“You know you can buy ones on Amazon that look like the real thing, Jessie. How do you know they were real?”
“I know an FBI badge when I see one. Are you even listening to what I said? She’s dangerous! Are you home? Did you take her home with you?”
Zoe’s mind was spinning again. Government agents looking for Lucy, claiming she was dangerous. What if she was? Zoe glanced back out and saw the girl curled up watching the game show like a child. She looked like she couldn’t hurt a fly. And authorities claiming to have anyone’s best interests in mind couldn’t be trusted. Her past had taught her that. So what did they want with Lucy?
“What did they say exactly?” Zoe asked.
“They showed us her picture, asked us if we’d seen her and when she left,” Jessie answered.
“And what did you tell them?”
“The truth! I’m not trying to get myself in trouble with the government. I’m too weak for jail.”
“You told them about me?” Zoe could feel her panic start to boil.
“I told them you took the girl with you. What was I supposed to say?”
Zoe swore under her breath. If they knew Lucy had left with her, it wouldn’t take them long to track her back here. She stepped out of the bathroom and nearly stumbled into Lucy, who was standing right outside the door.
Lucy’s eyes were wide and focused. “They’re here.”
Zoe wasn’t sure what to say with the phone up to her ear, Jessie rambling about prison time. She swallowed and cut the woman off midsentence. “I have to go, Jessie.”
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Jessie warned.
“I’ll call you later,” Zoe said and clicked the phone off.
“They can’t find me,” Lucy said. “They can’t be trusted.”
“Who are they?”
“The bad guys,” she whispered. Then her attention snapped to the door, a different level of focus filling her expression. A moment of eerie silence encased the room. Only long enough for Zoe to exhale, then Lucy’s eyes were back on her.
“They’re close,” she said.
Jessie must have told them where Zoe lived. How could Lucy know—
Zoe’s thought was interrupted by a hard rap at her apartment door. She looked at the door, then back at Lucy, whose face was now covered in panic, tears forming in the corners of her eyes.
“Please help me,” Lucy whimpered.
An image of a small boy Zoe loved with all her heart and two large uniformed men dragging him off flashed across her memory. His tiny words filled her mind. Help me. The wound she’d stitched up time after time opened, and agony dripped out like blood. Zoe hadn’t helped him; she’d let someone else influence him to do things that had ultimately separated them. She should have saved him, protected him, but she’d been too afraid. She couldn’t be afraid now. She could help Lucy.
Again a knock bounced off the door, followed by a deep male voice. “FBI. Please open the door.”
“Liar,” Lucy whispered, anger washing over her eyes.
Zoe was trying to piece it all together, but there wasn’t time now. The only thing she could trust was her gut, and right now it was screaming at her to get this girl far away from whoever was on the other side of the door.
Zoe flipped a mental switch and moved with precise determination. She grabbed a backpack and stuffed it with all her cash. She opened a desk drawer, retrieved a flip phone that couldn’t be traced, and tossed it in with the money. She left all the rest of her things.
Then she was motioning for Lucy to follow her into the bathroom, where a single small window was perched above the shower. Barely big enough for them to squeeze through, it was their only exit. Zoe had never opened it; she wasn’t even sure it would open. She carefully balanced on the ceramic tub and yanked at the rusted latch. Nothing. Twice more with all her might, but to no avail. She stepped off, pushed past Lucy, and rummaged in the desk drawer for a screwdriver.
When she stepped back into the bathroom, Lucy was up on the ledge yanking the lever. Zoe opened her mouth to tell her it wouldn’t budge when it squeaked open, and Lucy pushed the window wide. She looked back for direction, and Zoe mouthed, You first.
The girl pulled herself through the window, and Zoe stepped up to follow. Hands on the window’s edge, she caught sight of the latch. It was broken off. She paused and eyed it curiously. Lucy had broken the latch completely. That didn’t seem possible. For a half second Zoe questioned what she was doing, risking so much with so little knowledge. Was this a mistake?
She saw Lucy looking up at her from the outside, her eyes pleading. There was no turning back now. Ignoring the familiar rage of fear, Zoe let the unknown go and pulled herself through the window.
SIX
SEELEY WALKED INTO the motel room, where four agents were rummaging through its contents looking for clues, cataloguing items, and gathering as much information as they could.
Dave McCoy stepped across the room to meet Seeley.
“A techie who does fieldwork,” Seeley said. “Where’d they find you?”
“Unique case calls for a unique approach,” McCoy said.
“That’s putting it mildly. Anything?”
“Lucy was here. We found her clothes in the dryer. Looks like she escaped out the back window. The latch is broken. By the time our guys got the manager to let them in, she was long gone.”
“And this Zoe Johnson?” Seeley asked.
“Gone as well. Seems she may be helping Lucy.” McCoy stepped backward and grabbed a bagged item off the small wooden desk. “She left her phone behind, which seems odd in this day and age.”
Seeley took the bag from McCoy and opened it. “Unless it was intentional? We could have tracked this.”
“Smart girl.”
Seeley eyed McCoy. “What do we know about her?”
“Not a lot. Zoe Johnson, twenty-four, has been working at the diner the last eight months. Before that it’s pretty much a blank. She’s not a sharer, according to Miss Mack, who definitely is.”
Seeley turned the phone in his hand. He imagined when they searched it, they’d find nothing. If she was smart enough to leave it behind, she was probably smart enough not to keep anything of value on it. Which was exactly what he would do. Which meant she had something to hide.
“Miss Mack also mentioned how peculiar the girl was acting. She said she didn’t seem to know or remember anything,” McCoy said.
The two men shared a knowing look. More confirmation of Olivia’s actions. Which meant Lucy was scared and alone and needing someone to follow.
And she’d picked Zoe Johnson.
“If Lucy doesn’t remember anything, then why run?” McCoy asked, vocalizing Seeley’s thoughts.
“Olivia must have told her we’re the enemy.”
“And Zoe? People usually cooperate with authority. Could Zoe know Lucy?”
“Not likely,” Seeley said. Years of hunting people had taught him that human reactions were often predictable. A history of experiences shaped the way a person reacted to any situation. All one had to do was learn the history to predict the future.
He guessed if he looked through Zoe Johnson’s past, he’d find evidence of an authority problem. They were a threat to her, so when she was confronted with a scared girl on the run from authority, it would be in her nature to assist. If she wasn’t cutting the girl off, then what was motivating her to continue to help? And how far would that motivation drive her?