“Why would he talk to you?”
“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “I’m hoping he’ll talk to me since he did before.”
“Chances are, if you stay away, you’re safe,” she said. “But the minute you try to talk to him again, you bring up stuff that he doesn’t want to deal with because he thought you were long gone and out of the picture. Why not just stay away from him and stay safe?”
He reached out a hand and gently stroked her cheek. “Not everybody around you will die, Gizella.”
She stared at him in shock, as the truth of his words penetrated her brain. “I guess that’s part of it, isn’t it?” she whispered. “I really don’t want anybody else to die.”
“And I get that,” he said, “and that’s how I also feel about you. I don’t want you to die, and the only way we can stop that is to ensure you’re not being targeted anymore.”
“But he’s dead, so what’s the problem?”
“I have a few questions I need answered first, before I can close that file.”
“Such as?”
“Well, if his brother did kill him, why? And how close in appearance are the two brothers?”
It didn’t take her long for that last one to come through her fuzzy brain. “Oh my,” she said, slowly sitting up and shifting up against the headboard, never letting her gaze waver from his face. “Are you thinking it might be the kidnapper’s brother who’s dead?”
“These guys are pretty wily,” he murmured. “We can’t underestimate them.”
She stared off into the distance, realizing that Hudson had come to stand in the doorway. “Do you agree with that?” she asked him.
“I agree that we can’t take any chances,” he said quietly. “We don’t know if it is the kidnapper or his brother who was killed. I actually hadn’t even considered that,” he said. “But we do need to because, if they are close at all in appearance, that would be a hell of a way to walk away from a scenario that you can’t win anymore.”
“Meaning that, if he thought he was in that much danger, he might do whatever he could to get out?”
“Absolutely,” Baylor said. “And you don’t know for sure that they were close.”
“It sucks to think that you’re just maybe not close enough,” she said.
“It’s a common problem with many people,” he said. “You have to be close enough that you’re somebody they trust and you want to be with, but, if you’re not close enough, then you end up becoming somebody who’s disposable. Somebody who can be utilized for whatever purpose they need you for.”
“But brothers?” she whispered. “He was a jerk, but surely he wouldn’t have killed his own brother.”
“If it came down to his death or his brother’s, he might.”
“Right. In that case he would.” She remembered the cold calculating look in his eyes, plus the heat that always seemed to be in the background as he studied her. “He definitely would kill to protect himself. Even his own brother.”
“Exactly. But I still want to talk to the middleman guy, whom I spoke to earlier.”
She nodded slowly. “I just don’t like it that you’ll go out there alone.”
“Alone is actually better in a case like this,” Baylor said. “Think about it. If two of us are out there, he’ll feel threatened. He’ll also think that we came after him.”
“Versus?” she challenged.
“Versus me going back to take a look at the scenario and to see something else that might be different.”
“What, so he’ll see you as just curious now?”
“No way to tell what he’ll see,” he said. “But I would hope so.”
She sighed, then nodded and said, “It doesn’t matter what I say anyway. You’ll go off and do it as you see best.”
“That’s why I’m here,” he said, “and it’s what I do. I’m not a fool, and I take care of myself.”
“I get that,” she said, “but three deaths around me right now are three too many.”
“I know,” he said, “so just stay here. Sit tight, and I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
She looked over at Hudson. “Will he?”
Hudson gave a shrug of his shoulders. “Maybe.”
“If I wasn’t here, would you go with him?”
“If you weren’t here,” Baylor said, “we would be out there searching, but nobody would see me.”
“Then both of you go,” she said urgently, sitting up straighter. “Stay in the shadows but go.”
“I’m not leaving you alone,” Baylor said quietly.
“But I can be locked in,” she said. “You two need to look after your backs. I mean, there’s an awful lot of some dark underbelly here. It was obvious long before we were kidnapped, but now a different element is here. My father, as a governor, is dead now, so it’s an international incident, not to mention if this is connected to any kind of foreign government, then heads are likely to roll because he died from their actions. They’ll need to cover that up, so somebody’ll get blamed. What I don’t want to see is you guys getting caught in the crossfire.”
“We’ll be fine.”
But she wouldn’t listen. “No,” she snapped. “Like I said, I can be locked in. This is your safe house after all, so go.”
Baylor turned to look at Hudson, who nodded slowly. “She has a point. We can bring other people in, and they can watch this apartment from the outside.”
“Do it then,” she said. Baylor looked down at her and frowned. She shook her head. “I don’t know why,” she said, “but I mean it. I don’t … I can’t have you go out there alone. Something is very wrong about it.”
He settled back, not liking it.
“Please,” she said, her voice quiet and desperate.
He sighed, grasped her fingers in his, and gave a gentle squeeze. “Fine,” he said. “But you won’t get your way every time.”
She relaxed back. “I don’t need to get my way every time,” she said, “but it’s important this time.”
He nodded, then
