Burned: Black Cipher Files #3 (Black Cipher Files series) (8 page)

“When was he in the patisserie?”

“He just left,” Madame responded smartly. “I told you that.”

“Car or on foot?”

“Weeelll, I sink on foot, but I could be wrong, we are very busy for an October
matin
.”

I shoved back the wrought iron chair and ran for the store.

I didn’t like this. Two people in one day, two
strangers
in one day asking about us. What were the odds?

Not good. Dammit. Not good.

“
Merci, Madame
,” I huffed into the phone as I ran.

Had I been wrong about Zeke Thorn? Had he been some sort of advance scout for
him
?

I slammed into the store. Blue appeared to be gone and Mama was dusting the shelves. I flipped the “Be Back in 5 Minutes” sign onto the Dutch door, closed the top half, and bolted the locks.

My breath came in great gasps, and my heart thundered in my chest, but my mind was calm, almost preternaturally so as I assessed our options and figured out which escape plan we needed to put into play.

Mama whirled, her eyes wide with alarm. “What are you doin’?”

“Code Red, Mama.”

She took a step back, away from me. “Now Sunny, I’m sure you’re mistaken.” But her arm trembled as she lay down the duster.

“At Madame’s.” I repeated the details as I shoved the minimal cash from the register into a Go Bag stashed beneath the sales desk. There wasn’t much, but I also had more stockpiled inside the bag and it would get us out of town fast.

“We need to go, now.”

As I moved around the store, I ticked off the seconds in my head.

“I...I’ll call Blue,” she said calmly.

“From the road.”

“Sunny, wait.”

I stopped at her sharp tone and gave her my full attention.

Mama stood in the doorway to the stockroom, twisting her hands, and her big moonstone ring sparkled when it caught the ray of the display light. “I think we should split up.”

“What?” I stopped moving. Stopped breathing. Splitting up was
never
one of the plans. We stuck together. Always.

“Call your friend Zeke and go with him. Zeke can protect you. I’m sure of it. And I’ll go with Blue.” Mama firmed her lips. “He wants me, we both know that. You need to stop running and get a life.”

Mama’s words stabbed at me with a near physical pain, as if she’d broken off a piece of glass display shelf and jammed it in my heart. “I have a life.”

“Half a life,” Mama said, her eyes sad, resigned. “All because of him. You deserve more.
I
deserve more. We need to end this.”

We didn’t have time to hash this out now. “Can we discuss this while we’re on the road?”

Mama shook her head and yelled, “Blue!”

Blue thundered down the stairs and burst into the public area of the shop.

“It’s happened.” Was all Mama said.

“Shit,” he whispered.

Another spear of pain. She’d told Blue. We weren’t supposed to tell anyone. Ever.

“The plan?” Blue asked.

“I think we should split up. You can protect me.” Mama straightened her shoulders and looked me straight in the eye. “He doesn’t want Sunshine.”

I watched as Blue grasped Mama’s hand gently. Her fingers appeared so delicate in the clasp of his larger, protective hold.

Blue shifted his gaze to me, full of concern. “You going to be okay?”

“I’ll be fine,” I said softly. Not about to tell the truth. Even now I was protecting my mother.

“Let’s go.” Blue herded Mama toward the back door.

“Love you, Sunny.” Mama’s eyes crinkled with concern and maybe a touch of guilt. And she hesitated, as if maybe she was going to change her mind. It had always been me and Mama. But then Blue tugged on her arm. She gave me one last look. “Use our separation protocol and let me know where you are.”

“Go.” I shooed them away, even as inside my heart was breaking. “I’ll be fine.”

I lugged my escape bag to the store room in the back. “Love you too, Mama,” I whispered to the empty store. I inhaled slowly, taking in the familiar smells, the fragrant aroma of lavender, the comforting perfume of vanilla and lemon, and the crisp fresh scent of the ocean.

As I looked around the place that had been my home for the last nine years, I wondered if I would ever be back.

Hell yes, I vowed. I refused to let the bastard win.

I ignored our cute little Bug, and cranked the engine on our getaway car. An ancient blue Volvo, parked in the garage behind the store. We started it once a month and had it serviced once a year in another town. The car was registered to an old lady up in San Francisco. The floppy sun hat I’d tugged on slanted over my face. It wasn’t much of a disguise but it would work to get out of town.

I turned away from our home and toward Highway One. I’d head down to San Luis Obispo and enact our plan. Part of me, the woman who’d managed to disappear in plain sight and build a life and livelihood with my mother, wanted to confront the man who’d ruined my childhood. But the other part of me was still that scared little girl clutching her Lunette doll and running for her life.

I knew what part I wanted to triumph.

In the last few years, I’d let myself relax, convinced after all this time he couldn’t still be looking for us. Even though we stuck to the plan, I’d believed that he’d finally given up.

He shouldn’t still be looking. It had been thirteen damn years.

And yet he was.

Obsession, or something else? As I pressed on the accelerator I wondered why he’d kept searching all this time. And even more importantly, how did he find us? Why now?

I would need to trace everything, trace him, track our movements and figure out how the hell he found us after all this time hiding in California, laying low. We’d completely submerged our identities, hidden away, hidden our assets, hidden our very existence behind a corporate shell in another state. Besides the legal precautions, I’d hidden myself, denied myself the education I’d always wanted, to keep us safe. So how the hell had he found us?

Eleven

Zeke slipped his phone into the zippered pocket in the lower back of his compression tank top and jogged down the center of town. Traffic had picked up in the last hour. More people wandered the picturesque sidewalks, meandering in and out of stores, and stopping indiscriminately to peer in shop windows. A lot of couples held hands, and snuggled together against the crisp October morning.

Up ahead, an older model Ford F150 with a Semper Fidelis sticker in the back window turned down the street toward his hotel and Blue’s bar. Sunshine’s mother was visible in the passenger seat.

That was a little surprising.

Zeke continued to jog, picking up his pace as possibilities and patterns filtered through his brain, and his mind searched for a reasonable explanation for why her mother wouldn’t be at the store.

He realized that Sunshine had never really explained why she’d been upset when he’d burst into the shop. They’d gotten sidetracked by the kiss.

That amazing, shouldn’t happen again, kiss.

Zeke followed the truck to the front of the bar where Blue normally parked. He’d noted the cars in the lot when he’d arrived yesterday. Except Blue didn’t park in his regular spot in front, he drove around to the back which butted up to a steep hill sprinkled liberally with towering eucalyptus trees.

Zeke jogged closer, and heard the slam of the screen door leading to the delivery entrance in the back of the bar. The only other things in back were the dumpster and a little alcove where the hardcore smokers went to light up.

Blue’s behavior triggered an alert, as if Zeke’s packet sniffer program, which looked for incursions into a secure system, had been activated.

Something was going on. He’d already met them, interacted with them, so what could it hurt to get closer and see if he could figure out what the problem was.

They were going to tell him it was none of his business, he told himself even as he drew nearer.

Blue’s odd behavior likely had nothing to do with him or Susan Chen. Unless Sunshine was somehow in danger from Chen already. But how would Blue even know that? Zeke crept closer, trying to figure out a way to snoop without getting caught.

Sunshine’s mother sat in the front seat of the truck, her face set in stiff, stressed lines. As if she’d gotten really bad news and was trying to hold it together.

He wondered what was wrong. Suddenly he was overwhelmed with the urge to check on Sunshine. Blue shoved out the back door, an army green duffel in one meaty fist. He tossed the duffel into the back of the truck then swung into the driver’s seat. Blue gunned the engine, the loud revving disturbed the quiet morning air.

Zeke crossed the street and headed toward his motel, more convinced than ever that something was really wrong. He couldn’t help but glance back as he heard the truck screech to a stop behind him. Shit, hopefully they hadn’t seen him lurking.

The passenger window whirred down and Sunshine’s mother stuck her head out. “Did Sunny call you?”

Everything within Zeke slowed, sounds and scents became clearer. A breeze swept through the little side street, the scuttle of leaves was unnaturally loud, and the rumble of the truck’s engine seemed to vibrate through his chest, even as the scent of exhaust filled his nose and roiled his stomach.

Sunshine would have no reason to contact him. “Uh, I don’t know,” he lied. Because of course his phone would have beeped if he’d had another call while he had been talking to Jamie. “I’ve been on my phone,” he finished lamely.

“Blue!” Sunshine’s mother cried. “She’s so damn independent.”

Blue Harrison aimed a hard look at him. “What’s your true connection to Sunshine?”

Time stopped. Zeke’s heartbeat thundered, blood rushed through his ears, which should have dimmed his hearing but instead his senses seemed unnaturally heightened.

He thought about the threat Jamie had articulated. He would not let anything happen to Sunshine. Impossibly she had become important. More important than his cover.

His muscles hardened, he clenched his jaw, knowing that his next sentence was critical. Something was wrong. Sunshine’s mother was hoping that she had contacted him. If they knew he’d just met Sunshine last night, his game was up. And he would have no way to help her.

“I won’t let anything happen to her,” Zeke said fiercely. “I want to help her.”

Blue and Stella exchanged a loaded look as if they knew something he didn’t. But then Blue turned back to Zeke and nodded. “Good. She needs your help.”

He didn’t care about the look as long as they told him where she was. “Is she at the store?”

“She should be gone by now.”

Gone? Fear stabbed his chest, his pulse picked up. “Where?”

“I know what our plan was....” Her mother trailed off. “But we’ve broken the original plan.”

She looked at Blue again, anguish in her gaze. “Maybe I should have gone with her. I should have never left her alone.”

“I can take care of you better,” Blue said firmly, emphatically. “But Sunshine could use some extra protection.”

Protection?

“Where is she?” Zeke struggled to keep his voice even. He couldn’t let them see, couldn’t give away his worry, fear.

“San Luis,” her mother said quickly. “She’s on her way to San Luis Obispo.”

“Where in San Luis?”

“Don’t know yet,” her mother replied. “Our first step is to get rid of our existing cells and activate new ones in case he’s tracking us somehow through GPS. Then, once we arrive we arrange to meet.”

He, who? Shit. Another threat. “How do you know where to meet?”

“You need to call this number, 555-2703.” Then she rattled off the access password code. “It’s an answering service. If we’re separated, whoever gets to a rendezvous point first is supposed to call and let the other know where they are.”

Zeke thought about protocol. About the fact that he wasn’t supposed to have contact with Sunshine. But he wanted to protect her. “Are
you
going to San Luis?”

An overwhelming need to make sure Sunshine was okay multiplied like a virus through a compromised, vulnerable system.

Blue placed his large hand over Stella Smith’s. “No.”

No? But—

“The less you know, the better off everyone is,” Blue said.

“Will you help Sunny?” Her mother pleaded, persuading him that he needed throw his caution to the wind and go now. Her anxiety for her daughter stimulated a biological imperative to protect. To shield.

Zeke looked at Mrs. Smith. She was trembling, her fear palpable in the cab of the truck. Blue appeared ready for combat, ‘Always Faithful’, and able to commit mayhem to protect the innocent.

Zeke contemplated the two of them, thinking about the immediate bond he’d felt with Sunshine. As if he’d known her for years instead of just a few hours.

“Poor Sunny.” Her mother’s eyes glittered with unshed tears. “Another birthday ruined.”

“It’s her birthday?” Zeke rubbed a hand through his curls.

“Tomorrow.”

Zeke went under for the third time and hoped the riptide didn’t kill him. But he couldn’t leave Sunshine alone.

He had the training. He’d just never applied himself. It was about damn time he did, he thought grimly. “I’ll look out for her.”

“Thank you.” Gratitude shone from Stella’s gaze, lighting her whole face.

“Solid.” Blue nodded his respect. “Go now.”

Their truck sped away. Zeke hustled to his hotel room, changed quickly, then gathered his bag and left. As he squealed out of the parking lot in his rental Range Rover, Zeke hoped like hell he could keep her safe.

Twelve

October 20

1:00 pm

San Luis Obispo, CA

Zeke hauled ass and got to San Luis in about thirty minutes. The traffic on Highway One had been dense. His tension rose with each excruciating minute in the car with nothing to think about other than what kind of danger Sunshine could possibly be in.

Once in San Luis, he found an impersonal chain motel tucked behind a Safeway and strip mall and checked in so he’d have someplace to bring Sunshine when he found her.

Impatiently he checked the message center about every five minutes. While on the phone, he set up his laptop and jumped on the system. He needed to figure out who was after these women.