“What is it?” Dillon shouted from the truck, and in a bit of a daze, Nasa turned around and silently walked back to let her see for herself. “A pen? Why the hell would Ghost give you a glass calligraphy pen?”
After a thorough search of the velvet lining, Nasa found a thick slip of paper tucked behind the padding. The message was written in swirling loops and elegant whorls of black ink.
I want to come home, but I don't know if there's anything to come back to. He told me you never stopped looking for me. Is it true?
Beneath the note was a phone number, and despite his desire to check it out and make sure this wasn't some kind of cruel a trick, Nasa folded the note back up and took the glass pen from Dillon to carefully settle it inside the case.
“It's not for me.”
He whistled sharply to get Duke's attention, circling his finger in the air to let him know it was time to get back on the road. Duke gave a jerk of his chin in answer.
“Satellites catching up to us?” Nasa rolled his eyes at the mocking drawl, deciding to spend some time freaking the commando out with just how many times his face got captured on camera in a day. Nasa wasn't wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses to look cool.
“Get in the fuckin' truck, idiot. We need to move. Where's Tobias?”
“Takin' a leak. Go on, we'll catch up.”
Nasa shuddered in disgust as he climbed in his rig. “I can't believe anyone would piss in a gas station bathroom after what I told them about how unsanitary public toilets are,” he muttered darkly, glancing sideways at Dillon when she gave a soft laugh. “What?”
Dillon held her hands up peaceably. “I didn't say a word.”
He clicked his tongue at her regardless, and not long later, her phone whistled to alert her of an incoming message.
“Patti, checking in,” Dillon reported, her brow furrowed as she slowly scrolled through the text. “Everyone is settled in and on their way to calm. Patti says she let them know how someone managed to get inside, and it appears the woman responsible—one Eedie Chambers—has disappeared. Surprise, surprise. Huh.”
“What?”
“Eedie checked in three days after Ghost sent me to Austin.”
Nasa quickly did the math. “So she's about a week over the thirty-day limit. Is that unusual?”
Dillon waffled her hand from side to side. “Not terribly. Thirty days is typical for a woman who has no place to go and no cash to get herself anywhere.
"It sounds like Eedie volunteered to do a large portion of the housekeeping, and with the high turnover happening, Patti says she needed that extra help, so she let Eedie stay longer.
“Apparently, Eedie told Patti she accidentally spilled a bottle of bleach inside the supply closet last night, and Patti told her it was okay to leave the window cracked for ventilation.
"On the fourth floor with no line of sight to any other windows, and barely big enough for a human to fit through in a room that's always kept locked? I didn't think of putting bars on it.”
“Why would you have?” Nasa replied, recalling what Ghost said about his inside girl. 'I promised she could leave if she did what I asked. You would not believe what that woman was willing to do in order to get away from her old man.'
“We'll get some still shots from the security camera of Eedie when we get home.”
“Sounds good,” Dillon answered, her thumbs flying over the screen even as she heaved a long, tired sigh. “I am not looking forward to relocating the shelter again.”
“Do you feel like you have to?” he asked carefully, because the building really was ideally placed and expertly fortified. Bars could be put on that window and the shelter would once again be sealed up tight.
“It's in all the Monumentally Foundation contracts. If a building is breached and any occupant harmed, we move the occupants to another safe house.”
“How many times has someone actually broken into the building? Like, gotten past all the security doors and set foot inside the shelter where the occupants are?”
“Today would be a first,” Dillon admitted.
“How many years since the shelter opened there?”
“Four.”
He huffed in amusement. “Yeah, you don't need to rebuild or move, Tiger Lily. Ghost wouldn't have been able to get inside without Eedie's assistance, which negates the safety clause in your contract, and no one was hurt.”
Dillon twisted in her seat to give him her complete and total attention, the look she gave him? Withering.
“Did I imagine finding you face down on the floor with two bullet holes in the back of your fancy-ass vest?”
The bite in her tone—the one that dared him to try and brush off what would wind up being nothing more than a bruise—turned him on like none other.
“No, you didn't, but I promise the only thing hurt is my pride.” Less than satisfied, Dillon harrumphed at his reassurance. “I meant, none of the women in the shelter were hurt. Ghost wasn't there for any of them; his accomplice is the one who broke in, and she exploited the singular vulnerability in the entire building. If there'd been any easier way to get in, he'd have found it.”
Dillon narrowed her eyes briefly before turning around to sit correctly again, folding her arms over her chest.
“If one of their husbands, boyfriends, stalkers, or rapists break into the building after an incident like today, Monumentally is on the hook for a lawsuit.”
“I'm not trying to convince you not to build another shelter, but you're speeding past the fact the people you've put everything into protecting feel safe in the building even after the cops and the bomb squad invaded their sanctuary. That's a big deal, Dillon. Huge.”
“It is,” she agreed, her voice thickening a little as the emotion that accomplishment brought swelled inside her.
“But with the news crews, the cops, and all
