Chapter 8
EIGHT
The concrete beneath Kenzie’s bare feet still held the day’s warmth, though the evening had grown cool enough that goose bumps prickled along her arms. She walked beside Jaz, her heels dangling uselessly from her fingers, catching what little streetlight filtered down to this quiet back road.
Jaz had told her when they’d left the parking lot behind the shopping center that they only had to walk two blocks to the hotel where Laguerre had secured them a room.
The kind man who’d helped rescue her and her crew that afternoon had appeared from the shadows like some kind of spy-movie contact.
He and Jaz had exchanged remarks in French, talking so fast she hadn’t even tried to translate.
“You know him well?” Kenzie broke the silence that had stretched between them since they’d started walking.
“He’s a good friend.” Jaz held two bags, one a canvas duffel, the other a shopping bag, both of which Laguerre had given him.
Clothes, Jaz had explained, and toiletries, necessities that he’d apparently asked Laguerre to pick up for her.
Small comfort when her entire life had been blown to pieces, but at least she’d be able to brush her teeth and change out of this ridiculous dress.
She studied Jaz’s profile in the dim light. He wore the playboy persona, seemingly laid back and careless. Only his eyes gave him away, scanning the surroundings like…like her father did when they were in public, as if threats could emerge from every side.
When Dad did it, Kenzie found it amusing—the former CIA agent who couldn’t seem to shake his old life. When Jaz did it, it was terrifying.
Because the threats he faced, and Kenzie faced, were real, not memories.
They reached a busier street and crossed. Traffic was light. It felt like the middle of the night, but her watch told her it wasn’t quite ten o’clock. She’d lived a lifetime since she’d met her crew on the deck of the Blue Fantasy that morning.
Jaz led the way to a hotel she must have driven past a thousand times but had never really looked at.
It was a small, two-story building painted a pale yellow that looked almost white in the streetlights, nothing like the resort where they’d just spent the evening.
No grand entrance, no doorman, no pretension of luxury.
Just a simple building with bougainvillea climbing the walls and the scent of night-blooming jasmine perfuming the air.
From the outside, it seemed well-maintained, the kind of place families might stay, or couples on a budget.
Jaz headed around the building.
Kenzie followed him up a flight of steps to the second floor.
The exterior concrete walkway was clean but worn.
The hotel was larger than it’d seemed from the front, with four buildings surrounding a pool and patio area.
A handful of folks sat at a poolside table, talking and laughing.
Vacationers having the time of their lives, unaware of the dangers lurking on the island.
Jaz stopped at a door midway down the corridor, produced a key card, and unlocked it. He pushed the door open and gestured for her to enter first.
She stepped inside and flicked a switch by the door.
An overhead light revealed a very small room dominated by a king-sized bed.
Nightstands flanked it, and a dresser took up most of the opposite wall.
To her left, the bathroom door was open.
She peeked in—vanity, toilet, tub. Nothing fancy, but it would work.
Jaz stepped in behind her and closed the door. The click of the lock seemed magnified in the quiet, pinging inside her like a warning bell.
She turned. “What are you…what’s the plan?” The thought of him staying with her all night had her nerves tingling.
But did she really want to be alone?
“They didn’t have adjoining rooms.” He leaned against the door.
“You’re staying?”
“I’ll sleep on the floor.”
She looked down to confirm what her bare feet had already told her—the floor was tile.
Between the bed and dresser, there was barely enough space to walk.
There was no rug. She took a few steps deeper into the room and turned to face Jaz, studying the hard angles of his face.
His expression was unreadable in the faint light.
The air conditioner hummed, though the room was already chilly.
“It’s not a problem.” He said it matter-of-factly, like it was already decided.
Kenzie dropped the torture shoes against the wall and yanked off the blond wig, relief flooding through her when her scalp could finally breathe. She started pulling out bobby pins, her real hair falling loose around her shoulders.
She faced the mirror over the dresser, dropping the pins one by one, aware of Jaz watching her. “There were no rooms with twin beds?” She met his eyes in the reflection. Two beds would solve this problem.
Jaz sighed, the sound heavy and bone-deep tired.
“I can sleep in the tub if you want.” The words sounded defeated, not sarcastic.
His expression proved he was as exhausted as she was.
Maybe more so. She’d been living with this craziness since this afternoon.
He’d been living a lie for…years, it sounded like. “I’ll make it work. Whatever you need.”
Kenzie finger-combed her hair, feeling numb.
She should be on the Blue Fantasy right now, sailing to Miami.
In a comfortable stateroom, alone, listening to the ocean.
She should be on the water, where she could hear God’s voice.
Yes, it could be terrifying sometimes, when the waves were too high or a sail ripped or the engines quit at exactly the wrong moment.
But when it was her against the sea… Maybe it didn’t make sense.
It wasn’t as if she were safe on a sailboat.
It was more that she knew what to expect.
Storms and high winds and boat malfunctions came out of nowhere, but she wasn’t helpless against them.
Or she was. All her supposed safety was an illusion.
But the water never turned on her. Maybe because it didn’t start out as a friend, she wasn’t shocked when it behaved like an enemy. The waves weren’t trying to hurt her. The storms weren’t personally attacking her.
But on land, with people… There were friends, and there were enemies, and she wasn’t a good judge of which was which.
And here she was, trapped in a tiny hotel room with a man she barely knew. A man who blew up boats and swam in a sea of lies. Her business was gone, her life upended.
She couldn’t even go home.
Jaz moved to the small table in front of the windows on the far side of the room and pulled out a chair. “We need to talk about the Blue Fantasy job. Everything you remember.” He opened his phone, ready to take notes. “Who gave you the keys? How many deliveries—?”
“Stop.” Kenzie held up a hand. “I can’t do this right now.”
“We need to—”
“It can wait.”
He stood. “The sooner we piece this together—”
“I need peace. I need a minute to process. Is that so hard to understand?”
Her voice cracked on the last word. Her limbs felt like lead. Her head was suddenly too heavy to hold up. She sank onto the edge of the bed. “I wasn’t made for this kind of life. Not the lies and the danger. Not the”—she gestured to the blond wig—“secrets and disguises.”
“I’m trying to get to the bottom of this so you can be safe.”
“I know, I know. And I’m…I’m glad you’re on it.
I really am. It’s just that I wasn’t made for this pace.
For the constant movement, the never-ending activity.
Since I first saw that boat closing in, I’ve been shot at, nearly drowned, separated from my team.
I’ve had to pretend to be someone I’m not, engage in conversations with total strangers, one of whom probably wants me dead.
You’re asking me to trust you, and I don’t even know you.
I need to stop. Just for the night. I need quiet and alone time, or…
not alone, I guess, but…” She glanced around the room and sighed.
“Just quiet, okay? Can we please just not talk?”
He studied her for a long moment, then settled back on the chair. “I don’t do…quiet time.”
“I do. I relish the hours at the helm, just me and the sea. Back in the States, it seems like everyone is always moving, like there’s some value in being too busy to rest. Too busy to think. Too busy to spend time with Jesus. I need that for my relationship with him to grow.”
She waited for a smirk, but Jaz only tilted his head to the side as if trying to figure her out.
She didn’t usually talk about her faith with strangers. She shared her faith sometimes, but this wasn’t her trying to convert someone who was lost. This was her sharing the most important part of herself. It was…intimate.
Of course, they were in a hotel room, alone. Everything about this situation was more intimate than she liked.
“You think that’ll help?” Jaz’s voice carried no sarcasm, no mocking. He sounded genuinely curious. “Spending time with God?”
“He knows more than I do. More than you do. He knows everything, so yeah, I think it’ll help.”
Again, Jaz didn’t laugh at her or scoff, just seemed to consider what she was saying. “Fine, Jesus girl. But first thing in the morning, you’ll need to tell me everything you know. Maybe God will give you some insights He’s never given me.”
“You’re a Christian?” She hadn’t meant the words to sound so…shocked.
His chuckle was dark. “Used to be.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’m not sure if I left Him or if He left me, but God and I haven’t had a…a relationship”—he used her word—“since I was a teenager.”
“I can tell you one thing—God didn’t leave you.” She said the words slowly. She was so tired that it took her a moment to fully process what he’d said. “He doesn’t work that way. Even when we walk away, He’s still there, not just waiting but eager for us to come home.”
Jasper’s jaw tightened. “Maybe some of us walk too far.”
“There’s no such thing as too far. Not with God.”