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He gave my hands a gentle squeeze, a way to ground both of us back to what we had to focus on. “It took me days to put everything together. I needed help on the cyber end of things, and help from a few people, like your dad and Sydney’s father, to make sense of this.”
You spoke to my dad? How in the world did that conversation go? My parents hated the man, and now they were working together behind the scenes?
“Tell me everything you know, and we’ll work through this together. Okay?”
My eyes went wide at the first thought pinging to mind. “There’s no way Sierra’s part of this,” I stated quickly, needing to set the record straight first.
“Gwen checked your personal emails. Voicemails, too. Sierra called and left you a message on Monday. An email on Tuesday. She thought it’d be best not to actually open the email or listen to the message, though. Sierra then called your mother yesterday, probably because you never got back to her.”
“What’d Mom say?” You talked to her one-on-one, too?
“Given the lab hits are still classified, your mother lied and told her you were deep in a project and not allowed access to your phone. Sierra accepted that as the truth and ended the call.”
“Sierra’s on vacation.” Now I know why he took his family on such a long trip. He knew what was coming. “Karl always takes her phone when they travel. He wants her to unplug, and he’s also paranoid that people will track them when they’re out of the country.” I shook my head, trying to process what that meant. “Do you think he put her up to the emails? The calls? Is he going to hurt her because of me? I—I can’t lose her, too. And she’s a mom.”
Carter held my hands even tighter, offering me as much comfort as he could to try and keep me from losing it.
“It’s possible she’s clueless. He may have given her the OK to talk to you, and so she reached out, but he did it with ulterior motives,” he explained, and his words gave me some relief. “This could work to our advantage in drawing him out so we can find where he is. Gwen tracked Sierra’s signal to the sky each time. They’d been flying, so that information is useless, and probably why he let Sierra call or email at those times.”
“How are we using this to our advantage?”
“Gwen didn’t listen to your voicemails, and she didn’t open your emails, because we’re assuming he’s monitoring that. Karl knows you’re with me, and he’ll know I’d never let you check your personal messages.”
“So, why’d he want her to call or email?”
He let go of a deep exhalation. “He’s curious if POTUS took the bait about the terrorist group backed by Iran. He’d know I’d never let you check your messages if I thought you were still in danger.”
“So if I do, he’ll believe we really did fall for the bait.”
He nodded. “Then once you open the messages, he’ll pinpoint your location and come for you.”
“And you’ll be there waiting.”
“Yes, but without you. I’ll be the one opening those messages.”
I still didn’t understand why Karl was doing this, but we got a bit sidetracked by my focus on Sierra. Another detour. “Why the call to my mom, then?”
“Adds a layer of credibility and protection. If your best friend couldn’t get ahold of you and just went on her merry-fucking-way without following up with your loved ones, what kind of friend is that?”
“Right.” I peeled one hand free from his grasp to remove my glasses, still unable to process all of this. “When are you going to D.C.?”
“Tomorrow. From there, we’ll set the trap for Karl and his people.”
I dropped my glasses on my lap at his words, at their intense and focused delivery. That was a moment Carter had been waiting for. The rip-Craig-apart one. “What about me?”
He let go of my other hand and returned my glasses to my face. “At this point, Karl must know we followed the lead to”—he cleared his throat—“your friends here. I can’t keep you in Scotland while I’m gone, but I can’t take you with me. You’ll come to the airport with me tomorrow, and Gwen will manipulate the CCTV footage so it appears you’re getting on the jet with me.”
“Where will I actually be going?”
“We’ll get to all that, I promise.” He pushed up off the floor and stood, reminding me of the original plan before I’d been sidetracked by needing to clear my best friend’s name of any wrongdoing. “Tell me what you know, and we’ll go over everything from the beginning together.”
“I don’t know much.” I sifted through my memories, squeezing my eyes closed, trying to concentrate and key in on anything important that might help. “Sierra’s grandmother is friends with my mother, and my mother was close with the Barclays, and the Barclays were close with . . .” Ohhh. Opening my eyes, he offered a firm nod, clearly reading the direction of my thoughts. I’d dialed into the chain reaction of connections. “The Novaks.” I stood, my right leg feeling a bit stiff, and I held my outer thigh, working at the knots rapidly developing everywhere.
“The Novaks were good friends with Rebecca’s family. Had Karl not been in high school while Rebecca was in college, they probably would’ve arranged a union between their two powerful families by way of marriage.” He kept his voice flat to get through this, and I reached for his arm, hoping to console him the way he’d been doing for me all week. “Gwen was able to curate a list of all the times the two families were ever publicly together. Like you said, they were close, and we have reason to believe the Novaks planned to meet with the Barclays that Christmas but?—”
“Their plane went down.” Chills skittered up my spine. I ignored them, working at the muscles in his arm instead of my leg, hoping to ease his tension as much as possible while he carried me through this conversation.
He’d been dealing with a walk down memory lane the last four days, confronting Rebecca’s death all over again. I knew why he’d kept me out of it, but I wished he hadn’t. So I could offer him hugs, candy, and comfort, too.
