Page 38 of Defenseless
“Were you hurt? Was anyone hurt?”
He didn’t want to talk about any more violence. Not after everything she’d been through, everything she’d shared that night. But he couldn’tnotanswer. Not when she was looking at him, her expression filled with concern. “A shot was fired,” he answered. “It hit the agent riding in the front passenger seat in the arm, but he was okay. It was…a weird experience,” he continued. “It seems like I should have figured out what was going on, but I didn’t. It seemed to me like we’d been in a car accident or something.”
“Only it wasn’t an accident of any sort,” she said.
He shook his head. “A few days after that morning, my grandparents sat me down and explained everything. They were careful to keep it age-appropriate, of course. And it helped that by then, the four men responsible had already been caught. Knowing they weren’t still out there made it all a little less scary. Even so, learning that someone had come after me, and hurt the people who looked after me, was…it was a little bit of a shock. Despite everything I’d already gone through with the death of my parents, I grew up a lot that day.” More than any kid should, but it was what it was.
Sabina’s eyes searched his. “What about the second? That wasn’t you, too, was it?”
He shook his head. “That was Cody. Right here in Mystery Lake actually. It was a different group of people behind that attempt. But between the two perpetrators, they targeted the oldest and the youngest of the grandkids. Or at least the youngest who was alive at the time. The twins came along a few years after my grandparents left DC.”
“What happened?” she pressed. Standing in the tunnel while his cousin and Teague dealt with the three intruders on his property probably wasn’t the right time for this conversation. The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on him, though. Hours earlier, Sabina had been making the same kind of decision—when would be the right time and place to talk to him, to tell him her secrets? She’d made a decision that hadn’t been good for either of them. He wasn’t keen on going into this part of his family’s history, but he wasn’t going to make the same mistake. Not when they were already on shaky ground.
“It was less organized,” he said. “All Cody remembers is walking into the woods to help find some guy’s puppy. Again, Secret Service did their job as efficiently as they do, and he wasn’t harmed. The men involved were in custody within a week.” He paused and noticed that the cool air of the tunnel had started seeping through his shirt. “Needless to say,” he continued, with a wry smile, “the family started taking security a little more seriously.”
“Including building safe rooms?”
He smiled. “And escape tunnels. I’m not the only one who has one. The cousins who live in town don’t. But those of us who live out, who have any property, do.”
She seemed to consider this then nodded. “Got it. Okay, so what next?”
Grateful for the change of subject, he checked his phone then turned and continued down the corridor as he answered. “Next, we get to Jack’s. Then we use his pickup to drive to HICC. I do want to hear what happened after Nate was killed. But if you want to wait until we’re somewhere less, well, less on the run, I understand. I just want you to know that I do want to hear the rest of your story if you’re willing to share it with me.”
A few minutes passed before she responded. “I do want to tell you, but before that, I have a question.”
They paused at a sturdy metal door and Chad put his left palm on a reader as he leaned forward for a retina scan. “Ask away,” he said as the massive door swung open silently.
“I’m working on the assumption that it’s Jacobs’s men coming after me. Probably because he is planning to make a bid for president and wants to clean up any loose ends. If that’s the case, then it means they tracked me to you, which also means they know about HICC. Do we need to worry about my team? I assume the other operatives can take care of one another. But Ava, Leo, and Collin aren’t exactly set up to defend themselves if someone comes after them in any way other than electronically.”
“On it already. Ethan let me know that Ava stayed at HICC after you left to come see me. She’ll be bunking there tonight. As for Leo and Collin, Ryan called in some favors and has a couple of colleagues watching their places. They live in town, so are harder to sneak up on, which works to our advantage. We’ll update them tomorrow when they come in.”
Behind him, she let out a long exhale. “Thank you. For right or for wrong, one of my reasons for keeping my past a secret was to protect the people around me. I don’t want anyone else to get hurt because of me.”
Chad stopped and turned. “Let’s get one thing straight. You are not responsible for this. Kevin Jacobs is. I understand that might be hard to accept, but all you’ve done is what you’ve needed to do to survive. Kevin Jacobs, and whoever is behind him, is responsible.”
“Intellectually, I know that,” she said with a huff. “Emotionally, it isn’t so easy to set aside the fear and anxiety. The conflict between the two isn’t something I’m going to resolve tonight, though, so which do you want to hear first? The rest of the Nate story or the reason why I ended up on the West Coast with you and Colton?”
One of his eyebrows winged up and his lips quirked. Rather than comment on her confession, though, he spun around and continued down the tunnel. “Tell me about Nate.”
CHAPTERFIFTEEN
The groundthey walked on was dirt but compact enough that Sabina wasn’t worried about watching her step. She did notice they were walking down a gentle slope, though, and wondered how deep they were. She’d never been claustrophobic before, but she’d also never been under this much earth. She shivered at the thought of it all coming down on the two of them. Wrapping her arms around her middle, she hugged the fleece against her body as they walked.
“I managed to get Nate out of the apartment,” she said. “But I wasn’t strong enough to get him any farther. After a while, I blacked out from the smoke. There were two other apartments on our floor. But one was unoccupied, and the couple who lived in the other were at work. There was no one to help, or even see us.”
The path dipped again, and Chad gestured to the ground. “Careful. We got most of this cleared out, but a few spots were harder than others.” As he spoke, he pointed out a handful of rocks jutting up from the ground. She nodded and stepped around one as they continued.
“The next thing I knew, I woke up in the hospital with a few burns, a concussion, and some smoke damage to my lungs,” she said. “At the time, the authorities weren’t sure if I was the one who’d shot Nate, so they had me under police guard. I was grateful for it even if it wasn’t for the reason they thought.”
“How long did it take for them to clear you?” Chad asked.
“Only a couple of days. When they interviewed me, I told them what I saw and about the man in the apartment. Both CCTV footage and another resident confirmed that such a man existed. The cameras didn’t get an image of his face, but his clothes matched the description I gave them.” They rounded a gentle bend, and she drew to a halt as the ground all but dropped away ahead of them.
Chad cast a look over his shoulder at her but kept going. “It’s not much farther. About five minutes down, then another five up. Then we’ll be to Jack’s.”
The lights illuminated the path, but they were dim enough that within twenty feet, the tunnel receded into darkness. Still, Chad was carrying on, so she hurried after him and continued her narrative.
“The day after they cleared me, Gina showed up. She breezed in like she owned the place, claimed I was her niece, and swept me away. All under an assumed name, of course. Three days later, at her townhouse in DC, Sabina O’Malley was born. That was fourteen years ago.”
