Justified Means (Book One) (The Agency Files) (7 page)

Erika winced at the look she could almost see in Keith
’s eyes. He’d gloat. It wouldn’t matter that she’d gotten away, he’d gloat that he forced her back, and this time, they’d remove anything that she could use to open the locks. They’d probably go with a combination or something. What had been a horrible week would stretch into an even more terrible month—or more.

She needed to get out of there fast.
Hitchhiking might be her only option. She’d have to take her chances. Once she was home— Realization struck like a Mac truck. She couldn’t go home. If she went home, they’d find her. If she went to her parents’ house, they’d be there. They knew her friends, her family, and probably were monitoring her accounts already. The minute she took out a penny, used a card, anything, they’d find her.

Torn, she waited just inside the tree line as she watched the occasional car drive by.
It grew dark, and still she watched, deliberating between staying on the run, a prisoner of circumstance but free or going back and enduring whatever was left of this incarceration. Both seemed like impossible choices. The only way to stay out of their hands was to keep moving. She couldn’t do it without money, and to contact anyone for it meant they’d find her.

The idea of going to the police with her story flopped once she realized that Keith and Karen would still find her once she was out of the police station.
Even if the police considered it serious enough to protect her, she’d end up in “protective custody” and it’d be the same thing that she already had. Sure, it’d be voluntary, but a prisoner is a prisoner when you get to the root of it.

Each moment that passed was torture.
To go or to stay—that became the real question. She just couldn’t ask it—no one around to answer. Illogically, she tried to imagine what Keith would do. The guy was trained in the kind of scenarios she faced, so how would he handle it? Her problem—she didn’t know.

As she polished off another of her water bottles, Erika frowned.
She’d taken three bottles. Two were gone. Her brilliant idea of staying hydrated while walking would fail—unless she found more water. One bottle wouldn’t last long. She glanced up and down the highway. Which way was back to the cabin anyway?

“
That’s it,” she muttered to herself. “I’m picking a direction. If I see the entrance to the cabin, I’ll go back. If not, I’ll figure it out when I get to wherever I end up.”

Approximately a mile down the road, she found the turnoff to the cabin.
If you didn’t know where it was, it’d be hard to see. Located on a curve, either direction would miss the slight parting of trees and grassy drive unless they looked at those exact few feet. Disappointed, Erika turned in.

Shoulders slumped, she
dragged her feet up the long drive to the cabin, dread increasing with each step, and tried not to imagine the fierce look on Keith’s face when she returned. The only thing worse than his obvious irritation would be the gloating. Oh, how she hated the idea of that gloating.

Karen stepped from the shadows as her foot reached the front step.
“Are you ok?”

Erika jumped, a squeal escaping her before she could stop it.
“Yeah.”

“
If it makes you feel any better, I’d have done the same thing.”

“
It doesn’t.”

The woman pushed the door open to the cabin and returned seconds later with a cold bottle of water.
“Drink up. You might want a bath too. You’re going to be sore.”

“
You might as well call Keith and let him know I’m back. There’s no reason to keep him out looking anymore.”

“
He’s not looking.”

Her head snapped up at Karen
’s words. “He’s not?”

Compassion, pity, or something equally ambiguous and distasteful flooded Karen
’s eyes. She pointed toward the trees and shook her head. “No. He’s there.”

Turning, Erika saw Keith.
He strolled silently across the small clearing wearing camouflage and with filthy hands and face. Pulling out his phone, he punched some keys, causing Karen’s to vibrate. She read the screen and then passed it to Erika.

SHE
ALMOST CAUGHT ME AT LEAST FIVE TIMES.

“Go take a shower, get cleaned up, and then we’ll call your parents.”

“
I guess,” Erika said with a despondency she couldn’t hope to hide, “this means that I get my mouth duct taped again. Can you give me time to suck my lips in so they don’t lose another layer of skin?”

“
You can call. We’ll go over what to say and how to do it when you get out of the bathroom. Take a long hot bath. I’ll go make dinner. I’ve got the stuff for a great salad in there.” Karen smiled at her—the opposite of Keith in every way.

“
You ok, Erika?” Keith’s voice over her shoulder, despite hearing his footsteps as he approached, still startled her.

“
I’m fine.”

“
I didn’t scare you?”

“
Probably—I just didn’t know it was you if you did.” She glanced back at him. “Why did you let me go? Why stalk me like that?”

“
We had to test you, but we also had to protect you, Erika.” Gently, Karen pushed Erika inside. “You passed the test.”

“
I didn’t,” Erika admitted. “Not really. I only came back because I realized that you’d just find me and take me away again.”

“
That’s good enough. Just—” Karen’s phone rang, and she turned away to answer. “Stenano here. Yeah, she made it back. We’ll call after dinner. Mmm hmm.”

“
Go on in, Erika. Just relax in the tub until you can’t stand to be in there anymore.” Keith’s voice sounded almost compassionate. “You did really well. You made smart decisions before and after you left and didn’t let your emotions drive your decisions. You did great.”

“
I did, though.” As if unable to handle a gentler Keith, Erika struggled to fight back tears. “I was at the road and looked both ways. I decided to pick a direction and if I saw the opening to get to the cabin, I’d go back. Otherwise, I’d walk to civilization and figure out how to keep hiding out when I got there.”

Her eyes widened.
Panic set in before despair. “Oh, no!”

“
What.”

“
I shouldn’t have told you that.”

“
Why not? Keith was visibly confused.

“
She’s letting me talk to my parents because I came back. I ‘passed the test,’ but now she won’t. Now she’ll—”

“
Take a bath. You’ll talk to them later.”

With tears streaming down her face, Erika shuffled into the house, grabbed her duffel bag, and carried it into
the bathroom. She cranked the water on full-blast, and then began undressing. Just as her foot hit the water, she realized she hadn’t locked the door for the first time in the longest week of her life. Tracking water across the bathroom, she hurried to lock it and then returned to sink into the water. Before long, the scent of broiling beef drifted into the room, making her stomach growl. “I think Saturdays are officially my new favorite day of the week,” she murmured, trying not to fall asleep in the water.

“
I didn’t ask if Christians were a bad example of what Jesus taught. I asked if what Jesus taught makes sense.”

“
And my point,” Karen countered, not even raising her eyes to acknowledge Erika’s return from her bath, “is that if his teachings were so wonderful, people would actually do it right. If a political party spouts high-sounding ideals but produces garbage, people quit voting for their candidates. The same is true of Christianity.”

“
Apples and oranges.”

“
That’s a copout. Jesus taught forgiveness, but His followers don’t forgive. So, His grand ideas about forgiveness are untried.”

“
So, you’ve never met a true Christian who lived what they claimed to believe.”

“
Other than you, no.”

Keith
’s head snapped up as Erika snorted. “Yeah, because we all know Jesus taught his people to kidnap people from their beds and hold them hostage in the middle of nowhere.”

“
He taught to take care of others, protect them, and do what we would want others to do for us. If I was in your position, I’d want someone to protect me, however they knew how, if it would save my life.”

Her eyes rolled as she turned to Karen for support.
“Yeah. Like we believe that.”

“
He means it, Erika. I agree with him there. When you’ve seen the other side of the coin, when you’ve walked into a house too late and seen people’s bodies ripped apart by bullets and watched their families try to cope with that loss—” Karen swallowed hard. “Yeah, you learn that sometimes the uncomfortable ways are the best.”

“
Until you’ve walked a mile in my shoes, don’t tell me—”

Karen dropped the knife she was using to slice cucumbers and turned to leave.
Keith, ignoring the confusion on Erika’s face, tried to stop her, “Karen, are—”

“
Let me go, Auger.”

Sadness filled Keith
’s eyes as he turned back to Erika. “She’s walked that mile, and then another. She knows first-hand just what those bodies look like. Her father was one man the agency didn’t get to in time, so be careful when you spout your little proverbs.”

“
I—”

Had the knife in Karen’s soul not pierced her
so deeply, he might have felt a sense of satisfaction in the shock on her face. He took a few steps toward the door and turned back. “When she comes back, don’t bring it up. If she wants to talk about it, she’ll say something.”

Stepping out
onto the porch, Keith found Karen gripping the railing. “You’d think,” she ground between clenched teeth, “you’d get used to it, but you don’t. You just don’t. Every single time someone makes a snarky comment about how I don’t know what they’re going through, I see black and want to wrap my hands around their throats and scream, ‘You don’t know how lucky you are! Just be grateful and shut the—’”

“
I know.” He knew it was rude, but Keith’s deep revulsion for women and any hint of foul language overrode his conversational etiquette. Even the milder words that many of his Christian friends used bothered him and, when spoken by a woman, revolted him. He tried to keep his opinions to himself, but he couldn’t help but try to stop it before it happened. “I should have guessed she’d be one of the ones. She’s feisty. It’s keeping her sane, but it also means some pretty sharp barbs.”

“
I gotta get in there and get that salad made. We need to prep her for the call. Hey!” Karen’s eyes grew wide. “We left her alone in there with the knife.”

Keith shook his head.
“It’ll be fine. She’s not going to use it. Not now.”

“
You’re always so confident. Aren’t you ever wrong?”

“
Yes.”

Ignoring his confession,
Karen flattened herself next to the doorway, hand on her gun, looking through the screen to see if Erika had taken the knife, but it lay on the cutting board where she’d left it. “Dang! You’re right. She didn’t.”

Keith laughed.
“Dang?”

“
I know how much you like your words sanitized. I tend to forget, but I know.”

“
He likes his words what?” Erika frowned, obviously trying to follow the conversation.

“
Keith doesn’t ‘do’ swearing. You should hear him sing ‘Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown.’”

Disbelief flooded Erika
’s face. “Don’t tell me he sings, ‘..baddest man in the whole
dang
town.”

“
Nope. He just hums loudly there.”

“
I’m right here!” he protested, glaring through his grin at the women.

“
He just doesn’t do furious well with a smile on his face, does he?” Karen picked up the knife and waved it. “Do you want tomatoes? Keith doesn’t touch ‘em.”