“Of course I don’t,” I snapped.
“I’ll sleep out here if I have to.”
I looked at him for a long moment.
“I’m going to go into the shower. I want you gone by the time I am done.”
Then I went inside and locked the door.
CHAPTER 17
JASON
The hardware store was forty minutes from Camila’s street by the route I’d taken — deliberately longer, looping through the commercial district rather than the waterfront, because I needed time to think and the rental car was the only place I had for that.
The store was large, American-style, the kind that sold everything from garden furniture to power tools under one aggressively lit roof. I took a cart and started moving through the aisles with focused efficiency.
I picked up a camping tent — three season, freestanding, quick to pitch. Sleeping bag rated for warm climates. A compact camping stove and fuel canisters. A waterproof groundsheet. A good flashlight and backup batteries. A portable power bank. I was methodical about it, the same way I’d been methodical about everything in the years when being methodical was the difference between staying alive and not.
I was going to become Camila’s shadow. Whether she wanted one or not.
She had no idea what Scarlett was capable of. She had no idea who the Quintero cartel was, what they did to people who inconvenienced them, how efficiently and completely they could make a problem disappear. She was living in a cottage on a quietstreet in Paradise Island, working in a bookshop, building a life that was genuinely beautiful — and she had absolutely no idea that it was currently in the crosshairs of people who did not make idle threats.
She didn’t have to forgive me. That wasn’t why I was here. I had made my peace, in the long year since CocoCay, with the very real possibility that Camila Riley, I mean… Camila Torres would never want to look at me again. I had accepted that. I had signed the papers and accepted it and tried to build some version of a life around the acceptance.
But I would not accept this. I would not sit in my home office with Brownie at my feet and wait for Scarlett to make good on her promise.
I moved into the security aisle.
I bought cameras — four of them, wireless, weatherproof, with remote monitoring capability. Motion-sensor lights for the perimeter. A door reinforcement kit. Window locks, the secondary kind that didn’t require drilling. A doorbell camera. A portable alarm sensor for the garden gate.
My cart was almost full.
I pushed it toward the checkout and called Agent Briggs from the store line.
He picked up on the second ring, which meant he’d been expecting me. He already knew of the situation.
“Briggs.”
“It’s Jason Riley. I’m in Paradise Island.”
A pause. He was a man who chose every word very carefully.
“Riley, I had told you not to go there. The bureau—”
“I had to, Agent. I’m sorry, but I’ve had enough of taking directions from the bureau on how to live my life.”
There was a shift in his voice. “Jason, the bureau’s position is that your best protective action is to remove yourself from the vicinity. You being near her increases the threat profile, not decreases it.”
“With respect—”
“Your job is to stay alive. Her job — if she’s a civilian with no connection to the active case — is to be referred to local law enforcement. I can make a call to the Nassau field office—”
“Local police,” I said, “cannot do anything if Pablo Moreno shows up at her door. We both know that.”
Another pause. Longer.
“I hear you,” Briggs said, which was not the same as agreeing with me. “I’m going to pretend this call was about checking in. Don’t do anything that creates a jurisdictional problem.”
