No Time to Hide (5 page)

Keeping the accelerator floored, they ripped through the undergrowth. His only thought was to put as much distance as possible between them and the helicopter. But he didn’t have much hope. The SUV, equipped with the best off-roading equipment out of Detroit, was also about as delicate as a tank. The guys in the helicopter had the definite advantage of a bird’s-eye view.

“Are they following us?” Kerry asked.

Cutter looked in the rearview mirror and cursed viciously. “Yes.”

“How? How did they find us?”

“Not now.” Cutter turned his attention to using every trick he’d ever learned. This was too damn close for comfort.

***

Cutter was thankful Kerry was quiet. He needed all his attention to get them wherever he was going. She sat a bit forward in the seat looking out the windows often as if she were searching for the bad guys. Soon she began rocking back-and-forth. In what seemed like hours, but was certainly only minutes, they reached the creek. He turned the SUV left instead of crossing the creek and headed north, staying under the cover of maples, elms, and massive pine trees.

Finally, he stopped, rolled down the window, and listened. His remote was still peeling shrilly, but they could no longer hear the
chop-chop
of the helicopter’s rotors.

“Do you think we lost them?” she asked.

Cutter shot her a look. He opened the door, then raced to the back, and opened the hatch. He found the high-powered rifle, two boxes of ammunition, and the emergency field-ration kit he always kept in the spare tire compartment. He grabbed an old athletic duffel bag full of baseballs and bats, dumped them on the carpeted floor and stuffed the kit and ammunition into it. Then, closing the trunk, he went to the passenger door and opened it.

“Come on. They’ll be looking for this truck. We don’t have much time.”

After Kerry was out, he grabbed the cell phone that had been stashed at the safe house. It was a number that would only come back with a big fat zero of the government’s making. Still, tracking cell phone calls was so easy a teenager could do it, so he wasn’t real keen on using it in their current situation. Without hesitation, he dumped the government phone into the creek. His office should have received the same warning he’d gotten of the security breach. They’d just have to figure it out.

“Ready?”

Not waiting for her answer, Cutter slammed the truck door, slung the duffel over one shoulder, the rifle over the other, and grabbed Kerry’s hand. He didn’t worry about leaving tracks that could be followed. His only concern was getting them out of there. Heading back to the creek, he heaved a relieved sigh that the summer dry spell was still on them. If this had been March or April instead of July, they would have been in big trouble because Tonawanda Creek was notorious for flash flooding from the snow melt, not to mention the worry about hyperthermia. Now, though, with the temperatures staying in the middle eighties, he didn’t hesitate to step in the warm, murky water letting go of her hand after helping her down an embankment.

A minute later, instinct or something made him look over his shoulder to make sure Kerry was following.

“What the hell?” He stalked back ten yards and grabbed her by the arm. He ignored it when she stiffened at his touch. This was the pain in the rear attitude he’d expected all along. Well, he didn’t have time for the touchy-feely, feel-good about-ourselves bull. “This isn’t a walk in the park, duchess. We need to get a move on it. I don’t think they’ll bring in dogs, but if they do, we don’t want to be out in the open, understand?”

“But…”

“No buts. The goal here is to go down the creek a little ways, find a car, hopefully with the keys in the ignition, and then hit the road. We have to get some more wheels.”

When she still didn’t move fast enough, he added, “Look, duchess, I know this isn’t the cleanest creek in the world, but as long as you don’t drink the water, you should be okay. But if we stand here trying to get over the fact it grosses us both out, we’re going to be in a world of hurt.”

“I…”

“Yeah, whatever. Let’s move.”

He pulled her alongside him, splashing through the knee-high water. There was a green, slimy film on the top of the water and around the edge of the banks. Frankly, Cutter didn’t blame her. Tonawanda Creek was beyond gross. Even though most of the rampant pollution of the seventies had been cleared up, there were still isolated areas of this creek that no one monitored. Which meant people and businesses still routinely dumped all manner of things in it. And what started out upstream always ended up downstream. It was a fact of nature. What the hell else was he supposed to do? Other than hope they didn’t stumble across something other than a dead fish floating on the water.

As they splashed down the middle of the creek bed, he looked up every so often expecting to see that copter flying after them. He scanned both sides of the bank, looking constantly for what they needed.

Finally, he spotted an old, battered Chevrolet Celebrity across the water. The windows were rolled down or broken out. He winced slightly. Just his luck. He had to steal a car that looked like his grandmother wouldn’t be caught dead in it. It was beige or off-white. He had a moment of regret for the black beauty he’d left behind. If anything happened to that SUV, he’d make damn sure the government fixed it. Like new. If it was the last thing he did before retiring.

“Stay here,” he ordered.

Kerry stopped and stood silently as he climbed up the rocky bank and crept closer to the car. The doors were unlocked, but no keys were in it. Damn. Knowing his luck on this job, the thing probably didn’t even have an engine in it. He looked around again. No one was in sight, but he couldn’t risk checking under the hood. He turned and saw Kerry was already climbing out of the water. He hopped in the car and felt under the dash to find the wires he needed. It took a few tries, and he told himself to slow down after he got a little shock when one of the wires wasn’t twisted quite tightly enough to make a solid connection. Finally, they were secure and the car choked to life.

Kerry climbed in the passenger side and Cutter drove off.

“I should’ve let you handle this. Your daddy probably taught you all about stealing cars from the time you could walk.”

He meant it as a joke, but from the stiffness of her shoulders, he knew he’d failed miserably. Oh well, he didn’t really care whether they were friends or not. All he had to do was make sure she stayed safe until they could get her a new identity and try to figure out how her old family had found them so quickly. He glanced over at the woman. She remained beautiful, despite the fact her face was dotted with perspiration, her leggings were soaked from their creek excursion, and her shoes were caked with mud. And the back of her T-shirt was dark with blood.

Blood?

“You were hit? Why didn’t you tell me?” Angrily, he started to pull the car over.

Kerry glanced down. Now he could see her tension was from pain. “I don’t think a bullet hit me. I think it was just some flying glass from where the window shattered. Please, don’t stop because of this. If Dom’s men catch us, I’ll be in for a lot worse.”

Cutter cursed, long, slow and with feeling. No wonder she’d been dragging behind. A vivid memory flashed in his mind of the minute when the bullets had started flying from the helicopter. He’d been focused on driving the truck, but he’d warned her to stay down. Just seconds before a bullet or shrapnel had smashed through the back passenger seat’s window. He had congratulated himself on his driving skills that it had only been a passenger window.

Then, when he had ditched the truck and pulled them through the overgrowth of weeds and bushes, he had grabbed her arm. That must have felt peachy on that shoulder.

“You should’ve said something,” he muttered.

Kerry shrugged. “It wouldn’t have changed anything. We didn’t have time. I’ll be fine. Anyway, going through the water was worse than getting hit. I can’t swim and I’m afraid of water where I can’t see the bottom.”

He felt perturbed and silly.

He was perturbed they had been routed so quickly and completely from a house that was supposedly secure. Perturbed he hadn’t seen this coming. Perturbed he had lost so much of his touch for this game he hadn’t figured it would happen from the get-go. This was just another example of why he was getting out of this game. If he kept screwing up like this, the only way he’d retire was in a casket. Maybe that would be poetic justice.

As perturbed as he was, he also felt silly. Silly because the desire to hug and soothe this daughter of the mob hovered so close to the surface of his emotions that he barely resisted.

The two feelings were so strong any lingering doubts about his decision to leave the service after this job were gone. He was definitely too old for this kind of bull.

He took a deep breath, trying to control the endorphin rush from their flight. He needed to stay focused on solving their problem rather than playing nursemaid or comforter to his witness.

And the way he saw it, he had one really big problem. Her next words told him she was just as quick on the uptake as he.

“Cutter, how do you think Dom’s men found us so fast?”

“I don’t know. Bad luck, I guess,” he lied. “And next time, tell me when you’re hurting. It probably won’t change anything we have to do, but I can make it easier. And while I’m on the subject, in the future, when I tell you to stay put, do it.”

***

Saturday, 6:15 P.M.

Kerry managed to keep her trembling under control outwardly. Inwardly was another matter. Since they’d first spotted the helicopter, her panic had begun to build. The panic had been so intense she hadn’t even noticed the glass shard embedded into her shoulder until the blood was running freely.

Unbelievably, walking through the creek had been worse than the shoulder injury, which was nothing more than a scratch and had already stopped bleeding.

She’d tried to explain to Cutter her fear of walking in water where she couldn’t see the bottom, but he’d been too busy to listen. Then she’d realized her fears didn’t change anything. Walking through the creek was their only option. She’d managed to keep it under control right up until he left her to check on the car. Then she couldn’t stand it any longer. That had always been her problem, Kerry knew. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t conquer her fears. She was nothing more than a wimp. Frankly, she didn’t know how anyone could stand her.

She knew what he was going to do with the car.

“I’ve only seen people on television do that,” she said, speaking her thoughts out loud. “I thought hot-wiring a car was just Hollywood-ese.”

“Yeah, right. Like Daddy didn’t teach you how to do this stuff before you could walk.”

Kerry shook her head. How could she explain? “My father never brought what he did home. Especially not before my mother died.”

Cutter snorted. “Whatever. Listen, duchess, I’ve got a lot of things on my mind right now so I don’t have time to argue your upbringing or father’s stellar parenting skills. Why don’t you  keep your eyes peeled for any evidence of your boyfriend’s gang following us? I’ll try to find a drugstore with a drive-through window and see if we can’t get a few basic supplies to patch you up.”

Kerry nibbled on her bottom lip. “then what?”

Cutter turned off the county road onto U.S. Route 62 heading north. “We go to Plan B.”

Kerry didn’t ask what “Plan B” was. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. She felt the familiar burning under her breastbone signaling the onset of a full-scale panic attack. Trying to control her breathing, she decided it would be best not to think about what horrors may lay in the future. She would think again to the horrors she had survived. What did Friedrich Nietzsche say?
That which does not kill us makes us stronger.

She felt her breathing hitch as she struggled to remain in control. This nightmare had begun on the night of her engagement party. No, she shook her head. That wasn’t correct. Her personal nightmare had begun the night of her mother’s death.

***

“Kerry, darling, wake up.”

Kerry turned over on her side and, in the glow of her bedside nightlight, she could see her father was upset. “Daddy, what’s wrong?”

“Kerry, you’ve got to get up. You have to come with me. I’m taking you to your Uncle Peter’s house now.”

Kerry scrambled out of bed and reached for her jeans and shoes. “But, Daddy, what’s wrong? Why do I have to go over there?”

“Something happened to your mother, darling. I have to go to the hospital.”

“I want to come.”

“Kerry…” her father began.

“No, Daddy, I’m not a baby. I’ll find a way to get there. Wouldn’t you rather it be with you?”

***

Kerry sometimes wished she hadn’t gone with her father. Not that it would have changed anything. Her mother had only lived fifteen minutes after they arrived at the hospital. Afterward, her father had withdrawn as effectively as if she had died along with her mother. Instead of letting her finish her sophomore year at the private girls’ prep school near their home, her father had sent her to Europe. He said it was the best thing for her. Kerry only knew that seven long years later, when she returned to their New Jersey home, everything had changed. Her father no longer had any contact with his family. Instead, he was buddy-buddy with the Giancarlos. She learned he’d been involved with the Giancarlos for decades but that, because of his wife, he’d led a dual life. Still, she hadn’t believed he was a criminal.