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“You’re not fine, Ava. You just killed a man.”
“I-it was self-defense.” A tremble rolled through her slight frame.
“And totally justified. I know that, but it doesn’t make it any easier. Even if you took him out while he was pointing a gun right at your head, you’d still feel traumatized. Anyone with any human emotions would feel the same way. That’s why Tempest had Dr. Arnoff create T-101—to develop agents without those human emotions. Killing machines.”
She looked into his eyes. “That’s not you. They couldn’t do it to you.”
“I’ve done my share...”
“Shh.” She placed two fingers against his lips. “That wasn’t you, and then you fought it. You’re still fighting it...and you’re going to win.”
He kissed her fingertips. “Only with your help.”
“It’s the least I can do after you saved me from Simon and then those two assassins at my house, even after I’d been responsible for your predicament.”
“I thought we were over the blame game. You didn’t know what you were doing.”
“And neither did you when you were working for Tempest.”
“Then we’re both guilt-free and can move on.” He stuck out his hand. “Agreed?”
“Agreed.” She shook his hand, and he rubbed his thumb across her smooth skin.
“I meant it about that massage. You look all wound up.”
“And what are you going to do while I’m getting pampered?”
“Work.” He walked to Dr. Arnoff’s laptop on the desk by the window and turned it on. “I’m curious if that agent-locator program shows Snyder here in Snow Haven.”
“That would be one way to make sure it’s accurate. You’re off that grid, so we can’t check the accuracy that way.”
Max drew his eyebrows over his nose. “So, how did Snyder find me? How’d he know to head to Snow Haven, Utah?”
Ava stopped digging through her suitcase and looked up. “I thought we determined that they’d tracked us down through Cody.”
“Maybe someone on Tempest’s orders initiated the break-in at Cody’s place, but that was no Tempest agent or he would’ve shown up on the locator.”
“Tempest found Cody and sent an agent here to follow up. He didn’t show up on the locator because he wasn’t here yet.”
“The agent knew we were here one day after we arrived. How’d they get that info from Cody’s apartment? They couldn’t have.”
“You said you got rid of your cell phone. That’s how they’d been tracking you before. They must’ve just gotten lucky this time.”
“Yeah, lucky.” He navigated to the agent-locator program and pulled up the map. “Son of a... Ava, look at this.”
She stood rooted to the floor, clutching a T-shirt to her chest. “I’m almost afraid to see.”
“You’re the kind of woman who wants to know what you’re up against, right?” He didn’t want to heap any more bad news onto her already fragile psyche, but they were partners in this thing and he needed her up to speed.
She squared her shoulders and joined him at the desk. “What are we looking at?”
“The locator map.” He jabbed his finger at the display. “It shows Snyder here in Utah.”
“Okay, so we know it works. That’s a good thing, right?”
“Look at the other dots.” He trailed his finger across the map from east to west. “You notice anything about the location of these agents?”
“One’s on the West Coast and one’s on the East Coast. So what?”
“Yesterday, this one was in Southeast Asia and this one was in France. They’re converging on us, Ava.”
Chapter Thirteen
His words sucked the air from her lungs and she grabbed for the desk with one hand. “Snyder must’ve told them we were here.”
“Impossible.” He exited the program. “These agents were already on their way before Snyder even made contact with us. Tempest always knew we were headed to Snow Haven.”
She licked her lips. “How? How could they be so sure just because Cody was here? Tempest can’t possibly know what we have planned and how Cody can help us. Caliban may not even be aware of the antidote.”
