Free Operation Willow Quest by Karlene Blakemore-Mowle Page B

across a loading dock
where she assumed trucks brought in the supplies for the kitchen and laundry
items were dispatched.
    Coming out on a side street, she followed him
around the block, behind the hotel. They grabbed the first available taxi. He
spoke briefly to the driver, scanning the area as the car pulled out from the
curb.
    “You know we’re not going to get on a flight
out today, don’t you?” Willow
said quietly as he continued to keep an eye on their surroundings. She knew
from previous experience most airlines over booked and it was common for people
to have to wait an extra day or two until another departure became available.
Topped with the fact you had to be at the airport several hours earlier than
your flight—just to get to the ticket counter. There was no way they’d make it
now.
    “We aren’t going to the airport,” he said,
without looking at her, “the police will have the airport sealed up pretty
tight.”
    “Are you sure they were at the hotel looking
for us? How could they have known?”
    “We might have set off a silent alarm as we
left, or someone could have seen us—who the hell knows? Could have been one of
a thousand things…I wasn’t going to stick around to find out,” he told her
gravely. “Spending a couple of years in a Colombian jail wasn’t something I had
in mind when I came down here,” he added.
    “But if it wasn’t us they were after than we’re
running for nothing,” Willow
said.
    “Willow,
they’re on to us.” His certainty gave her a chill of unease. “ Trèago probably pays half of them and if he doesn’t it’s a
sure bet whoever he’s got on his payroll, does. We have to find another way out
of here.”
    “Like what?”
    “I’ll think of something.” He glanced down at
her and his eyes softened slightly.
    She nodded and bit her lip.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
    Chapter 8

 
    They were dropped in a neighbourhood every guidebook she’d ever read had warned to avoid at all costs, but Del
tugged her from behind him and she saw he wasn’t in the least bit concerned.
    “You stay here and I’ll handle the rest,” he
said, indicating a sheltered courtyard, before he vanished inside a building
beyond.
    Fighting the urge to call him back, Willow took a deep breath
and looked around cautiously. Compared to the area surrounding the place, the
courtyard was quite pleasant. Plants sprung from pots in shades of fuchsia,
reds and yellows, and the walls were painted a pale shade of buttercup—which,
even though was flaking off in parts, only added to its rustic charm. Willow gave a wry twist
of her lips; people paid a landscaping team a small fortune to achieve this
kind of look in the city. She sat down on a step.
    As her gaze dropped to her laptop, she suddenly
remembered the package. Unzipping her computer bag, she logged on and opened
the envelope—pulling out a tiny memory stick. She slipped the stick into her
computer and quickly went about emailing the contents to herself as a back-up.
As she waited, she bit the inside of her lip anxiously. What’s so important about this stuff that it made someone want Terry
dead?
    The power icon at the bottom of her screen
eventually began to flash after the files had finished downloading and warned
there was only a few minutes left to plug into an alternate power source,
before the computer would shut down. She would’ve liked to look at the
documents, the last one having just completed downloading, but that would have
to wait until later. With a small huff of frustration she powered down the
laptop and stowed it, then lowered her computer bag to the ground and waited
for Del’s
return. Feeling extremely tired, she took the opportunity to close her eyes and
hoped the nagging ache behind her forehead would soon disappear. Moments later
she felt a presence nearby—her eyes opened and she saw Del. She caught a momentary softening of his
set features and blinked uncertainly, but in the space of that blink his