Page 31

Chapter 30

At a short knock on the bedroom door, Mari opened it and found Adalyn on the other side. It had been roughly twenty-four hours since they’d found Jeremy Ackerman’s dead body, then “anonymously” reported it to Camila in the hopes she’d know who to report it to without involving them.

Mari had been back in the safe house along with Colin, Adalyn and Bradford. The others had gone home but they’d wanted to stay to keep an eye on them, which Mari appreciated.

What she didn’t appreciate was Colin’s weirdness.

Even if it was justified.

Damn it, she just hated everything about this situation. She wasn’t good at relationships. Hell, her longest relationship had been with her private plane. The basic love of her life. Jesus, that was sad. And a little awesome, because that plane had taken her to places she’d always dreamed of.

“Everything okay?” She’d retreated to the bedroom an hour ago after having dinner with Adalyn in the kitchen.

“Camila’s here.”

Her heart jumped in her chest and she fell in step with Adalyn as they headed to the front of the house.

Colin was already sitting in the living room, his expression annoyingly neutral as his gaze fell on her. She looked away from him because she couldn’t handle anything else right now.

Camila, who was always so put together, actually looked exhausted for the first time, but she smiled as Mari stepped into the room. “Hey, you get some rest?”

“I’m fine.” She nodded, even though she hadn’t because who cared. Her friends had been working around the clock, clearly giving up their own sleep to figure out what was going on and why someone wanted to kill her. “So…good news?”

“Sort of. Or it’s heading that way. I called in a favor, managed to make an ‘anonymous’ tip about Ackerman’s body. Now the DEA has taken over the case of his murder and gotten the warrants they needed. Not just because of the murder, but him being killed ‘cartel-style’ certainly didn’t hurt. No one knows who found the body or who reported it. So even if there’s a leak in any paperwork, that stuff simply isn’t documented anywhere. Everyone here is covered.”

Some of the tension in Mari’s chest loosened. Knowing that this crap couldn’t come back on her friends meant a lot.

“What does that mean for Mari and me?” Colin asked, his delicious rumbly voice wrapping around her.

“Right now you’re still in a waiting pattern. I’m sorry, but I think it’s best if you both sit tight and don’t contact the outside world. The DEA is moving fast on this because of the war between the Becerra cartel and the Suarez cartel. They want to know why Ackerman was tortured, and the current belief is that he took something he shouldn’t have. They’re interviewing his wife right now.”

“Thank you for all you’re doing,” Mari said, with Colin murmuring the same.

This wasn’t what she’d wanted to hear but it wasn’t terrible either. And it had only been a day. Barely twenty-four hours at that. They would just have to be patient, something she wasn’t normally good at.

But at least she could see a light at the end of the tunnel. She and Colin could go back to their real lives.