As they cruised along the shimmering lake, she asked, “Where are we going?”
“France.”He scanned the roadway and his mirrors in a constant rotation.“There’s a doctor there who owes me a favor.He’s already in hiding, so it’ll be safe as long as no one follows us.”
“What if I don’t want to go to France?”
He knew enough about her to know that declaring she had no choice would only make her dig in harder.“Then we won’t go.”It would’ve been even smarter to offer the trip as an option rather than declaring it unilaterally, but he was tired.He’d hardly slept in thirty-six hours.Besides, she did have other choices, they just weren’t good ones.Gripping the steering wheel for patience, he asked, “Do you have another idea?”
She was quiet for a moment, looking out the window.“I’d like to let my family and friends know I’m alive, stay somewhere safe until I can fly, and then go home.”
Arguing for her own safety wouldn’t be enough, so Ford asked, “If you tell your family the truth before the people chasing you are caught, do you think they’d be in any kind of danger?”
She met his gaze, frowning.“You’re thinking these guys might threaten my family to find out where I am.”
“Possibly.”He wasn’t trying to manipulate her.It was a legitimate concern.“It would help if I knew who we’re dealing with.”
“Emma and I are investigating Renfro Warner and Byron Chin of Blue Bear.It’s a VC firm, but according to several sources, Renfro’s trafficking underage girls for his parties, and has a history of threatening the adult women he has affairs with to keep them from exposing his infidelities.I’m pretty sure he murdered at least one of them to keep her quiet.”The anger in her voice grew steadily as she talked.
The one thing they had in common was their desire to protect others.Nat went about it very differently, though.“So you think Warner may have tried to kill you and Emma yesterday?”The urge to strangle the man turned Ford’s knuckles white on the wheel.
Natalie nodded.“I don’t know who else it could be.Especially since someone also killed the informant we were meeting just hours earlier.”
Jesus.His regret over having her declared dead was dwindling rapidly.“How’d they know where to find you?”
She sighed.“No idea.That’s what’s bugging me.”
“So,” he said, “someone wants you and Emma dead.They failed to kill either one of you, and at least two men came to the hospital last night to finish the job.”He stretched his fingers and slowly blew out a breath.
“Yes.”She stared at her lap, jaw tight.“I get it.If I reveal that I’m alive, I put a target on my family’s back.”
“And yours.”
“Oh, that old thing?”She scoffed, pointing over her shoulder.“That’s been there for years.”
He shook his head.Her ability to make light of the danger—especially when directed at her—had always amazed and infuriated him in equal measure.“Here.”He handed her a burner phone.His personal cell was currently turned off to prevent tracking.“Why don’t you look for any news on your friend, and the men you’re investigating?When we get to Geneva, if you still don’t want to go to France, we’ll come up with another plan.”
She nodded, giving him a small smile.After searching for information on her friends for half an hour and finding nothing, her eyes refused to stay open.Despite the heat outside, she fell asleep nestled against a stack of pillows beneath a thick blanket.
Pulling into a gas station near the Geneva airport a few hours later, Ford stood next to the pump as he filled the car’s tank and looked through the back window at the woman who’d upended his world.Natalie Nygaard-fucking-Brown.Four years ago, he’d nearly died after her stalker attacked.It had taken months to recover from his wounds, and almost a year before he was fit to fight again.She’d sent him one get-well card and he’d never heard from her again.
Until last night.
As much as part of him had wanted to turn down her plea for help, he couldn’t.Would never be able to say no.
He forced his fingers to loosen their grip on the nozzle.
Apparently, even moving to Geneva to run Beaumont & Associates’ European office hadn’t been far enough to escape her orbit.Of course, he’d forwarded his old US number to his Swiss mobile phone, making her call possible.He hadn’t done it explicitly for her, but the result was the same.And, thank God he had.She might frustrate the hell out of him, but she needed his help.
Ford rarely worked in the field anymore, and ideally, he would’ve assigned someone else to this job, but right now his entire European team was working a business conference full of high-profile C-suite members in Germany.Too far to swap assignments with him on such short notice.If part of him was relieved about that, he’d never admit it.As it was, he’d been almost three hours away by car, and that was after he moved his dog to his landlord’s house and packed a bag.
The drive to Lucerne from his home in Geneva had been excruciatingly slow, despite his unusually leaden foot, hastened only by the calls he’d made from the road.
“You’re in the car?”his assistant Sabine had asked, incredulous.
As a rule, he ignored phone calls while driving.Distractions caused accidents.“I didn’t have a choice,” he’d said, a sense of urgency thrumming under his skin.“It’s already taking me too long to get there as it is.She’s an easy target at the hospital, especially once she gets out of recovery.”
Sabine had tracked down Natalie’s father, who’d happily agreed to tell the hospital staff Ford was her fiancé so he could act as the family’s rep until they arrived.Mr.Nygaard-Brown had also retained Beaumont & Associates to provide her protection again until the danger had passed.
Ford was pretty sure her dad would not be happy with how Ford had gone about it, but it was too late to second guess himself.At least two men had been scouring the hospital, questioning the staff, offering bribes for information on her whereabouts.If he hadn’t taken immediate action, Natalie would probably be dead.Instead, she onlylookedlike death on a stick.
