CHAPTER 14
Syracuse, NY
Rocky had arranged for Laney to be placed in a safe house until they ran down the man who’d attacked her. Laney had argued against protective custody, but Rocky had won the argument by pointing out the danger she could be placing other people in by not being in custody.
Laney leaned back against the headrest in the Cutlass. She knew she should feel relieved and that the danger had passed. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t over. That Paul, whoever the hell he was, was going to keep coming.
Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Detective Frank Miller as he drove. In his early forties, with dirty blond hair carefully combed to try and hide the beginning of premature balding, he was the picture of confidence, a man in control. Detective Marcos Sanchez, who was Frank’s physical opposite with an olive complexion, dark hair, and serious demeanor, was behind them in another Cutlass. Sanchez, though, was cut from the same cloth: unflappable. But the tingle of fear wouldn’t leave her.
Frank looked over at her, his blue eyes radiating trust. His hound-dog face looked friendlier with his smile. “Thought you were asleep.”
Laney tried to smile in return. “Not yet. Just resting my eyes.”
She’d met Frank a few times when she'd been out with Rocky. He seemed a nice guy. And Rocky swore he and Marcos were great at their jobs. But she hadn’t seen them load any rocket launchers into the cars and she was now pretty convinced that's what it would take to stop Paul.
“Don’t worry. We’ll be there in a few minutes.”
She nodded and turned to watch downtown Syracuse pass by. They moved through Armory Square and into the industrial district, old factories converted into stores or, in many cases, left abandoned.
After a glance to make sure Marcos was still following, she turned to stare out the window, resting her chin on her hand. Was this really happening? It felt like this morning was a dream. It was too surreal. People didn’t move that fast. And they certainly didn’t rebound from gunshots or stabbings that quickly. How had that man survived?
And his fighting skills. They were incredible. Laney had been training since she was a child. And while most people might look at her petite size and figure she wouldn’t put up much of a fight, they’d be wrong. Dead wrong. She knew without a trace of conceit that she was good. Really good.
But that man had been toying with her. And as much as she hated to admit it, that, more than anything, terrified her. She had trained so hard because she knew what it felt like to be a victim, to be helpless.
She absentmindedly brushed her hand over the spot where her Uncle David had broken her arm when she was a child. She had promised herself once she had gotten out of his house that she would never feel that powerless again. Today, she had come close. And she didn’t like it.
“It’s right around the corner here,” Frank said as they drove past Fowler High School. She knew the neighborhood. The zoo was just up the street. She, Kati, and Max had been there too many times to count.
After turning off Geddes and taking another right, he pulled in the drive of a small house that backed onto the high school. “Home sweet home.”
Laney looked out the window. “That is one sad little house.”
Pale grey paint chipped off the siding and a sagging porch ran the length of the front of the house. The windows all had the blinds pulled down. She glanced down the block. Sad as the house was, the rest of the houses on the block were no less depressing.
Frank grinned. “They always are. But it’s safe, and hopefully we’ll only have to keep you here for a little while. Rocky’ll track down that asshole in no time. Let’s get inside, okay?”
She nodded and got out of the car, fingering the flash drive in her pocket. She’d transferred it to her pocket when she’d gotten changed at the station. This couldn’t all be related to Drew’s file, could it?
Marcos had pulled up in front of the house and stood surveying the neighborhood. He nodded at Laney before turning to Frank. “I’m going to check around back.”
Laney trailed Frank to the front door, which didn’t look like it could keep out a seven-year-old. He unlocked it and Laney followed him in. By some miracle of modern decoration, the interior managed to be more depressing than the exterior. The walls, once white, were now a smoky yellow and the one piece of furniture, a plaid red couch, had stuffing spilling from it. And she was pretty sure something was rustling underneath the back corner.
Laney looked over at Frank with raised eyebrows.
He shrugged. “Like I said, hopefully we won’t be here for too long.” He nodded towards the couch where a duffel bag sat. “Rocky had a female officer gather up some clothes for you. I’m going to be outside. Yell if you need anything."
Laney glanced at the bag, shaking it to make sure no guests had decided to go for a ride. “Did she include my laptop?”
“Yeah, the techs went over it and said there was no blood, so they didn’t need it.”
She nodded. Good, no blood. I always hate a laptop with blood on it.
After getting changed into her own clothes, in a bathroom where she tried not to touch anything, she booted up the laptop in the kitchen. Placing it on the kitchen table, aka an old card table, she realized this room was relatively clean. At least nothing seemed to be scurrying about.
The cabinet doors were original, but all still hung upright, and the linoleum counter wasn’t too bad. The old beat-up card table took up most of the room, and two folding chairs provided the only places to sit.
A flash pulled her eyes back to the laptop. What the hell? Her screen was pixilating from the exterior. It looked as if it was being eaten from the outside in.
“No, no, no.” She sat and pulled the laptop over to her. Hitting the power button, she cursed. Not responding. She tried an automatic shut down. No luck. She flipped it over to pull out the battery. But it was too late. The virus had worked its way through the whole system.
“Shit,” she yelled as her screen went blank except for the cursor, which just blinked at her.
She sat back in the chair and stared at the screen, stunned. She’d used this laptop this morning without any problems.
Her assailant’s face flashed through her mind. Could he have done this? She thought back. She’d heard the scratching at the door, which must have been when he’d entered the house.
But then it had been another few minutes before she’d gone downstairs. What had he been doing during that time? Her house was small. He could have searched the whole place in the time it took her to go downstairs.
Unless, she thought, as she stared at the computer, he had something else to take care of first. He would have had time to upload the virus. But why?
Laney paced the room. She wanted to scream in frustration. Why? That seemed to be her favorite word at the moment.
Why was Drew dead?
Why had she been attacked?
Why had her computer been fried?
Why was her attacker alive?
Why was any of this happening?
Laney picked up her laptop and threw it against the wall. It crashed to the floor, parts of the casing cracking off. Damn it, she wanted to hit something.
Frank rushed into the room, gun drawn. “Laney!
She cringed. “Oh. Sorry, Frank. My computer just tanked and I tossed it across the room.”
Frank snorted with a grin. “Hell, I've wanted to do that plenty of times. Just try to keep the destruction to a-”
A yell from outside halted his words. Frank flew to the front door to look out. Laney followed him, glancing out the window.
Marcos was crouched behind the open door of Frank’s car, his gun trained on the man advancing from across the street. “Stop. Identify yourself.”
Holy crap. Her eyes locked on the man striding towards the house. There were scabs on his face where the shotgun blast had caught him. But otherwise, Paul looked unharmed. He definitely didn’t look like he'd been seriously injured this morning.
Marcos opened fire. Two bullets tore through Paul’s chest. He didn’t even slow down. He reached Marcos and dragged him to his feet.
Frank opened the door. “Run, Laney,” he yelled before sprinting outside.
Laney ran for the back door, the sound of gunfire erupting from the front of the house. She flew out the back with a sense of déjà vu. Twice in one day, she was escaping down porch stairs.
She headed for the stone wall at the back of the yard, knowing it split the property from the high school. Maybe she could lose him in there.
Sprinting past the shed, her entire focus was on getting to the wall.
She yelped as a hand slid around her waist, yanking her back. Another hand clamped over her mouth. She was pressed up against a well-muscled chest. “Don’t say a word.”