Running Wilde (11 page)

…

She was gone.

Vaughn stood in the bathroom doorway, a towel wrapped around his hips, and stared at the empty room, the rumple
d bed. For a hopeful second, he wondered if she’d gone to the vending machines for something to eat—but, fuck, he knew her better than that. She’d run again. There was no doubt in his mind.

He’d had a feeling she would, and although he hadn’t wanted to be right, he’d mentally prepared himself for this.

Because, this time, he was done chasing her.

She wouldn’t tell him who she was, wouldn’t let him help solve her problems. He didn’t even know her real name. It was like chasing a ghost, and he couldn’t keep doing it or he’d drive himself insane.

Over on the nightstand, his phone let out a chime indicating an incoming message. Numb, he walked over and picked it up, saw the text from his twin. Instead of returning the text, he decided to call.

Cam answered halfway through the first ring. “Where the hell are you?”

Vaughn sank to the bed and stretched out. The scent of Sage and sex folded around him. Like he needed the reminder of how fucking good she’d felt. He sat up again and winced as pain stabbed through his side. “Uh, it’s a small town about two hours from Atlanta.”

“With Lark?”

“Sage,” he corrected. “She goes by Sage now. And no. She took off again.”

Cam exhaled slowly. “Don’t tell me you’re gonna keep chasing her.”

“No, I’m not. I’m done. You were right. This…obsession I’ve had with finding her is ridiculous. I’m coming home.”

The declaration got a whole lot of radio silence from his twin. It stretched too long, edged into uncomfortable territory. Just as he was about to open his mouth and say something—anything—to break the silence, Cam finally spoke again.

“You okay?” he asked.

Not even close.
Every muscle in Vaughn’s body ached, and he was pretty sure a cracked rib accounted for the shooting pain in his side every time he moved. On top of that, there was now a hollow ache in the center of his chest that hadn’t been there before. “Yeah. Uh, I’m good.”

“You’re lying,” Cam said without a shred of doubt in his voice. “I’ve been uneasy, restless all night. You’re injured, aren’t you?”

Damn. “You know, sometimes being a twin sucks.”

“Tell me about it. Especially when your twin is a suicidal maniac, but you wouldn’t know anything about that because I’m the sane one. What did you do now?”

Vaughn winced. “I’m not suicidal. I was just…in a car accident last night.”

The reaction was about like he expected. Cam exploded with a heartfelt, “Jesus Christ, Vaughn!”

“What’s wrong?” Eva said in the background. “Is he okay?”

Cam’s voice faded away from the receiver. “He was in an accident. Here, talk to him. I need to check flights to Atlanta.”

Eva came on the line. “Dammit, Vaughn.” Those two words were her constant refrain when dealing with him, and despite everything, they made him grin.

“Hey, Eva. Tell your husband I’m okay. Just banged up. He doesn’t need to—”

“You know he does,” she interrupted. “You’re hurting.”

“What? You married Cam so you suddenly have his twin radar?”

“No,” she said gently, which made him realize how snappish he’d gotten, and he mentally kicked himself. She added, “I can hear it in your voice.”

“I’m fine.”

“Uh-huh.” There was a pause. She lowered her voice: “He barely slept last night, Vaughn. He’s going to make himself sick worrying about you.”

Guilt tightened his throat. “He doesn’t need to worry about me.”

“You know he can’t help it. It’s in his nature.”

“Yeah, he’s always been the better of the two of us. I’m the evil twin, right?”

Eva laughed. “Hey, I was drunk and mad at you for being a cock-block when I called you that. Besides, it’s not true. You’re the…moody twin.”

He snorted. “I think I’d rather be evil.”

“You would.” Another short pause. “Can you go to an ER and get yourself checked out? Please. If not for yourself, then at least do it to make Cam feel better.”

Direct hit. She knew right where to aim. And hell, he could do with something to take the edge off the pain. “All right. I’ll find the nearest hospital.”

“Good. Let us know where it is, and Cam will meet you there.”

Chapter Thirteen

According to the motel’s night manager, there was a hospital in a small city about a half hour away, and the guy was kind enough to offer Vaughn a lift. He checked himself in
at the ER registration and told the surprised lady behind the desk he might have a cracked rib.

“Aren’t you in pain?” she asked.

“Yeah, a bit.”

She looked like she didn’t believe him, but he wasn’t going to waste time explaining his legendary pain tolerance. He’d always had a high threshold—which his parents found out the hard way when he was four and broke his arm falling out of a tree. He’d been afraid of getting in trouble for climbing and didn’t tell them about it until his mother was getting him and Cam ready for their baths that night. The SEALs had only hardened him more. He’d completed grueling missions with everything from concussions to broken bones.

The lady behind the desk eyed him suspiciously as she handed him a ream of paperwork to fill out. She probably thought he was a drug seeker with phantom complaints, but whatever. He settled into a chair in the waiting area with the clipboard and took his time filling it all out. Since he was up, moving around, and didn’t seem to be in as much pain as he should be, they weren’t going to give him top priority, and he figured he was in for a long wait. Cam would probably even arrive before he saw a doctor.

Outside, an ambulance screeched to halt in front of the ER, and he glanced out the window. Paramedics hustled to unload a stretcher and—

Sage.

A cold hand clamped around Vaughn’s chest. He only caught a glimpse, but he saw a flash of blonde hair and recognized the shirt she was wearing.

Blood stained everything.

He bolted to his feet, met the stretcher at the door, and followed it into the emergency room. There were too many people surrounding her, and he couldn’t get close enough. “What happened to her?”

“Sir.” A police officer stepped in front of him, blocking his path. “Do you know this woman?”

The monitor hooked to Sage flatlined, and for a moment, Vaughn thought his heart stopped beating, too. He lunged past the cop and was caught by two paramedics as a doctor and several nurses took over in an attempt to save her life right there in the hallway. He watched with a growing sense of horror as the seconds ticked by into long minutes and the monitor continued its flat tone.

C’mon, Sage. Fight. I know you can fight. You’re a survivor.

They shocked her three times, continued CPR for nearly twenty minutes. Still no response.

Eventually the doctor working on her shook his head and stepped back. “She’s gone. I’m calling it. Time of death—”

“No!” The word ripped from Vaughn’s throat, a wail that was more animal than human, and the doctor looked in his direction, then nodded at the paramedics.

“Let him go.”

The hands holding him back eased up, and he staggered forward, his legs suddenly numb. All he saw were two bullet wounds that had ripped holes into her chest and his Navy T-shirt underneath her, shredded by a paramedic’s scissors and soaked with her blood.

You’re signing my death certificate.

“Sage.” He gripped her lifeless hand, and his vision blurred as he pushed hair back from her face…

It wasn’t her.

The shock of relief left him lightheaded. For several moments, he forgot how to breathe, and he only remembered to do so because he realized he was about to faint. Finally, he got his lungs cooperating again and exhaled hard, stepped back. “It’s not her.” He scrubbed his hands over his face, looked at the doctor, then the cop. “Thank Christ. It’s not her.”

The cop’s eyes narrowed. The doctor murmured to the nurses, who covered the woman’s body with a sheet. As the stretcher was wheeled away, Vaughn had a moment of panic.

What if he was wrong? What if that was Sage and he—

He needed to see her again. Just to make sure.

He ran after the nurses and tugged the sheet down, stared hard at the dead woman’s face, forcing himself to take note of every detail. This woman was thinner, more angular, with sharp cheekbones and a pointed chin. She had heavy bags under her eyes, and her complexion was mottled with acne scars. Needle tracks bruised the insides of both arms.

It absolutely wasn’t Sage.

The doctor set a hand on his shoulder. “Do you know her?”

“No.” He replaced the sheet over the woman and let a nurse wheel the stretcher into a waiting elevator. “I thought she was…” He hesitated, unsure what to call Sage, then settled on the easiest explanation. “Uh, I thought she was my girlfriend.”

“Why?” the cop asked.

“She’s, uh, wearing the clothes I last saw Sage in. That Navy shirt is mine.”

“But that woman is not your girlfriend? Sage?”

“No.”

“When was the last time you saw Sage?”

“This morning at the motel we’re staying at.”

“What motel?”

“I don’t actually know. Something like…Old Pines Inn? It’s a good thirty-minute drive from here.”

“Uh-huh. And does Sage have a last name?”

The shock and horror finally faded, and it dawned on Vaughn that he was talking to a cop, the absolute last person Sage would want him speaking with about her. “I was mistaken. I’m rattled.”

“You don’t look like the type to get rattled,” the cop said.

He scowled. “I’ve had a hell of a night, Officer…” He glanced at the guy’s nameplate. “Kelly. And I just watched a woman I thought was my girlfriend die in front of me. I’m allowed to be rattled.”

Kelly was unfazed by the dryness in his tone. “Yes, I suppose so. How about your name?”

“Vaughn Wilde.” He didn’t see the harm in giving his real name. In fact, it might even help him since the cop was most definitely now eyeing him and Sage for this murder. He certainly had nothing to do with it, and he had an alibi. Sage…well, she may have done a lot of illegal things, but she didn’t have cold-blooded murder in her. He reached for his wallet, found his PI license. “I’m a private investigator from DC.”

“Uh-huh,” Kelly said again and studied the license without much interest. “What are you doing down here?”

“Just a vacation. We’re driving back to DC from New Orleans.”

“How’d you end up in the ER waiting room? You look like you’ve been in a fight.”

“We were in a car accident yesterday. I swerved to miss a deer, and our car went into a ditch. I came in this morning to get checked out because I think I cracked a rib.” He directed that toward the doctor, who nodded.

“We’ll get you in for an x-ray,” the doctor said.

Kelly handed his PI license back. “How did you get here from the motel if your car’s in a ditch?”

“The night manager drove me. His name is Jeff. Didn’t catch a last name.”

“So you left your girlfriend behind at this Old Pines Inn?”

Shit. This wasn’t going well. He needed to get out of here and fast. “I need to go check on her. Seeing that woman, thinking it was her…I need to go.”

Kelly didn’t try to stop him, but he felt the guy’s eyes burning into his back as he walked away.

Outside, he stopped and drew a breath of the cool winter air, ignoring the pain in his ribs. Damn. Could this situation get any worse? No, on second thought, he didn’t want to know the answer to that question. He fumbled for his phone to call Reece.

“Hey,” Reece said after a handful of rings. “What’s going on? Cam said you were in some kind of accident, and he’s on his way to Atlanta—”

“I need your help,” Vaughn interrupted.

“Uh, sure. Anything.”

“I need to find Sage.”

“Are you fucking kidding me? She got away from you
again
?”

“Yeah, and you were right. She’s running from something. She’s in danger, and she’s scared. Hell, I’m scared for her. I just watched a woman who looked like her die of two GSWs to the chest. And this woman? She was wearing Sage’s clothes. I think Sage gave them away to create a decoy.”

Reece muttered a curse. “But now the decoy is dead, and it’s only a matter of time until whoever’s after her finds out they didn’t get the right woman.”

“Exactly. I need to know where this woman was shot, because I bet Sage is holed up nearby. The police are not going to cooperate with me on this. Pretty sure the first cop on the scene is eyeing
me
for the murder.”

Reece groaned. “You don’t just step in a pile of shit, do you? Oh, no. You jump in with both fucking feet.” He heaved a sigh. “Tell me where you are, and I’ll see if I can hack into the local PD’s computer system. And, Vaughn, I’m breaking all kinds of laws here, so she better be worth it.”

“She is.” No hesitation. Those two words were the most natural response ever because she was his match in every way—she was his Shelby, his Eva, his Libby. “Yeah,” he added more softly. “She’s worth it to me.”

“All right,” Reece said. “Give me a half hour.”

As Vaughn ended the call, he realized he was shaking with the after-burn of adrenaline and fear. He didn’t usually let himself react to fear. He’d conditioned it out of himself, but in the moments he’d thought Sage was dying on that stretcher…

Yeah. He’d never been more afraid of anything in his life.

He had to find her again.

…

Something had happened across the street.

Sage parted the blinds over the motel’s window and peeked out at the gas station parking lot where only hours ago, she’d given her clothes to a blonde homeless woman who was close to her size and build. Now
the lot was cordoned off with police tape, and the street was clogged with patrol cars.

She had a sinking feeling she knew what had happened, and if she was right, giving the woman her clothes had cost that woman her life. But—no. She wouldn’t think about it. Couldn’t. If she lost focus now, she’d end up just like the homeless woman.

She had to lie low for a few days. Thanks to a donation from Vaughn’s wallet, she had enough cash to stay in this motel for a week if need be, then she’d make her way to Atlanta. It wasn’t ideal, wasn’t where she’d hoped to land, but she’d make the best of it. Find a new name, a job, and in a couple of months, when she had enough money squirreled away, she’d head west again.

Alone.

Her heart twisted, and she dropped the blind, shook her head at herself for the stupid thought. Of course she’d be alone. She’d been alone all along. Vaughn was working for the very people who wanted her dead. He didn’t care about her.

God, that hurt.

Why did it hurt so bad?

She dashed away tears she didn’t want to cry and checked the time on the bedside alarm clock. Time to say good-bye to Sage Evans for good. Thanks to L’Oreal, the new her would have hair the color of rich mahogany after she rinsed the dye out in the shower. Once she settled in Atlanta, she planned to buy extensions to lengthen the short bob until her hair grew out again. Maybe she’d find herself some colored contacts to turn her blue eyes brown.

She’d fade into obscurity, disappear, and this time, she’d make sure Vaughn couldn’t find her.

God. Vaughn. What had she been thinking? She’d opened up to him. Come close to letting him see the real her. The part of her identity she couldn’t let anyone but herself see. How was she supposed to disappear if she wasn’t committed to staying invisible?

She checked that the door was locked and chained shut, then went into the bathroom and stripped off the sweatshirt and yoga pants she’d bought at the same drugstore where she’d found her new hair color. She started the shower, tested the water, and stepped under the spray. Water sluiced down her body, carrying away dye as red as blood and pooling in the tub around her feet. She shut her eyes—didn’t want to see it—and scrubbed at her scalp with the entire bottle of the motel’s complimentary shampoo.

It took a while to get all of the dye out of her hair, and the water started to run cool. She shut it off, climbed from the tub, but kept her back to the mirror until she had a towel wrapped around her head. She didn’t hurry to dry off, took her time because she wasn’t ready to face her new reflection yet.

This part of swapping identities always made her nervous. Not because she might screw up her hair—any mistakes she made could always be fixed—but because she never knew who would be staring back at her in the mirror when she got out of the shower. She was afraid that one of these times, she wouldn’t recognize the reflection, and then she’d have truly lost herself. She didn’t want that. Although she could never go back to the girl she used to be, she didn’t want to lose the core of herself, either.

Finally, she was dry and had no reason to put it off any longer. She faced the mirror, sucked in a deep breath and held it as she untwisted the towel from around her head.

She was…still her.

Maybe it was silly to always expect a stranger, but the relief at seeing herself was overwhelming and left her a little lightheaded. She let out a ragged sigh, gripped the edge of the sink, and blinked back tears.

How many more times would she have to do this? How many more times could she take? She barely remembered who she’d been before this all started, and every change was harder than the last. She was tired, but she couldn’t stop. The day she stopped running was the day she died.

She straightened and gazed at herself in the mirror again, speared her fingers through the damp spikes of her hair. The color was lighter than she wanted, an eye-catching red-purple rather than brown with deep red undertones, but it’d have to do for now. She’d let it air dry, let her natural wave do its thing, and once she had the colored contacts and maybe some fake glasses, nobody would recognize her as either Sage Evans or Lark Warren.

But who was she now?

She’d bought a newspaper at the drug store for the express purpose of mining the obituary section for a new name. It’d be easier to find a name if she had internet access, but she had to take what she could get.

She opened the bathroom door and stumbled backward a step in surprise. Vaughn lounged in the chair by the window, the newspaper spread open on the rickety table in front of him.

“So what’s your name now?” he said casually, as if asking about the weather. He glanced up at her, then consulted the paper again. “You don’t look like a Dorothy or Eugenia. Oh, here we go. Hazel A. Woods.” He gave an exaggerated wince. “It’s kind of an unfortunate name, but it fits your pattern.”