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“Kareem said he’s staying with his sister, but I don’t believe it. I had Ethan check CIA records before we left, and it shows Tussad has a brother-in-law and a cousin who own property in Abadan. The brother-in-law has a wife and five children under one roof, so it isn’t likely he’d be staying there. The cousin has been missing for the last eight months, but someone is still paying his bills. We’ll start there and hope we get lucky.”
“How far? Will we need the Jeep?”
“It’s less than a mile down the road. We can run it.”
She nodded and tried to pull out of his grasp, but he didn’t let her go. She looked up at him with wary eyes, and the feel of her against him was so right that he couldn’t do anything but kiss her.
“For luck,” he said, and lowered his mouth to hers.
He kissed her at each corner of her mouth first before tasting her full bottom lip with the tip of his tongue. Her breath hitched, and her mouth opened, and Gabe couldn’t resist the temptation. Her lips were soft and moist, and he groaned as her tongue gently rubbed against his own. This wasn’t the frantic mating of mouths from the night before. This was remembering. And savoring.
Gabe pulled away slowly, pleased to see the dazed look in her eyes. He leaned around her and reached to turn off the faucet, but his body pressed more into hers and she let out a small whimper. He wanted to whimper himself as she pressed back against him, but he held back from tempting himself even more.
She inhaled an unsteady breath before ducking under his arm to turn the shower off, and Gabe felt the loss of her warmth immediately. He went to the window and pushed back the heavy curtains that insulated the room against the hot afternoon sun and muttered a curse.
“What?” Grace whispered.
Gabe pointed to the window and the iron bars that covered it. They had no choice but to go out the front. He dropped the curtain and went to the door of their room to listen for movement in the hallway. His weapon was in his hand and he eyed Grace as she moved into an automatic position to cover his back. He unscrewed the doorknob so it fell off in his hand, and the door opened soundlessly. He caught the doorknob on the outside quickly before it fell to the wooden floor.
The hallway was deserted, and he moved like a ghost through the house and out the front door, Grace shadowing his every move.
“Do you think the bars are to keep us in or others out?” Grace asked as they took cover behind the house next door.
“I don’t know, but we’ll assume the worst.” Gabe pulled out his GPS and looked at their position. He pointed to the west side of town and said, “We’ll take cover every twenty feet just to be safe. If Tussad is there, we’ll do whatever necessary to flush him out.”
“And if he isn’t?” Grace asked.
“Then we’ll gather more intel and try again. I won’t go back on my word, Grace.”
She nodded, and he closed his eyes, letting the adrenaline rush through his body, and he opened his senses. The night was quiet, but that was to be expected of a town so sparsely populated. The air was cool, and it wouldn’t be long before the excitement of the chase stopped warming their bodies and they were left shivering in the desert night.
They ran in short, silent sprints. The farther they ran, the less evidence there was of the well-kept, prosperous city of Abadan. This part of the city had been abandoned after the bombings. Homes and buildings were no more than ruins. Cars lay on their sides or crushed under large slabs of rock. A mosque was completely intact from the front, but as they ran around the side they saw the entire middle had been torn apart. And just as some of the buildings were completely destroyed and had no hope of repair, there were others that stood perfectly intact.
This was the part of the city people had decided to forget. They’d taken what was left of their belongings and moved to the other side, where they could pick up their lives and move on. It was the perfect place for someone like Tussad to lie low for a few days.
The GPS vibrated in Gabe’s pocket, and he signaled to Grace to take the opposite side of the small white rock house. It was no more than a shack really. Barely standing a few inches over six feet, the roof was made of rushes tied together and packed with mud to keep out dust or rain. The hum of electricity was nonexistent. There was nothing anywhere to indicate any kind of life inhabited the premises.
Gabe signaled with his hands again to Grace, and she nodded with understanding. They’d go around opposite sides and meet at the back of the structure.
“There’s no one here,” she said disappointedly as they came back together.
“No,” Gabe agreed. There were chinks missing in the mortar, and it hadn’t been difficult to peek in and see no one was hiding inside. It was hardly more than one large open room. “Let’s go inside and check it out.”
He pulled the powerful flashlight from one of his pants pockets and waited until they were inside before turning on the light. Even then, he left it pointed at the ground so the beam couldn’t be seen from the outside.
“Nothing but cobwebs,” he said, moving his light around the room.
The choked scream had him whirling around and searching for the threat with his weapon and the flashlight aimed and ready. When the beam hit Grace, he watched with complete surprise and horror as a woman who had a reputation for never losing her cool in a bad situation drained of all color and collapsed in a dead faint on the dirt floor.
He ran as fast as he could, but he couldn’t make it to her in time to catch her. He dropped the flashlight, but held tight to his weapon as he felt for the pulse in her neck. It was fast and thready, and her color wasn’t good. He felt up and down her limbs to make sure nothing was broken, but she was physically fine. He didn’t know about mentally.
Gabe grabbed the flashlight and stood slowly, moving it in a sweeping arc on the side of the room Grace had been on. The light reflected off something on the table, and he moved closer so he could see.
His blood ran cold, and a fury he thought he’d buried came rushing to the surface as he looked at the scattered photographs on the table. They were all of him and Grace and Maddie. Taken just days before their lives had been destroyed.
His eyes rested on the largest photograph—one of his daughter’s lifeless eyes as she bled in Grace’s arms—and he promised himself that Tussad would die a terrible, painful death.
ChapterNine
