Wrong Place (The Wrong Series) Read online

  He was joking, but a part of him was dead serious. He wouldn’t have let his dog stay in this place.

  “Oh, don’t be such a girl,” Sam snapped

  The truth was that she didn’t really want to stay in such a ratty old place either. When she had suggested they stop there, it was only because she felt bad that he was having to pay for everything on the trip, and she didn’t want to suggest an expensive hotel. She wished she had suggested it after seeing the inside of the room, though.

  “Okay, but don’t be surprised if a cockroach scares me and I end up in the bed with you.”

  Nathan was trying to joke with her, but he was also testing the boundaries of what he could and couldn’t try with her. He wasn’t the type of guy to jump into the bed with just any woman, but Sam was quite beautiful, and if she didn’t mind, then neither did he. Who would know if he did get in the bed with her, anyway?

  “Okay, I’m going to make this really simple for you. If you end up in this bed for any reason, then cockroaches will be the least of your worries, because you’ll be sleeping below the ground with the worms.”

  Sam was smiling, but Nathan knew that she meant it. His brain told him to leave the subject alone, but he couldn’t help but say at least one more thing on the subject.

  “All right, all right! There’s no need for threats. I’m a gentleman, after all, but if the lady gets scared and needs a strong man, my bed is always open to her,” Nathan said with one eyebrow raised.

  “Oh, so there’s going to be a strong man in your bed?” Sam asked as she laughed.

  “Hey, that’s not even funny. Get to know me a little. You’ll be surprised how strong I can be.”

  It is hard to picture a person as very strong when you have seen them hopping toward you to be rescued with their hands tied to their feet, and wearing only boxers, she thought. Oh, well. If nothing else, his ability to adjust to a terrible situation is amazing, and that plan he came up with to get Driver back actually wasn’t that bad. Maybe he does have a certain mental toughness at least, Sam thought to herself.

  “What are you thinking over there?” Nathan asked, interrupting her train of thought.

  “Nothing, just go to sleep, ‘strong man,’” Sam said as she turned the bedside lamp off.

  “Okay. Goodnight, Sam.”

  He’s smart and mentally tough. Maybe I could teach him everything else he lacks, but then again, I don’t know that I would really like the guy if he were a capable person in the same areas as I am. It couldn’t hurt to teach him to shoot and the basics of self-defense, though, Sam thought. Sam lay there in the darkness for a few more seconds before something dawned on her. Wait a minute. Did I just think I liked the guy, Sam thought, as she reviewed her previous thoughts. Why am I even thinking about that kind of thing at a time like this, she thought to herself and swiftly turned over. Sam felt stupid for even starting to think of someone in that sort of way when so much else was going on, but most of all, she felt something that she wasn’t accustomed to feeling. Sam was surprisingly starting to get a little bit of a crush on Nathan, and she was clueless as to what she should do about it. Finally, she pushed her thoughts aside and went to sleep.

  Upon waking the next morning, Sam rolled over to see Nathan lying on the adjacent bed. His hair was sticking straight up, and it had formed into a deep frizz. She hadn’t noticed it before, but he definitely had extremely curly hair. She then saw the camera that he had bought back at the store. It was lying on the small table between their beds. She grabbed it and began snapping pictures of him. Without ever opening his eyes, he spoke.

  “Are you really taking pictures of me while I sleep? Who’s the creepy one now?”

  “Creepy? I was just going to use these embarrassing pictures to extort you with later on. How did you even know I was taking them?”

  “Because I, too, see everything,” Nathan said while opening his eyes and then winking at her.

  “Well okay, Mr. See it all. I’m going to go and get in the shower.”

  “Oh, no you don’t,” Nathan said as he jumped out of the bed and ran into the bathroom, locking the door behind him.

  “What are you doing? I’m not taking a cold shower.”

  “You will not leave me without any hot water today. The shower that I took the other morning was almost unbearable.”

  “If you come out, I’ll delete the pictures of you sleeping.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Please,” Sam said in a sad and desperate voice.

  There was a long silence, and then the door opened up.

  “Yeah, okay, but just don’t use up all the hot water,” Nathan said and motioned for her to go inside.

  As she entered, she was a bit confused, to say the least. Apparently, men could be manipulated through a sad and pouty voice. What else don’t I know, Sam thought to herself.

  * * * * *

  In the early part of the afternoon, Jacob and Trish returned to Fields’ hospital room.

  “We have the records, and we found something pretty important,” Jacob said.

  “What is it?” Fields asked.

  “They’re headed to Atlanta, Georgia, to meet a man named Lee Higgins,” Trish said.

  “What do we know about this Mr. Higgins?”

  “He’s twenty-seven years old, and he works for a small tech company in Atlanta, Georgia. Otherwise, there’s nothing that’s really significant about him,” Trish said.

  “I want you two to go after them.”

  “When do we leave?” Jacob asked.

  “Right now.”

  “Yes, sir. We’ll get it done,” Jacob responded.

  “For your own sakes, you better hope you do.”

  * * * * *

  Back at the hotel room, both Sam and Nathan had finished their showers and were on their way out the door when a very disturbing problem arose. They looked around in the nearly deserted parking lot for at least two full minutes before Nathan finally asked the obvious.

  “Where’s the car?”

  Sam scanned the area once more, and as expected, it was still nowhere to be found.

  “It’s gone! Great, this is just great!” Sam said in a panic.

  I guess we really should have stayed at a better place, Nathan thought.

  “Can you call your friend Lee and get him to pick us up here?”

  “Well, he’s at work right now, but I do know one person who might be able to help us out.”

  Nathan dreaded the thought of making the next call that he would, without a doubt, have to make.

  “Good. Make the call then,” Sam said.

  “I’m sorry, Zane,” she whispered to herself.

  “Hey, Michael. I could use a little help. Is there any way you could come to Birmingham right now?” Nathan asked.

  Chapter 11

  While waiting for Michael to arrive, Nathan and Sam went across the street to a small diner to get a bite to eat.

  “So who is this helpful friend who’s coming to get us?” Sam asked as they sat down.

  “His name is Michael, and he’s a little strange . . . okay, a lot strange.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I lived with the guy for almost two years, and let’s just say that they were the strangest two years of my life. He has some issues, but he’s a good guy overall.”

  “Is he at least dependable?”

  “He is on the right day. I think that he’ll be here, as long as he isn’t distracted by something on the way.”

  “So what you’re saying is that we may be screwed?”

  “Yeah, pretty much,” Nathan said and laughed.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” Nathan said.

  “What is it?”

  “All this craziness, you know like rescuing hostages, and running from evil organizations. Is all of this routine to you? I mean, how do you get used to it? Don’t you ever want things to just be normal?”

  “Truthfully, I doubt that this much excitement
is normal, but I really can’t say if it is or not. This is my first assignment, so I don’t exactly know what’s normal and what isn’t.”

  “Wait, so if you’re new at this, then I guess that this is new to both of us. I might just be as capable at these types of things as you are.”

  Sam hadn’t really thought about it much, but she really was as much of a rookie as Nathan was, although she was certainly a bit more capable than him, or at least that’s what she thought.

  “I’ve decided something,” Nathan said with determination.

  “What is it?”

  “After we get the flash drive, I want to continue on with you. I want to see this through to the end.”

  “No way! You aren’t even supposed to be here with me to begin with.”

  “Well, what else am I supposed to do? I can’t go back home without taking the risk of someone killing me there, and honestly, I get the feeling that you could use a lot of help out here.”

  “First of all, why do you think I would need help, and second of all, we’ll put you in protective custody, so you don’t have to worry about anything. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

  “To answer your first question, it’s obvious that you’re a very capable person, but at times, you can be a bit hotheaded,” Nathan said and then was immediately cut off.

  “Hotheaded? What do you mean hotheaded?” Sam asked in an angry voice.

  “Well, you’re pretty hotheaded right now. Also, if you had just stormed into the facility to get Driver, like you wanted to, you might be dead or worse by now. I can be an extra head to help you think when you’re in a difficult spot. Everyone needs some help from time to time.”

  Sam knew it was true that she and Zane had been a bit rash when they made their initial plan, but they were only eager to rescue a colleague. Plus, Nathan had really underestimated her skill of infiltrating a place undetected. That kind of underestimation ticked her off, even if he meant well.

  “Second of all, do you really think I want to spend the rest of my life in protective custody? Finally, you say that you won’t let anyone hurt me, but who’s supposed to protect you? Sometimes even you need someone to watch your back, especially in a situation like this one,” Nathan said.

  “Look, it’s not that I wouldn’t want someone like you with me. It’s just that you aren’t an agent. You’re here by mistake, and I’m pretty sure that the CIA wouldn’t approve of you being here in the first place.”

  “Right now, technically you aren’t with the CIA either. You’re a rogue agent, remember? Look, I’ll make you a deal. I’ll flip you for it,” Nathan said as he pulled a coin from his pocket.

  “Fine.”

  She really had no plans to let him tag along after getting the flash drive, but why not let him flip the coin? He might lose, and then this whole situation would be resolved.

  “Heads I’ll go with you, and tails I’ll go into protective custody,” Nathan said.

  He then threw the coin into the air and caught it in midair. When he opened his hand, sure enough, it was heads.

  “You’re still not coming with me.”

  “Okay, well just tell me this. What if you recover the flash drive and they still don’t want you back, or worse, what if there’s nothing useful even on it? Then what do you plan to do? I look at it this way. I can’t go back to my family until this is all over, if it’s ever over, and you may or may not be able to go back your old life at all. So why not plan to stick together for now? It might just work out that way anyway.”

  She hadn’t considered the possibility that there might not be a way to go back to her old life, and honestly, none of this would be resolved anytime soon, so the odds of him being able to go back to his own life anytime soon were truly next to nothing.

  Maybe we should plan to stick together for a while, she thought.

  “Fine, but you’ll at least need to learn to shoot if you’re going to stick with me,” Sam said.

  “Great! Wait . . . what?”

  * * * * *

  Michael was halfway to Birmingham, and he had brought a friend with him. His friend’s name was Jessica Rogers, and she was twenty-three years old. She had long brown hair, and deep brown eyes. In contrast to Michael’s 5’11 and 195 pound frame, she was very small.

  “Thanks for coming with me, Jess,” Michael said as he drove.

  “No problem. That’s what friends are for, right?” Jess said with a smile.

  Friends. Now that was a word that Michael hated, at least when it came from Jess. He had asked Jess out a half dozen times in the past, and she had always said yes, but unfortunately, it had always been made very clear that they were going together just as friends.

  “So why does your friend need us to pick him up from Birmingham anyway?”

  “He didn’t really say. He said that the less I know the better.”

  “What? That doesn’t sound a little odd to you?”

  “Yeah, but it’s Nathan. I mean, I’m going to be there for him, and he’ll tell me what’s going on eventually,” Michael said.

  “You’re too trusting of people.”

  “You’ll see when we get there. He’s the most trustworthy guy I know.”

  “All right, if you say so, but you know that you just missed your exit, right?”

  “Really? Well, crap. See, this is why you pretty much had to come with me. There’s no telling where I would have ended up otherwise,” Michael said.

  * * * * *

  Back in Birmingham, Nathan and Sam were hanging out in the parking lot of the hotel. It was fairly cold on that late morning.

  “So I could get the room for another day so we wouldn’t have to wait out in the cold,” Nathan said, while visibly shivering.

  “No, your friend shouldn’t be too much longer,” Sam said as she pulled her coat closed.

  “I really don’t mind.”

  Nathan’s teeth began to chatter. He didn’t have a whole lot of body fat, so he had never done very well in cold weather.

  “I bet you wish you had the jacket I got for you right about now,” Sam said while laughing at him.

  Nathan had left the jacket in the car that was stolen. No way. The thief can have it, he thought.

  “Well, yeah. I do wish that I had it right now.”

  Nathan said that so he didn’t hurt her feelings, but the truth was that he was glad the jacket was gone. He would rather freeze to death than to wear such a strange coat.

  “I have a question,” Sam said.

  “What is it?”

  “All right. I know that you need to learn to shoot, but can you fight enough to defend yourself? I know that you were taken before at your house, but that guy was pretty big. I can’t really fault you for being overpowered there.”

  “Of course, I can defend myself. That guy just caught me on a bad day.”

  “Uh huh,” Sam said with obvious doubt in her voice.

  “Hey, I can prove it. Go ahead and throw anything you have at me.”

  Nathan wasn’t really serious. He had only been joking, but for some reason Sam didn’t get the joke.

  “Okay. Evade or block one blow from me, and I’ll believe you.”

  “All right. That should be easy enough.”

  Sam then put her hands up into a fighting position. She weaved left, then right, and then faked a punch low. This made Nathan block low. At that moment, she threw a punch with half of her normal strength at his face. Then she felt it and heard it. Smack! Her fist had just hit Nathan right in the nose. He crumbled to the ground. His nose was bleeding.

  “Oh my God! Are you okay?” Sam asked in a panic.

  “I didn’t think you were actually going to hit me,” Nathan said while in obvious pain.

  “I’m so sorry. Here, I’ll go get you some tissues.”

  She immediately ran into the hotel lobby and collected some tissues and ran back out to tend to Nathan. She placed the tissue on his nose and tilted his head forward.

  “We really have to w
ork on your reflexes.”

  “I’ll be okay. I’m not really a finesse fighter anyway. I’m more of a power puncher,” Nathan said in a joking tone.

  She laughed. How does he find humor even in this situation, Sam wondered.

  “I’ll get you in good fighting shape. Don’t worry,” she said while smiling down at him.

  “Okay, but just please don’t hit me anymore.”

  At that moment a familiar car drove up.

  A panicked Michael bolted from his car, and ran toward Nathan who appeared to be bleeding. Some woman that Michael didn’t recognize was standing over him.

  “What’s wrong? Are you okay? What happened?” Michael asked.

  He was asking questions too fast for anyone to actually answer them.

  “I’m okay, Michael. Just calm down,” Nathan said.

  “Well, what happened?” Michael asked once again.

  “I hit him,” Sam said timidly.

  “You did what?” Michael asked in surprise.

  “Relax. She didn’t mean to hit me. Well, actually she did, but that’s not the point,” Nathan said while trying to come up with something to say that made any sense at all.

  “All right, just what’s going on? Why am I here?” Michael asked.

  Nathan and Sam then explained everything to Michael.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to overhear you all, but I did,” someone said from near Michael’s car.

  “Who is this?” Nathan asked in surprise.

  He had never seen Michael with a beautiful woman before. In fact, he used to joke about Michael’s poor taste in women, but this girl was really cute. She’s almost as cute as Sam, Nathan thought while looking at Jess.

  “This is Jess. She’s a friend of mine.”

  Nathan turned and gave Michael a look of unspoken approval. Sam couldn’t help but notice the look on Nathan’s face and feel a bit of jealousy. Does this guy just stare down every girl he sees? And he’s doing it right in front of me, Sam thought angrily.

  “I’m Sam, by the way. It’s nice to meet you, Michael and Jess,” Sam said which effectively broke the silence and bothersome stares.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Sam, but that story you told Michael is extremely hard to believe,” Jess said in a very skeptical voice.