Hide From Evil (11 page)

“Come on,” Sean said, and he grabbed Krista by the arm. “Let’s go.” He pulled her to the car, pausing to pick up the second thug’s gun and the deputy’s sidearm.

“Wait,” Krista said, tugging at his grips. “They just killed the cop and tried to kill us. We need to report this and wait for the police.”

Sean yanked her to the squad car, opened the door, and half threw her inside. “Are you fucking insane? That was a cop who just tried to kill us. A cop who just set us up.”

“But there has to be someone we can call,” Krista sputtered as Sean walked around to the driver’s side. “We can’t just leave the scene like this.”

Sean slid into the seat of the cop car and gave a mental thanks to the universe for making Deputy Armstrong negligent enough to leave the keys in the ignition. He started up the engine and peeled out over Krista’s protests, and it was only when they were on the highway that he spoke.

“You need to get it into your head. Whatever you did, whomever you set off, they have connections to the system, to the police, to the people you think are supposed to help us. As of this moment, all bets are off.”

Krista sat numbly in the passenger seat of the squad car as Sean’s words and the reality of the night sank in. He was right. A cop had tried to kill them. An unassuming, small-town deputy whom she’d trusted on sight, and he’d tried to lead them to their death.

A wave of nausea rolled over her as she remembered the blood pouring from his chest, the wet sound of his breathing before they shot him in the head. “Pull over,” she said tightly.

“We shouldn’t stop—”

“Pull over!” she shouted, barely waiting for the car to roll to a stop before she staggered out, her stomach heaving up the few bites of the meal and the beer she’d consumed—God, had it been only a couple hours ago? It felt like a lifetime.

Sean rubbed her back with a surprisingly gentle stroke. Krista closed her eyes and tried to spit the vile taste from her mouth. The nausea faded, leaving the sting of humiliation in its wake.

“Sorry,” Krista said. “I’m not usually this squeamish. Not like I’ve never seen a dead guy before.”

“It’s a different deal when you actually see them die,” Sean said quietly, his hand maintaining that firm, even pressure as it stroked up and down her spine. “Not to mention when that gun gets pointed at you.”

Krista nodded and climbed back into the car. She felt marginally better, but still unable to focus on the tangle of questions whipping around her brain.

Suddenly the radio squawked to life. “Attention all units. We have just received word of an officer down. Deputy Armstrong has been shot and killed off Forest Service Road 14. Armstrong picked up Sean Flynn and Krista Slater after an auto accident. We believe Flynn seized Armstrong’s gun and has stolen his squad car. It’s unclear whether Slater is an accomplice or a hostage, but at this time Sean Flynn should be considered armed and dangerous. Approach with caution and use lethal force if necessary.”

“That didn’t take long for the guys to call in their story,” Sean muttered as he reached out and switched the radio off. Krista’s stomach rolled and she was afraid she might be sick again. What the hell had she gotten them into? “I’m sorry,” she said for what felt like the thousandth time since she’d visited him in prison all those months ago. “I can clear this up,” she said without conviction. “Just drop me in town and I’ll tell them it’s a mistake.”

“If I really believed for a second that that would work, I’d do it,” Sean snapped. “But even I’m not enough of an asshole to throw you to the wolves to save my own ass.” Krista couldn’t tell if the anger in his voice was aimed at her or himself. Either way, the relief that he wasn’t going to dump her on the side of the road to fend for herself was only barely edged out by the guilt over having dragged him into this mess in the first place.

“I don’t suppose you knew either of those guys,” Sean said as he pulled back onto the highway.

She shook her head. “I didn’t get a good look, but I don’t think so. You?”

“No.” Sean was quiet a few seconds. “You notice the smaller guy had an accent?”

She hadn’t. In the moment, she’d been too focused on the gun pointed at her face. But now that Sean mentioned it, in the few words the thug had said, there had been the distinct pronunciation of an Eastern European accent.

Could he work with Karev? Oh, God, what if none of this had anything to do with what she’d been digging up about Nate and had everything do to with that warning Karev had delivered? The warning she’d dismissed as empty posturing.

There was no good reason for Karev to come after her, but since when did the Russian mafia need a
good
reason to kill someone? If they thought she posed any risk at all, that would be enough of an excuse to take her out.

But all of this on the heels of Jimmy’s supposed suicide and her investigation into Nate’s past being exposed—it was too much of a coincidence. It had to be related.

“Did you ever hear anything about Nate being involved with the Russians?” she asked, not really expecting Sean to answer.

“Not that I know of, but then again I haven’t exactly kept in close correspondence in the past few years. Hell, he was dealing in high-end hookers. Anything’s possible.”

Krista pondered it for a moment. Nate was involved in prostitution and the Russians had their hands all over human trafficking in the Pacific Northwest. She grabbed her purse and fumbled around until she found her phone.

Sean reached out and snatched the phone from her hand before she could dial.

“What are you doing?” she asked, as he turned the phone off.

“What kind of a dumbass move is that?” Sean retorted.

“I need to call Mark and tell him there’s been a mistake about what happened with the deputy and then I want to call the investigator I’m working with to see if he can find any connection between Nate’s business and the Russians. Why are you looking at me like I’m an idiot?”

“Are you insane? They can track you through your phone. You of all people should know that. You have to have used it as evidence in a case.”

Krista closed her eyes and shook her head, calling herself a hundred kinds of idiot. Of course he was right. The combined trauma of the last hour and a half had mucked up her thinking so badly she hadn’t even considered how easy it would be for someone to get a bead on them through the cell phone’s GPS technology.

And whoever was after them had a long reach, far enough to get into the local sheriff’s department within half an hour of their crash. More than long enough to triangulate the signal and track their progress away from the murder scene.

“Give me my phone.”

Sean handed it back with a warning look. She rolled the window down a few more inches and tossed the phone outside. “Better?”

“Much.”

Krista’s stomach clenched as they came around a corner, half expecting the black SUV to come roaring out at any moment. Even if no one was tracking them through GPS, there were only two directions they would have been able to take the car. Now that the deputy’s body had been discovered, it was a good bet they would run into either the cops or the thugs before they reached town.

As though reading her thoughts, Sean pulled the car over to the side of the highway. He picked up the deputy’s handgun. “You know how to use one of these?”

Krista nodded. “I took a gun safety course when I joined the prosecuting attorney’s office.”

Sean checked the safety and handed over the gun, along with another clip he’d taken off the deputy. Krista took the gun and gingerly tucked it into her waistband, her skin recoiling at the cold bite of metal. She stuffed the extra clip into her pocket.

She stuffed her purse into her overnight bag as Sean took up the extra guns and the flashlight and got out of the car. Krista followed silently, not bothering to ask what his plan was.

His quiet, take-charge attitude went a long way toward soothing her frayed nerves. It was something she had sensed in him, even when she’d faced him across a courtroom. At the time, she’d read it as arrogance. Now she saw it for what it was: an innate confidence that made him a born leader. She could easily imagine him leading his fellow soldiers into the fray, fighting alongside them, and watching over them, leaving no one behind.

Just as he refused to leave her behind even though he had every right to. Her own personal knight in shining armor.

She gave herself a mental slap. God, she must have hit her head harder than she’d realized if she could imagine Sean Flynn as the hero of her private fairy tale.

Still, despite Sean’s anger and resentment toward her, Krista instinctively trusted him to keep her safe. Romantic delusions aside, tonight that made him a hero.

He kept the light off as he started down the shoulder of the road. His quick pace had Krista breathing hard. The half-moon cast a silvery glow through the trees, but not quite enough to illuminate the rocks and cracks before Krista stumbled over them.

She sucked in a sharp breath as she nailed her toe on a rock for the third time.

“There’s a trailhead into the national forest just up ahead,” Sean said, his arm a dark shadow as he pointed. “Once we’re on the trail we’ll slow down a little bit. Right now I want to get off the road.”

Even so, he slowed the pace a degree, enough that she didn’t feel like she was rushing headlong just to keep up. Every few steps he looked over his shoulder to check on her and every time she gave him a feeble thumbs-up.

They walked about a hundred more yards, and Sean illuminated a brown-and-gold forest service sign a few feet back from the road that marked the trailhead. “This should dump us out about two miles outside of Chelan,” Sean said.

When Sean felt they were safely out of sight he finally turned on the flashlight. Krista didn’t let herself fall more than a few feet behind. After about fifteen minutes of steady walking, Sean’s voice broke the darkness. “How long has Benson known you’ve been nosing around Nate’s past?”

Krista had to think a minute, redirect some of the energy she was using to keep forward momentum back to her brain. “A couple days.”

“Did you tell him you were coming to talk to me?”

“I get where you’re going,” she said, as everything in her rejected the notion. “Mark hired me out of law school. He’s like a second father to me. There’s no way he’s involved in this.”

“It’s a pretty damn big coincidence. He finds out, and the next thing you know I’m being set up by Deputy Numb Nuts and two thugs to take the fall for a murder-suicide. Benson would have access, contacts throughout the state…”

Krista shook her head even though Sean couldn’t see her. “Benson found out at the same time as just about everyone else in the Seattle PD when I had to explain how I just happened to stumble onto the scene of Jimmy Caparulo’s supposed suicide. People might not know the specifics, but it’s no secret I had a meeting set up with Jimmy related to an investigation. Anyone familiar with the case could put two and two together.”

Sean grunted as he shifted her bag from one arm to the other. “Excellent. So now we can add the entire Seattle PD to our suspect list.”

Krista bristled. “Even if that were the case—and believe me, it’s not—I think we can safely trust Cole, don’t you?” Detective Cole Williams, at the urging of Sean’s sister, Megan, had been instrumental in helping catch Nate Brewster, aka the Seattle Slasher, and proving Sean had been framed for the murder of Evangeline Gordon. Not to mention, Detective Williams was now engaged to Megan.

Sean stopped so abruptly Krista walked straight into his back, so big and broad it was like bouncing off a tree. “No fucking way. No way are we mixing them up in this. Megan’s been through enough already because of me. You dragged me into this shit storm, fine. I have nothing to lose. But stay the fuck away from them.”

Krista let the matter go as he resumed his march up the trail. But if she knew Cole—and Megan for that matter—once he got wind of what happened, he would be involved up to his ears whether Sean liked it or not.

Two hours later they were following the road into the outskirts of Chelan. “How are you holding up?” Sean asked as he scanned the road for any signs of traffic.

Besides the blisters rubbed into both heels, a stubbed toe she was afraid might be broken, and an ache in the arch of her foot that told her that her running shoes were way past their prime? “Fine,” she replied. “Now what?” she asked, leaning forward slightly to stretch out her back.

“How much cash do you have on you?”

Krista had to think for a minute if she had any. She was so used to paying for everything with a card she rarely carried actual bills. Then she remembered she’d gotten cash to pay the lady who cleaned her house every other week. “I think I have about forty dollars.”

Sean pulled out a money clip and thumbed through a few bills. “Seventy-two dollars. First thing we do is hit an ATM and get as much cash as we can.” He started walking again.

“But they’ll be able to track our cards.”

Sean didn’t pause. “We’ll be gone soon enough.”

At this hour, downtown was shut up for the night and they didn’t encounter anyone. They picked their way along the side roads, careful to stay out of the glow of the streetlights. Even though it was unlikely their pursuers would have tracked them here, with the news reports painting Sean as a cop killer, they couldn’t be too careful.

Fortunately, Chelan was small enough and low-tech enough. As far as Krista could tell, they hadn’t invested in the traffic cameras and exterior security cameras that had become so common in Seattle.

There was no avoiding the camera installed at the ATM, however, or the cameras installed in the parking lot next to the bank. Sean made sure the semiautomatic was tucked under his jacket, out of view. After they maxed out their ATM withdrawals and credit card cash advances, Sean grabbed her hand and walked quickly back toward Main Street and then turned down a side street and headed back toward the main highway.

After a few minutes they spotted the glow of lights from a roadhouse bar that was still rocking hard after midnight. The muffled wail of country and western music came from inside, and the parking area was crowded with pickup trucks and a handful of Harleys parked near the front.