Page 62 of Relentless
Kara’s gaze flickered from her sister to Chad, then back again. “Can you spell out for me exactly what you think is happening?”
Chad looked to Sabina, who answered. “We know he returned to DC after the conference in LA. We have a visual of him going through security at LAX. We don’t know for certain what happened after that, but we suspect he dumped his phone in one of his sons’ cars. Both are home for the summer and staying with him rather than their mother. It gave the appearance that he was in the area and moving about.”
“Until the phone battery died and now you have no signal to track,” Kara finished. Sabina nodded. “Fine, I can understand that. But it raises the question of where he is now. Is it possible he hopped on a flight back to California? Or one to Boston or Portland where Shane and Astrid are?”
On the screen, Ava shook her head. “Not under his name, he didn’t. There’s no record of him flying again after he returned to DC.”
“But a private flight?” Kara asked. “If he’s an arms dealer then surely, he’d have the money for that?”
“He would. It’s a little more difficult to track passengers on private flights than commercial ones. But the team is working on it,” Sabina said.
“What about my other teammates?” Kara asked. “Those of us still alive?”
“We’re arranging protective detail for them,” Chad assured her. Her mind was still whirling with the possibility—reality?—of Peter being an arms dealer. But at least she could be certain her colleagues were safe.
“Is it possible he’s the one who caused the explosion on the coach?” Ethan asked.
Ava let out a huff. “Doubtful, but we’re checking. Tia’s team had cameras everywhere, and we’re going through all the footage now. So far, we haven’t seen anyone who didn’t belong there, though.”
“The security around that area is tight,” Tia said. “It would have been challenging for someone to get past it. Not impossible, for someone determined. But difficult.”
“Are we assuming that Peter knows Kara is traveling with Cody?” Ethan asked.
Both Sabina and Chad shook their head. “No,” Sabina answered. “Until we find him, we’re not assuming anything.”
“Should we go somewhere else just in case?” Kara asked Ethan, looking at him over her shoulder. “I don’t want anyone else on the tour to get hurt.”
“No.” It was Cody who spoke, surprising Kara. And if the look on Ethan’s face was anything to go by, Ethan, too.
“I think we should discuss it,” Tia countered. A pang of disappointment traveled through Kara at the thought of leaving the tour. She understood Tia’s caution, though. Keeping Cody safe was herjob. If Kara and Ethan’s presence threatened that, then she was obligated to intervene.
“No,” Cody said again. “Right now, there are too many unknowns. We don’t know what caused the explosion, where Peter is, or if he knows Kara’s whereabouts. Until we know, I still think she’s safest with us.”
Kara was so outside her realm of expertise that she had nothing to add. She held her tongue and listened as the security experts debated the plan. Whatever they decided, she’d go along with it. When the debate, mostly between Tia and Cody, continued, Kara excused herself.
Walking into the kitchen, the groceries on the counter caught her attention. Well, really, it was the three bottles of wine. The fruit was nice, but not what she was looking for.
“I’ll get the wine. Want to cut some fruit?” Sabina asked, coming in behind her.
“Or maybe we can just take the bottle to the porch and drink it straight?” Kara suggested, not entirely kidding. The thought of Peter being the person responsible for Sunil’s, Shelley’s, and Danielle’s deaths still hadn’t fully sunk in. She understood it, intellectually. But emotionally, not so much. Bridging the gap between the man she knew—the man dedicated to creating the best aid agency in the US—and the man she was learning he was, wasn’t easy.
“Ah, fuck it,” she said, grabbing a wine bottle with a screw top. “Let’s plant ourselves in those lounge chairs on the patio and lose track of time for a while.”
Sabina snagged a couple of blankets from a bin beside the door, and they made their way outside. Watching the sun slip below the horizon, with a view of Alcatraz, Angel Island, and the North Bay, wasn’t a bad way to end a rather interesting day.
“I really am sorry for earlier,” Sabina said once they settled in.
Kara took a swig of the wine, then handed the bottle over. “It’s fine, don’t worry about it.”
Sabina took a drink then rested the bottle on her thigh. “When we were younger, I had all these assumptions about what our lives would be like. We’d go to college together, date, find careers, eventually fall in love. I never pictured those things happening without being in each other’s lives. Unfortunately, fate, and Mom’s murderer, had other plans for us, and we ended up being separated for as many years as we’d been together.
“When I saw you falling for Ethan, I saw an opportunity to maybe have a piece of what we missed out on. If you fell in love in a more traditional way, then we’d be able to capture a small part of something we’d lost.” Sabina lifted the wine bottle to her lips, drank, then handed it over. “That wasn’t fair of me, though. I shouldn’t try to recapture something that’s lost. Especially not when we have so much to be grateful for in the present.”
Kara took a sip and watched the boats making their way into the harbor for the night. “I think it’s natural to want to recapture what we lost. When you first told me about Chad, my heart felt tugged in so many directions. I was elated that you’d found someone to love and trust. But devastated at the possibility that I would never know him. That I would never knowyouwith him.
“I get it, Sabina, I do. And I’m not annoyed with you at all. But to your point, I’m glad we managed to catch Mom’s killer and find our way back to each other.” She paused for another taste, then continued. “And honestly, aside from having a colleague involved in arms trafficking and trying to kill me, I—we—have so much to be grateful for. There will be days when I lament everything that we lost during those eighteen years apart. But most days, I hope I’m thankful for the time we have now and the years we have ahead of us.”
“Here, here,” Sabina said, taking the bottle. She grasped the neck like a pirate, took an audible gulp, then laid her head back on the lounger. “What do you think about leaving or staying on the tour?”
