Flee the Night (10 page)

“Like social services?”

“No, like … someone snatched her. I think Emily is still in danger and Lacey is going to do something about it. Something that is going to get her into more trouble than she’s in now.”

Conner took a sip of his Mountain Dew. How the guy could drink that stuff at midnight baffled Micah. In a convoluted way, however, it helped Conner unwind, slowing his perpetual autobahn pace. “What is it with you and this woman, Micah? She’s got some kind of power over you like I’ve never seen. Wasn’t she the one who came after you in Iraq? I don’t recall you two being big pals after that op.”

Time rushed Micah back to post—Persian Gulf War Iraq, to Operation Ground Truth and the three weeks he and Conner and another Green Beret had spent as POWs of Caucasian rebels. Lacey and John had hunted them down and saved their lives.

The memory of Lacey could still sweep the breath from his chest. She’d snuck into camp, dressed like a gypsy, and surprised them all with her savvy thinking and guts. But instead of telling her the truth—that he loved her—he’d let his fears overpower him, and he’d all but shoved her onto the first transport back to the States. Of course, she’d been oh-so-thrilled by his chivalry. While he’d locked the right words safely in his chest, he’d watched her choose John and a life of espionage. Micah had spent the last thirteen years fighting the many sides of regret birthed in that moment.

Micah shook his head, agreeing to Conner’s words. “I haven’t talked to her since John was killed.”

“Yet you’re acting like that time we were in Bosnia and that little girl got hurt. Desperate. If I remember correctly, you went berserk.”

“She was dying in my arms. I had to get her help.”

“You were crying, man. As if your chest had exploded.” Conner took another sip. “You really freaked us out. I thought you were going to get yourself—and the rest of us—killed.”

“Thanks, Conner. I so appreciate your dredging up that memory for me.” Micah sat down on his bed and stared at his car keys lying on the nightstand. “The fact is, Lacey and I have a history that goes way past the mission in Iraq. She was my best friend in high school. The first girl I ever kissed, the first girl I prayed out loud with.”

“Whoa. You prayed out loud with her?” Conner wore a teasing grin.

“Yeah, well, I’ve come a long way. Back then, it felt like I was tearing open my chest for her to get a good peek. And she didn’t even flinch.”

“Sounds like she still has a hold on you.”

Micah picked up the car keys and twirled them around his finger. “It’s just memory, nothing more. To cut to the chase, I wanted to tell her I loved her—that I wanted to marry her—but I blew it.” He nearly cringed at how it hurt to say that aloud.

The silence from Conner’s side of the room made him glance over at his friend. Conner had his can of soda halfway to his mouth, eyes wide. “She’s the girl who got away?”

Micah gave a wry shrug. “She might not say that. She never knew how I felt. She married my best friend without me making a peep.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah, well, in the end, I was the lucky one,” Micah responded. “She murdered the guy.”

“What?” Conner put down his soda, then scooted over to the side of his bed, arms on his knees. “Back up. She killed her husband? Who was your best friend? And you’re out here hunting for her daughter? I think I need a few more dots connected.”

Micah got up, tossed his keys onto the bureau, and walked over to the sink. He ran the water and wet a washcloth. Conner said nothing as Micah scrubbed his face. The white washcloth came away dirty. Micah tossed it, wadded, into the sink and braced his arms on the counter, staring at Conner in the mirror. “Okay, here’s how it is, but you have to promise to never breathe a word. I’m only telling you because you had clearance, okay?”

Conner nodded.

“Remember when we were in Kazakhstan, working with the Khanate tribe? It must have been your first year in the Green Berets.”

“I remember. We were tracking Iraqi and Afghani transmissions to Pakistan.”

“Right. Well, we got a call to back up one of our operatives in Almaty. Rumor was he was compromised and needed extraction. I led the team in and got there three steps too late. The bottom line is, the subject was my buddy John, and I found Lacey holding the knife. No one else was around.”

Conner made a face. “You know better than I do that there had to be more to it.”

Micah toweled off his face, turned, and stalked back to the bed. “I thought so too. But the look of guilt on Lacey’s face and her own words indicted her for the crime. Besides, I was on assignment. When I returned eighteen months later, Lacey had dropped out of sight, and the CIA wouldn’t let me near the file. The best information I got was that John had been on a mission of some sort, and Lacey had somehow been a part of a double cross. I hit roadblocks everywhere I went until one night I got a call.”

“A call?”

“Yeah. On my cell phone. The voice on the other end—which had been distorted—told me that Lacey was trouble and if I had half a brain, I would keep away from her.”

“And that didn’t make you more suspicious?”

Micah grabbed a pillow and shoved it under his neck. “I was shipping out for another tour, and I had other things on my mind. And life took a nosedive after that, as you know.”

“Right.” Conner was one of the few Micah had allowed into his hospital room, into his secrets. The man nodded and folded his arms across his chest. “So there could probably be more to this story than ‘what you see is what you get.’”

“Probably. But the bottom line is, Lacey killed John. And that’s something I can’t forget.”

“How about forgive?”

Conner’s question felt like a saber plunged to the hilt, right in the center of Micah’s throat. He didn’t answer.

“I don’t think it’s just memories tethering you to this woman, Iceman. You still have feelings for her. I’d even label it regret.”

Micah closed his eyes. Lacey’s image filled his mind, the adventure behind her laughter, the intelligence in her eyes.
“Deep down inside, you know I’m innocent. You know I could never kill anyone.”

Did he still have feelings for Lacey? If he let himself sink into memory, he could smile at the picture of her in her band uniform, tooting her little clarinet. Or enjoy her sweet little grunts as she’d tried to arm-wrestle him, both hands around his fist. Or find a place of peace inside the times they’d spent riding on her family’s farm. Lacey had been innocent, with just enough tomboy to make her exhilarating, just enough princess to make her untouchable. He’d lost his heart a thousand times over the night he’d taken her to her senior prom.

But that Lacey had vanished the day she said “I do” to another man. And especially the moment in Kazakhstan when she’d stared at Micah, white faced, and whispered, “It’s all my fault.” No, the Lacey he knew was a double-crossing, lying traitor. The Lacey in his dreams was only a haunting apparition. As for regret, he should be thanking God for intervening and keeping him out of her Medusa clutches all these years.

“No. I don’t have feelings for her. She’s history. I just want to help her find her daughter. For John.”

Conner nodded, but his eyes held suspicion.

“Really. She’s nothing to me.” But Micah couldn’t ignore the sharp pain in the center of his chest when he said it.

“Well, then, Mr. She’s Nothing. Try and get some sleep. She’ll be there in the morning. She’s not going anywhere with her dislocated shoulder. Besides she’s under guard and handcuffed to the bed—”

Micah winced. “Oh no.” He wanted to bang his head against the wall hard to jostle his brains into action. “The handcuffs. They were off when I was talking to her. I remember seeing the red rash on her wrist.”

Conner made a face. “Uh-oh.”

“She
is
up to something.” Micah rushed over to his jacket and snatched it up. “Stay by the telephone.”

“Hello? I want to sleep. In my
truck
.”

“Keep your cell on, then. Because I have a feeling this night isn’t going to end pretty.”

“Just don’t get into any troub—”

Micah closed the door behind him.

Lacey listened from just inside her door. No rattle of carts, no buzzing from the nearby nurses’ station. Nothing but her thundering pulse. She took a breath and steeled herself for the possibility of a very alert Rambo-type outside the door, hating the fact that she was only armed with a now-deformed fork.

Then again, she’d given a significant warning with just a spoon to an overly friendly waiter one night after he’d followed her to her hotel room. She still wasn’t sure he hadn’t been one of Shavik’s zealots. She clenched the fork and cracked the door open.

Someone was smiling over her because Mr. Menace was asleep, slouched over in his chair. The NSA had put their confidence in flimsy handcuffs, which she’d picked open easily, and the belief that she trusted the system.

Yeah, right. She’d been down that road. And she wasn’t going to stick around watching the NSA play with her daughter’s life.

She had no doubt that whoever had Emily meant business. The prize they were after told her that if she didn’t take them seriously, she’d be crying over her daughter’s grave next to John’s in Arlington.

She stole down the hall, stopped briefly before she got to the nurses’ station, waited until she saw it empty, then let herself into a linen supply room. She ditched the sling and pulled a pair of scrubs on, including the little shoe guards. She’d have to find decent footwear between here and Kentucky.

Striding out of the closet, holding a sheet and towels, she beelined for the far exit.

“Ma’am, can you help me?”

She froze, grimaced, turned.

An elderly man, his frail body gripping a portable IV stand, stood in the middle of the hall, his eyes blinking in confusion. “Can you tell me where I am?”

Her heart tugged. “Um … you’re in the hospital, sir.” She gazed past him, toward her room and the agent stationed in the hall, who had stirred at the sound of voices.

“Do you know my daughter? Where is she?”

She advanced toward him. “No. But you need to get back in bed, sir.”

“No!”

She winced, then stepped closer, one eye on her guard. “Okay, listen. I’ll call your daughter. But you need to return to your room.”
Before you get me killed.
“Please?”

He stared at her, and something like fear edged his eyes. “Where am I? Do you know my daughter?”

She tried not to groan. She crept up to him, turned him slowly toward his room. “You’re in the hospital. Do you remember why you’re here?”

“Am I sick? I don’t feel sick,” he mumbled as he shuffled to his room.

Lacey glanced toward her end of the hall and saw that her guard had awakened and was on his feet. She lowered her eyes. “You might be sick. I don’t know. But you have to get in bed.” She opened the door and helped him inside his private room.

Her heartbeat thundered when the door clicked behind her. She wanted to scream in frustration as she helped the man into his bed. She forced her movements to remain steady, gentle.

“Where am I?” he asked, his voice laced with panic.

She sighed. “I dunno. But you’re going to be okay.”

She tucked the covers over him, straining to hear voices, footsteps running down the hall, maybe a siren. She was about to turn when the old man grabbed her arm. Frail as he was, his bony fingers ground into her muscles and stopped her.

“It’s so dark, you know? I’m afraid.”

She frowned. But he wasn’t looking at her; his eyes were fixed past her.

Icy fingers ran up her spine. “I’m sorry, sir, but I have to go.” She swallowed, then backed way from him.

His eyes focused on her. In the wan light, he looked like a prisoner of war attached to life support, bony and weak. “Run.”

Her eyes widened; then she turned and gripped the door handle. She heard him groan as she opened the door and peeked outside.

Her NSA guard had just run past the door. She watched, her heart in her throat, as he flung open the door at the end of the hall and ran down the stairs.

Lacey glanced back at the old man. He lay, eyes open, staring at something. Was he breathing? Running toward his bed, she hit the code blue button on the wall, spun around, and raced out the door. She ducked into a room opposite the man’s room before it filled with nurses and on-call doctors. Then she walked briskly down the hall and out the opposite exit door. Taking the stairs two at a time, she hit the outside exit and picked up her pace.

The cool, moist night air hit her face, her lungs with the taste of freedom. She ran through the parking lot into the street and began a stiff walk. The drizzle slicked her hair to her skin, and the shoe protectors on her feet did little to shield her from the wet gravel. She finally kicked them off.

On a side street, shadowed by a giant, creaking elm, she found an unlocked, mid-eighties Volkswagen Rabbit. The door creaked open with the accumulated rust, and she mumbled apologies to the owner as she crept into the driver’s seat.

In less than two minutes she had connected the wires and popped the car into drive. She roared off, cringing at the noise, and pushed the pedal to the floor.