“Where are you taking them?” Zane cocked his head, his brilliant green eyes sharpening as he focused on Amy’s face.
There were pros and cons to the layout of the room. On the plus side, she had a front-row seat to every strategy session or informational briefing and would know the instant they located her kidnapped coworkers.
If they located her fellow scientists . . .
A wave of regret and horror seared her chest at the thought of her friends.
An image pushed into her mind, a memory—a short, wide hall, the smell of fireworks stinging the air . . . a limp body stretched across the gray-and-red linoleum . . . a rumpled, bloodstained peach skirt pushed high on plump thighs . . .
Faith shuddered, hurriedly shoving the memory aside. There was nothing she could do to help her friends. And wallowing in horrific memories served no purpose. It certainly didn’t benefit her coworkers. Or herself.
She had enough problems of her own. She needed to focus and concentrate on what she could do. What she needed to do. And right now she needed to slow her galloping heart rate and find a way to relax.
In the past, baking had provided the serenity her condition required, but being in such close proximity to the men with their loud, often argumentative voices . . . well, that wasn’t particularly calming at all. And she needed that blissful tranquility, needed the relaxation of baking.
Her donor heart had been damaged during harvest, leaving her with a bad case of ventricular tachycardia. Double-blind testing indicated that arrhythmia was often a result of stress. Baking relieved stress—at least for her. Ergo, her baking might hold the tachycardia at bay. For a while, at least. Until she could get her prescriptions filled.
“I haven’t decided where we’re going yet.” Amy turned toward Zane. “I’ll pay cash so I don’t leave a trail.”
Faith’s lips twisted. Well, at least she’d done something right after escaping the lab. She’d known better than to go home. And since the men after her could track her by her credit and debit purchases, she’d headed to the closest ATM and withdrawn her five-hundred-dollar daily limit on her debit card before bolting from the vicinity. Another ATM and a different debit card for another five hundred. She’d hit a third ATM for a cash advance on her credit card, and then another ATM for another cash advance. By the time her cards stopped working, she’d collected twenty-five hundred dollars. Enough to last her several weeks—if she remained frugal.
It was too bad all that money was sitting in the motel room, along with her medications. Assuming the desk clerk or one of the maids hadn’t absconded with her belongings. If she had a dram of Amy’s fortitude, she would have insisted that Commander Mackenzie swing by her motel and collect her meager possessions before hauling her off to the Sierra Nevadas.
Of course, back then she hadn’t been sure she could trust them—she still wasn’t sure she could trust them . . . at least not with everything. Besides, even if she had insisted they swing over to her motel to collect her belongings, those possessions would be ashes along with Wolf’s Sierra Nevada home now anyway.
Zane frowned and ran a palm over his short-cropped hair. “You could head to where my dad took my mom. It’s a secure location, manned by a team of ex-special forces turned survivalists—doomsday preppers. They’re hard-core fringe riders and conspiracy nuts, but you and the boys will be safe there.”
With a curt shake of her head, Amy dropped her arms. “Fringe groups like that don’t take in strangers.”
“They’ll take you if Dad asks them to,” Zane countered. “These guys are good, they know what they’re doing. Hands down, it’s the safest place you’ll find.” He paused, shot Cosky a quick glance. “Mac’s right. This place—hell, any place we settle is a hot spot. I’m sending Beth down there. Cosky’s sending Kait.”
Amy studied Zane’s face, then switched to Cosky. After a moment she raised ember-red eyebrows. “I take it you haven’t told them yet?”
The men’s silence spoke volumes.
Faith smiled wryly. She didn’t know Kait and Beth that well, but she’d spent enough time in the kitchen watching the interaction between the SEALs and their women to know they wouldn’t be happy about this plan. Indeed, the room was about to get extremely loud—assuming they informed the women of their imminent abandonment in the command center and didn’t finagle them off somewhere private and sweet-talk them into the news.