.”

Ethan sighed. “We grew up together in a tough neighborhood. Well, I grew up following him around is more like it. He’s five years older than me. It was a rough place, but he always looked out for me.

“Pace’s sister raised him when their mother took off, but his sister wasn’t much older than he was. When he was sixteen her body was found in an alley and everything changed after that. Pace went crazy. Not insane crazy, but determined crazy. Driven to get out of the neighborhood and clean up the streets. And to get me out, too.”

Ethan looked behind him at Maddie. “Believe me when I tell you he would die trying to get you out from your traffickers.” To Roni he said, “He would die trying to take down anyone he even thought was trafficking.”

“And since he’s not dead yet, he has always gotten his man,” she stated to show she got his point. “Pace won’t stop until I am in his custody.”

“Or dead.”

She swallowed hard and missed her next turn.

“That’s why I dropped Ramsey and went after you.”

They drove in silence; the only sound was the helicopter somewhere beyond the covering of tree growth. At least it sounded a bit farther off in the distance. She could only think they were struggling to catch glimpses of the roof of the car and hoped that meant no tracker.

She came to a fork and saw a sign for a town ten miles away if she took the right.

She took it.

“This road looks less covered. Why did you get off the secluded roads?” Ethan asked.

“There’s a town up ahead. Towns mean people and people mean phones.”

“Who are you calling?”

“Cora. I need to tell her I’m all right. We have a safe room in the house and she needs to get in it. Something tells me your man Pace will use whatever or whomever to get to me.”

“Why would he use your maid? Don’t you think he would use your uncle first? He’s family.”

“Shows what you know. Your FBI file on me may list the facts of my life, but not the truth. Cora is more than a maid. She’s the only mother I’ve had since I was three. Cora and my brother Wade are the only family I care about. My uncle is nothing to me. And he feels pretty much the same way about me.”

“Enough to have you killed?”

Roni held her tongue for a moment. She had secrets about her family that most likely never graced Ethan’s FBI files. But people’s lives were at stake—
her
life was at stake. And if her uncle was the cause, she wouldn’t be held responsible for breaking her vow of silence.

“This is between you and me only. This doesn’t go back to your leader. Got it?”

Ethan gave a tight nod.

“When I said I had family in the CIA, I meant it. Twenty-eight years ago when the car my father was driving went over the cliff outside our home, it sent us all either to our deaths or...wishing we were dead,” she swallowed hard as she spoke, “but it was no accident.”

“I know, I read the reports. Including the latest ones.”

“But you haven’t read the real ones. The ones on file were altered to protect those of us who survived.”

“Your brother and you.”

She peered his way and pushed out the rest. “And possibly my younger brother.”

Ethan squinted in confusion. “Your younger brother was reported dead.”

“Fabricated. His remains were not found in the car with my parents. They weren’t found anywhere near the car or the surrounding area.”

“Why would they be altered?”

“Because someone wanted us watched over and protected, and with Luke missing, he couldn’t be. If word got out that he wasn’t dead, he might be hunted down. The files stated he was dead to protect anyone from going after him.”

“So what does your uncle have to do with this?”

“He was friends with the killer.”

“Did Clay know his friend planned to have you all killed?”

“He says no.”

“But you don’t believe him.” It wasn’t a question, so Roni didn’t bother to answer.

“It doesn’t matter if I do or not. Wade does. He looks to Uncle Clay like I look to Cora. As a parent. And now that Wade has found Lacey and married her, he can come home and begin to heal. That’s all I ever wanted for him. To be whole again. He has post-traumatic stress disorder.”

“What about you? Have you allowed yourself to heal?”

“All I’ve done is heal. Over and over again. Every surgery would start the process all over again. And as you saw, the scars will never really go away.”

“I don’t mean physically. I mean emotionally.”

“Nothing to worry about there. I was only three. I don’t even remember the accident, and I don’t want to. I’ve seen how Wade struggles with his memories. He was eight and had to pull me out while I was covered in flames. That’s a memory I don’t want to remember. Besides, a memory only makes you disengage from the present. It makes you lose focus on what’s in front of you.”

She nodded for Ethan to look at what was far ahead of them on the open road.

Her Porsche had reappeared.

The car faced her from the other lane, cruising toward her at the same high speed she traveled. A game of chicken. Who would turn off first?

“Really, Jared?” she mumbled.

“How can you be sure it’s him? The car’s still too far away. You can’t see anything behind the reflection of the windshield.”

“We’ll know in a moment.”

“Before or after you crash into him?”