Читать книгу Calculated Risk - Janie Crouch - Страница 12

Bree stared, rubbed her eyes just to make sure she hadn’t been affected by some sort of airborne hallucinogen, then stared some more.

Not file boxes at all. Strapped into the back seat of her car were two separate baby carriers. Inside each of them was a tiny sleeping infant. Bree didn’t know anything about babies, but those were definitely fresh ones. New. Couldn’t be more than five minutes old, right?

A note was taped to the top of one of the carriers, so she carefully opened the door and grabbed it.

I couldn’t get out. But you see now why I have to. Their names are Christian and Beth, and they’re two months old. The Organization doesn’t know about them. I will keep it that way and hope you will keep them safe until I can escape.

Crisscross, applesauce, Bree. You hold my heart in your hands every time you pull the twins close. I never knew what true family was until I had them.

Bree removed the small hard drive attached to the paper then crumpled it, bringing her fist down softly on the roof of the car. She didn’t know the first thing about babies. Had never held one in her life. What was she going to do now?

She quietly shut the back door—heaven forbid she wake one of them up—and got into the driver’s side. Staying here wasn’t safe. Her fingers wrapped around the steering wheel in a death grip as she pulled the car out of the parking lot.

She’d known it was going to be hard. But this was so much worse than she thought.

There were babies in the back seat.

Not just one. Two. Babies. One of them even named after her. Oh, Mellie.

This changed every possible plan that had been stirring around in Bree’s head since Melissa showed up this afternoon. All the routes she and Melissa could choose, modes of transportation they could take. She’d had multiple possible plans.

Prepare for the unexpected and you’re much more likely to get out of a situation alive. She could almost hear her mother’s voice.

But of all the scenarios Bree had run in her head, none of them had involved the particular variables she was dealing with right now. All her options were now defunct.

Because babies.

She glanced down at the phone Smith had given her. It wasn’t a high-tech smartphone; it was a low-tech flip phone that could barely be used to make a call.

A safe phone, so low-tech that it would be difficult for the Organization to use it to find someone.

She quickly scrolled through the call history to see if she could find any information, a way to get in touch with Melissa, let her know what a terrible plan this was, but there was nothing. Until Melissa called Bree, the phone was basically useless.

How long before Melissa could get away from the Organization? Hours? Days?

Years?

When one of the babies let out a soft gurgle from the back seat, Bree put the phone down and focused on figuring out where to go. Maybe the best plan was to go back to her apartment. Obviously, Melissa didn’t intend her any harm, so Bree’s home was probably safe.

At least it would allow her a chance to regroup. Figure out what she was going to do.

She knew something was wrong as soon as she drove up to her block. Her apartment was in a busy, but not dangerous, part of the city, something she’d been specifically looking for when she’d chosen the place. She’d wanted to be able to slip in and out, day or night, without people paying much attention to her. To be able to blend into a crowd instantly if needed.

There were enough units in the building that people were constantly coming and going, and it was urban enough that nobody thought much of it if you didn’t stop and talk to them.

But right now it looked like every single person in the building was out on the street surrounding it. At one o’clock in the morning.

Bree parked the car on a side street. She left the twins sleeping inside, tucked most of her long brown hair up into a ball cap so it looked much shorter and then jogged over to the people at the edge of the crowd. She kept an eye on the car as she spoke to an older couple she’d seen around but had never talked to.

“Hi, I live in 4A. I just got home. What’s going on? Is it a fire?”

The old man kept his arm around his wife while he shook his head at Bree. “Gas leak. They came door to door about an hour ago. Told us it would be at least five or six hours before we could get back in.”

“Where’s the fire department?”

The older woman shrugged. “I guess the rest of them are on their way. We only saw one. It was the gas company employees knocking on doors and checking people off their list.”

Bree knew if it was dangerous enough to be taking people out of their homes in the middle of the night, it was dangerous enough to have a full firefighting crew here. This definitely wasn’t right.

“So everyone just has to stand out here for five or six more hours?”

“No,” the man said. “They said they’d provide rooms at a local hotel down the block for free. All you needed to do was show them your ID and let them run a credit card for any incidentals.”

Bree grimaced. More likely a convenient place to herd everyone from the building and double-check their identification.

She glanced over at the car. Nobody was near it, but she needed to get the twins out of here. This had the Organization written all over it.

The older woman gave out a weary sigh. “Harold just walked down to use the ATM and couldn’t get it to work. It said our account was temporarily on hold. I don’t want to go to some strange hotel in my pajamas with no money.”

A younger woman turned to them from a few yards away. “Did you guys say your bank account is on hold? Mine told me the same thing a few minutes ago when I went to grab some cash.”

Harold let out another frustrated sigh. “Unbelievable. At First National Trust?”

The woman shook her head. “No, Bank United. Everybody’s system must be down.”

Or somebody was making sure that everybody in the building ended up where they were subtly being directed.

The Organization was casting a net. They didn’t know what their fish looked like, so they were going to dredge everything, then sort it out.

Bree pulled her hat farther down on her head. Everything happening on the street right now—all the people gathered here—was being recorded, she was sure of it.

After all, hadn’t the Organization started teaching her how to use her computer skills for surveillance when she was only ten years old? They’d taught her how to target, how to track, how to incapacitate an enemy virtually. Then used her natural abilities to further develop methods of spying and tracking.

Until her mother had realized the prestigious computer school that was supposed to be providing a young Bethany a leg up in coding and systems was actually using her abilities to further their own nefarious purposes. And had no plan to ever let her leave.

Bree spoke to Harold and the others for just a few more moments before easing herself away and walking nonchalantly back to her car and slipping inside. She started the car and pulled away slowly despite every instinct that screamed to drive as fast as she could. That would do nothing but draw attention to her. Attention she desperately could not afford.

As she passed Harold and his wife, she noticed that a man wearing a Central Gas jacket was now talking to the older couple, clipboard in hand. When Harold pointed in her direction, she dipped lower in her seat, gritting her teeth, forcing herself to hold her speed consistent.

She could feel computerized eyes on her everywhere. Every phone in this vicinity was recording—whether the owners knew it or not—and sending information back to the Organization.

If Bree made one wrong move, did anything that drew unwanted attention to herself, they would be on her in a heartbeat.

She could feel the phantom pain of her leg being broken by the Organization. Hear her own screams. Her mother’s sobs.

She couldn’t let them take her again. So she forced herself to remain calm, to keep her car steady and slow, even though her eyes were almost glued to the rearview mirror expecting vehicles to be chasing her any moment.

But none came.

The gas man would be asking who she was. Hopefully the couple would remember Bree said 4A. The real person from 4A was the one in the building who looked most similar to Bree. Caucasian female. Brown hair. Average height and weight. Mid-to late-twenties.

Side by side it would be obvious Bree and 4A’s occupant weren’t the same person, but in general description they were similar enough to buy Bree some time as they searched for the wrong person.

She was going to need every extra minute she could get. She had no doubt her accounts, like everyone else’s, had been frozen. They would be unfrozen as soon as she stepped foot in a bank and showed ID. But then the Organization would have a record of her, photographs.

They would figure out she was alive, and the hunt would truly begin.

So she was trapped with just the cash she had on her. Alone, that would’ve lasted her six months or more. More than enough time to get established somewhere and get a new job.

As if on cue one baby began crying in the back. It wasn’t long before the other was joining its sibling.

Bree definitely wasn’t alone anymore.