“We have a flight out of here at 5 p.m. tomorrow,” Connor said, quickly stuffing his things in his bag, while Kat put her clothes in her own bag.
“What if we drive to Bogotá tonight and take a flight to Houston from there instead of waiting for the flight tomorrow night to fly us to Bogotá? Then there would be no stops. Just a straight flight into Houston,” Maya said.
Connor zipped up his bag. “It’s the red-eye flight. It’ll leave tomorrow at midnight and arrive at 5:30 the next morning. But it’s a long drive to Bogotá and can be dangerous.”
Maya nodded but only commented on the flight. “Hopefully everyone will be sleeping on the plane during the middle of the night and the lights all out, just in case Kat shifts. Did you get the very back seats?”
“Yes,” Connor said.
“Maybe we should make a stand,” Kat said, her voice quiet as she stared out the window, her back rigid. “Maybe we shouldn’t be running away.”
Maya was shocked that Kat would even say such a thing, and she wondered if it was due to Kat’s military training or her jaguar senses or a little of both.
Kat continued, “I’ve endangered you both.”
“What are we going to do, Connor?” Maya asked, rubbing Kat’s arm in reassurance.
“I’ll go down and take a look at the men while you pack. Kat will go with you. We’ll leave our packs at your cabana in case Garcia changes his mind and tells the men we’re staying there.”
“I’ll go with you,” Maya said, “in case the men aren’t speaking to Garcia any further and you won’t know which men they are.”
Kat turned to face them, her expression all business. “I’ll go with you and see if I can identify them.”
“No,” both Maya and Connor said, causing Kat to raise her brows. But then they heard footfalls on the path below the cabana moving toward one of the lower cabanas, and Maya, Kat, and Connor all headed for the window to peer out through the sheer curtains.
But they couldn’t see who was walking up the path. The thick vegetation hid each of the cabanas from the view of the others, giving welcome privacy for the guests.
“Shit,” Connor whispered, grabbing his and Kat’s packs. “Let’s go.” He motioned to a window that faced the park and boulders behind the cabana. “We’ll climb through the window.”
Kat already had slid the window up as quietly as she could, but Maya felt the slight grinding sound had alerted everyone in a one-hundred-mile radius of their plans. The problem with their sensitive hearing was they often felt as though everyone else had it also.
Kat climbed out the window and then took her bag from Connor, and then his. Maya joined her outside, and Connor climbed out last, shutting the window as quietly as he could. They moved quickly through the vegetation, avoiding the stone path while making their way to Maya’s cabana. When they reached it, Maya went to the front door and unlocked it. Kat and Connor stayed hidden in the tropical vegetation behind her place.
Maya went inside, shut the door, and then hurried to the back side of her cabana and opened the window for them. They slipped their bags to her, and Connor boosted Kat through the window, then climbed into the cabana after her.
Maya was already cramming her clothes and other personal effects into her backpack.
Connor glanced out a front window and saw three men on the path headed for a different cabana. Kat drew close and watched them, her eyes widening with recognition.
This is so not good, Maya thought. “Kat,” she whispered, though the men wouldn’t hear her in the enclosed cabana. “Do you know them?”
“Some of Gonzales’s men,” Kat said. “One of the ones who shot me.” She switched her attention from the men to Connor. “How could they know I was here?”
“What about this Wade Patterson you were supposed to meet here?” Connor asked, as they grabbed their bags and he guided Maya and Kat out of the cabana through the back window.
“I don’t know,” Kat admitted, sounding anxious as she jumped to the ground.
“We’ll talk about it later. For now, we need to get a rental vehicle. We’re paid up at this resort. And we’ll do what Maya suggested. We’ll drive to Bogotá. We can take the red-eye flight to Houston from there tomorrow night since it might be safer in the event you have the urge to change. Or we might be able to catch an earlier flight.”
“Do you think Garcia told on us?” Maya asked.
“No. If he did, they wouldn’t have been searching all the cabanas. Maybe they assumed he hadn’t seen you, that we slipped Kat into a room. I believe someone must have seen Kat at some point and reported she was here.”
“Do you think that they’ve been following us all along?” Kat asked. “On our long hike through the jungle?”
“I don’t know. Not for sure. If so, they probably couldn’t make contact any more than we could, with no satellite towers to make cell phone calls.” Connor said.
“They’d wonder about us, don’t you think?” Maya asked her brother.
“We rescued her in the jungle. They probably figure we’re just getting her to a city for her own safety.” He glanced at Kat, who looked like she was going to be sick, her face ice white. “Kat? Are you going to be all right?”
Chapter 23
“I’m fine,” Kat said to Connor, but she didn’t feel fine at all, and from the expression of disbelief on his face, he knew it, too.
Kat felt sick to her stomach, not just because the man she had tried to take down on her last mission was out to get her again, but because she had now endangered Maya and Connor. They didn’t seem to be worried about that prospect. Just about her. And that made her feel worse.
These men were ruthless. How could she have let this happen?
Was this Wade Patterson’s doing? Was he working with Gonzales? The FBI profile on Gonzales said he didn’t like to lose. That he would go to considerable extremes to punish those who angered him. But she hadn’t thought she would be a prime target.
However, when she had been rescued, he had lost the control he had over her fate. And she had infiltrated his camp, so she supposed that could be enough to count her as one of the bigger targets.
What if the Army psychiatrist was in on it? What if he had suggested she go to the jungle to relive the experiences because he was in Gonzales’s back pocket? And Wade Patterson was to encourage her to return to the Amazon, too, except he would give a location that Gonzales knew about.
She shook her head at herself. The doctor had said she might feel that everyone was out to get her. Wasn’t this the ultimate paranoia? When she believed the man who had taken an oath to help her was out to get her, too?
She was torn between being glad Connor and his sister wanted to stick by her side to protect her and wanting to push them far away from her so they wouldn’t be in any danger. Neither Maya nor Connor seemed to want to let her go her own way, but Kat couldn’t do this to them. They didn’t deserve it.
After taking a bus to the city and locating a rental car, Kat balked at going any further with Maya and Connor. She intended to get hold of one of her points of contact in the Army, let him know what was going on, and then hope a team would arrive in time to take Gonzales out. But she had to leave Maya and Connor and do this on her own, hoping to God she wouldn’t shift at the worst time. She could get together with Maya and Connor again after this was all through. “If we split up…”
Maya’s jaw dropped and she frowned, then quickly looked at Connor and said, “No,” at the same time he did.
Their expressions were unyielding as Connor took Kat’s arm, made her get into the passenger side of the compact black rental car, and shut her door for her. Then he tossed their backpacks in the trunk.