CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO
Ava shot a text to Caden explaining her sudden departure from the hospital.
But don’t worry, I’m with John. Everyone’s on the lookout for Nicolai. I’ll be fine. You can meet me there whenever you’re able.
He wouldn’t like it. Knowing she was with John wouldn’t offer him any comfort at all, but she’d been deployed when her father supposedly died. The grief of not being able to say goodbye was still with her. She wasn’t going to let her mother pass without holding her hand and whispering in her ear one more time. Caden would come to the nursing home and meet her there.
John snatched her phone from her fingers.
“Hey!”
He held the button and powered it down, then slid it into his front pocket. Before she could protest, John took a left when he should have taken a right. Ava’s heart pounded and her lungs tightened. “Where are you going? What are you doing?”
“Protecting you.”
She blinked. “What? John, I need to see my mother. And I need to call Nathan. Give me my phone back, now.”
John placed a hand over hers. “Nathan doesn’t need to be involved in this.”
“Involved—” Dread centered itself in her midsection. It had been him all along? Why hadn’t she listened to her instincts? “You have about thirty seconds to explain yourself.” Or what? She didn’t know, but she’d figure something out. “Where are you taking me?”
“Someplace safe.”
“No, no, no. I decided to trust you and you do this?” She wanted to scream. Instead, she pulled in a ragged breath and closed her eyes. “My mother needs me. If you deny me the opportunity to be with her before she dies, I’ll never forgive you.”
“Your mother is fine. As fine as she can be anyway. I arranged for that call from the facility so I wouldn’t have to fight you to get you in the car.”
His words finally penetrated, and she stared at him. “Why?” she whispered.
“Because I had to stop you. You’re digging into things that need to be left alone.”
No, this couldn’t be happening. “It was really you all along?”
“What?”
“Trying to kill me. I wondered.”
He gaped, then swung his gaze back to the road. “No, I haven’t been trying to kill you. Really, Ava? You thought I could be behind—Wow.”
She still didn’t know what to believe. “You sound very convincing.”
“There’s a reason for that!”
“But you’re as good a liar as I am, John. We both know that.”
Again, he let his eyes swing to her, and she noted his pale face. His fingers spasmed around the wheel. “I don’t want you dead, Ava. Quite the contrary.”
“And yet, you’ve taken me against my will.”
“Because I’m trying to protect you! And your father.”
She gasped, then pulled in a breath and waited to get herself under control. Lashing out wouldn’t help. “So, you know he’s alive,” she said, her voice dull, flat.
“Yes, but when I came to your house, I really thought he was dead.”
“So, when did you know?”
“Shortly after he was reported missing, then declared dead. So about seven months ago.”
Ava gasped again when her heart lurched and thundered in her ears. “Seven months ago?”
“Yes, but I don’t know how to find him, and he hasn’t contacted me, Ava. It’s been crickets from him. And, of course, I knew he hadn’t been in touch with you. But I figure he’s got a good reason for it.”
“Yeah! Like he’s in trouble? Like he’s physically unable to reach out for help?”
“No, like he’s working on something so covert that he can’t come up for air without putting himself—and others—in danger.”
“No way. He’d never abandon my mother—leave her to die in a nursing facility—without coming to say goodbye to her.” She scoffed. “You know that as well as I do.”
Ava clasped her hands in her lap and thought about the phone in his pocket. She’d have to get it somehow.
He frowned and nodded. “I would have thought so, but honestly, I just don’t know. He may be putting work ahead of his family once again. He’s always done that. You can’t deny it.”
She couldn’t. Maybe. “That wasn’t totally his fault. His job demanded it. Which is why I’ll never do it.”
John shot her a quick look and his jaw tightened. “Never say never.”
“Or,” she said, ignoring him, her voice soft, “he’s really dead after all this time.”
“Or that,” John agreed, his own words as quiet as hers.
Time clicked past as she struggled to figure out what to do. Try to escape? Or go along with whatever John had in mind. She still didn’t know where he was taking her, but at least she wasn’t tied up. Yet. “How’d you figure out he was alive?”
He hesitated. “Someone logged into my account at the agency. When I couldn’t trace the history to see what the person was looking for, I could think of only one person who would be able to pull that off.” He shot her a sideways glance. “Well, two, but I knew you hadn’t done it.” He sighed. “And then he called me and confirmed it.”
“He called you?”
“Yes.”
Her father had called John, but not her. Ava focused on pushing aside her hurt—and anger—and decided to get as many answers as she could while he was talking. “Did you really go to the high school and get rid of all of my father’s pictures in the albums?”
“No. He did that.”
“Oh.” She sighed. “John, you can’t do this. This is kidnapping.”
“Not if you go with me willingly.”
“Which I’m not doing and you know it. Please, take me back to the hospital.”
“I can’t.” He pressed the gas.
Caden finally had a chance to look at his phone. Daria had located the other two men in the picture and they—and their families—were now on their way to safe houses. He scrolled through his texts and found the one from Ava saying she was going to the nursing home and John was taking her. “She’s okay. She’s with John.” Saying the words out loud didn’t help much.
A sensation like he’d never experienced washed over him. John was a man she’d once given consideration to as the person behind the attacks on her. He dialed her number and it went straight to voice mail.
Even more alarmed, he looked up the number to the facility.
“Baymont Care.”
“This is Caden Denning, I need to get in touch with one of your visitors. Her name is Ava Jackson. She’d be visiting—”
“This is Petra, Caden.”
“Oh, hey, is Ava there?”
“No, I haven’t seen her.”
He’d expected that answer for some reason, but it still sent darts of worry through him. He glanced at his watch. She should be there by now. “How’s her mother doing?”
“About the same.”