At some point Kiley turned back in her seat, but when they pulled into the safe house driveway, she shook her head. “You two need to get over whatever’s keeping you apart, because it’s clear you need to be together.”
“It’s not at all clear to me.” Addy closed the first-aid kit with a snap.
Mack pulled his leg down. He jerked on his boot and took a gulp of air. He panted and looked up at the ceiling, pressing his hand on his knee as if he was trying to stop the pain from racing up his leg. She reopened the kit and grabbed some Tylenol.
He reached for her hand to help her out of the vehicle, but she held out the tablets. “Take these. It’ll help with the pain.”
He tossed them in his mouth. She watched his bronzed neck as he swallowed, and the need to touch him again was almost overwhelming. She’d become so acutely aware of his physical presence since the hypnosis. Could the memories she recounted to the doctor have opened the pathway to remembering Mack and all they’d once had together?
He offered his hand again, but she couldn’t touch him and keep her focus, so she scooted out on her own. He gave her a pointed look.
“I don’t want to risk hurting you.” She made a beeline for the front door before he asked if that was her real reason. She didn’t want to hurt him. Never. She was telling the truth, but...
Inside the house, she went straight to the basement and hoped Mack was able to navigate the steps. She soon saw his boots clomp down the open stairwell.
“Everything go okay?” Cam asked.
“No.” Addy sat by Cam and Bear and shared the incident with him, ending with Mack taking a bullet.
“Whoa.” Cam’s eyes widened.
Mack waved a hand, dismissing the shocked response.
“Hey,” Cam said, a grin forming. “It’s no biggie, right? Your boot’s still intact.”
Mack laughed with Cam as Sean and Kiley joined them.
Kiley started moving furniture around. She was stressed. What was she so worried about? Sure, the shooting had everyone off-kilter, but Kiley seemed to be focused on something in particular.
Addy thought back to the shooting. The memories playing like a video in her mind. The terror coming back, inching up her back. Addy had focused on Mack’s injury and hadn’t really thought about the fact that she could’ve been shot too. She was standing very close to the first bullet’s landing spot.
“I’m going to call our local contact to see if they arrested the shooter.” Mack stepped to the side of the room holding the piano and gingerly lowered himself onto the bench. Bear trotted across the room and looked up at Mack. The poor dog knew something was up, and he whined under his breath until Mack gave him a reassuring pat.
“One question, Kiley.” Addy looked at Kiley, who’d paused, chair in hand. “How did you know where the shooter was located?”
“Oh that.” She set the chair down, dropped onto it, and used the tips of her toes to push a glass bowl in a kaleidoscope of colors to the center of the coffee table. “We’re testing a military program—Tactical Communication and Protective Systems. TCAPS has microphones on our comms unit that record twoacoustic waves from bullets fired at supersonic speeds. It does a lot of things I won’t go into, but basically it gives the direction of arrival of those waves, and that provides the location of the shooter’s hideout.”
Addy was confused. “But how do you get the info?”
“It’s sent via Bluetooth or USB to our smartphones, which use a data-fusion algorithm to calculate the shooter’s position. Takes only about half a second to receive the information. The military hopes to be deploying it any day now.”
“It’s some sweet program,” Cam said. “Wish I’d thought of it.”
Mack got up and limped over to them, his eyes darkening. “Locals are still looking for Zamora, but we can’t rely on them anymore. We need to come up with a plan to track him down.”
“I can help with that,” Addy said.
Mack flashed her a look. “How?”
“I told you, I remember the investigation and the accident.”
“Yeah, so?”
“The day of the crash, I was coming back from seeing Rob just like we thought. But I had one more stop to make.”
“Where?” Mack jumped up and limped across the room.
“In my research, I found a local guy, a Vadim Yahontov, who did time for, get this—” she paused and looked Mack square in the eyes—“tampering with internet cables on the ocean floor.”
