Chapter 16
NADIA
The guest room was on the ground floor, down a narrow hallway, separated from the office with the futon Thomas would be using by an adjoining Jack and Jill bathroom.
“Bathroom is here.” Thomas showed her the door beside the closet. “I’ll be sleeping through there.” He pointed at the open door at the other end of the seafoam-green tiled room. There was a combo bath/shower and dual sinks. “Hope you don’t mind we’re sharing.”
“I don’t mind.” Nadia dropped the plastic bag with her Walmart purchases on the white eyelet comforter covering the queen-sized bed. Matching curtains fluttered over an open window. Through the screen, she spotted the impressive slope of the Sierra Nevada range.
“There are locks on the doors. I’ll knock before I open mine.” He held his phone as if to keep his hand occupied, and he tapped the device against his thigh.
A smile pulled at her mouth over his nervous energy. She didn’t think his restlessness had anything to do with them sharing a bathroom. But she couldn’t resist poking fun. Humor or anger, pick one of the two. Her version of avoidance coping. “I’ve shared a bathroom with a man before.”
“Good.” Thomas went into the bathroom only to pause mid-step. “Wait, what?” He turned back to her.
A slow smile spread across her face. “I know how sharing a bathroom works. I’ve been in relationships.”
“Who with?” He tightly gripped his phone.
She crossed her arms. “None of your business.”
His mouth opened then crashed shut, his jaw working before he finally asked, “Were you in love with any of them?”
She huffed, incredulous he’d asked such a question. “What does it matter to you?”
He blinked. “It doesn’t. Never mind.”
She let the question die, deciding not to push. She’d feel compelled to give him an honest answer, that she’d ended every relationship before someone got close enough to matter. That the only man who’d ever made her feel untethered was standing right in front of her.
But how could she tell him the truth when she hadn’t fully admitted her feelings for him to herself?
He turned back into the bathroom. Nadia crossed the room to him. “Are you jealous?”
“I don’t do jealousy,” he said, right before he shut the door in her face.
She gasped again. “The nerve.” Then she remembered what she did want to ask him before he sidetracked her.
She knocked on the door. “See? I do know how to share a bathroom,” she said when he opened the door.
Thomas rolled his eyes and started to close the door.
She placed a hand against the wood panel to stop him.
“Wait. Kane… have you tried calling him?”
The lines between his brows deepened on a frown. “No.”
“Will you?”
“Haven’t decided. I’m waiting to see what Cammy can find out for us.”
“I’m sorry.” She felt for him. Kane had been someone he’d trusted not just with his life, but James’s too.
“So am I.”
“Have you been able to reach James?”
He shook his head. Nadia could sense how worried he was in the short, shallow breath he took, alluding to the constant state of tension he’d been in for the past forty-eight hours.
Had it only been two days? She felt like she hadn’t slept in over a week.
As if reading her mind, Thomas tilted his head toward the bed behind her. “Get some rest if you can. We’re safe here for now.”
“For now?” she asked, alarmed. “Do you think we were followed?” Her fingers twitched at her side with the impulse to reach for him, to keep him safe. A buffer between him and the world, what he’d always been for everyone else.
But she fisted her hands instead so she wouldn’t move toward him. He’d believe she was seeking his reassurance they actually were safe, and maybe a part of her was.
“Doubtful, but I’m not taking chances.”
She thought of the traffic cameras that could have picked up their route here, the surveillance cameras at Walmart and the gas station.
Were the Hidalgos sophisticated enough to employ hackers to breach the system?
Could they have had their own lookouts along the route they took?
Her breaths shortened, her hands squeezing her arms as she wrapped her arms around herself tighter.
“Nadia,” Thomas said gently. He touched her elbow and her gaze pivoted to his. “We’re safe.”
She nodded tightly, not entirely convinced.
“Rest, and when we get more intel, we’ll make a plan.”
They had a plan to make plans. She could get on board with that. “Okay.”
Thomas started to close the door again when Nadia said, “Tom… no.”
His brows drew together. “No what?”
“I didn’t love any of them.”
His frown deepened before his eyes slightly widened. The edge of his mouth pulled up as if a smile was trying to peek out. Nadia felt her own lips curve up as she felt a mild flutter of something nameless, more tender than outright longing, at his obvious relief.
Thomas retreated into the bathroom, and a short bit later, she heard running water.
She crossed the room to the window and stared out at the barren landscape, the dry, high desert air teasing her hair, the wisps tickling her cheek.
She touched her wound. The cut still burned. She needed to clean it again.
And with the thought of her marred skin came the gnawing paranoia that she’d been fighting hard to keep from eating her alive. Nausea thickened in her throat and her stomach roiled. Twice in twenty-four hours she’d nearly died. Worse, she’d killed a man.
The burner phone in her back pocket vibrated, the sensation putting the brakes on her downward spiral.
She snatched her phone with a trembling hand, grateful for the distraction, and looked at the screen for the first time since they’d left the safe house. Two missed calls and five texts from Aimee had come in since they last spoke.
Proof of life.
Hello?
Text back! You’re worrying me.
Nadia!!!!!!!!!
PLEASE TELL ME YOU’RE ALIVE.
She tapped Aimee’s most recent incoming call notification and the phone connected. Aimee answered after the first ring.
“Nadia?”
Nadia inhaled a shaky breath and sank to the floor, her back to the wall. “I’m alive,” she said in a mere whisper.
“Jesus. You can’t text me to get Ian and the kids and go off grid and NOT tell me more.
” Nadia had shot off the text last night before she’d fallen asleep, acting on a bad feeling she’d had while showering.
Maybe she and Thomas were alike in more ways than she’d care to admit.
But she’d feel a lot better knowing Aimee and her family were tucked away somewhere safe.
“Are you okay?” Aimee asked.
Nadia rocked back and forth. She shook her head even though Aimee couldn’t see her. Usually, she was the levelheaded friend, but right now she was falling… falling… falling.
“I killed a man.” Her whispered confession drew a sharp gasp from Aimee.
“You… WHAT?”
“They found us, Aimee. The Hidalgos. They came to kill us. Tom knifed a guy and I—” She choked up.
“It’s okay. I’m here…”
“He dropped his gun.”
“Who?”
“One of the intruders, the cartel guys.” Emotion filled her throat, tears welled as she explained what had happened.
“He was going to shoot Tom and I just… I didn’t think.
I just shot him,” she said through a tight throat.
“I killed him, Aimee. What if he had had a family… kids? What if he—” She hiccupped and Aimee interrupted.
“Stop. Do not even go there, Nadia.” Pause.
“I can’t begin to understand what you’re going through.
But…” Another pause as Aimee struggled to find the right words.
This was so out of both their comfort zones.
Way off course. Then, “He would have killed you if you hadn’t fired first. From what I’ve read those people are capable of, he wouldn’t have thought twice about it.
Your life is worthless to him. And you mean everything to me…
Don’t give that man one more second of your head space.
He does not deserve your pity. Oh, my god.
” Nadia heard a thumping noise and pictured Aimee pounding her chest. “My heart is beating so fast. You came so close to—” She stopped abruptly. “Nope. Not going to go there.”
Nadia sniffled. “It’s so hard though. Not to think about it. Not to feel guilty.” About much of what she’d done: kill a man, betray Aimee. Hide her true feelings from Thomas. Lie, fib, divert, conceal. Hugging her shins, Nadia dropped her forehead on her knees.
“You’re in the thick of whatever this is right now, that’s why.
Listen, Nadia. There’s a reason you learned how to shoot.
A reason why you own a gun. You’re a single woman living alone who didn’t want to be caught defenseless, and you weren’t.
You saved yourself, and you saved Thomas, too.
” She made a noise like she’d swallowed something sour.
A watery laugh gurgled in Nadia’s throat. “Was that hard for you to admit?”
“So hard. You know how I feel about him. But nobody deserves to be shot at or knifed or murdered. Thomas included. I’ve been watching the news. They’re reporting he has been relocated to an undisclosed location.”
“His contact at the DEA was the only one who knew where we were.”
There was a long pause, then an equally long ooohhhh on Aimee’s end. “Was he the one who— God, Nadia. He told them where you were?” She practically shrieked.
“I know, I know. It just keeps getting worse. Tom isn’t taking it well either. Has there been anything on the news about his mom? Claire’s missing.”
“I didn’t know that. No, nothing. Nothing on James either.”
“I’ll take that as a good sign,” she said, relieved for Thomas. “He’s been trying to reach him.”
“No luck?”
“He’s home, last we heard, but he isn’t taking Thomas’s calls.”
“Want me to try? He might answer my call. Given what’s going on, I want to call. Make sure he’s all right.”
“Yeah, that would be great,” Nadia said.
“I’m scared for you,” Aimee said after a moment.
She rubbed her forehead. “Me too.”
“I assume you’re not at the safe house anymore since it was compromised.”