“For reasons we’ll discuss once you’re back in the city.”
He couldn’t deal with this right now. He had other issues, namely a slippery little blonde who was currently hiding somewhere in this truck stop, hoping he’d give up on her. Which was not happening.
“Two days,” he told Bellisario. “I’ll be back in two days.”
“I don’t like to wait.”
“And I don’t answer to you.”
“We’ll see about that.”
The hair on the back of Vaughn’s neck lifted at the threat—and yes, it was a threat, despite Bellisario’s pleasant tone. “Two days.” He hung up and banged the phone against his forehead a few times.
One problem at a time, he told himself.
He sucked in a lungful of air and let it out slowly. What had he been doing?
Text. Right. He was going to text Marcus.
He typed one out, asking if it was possible Marcus had recognized Sage from his years of working with the government. But even as he hit send, doubt niggled at the back of his mind.
She couldn’t be a government operative. Her aliases had been good enough to stand up to preliminary employment background checks, but anything deeper easily uncovered her lies. And since when did the government steal the identities of dead people? They didn’t, at least as far as he knew. If the government was involved, they would’ve crafted her aliases out of thin air, and nobody would have been able to track her from one to the next.
So who was she?
Not knowing drove him crazy. She was a puzzle, and he’d never had much patience for puzzles. That was Reece’s thing.
And speaking of Reece, he would be a great help right now.
Vaughn grabbed his cell phone again. It was late, but Reece was a workaholic, and he—
A cacophony of sound blasted from his phone, and Vaughn yanked it away from his ear. “What the hell?”
“Sorry,” Reece said and the noise receded. “We’re watching Pacific Rim, and Shelby likes to turn the surround sound on.”
“It’s like being at the theater,” Shelby said in the background as her African gray parrot, Poe, continued mimicking the sound effects from the movie.
Vaughn again pulled his phone away, stared at it a second, then said, “You are watching a monster movie?”
“Hey,” Reece said, offended, “I happen to like monster movies.”
Vaughn shook his head. The change in his brother since Shelby came into the picture was the stuff of miracles. The guy no longer worked 24/7, he laughed often, and he was more relaxed than ever before. Shelby had effectively removed the stick from Reece’s ass, and Vaughn loved her for it.
“Okay,” Vaughn said. “Sorry to interrupt. I need a favor. That tracking device you gave me? I need you to find it.”
There was a beat of silence, then Reece laughed. “She got away from you? I’m impressed.”
Grumbling, he scanned the parking lot. “Don’t be. She’s not going to be free for long. I stuck the tracker on her.”
“Still. She gave you the slip. That’s pretty damn impressive.”
“Just…find the tracker, will you? I’m at a truck stop off I-65 in Alabama, somewhere between Mobile and Montgomery.” He started toward the building again, but then he changed his mind and walked around to the side facing the woods. He didn’t think she was stupid enough to tempt an unfamiliar forest in swamp country at night, but that side of the building had no windows, few lights, and no people. It’d be the perfect place to hide and wait someone out, and he had a feeling that was exactly what she was doing. Waiting him out.
Little did she know, she couldn’t. He’d spent a good portion of his SEAL career waiting. He could out-wait the apocalypse if he had to.
“All right, let me pull up a map…” A keyboard clacked in the background. “I see the truck stop. Tracker’s showing her on the northeast side of the building.”
“Stationary?”
“Appears so.”
Yup, she was hiding. “Thanks.” He pocketed his phone and broke into a run, circling the building to come up on her six. She might know escape and evasion, but he knew stealth. He knew how to stalk his prey in the shadows, and she was most definitely his prey.
As he neared the back side of the building, he slowed, quieted his steps and his breathing. He spotted her easily, pressed up against the wall, trying her best to meld into the darkness. It might have worked, too, if she wasn’t currently sporting bright blonde hair.
She was watching the front parking lot, totally unaware he was now an arm’s length behind her.
Or so he thought.
She whirled, and her fist just barely missed the side of his jaw. He grabbed her arm and immobilized it behind her back as he shoved her against the wall a little harder than he meant to. She smacked the cinderblocks with an audible umph, and he loosened his grip, afraid he might have actually hurt her.
Big mistake.