“Pretty fucking serious, man. Your face has gone out to every police station in the state. You either need to come in and get this cleared up or get out of town while I try to sort it out. Ian’s already hired a lawyer for you. Some new guy from the club. He’s all up in everyone’s business. He’s kind of mean, actually. I think I’ll set him on my ex-wife next. You said something about the security feed, but the tapes were blank. The security guard told us it hadn’t worked for weeks and you wouldn’t fix it.”
So his security guard was fired, and depending on Simon’s mood at the end of this case, perhaps dead. Luckily his backup plans had backup plans. He was a man who had learned to cover his arse. “I have a feed sent directly to my server.” Perhaps the cops would have prevented one thing from happening. The Collective likely hadn’t been able to torch everything since the police had been there so quickly. “It’s backed up on another server. Adam has the information. He can pull it down for you. Also have him trace Chelsea’s phone. We received a call right before we were attacked.”
“Thank god, that will help. I’ll get on it, but someone has a serious hard-on for you. You need to watch your back.”
It appeared they did. “We’ll be in the wind in an hour or so. Liaise with Ian.”
“Then you’ll call him?” Brighton sounded a bit hopeful. “Because he kind of put out an APB on your ass, too.”
“I’m going to call him the minute we get somewhere safe. Tell him I’ll take care of her and I’ll be in contact.” He cut off the line. He would have to deal with Ian sooner or later, but he needed to move her and fast.
“Darling, I need you to get dressed. We’re leaving in five minutes.” He stepped to the door and opened it. The motel was set back from the road. If the motel manager had recognized them, the cops would already be here. Luckily the manager likely didn’t want the police involved in anything. He would probably lose the majority of his clientele. Still, Simon kept his head down as they walked into the mid-morning light.
Jesse passed him a cup of coffee. “Drink it. You look like you could use it.”
He needed Scotch, but the caffeine would have to do. “We need to get her out of town.”
“Already working on it. I think we should drive out of the blast zone and then I’ll look into getting us to Mexico or something. Maybe somewhere with a beach. I don’t think Chelsea could handle jungle life.”
No. That much was certain. “We need to ditch your car and get my backup.”
“Already got the keys.” Jesse dangled the keys to the sedan he kept in a garage in Irving, a suburb. He’d taken it out the day he’d come to Dallas, putting the car, which was in another name, and extra equipment in a safe place.
The plate would come up as registered to a John Smith, who had no outstanding warrants and nary a speeding ticket. He would drive exactly two miles under the speed limit and pray they didn’t get pulled over. His plans for Austin were shot. They needed to get out of the state. Once they got out of Texas, he would look into getting a small plane and fly them out.
Jesse was right. They needed to get someplace where The Collective’s wide arms had little reach, and unfortunately, that meant someplace isolated.
They would be on the run and she would be dependent on him. He knew it made him a bastard, but it didn’t sound so bad. He would take care of her, protect her, give her time to really trust him.
He couldn’t think that way. He had to do everything he could to get her life back on track. He had a couple of days to prove to her he was the right man. Of course at this point, all she really knew was that he could give her an orgasm and was a cheap bloody date.
And he had to think about more than just himself. “Are you sure you want to come? We could be gone for a while.”
Jesse suddenly found the cement under his feet fascinating. “I’m not going to leave you hanging. I’m coming with you.”
“What about Phoebe?” He didn’t understand the relationship, didn’t understand Phoebe at all, but it seemed she was important to Jesse. Jesse struggled to form deep connections, though he obviously needed them badly.
His eyes came up and he shook his head slightly. “She knows I have work to do.”
“Does she? Have you told her what you really do?” Despite the fact that she worked for McKay-Taggart, she wouldn’t be privy to the more dangerous cases. She was an accountant. She worked payroll and kept the books. She wouldn’t have been told that they sometimes worked for the CIA.
“No. She thinks I do bodyguard work. I do sometimes. It wasn’t a lie. And Ian won’t let me do anything serious.” He frowned. “Do you think he’s ever going to trust me?”
Well, Simon dragging Jesse into hiding Chelsea wasn’t likely to help his case with Ian, but he knew that wasn’t the reason Ian was hesitant to really put Jesse in the field. “You know Eve hasn’t cleared you.”
When Jesse had started with McKay-Taggart he’d been on probation, but that time period had never ended because Eve wasn’t happy with Jesse’s mental state. He was stubborn, insisting that he was fine, but Eve didn’t buy it. Simon didn’t either. The reason they’d been partnered in the beginning was so Simon could watch over Jesse. He had triggers and those triggers typically led to him beating the holy hell out of someone. Simon was bigger than Jesse, but when Jesse went to that place in his head, he could take down a bull. Simon had nightmares about having to put Jesse down permanently.
Unfortunately, that was part of their bargain.
Jesse shoved his aviators over his eyes. “Shrinks don’t ever like me.”
“Eve is quite fond of you.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. Sorry. As shrinks go, she’s a good one. I’m just saying that they don’t think I can ever be sane again. I am, you know. I just have good days and bad days, that’s all.”
His last bad day had put a man in hospital. Lucky for him that man had been trying to kill him at the time. They’d worked a corporate case and when they’d tracked their suspect down, he’d managed to get the jump on them. He’d gotten Jesse in a headlock. Apparently it was something his previous captors had done as well. The suspect had soon found himself with multiple broken bones, including a jaw that would likely never work the same way again. Simon had just barely managed to stop Jesse from beating the man to death.