Burned: Black Cipher Files #3 (Black Cipher Files series) (11 page)

“Let’s go.” Then I said fiercely, my throat tight, but my resolve absolute, “But if you have anything to do with him, I’m warning you. I won’t give her up. Ever. And I’ll make you sorry you ever came after me.”

For a moment, he went boneless as if every muscle released the tension he’d been holding in a rush of relief. Zeke gripped the door handle of the Volvo. “You won’t be sorry.”

“I’d better not be.”

I prayed I wasn’t making the last mistake of my life. I’d lost my freaking mind. But I really didn’t have a choice. The monster could come back at any moment. I could ram the Rover but the commotion would draw attention I couldn’t afford.

I could run from Zeke, and my stepfather, but with that powerful SUV Zeke would be able to catch me fairly quickly.

I needed a place to re-group and hide until I could figure out how my stepfather was tracking me. And I needed to let my mother know that the monster really was here. That he’d found us.

For right now, I had to trust Zeke. He was my best option for getting away from my stepfather. I still couldn’t believe that Mama had given him access to our communication network.

But until I could talk to my mother and explain that I’d lied about knowing him, she might keep feeding Zeke Thorn information.

Besides that, I had this irrational urge to trust him.

The look on his face while trying to convince me had been determined but not desperate and somehow vulnerable. As if he didn’t want to hurt me and he knew enough about me that he could have used other methods to get me to go with him, but hadn’t.

His obvious sincerity had been what finally convinced me that he was my best option right now. I reached into the back seat and hefted a pink canvas duffel bag into my lap. “Let’s go.”

Fifteen

Zeke started the Rover.

“You want to hunch down?”

“Yes.” She crouched in the well of the passenger seat. “Get the license plate number of the old Dodge truck parked across the street.”

Her demanding tone struck a chord within him. And he admired her strength. Because for all her terror, she hadn’t fallen apart.

He noticed the graceful length of her neck, the fall of her hair, and the curls that escaped to drift around her resolute face, softening her, making look more vulnerable.

Ka-thunk.

“Who is after you?” Zeke needed more information if was going to be able to help her. The old truck was just that. Old. Nothing special. He needed to find out why she was so terrified of the guy. He didn’t look threatening. He’d been mid to late fifties. Balding, with mostly gray hair and a paunch at the waist. He had the look of a man who’d played football in his youth but the muscle had gone to fat.

Her silver eyes were shadowed with fear. “Where is he?”

Zeke stopped at the exit of the parking lot and searched the crowded street, looking for the man who’d induced a blank terror in this amazingly strong woman.

“Don’t see him.”

“Turn the opposite way from the path he took.”

Zeke turned right out of the parking lot and headed away from the campus. He kept glancing in his rearview mirror. And, surprise, the man was peering into the driver’s window of the old Volvo.

The man straightened and his gaze zoomed in on the Rover. Zeke cursed silently, unsure, but hoping the guy hadn’t made him. Zeke quickly turned right, noting in his peripheral vision that the man was headed leisurely toward the truck. However his gaze was pinned on the rear of the Range Rover. Dammit.

If he hadn’t caught Zeke’s plate, then he’d likely be running. But the guy was taking his time. Zeke didn’t know if that meant he’d already mentally noted his number or if he didn’t think that Zeke had anything to do with his search.

Zeke thought about keeping the information from Sunshine but then decided to be up front with her.

“He may have made the Rover.”

Zeke rubbed the cap forward and back over his head and repressed the urge to put a comforting hand on Sunshine’s shoulder.

Her face whitened but otherwise she showed no outward emotion.

Zeke had actually rubbed some dirt on the plate to obscure the numbers but the guy’s attitude made him think the ruse hadn’t worked.

Depending on what kind of skills he had it wouldn’t take him more than a day to track down Zeke’s name. Then he’d be able to trace his credit card purchases. So they had time before they would need to ditch this car. In the meantime, maybe he could find out why Sunshine was so afraid of the guy.

“What kind of skills does he have?” Zeke asked.

“Since he found me?” Sunshine rested her forehead on the leather seat next to her. “Pretty damn good ones.”

That’s what he thought. “Who is he?”

“Who was the woman in the café?” she asked, deliberately ignoring him. As if she were trying to distract herself from her own problems. Or she was trying to distract Zeke.

He tried to shove Susan Chen out of his mind. But as he held his breath, the roar in his ears grew louder. He didn’t want Susan and Sunshine on the same radar. When Sunshine had rushed out of the bistro, Susan hadn’t seemed to recognize her but another look could tip her over the edge. He didn’t know how much information Susan had about the names of the people she’d used in her unauthorized science experiment but every one of those unwilling subjects had one thing in common. They were members of a very small list of people whose family was killed on either October 19
th
or 20
th
, 1995. And Sunshine, while not part of the experiment, was definitely on the infamous, at least among a select few agents, 5491 list.

Did Susan know that? She’d had access to so much. And they still had yet to figure out how. Although, oddly, no one seemed to be pursuing that part of the investigation. Everyone seemed fixated on getting Susan Chen back.

“She’s part of a...situation I was involved in a few weeks ago.”

“A situation?”

“She’s wanted by the U.S. Government.”

“Why haven’t I seen her picture on the news?”

Zeke snorted. “Her situation is the kind that never makes the news.”

“Right.” Sunshine laughed harshly. “So now you’re part of some shadowy government organization?”

She flicked a hand at him.

“The NSA is a recognized and established intelligence agency.” And the more he thought about it the more he really didn’t want Sunshine and Susan inhabiting the same space. “And I’m worried she could be dangerous...to you.”

He could take care of himself.

“I’ve got much bigger problems, but I’ll bite. Why me?”

“It’s a long story.”

“The NSA, dangerous women, convenient appearances.” She mocked. “You really expect me to believe all this?”

That’s when he realized that he hadn’t so much as convinced her to come with him as she’d chosen him as her last viable alternative.

He knew he should be more polished, more persuasive. In theory, he knew enough about the MICE recruitment incentives when covert operatives tried to recruit foreign assets. Money, Ideology, Compromise, Ego. He’d had training in how to convince someone to become an asset. Convincing her to believe him could be achieved, but this was different. This was personal. Way too personal. And he couldn’t seem to find the words to finesse her.

She was too important.

He’d just given his card to Susan Chen. If she was caught, if they found the identifier on her person,
if, if, if
—he was done.

He refused to look away from Sunshine. Refused to back down. “I want don’t want you to get hurt.” Then he reiterated, “I want to help you with your problems.”

She stared at him for another loaded moment, her gaze searching his. Zeke felt as if she were staring into his soul, and all his uncertainties and longings were exposed to her laser perception.

“I think my problem is too big and unsolvable,” she admitted in what must be a moment of total insecurity.

“Nothing is unsolvable. It just hasn’t been deciphered yet,” he replied, wanting her to believe him.

Moisture shimmered in her eyes. “Okay,” she whispered.

Relief and satisfaction flooded him. One problem down. She’d agreed to let him help her. Now he had to take care of his other problem.

“I have to make a phone call about that woman,” Zeke said glumly.

Zeke punched Jamie’s cell into his phone. He’d only talked to her a few hours ago. And he could imagine her response when she picked up the phone. “Did you find her already?” Jamie would tease. “You stud.”

He dreaded having to tell her he’d found Susan Chen and lost her almost immediately.

So it was petty of him but Zeke was more than happy when instead of Jamie he got her voice mail.

“Hey.” Zeke confessed, “She was here. But I lost her.”

He knew he needed to give Jamie as much information as he could. He rubbed a damp hand on his board shorts. “It seems almost impossible, but she was in San Luis.” He thought about how Susan Chen’s gaze had skipped right over Sunshine. “I don’t think she’s after our target.”

Zeke swallowed. He hated to admit defeat. But he couldn’t even promise to go after Chen again until he figured out what was going on with Sunshine.

“Let’s touch base again later.” Zeke tightened his mouth and pressed the end button.

“You didn’t really lose her, did you?”

Sunshine’s subdued voice from the other side of the car startled him out of the beginnings of another self-pity party.

“Nope.”

“You came after me instead.”

“Yep.”

“And we got away.”

But from who and why? Zeke couldn’t wait to find out.

“Yep. So now that you’ve agreed to let me help you, tell me who that guy was.”

Sixteen

What had I just agreed to?

I had to stop thinking about my stepfather or I was going to hyperventilate. I was desperately hoping Zeke Thorn was wrong about the monster catching his license plate. And yeah, I’d agreed to let Zeke help me but I still wanted some sort of confirmation that he was who he said he was.

“Do you have some sort of government I.D.?”

Wasn’t that what they always did in the movies? Ask to see identification? Except, I was in a position to know that identification could be falsified.

He flushed. A huge red wash over his entire face. “Not on me.”

But his mouth had turned down and the look on his face made me wonder.

“I do have a business card. Of course, you can go anywhere and get fake cards made but....”

“But?” I prompted when he stopped and didn’t continue. I thought of something else. Why did this guy keep turning up? “Did you engineer the meet on the beach?”

He laughed sharply and turned right again. “Uh, no. Pretty much the story of my life though.”

“Why?”

“Zeke the Geek strikes again.” The bitterness in his tone was unmistakable.

“What does that mean? What’s wrong?”

“What isn’t?” He avoided explaining. Instead he headed up the ramp to Highway One, trying to put distance between us and the monster. And that woman?

His problems had to do with the woman. “Why did she look so surprised?”

“She’s wanted by the federal government, and she knows that my bosses are after her. She escaped from a federal prison. My guess is she didn’t think anyone would find her in a bistro in a tiny California town. Especially not me.” Of course, he’d been one of the people to find her the last time.

“Then why’d you let her go?”

He glanced in the rearview mirror, then shifted his attention firmly back to the road, and shrugged. “You.”

“Me?” What the hell? Was that supposed to convince me of something? If that woman really was wanted by the government, and he really did work for the NSA, why didn’t he grab her? That made no sense whatsoever. I was just a victim of an obsessive stalker. One of thousands. No one special. “Why?”

“Can I take you to my hotel room so we can talk?” he asked tightly. His hands gripped the steering wheel so fiercely I thought it might break apart in his fingers. “I’ve tried to think of a more neutral place but I don’t want you in public and at this point I don’t know where else you would be safe.”

I hesitated a moment longer. But the reality was my stepfather had found me. Right now, no one except myself and Zeke knew where I would be. And he hadn’t exactly abducted me.

I didn’t get any kind of ‘I’m going to hurt you’ vibe from Zeke Thorn. Which meant for the near future I would be safe with him. Unless, of course, he worked for, or with, the monster. But I just couldn’t bring myself to believe that. “Fine.”

He could be playing me but somehow I didn’t think so. He was far too self-deprecating and disgusted with himself over letting that woman go. The tone in his voice when he’d left the message struck a chord with me.

He kept rambling even though I’d already agreed.

“I’d take you somewhere more public but based on your reaction to that guy,” he paused, as if waiting for me to fill him in on who the monster was. “I don’t think hanging out in public is a smart move right now.”

He’d be damn right about that.

Because the monster had found me in SLO after being in Cambria this morning asking about my mother, and I wouldn’t have thought we could be traced that quickly.

So I was going to use Zeke from the NSA to find out how my stepfather had found us again after all this time. I hated the idea of having to move again. We had a decent life in Cambria. If Mama wanted to be with Blue, it was time to fight back. Even if I did want to throw up at the thought of confronting him, and getting him to back off once and for all.

“Why me?” I pressed, one more time. I really needed to understand what was happening here. Everything seemed upside down or backwards or discombobulated. And I couldn’t discern any sense of it all. Entropy, the second law of thermodynamics, disorder into order was what I needed.

“You needed my help,” Zeke said softly.

“You don’t even know me.”
So why would he want to help me?

“I know enough.” Zeke pulled off Highway One and headed to the outskirts of San Luis. “And you saved me.”

I couldn’t wrap my head around his response so I kept quiet.

“You’re terrified of water and yet you dragged me out of the surf,” Zeke replied seriously. “That takes a depth of courage that few possess. Frankly, I owe you.”