And why is that? she marveled. Liking the sensation of Liam’s hand holding hers. No, more than liking it. Enjoying it. Responding to the firm, yet gentle way his hand enveloped hers as he pulled her to her feet. A tiny shiver of awareness—good awareness—coursed through her body. How she knew it was good she had no idea. But it was...and it confused her.
To cover her confusion, she asked, “How will I get to Wyoming?”
“I’ll take you there.”
“You knew I would say yes?”
He shook his head. “No, but D’Arcy is a man who plans ahead. Whichever choice you made, he had plans in place. He’d already asked me if I would take you to Wyoming, and he had a backup plan ready in case I said no. He also had a plan to get you back in the care of the marshals, if that’s the route you preferred. We’ll fly to Aurora, Colorado, in a military plane out of Pope Air Force Base—it’s not that far from here—then drive up to Black Rock.”
“Why a military plane?”
“First, D’Arcy wants you in safekeeping as quickly as possible, which means driving is out. If we flew commercial, there’d be pictures of you at the airport that would end up in a government database. D’Arcy told me that’s how Keira found you in the first place. She matched your picture when ICE—Immigration and Customs Enforcement—arrested you to the picture on your expired work visa with face recognition software. And the FBI has the same software.
“Second, in order to carry my gun on board the aircraft I’d have to declare it and prove I was authorized to do so. While the agency has the pull to arrange something like that for the false identity they’ll be giving me, using it at the airport would leave a record, which would mean there’d be pictures of me in that database as well that someone might access—not a risk D’Arcy wants to run. And third, arranging things so I can be armed at all times even when I fly would take time, time D’Arcy doesn’t want us to waste. He wants us to vanish. Now.”
Liam paused for a second to give Cate a chance to speak, but when she didn’t he continued. “The US Air Force plane we’ll be taking isn’t flying to Colorado just for us—we’re hitching a ride, as it were. But D’Arcy pulled some strings to get us seats on the first plane heading in our direction, which is scheduled to take off just after three this afternoon.
“When we get to Colorado, the agency will provide us with a completely untraceable vehicle—like the one they gave us yesterday. It’s roughly six hours from Aurora to Black Rock by car. I don’t know about you, but I’m still recovering from yesterday and last night, so I thought we’d check into a hotel tonight and start driving north first thing in the morning. We’ll have plastic—credit cards,” he explained at her confused expression. “But D’Arcy doesn’t want us to use them, even though they’ll be in our fake names. He doesn’t want us to leave any kind of a paper trail, if possible. We’ll have enough cash for the trip...unless something disastrous happens. The credit cards will just be backup in case of emergencies.”
“I see.” And she did. Wasn’t that what she’d always done since she’d escaped from Vishenko seven years ago? Disappear into thin air? Travel as secretly as she could, insisting on being paid in cash and paying cash for everything so as not to leave a record someone could trace?
“D’Arcy will be glad you took his recommendation.”
“Not his,” she said quickly. “Yours.”
Liam drew a sharp breath. “Does that mean you trust me...a little?” he asked in his deep voice. “That you know I won’t just abandon you, after all?” The expression on his face was a dead giveaway she’d hurt him earlier with her assumption that she was on her own...again.
“I’m sorry,” Cate said, contrition in her tone as they walked toward the back door. “I shouldn’t have assumed the worst. I should have known you wouldn’t do that to me...any more than Alec would.”
Liam stiffened beside her. It was almost imperceptible, but Cate—who’d learned the hard way to read body language and react to it—could tell. And she wondered what she’d said that would have caused a negative response in Liam. I apologized. I told him I was wrong for not trusting him. What is negative in that?
Then it came to her out of the blue as Liam opened the back door into the house and held it for her, and the realization startled her. He didn’t like you mentioning Alec’s name. His own brother. His own brother whom he loves. He didn’t like it, and that means...