“Jake!” she nearly shouted.
“Shh!” he commanded. “The bathroom window! Come on!” He dragged her by the hand toward the back of the room, even as the police car’s high beams pierced the thin seam in the curtain and cast a laser-width spear of light against the far wall.
“What are we doing? I’m not going anywhere,” she insisted, following along as she spoke.
“Look,” he snapped. “People tried to kill us today, and now that cop looks mad as hell. Looks to me like staying here could get us shot.”
The window in the bathroom was of standard height and size, but made of smoky white glass. Yet another siren peaked in volume and fell silent. Shit, Jake thought. There’s two of them now. And still more in the distance. The window lock turned easily, but he had to pound upward with the heels of both hands to get it to slide open.
“Jake, this is stupid!”
He made a stirrup with his hands. “Here. You go first.”
“Go where?”
“Out!” he hissed. “I don’t know where. Just out.”
Carolyn opened her mouth to argue but then complied. No sooner had she placed her bare foot in his hands than he nearly launched her through the opening. She came out too fast, tumbling headfirst into the wide alley behind the motel. She got her hands out in time, though, preventing damage to everything but her pride.
Jake arrived feet-first, just as the blue and red lights of a police car began to sweep the trees at the far end of the complex to their right. “Shit! They’re coming around to the back, too!”
They needed cover; something to hide behind. With the cop car approaching, they’d never make it to the tree line without being seen. The Dumpster! Jake grabbed Carolyn’s hand again and pulled her behind him as he dashed twenty yards or so and ducked behind the maroon trash receptacle. The warm rain had reinvigorated the stench of old garbage and rotting food, and he found himself instinctively breathing through his mouth.
“Why are we hiding from the police?” Carolyn shouted at a whisper. “We’ve done nothing wrong!”
“I don’t know. I have a bad feeling.” It was as honest an answer as he knew to give.
The second cop car approached more cautiously, killing his lights as he closed in on the back of their room. Once in place and stopped, the cop opened his door carefully and rolled quickly out of the car, taking his twelve- gauge with him. He scampered over to the passenger-side door, where he could use the vehicle as cover.
The Donovans exchanged panicked glances in the dark.
“Are they trying to arrest us?” Carolyn whispered.
Jake answered with a shrug that was invisible in the darkness. “Look at him. He’s scared shitless.”
They both jumped as the cop’s radio squelched and an electronic voice pierced the muted thrumming of the rain. “All units be advised, we have positive ID from the manager. These are definitely our shooters.”
The cop muttered something unintelligible into his microphone, then racked a round into the chamber of his shotgun and leveled it at the window they’d just climbed through.
“Oh, my God,” Carolyn breathed.
“He can’t wait to pull that trigger,” Jake said, not believing what he was seeing. This trooper wanted them bad, and he didn’t much care whether they were breathing or not. Jake pulled Carolyn away from the Dumpster and headed for the tree line. “We gotta get outa here. They’re liable to have dogs and all kinds of bullshit out here soon.”
This time she needed no pulling or prodding to get her to run. A second car pulled up to the rear of the building just as they reached the first line of cover. The police were shouting now, apparently no longer worried about a stealthy approach, and that was the Donovans’ cue to run like hell, while noise didn’t matter.
“We going back to the boat?” Carolyn asked.
“I sure as hell hope so.”
They’d floated in the dark nearly all night before Carolyn got the idea to contact her uncle in Chicago. A men’s clothing retailer turned real estate mogul, Harry Sinclair had more money than God, and if there was anyone in the world with the connections to lift them out of this mess, it would be him. They still didn’t know why they’d gone from near victims to Public Enemies #1 and #2 in the space of just a few hours, but it was clear as crystal that they needed some answers before they showed their faces again. And, assuming that the Visa card had alerted the cops back at the motel, they could forget about credit cards taking them where they wanted to go. They needed to develop alternative resources fast. Which meant Harry Sinclair.
It took them nearly two hours to give Travis that much of the story. There were parts he didn’t understand, and still more that he didn’t want to. But as it dragged on, and his parents shared the details about who they really were, and who they really weren’t, he found himself burrowing further and further under his Army blanket, finally wishing that they’d just stayed quiet and let him believe that things remained as they’d always been.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Eight-thirty had come and gone by the time Clayton Albricht finally returned to his office. Veronica was still there, of course-his personal assistant since his very first day in office-but she was the exception. The rest of the staff had flown the coop an hour ago. The senator walked heavily, his mind and his butt numbed by an endless series of meaningless meetings with colleagues and constituents alike. Sometimes he swore that his life had become one long photo opportunity.
As he walked through the huge oak doors and entered his outer office, he felt a sense of peace pour over him. He’d worked for decades to get these digs in the prestigious Russell Senate Office Building, and now that he had them, every hour of the effort seemed worthwhile. In Washington, where power was measured by the square foot, Albricht’s unobstructed view of the Capitol Building was the envy of all of his colleagues. With its two fireplaces, its intricately carved wood paneling, and its walls adorned with priceless works on loan from the National Gallery of Art, Chairman Albricht’s office resonated with power.
“Hello, Veronica,” Albricht mumbled as he dragged himself through the doors. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting so long. Really, there’s no reason for you to stay.”
Nor was there much reason for her to leave. A widow with no kids, Veronica had precious little to go home to. She packed her stuff, nonetheless-an umbrella and rain hat were standard, regardless of weather-and headed for the door.
“A messenger dropped a package off for you,” she said, plucking her overcoat out of the closet behind her desk. “The inner package said for you to open it personally.”
Albricht noticed the package just as she mentioned it, sitting on the conference table in his office. According to the attached paperwork, it came from the Washington Post.
“It came from a newspaper,” Veronica explained further. “The reporter said to give him a call when you get in. He said the story goes to press at nine.”
“What story?” Albricht asked.
“Guy wouldn’t say. Just told me to tell you to call him.” Veronica walked as she talked, having learned a long time ago the hazards of sticking around after she’d been released for the day. “His card’s on top of the package. See you tomorrow.”
Albricht heard the outer door close before he had a chance to answer.
The package wasn’t very big-standard eight-and-a-half-by-eleven, maybe a quarter inch thick. Reporter Tom Ford’s business card was taped to the outside. If the hour were earlier, Albricht would have set one of his staff to the task of finding out who the hell Tom Ford was.
Helping himself to one of the wine-colored calfskin chairs at his conference table, Albricht shoved his thumb up under the seal and pulled open the Tyvek envelope, revealing a short stack of photocopied documents, along with a cover letter on Washington Post stationery.
Dear Senator Albricht,
Enclosed, please find copies of documents we recently received from an anonymous source, in support of allegations that you have regularly engaged in pedophilic and homosexual activities. Because of the criminal nature of these allegations, I thought you might want to comment before we went to press with it.
