Page 70 of Run for Her Life
PAST
“Thank you for seeing me again, Mr. Gold.” The woman’s voice was so small. Blood pounded in her ears. Her clammy hands rested on her lap and she wondered if she was wearing enough perfume to conceal the smell of sweat pooling in her cleavage.
Since when did she become this meek?
“Nice to see you again. You know you can call me Jeff, right?” His smile was warm as he took a seat across from her and put on his glasses. He was older than her by at least ten years and large enough to engulf her frame.
Behind his desk, the windows stretched high, revealing only the reflection of the room against the blackened cityscape. Rain streaked the glass, blurring the outside world. His office was cozy—a room she imagined finding in the pages of a book. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined the walls, stuffed with leather-bound books competing for space. A heavy mahogany desk sat in the center of the room, its surface pristine except for a few neatly stacked papers and a single half-drunk glass of amber liquid.
“How’s your kid? Emily, right?” he asked.
“Good. She’s doing well. Thank you.”
He picked up a pen and twirled it between his fingers. “We’ve had many conversations where you’ve pled your case. We’vedecided to grant you full immunity pending your testimony in court, of course. Have you given it some thought?”
A shudder raked through her. “I don’t really have a choice, do I?”
“I know you’re concerned about your kid. But the day you decided to work for him, you put yourself and your future in serious danger.” Jeff didn’t sound judgmental despite his words.Her hand tightened around the strap of her tote bag that she refused to put down. Suddenly, it weighed a hundred pounds. She couldn’t imagine parting from it. It was going to stay glued to her side for the rest of her life—it was her only guarantee, her leverage.
“Now, let’s talk about witness protection. It’s a fresh start for you and your daughter,” he explained. “The name I’ve chosen for you is generic so that you’ll be hard to find. You are going to be Rachel Sullivan. Do you like the name?”
She sounded the name.Rachel.A common name she’d once used before with a man she’d loved—but not enough. But it felt different on her tongue this time. She had never realized how intimate a name was. That fierce sense of belonging, that link to expectations, history, family, and culture. In stories, names held magic. In this life, her name had become a vulnerability.
“Can I ask you something?” Jeff hesitated. “What made you decide to leave that life?”
“It’s not the first time I’ve been faced with this decision. Over the years, I’ve had moments where I wanted to leave. I came very close once, but before I could make the jump, I got pregnant.” A man’s face flashed in her mind—his dark skin, deep eyes, and strong arms. Promises were made; dreams were imagined. “But there was a job a few months ago.”
“What was it?”
She looked down at her hands. The words felt heavy in her mouth. “I was supposed to plant myself in the target’s life and make sure he was at a specific place at a particular time.”
“That’s unusual. I thought you didn’t interact with the targets. You were only dispatched to… remove them from the equation.”
She didn’t deserve his politeness. He could have easily judged her. “He was only fifteen years old.”
“Oh.” He winced, reeling back in his chair. “What was his name?”
“Michael. His father was a developer who refused to sell a pretty big lot even though we landlocked him. He was adamant. No one ever expected me to go after children, and we never did up until now. I was told this was a kidnapping and that because the boy was an extreme introvert, I needed to lead him to a haunted house, where my colleague would abduct him. A haunted house in a local fair, where it would be dark and loud. Once we got what we wanted from his family, we’d return him home. I was instructed to distract the operator on shift so that the abduction could take place. Instead, my colleague sabotaged the haunted house and started a fire that killed Michael and five other teenagers.” A look of horror crossed Jeff’s face. Shame ripped through her. “I swear I didn’t know they were going to do this. They didn’t tell me because they knew I wouldn’t have agreed to the job had I known. Apparently, kidnapping the boy wasn’t enough; killing him was the message they wanted to send.” The truth spilled out of her in desperate sobs. “My daughter isn’t safe. Nobody is. And I hate myself that it took me inflicting this much damage to find the courage to leave.”
“You were very young when you entered his orbit.” His lips thinned. “You were brainwashed. The important thing is that you have agreed to testify. Now, what’s your favorite type of weather?” he asked out of nowhere.
“Why do you ask?” She arched an eyebrow.
“You’ll see. Just humor me.”
She gestured at the window behind him. “That kind.” Her voice was swallowed by thunder rolling in deep, bone-rattling waves. A fork of lightning illuminated the room.
He laughed. “That fits just perfectly with your current name—Celina Storm.”
FORTY-FOUR
The drive to Jeff Gold’s house felt like slipping off the edge of the world.
Zoe gripped the steering wheel, her eyes flicking between the winding dirt road and the thinning signal bars on her phone. The deeper she went into the backwoods, the quieter everything became. No streetlights, no passing cars, just the occasional scatter of wildlife disappearing into the brush.
She had racked her brain for any connection to the retired federal prosecutor. But she came up with zilch. Why had he decided to send Jackie’s riddle addressed to him her way? Why had Jackie sent this to him in the first place?
Questions rattled around in her head. She hadn’t seen a house for miles.
