Page 73 of Wicked Ambition

A memory came to her, sharp and unexpected. There’d been an edge of sadness in her sister the last few times they’d been together. Nothing overt, and when Io knew Ayla was watching her, she buried it. It seemed soul-deep, but asking about it had gotten Ayla nowhere. Could she home in on it now?

They kept driving, and she kept reaching out. Nothing.

Ayla was about to give up and try something else when she felt butterfly wings brush across her brain. It might be her imagination, but she opened her eyes and glanced around. Oz reached a T intersection and turned left. She knew it was west because they were driving toward the sun.

The butterfly wings faded.

“Turn around. We need to go the other direction,” Ayla said.

“You felt something?” He sounded skeptical.

“We should have gone right, not left.”

Oz made a U-turn, and as they neared the intersection, the sensation returned. It grew stronger and stronger the farther they drove toward the east. The homes here were larger, if not estate size, then upper-upper middle class, and theyards appeared meticulously maintained. Nothing was painted seafoam green or purple. It was all earth tones.

Fear hit her—Io’s fear—but it was muted. Her twin was at least partially drugged. Ayla was certain of this.

It faded again. “Turn around.” Her voice was thick, choked. “We went too far.”

Without comment, Oz did as she instructed.

“Stop.”

The house was a two-story adobe and painted a taupe-brown shade. The roof tiles were a reddish color and natural stone made up part of the façade. It was built deeply into the yard, with a long driveway and an equally long walkway leading to the front door. That, too, appeared to be natural stone. If she could see the back of the house, she knew there’d be lattice over the bedroom windows.

At least one bedroom window.

Keeping her hand below the dashboard, Ayla pointed. “That’s where Io is. In there.”

For a few moments, Oz studied the house and then he pulled away from the curb, driving away.

“Wait! Where are we going? We can’t leave my sister behind.”

“What are we going to do? Knock on the door and say, hey, can we have a look around? We want to see if you’re holding a blonde woman prisoner? Even if I wasn’t dressed like a mercenary, they’d call the authorities.”

Ayla frowned. Oz had a point. “You might look like a mercenary, but I could go to the door alone and?—”

“Not a chance in hell.” It sounded as if Oz had gritted his teeth as he said that. “Besides, all we have is your sense that she’s there. We have no evidence.”

“Then why did we drive around this subdivision if you weren’t going to believe me when I felt my twin?”

Oz stayed quiet.

An instant later, Ayla sucked in a sharp breath. “You didn’t think I’d pick up anything. In fact, you were counting on it, weren’t you?”

“Ayla—”

She gasped again as realization dawned on her. The way they’d wasted a day on her disguise when today they’d been done in minutes. Oz’s dismissal of the trip to San Isidro as not worth the time when she first arrived. The early stop each afternoon on the pretense that it would be dark soon when they could have continued searching for another hour, easily, before the sun went down. And today. Playing hot or cold in some new subdivision when he was more than skeptical about her connection to her sister.

“This whole so-called search, including the drive to San Isidro, was all about keeping me out of trouble, wasn’t it?”

Something crossed his face, there and gone in an instant, but it was long enough for Ayla to feel her heart break. She’d trusted Oz to help her find her twin.

She’d trusted him.

Chapter 29

Cal Baggnell believed he would find Io quickly. After all, he knew her and had ideas about the places she would choose to hide from Petrova or anyone else who was after her.

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