Chapter 28

Seb lay still, his eyes closed, so he didn't wake Alexis. He'd dozed off for maybe fifteen minutes. As he slept, his conversation with Javier had played on repeat and worry had nudged him awake. The lack of sleep would bite later.

Alexis had been taking everything in stride. The meltdown at Higgs Beach had been a little scary, but everyone was entitled to a moment. Guilt over leaving her behind nagged at him. Even though she'd proven she could handle things, he couldn't take the risk.

Once Antoine's men had the algae sample and USB drive, they'd kill her. The house in the Everglades was a solid Plan B while he and Drake took care of things.

The background check on Orlan painted an impressive picture of a man dedicated to serving his country. Decorated as many times as Seb and his partners, Javier suspected there were medals pinned on his chest in small private ceremonies. Orlan would keep the two women safe.

His cell phone vibrated, and Seb's eye shot open at the same time as his hand dug into his back pocket to silence the thing before it woke Alexis. She wasn't lying on the edge of the bed. Seb glanced around the bedroom as he tapped the screen to take the call. She must have gone to the bathroom.

"Doesn't look like I'll catch any sleep tonight." Seb kept his voice low and laid on his back. "I'm guessing you've done the background check on Emery."

"You're getting soft. Her real name is Esther Gayle Stanton."

"And here I thought she trusted us."

"I would imagine her trust level is low right now," Javier chuckled softly. "It took little effort to do a quick check. It's not a common name, and neither is the woman. Alexis's new friend is a sculptor and is making a name for herself as an installation artist. A gallery in Chicago represents her. Her smaller pieces start at twenty thousand."

Seb ran a hand over his face. That was serious money.

"It gets better. She's engaged to multi-millionaire Rodolfo Manetti's son."

The senior Manetti's network security company was regarded as the best. They'd begun in the business sector and their innovative solutions caught the eye of government officials. Most of their work now involved hefty government contracts.

"I'm surprised it took Manetti as long as it did to locate Emery," Seb said. It would have been simple to hack into the government data bases his company protected. Passing it off as a system upgrade would satisfy anyone who noticed the activity.

"My guess is he did it himself. It's what I would have done. You don't want something traced, you do it yourself," Javier said, dead serious. Seb and his partners had learned long ago not to ask him where he found his information and contacts.

Manetti had the skills. The man was brilliant, and each innovation began as his brainchild. Seb had heard the son was equally skilled.

"The woman Emery saw Manetti murder…" Seb didn't have to finish the sentence.

"If any of us believed in coincidence, we'd have bought it a long time ago." Javier had placed him on speaker and Seb could hear the rapid click of keyboard keys as his partner talked. "New York, Paris, the murder, Alexis's discovery. It's all connected. We need to figure it out."

"Leo had warned me powerful people have had their eyes on us. If Rodolfo Manetti is involved, they could have been monitoring our activities for months now."

"I'm already checking," Javier growled, angry something could have slipped by him and Vala. "Fortunately, we don't use his company. It would have slowed him down, but not stopped him. Wrap your end up tonight. I need Vala."

Javier hung up and Seb let out a long breath.

Rodolfo Manetti murdering a woman in his own home seemed surreal, but Seb believed Emery's story. Westberg's reaction each time she let a piece of information slip had solidified his first impression of her. Honest, determined, and running for her life.

When Seb returned from Miami, he'd take both Alexis and Emery to Ridgeton. Javier had suggested locating their office in his hometown, and all the partners had agreed. With a population of fifty thousand, the city was small enough for them to be keep informed of everything going on, but big enough to allow for secrecy when needed. It helped that Javier was well-liked by the local police force.

Until they assessed the threat Antoine and his employers posed to Alexis, Ridgeton was the perfect place for her to remain hidden. Seb knew where he'd like Alexis to stay, but it was something they could discuss later, once she'd cooled down.

She was going to be furious when she found out he was gone. Hell hath no fury. Seb pitied Orlan. He'd have to make it up to the guy.

As for Emery, they'd stash her at Pavlo's. His acreage home was equipped with state-of-the-art surveillance which rivalled the Whitehouse. From what he'd seen, she'd get along well with Pavlo's fiancée, Keira, and her two-year-old daughter. If the woman she'd seen murdered was Eric's associate, Emery was in more danger than she realized.

Seb glanced at his watch. Alexis had been in the bathroom a long time. He swung his legs off the bed and stood.

A harsh, bright line colored the space at the bottom of the bathroom door. She was still in the bathroom. Seb rapped softly on the door.

There was no answer, and he couldn't hear a sound from within the bathroom. He knocked once more, whispered her name, and waited.

His mother would cringe if she knew Seb was a few seconds away from breaking down the bathroom door. She'd remind him a lady needed privacy. So would Alexis, but not as politely as his mother.

"Honey, I need to know you're alright," Seb whispered, worried he'd wake the others.

Too late. Orlan stepped out of his bedroom, still dressed in the same clothes they'd met him in. Like Seb, he wanted to be ready if there was trouble.

"Problem?" he whispered.

Seb shrugged. "She's ignoring me."

"You try the door?" Before Seb could stop him, Orlan wrapped a hand around the doorknob and opened the door.

"Porch," Seb said, as he looked at the empty room. "She must be getting fresh air."

Orlan followed behind him and switched on the living room light while Seb opened the front door. Seb stepped onto the veranda. Alexis wasn't there, nor was she standing in the yard. There was enough moonlight to see across the lawn to the treeline.

Seb heard Orlan swear behind him. "Vance is gone too. We got a problem."

"What kind of problem, Orlan?" Seb asked, his pulse pounding.

"Vance's boss sent him an alert put out by the FBI." Orlan moved past him as he spoke and headed to the back of the house. "She told him to bring Alexis in. Defying a direct order twisted him up inside. I told you he was a rule follower. I thought I'd talked him out of it, or at least, he'd be honest with you when the two of you woke up."

"They're not FBI agents. It's complicated," Seb said, as he followed Orlan onto the dock behind the house. "The men masquerading as the FBI will kill Alexis. We need to find them."

"They took the Jon boat." Orlan turned to him and narrowed his eyes. "She left willingly. There's no sign of a struggle and that woman would have fought. The bathroom was a decoy, and you fell for it. What did the two of you argue about?"

"Nothing." Seb followed Orlan back to the house. "Trust me. Everything was just fine between the two of us when she fell asleep."

Orlan didn't need to know how fine, and that Seb was going to do whatever it took to keep it that way.

"Well, you must have done something to make her run," he said, opening the front door and going to the kitchen, switching on lights as he went.

Seb closed the door behind him and followed. He scrubbed at his face, groaning. "She must have been awake when I called one of my partners."

"You were going to leave her here, and she overheard." Orlan turned and jabbed a finger into Seb's chest. "Don't you know anything about women?"

"Since I am a woman, I can tell you Alexis beat you to it and left without you." Emery smiled, crossed her arms, and then shook her head. "You wouldn't have woken either of us. Men can be such assholes."

Great. Now Seb had two women upset with him. He'd worry about it later. They needed to find Alexis before Vance handed her over to Antoine's thugs.

"The keys to the SUV and the truck aren't on the key rack," Orlan said, hands on his hip. "The Everglades can be dangerous, so Vance wouldn't have left me stranded. The boy must have hidden them."

"We can take Ruby Anne's car if we have to," Seb said, counting down the minutes. If they wanted to catch up to Vance and Alexis, they needed to be on the road now. He'd driven the clunker. Other than the shocks and the rust, the car was in excellent shape.

"Only as a last resort," Orlan said as he opened a kitchen drawer, searching for the keys. "Even with the full moon, there will be spots where the trees hang over the road, making it pitch black. We'd need to take it slow. The car's not made for that kind of road."

"Any idea where Vance would have gone?" Seb asked. At some point, he'd have to connect with the highway, but if they knew where he was headed, they could block off one of the back roads he'd be forced to take.

"He has a friend further into the wetlands." Orlan had moved to a second drawer. "He'll borrow a car and head straight for the highway. The turnoff to the road that leads to his friend's place is near here. The road is narrow and takes some finagling if you meet another car and need to pass. If we stick to the middle of the road, they'll be forced to stop. They won't be able to get around us."

"Then we should get going." Emery held up two sets of keys and smiled. "I was in and out of enough foster homes to learn where to hide things."

"Good work. I know you want to drive," Orlan said to Seb, plucking the keys out of Emery's hand and heading for the door. "But I know these roads. We'll take the SUV. How long a head start do you figure they have?"

"Easily twenty, maybe twenty-five minutes," Seb said as he got into the front passenger seat.

"Shit." Orlan shook his head and started the car. "I hope neither of you gets car sick. It's going to be a bumpy ride."