Identity

They hadn’t bothered to lock it, and it stank of pork rinds and loaded diapers, but he thought the car seat in the back would provide some cover.

He got it fired up, wound his way until he hit Interstate 29, and headed north. He cursed when he had to stop for gas, but he needed it, needed to keep going until he got clear.

He paid at the pump with the Luke Hudson Visa card he’d kept to remind him of Morgan. A lesser risk, he thought, than going inside—camera—or using the Winslow card.

He’d get to somewhere in Nebraska, he decided, find that cheap motel. Deal with his hair. In the morning he could buy what he needed to generate a new identity.

As he drove, he beat a hand on the wheel. All of his things! All of them, gone.

He had to slow his breathing, concentrate on his driving. If he got stopped …

He wouldn’t get stopped. Couldn’t get stopped, so he wouldn’t.

Get to Nebraska. He rocked back and forth to calm himself. Find some crap motel where they didn’t look twice. He’d have to ditch the stolen car—airport, long-term parking—to buy some time. Some bumfuck airport in bumfuck Nebraska.

Or maybe a junkyard. They probably had plenty of those piled up in the goddamn cornfields.

Switch the plates, ditch the car. Maybe buy a new one for cash from some yahoo. Or rent one, wait and rent one once he had the new ID.

He couldn’t decide. He couldn’t think.

He had to find somewhere to hole up first, to hole up and figure out what he needed to do next.

Because for the first time in his life, Gavin Rozwell was on the run.





Chapter Twenty-two



Morgan sat in the quiet of the empty house. She still held her phone, and half expected to have to use it to call for help when the panic attack came.

But it didn’t come, so she stood, stuck the phone back in her pocket.

She’d work, she thought. She’d take her mind off things with work. Summer would end, and with fall, new drink specials.

She could do some research, and maybe start fleshing out the vague plans she had for Après with Halloween.

She could sit outside and work, let Totally Zen keep her calm and level.

When the doorbell rang, she jumped, felt her chest constrict.

She pushed the air out, telling herself not to give in, and braced on the back of a chair, keeping that air going in and out until she could walk to the door.

Out the window she saw Miles and a man she didn’t recognize.

She opened the door.

“Morgan, Clark Reacher. He’s going to install your home security cameras.”

“My what?”

“Miles laid out what you need, so you don’t need the sales pitch.” Reacher, a man of about forty with a pleasant face and a wiry build, smiled at her. “Best we’ve got.”

“I’ll explain it to her. Why don’t you get started?”

“But—”

Miles just took Morgan’s arm, steered her to the back of the house. “You’ll have security cameras, front, back, and on the side door. Somebody tries to get in, you get an alert. With the doorbell package, you won’t have to look out the window when somebody rings the bell. You just look on your phone, your tablet, whatever. Clark’ll fix it up.”

“I didn’t order this. Did Gram arrange for this?”

“No, I did.”

“But you just can’t—”

“Let’s go outside.”

“Miles, you can’t arrange for all this without talking it over.”

“I did, so I can.” He nudged her outside. “I don’t think I’ll get an argument from your ladies.”

“You’re getting one from me.” She stood her ground. “You can’t have all this installed on someone else’s property. It’s beyond pushy.”

“I’ll give you pushy, but I am having it installed. You, your grandmother, and your mother will have more peace of mind. And so will I.” He waited a single beat. “You wouldn’t take the dog.”

“Oh, for God’s sake!”

“What about when you’re working nights and they’re here alone?”

“That’s not fair.”

Those eyes, those tiger eyes, went jungle fierce. “I don’t care about fair. I have no fucks to give about fair. I thought about what it would be like to lose someone I cared about, someone who mattered. I don’t like it, so it’s not happening. You matter.”

“That’s really not fair.” She turned away, scrubbing her hands over her face.

“I agree there. I didn’t want you to matter, but you do. So this is happening. It’s pushy, it’s not fair. Deal with it.”

She’d never had anyone just order her around. The Colonel hadn’t cared enough; her mother had cajoled.

Now she tried to figure out how to handle it.

“You could have suggested we do something like this. We’d have thought about it.”

“While you’re thinking about it, it’s getting done. If your grandmother wants to have a conversation with me about it, I’ll make myself available.

“I don’t like these damn systems,” he added. “I don’t like the whole idea of them. But right here, right now, it’s necessary.”

“I don’t like being rolled over this way.”

“Don’t blame you a bit. It sucks, and I’ll apologize after that son of a bitch is in a cell. If it’s any consolation, when he gets done here, he’s putting one of these systems on my place. I don’t like it any more than you, but you spend time there.”

She turned back, dropped into a chair. “It makes me feel helpless.”

“That’s stupid, and you’re not. You dented his shield, remember? Now you’ll have one, and he won’t dent yours.”

He sat across from her.

“Part of you still feels coming here, living here makes you a failure, a weak one. That’s bullshit. Coming here, starting over after what happened to you is what proves you’re strong. Strong enough, Morgan, that when someone hands you a shield, you take it and you use it.”

“It’s really unfair when you’re logical.” She pressed her fingers to her eyes. “It’s just been a day, and still has a ways to go.” She dropped her hands back on the table. “I got an update from the FBI.”

“Okay.”

“I need to walk. Can we just walk around? I need a little Zen.”

“Sure. Give me a second first.”

When he took out his phone, she pressed her fingers to her eyes again. “You have to get back to work. We’ll do all this later.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Give me a second.”

He rose, moved away. As he worked with his assistant on some rescheduling, he wondered why a sensible, grounded woman like Morgan found it so hard to accept help.

When he walked back, he held out a hand. “Let’s walk.”

“They don’t have him. I should get that out of the way first.”

“But?”

“He wasn’t in the hotel room when the police went in, but a lot of his things were—clothes, IDs, electronics. And the car he’d gotten when he sold or traded his last victim’s was in the hotel garage. They have the name he used to book the suite. He’d gone out shopping, had some lunch. They have credit card receipts.”

She paused by the fountain, so they stood a moment. He waited while the water fountained and the sunlight struck the copper.