She could see that Walker was having a hard time letting go of the thought that someone had hit her. She gentled her tone. “It happens, Walker. Unfortunately, all the time. Walking down the street, men feel as if it’s okay to whistle and cat call. They don’t hesitate to ogle our boobs and tell us how turned on they are. A lot of them feel as if it’s okay to smack a woman simply because they’re a man, stronger and better than a woman because they have more muscles and a dangling piece of flesh between their legs they pee through. It doesn’t make it right, but bad things happen to good women all the time.”
“Not to you. Not anymore,” Walker said in a possessive tone that made goose bumps break out on Gillian’s arms.
“Okay,” she agreed easily.
Walker took a moment to visibly try to control his extreme reaction to her admission that she’d been hit, then said, “I can’t stay much longer as I have to get back up to Fort Hood. My team is gonna give me hell for missing PT this morning. I’ve never missed it before. Not once.”
Gillian blinked. “Really?”
“Really,” he confirmed. “You were more important than getting back to run ten miles with my friends.”
That felt good. Really good.
“But, before I go, there’s something else we need to talk about.”
“The hijacker,” Gillian said somberly. Even though her belly was churning with happiness, she knew they needed to discuss this.
“Yeah,” Walker said, his face serious. “No one knows who he is, what he’s thinking, or even where he is right now.”
“But why would he care about me or any of the other passengers?”
Walker stared at her for a long moment, and Gillian could tell he was weighing what he should and shouldn’t say.
“I need you to be honest,” she said quietly. “I get that you don’t want me hurt, but I need to know everything.”
“Right. Everyone’s working on this. The FBI, CIA, DEA. The antiterrorist organizations from other countries. Everyone who was on the plane is being scrutinized, even you. Your friends might have people ask them questions about you. Your tax and business records will be combed through looking for inconsistencies. I’m very sorry.”
Gillian shrugged. “I don’t have anything to hide, Walker. I’m not thrilled, but the sooner they figure out I’m just me, the better.”
He smiled briefly, then sobered once more. “There are more questions about this seventh hijacker than answers. Why was he hiding amongst the passengers? How pissed is he that his fellow conspiracists were killed? We know now that the hijackers didn’t work for the Cartel of the Suns, but instead were from a rival drug syndicate, the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico. They didn’t want to free Hugo Lamas, they wanted him dead, which they accomplished. They embarrassed the Cartel of the Suns and essentially started one hell of a war.”
Holy crap. She was hardly up on all the various cartels and hadn’t really paid that much attention to them before she’d been hijacked, but even she knew about the Sinaloa Cartel, who occasionally made the local news. What she remembered about them was terrifying. “Why would anyone come after me?”
“To find out what you know. Because, when push comes to shove, you were a big reason why Luis and all the others were killed. You stalled them just enough, you put up a fight. Alberto wanted you on that plane, and because he wanted you, someone else might think there was a good reason.”
“But Luis was taking Andrea,” Gillian pointed out.
“I know. And that means she could be in danger too. She’s being checked in on as well.”
“Oh,” Gillian said, her mind swirling.
“With all that said, I think the chance someone from the Sinaloa Cartel, or the Cartel of the Suns, coming after you is low. But I’m not willing to stake my life on it…or yours. You need to be very careful, Gillian. Don’t go anywhere by yourself if you can help it. Don’t take any chances. Always lock your door. Get a security system installed, or at least buy those motion-sensor cameras that are so popular nowadays. And for God’s sake, don’t take an Uber anywhere.”
Gillian couldn’t help but smile. “You really don’t like those rideshare things, do you?”
“No,” he growled. “You have no idea who’s behind the wheel. What their driving record is, if they’ve been drinking or on drugs, or if they just got out of jail for sexual assault. Once you get in a car, you’re vulnerable. You could be driven anywhere…out into the middle of nowhere and never seen again.”
“Okay, Walker,” she said, putting her hand atop his on her leg. “I’ll be careful. Can I…do the other passengers know about the sleeper guy? I mean, I email and text quite a few of them. I don’t know what I’m allowed to say and what I’m not.”
“Some will be informed, others won’t. The thing is, someone you’re talking to could very well be the seventh hijacker, Gillian.”
She shook her head. “No. I don’t believe it.”
She didn’t like the look in Walker’s eyes.
“No,” she said again. “There’s no way Janet is a terrorist. Maybe you think it’s little Renee? Or Reed? Maybe one of the college boys? Alice, the woman who was so scared she literally peed her pants? Or Andrea, the woman Luis forced to suck his dick? No, no way.”
“Breathe, Gilly,” Walker said gently, turning his hand over so he could intertwine their fingers. “This is something else that you’re going to have to do…talk to the authorities about the other passengers. Tell them everything that happened in minute detail. Even the smallest thing could be important, could be a clue as to who the other hijacker was.”
Inhaling deeply, Gillian tried to control her panic. It was just now sinking in that someone she’d gotten to know, had bonded with over their horrific experience, might really have been on the side of the hijackers. “I don’t know that much, Walker. The men were kept on the other end of the plane, you know that. I only briefly talked to most of them. Mateo, Charles, Muhammad…they all seemed nice. Now, I just don’t know. Oh! But now that I think about it, Leyton was a bit strange. When Alberto was trying to pull me onto the plane, Leyton was standing nearby, just watching us. Not helping and not running away like the others. But honestly, I think he was just in shock. Everything happened so fast.”
“Okay, Gillian, I’m not the one who needs to know the details, the investigators do.”
She frowned at him. “You don’t want to know?”
He shrugged. “I want to know whatever you want to tell me. But my job in Venezuela wasn’t to solve the mystery of who had hijacked the plane, and why. It was to rescue hostages, and if that meant killing the hijackers, so be it. I’m not involved in the investigation. As of right this moment, my one and only concern is to make sure you’re safe.”
That felt really good.
“If you want to talk to me about what you went through, I’ll listen. I’ve been through some pretty serious shit in my life, and I can help you deal with what happened if you need it. But starting today, I’m the man you’re dating, not someone who’s with you to pump you for information. Okay?”