24. Famous Enough to Hide

During the brief time of their training and partnership, Winter had learned this about Sydney—when she told him to do something without any explanation, he would do it without hesitation.

At least no one else was wandering around at this hour. Winter shivered at the cool air as they passed by the open windows and made their way down the back stairwell. The feeling of unease that prickled his neck felt familiar—like how people could locate him no matter where he was, whether at some secret café he told no one about, or on a walk at an obscure park, or at his friend's house in the middle of the night.

How had someone followed them here? His call with Gavi, perhaps. Or the girl who had checked him into the hotel. Had she sensed something wrong when she'd glimpsed Tems and Sydney heading up the stairwell behind him? Had she been so excited about seeing him that she'd told a friend?

It didn't matter in the moment, as they arrived at a metal door leading to the back alley.

"Locked," Sydney whispered as she reached it. Immediately, she pulled the pin from her hair and jammed the metal into the keyhole. It only took seconds for her to grimace. "Damn it all. This lock's broken." Winter bent down to watch her work as she went on. "I'm amazed they can lock it at all with a key—they must have to jiggle it every time. I can't hook the pin to the mechanism inside."

Winter glanced back the way they'd come. From the dim hall, he could see the lights on in the lobby and hear the faint sound of voices.

"It's going to take too long to pick it open," Tems whispered, barely containing his exasperation.

Sydney glared up at him. "Would you like to waltz through the front lobby?"

But Winter rose and took a step down the hall. Now he could make out the voices more distinctly—one was the girl from last night, high-pitched and friendly, if a little puzzled. The other was an older woman, someone who spoke with an accent too exaggerated to be native Mandarin.

He looked back over his shoulder to where Sydney continued working on the lock, her face tight with concentration.

Then he heard footsteps coming from the lobby.

"Forget the lock," he hissed at Sydney as he hurried back to them. They both looked up at him in unison. "They're coming."

Tems glanced toward the lobby, then at the only other door in the corridor. He went to it and pulled it open. A supply closet with no windows.

He nodded wordlessly to the others. Sydney straightened and rubbed her shirt hurriedly on the back-door handle, erasing her fingerprints. Then she stepped inside the closet with Winter and Tems.

They stood ramrod straight, silent and tense, as the footsteps grew closer. "But, ma'am, only half of our rooms are occupied tonight, lah," Winter could hear the attendant saying in Mandarin. "If you'd like, I can give you an hourly rate if you only need to stay for part of the day—"

"I'd like that room, then," the woman replied. Again, Winter heard the exaggeration in her accent. Their voices faded as they headed up the stairwell.

"There's a security camera in the front lobby," Sydney whispered in the darkness as silence settled around them again. "If we go that way, we're going to get on video."

"Not if we get rid of the camera first," came Tems's whisper from the blackness.

"They'll know we were here for sure, then. We'll leave an official mark for them to trace."

Winter craned his neck up as he heard the girl's distinct clicking heels walking down the hallway above them. There was no second set of footsteps—which meant the older lady must still be in the halls by herself. Maybe the girl had left her in the hotel room she'd asked for, not wanting to make an older woman go back down the stairs. It meant they had someone actively searching for them upstairs now. She would figure out in the next few minutes that their room was empty.

"We don't have time to hang around and mess with a broken lock," Winter muttered.

"I'll do it," Tems said. "The security cam. You two get to the alley and find us a ride."

No more time to argue. Winter stepped out first, swinging the utility door open as quietly as he could and slipping out through the crack. The lobby was still empty.

Sydney was moving so soundlessly behind him that he had to glance back once to make sure she was still there. They headed into the lobby's glaring brightness, careful to stick to the edge of the wall underneath the security cam.

Tems came up behind them like a shadow. With a hop, he made it onto a chair in the lobby and leaned up, his long arm stretching up to the security cam. He swiped one hand over the round lens, then nodded down at them.

Go.

Winter didn't hesitate. He stole across the room, Sydney at his back. Behind them, he heard the attendant girl's heels tapping against the wood of the stairs. She was going to arrive any moment now.

They slid into the shadows outside in the narrow street. Immediately, Winter headed to the alley by the hotel. There, he froze.

Police lights flashed blue against the wall at the end of the alley.

He glanced back at Sydney, whose eyes were fixed on the lights as well.

"They're already here," she whispered. She whirled and checked the other end of the street.

Sure enough, there were the faint, telltale flickers of light against the far walls at the end of the street. Sydney had been right—the woman must have backup here already, waiting for her signal to move in.

Sydney swore under her breath. "Don't tell me we have to steal a cop car," she muttered.

Winter stared at the blue glow strobing against the wall. If they stole a car now, they'd never be able to get past the border. They were too far; there would be barricades set up to stop them immediately. And it would be too obvious that Winter was in the car with Sydney—not only would he be added to the fugitives list, but his cover for Panacea would be blown.

Then it occurred to him.

Realization dawned on Sydney's face at the same time.

"Maybe we don't have to steal it," he whispered.

If Winter could have taken a photo of the police officer at the street corner, it would have been a shot frozen in time of a mouth dropping open in shock, of eyes widening in disbelief, at the sight of the world's most famous superstar walking down the middle of the street toward the barricade, hands in his pockets.

As he approached, he pulled his hands out and held them up purposefully, letting them see that he had no weapons. He let out a sigh of relief, his eyes welling with intentional tears.

"Thank god," he said.

The man's gun was in his hand, but at the sight of Winter, it wavered and he lowered it. "Mr. Winter Young?" he said skeptically.

"Yes," Winter said with a nod. He looked from the first officer to a second one standing nearby. Everyone's eyes were on him now, all with the same shocked expression. "That's why you're all here, aren't you? I called my manager to ask if I could be taken to the border, where she has a plane arranged for me in Malaysia."

The first officer blinked skeptically at him before the other hurried up to them. He glanced at Winter in exhausted frustration. "Mr. Young, you're not supposed to be here."

Winter threw his hands up in exasperation. "Of course I'm not supposed to be here," he began. "I'm supposed to be in Melbourne, Australia, right now, getting ready for the next leg of my tour, but then the lockdown happened, and I don't have my team with me out here. I can't be in the streets—unless you'd like to deal with a riot." He stopped and blinked at the officers. "Why? Why are you here, if not to be my escorts? What did Claire say?"

"Who?" the first officer said.

The second officer sighed wearily at having to handle a celebrity. "Mr. Young's manager," he said. "I've seen her on TV."

"Then you understand." Winter stared pointedly at them. "She's arranged a team from Malaysia to meet me at the private airfield in Kampung Ladang. I have to leave immediately. And if someone doesn't escort me, I'm going to have to go on my own in broad daylight along this street. Not sure you want to deal with the chaos of that."

Winter looked expectantly at the men. His mind, however, was elsewhere—counting the seconds as Sydney quietly made her way toward the police barricade.

At last, the first officer shook his head and looked back at the second. "I'll take him in the SUV," he said. "The rest of you stay here and wait for orders. I'll be back in an hour."

Then he looked at Winter and nodded. "Follow me, Mr. Young," he said.

"Thank you," Winter replied with a polite nod. He resisted looking over his shoulder toward the hotel and wondering if Tems had finished yet. Come on, he thought as they headed to a police SUV parked at the back of the barricade. We're running out of time.

As they neared the car, Winter felt the phone in his pocket buzz once. Sydney's signal. His heart tensed in anticipation. On the surface, he smiled and thanked the officer as the man opened the back door of the car for him.

"I'd recommend keeping your hat down, Mr. Young," the officer said before he shut the door. He handed him a standard black face mask. "Here, put one on. We'll be passing through a bit of downtown, and traffic is starting to build up. Lots of eyes."

"Believe me, sir, I know all about it," Winter said conspiratorially, and it earned him a little laugh from the officer.

As the door shut, Winter pulled out his phone and took a quick look at Sydney's message and location.

His heart leapt. She was already in the car, hiding in the SUV's trunk space.

He resisted the urge to turn around, as if he could see through the row of seats to where she must be curled up tight. How did she move so quickly? She must have done it in the instant he'd distracted the police, must have popped the back and crept in while everyone was gaping at him.

Then he processed the text that she'd sent.

Tems nh.

He'd gotten used to her quirky shorthand texts. NH stood for Not Here. Tems hadn't come when he was supposed to.

Winter's teeth clenched. Of course something had gone wrong—or perhaps Tems was just taking his time, being as insufferable as ever. But Winter could feel the drop in his stomach. Sydney had a better radar than he did for Tems's timing—she knew something had happened to him.

But it was too late to change gears now. The driver's door opened, and the officer climbed into the seat.

"Well," he said, glancing back once at Winter. "This will be a first for me, driving a celebrity. Can I trouble you for an autograph when we arrive?"

Winter gave him his practiced smile, full of all his charisma, and he saw the officer's face brighten. "You don't have to ask, sir," Winter said. "It's the least I can do."

"Ah! Thank you, then." The man laughed and began reversing the car out of the barricade. "My daughter is a big fan of yours. She has your posters all over her wall. She's going to faint from excitement when she hears about this."

Winter laughed along and chatted with him, but his mind was on the barricade, on the police that were closing in on Tems, who was now on his own. It was on Sydney, curled in the SUV's trunk space and rendered helpless for the ride. Every muscle in his body felt poised to jump, ready to run.

But there was nowhere to go. So Winter leaned back and went along as if nothing had happened.