Blowback (The Black Cipher Files Book 1) (9 page)

Barb and I slipped into the ladies room. Casing the sparse room with linoleum floors and white walls for surveillance equipment, I got right to the point. “No cameras in here?”

“No.” She crossed her arms over her chest in a classic defensive posture. “Why should I help
you
?”

“What did Lucas tell you?”

“You have a chemical you need identified.” Her voice was hostile.

I improvised a quick plan that would, hopefully, win her sympathy. “Look. Lucas offered to put me in touch with you and I’m doing him a favor in return.”

She snorted and her gaze trailed up and down my body. “I’ll bet.”

“Are you two...ah...tight?” The question popped out before I could censor it. None of my business. And no bearing on my mission. So why the hell had I asked?

“No.” She sure wanted to be. It was right there in those high heels and face sparkling with makeup. The wave of relief that went through me was unwelcome.

I wanted to get away from Lucas Goodman. He was a distraction I couldn’t afford.

“What kind of favor?” Barb narrowed her eyes at me.

So Barb was going to play hard ass. Fine.

I hated negotiating. It was so much easier to work with intimidation. But I didn’t have anything to hold against her at this point.

“He really needs my help with a missing kid.”

“Johnny?” Barb raised her eyebrows and paced around the two stall bathroom.

“Yes.” She knew the kid. Even better. I twisted the point as hard as I could. “I’m his only lead.”

Pretending indifference, I pulled a tube of bright peach lipstick from the little purse and efficiently slicked my lips.

She watched me in the mirror. “You hurt him, and I’ll have to hurt you.”

The threat was delivered in such an even tone it took a minute to penetrate.

“Excuse me?” This powder puff thought she could take me? I held back a smile but a glimmer must have come through.

“I’m not kidding.”

Whatever. If she wanted to think she was playing rough, so be it. I appreciated that she’d go to the wall for Lucas. It made it her eminently likable. “Okay.”

She held out her hand. “Give it to me.”

I slipped the cup from my purse. “You can analyze this...off the books?”

“I can put it through the GC/MS computer.” She arched a brow, waiting for me to ask.

While I knew Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry computers existed, I’d never needed one before. It also wouldn’t hurt to give Barb the stage for a second. “How does it work?”

Barb tucked the cup into her lab coat pocket. “Simply put, the machine breaks down the chemical components of a substance and gives a precise chemical analysis of all the elements.”

“The machine will tell you
exactly
what is in the liquid?”

She hesitated. “It will break everything down and give specific analysis, if available.”

I noted the qualifier. “How long?”

“I should be able to have a preliminary answer in the next few hours.”

Even better. Finally something was going my way.

“One thing,” I said, placing my hand on her arm to emphasize the point. “Don’t share the results with anyone, don’t show it to anyone. It’s a matter of national security.”

Barb looked skeptical as she peeled my fingers off. “Where should I call?”

“We’ll call you.”

She nodded. “Lucas has my number.”

“Why don’t you give it to me. Just in case.” In case I was able to ditch him. I was sure I could finesse the results out of her if need be. I capped the lipstick and dropped it back into the little bag as she rattled off her number. “Thank you. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this.”

“Anything for Lucas.”

I had a momentary pang of regret, knowing I was going to let her down, but I pushed away the softer emotion. I didn’t have room for softness in my line of work. Softness could get you killed.

“Better get back out there before Fuzz Face gets suspicious.”

She snorted with laughter.

We burst out of the bathroom, startling Lucas. He straightened from his slouched position in the chair and eyed us nervously. “You two look friendly.”

“Just a little girl talk.” Barb unobtrusively flexed her arm muscles and grinned.

He shuddered.

I could tell she was anxious to start the analysis and I was just as anxious for her to get started. But we had to make it look good, so we chatted about nothing for a few minutes, then she took us back to the front lobby.

As she kissed Lucas goodbye, she whispered, “I’ll start right away.”

She hugged me under the watchful gaze of the security guard. “So wonderful to see you both, we must get together for lunch next time you’re in town.”

Sure.

“Best time to travel. At night like this. You miss all the traffic,” Lucas boomed out for the benefit of the guard.

Barb stood at the door and waved as we breezed toward the Ford.

Fatigue tugged at me. Drugged unconsciousness was no substitute for good REM sleep. As far as I knew Lucas hadn’t slept either.

“You want me to drive?”

He paused, bent down, pretending to check the tires. Then he stood and gave me a look. “It would be out of character for me to let Betty drive.”

As I slid into the passenger seat I said, “You are going to have some serious making up to do with Barb after tonight.”

Lucas threw a startled glance at me. “We’re just friends.”

Not if old Barb had her way.

I wished I could relax now. Half the liquid was on its way to being analyzed. The other half was safely tucked in my purse. I hadn’t had any pursuers in the past four hours. A record at this point.

But tension wound around me like a coiled snake. And I waited for the next strike.

***

We’d returned the Ford, removed our disguises and changed back into the jeans and shirts we’d worn to the Chinese place. Only one task remained.

We stood in Lucas’s garage, staring at the rental car. No one had located it while we’d trekked to the lab.

I needed to get the hell out of here, but every time I turned around, Lucas contrived some new way to keep us together.

I could take the rental car. But the license plate could be on a watch list and I had no money for gas. In the other bay of the garage was a nondescript white van. It looked like a plain delivery van on the outside. No logos or distinguishing marks. A little beat up but nothing that would spark a person’s memory two seconds after seeing it.

I’d have to take the van.

I opened the passenger door and pretended to inspect the inside. Unobtrusively, I tucked the purse with the evidence cup and liquid into the console between the front seats. I had to make this look good. “Nice digs.”

“Thanks.”

I slammed the van door shut and gestured to my getaway vehicle. “Loan me your van and some cash. I’ll get it back to you.”

“I’d never see you again.” He backpedaled. “And I’d never get the information about Johnny.”

Never see me again? Not a bad thing in my mind. He already distracted me more than I was comfortable with. I was ice woman. No one got to me. And here I was considering Lucas’s feelings, brooding that he wouldn’t find Johnny. I didn’t like it.

“We should turn the car in near Sacramento.” Lucas dismissed my request.

How did he know I’d thought the same thing?

“It’s the logical choice. Makes it look like you’re heading East,” Lucas continued.

Which I would be. I’d pretty much figured out I didn’t want to draw any attention to myself until I had the lab results.

We needed to wipe down the car. If they captured latent prints from the cushions or the trunk, they might be able to get a usable print and tie the rental back to Lucas. My prints were not in any registered government database. But what about him? “Are your prints registered?”

I expected him to answer yes.

He stared hard at the bins on the opposite side of the garage, then cut his gaze to me. “I used to be FBI.”

That meant yes. It also meant I had a load more questions I should ask. But in his face I saw something that made me pause. Clearly, his departure from the FBI was not a move he’d chosen.

The clues had been there from the start. Lucas wasn’t just a P.I. with lots of gadgets. Johnny’s father was with the FBI and Lucas was connected to him. He needed to make sure no one could trace the car back to him. I didn’t want to bring him any more grief.

And those were not my problems.

Lucas climbed into the van, disappeared for a moment, then came back out and handed me a pair of thin latex gloves. He snapped on his own and began efficiently wiping down the rental car, eliminating our prints.

“I’ll drive the car,” he said. “It’s registered to a man. We don’t want to draw any extra notice.”

I couldn’t refute his logic. “Okay.”

“You can drive the van.”

Perfect. He’d done exactly what I wanted without even negotiating.

Lucas handed me a Motorola walkie-talkie. “For communications. Five mile radius.”

I crawled in and looked around. A curtained partition shielded the back of the van from view. Curious, I pushed aside the black fabric.

The walls held wire bins in a grid pattern. The bins held a variety of different surveillance items. Cameras, telephoto lenses, film, wire taps, flashlight, gloves, evidence bags, more costumes and disguises. Wigs hung from pegs on the grid.

A small refrigerator was bolted to the floor behind the passenger seat. I reached in and grabbed a bottle of water.

The incredible thirst still plagued me. I took a long draw. The crisp water woke me up a bit. In the back right corner, he’d installed a pee tube. Men had it so easy. I eyed the small receptacle then looked back at the smaller mouth of the bottle. In a pinch, the pee tube would work.

Lucas rapped twice on the hood of the van.

Showtime.

As the garage door lifted, I finalized my plan. When we were close to Sacramento, I’d split off and take the van. I had to hope he wouldn’t report it missing. With all the supplies in here, I guessed there’d be money someplace.

I shoved down a pang of regret. There was no room regrets in my life.

Traffic was nonexistent. We made the drive to Sacramento in about forty minutes, checking in via the walkie-talkies. I was getting antsy to break away. Only five more minutes and we’d hit downtown Sacramento. Then, I’d be outta here.

Lucas buzzed me. “Check your purse.”

He wouldn’t. I looked over at the small sequined purse. It was flat. I snatched it up and yanked on the zipper.

The evidence cup, with my liquid, was gone.

ELEVEN

Damn him.

“So was that what you were after all along?”

“Don’t be paranoid.” He huffed out a long suffering breath. “I could have refused to open the fridge and been sitting at home instead of roaming the freeway in the middle of the night.”

True.

“You there?”

“I’m still here,” I snarled. “Where to?”

We decided on a place to return the car. The airport was out. Too well-lit and too crowded. Lucas, the all-knowing, remembered a return place near the Capitol.

I followed the Focus, fuming the whole way. Two blocks from the return lot, I killed the engine and crawled in the back. His van was equipped with a drop down tube like the scope on a submarine. I tracked Lucas through the viewer. He parked the car on the edge of the rental car lot near the shadows.

“Gloves.” I reminded him with the walkie-talkie, annoyed with myself for even caring.

“Still on.” He popped the hood on the rental car and fiddled with the black box. “I need your help to reactivate the tracking system in this box.”

I walked him through the process. Out of habit I checked my wrist for the time, but I didn’t have my watch anymore. I glanced at the digital clock in the dash. Two eighteen a.m.

Lucas finished with the car and slammed the hood into place. Then he skirted the edge of the lot and dropped an envelope with the keys in the nighttime return slot. Keeping his head down and shoving his hands in his pockets, he sauntered down a side street.

I waited patiently, keeping my gaze on the well-lit parking lot. It would be interesting to see what happened next, if anything.

A quiet knock came from the back door. I peered through a tiny peephole.

“Let me in. I hear a car coming,” Lucas whispered harshly.

I wrenched open the back door, yanked him in and slammed it shut. I wanted back to the surveillance scope. Pronto.

A black Suburban squealed to a stop at the rental car place. Two men jumped out and ran onto the lot. It was two twenty-six.

Lucas already had the telephoto lens on the camera. He snapped quick pictures of the license plate and the man who was, at the moment, jimmying into the car we’d just returned.

One spoke into a tiny cell phone. Another hopped back in the Suburban and drove off, turning down the side street Lucas had walked down, searching for us.

The man in the lot pulled out a fingerprinting kit and started dusting the inside of the car.

“That didn’t take long.”

“Eight minutes,” I answered absently, still staring through the tube.

Carson and I needed to have a serious talk.

The man took a long look around. The instinctive urge to duck was strong but I held immobile. Lucas continued to snap away.

Maybe the license plate on the Suburban would yield a clue, but I doubted it. My luck hadn’t been running that good. I already had suspicions about who was after me. I just needed to narrow it down to specifics.

“That answers that question.”

Lucas looked away from the car. “What’s that?”

“They’re still after me.”

“Us,” he said.

We waited in tense silence while my thoughts fragmented and coalesced into patterns, ideas, searching for an answer that felt right.

I was stuck waiting. I needed the analysis on that liquid and I’d really like to get a look at the files from Susan the scientist.

My number one suspect was the United States government. No one else had the resources to pull off a search and surveillance of this scope.

I just didn’t know which agency.