Page 32 of Come Fly With Me

You Can Run, but You Can’t Hide

The day before the London office of Benson Security first opened for business.

Elle Roberts woke with a start to find three guns aimed at her head. She didn’t scream. It never helped. The men were dressed in black, but her nightlight cast a blue sheen on their clothes. Yeah, she had a nightlight. Because she knew bad things happened in the dark. Bad things like this.

“You’re a hard woman to track down, Ellie James,” the one in the middle said.

Even though her palms were sweating, and her heart thumped so loud it was distracting, she still barked out a laugh.

“Really? I’ve passed you on the street a dozen times. Must be age,William,you’re not as with it as you used to be.” She drawled his name, knowing how he hated to be called anything but Bill.

The blow came as fast as she expected it would. A starburst of light exploded in her gaze, and her cheekbone felt like it’d been cracked. The force of it sent her over the side of her bed, where she hit the floor with a thump, bruising her hip. But Elle didn’t let it stop her. She rolled under the bed and slammed her hand on the panic button she’d installed hours after moving into the warehouse.

The room turned into a war zone, and Elle covered her head as blasts rang out, knowing the bed would protect her from the worst of it. The men screamed as shots hit true. Smoke had her choking back a cough as thumps made the floor beneath her shudder, letting her know their bodies had fallen.

It all stopped as suddenly as it had started, the silence even more deafening than the chaos that had preceded it. Slowly, Elle crawled out from under her bed and stood. Hands planted on the hips of her Wonder Woman shorts-and-tee pajama set, she surveyed the carnage in what used to be her bedroom.

The walls were filled with holes from the rapid-fire guns she’d set up in the corners of the room. Guns that were hidden but rigged to her emergency system. The bullets had plowed through everything at waist level, cutting her favorite Batgirl lamp in half, shredding her retro polka dot curtains, and freeing the goose down from her pillows. She batted away some of the feathers floating around her. It could have been a scene from any war-torn city. Instead, it was her home.

She looked down at the three dead men, guns still in their hands and blood pooling around them.

“I told you I was never going back,” she whispered.

In the distance, she heard sirens. Even though her home was built into the empty office space of an old warehouse in London’s dockland area, instead of in a built-up residential area, there were still enough people around to call the cops.

Elle stepped over the body of the man nearest her and picked her way through the broken glass strewn across the pale blue carpet. There was no point in reaching for clothes in her closet, as they too had been torn to shreds by the bullets. Instead, she rushed into what used to be the main office of the building. The only changes she’d made in the warehouse, since moving in, were to turn one of the smaller offices into a bedroom and to install an electric shower in the bathroom. Apart from that, the place looked just as abandoned as it had been when she’d first bought it.

She ignored the comforting hum of the bank of computers she’d set up on the tables in her main living area and pulled her go-bag out from the cupboard nearest the door. As the sirens grew louder, Elle changed into the clothes she kept in her bag—lime-green jeans, bright pinkHello KittyT-shirt, and sneakers patterned with comic-book covers. She grabbed a yellow headband and slid it on, wanting to keep her bobbed blue hair out of her face.

With one last glance at her computers, her babies, Elle ran for the front door. As she shut it behind her, she pulled out her phone and tapped the app she’d designedfor just this occasion. Walking into the darkness, she heard a series of small, contained explosions go off behind her. By the time the police got there, all they would find was a burning pile of rubble and the charred remains of three men. There were no records of Elle ever having owned the building. There was nothing to lead back to her at all. Which made it all the more worrying that William had managed to find her.

Elle cut through alleyways and parking lots until she hit the street outside the train station. A sole black hackney cab sat idling in the taxi rank. She jumped into the back of it.

“Benson Security, Westminster,” she told the driver and rattled off the street address.

“You’re out late, luv,” the driver said before making a tight U-turn and heading across Central London toward her new workplace.

“No,”—Elle caught the man’s eyes in his mirror and smiled—“early start. Shift work.”

He snorted. “I hear you. What do you do?”

“Computer stuff. Nothing exciting. I just joined a new security company. My job will mainly revolve around running background checks on potential employees.” And she hoped it stayed that way. From what Harry had told her about Lake Benson’s Scottish office, the business was pretty low-key. Which was just what she needed. She’d worked on and off for Harry Boyle’s tech company for years, and this was a change of direction. One she wasn’t sure about. But she’d find out more when the whole team met for the first time in the morning to discuss the case of a missing woman. Katrina Raast. That was her name. And, unlike Elle, this woman desperately wanted to be found.

“That’s a shame,” the driver said, pulling her from her thoughts. “Young woman like you should have some excitement in her life.”

“I prefer my excitement to come from video games,” she replied honestly.

“Kids.” He shook his head. “You’ll never get to experience real life through an online game. You need to get out there. Take risks. Feel the adrenaline rushing through your veins.”

Elle folded her arms to hide her shaking hands. “Some of us just aren’t cut out for taking risks.”

Wise eyes met hers in the mirror. “How do you know unless you try?”

All Elle did was smile back at him as she focused on the lights of London. Once in the office, she’d use the software Harry had set up for her to erase all traces of her life.

Again.

Only, this time, she wasn’t moving cities.