Read Never Say Spy for Free Online Page B

innocent bystander.  And I had to talk to Officer Kane before I talked to the city police.
    And the thought of getting cornered inside a strange house made my skin crawl.
    “I can’t do that.”  My voice shook with the beat of my heart.  “I’ll wait until I hear the police sirens, and then I’ll go back to my house.”
    The dispatcher argued forcefully and tried to keep me on the line, but I remained adamant, told him my battery was dying, and hung up.  I spared the poor man a pang of guilty sympathy as I imagined him cursing my idiocy, but I didn’t feel guilty enough to obey.
    Straining my ears and scanning warily, I still couldn’t detect anyone trailing me, but I moved on anyway, vibrating with tension.
    I hugged the fence and shrubbery, getting further away from my original location.  Still no police sirens.  I hunkered down behind some bushes and brought up Kane’s number.
    God, please let it be a manned message centre, and please let somebody be there at... I squinted at my phone’s display.  Shit, three o’clock in the morning.
    The phone rang once before a deep voice snapped, “Kane.”
    Oops.  I hadn’t realized it was his personal number.  He sounded alert, but judging by the raspy edge to his baritone, the phone had awakened him.
    Any other time I would have taken a moment to appreciate that sexy bedroom voice.  Hell, who was I kidding?  I appreciated it anyway. You know it’s time to get laid when you start calling guys at three o’clock in the morning just to hear a husky voice.
    I herded my strung-out brain back to the situation at hand.  “Officer Kane, it’s Aydan Kelly calling.  I’m so sorry to bother you at this time of night.  But somebody has broken into my house and-”
    “Get out of the house!” Kane interrupted.  “Get out now!  Go!”
    “That was the first thing I did,” I reassured him.  “I’m on my cell phone.”
    “Hang up and call 911.”
    “Already did that, too.  The police should be on their way to my house now.”  I heard a surge of noise in the background at Kane’s end, and realized that he had turned on a police scanner to track their progress.
    “Go to the nearest house and knock on the door.  Tell them you have an emergency, and call the 911 dispatcher on their land line.”
    “I don’t want to do that,” I argued.  “If this is related to the carjacking this afternoon and you say this guy, what’s-his-name, Ramos, was a spy, then I could be putting innocent people in danger if I go to their house in the middle of the night.”
    I didn’t add that I felt safer outside where I could run.  Claustrophobia isn’t exactly a logical argument.
    “If you stay on the street, you’re a sitting duck,” he snapped.  “Go to a house, now!”
    “That’s not going to happen, Officer Kane.  I told the 911 operator I’d meet the police at my house.  My battery is about to die, so that’s what I’m going to do.”
    “No!  Do not approach your house!  Dammit!”  I heard him take a deep breath.  When he spoke again, his voice was even.  “If you go near your house, you’re in danger if the intruder is still in the vicinity, and you’re making the officers’ jobs much more difficult.  Also, if we’re dealing with organized criminals, they could be listening in on your call or using your cell phone signal to track you.”
    A wave of dread washed over me.  I peered wildly into the darkness, straining my eyes and ears.
    “If you won’t go to a neighbour’s house,” he paused hopefully, and when I didn’t respond, he continued, “I want you to listen to my instructions, and then leave your phone where you are.  Meet me... where you ran through the spider web.  Got it?”
    My mind raced.  Spider web?  What?
    Spider.  Web.
    Oh!  Spider Webb.  Where I ran through the Spider Webb.  That would be the back of the coffee shop.
    “Got it.”
    “Turn off your phone.  Throw it away.  Run.  Do it now!”
    “Roger