Yeah, of course he did. “And someone is after me to get to him. Is that what you’re saying?”
“It’s possible.”
“And likely.” Tired. She was just so tired. “I’m just ... I’m going to change.”
His expression one of relief, he nodded. “Pack up all your stuff so we can be ready to leave here for good. I can help you pack up the art, or Remi and I can come back to get it later.”
“And go where? This is a safe house, isn’t it?”
“Just be ready. I’ll warm up the soup Remi sent.”
Jo headed for her room, and in the bathroom, she took a long, hot shower to warm up.
Then, after thick and creamy homemade chicken noodle soup—compliments of Brad at the Cedar Trails kitchen—Jo needed time alone. Wasn’t like she could sleep, but she didn’t want to sit in the big spacious living room with Hawk. He was pacing. Calling people. On his laptop.
What was taking Cole so long?
So she moved to the office to wait.
She sat in the office and listened to the waves and just sketched whatever came to mind, but her heart was so heavy, all the images were morbid. Still, she could put the puzzle pieces together. She sketched the various faces she’d seen today in the images, along with the space shuttle. Drew great streaks across the page to depict the orbiter traveling through space. Jo set that aside, then opened up her tablet and searched on the man in chargeof Resonant’s space shuttle team—Liberty. Along with her father, he was the only one in the photograph still surviving. The only one, along with her father, who had not been murdered.
Pop,why didn’t you just tell me?That would have been so much easier.
Maybe she and Cole needed to pay Troy Martin a visit and ask him the hard questions.
The house shuddered. Jo got up to look out the window. Darkness had settled in. No stars lit up the sky. She heard the ocean’s turmoil as the wind gusted so hard an eerie wail blew through the walls.
Jo imagined she was in a gothic novel, sans the romance. She’d given up romance. All she cared about was Cole returning from his attempt to stop a bad guy who’d come after her.
While she waited for him, she could do her part, though, and so she continued to research, intending to read about Martin’s role at Resonant and his new role in a high-level position at another aerospace company. His mug was in a few pictures, and it was like looking at age-progression photographs. He looked familiar. She might have even seen him before. That fact gnawed at the back of her mind. She’d seen so many faces, though, she could be mixing them all up.
But then she quickly got sucked into reading about theotherspace shuttle tragedies—theChallengerandColumbia—and the investigations surrounding them. In the case of theChallenger, engineers had tried to warn those in charge of giving the go-ahead to launch. In fact, one engineer in particular had feared for his life. His testimony as a whistleblower would be damaging to those in power.
Jo’s heart pounded. Could that be it?
Mom and Pop ... had been whistleblowers? Or at leastthey’d tried. Or maybe they’d felt too threatened to even come forward. She didn’t know. Maybe she was jumping to conclusions, but this sounded reasonable.
She set her tablet aside. She had to tell someone. Plus, she could ask Hawk if he’d heard anything more from Cole, who was supposed to be on his way. Jo bolted from the chair and opened the door, padded down the hallway to an empty living room. Hawk’s laptop sat open on the table.
“Hawk?”Where’d you go?
A door was banging somewhere.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
She crept through the house and found the door to the garage open. Cold air rushed inside.
Chills crawled over Jo. She backstepped.I need to get my gun.
The power went out. Jo froze, then hearing a noise, she tugged her cell from her pocket and lifted it to shine the flashlight in the face of an intruder who stepped through the open doorway.
She instantly recognized him—the face she’d been working on since Michigan.
“You.”
38
