Page 9 of Everything We Found

They ran outside. Nadia headed for her car and abruptly stopped. “My key.” She must have dropped her key fob when he took her down.

She turned back to the house and he grabbed her wrist. “You’re riding with me.” He wasn’t letting her out of his sight since whoever was inside now knew he wasn’t alone. They’d follow her home and take her out just because she’d been with him. These people killed just to kill.

He pressed his wallet with the key card to the passenger door handle and the vehicle unlocked. “Get in,” he said as he opened the door. He tossed her phone inside. It landed on the dash.

“Where are you going?” she asked when he returned to the garage.

He grabbed the large black duffel bag he’d prepared weeks ago from the cabinet under his workbench and threw it into the trunk. He got in the car, slamming his door the same time Nadia did. “Buckle up.”

Her hands shook as she latched the buckle. He was already out of the driveway before he had his belt on. James once teased him for owning an electric car, accusing Thomas of being eco-conscious. He was. But he bought the Tesla Model S Plaid for itsexceptional acceleration. Easier to shake a tail if he was being followed.

He sped downhill, leaning into the curves.

“Where are we going?” Nadia asked. One hand grasped the seat. The other held on to the door handle with a deathly grip.

“Don’t know yet.” He wanted to put a safe distance between them and whoever was at his house. He needed to think, and he had to make a call.

He turned sharply onto the main road and rapidly accelerated, weaving in and out of traffic.

“Pull over.”

“Not yet.” He wanted more miles behind them. He swerved into the opposing lane, ducking back into traffic to avoid an oncoming truck.

“Sick.”

Thomas glanced at her, catching her waxy coloring, and took a sudden turn into the Laguna Seca Recreation Area and drove until he crested the hill and his car wasn’t visible from the main road. When he reached a wide turnout, he came to a sudden stop on the side of the road. Nadia threw open the door, leaned out, and vomited.

Thomas took his first deep breath since the shooting had started and peeled his fingers from the steering wheel. He also considered how easily his property had been accessed and how close they’d come to getting killed. He’d been fooling himself thinking he was safe, that his problems from the past were where they belonged, in the past. Whatever false sense of security he’d had was wiped out in a matter of seconds. He should have acted on his gut instinct.

Nadia retched again and his chest constricted with his concern. He got out of the car and retrieved a towel and a bottle of water from the duffel bag in his trunk.

They hadn’t the chance to eat the lunch he had delivered so there wasn’t much in her stomach. He waited for her to catch her breath and humbly offered the items, wincing at the blood drying on her face.

She took the towel and water with shaking hands.

“You’re sick because you’re concussed.”

“I’m sick because of your driving,” she snapped.

He nodded tightly, accepting her anger. It would ground her. They couldn’t afford her going into shock. They needed to stay level-headed. He hated that she was involved, but they had some hard decisions to make.

She wiped her mouth with the towel and startled at the sight of her blood. Flipping down the visor, she looked at her face in the tiny mirror, touching her marred cheek with trembling fingers.

“You were shot,” he said, at a loss for anything else to say. If he started apologizing for what had happened, which he was desperately compelled to do, he’d lose the slightest bit of control he was struggling to maintain.

He squatted beside the door and took a closer look at her cheek. The bleeding had slowed and the cut looked more like a superficial flesh wound. It could have been so much worse. If she’d been a centimeter more to the right… He swallowed through a tight throat.

“Nadia.” He should have been driving them to the hospital to have her face and head examined but he worried they needed to find somewhere to hide fast and wait out whatever this was. The hospital would be the obvious place to look for them if their attackers were aware Nadia had been injured.

“Nadia,” he said again more gently. She hadn’t looked away from her reflection. He needed to know that she was with him.

She inhaled sharply and smacked the visor into place. “Explain.”

Thomas took the towel and water. “I can’t.” He drenched a corner of the towel and tried to clean her face. She knocked his hand aside.

“Why was someone shooting at you?”

He shook his head.