Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 64147 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 321(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 214(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64147 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 321(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 214(@300wpm)
“Holy shit.” A slight touch and, like magic, the entire section of the wall lifts out. I have to catch it before it slides between the wall and the back of the stove. “Dallas!” I bark, placing the tile and the sheet rock it was attached to on the stove before plucking a small notebook from inside the hollow space behind it.
“Good work.” He steps up beside me, peering at the small, neat handwriting. I would know it anywhere. She’s so precise.
Though it doesn’t make a damn bit of sense to me. “What is this?” I murmur, flipping through the pages. It’s gibberish, words strung together at random.
“Give it here, young buck.” Dallas plucks the notebook from my grip before I have the chance to comply. “It’s code. CIA code.”
“And you can read it?”
“I absolutely can.” He looks as grim as he sounds. “These are coordinates.”
“Locations?”
“It would appear that way.”
And she was hiding it. Using code to keep outsiders like me from being able to find out where she might be headed. A list of safe houses? It’s possible, but whose? And why would she know about them?
A glance at Dallas tells me he’s as perplexed as I am—and as concerned. “This might sound like it’s coming from the wrong place,” he murmurs, tapping the vinyl-covered book against his open palm while staring out the window at a gray, drizzly day. “But I think this should stay between the two of us.”
He pauses for a beat, then looks my way over his shoulder. “Do you read me?”
I do, and I’m surprised we were thinking along the same lines. Mason does not need to know about this until we understand what we’re looking at. I don’t know yet whether we would be protecting him or protecting Natalie. I only know if he were to go chasing after her as conflicted and nearly frantic as he is, it could ruin everything.
Not to mention the fact that his mother could be behind all of it and could be expecting him to fall so easily for the bait she left. There’s just no way of knowing.
“I read you,” I tell him, and though we’ve been on the same team from the beginning, now it feels real.
And if we fuck this up, it’s both of our necks on the chopping block.
2
DALLAS
“Where are we going first?” Griffin questions, jogging beside me as I head for the parking garage on the basement level. The closest set of coordinates will take an hour’s drive—while I doubt Natalie would only flee that far. There could be a clue pointing us toward her current location. At the very least, I’d like to know what these locations represent.
His question steers me away from my train of thought. “We? Got a rat in your pocket?”
“I know you’re up in age, but I don’t think you rate dad jokes until you’re an actual dad.”
“How do you know I don’t have a kid?” I raise an eyebrow.
“Wait, do you?” Griffin scratches his head.
“No. Not that I know of.”
“Then my statement remains.” Griffin shrugs when we reach the garage, angling his body in front of the metal door and preventing me from exiting the stairwell. “Now, tell me where we are going first.”
“You can go wherever you want to, but I’m going by myself.” I can’t let Griffin know that I have a soft spot for Natalie any more than I can explain why it matters so much that I do this on my own.
“And how are you going to explain it to Mason?”
That is not such an easy question to answer, and it brings me up short. Mason isn’t the kind of guy who wants to be coddled. I don’t know many men who do.
It isn’t coddling him to keep this information to ourselves for now. He’s already too intimately involved in this mission. There are too many conflicting emotions, all of which would only serve to muddy the waters and make the job infinitely more challenging. We can’t afford it.
That doesn’t mean I want to lie to his face. He’s already been through so much, going back well before this most recent situation. There he was all this time, believing both of his parents died in that wreck. Now he knows it was only his father who lost his life—and rather than be happy his mother is still alive, he discovered how twisted and determined she’s become to destroy him. Why? That’s anybody’s guess.
“Well?”
Standing before me, Griffin folds his arms, wearing a smirk. The arrogant little prick. He was shitting his diapers while I was on the other side of the world,
making it possible for him and his family to sleep soundly at night.
“I’ll tell him I have a lead, and that’s it. He doesn’t need to know anything else yet.” I push him aside and open the door to the garage, growling but unsurprised when he follows.