Page 49 of Shadows Relived
As they drove off into the calm of the Sunday morning, the last thing she saw in the side mirror was the glow of the motel sign, flickering weakly in the dawn.
Something was coming, and they weren’t playing around.
And this time, she wouldn’t run from it.
She was going to meet it head-on.
CHAPTER 18
THE SMELL OF SAUSAGEbiscuits lingered in the SUV long after Elvis tossed the greasy bag in the back seat. Gage had taken first watch, now riding shotgun, sipping terrible gas station coffee like it was vintage bourbon, thanks to Elvis. Ever the multitasker, Elvis had gone for food, intel, and a spare roll of gauze before Callen and Meaghan had woken up.
Callen rode in the back beside Meaghan, his shoulder pressed against the cool window, the pain in his side flaring with every bump in the road. It wasn’t as bad as yesterday, thanks to the antibiotics and the clean dressing Meaghan had insisted on rechecking before they left, but it wasn’t good either.
She hadn’t taken her eyes off him all morning since they woke up, looking at him as if he might break at any moment. It was unsettling, even if it was sweet.
“Still with us?” she asked, her hand resting on the seat between them.
He gave a soft chuckle as he reached out and took herhand in his. “For the moment. Just don’t let Gage take the wheel or it might be over quick.”
Ahead of them, Gage grunted without looking back. “I heard that. And for the record, I’m a much better driver than you or Elvis combined.”
“Really? Dude, your driving record speaks for itself,” Callen muttered. “Remember Tampa?”
“That curb game out of nowhere,” Gage growled.
Meaghan bit back a laugh, but she never took her eyes off Callen.
Leaving the SUV Elvis and Gage arrived in at the motel, they headed to a GSI-owned property near Biloxi, tucked deep in Mississippi pine country, a place with an address, a building that didn’t exist on any tax roll or satellite image, layered with surveillance tech and encased in reinforced steel. Off-grid didn’t begin to cover it. This was a fallback site, hand-picked by Dane himself for the kind of mission where everything had already gone sideways, and the only thing left to do was survive. It was there that they would regroup and make some sort of plan to get Meaghan out of the crosshairs of whoever was after her.
The SUV hummed along I-10 West, tires eating mile after mile of dark, cracked asphalt. They’d left Live Oak behind before the sun had fully crested the trees, pushing through the heart of the Florida Panhandle, where fog hung low over swamps and cypress thickets. The morning air still held the bite of night, cool and damp, seeping through the cracked window by Callen’s shoulder. Every time he blinked, the trees changed, longleaf pines fading to palmetto clusters, billboardsteasing roadside diners giving way to fast-food signs and ghost-town motels where time had stopped thirty years ago.
They passed through Tallahassee just after eight, the skyline a blur beyond the interstate. Callen barely registered it, his attention split between the burn in his side and the tightening feeling in his chest every time Meaghan so much as shifted beside him.
Just as he got settled in once more, his phone rang with a number that didn’t show up in his contacts. It didn’t matter. He knew who it was.
With a groan, he swiped his finger across his screen. “This is Callen.”
“I thought you were a professional.” The voice was low, clipped, and unmistakable. “And yet I’ve received no update, no confirmation from you. Just my daughter calling to yell at me and accuse me of things I didn’t do. You were supposed to bring her to D.C.”
Callen closed his eyes. “Yeah, well, she wasn’t exactly a fan of that idea.”
“That wasn’t your decision to make,” the senator snapped. “Or hers. I gave you an order.”
“Well, I didn’t make the decision,” he said, glancing over at her, a crooked grin twisting his lips. “She did. And I respected her choices. And for the record, since there seems to be some confusion on your part, you don’t give me orders. You asked for a favor, and I granted it.”
A pause hung on the line.
Then he heard a low growl. “I knew I made a mistake asking for your help in this. You’re just as useless as you wereback then.”
Callen’s anger sharpened. “Yeah, I’m getting that sense as well. Especially now that I know about New Horizons.”
Silence answered him once more.
“I know about the permits, the land grab, even the shell companies and the money changing hands. Now these people are after your daughter to punish you. Isn’t that about right?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Perhaps. But I know enough to tell me to keep digging,” Callen said. “And when I do, I’ll burn whoever’s responsible to the ground if it means keeping her safe.”
