[B.S. #3] Claiming Laura (12 page)

If the Feds couldn’t get the information on the General to stick, he was sure that his team could. They had ways and means that the Feds would never consider. He knew to help her he would have to work with the Feds for a time and find out everything in detail. He needed to talk to them now.

Looking down at Laura, he noticed that she was now paler. A worried look had come over her face after she had spotted the men at the door. He didn’t want to lie to her, but he couldn’t let her know how serious things were becoming with the Feds in town.

“It’s just some business of the firm that I have to talk over with my friends. I’m going to get Brad to sit with you while I do that.”

Laura looked back at him, almost pleading with her eyes for him not to go. “I don’t want you to leave. Can’t you talk to your friends later?”

“I wish I could, but I’m looking after the firm with James gone, so I can’t put it off. Didn’t you tell me earlier that you wanted to thank Brad? Well, you can do that while I take care of this business.”

Clay didn’t want to leave her side either, but he knew Brad would take care of her. It was important that he get to the bottom of this right away. Leaning down, he kissed her on her forehead and walked to the door and called Brad in. Brad had been at the hospital since Laura had been admitted.

After introducing Brad to her, and making sure she was comfortable with him, Clay left. He found himself wiping his sweaty hands on his pants, as he walked to join his friends. He was dreading the coming talk.

Chapter Twelve

Walking up to them, Clay didn’t mince words. “What the hell kind of story are you telling me?”

Dwayne, one of the Feds, stepped up to Clay. “Keep your voice down. I thought you would have known all about this, as you are seeing ‘Laura’ as she now calls herself. We wouldn’t have sprung it on you if we knew you were in the dark. Let’s go to the cafeteria and grab a coffee. We can discuss this without everyone hearing us.”

Clay looked around the small waiting room. People were paying attention to them, but he didn’t think it was only his outburst. His friends in their black trench coats just reeked of authority. Clay agreed with Dwayne and the three men walked together to the elevators and rode it down a couple of floors to the cafeteria.

After getting coffee, they found a table away from the few people in the place and sat down.

“OK, now we’re alone. What the hell are you trying to pull on me?”

Clay couldn’t believe that the woman he was starting to care for would keep a secret this big, especially when she knew the kind of work Clay did.

Dwayne took a sip of his coffee as he listened to Clay. He liked Clay, always had, but had a hard time believing that he could be seeing a woman and not know that she was hiding something. “I’m going to tell you the story. I shouldn’t, as it’s Feds-only business, but knowing your gang, you could find out anyway. So what I tell you has to be kept under wraps.”

Clay nodded, agreeing.

“Ten years ago, Laura—God, I have a hard time calling her that. We called her Laurie. That’s her real name. Laura is her cover name.”

All the color drained from Clay’s face. “What do you mean cover name?”

“She’s been in witness protection for ten years, Clay. Ever since the day she came to us with a story. She had suspicions that her boss, a general, was involved in illegal activity and said that she had proof. The government takes accusations about military officials quite seriously, so we dug around a bit. What she said made sense, so Laura stayed in our custody while we checked out everything about the General in more detail. We had to follow protocol.”

“If her boss was involved in illegal activities, I don’t know why you didn’t pick up the General right away. After all, she had proof.” Clay was pissed off for Laura having to deal with all the Feds’ red tape.

“It wasn’t that easy, Clay, especially with someone so high ranking. At the time we didn’t think it would take long to build the case but we ran into roadblock after roadblock. We knew that we had one shot to get it right. Finally we got the OK to bring him in. Let me tell you, that was some day. We had the higher ups breathing down our necks every step of the way. We even had to toe the line with our questions. We got the run around from him that day. Before we could call him on it, with more information, we were pulled from the case and it was dropped from the Feds’ files.”

Dwayne sat back in his chair. “Some of our bosses didn’t like it being swept away so fast, so we put Laura in witness protection, thinking we would eventually come up with something. Two years later, we still had nothing. When the small bistro that we got her a job at was firebombed and her new apartment ransacked, she took off. We have been looking for her ever since that night. She’s smart and got very good at hiding. We thought we had her once or twice, but then she would disappear off the radar. This is the first real break we have had at finding her.”

This information was a lot to process. He couldn’t imagine what life must have been like for Laura on the run. No wonder she was so skittish. He should take her over his knee for not confiding this information in him herself. Instead though, he just wanted to wrap her up in his arms and protect her.

Whoever this General was, he must have been involved in some terrible things for the Feds to go to the trouble of putting just a former employee in witness protection for this long.

“What’s his name?” Clay asked. If he was going to keep Laura safe, he needed to know the name of the monster who wanted her dead.

Dwayne and Tim shared a look. Right then Clay knew that it was bad.

He closed his eyes as they said the name he dreaded. It was the name of the one man he truly hated.

“General Brown,” Tim said.

Clay seethed. When he realized that the name of his greatest foe and Laura’s were one and the same, he almost jumped up and swore. He knew the General very well. His unit had all cursed his name many times over the years. Hearing it now attached to Laura just made Clay see red.

Clay schooled his features, giving nothing away. He trusted Dwayne, but he worked for the Feds and Clay didn’t want to strain their friendship with telling him his thoughts.

“So if I believe everything you just told me, I would say that the Feds have done a very shitty job of looking after Laura and an even worse job of digging up evidence.”

Tim, who had been letting Dwayne tell the story, thumped his cup down on the table hard enough to spill the liquid.

“Wait just a minute, Clay. I know we’re friends, but we don’t deserve that. We’ve been working on this, even after the file was closed. We’ve been searching for her. We liked Laura and believed her story. But she’s smart, and you know yourself that if a person doesn’t want to be found, they can disappear easily nowadays. It’s not hard to get a fake social security number or driver’s license, or anything else that a person might need.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I’m jumping to conclusions. Now that you found her, I can just bet that the General with his connections will soon find out, if he doesn’t know already. We never know for sure, but it could have been the General that had the package sent to Laura. If not, you might have just led the General right to her and put her in a lot of danger.”

Clay wasn’t going to back down and just let them take Laura. He liked his friends but they couldn’t protect her before. No, she was safer if he took over from now on.

“I don’t think it was the General. The office doesn’t even know everything yet. We haven’t had time to check in since we saw Laura, so they don’t know if we found the right person or not. But we will have to tell them and get her back in safe custody soon.”

“I know you both have a job to do, but I’m going to take advantage of our friendship and ask that you not inform head office that you found her.”

Dwayne stated to speak up at Clay’s words, but Clay didn’t give him time to break in.

“Listen for a minute. The job is to keep her safe and bring down the general.” At their nods, Clay kept on. “Well, I would like my team to take a crack at it. I know Laura has to be kept safe, but if you put her in a safe house like before, the General will just find out where she is and go after her. So I would like to suggest a compromise. I will put Laura in a safe house that I know of. You report back that it was the wrong person, that it wasn’t Laura, or Laurie as you call her, in the hospital. This will give us time to shake down the General. You know our team, and if there is anything to be found out though legal or illegal means, we will find it. Anything we find we will pass on to you both, so can take down the asshole in the end. What do you think?”

“I don’t know. You’re asking a lot from our friendship. Do you like Laura enough to keep her safe?” Tim piped in.

“Laura is my responsibility now. I will look after her and make sure that nothing happens on my watch. That lady has become special to me and if you take her in, I’m going in with her. I’m not going to let her leave by herself with you. I trust you guys. It’s the others that I don’t.”

“OK, we’ll play it your way. We won’t tell the head office that it’s her and give your team some time to shake down the General. But you will have to act quickly to get her out of here and to a safe house. I can’t guarantee that someone else won’t be sent to check this place out. Also, if you or your team do anything illegal, we don’t want to hear about it.” Dwayne and Tim stood up. “And keep in touch. Call us on our personal cells, which can’t be traced.”

Clay rose also and shook hands with his friends. He followed them to the elevators. They took one down, and he took two up and to Laura’s room to get her out of here as soon as possible.

Clay knew there was more to this story, but he wanted to hear it from Laura directly. His first priority, though, was keeping her safe. If the Feds had been able to find her here after ten years, the chances were good that the General also knew exactly where to find them.

Chapter Thirteen

Finally arriving at Laura’s floor, Clay hurried to her room, when he found Brad helping her eat her lunch. Her expression told him that she didn’t like it, but she was sucking it up and allowing it.

Clay put an uplifting tone to his voice as he entered the room, he didn’t want her to know how worried he was. “Hey, how is everyone here? Got the business out of the way and now let’s see if we can get you discharged from this place.”

He gave Brad a look, which Brad understood. They had all learned to silently communicate with each other and as a team in the army. Brad put her spoon down on her tray and got up. Silently communicating back to Clay, Brad told him he would see about the discharge, and hurriedly walked out of the room.

Clay walked up to Laura’s bedside and moved the bed tray to the side. “Where’s your clothes, honey?”

“Jane just brought over some and they’re in the bag in the closet. What’s the hurry? I thought you told me to take it easy. Do you really think the doctor will let me go so soon? They didn’t say anything to me about it when they did their rounds while you were gone.” Laura watched Clay go to the closet and pull out the bag. He opened it on one of the chairs, grabbed her clothes, and brought them back over to the bed with him.

“Sure they will let you go. It’s just your hands, and you have me to help you. So it should be no problem. You’ll be more comfortable out of here anyway.” Clay tried to work slow and not unnerve her with his hurry to get out of there as he helped her sit up and move her legs over the side of the bed.

Reaching for her back, he undid the ties holding her hospital gown and stripped her of it. Grabbing the short-sleeve blouse Jane had brought her, he had it on her in minutes. Next he took her panties and pulled them up her legs with stretch pants next. Clay had done it so fast and clinical that she didn’t have time to be embarrassed. Laura watched as Clay gathered her stuff from around the bed and hurriedly packed it back in the bag.

She was just going to ask him why he was in such a rush, when the door opened and the doctor walked in with Brad dogging his footsteps.

“Well, Miss Branch, it seems like you’re in a hurry to leave us. I think that a few days here wouldn’t hurt, but this gentleman said that you had commitments that couldn’t be put off. And that they would both would take full responsibility for you. Is that agreeable with you?”

Laura just nodded at the doctor, looking up at Clay.

The doctor walked to her bedside and picked up her hands and looked at the bandages. “They look OK right now, but the dressings will have to be changed twice a day.”

He turned to Clay, who was hovering over Laura on the other side of the bed. “Who is going to do this, if I release her now? You have to be very careful that infection doesn’t occur.”

“I’ll look after her, you don’t have to worry. My fiancée knows that from my stint in the army that I have medical training and looking after her shouldn’t be a problem.” Clay looked at Laura, and said to her, “Don’t you have complete faith in me looking after you, dear?”

Laura didn’t know what to say. She felt she was in some episode of
The Twilight Zone
, with nothing making sense. But she could tell by the look that Clay gave her that he wanted her to agree with everything he had just told the doctor. It was a leap of faith on her part, but she knew she could trust him. Until she could get out of here and question him, she had to go with her gut, and it was telling her something was up but to just follow his lead.

“Yes, my fiancé will look after me, have no worries. I have complete faith in him.”

The doctor didn’t look fully convinced, but let her hands go and turned to Clay with a prescription. “This is for pain and I’ve also marked down the salve that will have to be applied every time you change her bandages. Make sure that they don’t get wet for a least a week. If any infection starts, bring her back here or to the nearest doctor.” He handed the prescription to Clay and walked out of the room. Brad was already standing at the door holding her bag and seemed to be on guard.