Connor grinned. “Look at that. We’re on the ground and you didn’t throw up on me or pass out. Nice job.”
Realization flooded into her. “You were antagonizing me on purpose?”
He winked at her. “Not hard to do and it distracted you, didn’t it?”
It had. Her anger lessened. “You didn’t mean any of that?”
“Not the insulting stuff, no.”
She wondered what he considered insulting. She didn’t question every word he’d said, though certain phrases replayed in her mind. Dangerous game. Would her perseverance get them killed? Kate didn’t thank him for the distraction, though she’d seen yet another side of Connor. He’d seen her need and had taken action.
When they debarked the plane in Carvalo City, the capital of Tumara, Connor said nothing to her. He gathered his carry-on from the overhead compartment, murmured his gratitude to the flight attendants as they passed and strode down the hallway into the main airport. He blended into the crowd around him. Connor didn’t turn around to see if she was following. Maybe he didn’t care. He disappeared around a corner and mild panic shook her. A man like Connor could vanish and she wouldn’t find him. He’d been trained by the best in the world in evasion and disappearance techniques.
A hand came around her forearm and pulled her into an alcove. Kate started. Connor’s grip on her arm was strong as he held her against his body. The tension in his muscles tightened his hard body and his eyes burned with red-hot emotion. “We were followed.”
The words were accusatory. “What? How?” She struggled to step away from him. He didn’t release her.
“I don’t know how. I thought you might.”
Her jaw slackened. He was quick to imply she was lying and trying to screw him over. “I was careful. We traveled under your arrangements, remember?”
He pulled her bag from her hand. “This has to go.”
She wasn’t an amateur. “I checked my things. They’re clean.”
His eyes narrowed. “Then it’s something on you.” He dropped her bag to the ground and his hands moved to her shoulders, inspecting the fabric of her clothes. As he moved his hands lower, Kate shrugged off his touch. His intentions were to find a bug or tracker on her, but the contact was igniting her desire for him, making her hot and bothered. “I don’t know if you’ve been living in the woods for too long and you’ve forgotten basic social decency, but you can’t feel me up in an airport. I don’t have any tracking devices on me.”
“I’m not feeling you up. This isn’t about a cheap grope in a public place. This is about keeping us safe and finding my brother. Take off all your clothes and change into mine. They could have sewn something into the fabric of yours. It’s not safe. They track every employee every moment of the day. The sooner you realize that, the safer you’ll be.”
Kate didn’t believe him. Her movements at work were monitored and her use of the computer equipment restricted, but Connor made it sound as if Sphere tracked her everywhere. They could request access to her personal financial documents or talk to her friends and family about her leisure-time activities, but she would have been alerted if she was under investigation. “You’ve lost it. They don’t know I’m here and they certainly don’t know I’m with you.” Aiden had mentioned his brother was paranoid about security and she had witnessed plenty to support it, but this was ridiculous.
“Change. Your. Clothes.”
A man and a woman walked past them, their heads bent together in conversation. Connor tensed and lowered his head, tucking it into the nape of Kate’s neck. The closeness and his hands on her shoulders sent lust spiraling through her. It was the wrong time to get turned on, but Connor did something to her. He had the confidence and the moves and just enough daring to make him dangerous.
“They’ve been following us,” Connor said.
Kate had noticed the couple on the plane, but it didn’t qualify the man and woman as stalkers or Sphere agents. They didn’t approach, and aside from a casual glance at them, neither seemed interested in her and Connor. Their disinterest was the most curious part. Not even a second glance at the couple lingering in a dark alcove in an airport?
What reason did anyone from Sphere have to follow her? Her boss had been clear he wouldn’t search for Aiden. Kate hadn’t told him she’d planned to do so because Sphere would have discouraged her or outright forbidden it. Instead, she had pretended to accept what he’d said and had made her plans to find Connor.
Kate hadn’t given a reason for her leave of absence, except to say she needed a break after months and months of long hours and high stress. Lots of her colleagues took sabbaticals from work. Vacations were encouraged to keep stress from causing mistakes. Her work leave shouldn’t have been a big deal or raised any red flags. Was Connor right? How closely did Sphere track her activities?
Connor took off in the direction from which they’d come.
Kate grabbed her bag from the ground and chased him. “Where are you going?”
“Getting out of this airport. You need to ditch your clothes and that bag,” Connor said. He tore the bag from her hand and shoved it inside a nearby trash can.
Kate looked at it and then him, confusion and fear overwhelming her. Her clothes and supplies were in that bag. He was making fast, impulsive decisions as she knew field operatives were trained to do. Indecision cost precious time that was sometimes in short supply. On her training missions, she’d had time to think and plan. Connor was moving in the opposite direction of the exit signs. With a final look at her bag, Kate left it in the trash can and followed him. Connor glanced over his shoulder.
“They know I made them,” he said.
Glancing behind her, Kate felt her heart rate escalate. The same man and woman from the airplane and the hallway were following them. Though they weren’t running, they were closing the distance and moving quickly. Could it be a coincidence that the couple had changed their direction soon after Kate and Connor had?
She wasn’t that naive. Not anymore. “What should we do?” Kate asked, accepting that Connor was the expert on this mission and they were safest following his directions.
Connor didn’t say anything. He’d quickened his pace. He pushed at doors as they passed, perhaps searching for an open one to duck inside. After several tries, a door popped open. They slipped inside an office with a window to the outside. She assessed their options. The L-shaped desk and bookcase were cheap particle board covered with laminate and the file cabinet was made of scratched and dented mental. Connor grabbed the desk and pushed it across the carpet. He slid the file cabinet in front of it, angling it against the wall to barricade the door.
He unlocked and opened the window. “It’s a ten-foot drop. Can you make it?”
Kate looked between the door and the window. Ten feet? That didn’t seem high.
The door opened partially before slamming against the desk Connor had used to block it.
“Open the door. Kate, please be reasonable. We’re worried about you.”
They’d used her name. She tossed away the final remnants of her flimsy theory that she and Connor had misread their intent. They were agents from Sphere.
“I’ll go out first and break your fall,” Connor said.
Break her fall? Running to the window, she looked down and her vision blurred. She’d told Connor her fear of heights only included life-threatening falls. Faced with one that might only injure her, dizziness washed over her and fear threatened to freeze her in her tracks. The desk moved across the carpet, and the file cabinet ground into the drywall and slid along the wall as the agents forced open the door.
Connor disappeared over the ledge, his backpack strapped to him. With a final look back, Kate mimicked his actions. She slipped