As I stood in the shower, I listed off the things we would need in my head. More clothes, food, money… I couldn't access my usual accounts, but I had a contact in Arizona who could get cash from some accounts that the CIA, to my knowledge, were not yet aware of. That could have changed after last night, though, so I had to be careful. We had ditched the Porsche in favor of a more inconspicuous car, one without any possible tracking devices, so that took care of transportation. We just needed to get out of California quickly, before anyone could identify us or Casey could catch on to our trail.
I knew that most people on the run went to familiar locations. Places where they knew the area, had friends. And that was how they got caught. I had learned at a young age, living with my father, how to stay below the radar of the cops, how to get out of a place fast. These skills were part of the reason why I had been recruited by the agency in the first place. But they had some idea of how I thought, how I strategized, after I had trained with the CIA for years. They had helped to hone my skills. I needed to drop any CIA mindset that I retained and do exactly the opposite of what they would expect me to. I would have to make it very hard for them to find me and Chuck if I wanted to keep the both of us from being locked up.
I finished with my shower, draped a towel around myself, and walked back out into the hotel room. Chuck was there, sitting on the bed and looking through one of the brochures that had been on the desk advertising local tourist attractions. I was surprised that there were any out here. Probably a museum or something like that. When he heard me exit the bathroom, he turned around, blushing when he saw me in my towel, as if we hadn't just been in the middle of a heavy make-out session. I smiled.
"Hey," he said. "Didn't I tell you not to move?"
I couldn't help smiling even bigger. "We need to get moving. Get whatever you need, and we'll go back to the location you flashed on and see if we can't find any more clues as to where your father might be. Did you see if they still have breakfast out in the lobby?" I was starving.
"Uh, yeah," he said. He stood up, moving towards the door. "I'll go grab us some coffee and whatever they have."
"Thanks," I told him gratefully. He began to walk out the door, but then turned around. I wasn't sure what he was doing, until he came over and kissed me. I stood there, surprised, but kissed him back, then pulled away before we lost even more time.
He smiled at me, and then left.
I let out a huge breath that I had been holding, and got dressed.