Smokescreen

No movement came from her apartment. The light wind that always seemed to blow through this part of the state whispered against her ears, blurring the finer sounds.

It felt like hours before Ethan appeared in the doorway, the dim lights of the breezeway playing strange shadows across his face. His eyes stood out, glittering with an emotion she couldn’t define. “It’s clear, but I wish you didn’t have to see it.”

Ashley’s mind and body downshifted into a place worse than fear. She was numb. From the inside out, she felt nothing. The chilled air, the thought she could die... Nothing connected. She wanted to pinch herself just to jolt something into her brain.

“Ash? If you tell me where it is, I can get it. You don’t have to come in. It’s probably better if—”

She didn’t let him finish. She needed to move, needed to feel something in her body, even if it was the simple forward motion of putting one foot in front of the other. Pushing past him, Ashley paused in the doorway and stared.

The streetlight in the parking lot leaked through the purple curtains at the front of the living room, casting a violet haze over the scene. Even in the dim light, it was obvious everything had been tossed, as though a tsunami had broken in the room and retreated. The light made the whole scene surreal, more frightening than it should be, the glow too much like a haunted house that had given Ashley nightmares as a child.

As badly as she wanted to flood the place with light, she knew better. It would only tip off anyone watching.

She stopped by the entrance as Ethan slipped the door shut the best he could behind her. “You’re sure you cleared the place?”

“Would I have let you in if I hadn’t?”

This sarcastic side of him didn’t even make her flinch. It tended to come out when he was stressed, worried about the unknown. The last time she’d heard it was at her hospital bedside the night her entire life blew apart.

Definitely not the place her imagination should go right now. The fear jolted again and brought a brusqueness with it. “A simple yes would have worked. I want to know they’re not going to pop up again when I pull the portable hard drive out. And I want to be double sure they don’t see what I’m about to do now.” She laid her hand against the wall and felt for the kitchen, inching forward, toes connecting with what was left of her normal life. Her sanctuary no longer brought safety. The violation fouled the air and crawled along her skin.

With no windows in the small kitchen, the blackness hung thick and inky. She could almost feel invisible hands poised to grasp her and yank her into a pit where her floor used to be.

She allowed herself a tight smile. Whoever was searching must have thought they’d found what they were looking for.

Laying hands on the small flashlight she kept in her junk drawer brought little relief, since it only served to make the darkness outside the beam even thicker, but it was better than nothing. She found a small screwdriver and, careful to keep the beam aimed at the floor and away from the windows, stepped over what she could now see. An overturned dining chair. The phone charger she’d left behind in her mad dash to make the plane. A spare key to her car.

She shoved it into her pocket. They’d need it when they went to the airport to get the keys to Sean’s post-office box from her glove box.

The light glinted off of something shiny.

Ashley swallowed hard. The Blue Willow china plate that had hung near the dining room table, the one tangible item left from her great-grandmother, had been smashed, fine pieces ground into the carpet. Something about those impossibly small shards on the floor undid her in a way nothing else could.

She bit back a sob Ethan was bound to hear.

He had. There was a scrape of movement near the door. “They found the software?”

Ashley shook her head then realized he couldn’t see her in the dark. It was a second before she could trust herself to answer. “Doubtful.” The word cracked just like the plate. She cleared her throat and straightened her shoulders. There were too many things to do, too many moves to make, for her to fall apart now. This was only the beginning.

Trying to corral her thoughts, she stepped gently over the plate and ran her hand along the wooden lip underneath the small, round dining table. Her fingers caught on a piece of duct tape barely hanging on to the wood at the far end of the curve. “They took it.”

Ethan was at her side before she even heard him move. “They took your program?” His voice drew tight, the dark magnifying the whisper until it sounded like a shout.

“No, I hid a dummy one.” She edged away, cheeks warming, even though the circumstances were wrong and history said she really shouldn’t notice. “Call it paranoia. Sean and I worked hard writing the software, and it could be worth more money than you can imagine. It’s not perfected, because we haven’t had time together to work out the bugs. Thieves want easy information they can sell. I figured if anyone ever broke into my house, they’d check obvious locations, think they’d found something important and leave. I never expected to end up needing this.”

“Still with the killer instinct. You’re something else.” The words curved on a grin Ashley could see in her mind if not in the dark. “What’d you put on it?”

It was getting hard not to tamp down the pride at his compliments. When had she gotten to the place she lit up at someone else’s approval? “Some photos my dad sent from Haiti and some medium-level encrypted files to keep anybody busy if they happen to snoop.”

“This ought to be good. What did you encrypt?”

“The stats for the postseason every year the Red Sox won the World Series.”

“Beautiful.” Ethan was all business again. “And are you sure they haven’t found the real one?”

“Not unless they moved the entertainment center.” Ashley slipped past, careful not to touch him. Something about Ethan and the dark made her want to talk, to tell him how she’d said no to Sean’s first proposal because some nagging little voice at the back of her mind whispered they were friends, not life partners. When she thought of her future, even now in the rare times she allowed herself to dream, it was Ethan in her front-porch-rocker visions.

Not that it mattered. Ethan had left her and Sean had stuck by her, his sympathy and her fear driving them into a rocky engagement that nearly ended their friendship before they realized their mistake. Even now she was growing more certain it was because Ethan had always been the one who owned her love.

This day needed to end before she capped it by opening her mouth and humiliating herself.

Stepping over scattered parts of her life as she entered the living room, Ashley scanned the area. Couch pillows and books littered the floor. Thankfully, the large wooden cabinet holding her television sat square in the wall. She’d banked on it being too heavy for anyone to move and, thankfully, she’d been right.

Tucking the screwdriver into her hip pocket, she crouched so she could move the cabinet, back braced against wood, legs providing the force. But after the rush of the day, her muscles weren’t ready to cooperate. “C’mon.” She gestured between Ethan and the cabinet. “Put your muscles into it.”

He leaned back, his shoulder brushing hers, sliding against the cabinet to get his body into position. “Can’t wait to see where this is going.”

“About six inches to the right. Now push.”

The bulk of the cabinet hesitated then slid in the dark, gaining momentum as it moved.

“Nice job.” Ashley guided Ethan out of the way and knelt in front of the wall outlet. Popping the small flashlight between her teeth, she pulled out the screwdriver and removed the outlet cover from the wall.

“You have got to be kidding me.” Ethan knelt behind her.

His breath tickled her hair. Her hands stilled, the plastic cover weightless in her fingers. For a moment she wanted to lean into him, to let him support her, to forget this whole wretched day ever happened, to pretend he was still the same Ethan and five years hadn’t changed them. The outlet cover slipped from her fingers, the motion jolting her into the moment. They didn’t have time to waste. If anyone was watching her apartment, they knew Ethan and Ashley were there and wouldn’t hesitate to return, especially if they believed she possessed Sean’s intel.

“How did you keep the electricity from wiping out the drive?” Ethan leaned closer, curiosity overtaking his sense of propriety.

“That’s a remote possibility, but it’s not in the outlet.” Ashley made quick work of two more screws and slipped the entire socket from the wall, exposing the hole where the outlet slid into place. “It’s between the walls.” She reached in with two fingers, found the duct tape attaching the small portable drive to the inside of the drywall and pulled it free. “There you have it.”

“I’ll have to remember that one.” Ethan eased to his feet and held a hand out to help her up. Ashley hesitated before she took it and then let him pull her to her feet, dropping his hand as quickly as she could steady herself. “Let’s go before they get too deep into your dummy files and figure out you’ve skunked them with your secret squirrel self, although I think it’s going to take some time for them to figure out they’re looking at Big Papi’s stellar season.”

“Here’s hoping.”

In the dim light Ethan’s gaze captured hers. “You’d have been a real asset to—” He broke the moment, stepping toward the door. “We need to get moving.”

They were mere feet from the door when a scrape and a man’s whisper leaked around the damaged frame. “Somebody’s in there.”

Ashley froze as Ethan stepped protectively in front of her, hand at his hip. “You have a balcony?”

“Off the bedroom.” With a whole other story between us and the ground. Ashley had thought many times about how she’d get out of her apartment if there was a fire, but she never dreamed she’d actually have to dangle above the bushes on the ground floor.

Ethan shoved her toward the hallway. “Think you can take the fall?”

FOUR

There wasn’t one moment of hesitation. Ashley was up the hallway before Ethan could tell her to move, and he was close behind. The possibility it could simply be the police or her landlord didn’t matter. The risks were too great.

Once he stepped into the room behind her, he slipped the door shut and clicked the lock. If it was their friend from the airport, the hollow door would buy them a few seconds, but those ticks of the clock might mean all the difference.

Light flooded under the door as someone flipped a switch in the front of the apartment. “See? Nobody’s in here.”

“I heard voices.”

The French doors on the other side of the bedroom whispered open, silhouetting Ashley against the dim glow from outside. She waved him forward. “Drop’s a few feet if you can hang on to the rail and let your feet dangle.” Throwing a leg over the side, she gifted him a grim smile. “Pray my downstairs neighbors aren’t looking out the window. And be careful.”

She was scared to death if she was this calm. Her emotional defenses drove her to a place where she felt nothing just to avoid the fear. He’d seen it on the battlefield, even experienced it himself. Ethan wished there was time to make sure she landed safely, but the lock jiggled behind him and a shout followed.

Shoving his gun into its holster, he climbed the rail, ran his hands down to the bottom of the wood railing and let his feet dangle in space. The sound of splintering door covered his crouched landing in the bushes below.

Their visitor was definitely not the landlord.

He was safely around the corner before voices rained down from above. “Nobody’s here.”

“So who locked the door?”

“Maybe you did when we left? No way they jumped without breaking something.” The voice strained as though the man leaned over the railing to prove his theory.

Ethan fought his muscles aching for a quick peek around the corner to see if one of the men was the assailant from the airport or if he and Ashley faced bigger worries.

She tugged at his arm. “Come on. Before they figure out we moved furniture and start looking for us.”

Tucking her behind him, a move he was sure to hear about later, Ethan reached for his gun but stopped. The way Ashley had reacted earlier, there was no telling what her response would be, and they needed all of her focus to get out of here alive. At this point, her emotional lockdown was their salvation.

She pressed close to him as he edged along the brick toward the front of the building, so close her warmth telegraphed through the thin fleece of his jacket. The sooner they were safely in his truck and she was a couple of feet away, the better.

At the corner he stopped and surveyed the grass-ringed parking lot. Not for the first time he hated the even spacing of streetlights that left few shadows in which to hide.

Ashley’s words tickled his ear. “What now?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “There’s a small ditch along the back of the parking lot.” Her arm snaked in front of him, indicating a spot at their two o’clock. “If we can make it without being spotted, we can get low enough to avoid detection and get to your truck.”

The pride he’d battled all of his life fought to take charge, to seize the moment and come up with the foolproof idea that would save the day. But he couldn’t. The route she’d laid out was the only way to safety.

She shuddered against his back, snapping him out of his self-recrimination. They needed to move before the situation dug in and she dissolved into panic. As much as he wanted her to be well, to be his old Ashley, the little time they’d spent together had already clued him in to the fear that plagued her. He fought against the warm bile of guilt in his stomach and forced himself to focus.

With Ashley breathing against his neck and his heart pounding from the stress of the moment, he could hardly hear if their visitors were lurking. “That ten feet of open grass bugs me.” Even his whisper echoed in the stillness.

“No choice but to go for it.”

If he closed his eyes Ethan could fool himself into believing they were still partners, still shared the easy rhythm that let them get the job done effortlessly. But they weren’t and likely never would be again.

Ethan tried one more time to listen for footsteps, voices—anything. Only the distant sounds of cars on the main road drifted to them. “Okay.” He slipped his hand behind him and found hers. He wanted her close in case anything happened. No matter what, unlike the last time, he would know he’d done all he could to protect her. “Let’s go.”

With a quick prayer Ethan plunged out of their hiding place, Ashley keeping pace behind. The damp grass, not yet revived after the long winter, crushed beneath their feet, leaving a dim trail to their destination. They’d have to move fast once they hit the ditch. He leaped in feetfirst, Ashley a millisecond behind him.

“You hear that?” The shout came muffled from above, probably from the balcony they’d recently vacated.

They had time, but not much. Propelling her by her biceps, he urged her forward. “Run.”

They slipped and slid along the ditch, feet skittering on the thin layer of mud in the bottom, Ethan’s ears tuned for the sounds that would let him know their pursuers had found their footprints.

Please, God. Hide us a little bit longer.

Behind him, Ashley muttered softly and he wondered if she, too, was petitioning for cover.

They rounded the bend in the ditch and Ethan scanned for a spot gentle enough for them to climb. “There.”

As he said it, a shout echoed across the night. They had a few more seconds before they were found. Jerking Ashley in front of him, he hefted her up the bank and scrambled up behind her, coming out just inches from the bumper of his truck.

Ashley beat him inside.

Shutting the door behind him, Ethan twisted the key in the ignition and, headlights off, drove as fast as he dared, praying the men hadn’t caught up in time to tail them. They were on the main road and two turns away before the bands around his chest relaxed. “They didn’t follow us.”

Ashley just nodded, arms crossed, fingers digging into her biceps. Her breaths came rapidly, shallow and hard.

He knew better than to touch her. She was on the edge of falling apart. “Talk to me, Ash.”

“Pull over.”

Ethan checked the rearview mirror, but no headlights flashed. Still, it was ludicrous to stop now. “I can’t. They’re bound to have figured out—”

“Pull over. Find a place.” Her voice was barely audible over her need for air. “Now.”

Ethan kneaded the steering wheel, tension radiating up his arms and into his shoulders. He couldn’t. It would be suicide, but Ashley was now gripping the headrest as though it was going to keep her from spinning off of the planet.

She turned her head to him, eyes pleading behind a sheen of tears. “Please, Ethan.”

His foot eased off the gas. Okay, he’d find a place to pull over.

Even if it killed them.

* * *

She could die right now. It would be just fine with her. The fact death was a real possibility didn’t matter. In the throes of uncontrollable emotion, the shame burning her gut eclipsed the fear of death.

Her body rebelled, refusing to believe there was nothing to fear because, this time, there was definitely something to be afraid of. And the reality was as bad as any of her nightmares.

Ashley had felt it the instant Ethan shifted the truck into gear, the moment she knew they were relatively safe and making a getaway. The fog she’d walked in for the past hour blew away, chased by hot fear. The cold sweat... The tight muscles trying to claw out of her skin... This was a full-blown panic attack the likes of which she hadn’t experienced in more than three years. One the rapidly shrinking rational part of her brain could not believe she was about to have in front of Ethan Kincaid.

The minute he pulled around to the back of a darkened gas station, Ashley yanked the door handle, slid from the truck, leaned against the cold metal and locked her hands against her knees. The damp night air filled her lungs and eased her body as she fought nausea, praying Ethan would stay in the truck and pretend everything was A-okay.

No such luck. His boots scrunched the gravel and came into view. “Ash?”

He might as well have shouted, because the whisper rained condemnation hotter than nuclear fallout. She was weak. Not strong enough. Still haunted by a weakness that defied explanation, one she should have overcome years ago.

The same weakness that had stolen her dream and laid it at Ethan’s feet.

His arm brushed her shoulder, but she swatted it away so hard her hand stung. The pain was enough to drag her into the present and she rooted herself in her former therapist’s advice. Be grounded in the moment. Be aware of where you are right now.

It wasn’t helping. Right now, in the moment, she was hiding from men who wanted her dead with a man who wanted...what, exactly?

Ethan possessed the good sense to step away and let her have some space. The warmth of him left her and gravel crunched under his feet as he paced toward the road. Let him patrol. Right now, she almost didn’t care if the bad guys did find them. At least she wouldn’t be tormented by terror anymore.

In the moment. Okay. In this moment, no gun was aimed at her head. At least not that she was aware of.

She swept the thought away.

In this moment, gray mud coated the toes of her brown boots and the hem of her good jeans. Ashley focused on the dirt and the way it played on her boots, taking her mind out of the fear.

By the time Ethan crunched back to her, the dust had cleared from her mind if not from her feet. Trembling, Ashley pulled herself upright and inhaled deeply, bracing her hands against the sides of his truck, wrung out from the aftereffects of panic.

Ethan leaned beside her, not close enough to touch her but definitely close enough for the warmth of him to penetrate her jacket. “You okay?”

She glanced at him, but he wasn’t looking at her. Instead he scanned the tree line, the side of the building, trying to keep an eye out for any possible incursions. Knowing he wasn’t watching her eased the remaining tension in her shoulders. “I’m okay.” But she’d be better if she were alone. What she wouldn’t give for five minutes all by herself to knit her thoughts together.

“So that still happens?” There was no emotion in his words, no condemnation.

Her spine stiffened. Yes, that still happened, though not in a very long time. It was a failing she’d never been able to hide from him, as much as she’d tried. In spite of weak knees threatening to dump her to the ground, she pushed herself away from the truck, taking a second to steady her legs. “I said I’m fine.” And she would be, eventually, if he’d quit focusing on her. “Shouldn’t we be getting out of here?” She yanked open the truck door, even though the interior of the vehicle shrank into a claustrophobic nightmare.

This would take all of her willpower. Honestly, men with guns high-speed chasing them through the night was way less scary than standing here while Ethan realized she was still only half of her former self.

“I think we’re fairly safe here.” He didn’t move, didn’t pull out his keys and act as though it was imperative they hit the road again. “You know you can’t handle this on your own, right?”

Her hand froze on the cool metal of the door. He was in no position to give her advice, not when he had no idea what her life was like thanks to his running away. “When did you become a therapist? Did you learn that when you were in Intelligence training?” Ashley winced at her words. That was the one thing she really shouldn’t have brought up in front of him. Maybe he hadn’t heard.

“Very few days go by that I don’t think about how what I have came to me at the expense of your dreams.”

“And you left like a coward without telling me why.” Without giving him a chance to respond, Ashley hefted herself into the truck and slammed the door shut. If Ethan hadn’t taken her spot, someone else would have, but she couldn’t let it go, couldn’t stand to be reminded her life was working on plan F: fear and failure.

It was a long time before he climbed in the other side and slid the key into the ignition, though he didn’t turn the engine over. “Ash, I—”

“The conversation’s over. The past is done.” If only. “Sean needs us. Let’s just get those thumb drives from the post office, find the decryption code and pass it all on to whoever needs them to shut your case and bring Sean home. Then you can go back to your intelligence gathering and I can go back to my computers.”

Ethan’s fingers dropped from the ignition. “You know it’s not going to be easy.”

Oh, but she wanted it to be.

“Ash, you can’t go home until these guys are caught. It’s not safe for you until—”

“I know.” But that didn’t mean she wanted to think about it. Ethan and Sean had ripped her from her safe, controlled existence. A few miles away her apartment lay in shambles and she couldn’t go home anytime soon...if ever. In her swirling life, she needed a safe place or she was in danger of losing every inch of the ground she’d recovered since the day she’d been shot. “Just give me a few minutes where I can pretend none of this is happening.”

“What good’s that going to do you?”

“None.” Ashley ran a hand along her thigh and gripped the front of the seat, the leather soft beneath her fingers. “Where do we have to take the drives for you to have them analyzed? And where’s the cipher key?”

Beside her, Ethan froze. It was as if time had stopped and held him in suspended animation.

“The cipher key? The decryption code? Ethan, if Sean didn’t give you a key, the program’s useless. We set up the program using a symmetric key algorithm. The data’s encrypted in files, but the encryption requires a key, some kind of code to lock and unlock the data. Sean’s too smart to mail it with the drives themselves. Did he give you any clue where it is? Where he hid it?”