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“There’s more going on here than Gideon is allowing us to see,” she bit out as the doors opened and he led her into the empty cubicle, followed by Rule. “He knows Malachi. He knows it was Malachi’s mate he saved from being taken by Council Coyotes. That means he’s watching. And he’s listening. I knew he wasn’t giving me the information I needed out of the kindness of his heart, but I can’t find any other reason for the aid he’s given us.”
“What was his relationship with the others?” Lawe asked.
Diane pushed her fingers restlessly through her hair as she exhaled helplessly. “Apparently good. The four found ways to help each other, often. There were several lab techs that attempted to help them whenever they could as well. When the order for termination went out, Honor Roberts had already been returned to her family. No one knows what happened exactly. The termination facility was destroyed but there was evidence more than one body had been placed in the cremation chamber that night. There wasn’t a guard or assistant left alive to verify it, though their computer files show the three were logged in and Judd and Fawn were terminated. Brandenmore decided Gideon must have found a way to escape and destroyed the facility. And Gideon was excellent with computers. He could have found a way—easily—to have falsified the entries.”
But why hadn’t she considered his motives sooner? She should have. God, she should have. She was just certain she could work around them. That she could find a way to take Fawn, and hopefully Honor, out of Window Rock without Gideon realizing what she had done until it was too late.
She knew why she hadn’t considered them before.
Every thought had been consumed with her niece, with saving the child whose innocence and sweet smiles made her remember what she was fighting for.
Lawe was silent. But she could almost hear what he could have said.
He had warned her. He had warned her she couldn’t possibly know what was in Gideon’s mind. And she didn’t. Was he there to harm or to help? Did he have a grudge or an atonement driving him? Was she risking the very people who may well be Amber’s last hope?
She had expected an argument, a confident denial and assurance that Lawe knew what he was doing, yada, yada, yada. She could have almost spit the argument out for him, she’d heard it so many times from other Breeds.
Instead, he remained quiet as the elevator made its way to the main floor.
She didn’t risk glancing at his face, she didn’t dare. She knew she wouldn’t be able to bear to see that arrogance, that confidence that he was always right in his expression.
She should have thought of this sooner. The moment she realized Lawe had been following her, she should have known what he would do. She should have known he would have warned Gideon they were searching for him. Knowing that, Gideon would be much harder to anticipate, and much harder to slip away from.
“The plans were already in place,” he said quietly. “Before you ever told me what you knew or who had told you. I figured it out, Diane. That’s my job. It’s what I do. It’s what I was trained for. To take the smallest of details concerning an operation and put them together, like pieces of a puzzle. Once you ran from me, and I realized the direction you were going, it came together.”
Yes, that was what he was trained for. And yes, he would have put it together. But she should have realized he would notify the Navajo Nation of who the Bureau w
as searching for.
And just to begin with, she should have realized she couldn’t run from him, she couldn’t hide from him.
He’d sat back in the past months and had left her alone. She had believed he would do so again. She had never truly believed he would follow her to Arizona when he hadn’t followed her to any other mission since he’d rescued her.
She’d been prepared to avoid his goon squad, but not him. Because there was no avoiding Lawe.
Now, Gideon knew they weren’t just after the others who had shared the hell of those experiments with him. He knew they were also after him, and that would make him a threat to them all. The sense of hopelessness that filled her was almost overwhelming.
What had she done?
Lawe ensured that he and Rule placed themselves in position to protect Diane as they exited the elevator and then the front of the hospital.
The SUV was waiting at the door as he ordered. Rule opened the back door, his gaze flint hard as he scanned the area while Diane pulled herself inside and Lawe followed.
He could fe
el that sense of hopelessness radiating from her and he knew he was the cause of it. He had no idea how to fix it. The pain she always kept buried so deep inside radiated outward with it, assuring him that whatever she was thinking had sliced deep inside her soul.
Feeling that hopelessness coming from her had his fingers clenching into fists of need unlike anything he’d known before her. His own helplessness rose like a demon inside him as he realized there was no way to stem the pain she was feeling. There was no way to ease it.
“Commander Justice, Director Wyatt and Pride Leader Lyons and his prima request that you meet with them when you arrive. A meal is being prepared as are reports for your arrival.”
“Please inform them that as soon as we’ve settled into our room we’ll contact them,” he replied as he kept watch on Diane from the corner of his eye.
Neither her expression nor her emotions changed. She didn’t react in any way that he would have imagined she would. She simply stared out the window, a light frown on her face as she watched the small city from the confines of the vehicle.
What was she thinking? Sometimes it was impossible to decipher her thoughts. Other people Lawe found easy to read, even Breeds. Diane, though, he’d never been able to accurately predict and that had the power to irritate the hell out of him.
She wasn’t angry, and she should be, he admitted. Had she admitted to him that she had worked him so easily, or that she had attempted to interfere in one of his missions then he would have been furious. With himself as well as her.
