A Delicate Merlot

It was going to be our first date. She came wearing a sports jacket and a pair of leather pants, she picked up her glass of merlot off the table and drank it with one gulp.

“We need to go,” she said.

I was excited by the idea of going on an adventure that started out with that kind of intensity.

I said, "Okay. I did hear, they have good food."

The stalling didn’t work. I grabbed my jacket off the back of the chair and we left without paying for the wine.

It was interesting, normally these would be red flags, but I followed her. I followed her close enough I could smell her perfume.

Her fierceness allowed me to be both comfortable and anxious at the same time. We got into her car, a black Mercedes, and we headed into a tunnel.

She pulled the car over. "I need you to get out here."

But why, was my only thought. I kept my mouth shut because I saw someone in the distance waving for me.

"I hope I can explain later," she said and drove away.

I walked over. "Hi, I'm Amy. I'm the uber driver."

"That's pretty nuts," I said.

"What happened?" She asked.

"She just dropped me off, right there, and left. She's acting very dodgy and probably running from someone."

"That's odd," she agreed.

I was dropped off in front of my apartment downtown. I went inside to check her page again. Yeah, Biomedical Engineer for Crosby Defense. She was probably in danger. She probably found some kind of secret to biomedical engineering and was on the run for her life. I checked her profile story. It was a picture of her in her dress captioned "Dinner tonight at Jillian’s."

I'm glad she rescued me from sitting there by myself. Even though she’s on her way out of the country, she had the decency to not stand me up.

My phone rang. It was her.

“I’m so sorry about tonight, I really wanted to be there for dinner with you. And I still really can’t explain but I’m not sure if I can ever make it up to you.”

“I want you to know, if you’re in any danger, I can help protect you. I know a guy in Arizona, he owns like, safety equipment.”

“Really?” She asked in disbelief.

“Yeah, he’s some kind of contractor,” I said.

“Does he have like a safe house?” She pressed.

“Yeah, I could check. I’ll three way him in.” I dialed him up and waited until he picked up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Yeah, hey Tony, my friend is trying to get out of town, she was wondering if you had a safe house.”

“Yeah. What’s her deal?” He calmly asked.

“Well, she works for Crosby Defense and we were supposed to go on a date tonight, but I guess her situation kind of got out of hand,” I explained.

“Oh really, her name wouldn’t be Hannah Alea by any chance, would it?” He asked, pretty sure.

“It would be.”

“Okay. Well, we got a call this morning with a contract asking for us to bring her in,” he informed me, “For $150,000.”

“Wow. What did she do?” I asked.

“They said she stole a chemical formula and then she erased the research,” he said vaguely impressed.

“Maybe it’s like some kind of vigilante justice,” I reasoned.

“It might be,” he quickly agreed.

“Will you help us?” I asked hopefully.

“Yeah. I’ll drop a pin, meet me at the location and I’ll come get you guys,” he said, willing to help.

“Thanks Tony!” I said.

He hung up the phone and Hannah and I were silent.

“How do I know I can trust him?” she asked, “He said he could get $150,000 for turning me in! He works for Crosby!”

“I don’t know, I’ve known him a long time. I don’t think he would do that,” I explained.

“Okay, I- I have to think about this,” she said.

That was the last time I ever heard from Hannah. I don’t know if she made it out of the country. I don’t know if Tony found her. All I know is, I never heard from Hannah again.