Page 3 of Laura's Truth

A smart man would leave, walk away from the temptation responsible for dragging him into this gently decorated hell. But Drew had to stay, had to seize the opportunity in front of him, or he’d always be looking over his shoulder. Freedom was a lovely ideal, and something no one valued enough until it was gone.

He scanned the crowded marketplace, waiting for his target to make contact. He didn’t need to check his watch to know the man was nearly ten minutes late for his morning trek for coffee. Drew couldn’t just wait around and serve himself up to whoever was tailing him, and he couldn’t walk away and risk missing the meet.

As yet another carriage full of tourists ambled around the corner and away from Market Street, he caught the unmistakable clicking of camera shutters. Drew stifled the dread rising like the tide inside him. Anonymity was an unattainable goal in the age of social media. He knew it, accepted it, and took precautions to survive it.

Still, even a dead man could dream of simpler times gone by.

He walked on, the risks dogging his heels. He needed a cover, someone to lend doubt to whoever had eyes on him. The people in his past, those who’d celebrated his early demise, remembered him as a man who worked alone.

Drew scanned the vendors and customers nearby for an appropriate distraction. Dresses, signs with southern sayings, two t-shirt stands, and a candy vendor were his closest options. While the dresses were popular with young women, he didn’t see making an easy play there among the girlfriends and mothers shopping with daughters. Two women weren’t easily divided by one man oozing charm.

He’d been overseas more than stateside and the sayings on those kitschy signs weren’t familiar enough despite his forty-eight hours in the area. The guy at the t-shirt booth was an option and, based on the stock, he looked like he could talk patriotism and free enterprise all day long. But it was the sudden collapse of the food vendor’s display that offered his best solution for evasion.

He moved closer to the sudden chaos as a mother and her young son tried to gather up the landslide of candy and treats scattered across the cement floor. Tubs labeled as beignets and lemon cooler cookies were stacked beside cones of sugared pecans and candy-coated almonds. The vendor soothed the little boy as she righted the table, gracious to a fault.

That fit Drew’s vague recollection of Southern hospitality. Then the table covering shifted and he caught sight of the strap tied to the broken support and realized his mistake. The boy hadn’t toppled the display, the vendor had done it. He’d been here two days and hadn’t seen an underhanded sales tactic like that used before.

Good thing he didn’t believe in coincidence. The vendor had to be tied to the team tailing him. Whoever had found him, he wasn’t naïve enough to believe they wouldn’t want to know why he’d come to Charleston.

He wasn’t inclined to share, or to be turned from what might be his only chance to right a serious wrong. Giving the frazzled mother his best smile, Drew placed a stack of cookie tubs on the righted table and eased away, only to trip over a broom and hit the pavement hard on his hip.

“Oh, my. I’m so sorry,” a woman said, but her voice didn’t carry any remorse or any of the warm southern drawl of the locals.

Survival instinct in high gear, Drew used the momentum of the fall, rolling backward and over his shoulder, coming to his feet near an older woman with ebony skin weaving local sweetgrass into artistic baskets and décor accents. She waved her hands, shooing him away, and he danced backward, managing to leave her display mostly intact.

A man shouted and he jerked around, coming face to face with a carriage horse. He spun out of the way and across the street, ducking into the nearest shop for cover. Another mistake, he thought as wind chimes made of thin slices of colorful geodes clattered musically around him. Christ, this city was worse than an unmarked minefield. With a well-practiced impersonation of a fumbling tourist, he apologized, aiming for the displays at the back of the shop. Removing his ball cap, he stuffed it into his pocket as he shrugged out of his windbreaker, tying it around his waist.

He heard the door open again and looked for an assist from a reflective surface, but came up empty, finding himself surrounded only by stones and fantastical pewter statues. He picked up a large piece of amethyst, cut and shaped into a bookend, testing the heft. Good enough for a fight in close quarters. He didn’t want a scene, didn’t want to cause any damage, but he sure as hell didn’t want to be hauled in by anyone representing authority.

Moving down the display of book ends, he edged toward the back room, eyeing the lock. Praise God for old buildings and comfortable, confident shop owners. The door jamb would crumble with a hard look. He just had to get over there.

“Mr. Garner?”

He didn’t so much as twitch. He wasn’t Garner, hadn’t been for years. Today he was one more husband desperately seeking the right purple bookends for his wife’s library.

“Mr. Garner? Sir? I believe you dropped your wallet.” Good play, but his wallet was secure behind the zipper inside his jacket. He had to make a conscious effort to stay relaxed as he felt the screws tighten. It was a mighty short list of people from his past who could have found him so quickly. A shorter list of people who’d known him by that name.

The woman speaking was gaining on his position. Same flat Midwestern inflections as the woman with the broom. Damn it. He knew better and still he’d assumed the people tailing him would’ve been mostly men. He heard the shuffle of footsteps as customers moved, felt their gazes on him.

There was a camera over the register in the center of the store. Another would be aimed at the office door. He peered over his shoulder as the woman cut off the angle for the stairs to an upper-level showroom. Her expert move, her familiar face, brought the worst possible scenario to glaring reality. Somehow Ross Carpenter had found him. Found him and contacted Army Counterintelligence Command before Drew’s job was done.

Damn it.

And the Army hadn’t sent just any officer in response. No, they’d sent his worst nightmare: Army Counterintelligence officer Laura Talbot.

There wasn’t time to worry how Ross had realized Drew was not just alive but in Charleston, seeing as Charleston was hours from the Cypress Security offices. No, Drew’s concern revolved around the immediate future, surviving the here and now. Had Ross called in a favor or assembled a take-down team?

“Mr. Garner?”

She was directly behind him, likely holding out a wallet they both knew didn’t belong to him. If she reached out, got a hand on him at all, it was over. Anyone in her position, with her training, would be lethal in hand-to-hand combat, not to mention armed with a concealed handgun. A fight meant more unwanted attention than he could afford.

“Sir?” She tapped him on the shoulder.

“Hmm? Yes?” He shifted, and turning he caught her knee with his, gaining a scant precious inch or two. Enough room to flee.

“Oh, dear,” he said, stretching an arm to steady her and plowing the bookend into her midriff at the same time. “Sorry,” he repeated when her eyes went hot with fury as she gasped for air.

He knew those changeable hazel eyes and the classic beauty of her oval face. Knew she recognized him too. In the split second he had to decide, he dropped her back on her ass and rushed toward the office, putting a knee into the weak lock and breaking through the door.

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