Page 45

Forty-four

“I TOLD YOU THEY WERE ONTO US ,” Kelly said as she and Jared raced down the sidewalk. A mere hundred yards separated them from Brent.

“I thought we lost them,” Jared said. “Just keep going.”

The cold night air lit up her lungs, her thighs burning.

They bobbed and wove around the string of people populating the downtown Flagstaff sidewalks.

She glanced back, eyeing the man rounding the corner. Eighty yards.

Brent was gaining on them.

Slam. Kelly bounced back, holding her head.

“Hey, lady!” The man she’d bolted into grunted and rubbed his head. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Sorry.” The word rushed out as she fumbled forward, her feet feeling like they were running independently of her body.

“Building ... ahead.” Jared’s words came out between puffs of air.

“Building?” Was he kidding? “Won’t he trap us?”

“Have ... an ... idea,” Jared puffed. “Just do it.”

Lights shone out the building’s windows and door, flooding the concrete sidewalk, slipping across the passing cars. People milled in and out. An event?

Rounding the edge of the circular parking lot, her hair damp along the side of her face, Kelly bolted past the beautifully dressed people and into the building.

Heat washed over her in a rush at the entrance but evaporated as she flew into the expansive hotel lobby filled with even more people.

“Now what?” she said over her shoulder to Jared as she slowed into a power walk in an effort not to terrify the guests and to blend in better, but given the beautiful dresses and the giggling bridesmaids shuffling by, that wasn’t in the cards.

She moved through the bodies. “We’re about to the end,” she said. Only elevators stood in front of them. “Jared?” She shot a glance back to see Brent enter the building, his gaze searching. He pinged her.

“He’s here.”

“The elevators,” Jared hollered. “Fast.”

Like she didn’t know that.

She broke into a run, practically slamming into the gold doors. She pressed the Up button. Harder and harder. “Come on....” Her leg bounced.

Jared put his body between her and Brent. “He won’t open fire with all these people.”

“You sure about that?” Her heart thumped. “He’s mid-lobby,” she said, leaning past Jared’s broad shoulder.

Ding.

Thank you , Lord. The doors slid open, and Jared shoved her in, nearly barreling her into the exiting couple.

She backed straight into the rear of the elevator. “We’re trapped.”

Jared pressed the Close button in a frenzy. “Come on. ... Come on.”

Brent bumped a woman, who released an offended cry.

Eighty feet. Seventy feet.

His hand slipped into his jacket. His gun.

The doors started sliding. “Come on!” she yelled, and heads turned.

Brent’s face, twisted in anger, showed between the final slit before the doors sealed shut.

Relief swarmed through her belly, and she collapsed against the side of the elevator.

Jared rested his hand on the gold rail running the length of the back wall. Mirrors blanketed the space above, the illuminating floor numbers reflecting in them.

She looked for the depressed button. “Why the third floor?”

“Totally random.” He ran a shaky hand through his hair.

“What now?” she asked as the floors dinged by, the lights dancing across the line over the door. Two. Ding. Three. Ding.

Jared held the door open but didn’t step off the elevator.

“What are you doing?”

“You get off here, and I’ll hit four.”

Her belly dropped. “Split up?”

“It’s the only way I see us getting out of here.” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Or one of us.”

“Jared...” She reached out and clasped his clammy palm.

He stepped closer. “We knew this was a possibility.” He squeezed her hand. “We’ll be fine. We’ll meet at Gus and Amy’s. Just like we planned for this contingency.”

She bit her lip.

He cupped her face in his clammy, trembling hands. “It’ll be okay.”

He seemed even less convinced than her, but she did her part. She nodded like she believed him.

Placing a quick peck on his lips, she whispered, “I love you.”

“Love you. It’s going to be all right. Take the stairwell. One at the end of the hall if you can. I’ll see you at Gus’s.”

“Can’t we pick a place to meet up outside of here?”

“We need to split up. He’s getting too close. Now, go.”

She did so, forcing herself not to look back. She raced for what she hoped was the far stairwell, her boots thumping along the plush, mosaic-style carpeting.

Doors flew by in a blur. She shoved the stairwell door open as the second elevator dinged. She glanced back, and everything in her wished she hadn’t as she made eye contact with Brent.

Her pulse raced in her neck. She sprinted forward, nearly tumbling down the first set of concrete steps. She rounded the landing, her moist grip on the rail tentative at best. She swung around another landing when the door above slammed open.

“I’ve got you,” Brent said, his voice deep and harsh.

Her legs, feeling like wet noodles, somehow managed to carry her down.

A bullet pinged off the rail inches in front of her hand, ricocheting into the concrete block wall.

A suppressed retort sounded.

Panic sifted through her. She prayed someone had heard that and would come, but with the buzzing noise of the lobby crowd emanating up the stairwell, she doubted it.

Lobby. It would have the most people. If she could make it.

Another shot, this time into the wall inches from her head.

She ducked and ran in a crouch. One more floor. She just had to make it one more floor.

Her heart in her throat, she burst out the door, stumbling into the hotel lobby. Halfway across, she turned. Brent exited the steps.

“Gun!” she hollered at the top of her lungs. “Gun!”

The entire lobby filled with people erupted in screams. People ran in a swarming mass for the front glass doors, Kelly among them.

Please , please , please. She fled out into the night as two security guards rushed forward.

“I saw him. He’s tall, dressed in a black sweater and black trousers.”

“Thank you, miss.” The first radioed in the description, and whoever was on the other end replied the police were rolling.

She bolted down the street in the opposite direction from the one they’d come, having passed not much else. She hoped there would be more this way.

Screams still filled the night as footsteps trampled out of the building.

She rounded the first corner she hit. An alley. Had she just trapped herself again?

She eyed every building she ran past until her gaze fixed on a side door. With no clue where it led, she burst inside to find herself in a commercial kitchen. Everyone turned to look at her.

“Sorry,” she said. “Lost.”

“The party is out that way,” one of the men said.

“Thank you. My abusive ex is chasing me. If he comes in—dressed in black and angry—could you please not tell him you saw me?”

“Sure, honey,” a female chef said.

She followed the direction the man had pointed and shimmied sideways down a narrow corridor, then out a subsequent door into a ... Museum?

A long black banner had Walter’s Art Gallery Gala printed in gold script.

She’d walked into a gala? She cringed at her jeans and long-sleeve tee, but there was no time to care what all the people staring her up and down thought.

She pressed through the crowd, heading for a service elevator. She took it to the top floor.

“Always keep moving . You stay still , you die.” Jared’s adage raced through her head.

Exiting on the fifth floor, she scanned the space, her heart pounding. How much fear could it take before it burst from her chest?

Stop. You’ve got this.

Finding a stairwell, she entered, the memory of the last one clutching her chest in a vise. She worked her way down it, slowly. Exiting this time on the far side of the gallery, she eyed the glass exit doors and the space around her. No sign of Brent.

Taking a steadying breath, or as steady as she could manage with shallow heaves, she strode outside. The cold night air swept over her, instantly cooling her skin with a chill. Gooseflesh rippled down her arms.

She approached the first taxi in a long line.

The driver rolled down his window.

“Ride?” she asked.

“Yes.” The man nodded.

“Great.” She climbed in back and slouched low. “Could you take me to...”

“To?”

“Just drive. I’ll figure it out.”

“Suit yourself.” He shrugged and pulled out onto the street.

She stretched up barely an inch to look out the rearview mirror and swallowed at the sight of Brent still searching for her. She slouched back below the window.

“Where’s it going to be, lady?” the driver asked.

“A car rental agency.”

“You care which one?”

“Nope. Whichever one is still open.”

“Most are open all night at the airport.” He punched the airport name into his GPS, and a twenty-minute estimated route appeared on the screen.

“Are there any rental places outside of the airport?” she asked. Airports had more cameras.

He tapped the clock. 10:00 p.m . “Not open this late.”

“Okay.” She swallowed. “The airport it is.” If only she could get on a plane and fly away. Anywhere. Escape all of this. But she and Jared had a duty to fulfill, and she wasn’t going to let Lance steal it from them like he’d stolen from Claire. Finally, after six years, they were going to make this as right as they could.

A half hour later, Kelly pulled out of the rental car lot, having used her fake ID. After using it at the clinic, where they’d been tracked, it was probably useless, but she had no choice.

She escaped into the night, leaving Flagstaff behind and fleeing for the safety of Gus and Amy’s. At least, she hoped she was headed for safety. It’d been in short supply.