Janie Crouch - In The Lawman's Protection

“That’s why I’m going to be ready for anything. She’s going to run. Hopefully trying to get somewhere where she thinks it’s safe to contact Freihof. Where she’s forced to contact Freihof. We’re just going to make sure we control that spot when she does.”

“And if she really doesn’t know where he is? If she’s been trying to stay away from him all this time? Hide from him?”

Highly unlikely, but Ren was willing to consider it. “Then we go to plan B. If she can’t take us to Freihof, then we use Freihof’s obsession to get him to come to her.”

“That may be risking her life,” Andrea said quietly.

“Natalie is a criminal here. Let’s not forget that. She could’ve gone to law enforcement if she wanted to get away from her husband. It’s much more likely that the two of them have been in on this together the whole time. That Freihof is trusting her to run her businesses to get him money.”

“She didn’t recognize Omega Sector at all when we mentioned who we were with,” Brandon said. “Even I could tell that, and I’m not nearly as gifted at reading people. If she’s working with Freihof, he’s keeping huge chunks of information from her.”

Or maybe she was just a much better liar than they were giving her credit for. Trained by Freihof to completely school her nonverbal reactions so they couldn’t read her. “Look, I don’t have all the answers. All I know is we’re out of time, especially now that Freihof has those canisters. We shook things up, caught Natalie unaware. That’s good. Now I suspect that tonight or early tomorrow she’s going to make a break for it. We watch carefully and—”

Ren’s words were cut off by Brandon’s muttered curse. He pointed at the screen. “Actually, looks like she’s already on the run.”

The screen showed Natalie, the small backpack she always carried over one shoulder and a larger one over the other, already on the move, coming out her front door.

“Damn it, I wasn’t expecting her to move that fast. Get Lillian Muir on the phone and tell her to get in place down at the bus station.”

Andrea stood and grabbed her phone.

“There weren’t any calls from the house phone or the taps would’ve automatically turned on,” Ren said. “She must have already had an emergency plan in place. Which doesn’t strengthen the case for her being an innocent party.”

“Unless she’s just that scared,” Brandon reasoned.

“Lillian will be at the downtown bus station in fifteen minutes,” Andrea said, disconnecting the call. “It might be cutting it a little close if Natalie goes straight there, but Lillian should make it.”

“Good. Muir is a good choice. If you don’t know her, her size helps her come across as very nonthreatening. Natalie will respond to the suggestion more easily.”

They needed to direct Natalie’s path without making her suspicious.

“Brandon and I want to stop Freihof more than anyone,” Andrea said, staring at him. “Trust me, I can still feel the explosives he strapped around my neck. So I hope you can get what you need from Natalie, Ren. And in a lot of ways I hope you’re right and she is working with Freihof.”

“You do?”

“Yes. Because if not, we’re about to ruin an innocent woman’s life.”

* * *

NATALIE HAD BEEN taking the bus from the Santa Barbara oceanfront to downtown since she started house-sitting two weeks ago. She’d always been cautiously aware of anyone around her.

Now she was downright suspicious.

Were some of these people cops? Were they following her? Did they work for that Omega-whatever that Brandon and Andrea mentioned?

Nobody seemed to be paying any attention to her, which she hoped was a good sign. Maybe she had gotten out faster than the cops had expected. She’d grabbed her bug-out bag and left.

That was the point of a bug-out bag, right? So you could bug-out the instant you needed to.

Her bag wasn’t a true survivalist kit, but it had changes of clothes, all her spare cash, some nutrition bars and a bottle-size water filtration system. It even contained a high-end sleeping bag that folded into the size of a bowling ball, but only weighed a pound and a half. She’d balked at the price at the time, but now took comfort in knowing that if she needed to walk or hitchhike out of California, she could. Although her paints would have to go if she did that, which she hated to even consider, hoping to one day get the courage to use them again.

But there was no way she was staying here, even though she was losing her only means of employment. There had to be somewhere she could go where law enforcement wouldn’t find her. She wasn’t a violent criminal. Her picture wasn’t going to show up on some Most Wanted list at the post office.

But she wanted to get as far away from here as possible. She would start heading to the East Coast—Boston or New York or Atlanta—somewhere where she could get lost in the crowd.

Flying was out since that required an ID, but she was hoping to get a jump on her escape by catching the first bus out. Hopefully it would take a day or two before the agents came back—and Natalie had no doubts they’d be back—and discovered she was gone.

Fifteen minutes after she left the beach house she was stepping off the bus in downtown Santa Barbara. The bus station, pretty tiny and nondescript, was another quarter mile down the main drag, far enough away from the tourist section to not be an eyesore.

The station was really just a large room with a series of benches and hard plastic chairs, and a small office where the ticket seller sat behind a glassed-in counter. The room was empty and the man working behind the counter was reading a magazine.

The first thing she needed to decide was where she wanted to go. But honestly, she didn’t care. She would just see what was available.

“Can I help you?” the guy asked without looking up from his magazine as Natalie stepped up to the counter.

The door opened behind him. “Hey, George. Need you out here.”

George turned from Natalie. “What? Who are—”

“The main office is on the line and some bigwig asked for you by name.” The dark-haired woman in her midthirties, wearing the same uniform as George, walked into the small office and squeezed his shoulders, obviously urging him to stand. “Dude, just go. Rick’s got the call on hold in his office. He sent me in here to relieve you.”

George just looked confused. “But who are—”

The woman glanced over at Natalie and rolled her eyes with a look that screamed, Men. Am I right? “George, honey, I don’t know who it is. But I’m thinking promotion, so just go.”

George stood. “Yeah, okay. A promotion would be good. Um, you’re okay here?”

The woman rolled her eyes again before shooing him out. “No need to mansplain it. Lily’s got it handled.” Once George was out the back door, Lily turned back around to Natalie. “Okay! What can I do for you now that we’ve got the dead weight out of the room?” She winked at Natalie again.

Despite the panic crushing down on her, Natalie had to smile at the pocket-size woman who’d handled George so deftly.

“I need a ticket.”

“That I can do. Where’re you headed and when do you want to go there? We’ve got some great sales coming up next week if you want to go north.”

“No, next week won’t work. I know it will cost me more, but I need to go today.”

Lily smiled. “No problem. Where to?”

“What are my options?”

“We have daily buses that go to Los Angeles, San Francisco and Las Vegas. From any of those you can get to just about anywhere. Where are you ultimately trying to get to?”

Natalie shifted back and forth, finding it difficult to look the friendly woman in the eye. “East Coast. Honestly, anywhere. But I was thinking Atlanta or maybe Philadelphia. I just need to get out of here today.”