“Distraught words of a man who lost his son. We haven’t heard anything from him or about him. Last time we checked, he was working on some new scheme in Munich, right, Reed?” Trina asked.
“That’s what our intel told us.”
“You have him being watched?” Wade asked.
“Have your friends close and your enemies closer. He isn’t on a round-the-clock surveillance, but we do have people reporting in.”
“People? What people?” Trina asked.
Reed paused. “Sasha.”
“So she does work with you.”
Reed shook his head. “No. She leaves a message, offers information, albeit brief, about Ruslan, and then disappears for weeks. She’s virtually impossible to trace. The fact that she showed up here at the very moment you stepped out of the hotel . . .” Reed looked at Wade. “Tells me something is brewing.”
Trina wanted to mention the key to the safe deposit box but decided it might be best to tell Lori when they were alone. Her guess was Fedor had his copy of their marriage contract drafted by Alliance. Papers Trina wasn’t quite ready to tell Wade about.
“Do you think she knows who attacked Avery?”
“If she did, my guess is we’d know by now. Avery wasn’t her charge, you are.”
Trina felt her hands start to shake. “Are you telling me I’ve had a shadow all this time and didn’t know it?”
“Maybe. If not physically, virtually,” Reed explained.
“What does that mean? Virtually?” Wade asked.
“There are cameras everywhere. City streets, department stores, hotels, airports. All she would need is a tracker on you and the hacking skills of a second-year computer nerd at Caltech, and boom.”
“That’s scary,” Wade said. His hand covered Trina’s.
“What’s scary isn’t her tracking you, it’s Ruslan tracking you.”
Trina shivered. “How can they? It isn’t like someone put a microchip under my skin like a dog.”
Lori turned to stare at her boyfriend. “Oh, let’s see . . . Reed snuck a pen in the trunk of my car, bugged the wine corks in my condo . . . what else was there?”
Reed growled. “That’s it. Pens and corks.”
“You tracked your girlfriend. Isn’t that stalkerish of you?” Wade said with amusement.
“I wanted to keep her safe. Anyway, this isn’t about me, this is about you.” Reed changed the subject and looked at Trina.
“Bugging my houses or a single car would prove useless. I’m not at any one for any length of time. Bugging all of them doesn’t seem possible.”
“We have a trace on your phone. We talked about this last year,” Reed reminded her.
“I forgot about that. I replaced my phone when we were in the Bahamas.”
“It’s attached to one of your apps. Finding friends, only it’s encrypted. It’s entirely possible that someone hacked into that, or placed their own.”
Wade’s hand squeezed Trina’s arm. “Hey, remember I told you the guy at the phone store in the Bahamas said there was something glitching in your phone in a different language, suggested you check it out?”
“I completely forgot about that.”
Reed put his hand out, palm up.
Trina stood and crossed to the table holding her purse. She removed her cell phone and handed it over.
“If someone is hacking my phone, why was Avery the one that was attacked?”
“We’re working on that.” Reed stood, pulled Lori to her feet. “So we’re clear . . . no more drugstore runs unless you’re together. If you need to leave for any reason, call me. I’m right down the hall.” They reached the door. Reed turned. “What was so important, anyway?” he asked.
Wade shifted his eyes to Trina.
She tried to hold back a smile as she studied the floor.
Lori started to laugh.
“Stop,” Trina said under her breath to her friend.
“You do look awfully relaxed, all things considered,” Lori teased.
Trina shoved her arm.
Lori stopped giggling. “Oh, by the way, the nurse said they were going to get Avery out of the ICU in the morning and to a monitored room elsewhere.”
Trina glanced at the clock in the room. “I need to get back over there. It’s been over six hours.”
“She’s slept most of the day.”
“Still.”
Lori gave her a hug. “Don’t stay all night. You need your rest, too.”
“I won’t. I want to be there when the police show up to question her, and then I need to track down Fedor’s things she placed in the auction houses. Any chance your team has a trace on Avery’s phone? That would make it easier.” Avery still didn’t have any memory of what happened since she left the house in the Hamptons. It was like she’d blocked the whole thing out.
“No. You, Lori . . . Shannon. Avery seemed the least likely to find this kind of trouble.” Reed shook his head as if he were kicking himself. “I won’t make that mistake twice.”
Lori placed a hand on his arm. “We’ll walk over with you tomorrow. I don’t want you talking with the police without me there.”
She kissed the side of Trina’s cheek before they walked out of the room.
Trina leaned against the door, rested her head, and closed her eyes.
“Hey?” Wade brought both of his hands to her shoulders and gently squeezed.
She opened her eyes to stare at him. This was all such a mess. “Are you sure you want anything to do with all this? People around me get hurt.”
“I’m a little bigger to take down than Avery,” he pointed out.
She tried to smile but couldn’t look him in the eye. She didn’t want him to walk away but wouldn’t blame him if he did.
Wade lifted her chin with his finger. “Hey. You didn’t do this.”
No, but she was responsible.
“People murder for the amount of money at stake. I never wanted any of this. Fedor and I were practical in our marriage . . . we had a prenuptial agreement that didn’t amount to anything compared to what Alice left me. I haven’t spent Alice’s money, any of it. I use what Fedor and I agreed on, and that’s it. If I could give it all back and make this go away, I would. Now Avery is in the hospital, you’re stuck here with me, my friends need to be traced like stray animals . . . even my parents have a security system in their house now. The same house our neighbors would walk right into without knocking to bring a batch of cookies.”
“Life only gives you what you can handle, and you’re one tough woman, even with all the feels going on inside your head.”
She let him pull her into his arms. “I’m selfishly glad you’re here,” she told him.
“Me too.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Wade entered the ICU with Trina for the first time. He’d stayed in the lobby during their previous visits, but since he was Trina’s personal magnet, he wasn’t letting her out of his sight.
Several of the staff did a double take when he walked in, and a few began to whisper to each other. He smiled and followed Trina.
Outside the door of Avery’s room, Rick filled an uncomfortable chair, with a book in his hand.
“Oh, good,” Rick said as he shook Wade’s hand. “How long do you plan on staying?”
Trina walked into the room, leaving Wade behind. “As long as we need to.”
“I could use half an hour. Jeb said he’d be back by ten for the night shift.”
Wade looked around the busy unit. “They’re okay with this?”
Rick nodded. “They’re used to it. As long as you don’t get in the way.”
“They were strict the first night here. Ten-minute visits at the top of the hour.”
“Avery’s stable now, and we pulled several strings.” Rick stretched. “I’ll be back in thirty minutes.”
Wade took a deep breath, walked into Avery’s room, and forgot his smile.
“Sweet Jesus,” he said under his breath.
Trina had warned him, but he didn’t imagine the blonde pit bull could ever look this bad. The bandages on her face were pristine white, while her skin sported every color of the rainbow.
“At least pretend it’s not that bad,” Avery said as her one unswollen eye landed on him.
He painted on an instant grin.
Avery rolled that same eye.
“Oh, darlin’. What can we do?”
There was a male nurse in the room, putting something in Avery’s IV.
Her voice was muted due to what looked like something stuck up her swollen nose.
“How about a hamburger?”
Wade was ready to call a personal chef.
“No can do. Surgery is scheduled first thing in the morning,” the nurse told her.
“That means I can eat until midnight,” she argued slowly.
“Jell-O and juice.”
“Killjoy.”
“What surgery?” Trina asked.
“I’m getting a nose job.” Avery tried to smile.
“She started bleeding, which is why her nose is packed. The surgeon wanted to get it taken care of tomorrow.”
“Is she ready for that?”
“No,” Avery argued. “But blood tastes like crap, so bring on the fix. I want this over with so I can get out of here and find the bastard who did this and kick their ass.”
Wade smiled at the fight in her.