Search (SEEK Book 1) (9 page)

I peel my lids back to examine the tiny flames smoldering in my eyes. A woman in her sixties barges into the restroom, dressed in a matchy-match pant suit, looks at me like I’m on drugs and about to mug her, and scoots cautiously past me.

I scurry out of the bathroom, grabbing two bottles of water and some trail mix on my way to the counter, never taking my eyes off the door. Cars come and go from the parking lot, none of them black SUVs.

When it’s my turn at the register I hand the cashier a one-hundred dollar bill. “Fill up on seven,” I tell her. Good, she doesn’t even notice me as she tucks the bill under the register and waves the next customer forward.

Outside, as continual gallons of gas pour into the bottomless tank, I have the unnerving sensation I’m being watched. Unlike the feeling I used to get while hunting Khayal, this is human and most likely male. My breath catches. I tip my head forward, hair falling over my face. I glance across the highway to a plain, dark-windowed, light blue sedan parked with its engine running and headlights off.

Moving as slowly and as normally as I can, I ease off the gas pump lever, replace the nozzle in its cradle and grab the receipt out of habit. Heart pounding, I force myself to climb calmly into the driver’s seat and turn on the ignition. With one drawn-out stare at the car I punch the gas. The tires squeal, burning rubber across the parking lot. The Hummer speeds out into oncoming traffic. With a swift tug on the wheel, I slide through the grassy median and slip into the left-hand lane of the northbound roadway, eye on the mirror for telltale red, white and blue flashes. The speedometer needle creeps over ninety miles per hour as the headlights follow my lead. We weave in and out of traffic. The sedan gains on me steadily.

“Crap, oh, crap!” I breathe, squeezing the steering wheel so tight it hurts.

Jonathan, snoring softly, continues to sleep soundly despite being jostled about like glitter in a snow globe.

“Typical,” I snort, but I don’t have the heart to wake him. It’s not like there’s anything he can do. Then is occurs to me, he’s likely recouping from shock as anything. Sleeping it off.

Ahead, there’s an overpass. I take my foot off the gas, waiting until I’m through the bridge, then simultaneously crank the wheel and turn off the headlights. Without stopping, I loop around, gun it up the grassy hill and lurch out onto the new highway, this time going east.

On edge, I watch the road. But there are only a couple of trucks on the highway. After a while, I let out a breath. Never taking my eyes off the mirrors, I cross the state line into Pennsylvania.

I turn on the radio to a classic rock satellite station, glad for the distraction, until I lose the signal and have to settle for local country. I’ve never been a fan of the whiny-twang, but it doesn’t last long. A sudden news alert sends my foot slamming onto the brake. Jonathan’s head smacks against the passenger window with a dull thud.

“What the—?”

Now he’s awake.

We both stare at the radio. “We have a breaking story and police are asking for your help. A young couple is wanted in connection with the horrendous murders of their families. Keira Donavan, may be using the alias Lindy, is five-six, one-hundred and twenty pounds with brown hair and green eyes. Her accomplice, Jonathan Steed, is a well-connected millionaire. Steed is six-foot-one, one hundred and seventy-five pounds and could be wearing green contacts to hide his hazel eyes. The pair is believed to be traveling together in a stolen Hummer with unknown plates. If you see them, contact the F.B.I. immediately. These two are dangerous, trained in hand-to-hand combat and most likely armed. Do not approach. ”

“More lies. Everyone knows the Brotherhood doesn’t use weapons.” Jonathan glares indignantly at the radio.

The car coasts across the empty interstate, hitting the ditch before I pump the break. My mind spins, playing the words “murdered their families” over and over again. Lindy’s dead? No, it’s not possible. Life without Lindy would wither and fade, the sun would crumble into dust. The earth would spin into oblivion and the universe would forget we ever existed.

“Whoa! Breathe, Keira, breathe,” Jonathan orders, rubbing my back.

I shrug him off. “Did you…? They said… Murdered our families? They’re saying we…? I’ll kill ‘em. If they hurt her…if anyone, I’ll…”

“Shhh, no, wait.”

My bloodless fingers dig into the steering wheel, spinning the too-boxy vehicle around.

Jonathan, plastered to the passenger door and looking very white, hangs from the seatbelt as though his life depends on that thin strip of fiber. “That’s exactly what they want! They’re counting on you to come back for revenge. I’m sure our families are fine. They’re probably hiding them in the Witness Protection Program or something. Pull over, let me check.”

The red sheen slowly recedes from my vision as I ease off the gas.

“What?” I huff.

“That’s what I’d do if I wanted to catch someone. I’d find leverage. Pull over, let me check.” Jonathan rights himself and motions to a field of corn on our right.

Feeling as alert as I would if I were dreaming, I make a path straight through the middle of the field, corn scraping the Hummer’s gleaming black paint job as I go. I don’t even try to navigate the deep tracker ruts. I just want to get away from the road, somewhere my head can clear of this incessant buzzing in my ears. I drop the gear to Park and bury my head under my arms, breathing…just breathing.

Seemingly endless minutes of listening to Jonathan typing go by, my blood pressure off the charts, before he announces. “Yep, I’m right, your family is going to Washington State and mine to Texas. Oh boy, my dad’s not going to like that, but yes—they’re all very much alive!”

“That’s why they dropped the chase. They have our families. But…?” I twist my fingers in my hair, squeezing my eyes tight and willing the world to make sense again. “Wait a minute, how you can possibly know where they are?”

“We were chased?” Jonathan intercedes.

“There was no reason to wake you, you couldn’t have done anything.”

“Oh, I get it.” Jonathan’s lips disappear into a thin line. “You still don’t trust me. You think I don’t have anything to offer, other than my plane that is.”

“No, it’s not that.”

“Prove it.”

“Excuse me?” I gape at him.

“Prove it. Tell me everything,” he says, words coming sharp and quick.

“Everything about what?” I blink.

“About the chase. Every detail you remember.”

I consider him, trying to understand why he looks hurt and furious at the same time. “At the truck stop, when I stopped for gas, I noticed an unmarked car across the street.”

“Did you get a tag number?” He interrupts me.

“No, I got the hell out of there. I flipped around the opposite direction, turned off the headlights and jumped on a different highway.”

“Do you remember what highway you were on, which exit you took?”

I shake my head.

“…the name of the truck stop? Anything?”

“Oh!” I reach in the console and grab the receipt. “Here.”

Jonathan snatches it, glancing at it briefly, before plunking the keys on his laptop. “That wasn’t SEEK or the Brotherhood, it was an unmarked Highway Patrolman who’d been camped on the side of the road with his radar to monitor a speed zone change. Your ‘erratic’ driving and high speeds alerted him and he gave chase. When he realized he’d lost you, he put out an APB on the make and model of this vehicle, but he never got close enough to read the plates. That’s how SEEK found us.”

“What?” I freeze. “Ugh, I’m so stupid!”

“You’re not stupid, you’re tired. It’s been a very long day and you’ve been driving for hours. Here, this might cheer you up,” Jonathan says, handing me his laptop.

I glance down at the satellite image of an unassuming house in a suburban neighborhood, feeling small.

“That’s where they’re taking your family.”

“You’re sure?” I ask, scowling at the computer. “How do you know that?”

“It’s easy,” he says, pointing to the top right corner of the page that reads “F.B.I.”

“You’re logged into the F.B.I.’s mainframe?” I gasp.

Jonathan nods easily. “I’ll teach you how later if you let me drive. Seriously, you look exhausted.”

I pull my hands away from my eyes. “I’m not,” I lie, as a huge yawn overwhelms me.

“Right. It doesn’t make you weak, just human. Let me drive,” he whispers, prying my fingers from the gearshift.

Jonathan’s extraordinarily-optimistic outlook is shining all over the place, making me less and less cheerful. “You, know? You’ve never said why you’re doing this and I’m done trusting people just because they tell me to.” Arms crossed firmly over my chest, I wiggle into the seatback, unwilling to budge.

His face is still too pleasant. He looks nothing like a guy running for his life should look. “Why am I offering to drive when you need rest?”

“Why are you doing all of this—?” I sweep my arms wide, letting them fall at my sides. “You could’ve just let me die, but you didn’t. Why?”

Jonathan considers the question, his bright eyes searching my face. “Because. I don’t know. There’s something about you that makes me...” His smile matches the sweet musical timbre to his voice.

“Makes you what?”

“You don’t fool me, Keira. I know you feel it too. We share something real and unique, something tangible. I can almost touch it.” Jonathan’s hand reaches up as though an invisible bubble hangs in the air between our seats.

“All I feel is the adrenaline of escaping imminent death.” A chill prickles along my spine. I jerk the door open. “You can drive.”

“Don’t.” Jonathan, looking earnestly tortured, reaches for me. “Talk to me, please?”

His smooth hand lying effortlessly against my skin is luring me in.

My body responds to him without permission. It takes effort to redirect my focus, and think of anything else beside the way his lips move when he says my name. I don’t know if there is something more to this guy than warm-tinglies. I don’t want to know. I can’t afford to wait around until he quits on me too.

“I can feel your heart,” he says, his voice is little more than a whisper.

Seconds pass. Jonathan waits on me expectantly.

But what do I say to that? “The only thing I feel right now is lost. I have no compass outside of fixing Lindy. And since she and my family are hostages, essentially, then I don’t—I can’t—I…”

“This isn’t about your family. This is about you. How do
you
feel? What do you want?” Jonathan pounds a fist on his chest.

“How do I feel?” I repeat. “I feel I need some time to assess the situation.”

“Wow, assess the situation.” Jonathan’s jaw tightens as he slumps back in his seat. “I’m sorry. I guess I misread the signals.”

“No you didn’t,”
a voice in my head says.

“Irkalla? Is that you? Can you hear me? Where are you?”
I think all at once.

No one answers.

Hearing voices that aren’t there is obviously a sign of severe trauma. At SEEK suspicion is a useful tool to hunt the enemy—but since nothing about SEEK has turned out to be right, I’m certain I’m just being paranoid. Jonathan might be right. I need rest.

And then all at once the air whooshes from my chest as the source of my stress makes itself known. There should be helicopters circling right now. SEEK knows the Highway Patrol was chasing us. “They’re planning an ambush!”

Jonathan lurches forward, looking for a military grade attack mounting on the horizon. No police lights whirl in the distance and no searchlights spin around the starry sky. For a moment we share a silent look, one that says we’re in agreement, and then he snatches up his laptop, assaulting the keyboard once more.

I wait for him to tell me we’re fine. That everything’s going to be alright.

“Dangit, I can’t see what they’re planning. They’re communicating old-school.”

“They who? What do you mean
old-school
?”

“SEEK and the Brotherhood. They’re running codes. I’ve never seen them do this before. It almost looks like binary code. But it isn’t. Is this familiar to you?”

The computer screen is nothing but meaningless dashes and digits. I shake my head. “No. But, can’t you crack it?”

Jonathan rubs his face, noisily. “Unfortunately, no. Not without a cipher.”

We sit in silence, each staring out the window. Jonathan pecks at his laptop. I find a new fingernail to chew off.

“You gotta help me out here. I’m way out of my element. What do we do? We can’t just sit here in this cornfield. The sun will be up soon. We’re chump bait out here without any cover. There aren’t even any woods to get lost in.”

“We should keep on to the airport. If they’ve worked out that I have a plane, there’s no way they know where I’m keeping it. I made sure of that. They’d have to station a team at every airport.”

“I’m not so sure SEEK couldn’t pull that off,” I mutter, putting a hand on the door handle. “You’re sure?”