Chapter Seventeen #3
Her boot-camp yogi was always looking out. They made it to the corner. He quickly scanned the street. “All right. Let’s ditch the kitchen scrubs.”
The scent of grease stayed with her as she handed him the white jacket.
He stuffed them into a garbage can as they walked by, arm in arm, on the strangest first date, if it could even be called a date.
The night had crashed and burned before it even started to get anywhere good.
But she had learned major details on Camden.
Most notably, he was a confirmed bachelor.
She didn’t know why that mattered. He would return to the Middle East. She would figure out how to kickstart her life again once Hailey was home safe. Whatever happened with Camden would be a fantastic distraction and would never lead anywhere.
She ducked her face into his strong arm and surreptitiously peeked at their surroundings. No one stuck out. Nothing out of the ordinary caught her eye—a sedan with tinted windows crept by.
“Chin down, sweetheart.” He’d seen it, too, and pressed his lips to the top of her head as though they were a couple out for a stroll. “Tuck your face close to me.”
“They’re looking for me.”
“Seems like someone is.”
The cold weather was their friend. It didn’t look strange as Amelia curled into his body.
At the corner, they turned off the main street.
Without the bright lights from businesses and headlights, they tried to disappear into the shadows along the residential block.
Camden inched apart, pulled his phone out of his pocket, and made a call.
“We’ve got a situation.” Camden explained the fire alarm, the men stationed by the exits, and the cruising vehicle.
“You’ve got my location?” After a long pause, he sighed.
“New safe house. New ride.” He glanced at her.
“I don’t think she should either.” Camden listened as they walked, and she wished the conversation was on speakerphone. “Got it. Thanks.”
He pocketed the phone.
“You don’t think I should what?”
“Be at your condominium alone.”
Someone was searching for her. Her stomach churned, and Amelia inched closer to Camden as they ambled down the street. “Were those people CIA?”
He shook his head. “If the CIA wanted to speak to you, Beth would set it up. They wouldn’t pull a stunt like that to smoke you out of a building.”
Amelia stopped cold. “So they were the people who took Hailey?”
“Maybe.”
She turned. He caught her arm, reading her mind: she wanted to find them.
“What’s your plan?” he asked.
“I don’t have one, but—”
“Where’s your backup?”
She hadn’t thought about that either. “You.”
The corners of his lips rose. “I’m supposed to be the impulsive one, sweetheart.”
Amelia tugged her arm. The possibility of finding Hailey trumped his reasoning. Camden didn’t let her go.
“Well, then come up with a plan,” she said.
“They’re coming to you. Have any guesses as to why?”
Her first thought had been fear. Her second thought had been to find Hailey. Both were knee-jerk reactions. The why hadn’t crossed her mind once. “No.”
“You have to have that answer before you go to them.” They paused on a corner. Camden searched the intersection as though danger lurked between the parked cars and houses. They crossed the street. “My guess is that you’re a witness that needs to be eliminated.”
Amelia chewed the inside of her cheek. “I would have said something if I knew anything.”
They walked for a long moment, each lost in thought. Finally, he agreed. “You’re right. You’ve been a sitting duck for weeks.”
“We should go back and find them.”
He shook his head and eyed a car that was slowly creeping down the road. “No, but we do need to get back to a busier street.” Camden reached into his pocket and pressed his phone to his ear. “Yeah?” He stopped short and checked his watch. “Sounds good. We’ll be waiting.”
Her eyebrows arched as he ended the call. “Waiting for who?”
“Colby Winters and a new safe house. We can’t go back to where we were.” He led them up a driveway as the car with tinted windows crept closer. “Duck down.”
They hid between the front of a car and a trash can. She shivered. “Are they looking for you also?”
“My gut says no, which means they’re working with an intel deficit.”
“How do you know that?”
“I’ve been with you since I broke you out of prison.
” He winked like this was just another day on the job and none of this—the fire alarm and creeping cars—was a big deal.
“I’m easy to see if they knew who to look for.
” He thought for a moment. “They did have a spot-on guess that you were inside the restaurant.”
“Yeah, how’d they do that?”
He rolled his lips together. “You don’t have a phone, right?”
She shook her head. “Not since it was confiscated.”
“Maybe they’re running some kind of facial recognition.
Though how they matched an image of you walking down the street beats the hell out of me.
” He pulled out his cell phone. Camden’s thumbs tapped out a quick message.
“We’ll worry about that later. First things first: new house.
New ride. And I guess I wouldn’t mind new dinner plans. ”