Nadia dropped into the armchair where she would be spending the night. The weight of the day pushed her down into a slump, still clutching the blanket.
“You okay?”
She didn’t open her eyes. “I should be asking you that. This morning we woke up in our home town, and yes it’s true all was not well. Tommy was bent on taking over the town, and—” Her voice broke.
“What is it?”
“I just remembered about Hal.” Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes. “He was in your house when it collapsed.”
Bolton’s face softened. “He was killed?”
She nodded.
“I’m sorry, Nadia. I know you were close.”
The crusty old biker had been a friend. He’d run Sanctuary’s only radio station, and she and Andra, her best friend, had helped him out when he had plans with his ‘lady friend.’ Whoever she was, the woman was likely grieving hard right now.
“I hope everyone else is okay.” She shut her eyes and prayed for her friends—more like family, really.
Bolton’s voice was heavy with sleep. “I’m sure they’re fine. Probably better than we are, except for Remy.”
Nadia pursed her lips and blew out a breath. She heard the concern in his voice that bled through only because he was tired. Would it always be that way, wondering what his feelings were behind the words he said?
Bolton had lied to the sheriff, used a fake name, and drawn her into a ruse that covered the things they couldn’t tell anyone. The nondisclosure agreement they’d both signed prevented them from telling anyone who they were, why they were in witness protection, or anything about the town of Sanctuary. But he had used that nondisclosure agreement like armor to protect himself. Just like he used the things he said like armor to cover his true feelings.
Nadia was going to have to work hard if she was going to be able to draw him out. The man had more walls up than Andra, and she’d been a government assassin. With Andra, Nadia had simply loved the woman until she caved and admitted she appreciated it. Was that even going to work with Bolton?
Her eyes drifted shut. Was that… They snapped open. A phone, on the bedside table. She could call… Someone. After she looked up their number.
Her brother. The director of the Marshals—Grant Mason. Or his brother, John Mason, who was the sheriff of Sanctuary. The three men all had phones, and she could tell them where she and Bolton were! She could ask for help to get Bolton to the doctor who was supposed to operate on him!
For the first time since she’d realized Tommy was in the helicopter with them, posing as the pilot, she had hope. Prayer was all she could do for Remy, whom Tommy had taken with him when he’d run off. But now Nadia had a way to help Bolton. A way to get them both out of this.
With a whispered prayer of thanks on her lips, Nadia fell asleep.
Hours later her shoulder was jostled. Nadia swatted away the annoyance.
“Wake up, Nadia.”
“Huh?” She opened her eyes. The clock by the bed said 2:13. “Do you need help?” Maybe he needed to get to the restroom.
He was already in his wheelchair. “Get up. We’re leaving.”
She couldn’t see his face in the dark. “Why? What’s going on?”
“We aren’t staying here, Nadia. We have to go.”
“But—” The phone.
He covered her mouth with his hand. “No more talking. Let’s go.”
**
Four days later
Shadrach swept out the sheriff’s office onto the sidewalk. Nothing but a hick town sheriff with no answers as to where Nadia was. This town was a flea on the dog’s back of all the places he’d been in the world. Idaho sucked, except for the fact Remy’s favorite author—Heather Woodhaven—lived here. Who wanted to live in a place with one area code for the whole state? It was backward. And there were cows everywhere. Wasn’t it supposed to be potatoes?
The door clicked shut behind him, and Shadrach lifted his head. Glanced both ways. Anyone who looked at Shadrach for any time whatsoever would realize fast that he was a marine. The sheriff hadn’t seen anything but a threat. He’d dismissed Shadrach’s search and only asked him questions. Wanted to know why Shadrach was so interested in those two people.
“Long gone?”
Shadrach nodded. “We’re not the only ones to come looking for them, either.”
Ben leaned against the car, his arms folded. “The fact that they’re gone means they’re safe.” His voice was measured. Shadrach had seen him in the midst of one of the most stressful times of Shadrach’s life, and he’d still been total ice. The man was a mystery that itched at Shadrach to solve.
Ben would never broadcast his feelings the way Shadrach did, but whatever. So he wasn’t as good as Ben. That was painfully obvious. Which was the reason why Ben was his boss, and Shadrach had been working for him for about forty-four hours. Tommy was dead. Remy was safe now. All that was left was to find Nadia Marie.
“How did I know,” Shadrach said, “that you were going to say that? We have nothing. No leads. No answers. Nada.”
Shadrach rubbed his face. The calluses on his hands scratched against the stubble. Even his hair was getting long. He needed a cut and shave, or this spiral of disappearing into someone who was not a soldier anymore wasn’t going to quit. It was like the marine in him had started to evaporate.
Then there was Remy, in the hospital and telling everyone she didn’t want to see him.
His spotter was dead, his career was over. His twin was gone. He couldn’t help Remy after what Tommy did to her. Life had dealt him this hand, and Shadrach had to play it out.
“Remy will heal.”
Shadrach studied the small town stores across the street. He didn’t want to know how Ben knew what he was thinking. Maybe the man read minds. It would explain a lot. Super-spy with hero powers. That made Shadrach—the sidekick. That couldn’t have been the plan.
He shook his head. “Remy didn’t want me to touch her.” He swallowed. “But she let you do it.”
“And if you got over yourself and actually thought about it for a second you would realize why that was.”
Shadrach whipped around. “What did you just say?”
“Exactly.” Ben looked ready to laugh. “What. I. Am. Talking about.”
“You think I need to get over myself?”
“I think you’re too caught up in your hurt feelings to realize the reason why Remy let me help her on that plane.” Ben paused. “You know what Tommy did to her.”
The blood. Her clothes. It had been obvious what the rogue SEAL had done.
“That’s the reason she didn’t want you.”
“I was trying to help her!”
Ben shook his head. “She wanted someone she knew but didn’t care about. Not the one person she didn’t want to see her like that. She wants you to see her as strong. Not broken.”
Shadrach shook his head. Why was Ben so certain about something that made absolutely no sense whatsoever? Remy didn’t want to see him, and Nadia Marie was gone. He had to figure out his stuff later and instead concentrate on what was within his power to fix.
“So where are we at?” Shadrach ran his hands through his hair. At this point, he would have begged for coffee. But since he’d lived through much worse than a need for caffeine, he kept his mouth shut. “The sheriff didn’t tell us anything except that we weren’t the first people to ask about Bolton and Nadia Marie, and the helicopter wreckage hasn’t even been cleared away yet.”
“So they’re watching the necklace. Whoever they are,” Ben said. “And it pinged on their radar, so they came looking.”
“Before we even got here. Now we have no idea who they were or who sent them. Only that they showed up and asked questions.”
“It’s a lead.”
Shadrach wanted to punch someone. He should have brought Dauntless with him, but the dog didn’t like to fly if he could avoid it. “It makes more sense that Bolton and Nadia Marie would have stayed h
ere and waited for help. Not that they’d take off in the middle of the night and steal the pastor’s car.” Shadrach thought for a second. “Bolton must have known that activating the necklace so we could find Remy would bring whoever is looking…right to the source of the signal.”
Ben nodded. “Precisely.”
The man was testing him? Shadrach liked tests. “Where’s the necklace now?”
“Remy still has it.”
“And someone is protecting her?”
“Yes. Plus Dauntles is there.”
“So when these people who are asking about Bolton and Nadia Marie come to Remy, wanting to know where she got the necklace from so they can find them, what’s going to happen?”
Ben smiled. “That’s why you need to get over yourself and convince her to keep you around.”
Chapter 3
Six Weeks Later
Shadrach tossed the screwdriver back in the tool box and sighed. Six weeks since the sheriff’s office. Six weeks of working this problem and they still had nothing, just a name they’d dug up.
Dante Alvarez.
A name and a broken back door. It’d been jimmied open so the assailant could gain entry to Remy’s house in the middle of the night. Thankfully Shadrach had been on the couch with his German shepherd, Dauntless, two feet away from him on his dog bed. Neither man nor dog had slept in such cushy accommodations in a long time, and not at all in the years they’d been Marine Force Recon. But those days were over, and Dauntless wasn’t the only one moping.
Remy stepped into the room, but didn’t say anything. He didn’t turn around. They’d gotten her back from Tommy, but two days in the hospital and weeks at home and she still wouldn’t even look him in the eye.
Shadrach wondered if they’d ever get back what had been between them before—even if it had been little more than the promise of what could be. Their lives were so different. Remy had multiple degrees, a genius level IQ, and her pick of jobs, many of which were independent government contracts. Yet she chose to work for Ben.
Which made them co-workers.
Shadrach stood. “Door’s fixed.”
“Thank you.” Dauntless’ tags jingled. She was petting him. Had she just thanked the dog?
Sure, Dauntless was the one who had bitten the assailant who’d broken into her house before Shadrach detained him. Some no-name thug, low level enough whoever sent him could keep their hands clean. Ben had come and picked the man up to get some answers through whatever interrogation method Ben used—which Shadrach didn’t want to know about. Been there, done that.
Now they had the boss’s name. Except that Dante was in federal prison, with a Grand Canyon size grudge against Bolton Farrera.
“Thank you, as well.”
He glanced at her. Remy’s big round eyes were like gray-blue marbles. They held him captive until she blinked, and for a moment he was released before she ensnared him once again. Shadrach had never met a woman like her, a woman he couldn’t seem to shake off no matter how pointless it felt to hang around.
Her head tipped to the side. “Are you mad at Ben?”
Shadrach looked away from her eyes and took in all of her. She’d ditched the nerd get-up she’d worn in Sanctuary that had fit her hacker persona. Now she was back in the dress pants and knit sweaters she’d worn when he met her. A business woman with a medical degree, who spent her days researching infectious diseases. Until that road had led her to witness protection. The outside was different, but Remy was still that same woman. The one who’d caught his attention when the military had brought them into the same briefing room in Iraq.
Shadrach, on the other hand, wore the same pair of jeans he’d had for two years. They were just about broken in. His sneakers had seen better days, and the Henley was more about staying warm in spring than fashion. They were polar opposites. Remy was more like Shadrach’s sister, his twin. Nadia Marie had more style than anyone he’d ever met—she’d probably stolen his share in the womb.
“You are.” She sighed. “You’re mad at Ben. It was my idea to keep the necklace.”
“I know that.” When she flinched at his voice, Shadrach pulled out a chair and sat to make himself look smaller. “I know, Rem. That’s why I’m here. The necklace was going to draw out whoever is after Bolton, and thanks to this break-in, we’re a step closer to finding Bolton and Nadia.”
Dante. The man Bolton had testified against, a DEA agent now in federal prison. Something told Shadrach that Ben had already known the answer to that even before the tech guys told them. What Shadrach wanted to know was whether the man who had broken into Remy’s house had any information on where Nadia Marie and Bolton were, or if this Dante and his men were as much in the dark as they were. Shadrach would know if something happened to his twin, but he still wanted to see she was okay with his own eyes.
He gave Remy a small smile. “You could have given the necklace to Ben. Been rid of it. Keeping the necklace was a bold move. Brave.”
Remy touched her red hair with a shaky hand and swiped it back from her face. It hung in loose curls that fell over her shoulders. “I needed to do something strong, even if I didn’t feel that way.” She returned his smile. “Thank you for being here. I don’t think I could have done it if you weren’t.”
Shadrach got up slowly. “Anytime, Remy. Every time.” He stepped closer to her. The more he did it, the more she would get used to him being close and feeling comfort instead of the violation Tommy inflicted on her.
With Remy was where he wanted to be. Where he’d always wanted to be.
He started to move closer.
Her smile shook. “I should get some work done before the whole day is wasted.” Remy was out of the room before Dauntless could even raise his head from the kitchen floor.
Shadrach gave him the command to guard, and headed out the back door. He needed a run.
**
Downtown Seattle, WA
“Darling! You, my dear, are a true artiste!”
Nadia blinked. The customer stared at her in the mirror, and her boss, Melanie Schaffer—of the Boston Schaffers—grabbed her face. She kissed Nadia on both cheeks and tugged on the ends of her chin-length hair. “I knew I did right, hiring you.”
Nadia returned the woman’s bleached smile. An artist? Melanie didn’t know how right she was, even with that painting hanging on the wall in the foyer. It was one of Nadia’s favorites of all the work she’d done.
The customer ripped off the cape and stood, like a ballerina coming out of a bow. “You said she was good, Melanie. You were right.”
“Of course I am!”
The two wandered off to the front counter. Nadia cleared away her scissors, the comb she’d used, and unplugged the curling wand. Familiar smells of hair products and dye saturated the air. This was one of the few moments of peace she had through the day before she went back to the tiny ground floor apartment that was more depressing than the man she shared it with.
Nadia grabbed the broom and started to sweep up the hair. She didn’t understand him.
“You look like a fly could knock you over.”
She smiled but didn’t look up. Between work, extra shifts, and helping Bolton at home, exhaustion had set in about a month before. Makeup helped, but it didn’t fully disguise the dark circles and lines she now had on her face.
Nate, who stood waiting for her to rise to his bait, had a station beside hers. His specialty being the charming of little old ladies who left fat tips. The salon was high end, catering to the wives of bankers, football players, and local millionaires. Nadia was beyond grateful Melanie had given her a shot, even when Nadia had asked for some money up front to buy a couple of outfits for her first week of work.
“How does lunch at Pasquale’s sound?”
Like heaven. But Nadia couldn’t afford heaven. Not when Bolton had found a surgeon to perform the procedure—an experimental and risky surgery—that would hopefully allow him to have full mobility for the rest of his life. They almos
t had enough money to pay for it.
As soon as the procedure was done, Bolton wouldn’t need her anymore. Then Nadia would find a way home.
Six weeks of hiding from the man who wanted Bolton dead. They’d either done an excellent job of staying out of sight, or the man who hated him just wasn’t coming.
It was time for Nadia to face the fact Bolton wasn’t going to let her in, and there was no way to draw him out. She wanted to know what his plans were for after the surgery, but the man wouldn’t even share where he was getting the cash he came home with every day. He was saving, like her, but what work he did was a mystery.
“Right. You’re probably having lunch with that boyfriend of yours.” Nate paused. “It’s the wheelchair, isn’t it?”
Nadia held the broom handle in front of her and looked at him.
“Okay, so it’s not. But seriously, why are you with him?” Nate waited again. It was his thing—pause long enough for thoughts to begin to gather and then cut them off. “Does he make you happy?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Girl.” Nate hopped off the chair and sauntered over. Women young and old drooled over the slender man and his baby face. Nadia just rolled her eyes. “It’s always complicated.”
To his credit, he didn’t seem concerned that she didn’t respond to him the way everyone else did.
“It won’t last much longer,” she said. “He’s having surgery. When he’s healthy again, I’m going to go find my life.”
“Girl…”
Nadia grabbed the sandwich she’d packed that morning and went to the break room. A sandwich Bolton had made. Every morning she had to work, there was a fresh sandwich in the fridge for her to take with her. But she didn’t want to talk about it anymore. Even if Nate cared for real, Bolton was too much of a mystery. One she couldn’t figure out.
Sanctuary Breached WITSEC Town Series Book 3 Page 34
