Page 65 of Be Courageous
“You hear anything?”
Sweat filmed her upper lip.
“Nah. She must be staying somewhere else tonight. Girl that pretty has to have a boyfriend.”
“So, what do we do? We can’t stick around. The alarm’s gonna bring the Feds.”
“I guess we follow her more closely tomorrow, see where she’s going at night. Come on. Don’t touch anything on your way out.”
As the voices grew fainter, McKenzie sagged against the enclosure, her fear draining away.
Any minute now, the U.S. Marshals—possibly Higgins himself—would be here to whisk her away. Again. She couldn’t stand this. They’d had their chance to keep her safe and they’d blown it. How was the Cohort finding her over and over again?
Higgins had blamed the last two incidences on McKenzie, who’d admitted to making phone calls she shouldn’t have. But not this time. She hadn’t called anyone from Myrtle Beach. So maybeshewasn’t the problem. Maybe there was aleakin WITSEC. Or maybe Higgins himself had betrayed her location.
McKenzie swallowed hard. As her father used to say, every man had a price.
Among the supplies in her hiding spot was a change of clothing, flip-flops, two water bottles, trail mix, and some cash she’d been saving up, just in case she had to split. That possibility had been rooting in her mind since the second incident. Now she was grateful for her forethought. She had just enough to get shelter for a night or two.
Hefting the bag that held her supplies and her money, she dropped her phone and purse into it, slipped on the flip-flops, then pushed the button to leave her safe room.
The lights dimmed as the door swept soundlessly open. Headlights strafed the walls of her bedroom as she stepped from her closet. That was either the hit men leaving or the U.S. Marshals coming to see why her alarm had gone off. Either way, she would slip right past them by sneaking out of her window. All she had to do was remove the bar that kept intruders from sliding it open from the outside.
Touching down on damp grass, she took off running as fast as the flip-flops allowed through her backyard and then through her neighbor’s, putting her a block away. She followed that street to a thoroughfare lined with cafés and souvenir shops. At the first public trash can she came across, she took her phone from the bag and, gulping down her misgivings, threw it away.
Out of necessity, she would remain Caroline Dillard, since she had the ID to prove it. But one day, she would get to be McKenzie Jones again.God, You have to help me survive. I can’t do this on my own.
* * *
“I’d like a room, please.”
With a thinning of his lips, the motel clerk took McKenzie’s wad of cash, but he kept his thoughts to himself.
She wore pink plaid pajamas and one flip-flop, having lost the other one running across a busy street to avoid being struck by a car. Her face was flushed with exertion. Heaven only knew what the young man was thinking.
His neutral tone gave nothing away as he slid a keycard toward her. “Checkout’s at eleven.”
“Thank you.” With her knees jittering, McKenzie rode the elevator to the third floor. To think she’d actually gone and done it, broken away from WITSEC and struck out on her own.
Locating her room, she let herself in and locked the door. What else could she do but call Miles? She crossed straight to the phone beside the king-sized bed and sat beside it. Miles was the only soul she trusted; the only person who knew her circumstances and could give advice. Trepidation filled her as she pulled the phone closer.
The morning he’d turned her over to the U.S. Marshals, he’d pressed a business card into her palm, whispering in her ear, “Memorize my number, but don’t call unless it’s life or death.”
She’d memorized his number on the spot. Weeks later, she’d bought a prepaid phone card so she could place that life-or-death call if the need arose.
Desperation had tempted her to use it twice already—once in Omaha, the night her mother died, and again in Portland on her twenty-sixth birthday. She’d admitted as much to Higgins who’d grilled her after Centurions had found her in both places.
“But I never even spoke,”she’d insisted.“How would anyone know it was me?”
“It doesn’t matter. They’re obviously still watching Miles. Do you want to put him in harm’s way? Don’t call him again.”
But Higgins had to be wrong because she’d never called Miles from Myrtle Beach; yet the Cohort had found her here, regardless. So they couldn’t be monitoring Miles’s calls.Lord, please let that be the case.
Mastering the tremor in her fingers, she tapped out the numbers on her calling card, followed by Miles’s phone number, all memorized. Her heart seemed to stop beating as she waited for his phone to ring.
Then it rang and rang.
Just as she was sure her call would go to voice mail, he picked up.