Page 26
Wyatt nodded toward him. “This is Gabe Thorne. He’s my trainer.”
Her brain couldn’t follow the meaning, so she only nodded.
“And this is Carson.”
She focused on him. “Before I answer anything,” she said, voice reedy but steady, “I have questions of my own. How do I know I can trust any of you?”
Carson stepped to the side of the bed and braced his legs, all business. “Because I own and operate a private security agency—Black Heart Security. We take government contracts and private security jobs as well as operate a cyber security division. We have clearance to access law enforcement files and work with larger agencies when the situation calls for it.”
The way he rattled off the credentials made it difficult to dismiss him outright. Few people could invent all that on the fly.
As if he read her thoughts, he added, “You can verify all of it.”
Whitley studied his face for a flicker of a lie. Government contracts. Cyber forensics. Access to law enforcement databases. They’d pulled her fingerprints while she was unconscious and identified her within an hour.
She believed him.
That was the problem.
She forced herself to hold his gaze when every instinct told her to run. “I’m currently on the run from a security company.”
Silence stretched for two beats, then three. Wyatt made a low, grating sound in his throat.
“You can see why you owning a security agency isn’t exactly reassuring,” she continued. “If anything, it gives me another reason not to tell you anything.”
Carson gave an almost imperceptible nod. “Don’t you think if we were going to throw you to the wolves, we would have already?”
He made a good point, but that didn’t mean she was going to blindly trust anyone.
“Who reported me missing?”
Carson drew out his phone, but he didn’t so much as glance at the screen, giving her the feeling he had her file memorized. “Your employer filed it after you missed three consecutive shifts.”
“Interesting, because I technically went missing three days before that.” Her mouth twisted around the bitter taste of the words.
Carson leveled his gaze on her. “Who did you think reported you missing?”
“My boyfriend.” The syllables were jagged on her tongue, and tears started, fast and sudden, spilling in hot streaks down her face. She felt too sick and depleted to hold them back.
She hadn’t cried yet. Not when she was trying to stay one step ahead of Lance and his crew. Not on the mountain. Not stumbling down it with Wyatt, half out of her mind with sepsis. She’d held it together all this time, and now, in front of four strangers, the dam finally broke.
Wyatt held out a box of tissues and she took one, clumsily swiping at her eyes and nose. His fingers wrapped around hers, his touch warm, rough and dry. She let him take them and gripped it back hard, drawing any steadiness she could out of the human bond.
It wasn’t enough to stop the flow of tears, but she pulled it together enough to keep talking.
“Can’t this wait?” His low voice burned with a note of anger. “She’s been through a lot. She’s sick.”
She squeezed his hand, grounding herself in the connection. “I’d like to finish telling my story.”
He searched her face, as if looking for the truth, but finally gave a hesitant nod.
She forced herself to keep talking before exhaustion and illness claimed her. “Lance came looking for me. My ex. So he definitely knew I was missing. He knew exactly what happened to me…because he’s the reason I disappeared in the first place.”
Her gaze swung from Carson to Dr. Hitchcock looming near the bed like he may intervene with or without Carson’s consent. Then she fixed her stare on Wyatt for a heartbeat.
Their faces didn’t give her any reason to believe they meant to do her wrong. These people were solid. They could help. Hell, they already had. They’d saved her life.
“Go on,” Wyatt prodded her gently, thumb stroking over the back of her knuckles.
