Page 16 of Reclaiming Chaos
She swallowed hard, turned off the lights, grabbed my hand with her trembling fingers, and pulled me into the bathroom. “Time’s up. They’re coming for the book.”
I lifted a brow. “Only my team knows I have the book and where I’m staying, and I’m not hiding in the damn bathroom.”
She shrugged. “We wouldn’t need to do this if you’d just listened to me.”
There was a light knock on the door. I went to walk out of the bathroom when Carlee yanked me back before sliding down to huddle in a ball against the wall. She pulled on my pant leg until I joined her.
The locking mechanism in the door was loud in the outer room. Son of a… I slipped my gun out of my holster.
I peeked through the small crack in the partially closed door. Some guy, dressed head to toe in black, stepped into my room. The light behind him glinted off the gun he pointed into the darkness.
A muzzle flash was accompanied by the distinctive sound of a suppressor as he fired into the lumps of pillows on the bed. He hurried across the room and grabbed the book from the table and ran for the door.
I went to chase him when Carlee stopped me again. “You leave, you die. You die, I die.”
“Someone just tried to kill me,” I growled and ran for the door. I’d just made it outside when I saw the person climbing into the passenger side of a black government-looking SUV.
I lifted my gun and aimed as they sped out of the parking lot but didn’t fire.
Carlee stepped outside with me. “Can we go now, please?”
“No. Someone just shot at where they thought I was sleeping and stole your fake book.”
“I know. That’s why we need to leave,” she said. “Please.”
I pulled out my phone and was about to dial when Carlee pulled it from my hands and turned it off. “They can track you with that.”
“I need to check on my team and figure out who the hell shot me.”
She looked at her watch and then back at me. “You do that. I can’t stay here.”
“You don’t have a choice,” I said, taking her by the arm and guiding her down the stairs toward the motel office. “I bet in none of your predictions about me did you see that I pick our hotels based on the security cameras. You never know when, and if, a threat might follow us.”
“No, I didn’t know that, but that’s smart.”
I guided her through the office to an unlabeled door. I knocked, and it swung open. A uniformed security guard sat inside the tiny office drinking coffee while on his cell phone.
“Agent Bennett.” His gaze shifted from me to Carlee and back again. “Did you have a break-in?”
“Sort of. I need the footage from the parking lot for the last ten minutes. With highlights of the plates that were leaving.”
“Sure. You know we have a camera positioned at the entrance to get all the license plates when visitors come and leave.”
Carlee turned and grinned. “Youwereprepared.”
The guard pulled up the video feed for the parking lot camera, and I tapped his shoulder when the one I wanted popped up on the screen. I grabbed a pen off the table and wrote the plate number down before I had him hit Play.
It showed a dark-haired man getting out of the car. His hard face was captured before he covered it with a mask. I tapped the guard’s shoulder again, and he printed the image. Satisfied, I gestured to keep watching it.
My breath caught and my heart raced as I watched the intruder enter Reyes’ room, where a bright flash showed before the intruder moved on to the next one, Melony’s. He’d been to theirs before ever reaching mine. “Oh shit. I need your master key,”
He handed me the card key from his pocket, and I pointed at Carlee. “Keep her here, and don’t let anyone in this room until I get back.”
“Of course.” The guy rose to his feet. Determination shined in the older man’s eyes.
I ran out of the room with the card key in my hand, taking the stairs two at time until I reached the floor and sprinted the rest of the way. Slowing, I knocked on the door to Reyes’ room. “Don’t shoot. It’s Ridge.”
I shoved the key into the lock and eased the door open, flicking on the light. Reyes lay in the bed with a bullet wound to his head.
