Play Nice (28 page)

“Was that…?” Anya asked.

“Yeah. Let’s get out of here.”

The drive-in gave way to a service road that ran along the edge of a row of brick office buildings. The windows were all dark at this time of night as Anya and Dade ran past them. A shot whizzed past Dade’s ear, hitting the building and tossing chuncks of brick into the air. He ducked his head down to avoid shards in his eyes, instinctively putting himself between their pursuers and Anya as they ran. He pushed her sideways at the corner, veering left, then quickly right again into an alleyway leading north.

More bullets followed them, pinging off the side of the building. Dade dove behind a dumpster, pulling Anya with him. A break in a chain-link fence behind them led into a yard beyond. Dade quickly pulled at the break, creating a hole large enough for Anya to crawl through. Dade shoved Lenny through ahead of him before following them both, feeling the rough links scratch at his back as he crawled over the earth on his belly. He sprang to his feet on the other side, grabbing Anya by the hand again, pulling her with him as he ran through the yard, back out onto the main street.

Keeping behind the line of parked cars, Dade heard gunfire shattering windows as they raced past, one after another, car alarms blaring from the vehicles. Lights turned on in windows, the commotion drawing people out of bed.

Dade turned right at the corner, then made a sharp left and another right.

They race another three blocks zigzagging through neighborhoods and yards, Lenny loping along at their side, until the sound of car alarms began to fade in the distance, and the hail of bullets stopped whizzing by their ears.

“Wait,” Anya said, collapsing behind a car.

She was breathing heavily, sweat running down her cheeks, her chest rising and falling rapidly.

“I’m not used to this anymore,” she panted, doubling over at the waist.

He stood beside her, one arm draped around her shoulders as she caught her breath.

“We need to keep moving,” he said. They’d outrun their attackers for now. But that wouldn’t be true much longer. They had a car, which Dade and Anna now did not.

Anya nodded. “I know,” she panted. She held up one finger, leaned her head back, taking two big deep drags of oxygen, in and out. “Okay,” she said, “let’s go.” Though he could tell she still hadn’t caught her breath.

Dade grabbed her hand, speed walking with no real destination in mind.

He heard a car behind them as they turned onto the next street, and he pulled Anna to him, flattening her against the side of the building behind a trash can. Headlights approached, and he held his breath. He could feel Anya tense beside him.

The car passed. An old VW bus.

Relief drained out of Dade. He took Anya’s hand again, making tracks forward.

They walked in silence, keeping to the shadows whenever a car approached, until they hit a more populous area where nightlife was still out and alive. Homeless people roamed the streets, the lights of all-night convenience stores blinking in neon, the bar crowd still stumbling home, as early risers went in search of their first lattes.

Dade led the way to a BART station at the end of the block. Anya needed a chance to sit and catch her breath. If they boarded the train, at least they could keep moving while she did. He wasn’t sure where to go, but putting distance between them and the neighborhood was a good start.

He purchased tickets from an automated machine, immensely relieved to find his wallet and phone still in the back pocket of his pants, and the three of them descended the escalator into the lower level to wait for the subway.

The next train was heading east toward Oakland. Dade stood on the platform, waiting an excruciating five minutes for the train to arrive. He felt open. Exposed. If anyone had seen them enter the station, they were sitting ducks.

Anya shifted from one foot to the other beside him. Her skin was pale and she was chewing on her lower lip.

He put an arm around her shoulders, drawing her into him.

“Your shirt’s on backwards,” he mumbled into her ear.

She looked down. Then back up at him, grinning. “You’re not wearing any shoes.

She was right. In his haste to flee, he’d been lucky to manage pants.

He leaned over and kissed the top of her head. “You okay?” he whispered.

She swallowed hard. Then nodded.

The train carriage arrived, a whoosh of sound filling the tunnel, and Dade quickly ushered Anya in ahead of him, followed by Lenny.

They settled into a pair of seats near the back of the car, facing the doors. Dade let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding when the doors finally slid shut. No guys with guns had entered. No one was shooting at them, they were safe.

At least for as long as it took to get to the next station.

The car was scarcely populated at this time of night, occupied only by a couple guys in baggy jeans who’d obviously been drinking heavily enough to leave their cars behind, and a guy in an overcoat reading a paperback. The guy in the overcoat looked up when they entered, staring at the pair.

Dade realized they must have presented an odd sight, both sweating, out of breath. Anya’s arms wore scratches where branches had hit her during their flight. Dade could see the same on himself. Not to mention he was barefoot.

Dade didn’t realize it, but he must have stiffened, as Anya leaned in and whispered beside him.

“He’s looking at Lenny. Dogs aren’t allowed on BART unless they’re in a carrier.”

She reached down and scooped the animal into her arms, holding him securely.

The guy shot her a look, but seemed reassured enough that he wasn’t going to get bitten that he quietly went back to his novel.

They rode in silence, exhaustion hitting Dade as he realized that he now had no vehicle, no computer equipment, and a gun without any bullets. In the long run, most everything in his SUV could be replaced. But at the moment, they were items they sorely needed if they were going to make it through the next few hours alive.

It was closing on 4:30
AM
. Braxton’s rally was scheduled for one that afternoon.

While he’d agreed that Anya’s plan to meet Petrovich head-on was a hell of a lot better than running from him forever, there were a couple things it didn’t take into account. Dade, for one. And his former employer, who was still waiting to see Anya become a problem of the past. Dade knew as long as she was alive, they would both continue to have targets painted on their backs, with or without Petrovich in the picture.

Dade glanced over at Anya. Her head was tilted backward, leaning on the seat’s headrest.

It had been a long time since he’d cared about someone else’s safety. Since he’d cared at all about a woman. He hadn’t lived a celibate life, but it had been a long time since he’d really been there with someone. Sex had been a release, an escape. Kind of like a bottle of wine. Smooth, enjoyable, but once it was empty, it was empty, and he moved on to the next one.

He looked over at Anya.

Her skin was beginning to regain an even color now, the bright pink on the apples of her cheeks fading, the white around her eyes darkening. Her chest was rising slower, the jittering in her feet still now. She closed her eyes and her lips parted just the slightest as she breathed. He felt a sudden urge to lean over and kiss her.

But he didn’t.

He couldn’t.

Not knowing what he had to do this afternoon.

Instead, he leaned his head back against the seat, listening to the steady rhythm of the train on the tracks, trying to reconcile what he’d just done with Anya at the drive-in with what had to be done at the senator’s rally.

*   *   *

Lenny wriggled in Anna’s arms. She absently stroked his fur, her hands running down the length of his back as she watched the multicolored tile walls stream past her windows. It felt safer down here, like she was in some sort of cocoon in the tunnels, protecting her from the rest of the world. The warm, relaxed feeling she’d felt just hours ago—hours? God, it felt like a lifetime—was a thing of the distant past, a moment that she should probably never have indulged in and knew she wouldn’t let herself again. But the immediate adrenaline was starting to fade from her system, allowing her to gain control of her limbs again.

Lenny whined, probably hungry. She rubbed the back of his neck to calm him. He could feel the tension in her, she knew. Animals were intuitive in that way, much more so than humans. They could feel their surrounding. Anna wished she could do the same. Maybe then she would have felt the attackers coming at her, had had some warning. Maybe she would have been able to get them out of there before they lost Dade’s car.

Lenny wriggled again beneath Anna’s touch.

“Shh,” she commanded. She ran her hand in smooth, soft strokes along his spine, over the top of his head, around the side of his neck.

And that’s where her fingers felt something.

She opened her eyes, running her hand along the side of his neck again. The folds of skin around his neck were thick, but as she smoothed them out against this body with her hand, she felt a lump. Small, almost indistinguishable from the rest of his skin, certainly hidden from view.

But it was there.

“Sonofabitch,” she breathed.

Dade instantly tensed beside her, his hand going to the band of his pants. “What?”

“Look,” she said, smoothing the skin out again so that Dade could see the lump.

He looked, then shrugged. “What?” he asked again.

“Give me your hand.”

He did, and she ran it over the spot on Lenny’s neck. “Feel that lump?”

He nodded.

“It’s a locater chip.”

He blinked at her. “You’re serious?”

She nodded. “Owners have a version of this injected into their dogs so that if they run away, a shelter can scan the chip and know who they belong to.”

“And this one?”

She felt around. “Same location, but it’s bigger. If I had to guess, I’d say GPS locator.”

Dade breathed out a string of curses. “That’s how Petrovich keeps finding us.”

She nodded. “And why Lenny was left alive in the apartment to begin with. Petrovich knew I’d come for him.”

“We need to get it out.”

Anna nodded. She held Lenny close, again angry at herself for not seeing this sooner. It hadn’t been dumb luck that the dog had escaped notice in her apartment. It was ridiculous, she now realized, to believe that it had been. They’d torn apart every corner of her apartment. Had she really thought they’d missed a seventy-pound, barking mess of slobber? But she’d been so relieved to see him that she hadn’t questioned it.

No more mistakes. You’re better than that. Stay sharp, Anya.

They exited the train at the next stop, Montgomery, climbing the escalator to ground level. They were in the financial district, fast food places and coffee shops mingling with high-rise buildings. A block down on Market, they found a convenience store on the corner.

Dade waited outside with Lenny while Anna went in and purchased a pair of nail clippers, NyQuil, duct tape, paper towel, and three pieces of beef jerky.

Once outside, she gave two pieces of the jerky to Lenny, finishing them off with a NyQuil chaser. Dade picked him up and carried him back to the BART station, finding an unoccupied restroom on the ground floor. They pushed inside, and Anna locked the door behind them.

After fifteen minutes the NyQuil began to take affect, Lenny’s eyelids drooping. Using the nail clippers, Anna carefully cut into the top layer of Lenny’s skin. Dade held the dog still, but even with the medication, she felt Lenny wince, and cringed. “Sorry, pal,” she mumbled. She forced herself to continue clipping at the thick skin until her fingers felt the plastic edge of the locator chip. She grabbed onto it with the edge of the nail clippers, pulling it free. She then quickly folded the paper towel into a square and applied it to Lenny’s cut. It wasn’t deep or long enough to require stitches, but she knew he wouldn’t be happy when he woke up. She took a generous hand with the duct tape, wrapping it around his neck to secure the paper towel. A patch job, but it would have to do for now.

She put the third piece of jerky in her pocket, promising Lenny a treat as soon as he woke up.

“What do you want to do with this?” Anna asked, handing the chip to Dade as they exited the station.

Dade turned it over in his hand. It was a small cylindrical capsule, less than an inch long, and about the width of a grain of rice.

Dade looked down the street. The sun was just starting to show above the horizon, the sky turning a dusky pink. Cars were already lining the street, early commuters trying to get a jump on the inevitable traffic. Down the block was a bus stop, picking up where the subway left off. On a bench at the stop sat two Asian women, one with a shopping bag and the other a large, red purse clutched on her lap. A couple guys in suits stood nearby, thumbs glued to their BlackBerrys. A large orange and white bus was just pulling up.

“Hand me the duct tape,” he said.

Anna did, passing over the bag of supplies. Dade took it and jogged across the street to where the bus was opening its doors to let morning passengers on. He rounded to the back, crouching down low to stay out of the driver’s line of vision. He quickly ripped a length of tape off the roll with his teeth and attached the chip to the underside of the bus’s wheel base.