And to get as far away from me as possible.
Halina exited the bathroom and entered the guest bedroom across the hall. Closing the door at her back, she leaned against it, dropped her head back, and closed her eyes. Failure swamped her body. Ultimate failure. But also a twisted relief. Carrying the responsibility for Mitch’s safety had weighed on her every day of the last seven years. Making sure he was alive and well without him discovering she was watching, continuing to remind Schaeffer she held the evidence and was prepared to use it without leaving any hint of her location, living in constant fear that she’d make a mistake along the way and it would cost Mitch his life—it was exhausting.
Now, she only had to concentrate on getting away from him and hiding. With his band of followers and their paranormal abilities, that would be difficult. But now that Mitch knew everything—or would after he absorbed the information from the discs she’d just given him—now that he believed she’d completely betrayed him and his family, he might stay away.
Unless she was pregnant.
But she couldn’t do anything about that now.
What she could do—the very last thing she could do—was attempt to buy Mitch time.
Halina opened her eyes and glanced around the room. Her gaze halted on a phone beside the nightstand. She went directly to it and dialed information. With the credit card numbers for her unused alias, which she’d memorized—just in case—she placed the call.
“Yes, I need to get flowers urgently to one of your patients,” she told the gift shop clerk who answered, speaking quickly and keeping her voice low. Her gaze held on the door, ready to cut the call if Mitch walked in. “Can you do that?”
“Of course, ma’am.”
“They’re for my uncle,” she said, rubbing her aching forehead. “He’s a senator and always uses an alias when he’s in the hospital. I know you can’t give me his alias,” she said before the clerk objected. It wasn’t her first time using this tactic. “I’m only asking that you get these flowers and a message to him. He’s critically ill and I’m in Arizona. I may not make it to see him before he passes and I really want him to know I’m thinking of him.”
“Oh, dear,” the older woman said. “I can send the flowers to his room, I just can’t guarantee—”
“I understand,” Halina said, in the back of her mind chanting please, please, please. “Even knowing I was able to attempt will ease my guilt. The earliest flight I could get is tomorrow morning and I just don’t know if he . . .” She purposely trailed off, but didn’t have to try to sound desperate.
“I’d be happy to do what I can to get the flowers and your message to him.”
“Oh, thank you.” Halina’s relief sounded in her voice. “If he is too sick to receive them, if someone can just whisper the message in his ear and give it to the others who are there with him, I’d be forever grateful.”
Mitch stood dripping on the tile floor for a long moment after Halina had exited, staring at the rich brown rhinestones on Dex’s collar. He drew in thick breaths of steam-filled air. His heart assaulted his ribs as his mind spun and spun, trying to put everything into a place.
She had told him she’d feared putting others in danger here. She hadn’t understood the extreme effects of Schaeffer’s rampage until she’d arrived. And she’d hardly had time to assimilate everything and make such a monumental decision as to whether or not to give up the information saving her own life in order to save others.
Mitch turned the collar over and slid his fingers along the black canvas. A stiff area in the center made his heart trip again. Three stiff squares lived at the center of the collar—squares the size and shape of micro discs.
Air whooshed from his lungs. God, she was clever. He couldn’t think of a safer place for them than on her attack-trained shepherd’s neck.
When it counted, she’d come through. He hadn’t told her how he knew she had the information. Didn’t tell her what information he thought she’d had. Yet, she’d turned over—what at least looked like—everything, as she’d claimed.
It was a huge sacrifice. One that moved Mitch and gave him the strength to make that leap of faith that terrified his heart, but one he knew he had to make.
He exited the bathroom and paused in front of the guest bedroom door. The house was quiet and cold. Everyone had descended into the basement and only plywood covered the gaping windows. But the heat was on full blast, beginning to warm the house again.
He turned the knob and pushed the bedroom door open. Halina, still in her towel, crouched in front of the suitcase one of the guards had brought in, collecting clothes.
“Please don’t yell at me anymore.” Her voice was quiet and flat. “Just let me get dressed and I’ll leave.”
Mitch closed the door at his back and stood there a long moment. With its intact windows and the heat pouring from a vent nearby, this room was warm. “Is that what you want?”
“It’s what you need. What everyone needs.”
The fact that she hadn’t jumped to a hell yes was a good sign. But they had a long way to go to rebuild the bridges they’d burned. And Mitch didn’t even know where to start.
“I shouldn’t have . . . judged you,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
She didn’t respond, just threw a pair of jeans on the bed. Then a long-sleeved shirt.
He crossed his arms and approached her, stopping a few feet away. “Halina, what did you say to Dex? I recognized protect, but not the other word.”
“Children,” she said, her voice weak, distracted as she tossed underwear, socks, and a bra onto the pile. “We did search and rescue for a while. Had to stop because when Dex located a body instead of a live person, he went into weeks of depression. Something about the smell . . . affected levels of neurotransmitting . . .” She paused. Sighed. Shook her head. “Never mind. I taught him search—poisk, find—nakhodit’, hunt—okhota—”
“Hunt?”
“It means the same as attack, but signals the dog he has to find the target first.”
That comment made Mitch think back to when he’d first found her, less than two full days ago, and all the security measures she’d had in place. An attack-trained shepherd, Krav Maga training, weapons training. He thought about how long she’d lived in fear. How much she’d given up to stay safe.
How much time . . . investment . . . security . . . power . . . she’d just handed over to him in Dex’s collar. She hadn’t needed to. She could have stood her ground. Continued to deny. Mitch would never have found it.
“Halina, tell me about the visions.”
She crossed her arms. “You know about the visions. There’s nothing else to tell.”
“You didn’t tell me there were two sides. A good side and a bad side.”
“It doesn’t—”
“It does matter. Were your visions of me with other women the good vision or the bad?”
Her brow pulled in a frown. “What kind of question is—”
“Tell me, Halina,” he said, growing frustrated. “I want to know both sides of the futures you saw for me.”
She pressed her lips together and tightened her arms. “The women were the good side of your future, Mitch. As I said, you have a happy life ahead of you.”
“And the bad side?”
She hesitated. A mixture of anger and resignation shone in her eyes. “The truth is that in the bad side of your future, you’re dead. Murdered. Can you leave now, so I can get dressed? I’d like to get out of here before Abernathy decides to come back.”
“Murdered?” he said, stunned. “I mean, everyone dies. It’s the ultimate bad future, right? But murdered?”