“Of course it is,” she said. “I was there. You weren’t.” And, with that, she walked over to the small chair by the window and sat down. “Now that we’ve discussed that as far as I’ll go,” she said, “didn’t you say food was coming? I’m starving.”
Right on cue, a knock came at the door. One of the men went to answer it, and several large trolleys were pushed inside.
As soon as the door closed, she walked over and lifted the domes. “You really meant it when you said food, didn’t you?”
“I told you that I’d look after you,” Bullard said.
“Not your job,” she replied. “I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself.” She shot him a thunderous look. “I get that you want to do something for me, and, if there’s nothing else, then let me go back to my island.”
“Not until you’re safe,” he said. “You have admit that it’s just not a safe place for you right now.”
She stared out the window and nodded. “That may very well be,” she said, “but I won’t give up my island property. It’s the place that healed my soul.”
“You won’t have to,” he said. “I would never ask you to do that. Now let’s drop the heavy discussion and eat.”
But she was afraid that dropping the discussion was just pushing it off to another point in time when he figured she’d be more amiable. She just didn’t understand how seeing the detective or dealing with this issue would help in any way. She stopped and looked at him. “What if we don’t leave here and just talk to him over the phone?”
“It still doesn’t get your thumb drive back.”
She frowned. “Maybe I don’t want it back.”
“Maybe so, but, if anything’s on there to nail the doc with, then we need to get it.”
She frowned.
He shook his head and said, “Come on. Just eat for now.”
She glared, then opened her mouth to the forkful he popped in. She had to admit that, by the time she finished eating, she felt a little bit better, although the steady stream of lighthearted banter among the team undoubtedly helped. The men were clearly still feeling giddy with relief and celebrating Bullard’s survival. While they officially hadn’t given up hope, she saw in their gazes that they had each been mourning his loss, perhaps Dave most of all.
As for her, she was still scared and completely reluctant to go back to New York, but she wanted to take care of a few things at some point in time. So she decided that a quick trip would be okay. She realized that, on some level, she was afraid that, if she went to New York, she’d never get back out again, and that was the underlying cause of her stress over the topic. She was fearful that, when she got back into the nastiness, she might end up jailed on murder charges, which is what she had been threatened with in the first place.
Did she want the doctor charged? Yes, of course, but only if they kept her out of it. Because, as she had come to realize, a bit of a coward was in her right now, and she didn’t want to even deal with Leo. But, if he was the one who had put a price on her head and was even now still looking for her, then it had to be resolved. Otherwise she would never be safe, and that would ruin her life.
He’d already done that once, so she didn’t want to give him the power to do it again.
*
By the time the arrangements were finalized, everybody headed to New York by air. She stuck fairly close to Bullard’s side all the way to the airplane, and he understood. He didn’t want to take her back into this trauma that had eclipsed her world before, any more than she wanted to go. She’d been a gifted surgeon, widely recognized as an upcoming star with the power to conquer the world. Instead somebody had destroyed that bright star and had blasted her life to oblivion, sending her underground to attempt to rebuild a sense of safety on her own.
Bullard understood how that would feel because he’d had such a similar reaction himself. But her story couldn’t be allowed to stop there. She couldn’t be allowed to walk away from her gift and everything that had mattered to her because of a fear of it happening all over again. He desperately wanted her to come to Africa and to live with him there, but he also wasn’t prepared to force her to do that.
She’d been kidnapped and smuggled away, had witnessed a violent murder, then essentially had been kidnapped again. Her life in imminent danger the whole time. The last thing he wanted to do was treat her in a way that would bring up those memories at the hand of yet another asshole. He looked at her, but she still had her eyes closed as she leaned against the window. He hoped she was sleeping, but it was hard to tell.
The other guys periodically turned and looked at him, as if checking to see if he were really here, and he just smiled and nodded. They’d split up the team and were taking two different routes, just to make sure they didn’t all die in one big accident. Not that he believed in accidents anymore, since it was obvious that the entire team had been targeted.
They still hadn’t gotten any further in figuring out who was behind it all, but right now it was all about Leia, and he wasn’t sure when they could turn their attention to resolving the issue of who was trying to take down his whole operation. His mind kept churning, as they searched for more information. He had emails and text messages from both Levi and Ice, but, so far, nobody was having any luck tracking down who this person was. It had to be somebody close to him, and that was the part that really bothered him.
Somebody who had access to the compound.
After finishing their business in New York, they would head back to Africa, and he couldn’t wait for that to happen. He’d already sent Dave and two men back there, while Bullard was heading to New York with the others. Just because there were still so many questions at this point, he wanted to keep the teams equally balanced. He thought about sending a couple more back, but, so far, everybody was more or less on board with splitting the team up as he had. He had a couple other guys off on missions he would bring back to his main base compound, and he also had two men at the African border compound in Tunisia.
He wondered if he even needed to keep that location anymore. What he wanted to do was reevaluate the size and the scope of the work that he was doing. No doubt the world needed what he did, and that business he could continue to grow and grow. He would probably never eclipse the need because the world was such a messed-up place, but maybe he didn’t need to be the one who did it. Maybe he should set up some of the men with their own company and have them take on the bigger and more complex jobs in the field, instead of Bullard handling it all.
And whatever he would handle, he wanted to stay closer to home, so he was closer to Leia. This was something he had never really expected to happen, but, as his life was changing, he saw that the need to change was also within him. These last few months had changed how he viewed the world and his role within it. He still didn’t exactly know how it would end up, but definitely change was in the air.
She murmured, “What are you thinking about?”
“About change,” he said, “and I’m making the arrangements for flights to get us home after this too.”
“How long will we stay in New York?”
“I was thinking about thirty-six hours.”