Page 14 of Under Control

Carrick

Carrick reclined the seat slightly in his rented pickup truck as he kept his eye on the street down the hill. In the distance, he could see Danica’s apartment—dark and quiet—as it should be, considering it was the middle of the night. She was supposed to be sleeping.

As for him, it was going to be a long night—keeping his eyes locked on her place, making sure no one went in or came out. He still hadn’t figured out how he was going to play it.

Hours ago, he’d ordered Delta to grab him a rental and take the armored SUV back to LA. Carrick hadn’t expected to be working Danica’s contract for an extended period of time, and he needed Delta to manage the office until he could get back. Thank God Delta was in between rotations and had a little time on his hands before his next deployment. Carrick didn’t want to take any chances leaving the office cold.

It had turned out that weekends were even busier in the private security industry than weekdays—especially so in greater LA. If Carrick had been looking for a normal pace of life after retiring from the SEALs, he hadn’t yet achieved it. Maybe he’d just lied to himself when he’d said he wanted to get his life together—when he’d woken up in a pool of booze and blood, unsure where he’d been or what he’d done. Those had been dark, dark days—and he still kept the memory of them close to his chest as a reminder.

A painful reminder of what had happened when he’d let himself love someone.

Suddenly, Carrick noticed movement. It wasn’t at the front door of her apartment. It was a shadow cast on the brick wall on the side of her building. He sprang forward in the seat, knowing he had to make a move. Pistol safely stowed in his pants, hand on the truck’s door, he was ready to stalk. But he didn’t have to. A familiar, lithe figure with a hood up crouched in the bushes at the front of the house.

He knew it was her. He just knew.

He had to give it to her. No one would have seen her—no one, of course, except for a former SEAL who was trained in urban warfare and black ops, a warrior with precise eyes, naturally adept at night vision, someone who knew what he was looking for.

Slouching down farther into the seat of the dark, parked truck, he watched her slink through the front lawns, keeping herself hidden behind fences and shrubs. Eventually, she made her way to the end of the street, toward the main drag running through the neighborhood. Up ahead, he heard the distinct sounds of a big bus approaching and saw her move to the stop. She was catching a ride.

It was clear that she was making a break for it. With a heavy black bag on her back, she looked like she’d packed for more than just a night away.

After the bus stopped and took off again, he turned on the engine of the rental truck and followed. She would have no idea he was driving it, but he’d keep his distance anyway. Whatever she was doing only served to confirm what he’d thought. She was afraid. She was afraid of her father—and she had good enough reason to fucking split.

Grinding his teeth together, he drove behind the San Francisco city bus, keeping his distance. The roadways weren’t packed, but they weren’t dead either—just busy enough to cover him. Quickly, he found that the bus was taking them toward the edge of the city, toward the long-haul coach depot.

“She’s getting out of Dodge,” he grumbled to himself, slowing his speed.

He caught a red light but was able to watch her offload from the bus parked in the distance. She went into the coach bus depot, which obviously was open at all hours. Maybe she really was a wayward runaway.

“Shit,” he grunted, as the light took too long.

A minute or two went by, and he realized that if he didn’t move fast, he was going to lose her. When the light went green, he hit the gas and found his way toward the depot, but he didn’t have time to turn into the drive. A charter bus exited the rear parking lot, and an LED display above the front window indicated that it was heading toward Fresno, California.

Is she on that bus?

Carrick slowed his speed yet again, allowing a car that was faster to merge in front of him as he tried to make a decision—turn into the depot or follow that bus? One choice was right, and the other was wrong. He had no idea which was which, but he had a fucking guess.

Call it instinct.

He hit the gas again, moving the heavy pickup truck into a faster lane, and found a safe distance behind the charter bus that was heading to Fresno.

“Committed now,” Carrick said, flipping on the tunes in the truck, settling in for a long drive. Fresno was hours away.

As he followed, his mind spun with questions about whether or not he’d made the right choice, but the way he saw it, he only had one chance. If he’d gone into the depot and she wasn’t there, he’d have missed her. The reality was that those charter buses had many, many stops on the way to their final destination, and he needed to keep his eye on it to make sure she didn’t bail early.

Something in his gut told him he’d made the right choice, and he wasn’t usually wrong.

As hours passed while he trailed the bus, thoughts of Petrov, the contract and the weird fucking situation danced around in his brain. What the fuck was it all about? And what the fuck was he going to do about it?

I have to protect her.

The coach eventually slowed down in an isolated town, partway to Fresno, in the interior of Northern California. They were far, far away from the city stretches of San Fran or LA. In fact, if he threw the sunroof back, he knew he’d see the stars on the clear night. This was his type of place.

Up ahead, the bus pulled over and let out a few people. Carrick slowed his truck and lowered the brim of his baseball hat as he drove by the travelers, milling about on the side of the road. As the bus took off again, he noticed a familiar girlish form with her hood up, wearing a heavy black bag.

He hadn’t been wrong.

She was on the bus.

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