Escaping Vegas (The Inheritance Book 1) Page 6

  “Come on. We’re leaving,” Cole said as he approached. His features were stern, hard, his eyes darting past her to the yard.

  “But I don’t have any clothes. I need things from my—”

  “It’ll take too long to sort through what’s left. We’ll get you clothes later. I—” Without any warning, Cole grabbed her elbow and pulled her inside. He slammed the door, braced an arm around her shoulders, and hustled her toward the kitchen. “I saw a back door. Is there a way off the property, a back gate, anything?”

  Madalina yelped, casting a quick look over her shoulder. A car had come to a stop behind the Jaguar, headlights on, the doors flying open. She thought she saw two figures emerge, but then she was running, stumbling over debris. Breathless, fear twisting a knot in her gut, she said, “Just the yard, no gate. It backs up to other people’s property.”

  Cole didn’t stop. He yanked open the back door, which proved to have a busted lock, and ushered her into the night.

  Cole estimated that he had maybe three minutes to act before the people in the car caught up to them. He pulled Madalina down a set of concrete steps to the yard and followed a footpath through the grass. Two trees stood between the house and the fence, oaks perhaps, with trunks as broad as a linebacker’s shoulders. Touched by moonlight, silvery leaves rustled in an errant breeze. The idyllic scene played a backdrop to havoc; using the trunks as cover—temporary cover, and probably poor cover at that—Cole zigzagged toward the fence. Better than running in plain sight, where he might be gunned down.

  At any other time, on any other night, Cole would have simply scaled the five-foot fence. Instinctively understanding that Madalina couldn’t easily make the leap, he paused and put his hands on her hips. He didn’t ask, didn’t explain. He simply plucked her up off the ground and lifted her high enough for her to swing a leg over. She yelped, awkwardly fumbling her purse, and tilted forward as if she was astride a horse. It was rough going, too, with a bump, a scrape, and a drag of wood across her forearm. She fell over to the other side, landing with an ungraceful thump. Cole had just released her when he heard the steady rhythm of running footsteps. Grabbing the top of the fence, he vaulted it, landing a foot to Madalina’s left. She was still picking herself up off the ground when he snatched her hand and yanked her into a run. To her credit, she didn’t scream or complain; she gathered speed, breath coming in shallow gasps, shorter legs struggling to keep up.

  The backyard opposite Madalina’s had an advantage hers did not: a swimming pool. Just as he pulled her behind the trunk of an old tree, he heard scrabbling hands and feet on the fence they’d just scaled.

  Cole paused, body pressed right up against Madalina’s softer one, timing his emergence from the tree to the pursuer’s passage. He lurched out when the runner blipped into view, grasping the thinner man around the torso. The assailant grunted in surprise, twisting in Cole’s grasp. Using momentum, Cole charged three long steps, whipped the man in a circle, and threw him into the pool. He gestured back to the tree, to Madalina, encouraging her to move.

  She bolted away from the tree trunk, eyes wide on the man in the pool.

  Cole grasped her hand just as a flood lamp flashed on, bathing the backyard in blinding light. He blinked against the glare, tugging Madalina alongside the small house, and simply kicked at the flimsy-looking gate when they came to it. The latch gave with a snap. Running into the front, Cole changed directions, slanting left along the yard to the sidewalk. Trees like those on Madalina’s street arched over the asphalt, limbs intertwined, casting shadows in broad swaths. He ran along the sidewalk, Madalina huffing and puffing beside him, passing other quaint houses all as old as her own. A For Sale sign in the yard of a canary-yellow, Craftsman-style home drew him like a moth to a flame. He glanced back, seeing nothing of their pursuers yet. With luck, the homeowner had caused a mild distraction. Cole didn’t think for a second that any homeowner would stop the assailant completely.

  Cutting through the yard, ignoring a mewl of protest from Madalina, he angled for the side of the For Sale house and a three-foot chain-link fence with an unlocked gate. He flipped up the U-shaped latch and tugged her alongside the home.

  “What . . . what are . . . we . . . doing here?” Madalina said between gasps.

  Cole led her along an awning-covered back porch to a sliding glass door. He fiddled with the handle. It held.

  “Can’t bust this out; they’ll hear.” He urged her on, testing windows until he found one leading into an empty bedroom. There was no screen to mess with, and after several struggling attempts to lift the stuck window from the sill, it gave with a groan and inched upward.

  Madalina set her hands on the frame once he’d opened it far enough to clear a body. Cole set his hands on her waist, glancing left and right to check that a pursuer hadn’t caught up to them.

  “Ugh!” She slid in and onto the floor, unable to stop her forward momentum.

  Cole pulled himself up, threw a leg over the frame, and ducked inside. The carpet had been ripped up, exposing rustic wood floors. There was an old-house smell, perhaps exacerbated by molding carpet from the previous owner. That could account for why it was gone.

  “You okay?” Cole asked, grabbing Madalina’s hand once she was on her feet. He led her into a gloomy hallway, which also lacked carpet. To the right was another open door, exposing a second bedroom. To the left, the hallway emptied into a small living area, dining area, and kitchen. Some of the windows had blinds; some had nothing, not even sheers. A tiny brick fireplace stood in a corner near the door. Cole stuck to the shadows, alert for noises of intrusion elsewhere in the home.

  “Yes. Yes. What just happened?”

  “They were waiting to see if you showed up at your house, that’s what happened. We should have been more careful.” He released her and peered out a front window, keeping his body to the side, away from the view of prying eyes. The street outside looked quiet.

  “But why? What do they want? I don’t have anything that valuable, I haven’t ever been part of any mob, I haven’t stolen anything—I don’t get it!” She panted for breath, standing next to him against the wall.

  “Trust me. You’ve got something they want. The state of your house proves it.” Cole remained vigilant, examining the street in both directions. Headlights alerted him to a slowly cruising car, and he pulled back enough to see, but not be seen. The sedan, this one metallic gold in color, inched down the middle of the road. Cole couldn’t see inside the vehicle thanks to darkly tinted windows, but the speed of the car—a snail’s pace—indicated they were searching for something.

  For Madalina.

  For him, too, now that he’d aligned himself with her.

  “What is it?” she asked, pressing against his arm.

  “They’re actively looking for you. Haven’t seen anyone on foot, but I’d bet my next paycheck the men in that car are the same ones—or of the same group—who ransacked your house.” Cole watched the car until it disappeared out of sight. He couldn’t see the corner of the street from here, only two houses or so in each direction.

  “Do you think they know we’re nearby?”

  “It’s hard to say. They may think we’ve taken more shortcuts through other yards, trying to get farther away. Count on it, though. They’re actively looking. It’s going to be tricky to slip past their net.”

  “What can we do?”

  He glanced back. She sounded fretful, worried, her expression mirroring the emotions. Her eyes, so pale blue, were luminous in the diffused glow of light through the blinds. For a surprising moment, he wanted nothing more than to pull her in and give her shelter with his body. To wrap his arms around her, let her know it would be all right. He said, “Right this second, we’re staying put.”

  “But we can’t stay here forever.”

  “No, we can’t.”

  “How are we going to get your car back witho
ut them seeing us? They’ll probably be watching, knowing you’ll return for it at some point.”

  Cole grunted. Yes, someone would be watching the Jag the whole time. Suddenly, he had an idea. Pulling out his phone, he dialed 911.

  “Yes. I’d like to report a break-in.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Madalina didn’t want to leave the For Sale house. She balked at the back door, suddenly terrified to step outside. Even though she knew they couldn’t remain there, exposing herself to the elements, to the men in the car, was almost more than she could handle.

  Standing on the awning-covered back porch, Cole tugged gently on her hand. She met his eyes, then scanned the yard for the fifth time.

  “The police are probably already on your street. We need to be there when they are, because the Chinese agents won’t dare do anything with the cops on the scene. We can leave a report, then take my car and get out of here,” he said.

  “I know, I know.”

  “Remember, don’t tell them about the incident on the freeway.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t want to have to explain why I shot at the car. Stick to the basic details. We don’t know what happened to your house or who might have trashed it.”

  “But don’t I want them involved? Won’t they protect me?” Madalina rubbed her forehead. She finally allowed Cole to coax her onto the porch and around the side of the house to the street. She wasn’t a jogger by nature, but she didn’t protest when he drew her into a slow trot down the sidewalk. Her body ached from tangling with the fence and the hard landing on the other side. In that particular moment, though, she ignored the pain in favor of staying one step ahead of their adversaries.

  “Look, Madalina. Let me give you a hypothetical. Let’s say you tell the police everything. There’s a good chance they’ll take me in for questioning after they discover that I shot at a car full of people. Even if I’m gone for a few hours, that leaves you exposed and vulnerable. The agents will probably make an extreme effort to get their hands on you while you’re unprotected, and I won’t be able to do anything about it. Once the agents find out we’ve brought the police into it, they’ll start looking for any kind of leverage to use against the chief, which might have a trickle-down effect. Right this second, we have the advantage of surprise. Let’s not give the agents the ability to trump up fake charges against me or you, or to lean on the local police. We’ll have to give a statement, but let’s get in and out as quickly as possible.” He glanced sidelong, then scanned the street as they reached the corner.

  Madalina finally understood, or at least accepted, Cole’s version of what-ifs. She said, “All right. Okay. So, we just came home from Vegas—how do I explain you?”

  “Tell them I’m your boyfriend. We’ve been dating for three months.”

  “Where did we meet?”

  “I came into your store—”

  “We sell clothing and accessories for women.”

  “I was buying for a coworker? They don’t need to know what I was doing there to begin with.”

  “But you don’t live here.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  Madalina puffed through another few breaths as they turned another corner onto her street. Tension tightened her shoulders. The agents could be anywhere. “I guess it doesn’t matter. Okay, so you’re my boyfriend, and we met at my work. We’ve been going out for three months. We came home and found my house a wreck.”

  “Right.”

  Ahead, Madalina saw a police cruiser pull in behind Cole’s Jaguar.

  Cole slowed to a walk in front of the house before her own. Grateful to slow down, winded from the jog, she went over the details one more time in her mind.

  “Hello, Officer. I’m Cole, the one who called,” Cole said to the two officers. The cops had their flashlights drawn. Both were men, one in his late thirties, with dark hair, the other younger by a decade. The younger officer’s pale complexion, which all but glowed in the night, was offset by blond lashes, red-tinged brows, and a hint of auburn hair under his hat.

  “Hello, sir,” the older cop replied.

  Madalina didn’t miss the perplexed looks on their faces and realized they probably wondered what she and Cole were doing jogging up the street.

  “We waited down the street. She was too afraid to stay here until you arrived,” Cole said, smooth as butter.

  The officers nodded and glanced at Madalina. “This is your house?” one asked.

  “Yes. It’s . . . it’s a mess.”

  “All right. Let’s take a look. Wait out here, please. We’ll have some questions when we’re done.” The officer spoke into the radio attached to his uniform. Another patrol car pulled up, and two more officers got out.

  Madalina scanned the street, then greeted the cops as she’d done with the others.

  “Okay, so tell us what happened.” A female officer, blonde hair scraped back into a tight bun, pulled out a pad and a pen.

  “We were just returning from a short getaway. Cole stepped into the house and . . . discovered someone had broken in. We went to wait at the end of the street, afraid the thieves would come back.” Madalina couldn’t help but cast looks over her shoulder, despite the presence of the cops. She felt safer, by far, but was too paranoid now to not perpetually check her surroundings.

  “Do you have any idea who might have done it?” the female cop asked.

  “No. Not a clue.”

  “Did you notice anything stolen?”

  “It’s . . .” Madalina paused to swallow. She found it difficult to reply. Cole, whose warm hand still enveloped her own, came to her rescue.

  “It’s more than a break-in, Officer. They decimated the place.”

  “Ransacked it?”

  “Yes. Broke dishes, punched holes in the bedroom walls and the closet, ripped into cushions, that kind of thing.”

  Madalina rubbed her forehead again, as if that might reduce the sting of tears. Or the growing headache behind her eyes.

  “Do you have any idea why someone would want to do that, Miss . . .”

  “Maitland. My name is Madalina Maitland. And no, I don’t know why it happened. As far as I can tell, I haven’t upset anyone, I don’t owe anyone money, and I haven’t had a bad experience with customers or other owners of businesses near mine.”

  “What type of business do you have?”

  “A women’s clothing boutique in town. We’ve never had any trouble.”

  “You say we—do you have a manager or a co-owner?” the female cop asked.

  “I do. She’s my best friend, Lianne. We haven’t had a falling-out or anything,” Madalina said.

  “Do you know if she has had a run-in with anyone regarding your business? Someone who might be targeting her, but targeting you, too, simply because you’re in business together?”

  Madalina hadn’t thought of that. “Honestly, I don’t know. I haven’t heard Lianne say anything. She’s not the sort to start trouble. I’ll call her in the morning and ask.”

  The other two officers exited the house, flashing their lights over the yard.

  “Yeah, it’s really bad. There isn’t anything left in one piece in the whole place,” one officer reported.

  The female cop said, “Let’s go over it again, Miss Maitland.”

  Madalina was relieved to climb into the Jaguar with Cole. The questioning had taken more than an hour—an hour of tension and looking over her shoulder and fretting that it was taking too long to leave. The Chinese agents were going to show up, she just knew it, and all of it would be for naught.

  “You did great,” Cole said, sliding into the front seat. He started the car and drove away, minding his speed with the cops still parked in front of the house, but also wasting no time. He checked the mirrors often.

  “Thanks. I have no idea w
hat to do now.” It was early, perhaps four in the morning, and she felt gritty-eyed and exhausted. She didn’t know what to expect at any given turn, where the threat would pop up next. Cole, taking the opportunity of evading the assailants seriously, performed several maneuvers with the car to aid in ditching a tail. He sped into turns, cut it close at the stoplights, and veered into an alley at the last minute.

  “Why don’t we hit a hotel? If I’m confident that we’re not being followed, we can rent a room and get some sleep. You don’t have to go to work, right?” he asked.

  “No. I’m supposed to be in Vegas for another few days. Lianne won’t expect me back for a while.” She checked her side mirror often. As tired as she was, she wouldn’t let her guard down until she was positive they were safe. And she surely wasn’t so tired that she misunderstood Cole’s singular use of room. Not plural. Maybe he thought it was safer to stay together, just in case the agents somehow discovered their location. And it made sense, from a defense point of view.

  “There’s a hotel about a quarter mile down on the right,” she said, indicating the street he’d just turned onto. “Do you think they’ll expect us to do that and check the parking lots for your car?”

  “I think they’ll expect us to get farther away from the house than that. I haven’t seen a tail at all yet, so we should be safe enough.” Cole pulled into the Whittier Inn and parked next to a long SUV. “This should block the car from the street. It’ll help, anyway, if they do scan the lot.” He tucked his gun into the back of his jeans and covered it with the thick material of his shirt.

  “Good thinking.” Madalina disembarked and met Cole at the back of the car. Strangely, she missed the connection of their hands. She’d drawn comfort from it while they’d been on the run.