Kay was running away from all of this, but not forever. She and Nick were regrouping, and they'd be back.
No sounds came from the outside world, not even the sound of the vehicle's engine. It was as if they were in a spaceship, shooting through time and space, alone in the universe. The windows could have been monitors.
She turned her head to watch Nick. He drove like he did most things-well and intensely. For a second she flashed on how well and intensely he'd driven her last night. The sure feel of his hands on her, his mouth devouring hers, his penis inside her, thrusting like a piston. Heat bloomed in her core, a line of heat from her sex to her heart. The first time she'd felt like a human being, like a woman, since she'd gotten out of bed this morning.
It was no time to be thinking of their night in bed together, but her body overwhelmed her. In some deep animal part of her, she realized that by some miracle, she wasn't dead. Right now, she could be dead meat on the pavement of an alley, lost to life.
But she wasn't. She was alive and would stay that way. Nick's grim face was testament to the fact that he was going to use every resource at his disposal to help her.
She was going to live, in the open, as a free woman. They were going to beat this. Together. Her life had been handed back to her, richer than it had been before.
She owed him so much, and she'd been such a coward, running away from him this morning. He deserved an explanation.
"Nick," she began, "I want you to know that-"
"Not now, Kay." He turned his head slightly to look at her, then turned back to the road. He was driving in hypervigilant mode, eyes on the road, flickering constantly
to the internal and external rearview mirrors in regular rotations, occasionally checking the GPS monitor. They were not driving in a straight line. He would go for about five blocks, then double back for a block or two. "We'll have plenty of time to talk when we get to the Grange."
The Grange. Felicity had mentioned this complex they were building in the wilderness. It was a business, a large server farm. Server farms had to be kept close to freezing. God, she hoped there were living quarters, and that they were heated. A shudder ran through her, the cold of delayed shock.
"Reach behind you," Nick said, eyes straight ahead. "There is usually a blanket on the back seat."
There was. Clean, thick and warm. She wrapped herself in it and felt immediately better. "Thanks. All of a sudden I felt cold." She glanced outside the window at the bright sunshine. "Don't know why."
"Adrenaline dump. Shock. You saw a man killed. Be enough to make anyone shocky."
Her seat was warming up, another layer of heat that she welcomed. Suddenly the back reclined and she glanced at Nick.
"I'm taking a long, roundabout route to make sure we're not being followed. You must be exhausted. You didn't sleep much last night and you had these shocks this morning. See if you can nap. It would do you good."
He was treating her like she'd been in an accident and in a way, he wasn't far off. But it felt wrong somehow to rest and sleep when he was vigilant. Plus, well … he hadn't slept much last night either.
A blast of heat that had nothing to do with the vehicle shot through her at the memory. Sleep had been impossible with Nick in her bed, in her.
"I'm not really sleepy," she protested, then gave a huge yawn.
"Uh huh." Nick's face was utterly expressionless. "Just close your eyes, even if you can't sleep. You'll be under a lot of pressure once we're at the Grange, and it won't be anything I can help you with. So, rest while you can."
"Not sleepy," she protested, but she closed her eyes anyway.
And fell into a sleep so deep, it could have been a coma.
Georgetown
Washington, DC
Senator Catherine De Haven, member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, sat at her desk in her townhouse in Georgetown, mulling over the previous day's events. A long, long day that had tried everyone's patience, a day in which she'd had to change her blouse twice. It had been like swimming in shark-infested waters but in the end, the biggest shark of all had been bloodied.
A goodly chunk of taxpayer money was supposed to have flowed into the hands of a powerful but unethical, perhaps even criminal, man. Those contracts were no more. She'd planned her revenge for years and now she had it. And it felt good, very good.
The hearing was supposed to be a lovefest between the chairman and Stanley Offutt, CEO of Blackvale, a controversial security company. Besides the multimillion-dollar contracts for physical infrastructure, Blackvale was supposed to be given a contract for intelligence gathering worth billions.