“That’s awesome. My job doesn’t really put me working with others often. Like, I don’t really know my coworkers. There are a few I know better than others, but I would never really have a relationship outside work with them.”
“I get that. At the job I’m at now, I don’t really spend time with the other people who teach. We have a weekly meeting, but we’re all over the world, so it means we haven’t met face to face yet.”
“That’s kind of cool. I mean, you’re teaching English to people. They’ll remember that for a long time.”
Ansley nodded. “It is good. I’m glad I get to help them.”
Garnet checked her watch and sighed. “I guess I need to work a little today.”
They both laughed. She had her coffee mug and was about to grab her computer when her phone rang. She glanced at the screen, seeing it was one of her colleagues. “Oh, this is someone I work with. I guess I have to take it.”
“Sure. I’ll text you in a bit with what I want for dinner.”
“Thank you.” Garnet grabbed her phone and answered. “Hey, Mr. Pearson, what can I do for you?”
“Garnet, you can call me Jack.”
She never got familiar with the people she worked with. She thought it gave the wrong impression. “Um, okay. So what can I do for you?”
“I need to meet and discuss a new project we’re putting together. I can come to you.”
“Oh, um, well, I’m not in DC right now.”
“This project is a bit of a crush. We need to figure it out now. So I can hop on a plane and come to you.”
She felt very weird telling Jack Pearson where she was hiding. Maybe she could head to DC. That might be better.
“Listen,” Jack said. “I know what happened in Beirut shook you up, but you have to move past it. You’re here in the US. That was something that happens over there, not here.”
His mentioning Beirut made her feel weird. She guessed everyone she worked with knew what happened. People talked, and being taken by terrorists had been very traumatic. She’d been abducted from her hotel. Jack may not know the reason, but he had to know it had been hard on her.
“Listen, why don’t we do a video call. That would be better.”
He didn’t say anything for a long moment, and to her it felt like he was angry. She hated the idea that she might disappoint him, but she had few options. He was going to be disappointed in her because she didn’t want him to come and see her, and nowshe was thinking there was no way she would go see him. She absolutely wouldn’t say where she was staying.
“I know you’re near Fayetteville. I can just come down there. We can meet at a coffee shop or something.”
Panic slid through her. How did he know she was in North Carolina? She hadn’t said anything about being close to Fayetteville. If she didn’t work with Jack, she would have hung up and blocked his number.
“No one knows where I am.”
He had the audacity to laugh. “You should know it’s not that hard to find someone.”
“Don’t come here. We can have a video meeting if we need to meet. I won’t be coming to any office for a while.”
She ended the call, knowing it was rude, but she couldn’t stay on the line any longer without saying something that would get her in trouble. Fear slid through her, leaving her stuck in a pattern of indecision.
Chapter 31
Bean stared at the screen,his vision blurring just a little. What was he looking at? It couldn’t be right? A shiver slid down his spine as he stared at the information.
One of the email addresses connected to what they’d found in Spain had the exact same IP address as an email sent from someone who worked with Garnet. The person worked with Garnet, and they hadn’t found him before.
That had to be a very weird coincidence, or not a coincidence at all. Had he just found the person who’d arranged the whole thing?
Could this really be the solution? He glanced back at the notes, making sure the IP addresses were the same. He checked again, confirming that it was the exact same address.
“I think I figured it out,” Bean said.
