Chapter 7
Eden came awake slowly. She stretched her arms over her head and turned onto her back.
When she lifted her lids, she saw her room was dark.
She had thought to only take a short nap.
Had she known she was that tired, she would’ve set an alarm so she didn’t sleep all night.
Not that it mattered, she was taking tomorrow off.
She threw back the covers and rose from the bed.
After pulling on a pair of sweats and an oversized shirt with her slippers, she checked her phone for the time.
It was not yet seven, so she’d slept a solid six hours.
She had to admit, she felt better. With her phone in hand, she walked into the kitchen and turned on the lights.
Her stomach was growling. That’s when she remembered that she had meant to go to the market for food.
“Looks like more takeout,” she said with a chuckle and pulled open the drawer that held all the menus.
It didn’t take her long to pick a place and call in an order for delivery.
Then she grabbed a glass and filled it with water, drinking as she stood there.
Her gaze moved around her apartment. She’d been lucky to find this place.
It was in a highly sought-after neighborhood, and while the place wasn’t large, it fit her needs perfectly.
Even if the rent was a little more than she should spend.
Since she didn’t have a car to pay for, she justified the cost.
Her salary was good. Good enough that a huge chunk went into savings each pay period.
She’d never been one to have a lot of debt.
That stemmed from a father who thought it was his duty to rack up as much debt as he possibly could and never pay for it.
Just the thought of creditors calling her made Eden break out in hives.
Her father had just never answered the phone or allowed anyone else to answer it, just in case it was a creditor.
Having their car repossessed while she was at a volleyball game with a friend who was supposed to be coming home with her was a particular embarrassment that Eden still hadn’t gotten over.
Which was why even with credit cards, she didn’t buy anything that she couldn’t pay cash for.
She set a strict budget for herself that included trips like Prague.
The trains were an economical way to travel around Europe, and even with farther destinations, the flights weren’t too terrible.
She wasn’t cheap by any means, but she definitely knew how to be frugal when it was necessary.
If she lost her job tomorrow, she had enough in savings to cover her for an entire year without a job.
Eden set down the now-empty glass and made her way to the sofa. She turned on the TV, but she couldn’t find anything to watch. Promising herself that she would only book her trip, she rose and went to her computer. As she sat, she tapped the keyboard and waited for the login screen to come up.
Just as she was about to type in her password, her gaze landed on the words there.
Her heart leapt into her throat as her blood froze in her veins.
She pushed the chair back so hard that it rolled away from her and banged into the wall.
Her heart slammed into her ribs as she looked for some kind of weapon.
Without a doubt, she knew that someone had been in her apartment. She rushed to the door and checked the locks. Everything was in place. Had they come before she’d gotten home after lunch? Or while she was sleeping?
It was unnerving to know that someone had been in her home. And they could still be here.
She walked to the kitchen and grabbed a knife before she checked every corner of her flat, making sure that the windows were locked, as well. Thankfully, there was no one there, but that didn’t calm her in the least. Someone had been in her home.
Her gaze went back to her computer. What did THE SAINTS mean?
Why had whoever it was typed it into that box?
She set down the knife and poured herself a shot of vodka to help calm her nerves.
Then she brought her chair back to the desk and sat.
Her fingers hovered over the keyboard. There was no denying what she saw there.
It wasn’t something she would’ve typed into the password box.
Which meant that someone else had to have put it there.
Did the person know what she did for a living? If so, why not just contact her and ask her to look into whatever this was?
“Because they couldn’t let anyone know about it,” she whispered aloud.
Eden deleted the words and typed in her password. Once logged on, everything about Maks came up from the night before. If someone had asked her right in that moment, she would have said she was positive she’d seen him earlier. Maybe she was wrong.
Perhaps she wasn’t.
Was it a coincidence that she’d been looking into Maks, saw him, and then someone broke into her flat?
Eden had learned a long time ago that there were no such thing as coincidences.
With that in mind, she typed the word Saints into a search engine.
As she expected, everything that came up was about religion or football.
But as an information broker, she knew that you had to look deep into search engine pages, not the first ten.
Not even the first twenty. She was scrolling down the forty-second page when she found Saints capitalized.
Immediately, she clicked on the hyperlink.
Unfortunately, the link no longer worked, so she couldn’t read what was said.
She went back to the search page but there was nothing for her to gain there either.
She kept scrolling through pages. On the seventy-ninth page, she found The Saints, just as it had been written in her password box, albeit not in all capitals.
Her hands shook as she clicked the link.
This time, the article came up, but no sooner had it filled her screen than it went blank.
Now completely unsettled, Eden stared at the computer screen, trying to think of a way to find out about the Saints without alerting anyone.
The first thing she had to do was think about throwing someone off her trail.
If those words were being tracked by a government or security agency, then she had to make them think it was just some kind of fluke that she’d clicked on both of those results.
She was so focused on thinking about all of it that when the buzzer from the front door sounded, she jumped and froze. Her mind raced, wondering who it could be. She decided to ignore it when there was another buzz. That’s when she remembered that she had ordered food.
Eden went to the mic. “Yes?”
“Your food delivery,” said a young woman.
“I’ll buzz you in, but leave the food at my door, please.”
“Whatever you want, lady,” came the terse reply.
Eden allowed the girl in and stared out the peephole to watch the delivery girl get off the elevator.
She walked to Eden’s door, bent to place the food, then straightened and got back on the lift.
Eden waited for several minutes to see if there was any other movement in the hallway.
When she deemed it safe, she opened the door and grabbed her delivery.
No longer hungry, she put it on the counter and returned to her desk to finish what she had begun.
Eden began searching all kinds of things about the Catholic religion and saints.
She tied that into her trip to Prague and some of the cathedrals there.
For the next two hours, she did everything she could to make sure that it wouldn’t look as if she were searching for something called the Saints.
And she hoped she succeeded. If someone came knocking on her door, she’d have her answer.
Now she was really curious about what the Saints were.
Maybe it was just some elaborate joke, but she didn’t think so.
Someone wanted her to find out about the Saints, but she needed to be careful.
In her time as an IB, she’d never had to watch her back as she felt like she had to now.
But she knew some others who had. That meant she would have to call in a favor.
Thankfully, the provider of that favor happened to reside in Europe.
Eden sent the text and waited for a reply. It came almost immediately and gave only a location.
“What am I doing?” she asked herself, but she knew the answer.
After purchasing tickets online for the first train out to Budapest the next morning, she began packing.