CL Hart -From A Distance (37 page)

Cori nodded, her mind a whirl of possible destinations.

With Kenzie lying on her back, Heather went about cleaning up the surgical suite, periodically glancing at Cori, her sympathy growing with each look. "I'll be right back. I'm just going to go and get her some meds," Heather said, motioning toward the door.

Cori shrugged. If Heather wanted to escape now, there was no point in stopping her. She had done all that Cori had asked and more.

Cori was deep in thought when Heather returned "Okay. I have a bottle of Cephalexin for the infection. She needs to take two tablets, three times a day. The Meloxicam," Heather held out another bottle, "she needs to take two, once a day, to help with the infection and the fever."

"Thank you, Heather. I don't know what we would have done without you. Cori took the pill bottles and stowed them in the duffle bag on the floor where Heather had dropped it "We'll go now."

"Do you know where you're going?"

"No," Cori admitted reluctantly.

Heather looked from Cori's crushed expression to the unconscious woman on the table. "And how far are you going to get, lugging her around?"

Looking over at Kenzie, Cori bit at her bottom lip as she struggled to keep her tears of frustration at bay "You can't stay here."

"I know," Cori said quietly.

Heather was a big woman, with a big heart. These two women had entered her workplace and forced her to perform surgery, but she still felt compassion for them. She was convinced they were not bad people. She glanced at her watch and made a decision "Tell me where you want to go."

"Pardon?"

"Tell me where you want to go and I'll take you...as long as it isn't too far. But we have to figure out what we're going to do with that thing." She motioned to the tracker in Cori's hand.

"I can't ask you to do that, Heather."

"You're not asking me. You're commanding me at gunpoint," she said with a slight smile. "At least that's what I'm going to tell my boss and the authorities...eventually...once you're long gone."

An angel with big, brown, bedroom eyes,
Cori thought as she wrapped her arms around Heather's neck. "Thank you. I don't know when or how, but one day we'll pay you back. I promise."

"Whatever. Let's just get you out of here, and get rid of that."

"You're an angel, Heather."

"Actually," she said with a bright smile, "they refer to me as Princess."

"Princess?"

"P.I.C. - Person in Charge, or in my case, Princess in Charge," she said, emphasizing each word with a zigzagging snap of her fingers.

For the first time in a long time, Cori laughed.

They carefully dressed Kenzie in a spare tracksuit the hospital kept around in case someone needed an emergency change of clothes.

"Won't they miss it," Cori asked.

"No, it never fit any of us, so it serves them right, for keeping a size 10 track suit when none of us could fit into it," Heather said as they dragged/carried Kenzie outside to the tech's small pickup truck. It took some maneuvering, but they finally managed to get Kenzie into the backseat. She roused several times, but never for very long.

Heather checked on the animals in the hospital one last time before she locked the back door. She was leaving enough of a mess that the morning staff might be inquisitive, but not enough for them to be alarmed. And by that time, she'd have come up with a reasonable explanation of what had happened.

Heather climbed into the driver's seat beside Cori and started up her truck. "Where to?"

"I don't know. Let's just leave."

Heather drove out of the alley and came to a stop on Grand Avenue just as a city bus roared by. It stopped at a bus stop just down the corner from them and they watched as an older woman disembarked.

When the bus pulled away, an idea began to take shape in Coris mind. "Heather."

"Yeah."

"Follow that bus"

When Manuck deplaned, he was not dressed in a uniform, nor was there anything about him, other than his rigid demeanor, that indicated his military rank or position of authority. The only things that identified him as military were the plane and the base where it landed Colonel Manuck descended the stairs and before his feet could hit the warm tarmac, a large, dark SUV pulled up to greet him. There were no outward trappings that revealed who was in the vehicle, and he thought that a good thing. He opened the door and slid into the backseat.

Calvin was behind the wheel. He was ex-CIA and ex-military so he found it hard not to salute a superior officer. "Evening sir "

"Get us out of here, before someone starts asking questions." Calvin nodded and followed the colonel's orders. Viper was sitting in the passenger seat, clicking away on a laptop. He turned slightly and nodded to his boss before turning his attention back to the screen to finish what he was doing. "What do we know?" Manuck asked.

Viper stopped typing long enough to hand him a file folder.

"Thats not about the women, sir. All that is," he nodded at the papers in Manuck's hand as the colonel quickly flipped through them, "is the transcript of the initial call concerning the explosion at the marina. There was a body found, a...Dennis Squires."

Manuck lifted some papers and read the 9-1-1 call sheet of the emergency personnel. "Who the hell is Dennis Squires?"

"He worked for the marina and was an alumnus of the university sailing team," Calvin said as he exited the airport "And where does he fit into all of this?"

"He doesnt. Hes just collateral damage," Viper answered callously.

Manuck looked up from the file. "Where are we heading?"

"Mission Bay, sir. That's where Cobra was found. We can stop there and regroup, then figure out what our next move should be," Calvin glanced in the rearview mirror. "I didn't think you'd want to be doing this at the division office or on the base. Too many questions all the way around."

"Good," Viper said, tapping away on the laptop. "I don't like hanging out with you ex-CIA spooks anyway."

Calvin's face tightened in contempt, his narrowed eyes illuminated by the light from the dashboard. "Yeah, well, beats hanging out with you and your jungle jarheads any day," he said.

"Bring it on, college boy. I know more ways-"

"Enough! We have other issues at hand, gentlemen. Once this mess has been cleaned up, if you two want to kick the shit out of each other, I might just pay to see that happen, but let's concentrate on the problem at hand." Manuck turned his attention back to the file. "Where is Cobra's body now?"

"At the morgue. He was found a few blocks away from the explosion. He'd been shot twice - once in the chest, and a money shot between the eyes. I spoke with the locals, and the coroner, don't worry, they saw the badge not a name."

"What story did you give them?" Manuck asked.

"Just said we were looking into the explosion, possible terrorist connection, and when the call came in that a body had been found that close without ID, we figured it was worth a peek. They bought it. I pulled rank, and got a few moments alone with the body. I got his microchip tracker and this-" Viper held up Cobra's Blackberry and then slipped it into his front pocket.

"Is it working?"

"Yup. I've downloaded the information onto my laptop."

"Where is she?"

"At the Greyhound bus station, near Old Town," Viper said with a sneer as he turned his attention back to the screen.

"What?" Manuck looked up in disgust. "Millions of dollars spent on training her, and she runs to the bus station to get out of town."

"She's desperate, or maybe she's injured."

Calvin pulled into a nearly empty parking lot just southwest of the remnants of Kenzie's boat. "Her boat was over there. I had everything set before you sent Cobra to the border. He was efficient...I think they just got lucky. You can still see the smoke, and the fire department and Coast Guard are still there. Cobra was found a couple of blocks north of here."

"How did they get to the bus station from here? They surely didn't walk."

"That we don't know," Viper said.

"Something doesn't add up. This is a highly trained soldier, black ops and special services, the works. I'm having a hard time believing that when her plans fell apart, she chose to hop a bus. This isn't a decision LeGault would make."

Calvin reached into his pocket and pulled out a flip pad. He balanced his wrist on the steering wheel while he searched for some information. "Cori Evans withdrew twenty-three hundred dollars, pretty much the balance of her one and only account, at three thirty seven this morning at a Money Mart - that's a check cashing place."

Viper's fingers tapped madly as he searched for additional information.

"Twenty-three hundred bucks isn't much to run on," Manuck said as he closed the file folder.

"Apparently it was enough. She purchased two bus tickets to Branson, Missouri."

"Missouri? Who the hell is in Branson, Missouri?" Viper flipped to another screen, "Evans' mother lives in Springfield."

Manuck's brow furrowed as he looked down at his watch. It was almost five in the morning, and he was hoping to wrap up this catastrophe so he could be home by lunchtime. Going to Springfield was not in his plans. "What time does the bus leave for Branson?"

"Six thirty," Viper said.

Manuck thought for a moment and then tossed the file folder onto the dark leather seat beside him. "We don't want to get there too early and spook them, but I think we should drive past and take a look at the layout and then go from there."

Calvin obediently started up the SUV and set course for the Greyhound bus station.

Heather split her attention between Kenzie and the glass doors outside the ticket office. The last thing she wanted was for Kenzie to wake up without Cori there. She liked the young student that was why she had offered to help them, but the woman with the golden eyes frightened her.
Who runs around with a microchip in their back - and doesn't know it?

She impatiently drummed her fingers on the steering wheel Come on, come on." She scanned the parking lot, but she had no idea why.
Who am I looking for, anyway?
Several vehicles pulled up and dropped off passengers, but no one looked out of place. Most of them seemed to be families. They got out of their cars to give last hugs and kisses to those departing. Heather glanced at the clock on the dashboard of her pick up.
Cori had better hurry up with buying the tickets. There's not much time

Cori's plan was slow in developing, but once she had formulated the first step, everything seemed to fall into place. They had phoned around to the different stations to find out available departure times and destinations, and then it had just been a matter of Heather getting them to the station in time.

Heather turned in her seat to check on Kenzie. As far as she could tell, the fever had come down. At least the woman was not going to die. She turned back and looked at the glass doors of the ticket office, just in time to see Cori emerging. Seeing a quick thumbs-up, Heather sighed with relief.

Cori hurriedly crossed the parking lot and opened the passenger side door. "Two tickets," she said, holding them up triumphantly. "Now we just have to get Kenzie on board without a lot of questions."

"I think my hospital scrubs should help with that, as long as no one pays too much attention to the puppies on them."