Capture (Restless Motorcycle Club Romance) (3 page)

“Jackie? Where the fuck have you been, girl?”

Stacey ran towards me, concern on her face. “Are you okay? Why did you just disappear like that, where have you been?”

I was frozen. I hadn’t meant to come and see Stacey. At least, not consciously, but I realized that every action I took had driven me here.

“Oh, Stacey. I’m fine, really I am. I’ve just been busy, and indisposed.”

With as real of a smile as I could muster, I willed her to not make a big fuss.

“I know what happened,” she said.

“You do?” Had the FBI been to our place and questioned her?

“Of course,” Stacey said. “You got swept up and taken away by that hunk of a boss, didn’t you, you skank? I can’t believe your luck, after all that time unable to find a job, and here you are gallivanting around with a complete fox!”

“Oh.” It was surprisingly close to the truth in a way, although definitely not in the way that she had in mind. “Well… yeah, that’s about it.”

“I knew it! You are going to have to hook me up with one of his friends. Please tell me that there are some hotties!”

I couldn’t help but laugh. Stace had no shame when it came to that kind of thing. She proudly claimed that her slutty wardrobe was her man-hunting gear, and every night she went out to the clubs was just another attempt to find something that she didn’t want to toss back the next morning.

“I haven’t seen any, but I’ll keep an eye out for you.”

“You naughty minx!” Stacey said. “You’ve been saddled up in the sack this whole time, haven’t you? Let me guess, he went all Fifty Shades on your ass, didn’t he?”

I blushed, I couldn’t help it. Stace was on a whole other level. “Oh my god, Stace!” I looked around in reflex to hear if anyone heard the things she was saying. It was something I found myself doing in her presence a lot when we were out in public.

For a look that was borne purely from reflex and not an attempt to actually check my surroundings, something had been off. I took another, second look around, this time more carefully.

There!

I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was Agent Thompson, from the FBI. He stood nonchalantly out in the concourse, leaning against the counter of a smoothie stand. Despite his face not being turned in my direction, I had no doubts that it was him. I whipped my head back to face Stacey before he saw that I had noticed him.

Oh fuck. How is he here right now?

It wasn’t a surprise, once I thought about it. Stacey was just about my only friend in the city, there is no way that they wouldn’t have her watched around the clock in case I tried to make contact.

Jackie, you stupid bitch. Look what you’ve gotten yourself into.

I tried to remember what Stacey had been talking about, since it had been too long since she’d spoken and she was starting to look at me funny.

“Jack, what—?”

“Stacey, you can’t just say stuff like that, some of these things are personal, you know?” I said, although it was hard to concentrate on the words when my mind was going a mile a minute trying to figure a way out of my predicament. “Say, why don’t you let me try on some of these new tops, since I’m here?”

“Oh come on Jack, like we haven’t heard each other through the walls before!” She was used to my relatively prudish nature compared to her more forthright one, and she let it drop. “I think some of the newer collection would look just fabulous on you, let’s check them out!”

I followed her around the store like a duckling after its mother, nervously trying to glance out the doors of the store without looking like it, catching sidelong looks at the man in a suit that I assumed was still Agent Thompson. Stacey tore through the piles of clothing, a hurricane that had a taste for designer clothing.

“I’m so excited that you have such a good job, now. It was getting really depressing for a while there when you couldn’t afford to shop with me anymore,” Stacey said. “I’m going to get you looking so fine that your boss wouldn’t dream of putting you aside!”

“You know, you can just call him by his name,” I said. “He’s just a person, not some larger than life figure.”

“Just a person? Wow, you really have been getting into it with him, haven’t you? Well, you go girl, that’s amazing.”

When she led me into the back near the change rooms and we were no longer visible from the front of the store, I grabbed Stacey’s arm.

“Wait, Stace. I need you to let me out the back entrance.”

She was confused at the sudden seriousness in my voice and the look on my face. I wasn’t able to hide my terror any longer. Agent Thompson was out there, and pretending like I hadn’t noticed had worn my nerves to a bare thread.

“What are you talking about Jack? Back entrance?”

“I don’t have time to explain, but getting the clothes and coming back to try them on was all an act. Someone’s out there that I’m trying to get away from, and I need to give them the slip.” I prayed that she wouldn’t be too obtuse about it, since I couldn’t afford the time to explain. I needed to spend as much time as possible getting away while the agent thought I was just trying on clothes.

Stacey looked at me sidelong. “You have to give me a bit more than that, Jack!”

I silently cursed her for picking this moment to get all nosey.

“I’ll explain more later,” I said. “There’s a man in a suit out there, and he’s been following me around because I’m with Shane now. I just need to get away from him.”

She leaned out from our little alcove to take a look before I could stop her.

“That guy? Wow, he looks serious. Pretty handsome, too. Maybe I can go out and distract him for you.”

“No!” I clutched her shirt. “Promise me you won’t do that, Stace. I think he’s a little deranged, and I don’t know what he might do if I give him the slip. Just promise me that you’ll stay away from him, okay?”

“Okay, okay. Let’s get you going, then. I bet you’re overreacting though.”

I didn’t care what she thought so long as she let me use the employees’ exit to get away from the FBI agent and didn’t get herself involved any more than she already was by virtue of being my roommate.

I really wish I hadn’t come here. I not only put myself in this position, but who knows if they are going to leave Stacey alone now that they know I’ve talked to her. What if they think I told her where I’ve been staying?

Stacey let me out the back door, which opened onto the loading dock area for the Forever 21 and a few of the adjacent stores. There were a couple trucks in the area, and what looked like normal delivery men dragging pallets out with hand-operated machinery.

“Give me a call later,” Stacey said. “And go get some from Shane for me!”

I waved her away and tried to get my bearings as I walked out to the parking lot. Unfortunately I’d parked on the other side of the building, so I would either have to go back through the mall, or else loop all the way around the outside.

Shit.

When I cleared the walls of the loading area and started up last few feet of the ramp to the rest of the lot, I stopped dead at the sight of two men in white shirts, black suits and sunglasses. They were leaning against a wall and talking, but when they looked in my direction they straightened and started walking toward me at a brisk pace.

Oh fuck.

I started to run.

When Marshall had taken the unusual step of calling my phone, I kicked everyone out of the meeting I’d called to go over the key points of a drop going down later that night.

“Talk to me.”

“It’s Jackie. She left the safe house.”

“She
what?
”

He filled me in as I ran to my bike and started driving. I kept an earpiece there just in case there was a call I couldn’t miss while riding.

Jackie had triggered a few of the alarms that Marshall had set up around the building, and he had broken off what he had been doing in order to track her down and retrieve her. The GPS device he had placed in the car as a precaution paid off in spades.

She was at a mall close to her apartment, and I pushed the bike to its limits to try and make it there in time. There was nothing I could do about the FBI tail that followed me wherever I went except to try and lose them in the traffic. One of the benefits of driving a motorcycle is the acceleration available to me was unmatched by any car the agency could throw onto the road, let alone the maneuverability.

Marshall stayed on the line, although he was even further away from the mall than I was. It would be a miracle if either of us got there in time to prevent the FBI from capturing her.

“I don’t know where she is,” he said. “The tracker stopped moving in the parking lot, so she must have gone inside. She could be anywhere. Hell, they could already have her by now; it just depends on how obvious they feel like being. Going to the same place her roommate works was a stupid move on her part, unless she’s decided that she just wants to turn herself in.”

“No, if she wanted to do that, she would have just driven to the FBI headquarters in the city. She’s already been there, so she knows where it is.” I didn’t bother saying that I had gotten to know her well over the last week, and I knew that she wouldn’t do that. I hadn’t thought that she would have left the house, either.

“Come on!” I shouted in frustration as the car in front of me failed to turn left even though he had more than enough room to squeeze in before the oncoming car got to the intersection. I cut him off on the inside, the powerful bike revving loudly as I weaved through the traffic.

I was in the parking lot of the mall. My eyes were sharp, but they were looking for one thing and one thing only, and that was the now familiar form of Jackie. I sped along the rows, looking for her or an entrance, certain that I would have to run into the mall and spend who knows how long looking through countless stores for one single soul in the midst of a deluge of them.

There were at least a dozen other cars driving up and down the rows, trying to find a coveted spot not too far from a mall entrance, willing to spend the time and gas looking around rather than walk a few dozen extra steps.

As I went to turn towards the entrance, a woman ran almost right in front of my bike, barely even slowing down to make sure that I was going to stop in time to avoid hitting her.

Only a couple of seconds later, two men in suits followed suit, sprinting after the woman.

Jackie?

My mind finally caught up to what my eyes had already seen. I floored the gas to get to the end of the aisle and cut off a Dodge minivan as I tried to project Jackie’s direction and figure out the best place to intercept her.

My time in the marines tracking down people who ran from justice aided me as I picked an aisle and sped down, keeping track of the few glimpses I got of Jackie as she raced away from the agents hot on her trail.

I got ahead of her, and pulled up. My heart broke as I saw how little distance now separated her from her pursuers. Despite running for her life, she was just not as fit as a field agent and she was running out of stamina far before they. If I had driven up the previous aisle, she would have gotten to my bike perfectly on time.

“Jackie! Run to me!”