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“But we all agreed that the poison could’ve been something undetectable. She passed out in the bathroom. I saw her, felt her clammy skin.”
“That could’ve been the result of anything—even playacting.”
Hailey clutched her hair at the nape of her neck as her head swam. “Are you saying you think she set up the whole poisoning scene? For what possible purpose?”
“For this purpose.” Joe drew a circle in the air with his finger. “To throw us off her trail. If Ayala is a victim just like you, how could she be responsible for the attacks on you?”
“Joe, this is crazy. I worked with Ayala for over a year in the refugee center.”
“What did you learn about her in that time? You said she was reserved. Where’s her brother? Her husband?”
“Husband? She doesn’t have a husband.”
“Fiancé? She wears a ring with a single red stone on the ring finger of her left hand.”
“She does?”
“She was the only one of you, Marten and Andrew who didn’t ID Denver. Just like the poisoning, she’s trying to keep a low profile. Here I was thinking Siddiqi was the mole when it could very well be Ayala. She knows the area, the language, the people.”
“That’s just it. She cares for those people. You haven’t seen her in action.”
“She might care for them on one level, but they’ll never trump her ideology. I’ve run across several extremists. They don’t think like the rest of us do.”
Hailey pinned her unsteady hands between her knees. “You think she came out here to monitor the situation? Gain my trust and then strike?”
“I do. Maybe her associates had already put the plan with Marten in motion, and when they realized Marten had communicated with you, they sent for her to cozy up to you, find out what you knew or suspected.”
“You were suspicious of her from the beginning, weren’t you? Maybe it was your instinct kicking in when you first saw her that told you she posed a threat to me.”
“I took her down because I thought her umbrella was a gun.”
“Makes perfect sense to me, because an umbrella looks just like a gun.” Tipping her head back, she closed her eyes. “I still can’t believe it. You might be wrong.”
“I’m not wrong, Hailey. Nobody else could’ve tipped off the gunman that we were at Mission Hope looking for Marten’s locker.”
“So she got on her phone as soon as we left the house and alerted someone.”
“She did it before that—when we left her to get dressed in the hospital. She knew about the key then. Who knows? She could’ve even left something in this car, like a GPS to track us. She could be on her computer right now cooking up the next plot.”
“She didn’t bring her laptop.”
“Yes, she did...” Joe snapped his fingers. “Now I know it’s her. She told us she didn’t have her computer, didn’t she?”
“That’s why she didn’t see my email. She doesn’t like reading emails on her phone and said she didn’t have her laptop.”
“She does have it. She left it charging under the bed, and I stubbed my toe on it while I was waiting for you to finish up with Porter this morning.”
“Oh my God. So she lied about the computer. What else?”
“A lot.” He turned toward her and grabbed her arm. “Hailey.”
“What?” His tone sent a river of chills down her spine.
“She knows I’m on to her.”
“How do you know that?”
“I mentioned that she could pass the time this afternoon on her laptop, totally forgetting she wasn’t supposed to have it here. It gave her a start when I said it.”
Hailey shook her head, trying to clear the fuzz in her brain. “When we show up alive, she’s going to be even surer that we’re on to her.”
“If she hasn’t heard from her contact by now, she’s going to assume the plan didn’t work. She already knows we’re on to her.”
“And she’s alone in my house.”
“I doubt she’s going to be hanging around, but step on it anyway.”
