Nowhere To Run
Chapter Nine
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I know you're probably tired of hearing me say this, but THANK YOU for reading my story and an extra special thank you to those that have submitted reviews. Your time is very much appreciated!!
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Frank slowly awoke, senses on instant alert. Something wasn't right. Had he heard something or sensed some movement? He stilled his movements and tried to clear his mind. It felt as if something was out of place. Almost like waking up in a different spot than you were before falling asleep, but he knew he was in his own bedroom. As he became fully awake, it dawned on him what was different. Katherine was gone.
His heart sank thinking that she might have left him without saying a word. Like a thief in the night. Or in this case, like a highly trained assassin. He began to rise from the bed, when he saw something out of the corner of his eye. It was still fully dark, probably no later than 2 or 3 in the morning, but enough light entered through the partially drawn curtains for him to see a form at the window. *She didn't leave after all* he thought with a sigh.
Although it was difficult to see in the darkness, he could at least make out that she was standing with her back to him, staring out at the street below. He slipped out of the bed and slowly made his way towards her. If she sensed his presence, she gave no indication of it. As he neared her, he could hear her softly crying, and the sound broke his heart.
He gently reached for her and encircled her waist with his strong arms. She gave a brief start when he first touched her, but immediately melted into his embrace.
"Tell me what's wrong," he softly commanded as he lifted the back of his fingers to her face, tenderly wiping away her tears.
"What isn't wrong?" she replied hopelessly. "I'm a fugitive, and I'm running from the very people that I once trusted without question. People who will never stop pursuing me, at least not until I'm dead and buried. They've taken everything away from me, Frank. My identity. My honor. And I live in constant fear that at any minute, someone will find me." With those last words, she turned and buried her face against his chest. He pulled her tighter into his arms, trying to provide whatever comfort he could.
"No one's going to find you. I'll make sure of that," he stated. "But you have to tell me everything. I can't protect you if I don't know who or what we're up against."
She pulled back from him, and gave him a horrified glare. "I won't involve you in this!" she nearly shouted at him. She pulled completely free from his arms and began moving through the bedroom. Turning on the bedside lamp, she started looking for her hastily discarded clothing.
"You won't involve me?!? Don't you think it's a little late for that?" He watched her gathering her clothes and added, "What do you think you're doing?"
"I'm leaving."
"Just like that," he said sarcastically.
"Yeah, just like that. What I've already told you has put you in harm's way. If I tell you any more, your life will mean nothing." She paused from dressing to look him straight in the eye. "Don't you get it, Frank? This isn't going to go away. If I'm ever caught, there will be no trial. I'll never live to see it. These people will not stop. Ever." The two stared at each other from across the room.
Sighing heavily, Frank slowly made his way towards her and knelt down in front of the chair where she was sitting.
"I know you think that not giving me all of the details will help to protect me, but you're wrong." She started to protest, but he quickly silenced her as he continued. "We have an advantage here that you haven't thought of."
"What's that?"
"Right now, I'm the one in charge of finding you and bringing you in."
"How is that an advantage," she asked dubiously.
"I can control the amount or accuracy of the information that they're given. But in order for me to do that effectively, I need to know everything. You say that you were betrayed by those that you trusted. What if some of those same people are the ones that I report to. What if at this moment I think I can trust them too? I might inadvertently tip them off to something that would ultimately end up in your capture."
She gazed at him as she considered the possibility. What he said made sense, but she was terrified of the repercussions if he was wrong. Did she dare risk it? In such a short time, this man had come to mean everything to her. Could she risk his life to possibly save her own?
"I don't think I can do this," she said weakly, but he could see the fight was no longer blazing in her eyes.
"Yes you can," he said taking her hands in his.
"If anything would happen to you, I'd never………" she added as the tears began to flow once more.
"Shhhh……..nothing's going to happen to me. We can do this, but you have to trust me. You have to let me in, Katherine."
"I do trust you. I swore I'd never confide in another soul," she replied as she lifted her fingers and lightly ran them along his cheek. "But , God help me, I do trust you."
Frank stood and pulled her to her feet along with him.
"Let's get dressed and you can start where you left off."
"We better make some coffee too," she said, "this may take awhile."
So over the next few hours, Katherine told Frank what she dared not tell another living soul. And in the wee hours of the morning as the sun began to brighten the horizon, Frank started to formulate a plan.
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6:00AM Tuesday morning
"All I can say is, this had BETTER be good!" Cody nearly shouted at Monica.
"Jake said it was important. Why else would he have us meet he and Alex here so early in the morning?"
"That's exactly my point. It's god damned 6:00 in the god damned morning!! Who comes to work at 6:00AM anyway?"
"A lot of people, Cody! So cut out the attitude, alright? One morning is NOT going to kill you."
"Well………all I'll add is……..if they're not here in the next 2 minutes, I am soooooo outta here."
Monica just rolled her eyes and tried her best to ignore him. She wasn't happy about the hour either, but figured it had to be something major for Jake to ask them to get here this early. *Probably found a lead* she thought. *But why so early in the morning? And why without Donovan?*
Her thoughts were disrupted when she heard the door to the warehouse open and then slam shut. She saw the look on Jake's face and knew something major had developed. He looked about ready to kill. *This isn't going to be good, I can tell right now.*
"So what's the deal Jake," Cody started off, attitude in tow. "Why are we here at the butt crack of dawn?"
"Is Alex here yet?" he asked, ignoring Cody's question.
"Not yet," Monica replied.
"We'll wait for her. Then I'll fill you in." With that Jake turned to retrieve a much needed cup of coffee. He'd slept very little the previous night. His mind filled with a hundred different questions and damned few answers.
Not a moment later, Alex entered the building. "Sorry I'm late," was all she mumbled to no one in particular.
"So since we're all present and accounted for, for our secret little meeting, would somebody please tell me why it was necessary for me to haul myself out of bed so early?" Cody again asked. "And why wasn't Donovan invited to this little pow wow?"
At that question, Alex and Jake exchanged glances.
"That's why we're here," Jake explained.
"OK, I'm already lost. We're here for what reason?"
"Donovan."
"Donovan? That's the explanation? What?………It's his birthday? He's firing all of us? He's being transferred? You're going to have to be more specific here."
Jake was becoming irritated. Even more so than he had been. "Well, if you shut up for a minute, maybe I'll get the chance to tell you!!"
Cody started to open his mouth, but saw the look on Jake's face and thought better of it.
Jake and Alex quickly looked at each other, and then Alex said, "You tell them." Jake nodded.
"Alright…………you know that Alex and I started a block by block search yesterday that centered around the address that Donovan gave us." Monica and Cody both nodded for him to continue. "Basically, we turned up nothing, at least nothing concrete. A lot of maybe's but that's about it. After about 8 or 9 hours of canvassing the neighborhood, we met back at that bar. Compared notes and decided to head back here, to the nest."
"That's when we realized that neither one of us had approached the bar owner. So even though it was late we figured we might as well get it done that night instead of having to come back in the morning. So we went in and talked to bartender/owner. A man by the name of Brendan McCauley. We showed him the sketch of Amanda Blake and he recognized her immediately."
"He said that she was a frequent customer. So we asked if he had seen her recently, and he informed us that she had been in there this past Saturday night. We continued by inquiring if he had ever seen her with anyone else, or did she always arrive and leave alone. He told us that she had met up with someone that very night." Jake paused and again looked at Alex.
"What?" Monica asked, seeing the looks that the two had exchanged and wondering why she had this awful feeling growing in the pit of her stomach.
Jake continued, "We asked if he knew who the man was that she had spent time with."
"And?" Cody asked , growing impatient, "who was it?"
"He said his name was Frank Donovan."
Cody and Monica were both left speechless.
"Wow," was all Cody could manage to say.
"Was THAT worth hauling your ass out of bed for?" Jake asked mockingly.
"Ummmm……..I would say that's a yes."
"So maybe he ran into this woman and didn't realize until later that she was connected to this case," Monica volunteered.
"That was our first thought too," Alex finally piped in. "But the bartender gave us a pretty good description of the way they had spent their evening."
"So fess up"
"Let's just say that according to the owner, they were……. very intimate. Quiet conversation. Voices low. Intently staring into each others eyes. Occasionally hands clasped across the table. The type of behavior that you would expect between two people on a date for instance." Alex stopped to let them absorb the implications of what she had said.
"Is there any chance that he didn't recognize her as Katherine Dawson?" Monica asked hopefully.
"The owner said that they spent the better part of 5 or more hours together that night. What do YOU think the chances are that Frank didn't recognize her?" Jake asked in reply. "I mean, how could he not? I took one look at that sketch and knew instantly that this was the same woman only with a different hair color and cut. There's no way that he didn't know!" he added, his temper beginning to flare.
"It gets better," Alex added.
"OH God! Now what!?!" Cody practically shouted.
"The bartender said that they left together."
"There has to be an explanation," was all that Monica could say.
"Yeah, there's an explanation alright!! He's been lying to us!" Jake yelled. "The man pulls a gun on me because I asked one too many questions, and the whole time he's holding back because he's been sleeping with the enemy!"
"That's enough Jake!" Monica shouted back. "We have no way of knowing exactly what happened that night without being there."
"Awwww, come on Monica. They spent over 5 hours together holding hands and gazing into each others eyes like some high school love birds and then they left together. Even I can add two and two together. The only question is, how long has this been going on?"
"What…..you think he's known her all along?" Cody asked.
"How the hell are we supposed to know?? I mean at this point, I'm not sure of anything he's told us about this case."
"Alright," Alex began, "let's just all calm down a little. I know it looks really bad, but like Monica said, there has to be an explanation. I mean, consider this. IF, and I do mean IF, there's something going on between Donovan and this Katherine Dawson, why would he have us out searching for her? Why give us an artist's sketch to show around town? Why not send us off in some other direction as a decoy?"
They all sat their in silence and pondered the points that Alex had just brought up.
"She's right," Cody said, "it wouldn't make any sense to have us search so close to where she really is."
The four spent the next hour discussing a hundred scenarios, and came to no conclusions. Only one person could give them the answers that they needed to fill in the blanks. And at the moment he was nowhere around.
By 7:30, they had exhausted all possible discussion on the subject. And at 7:35, Frank entered the building to find all four sitting at the table, staring at him in disbelief.
"Good morning," he said and received only stares as a reply.
"Does someone want to fill me in on what's going on?" Frank asked.
"Why don't you start?" Jake answered smugly.
"What do you mean? Fill you in on what?"
"Oh, let me see……….how about McCauley's Bar…….Saturday night……….Amanda Blake or should I say Katherine Dawson and ……….oh that's right, you!"
"I don't like your tone, Agent Shaw."
"My tone!?!?! What the hell does my tone have to do with it?!? What I'd like to know, is what you were doing out on a date with the woman we've been hunting for two months???"
"Jake!" Alex interjected. "Calm down! This isn't going to get us anywhere if the two of you start shouting at each other!"
"You know, you're right Alex. We' don't want to get Donovan here all worked up, 'cause he's liable to pull a gun on me again! Isn't that right?"
Frank should have realized what their reaction would be when they found out. And he had no doubt that they would have found out eventually. After all he had sent them right to the center of the action, so to speak. But Jake's words still stung, only because he knew that he deserved every one of them.
"Do you want to keep yelling, Jake, or would you prefer that I offer some explanations?" Frank answered in return.
"How are we supposed to believe a word that you say, if you don't mind me asking?" Jake inquired sarcastically.
Frank looked down at the table and then back at the group. "I suppose I deserve that. But if you don't want to believe me, I have more proof."
"What kind of proof?" Monica asked.
"I think he's referring to me."
All heads turned to see Katherine Dawson standing in the room behind them.
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Next chapter: Can Katherine convince the group that she's telling the truth?
And exactly what is Frank's plan??
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Chapter Nine
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I know you're probably tired of hearing me say this, but THANK YOU for reading my story and an extra special thank you to those that have submitted reviews. Your time is very much appreciated!!
//////////////////////////////////
Frank slowly awoke, senses on instant alert. Something wasn't right. Had he heard something or sensed some movement? He stilled his movements and tried to clear his mind. It felt as if something was out of place. Almost like waking up in a different spot than you were before falling asleep, but he knew he was in his own bedroom. As he became fully awake, it dawned on him what was different. Katherine was gone.
His heart sank thinking that she might have left him without saying a word. Like a thief in the night. Or in this case, like a highly trained assassin. He began to rise from the bed, when he saw something out of the corner of his eye. It was still fully dark, probably no later than 2 or 3 in the morning, but enough light entered through the partially drawn curtains for him to see a form at the window. *She didn't leave after all* he thought with a sigh.
Although it was difficult to see in the darkness, he could at least make out that she was standing with her back to him, staring out at the street below. He slipped out of the bed and slowly made his way towards her. If she sensed his presence, she gave no indication of it. As he neared her, he could hear her softly crying, and the sound broke his heart.
He gently reached for her and encircled her waist with his strong arms. She gave a brief start when he first touched her, but immediately melted into his embrace.
"Tell me what's wrong," he softly commanded as he lifted the back of his fingers to her face, tenderly wiping away her tears.
"What isn't wrong?" she replied hopelessly. "I'm a fugitive, and I'm running from the very people that I once trusted without question. People who will never stop pursuing me, at least not until I'm dead and buried. They've taken everything away from me, Frank. My identity. My honor. And I live in constant fear that at any minute, someone will find me." With those last words, she turned and buried her face against his chest. He pulled her tighter into his arms, trying to provide whatever comfort he could.
"No one's going to find you. I'll make sure of that," he stated. "But you have to tell me everything. I can't protect you if I don't know who or what we're up against."
She pulled back from him, and gave him a horrified glare. "I won't involve you in this!" she nearly shouted at him. She pulled completely free from his arms and began moving through the bedroom. Turning on the bedside lamp, she started looking for her hastily discarded clothing.
"You won't involve me?!? Don't you think it's a little late for that?" He watched her gathering her clothes and added, "What do you think you're doing?"
"I'm leaving."
"Just like that," he said sarcastically.
"Yeah, just like that. What I've already told you has put you in harm's way. If I tell you any more, your life will mean nothing." She paused from dressing to look him straight in the eye. "Don't you get it, Frank? This isn't going to go away. If I'm ever caught, there will be no trial. I'll never live to see it. These people will not stop. Ever." The two stared at each other from across the room.
Sighing heavily, Frank slowly made his way towards her and knelt down in front of the chair where she was sitting.
"I know you think that not giving me all of the details will help to protect me, but you're wrong." She started to protest, but he quickly silenced her as he continued. "We have an advantage here that you haven't thought of."
"What's that?"
"Right now, I'm the one in charge of finding you and bringing you in."
"How is that an advantage," she asked dubiously.
"I can control the amount or accuracy of the information that they're given. But in order for me to do that effectively, I need to know everything. You say that you were betrayed by those that you trusted. What if some of those same people are the ones that I report to. What if at this moment I think I can trust them too? I might inadvertently tip them off to something that would ultimately end up in your capture."
She gazed at him as she considered the possibility. What he said made sense, but she was terrified of the repercussions if he was wrong. Did she dare risk it? In such a short time, this man had come to mean everything to her. Could she risk his life to possibly save her own?
"I don't think I can do this," she said weakly, but he could see the fight was no longer blazing in her eyes.
"Yes you can," he said taking her hands in his.
"If anything would happen to you, I'd never………" she added as the tears began to flow once more.
"Shhhh……..nothing's going to happen to me. We can do this, but you have to trust me. You have to let me in, Katherine."
"I do trust you. I swore I'd never confide in another soul," she replied as she lifted her fingers and lightly ran them along his cheek. "But , God help me, I do trust you."
Frank stood and pulled her to her feet along with him.
"Let's get dressed and you can start where you left off."
"We better make some coffee too," she said, "this may take awhile."
So over the next few hours, Katherine told Frank what she dared not tell another living soul. And in the wee hours of the morning as the sun began to brighten the horizon, Frank started to formulate a plan.
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6:00AM Tuesday morning
"All I can say is, this had BETTER be good!" Cody nearly shouted at Monica.
"Jake said it was important. Why else would he have us meet he and Alex here so early in the morning?"
"That's exactly my point. It's god damned 6:00 in the god damned morning!! Who comes to work at 6:00AM anyway?"
"A lot of people, Cody! So cut out the attitude, alright? One morning is NOT going to kill you."
"Well………all I'll add is……..if they're not here in the next 2 minutes, I am soooooo outta here."
Monica just rolled her eyes and tried her best to ignore him. She wasn't happy about the hour either, but figured it had to be something major for Jake to ask them to get here this early. *Probably found a lead* she thought. *But why so early in the morning? And why without Donovan?*
Her thoughts were disrupted when she heard the door to the warehouse open and then slam shut. She saw the look on Jake's face and knew something major had developed. He looked about ready to kill. *This isn't going to be good, I can tell right now.*
"So what's the deal Jake," Cody started off, attitude in tow. "Why are we here at the butt crack of dawn?"
"Is Alex here yet?" he asked, ignoring Cody's question.
"Not yet," Monica replied.
"We'll wait for her. Then I'll fill you in." With that Jake turned to retrieve a much needed cup of coffee. He'd slept very little the previous night. His mind filled with a hundred different questions and damned few answers.
Not a moment later, Alex entered the building. "Sorry I'm late," was all she mumbled to no one in particular.
"So since we're all present and accounted for, for our secret little meeting, would somebody please tell me why it was necessary for me to haul myself out of bed so early?" Cody again asked. "And why wasn't Donovan invited to this little pow wow?"
At that question, Alex and Jake exchanged glances.
"That's why we're here," Jake explained.
"OK, I'm already lost. We're here for what reason?"
"Donovan."
"Donovan? That's the explanation? What?………It's his birthday? He's firing all of us? He's being transferred? You're going to have to be more specific here."
Jake was becoming irritated. Even more so than he had been. "Well, if you shut up for a minute, maybe I'll get the chance to tell you!!"
Cody started to open his mouth, but saw the look on Jake's face and thought better of it.
Jake and Alex quickly looked at each other, and then Alex said, "You tell them." Jake nodded.
"Alright…………you know that Alex and I started a block by block search yesterday that centered around the address that Donovan gave us." Monica and Cody both nodded for him to continue. "Basically, we turned up nothing, at least nothing concrete. A lot of maybe's but that's about it. After about 8 or 9 hours of canvassing the neighborhood, we met back at that bar. Compared notes and decided to head back here, to the nest."
"That's when we realized that neither one of us had approached the bar owner. So even though it was late we figured we might as well get it done that night instead of having to come back in the morning. So we went in and talked to bartender/owner. A man by the name of Brendan McCauley. We showed him the sketch of Amanda Blake and he recognized her immediately."
"He said that she was a frequent customer. So we asked if he had seen her recently, and he informed us that she had been in there this past Saturday night. We continued by inquiring if he had ever seen her with anyone else, or did she always arrive and leave alone. He told us that she had met up with someone that very night." Jake paused and again looked at Alex.
"What?" Monica asked, seeing the looks that the two had exchanged and wondering why she had this awful feeling growing in the pit of her stomach.
Jake continued, "We asked if he knew who the man was that she had spent time with."
"And?" Cody asked , growing impatient, "who was it?"
"He said his name was Frank Donovan."
Cody and Monica were both left speechless.
"Wow," was all Cody could manage to say.
"Was THAT worth hauling your ass out of bed for?" Jake asked mockingly.
"Ummmm……..I would say that's a yes."
"So maybe he ran into this woman and didn't realize until later that she was connected to this case," Monica volunteered.
"That was our first thought too," Alex finally piped in. "But the bartender gave us a pretty good description of the way they had spent their evening."
"So fess up"
"Let's just say that according to the owner, they were……. very intimate. Quiet conversation. Voices low. Intently staring into each others eyes. Occasionally hands clasped across the table. The type of behavior that you would expect between two people on a date for instance." Alex stopped to let them absorb the implications of what she had said.
"Is there any chance that he didn't recognize her as Katherine Dawson?" Monica asked hopefully.
"The owner said that they spent the better part of 5 or more hours together that night. What do YOU think the chances are that Frank didn't recognize her?" Jake asked in reply. "I mean, how could he not? I took one look at that sketch and knew instantly that this was the same woman only with a different hair color and cut. There's no way that he didn't know!" he added, his temper beginning to flare.
"It gets better," Alex added.
"OH God! Now what!?!" Cody practically shouted.
"The bartender said that they left together."
"There has to be an explanation," was all that Monica could say.
"Yeah, there's an explanation alright!! He's been lying to us!" Jake yelled. "The man pulls a gun on me because I asked one too many questions, and the whole time he's holding back because he's been sleeping with the enemy!"
"That's enough Jake!" Monica shouted back. "We have no way of knowing exactly what happened that night without being there."
"Awwww, come on Monica. They spent over 5 hours together holding hands and gazing into each others eyes like some high school love birds and then they left together. Even I can add two and two together. The only question is, how long has this been going on?"
"What…..you think he's known her all along?" Cody asked.
"How the hell are we supposed to know?? I mean at this point, I'm not sure of anything he's told us about this case."
"Alright," Alex began, "let's just all calm down a little. I know it looks really bad, but like Monica said, there has to be an explanation. I mean, consider this. IF, and I do mean IF, there's something going on between Donovan and this Katherine Dawson, why would he have us out searching for her? Why give us an artist's sketch to show around town? Why not send us off in some other direction as a decoy?"
They all sat their in silence and pondered the points that Alex had just brought up.
"She's right," Cody said, "it wouldn't make any sense to have us search so close to where she really is."
The four spent the next hour discussing a hundred scenarios, and came to no conclusions. Only one person could give them the answers that they needed to fill in the blanks. And at the moment he was nowhere around.
By 7:30, they had exhausted all possible discussion on the subject. And at 7:35, Frank entered the building to find all four sitting at the table, staring at him in disbelief.
"Good morning," he said and received only stares as a reply.
"Does someone want to fill me in on what's going on?" Frank asked.
"Why don't you start?" Jake answered smugly.
"What do you mean? Fill you in on what?"
"Oh, let me see……….how about McCauley's Bar…….Saturday night……….Amanda Blake or should I say Katherine Dawson and ……….oh that's right, you!"
"I don't like your tone, Agent Shaw."
"My tone!?!?! What the hell does my tone have to do with it?!? What I'd like to know, is what you were doing out on a date with the woman we've been hunting for two months???"
"Jake!" Alex interjected. "Calm down! This isn't going to get us anywhere if the two of you start shouting at each other!"
"You know, you're right Alex. We' don't want to get Donovan here all worked up, 'cause he's liable to pull a gun on me again! Isn't that right?"
Frank should have realized what their reaction would be when they found out. And he had no doubt that they would have found out eventually. After all he had sent them right to the center of the action, so to speak. But Jake's words still stung, only because he knew that he deserved every one of them.
"Do you want to keep yelling, Jake, or would you prefer that I offer some explanations?" Frank answered in return.
"How are we supposed to believe a word that you say, if you don't mind me asking?" Jake inquired sarcastically.
Frank looked down at the table and then back at the group. "I suppose I deserve that. But if you don't want to believe me, I have more proof."
"What kind of proof?" Monica asked.
"I think he's referring to me."
All heads turned to see Katherine Dawson standing in the room behind them.
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Next chapter: Can Katherine convince the group that she's telling the truth?
And exactly what is Frank's plan??
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