Chapter Five

The man in the expensive suit stood with his back to his visitor, gazing out across the downtown Chicago skyline as he willed his temper into submission.

“Let me get this straight,” he stated, his voice hard as steel. “I asked you to handle it, and I trusted you to understand the need to keep it very low-key; a burglary gone wrong. Something that happens by the thousands in this city every year, so that it won’t stand out. But you? You opt for a car bomb. One of the most public ways possible to handle my private business. Do I have that right, Charlie?”

Charlie’s reflection in the glass confirmed his visitor swallowed hard before answering.

“Yes, sir. I just thought – “

“And there’s our problem, Charlie. You thought,” he sneered, cutting the man off. “You thought, and the results made both last night’s and this morning’s news. Idiot.”

He paused, rubbing his temples with his index fingers to try and calm himself.

“Did you at least manage to find the copies he made?”

A pause, then, “I grabbed all three laptops, and any thumb drives I could find, boss. Gabe is reviewing them all as we speak.”

“Where is the woman now?”

Another hard swallow.

“I don’t know, boss. Our contacts are looking into it.”

“Don’t bother me again until you have her location,” came the brusque command, and Charlie gratefully fled the room.

***

Boy, he’s pissed, Charlie admitted as he waited for the elevator to take him to safety. I’d better make this right, and soon.

He pulled out his cell phone and dialed.

“What have you got for me?” he barked, then listened. “What do you mean you don’t know? Don’t tell me you don’t know, man. I have to have it as soon as possible.”

He frowned as his contact spoke some more, and Charlie finished the call with, “I’m calling you back in four hours, and you’d better have something for me, or we’re both in deep trouble.”

Frustrated, he shoved his phone into his pocket, stepped into the open elevator and stabbed the button for the lobby.

***

The man in charge sighed.

Charlie’s been with me a lot of years, and he’s never, ever screwed up like this, the part of his brain that placed a high value on loyalty pointed out.

Then the all-business, self-preservation side kicked in.

Yeah, but this? This is huge, and you know it. He might as well have taken out a billboard ad inviting the Feds to waltz right in and crawl all over us.

He sighed again as he made his decision, then pivoted and strode over to his desk. He snatched up the phone receiver, punched in a set of numbers, and waited.

“Hey,” he said when the person he sought answered. “I’m going to need you to plan a retirement party.”

A few carefully phrased instructions later, Archibald Creach, the founding partner of Creach & Langford, smiled like a well-fed cat as he set the receiver back into its cradle.

***

“Hey, can we stop at a pharmacy somewhere along the way? We need to pick up some things,” Fuller told Pete as the four of them climbed into his crew-cab truck.

“Yeah, we can do that,” Pete confirmed.

Within twenty minutes, they had the supplies Leah had mentioned, and were on the way to what would pass for home for the foreseeable future.

“I called and made sure it was stocked up with food,” Pete mentioned. “Another marshal should be out there already, and you can catch a ride back to your plane from him. I assume you’re not staying, right?”

“That’s right,” Fuller confirmed. “I need to get back, get up to speed on evidence collected from the bombing.”

In the back seat, Shannon sat quietly, oblivious to the conversation, and contented herself with gazing sleepily out the window. The surge of adrenaline that had carried her through most of the prior night’s events was long gone, and she had every intention of taking a nap as soon as it was safe to do so.

She perked up slightly as the truck turned right, off the asphalt road and onto gravel, then traveled up a slight slope.

Pete pulled up in front of the structure and put the truck in park.

“Here we are,” he announced.

It was a small but lovingly kept old farmhouse about eight miles north of the Decatur, Texas city limits. The farmhouse sat at the top of a small hill, about one hundred yards from the narrow farm-to-market road that led back into town. It was flanked on three sides by a grove of trees, and the nearest neighbor was just over a half-mile away, which provided some additional privacy, as well.

Pete climbed out of his truck, opened Shannon’s door, and frowned when he saw how exhausted she looked.

“Need help?” he said, and she pointed to her ears and shook her head.

Puzzled, he looked past her at Leah, who explained, “The blast ruptured her eardrums. Doctor said it could be a couple of weeks before her hearing returns.”

Come here, he gestured to Shannon, and when she climbed out, he gently scooped her up, marveling at the feel of her in his arms.

“Watch her upper back, she got burned,” Leah warned him, and he adjusted his hold accordingly so as not to cause Shannon any more pain.

***

She was so worn out she didn’t protest being literally swept off her feet. Instead, Shannon linked her arms around Pete’s neck and laid her head on his shoulder like she’d known him all her life.

She noticed he fought back a smile as he carried her up the porch steps and through the front door.

“Hey, Duffy, it’s me,” Pete called out.

“Hey there,” Duffy answered with a grin. “Good timing. I just got the groceries put away.”

His grin faltered when he saw Shannon. “She all right?”

“Yeah, she will be. She’s been through a lot,” Pete said. “I’m about to go put her in bed. I think some sleep will do her good.”

“She hasn’t eaten since about six o’clock last night,” Leah interjected. “Neither of us have. Stop walking around with her for a minute and let me ask her if she wants food first, or sleep.”

Leah wrote it out and showed her.

“Food would be good, but I’m exhausted,” Shannon answered, her head still leaning on Pete’s shoulder. “Can it be something quick?”

“I just stocked this place with everything you might want for a sandwich,” Duffy revealed, and Leah smiled.

“Perfect! I’ll make her one, and then she can go lie down.”

Shannon swiveled her head up to look at Pete just as he was glancing down toward her, and their lips almost touched before he stopped his forward motion.

It surprised her to feel disappointment that she had not just been kissed by a complete stranger.

“I think you can put me down now,” she said softly. “At the table. And I can make it from there to the bedroom okay.”

She was shocked to see disappointment peek through on his face too, briefly, before he composed himself, nodded, and set her gently on her feet.

So… he was enjoying that too, huh? her right brain crowed as she shuffled over to a dining room chair, surreptitiously scoping out Pete’s left hand for any sign of a wedding ring.

UGH, the left side of her brain railed. Really? SOOO not the best time for this. You almost got blown up last night, remember? Bad guys chasing you, remember?

Focus!

Leah brought over two plates, each with a sandwich and chips, and Shannon turned her attention to her meal.