The Rules for Breaking (25 page)

I read the familiar words:

Family name: Holmes.

Parents: Charles and Elizabeth

Children: Madeline and Hayden

My eyes follow a small line drawn to the next grouping—our second placement: Springfield, Missouri. A few more pictures here since our stay there was longer. Same typed sheet. But there is also a grainy black-and-white image of the suits picking me up from Charlotte’s house the night I got on Facebook and screwed up our placement there.

My stomach drops to think he was just outside. Or if not him, someone working for him. Right there, the whole time.

I glance back at Tyler and he’s watching me nervously, the way you watch an animal you’re not sure about and that you’re hoping isn’t about to attack you.

I turn back to the board. It’s sickening to see, but I can’t ignore it, either. I leave Springfield and follow the line to Florida.

The images there are much closer. More intimate. There are even a few of me and Tyler on the beach the first night we kissed. What I thought was a sweet, romantic night on the beach, under the stars, just me and Tyler, was a total lie.

“I didn’t know until after you left that those pictures were taken.” He’s behind me now and it’s disgusting, standing here in this room with him, seeing this.

“That doesn’t make any of this okay. At all.”

He takes a step closer and I can feel his breath on the back of my neck. “I took you to the beach that night, to the most secluded part, thinking we would be alone. I swear, I never knew exactly when he was watching. Thomas doesn’t tell me everything. Still doesn’t. He believes the only way for a plan to work is to make sure no one knows the entire plan.”

He thinks we’re having a moment, me and him, looking at these pictures of us making out on the beach. And in this moment I know Tyler is seriously sick in the head. And it’s probably Thomas’s fault.

“So something will tip off the suits to come here and they will find all of this. But Hammond will be dead and there will be no way for him to defend himself and they won’t even look for the real mole.”

“He’s a genius,” Tyler says, his voice full of awe.

I move away from the Florida pictures and the images get more and more painful. Mom at the liquor store buying bottles and bottles of gin. She’s out in public, hair a mess, and no makeup at all. And Teeny. She looks physically different in these pictures than she did two placements ago: slumped shoulders, pale complexion, sad eyes. God, I remember those sad eyes. They ate at my soul.

I skim over the pictures from Kentucky and South Carolina, instead wanting to see us in Natchitoches.

And there we are in that crappy little cottage. There is image after image of me going back and forth to Pearl’s, sometimes walking with Teeny and sometimes riding in Ethan’s truck. I take a step closer so I can make out the grainy black-and-white images: the house in the country where the party we were at got busted, me running from the laundry room, and Ethan and me on that dock down by Cane River.

“I can’t even tell you how sickened I am by this,” I say.

“Would you believe me if I told you I am too?”

No,
the voice inside me says.

I turn away from the wall and look at the desk. It’s covered in papers. It looks like reports from the people watching us—everything about us all laid out. And other things, too. Bank statements and ledger forms. Stuff that reminds me about the ledgers we found in Arizona that Thomas was desperate to recover. I pick up another sheet of paper; it’s a phone number, and then written above it:
Hammond.
I shove it in my pocket.

“Come with me to the other room,” Tyler says. “There’s something else I’m looking for.”

Going down the hall, I peek inside the room where Teeny and I were kept just a few days earlier and it’s empty. Completely empty. No mattress. No card table of snacks. And the shutter and wall have both been repaired. You would have never known we were here.

Now we’re in the room with all the filing cabinets that I saw from the air conditioner duct. It’s inching toward noon and there’s no telling if Thomas is looking for either of us yet.

Tyler starts looking through drawers and I step back out in the hall. I power on Will’s cell phone and stare at the keypad. I can’t call the hotline number for the suits because I still don’t know who the real mole is. I don’t have Agent Williams’s number, but I do have Agent Hammond’s. I quickly dial his number and he answers on the second ring.

“Agent Hammond. It’s Anna,” I whisper in the phone, hoping Tyler won’t hear me.

“Anna! What’s going on? Agent Williams keeps sending me these crazy messages telling me to come to the French Quarter, but don’t tell anyone. Are you in trouble?” You can’t miss the stress in his voice and I hate more than ever that we ran from him the other day.

“I’m at Ursuline. The third floor. Thomas is setting you up. It’s a trap to make it look like you’re a mole in your agency. Agent Williams is close by but his grandson is being held hostage. You’re not getting those messages from him, they’re from one of Thomas’s men. I can’t talk long. Please come get me!”

“I’m on my way!”

I end the call and go find Tyler.

He’s searching for something so I open a drawer and flip through the files. The problem is I don’t know what we’re looking for and I can’t get the images from the next room out of my mind. All I’ve found is church document after church document.

“Here it is,” Tyler says and I run to the cabinet where he’s standing.

“What is it?”

He drops down on the floor and spills the contents of a brown manila envelope. Four bundled stacks of hundred dollar bills, a handful of papers, and two passports are on the floor between us.

I can’t help but squeal. “That’s forty thousand bucks.” I don’t know that I’ve ever seen that much cash in one place.

Tyler goes for the papers while I go for the passports. They’re blue with a gold crest, very similar to the U.S. passport, but it says REPÚBLICA FEDERATIVA DO BRASIL. I open the first one and it’s Thomas’s picture but the name is listed as Rafael Costa. I hold it up to show Tyler, “Look, meet Rafael.”

He glances at it quickly but seems more concerned with the papers he’s reading. I lean over so I can see what it is, but he hands it to me instead.

I start reading but I don’t know what it is.

“Those are wire transfers. From five or so different banks into five or so different accounts under the same name on the passport.”

I read the papers again and see lots of different names all transferring money to the same person: Rafael Costa.

“I don’t get it,” I say.

Then Tyler hands me another sheet. It’s written in Spanish. Or Portuguese, I guess, if this is from Brazil.

“I can’t read this.”

He points to the top and says, “I can read some of it. It’s a deed for a piece of property. In Rio.”

I look down at the second passport, but Tyler grabs it before I can. He opens it up and I can tell immediately it’s not for him since his face drains of color.

“He’s leaving you behind, isn’t he?”

He’s got a death grip on the passport. “There has to be another one in here. He wouldn’t leave me behind. He wouldn’t!” He searches the brown envelope but it’s empty.

There’s nothing else inside so he moves back to the file drawer, throwing papers out as he searches, still clutching the second passport.

He’s doing that crazy back and forth swaying thing again.

He’s losing it. Fast.

Tyler slams the file drawer closed and screams, “I can finally see just where I fit. Nowhere!”

He throws the passport down and it lands near my leg, but all of a sudden I’m scared to pick it up.

“Go ahead. Look.”

I pick it up and open it to the page with the picture. Agent Parker’s smiling face is staring back at me. Or should I say Mariana Costa’s.

Rules for disappearing
by Witness Protection prisoner #18A7R04M:

It’s risky hanging out with a bunch of amateurs.

New rule by Anna Boyd:

It’s riskier hanging out with your psycho ex-boyfriend and his assassin brother.

see her face but I can’t process what it means. She’s dead. Thomas killed her in the woods and left her body there.

“She’s the mole,” I say, and the moment it leaves my lips I know I’m right. “And they’re leaving town—new identities, the money, the property….”

He nods and shoves the money, papers, and passports back in the envelope. “Yes. Looks that way. Apparently he’s
not
taking over once Vega is gone. And it doesn’t look like I’ll be traveling with them.”

“But…but…I don’t understand,” I stammer out. “She was in the back of the van. Her face was a wreck. She was so scared.”

“She must be a very good actress.”

“You really didn’t know she was involved with this? I’m sorry if I find that hard to believe.” I’m seething.

Tyler stiffens and says, “I told you, he doesn’t tell me everything.”

“You really had no idea?”

He slams the filing cabinet drawer closed and says, “No. I saw her on your detail but I didn’t know she knew Thomas. I thought he killed her and left her in the woods. He let me believe that and I was okay with it. How sick is that?

“He told me he was overthrowing Vega. That he would be running the cartel. He promised me a place there. We would be together. Like a real family. But that’s not what he’s doing. He’s getting out. He said they never let you out when you work for the family so I guess this is how he’s doing it. It’s all a lie. All of it.”

Tyler stands up, shoves the envelope inside his jacket, then leaves the small room. I follow him out. There is so much rage in me that I’m afraid I can’t contain it. It sucked when I thought Hammond was the mole. That someone could get that close to my family and betray us at the same time is shocking, but for some reason finding out it’s
her
is even worse. It’s like a punch in the stomach. She had the nerve to go through the charade of making me change my appearance when all the time she was the one I should have been hiding from. How could she have shown up at my house after I got my journal back full of concern and worry?

What a bitch.

And then in the van. Her swollen eye and busted lip. That look of fear etched across her face. Her screams when he pulled her out of the back of the van. All a lie.

And that bitch cut my hair.

My knees buckle and I fall down a few of the steps. I drop my head in my hands. “I’ve never felt more stupid in my entire life.”

Tyler pulls me up. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

We make it to the bottom floor and back out on the street without incidence. I wonder what Tyler’s going to do with the envelope. Or what Thomas is going to do when he finds it missing. I should have brought the gun with me when we left, but I just wasn’t thinking straight.

“So what are we going to do now?” I ask as I scan the street for Agent Hammond. I don’t know where he was when I called, but hopefully it won’t take long to get here.

“We’re leaving town.” He stops walking and looks at me. “We’ll find a cab to take us out of the Quarter, then we’ll figure out where to go from there. It’s just you and me, now Anna. I will protect you.” And then he smiles.

Oh God. This is wrong. So wrong.

His forehead scrunches up. “You do want to come with me, right?”

It’s hard to find the words I need to make him stay on my side when obviously my face is showing the disgust I feel.

“We need to concentrate on getting away from Thomas before we make any long-term plans, okay?”

I reach for his arm to give a reassuring squeeze but he moves it just out of reach.

I walk slowly, giving Agent Hammond time to get here. The house and Ursuline are so close that it doesn’t take long before I can see the alley we came out of from earlier. Tyler scans the street for a cab and I pray one doesn’t show. I may just have to make a run for it. We’re both so focused on our personal goals that neither of us notices Thomas until he’s right in front of us. I jump the second I see him.

“I’ve been looking for you,” he says to Tyler. He’s got that really controlled voice thing going on and I know he’s pissed we left. And then he looks at my feet. Oh, crap. He probably tried to find me with the tracker and it didn’t work because I left it at the house. God, please let him think it broke.

“Anna needed a little air. We just took a walk so I could say good-bye to her. I didn’t see any harm in that.”

Tyler is different. Everything about him: his voice, his posture, his steady eye contact with Thomas. And if I’m picking up on it, I know Thomas is, too.

“It’s my fault,” I say. “I begged him to let me get out for a minute. I was going crazy in there.”

Thomas glances around the street then back at us. “We need to get back.” He extends his arm, gesturing for us to go first. We start walking and I hate that he’s behind us. Now, I’m scared for Agent Hammond to show. He doesn’t know what Thomas looks like but Thomas for sure will spot him.

Once we’re back in the courtyard, I turn to Tyler and pull him in for a hug so I can whisper in his ear. “You gotta act like you don’t know anything. He’ll know something’s different.” I pull away and say in a regular voice, “Thanks for the walk.”

He gives me a hard look and I’m afraid I’ve lost him.

I run up the stairs and back to my room.

What do I do now? What do I do now?
runs through my head.

Grabbing the gun, I lock myself in the bathroom and turn the water on to help drown out the sound.

Powering the phone on, I call Agent Hammond’s phone.

“I’ll be there in less than two minutes,” he says instead of hello.

“I’m not there anymore. Thomas found me. I’m down the street in a private residence about two blocks away. I’ll try to get out. Just be on the lookout for me.”

“Be careful, Anna.”

I end the call and then call Catherine’s phone. I need to make sure Ethan isn’t in the Quarter.

He answers on the first ring.

“What’s going on? I’ve been trying to call you for hours. I’m here. Are you okay?”

“It’s bad, Ethan. Agent Parker is the mole. Everything in the van was fake.”

I’ve stunned him because it takes almost thirty seconds before he says, “That bitch. We’re not far away—within a few blocks of you. Can you get out?”

“You know where I am?” I ask.

“Yeah. When we pulled back into town, Will remembered we could track his phone with one of those find-my-phone apps. As long as the power is on, we can see where it is. Right now, it’s showing you’re in the middle of the block between Chartres and St. Philip. Okay, we’re driving around your block now, but it’s a big block. I can’t figure out which way to get in. Nothing but stores and bars and six sets of those wooden doors he drove through the other night. All painted green.”

“Do you see an alleyway?”

“Yeah, there’s at least one on every side. It’s really crowded out here…. Something weird is going on….”

And then someone’s banging on the door.

“I gotta go. I’ll call you right back,” I whisper in the phone before ending the call. I don’t power it off but I do put it on silent.

I crack the door and stick my head out. Thomas is on the other side. He’s wearing a tuxedo, with a red bow tie. What the hell?

“We’re moving this up a bit.” He slides a white garment bag through the door to me and I take it from him. “Slip that on and be ready to go in five minutes.”

He stares at me a few seconds then says, “I’ll wait right here for you.”

I slam the door and lock it again.

Oh my God.

I hang the bag on the hook on the back of the door and unzip it. I don’t know what to expect—but it’s surely not a white evening gown with full-length gloves and a jacket.

I stare at the dress for half the amount of time he’s given me to get it on. I don’t even know what to think about this, so I crack the door open to see if he’s really waiting for me.

He is.

“I don’t understand? Why do I need to put this dress on?”

“You’ll understand in a moment. Please get dressed.”

I shut the door and stare at the dress again. He’s completely insane, but if dressing up will get me out of this house—I’ll do it. I’m hoping I spot either Agent Hammond or Ethan on the street and can just jump in the car with them. I strip out of my clothes and take the dress off the hanger, checking it for a tracking device before stepping into it. If there’s one there I can’t find it. It’s long and fitted but still a little big. Turning around to the mirror, I look ridiculous. My cheek is still bruised and my hair is a mess. I look like someone tried to do a makeover but the only thing they did was put a dress on me.

I crack the door open again. “Am I supposed to wear my tennis shoes with this or what?”

He shows me a pair of white flats but doesn’t hand them to me. I feel certain there is a working tracker in there. He knows something is up but he doesn’t know what.

I shut the door again and try to figure out where to put the phone and gun. All I have on under the gown is a pair of panties. No bra since the gown is strapless. I try to stick the phone in the bust area and it slips down and hits the floor. I’ve lost so much weight I can barely keep the dress up much less hide a cell phone in there.

And the gun is bigger than the phone. Where in the hell am I going to stick it?

A knock on the door has me jumping.

“Time to go, Anna.”

The coat has one small pocket—the gun and phone can’t fit in there together and I refuse to leave either behind. The gloves! Once I have the coat on, the top part of the gloves will be hidden. I can stick the phone in there and hide the gun in the pocket.

I type a quick text to Agent Hammond:

Chartres and St. Philip…
Leaving…fancy white dress…find me.

And then I text the same message to Ethan, minus the street location, but tell him Agent Hammond is close by, too.

I shove the phone inside the glove where it sits near the upper part of my inner arm before I open the door.

Thomas hands me the flats and sure enough, the second my toe gets to the end I feel something hard there. A tracker.

He eyes me up and down and clearly agrees that I look horrible in this dress. “Let’s go.”

We leave out of the front door. He’s okay with me seeing where the house is and that’s a bad sign. I thought I would totally stick out in this ridiculous white evening gown in the middle of the afternoon. That is until I see all the other girls in white evening gowns walking through the Quarter. And with them, men in tuxedos. And every single one of them with red bow ties. We blend right in. Thomas and I are on foot and I scan the streets for any sign of Agent Hammond, Ethan, or Will. Traffic is getting heavier and heavier and most cars are at a standstill. We’re all headed in the same direction, but I’m not sure what’s up ahead, and the farther we go, the more crowded it gets.

God, I hope one of them can find me.

I don’t know where Tyler is—I haven’t seen him since I ran up the balcony stairs. He must have known there was no hope for us as a couple. It’s just me and Thomas now. He’s got a death grip on my wrist as he pulls me down the street like he knows how easy it would be for me to just disappear in this sea of white.

“What’s going on?” I ask him. I’m dragging my feet, making it hard for him. And giving Ethan or Agent Hammond time to find me before we are totally swallowed by the crowd.

“St. Joseph’s Day Parade. The girls in the dresses like yours will be presented as debutantes tonight after the parade. The men in tuxes are fathers, brothers, and other male relatives.”

“But what’s the point of this? I don’t get it.”

“It’s tradition.”

Whatever. I don’t care why they do it—it’s still weird.

“So why are the men carrying the towers of really bad fake flowers?” And they are really bad. The flowers are red, white, and green but I’m mostly trying to distract him with all the questions. And slow him down a bit.

“The men will pass them out to women on the parade route in exchange for a kiss.”