Las Vegas Savior

They left the restaurant and John asked the valet for her car. Emily’s mind was racing with all that they had talked about tonight when just as they got into her car, she realized something.

As John pulled away from the curb she said, “John, I just realized something. Remember when you said that Derrick must be using someone to find out where I am every time I show my ID? Well, I had to show my ID when I checked in at the hotel here.

What if Derrick already knows where I am? It took me 12 hours to drive here from Idaho and I’ve already been here for almost 24 hours. I think I need to drop you off and get going. It’s not safe here anymore.” Emily said, getting scared as she crouched down on the seat. This is why she rarely drove at night, if she could help it. It was too hard to see for any distance, especially Derrick’s black SUV.

“Whoa. You’ve been up since early this morning and we’ve been going all day. It would be dangerous for you to try driving any kind of distance tonight. You might fall asleep at the wheel. Besides, if that is how he is tracking you, you said he’s usually about a week behind you. He either knows how to hack, which I would seriously doubt, or he pays someone to hack, which I also doubt but it’s not impossible.

I would almost lay my last dollar to bet it is because he has a snitch on the inside at the police department that is tracking you and reporting to him. Sounds like they’ve got a bad cop on the payroll. Maybe someone he’s blackmailing. Either way, he’s never going to stop hunting you if you don’t have a new identity, at least for a little while. Please let me help you, Emily.”

“I don’t want to put you in danger John.” Emily said and then she realized that she was more than just attracted to him but that she was beginning to care what happened to this man.

“I tell you what. You said you had paid in advance for your room, right?” He asked.

She nodded and said “I paid for last night but not tonight.”

“Well, then. We’ll just rent you another room in another hotel but this time, we’ll use my name, my ID. That way he won’t know where you are but at least you can get a good night’s sleep and hopefully come with me to the local office and I can see what we can do to help. I just need access to one of their computers for a little while. I can get the tech guy to see if anyone has been tracking you using your ID and maybe even block them. If not, I’ll get a new temporary ID for you.”

“If you can get me to a computer with that kind of access, I can do it. I am a computer programmer after all. I just haven’t had access to a full government computer before. The best I could do was a computer at the library or at a coffee shop. That’s one of the many things I’ve truly missed while I’ve been on the run is not having my laptop.”

“Well, will you stay then?” John asked hopefully. He was not willing to let go of her and realized that he was beginning to care for her as more than just a frightened young woman, but as the woman that had stolen his breath away the first time he ever saw her.

They stopped at a red light and he looked over at her. He watched her face as she seemed at war with herself and then she looked over at him.

“You can trust me, Emily. I won’t let him hurt you.” John said.

“Okay. I’ll stay and I’ll go with you to the office tomorrow. Can I ask one more favor? Can I call Shelly and tell her to wire the money in your name? That way I won’t have to show my ID to pick it up.” Emily asked.

“Sure. No problem. Is it too late to call her now? We could have them wire it to the hotel and you can bypass the Western Union fees. Most hotels don’t charge if you are a guest of the hotel. We’ll do that when I check you in tonight. She can send the funds from her bank to the hotel and it should be ready within an hour once she makes the deposit and requests that it be sent. I can’t say what her bank might charge.” John seemed to be thinking out loud. “So where would you like to stay tonight?”

“Well, the reason I chose that hotel was because of the price, so somewhere similar?” Emily hedged.

“Well, I need to go back to where we were currently staying to get my stuff out of my room and my vehicle. It’s a rental but still, I should take it with me.” John said. He drove them back to their hotel and he parked outside his room, which was on the ground floor in about the middle of the building. Emily waited for him in her car. She decided to use the time to call Shelly. She found her number in her contacts list and hit the call button. On the second ring, Shelly said “Hello?”

“Shelly, it’s me. Can you talk?”

“Sure. I just put Bobby to bed. Are you OK? I got your paycheck and some tips from the tables you had started that day. It’s not a fortune but it should keep you in a couple of tanks of gas, a few meals and maybe even a hotel stay if you can find them cheap.”

“Hey, every cent counts nowadays. Thanks.” Emily said and before she could tell her where to send it, Shelly said,

“I went by the Holiday Inn on my way to work this morning and that black SUV was still there. They even came back to the diner for breakfast around 8 this morning. I tried to eavesdrop on them but they were talking too low. I even carried the flatware over to a table near them to wrap silverware, even though I already had plenty. It gave me a chance to sit down for a change but I still couldn’t hear much of what they were saying. What did you say that the cop’s name was in Seattle?”

“Simpson. Detective Martin Simpson.” Emily told her.

“No, that’s not the name I think I heard. Sounded more like Anderson or Sanderson, I couldn’t tell. I don’t know if they were talking about you or not. I didn’t hear your name at all. I did hear him say “She” several times but that’s all. A noisy diner is not a good place to try and eavesdrop. Plus Henry was showing his ass this morning too. What a grouch!” Shelly said and Emily smiled as she pictured the inside of the diner in her mind. Strange as it may sound, that place had been home for a while.

Emily looked out the window and saw John, leaving his room. He was carrying a large leather duffle bag in one hand and a garment bag hung over his shoulder with the other as he went down to the office to check out.

“Shelly, I don’t have much time to talk right now, I’m going to call you tomorrow with the location but I wanted to tell you that you won’t be sending it in my name. I’ve met an FBI agent that is going to help me. We are changing hotels right now.

We think Derrick has been tracking me whenever I show my ID somewhere that the police can monitor. I had never shown my ID there until I went to the clinic when I got sick. Derrick showed up within a week. I got to thinking about it and that has happened every time I showed my ID.

We’re going to the FBI office in the morning and see if we can backtrack who it is that has been keeping tabs on me for him. I’ll call you tomorrow and tell you where to send it. If your bank charges you for the service, then take it out of my money. Look, I’ve got to go. I’ll call you tomorrow, hopefully with good news.”

“Okay. You take care, honey and I’ll go straight to the bank as soon as I get off. Alice and I are splitting your shift so she should be in around 2 and hopefully it won’t be too busy and I can leave on time.” Shelly told her before she hung up.

Emily watched John walk out of the office and down the sidewalk. He glanced over at her but walked straight down the sidewalk to his car. He put his luggage in the trunk and then glanced over at her again as he got in behind the wheel. He pointed towards the entrance they had come in and she waited till he passed her to pull out and follow him.

She stayed right on his tail as he drove towards the outskirts of town to a Hampton Inn as she kept an eye on her rear view mirror. It didn’t seem like anyone was following them as they pulled into the parking lot. She parked right next to him and left her engine running.

“Hey, I can’t afford a room here. They run over $80 a night.” Emily said with an embarrassed look on her face. She would love to stay here because the rooms were so nice and the beds were so comfortable but she couldn’t spend that kind of money on just one night.

“I’m going to get a suite and with my federal employees discount, it won’t cost anywhere near that and don’t worry, I’ve got this. If they ask for more names, I’ll say you are my sister, Janice. She won’t mind.” John said. “Stay here. I’ll go get registered and get our keys. Do you prefer the first or second floor?”

“First floor on the corner, please.” Emily said, remembering the time she had stayed on the second floor and had to jump out the window because Derrick was pounding on the door. She had landed on the dumpster and the lid had caved in.

She thought Derrick was going to catch her for sure but fortunately the only access to her floor was a single staircase at the other end of the building. She was long gone by the time he had run back down the length of the building, down the stairs and then to the back of the building and down the length of it.

She had parked her car in the parking lot at the supermarket two streets over and she had run for all she was worth. That was when she had been in Carson City during her second summer on the run. Funny how every event in her life for the past three years seemed to focus on what time of the year it was and how many years she had been running so far.

She hoped it was going to be over soon. She was really tired of running. Right now, all she wanted was a nice soft place to lay down and sleep feeling safe for once and she knew she would be with John close by.

She watched him come out of the hotel lobby and walk towards her. He walked like a football player but not so wide legged, maybe a lumberjack. He sure had the shoulders and upper arms for it. She wondered what those arms would feel like wrapped around her more snugly than when they had danced, which had been heavenly and she had wanted so badly to step closer to him. What would those lips taste like, she wondered.

As he got close to the car, she rolled down her window and said “I’m going to park at the end of the building. Will you park between me and the street please?”

“Sure. We’re at the end anyway.” John told her with a smile. He was glad she had agreed to stay and wasn’t putting up fences about staying in a suite with him. Now all he had to do was stay in his own bed and get some sleep so that he would be ready for whatever happens tomorrow.

He was supposed to get on a plane and go home tomorrow but as soon as they got some answers, he was going to call his boss. He just prayed that he would agree to let him protect her from Gibson. That name wasn’t ringing any bells for him but the face in the picture she had shown him looked very familiar. He just couldn’t place where he had seen it before.

They drove down to the end of the building and parked in the visitor parking stalls at the very end. There was no back alley to this place, just a row of hedges that ran behind the hotel and around the parking area but there was an exit on this end of the building out to a street.

There was a gas station across the street with a convenience store and a Sub sandwich place right next door to that. She couldn’t tell what was beyond that because of a high row of hedges that lined the parking lot. It looked like the roofs of houses behind the stores and she assumed that it was a residential subdivision.

They grabbed their luggage out of their trunks and walked across the parking lot to their rooms. “There should be an adjoining door, open the one on your side and I’ll do the same. There is supposed to be a sitting area and kitchenette in between them.” John said.

“Wow, you went all the way, didn’t you? I feel so special.” Emily teased.

“Hey, I figured you’d have objections to staying in the same room with me so this is the best I could do.” John teased back.