Into You

Chapter 8

The drive to Coral Way was conducted in mostly silence, the driver of the car attempted to engage Lauren in conversation a few times, but she was too busy looking for trouble to pay him any real attention. In fact, he was beginning to bug her.

"So, how long have you worked for the Cabello family?" He asked cheerily, taking his eyes off the road to look at her for the nth time in the last ten minutes.

"I don't." she answered shortly, "and I'd appreciate it if you kept your eyes on the road and off my fucking cleavage,"

"Well, excuse me," he muttered indignantly finally fixing his eyes on the traffic in front of him.

She had already stopped listening to him, instead concentrating on a black Renault that had tailed them for the last few minutes. Suspicious aroused, she adjusted the rear view mirror so that she could use it to keep it in view.

"Hey, stop that." the driver protested.

"Shut up and do as I tell you," she said quickly, watching as the Renault moved through the traffic keeping a careful pace with their car, four vehicles back. "Take a left as soon as you can and then keep turning left until we get back on this road again, ok?"

" Yes fucking Ma'am, what did your last slave die of?"

"Do as you're fucking told or pull over and I'll fucking drive, ok?"

"Trouble?" came a quiet voice from the back of the car.

"Probably not, but after yesterday, let's not take chances, ok? Five minutes wasted here won't kill us, ignoring shit might."

"Do as she tells you, Paul; don't argue with her."

"Yes, Miss Cabello."

She went quiet again as the chastened driver followed Lauren's instructions to the letter. Sure enough, the black Renault followed them around the first left turn, and the second but to her surprise, carried straight on at the third.

Weird...certainly the driving was unusual. She doubted it could be a coincidence that the car wanted to do a U-Turn at exactly the same time as them; more likely that they'd realized what they were doing and broke off the tail. Just in case, Lauren told the driver to avoid the main road and take them the back route to Miss Cabello's address.

"That'll take a lot longer," he'd complained.

"It'll be a lot safer," she'd said, ending the conversation there.

The rest of the trip passed uneventfully; she'd like to say that she had the chance to relax, but she was as hyped up as she had ever been when she was on patrol in Afghanistan. She gave Normani a quick call as they got nearer; she confirmed that the flat and streets were all clear; and it was with a brief sense of relief, she told her that they were on the way.

o+o+o

Miss Cabello's flat was just as she expected it to be, neat and tidy and pretty much empty of anything that could tell her anything about the girl. In fact, it's pretty much like the place she's living in at the moment, practically a fucking show home. Even her room in the barracks had more life than this, and they were inspected on a regular basis.

There's literally nothing here, not even a photograph; at least, she had a few pictures of the original team in her old room, her favorite one being of them all in Basra, posing in their fatigues in front of a Land Rover just before they went out on patrol. She made a note to find that picture, make sure it wasn't lost in the boxes of stuff that she'd paid to put into long term storage before she left the Army when she finally had her own place to put it all in, that was. Yet another thing to add to her list of 'things to do'; find somewhere to live.