“I’m okay,” Sierra told her woodenly.
“You don’t sound okay,” Gillian said doubtfully, unlocking the car.
Once they were both inside, Sierra took a deep breath and turned to her friend. “I don’t know what I am right now,” she said honestly.
The look of compassion and worry on Gillian’s face nearly broke Sierra, but she swallowed hard and pushed away the almost overwhelming emotions threatening to take over. She needed to be clearheaded. Needed to figure out what she was going to do.
Gillian’s phone rang again, making both women jump at the sudden loud, jarring noise.
“Hello? No, I’m still here.” Gillian sighed. “It’s not a good time right now. Can you— Right. No, it’s okay, I’ll be inside in a second. Just keep her calm until I get there. I know. We’ll talk about it later.”
Sierra looked at her in question when she hung up.
Gillian frowned. “That was my assistant. One of the older guests came back and said she couldn’t find her purse. She swears that someone stole it and she’s freaking out. This was the woman who insisted someone had taken her meal and thrown it away before she was done eating…remember? Who’d gotten turned around and forgotten where she was sitting? Her half-eaten meal was still where she left it and no one had stolen anything.” Gillian shook her head, exasperated. “I’m sure this is something similar. She probably put her purse down somewhere and just forgot. Of course, she doesn’t want to talk to anyone but me about it, and she’s giving my assistant a hard time. It won’t take me long to deal with this. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Sierra said. She could use some time alone to think.
“When I get back, we’ll go to my place. I’ll call the others and we’ll all wait to hear what’s going on together. Okay?”
Sierra nodded.
Gillian put a hand on her arm. “This is going to be fine,” she said firmly. “I know my husband and the rest of the guys on the team are going to get Grover out of this. They’re good at what they do.”
Sierra knew that. She’d seen it firsthand. “I know they are.” She felt a little robotic, with her short, flat responses, but she couldn’t muster up the energy to say more than a few words at a time.
Gillian squeezed her arm and nodded. “I’ll be right back,” she said, then climbed out of the car and hurried back toward the building.
Now that she was alone, Sierra closed her eyes, trying to decide what to do.
What she should do was sit right where she was, wait for Gillian to get back and go home with her. She knew the other women would join them. Keep Sierra calm while they waited to hear any news about what was going on at Grover’s.
But the longer she sat there, the more that option didn’t feel right.
She’d been forced to sit around and let others decide her fate for an entire year. And the only reason she’d gotten out of that situation was because Grover had made the decision to go to Afghanistan, on his own, to find her. What would’ve happened if he hadn’t taken such a huge risk? If he hadn’t gone against every protocol he knew?
She’d likely still be in that mountain cell. Or even dead by now.
The longer she sat there and thought about Grover being held against his will—in his own house, no less—the more anger churned inside her. She’d been scared and almost numb when Trigger called, but now white-hot rage threatened to consume her.
How dare those militia assholes threaten him. Especially after everything he’d done to try to keep Americans safe. Grover had put his life on the line time and time again, not for fame or glory or fun…but because it was necessary. Because it was right.
Could she do any less for him now?
Running a hand over her scalp, Sierra felt the soft hair growing there. It brought her back to those dark caves…made her think about the terrorists…how she’d manipulated them so easily.
Could she do the same again? She wasn’t sure—but how could she not try?
Looking down at her watch, Sierra saw that mere minutes had passed since Gillian had gone back inside. It felt like hours. And she could only imagine what those same minutes felt like to Grover.
The longer she sat there, the more harm those assholes could do to the man she loved.
Moving without hesitation, Sierra pulled open the door to the car and headed for her Impreza. Gillian would be worried, but Sierra had made her decision.
She had no idea how she was going to get to Grover, and a huge part of whether she could help him or not depended on what she found when she got to his house. But she’d never forgive herself if she didn’t at least try.
Sierra took the time to send a quick text to Gillian, telling her she needed to be alone and would call her later. It was likely Gillian wouldn’t take her words lightly; she’d probably head to her apartment to check on her. But as much as Sierra hated deceiving her friend, she had to. She couldn’t sit around when Grover was in danger.
Ten minutes later, Sierra scowled at the cars and military trucks parked sideways, blocking the entrance to Grover’s driveway. There was no way they were going to let her through.
Thinking hard, she drove another half mile down the road and abruptly turned off into a field of tall grass, like the stuff at the back of Grover’s house. It was tall enough to hide her car, but she couldn’t do anything about the tire marks leading into the field. Hopefully anyone passing by would be more concerned about all the military vehicles nearby to even think twice about a car driving off the road into the grass.
Her inner voice was screaming at Sierra, asking her what the hell she thought she was doing, but she did her best to shut it out. Grover would have sacrificed his life for hers, and he didn’t even know her at the time. She loved the man. She couldn’t not do this.
She fought to open her car door in the thick grass, then headed in the direction of Grover’s house, moving slowly, thankful for the camouflage the grass and trees gave her as she neared. Her heart was beating a million miles an hour but oddly, the closer she got to the house, the calmer she became.
It took much longer than she wanted to get to the house because twice she’d had to change direction, quietly slipping away when she spotted police officers and an FBI agent guarding the perimeter around the property.
She was currently on her belly, peering through the grass at the absolute chaos surrounding Grover’s house. There were firetrucks and police cars parked all over the lawn to one side of his long drive. She assumed there were a lot more she couldn’t see from her position. She also noted a few military Humvees and a large RV with the words “Incident Command” emblazoned on the side.
As she watched, a van sped down the dirt driveway, dust billowing out behind it as it raced toward the scene. As soon as the vehicle stopped, half a dozen men climbed out, all with large white letters on the back of their vests, declaring them to be FBI.
To her surprise, she saw several shapes bleed out of the landscape around the house, heading for the van. With a start, she realized it was a few of Grover’s teammates—and she hadn’t spotted a single one until that moment. They’d clearly been surveilling the house, blending perfectly into their surroundings. Now that some sort of bigwig in the FBI had arrived, she guessed, they were moving to talk to him.