He opened the car door, flashing a wry grin. “In more ways than one. Don’t worry. We’ll get you returned to your body soon.”
In more ways than one.Spoken like his attraction to her was as reluctant as hers was.
While he was out, Samira installed a virtual tunnel and secure browser to his phone that would mask their web activity. Ten minutes later they were back on the road, Samira connecting the computer with the charging equipment. Once it had enough juice, she set up his phone as a hot spot, installed the same tunnel and browser on the laptop, and downloaded “Cosmos” onto it. No new activity. What was she expecting? That Charlotte had left her current GPS coordinates? A note to announce it was all a big prank?
Samira opened a web page. In the meantime, she’d have to pursue her own solution.
“What’s that?” Jamie said, glancing at the screen.
“The site I uploaded that goon’s phone data to.” She scrolled, a thrill rolling up her spine. This was more like it. Something shecouldcontrol. “The connection was only a few days old. No texts or emails or browsing history but there are regular calls with several other cell phone numbers—most of them sequential to his number. The phones must have been bought together.”
“Can you hack into them, or whatever it is you do?”
“Phone companies are notoriously hard to infiltrate if you’re not the NSA or GCHQ or some other government spy agency,” she said. “But I can download a GPS mapping analysis tool and input the historical GPS data.”
“So we’ll be able to see where he’s been?”
“Which might or might not be any use.
“This is interesting,” she said, after a few minutes. “He was in the vicinity of Charlotte’s house three days ago. And then he traveled south—not long after Charlotte’s social-media post.”
“Could that be where they took her, assuming that’s what happened?”
“Maybe. But he covered a big area. With nothing to triangulate against, the location data is too broad to be any use. We’d have to knock on doors in an entire London suburb.” She worked her knuckles into her back and arched.
“Sore back?”
“Always.”
After an unproductive few minutes she sighed, closed the screen and stared out the window. They were back in the countryside, flanked by green hedges. “That’s about all I can do until we get closer to Hyland.” She yawned. The buzz from the kiss and the drama had lifted, sucking her remaining energy away with it. Even pretending the kiss hadn’t happened was exhausting—on top of pretending France hadn’t happened.
“When’s the last time you had a proper sleep?” Jamie said.
“I honestly can’t remember.” Yes, that was why her brain was so skittish. Lack of sleep was not conducive to rational thought—or resisting self-defeating impulses.
“It’s a fair distance to Edinburgh without the motorways—seven hours or more if we’re to avoid all those cameras.” His eyes turned to hers, dull and sunken. His five o’clock shadow had tipped from sexy to haggard, though she still felt a pull in her belly under his gaze. Goddammit. “Get some sleep.”
“You couldn’t have slept much, either.”
“More than you, I’m guessing, and I’m used to it. I can nap later, while you’re doing your techie stuff.” He jerked his head toward the back seat. “Go.”
She nodded, and climbed into the back. This way they didn’t have to talk about the rhino in the room. Awkward situations were best tackled by avoidance.
As she curled up on the seat, her camel coat balled under her head, Jamie switched on the car radio. He cycled through a few stations and settled on an old Muse song, tapping the rhythm on the steering wheel. Rain tapped on the roof, and the wipers swished. A wave of warmth and security washed over her—the comfort she’d known as a child traveling with her parents, alone with her imagination in the back seat as they murmured a conversation years above her comprehension, her mother’s perfume blending with her father’s cologne like they’d bought his-and-hers fragrances.
There was no separation between her parents’ professional and personal lives but it worked. Their conversations had no borders—work, politics, family, diplomatic gossip. They knew and understood everything about each other. Sure, they argued, but it was more competitive than cutting—each trying to outwit the other with pithy dissections of global issues. They rarely disagreed on anything of substance. They were on the same side. Maybe she’d subconsciously sought that for herself when she’d started looking for love. An ally in every respect—someone she understood, who understood her. Less yin and yang, more yang and yang.
Was that why she’d gravitated to Latif? They were both geeks, both loners, both Ethiopian, both navigating American culture. He understood her because he was the same in so many ways. How could Jamie understand her when he was so different? Hypothetically speaking, of course, because the offer was not on the table. The only trait Latif had in common with Jamie was his embrace of risk—and that was the one thing that had terrified her, justifiably, as it turned out.
Maybe Latif’s risk-taking and her aversion to it would have pulled them apart, eventually. What was that saying her grandmother was fond of?Only a fool pairs an ox with an elephant?
Only a fool paired a gregarious adrenaline-junkie soldier with a shy scaredy mouse. Hang on—notmouse. Cat? Maybe she did need sleep.
Somehow I have a knack for dragging people into trouble. Consider yourself warned.
Yet here she was, taking an almighty risk in kissing him, in letting herself get a thrill from his company, in being seduced by the safety and warmth of his protection. He had so many qualities she lacked. Maybe she was attracted to him for exactly the opposite reasons she’d been attracted to Latif. Yin and yang.
Stop it.
