Falls Church, VA
Thursday, 7:50 p.m.
Scott could hardly bear the shock, anger, and confusion on Valerie’s beautiful face. But he couldn’t think of another option to keep her safe. If Hollowell’s men were outside, especially a sniper, they didn’t stand a chance if they left the apartment.
But if the police showed up, Hollowell’s guys wouldn’t come anywhere near them. Scott hoped.
He relayed his address to the woman on the phone.
“Is Valerie Sanchez with you?” the operator asked, her tone as calm and bland as if asking about the weather. Despite the situation, he couldn’t help but admire her professionalism.
“No.” Scott cleared his throat. “No, we split up.”
Valerie reached for the doorknob, but he grabbed her arm through the thick jacket. “Wait,” he mouthed, not letting go.
“Do you have any weapons in the home?”
“Just a knife,” he told the operator. “I left it in the bedroom.”
“There are several units on their way to you now. When they arrive—”
He hung up. Sirens were already audible from several blocks away and he needed to talk to Valerie.
“Are you crazy?” she cried.
“Probably. This is the only way I could think of to keep Hollowell’s men from getting to us first.”
She stared at him.
“If they see the cops, they’ll stay back. Hollowell wants us dead, not caught, but they’re not stupid.”
Her expression might have softened a fraction, but she was still pissed. “Then I’ll turn myself in too.”
“No. We don’t have any evidence yet and you’re the only one of us with the skills to get it. You can’t do that from jail, baby.” Jail. Fuck.
She sobbed. “You promised you’d stay with me.”
He closed his eyes and let out a shuddering breath. God, he didn’t want to give her up. Not now, not ever. But he couldn’t let the cops—or Hollowell—have her. He slipped a hand behind her head and said, “You can do this.” He punctuated his words with a quick kiss. “I need you to do this. It’s the only way we both get out of this alive.”
“But what if he can get to you in jail?” she whispered.
“I can take care of myself,” he said, not denying her concern. Or alleviating it.
“You realize Dan’s going to get in trouble too.”
Dammit. Scott honestly hadn’t given his friend a thought, but what choice did he have now? “Once we’re acquitted, he should be fine.”
She bit her lip and hesitated, but she must have decided that his option was the best choice they had under the circumstances. Her gaze strayed to the floor and she nodded. “Okay.”
“Valerie,” he said, her name light and fragile and precious on his tongue, like a new snowflake. Leaning in, he kissed her hard and deep with a dizzying intensity that left them both panting. “No matter what happens,” he rested his forehead against hers, “I love you. Nothing changes that.”
“I love you, too,” she said, without hesitation. The look in her eyes was both fierce and full of anguish.
He wanted to cry.
Reaching under his jacket, he whipped the HOG’s tooth over his head. “Take this.” He looped it around her neck and tucked it inside her jacket. “For luck.”
“Scott, no.” She pushed at his hands.
He gripped her wrists gently, feeling her pulse race against his fingertips. “Keep it safe for me. They’ll just take it away during in-processing.” He liked knowing that his pendant was being warmed by her skin. That she would have a piece of him with her no matter what.
She took a deep breath and nodded as she stepped out of his embrace. “What’s your plan?”
Arms already aching with her absence, he gave her the three-second version.
Outside, the sirens stopped.
His lips brushed hers one last time. It wasn’t enough, would never be enough. “Ready?”
Without answering, she looped her bag over both shoulders like a makeshift backpack and dropped to her knees.
Red-and-blue lights flashed through the spaces around the living room blinds.
Scott gripped the doorknob. You can do this.
You need to do this.
He opened the front door and stepped into a blinding spotlight, hands held high.
At his feet, hidden from sight by the low brick safety wall that ringed the exterior walkway, Valerie crawled on all fours toward the inner corridor that bisected the building and housed the stairs.
It also housed the laundry room.
“Scott Kramer?” one of the cops said through a bullhorn. Three others stood behind their car doors and trained their rifles on his chest.
His throat turned dry. Maybe it was a mercy his victims had never seen him coming. “Yes.” He nodded in case his hoarse reply wasn’t loud enough and kept his hands up.
Valerie disappeared from his peripheral vision as she crawled around the corner. Hurry.
The cop with the bullhorn said, “Don’t move. I have—” She waved toward someone to Scott’s left. “Ma’am, get back inside and lock up behind you.”
A loud slam came from a couple doors down, followed by the thunk of a deadbolt sliding home.
“I have three rifles trained on you. Keep your arms up. There’s a team coming your way.”
The rest happened in a blur. Within seconds, cops swarmed him from both sides, yelling commands, grabbing him roughly as they pushed him to the ground with his hands at his back. Cold concrete skinned his cheekbone. A knee impaled his back. Cuffs were clamped on his wrists.
He didn’t resist, didn’t speak.
A broad-shouldered officer used Scott’s elbow to tug him to his feet and started reciting his rights as he marched him toward the staircase. In the parking lot, he was stuffed into the back of a squad car that smelled faintly of vomit, though the hard plastic seat appeared clean enough, and the interior was blessedly warm.
He leaned his head against the cool window. The cops stood in a huddle outside, their mouths emitting frozen puffs of air as they talked. The whole scene was too familiar. At fifteen he’d been scared out of his fucking mind.
Not much had changed.
Two weeks ago, he would have done anything to avoid going back to jail.
Now, he’d skip through the goddamned doors if it meant keeping Valerie safe. As safe as she could be out there on her own. He clenched his fists. Had he screwed up? What if he got himself arrested and Hollowell got to Valerie because Scott wasn’t there to protect her?
Calm. The fuck. Down. Valerie had done fine on her own for a couple of weeks. Sure, he’d been watching her, but that meant he knew how well she could take care of herself. She probably didn’t need him at all, and might even be better off without him around as a distraction.
She might be better off without him period.
A selfish part of him hoped she never realized it, even as he prepared for the worst.
His only crime was aiding and abetting a fugitive—which technically made him an accessory to any of her crimes—but if he were convicted for murdering the FBI agents, all the love in the world wouldn’t save him.
Four mind-numbing hours later, Scott had waited in a lobby chained to a chair, taken a piss in front of a sheriff’s deputy, visited the magistrate to have his charges reviewed and approved, suffered a humiliating in-processing complete with strip search, given up all his belongings, donned prison-issue scrubs and laceless shoes, and now lay on the top bunk of his assigned cell at the Arlington Detention Facility.
Midnight came and went.
He traced a thousand invisible designs on the painted brick ceiling as the strange, yet familiar, sounds of jail at night filtered into his cell like an awful serenade. Locked in.
He shivered and closed his eyes, trying to pretend he was on bivouac, resting in a sniper hide somewhere. Anywhere. Anywhere but here. His battered psyche knew better, though, and little things repeatedly yanked him back to reality.
The adult detention center was different from juvie, but jail was jail.
Just like when he was fifteen, disinfectant didn’t cover the stink that reminded him of a high school locker room after a football game. Inmates postured and formed cliques, trying to build a rep and stay safe. Scott was still isolated despite the crowd. Up until now, he’d only returned to this place in his nightmares.
This time he wasn’t waking up. And he sure as hell couldn’t sleep.
He knew why the elephants and gorillas and tigers at the zoo paced in their enclosures. He understood why chimps beat the walls and beautiful birds squawked in frustration at their clipped wings.
The fact that he’d sacrificed his freedom for a woman he loved—both times—couldn’t dislodge the boulder sitting on his chest. Maybe he was a fucking coward, but he had no illusions about prison life, and this was no kiddie lockup. If he were convicted and sent to federal prison for life—or, God forbid, death—he’d wither on the vine.
His patience might be legendary, but that ability came from knowing there was something to be patient for. How did one calmly face every day if there was no future? No point?
Could he really live for postcards from his mother and Valerie, assuming either of them communicated at all?
Jesus. He sat up and rubbed his face. Where was his faith?
It could take months—maybe years—but Valerie would find a way to exonerate them both. He had to believe that. Being locked up again had brought him back to age fifteen so viscerally that he could hardly breathe.
And somehow, returning to jail now was worse. As a kid, he’d known he’d get out at eighteen. This time he had no timeline and no guarantees.
And he was fucking helpless to save himself or Valerie.