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CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

A mile from downtown, Forbes could breathe again.

Thank You.

There was no way they would’ve gotten out of that without God’s help. But they weren’t safe yet.

He glanced at Brooklynn in the passenger seat. She was on the phone with the 911 operator, explaining what happened. “I texted Nathan Church, asking for help, but none ever came.”

The 911 operator must’ve said something because Brooklynn snapped, “I was hiding. I had to be quiet.” She glanced his way, then put the call on speaker.

“You’re safe now?” the operator asked.

“No thanks to the police, yeah. A man must’ve heard my shouts. He fought a couple of the guys, giving me time to get away.”

“Where are you now?”

“I’m safe, and I’m getting out of town.”

When she ended the call, Forbes said, “Thank you for keeping me out of it.”

Brooklynn’s only response was a nod. She had one hand curled around the edge of the console in a white-knuckled grip. The other was pressed against her stomach. Her eyes were wide, her gaze fixed on the side mirror, clearly afraid an enemy would find them here.

But nobody had followed.

“Are you hurt?” He’d seen her stumble, and she’d been limping.

She reached toward her foot but stopped before she touched it, turning to him. “How did you find me?”

“When you texted, I guessed you were at the library. The lights went out as I was walking up. I assumed it was closed—and you had left—until I saw men circling the building.”

Again, he breathed a prayer of thanksgiving.

After his confrontation with Lenny in town, Forbes had headed back to the house.

By the time he’d gotten there, he’d decided he wasn’t giving up on finding Brooklynn. Until she told him she’d left Shadow Cove, he was going to do everything in his power to keep her safe, even if it meant behaving as badly as—or worse than—her stalker.

Thanks to Lenny’s spotting of the pickup, Forbes had switched to Grandmother’s car.

This time, before he drove back to town, he remembered to search both cars for trackers, thinking perhaps that was why the men had broken in the night of the storm.

He’d almost given up when he finally found a small, black apparatus attached to the underside of his pickup. It took a flathead screwdriver to pry the magnet from the metal.

Once he knew where to look, it took much less time to find the tracking device on the Cadillac. He left that one on a workbench in the garage and pocketed the one from the pickup before climbing behind the wheel of the luxury car.

He turned north and stopped at a service station a few miles up the road, where he filled the tank and grabbed a cup of coffee.

A minivan drove up, headed away from Shadow Cove. It stopped at one of the pumps, and a woman and two little kids came in. She ushered them to the bathrooms in the back.

Outside, a man pumped gas into the minivan.

The stop at the bathroom told him they weren’t close to home. Tourists, he hoped, headed farther up the coast.

Coffee in one hand, Forbes headed back to the Caddy, nodding a greeting to the driver of the van.

When he turned to hang up the nozzle, Forbes pressed the magnetic tracker to the inside of his wheel well.

Then, he tossed his coffee into a trash can, muttering, “I’d rather fall asleep driving than drink that.”

The father chuckled, heading for the door.

Back in the Caddy, Forbes had turned toward town, where he’d parked in the alley so nobody would connect him with the car. Wearing a baseball cap and a black jacket, he’d kept his head down and found a bench across the street and a block down from Brooklynn’s gallery.

He’d had no idea what else to do. When Brooklynn texted him the photo, he’d guessed she was at the library and walked in that direction.

It was sheer luck—or maybe all God—that he’d gotten there in time.

Beside him, Brooklynn’s breathing had settled, but a glance told him she wasn’t back to normal yet.

“You’re safe now. It’s okay.”

“Did you… Did you kill that man?”

Was that what she was worried about? The man would certainly have killed her, if he’d had the chance. “I put him in a sleeper hold.”

“Oh. Like…like Jack Bauer?”

“I have no idea who that is.”

“From 24 . The series?”

This woman and her television shows. “I put pressure on the veins in his neck until he passed out. I didn’t cut off his air. He probably woke up a few seconds after we slipped into the woods.”

“Oh. Good.” That second word was tentative, as if a little part of her wished at least one enemy had been taken out. “How do you know how to do that?”

“Years of martial arts training.”

He didn’t tell her that he’d taken the lessons since he was a child so that he’d never again run and hide when others were in danger. He didn’t tell her that the only thing that had made the nightmares stop was the belief that he could defend himself and his grandmother.

He didn’t tell her about the arsenal he’d amassed over the years or the hours and hours he’d spent in target practice.

He didn’t tell her that he’d dedicated his entire life to two things—discovering who killed his family and preparing for the moment he caught up with them.

“I’m glad you didn’t kill him.” Brooklynn’s voice was weak.

In the days he’d known her, he’d never thought of her as weak. She’d been stronger than he’d ever have guessed by looking at the gorgeous, cheerful, curly-haired brunette. It was as if her optimism had been a shield protecting her from fear and worry.

And now, it seemed, her shield was falling away.

“I would’ve killed him if I’d had to.” He angled around a wide corner, hugging the waterline, then met her eyes briefly.

“To protect you, I would have killed him. Considering how hard they're trying to find you, they’re not planning to leave you alive.” Or at least not in a condition where she could tell.

He didn’t want to think about all the things smugglers could do with such an attractive woman.

“It’s just… I don’t understand.” Her voice wavered. “I already sent the photos to the police. I hoped…I thought they would leave me alone.”

“Maybe they don’t know about the photos. Or maybe they think, photos or not, you can identify them.”

“I can’t, though! I hardly got a look at them.”

He kept his response steady. “They don’t know that.”

“I know.” The words were sharp and thin, like cracked laminate, no longer protecting what was beneath. “I just want it to be over.” Her voice broke, tearing through his resolve.

He slid his hand over hers on the console. “I’m sorry.” He didn’t know what else to say. He’d give anything for it to be over. For Brooklynn to be out of danger and his family’s murderers brought to justice.

He drove slowly past the mansion’s driveway, peering between the hedges at the house.

No cars in the driveway. No strangers lurking about.

Maybe it was foolish to come back here, but he didn’t know where else to go. Like Brooklynn, he wanted—he needed—for this to be over. And the answers were in his house. On his property.

Leaving would mean giving up. He could do that. He would do that, if he thought Brooklynn would be safe. But she wouldn’t, not until everyone involved in The Network was brought to justice.

He pulled over onto the gravel shoulder two miles beyond the mansion. The moon was low in the sky, glimmering off the black Atlantic waters beyond the low stone wall separating the road from a rocky decline.

He checked his security system on his cell phone.

“What are we doing?” Brooklynn asked.

“Just making sure I’ve had no visitors.”

“We’re going back to your house?” Was that fear in her voice?

“Only if it’s safe.” He scrolled through camera views, seeing the familiar scenes—the front, garage, side, and back doors, the forest near the entrance to the cave, the dock, the beach.

There’d been no alerts, no activity all night.

“All is well.”

“They’ll look for us.” She swiveled and peered through the rear glass as if bad guys might careen around the corner any second.

“I think they’ve convened in town.” He kept his tone calm, which didn’t reflect how he felt at all. “Also, they have no reason to believe you’ve been staying with me. Remember, nobody’s been able to confirm that.”

She pulled her knee up on the seat to face him. But she didn’t let go of his hand. “They broke into the garage the other night. They must think?—”

“They left a tracker on the truck and on this car.”

She stiffened, her eyes wide.

She loosened her grip on his hand, but he held on.

“I found it. I took care of it.” He explained how he’d attached the tracker to the vehicle at the gas station. “They’ll believe I’m gone. And you were last seen in town. Nobody got a look at me at the library. I hit both guys from behind. They won’t know it was me.”

“But…” She closed her eyes. “Niles turned toward you.”

“I hit him before he saw me.”

“You think.” Her eyes opened again. “But what if you're wrong?”

Forbes replayed the scene in his head. “He didn’t see me. I made sure of it.”

“But—”

“Only Lenny suspects you’ve been staying with me.” Forbes told her about his run-in with her ex-boyfriend in town. “He’s why I drove Grandmother’s car. I didn’t want him finding you through me. So unless he’s involved, I think we’re safe.”

“Not Lenny, I don’t think. But Nathan.”

“Lenny’s partner?”

“I texted him from the library, and he responded. I assumed he’d send the police or at least come himself.”

There had been no police near the library. None had come even after they’d escaped. No sirens, no lights.

Forbes swallowed hard. He’d always believed that someone in the Shadow Cove PD was involved with The Network at the time of the murders. “How old is Nathan?”

“Younger than I am.”

Then he’d been recruited by someone, and that someone was probably also a cop. Which meant…

“Who did you send the photos to?”

“Oh!” Her eyes widened. “I sent them to the police department email address, but Nathan was the one who told me they’d been forwarded.”