Armoured Attraction. Janie Crouch

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СКАЧАТЬ drag, and that was about it. There was also Highway 12 that ran parallel to 158, but it was a two-lane and much slower. All Liam could do was take the back roads and cut-throughs that he remembered from his youth.

      This wasn’t his first time trying to get away from the Outer Banks police without calling attention to himself.

      Vanessa and Karine kept crouched in the backseat so it would look as if Liam was driving alone. If they did happen to pass anyone studying the drivers of vehicles, they wouldn’t be looking for him.

      “Do you think anyone is following us?” Vanessa asked after a few minutes.

      “No, I think we got out in time.” If someone was following them, he’d know it by now. The winding route he’d taken over the past mile would’ve made it obvious.

      “What about my car?”

      “I think it’s better to leave it there. Maybe it will buy us a few hours’ time if they think we’re still in the room. This car wasn’t parked near you, so hopefully Officer Atwood didn’t notice.”

      “Okay. What are we going to do? I’m sure they’re still searching cars, right? We can’t make it off the islands.”

      “No leave, Miss Vanessa,” Karine said. “Must help other girls. Must.”

      The girl didn’t know a lot of English, but she knew what she wanted.

      “It’s okay, Karine.” He glanced back at them in the rearview mirror. “We’re not leaving. We want to help them, too.”

      “Can you call your DEA contacts in, Liam?” Vanessa asked. “Or the FBI or whoever handles cases like this? Obviously we don’t know who we can trust with the local police.”

      “I’m not actually with the DEA anymore. Haven’t been for the past five years.”

      “But I left a message for you with the DEA. How did you get it if you don’t work there?”

      He glanced at her again. Confusion was evident on her face.

      “I now work for an interagency task force called Omega Sector, in their Critical Response Division. I’m head of the hostage rescue team.”

      He watched as her eyes widened and her mouth fell open before turning his gaze back to the road.

      “Sounds like you’re pretty qualified to handle what’s going on here, then. You have people you can call in? People with big guns who can shoot the bastards responsible for this?”

      Liam rolled his eyes. “Generally we arrest the bad guys unless they shoot at us first, but, yes, I can get a whole team here.”

      “Then why haven’t you done that yet? Those girls are somewhere out there, trapped. Hurt and desperate.”

      He glanced in the mirror again and saw Karine’s face growing paler. He caught Vanessa’s eye and gestured with his head toward Karine. Vanessa looked down at the girl and immediately slipped an arm around her.

      “I’m sorry, sweetie. I shouldn’t have said that.”

      “It’s okay,” Karine whispered. “They need help.”

      “And we will help them. We’ll get Liam’s friends here—people who help others all the time—and we’ll get the other girls out.”

      Liam caught Vanessa’s eye in the rearview mirror again. “We’ll talk specifics later.”

      She nodded, tugging Karine closer.

      “Where are we going right now?” Vanessa asked.

      “We’ve got to get off the streets. Once they figure out we’re not in the hotel, they’ll start searching again. I’m going to take you somewhere not related to you at all.”

      “Another hotel?”

      “No, that will always leave witnesses. A house.”

      She shook her head. “A friend’s? Are you positive you can trust the person?”

      “No. My grandmother’s house. I still own it.”

      That silenced her.

      He had a cleaning service come in once a month to clean, keep it in shape and take care of any repairs. He even paid for power and water each month, which wasn’t much because it was so small.

      After his grandmother died, he hadn’t been able to sell it. He had said it was because she’d been his last living relative—the only roots he’d ever had—and he didn’t want to part with it if he didn’t have to. But he couldn’t deny the other part of that truth now.

      He’d kept the house because it was the first place he and Vanessa had made love.

       Chapter Six

      An hour later they were safely tucked away in Liam’s grandmother’s house. His house now.

      They had stopped briefly at a grocery store, Vanessa and Karine tucked low in the backseat as Liam ran in. They had agreed it was better to go to the store now to get what they needed so they were prepared for as long as possible.

      In the house of a million memories.

      But Vanessa would accept living with the memories, as painful as some were, if it meant they were safe. If it meant Karine could get some real food and the real rest that she needed. If it meant they could figure out where the other girls were being held and do something about it.

      She still didn’t understand why Liam hadn’t just called in the SWAT cavalry or whatever. But he had been right; they didn’t need to talk about those details in front of Karine.

      Liam had come back to the SUV in less than fifteen minutes. He hadn’t said anything as he opened the hatchback and put the grocery bags inside. Hadn’t hurried around to the driver’s side. Hadn’t done anything that would call attention to himself.

      He was good, Vanessa could definitely see that.

      He hadn’t talked until he was pulling out of the parking lot.

      “You girls okay?” he asked.

      “Yes. Any problems?”

      “Nope. Got food and even a couple T-shirts and sweatpants. I had to get four different sizes, so I explained it was for my family while we’re visiting.”

      “Because you buying a size extra-small pants and shirt might have been memorable.”

      “Exactly. All the cloak-and-dagger was probably unnecessary, but always better to be safe.”

      He was good. He’d thought of details Vanessa probably would’ve missed.

      The drive to his grandmother’s house—his house—took about twenty minutes. They had gone to a grocery store on the opposite side of Nags Head just in СКАЧАТЬ