The Fugitive's Secret Child. Geri Krotow
But her mind, her heart, had been vibrating from the effort to assimilate what she witnessed.
The resurrection of her son’s father. A man come back to life.
Her phone buzzed and the ID indicated it was Corey on a secure line.
“Hey, boss.”
“Any more information from Rob Bristol, Trina?”
“Nothing more than what I told you. He says he’s Robert Bristol, that he was working to find Ivanov and Vasin. He’s got a lot of bruises, maybe a cracked rib. But nothing serious, hopefully.”
“He’s telling you the truth, Trina.” Corey never spoke with such a dramatic tone of conciliation unless he thought she was about to lose it from a particularly rough operation, or when he was insistent she take time off.
“Okay, fine, so who does he work for?”
“I’ll fill you in when this is over. All of it’s above my pay grade. Bottom line is that he’s not a suspect or fugitive. He’s one of us, but with a different group. You can trust him. And if you need to, follow his orders.”
Trust the man who let her believe he’d died during a failed raid in the Mideast? Who’d obviously lived but never came to find her afterward? Who didn’t know their passion, their uncontrollable lust for each other, had made a baby who was her precious Jake?
“Okaaaaay.” She couldn’t help drawing out her response. Just a little.
“I’ve called because you’ve got new orders, Lopez.”
“Can’t they wait until we’re in? We’re only sixty miles out.” She wanted to be home with her son, in her house. The sooner the better.
“Nope. You’re not stopping in Harrisburg. As a matter of fact, you’re going to pull off in three miles and get a new rental, then head south on I-81. Use your company card and find a hotel when you need to, and hole up. You need to take three days to get back here. You need to practice maximum evasion—not just for his sake but for yours and Justin’s. These are the worst of the worst, Trina. ROC don’t leave anyone alive who’s pegged them.”
“We have to do this all weekend?”
“Yes.”
“Where do we end up, then?” She tried to sound calm, professional.
“Ultimately, you’ll bring Rob Bristol back to his home base.”
The hair on her nape prickled, and she massaged her neck with one hand on the wheel.
“And where is that?”
“Silver Valley.”
“As in where I just bought my new house?” What the hell was Rob Bristol of “TH” doing in Silver Valley?
Corey was quiet for a moment. “Yes. I can’t say anymore on this line. Stop along the way. Stay in more populated areas, at regular hotels. Nothing fancy. You’re just another couple playing tourist. Charge everything to the company.”
Trina groaned. The “company” was of course the US Marshals. This was official business. She blew out a deliberate, angry puff of air. This was not happening to her. Yet inexplicably, it was.
“Roger, boss. Got it.”
“Check in as usual.”
“Will do.”
“And Lopez?”
“Yes, sir?”
“The dog food is on your tab.”
Corey disconnected the call, and Trina would have screamed at the top of her lungs if she were alone.
Alone. Her gaze flew to the mirror and collided with the blue laser that was Rob Bristol’s stare. Justin’s. The glance that had set her on fire at one time, made her wet before he’d stroked between her legs with his fingers. Made her entire body quiver in anticipation.
She gulped. “Your left eye appears to be getting better—the swelling is going down.”
“What did you have on your schedule this weekend?”
Dang it. He’d heard the call. Or her side of it, at least.
“Nothing that can’t be rearranged.” She wished her heart, her soul, felt as calm and easygoing as her reply. Trina had her family and Jake’s friends’ families to rely on. Since they’d moved, though, his friends were forty-five minutes away, north of her office in Harrisburg. They hadn’t set down roots in Silver Valley yet. But he’d be able to stay with her parents, or her brother would stay over at her place with him. She need only make the call.
“There was a time when you would have done anything to spend an overnight with me, Trina.”
Right now she needed to pee, gas up and find a hotel as Corey had told her. A place to hole up. She pulled into a familiar convenience store, her favorite pit stop, and up to a fuel pump. “Do you want something to drink or eat? Can you get out and use the bathroom?”
“I’d rather wait until we hunker down at the hotel. I know a couple of places that no one would think to search for us around here.”
She looked over her sunglasses at him. Emotion sideswiped her, knocking her confidence over as easily as a gull’s feather in the wind. “What’s going on here? You’re not really Rob Bristol.”
His mouth was a grim line, albeit with a swollen lip. It barely moved as he opened it to speak. “Justin died out in the field, Trina. All that’s left is Rob. It’s been my name since I escaped, practically.”
“Escaped?” It felt like it was her ribs that had taken the beating. Her heart had nowhere to escape to, and there wasn’t enough room to fill her lungs. Hell, there wasn’t enough air on earth to keep her blood oxygenated right now.
“Didn’t it ever occur to you I’d been captured by the enemy?” Bitterness laced his tone.
“Every conceivable outcome occurred to me, Justin.”
“Rob. I told you, Justin’s dead.”
“Fine. Rob.” She barely kept herself from shouting at him. “We’ll talk about our history later. I’m going to fill up the tank before we exchange this car for another, use the facilities, and pick up some snacks. Last chance to ask for anything or you’re stuck with what I get you.”
His stare was unholy. As if she were the one who’d done something wrong.
“Water would be nice.”
She slammed her door shut because she could and hooked up the nozzle to the gas tank. As soon as the gas was running she went into the store. Rob was still in the car. He was capable of watching to make sure it all went safely.
With dogged determination to keep her wits about her, she ordered them each two sandwiches and iced lattes from the touch-screen menus. As she walked back to the refrigerator section for water, she called her brother.
“Hey, Nolan, it’s me. I’m involved in something I hadn’t expected. Can you watch Jake this weekend?”
“Of course I can. I saw Mom and Dad at the diner this morning and they were saying how they’d like to take him to the water park at Hershey.”
“Sure they were. That’s way too hot for them.”
Nolan laughed. “Relax. I’ll take him. He and I will have fun. Have you told him yet, that you’ll be away?”
“No. Can you get him from day camp in an hour? I’ll talk to him once he’s at your place. Or you can stay at our place. I have plenty of boxes to still unpack if you’re bored.”
“Sure