Chapter 8
EIGHT
He felt intact. Sure, his hip burned, sending spurts of pain down his leg, exploding into his bones, but as Conrad tried to adjust his eyes to the fading light, to get a handle on the state of the car, at least he knew he wasn’t dead.
Just upside down, the seatbelt slicing into his shoulder and waist as he hung.
“Penny?” He didn’t know why he kept calling her that, but it’s what emerged. “Penny?” He turned to her, found her also hanging.
She groaned, stirred. “Conrad?”
The terror flashed inside him—spinning, rolling, the chaos, her screaming—but he shook it away, put his hand on hers. “I’m okay.”
She gripped his back. “Me too. I think.” Her voice shook.
“Okay, listen, let me unbuckle, then I’ll help you out.”
“I can?—”
“Just wait!” He didn’t mean to shout, so maybe his adrenaline was burning a little hotter through him than he’d thought. “Sorry. Just . . . let me figure this out.” He reached for his buckle before she could object, then braced himself against the roof of her now painfully cramped car as he dropped.
He landed on his bad hip, the pain a flare. He grunted, bit back a shout. But he ignored it and sat up. Put his hands on her hips. “I got you. Brace yourself on the roof and then unbuckle. I’ll catch you.”
“Don’t let me hurt you.”
Probably too late for that, given the fact that he’d completely ignored common sense and told her about his Zamboni disaster. Talk about letting her inside his soul—see, this was what happened when he led with impulse and maybe his hopes and not his brains.
But she’d told him about her dad, and the story simply made sense. No wonder she had such a tragic history with men. And it had nothing to do with him being an athlete— hello, he saw right through that.
It had to do with him being another human being who could let her down. Betray her—at least in her mind.
“Ready?”
“Let ’er rip.”
She released the buckle and made a tiny noise of panic as she fell. He caught her weight and eased her down into his arms.
“See? Gotcha.”
She sat there for a moment, just holding on to his arms around her. “Sorry.”
“For?”
“Um . . . hello? We’re in the ditch.”
“I think this is more than the ditch. I think we’ve careened into the forest like a snowball.”
“Then I’m super sorry.” She looked up at him. He could barely make out her face in the darkness, but he’d guess tears edged her eyes.
“Not your fault, Pen. I’m not sure if that guy was trying to force you off the road or was just an überbad driver, but totally not. your. fault.”
She nodded then, and he had the craziest urge to?—
No. “Are you hurt?”
“Just bruises.” She pushed away from him and crawled over to her door. “It won’t move.”
He turned and tried his. It creaked open, a crack. He ground his jaw against the pain and kicked it.
It scraped against the snow, but he managed to wedge an opening. Snow billowed in, the wind brisk, casting in flakes.
“The blizzard is catching up with us.”
The dome light hadn’t come on. “Can you find your phone?” he said.
She searched around her seat and then in back. “No. I don’t know. I don’t see my purse either. And it’s too dark to see anything.”
He too had lost his phone, his hands finding a few sandwiches, bottles, but nothing to call for help.
“Okay, let’s see if we can get up to the road, and maybe we can flag down a car.”
“We’re on a county road—I took a shortcut. But we’re still a good ten miles away from the highway.”
He rolled over, pushed himself out of the opening chest first, crawling. He turned, held out his hand. “We’re going to be okay.”
She took his grip and he helped her out.
In the darkness, he didn’t have a clue the damage to her car, but it seemed they’d mowed a swath off the road, because he spotted a dent in the darkness, a shadow that led up to the road.
With the blizzard moving in and the stars gone, they had little time to get to shelter. Maybe they should stay in the car . . .
She took his hand, squeezed.
“Okay, let’s go.” They’d rolled maybe thirty feet into the forest, enough to be hidden, so maybe this was the right move. He scrabbled up, gripping broken tree branches and fighting his pulsing hip, and helped pull her up the hill until they hit the pavement.
The road sprawled out in both directions, darkness in the darkness.
“Now what?”
“I think we passed a mailbox about the time the car came up on us. I remember his lights shining on it.” He glanced either way—as if a car might be coming? For Pete’s sake . Then again, if it were, he might stand out in the middle of the road.
Okay, maybe not, given the slickness as they crossed to the other side and headed back toward where they’d come from. On this side, any car coming would see them.
And with luck, they’d run right into the mailbox.
“You think the car was really trying to take us out?”
“I don’t know, Pen.” He hunched his head down, the snow finding his cheeks, burning. She couldn’t be much warmer in those leggings, fancy boots, the jacket made for looks rather than warmth. But she kept moving beside him.
C’mon, God, send a car .
Hopefully the Almighty still heard the prayers of the desperate.
But the night seemed deserted, the wind picking up into a moan, the flakes now turning to ice, the edges biting.
Conrad nearly walked right by the mailbox. If it hadn’t been for it catching his jacket arm as he brushed by, he would have kept going into the yonder for who knew how long. Rounding, he stopped, and Penelope nearly banged into him.
He’d noticed she’d gone quiet, probably trying to endure the storm. “I think this is a driveway.” The snow seemed to dip here, as if it might have been shoveled, perhaps earlier in the season.
“To what—a lake home?”
“There are plenty of closed-up cabins in this area. Let’s see if we can find it.” As he started down the path, the snow up past his ankles, he thought he spotted a clearing in the darkness ahead, maybe the lake reflecting the snow.
They trudged down the trail, his hand tight on hers. She tripped once, and he caught her. “Hang in there.”
Please let this not be a mistake . There it was, another prayer. He didn’t not believe in God. On the contrary.
He just feared that God didn’t believe in him.
Thankfully, the path didn’t turn, just a straight shot, and yes, he’d guessed right. The drive opened to an expansive view of some tucked-away lake, the surface glistening with white even in the storm.
And situated beside the lake, a cabin. It looked like it might be two stories, with a porch and gabled windows.
“How are we going to get in?” Penelope’s voice trembled.
“Good question. I don’t want to break a window?—”
“Maybe you should try them. Sometimes people forget to lock them.” She wrapped her arms around herself, openly shivering. “You’d be shocked how many houses are broken into that way.”
Apparently he was going to add breaking and entering to his record. But rather that than perish. He climbed up the porch steps, less snow here, and tried the door. Locked. He went to the main windows beside the door—also locked. A massive window overlooked the lake—no opening there, but in the back side, near the propane tank and a boathouse, he found a small double-hung utility window.
It slid open. Except, no way could he fit into the small twenty-four-by-eighteen-inch opening.
Penelope had walked around behind him. “Boost me up.”
He wove his fingers together, and she stepped into his hands. He lifted her and she wedged the window open the whole way, then worked her way in, headfirst. He helped her navigate into it, and she disappeared.
Grunting.
Then the side door unlocked and opened. “And Bob’s your uncle!”
“At least we won’t freeze to death.” He walked inside a small entry and tried the lights.
They worked, and he guessed the place had some heat that ran year-round to keep the pipes from bursting. As they walked into a great room, the temperature seemed a balmy mid-fifties. A river-stone fireplace rose against one wall, with a worn coffee-leather sofa facing a wooden table. An overstuffed chair faced the sofa, anchored by a round braided carpet.
A round oak table held four chairs, and a small U-shaped kitchen with stools at the counter anchored the far wall.
Like God had planned it, firewood and kindling lay stacked in a wood hoop near the fireplace. Okay, thank You .
“I’ll see if they have a telephone,” Penelope said.
“My guess is no, but have at it.” He went to the fireplace and opened the flue. Then he laid the logs in a log-cabin pattern, kindling and paper shoved inside, and lit it. The flame popped to life and started to crackle.
Penelope returned carrying a couple comforters. “No phone, but two bedrooms—one on the main floor, and there’s another upstairs in the loft.” Dropping the bedding on the sofa, she headed to the kitchen. “We should have brought the leftover sandwiches.”
He picked up a blanket, draped it around himself, felt warmth finding his bones. “Right?”
She had found something, and he heard the clanking of dishes. He went to the counter. “What are you making?”
“Oh, it’s totally gourmet.” She had opened a bag of?—
“Are those saltines?”
“Absolutely. And”—she reached into the cupboard—“peanut butter.”
“Wow, protein!”
“I even found gummy worms. Still packaged, and I checked the date. All good. And . . . for the finale”—she pulled out a box from behind her back—“unopened Christmas Crunch cereal!”
She had pulled out a large bowl and now dumped the entire contents inside. “It’s a party.”
Oh, he liked her. He really, really liked her. And as she stood there, grinning, he just . . .
Yeah, he was in big trouble. Because his brain kept shouting, Slow your roll there, sport .
But his heart—his stupid, impulsive, get-him-into-trouble heart—said, Let’s go .
She carried the bowl of Christmas Crunch to the coffee table, along with the gummy worms, and sat on the sofa. He grabbed the saltines and peanut butter and a couple spoons and brought them over, took the chair.
“It’s like an after-school snack.”
“Right? Except . . . I’m not sure what an after-school snack is?—”
“It’s the snack your mom has out when you come home from school. You know, like frosted graham crackers or peanut butter apples or even Rice Krispies bars?”
“You lived a different life than me. First, I went to a private all-day school and we got meals. And second, my so-called snack was takeout that our driver bought us.”
“Oh.”
She had donned the blanket, something suddenly wan and broken in her expression.
“Penny?”
“Thank you, Conrad. I . . . I would still be out there freezing to death if you hadn’t . . .” She looked at him. “You’re a nicer guy than I deserve.”
He frowned. “I don’t think so.”
“I know so. I mean . . . you sort of got roped into all of this, and now you’re eating saltines with me in a cabin that we broke into.”
Roped into . . . oh, right, EmPowerPlay.
“Best voluntold gig I’ve ever been assigned to.” He winked.
She frowned but picked up a saltine and a spoon. “What do I do with this?”
“Dip it in the peanut butter.”
She opened the jar. “By the way, I sort of like it when you call me Penny.” The spoon came out with a gob of peanut butter. “Edward called me Penny. It made me feel normal.” She passed him the jar and he dug in.
“You didn’t feel normal?”
“Would you, growing up in that house? And after the kidnapping, I had protection all the time. Dad still has a guy who is assigned to keep an eye on me. His name is Franco. He doesn’t follow me around anymore, but I have a panic button on my phone. It goes off, he appears, like Superman.”
“Too bad he didn’t follow you to the hockey game.” He spread his peanut butter onto a saltine. “But yes, I get it. I wouldn’t have felt normal either.”
He paused. “So, I get needing to find justice for Edward, but if everyone else thought Edward died in the fire, why did you believe he was murdered?”
Her eyes widened. “I . . .” She looked away.
“You don’t have to tell me?—”
“It just didn’t feel right. He wasn’t reckless. And he wasn’t a drinker—didn’t do drugs. I just couldn’t wrap my brain around it. And I thought, if I could find his murderer, then maybe it would all make sense.”
“What would make sense?”
She sighed then. “Why he picked Tia.” She looked back at him. “I mean—I get that part. Tia is . . . she’s perfect. Smart and beautiful. But Edward and I . . .”
“You were in love with him.” The statement issued out, took a piece of him with it.
“Of course I was. He saved my life. But he was four years older than me, so I get that he never thought of me that way . . .” She drew up her knees, wrapped her arms around them, looked so forlorn that he nearly reached out.
Nearly.
“And my sister is always so put together. She’s not a mess like me. She’s easy to love.”
A mess?
“I guess I just thought maybe if I could understand what would make someone want to murder him, then maybe he wasn’t as perfect as I thought he was. And if he wasn’t perfect, then maybe it wasn’t me.”
She looked away.
And he didn’t get it. “What wasn’t you?”
She turned, met his eyes. “If he wasn’t perfect, then maybe I could understand why he didn’t pick me. Why he didn’t love me. Because all I can come up with is that there was something wrong with me.”
Oh, Pen.
“Maybe I was too much of a mess.”
She said it again and . . . “No?—”
“I mean, it makes sense, right? My dad doesn’t pay the ransom, Edward doesn’t pick me . . . Whatever. Clearly I’m”—she lifted a shoulder—“unlovable.”
“That’s—are you serious?”
She’d made a sandwich out of her saltines, took a bite. “Oh, my mouth is glue. I need water.”
He still had the bottle he’d taken from the car and handed it to her. Held on to the bottle as she took it. “Penelope, look at me.”
She shook her head.
“You are not a mess. You’re smart, and brave, and a man would be crazy not to fall in love with you.”
Yeah, he’d said that. And now she lifted her eyes to him. “I told you not to fall for me.”
Too late, maybe .
She smiled.
He narrowed his eyes, let go of the bottle.
She opened it, took a swig. Then picked up a gummy worm and wiggled it at him. Laughed.
The sound was fairy dust, turning the room magical after the darkness had descended.
Yes, he was clearly in big trouble.
“What’s so funny?”
“This is my first ever gummy worm.”
He picked one up. “Seriously? I’m not sure that’s a bad thing.”
She sighed. “All my life, I just wanted to be normal. Only, I didn’t really know what normal might be. That’s why I went to the U of M, why I had a roommate—I lucked out to get Harper. But even then . . . I knew I was different. I just saw the world through a lens of abundance.”
“Maybe that’s the right lens. Maybe abundance isn’t about money but well-being.” He had taken a handful of the Christmas Crunch. “When I was younger, my grandpa had a small sailboat.”
“You mentioned that.”
“He was this great guy. Had spent his entire life in the town of Duck Lake, managing the King’s Inn. He loved to fish and sail and tinker on his antique cars, but on Sunday afternoons, after church, we’d take out the sailboat, just him and me. Sometimes we wouldn’t even talk. He had this life verse—2 Chronicles 15:7. ‘But as for you, be strong and do not give up, for your work will be rewarded.’ It felt so simple.” He sighed. “I wish it was simple.”
“It’s not?”
He considered her. “You look at life as abundant. I look at life as a game with options and plays I should make.”
“And when you get them wrong?”
“I might let it sit in my brain and tangle me up.” He looked at the fire, now crackling, warming the room. “I’d like to figure it out, maybe not spend so much time caught in a power play.”
“A power play?”
“The odds against me, just trying to defend the net.”
She smiled. “Always hockey with you.”
“I’ve been playing hockey since I was two years old and my dad bought me skates. We’d play out on the lake, and there was just something about the camaraderie of competing with my brothers. They got me into organized hockey when I was three?—”
“Wow.”
“I loved it. The game is fast—you gotta be always alert, always looking for holes and opportunities. Like basketball, except on skates. And it’s tough, like football. And teamwork, like soccer.” He lifted his shoulder. “It’s the perfect sport.”
“You still love it, after all these years.”
Her words pinged inside him, swept up the feeling of watching the kids play today. “Yes. I was born to play hockey. I guess that is the one thing I know.”
She smiled at him, her eyes reflecting the fire, her hair down in soft waves, long lashes against her skin, and it hit him.
He could fall for this woman. This woman—the one who ate saltines with him and listened to his life and kept his secret . . .
So perhaps that was two things he knew.
A log fell in the fire, sparks hitting the hearthstone, the burning wood rolling to the edge. He got up to push it back and groaned.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I landed on my hip. It’s fine. I’ve had harder falls before.”
She joined him as he braced his hand on the mantel and grabbed the poker. Now she took it from him. “Sit down.” Using the poker, she moved the log back onto the pile, then drew the metal screen across the opening. Set it back.
He hadn’t sat down. And she was right . . . there. So close he could reach out and pull her to himself . . .
So easy. So right. No questions, no tangles . . . and his thought was probably written across his gaze because her eyes widened and she swallowed . . .
“What’s happening here?” she asked softly.
“Whatever you want to happen,” Conrad said, his heart thick in his chest.
“Oh, this is a bad idea,” she said, and stepped up to him.
* * *
Slow down. Stop — stop ?—
She heard the words in her head, but they had nothing on the pull of Conrad’s devastatingly blue eyes, the way he searched her face, the desire that flickered deep inside his gaze. And she might not be a professional PI, but she could certainly unravel his intent.
Maybe this wasn’t a game.
It certainly had stopped feeling like a game when he’d looked at her, his gaze intense, and said, You are not a mess. You’re smart, and brave, and a man would be crazy not to fall in love with you .
Terribly, she’d wanted him to say, Like me . A guy like him could fall for her.
But he hadn’t. Because he’d made promises not to fall for her, right?
She, however, had broken her side long ago, maybe. But right now, she didn’t care. Not with the fire flickering behind her, the fact that he’d saved her from a blizzard, that he’d made her feel like he’d taken off the body armor, let her see his heart.
“Whatever you want to happen . . .”
This. This was what she wanted to happen. She put her hands on his chest—his amazing, sports-built chest—and then slid them around his neck, clasped her hands behind him, her heart banging, her breath held.
He smiled up one side, then the other, and it lit his eyes, the sun bursting forth from a storm. “Okay,” he said, put his arms around her, lowered his mouth to hers.
Softly. Sweetly. Touching her lips like a whisper, his beard a little scratchy on her skin. She just sank into the touch of him, the way he pulled her in, increasing his ardor. She tightened her arms around his neck, and he pulled her closer, diving in, nudging her mouth open, deepening his kiss.
Of course kissing Conrad would be like being swooped up, captured, taken away, her breath caught, her heart leaving her body to reach for his. He was heat and power and light, and then she simply stopped thinking and gave herself over to his kiss.
It had been years since she’d kissed a man—her last boyfriend a boy, really, trying too hard to get it right.
With Conrad it just felt right?—
She pulled back, breathing hard, met his eyes.
He frowned. “Are you okay?”
“This isn’t . . . I mean . . . yes. But are you okay? Are you sure this is what you want?”
His gaze ranged her face, and a soft rumble left his chest. “Yes,” he said almost in a groan. “But yes, maybe . . . just . . .” He drew in a breath. “Maybe we take a break in the action here, because . . .” He leaned away. “I don’t want to get carried away.”
Carried away . As in straying too far from the pretense of their relationship?
He touched her hair, drew his fingers through it, grabbed a lock of it. “You are way too beautiful to be in my arms.”
Oh . . . What was that? But she laughed, and it sounded like she was twelve.
He cupped her face. “I can’t turn off my brain here, Pen, or I’ll get in over my head.”
Right. And there it was, wasn’t it? Reality.
She nodded, was about to step away, when he looped his hand around the back of her neck.
“Then again, maybe I already am.”
He kissed her again. This time with the passion, the intensity, of the man she saw on the ice—all in, skilled, determined, in control, but playing with an edge of danger.
Yes. And maybe she’d been lying to herself to think that she wouldn’t completely, hard and swiftly, fall for this man. That she could keep it just fake, no strings, shallow, and professional. She’d probably known it in her heart from the day over a month ago when he’d taken her in his arms.
She trusted him.
The truth of that filled her veins, made her take a breath, relax.
Enjoy.
And then she just held on as he kissed her, and kissed her, and kissed her.
Her comforter had fallen off her shoulders, but the room had heated and her entire body turned to flame. He finally lifted his head, breathing a little hard, and met her eyes.
“Okay. You should sit down on that other sofa, and don’t move, no matter what I say. Or want to say.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh?”
He actually pushed her away, then bent and grabbed her comforter, wrapped it around her, tucking it into itself like a burrito. Then he picked her up and brought her over to the sofa. Set her down.
Kissed her forehead.
“What is this?”
“This is me behaving myself.” He put distance between them, picked up his comforter, and draped it over his shoulder like a superhero.
Oh. It was sweet, really, because no, she hadn’t thought he’d pushed her too far. He’d left her wanting more.
He sank down onto the chair.
“This is silly. Come over here,” she said. “There’s enough room.”
He cocked his head.
“The fire will die. It will get cold. . . .”
His eyes narrowed.
“I might have nightmares.”
He rolled his eyes but smiled.
She struggled and sat up. “And I refuse to let you sleep on a chair. Or the floor.”
“There are two bedrooms,” he said.
“I already feel like a criminal. I’m not climbing into their beds.”
Maybe the word criminal sat on him, because he nodded. But he still didn’t get up.
“You’d make a good bodyguard with that resolve.”
“Don’t give me that much credit.” No smile, but the flames of the fire flickered in his eyes.
Oh. Okay then . “I fell for my bodyguard when I was fifteen. He was twenty-eight, so way too old for me. And for his part, he didn’t know. It was all in my head. But I had dreams of him rescuing me?—”
“Were you lost?”
“No. I was Veronica Mars.”
“Who?”
“Oh, it’s this old television show about a high-school girl who becomes a PI with her father. But she has this nemesis named Logan who turns out to be the hero of the show. He’s a rich kid but troubled, but being with her sort of straightens him out. And whenever she gets in over her head, he’s right there to help pull her out.” She folded her legs inside the comforter. “Although, she rescues him plenty of times too.”
“I’m sure she does.” His gaze held hers. “In more ways than one.”
“He just needed someone to focus all his energy on. And Veronica needed someone who had her back, even if she didn’t want to admit it.”
He smiled then. “Sounds like a good team.”
A beat, and the quiet settled between them. It was all she could do not to get up, walk over, settle herself in his lap.
He ran his hands over the arms of the chair. “When I was ten years old, I went through the ice.”
She frowned.
“It was in March, late in the year, when the King’s Inn closes for a month—shoulder season—so my parents can take a vacation. Usually we went with them, but that year, they were celebrating twenty years, so they left us with our grandparents. We’d been told not to play on the ice, but we were a little obsessed with broomball, so Stein talked us all into playing. Doyle shot the ball into the snow outside the boundary, where the snowpack warmed the ice—and when I went to get it, I just went through.”
“Oh wow. Terrifying.”
“Yeah. I thought I was going to die. Jack was super coolheaded. He told everybody to make a chain out to me, and they laid on the ice—all of them holding on to each other’s feet—and then Jack crawled out to the edge and grabbed me. He held on to me while they all pulled him back.”
“You could have all gone in.”
“I know. It’s a sort of recurring nightmare. Thankfully, the distributed weight kept the ice from breaking. My grandfather was there with a ladder when they dragged me in—he saw me go in and grabbed it to rescue me, but they’d already hauled me out. I’d never seen him so upset, the way he held on to us. And me. But he called them all heroes.”
“They were.”
“Yes. And we realized that we were braver and stronger together than on our own.”
“Are you trying to make a point here, King Con?”
“Just saying that you don’t have to sit in the cellar alone, Penny.”
Silence fell, his words landing. What? Because . . . wait. Was he saying . . .
He stilled. “Do you hear that?”
“Hear—”
He held out his hand, got up, the comforter falling off his shoulders. “Shh.”
The wind moaning and—“Voices.”
He walked over to her, pulled her up. “Into the bedroom.”
“The—why?”
He had already started to move her toward the door of the main-floor bedroom. “Because what if it’s the guy who tried to mow us down?”
She rounded on him. “C’mon, Conrad, why?—”
The front door banged open, the one by the kitchen, and then—“Get away from her!”
Conrad spun, put her behind him. “Back off!”
Her eyes widened at the two men who barreled in wearing warm jackets, hats, and boots, and holding weapons.
She put her hands up.
Conrad didn’t. He took a step back, pushing her toward the bedroom.
The first of the men held a gun on him. “Step away from Miss Pepper.”
What?
Oh . . .
And then her gaze fell to the second man. Blond hair, big— aw. “Geoffrey—what are you?—”
Except Geoffrey wasn’t listening. He came in, took two steps, and grabbed Conrad, pushing him away from her.
But Conrad spun away, disentangled himself, rounded.
Geoffrey slammed a fist into his sternum. Conrad huffed out a sound that hurt even her bones, and slammed into the wall.
“Stop!” She jammed up between them, her arms wide. “Stop!”
The first man— oh, and now she recognized Franco under all that body armor—held a gun on Conrad. “Step away from him, ma’am.”
“What—everybody calm down!”
Geoffrey grabbed her, pulled her away.
And then Franco stepped up, and just like that, swept Conrad’s feet out from under him. He landed with a grunt, started to roll, but Franco pounced on him, shoved him down.
“Don’t move,” he growled.
“Leave him alone!” She shoved Geoffrey, but he stepped in front of her again.
“Ma’am, just calm down?—”
“You calm down! Leave him alone—” She moved toward Geoffrey, and this time he held up his hand, let her pass.
She ran over to Franco. “Get off him!”
Probably unnecessary, because Conrad had rolled and, exhibiting his years playing tough hockey, landed a fist in Franco’s face, enough for the man’s hold to release. Then he tackled the security officer, slamming him into the kitchen floor before rolling away.
Geoffrey had stepped in front of her. “Back off.”
For. the. love . “He’s my boyfriend!”
Even Conrad stopped, looked at her, his eyes wide. But that was the game, right? Even if it felt true.
Franco bounced up, blood in his eyes, breathing hard. “Are you all right, ma’am?”
“Of course I’m all right—sheesh?—”
“Your car went off the road.” He glanced at Conrad, who still wore something fierce, almost dangerous, in his expression.
No, definitely dangerous. Clearly not at all rattled by her close protection team showing up at a remote cabin in a blizzard.
“Yes, it did. We got into an accident.” No need to make them even more crazy with the suggestion that someone had tried to run them off the road. “But we’re fine. Conrad found us this cabin . . . Wait. How did you know?”
Franco gave her a look. “We are always monitoring your GPS. An alarm activated, indicating your vehicle had been damaged. Although, we were already on our way,” he said, sighing.
“Why?”
His mouth made a tight line. “Because someone broke into your house and set it on fire.”
And if she’d ever wondered if it was real, if Conrad was really on her team, if he might be playing a game . . . He walked over, pushed past Geoffrey, and pulled her into his arms. Held on tight, his big embrace enfolding her. And lowered his mouth to her ear. “Don’t be afraid, Pen. I’m right here. And I’m not going anywhere.”
* * *
As usual, the explosion hit Steinbeck’s chest, cut off his breath, pinned him to the bed even as it played out in his nightmares.
A lucid dream. One where he could scroll back, rewrite events. A technique that his counselor at Tripler had taught him.
So, yeah, he calmed his breathing, told himself that he could rewind, replay. Recast.
And maybe take another good look at what had gone wrong.
He scrolled back—way back, twenty-four hours—to the moment they’d sieged the embassy, taking it back from the Russian special-ops team that had locked down the ambassador and, most importantly, their cybertech asset, Luis Sousa, who’d been taken hostage.
Get in, liberate the hostage, get out—a simple mission with a not-so-simple operational plan. Step one, rig the consulate’s security alarm to trigger a false perimeter breach, drawing the guards into the yard. Step two, use the chaos to rappel from the roof, breach the rooms upstairs, and work their way to the consulate director’s office via the secure escape route built into the seven-story building.
Step three, escape with Luis and his cyberencryption program to the safe house.
His brain landed in the middle of the chaos, his team separated, John and him trapped in one of the back offices, pinned down at the?—
She appeared. Seemingly out of nowhere, but through a bookcase passage he hadn’t seen on the blueprints.
She rolled, came up with a handgun pointed at him. “Stand down. I’m here for him.” Short dark hair, dressed in canvas pants, a vest, dark hat, dark shirt—as if she might be part of her own commando team. The Minnie Mouse variety, because she stood maybe five-six, a hundred twenty pounds soaking wet, but clearly a team that included women who could handle themselves.
He nearly dropped her. Except she flashed an American patch from a velcroed pocket, and it stymied him enough to pause.
Then there were pops in the hallway and his chief, Trini, shouting at him to evac, and he met her eyes.
Green. Piercing, bold, focused. “Who are you?”
She wore a scrape on her chin, as if she’d encountered trouble.
“Call me Phoenix. Let’s go.” She gestured to the open door of the bookcase, then took off for it, holding the door open as he grabbed John by the collar and scurried the smaller man over to the opening.
“Where’d you come from?”
“I’ve been here for two days. Thanks for screwing up my mission?—”
He had nothing to say to that and followed her inside the tunnel.
The corridor trekked behind the walls of the building, cement-lined and dark. She flashed a light down the corridor, and he lit his own torch, and they flanked Luis as they descended two flights, then into the basement room with monitors and a steel door.
“Safe room,” she said, and he spotted his guys engaging with the Russian Cobras on three of the four monitors.
The other showed an empty yard outside a different embassy. “That’s the Brazilian Embassy. We’ll be safe there?—”
An explosion fuzzed out the picture, and even the Portuguese building shuddered.
Silence as dust shivered from the ceiling.
“We need to get out of here,” he said. He keyed his mic, but the comms had gone down. The other screens, however, showed his team still engaged.
“Clearly not through Brazil.” She pulled out a small tablet, studied it. “We’re going to need to get creative.”
He glanced at John. The man stood less than six feet, skinny, all brains, no body. A cut over his eye had dried, and he’d been banged up, limped. “He can’t move fast.”
She repocketed the tablet, velcroing it into her vest, and picked up the handgun. “I found a way out, but you have to trust me.”
“I don’t even know who you are.”
“I’m one of the good guys.” She winked then and gave a hint of a smile, more of a smirk, maybe, her green eyes almost daring him. “Are you with me?”
He should have trusted her. The sense of it sank through him as time slowed, as memory dissolved through him, into his bones, left her smile imprinted in them.
Phoenix.
His eyes opened, and he stared at the coffered ceiling of the deluxe room. Early sunlight streamed in through the gauzy curtains, and he got up, stared out the window at the red-tiled roofs, the ornate buildings, the boulevard that stretched through the city.
Four more days and they’d be moving on to Declan’s resort-like estate on some Caribbean island.
Four more days, and no trouble so far, so maybe he could stop letting the nightmares find him.
He made coffee—an espresso shot, because, you know, Europe—and took the tiny cup outside. His balcony butted up to Declan’s next door, and he stepped out in his pajamas. The temperature hung in the low sixties, balmy for Minnesota but maybe nippy for Barcelona. Traffic moved four stories below, and he leaned on the cement railing, staring down at the city.
The trees were still prebud, and the air smelled of winter—crisp, bearing a hint of chill. He preferred the cold, frankly, his breath caught in the morning air, his body waking with the chill.
“You too, huh?”
He looked over, and Declan sat on one of the wooden outside chairs in his plush hotel bathrobe, also drinking an espresso, a tablet on the round side table. He had bedhead and a five-o’clock shadow. A regular guy. Could be a friend, if he wasn’t his boss.
“Sir?”
“The brisk mornings. I thought about going for a run, but I didn’t want to wake you.”
Stein raised an eyebrow. “I can be ready in five.”
A moment. “Your knees up to it?”
Gauntlet thrown. He smiled.
Ten minutes later, they were garnering a little attention—not threatening, just curious—as they ran down sidewalks along the Passeig de Gràcia, past closed high-end shops, a few open bakeries and cafés, the intricate, old-fashioned streetlights flicking off as the sunlight bathed the city. Their feet slapping on the pavement, in rhythm.
“Maybe we should have stayed in the gym,” Stein said as they waited at a stoplight. He wasn’t breathing as hard as Declan, but he kept his fist pump internal. A woman with a tiny white Havanese on a leash eyed them even as the dog snarled.
Declan shook his head. “I’ve been trapped in there for three days. No, thank you. I need to clear my head for my talk today.”
The light turned, a green man icon flickering to let them walk. They took off, landed on the other side, and ran the length of the block, stopped at the next light. “What talk?”
“It’s an interactive workshop called ‘AI-Driven Decision-Making in High-Stakes Environments.’ It’s all about how artificial intelligence can help make quick, smart decisions during intense situations, like in military or defense. I’m going to show that these AI systems have actually been used to do things faster and more accurately than humans could.”
“Maybe. But AI can’t consider all the variables to human emotion, human panic.” Stein didn’t know where that’d come from, but . . . okay, he’d blame the dream.
The memories.
“Agreed. I’m working on those nuances. But you’re right. A back door is always needed—something to override the AI programs, interject them with the human element.”
Like instincts? Experience?
They took off again, and when they reached the next block, Declan checked his watch. “We should cross and head back.”
Traffic had picked up, and as they crossed to the other side, heading back, Stein spotted a few Vespas lined up, threaded between the cars, a number of bicyclists also, in the skinny lane.
They hadn’t been out in the city much since the trip to Sagrada Família, and frankly, he’d like to keep it that way. Too many variables.
They ran back, passing Gaudí’s Casa Milà with its seaside exterior, the balconies made to look like waves, the wrought-iron railings like seaweed. Passed another ornate street lamp, this one with a heater and bench built into the foundation. Stein had read about that in one of the large coffee-table books in his suite.
They stopped at the light, and traffic lined up with more Vespas and he glanced over.
Wait . Maybe he’d seen that Vespa—blue, vintage-looking, the driver a woman with a retro blue helmet to match. She wore mirrored aviator sunglasses, black jeans, a puffer jacket, and Converse tennis shoes.
She turned her head and met his glance.
Smirked.
He stilled.
The light turned, and Declan took off toward the hotel. Stein caught up fast, his heart thumping. No . . . His brain was playing games with him.
He focused on the hotel, his gait. Not even a hint of a limp, given his reflection in the glassy storefront mirrors.
They slowed the last twenty yards, Declan’s hands on his hips, breathing hard. Stein stepped in beside him. “It’s more than just nuance, sir. It’s memory and interpretation and even instinct.”
“The God factor.” Declan looked at him. “I know, Stein. There will never be a replacement for God’s creation in human beings. But maybe we can get a head start with the right AI assist.” He pushed into the building.
Stein frowned, the words working through him. But before he followed, he spotted a blue Vespa in the reflection of the windows that angled out toward the street.
He turned and froze, seeing the woman drive by. No, couldn’t be the same woman.
But a fist formed in his gut, the same feeling he’d had three years ago when he’d retorted to Phoenix, “I don’t think so, honey.”
He should have listened to his instincts then.
What had Declan said? The God factor.
He pushed inside. Four days to go. For the first time since joining Declan, he couldn’t wait to get to the Caribbean.