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Is he for real? I can hardly comprehend this reprieve. Something hopeful rises in my chest. I’d resigned myself to dying down here. “Verdad?”
He nods. His smile is as bright and warm as the rush of understanding that lifts the fog of sleep and my heart. I lean forward and kiss him lightly on the lips. “You did it.”
He smiles wider. “Go. You first.”
Unable to muster enough strength to even wipe sweat from my eyes I slow crawl up into the hole, shimmying shoulders and elbows up, then bracing my feet against the sides so I don’t slide back down.
Panting, I reach the end and find that Sean made the absolute right choice by choosing to dig to the right of the metal door. The area he dug out is nearly wide enough for us to escape. With a little more work, we can squeeze out.
I gulp in cool night air. I reach up and my hand slaps against a bar. It halves the opening.Oh no. Another obstacle, but this one won’t stop me. I see instantly I could squeeze out. He’s made enough room for me to get through, but his shoulders are easily twice the width of mine.
I’m too angry for sobs. I whisper-rage down at him, “You think I’m going to escape and leave you here?”
“Get out. Call the policia from a safe location. They can dig me out. Plenty of air now.”
“No,” I say, and squeeze my shoulders past the bar. It shifts. Not a bar. The shovel!
From despair to hope that quickly, I lower back down, wrap my hands around the handle, and begin to push and pull, push and pull to dislodge it.
Dirt sifts down over me, burning my eyes. I cough and turn me head, but I don’t stop.
“Stop,” Sean says. “You’ll collapse it. Stop. Go call the police. Leave me.”
I can’t stomach the idea of leaving him down there. Fate has, once again, set me a challenge, and I want her to know I’m damn serious when it comes to Sean.
I keep working the shovel, feeling it move, knowing there isn’t that much dirt, not enough to cause a problem now. “Help me,” I tell him. “It’s the shovel blocking us, and I’m nearly there.”
The big man places his hands on either side of mine and we shove and pull, shove and pull. I feel it moving, feel that we will soon be free. He feels it, too.
Sean growls and heaves up, lifting me with his might as the shovel gives way.
18
SEAN
Driving down a dark and deserted road bumping toward Oaxaca in the safety of my Cadillac—never been so happy to see anything in my life––I can’t help but feel something is not right between me and Dee. She won’t look at me and hasn’t said a word since we got into the car.
I’m not a fan of that brooding silence. In fact, I need to break it. “Once we’re clear of the area, we can use your burner phone to make an anonymous call to the authorities.”
She nods but doesn’t answer me. After all that happened underground—the tears, the scorching-hot kiss, the truth that she isn’t a nun, the vulnerability of the near-death experience—what’s going on?
Rolling onto a paved road that lets me know we’re getting closer to town, I whisper, “Is everything okay, luv?”
She laughs and wipes a tear glistening on her cheek. “I wanted to give up, had given up, and you saved me.”
“We saved each other.”
“No, Sean, that’s not true. Yousavedme, and now I want to do the same for you. I can find Sofía, I can find Rosa, and I can find the information on Walid, and that means you don’t need to put yourself in danger anymore.”
Like hell. I glance over and take her in. We washed up a bit with the extra water we’d had, but dirt still coats her pants. There’s a smear across her face. Yet she’s so lovely, it hurts. Not only lovely in appearance, but lovely inside as well. She’s trying to warn me off.
“Not going anywhere, whatever you’re doing, I’ve got your back. Promise.”
She grasps her leather bracelet, a habit I now realize is tied to stress and maybe…guilt? “Even if I won’t tell you my real name or who I work for?”
Bugger. That hurts. Then again, she only knows my real name by coincidence. “Even then.”
A troubled frown line appears on her forehead. “Even if what I do isn’t legal?”
