Scorched Read online

  Elizabeth checked her odometer. She checked her clock. Her stomach growled at her—a reminder that she hadn’t eaten since the candy bar in her motel room last night. That was nearly twelve hours ago, and her energy was flagging as she pushed north on the interstate, leaving San Diego behind.

  Where are you going? she wondered, envisioning a map of Southern California. He had a flight to Mexico this afternoon from San Diego—Elizabeth had confirmed that—but as they got farther and farther away from the city, she concluded he had no intention of taking it. Their interview this morning had caused him to change his plans. With any luck, he was on his way to Kelsey.

  The miles rolled by. The journey dragged on. Elizabeth’s energy level dropped. Sign after sign reminded her of all the hamburgers and sandwiches and cups of coffee she could have used to recharge her system. She glanced at her fuel indicator and wondered how much gas Brewer had in his truck. If this was a true road trip, he’d have to pull over at some point, and maybe she could dart into a convenience store and—

  The truck cut across three lanes of traffic and exited.

  “Damn!” She pounded the wheel. “Damn, damn, damn!”

  If she attempted to follow, he’d spot her for sure. She waited for him to disappear from view before easing over to catch the next exit.

  Elizabeth’s phone chimed and she snatched it up.

  “Don’t worry, I got him.” Agent Frost’s calm baritone voice made her breathe a sigh of relief. The man was almost as new as she was, but at least he knew the area.

  “I’m just getting off,” Elizabeth said. “Where’s he going?”

  “Can’t tell yet. He’s staying on the feeder. You might even come out ahead of him. Careful he doesn’t see you. I don’t think he’s made the tail.”

  “I’ll be careful.” She eased off the highway and checked all her mirrors. Up ahead she spotted a black pickup slowing down at a stoplight.

  “I see him,” Elizabeth said, scanning the area. The light turned green, and Brewer veered into the right-hand lane. Her gaze landed on a sign, and suddenly her heart sank.

  “Oh, no.”

  Brewer put on his turn indicator.

  “Oh, shit.”

  “What is it? Where’s he going?” Frost asked.

  Brewer hung a right at the light. Her heart sank even lower as she followed him.

  “LeBlanc? What’s the word?”

  “I think he made the tail. He’s taking us to Disneyland.”

  Silence followed this announcement.

  “That’s not good,” Frost said.

  “I’m aware of that.”

  “Think he’s meeting someone?”

  “No.”

  She followed the steady river of cars along the landscaped route leading into the park. Her respect for the man expanded as she contemplated the looming disaster. What better place to ditch her than a park packed with six zillion tourists? Elizabeth glanced down at her attire and actually started to laugh. It was either that or cry. In her charcoal gray pantsuit, she was going to stick out like a funeral director at a birthday party, and she had no doubt that was part of the plan.

  “Okay, I see him,” Frost said. “Far left lane, correct?”

  “Affirmative.”

  Elizabeth took a deep breath. She could do this. She hadn’t lost him yet. She pulled into the far right lane and inched up to the parking booth behind a series of minivans. She took out her wallet and paid the attendant, trying to envision how this was going to look on her expense report.

  “He’s pulling into a space,” Frost informed her.

  “Keep an eye on him.”

  “He’s getting out now. You want me to sit on the vehicle or follow him inside?”

  Elizabeth considered the question as she found a parking spot. He could be planning to leave in a friend’s car, a taxi, a bus. He could hop on the monorail.

  “Forget the vehicle,” she said. “We need to follow him.”

  Elizabeth got out of the SUV and stood for a moment in the blazing sunlight. Heat rose up from the asphalt. In seconds she was sweating, but ditching her jacket wasn’t an option because it hid her holster.

  “He’s headed for the entrance,” Frost said. “Navy blue Chicago Bears hat with an orange logo.”

  Elizabeth stood on tiptoes to peer over the sea of cars and people. “I see him.” Luckily he was tall, which would make him easy to track.

  Wishful thinking.

  Elizabeth joined a stream of parents and strollers and ignored their curious glances at her attire as they flowed toward the park. She kept her eye on Brewer as he sauntered up to a ticket window. Elizabeth silently cursed him as she hauled out her wallet again and handed over another stack of bills.

  If she didn’t know how worried he was about his ex-girlfriend right now, she’d think he was laughing at her. Maybe he was. Maybe he didn’t give a damn about Kelsey Quinn or Blake Reid or any of this, and his idea of fun was to spend his day jerking around a couple of feds.

  Elizabeth passed through the entrance and joined a sea of tourists clad in brightly colored shirts and hats. The scent of funnel cakes wafted toward her and her stomach growled. She didn’t even like funnel cakes, but she was nearly faint from hunger. She took out a five-dollar bill and tucked it in her pocket, just in case a vendor brushed past her and she had a chance to snag some food.

  Brewer ambled through the crowd, looking right at home in his shorts and Nikes. She wasn’t fooled by his attire, though. She would bet a week’s pay he had a weapon tucked under that shirt or stashed into one of those many pockets.

  He led her down Main Street, USA. Elizabeth had never been here, but as she scanned the storefronts, she realized that—at least conceptually—the place was like Hogan’s Alley. Both were mock-ups of an American town. However, the Disney version had more color and landscaping and gingerbread architecture than the Quantico version. More mouse ears, fewer guns.

  Brewer veered into a gift shop. Elizabeth glanced around. She spotted Frost standing near a restaurant window, pretending to read a menu. The sun glinted off his shaved black head, and he could have used a hat, but at least his jeans and polo shirt were less conspicuous than her business garb. With the tilt of her head, Elizabeth motioned for him to go inside. Brewer didn’t know Frost, whereas he’d been in a conference room with Elizabeth just this morning.

  Frost strolled down the sidewalk and slipped into the store.

  A second later, Brewer exited. Elizabeth turned her back and pretended to be looking at a shop window as she watched his reflection in the glass. He didn’t glance in her direction, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t noticed her. After a few moments, she turned and followed him. A balloon vendor provided some cover for her as she trailed him down the street.

  She tried to think ahead, tried to deduce his plan. Would he get on a roller-coaster? It would be a good place to shake her, but he’d have to wait in line. Maybe he’d queue up for something less crowded, like one of the kiddie rides.

  He slipped into a men’s room.

  Elizabeth jerked her phone out and called Frost. “He’s in the restroom just north of the ice-cream parlor.”

  “Roger that. I’ve got the side street covered.”

  Elizabeth’s head pounded. This wasn’t good. She thought of all the things she’d read about SEALs and imagined him shimmying into an air duct and elbow-crawling into another building. She scanned every door to every building on that side of the block.

  And then there he was, stepping out of the restroom and crossing the street to a churro vendor. Elizabeth watched with annoyance as he bought a snack and proceeded to chomp into it as he meandered down the road. He finished it off and pitched the wrapper into the nearest trash can. A few seconds later he eased up to a crowd of teenage girls who were waiting to have their picture taken with Goofy. Elizabeth’s heart skipped a beat as she lost sight of him in the crowd.

  Her phone chimed.

  “You see him?” she asked Frost. “I don’t
see him.”

  “I lost him—wait. Scratch that. He’s buying a hot dog.”

  Elizabeth blew out a sigh. “I see the storefront. Don’t get too close, though. I’m pretty sure he knows I’m here, but he may not have seen you.”

  The Bears cap appeared above the teenagers.

  “I’m going to hang back a ways,” Frost said.

  “I’ve got a better idea. How about I hang back? Maybe he’ll think he lost me, and you can follow him out.”

  “Good plan.”

  It was a good plan. If he thought he’d ditched her, he’d probably start moving toward his real destination.

  Elizabeth ducked into a shop and took a brief instant to soak up the air-conditioning. She grabbed a pack of M&M’s from a shelf beside the cash register and handed the clerk her five-dollar bill, then stuffed the candy in her pocket and hurried out of the store. She scanned the area. No sign of Brewer.

  But then she saw Frost standing across the street, glancing around, looking perplexed.

  Elizabeth’s shoulders tensed. She looked up and down the street. She studied the mob of teenagers, the food kiosks, the storefronts. There was a sign directing people toward Adventureland. Had he gone that route?

  A sharp whistle.

  She glanced at Frost and he nodded in her direction. He’d walked right past her! He was moving aggressively now that he assumed he’d shaken her. He wove quickly through the crowd and back toward the main entrance. She hurried after him as her phone chimed.

  “He’s leaving,” Frost told her.

  “I’m on it!”

  For a moment she lost him in a cluster of teenage boys wearing matching green track suits. But then she spotted him again on the far edge of the group. She picked up her pace until she was nearly running. She glanced at the signs. His speed increased. He was moving toward the bus depot, and he was way ahead of her. Elizabeth broke into a run. She wove through parents and kids, darted around strollers and sidestepped souvenir vendors. Sweat trickled down her back as she spotted the line of buses waiting at the curb. He stepped onto the one in front. Elizabeth cursed her luck as the door hissed shut and the bus began to move.

  She sprinted forward and pounded her fist on the side of it. “Wait! Wait!”

  Brakes squealed. The door hissed open. She climbed up the steps. The seats were full and he stood in the aisle, his back to her, holding on to one of the loops dangling from the ceiling. She studied the cap, the broad shoulders, the loose-fitting shirt. She noticed a handicapped door in back and tried to figure out how she was going to block that exit once he figured out she was here.

  Suddenly he pivoted and they were face-to-face.

  She blinked.

  The man smiled.

  “Who are you?” she sputtered.

  “Name’s Derek Vaughn.” He grinned down at her from beneath the brim of his Bears hat.

  “But—”

  The bus lurched forward. She stumbled into him. He caught her arms and looked amused as he steadied her on her feet.

  “I take it you were expecting someone else?”

  • • •

  Trent sank onto a park bench and mopped the sweat from his brow. Acid filled his stomach as he gazed down at his phone. A full minute ticked by. Finally he dialed.

  “I lost him.”

  Silence on the other end. Trent squeezed his eyes shut and waited.

  “Do you want me to—”

  “Forget him for now. I’ve located the woman.”

  Trent’s chest loosened. He’d dodged a bullet.

  “Where is she?” he asked, hoping the relief didn’t come through in his voice.

  “Call me in three hours. I’ll give you instructions.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Kelsey couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being followed. She checked her rearview mirror again, and again spotted no other cars or headlights on the two-lane road.

  Since arriving yesterday at this California logging town, she’d tried to keep a low profile. She’d spoken to only a handful of people. She’d spent almost all of today cooped up in Joe’s cabin, cleaning—as if sweeping floors and swiping at cobwebs would somehow get her mind off of everything. But it hadn’t worked. The place was tiny, and once she’d scoured everything and dusted everything and organized everything down to her uncle’s fishing tackle, there was nothing to distract her. She’d finished her last chore this afternoon and had spent the remainder of the day thinking about Blake’s death and the fact that the world’s top law-enforcement agency was currently searching for her.

  Kelsey’s throat tightened as a fresh wave of fear washed over her. It was becoming a familiar feeling. She flexed her hands on the steering wheel and took a deep breath.

  No one knows you’re here, she told herself.

  Very few people even knew about this place. Kelsey herself hadn’t been here since she was a kid and had forgotten it existed until she’d come across a stack of utility bills in Joe’s desk. Her grandmother said Joe had kept the place all these years because he spent so much time living with other people and needed a little solitude between deployments.

  Solitude. Just what Kelsey wanted. She checked her mirrors again as she swung onto the dirt road leading to the row of cabins. The caretaker’s home was the second one down, and Kelsey noted the flicker of a television in the main room as she passed by. She reached Joe’s cabin and pulled right up to the front. Her little car sputtered and coughed when she cut the engine, and she eyed the dashboard mistrustfully. It had done okay on the drive up, but she’d put fifteen hundred miles on it in three days, and it probably could at least use an oil change.

  Kelsey gathered her groceries and got out. The porch light glowed and she noted the freshly swept grooves in the dirt around the wooden steps, which told her no one had been tromping around here during her trip to town. Kelsey unlocked the door and paused to listen.

  All was quiet except for the gurgle of the nearby creek and the whisper of wind in the surrounding woods.

  Something buzzed, and Kelsey jumped. She caught her breath and pulled the cell phone from her pocket. Ben Lawson.

  “What’s up?” she asked. She’d told him only to call her if it was something important.

  “You don’t sound happy to hear from me.”

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Just thought you’d want to know, the FBI was out at the lab again today, looking for you.”

  Kelsey felt a stab of guilt for involving him.

  “You don’t have to lie for me,” she said, locking the door behind her. She dropped her grocery bags onto the sagging couch.

  “I didn’t. They talked to Mia. And anyway, you haven’t told me where you are, so why would I have to lie?”

  Kelsey stacked cans of soup in the cupboard as she thought about that carefully worded statement. She hadn’t told Ben where she was, but she had no doubt he’d figured it out. Ben worked in the Delphi Center’s cyber-crimes unit. He was a genius on computers and had been known to bend a few rules to track down information. Kelsey would bet that within minutes of her phone call last night, Ben had not only traced her call to the nearest cell tower, but also pinpointed her most recent credit-card transaction. The FBI could do the very same thing, which was why Kelsey had cleaned out her bank account on the way out of San Antonio. All her purchases—from her dinged-up Dodge Neon to her prepaid disposable cell phone—had been with cash. She was doing everything she could think of to stay off the grid.

  “So, I ran down those numbers you wanted,” Ben told her, and she heard the pride in his voice.

  “That was fast. I would think hacking the phone records of an FBI agent might be something of a challenge.”

  “I got everything, no problem. But you said you’re most interested in the calls he made in the three days before his death.”

  Tears burned her eyes. Death. She still couldn’t believe it. But she couldn’t get emotional right now—she had to be objective.

  “Kelsey?”


  She cleared her throat. “What did you learn?”

  “Well, almost everything was a Bureau call—him phoning his office, his coworkers, that kind of thing. There were two numbers that weren’t, excluding a call placed to you. You have a pen handy?”

  She grabbed the steno pad off the kitchen table, where she’d been sitting earlier and making notes. Ben recited several numbers.

  “First one is the cell-phone number of a C. Weber in Provo, Utah. I’m working on that name. Second one is the main number for UC Berkeley. No idea where they routed the call. They’ve got tons of extensions.”

  “Interesting.” She didn’t know why Blake would be calling a university.

  “There’s something else you might want to know. I took a look at the phone records of another agent in Blake’s office.”

  Kelsey’s nerves jangled. Was he referring to Trent? She’d purposely avoided any mention of Trent because she didn’t want Ben knowing details that might put him at risk.

  “I thought you were only going to look at Blake?”

  “I was,” he said. “But then I got curious because of the high volume of calls between these two over the weekend. There’s some interesting overlap with the non-FBI numbers they were both calling. For example, Agent Trent Lohman called the Weber number multiple times. And Berkeley, too.”

  “When did he call Berkeley?”

  “Twice last Thursday and once Friday.”

  A dog barked outside. Kelsey’s pulse picked up as she went to the front window. She switched off the overhead light and moved the shade aside so she could look out. The cabin was dark except for a band of light coming in from the porch.

  “This Weber person,” she said. “You don’t have a full name?”

  “Just an initial. I should have more by tomorrow.”

  “Thanks.” She gazed out at the darkened road running past the cabins, but saw no one. “Be careful, though. I hope you aren’t leaving your fingerprints on this.”

  “Don’t worry about me. Just take care of yourself, all right? I’ll be in touch.”