Chapter 262
983 Words
Dallas sighed and turned off the shower. Goddamn, he’d only been in this hotel for two nights and he was already sick of it. Not that there was a single thing wrong with the hotel. No, it was nice; really nice. But he wanted to be with Olivia.
He thought about their approaching wedding day, felt the now-familiar wave of happiness wash over him. If anyone had asked him a year ago if he’d ever get married, he’d have rolled his hard blue eyes and scoffed. No way Dallas Foreman, happy-go-lucky womanizer, was settling down. Nuh-uh and no thanks.
But Olivia had changed all of that. Her beauty was astounding, of course, but it was the least-important of her qualities, as far as he was concerned. She blew him away with her bravery, her humor, her strength. She was compassionate and sweet and just so damn kind. The fact that this woman had given herself to him, that she trusted him after everything she’d been through, was a gift that he cherished. She was a gift.
And as always when he thought about how close he’d come to losing her, his heart tightened. To this day, Dallas woke up some nights, sweating and gasping from a recurring nightmare where he’d missed that shot. In some of the dreams, he killed Olivia instead of Greg Wallace; in others, he missed completely and Greg slit her throat where she stood.
To his enduring shame, Olivia almost always woke up too and held him close, reassuring him that she was there. He didn’t want her comforting him – not at all, that’s my f*****g job, to comfort her – but he did need her warmth and breath on him right after. He needed her. She was everything and as long as he had her, Dallas could survive anything.
He’d just pulled on his t-shirt when his burner phone rang. He glanced at the number, answered.
“Hey, Sullivan. What’s up?”
“I got a call on the burner cell this morning.”
Suddenly, Dallas was totally alert. “Go.”
“The guy said that they’d send a car to get us tomorrow and take us to the kids.”
“OK, whoa. Hold up.” Dallas ran a hand over the back of his neck, hating every single thing about this whole idea. “They want to come to the house where you’re staying?”
“Yes.” Sully was grim. “They also cover our eyes so we have no idea where we end up, and bring us back home the same way.”
“Holy f**k,” Dallas said softly. “I don’t like this at all.”
“I f*****g hate this,” Sully said. “I imagine that this is the point where lots of people back out, half-a-mil be damned.”
“I sure as hell would.”
“Well, we’re not going to.”
Dallas paused. “You've discussed this with Cordelia?”
“Of course.”
“And she wants to carry on? Even though from this point on, they’ll know where you live?”
“Yes.”
Dallas sucked in a deep breath. “I don’t know, man. What if they blindfold you, drive you out to the middle of some goddamn field, and blow your heads off?”
“That’s why we’re going to have to figure out some way for you to keep track of us.”
“I imagine they take your phones?”
“Yeah. No phones, no bags, they check us for wires and weapons.”
“OK.” Dallas stared out the window. “I think it’s time to make use of some of the stuff King left with me.”
Sully paused; he knew that Matt Kingston’s team had some super-covert s**t in their arsenal. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. I need to meet you today. Right now.”
“OK. Where?”
“Can you come to my hotel?”
“Sure thing. Gimme thirty minutes.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
****
Sully stared at the square of wax paper in his palm. “What the hell is it, Foreman?”
“A bio-agent tag.”
“A what?”
Dallas pointed to the tiny sliver of fabric stuck to the paper. “This here? This is the tracker. You peel it off the paper and stick it to your body. It’s so small, it’s absolutely impossible to see. And bonus? It actually starts to eat itself as soon as it hits skin.”
“So it’ll destroy itself over time? Eliminate all the evidence that it was ever there?”
“Yep.”
“How much time?”
“King said around fourteen hours, maybe a bit more. Depends on body temperature – sweat’ll speed up the destruction process.”
“And how do you follow us once we have these on?”
“It’s essentially a GPS, so I track you with my laptop. I’ll see exactly where y’all are so long as those tags are still live. I’ll stay close… within five miles, so long as I don’t give myself away.”
“OK.” Sully breathed out hard. “So we stick these on tomorrow morning before they come to get us, and you keep eyes on us.”
“I think that’s the best we can do.” Dallas stared at his man, took in the strain around his mouth, the clench in his jaw. “You good?”
“Sure.”
“Bullshit. What’s on your mind?”
“Besides the obvious?”
“Yeah. Besides that.”
Sully looked away from his boss’ intelligent gaze. “It’s – it’s Cordelia.”
“Uh-huh.” Dallas had been waiting for something like this. Christ, would these two get it together already? “What about her? Like, specifically?”
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