Love or Justice Read online

  There was a few more minutes of bullets exploding inside and outside the house. Then they stopped. As Laurie and Dante crouched in the opening of the safe room, they heard the stamping feet of people running past the windows. A few seconds later, a second group ran past. Through the shattered windows they heard an officer cry out.

  “Stop! Police! Drop your weapons and get down on the ground. Stop!”

  Shots were fired outside the house. Then there was silence.

  Dante waited, every muscle coiled, ready to explode. Laurie clutched his shirt with tense hands. He could feel her trembling, her breathing ragged.

  “Dante! Where are you?” Jason charged into the bedroom.

  “We’re in here.” Dante let out the breath he was holding.

  “The assailants—” Jason stopped as he saw the two men. “What the hell happened?”

  “They got to the safe room.” Now that he could hear himself, he turned to Laurie. “What happened, Laurie?”

  “I don’t know. You closed the door. I sat down on the chair. A second later that guy opened it and pulled me out.” She stared at the man at her feet.

  She was breathing in short gasps.

  Dante put his arm around her and she buried her face in his chest. Dante looked at Jason over Laurie’s head.

  “They knew where it was and how to open it,” Dante said. “I have to get Laurie out of here.”

  Jason nodded, understanding Dante’s unspoken conclusion. Dean and John charged into the room. Blood stained John’s shirt from his bicep down to his wrist. Both of them looked exhausted.

  “Boss, the gunmen fled. Whoa.” John stopped in his tracks.

  “I have to get Laurie out of here.” Dante didn’t answer their questioning looks.

  “But PD is going to have questions.” Dean’s gaze traveled between Dante, Laurie, and the two men on the floor.

  “I don’t care.” Dante took Laurie by the hand. “Laurie is our only priority.”

  He led her to the bed. He gently pushed her down to sit on the edge. He started zipping up her bag and his.

  “Can I…” Laurie started to speak through her trembling jaw. Her voice broke on a sob.

  “What do you need, sweetheart?” Dante cupped her face, bringing her eyes up to meet his gaze.

  “Can I change first? Please?” Pain ripped through his chest at her gentle plea.

  Dante looked down at her clothes. They were spattered with blood. She would attract attention wherever he took her.

  “Yes, of course.” He unzipped her bag. He pulled out a clean pair of jeans and a shirt, and handed them to her.

  “Boss?” Dean asked.

  “What, Dean?” He led Laurie to the bathroom. He closed the bathroom door for Laurie and turned around.

  “Where are we going to take her?” Dean came to the doorway.

  “You aren’t going to take her anywhere. I’m taking her somewhere safe. You three are staying here to file the police report and answer their questions.” He unloaded his gun and handed it to John.

  “That’s my weapon. I shot the man who tried to kill Laurie. I ran to Laurie, but I didn’t see the guy in the other room. Laurie did. She grabbed the first assailant’s gun, and shot the man in the other room. He was armed. He was ready to fire on both of us.”

  “How did they get her out of the safe room?” John stared at Dante’s gun.

  “Good question.” Dante arched his eyebrows at him. “John, Dean. I need you to sweep the vehicle. Get me the gun in the dashboard. Jason, I need you to go talk to the detective. They’ll be at the door any minute.”

  They all exchanged glances but didn’t move. None of them knew what to do. Dante didn’t know either; he just knew he had to leave with Laurie.

  “Now.” Dante clapped his hands together. They all filed past him. He turned around and knocked on the bathroom door. “Laurie, are you okay?”

  There was no response.

  “Laurie?” Silence. He pulled open the door.

  Laurie stood in the middle of the bathroom in front of the sink, still in her bloody clothes, trembling. She held the clean clothes in one hand. The other hand covered her eyes and forehead, trying to shut out the world.

  Dante felt a sudden cold rage toward Kaimi. He began to think of all the ways he could kill the man. He had to find him, and every last member of his brute squad. Dante wanted nothing more than to make them pay.

  He took a shuttering breath, mentally stepping back from the rage. Dante entered the bathroom, locking the door behind him. Moving over to Laurie, Dante began undressing her.

  She stood there, trying to apologize, moving as if she were in a fog.

  He pulled on the new clothes he had given her. Then he helped her wash her hands. He wet a washcloth and blotted the blood spatter from her face. Then he cupped her face, looking into her watery eyes.

  “Laurie, look at me.” Her sad, distant eyes floated up to his. “I want to comfort you. I do. I would give anything to just hold you. But I can’t right now, sweetheart. I have to get you somewhere safe. Okay?”

  She nodded.

  “Did I…” she started. She paused to take a quick breath. “Did I kill him?”

  He leaned his forehead down, and touched it to hers.

  “I don’t know, baby. He was alive when I went over to him. The paramedics will get to him. If you did kill him, it was self-defense, and you saved my life doing it.”

  Laurie nodded, taking a calming breath. She licked her dry lips.

  “Let’s go.” He kissed her forehead and took her hand. They walked out of the bathroom together.

  Dante led her back into their bedroom and picked up his duffle bag. He slung it over his shoulder.

  Laurie picked up her duffle bag with stiff, wooden movements.

  Dante put his arm around her waist and led her out of the room.

  Dean ran up to him in the hallway.

  “Boss, the detective is saying no one can leave until they’ve—” Dean handed Dante his gun from the truck.

  “I don’t care what the detective has to say.” Dante pulled Laurie past Dean.

  Dante continued out to his truck. His stride was resolute.

  John and Jason were standing by the truck with another man.

  Dante guided Laurie around the group to the passenger side door. The detective pounced on them.

  “Mr. Stark, I can’t clear you to leave the scene.” The detective put his hand on the hood of the truck.

  “I don’t care. I’m getting my witness out of here. Now.” Dante spared him a glance.

  He opened Laurie’s door and handed her into the vehicle. Then he slammed it shut, making the mirror and windows rattle.

  “Mr. Stark—” the detective said.

  “It’s Marshal Stark, and I’m leaving with my witness.” Dante turned on the man. Dante felt a pre-emptive strike was necessary. He had to get Laurie out of here.

  “My men have my statement and my firearm. My witness’ bloody clothes are in the bathroom where I had to remove them from her because she’s so scared she can hardly move. This is the third attack on her life. The second while she’s been in a safe house under protection. So either you shoot me, or I leave with my witness.”

  Dante stared the detective down.

  The detective took a step back, his eyes shifted to Laurie who sat in the truck, pale and staring off into the distance. Then the detective nodded and took another step back.

  Dante walked past him, around to the other side of the truck.

  “One of you call Rick and tell him what’s happened.” He threw the comment over his shoulder at his men.

  He started the truck’s engine. Without a pause, he put the truck in reverse and peeled out of the driveway, just missing a parked police cruiser. Then he put the truck in drive, and sped off down the street.

  Dante started thinking of everything he had to do. He had made up his mind as soon as he realized how Kaimi must have gotten the safe house location.

  He
drove straight into town, stopping at a small strip-mall. He had Laurie get out with him. They went into a cell phone store. Glass cases ran most of its length in a U-shape. Cell phones were jammed into the case, alongside perfumes, jewelry, athletic clothes, and watches. Two beefy islanders sat on stools at the back. Dante bought a pay-per-minute phone from them, paying for it in cash.

  Laurie said nothing, but when they got back into the truck, Laurie turned to him.

  “What’s the phone for?”

  “I have to get rid of mine.” He drove up toward Highway 19.

  “Why?”

  “Laurie, how do you think they knew where you were?”

  Laurie’s forehead creased into lines of confusion. She looked at Dante like he’d lost his mind. She sighed.

  “I don’t know.”

  “How do you think they knew where the safe room was? How to open the door?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “The Marshals Service has a mole.”

  Her head tilted back as though an invisible hand struck her. She looked out the windshield toward the stretch of highway before them. Her hands clenched together in her lap.

  “No, you couldn’t.”

  “Every attack on you could have been carried out with information from the service. The first one in your hotel room I credited to Kaimi’s informants. He saw you at the hotel, he knew your name. A little sniffing around would have led them straight to your window. The second one had to come from someone who knew where the safe house was. I thought they followed Evan James. That was logical. However, no one could have carried out this attack today unless they got information from inside the agency. Another Marshal, an analyst. Someone who had information on what house you would be in, where the safe room was, and how to open it. The Marshals Service has a mole.”

  As he spoke it aloud, his conclusion sank in. It hurt, he realized. He’d been betrayed. His men had all been betrayed. It steeled his resolve. He didn’t want to do what he had planned, but there was no other choice.

  “What are we going to do?”

  “Get you somewhere safe.”

  Her brow furrowed, but Laurie didn’t question him further.

  Dante drove up toward the Kona airport. He pulled onto a road leading toward the ocean. He pulled up to a small beach he had come to sometimes to sit, think, and watch the planes take off and land. The noise of their engines soothed him somehow. Dante parked the truck as close to the beach as he could get. He pulled out a random piece of paper from his console. He hastily scribbled a note on it:

  I’ll bring her back when the mole is in custody and it’s safe—Dante

  Then Dante took out another piece of paper and wrote down several numbers he would need from his cell phone. He got out of his truck. He pulled off the GPS tag. He wrapped his work phone and the GPS tag in the note. Then he dropped it by the garbage can, where no one else would pick it up. They would find it.

  He got back into his truck. He drove for half an hour, toward Hilo, using backroads. He stopped at a gas station when he was halfway there. He sat for a minute, working up some courage. He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. He knew he didn’t have much time to work with, so he broke open the burner phone. He turned it on and took out the piece of paper with numbers from his cell phone. He dialed one number he hadn’t touched in years. It rang several times, then went to a machine, just as Dante knew it would.

  “Dad.” His voice faltered.

  “Dad, I need your help. There’s a mole in the Marshals Service and I have to get a witness off the island. I hate to ask this of you, but I need to come stay with you and Mom for a little while. Call me back at…” Dante looked at the phone’s instructions, reading off the phone number. “It’s a burner, paid for in cash. Hurry.”

  He hung up the phone.

  “We’re going to stay with your parents?”

  Dante shrugged.

  Laurie looked at him like he’d gone mental.

  Perhaps he was. Dante pulled over to a gas pump to fill up the tank.

  Laurie sat in the truck, watching him.

  When Dante got back in and began to pull away from the gas station, his new phone rang. His heart stopped. He almost dropped the phone as he fumbled to pick it up. He opened it slowly.

  “Dad?”

  “What airport will you be near?” asked the gruff voice on the other end.

  Dante breathed a sigh of relief.

  “I’m headed toward Hilo on the big island. I’m near Kona now.”

  “Neither. Go to Bradshaw. Is your witness male or female?”

  “Female. Laurie Shelton.”

  “Give me until tomorrow morning. Can you find some place safe for tonight?”

  “Yeah. I was en-route to a little campground I know of, but I’ve never been there. They won’t know me.”

  “Good. I’ll have you out of there by tomorrow morning.”

  “Thank you, Dad.”

  His father hung up without a word. Dante expected as much.

  “What did he say?” Laurie asked when he closed the phone. He looked over at her.

  “We’re going to a campground for tonight. In the morning, we’ll fly out of Bradshaw Army Airfield.” He pulled out of the gas station.

  “To where? Dante, will you please tell me what’s going on? You’re not answering my questions. I can’t take much more of this.”

  “Laurie, my father knows a lot of very powerful people. He has many friends. He also has a lot of enemies. He is the only person who can get us off the island without being detected by anyone in the police department or the Marshals Service.”

  “Where do your parents live? Where are we going?”

  Dante glanced at her, then looked away. His face tightened. A tense muscle in his jaw twitched.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know where your parents live?” He heard the incredulity in her voice.

  “My father has a lot of enemies. Very dangerous enemies. Far more dangerous than Kaimi. When my father retired from his job he assumed a new identity. He and my mother decided to live off the grid. I don’t know where they live now.”

  Laurie studied him for a moment.

  Dante glanced over to her, and her eyes narrowed.

  She stared at him intently, seemingly searching for any weakness, any hint of guilt over telling a lie. He had none. He went back to staring at the road ahead.

  “Off the grid?”

  “Untraceable. No paperwork. No loans. No credit cards. He pays for everything in cash. He has no contact with known associates or family members. He lives off the grid. He and my mother just vanished.”

  “How long has it been since you talked to them?”

  “I talk to my mother sporadically. I doubt my father knows about it though. I’ll get a phone call from her. Pay per minute phones, like this one. A new one each time. My father. God. I don’t know.” He ran his hand through his hair. “I haven’t talked to him in years.”

  “That’s terrible.”

  Dante smiled. It worked out well for him.

  “My father and I have never gotten along, Laurie. It’s not so bad. In fact, it’s for the best.”

  Laurie stared at him.

  “What did your father do to collect so many enemies?”

  Dante sighed. He might as well tell her everything.

  “He was in the CIA. He was a very, very high ranking agent.”

  He glanced over at her.

  Realization bloomed over her lips and her eyes. She turned toward him in her seat.

  “Thank you for telling me. I’m sure that’s not something you can tell very many people.”

  “No one. I’ve never told anyone else. I’m not even supposed to know.”

  Dante watched the miles disappear beneath the SUV as he traveled east.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry you had to carry the weight of that burden alone.”

  His face broke apart, the veneer shattered. He looked over at her, eyes misted over
. No one ever understood the weight of that secret, but Laurie got it immediately. As his gaze traveled back to the road ahead, Dante reached over with his right hand to grasp her hand. She covered it with hers. They drove the rest of the way to the campground in silence.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The Air Force Base was a bleak strip of land in the shadow of Mauna Kea. The lone white watchtower looked grey in the dim morning light. Dante flashed his Marshals ID. The sleepy guard at the parking lot entrance yawned and waved him through. Dante had seen him before on the rare instances when he had to take Federal planes for assignments.

  He parked at the far end of the lot. He told Laurie to wait in the truck for him, and he got out. He took off the license plate and flung it out into the field. He hoped it would at least slow them down from tracking his movements.

  When Dante flung open Laurie’s door, she was pale. She ran her hands up and down her forearms, shivering in the heat of the afternoon. He didn’t have to ask. He understood. He could see it in the way she stared at the planes, her eyes as big as blue balloons. He held out his hand to her.

  Laurie unbuckled her seat belt, taking the hand he offered her. He helped her out of the truck, straight into his embrace. They stood in the open car door, holding one another. Neither wanted to let the other one go.

  Dante heard a jet engine above him. He turned to see an unmarked, grey plane landing. It was nothing like the military planes that lined the runway. It was nondescript, neither old nor new. It was forgettable, and exactly the type of plane his dad would send for him.

  It was time. He grabbed their bags and took Laurie’s hand. They walked toward the small, square building to meet their pilot.

  The inside of the building was just as bleak as the outside. The concrete walls were exposed, unpainted, and bare of all decoration. A few plastic chairs were scattered in the largest room, which led out onto the field. There was no security, no stores or restaurants, just a couple of vending machines on the right wall. No one was there. Dante could see why his father chose it. They walked out toward the landing strip to meet the pilot that sauntered up toward the building.

  Dante kept one arm around Laurie and one as close to his gun as he could without looking like a threat. As the pilot came into clear view Dante laughed, his face relaxing into a wide grin. He eased his grip on Laurie’s shoulder, taking a deep breath for the first time all morning.