Читать книгу Smokescreen - Jodie Bailey - Страница 13

FOUR

There wasn’t one moment of hesitation. Ashley was up the hallway before Ethan could tell her to move, and he was close behind. The possibility it could simply be the police or her landlord didn’t matter. The risks were too great.

Once he stepped into the room behind her, he slipped the door shut and clicked the lock. If it was their friend from the airport, the hollow door would buy them a few seconds, but those ticks of the clock might mean all the difference.

Light flooded under the door as someone flipped a switch in the front of the apartment. “See? Nobody’s in here.”

“I heard voices.”

The French doors on the other side of the bedroom whispered open, silhouetting Ashley against the dim glow from outside. She waved him forward. “Drop’s a few feet if you can hang on to the rail and let your feet dangle.” Throwing a leg over the side, she gifted him a grim smile. “Pray my downstairs neighbors aren’t looking out the window. And be careful.”

She was scared to death if she was this calm. Her emotional defenses drove her to a place where she felt nothing just to avoid the fear. He’d seen it on the battlefield, even experienced it himself. Ethan wished there was time to make sure she landed safely, but the lock jiggled behind him and a shout followed.

Shoving his gun into its holster, he climbed the rail, ran his hands down to the bottom of the wood railing and let his feet dangle in space. The sound of splintering door covered his crouched landing in the bushes below.

Their visitor was definitely not the landlord.

He was safely around the corner before voices rained down from above. “Nobody’s here.”

“So who locked the door?”

“Maybe you did when we left? No way they jumped without breaking something.” The voice strained as though the man leaned over the railing to prove his theory.

Ethan fought his muscles aching for a quick peek around the corner to see if one of the men was the assailant from the airport or if he and Ashley faced bigger worries.

She tugged at his arm. “Come on. Before they figure out we moved furniture and start looking for us.”

Tucking her behind him, a move he was sure to hear about later, Ethan reached for his gun but stopped. The way Ashley had reacted earlier, there was no telling what her response would be, and they needed all of her focus to get out of here alive. At this point, her emotional lockdown was their salvation.

She pressed close to him as he edged along the brick toward the front of the building, so close her warmth telegraphed through the thin fleece of his jacket. The sooner they were safely in his truck and she was a couple of feet away, the better.

At the corner he stopped and surveyed the grass-ringed parking lot. Not for the first time he hated the even spacing of streetlights that left few shadows in which to hide.

Ashley’s words tickled his ear. “What now?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “There’s a small ditch along the back of the parking lot.” Her arm snaked in front of him, indicating a spot at their two o’clock. “If we can make it without being spotted, we can get low enough to avoid detection and get to your truck.”

The pride he’d battled all of his life fought to take charge, to seize the moment and come up with the foolproof idea that would save the day. But he couldn’t. The route she’d laid out was the only way to safety.

She shuddered against his back, snapping him out of his self-recrimination. They needed to move before the situation dug in and she dissolved into panic. As much as he wanted her to be well, to be his old Ashley, the little time they’d spent together had already clued him in to the fear that plagued her. He fought against the warm bile of guilt in his stomach and forced himself to focus.

With Ashley breathing against his neck and his heart pounding from the stress of the moment, he could hardly hear if their visitors were lurking. “That ten feet of open grass bugs me.” Even his whisper echoed in the stillness.

“No choice but to go for it.”

If he closed his eyes Ethan could fool himself into believing they were still partners, still shared the easy rhythm that let them get the job done effortlessly. But they weren’t and likely never would be again.

Ethan tried one more time to listen for footsteps, voices—anything. Only the distant sounds of cars on the main road drifted to them. “Okay.” He slipped his hand behind him and found hers. He wanted her close in case anything happened. No matter what, unlike the last time, he would know he’d done all he could to protect her. “Let’s go.”

With a quick prayer Ethan plunged out of their hiding place, Ashley keeping pace behind. The damp grass, not yet revived after the long winter, crushed beneath their feet, leaving a dim trail to their destination. They’d have to move fast once they hit the ditch. He leaped in feetfirst, Ashley a millisecond behind him.

“You hear that?” The shout came muffled from above, probably from the balcony they’d recently vacated.

They had time, but not much. Propelling her by her biceps, he urged her forward. “Run.”

They slipped and slid along the ditch, feet skittering on the thin layer of mud in the bottom, Ethan’s ears tuned for the sounds that would let him know their pursuers had found their footprints.

Please, God. Hide us a little bit longer.

Behind him, Ashley muttered softly and he wondered if she, too, was petitioning for cover.

They rounded the bend in the ditch and Ethan scanned for a spot gentle enough for them to climb. “There.”

As he said it, a shout echoed across the night. They had a few more seconds before they were found. Jerking Ashley in front of him, he hefted her up the bank and scrambled up behind her, coming out just inches from the bumper of his truck.

Ashley beat him inside.

Shutting the door behind him, Ethan twisted the key in the ignition and, headlights off, drove as fast as he dared, praying the men hadn’t caught up in time to tail them. They were on the main road and two turns away before the bands around his chest relaxed. “They didn’t follow us.”

Ashley just nodded, arms crossed, fingers digging into her biceps. Her breaths came rapidly, shallow and hard.

He knew better than to touch her. She was on the edge of falling apart. “Talk to me, Ash.”

“Pull over.”

Ethan checked the rearview mirror, but no headlights flashed. Still, it was ludicrous to stop now. “I can’t. They’re bound to have figured out—”

“Pull over. Find a place.” Her voice was barely audible over her need for air. “Now.”

Ethan kneaded the steering wheel, tension radiating up his arms and into his shoulders. He couldn’t. It would be suicide, but Ashley was now gripping the headrest as though it was going to keep her from spinning off of the planet.

She turned her head to him, eyes pleading behind a sheen of tears. “Please, Ethan.”

His foot eased off the gas. Okay, he’d find a place to pull over.

Even if it killed them.

* * *

She could die right now. It would be just fine with her. The fact death was a real possibility didn’t matter. In the throes of uncontrollable emotion, the shame burning her gut eclipsed the fear of death.

Her body rebelled, refusing to believe there was nothing to fear because, this time, there was definitely something to be afraid of. And the reality was as bad as any of her nightmares.

Ashley had felt it the instant Ethan shifted the truck into gear, the moment she knew they were relatively safe and making a getaway. The fog she’d walked in for the past hour blew away, chased by hot fear. The cold sweat... The tight muscles trying to claw out of her skin... This was a full-blown panic attack the likes of which she hadn’t experienced in more than three years. One the rapidly shrinking rational part of her brain could not believe she was about to have in front of Ethan Kincaid.

The minute he pulled around to the back of a darkened gas station, Ashley yanked the door handle, slid from the truck, leaned against the cold metal and locked her hands against her knees. The damp night air filled her lungs and eased her body as she fought nausea, praying Ethan would stay in the truck and pretend everything was A-okay.

No such luck. His boots scrunched the gravel and came into view. “Ash?”

He might as well have shouted, because the whisper rained condemnation hotter than nuclear fallout. She was weak. Not strong enough. Still haunted by a weakness that defied explanation, one she should have overcome years ago.

The same weakness that had stolen her dream and laid it at Ethan’s feet.

His arm brushed her shoulder, but she swatted it away so hard her hand stung. The pain was enough to drag her into the present and she rooted herself in her former therapist’s advice. Be grounded in the moment. Be aware of where you are right now.

It wasn’t helping. Right now, in the moment, she was hiding from men who wanted her dead with a man who wanted...what, exactly?

Ethan possessed the good sense to step away and let her have some space. The warmth of him left her and gravel crunched under his feet as he paced toward the road. Let him patrol. Right now, she almost didn’t care if the bad guys did find them. At least she wouldn’t be tormented by terror anymore.

In the moment. Okay. In this moment, no gun was aimed at her head. At least not that she was aware of.

She swept the thought away.

In this moment, gray mud coated the toes of her brown boots and the hem of her good jeans. Ashley focused on the dirt and the way it played on her boots, taking her mind out of the fear.

By the time Ethan crunched back to her, the dust had cleared from her mind if not from her feet. Trembling, Ashley pulled herself upright and inhaled deeply, bracing her hands against the sides of his truck, wrung out from the aftereffects of panic.

Ethan leaned beside her, not close enough to touch her but definitely close enough for the warmth of him to penetrate her jacket. “You okay?”

She glanced at him, but he wasn’t looking at her. Instead he scanned the tree line, the side of the building, trying to keep an eye out for any possible incursions. Knowing he wasn’t watching her eased the remaining tension in her shoulders. “I’m okay.” But she’d be better if she were alone. What she wouldn’t give for five minutes all by herself to knit her thoughts together.

“So that still happens?” There was no emotion in his words, no condemnation.

Her spine stiffened. Yes, that still happened, though not in a very long time. It was a failing she’d never been able to hide from him, as much as she’d tried. In spite of weak knees threatening to dump her to the ground, she pushed herself away from the truck, taking a second to steady her legs. “I said I’m fine.” And she would be, eventually, if he’d quit focusing on her. “Shouldn’t we be getting out of here?” She yanked open the truck door, even though the interior of the vehicle shrank into a claustrophobic nightmare.

This would take all of her willpower. Honestly, men with guns high-speed chasing them through the night was way less scary than standing here while Ethan realized she was still only half of her former self.

“I think we’re fairly safe here.” He didn’t move, didn’t pull out his keys and act as though it was imperative they hit the road again. “You know you can’t handle this on your own, right?”

Her hand froze on the cool metal of the door. He was in no position to give her advice, not when he had no idea what her life was like thanks to his running away. “When did you become a therapist? Did you learn that when you were in Intelligence training?” Ashley winced at her words. That was the one thing she really shouldn’t have brought up in front of him. Maybe he hadn’t heard.

“Very few days go by that I don’t think about how what I have came to me at the expense of your dreams.”

“And you left like a coward without telling me why.” Without giving him a chance to respond, Ashley hefted herself into the truck and slammed the door shut. If Ethan hadn’t taken her spot, someone else would have, but she couldn’t let it go, couldn’t stand to be reminded her life was working on plan F: fear and failure.

It was a long time before he climbed in the other side and slid the key into the ignition, though he didn’t turn the engine over. “Ash, I—”

“The conversation’s over. The past is done.” If only. “Sean needs us. Let’s just get those thumb drives from the post office, find the decryption code and pass it all on to whoever needs them to shut your case and bring Sean home. Then you can go back to your intelligence gathering and I can go back to my computers.”

Ethan’s fingers dropped from the ignition. “You know it’s not going to be easy.”

Oh, but she wanted it to be.

“Ash, you can’t go home until these guys are caught. It’s not safe for you until—”

“I know.” But that didn’t mean she wanted to think about it. Ethan and Sean had ripped her from her safe, controlled existence. A few miles away her apartment lay in shambles and she couldn’t go home anytime soon...if ever. In her swirling life, she needed a safe place or she was in danger of losing every inch of the ground she’d recovered since the day she’d been shot. “Just give me a few minutes where I can pretend none of this is happening.”

“What good’s that going to do you?”

“None.” Ashley ran a hand along her thigh and gripped the front of the seat, the leather soft beneath her fingers. “Where do we have to take the drives for you to have them analyzed? And where’s the cipher key?”

Beside her, Ethan froze. It was as if time had stopped and held him in suspended animation.

“The cipher key? The decryption code? Ethan, if Sean didn’t give you a key, the program’s useless. We set up the program using a symmetric key algorithm. The data’s encrypted in files, but the encryption requires a key, some kind of code to lock and unlock the data. Sean’s too smart to mail it with the drives themselves. Did he give you any clue where it is? Where he hid it?”

Ethan was quiet so long Ashley ventured a look. He was staring at her, expression unreadable except for his eyes. The brown of them was deep, dark...and sad. “I don’t have the cipher.” He started the truck, the vents blasting warm air into Ashley’s face. “You do.”

The heat from the vents battled the cold running through Ashley’s veins. He couldn’t possibly be saying what she thought he was. “No.”

“I have no idea what Sean meant, but you’re it. You’re all we’ve got, because there’s no one else we can trust. He said you’d know everything once you saw the data.”

Physical pain thundered through her chest and shot lightning bolts into her extremities. A sudden rush of panic and she was clawing for the door, the lock... Anything. Any way to be free. She held the key, the one thing between Sean and death, between those men and the information they wanted.

Hands grasped her shoulders, angled her toward Ethan. Firm fingers tipped her chin and gently turned her head. As violently as she tried to fight, the gentle press of those warm fingers didn’t let up.

“Ashley.” Ethan’s voice was low, warm, calm. “Look at me. At me. In my eyes.”

It was the last place she wanted to focus, but her eyes were drawn to his. As soon as her gaze met his, everything in her stilled. It was the last place she should find safety, but her heart knew him and refused to feel anything else.

“You’re okay. You’re safe. No matter what happens, I am right here beside you. I will protect you.” Those last words hammered with emphasis, slow and heavy.

She couldn’t look him in the eye anymore.

Ashley leaned back from his grasp and exhaled, panic floating away with his promises. She had no idea how he’d done it, but she hoped he didn’t have to again. The way her pulse pounded now had absolutely nothing to do with fear.

This was probably worse.

As much as she knew close proximity to Ethan was dangerous to her heart and as much as she wanted to walk away to protect herself, she couldn’t. Sean’s life—her life—depended on their teaming up.

And, boy, when they were all safe, was Sean going to hear from her about this entire setup, from painting a bull’s-eye on her back to making her work with Ethan Kincaid again.

For now, there was work to do. Authority to assert. “You have to take me to my car.”

Ethan’s head came up, eyebrows high in confusion. “Your car? At the airport?” He shook his head. “No way. For all we know, there are people staking it out.”

Control. What she needed right now was control, and she was about to take it. She needed to be in charge if she wanted to survive this. She needed to fool herself into believing something was in her power. “Doubtful. They saw you come in all John Wayne and take me out of there like your truck was on fire. They’re long gone from the airport, focused on my apartment or somewhere else.” She pulled her seat belt across and latched it with a definite click. “We’re going to the airport.”

“There is no way I’m—”

“The keys to the post-office box are in it. The box is up north, in Black River. I go up every couple of weeks to check on my grandparents’ cabin and to get his mail.” That was something she should have seen before. The fact Sean had rented a postbox an hour away instead of a more convenient location in Syracuse. He was trying to protect her even while he used her. Maybe she should be grateful, and she would be, after she tore him apart for doing this to her in the first place. “We have to get those keys or we can’t get into the box. There’s no other way.”

There it was. The twitch in his right temple. It popped up when he couldn’t say what was on his mind. What she wouldn’t give to know what he was thinking right about now. Or not, because it probably wasn’t butterflies and rainbows.

“This is the single dumbest thing I’ve ever done.” Ethan pulled out his cell phone and punched the screen so hard it was a wonder cracks didn’t form. “I have to let Mitch know we’ve changed plans and we’ll be late getting you to the safe house.” He held the phone tight, muttering. “It’ll be by the grace of God if you don’t get us both killed.”

God. Since when did He worry about Ashley?

And since when did Ethan worry about God?