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Fear suddenly lances through my body. I leap from the floor and rush to the little bathroom. Yes. It’s still there! I snatch the first aid kit off the shelf.
Pressing my hand to my stomach, I whisper, “Hang on, little one. I’ll get this thing out of my arm so there’s no way it can harm you.”
By the time I return, the fire’s burning low. Soon, I’ll need to stoke it to keep warm. Outside, the wind is whistling against the eaves of the cabin as the night turns to the darkest, coldest hours of night.
I curl deeper into the wool blankets on the couch. Numb. Sad. Confused. Tomorrow, I need to make some calls. But tonight, I need sleep.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
The old truck’s headlights shine through a barrage of snowflakes. It’s cold as hell. The heater on the old truck is barely able to keep the temp above fifty in the cab. For the last half hour, the thing’s tires have crunched along a road through the forest that’s covered in a thick layer of snow.
“She’s here,” Josef assures me. “Like I mentioned, she tripped my new security system.” He grins. “I got one over on her this time. A fancy new LIDAR system with remote cameras that follow the detected person. Quite slick. She got here at twelve thirty-one.”
“So, she came straight here from the hospital. But how?”
“Probably hitchhiked since I haven’t seen any stolen vehicles discarded along the way.”
The idea of her hitchhiking nearly makes my head explode.
For the tenth time tonight.
Thank fuck I found Josef.
Well, actually, Andre found Josef, thanks to the curvy brunette in the cafe. He sweet-talked her right out of the intel we needed.
She knew which area of town he lived in. From there it only took a little snooping around to find the car that Andre saw him leave the cafe in. It was tucked in a garage next to the truck we are in now.
“Simona aged me twenty years tonight,” I mutter as I pull my coat collar tighter. It’s not just the cold in the truck that’s making me cold. It’s the clawing terror in my gut. “At first, I thought someone grabbed her. But security at the hospital made it plain and clear no such thing would happen at their facility. And they backed that up by showing me a security camera screenshot of Simona sprinting across the parking lot. Alone.”
“I warned you. She’s slippery,” he says with a warm chuckle.
“Slippery is fine. But I’m confused as hell about what would send her scrambling,” I motion toward the forest on either side of the road, “into the damned wilderness in the dark.”
As we putt along on the narrow lane, he says, “Simona likes to come here when she’s confused or mad.”
I run my hands through my hair for the hundredth time. “Do you think she’s trying to pull some crazy shit like going vigilante on whoever this is that’s got a ransom out for her?”
Josef shrugs. “Always a possibility, but that’s not my first guess.”
Chewing a hole through the inside of my cheek, I curse how slow he’s going. “What is your first guess?”
His eyes crinkle as he grins. “I’d say it’s you.”
“Me?” I stare at him.
“Just a hunch.”
I shake my head. “She’s…”
“Challenging?”
Pressing on my eyeball, I reply. “Confusing.”
We putter along for another few minutes. “I’ll admit, I’m pretty fucking jacked right now. All I can think is she must have gotten bad news. Why else would she run?”
“She’s healthy as a horse. That girl’s never been sick.”
I grumble. “Well, fainting is plenty of a reason for me to be worried.”