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“We both were, if you didn’t notice.”
He closed his bag and stood upright. “She had something on. Bathing suit.”
I laughed. “If you call those little scraps of fabric barely concealing anything ‘something on.’”
Gray lifted his left hand, and my attention landed on his message: his wedding band. “I didn’t notice.”
“Right, that wedding band come with special superpowers, making other women invisible?”
Gray shrugged. “You’ll understand when you’re a newlywed.”
Then again, maybe I didn’t need to be married to get the message. I had eyes for only one woman already, and that woman had my head spinning. “Anyway, what is it you’d rather not share in front of her?”
He turned to the side, putting eyes on the house before squaring his attention back on me, that touch of humor gone. “Camila told me she set you two up in Cape Town. That it was no accident you met. And it’s not an accident you’re here.”
“Yeah, I gathered as much.”
Gray shook his head. “No, you don’t understand. This has always been Camila’s op, and it started before Cape Town.”
My shoulders fell, but at the creaking noise above my head, I shifted my focus to find my new buddy, Curious George, still hanging out and spying on us. “No, this is Gwen’s op,” I corrected him, because what he’d said made as much sense as Charley murdering an FBI agent. “Camila just knew the cards would fall this way is what you mean.”
“No.” Gray’s quick answer pulled my eyes away from my new pal. “Camila asked Gwen to lie to us. She said if we knew the truth ahead of time, shit would’ve gone wrong. Not her exact words, but fuck, you know how cryptic she is. But she said she already messed up, and things keep going wrong. And she won’t say more for fear things will get even worse.”
And by “worse,” I had to assume he meant someone would die. “So, what you’re saying is Gwen has no friend named Harley? No ex-girlfriend missing.”
“There are six missing girls, that part is true. But Camila did ask Gwen to lie and not tell anyone she was involved.”
“That explains why Gwen was oddly fidgety and not acting normal at the hangar and on our flight here.” The lying was clearly hard on her.
“Camila’s barely told me anything, but I have a feeling this all somehow connects to why she brought us to Cape Town last month since she set you and Charlotte up there. And now we’re all here.”
I barely remembered why we’d even been in Cape Town—to stop the sale of some weapons technology or something. I’d become solely focused (okay, okay, obsessed) with thoughts about Charley after that mission. “I take it Camila didn’t tell you Charley is innocent, though? Because you sure as hell haven’t been looking at her like a framed woman.”
“Like I said, Camila gave me the bare minimum. And when I asked her for more, you know what she told me . . .” He shook his head as if shocked at some memory. “That one date I went on with her last year, well, she explained why there was never a date two. She said if there had been one, I’d never have wound up with my dream woman, because Tessa would’ve died. She saw it happening during dessert. But she said if she shared anything about Tessa coming back into my life and needing my help, then—”
“Shit would’ve gone sideways,” I finished for him, thinking back to the wild string of events leading to my best friend getting married. “I have to believe this is about not only saving those missing women, but also saving Charley.”
“Unless Camila wants justice for the murdering of a Fed,” Gray tossed out a possibility I didn’t want to hear. “And to catch whichever bad guys are after Charlotte, too. Presumably from her old heist crew.”
“No, Camila’s friends with Charley.” I looked over at the house, anxious to go inside and hear the truth. “The fact they know each other is what connects us to everything.” Well, that was my assumption. Maybe Camila couldn’t share more because she didn’t even know everything-everything, which also meant it’d be on us to put the puzzle together.
“But is Camila really friends with Charlotte? That woman works in mysterious ways. So, I have no plans on believing anyone’s innocence or guilt until we know more. One of us needs to be objective.”
“Fuck, fair enough.” Agitated, I expelled a deep breath. “And Carter is seriously clueless that Camila’s been pulling our strings?”
“He doesn’t know, and Camila was clear on telling me he can’t know. Not sure why, but there’s a reason, I’m sure.”
“Somehow, he’d affect the outcome in a bad way. Got it.”
Gray grabbed his rucksack, and we started for the house. “So, does that mean we need to divide and conquer? Find the missing women and solve this case with Charley?”
“I’m thinking so, unless the missing women are connected to Charley somehow. Regardless, I have orders from Wyatt to get Gwen out of this jungle by tomorrow and no later. I’d rather not be on my brother-in-law’s bad side. Makes for awkward family dinners.”
“Yeah, see, I’m supposed to be the one making ill-timed jokes, not you. I’ve lost my fucking edge, man.”
“You’ll get it back once this is over.” Gray patted my back. “Now come on, let’s go find out if your head is in your ass or you’ve finally found your ‘the one.’”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
