36. Chapter 36
Chapter thirty-six
Pony
When I wake up, I expect to find Remi next to me, but she’s across the room already dressed in jeans, a t-shirt, and sneakers.
“Why are you dressed?” I protest. After last night, I want nothing more than to spend the day wrapped up in each other with no interruptions. “Take off your clothes and come back to bed.”
Her happy smile makes my heart flutter. “That’s a tempting offer.” She crosses the room, bracing her hands on the bed, and kisses me passionately. “But I have to go. I’m meeting my friend this morning, remember?”
She’s been nervous and distracted ever since receiving those texts at dinner last night. I want to ask, but don’t want to push. I want her to trust me enough to confide in me.
One hand grasps her hip while the other tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “Want me to drive you?”
She kisses me again. “That’s sweet, but I’ll be okay.”
I throw off the covers and get out of bed to drag her into me, capturing her mouth in a searing kiss.
She lets out a broken moan. “You don’t play fair kissing me like that when you’re naked and adorably sleep rumpled.”
I tease a slow, languid path of kisses along her neck. “Take your clothes off and I’ll happily rumple you too.”
“You’re debauched.”
My hands still and I meet her eyes. “Debauched?”
She grins up at me. “It means I find you wickedly sexy.” She gives me a peck on the cheek and backs away, picking up her bag. “As tempting as you are, can I have a raincheck? I’ll text you later?”
Before I have a chance to respond, she’s rushing out the door.
What the fuck?
I pull on a pair of jeans and watch her from the window. When she reaches her car, she scans the street, then drops to one knee to check the undercarriage.
I frown. What is she doing? She parked in front of the house and my neighborhood’s safe. Between the nightmares and the jumpiness, and now she’s acting shifty—something’s very wrong, and damnit, I need to know what the hell it is.
I finish dressing, bolt downstairs, snag my keys, and dash out the door to jump into my car. She’s already left, but I quickly catch up to her, keeping a good distance between us.
As we drive, I realize she’s using evasive maneuvers. And she’s good at it. Very good. She nearly loses me a handful of times. If I wasn’t well trained in counter-surveillance, she might’ve noticed or lost me. How does she know how to do that?
Whatever her motive, she’s taking serious precautions to avoid being followed. Her behavior genuinely concerns me. Wondering if she has a reason to be so cautious, I’m determined to have her back, making sure the only one following her is me.
Eventually, she stops at a strip mall. She hops out carrying a reusable bag. After glancing around the parking lot, she darts into a shop that rents P.O. boxes.
Why does she have a P.O. box across town when her mail is delivered to her condo?
When she leaves with whatever she’s put into the bag she’s carrying, I continue shadowing her. After more twists, turns, and backtracking, she finally pulls into the parking lot of a random bar, taking a space at the edge of the lot. I stop across the street, waiting to see what she’ll do.
She slides out of the car and takes a long, slow look around. I duck down so she doesn’t see me.
What the fuck am I doing? I’ve gone insane. I’m acting like a stalker.
She grabs the bag from her car and hurries inside.
I don’t want to be a creeper sitting in my car waiting for her, so I pull into the lot and follow her in. It’s clear something serious is going on, and not only do I need to know what it is, I want to help her.
It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the low light. I glance around but don’t see her in the nearly empty bar. Maybe she went to the bathroom.
Even knowing the answer, I ask the bartender, “Did a woman with long brown hair just come in here?”
He hooks his thumb over his shoulder. “She went out the back.”
What? Why would she come in only to sneak out the back?
I take off down the hall and out the back door in time to see her enter the rear entrance of an apartment building across the alley. Only now, her hair’s tucked under a baseball cap and she’s wearing a windbreaker.
She’s trying to disguise herself, but I’d know her anywhere. She lied to the FBI, went to great lengths to avoid being followed, and now she’s disguising herself to avoid being recognized.
What the hell is going on, Remi?
I’m beginning to wonder if Nitro was right and she is CIA.
After waiting for a car to pass, I hurry across the alley. By the time I enter the apartment building, Remi’s already at the far end of a lengthy hallway exiting out the opposite door.
I jog to catch up while I wonder what the hell she’s doing. When I burst through the door onto the busy street…she’s gone.
Fuck.
I glance in one direction, then the other, but no Remi. She vanished. But how? Why? What’s with the cat-and-mouse routine?
I take a few steps to the right when something in my periphery catches my attention.
Remi’s standing against the wall, hidden in the entryway of a building, pointing a knife at me.
“Colton? What the hell? You scared the crap out of me.” She keeps the knife leveled at me like she doesn’t trust that I won’t hurt her.
“Are you following me?” Her tone is accusatory.
As it should be.
I pause before offering her the truth. “Yes.”
She narrows her eyes, and the hand holding the knife trembles. “Why? Are you one of them? Has this been a setup from the beginning?”
“One of who?” I hold my hands up and keep my voice calm. “Remi, we met by accident. I swear. You’ve been acting scared and paranoid. I was worried about you. Maybe I shouldn’t have done it, but that’s why I followed you. Why do you have a knife?”
“For protection.”
“Protection from who?” I take a cautious step closer. “Remi, please, let me help you. Are you in danger?”
She stares at me. Not just at me, but into me—like she’s searching my soul and trying to read my mind. For several long seconds she doesn’t answer. “I don’t know,” she whispers, folding and snapping the knife closed with skillful ease before shoving it into her pocket.
“Is this about the man in the suit?”
She flinches, taking an apprehensive step backward. Her back hits the building, and fear clouds her features. “How do you know about him!?”
I haven’t moved any closer and still have my hands up, trying to convey I’m not a threat. “You mentioned him on the plane after we rescued you.”
She tilts her head, eyes narrowing. “I did?”
“You told me the man in the suit tried to get you to talk, but you didn’t tell him anything.” I keep my voice calm, afraid one wrong word might send her running without telling me what’s happening. “You were pretty out of it at the time.”
Her shoulders drop, losing some of their tension. “Yeah.” She nods briskly, with quick little bobs of her head. “Yeah, okay. I sort of remember that.”
A bus comes lumbering down the road, stealing her attention. She steps out and stands at the bus stop. I’m surprised when she gets on but follow without a word. We make our way to the very back, away from the other passengers.
“Remi, please talk to me. What’s going on? What’s with all the cloak-and-dagger shit? Why are you on a bus instead of driving?”
I take her hand in mine, threading our fingers together, relieved when she doesn’t try to pull away. Something has her spooked.
“Remi, whatever it is, you can tell me. You can trust me. Let me help you.”
She sits in silence, staring straight ahead, her free hand clutching the grocery bag in her lap. When I peek inside, it’s filled with padded envelopes.
She’s fighting a war with herself, struggling with whether to trust me or not. I wait, giving her the time she needs, not pressuring her while she makes her decision.
Even though no one is close to us, her voice stays low, barely above a whisper. “Have you ever heard of the Consortium?”
What the hell was she doing that got her mixed up with the Consortium? And who’s the man in the suit?
If I want her honesty, I need to be honest with her too. I can’t give her a reason not to confide in me. Not now, when I’m on the verge of finding out what’s going on.
“I don’t know much. We only started hearing about them a few months ago. It’s a massive enterprise with fingers in all kinds of criminal activities. I do know they’re dangerous.”
She nods and her eyes harden around the edges. “They are. A reporter named Danny Hennessy was chasing a story about human traffickers. He hired me as his photographer.”
“The job you left for the day after we met.”
“Yes. We followed leads through several countries. In Nicaragua, Danny stumbled onto something that put the Consortium on his radar, and we followed that lead to Venezuela. That’s where I…I caught something on film.”
Fear and apprehension ripples off her. She’s stiff and gripping the bag in her lap so tight, her knuckles are white. I release her hand and wrap my arm around her shoulders.
“Danny found out about an auction. A human auction. He snuck in pretending to be a cater-waiter. I don’t know how they knew we were in Venezuela or how they tracked us down, but that night four men broke into the apartment we were staying in.
“They wanted my memory cards, but there weren’t any.
I couldn’t have given them what they were asking for even if I wanted to.
” She finally looks at me. “I told them, Colton. I kept telling them there were no memory cards, but they didn’t believe me.
” She takes a deep, choppy breath and closes her eyes, lost in the memory.
“They shot Danny in the head. Right in front of me. Then they took me.”
I tighten my arm around her. I want her to know she’s safe with me. That I have her back. But I remain quiet, knowing she needs to get it out.