onto North 18th Street. Houses flew by on the right, and the school zone ended at what the sign said was Murdock Park. It looked like it could be a good place to hide, but there were no roads.
“So where do we go? Drive on the sidewalk?” She pointed to the park and the wide walking path that entered into a wooded area.
The truck blared its horn and crossed into oncoming traffic to blow past a blue sedan. It was now only one car behind. Derek glanced in the mirror again and gritted his teeth. “No. This isn’t an action movie. That wouldn’t be safe for pedestrians, and it would draw too much attention to us.” He pulled the car onto a small residential road. “Here.”
“So we keep turning until he can’t catch up? Like how when a crocodile attacks, you’re supposed to run in a zigzag pattern because they can’t turn that well?” Law was supposed to be safe. Free from physical harm. She hadn’t joined the police force or the CIA. There had been no training in law school for outrunning bad guys.
“That’s a myth. Not true.”
“What? That’s not what we’re doing?”
“Not true about crocodiles. For us, yes. We’re eluding capture.”
The SUV bumped through an intersection and exited the residential area for a commercial zone. Instead of houses, there were passing businesses and strip malls, with only two or three separate shops dotting the sides of the street.
“We’ll be fine. I see something up ahead. Hopefully, this is the last time I’ll have to tell you to hold on.”
Hannah dug her feet into the floorboard as Derek bounced the vehicle over the curb and into the parking lot of a funeral home. Great. Well, at least they were in the right place if the shooter did catch up to them. She shot up a prayer as they turned around back. Lord, I love You, but I’m not ready to meet my maker.
He tore through the parking lot and around the side of the two-story brick structure that looked like it used to be a fine, older home. A detached garage with an open bay door beckoned around the back. Derek pulled the Escape into the space that was large enough for a hearse and jumped out. Hannah followed but crouched down at his command to stay low, as he raced to the side door and then punched a button on the wall.
The garage door began to close.
Derek signaled to her, and she crept toward the hood of the car, deeper into the garage, until she met him at the hood. He put an arm around her shoulders, a help to keep her steady and a strength to comfort her as they watched the door close. They were soon swallowed in complete darkness.
She held her breath, the perspiration trickling down her back marching side by side with a tingle of apprehension, as they waited for the truck to come roaring through the parking lot and crash through the door. But all she could hear was her heart beating.
“Is that it? Are we safe?” She kept her whisper so soft she could barely discern her own voice.
“I think so.” Derek’s hoarse whisper tickled her ear, and another tingle traversed her spine, this one for different reasons but still full of apprehension. “Let me grab my phone.”
The glow of the screen illuminated his face and the grim set of his mouth. With the tap of an icon, the phone’s flashlight illuminated their part of the garage.
“Are they gone?” Derek lowered his arm, and a chill immediately set in to Hannah’s shoulders. “How did they find us?”
“I don’t know yet, but I think you need to call your parents and let them know we’re coming. If you go see them in person, they might want to make sure their security is in order.”
“What? No. I need to spring it on them in person. See their reactions for myself. That’ll get to the truth of the matter. And not to worry, their security is always top-notch. Besides, that truck is gone. We lost him.”
He laid a hand on her arm, but this time it felt restrictive. “I still think you should call.”
She shoved herself up to her feet. “It’s not up to you.” An angry tone entered, and she stopped herself. She didn’t want to be that person. With a deep breath, she tried again, this time more level. “I will drive myself to my parents’ house if I need to, leaving you here at the funeral home.” She gestured around the darkness. “Rather, in the garage.”
Maneuvering in the dim light of his phone flashlight, she tiptoed around him and toward the driver’s door. “Hannah.” His tone was warm and wrapped around her like a thick quilt.
A quaver crawled up her throat, and she swallowed hard to tamp it down. “I’m sorry. It’s just so much to process. You’ve never found out anything like this—that you’re adopted.”
“No.” He stepped closer. “You remember. I was raised by my aunt and uncle after my parents were killed. But I’d like to think I have a little idea of what you’re feeling. Confusion. Betrayal. Curiosity.”
“Oh, Derek. I do remember. I wasn’t thinking.” She had known he was living with an aunt and uncle, and he had mentioned, all those years ago, that his mom and dad had passed away. But she didn’t know any more than that. There was clearly more to Derek Chambers than she had realized. She placed a hand on his arm, a zing in the darkness striking to her core. “I’m sorry. We didn’t talk about it much.”
She sensed, more than saw, his shrug. “It didn’t seem important at the time. I wanted to think about us and our future, not my past.”
“Then you really do know what I’m feeling. You understand the importance of getting the truth.”
“Yes. I do.” A steely determination had crept into his tone.
She stepped again toward the driver-side door. “So, who’s driving?”
* * *
Derek glanced at the sign that read Union Street as he turned back onto the side street that seemed to widen out in the next block or so. He’d settled Hannah into the passenger seat, and now he was following her directions as she got her bearings in a town she didn’t know all that well.
The scent of gasoline and death lingered in his nostrils from the funeral home’s garage. Maybe it was just his imagination, the idea of the scent of death. Maybe it was a memory from witnessing the murder of his parents. But even if it was, he still wiggled his nose in an attempt to eradicate the aroma before he could be inundated with images he had struggled to forget.
His cell phone vibrated next to his hip, and he grabbed it from the holster on his belt. A square popped up on his incoming-call screen. His supervising agent’s code name for himself. So newly graduated from the academy that the protective plastic coating was barely pulled off his badge, Derek knew he’d have to check in frequently.
He glanced at Hannah, relieved that she didn’t seem to be paying attention to his phone. Being around her again made him jittery, and he didn’t want to mess up in front of his supervising agent. “Go.”
Square’s voice was hoarse in his ear. “Secure?”
“For now.”
“Did you acquire the subject?”
The subject seemed a harsh way of communicating about the complex yet feminine woman who sat beside him. “Yes.”
“Is there knowledge?” Square was asking if Derek had informed Hannah of her adoption and the identity of her birth father.
“Affirmative.”
Hannah looked over at him, a question in her wide, brown eyes. Derek shrugged but didn’t respond, an attempt to convey nonchalance. Hopefully, it would calm both of them.
“Location?” The supervising agent would check in regularly with Derek for his first two years as an official FBI agent. But since Derek had just arrived in Heartwood Hill that afternoon, it seemed a little soon for an update. Perhaps that was because the supervisor had been unable to accompany him. Whatever