Page 3 of Point of Contact

And thank God she did.

Courtney watched the surface as another explosion, the sound of it buffered by the water around her body, sent debris, angry smoke, and a few flames across her backyard. Particles of the sad life she lived dropped against the surface of the water, quickly turning the salty liquid from clear blue to a cloudy gray that burned her eyes almost as much as the smoke.

Closing her eyes against the sight, she rolled to her belly, kicking off the wall and swimming as far as she could away from the house before grabbing the opposite side and hoisting her waterlogged body free. She scrubbed at her face, trying to clear the water and ash from her eyes and her nose as she crawled across the grass. Once she reached the thick hedges lining the back of her property, she tucked her body behind them.

The air was blessedly free of smoke, but she continued struggling to breathe. A few coughs had her rolling to her stomach, heaving out water and what remained of her morning coffee into the freshly spread mulch. It tasted terrible, and burned like fire coming up, but she could finally breathe and gulped in a lungful of air, hoping the extra oxygen would clear the blurring in her brain.

They'd tried to kill her. Not just kill her, but burn away any evidence of her existence.

Her eyes drifted back toward the smoking remnants of her once beautiful house. The house that once held nothing but useless possessions and bitter memories. A laugh bubbled from her lips, high-pitched and slightly unhinged, speaking to the current state she was in.

Everyone would believe she was dead. That she'd finally fallen victim to any selection of the men always attempting to pry power from her father's greedy fingers. And maybe she should let them. Maybe this was her chance to finally be free.

It sounded great in theory, but there was one major flaw with the plan. She had nowhere to go. No clue how to genuinely disappear off the face of the earth.

If she was going to be dead, she had to act dead. That meant no using credit cards. No showing her face where someone might recognize her. No plane tickets and no passports.

She could probably get her hands on some cash, but outside of that she had nothing. No clothes. No identification. No way to get the fuck out of Miami.

The urge to vomit clenched her stomach again, but it had nothing to do with smoke inhalation or ingested pool water. She was fucked.

Courtney rolled to her back, allowing one single tear of self-pity to leak free. Crying was a luxury she'd indulged in far too many times over the past year, and not a single one of them did her any good.

They didn't bring back her so-called friends. They didn't make her father give a shit. And they certainly wouldn't help keep her alive now.

She swiped at the wayward drop, rubbing it off her skin as she sucked in another deep breath, coughing out a little more of the smothering smoke still coating her throat before spitting it onto the ground. Courtney worked her body into a sitting position, collapsing back against the privacy fence as the sound of sirens rang in the distance.

She had to make a decision. Stay here and continue facing the perils of a life she didn't ask to be born into, or let it end right now. Leave it all behind and go somewhere none of these mother fuckers would ever find her.

She'd been somewhere like that before.

Courtney sat up a little straighter as realization hit. She could go back to Alaska. Convince Alaskan Security to help her again. She’d paid them plenty over the years. Certainly enough to cover one final disappearance.

And, conveniently enough, someone from Alaskan Security was already in Florida. Scheduled to be on her doorstep tomorrow morning even though she’d begged them to send him earlier. Explained until she was hoarse that this time she wasn't lying. This time she really was in danger.

And they’d blown her off. Left her alone, just like everyone else, to face the destruction of her life.

Helping her now was the least they could fucking do.

A slow smile worked on her lips as she settled into her escape plan. She’d find whoever was there and convince him to take her back. Say and do whatever it took to make that happen.

Because while she might technically have died today, there was no way she was giving up the chance to finally be able to live.

Courtney worked onto her hands and knees, keeping her body tight to the fence as she crawled away. Mulch dug into her palms and bushes scraped at her face and hair, but she didn't feel any of it. All she felt was the freedom now within her reach. The opportunity those pricks would never recognize they'd provided her.

She reached the corner of the lot where her back privacy fence met with the HOA required decorative panels lining the sides of her yard. Luckily the hedges planted along it were nearly eight feet high. More than tall enough to obscure her from view as she raised up, peeking through the branches to ensure no one was close enough to catch her movements before climbing the crossbars and maneuvering herself over the pointed spindles. Her feet hit the neighbor’s yard, toes squishing against the saturated insoles of her sneakers as she dropped back down to a crouch. The sirens were loud now, so the police and firefighters would be descending on her house any second.

She picked up the pace, continuing to cut along the privacy fence blocking the back of each home’s lot. Most had hedges that provided cover, but some didn't. That meant there was a chance she'd be caught on someone's security cameras, but there was no way around it. So she moved fast, keeping her head turned toward the fence and her arms around her body, doing her best to conceal as much of her identity as possible as she moved farther and farther from the wailing sirens.

She didn't let out a full breath until the edge of her neighborhood came into view. She ducked around the large water retention area camouflaged as a decorative pond, using the trees and foliage of the landscaping to stay as hidden as possible.

The tightness in her shoulders eased a little as she stepped onto the sidewalk. It was time to figure out where her mark was and sweet talk her way back to Alaska.

She glanced down at her athletic leggings and tank top. They weren't obviously wet, but they were clearly covered in smoke, and a little blood from where she must have scratched herself jumping through the window. Or rolling across the concrete. Or crawling through the bushes.

Or hopping a fence.

As much as she was ready to get this show on the road, she needed new clothes. Something that would make her less conspicuous. Her eyes lifted to the line of apartments across the street from her gated neighborhood. That's where she was going to find everything she needed.

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