Page 66 of Dead Drift

“Luke!” Kate clutched his hand.

The murky water quickly swallowed the vehicle, entombing them. Bullets riddled down through the dark surface.

“Take a gulp of air.” Lauren couldn’t fire forever. It was late, but someone would surely have heard the car breaking through the metal barrier and hitting the water.

“What are we going to do?”

“We’re going to have to swim for it.” Pulling his weapon, he shot his window. The bullet’s exit created a web of cracks, before the cold water surged in. Kicking out the glass shards to create safe passage, he took Kate’s hand and swam out with her right behind him.

Sticking close to the side of the vehicle, he waited until Lauren needed to reload, and then they swam for it, bullets soon swirling through the dark water as red lights flashed overhead.

The firing ceased, and he breached the surface just in time to see Lauren peel away. One of the police vehicles quickly took off after her, but Lauren was too good to get caught. She’d outmaneuver the officer, just like she’d outmaneuvered them.

She hadn’t followed them from CCI. He’d seen no tail. And she’d come from the opposite direction. So how did she know the path they’d be taking or the hotel they were headed to? Had she slipped a tracking device onto his rental car? He’d check, but with his car at the bottom of the river, they’d likely never know, and he couldn’t take time to fixate on that. He needed to take Kate someplace safe and warm, but where?

“I’ve got it,” Kate said after they’d been released by emergency personnel and Declan had reluctantly dropped them off at Kate’s car. He’d argued for them to stay at his place, but neither of them wanted to risk bringing Lauren to his door.

Luke frowned at her. “Got what?” he asked.

“A safe place to stay.” Chris’s lighthouse. It was about as off grid as you could get. Only reachable by boat and providing the ability to see anyone approaching from miles away.

Why hadn’t she thought of it sooner?

Maybe because she’d been so shaken up by her home being turned into a thousand little pieces of shrapnel that she plain hadn’t been thinking since—rather, she’d spent the last four days simply reacting.

“Are you sure?” Luke asked.

Kate shifted gears, tearing down the road in her Mini Cooper. “Trust me.”

Perhaps tonight Luke would finally manage to get a few hours of sleep, a few hours of peace in what had been close to eight years of war—maybe not on a battlefield, but a war just the same.

She drove them along winding back roads, watching his curiosity grow with each turn. To her surprise, he didn’t ask any more questions, just remained silent—watching, waiting, trusting her.

Reaching the end of the dirt road, she cut the ignition.

Luke climbed out and surveyed the space. “Well, we certainly weren’t followed.” He turned to her and lifted his chin in question. “You wanna let me in on where we’re headed?”

Pulling the Maglite from her glove box, she shone it on the rowboat tied at the isolated pier.

His brows hiked up. “Seriously?”

“Trust me,” she said.

“Okay.”

Warmth filled her despite the brisk breeze rolling across the bay.

She grabbed the duffel of clothes kindly provided to them by Tanner and Declan, and Luke took it from her with an outstretched hand, hiking it over his shoulder. Tomorrow, she’d grab the rest of her necessities from CCI, though the way things were going, she was due for a shopping spree.

The rowboat shifted beneath them as they climbed in. They sat facing each other in the center of the two wooden seats to steady its rocking.

Luke grabbed the oars. “Want to give me a heading?”

“Start rowing due east.”

The water rhythmically lapped across the flat face of the oars each time they dipped in and out of the dark water.

Luke’s breath shone in puffs in the halo of light cast from the Maglite settled between his feet.