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She was frozen with fear, almost unable to breathe. It felt like there’d be a pile-up any second, and they’d have to pry her dead body from the wreckage with the Jaws of Life.
With difficulty, she moved her head so she could see the driver. Pierce Jordan. Neither Hope nor Emma had said he was insane. He sure didn’t look insane. This was the kind of speed maybe a suicidal driver would have, planning on driving over the edge of a cliff. Sporting a rictus grin, like Slim Pickens whooping and waving his cowboy hat as he rode the missile to Armageddon. Or like Thelma and Louise, one lastfuck youto life.
But no. He looked normal—albeit very handsome—as he drove. Face composed, set, totally concentrated on the road.
Well, yeah. At any moment they were going to crash and burn, so of course he was focused. She turned her face toward the windshield so she could at least see her death approaching.
In her terror, she hadn’t noticed where they were going and was now totally lost. Her agency was in generic suburbia where the streets all looked alike. She’d only been working for less than a year at the National Surveillance Office, and basically knew the road from her place to work and back.
This wasn’t it.
Where were they going at this breakneck speed? Pierce must have an idea because he didn’t waver at any of the intersections he sped through.
Well, wherever they were going, she had no say in the matter. So she did the only thing she could do—hold on to the door handhold so she could pull back if they looked like they were about to crash.
Just like she did in planes. She hated flying, so she spent most flights holding on to the arm rest white-knuckled, so she could keep the plane up if the engines went out.
“Get ready,” Pierce said unexpectedly.
“What?” She turned her head to look at him. He was playing the brakes and the gear shift like a musical instrument as they slowed down. Why were they slowing down? Had they reached their destination? They were entering a tunnel, so how could that be a destination?
Pierce had pulled over to the extreme right, basically in the break-down lane, and had slowed down dramatically. They were travelling at the speed of a person walking. Ahead of them was some kind of truck, travelling as slowly as they were. He slowed even further and, surprisingly, reached over to unbuckle her seat belt. “Get out,” he said.
She bit her lip.Get out?But, again, he didn’t look crazy and didn’t sound crazy, so she did as he asked. The car was moving so slowly, it was just a question of stepping out carefully. He exited from his side at the exact same moment she did.
And a man from behind them stepped toward the car at the same time. She hadn’t noticed him. Pierce signaled to her to get into the car behind them. A black SUV. The windows were clear, but for some reason she couldn’t see inside the SUV. The man had slid out from the driver’s side and Pierce had slid in, slickly done. The car was moving so slowly it was easy to get into the passenger seat.
The man who’d been the driver in the car rushed to the car they’d been in and slid into the driver’s seat.
They’d switched vehicles smoothly and in only a few seconds.
The car in front of them, the one they’d been in a few minutes before, drove right up into the truck, whose back panel had lowered. It drove up into the truck, the back panel lifted up, and it was as if the car had never existed. Pierce drove back into the usual lane and sped up past the truck.
They exited the tunnel and she realized that if traffic cameras had caught them going into the tunnel, they wouldn’t catch their vehicle coming out. It would take them time to figure out what had happened, if they managed to figure it out at all. Plus they would have no way to know which vehicle they were in.
Pierce was driving the speed limit in their ordinary-looking SUV that was somehow impervious to outside eyes. When they exited the tunnel, Riley turned around. Four cars back, the truck with the car inside exited from the tunnel. Any exam of the traffic cameras would show that the car they’d escaped in had disappeared.
For the moment, they were safe.
Riley took in a deep breath and turned to the man who’d made it happen. “That was neatly done. Thanks.”
Now that they were driving at a normal speed, Pierce had lost that remote, hard look. He turned briefly and smiled. “Sure. I had help.”
She blinked at the smile.
Oh my God. The man washandsome! She’d sort of known it because she’d seen a couple of photos, and some tiny part of her lizard brain had noticed his looks when he rescued her, but the rest of her brain had been in survival mode and it just remained there, like a little factoid.
The sun was shining, mercenaries were trying to kill her, Pierce Jordan was hot.
Part of it was the smile. Genuine, warm, unexpected. The complete opposite of the robotic expressionless face he’d had before, when driving them to safety at a billion miles an hour.
His features were sharp, intriguing. Coupled with blue-black hair and deep blue eyes—wow. He had an amazing physique, too. Tall, broad-shouldered, athletic. Nature didn’t usually grace people with many gifts and she would have thought he’d be limited in the brains department, but no. He was apparently really smart, or so Hope said, when she told Riley she’d be in good hands. And good at his job. Apparently, he won medals for something no one could know about.
And had engineered an amazing getaway.
“I imagine the video cams in the tunnel have been turned off.”
He flashed another grin and it was almost too much. She was still shaky from the escape, from having armed men hunting her like a deer and she nearly saiddon’t do that. Don’t smile, you’re giving me the bends. I can’t take it.
