“No, you’ve got it wrong. If Pavel comes for you, I’m going to be standing right next to you, so you don’t have anything to worry about.”
“I want to believe you. I really do.” It’s intoxicating to imagine Thibault being by my side and keeping Tee and me safe, like a guardian angel or a real-life superhero. But it’s just not realistic.
He pulls me in tighter and wraps his good leg around mine, drawing me into him. Our bodies are completely entwined. “Believe me . . . I can be twice as stubborn as you ever dreamed of being.”
I giggle. “I actually believe you when you say that.”
“Good.” He reaches around and smacks me on the butt. “Now maybe you’ll listen to me more often, since you know I speak the truth.”
I squeeze him tight, imagining for a split second what our future could look like. “Boy, you’re gonna be in so much trouble when I’m back to a hundred percent.”
“I’m looking forward to it.”
No more words need to be exchanged. We know how we feel about each other, and we both know the chances of it working out aren’t great. But I hold him and he holds me, and I’m able to drift off to sleep feeling like I’m floating in a cloud, high above the earth and all my troubles.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
I wake up in the pitch-dark. It takes me a few moments to realize where I am and what I was doing before I fell asleep. When I feel heavy limbs and smell the scent of Thibault filling my head, I remember what happened earlier: I’m in bed with a man who I have very strong feelings for after only knowing him for a few days. Then it hits me that the sound that woke me up was the baby whining in his bassinet nearby.
I nudge Thibault on the shoulder with my chin. “Baby’s awake.”
“No, he’s not,” he mumbles. “I’m still sleeping.”
“Just stay where you are.” I struggle to get out of his embrace and then untangled from the covers, careful not to bump his knee. I’m stiff, but I make my way over to the bassinet and reach down to pull the baby out. He’s kicked off most of his blankets, so I hold him next to me and warm him up before bringing him back to bed. “No need to cry, baby boy, Mommy’s right here.”
I sit up against the headboard and let out a big yawn after he latches on.
“Do you want me to turn on the light?” Thibault mumbles.
I stroke Thibault’s thick, curly hair, whispering my response. “No, then he’ll wake up too much and I’ll never get to go back to sleep.”
“You’re already a pro at this.” He sits up and drags himself back to be next to me. He reaches over and takes the baby’s hand. “Can I get you something to drink?” he whispers.
“Yes, a glass of water would be nice.”
“Coming right up.” He moves to leave but I grab his hand.
He looks back at me. “What’s up?”
“I want to give you that code.” I have a hard time swallowing. My throat feels swollen. Breathing becomes difficult.
“Are you sure?” he says softly. He reaches up and rests his hand gently on my cheek. “I don’t want you to think you owe it to me or anything like that. You need to be totally okay with it. I understand why you want to hold things back, and I won’t be mad if you’re not ready.”
I nod. As soon as the words leave my mouth, I know . . . “I trust you.”
He turns more fully, wincing at his knee. Then he focuses on me. “This is a really big deal for you. I want you to know that I get that. And I don’t want you to think you have to do this in order for me to trust you. I already do.”
“I know.” I’m getting choked up over his sincerity. It means so much to me.
“And I’m going to help you regardless.”
“I know that, too.” I start to cry.
“Why the tears?” he asks tenderly, leaning forward to wipe them away.
“I’m afraid. And happy. And sad.” I laugh at how ridiculous I’m being.
He smiles. “I get it. I’m those things too.”
“So where are your tears?” I ask, trying to be funny.
“Superman never cries.” What sounds like a cough comes out, and then he tips his head down, pressing his fingers into the bridge of his nose.
“What’s wrong?”
He looks up and swipes at his face. His voice trembles. “I told you I’m no Superman.”
I hold out my arm and he moves in, holding me while I hold him, the baby nestled between us. Thibault’s voice is muffled in my shoulder. “I won’t let you down. I promise.”
“I know you won’t. You haven’t let me down yet, right?” I hold on to his head, taking his thick hair in my hand and squeezing it. “We’re going to be all right. I know we are. God is not cruel. God is good.”
“Yes. God is good.” Thibault pulls away. “I’m going to go get you that water.”
“Grab me some tissues too, please. And that paper and pen.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He hobbles into the kitchen and comes back with everything.
“Could you turn on the light?” I ask.
“I thought you said it would wake the baby up.”
“Yeah, it probably will, but I need to see so I can write that stuff down.”
“How about this instead?” he asks, using a flashlight app on his phone to dimly light the small area where I need to see.
“Perfect. Much better.”
“Are you left- or right-handed?”
“Right-handed. If you could just get me a book or something hard to put the pad on . . .”
He turns around and grabs a hardcover off the nearby bookshelf and brings it over to the bed, positioning it under the pad of paper. I pick up the pen and start writing while he holds the light above.
“What’s this?” he asks.
“This is the name of the file where Jenny or whoever is looking at the cloud account is going to find a software application.”
“Okay.”
“When they’re inside that file, they need to click on the application to open it up.”
“Okay . . . That seems simple enough.”
“And then the software application is going to ask for a password, and this is what they need to enter. It’s case-sensitive, so make sure they put it in correctly. If they put it in incorrectly even one time, it will shut down and stop working, and will need to be reset.”
“How do you reset it?”
“You need my thumbprint inputted into the system using a print scanner, which is a little piece of hardware that’s connected to the computer. It’ll be a big mess, so it’s just better if they don’t make any mistakes.”
“Okay.” He pauses. “Wow, this is complicated.”
“Yes. I wanted to be sure it couldn’t be hacked. So once you put in the password, the executable file is going to go into all the other files in the other folders and reveal the data you’re looking for.”
“We don’t have to go in and decipher all of the data with the code by hand? It’s going to do it automatically?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean.”
“That seems pretty sophisticated.”
“It is.” My smile is sad. Bitter. “I used some of Pavel’s money to pay for it, so maybe when I said I didn’t steal from him I wasn’t being entirely honest.”
“This code keeps his numbers from being read by anyone who’s not authorized, so I’d say you used his money to do him a favor.”
“It’s only a favor if he has the code, though.”
Thibault shrugs. “Details. I’m not worried about it; I don’t think it means you’re a dishonest person.”
“I’m not going to lose sleep over it.” It was this or die. For me it was an easy decision, because Thibault is very right about me: I am a survivor. And now that I’ve seen through his eyes what it means to be a survivor, I’m proud to be called that.
“Where did you buy it?” he asks.
“I hired a software engineer to make it. He lives in India. It’s not a problem; no one can trac
e him back to me.”
“Okay. That’s cool. If you don’t mind, though, I’ll mention that to Jenny.”
“Sure, no problem. I’ve got nothing to hide from you or her.” I hand him the paper and he looks it over.
He points at the first line. “So this is the file where Jenny will find that software, and then she needs to open the software and put in this password?” He points to the second line, a string of letters, numbers, and symbols I committed to memory over a period of several days.
“Yes. Tell her to make sure not to change any of the files in the cloud. They need to be named the same way they were when I put them up there, and positioned the way they were initially, for it to work. If she moves anything around or renames any files, it might not work right.”
“Okay, I’ll tell her.” He folds the paper up and sticks it in his pocket. Then he looks down at the baby as his jaw twitches.
“You want to go talk to her right now, don’t you?” I smile at him. He’s not saying a word, but his posture couldn’t be any more tense.
“Am I that easy to read?”
“Yeah . . . like an open book with large-print letters.”
He reaches over to pinch my cheek lightly. “Sassy. Do you mind if I drive down the road a little bit until I have a signal and give Ozzie a call?”
“No, I don’t mind. Just give me that bottle of water and leave me here.” I look down at the baby. “The milk bar is open and he’s really hungry, apparently.” I poke his cheek gently. “Little piggy.”
“Okay. I won’t be long. I’m just going to drive up the road like five minutes and have a quick conversation. I’ll come right back when I’m done.”
“No problem. If Tee finishes before you get here, I’m going back to sleep.”
He pauses on his way out the door, disabling the flashlight app. “When I get back, do you want me to sleep on the couch?”
“Are you crazy?”
“That’s what I was hoping you’d say.” He swings out of the room on his crutches and heads for the front door.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
After giving up on falling back to sleep, I get cleaned up, dressed, and sit on the couch, waiting for Thibault to get back from his early-morning phone call. I’m paging through a random magazine when I hear his truck sliding to a stop out front. The sound of rapid footfalls, running up the gravel drive faster than I would have thought possible with the injury he has, comes to my ears. The engine of his SUV is still running.
I stand, my heart rate picking up. He sounds . . . panicked.
“Mika!” he yells as he mounts the porch steps.
“I’m in here!” I run to the door, worried he’s injured himself. I pull it open to find him standing there in the still-dark morning, breathing like an Olympic sprinter. The living room lamp throws its light on his face, and I can see sweat rolling down his temples.
“I’m sorry to have to say this, but we need to go. Like, now.”
My eyes go wide. I can’t process why he’s saying this to me. Everything was so cool just twenty minutes ago. “Is there something wrong?”
“Maybe not, but I saw a car up on the road, and I think it might be coming in this direction. It’s definitely not anyone from my team.”
I dash from the living room to the bedroom, grabbing the baby from his bassinet to put him in his car seat and yanking the diaper bag off the dresser.
Thibault is right behind me.
“Grab our clothes,” I say, pointing at the drawers. I get busy stuffing diapers and wipes into the bag. It’s almost empty from me plundering it yesterday over and over. Tee is slumped over in his seat, sleeping off his last meal. I pause to straighten him out and buckle him in.
Thibault takes an armload of clothing and limps out of the room with it. When I’m done collecting as much as I can, I look around the room, my head swiveling left to right. “What else should I bring?!”
“You don’t need to bring anything except your purse. Let’s go!”
I come out of the bedroom with Tee’s seat over my arm and my purse on my shoulder. Thibault’s standing at the door with a gun in his waistband and his duffel bag over his back. Some of Tee’s clothes are sticking out of the top of it.
I rush across the living room toward the front door but pause at the coffee table to grab the bottle of water sitting there. Thibault gestures at me as he mumbles aloud, almost to himself. “The car went past me a couple minutes ago. I got here in three minutes, max. The driver has eight minutes, give or take, before he gets to the next driveway, and if he’s going as slow as he was going before, it could take him as much as ten minutes. It’s just a couple minutes down the winding path before he’s here at the front door, assuming that’s where he’s headed . . .”
His furious calculations are freaking me out. I stare at him, trying to figure out what he’s doing.
“Come on, we have to go,” he says gesturing wildly. “Run.”
“You’re really scaring me,” I say as I race out the front door.
He comes limping behind me, his crutches hanging uselessly from his left hand.
“I’m sorry,” he says, opening the door next to the car seat’s base. “I don’t mean to, but I just want to be safe.”
“Okay, okay. Let’s go.” I click the car seat into its base while Thibault throws our bags onto the front passenger seat.
“Get in the back seat!” he yells, hopping on one leg to the driver’s side.
I don’t hesitate. I use the running board to jump in and climb over the baby, pulling the door closed behind me.
He gets in and throws the SUV into reverse, peeling out and whipping the car around. I fall back into my seat and scramble to get my seat belt on.
“Where are they?” I ask, fear tainting my voice. I grip the back of Thibault’s seat to pull myself forward. I look through the front windshield, but all I see is the driveway and trees.
He focuses on the road ahead, flipping a switch on his dashboard that turns his headlights and dashboard lights off. “I have two driveways to my place,” he says. “They’re looking for the other one off to your right. They passed by the one we’re using now. It’s too well hidden from the road when it’s dark out for them to see it.”
“Won’t they see us when they come in?”
“No. I had a special device installed in my vehicle last year for black ops purposes. There’ll be no lights coming from my vehicle at all, not even running lights or brake lights.”
“Who is it?” I stare through the side window, searching for signs of an intruder. I see nothing but the dark shapes of trees and bushes flying past. “Do you think it’s Pavel?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s nobody. I was talking to Ozzie on the phone when the car went by, and something felt off. There’s usually no traffic on this road, and this driver looked like he was searching for a driveway, slowing down at every break in the trees. I might just be paranoid, though, so don’t panic.”
“I don’t think so.” I’m twisted almost all the way around in my seat, and I’m pretty sure I see something there now. “I think I see somebody coming through the woods,” I say, my voice high with panic.
“They’re not going to see us, I promise.”
“I definitely see someone,” I say as the beams of someone’s headlights cut through the trees. “They’re really far over there, though. I can barely see them.”
“That’s somebody coming down the other driveway.” He presses on the accelerator.
“Where are we going?” I ask. I feel like my head is going to explode with the stress.
“As far away from here as we can get.”
“Do you have any idea where, though?” I desperately need a plan. I hate knowing we’re running blind, at the mercy of whoever this is. Pavel.
“Not yet. But when we get onto the main road and out a few miles, I’m going to call Ozzie. I’m sure he’ll have a plan for us by then.”
“I sure hope so,” I say in a small voice. “Di
d you give him the code?”
“Yes, I did.”
I sit back in my seat as the SUV bounces over bumps and into potholes. Reaching out, I take Tee’s tiny hand, gripping the door’s armrest to steady myself. I feel like I’m in a nightmare, racing as fast as we can to get away from it, all the while knowing it won’t be quite fast enough. This car showing up here at Thibault’s place has proven to me that I’ll never be safe from Pavel . . . not even in a cabin in the middle of nowhere.
I’ve never felt so helpless in my entire life. My one consolation is knowing that I gave Thibault the code and he shared it with his team before anyone was able to kill me.
I just wish I hadn’t put him in danger too.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
He drives until he puts enough miles between us and the cabin to feel comfortable pulling out his phone. “You okay back there?” he asks as he uses his thumb to navigate to a phone number.
My heart rate has calmed a bit, but my mood has gone very dark. It feels like no matter what I do, I’m screwed. “Not exactly. Scared more than anything.”
“How’s the baby?”
“Sleeping. Fine.” At least Tee’s able to relax.
“I need to call Ozzie while I drive. Are you okay with that?”
“Yes, I’m fine with it. I trust you.”
“I’ll be careful, I promise. I’ve got precious cargo on board.”
I can hear Ozzie’s voice even though he’s not on speakerphone. “Talk to me,” he says.
“We’re on the road. Somebody was definitely coming to the cabin.”
“Somebody came to your house, too. We caught it on the surveillance cameras.”
I grip Thibault’s seat and pull myself forward so I can be sure to hear everything.
“Is everything okay over there?” Thibault asks.
“Yeah.” Ozzie sighs. “Listen, man . . . I’m sorry I didn’t jump on this when you first talked to me about it. Maybe we could have avoided this.”
Thibault shakes his head. “Stop right there. You did exactly what you should’ve done. I was out of line.”