“FBI!” Luke heard the cry, and ran harder. A shot rang out behind him and police cars swerved, blocking the street behind the three men. The local police was running interference for the fugitives? Luke shook his head, and wondered just what the hell kind of paperwork that was going to generate.
They ducked into an alley and knocked over a newspaper machine as they came out the other side. William ran past a man drinking a cup of coffee, and nearly splattered the cup in his haste to tear open the door of the small bakery just on the other side.
Edwin and Luke were right behind him. The man dodged and spun, holding his cup high over his head to keep it safe, only to drop it anyway, splashing his feet as they tore around him.
“Doughnut addiction?” he cried, shaking the coffee from his shoes.
William skidded to a halt in front of the counter, where a young lady was boxing an order of doughnuts into a white pasteboard box. “Ms. Pinal?”
“I’m Cathy. Ms. Pinal is the owner; I just work here.”
“Where is she?” William demanded.
“I’m in the middle of...” She gestured toward the doughnuts, then to the middle-aged woman who hovered in front of the display case, her lips pursed as she considered her options.
“It’s very important!” Police cars screeched to a halt outside, sirens blaring.
“FBI HAS JURISDICTION IN THIS CASE!” The outrage could be heard through the door. The man who dropped his coffee was standing against the window, arms in the air.
“Where?” William asked again, flashing an ID in a leather case. “Government business; we need to know.”
Cathy’s eyes were wide. The doughnut box tipped off the counter, sending krullers rolling in all directions. “I...” She looked from the customer who was pressed against the cabinet, staring in fascination at the melee outside, to the mess on the floor, and finally just grabbed a piece of paper off the counter and flung it at him. William caught it while Cathy grunted, seemingly unable to speak for fright, pointing furiously at it.
Luke leaned over William’s shoulder to look. It was the same as the flyer Dani had slipped to him at the house. “Oh, SHIT!”
“Homeland Security!” a new voice called, in the fracas outside. “Jurisdiction is ours!”
“Is HS on our side?” Luke asked in a stage whisper.
“Let’s not find out!” William turned to the girl. “Back door?”
Face pale, she pointed to the curtain that separated the store from the kitchen. The man at the window wet himself. William, Luke, and Edwin ran through the back room and crashed through the exit door just as a car pulled up, blocking the alley and giving them really no choice at all.
The driver pulled a gun, pointed it straight at William, and shouted, “GET IN!” in a thick British accent.
NOW THAT THEY KNEW the destination, they couldn’t get there fast enough. Dani chafed at the delay, watching the highway signs for the exit, wishing that they’d stolen the helicopter when they’d had the chance.
“Patience,” Maria murmured, patting Dani’s leg and sitting back as though there weren’t empires about to crumble.
“How do you do that? I mean, stay so calm?” Dani asked after a moment. She leaned back, trying to imitate her mother, but found herself on the edge of her seat moments later, without having remembered moving. “I’ve never been good at this part. I mean, give me something to do, and I’m there. But just waiting?” She shuddered, remembered too many long nights before action, too much time waiting on orders.
“Practice. You’ll find by the time you’re my age, these rare moments must be enjoyed. Or even taken advantage of.” She smiled. “And it gives us a chance to talk.”
“Talk?” Dani faltered, suddenly preferring combat. Any combat. “I can’t imagine what we have to talk about. It’s only been, what, forever since you left.”
“That was all explained—”
“No. You made excuses. There’s a difference.”
“Dani!” Elaina’s soft protest was barely audible from the front seat.
Maria half-turned, and reached for Dani’s hand, folding it carefully between her two palms. “Honey, I can’t expect us to find resolution in the space of a car ride. Like everything else in life, relationships take time to form—and they take time to heal. I made some decisions, and while I wish like crazy that you hadn’t been hurt by those decisions, I still stand by them. I did what was best for me to do at the time. For both of us. I hope someday you’ll come to accept that. In the meantime, I’m asking for only one thing from you.”
Dani stared down at their clasped hands. Her mother’s hand was warm. Callused. Strong. She couldn’t remember ever having held her mother’s hand before. She supposed she had, back when she was small, but that was been so long ago.
But she was here now. Real. Alive.
“What?” she asked finally. “What do you want from me?”
“A chance.”
Dani’s head shot up. “A chance? For what? To run away again?”
Maria flinched, but didn’t look away. Her eyes held hers, eyes so like her own that it was like looking in a mirror. “A chance,” she repeated. “A chance for me to try to be a mother, if it’s not too late. A chance to make things right in your world.”
Dani looked away, staring out at the traffic without really seeing it. She thought about David back in rehab. How the uncle she’d always adored lay dead in some morgue somewhere. Or maybe he was already buried. Dead by her hand.
No, there was no making things right in her world. Not by a long shot.
Soft fingertips touched her chin, turning her head so that Dani could see her mother’s face, could look into her eyes and see the tears gathered there, threatening to fall. “I know it’s chaotic right now, but you can’t forget the good things. Even when things got their worst, I remembered the good in the world. I remembered you. You have so much more in this world than a USB stick. Your mother loves you, whether you’re ready to hear that or not. So does that man in the front seat, who’s pretending not to listen right now. But more than that, there’s a man who loves you, who wants to marry you. The time will come when all this has passed, and you can have your true wedding. Let it be a fresh start for you, away from all this intrigue. All this drama.”
But Luke wasn’t her true fiancé, and even Marcus didn’t know that. She and Luke had been lucky enough to find each other, but luck had turned fickle of late. When tomorrow came, when there were no more thumb drives or intrigues to drive them, what would happen to her and Luke then? She opened her mouth to say so, wanting to make someone understand that none of this was true, that the whole thing had been a farce from the very beginning, when the car swerved suddenly and darted into another lane.
“Seven o’clock!” Marcus called out. Elaina looked at her watch; Dani and Maria turned in their seats to look out the rear window.
“Red Dodge?” Dani asked after a second, noting the careful distance that the driver kept despite heavy traffic.
“Yeah. Been back there since the first main road after we left the house.”