“I know. But I think she might be confused.”
He hesitated a moment. Then he nodded. “If you think that’s for the best.”
“I do.”
He stepped out of the door and turned to secure it. Then he led the way down the steps. I hesitated. I didn’t know why. When I followed, she was already confronting him.
“Hiding behind a rent-a-cop, Katie?”
She had a gun, and it was pointed at Joe’s chest.
“What are doing?” I cried, my initial fear immediately rushing over me, paralyzing me. I couldn’t run, and I couldn’t do anything to help Joe. All I could do was stand there.
“He a friend of yours, Katie?” she asked, her tone filled with more hatred than I’d ever heard. “All these years I’ve searched for a way to hurt you. Maybe this will be the first volley in the war.”
She fired before I even realized what it was she meant to do. I screamed, suddenly able to move, twisting so quickly that I tripped over my feet. I fell hard and the next thing I knew…
…I was in the hospital, my memory gone.
“I know who it is,” I whispered. “Oh, my God! I know who it is. And I know why she’s here.”
Donovan pushed me back again, turning and twisting me around as he urged me to move deeper into the woods.
“She’s going to blow the house.”
“No, no, no!” I moaned. “What are we going to do?”
Donovan didn’t answer. He just kept pushing me deeper and deeper into the woods.
“He died because of me.”
“Katie…”
“She wanted to hurt me the same way I hurt her. She wanted to take away someone I cared about because I did that to her. But there was no one else, no one but Joe…”
“We have to put as much space between her and us as we can,” Donovan said, pushing me behind a tree. He stared down at me. “I need you to keep it together right now, okay?”
I nodded.
“She probably knows we’re not in the house. She’ll be watching for us to come out of the woods, and when we don’t, she might come looking.”
“What do we do then?”
He studied my face for a long second. “We separate.”
“No, Donovan, I can’t—”
“Listen to me, Kate. It’s the best chance we have.”
I took a deep, steadying breath. “And then?”
“I’ll draw her away from you. You go back to the house, get in the car, and drive as far and as fast as you can. I’ll come find you.”
“But you won’t know where I’ll be.”
“I’ll find you.”
I nodded, reaching up to touch his face. “Promise me, Donovan.”
I felt his muscles tighten under my hand. I knew how seriously he took promises. He wouldn’t make one without the confidence that he’d be able to fulfill it. If he didn’t promise this to me now, there was no way I was going to leave him alone here.
He moved closer to me and pressed his lips to mine.
“I promise,” he whispered.
Then he grabbed my hand and dragged me deeper into the woods.
Chapter 27
Donovan
The moment she said she knew who it was, I realized I’d known all along.
Amanda Graham.
It was so obvious, right there in front of my face. Her father owned one of the largest, privately owned conglomerates in the country. Maybe even in the world. And his company handled everything from real estate to medical research to weapons manufacturing. Weapons. Explosives.
And Amanda ran his tech firm.
I should have known. It was so obvious, but I didn’t want to see it. Amanda was as much a part of our little threesome as me, as Kate. As Joshua.
And that’s what this was about. Why she’d waited ten years, I wasn’t sure. But this was revenge for Joshua.
I pulled Kate through the woods, trying to step as lightly as possible so we weren’t leaving too big of a trail. But Kate felt like deadweight on the end of my arm. I was so afraid she was making too much noise, that Amanda could hear us a mile away. When she came after us…I wasn’t sure I could get Kate somewhere safe before it came down to a one-on-one situation.
Why hadn’t I grabbed my sidearm when I left the house?
Not that I could have predicted that this would go down today. We’d spent, what, five quiet days here. You tend to get complacent after a while.
I was trying to remember the layout of Ash’s property here. I knew he owned the woods far back behind the house. Acres upon acres. But I couldn’t remember what was on either side of us.
There had to be a place to hide Kate.
My damn phone buzzed in my pocket. I ignored it. A little busy just now. But it buzzed again and again. More than one call. They must have figured something out back at the compound.