Kate was watching me, her face growing more and more alarmed as she watched the tension build in my shoulders.
“At the safe house,” David quickly explained. “The cameras were hacked and when I sent a team to check it out, there was an explosion as they approached.”
“Anyone injured?”
“No. But the house is demolished.”
“Fuck me!” I whispered under my breath. “What now?”
“Ash wants you on a plane to Austin.”
I nodded even though I knew he couldn’t see me. It seemed like our best bet at the moment. Whoever was after Kate seemed to be a step ahead of us, or at least beside us, since the night the security guard was killed. Moving to another safe house here in Santa Monica would just be inviting another disaster like this.
“What’s going on?” Kate asked, her chin trembling as she spoke.
I moved back to her side and took her hands in mine. “We’re going for a little trip.”
“What kind of trip?”
“Ash has a house in Austin, Texas.”
She started shaking her hands, panic rising to a boiling point in her eyes. “What happened? Is my dad okay?”
“Of course!” I ran my hand over her face and made her look at me with my fingers hooked under her chin. “If there was something wrong with your dad, I would have told you.”
Tears started to spill from the corner of her eyes. “Then what’s going on?”
“Someone hacked into the cameras at the safe house. And then…” I hesitated because I could see she was on the verge of hysterics and I really needed her to stay calm until we were on the plane and thirty thousand feet over the city.
“And then?”
“There was an explosion.”
“What kind of explosion?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know, baby. All I know is what David’s telling me.”
She nodded, taking a deep breath. “Okay.”
“We’re going to a small, private airport outside the city. We should be there in a few minutes.”
“What happens then? How long do we stay in Texas?”
“Until Detective Warren can figure out who’s behind all this and decides it’s safe for you to come back.”
“That could be months.”
I shrugged, dragging my thumb over her bottom lip. “It could be months…all alone. Just you and me and the woods of central Texas.”
She smiled despite the tears. “No cameras?”
“No cameras.”
She curled up against my chest, sniffed a few times, then pulled back to look at me again, the tears gone.
“Okay. I’m okay now.”
“I’m going to protect you, babe. I promise, nothing will happen to you.”
She leaned into me and kissed me gently. “I know.”
I cradled her against my chest and settled back against the seat.
We arrived at the airport a few minutes later. Joss pulled the car right up to the boarding ramp to the plane. She turned and reached her hand through the partition. I squeezed it.
“See you.”
She nodded.
I opened the door and stepped out, reaching back for Kate. We boarded the plane and the steward pulled the ramp up immediately. The plane began to roll toward the runway as Kate and I took seats inside.
“Who does this belong to?”
I reached over and pulled her belt a little tighter. “It’s Ash’s.”
“Ash’s? Where does he get all the money?”
“His father came from a wealthy family.”
“Oh.”
She glanced out the window and grabbed hold of the armrests, her knuckles going white. I slipped out of my seat and moved into the captain’s chair beside her. After I was buckled, I took her hand and pulled it onto my thigh.
“Try to relax. We’ll be in the air before you know it.”
And we’d be hurtling toward the unknown.
What the hell was going on here?
Chapter 21
Kate
There was a car waiting for us when we landed. Donovan drove, the two of us alone just like he promised. It was a bit of a drive, further outside of the city than I imagined. It was a beautiful property in the middle of nowhere, another log-cabin-styled house with huge windows with an amazing view. I walked through the rooms, feeling lost. I was thousands of miles away from home and had no idea what I was doing.
“There’re are clothes in the back bedroom,” Donovan said.
Of course.
“Do you know what’s going on back home?”
I saw him, pacing beside the car, talking to someone on the phone. I assumed it was Ash. It was always Ash.
“Yeah. Someone hacked the cameras at both your house and the safe house. When David recognized it and sent a team to check it out, the safe house exploded.”
“The whole house?”
He came up behind me and slid his arm around my waist. “At least we know it wasn’t your stepmother.”
I twisted so that I could see his face. “You thought Veronica could do this?”
“We had her checked out. Turns out there’re some issues your dad’s going to want to discuss with her, but she didn’t have anything to do with this.”
“What kind of issues?”
“Turns out she’s married to some guy in Arizona.”