Harper or the others yet. He couldn’t bring himself to admit he may not be in tip-top shape to operate or that he may actually need to get his head examined. There was a real chance he’d been wrong to brush this off like he had so many times in the past. But usually, he felt better a few days after hitting his head. He’d been thrown quite a few times from IED blasts, so he had some experience dealing with losing consciousness. Never hallucinating ghosts, though. That was new. Or someone getting the drop on him to knock him in the side of the head.
And tonight, when that fucker had hit him in the head with the gun, he could’ve sworn Marcus was there. He could feel him looking over. He didn’t have time to process the weird sensation since he’d had to let Ana know he was there moments later.
“It’s Harper,” he announced when his phone vibrated.
Ana crossed the living room to stand closer, her arms going over her chest like a shield.
“I have bad news,” Harper announced the second he answered.
“Don’t you know never to start a phone call like that?” he asked her.
“Someone beat us to it. The camera footage was already removed,” Harper delivered the shitty news.
“Fuck.” He held the phone away from his ear for a moment. “Security footage was wiped before we got to it,” he told Ana.
“He got to the footage first?” Her gaze dipped to the floor before slowly sweeping back up and landing on his mouth for several heartbeats. A.J. could almost see her thoughts swirling in overdrive.
Was she torn between panic-cleaning and panic-sex? Okay, he had to focus and not allow himself to be “razzle-dazzled” as his niece, McKenna, called it when a boy became fixated on someone or something.
“I kept my hat on. Head low. Whoever got to the security footage first won’t be able to ID me,” he told Harper, knowing exactly what she was thinking. “What about you?” he asked Ana. But the look on her face and the fact she was as pale as a ghost said it all. She was concerned her face had made it on the screen.
“Are we really helping her, though? Doesn’t this sort of prove she’s the leak?” Harper kept her voice low as if worried Ana might overhear her. “She’s one of our suspects. I know how you feel, but—”
“It’s not her,” A.J. snapped out, then quickly muttered an apology. To both women, maybe. “I’ll call you back.” He ended the call and tucked his phone into his pocket as Ana surprised him by unleashing her auburn locks from her bun.
She tore her fingers through her hair, swiping it off her shoulders. “I have to go sooner than I thought.” Her gaze darted to the stairs. Nervous as a rabbit about to bolt.
And he was right. Her shoulder bumped into him a beat later when she brushed past him.
He pivoted and reached for her arm in an attempt to stop her. “What are you talking about? Where are you going?”
“I can’t wait three days to leave the city. If footage of me in Porter’s house gets out . . . no, I need to leave now,” she said, a resigned look on her face.
Three days?
She pulled free from his grasp and started for the stairs, leaving him unsure what to say or do next.
He took a few seconds to gather his wits and figure out what in the Sam Hill was going on with her. A.J. knew why he was there, but she’d need to open up and let him in on why she felt the need to leave.
“Don’t you think running will only make you look guilty?” he asked once he found her inside her master bedroom closet grabbing a duffel bag. “Remember what happened with Aaron Todd last year?” Aaron was the Navy SEAL the FBI assumed was guilty of an assassination plot, especially because he ran. Running was never the best choice when trying to prove your innocence, and she should’ve known that.
“I don’t have a choice. I need to go.”
“Ana.”
Before she had a chance to challenge him, to offer a response, her doorbell rang. Her eyes grew narrow when her brows slanted, a touch of fear coloring her green eyes darker.
She maneuvered around A.J. to get to the top of the stairs when they both heard someone yell, “It’s me. Kyle. Open up.”
“Shit,” she said under her breath. “He can’t know about this. About anything.”