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As quickly as she could, she bent her legs to manage her center of gravity and raced for the front door. Unless the manic driver was determined to actually drive into the walls of the building, all she had to do was get to the door and get inside.
She’d worry about what came after once she got there.
With a tight hold on her stomach, she moved. The engine kept getting louder and louder, but she refused to turn around.
She just kept going.
Like the day she’d run from Ferdy’s office, one foot in front of the other. Like that long drive to Arizona, one mile after another.
She didn’t think or give herself time to second guess.
She just moved.
Somewhere she registered shouting. She thought she might have been the one screaming. But she ignored it all, her sole focus on those doors.
The squeal of tires echoed once more and the backdraft off the SUV as it drove by floated over her skin, blowing her hair around her face.
But it never hit her.
As her hand grasped the door handle, she turned to see the SUV swerving as it took the last curve of the portico at top speed. Lurching once again when it came to a sharp left out of the parking lot toward the street.
And then Nikolas was there, his arms around her and his lips pressed to her ear as he held her. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
Physically she was fine. Whole and untouched, which meant the baby was whole and untouched.
Safe.
She wanted to take heart in that. And she wanted to believe that they’d be fine.
Only she couldn’t get past the understanding that safety was an illusion and any safety she had felt was a thing of the past.
“That was Ferdy. I know it.”
“How do you know? Did you see him?”
“I know, Nikolas.” She turned toward him, fisting her hands into his shirt before resting them against his chest. “I know it.”
“Shh now. We’ll figure it out.”
“He’s here. He found us. Me and the baby.”
* * *
The moment Marlowe arrived, Nikolas met her and got her settled with Nova in the lab director’s office and then went off to find the security team. So close to the building, they had to have video of the area under the portico and he was determined to get a visual on Ferdy Adler and make sure the whole damn town knew to look for the bastard.
There was still a chance it was just a confused driver, but Nova’s depth of conviction and his own view of how deliberate the move appeared had him falling on the same side she did.
Adler had found her.
How had it happened? He cycled through the past week. He’d managed every protocol he knew to work his searches. There was little chance an actual search would or could flag anyone’s radar, so how had the man found them?
He’d been absent and out of her life for five months. Then, suddenly, Nova shows up here and he finds her?
No way.
So he’d keep looking. Keep trying to figure out how they’d tipped the guy off.
