Page 41 of Everything We Found

Outside, he snagged a patio chair as they sprinted past, heading toward the corner of the yard where the fence waslowest. Nadia stepped onto the chair Thomas rammed against the fence and climbed over into the rear neighbor’s yard. Thomas followed her over. They ran through the yard and out the neighbor’s side gate to the street. Thomas aimed the key fob at the car across the street. They were in the car, breathing heavily, and speeding out of the neighborhood before she could fully process that they’d managed to escape. Again.

She looked down at her hands. Her palms stung. There were several scrapes, blood welling along the fresh wounds she must have gotten from when she’d landed in the bushes.

She looked over at Thomas, her gaze grazing over him for injuries, but she hardly recognized the man sitting beside her. He gripped the steering wheel with a ferocious intensity, every line of his body taut with unspent tension. A vein pulsed frantically in his temple. He’d had a knife on him, and he’d wielded it like he’d been trained. Who was this guy?

“Wh-where did you learn to use a knife like that?”

He drove at least a half mile before he answered her. “After what happened to James, I swore I’d never be caught defenseless.”

She thought about what she’d witnessed, how fast he’d fought. The cold precision in his movements and the calculated targets. He knew right where to strike to weaken his opponent. The go bag he’d kept stashed in his garage. His isolated residence. All signs he’d been living on high alert all these years waiting for the Hidalgos to come looking for him. She couldn’t wrap her head around living that way, always looking over her shoulder. Second-guessing every shadow. The mental toll it must have taken on him.

She stared out the windshield. “How? How did they find us?” They were supposed to be safe at the house. Thomas had begged her to stay with him.

“Don’t know. Nobody knew where we were.”

Slick tendrils of dread curled around her hammering heart and an icy heaviness settled in the pit of her stomach.

“One person did,” she said quietly.

Thomas jerked his head to look at her. “No. I refuse to believe that.”

“Who else would have known?”

The vein in Thomas’s temple pulsed faster. She knew his answer. Nobody knew where they’d been staying. Nobody—but Kane.

14

NADIA

Thomas drove them south on the 101. He was vague about where they were going, but when he shot down Nadia’s suggestions—they could find a hotel, or leave the country, something she wasn’t opposed to at this point—she realized he’d been vague for a reason. He didn’t know where they should go. Kane’s likely betrayal had derailed Thomas. He was freefalling.

“How well do you know Kane?” she asked when they’d been driving close to an hour in the dark. It wasn’t even 4:00 a.m.

“It’s not him.” He gave an adamant shake of his head.

She angled her shoulders toward him and fixed him with a penetrating gaze. “Then who gave us up?”

Hands at ten and two, his fingers flared before he gripped the steering wheel even tighter than he had been.

“Tom.” She was pushing. But she wanted answers. Needed facts.

“I don’t know,” he snarled, shaking the steering wheel. “I just know that I trust him with my life.”

“How’s that working out for you?”

He stole a glance at her, a tic pulsing in his cheek. That had been mean of her. Her flippancy only pissed him off. But she was scared. They were literally running for their lives.

She shifted to face forward, pushing her back into the seat, and crossed her arms. Maybe talking wasn’t the best thing right now. Thomas had always been confident and self-assured, but this indecisiveness, this vulnerability he was letting her see. This man who existed beneath the confidence and control… this was new. Or, at the very least, was a rare sighting. She’d only seen him doubt himself once before, when a decision he’d made had altered both their lives forever.

The memory surfaced unexpectedly, as vivid as if it had happened yesterday. It had been a couple of weeks or so after she ran out on Thomas at Joe’s. On morning, she’d stopped short at the kitchen where her mom stood at the counter sorting mail and sipping coffee and Nadia could only stare. Lisa was dressed in a pressed wool skirt and silk blouse, her hair in a perfect twist. After months of depression, the transformation was jarring.

“What is happening here?” Nadia circled her flat palm at her mom.

Lisa brightened. “Good morning!” She kissed Nadia’s cheek, careful not to spill her coffee.

“Seriously, Mom. What’s going on?”

“You are never going to believe what happened.” Lisa crossed the kitchen to refill her coffee. “Want one?”