Paula Graves - One Tough Marine

He was surprised they hadn’t tried the garage.

Or had they?

Unease squirming in his belly, he raced to the garage, unlocked the door and let himself in. The place was just as he’d left it, no sign of a struggle or anything out of place. They’d probably checked here first, he realized, and, as they had with the kitchen, left it as they’d found it in order to cover their tracks.

Inside the car, Abby had shifted to the driver’s side, her pale face staring back at him through the Mustang’s open window.

“Is it safe?” she asked softly.

He thought about the ease with which Abby had broken into his house earlier. It was probably ten times easier for the intruders he’d just encountered in his kitchen. And they’d been able to disable the silent alarm before it sent him a warning. Had they had access to his personal files at MSI? What else might they know about him and his life in San Diego?

“No,” he answered Abby’s question firmly, reaching into the car to unlatch the trunk. He checked the trunk to make sure the duffel bag he kept stashed there for emergency travel was still in place. It was, and a cursory check of the contents reassured him that he had enough extra clothes and supplies inside to get him through the next few days.

Abby had gotten out of the car and come around to stand beside him, her gaze flickering down to the travel bag. “We’re not staying here tonight, are we?”

He shook his head. “No, we’re not.”

“What happened?”

He told her about the intruders, keeping it short and sweet. But even his sanitized account was enough to reignite the terror that had finally started to fade from her blue eyes. She bit her lip and looked back into the car at Stevie, who was sleeping peacefully in his car seat.

Her chin came up, and when she spoke, there was not a hint of shakiness in her voice. “Where are we going?”

Until that moment, he hadn’t thought that far ahead. But clearly, staying in San Diego would only subject them to more surprise visits from their tormentors. Luke wasn’t foolish enough to assume their bark was worse than their bite; nobody played such aggressive mind games unless they were pretty damned sure they had the goods to back up their threats. Whoever their employer was, he had high-powered connections and, Luke assumed, enough firepower to do what he threatened.

Luke might be a well-trained retired Marine who could still hold his own in a fight, but going up against that kind of enemy alone was stupid. He needed backup and he needed to change the playing field to give himself the advantage. And there was only one place he could think of where he’d have the upper hand.

“Right now,” he answered Abby, “we’re going to find a cheap motel where they’ll take cash and ask no questions.”

“And after that?”

He smiled genuinely for the first time in a long time. “Ever been to Alabama?”

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