Promises in the Dark (6 page)

Now the truck jolted along the road, the muffler loud. At some point, they’d have to abandon it, but right now, it was their BFF.

They went at least an hour in complete silence. Everything had moved so quickly tonight and yet it had seemed to span days upon days, as if it all happened in slow motion.

And she was on the run yet again.

You never stopped
.

“Thanks for everything back there,” she said finally.

Zane’s only response was a nod, and yes, she knew she owed him more. But for now, it was enough.

“You seem to know this place pretty well.”

“We’re about to find out,” he muttered, and they both winced as he hit a particularly nasty hole in the road. She shifted and held on to the bar over the window so she wouldn’t hit her head on the roof again, as he asked, “How long have you been here?”

“A few weeks.”

“Before that?”

“Does it matter?”

“They’re tracking you—the places you’ve been are probably being heavily watched. So cut the tough girl crap and tell me.”

It came out harsher than he’d intended but that rendered it more effective. Liv told him where she’d been hiding and for how long, and he traced her footsteps in a mental map.

She’d covered a lot of ground—whether DMH had been following her the entire time or only relying on local intel regarding her attempts to dig in and stay in one place, it confirmed what he’d suspected.

They were screwed. Getting her out fast would be difficult. Slowing down could prove deadly.

But most of all, he needed Liv’s cooperation, no matter how pissed at him she got.

“You did good back there,” he said. She didn’t answer, and he accepted the stony silence. “Skylar says you’re an excellent doctor,” he continued. “She said you saved her life.”

“Is she in good health?”

“Yeah, she’s doing great. About to get married.”

“To who?”

“The man who rescued her from DMH,” he said, felt her eyes boring into him. He refused to take his off the road.

“Good for her,” she muttered. “I hope you’re not expecting me to be swept off my feet by you.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Yeah, the bonding moment around the birth of the baby was most definitely over.

They rode for another long while in silence.

Finally, he found what he was looking for—an old shed where he could hide the truck. It was about a mile away from the house he’d scouted coming in as a just-in-case hideaway if they were forced to backtrack, but this was as far as the old girl would take them. She’d overheated half a mile back and he’d rather be able to park her in a hidden spot so tracking them wouldn’t be easy.

He got out and opened the doors to the shed, then walked around to her side and opened the door. “Might as well get out here, rather than in there.”

She didn’t argue. The dark, dank shed was no doubt a great hiding place for all sorts of creatures. Not that the tall grass she stepped into wasn’t, but she had a flashlight and a machete and could run more easily out here.

Once he pulled the car inside, retrieved all their belongings and locked it up, he grabbed his own light and began to move forward slowly.

He wore heavy boots and didn’t have an extra pair for her, but if he went first, he’d take the brunt of any angry snakes. He encouraged her to hang on to the back of his pants with a free hand so he wouldn’t have to worry if he was accidentally moving too quickly for her.

He’d traveled like this many times before—night, stealth. Danger. It was always a goddamned rush. The thrill that normally coiled deep inside him knew it was time to unfurl and enjoy.

Tonight was really no different, although he swore he thought it would be, should be, really, with Liv keeping up pretty well behind him. There were no complaints from her, and there should have been. This was unforgiving country under the best of circumstances.

And finally, over the rise of a small hill, he shined the light onto the path ahead of them and saw the house they would stay in—long abandoned and no amenities other than a tin roof. A deserted house, no doubt used by squatters. Not the best place, but there were certainly worse.

The big problem was that they’d been forced back in the other direction from where he’d originally come—hours farther from the meeting place than they’d been before. On this terrain, that could easily add half a day to their liaison.

You’ve got her. That is all that matters
.

And a bonus—a working water pump outside. It was perfect.

They approached the house cautiously. He shone the light inside—they’d gotten here an hour or so before sunrise. Deeming it safe and solid, he motioned for her to come inside.

But she stood there, at the threshold, peering in with an odd look on her face. She shone her own light around, checking the corners, the ceiling. Did that three or four times and remained there as though her feet were glued to the spot.

Maybe she was in some kind of delayed shock? He wanted to urge her inside but he knew that wouldn’t work. Instead, he began doing what he needed to, creating a perimeter outside the house, and then creating another with a wider border.

She waited outside the doorway looking inside the entire time. When he finished, he stood next to her for a few seconds.

Finally, she said, “Will they find us?”

“Look, the front’s wired. So’s the back, except for this.” He moved past her to the interior, pointed to a small section that resembled a crawl space. “If they come here, head for this. Fast.”

“You’ll be here to remind me, right?”

“Couldn’t pry me away,” he told her.

For the second time since he’d met her, she smiled. He took that as a damned good sign.

It was an even better one when she walked inside and pulled the door closed behind her.

Unless, of course, they didn’t care if she saw them, since they planned on killing her. Which was something she was trying hard not to think about.

This stone-cold man who sat across from her wore all black, could easily be part of the military. Or not.

The thing was, she’d been answering all his questions, and in return he’d answered none of hers. She was pretty sure they’d taken all her computers and were now pouring over both her current security program as well as her father’s flawed one. She’d asked in short order for her attorneys and her contacts at Homeland Security and was given nothing in return except more questions.

Most of them centered on her father’s ill-fated software security, which had ultimately gotten him fired from his government job, and about the InLine Energy project. Every now and then, the man would ask her about her own new program, to which she would reply, “It’s a work in progress. It’s unfinished and the first person to see it when it is complete will be the U.S. Military and Homeland Security.”

Now she had to pee. And her mouth was dry. The water in front of her looked so inviting, but she crossed her legs and stared at her interrogator again.

She’d asked to use the bathroom three times. Each time, she’d been told,
In a few minutes
.

A full bladder wouldn’t be enough to induce her to spill secrets, if she had any, which she didn’t.

Finally, the man whose lap she’d slept in stuck his head in the room and said, “Come with me.”

Without a second glance at the man who’d been questioning her, she followed and almost sighed when he pointed to a door marked restroom.

After she’d used the facilities, she washed her hands and glanced in the mirror.

Dark circles. Pale skin. Ugh. And, God, she needed a shower.

She turned and walked out. Right into the big man. “Sorry.”

He didn’t say anything, kept a hand on her to make sure she’d regained her footing. And continued to hold her arm even after she stepped back away from him.

The memory of being handcuffed to him was far too fresh in her mind. And despite the fear uncurling in her belly, there was something else there, making her throat tight and heat flood her face.

Maybe it was the way he studied her—not the cold gaze like the other interrogator. No, there was heat in his eyes, and it made her uncomfortable to even think about her kidnapper in that way.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Do you really care?” He raised his brows but didn’t answer and she realized that she needed to get him on her side, not piss him off. “Do I have to go back in there?”
God, please say no, please say no
…

“Yes. But first, I’d like to hear more details than what you’ve given.”

He’d obviously been listening in, must’ve been watching, noticing her discomfort. “I don’t know what other details you’re looking for. I’ve freely told the other man everything he’s asked about. If there’s something wrong, can you please just tell me?”

No answer.

Someone had to believe she spoke the truth, or else.

Or else
.

She was in trouble but good.

Finally, he spoke. “So tell me again, Vivienne.” He still held her, his body blocking her view down the hallway. And yes, anything to avoid that other room.

“It’s Vivi, please,” she said absently. “Do I ever get to know your name?”

He paused for a second, and then, “It’s Caleb.”

Caleb
. The name fit him. Strong. Old-fashioned. He was seriously dark and deadly. And he had her in his sights. As did the rest of his mystery organization.

She had to convince him she was telling the truth, and fast. “Look, I’ve been developing security software since before college. I dropped out my freshman year because my dad …”

You will not choke up. You will not
. “My dad needed my help,” she finished.

“Was he sick?”

“He never functioned well in the real world,” she said truthfully. “We worked together on private security programs from the time I was fifteen.”

And still, there was never enough money.

“What about the program for InLine?”

“I’ve been working on it.”

“What’s the problem?”

Should she tell him? Up until this point, she’d simply been insisting the program was unfinished. That wasn’t a lie, exactly—in her eyes, it
was
unfinished.

Never one to trust, her father had installed a crucial safeguard into the program that would give him the ability to shut it down if one of the nuclear plant’s alarms was turned off illegally.

The problem was, although the program was complete for all intents and purposes, the safeguard wasn’t working properly. She couldn’t fix it as of yet and she did not want to be responsible for what could happen if she handed it over as is. She was sure her father would not have wanted that either. Not after what happened when he was working in software development for the government, when a program of his was nearly used by a homegrown extremist group to trigger explosives in an office building in two major cities in California. Thankfully, the FBI had managed to stop the bombing, but after the dust cleared her father had been fired, even though he swore he hadn’t been the one to tweak the program to allow the sabotage. He cited a co-worker as the saboteur but had no evidence.

From that day onward, his distrust of the government grew a thousandfold and continued to fester until the day of his death. So even though his programs were created to be secure enough to prevent any break-in, Lawrence Clare never took chances.

She was for sure her father’s daughter, and yet, going against her instincts she took the chance and told Caleb about the safeguard—why it had been placed inside the program and how she hadn’t been able to get it to work.

“So you’d be able to shut down InLine’s computers with that?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“But let me guess—you wouldn’t dream of doing that, you’re just doing what your father would’ve wanted for the good of the country.”

She flushed. “I’d be more than willing to hand the safeguard information to InLine and Homeland Security. Monitoring them is not a job I would want. I don’t think the program is affected if the safeguard isn’t functioning, but I have no real way of knowing. But this is an important project—I have a real problem handing something over that isn’t perfect.”

“You had no problem taking InLine’s money.” Caleb gave a small smile as he spoke, but his eyes were pure ice.

Now she struggled, repeated the words she’d told the man interrogating her over and over: “As I’ve said, at the time I didn’t know that my father took half the contract’s money for the program. We didn’t work together on it. If I had the money, I would return it, but I won’t hand over incomplete software—it’s far too dangerous.”

Cael shrugged, unconvinced. “If that helps you sleep better.”

“I don’t sleep well,” she shot back. It was only then that the man, the one she would reluctantly call handsome, even though at the moment she hated his guts, released her.

Not that there was anywhere for her to go. But still, the small taste of freedom energized her. “I’ve told you exactly what happened with that software. You can verify it with my lawyers. They know everything—and Homeland Security knows about my current project in development. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

Caleb didn’t say anything but his smirk seemed to say he wasn’t buying it.

“Call them.” She rattled off the attorney’s number. “The same information’s in my BlackBerry—the one you confiscated.”

He didn’t say anything, simply walked her back down the hallway and opened the door to the windowless room.

It was, thankfully, empty, but that didn’t mean getting locked back in there was any easier. “Don’t I at least get a phone call?” she asked before he closed the door.

“You’re not under arrest.”

“So I can go?”

“No. And trust me, you’re going to wish you were under arrest.”

With that, the door closed and she let her head sink into her arms on the table in front of her. But she refused to cry and she held that victory tight.