Games of Fire (51 page)

The police left with the promise to keep in touch. The room fell into a tense sort of silence as everyone carefully avoided everyone else’s gaze. But those eyes all lifted when her father straightened, silently willing all attention.

“It’s apparent we need to leave,” he began carefully. “And Sophie can’t come with us—”

“What?” Spencer and Sophie shouted at once.

Her father put his hand up, silencing them. “I need to return to work. Your mother and Jackie have things they need to do. We can’t just keep hiding, but you
… ” He rubbed a hand over his jaw.

“Whatever idea you think you have
… ” Sophie said. “Is a bad one so forget it. I’m not just leaving you guys. What makes you think you can go back to the way things were? When they realize I’m no longer there, they’ll come after you. They already tried to burn our house down. They destroyed Jackie’s car and broke her window. These guys aren’t messing around.”

“No, they’re not,” her father agreed. “But we still need to think this out properly. We only need to keep this up until these guys are caught, which won’t be much longer. I can feel it. But in the meantime, we’re going to switch hotels, just me, your mother, Jackie and Spencer. You are going somewhere else.”

“Where?” she demanded, feeling the urge to be sick overcome her once more.

“My dad’s,” Spencer said. “He’ll do it.”

Her father hesitated. “I don’t feel comfortable sending Sophie to live with people I don’t know.”

Spencer volunteered
, “My dad offered. He’s good for it.”

Her father
glanced at her mother. “We could send her to Aaron’s for a few days.”

“That’s a bit far, isn’t it?” her mother said. “And we really don’t have the … resources at this time.”

Her father threw his arms open wide in a shrug.
“Well, we don’t exactly have very many options, do we?”

They really didn’t. Her mother was an only child and Aaron, her father’s brother, lived across the country. There was Grandma Valdez, but she lived in a retirement home and wasn’t allowed overnight visitors.

“Mark is your best bet,” Jackie spoke up for the first time since the conversation had started. “I can call him.”

Her father began to shake his head, but stopped, possibly realizing the limited possibilities of their situation. He sighed, scooping a hand back through his hair. “Okay.”

Jackie rose to her feet and walked into the next room. A few minutes later, they heard her murmuring softly.

Sophie glanced at her father. “Can’t we just ask if we can all stay at Mark’s? This isn’t right. I can’t stay there, all tucked away safe and sound while you guys are in constant danger!”

“Nothing will happen to us,” her father said with so much conviction, Sophie nearly believed it. “I need to return to work, So. We have a house that we can’t just abandon. Spencer has school. We can’t stay in hiding forever.”

“They’ll go after you!” Why could no one else see that? “You’re no safer than I am!”

“We’ll be fine.” Spencer took her hand.

No you won’t be!
But Jackie returned then, looking weary and pale. She had her cell phone still clutched in her hand and there were thin lines around her pinched mouth.

“He said yes,” she said. Sophie could hear the
but
before it even left the woman’s tongue. “But Spencer goes, too.”

Spencer’s muscles stiffened. “What? He said that?”

Jackie met her son’s eyes. “No, I did.” She raised a hand when he began to protest. “You’re going. Sophie may be the one they want, but I won’t let you get caught in the crosshairs. You won’t argue with me on this one, Spence. Your father has already agreed. He’ll be here in an hour to get both of you. I thought it would be best if they left in a car no one would recognize. I don’t think anyone will consider this change. They’ll assume we’d keep the children with us.”

“And follow you,” Spencer finished in a half growl. “That’s a crazy plan.”

Jackie sucked air in through her nostrils. “But it will keep you safe. It will give us just enough time for the police to find them.”

“
If
they find them!” Spencer countered, getting to his feet. “You can’t be sure of that and you could get hurt or killed in the meantime.”

“You’re not a parent!” Jackie snapped. “When you are, we’ll have this conversation again, but right now, I’m the parent here and I’ve already made up my mind.”

Spencer stormed out of the room, hands balled, back poker straight. Jackie sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose as she turned and followed, closing the joining door quietly behind her.

Sophie turned to her parents. “This is a bad idea. You can’t play bait.”

Her parents had been unusually quiet since Jackie’s news. They stood by the window, watching everything with a look between sorrowful and determined and Sophie realized they’d already made up their minds, too.

“Jackie’s right,” her father said evenly. “It’s a good plan. Anyone watching will assume we would keep the children with us. They would never suspect
… ” He was either talking with her mother or himself, it was hard to tell when he stared off into the distance as if somehow watching this brilliant plan of theirs unfold like a 3D movie.

“Dad!”

He blinked, momentarily surprised and confused. “Oh, right. Get packing,” he told Sophie. “I’m going to call the front desk and let them know we’re checking out.” He was already stalking around the room to the door before he even finished his sentence.

“Come on!” Her mother was hurrying around to her now, making shooing motions with her hands. “Get going! Mark will be here at any moment.”

“Mom, this is crazy!”

He father left the room without a word, leaving Sophie alone with her erratic mother.

“Get your bathroom things,” she said as if she hadn’t heard a thing Sophie was saying. She was already dragging Sophie’s duffle bag out of the closet and tossing it on the bed.

In a matter of minutes, Sophie was packed and standing by the door, so close, that when her father darted in, he nearly smacked her in the face.

“Here!” A baseball cap was shoved down on Sophie’s head. Before she could say anything, something stabbed her in the eye.

“Ow!” she yelped.

“Sorry.” A pair of sunglasses were pushed into her hand.

“Seriously,
Dad?” Still rubbing her left eye, she squinted with her good eye at the mirror on the closet.

I brake for hotties!
Was stamped across the top of the hat in bright, blinding pink. The rest of it was a puke green that made the pink look extra flashy. In her hand was the ugliest pair of sunglasses Sophie had ever seen. They were perfectly round with leopard print frames and purple lenses. Oh and rhinestones along the bars. Together with the hat, she looked like an eccentric, middle aged man-eater on vacation.

“Do the hair scoopy thing,” her father said, demonstrating by combing back his short hair into a nonexistent ponytail.

Sophie just stared at him. “Who. Are. You?”

Scowling at her inability to see how cool he was, her father flicked her
on the nose and stalked to where her mother stood. Moments later, there was a knock on the adjoining doors and Jackie walked in with Spencer in tow. He carted a duffle bag and an extremely sour expression. But it perked a little with interest and amusement when he spotted Sophie and his eyes darted to her hat.

“Not a word!” she threatened.

Wisely, he cleared his throat and pressed his lips together.

“I was thinking we wait for Mark to come get them. That way no one will see us with them and assume they’re together,” her father said. “Oh, and, Spencer, I got you this.”

The hat her father shoved down on his head was black with loopy red writing across the top. It looked perfectly normal until she read what it said.

“Ask me how I hang,”
she read, and frowned. “What does that even mean?”

Spencer’s tongue rolled over his teeth. “I could show you.” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

Sophie’s eyes widened in horror. “Dad, where did you get these awful things?”

“I dunno.” Spencer grinned. “It kind of works for me.” He leaned in close to her to whisper. “Feel free to ask at any time.”

She shoved him playfully, cheeks hot. “Perv.”

Snickering, he slipped his shades on, which annoyingly, completely worked for him. They were simple black with a slight tilt at the corners. No rhinestones
, or purple lenses or creepy, old lady vibes.

“Switch you!” she said, holding out her leopard printed ones.

He grinned in a way that, with the glasses, made him look devastatingly gorgeous. “Sorry, babe. Leopard print clashes with my sexiness.”

Oh she wasn’t so sure about that. He could probably pull just about anything off easily with that perfectly chiseled body and angelic face and tempting lips and
… She must have sighed, because the next moment, he was nudging the glasses slightly down the length of his nose to peer over the top at her with hot, dangerous eyes.

“Careful, witch,” he warned, pushing the shields back into place, leaving her to watch after him moony-eyed, and quite possibly drooling.

“Mark just texted me,” Jackie said when her phone buzzed. “He’s downstairs.”

“Tell him to come up,” her father said, moving towards the door as if Mark was on the other side already.

Ten minutes later, the hotel room was packed with five grown adults and two teenagers shoved off to one side while the grownups talked business. Sophie gave up trying to tell everyone what a horrible idea this was and sat with Spencer on her bed, listening as everything was planned carefully, right down to having her cell phone confiscated and her rights to make any phone calls, write any emails or send off any smoke signals revoked.

Mark had brought Janice, much to Jackie and Spencer’s annoyance. The pair stood holding hands like a pair of moonstruck teenagers. It was very sweet in Sophie’s opinion, but Jackie looked like she wanted to stab someone in the eye with a lamp.

In the end, fifteen minutes later, Sophie and Spencer were following Mark and Janice through the corridors, down to the lobby and into the underground parking area. They piled into the Dodge Caravan and pulled leisurely out of the parking lot. Sophie peered through the window at every person and car they passed, wondering if this was the person they were hiding from and if they’d seen them leave. Once they were on the road, she kept glancing back over her shoulder, wondering if that red Camry was following them, or that blue truck, or that red Pontiac. She exhaled a little more every time a car passed them or turned another way. Her heart dove into her throat every time one turned with them or seemed to speed up behind them. She hadn’t realized she was gripping fiercely at the door handle until Spencer took her free hand, the one balled on her thigh and gently stroked his thumb over the rigid knuckles.

“No one’s following us,” he said gently. “My dad would know.”

Chewing anxiously on her bottom lip, Sophie turned to him. “How?”

He smiled a little. “He watches a lot of crime shows.”

That gave her no reassurance at all.

“We’ll be home soon,” Mark assured her from the driver’s seat.

Sophie dampened her lips. “Thank you for taking me in,” she said. “I know that can’t have been an easy decision what with me having a target on my head.” She tried to make light of it, but the words lodged uncomfortably in her throat, coming out weak and shaky.

“We wanted to,” Janice said, looking at Sophie from over her shoulder, a genuine smile on her face. “We’ll do everything we can to keep you and Spencer safe.”

“Thanks,” she said, not trusting herself to say more around the lump now choking her.

“We have the guestroom all ready for you,” Janice went on, chattering on happily, possibly trying to ease Sophie’s uneasiness. “I hope you like peach.”

Sophie frowned. “Peach what?”

Janice giggled. “Everything.”

It didn’t make any sense to her until she was shown to the guestroom and it hit her. The entire room was some kind of shrine for peaches. Someone had even drawn a mural of a peach tree on one wall, with the branches stretching like cobwebs around the room. There was peach colored bedding and bowls of plastic peaches on the nightstand.

Sophie’s eyes bulged. “What
… ”

Behind her, Janice burst out laughing. She laughed so hard, she had to clutch her belly and the wall to avoid toppling to the ground.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Janice half sobbed, half panted. “I don’t mean to laugh, but your reaction is priceless.”

Fighting back her own chuckles, Sophie turned to the woman. “What happened in here?”

Janice shrugged, moving to step into the room, which took some maneuvering without bumping into Sophie or the doorframe, even when Sophie moved back to give her space. “It’s always been like this.” She turned to Sophie, her eyes twinkling mischievously. She dropped her voice low as if sharing a secret. “Jackie went through an insane peach faze when she was pregnant with Suzy. At one time, it was everywhere. Thankfully it stopped once Suzy was born, but this room remained.”