He lifted a hand. “Stay put until I clear you to move forward.”
He climbed the steps and she tracked him with her light. He ran his fingers around the door, reaching the top plate. He suddenly jerked back and spun. “Back to the car. Now!”
She turned and started to move, but he grabbed her hand and ran for the vehicle, towing her along. She couldn’t keep up and stumbled. He swept her into his arms without missing a step, and carried her as if she weighed no more than a bag of sugar.
“Get this vehicle moving,” he said to Colin as he shoved her in the back door and climbed in behind her.
Colin had slid in and cranked the engine. He peeled over the gravel, spitting it in all directions as the SUV raced down the drive. She scooted onto the seat behind him and clicked her seatbelt in place.
“Get us away from here. At least a half mile, then pull over when possible.” Micha fastened his seatbelt but kept his focus out the window.
She wanted to know what he’d discovered, but his rigid and alert body language told her not to distract him. If he should be disturbed, Colin would’ve asked, right? She could wait a half mile, couldn’t she? But even with Colin moving the SUV at top speed, it seemed to take forever for him to pull to the side of the road at the end of a wide driveway.
He lifted an arm over the seat. “Explosives?”
“Not sure,” Micha said. “Tripwire at the door. Could be explosives, or could be to warn him someone had been there, but I couldn’t take any chances with Ava behind me.”
“Want one of us to go back and check it out?” Colin asked.
He didn’t waffle but answered right away. “It’s not worth the risk. If he has one tripwire, there are likely others.”
“You’re right, and it would be hard to explain to the locals why one of us went kaboom.” Colin grinned.
Ava could hardly believe his laid-back attitude.
“We joke as a way to get rid of stress,” Micha told her as if he could read her mind. “We’ll go ahead and drop our evidence off at Veritas.”
Colin turned to the wheel.
“Hold on, and I’ll take shotgun again.” Micha reached for the door handle, but that inquisitive gaze of his searched her from head to toe. “Sorry about the rough handling. I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I’m fine.”
Micha let his gaze linger, then he squeezed her hand and pushed out of the vehicle to get in the front. He entered the Veritas Center’s address in the GPS system. The female voice announced a thirty-minute drive.
Ava settled back and watched the scenery pass by under the bright moonlight from above and tried to recover from the shock. The night would be picturesque if they hadn’t found a massive cache of weapons, then just run from a potential bomb, and if her heart wasn’t still wildly beating.
Her phone rang. She got it out and looked at the screen. “Not a number I recognize.”
Micha leaned between the seats. “Answer it.”
She moved closer to him so he could hear better and tapped the speaker button. A haunting melody played in the background as an altered male voice sang.
In the darkness whispers fall,
I’ve found you again, now heed my call,
Turn yourself in and don’t you bail,
Or in the stillness, nightmares will prevail.
She gulped in air, panic having its way into her body.
She wanted to run. To flee. Go anywhere. To get as far away from her phone as possible. She tossed it down ahead of her.
“Breathe.” Micha picked up the phone. “Take slow, easy breaths.”
She did.One. Two. Three.Deep and cleansing before she could speak. “Do you think he found me again?”
