Page 118 of Crossing the Line
Micah looked him in the eye and nodded. “I’m with you. Let’s go.”
They started for the door, and Travers stopped them. “You leaving?” he demanded, disconnecting a call.
Xavier clenched his jaw. If the feds tried to keep him locked down here, he wasn’t afraid to shoot his way out.
“We’re no good to you here,” Micah said diplomatically. “We’re going to start driving. If you catch anything, maybe we can get lucky and get a jump on them.”
Travers studied Xavier for a moment longer. “Here,” he said finally. He fished a set of keys out of his pocket, handed them to Micah. “It’s out back. Use the lights.”
They hustled down the emergency exit stairs, just as Ganim had done. When they exited the building, they were in a narrow walkway between buildings. To the right was the street, to the left was the alley.
“He’d have taken her this way,” Xavier said, moving toward the alley. She’d been drugged. She wouldn’t be walking easily. And there’s no way Ganim could have paraded her past the paparazzi out front without being seen.
In the alley, they found investigators taping off the scene. A strappy gold stiletto lay on its side, and he remembered watching her slip it on before they left. She’d glared at him when she caught him staring. Even angry, she still made him hard. Still made him crave her.
“Christ, her anklet! Tell me she’s wearing her tracker.”Please.Xavier yanked his phone out of his pocket, and his hands shook as he opened the app.
“She’s on the move.”
Micah hit the button on the fob, and the lights on a black Yukon lit up.
They sprinted down the cracked asphalt and jumped in. “Call Travers, let him know where we’re going.” Micah turned the key and fishtailed out of the alley. On the street, he hit the blue lights and the gas.
Ten minutes. Ganim had ten minutes on them, but they were going to narrow that gap. They were flying now, red lights be damned. Xavier dialed Travers and gave him the general direction of Waverly’s blip on the screen.
Hollywood Boulevard. They were heading in the opposite direction that they should have been to escape.
“What do we know?” Xavier demanded from Micah.
Micah casually scanned his mirrors as he made an illegal left hand turn and floored it through a red light. “Ganim approached the bar back in the parking lot before his shift. Idiot has on his Facebook profile that he’s the Friday night bartender for the VIP section so it didn’t take much research. Ganim showed him a gun, made some threats. Had the guy drug Angel’s drink. The lab’s going to look into what he gave her, but my guess is some kind of sedative or roofie. The emergency exit alarm has been broken for weeks, and no one noticed that the outside lock had been busted open. It was intact last night when they locked up.”
“How did he know she’d be there? Do we have a leak?”
Micah shrugged. “It’s a possibility. So, talk to me, Saint,” he said, calm as a Sunday morning from the driver seat.
“He’s not trying to get out of the city. He’s got the jump on all of us, but he’s not running. He’s heading somewhere specific.”
“He’s escalating,” Micah agreed. “The flash bangs at the premiere, taking her in public with witnesses.”
“His face has been splashed all over the screen for weeks now. He’s finally somebody,” Xavier thought out loud. Micah slowed for another red light before accelerating through it. “Daisy and Tiffani didn’t think he was someone. They thought he was no one. So he had to prove it to them.”
Micah shifted in his seat, and Xavier knew he’d come to the same conclusion. “You can’t just take a girl off into the woods and kill her when you’re a big deal. You need to make a statement.”
“Fuck. I know where they’re going,” Xavier said.
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Waverly woke, dizzy and sick, in the dark.
Her entire body tensed before she was even fully conscious of the danger. She was in a car, facedown on the backseat. Her hands were secured behind her back, but her feet were free.Ganim.
She remembered the club and the wave of dizziness that had swept over her. She wanted to call out to Xavier, but something happened. Some commotion, and then it was Ganim at her side. She couldn’t scream, couldn’t do anything but fall into unconsciousness. Now she was tethered and helpless.
And she was going to die.
A rush of visions hit her. All she could think about was all the things she’d never do. There’d be no college. No house of her own. No Xavier. She’d have no chance to tell him that she was sorry, that this was all her fault.
At least he’d get over her death. They all would. After all, wasn’t this the price some paid for fame?
