Chapter Sixteen
During her visit to the Salem hospital emergency room, Mollie found herself to be the center of attention.
Only a few of the doctors had seen a person drugged with chloroform.
Apparently, the hankie-over-the-nose routine was old-fashioned while there were more reliable methods to render a victim unconscious—a veritable supermarket of date rape drugs.
She was tested and released, told to watch for extreme dizziness or hallucinations.
As Spence escorted her back to the Escalade, he told her what he did at the hospital. “I looked in on Easton. He’s cranky as hell, didn’t get released and has a US marshal from the Portland office guarding his room.”
“Not a bad idea.” Especially since Youngblood was in town and had reason to prevent Easton from blabbing. “Did he say anything about the visit from me when I was pretending to be my sister?”
“He’s telling everybody who will listen that a beautiful Princesa came to see him and murdered his teddy bear in cold blood.”
“No wonder they wouldn’t let him go home.”
They’d already reached the car. Spence had parked in the emergency lot to avoid exposure, which made her wonder if the threat had become more intense.
Julio had made his proposal, and she hadn’t given him a reason to believe she had accepted.
But she didn’t think he’d just go away and leave her alone.
He liked his plan to use her as a nanny for his unborn child and a substitute wife if Madison wasn’t in the mood.
When he’d framed this idea, he claimed it was “unusual.” In her opinion, not so much.
Plenty of guys had approached her and Madison about some kind of threesome.
Having sex with twins seemed to be a popular theme for porn movies—a typical but creepy fetish.
As Spence drove through Salem and headed into the forest to the safe house, he took a route she didn’t recognize. An evasive maneuver to avoid being followed?
“Question,” she said. “If somebody wanted to track the Escalade, could they attach a GPS device?”
“Unfortunately, yes. I sweep the car frequently to make sure we’re not on anybody’s radar. But you can pick up trackers online or at electronics stores. People use trackers on their kids or their pets. It’s getting harder to disappear.”
“So Julio could find the safe house,” she concluded.
“He could. Plus, as I keep telling everybody, there’s always the possibility of using drones to survey the forest. The cabin has good cover under the trees, but there’s always a chance.”
“Should we switch to a different location?”
His brow furrowed. She knew he liked the solitude of the cabin in the woods, and the safe house had enough room to act as a headquarters for other security personnel, their equipment and vehicles. But was it really a secret?
“For tonight, we’ll stay in the cabin,” he said. “Your pepper spray attack on Julio and the arrest of two of his men must have slowed him down. But you’re right in assuming we might need a better solution.”
“A suggestion,” she said. “Maybe we could try a five-star hotel in Portland. That ought to be well-protected. And we can have gourmet room service massages and a sauna.”
“I like the way you think.” He reached across the console, took her hand and squeezed. “Just promise me you won’t get a manicure.”
She had no idea why he didn’t want her to polish her nails. “Whatever.”
* * *
Back at the log cabin loaded with artwork, Mollie felt her tension ebb.
She was drawn into the kitchen, where the aroma of lasagna and garlic bread flavored the air.
Quintana hadn’t rushed back here from Bethany’s place, but a gray-haired man with an apron over his fatigues took a tray of pastry cones out of the oven. “Cannoli,” he said.
“I can hardly wait for dinner.”
“You can help by tossing the salad. Then, we eat.”
She followed his directions, performing kitchen tasks she’d done a million times before.
The repetitive chopping and peeling soothed her.
The heat from the oven warmed her skin. She heard quiet classical music in the background.
So gentle. So peaceful. And nobody was trying to kill her… at least, not at the moment.
She understood that the men and women who worked for Spence came from military professions and were adept with firearms and hand-to-hand combat. They reflected the personality of the man who had brought them together. Spence Cameron.
At the dining room table, she sat beside him. For a change, he wasn’t wearing a suit and hadn’t combed his hair. In his faded green camo pants, boots and beige corduroy shirt worn over a black T-shirt, he looked like a battle-ready Ranger. A more natural fit than his lawyer persona.
“You’re not wearing your glasses,” she said.
“Don’t need them for dinner. I use my glasses when extra-sharp vision is required, especially for shooting. Sometimes, for driving.”
She tried to remember the day she first met him in Denver. It seemed like weeks ago. “You didn’t use them when those thugs opened fire outside my house.”
“Prescription sunglasses.”
“Of course.”
He washed down a bite of lasagna with a swig of pinot noir and looked across the table at two of his team, who were following their conversation with interest. He pointed to the faint scar that ran from his forehead to his cheekbone, just below his left eye.
“Do you think she’s curious about how I got this? ”
The younger guy reminded her of Thornton, the bodyguard she’d tricked into letting her escape at Irma’s house. He regarded Spence with something akin to hero worship. “Well, sir, I wouldn’t mind hearing that story myself.”
“Not all that interesting,” Spence said. “Nothing heroic. Just day-to-day military action.”
She shot him a sidelong glance. “Disappointing. I thought you hooked up with a gang of superheroes to defeat an alien menace.”
He sipped his wine again. “I was deployed in the Middle East, riding in a Hummer that hit an IED. I got hit by shrapnel. A nasty slice. Not life-threatening but the cut impaired my vision so much that I was no longer acceptable for regular duty. That’s the story.”
“You left out the best part,” said the chef who prepared the meal. “You carried one of the more seriously injured Rangers a mile and a half to where he could get medical treatment.”
“I guess I did.”
“And you were awarded the Purple Heart.”
“Guess I was.” He shrugged. “And I was offered a desk job. No thanks.”
She gazed at him with renewed respect. “Sounds heroic to me.”
“Then I won’t tell you the boring part about how many surgeries and treatments I’ve had to restore vision. My left eye is never going to be 20/20.”
After helping to clear the table and indulging in a perfect, creamy cannoli, she had a second cup of coffee.
Earlier, she’d refused wine because she wasn’t sure how it would interact with being drugged.
The caffeine made her feel alert, but she was also becoming aware of uncomfortable bruising on her ribs, legs and the wrist Julio had clamped in his grip.
Thinking of that creep—whom her sister had somehow fallen in love with—reminded Mollie that she hadn’t yet had a bath to wash away the disgusting memory of Julio’s touch.
And that of Marshal Youngblood. Suddenly feeling filthy, she turned toward Spence.
“Is there anything else we need to do tonight?”
“Jamison will contact us when he has a connection to the undercover agent who filmed the yacht explosion. He’s still in Mexico somewhere.”
“Does he have a name?”
“Yeah, but we’re not going to hear it. Jamison said we can call him Kiki. He’s been in deep cover for nearly eight years. Kiki isn’t spying on the Peligro Cartel anymore. They aren’t really functioning, and Kiki’s talents can be better used elsewhere.”
She didn’t expect the FBI to share their intelligence with her, but she had to ask the painful and logical question. “When did Kiki know my sister and Julio were still alive?”
“According to Jamison, there have been rumblings for a couple of years. After the explosion, they changed their names and established a relatively legitimate business, buying and selling property. Living off the profits from Peligro.”
“So, now my sister is a real estate broker? That would have been nice for me and Dad to know, especially since she’s been in touch with him.
Maybe she could have hooked us up with a time-share in Cancun.
” She clenched her jaw. It didn’t do any good to gripe at Spence.
“When is this Kiki person going to call?”
“When it’s possible. Jamison will give us as much advance notice as possible.”
“Let me know. In the meantime, I’m taking a bath.”
She finished her coffee and went upstairs to her bedroom, stretched out on the pale blue comforter and stared up at the blank ceiling. The buzz from caffeine activated her brain. Thoughts crackled inside her head like popcorn.
In a matter of hours, her life had changed drastically.
Mollie had gone from being an unimportant employee in a Denver garden shop to the potential owner of an art gallery in Salem.
Thanks to her inheritance, her debts were no longer a problem.
She’d met a strong, gallant man who excited her, and it seemed like he felt the same way about her.
For the first time in years, she considered the possibility of a relationship.
Slowly, she exhaled, allowing these factors to swirl around inside her. So many possibilities. So much to look forward to. Still, none of it counted for anything if she couldn’t reconnect with her twin.
Madison was alive. I always knew she’d come back. But they hadn’t spoken, hadn’t stared into their identical eyes, hadn’t joined together in a hug that would complete them both. She desperately wanted her sister to be part of her life again.
There was a tap on her door. “It’s Spence. Can I come in?”
“It’s not locked.” She bolted upright on the bed. “Did you get the call from Jamison?”
“Not yet.”