chapter Nine
Jenna dug her fingernails into the arm that had her in a vise from behind.
“Jenna, it’s me.” Cade’s harsh whisper weakened her knees. He slipped his hand from her mouth. “Keep quiet.”
Turning into his chest, she said, “I think she’s dead.”
“She is dead. Poisoned.”
“How do you know that?”
“The smell. I can smell it on her.”
“Why? What happened? We need to warn Jim.”
Cade gripped her shoulders, his long fingers pinching her. “We’re not going near Jim.”
She widened her eyes and pulled Gavin against her legs. “What are you saying, Cade?”
“It’s Jim. The pasta.”
Pressing her fist against her lips, she shook her head. “No, no.”
“Listen to me.” He cupped her face in his hands. “We’re getting out of here. Quietly. God knows where Miyata is.”
He hoisted Gavin into his arms and put a finger to his lips. “We’re sneaking out of here, Gavin.”
The three of them slipped out of Sonia’s room and back into their own. Amid heavy breathing, they stuffed their feet into their boots, grabbed the few bags they had and hunched into their jackets.
Cade pushed open the door and looked both ways, as his weapon dangled at his side. He motioned for Jenna to follow him.
Hugging Gavin tightly to her body, she followed Cade into the hallway. He jerked his thumb toward the back of the building, where they’d entered hours ago expecting a safe refuge.
Did that even exist?
Cade pulled Jenna next to him while looking over his shoulder. When he rounded the corner, he stopped, a curse on his lips.
Jim stood in front of the door, holding a gun at an odd angle in front of him. “I guess you forgot about the cameras all over this place. I told you I always watched the cameras.”
Cade raised his own weapon and had the satisfaction of watching Jim’s face blanch. “I didn’t forget. Just hoped you wouldn’t be keeping watch.”
“No chance of that. Your kid’s too valuable for inattention.”
Jenna hissed beside him, and Cade nudged her. “You’re working for the other side now?”
“I have no love for the other side.” Jim’s lips hardened to a straight line.
“Just a love of money?”
“It’s a matter of being appreciated. Zendaris pays well.”
Cade shifted his stance, coiling his muscles. “But there’s always a price. Do you think someone like Zendaris is going to let you live when he finds out you had my son and wife and let them slip through your fingers?”
Jim licked his lips. “Not going to happen. He’ll pay well when I deliver your son to him.”
“I told you, Jimbo, I don’t have the plans.”
Jim laughed, an odd, hiccupping sound. “I don’t believe that story. Nobody believes it.”
“You do know what those plans are for, don’t you?” Cade took another step closer while trying to block Jenna and Gavin from Jim’s line of fire.
“They’re for a weapon that will neutralize our drones. Prospero doesn’t deign to tell me anything, but Zendaris does.”
“Those drones are among our best weapons against terrorism.” Cade had to take a deep breath. He couldn’t let his rage affect his concentration. “That doesn’t bother you?”
“We’ll develop other weapons, better weapons.”
“And you’ll have your money.” Cade had already released the safety on his gun, and his finger caressed the trigger. “You killed Sonia. What did you do with Miyata?”
“He really is at the border, but he had no idea you were coming. I didn’t tell him. He was here when the message came through, but I let him go on his assignment without telling him.” Jim’s gun wavered. “Now send your kid over here and I’ll let your wife go.”
Cade laughed. “Why didn’t you try anything before now, Jimbo? You poisoned Sonia and tried to do the same with us. You figured you couldn’t take out Sonia any other way, is that it? You’re waiting for someone, aren’t you? You told them we’re here.”
Jenna sucked in a quick breath beside him.
“The poison wouldn’t have killed you, just incapacitated you.”
“That’s what I’m saying. You need me incapacitated before you can try anything. Well, guess what?” He clutched his weapon with both hands and pointed it Jim’s head. “I’m not incapacitated.”
“I’ll shoot you, Stark, and your wife and your kid.” He drew a cross with his weapon. “I’ll just start shooting and I won’t care who I hit.”
As Jim’s gun tracked to the left, Cade squeezed off a shot and backed Jenna and Gavin against the wall. The blast echoed and a second shot followed it.
But Jim had already dropped to his knees and his bullet hit the plaster of the wall.
Cade gave Jenna a shove. “Get back around the corner.”
Blood soaked Jim’s shoulder as he tried to gain control of the weapon in his hand, but his hand wouldn’t cooperate.
Cade ran at him in a crouched position and then kicked the gun from his unsteady hand. He then landed his boot in the center of Jim’s chest, sending him plummeting backward.
Cade scooped up Jim’s hot gun from the floor and held his own to Jim’s head. He grabbed the collar of Jim’s shirt and dragged him into the corner of the hallway.
“Cade! Are you all right?”
“It’s okay, Jenna. We’re getting out of here.” He shot Jim again in the kneecap, and the other man wailed.
“What are you doing?” Jim covered his head with his arms. “I demand to be arrested. I demand to be turned over to the CIA.”
Cade peeled his lips back from his teeth in a snarl. The man’s cowardice made him almost as sick as his treachery. “I want to make sure you can’t let your buddies into the compound when they get here. There’s too much valuable intelligence, even though I wouldn’t mind letting Zendaris’s men get a crack at you once they figure out you let my family slip through your hands.”
“Wh-who said Zendaris’s men are on their way?” Jim gasped and clutched his leg.
“We didn’t fall for the poisoned pasta you used on Sonia, but that didn’t concern you because you had a backup. You don’t have the stomach or the skill to take out a Prospero agent.”
Jim’s face reddened, almost matching the blood soaking his pant leg. “You’re not fooling anyone, Stark. You compromised your family’s safety for glory by stealing those plans from Zendaris, whether you still have them or not.”
“You compromised your country’s safety for money. What does that make you?”
“You don’t have to prove yourself to this man.” Jenna tugged on his arm. “If Zendaris’s men are on their way, we need to get out of here.”
Cade ran the back of his hand across his sweat-soaked brow, and then he pushed to his feet. He hustled Jenna and Gavin toward the door and turned for one last look at Jim. “I’m sending Prospero out here and a warning to Miyata. If you’re lucky, they’ll arrive before Zendaris’s thugs.”
Cade exited the compound after Jenna and made sure the door was closed and sealed. They bundled Gavin into his car seat and Cade sped away from the Prospero outpost, his weapon in his lap.
He fumbled for his phone and punched in the warning message for a compromised compound with an enemy on the way. Then he used a text message to tell the Prospero message center that Jimbo was a traitor, Sonia dead and Miyata in danger if he returned to the outpost.
He waited for the response, hands clutching the steering wheel. When his phone buzzed, he lunged for it and read the message. The single word, confirmed, as cold and clinical as it was, made his breathing come easier and the rate of his heart slow down.
Cade drove several miles before either of them said a word to each other. Jenna had been turned in her seat, soothing Gavin, and Cade had been busy looking in all directions for suspicious vehicles. He almost welcomed the opportunity to meet Zendaris’s men head-on. It wouldn’t stop Zendaris, but he’d have to send fresh meat.
“Jim must’ve been a traitor all along.” Jenna settled back in her seat and hugged herself around the middle. “When you let him know we were coming in, he saw his opportunity and grabbed it.”
“Unfortunately, it’s not a rare occurrence. We have moles. They have moles.”
“But to murder his coworkers like that—because Zendaris’s thugs would’ve killed Miyata when he returned.” She hunched forward, touching her forehead to her knees.
Cade ran a hand along her back. “He didn’t consider Miyata and Sonia his coworkers. They represent the enemy.”
“Do you think Jim was an ideological traitor or did he do it for money?”
“Does it matter?”
“I guess not.” She turned in her seat again and pulled a blanket over Gavin, who was already nodding off. “Where to now?”
“We’re heading to Albuquerque. It’s a big enough city.”
“Is it safe there?”
“What do I know?” He smacked the steering wheel with both hands. “I thought a Prospero outpost would be safe.”
She flicked his ear. “Don’t start that. Of course you figured a Prospero outpost would be safe.”
“Ow.” He rubbed his ear. “How’s Gavin?”
She twisted in her seat and patted their son. “He’s falling asleep.”
“I mean, how did he handle all the commotion back there?”
“The gunshots scared him. He covered his ears, but everything happened so fast I don’t think he realized what was going on.”
“He’s our hero. If he hadn’t seen Sonia and told you about her, we’d still be sleeping in our beds—sitting ducks for Zendaris’s men.”
She walked her fingertips along his thigh. “You’re our hero, Cade. You’ve gotten us out of every jam since we started this journey.”
“Now you have two guys looking out for you.” He jerked his thumb at the backseat. “You don’t have to do this alone anymore, Jenna.”
“You’re going to have to get rid of Zendaris to remove the threat completely, aren’t you? It’s not just the plans he wants. He wants revenge against you.”
“True, but finding out I don’t have the plans will slow him down. His first order of business is getting those back and putting them up for bid on the world market.”
“He’d sell them to anyone, wouldn’t he?”
“Yep.”
“Even the U.S.?”
“We don’t operate that way.”
She blew out a breath. “Who developed the plans in the first place and who says he doesn’t have a million copies of them?”
“The engineer who developed the prototype of the anti-drone now works for us.”
Her nails dug into the denim of his jeans. “How did that happen?”
“Let’s just say we persuaded him to work for the good guys.”
“Persuaded?” She slid a glance his way. “Did we persuade him the same way Zendaris is trying to persuade you to give back the plans?”
“That’s not my area.”
Jenna shook her head. “When did it become okay to use people’s families in matters of war?”
He pressed one finger to her lips. “We don’t know if that’s how it went down. Maybe we just offered him a better life here. He’s now working with us on ways to neutralize the anti-drone in case someone does develop it.”
“How did Zendaris get his hands on this man’s work?”
“The guy developed it for Zendaris.”
“Voluntarily?”
“You’re like a dog with a bone.”
“I just want to gauge our chances against this guy.”
He brought her hand to his lips and kissed the ends of her fingers. “And I just want to get you and Gavin out of his way and off his radar. We have a few hours until we hit Albuquerque. Try to sleep like your son back there.”
Jenna yawned. “I can do that. Where are we going once we get there?”
“How about a hotel like normal people?”
She closed her eyes and slouched sideways. “Normal? What’s that?”
Once they got through this, Cade intended on giving her normal for the rest of her life...if that’s what she wanted.
* * *
JENNA TURNED HER HEAD from side to side, rubbing her neck. She pressed her nose against the car window and drank in the sight of city streets. Even slightly deserted city streets beat the unrelenting emptiness of the desert.
“We made it to Albuquerque.” She poked her head in the backseat to peer at a sleeping Gavin. “Did he wake up at all?”
“No. I think I would’ve had to wake you up if he had.”
She straightened in her seat and stretched her arms over her head, placing her hands flat against the top of the car. “He’s getting used to you.”
“I think so, too. When are we going to tell him about me?”
His question knocked the wind out of her. “I—I don’t know.”
“I think the sooner the better. He’s three. He seems to have accepted a lot in his short life. What’s one more surprise? And I hope it’s a good one.”
“You’re right. At three, he’s not going to experience much angst over a father popping up out of nowhere.”
Cade rolled his eyes. “That’s one way of putting it. Has he asked about me much?”
“Here and there.”
“And your answer?”
Cade seemed to be holding his breath, and she didn’t blame him after the reception she’d given him. “I said you were busy with work.”
His chest heaved. “That’s not too bad. Now I’m not busy with work. You never showed him any pictures of me?”
“I have, but for obvious reasons I didn’t prominently display them anywhere we lived. Why do you doubt that I did?”
“He didn’t recognize me when I came on the scene.”
“He’s three, Cade. I wouldn’t expect him to recognize you from those pictures.”
He wheeled the car around the next corner and pulled into the parking lot of a big hotel. “We’re here, Mrs. Cramer.”
“I can be Mrs. Cramer.”
“Good because I have ID and credit cards as Robert Cramer. I think we can hang out here for a few days—sleep in real beds, eat real food.”
“Buy real clothes.” Between two fingers, she pinched the fabric of the cheap jeans she’d bought at the flea market.
“Anything you desire.” He patted the wallet he’d tossed onto the console. “Mr. Cramer is a man of means.”
Jenna nudged Gavin. “Time to wake up.”
Gavin woke with a start, his lids flying open. Jenna brushed the back of her hand against his cheek. What nightmares had disturbed his sleep? What nightmares lay ahead?
“Are you okay?”
He nodded, his eyes wide. “No snow.”
“That’s right, but it’s still chilly, so we’ll put our jackets on when we leave the car.”
Cade slung his bag over his body as he exited the car. “Sit tight. I’ll check in, and then we’ll park.”
Less than fifteen minutes later, Jenna was spinning around the sitting room of their suite, her arms out to her sides. “This is heaven. How did you score a suite?”
“It’s all they had left. Nobody has checked out yet for the day.” He crouched in front of the safe in the closet and waved to Gavin, who had the remote control gripped in one hand and was aiming it at the TV. “Are you ready for some breakfast, Gavin?”
Jenna dropped her arms and scooped up Gavin, remote and all. “He’s ready for a bath right now.”
“Yeah, I guess the Cramer family better clean up because we don’t want to attract any unwanted attention.”
Jenna hugged Gavin closer. “How long are we going to stay here?”
“Until we hear back from Prospero and they finish what they hopefully started and set you up in a secure location.” Cade walked on his knees from the safe, where he’d stashed most of the contents of his bag, to the mini bar. He held up a candy bar. “Do you want a three-dollar chocolate bar?”
She placed her hand over Gavin’s eyes and kneed Cade in the back. “No, but that little bottle of tequila looks inviting.”
“You could probably use about five of those after what you went through last night.” He rose to his feet and wrapped his arms around both her and Gavin. “It’s going to get better.”
She closed her eyes and breathed in his masculine scent from her nose squished against his chest. “Can’t get much worse.”
She scrubbed a couple of days’ dirt and grime from Gavin in the tub. If only she could scrub away his memories as easily. How much of this turmoil would stick with him in the years to come? He’d just seen his second dead body in as many days.
“Any more scrubbing and Gavin’s going to turn pink.”
Jenna jumped at the sound of Cade’s voice and dropped the washcloth into the soapy water. “Do you think all this is going to affect him?”
Cade perched on the edge of the tub and circled his fingers in the water. “You’re asking me? I’m no expert on childhood trauma.”
“How much of your father’s...indiscretions do you recall?”
His hand stilled in the water as the rings continued to expand. “That was different. We never knew what was going on. My father presented a different face to us. I was ten by the time he left, so of course, I remember all the drama surrounding that.”
“But it made you a stronger person.” She reached around him for Gavin’s towel. “Maybe this will do the same for Gavin.”
He grabbed the towel, gripping it between them, his knuckles almost as white as the terry cloth. “Gavin will be fine.”
She met his dark eyes, blazing with some inner emotion, and for that moment she believed him.
She left a sweet-smelling Gavin with Cade, watching morning cartoons while she took her turn in the shower.
Fifteen minutes later, with her hair wrapped in a towel, she wedged her shoulder against the bathroom door and listened to Gavin try to explain the characters in his favorite cartoon to Cade. Could Cade really be as interested as he sounded?
She rounded the corner and smiled as Cade counted off the names of the superheroes on his fingers.
“Do I have that right?”
“Now the bad guys.”
“Oh, I know all the bad guys.” He looked up and gave her a grimace. Then he recited the cartoon villains’ names as if he’d done battle with them himself.
If only the real villains could be defeated as handily as the ones in Gavin’s world.
They decided to stick close to the hotel and have breakfast in the restaurant downstairs. Cade insisted on a table in the back corner and grabbed the seat with his back to a wall, facing the entrance.
Through his smiles and jokes, he still had an edge. Jenna knew he kept his gun close, tucked in the inside pocket of his jacket, which he didn’t remove.
The waitress dropped off their check and hovered over their cups with the coffeepot. “Top that off for you?”
“I’ll take a little more, thanks.” Jenna shoved her cup closer to the edge of the table.
Cade declined and reached for his wallet. He pulled out his phone instead. It buzzed in his hand as he checked the display.
Knots tightened in Jenna’s stomach. “Is it Prospero?”
“No, it’s my father.”