Lach only nodded. “If she hadn’t been with me, she might have died too.” He clenched his fists. God, he didn’t want to think let alone talk about the next couple of years.
“Marcus Porter,” Elissa said, shaking her head. “The same son of a bitch who kidnapped Jordan years later.” She shivered.
“And took her to the island where Eva Lambert would have gone if she’d lived,” Lachlan said quietly.
“I remember when Eva died. It was all over the news.”
Lachlan watched Elissa’s face as she worked over the new data in her mind. This was exactly what Gina had seen in her from the beginning; an intelligent woman who could quickly fit the pieces together. But in this case, Lach would probably have to supply a little more info.
“She felt guilty that Marcus Porter killed Eva, didn’t she?” Elissa asked. “So she didn’t leave the CIA and you guys never got married.” She squinted at Lachlan. “Why not? Why didn’t you talk her out of staying? I would have.”
Lachlan chuckled even as his heart felt heavy. “Of course you would have, lass. Too bad I didn’t know you back then.”
“Oh, back then I was a hot mess, seriously. Probably would have done more harm than good. But still,” she practically glowered at Lach, which almost looked comical, “why didn’t you just beat your chest and claim her?”
Lachlan actually laughed. “First, sitting here in this SUV waiting for a flight because Gina doesn’t want to be found, do you really—really—believe I could talk Gina Smith into or out of anything once her mind is made up?”
Elissa blew out a breath. “Yeah okay, you got me there, Boss.”
“And second…I had no idea what was going on. After Paris, I immediately went on a covert mission that lasted close to a year. It was remote, primitive. Very little communication in or out. And even if I did know what was going on in the world, Eva Lambert’s death wouldn’t have meant anything to me. Gina didn’t tell me her assignment then or anything about Eva.”
“But you obviously found out later, or she told you straight up what happened when you started Watchdog together. Doing a little mental math between Eva’s death and starting Watchdog, you had quite a bit of time apart. What happened in between?”
“That time in my life is…something I don’t really want to talk about.”
Elissa’s phone chimed and her face lit up. “Well, you’re off the hook anyway. This,” she held her phone up and shook it, “is good news.” She started tapping the screen.
“What is it? Don’t tell me she contacted you.”
“Not directly, but…” she trailed off, absorbed by her phone. “Ah-ha! So, shejustused this little app I made for her that…” She clapped her mouth shut. “That might not be one hundred percent legal but we won’t talk about that part so I don’t incriminate myself, ah-hem. What’s important is that she’s at DIA and now she’s off to Key West.”
Lachlan felt like the whole of Los Angeles just fell out from under the SUV.
“Key West?”
Something in his voice made her head snap up from the app. “Something wrong with that, Boss?”
“Yes. No.Shit.” He waved her off. “Doesn’t matter right now. So she made it to Denver somehow and now she’s flying to Key West, not Newark.”
“Looks like it. You think maybe she got wind that Malcolm—if itisMal and not some Repair Shop goon—is headed for Newark and now she’s doing evasive maneuvers? No, wait.” Elissa slapped her forehead. “There’s no guarantee that she’s actually going to Key West.”
But in his gut, Lachlan thought she had to be. It was a message to him. Still, he asked, “Why not?”
“Because this app just tells me what the original flight was when Gina…um,acquiredit. No guarantee she didn’t change it after that.” Elissa sighed and went back to tapping on her phone. “She might be going anywhere.”
Lach shook his head. “No. It’s either Newark of Key West.”But which one? he thought.What the hell kind of game are you playing, Gina?
She finished tapping and looked back up at him. “I have an idea that you’re gonna hate, Boss.”
Lach look Elissa dead in the eye. “The answer is no.”
“You haven’t even heard?—”
“I don’t need to hear it. You want to fly to Key West while I fly to Newark. The answer is no.”
“Actually, that wasn’t my idea at all.”
“No?”
