Rogue Delivery

Chapter 2

Lyndon grabbed the man by the arm and yanked him back before he’d really thought about what he was doing. He was surprised when he did it, and he was more surprised it worked—but then, the man was probably off balance and certainly he wasn’t thinking straight. A moment later Lyndon had shoved him away from the door and was weighing his options—stay here and see what screwed up s**t happened next, or drive off with specimens he had no authority to take.

He got in the courier vehicle. He was too tired for this s**t. He’d figure some explanation out on the way back. It was better than being shot anyway, and right now the security guard was coming out of the building, hand moving toward the gun at his side. Whatever the f**k this was, Lyndon wanted nothing to do with it.

He shifted into reverse, the man in the tie suddenly in the passenger seat and shutting the door.

“I have a pass that’ll get us out the back gate,” he said, buckling the seat belt.

Lyndon backed up, not wanting to drive this man anywhere, but the guard was approaching, one hand up to motion Lyndon to stop, the other resting on his gun. Lyndon was too tired to think of anything but that he really didn’t want to get shot. He didn’t trust anyone in authority, and if it was between this guard at a creepy-ass mystery facility or some nervous nerd, he’d go with the nerd. He could drop the man off with the containers.

Lyndon put the van in drive and angled away from the security guard, who sped his pace to follow, then started running.

“To the right,” said the man in the passenger seat, pointing.

Lyndon sped up, seeing the security guard stop running after them to plant and draw his weapon. Lyndon weaved to the side, but the guard didn’t shoot. Lyndon sucked in a breath, watching him run back to the guard building.

“Oh, s**t,” said the man in the passenger seat, watching the same thing in the sideview mirror. “Speed up. If we don’t make it through the gate before he warns everybody…”

Lyndon got the picture. Whatever this place was, there weren’t many people in yet at this hour of the morning, and he cut across two more near-empty parking lots before finding the gate the passenger directed him to. Lyndon stopped, not sure what to do, but the man got out, crossed in front of the courier van, and flashed a lanyard I.D. at the guard, motioning and talking.

The bar went up. Lyndon considered taking off without the man, eased his foot off the brake, then pressed it back down again as the man turned back to him. Whatever was going on, he didn’t feel he could just leave this asshole to get shot or anything like that. He waited until the man was back in the passenger seat, then pulled out and onto the road.

“You want to go right up ahead.”

“Is that toward Peoria?” asked Lyndon. He heard how pissed he sounded, but didn’t much care at the moment, even when the man flinched. Let him be uncomfortable. Not like Lyndon asked for any of this strange s**t to happen.

“Well, no…”

Lyndon turned left.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m taking you to the drop point, where you can explain to the hospital lab why you have unlabeled containers and no paperwork.”

“That’s not—we can’t—”

Lyndon glared at the road before them, stretching between the corn. It was tall this year.

“We can’t what? I was supposed to pick up specimens here and take them in. That’s it. No we, no weird-ass s**t, just a normal delivery. I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but you can handle it on your own, ‘cause I’m not getting involved.”

“We can’t take the—containers—to the hospital lab,” said the man. He sounded lost. He sounded like he was choosing his words carefully. “They’ll know that’s where I was going. They’ll be waiting.”

“What did you steal?” asked Lyndon, the first thing that came to his mind, then immediately took it back. He still didn’t want to get involved. “No, don’t tell me. It’s probably something you can sell to raise money for your mother’s cancer treatment or something. I don’t want to end up being the asshole here.”

“It’s nothing like that.”

“So you didn’t take whatever’s back there without authorization.”

The man in the passenger seat said nothing. Lyndon was getting angrier. He didn’t know what to do and this man wasn’t helping at all, and worse, Lyndon actually thought he felt something for the guy, something like sympathy. The man seemed genuine enough, and he definitely hadn’t planned out what he’d just done. Might be a well-intentioned fool. Lyndon didn’t like the idea of turning him in or letting him fend for himself, but he also didn’t like that he was feeling sorry for the asshole.

“Turn us around,” said the man.

“You are not f*****g telling me what to do,” said Lyndon, bubbling over. He couldn’t handle this, not right now, not on low sleep and the worsening depression that had been slowly taking over his life otherwise. “Who the hell do you think you are? I’ve been out here driving around for over sixteen hours now, I should be in bed, not screwing around with some asshole in my van who stole a bunch of s**t from whatever the hell that place is. I’m f*****g tired. I’m dropping you off and I’m getting my ass to bed. So shut up and stop giving me orders.”

It wasn’t Lyndon’s brightest moment, it occurred to him as the silence fell. He was pretty sure he was driving a criminal around, and the man might snap if he thought Lyndon was going to take him somewhere he’d get turned in. But instead the man gripped his knees with his hands and lowered his voice.