AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I intend to. Out.”
Pierce kept an eye on the ramp. So far, no one was coming down it. They’d be all agitated topside because of the intrusion. He grabbed Riley’s hand and headed for the elevator. “We’ll have to go out through the lobby. Can you kill the cameras there?”
She was balancing her laptop on an arm. “I think I’ll take all the security cams out, that way there won’t be an emphasis on the lobby. And kill the ones in the elevator, too.”
He wanted to kiss her. And did.
She looked startled, that delectable mouth open in surprise. He pointed at the laptop. “You done?”
She pressed another key, said, “Yes,” and placed the laptop back in her backpack.
“Okay. Here are the rules for crossing the lobby. We have to look like we belong there, and we can’t stand out, so no rushing. But we have to be fast. The way to do that is to lengthen your stride. We will be absorbed in each other, not noticing anyone or anything else. People pick up on attention. Hold on to my arm and try to keep up without showing effort. We’ll be heading for the exit. Got that?”
“Yes. Move fast without appearing to. Act the part of a self-absorbed couple. Head for the exit.”
“Good girl.” She was. She grasped exactly what had to be done.
In the elevator, Pierce explained the next steps. “I hate to say this, but I think Black Inc. has somehow been compromised, otherwise they couldn’t have known where we were and which vehicles to target. Which means that that nice safe house is compromised too. We can’t go back there, we need to go where no one can find us.”
“Where? Hotels and even Airbnbs are out. Anyone semi-competent would find us.”
“I’m staying in a hotel here in DC while on ASI business. But I intended to stay over and an old friend asked me to housesit for him while he’s away. I have the keys on me.”
They were almost at lobby level. She turned her face up to him. “Yeah? Were you thinking of seeing the sights?”
Beautiful, brave, smart.
“No,” he said on a sigh. “I was planning on introducing myself and asking you out.”
Ding! The elevator doors opened.
10
Iwas thinking of asking you out.
Pierce dropped his bombshell just as the doors opened onto the busy lobby of the Watergate hotel. Pierce put his hand to her back and ushered her forward. She stumbled a little, her head entirely taken up with what he said.
He was going to stay on in Washington, DC to ask her out?
Oh man, that opened up an entire vista of could-have-beens that nearly stopped her in her tracks. Pierce Jordan was the most attractive man she’d ever met. And he was a good friend of her best friends. It would have been nice if he’d called, introduced himself. Asked her out for coffee. They would have enjoyed it and she’d have accepted his dinner invitation. There’d have been maybe a kiss. She would have asked him over for dinner. Another kiss, longer. They’d have spent the weekend together and have finally gone to bed together, when she knew him better.
Instead, her first glimpse of him was in a car as she was running for her life. After which he’d scared the shit out of her driving like a maniac, only it wasn’t like a maniac, turned out he knew what he was doing. And ever since then, more or less every moment they’d spent together had been under a Sword of Damocles.
Except, of course, for this morning, which had been wonderful.
“Riley?” Pierce whispered.
Yeah, they were running for their lives and she was stuck like a dodo mooning over Pierce. Mooning over Pierce wasn’t going to keep them alive. Constant vigilance would.
They were in the Watergate Hotel lobby, with its distinctive curved brass pillars. To the right was the famous Whiskey Bar, with its walls made of whiskey bottles. She’d spent a really boring evening there a month ago at a work function.
And right next door …
“Follow me,” she whispered to Pierce and, to his credit, he followed her unquestioningly. He must have been frantic to get going, but he was following her lead.
She walked straight into the upscale gift shop, and in a matter of seconds, she’d chosen a wide-brimmed straw hat and sunglasses for herself, a baseball cap and sunglasses for him, and paid with cash she had in her pocket, not to leave a credit card trail.
In a moment, they were crossing the lobby again, only better camouflaged. Pierce pasted a convincing smile on his face and turned to her. “Good thinking.”
